Mansucripts

Bamberg

The Plinius project is currently primarily focused on creating a diplomatic, digital edition of Staatsbibliothek Bamberg Msc.Class.42. The Bamberg manuscript contains books 32-37 of Pliny the Elder’s Natrual Histories, and was created in Louis the Pious’ palace scriptorum sometime during the second quarter of the ninth century in Aachen. It is, therefore, one of the oldest manuscripts of Pliny’s work.

The manuscript was discovered by Ludwig von Jan in 1831 and is the only manuscript to contain the ending of book 37. It was not until its discovery that Sillig was able to publish the first full edition of the Natrual Histories (Reeve 111-112).

While we hope to expand the project to encompass other books, current focus is on Book 36, as it contains a large amount of information on ancient sculpture.

Leiden, Lipsius 7

The Plinius project hopes to expand and create an edition of Leiden, Lipsius 7. Some of Lipsius 7 was created at a scriptorum in northeastern France and is a copy of another extant manuscript, Leiden Voss. lat. f. 61 (Ganz 794).

As we begin to create an edition of Lipsius 7, we will begin to compare it with our edition of Bamberg. This comparison, we hope, will give us further insight into the production of Carolingian manuscripts.