Beschreibung
A detailed study of Beinecke MS 673, a late eleventh- or early
twelfth-century Italian manuscript containing a substantial portion of
Lucan’s Bellum civile, serves as the basis for a wider
investigation into the history of the textual and scholiastic traditions
to Lucan, and the question of the relationship in the manuscripts between the
transmission of the text of the poem and the scholia. Some views that
emerge are: (1) that, despite the abundance of the medieval manuscript
evidence for Lucan, in antiquity the textual tradition did not have a very
wide basis; and (2) that ancient readings may be reflected in various
medieval traditions, not just in the earliest manuscripts. In regard to
the commentary we find a rich and continuous tradition, dating from
antiquity, that was perpetuated, altered, and became at last thoroughly
medieval. The study includes a reassessment of the two best-known
Carolingian commentaries, the Commenta Bernensia and the
Adnotationes super Lucanum. Examination of other medieval
scholia points the way toward a reevaluation of the twelfth-century
commentator Arnulf of Orléans. Finally, the relationships between the
medieval textual and scholiastic traditions are intricate. The complexity
of these relationships provides eloquent testimony to the activity and
intense interest with which Lucan was read.
Shirley Werner is Assistant Professor in the Department
of Classics at Rutgers University, New Brunswick, New Jersey/USA.
