Vergilius Augusteus
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An initial O from the Vatican Library fragment of the Vergileus Augusteus. |
The
Vergilius Augusteus is a manuscript from late
Antiquity, containing the works of the
Roman author Virgil, written probably around the
4th century. There are two other collections of Virgil manuscripts, the
Vergilius Vaticanus and the
Vergilius Romanus. They are early examples of
illuminated manuscripts; the Augusteus is not illuminated but has decorated initial letters at the top of each page. These letters do not mark divisions of the text, but rather are used at the beginning of whatever line happened to fall at the top of the page. These decorated initials are the earliest surviving such initials.
Only seven leaves of the manuscript survives, four of which are in the
Vatican Library (MS 3256), and the remaining three in the
Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin (Lat. fol. 416). The leaves contain fragments of Virgil's
Georgics and the
Aeneid. The fragments themselves are unremarkable, but they are written in
Roman square capitals, which shows that square capitals were used in handwriting and not only for stone
inscriptions.
Due to its great age, it was originally believed that the manuscript was written in the time of
Roman emperor Caesar Augustus, hence its name. In the later
Middle Ages the manuscript was kept in the abbey of
St. Denis in
Paris.
*Alexander, J. J. G.:
The Decorated Letter. New York, 1978.
*Carl Nordenfalk:
Vergilius Augusteus. Vollständige Faksimile-Ausgabe, Codex Vaticanus latinus 3256 d. Bibl. Apostol. Vaticana u. Codex latinus fol. 416 d. Staatsbibl. Preuss. Kulturbesitz. Graz 1976 (Codices selecti phototypice impressi, 56)
