Was the Commentary on Vergil by Aelius Donatus Extant in the Ninth Century? A Reappraisal

Bibliographic Data

ID21370272
AuthorsVittorio Remo Danovi (0000-0002-9712-6931, Lincoln College, Turl Street , Oxford , , United Kingdom United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, corresponding author)
Year2023
Volume167
Issue1
Pages156-171
Publication date2023-06-05
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenuePhilologus (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0031-7985 • E-ISSN: 2196-7008
PublisherWalter de Gruyter GmbH (PUBLISHER • DE)
DOI10.1515/phil-2023-0116
OpenAlexW4381619504
LanguageEN
References cited17

That the Vergilian commentary by Aelius Donatus – one of the most influential late-antique commentaries that have not survived – was extant in the ninth century and available to some Carolingian scholars is still a widespread belief. The evidence in support of this thesis is said to have been provided by the Harvard Servianist J. J. H. Savage in three articles published between 1925 and 1931. In these articles, Savage claimed that a few marginal notes in one of the ninth-century primary witnesses to the DS scholia, the so-called ‘Vergil of Tours’ (Bern, Burgerbibliothek, Ms. 165), were drawn almost directly from Donatus’ commentary and that a marginal note in a roughly coeval Servian witness (Bern, Burgerbibliothek, Ms. 363) provided information about a place where a copy of the commentary could be found. A re-examination of the two manuscripts shows that the evidence adduced by Savage does not stand scrutiny and that the terminus post quem for the loss of Donatus’ commentary should be antedated by at least one century

Ancient history · Antique · Art · Extant taxon · Linguistics · Literature · Ninth · Scrutiny · Theology · Witness · Augustinian Studies and Theology · Classical Antiquity Studies · Classics · History · Medieval Literature and History · Philosophy

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