Vergilius Romanus. Per la storia di un’antica edizione di lusso tra il II secolo e l’età costantiniana

Abstract

Palaeographers and art-historians do not agree on firm criteria to date R, the luxury manu­script known as Vergilius Romanus: but they all eventually accept Norden’s thesis arguing that a verse added in R (Aen. 6.242) is interpolated from a sixth century didactic poem, thus making R the latest of the premedieval manuscripts of the corpus. Besides reconsidering Nor­den’s opinion, this essay tries to focus on some so far neglected aspects of this ancient edition (e.g. structure of the corpus, loss of critical semeia and political messages devised for dis­criminating readers): they seem indeed to give unexpected clues to the history of this most spectacular among ancient Virgilian illustrated corpora.