Concerning Three Manuscripts of the Divine Comedy in Private Collections in New York and Milan, Part 3 of 3

Elisabetta Tonello (E Campus University)

Dante Notes / October 22, 2016

This is the last installment in the survey of the codices of Dante’s Commedia discovered and rediscovered in private collections during 2016 by the Ferrara research group of which I am a member, and which is carrying forward a project for the critical edition of the text. (Introductory remarks on the project may be found in the first note in the series). The manuscript is located in Milan and is known as the so-called Vernon MS.

Vernon MS

It is a beautiful codex on vellum, most likely dating from the 14^th century and written in a clear and tidy littera textualis. It contains the entire Commedia, laid out in a single column (36 lines) with some notes and marginalia of the same period, which are inscribed with a different ink and by different hand as the poem’s text. It collates 205 folios.[1] The accidental loss of a folio in the last quire has produced a lacuna in the text corresponding to Par. XXXI, 130 - XXXII, 54.

At the beginning of each cantica we find admirable illuminations: the initials of Inferno (f.1r), Purgatorio (f.69r) and Paradiso (f.138r) are richly decorated. The workmanship is probably Florentine: while the miniature in Inferno is full-page with leaves and birds in gold and colors, and includes the figure of the poet in the letter N, the other miniatures do not extend beyond the initials. At the bottom edge of the f.1r there is a stemma with arms that, although scratched, seems to be that of the Medici.

The fundamental palaeographical description of the MS is due to Paul Colomb de Batines. [2] It dates to the period when the codex was owned by the Marquis Rinuccini, before passing into the hands of Lord Vernon (indexed as number 2243). Batines reports the incipit and the explicit of the manuscript.[3] Regarding genealogic filiations, he attributes the text to the Vulgata, i.e., to the major branch of the tradition, the Tuscan-Florentine, as opposed to the Northern one.

Lord Vernon did not keep the MS for long. In 1918 it was bought by Quaritch at an auction and then sold again to the Roman book collector Franco Moroli. Later, the manuscript reappeared in the catalogue of an auction of De Marinis bookstore in Milan[4] and was bought by Goffredo Meli Lupi, thus entering his collection in the castle of Soragna. Eventually in 1970 Meli Lupi sold the MS to its current owner. Petrocchi, in his Supplemento al regesto dei codici della Commedia, dated to 1967, locates it in Soragna, within the Collection of the Princes Meli Lupi.[5] Afterwords Petrocchi complained about not being able to examine the codex: «La stessa via, o analoga, è stata presa di recente da un codice che speravamo di poter esaminare tra i primi, il Rinuccini, poi Vernon 2243, sino a qualche mese fa nel castello di Soragna dei principi Meli Lupi».[6]

Edward Moore was the only scholar who was able to examine the MS thoroughly, at the beginning of the past century, at a time when it was owned by Lord Vernon. Moore assigned it to the Vatican family, a genealogical group to which he devoted considerable research. He affirms that «this MS. is interesting as exhibiting the ʻVaticanʼ text [...] very strongly, and as being especially in close relation to Z», that is Oxf. It e 6.[7] In Appendix II of his Contributions to the textual criticism of the "Divina Commedia", he accounts for the entire family. Choosing the Vat MS as reference, he selects a number of passages in which the Vernon MS (that he calls =V²) presents readings not included in the Witte text, and examines them in the MSS which seem to be related to Vat. The results are collected in a table in which Cod. Vernon occupies the third column. Among the roughly 30 manuscripts shown, Vernon MS is one of the closest to Vat MS. It is remarkable that the other codices in the table are penned by the Copyist of Vat, by Boccaccio (who copied from an ancestor close to Vat), or are notoriously related to these copies, for instance Oxf. It e 6 and Chig. L VI 213, Chig. L VII 253, Par. 542, Laur. 40.13, Lond. Add. 31918, Ri, Ricc. 1012, and so on. These observations are still valid for both the Vernon MS and the other codices.

In the last 6 years our research group accomplished the first phase of the process of critical edition: recensio and collatio of all the MSS witnesses. The collations that we put together allow me to study the genealogical structure of the Boccaccio and Vatican families.[8] Hence I could trace out all the codices that share the same innovations of the MSS written by the Copyist of Vat (= Family Vatican) and by Boccaccio (= Boccaccio group). On this basis I ascribe the MS Vernon to vatbocc – the union originated by Vatican family and Boccaccio group – more specifically a member of the Boccaccio group. The existence of vatbocc is proved by a list of 24 variant readings.[9]

The Vernon MS shares all the innovations of the vatbocc codices, with only one exception.

Innovations vatbocc shared with MS Vernon

Several other readings in MS Vernon are characteristic of the Boccaccio group and are to be found in most of the texts of this family. Out of a total of 23 innovations, the MS Vernon agrees with Boccaccio group in 18 cases.

Innovations bocc shared with MS Vernon

We can without doubt conclude that the manuscript is part of the vatbocc group.

In conclusion, all the manuscripts I have presented in these notes (both the two Kraus and Vernon) are unique products, each relevant for different aspects of the philological work we are conducting. While they are the physical repository of the text of the Commedia, their value extends beyond the words they contain. Individually, they preserve a trace of the culture (often of the very people) by which and for which they were produced, a trace that must be preserved and appreciated. For this reason, in the end, I consider it important to thank the private owners who have made these precious objects in their possession available for study and research.