Manuscripts of the Latin Classics 800–1200 ed. by Erik Kwakkel
Rita Copeland
Reviewed by: Manuscripts of the Latin Classics 800–1200 ed. by Erik Kwakkel Rita Copeland KEY WORDS Latin, Classics, manuscript studies, codicology, palaeography, Carolingian, scholarship, diagrams, rhetoric, Cicero, fragments, Ovid Kwakkel, 800–1200. Studies in Medieval and Renaissance Book Culture. Leiden: Leiden University Press, 2015. 224 pp. + 22 color plates. €39.50. ISBN: 978-908-72-8226-4. This small book contains treasures for research into survival reception classics medieval Europe. Six specialists different aspects classical provide acute arguments about material evidence uses ancient inheritances: not simply that texts survived, but under what surprising conditions copying, annotating, even textual editing found new audiences devotees. Codicological surveys collections have been invaluable literary historical research; thus scholars from various disciplines welcomed completion 2014 Birger Munk Olsen’s L’étude des auteurs classiques latins aux XIe et XIIe siècles. But essays brought together take as their common theme distinctive codicology text: history is primary focus these essays. As remarks his introduction, “While production method such books [i.e., texts] may be distinctive, existence certain codicological palaeographical trends suggests scribes did favour peculiarities—mannerisms, perhaps—when it came to copying engaging with classics” (p. 14). So this volume helps define a field within research: text specific kind artifact object (rather than just instrument) scholarship Middle Ages. Classical manuscripts merit study category unto themselves 16). [End Page 353] The fine essay Mariken Teeuwen, “Carolingian Scholarship on Authors: Practices Reading Writing,” leads off volume. Teeuwen demonstrates annotations Carolingian suggest well beyond school texts. Annotations private criticism, record scholarly discussion disputes. Tironian notes also high level professionalism annotating Robert G. Babcock’s illuminating chapter, “The Transmission Tibullus Tenth Eleventh Centuries,” takes us an area commonly recognized among most difficult map: extent which elegiac love poetry was properly known through florilegia, Babcock reveals crucial role tenth- eleventh-century schools Liège introduces previously undetected reader, Egbert Liège. quotes borrows own Fecunda ratis, reworking borrowing Tibullus’s first elegy course generating religious didactic writing (resulting combination erotic Gospel message). would discovered florilegia or, more interestingly, likely bound Claudian (as suggested booklist abbey Lobbes). Irene O’Daly’s another direction, epistemology, highly original investigation, “Diagrams Knowledge Rhetoric Cicero’s De inventione.” Any historian trivium or quadrivium will encountered schemes classifying knowledge. O’Daly advances our understanding focusing graphic depictions systems, relations sciences visualized particular importance visual systems influential Ciceronian rhetoric during parts itself could diagrammed prologue prolegomenon rhetoric. epitomizes attractive innovations studies volume: like other chapters, asks feature we too often granted hunt verbal content data. When materiality research, see fields differently. Kwakkel’s fascinating essay, “Classics Scraps: Made from...
Manuscript studies