Codex Vaticanus Ottobonianus Latinus 1829 is one of the three most important manuscripts preserving the poems of Catullus

Catullus

Gaius Valerius Catullus was a Latin poet of the Republican period. His surviving works are still read widely, and continue to influence poetry and other forms of art.-Biography:...

. Among students of the matter it is commonly known as Codex Romanus (or "R").

Description

It is a Latin manuscript, written in Gothic minuscule script on parchment

Parchment

Parchment is a thin material made from calfskin, sheepskin or goatskin, often split. Its most common use was as a material for writing on, for documents, notes, or the pages of a book, codex or manuscript. It is distinct from leather in that parchment is limed but not tanned; therefore, it is very...

, dated to around 1390. It consists of 38 leaves (76 pages). It is the youngest of the three most important manuscripts of Catullus, the other two being: codex Oxoniensis (O) preserved in the Bodleian Library

Bodleian Library

The Bodleian Library , the main research library of the University of Oxford, is one of the oldest libraries in Europe, and in Britain is second in size only to the British Library...

 in Oxford

Oxford

The city of Oxford is the county town of Oxfordshire, England. The city, made prominent by its medieval university, has a population of just under 165,000, with 153,900 living within the district boundary. It lies about 50 miles north-west of London. The rivers Cherwell and Thames run through...

 and codex Sangermanensis (G) in the Bibliothèque nationale de France

Bibliothèque nationale de France

The is the National Library of France, located in Paris. It is intended to be the repository of all that is published in France. The current president of the library is Bruno Racine.-History:...

 in Paris

Paris

Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...

. Considering the stemma codicum, the Vatican codex is of the same rank as the latter one (the Oxford manuscript being one step closer to the lost archetype, known as codex Veronensis or "V").

History

The first owner of the manuscript was an Italian humanist, Coluccio Salutati

Coluccio Salutati

Coluccio Salutati was an Italian Humanist and man of letters, and one of the most important political and cultural leaders of Renaissance Florence.-Birth and Early Career:...

. Later it was probably housed in the Vatican Library

Vatican Library

The Vatican Library is the library of the Holy See, currently located in Vatican City. It is one of the oldest libraries in the world and contains one of the most significant collections of historical texts. Formally established in 1475, though in fact much older, it has 75,000 codices from...

 for a very long time, hidden under a false catalogue number, until it was rediscovered in 1896 by William Gardner Hale

William Gardner Hale

William Gardner Hale , American classical scholar, was born in Savannah, Georgia to a resident New England family.Hale was a graduate of Phillips Exeter Academy...

and subsequently collated by the same scholar.

Further reading

• The note announcing the discovery: William Gardner Hale, A New MS. of Catullus, The Classical Review, Vol. 10, No. 6 (Jul., 1896), p. 314 (JSTOR)
• William Gardner Hale, The Manuscripts of Catullus, Classical Philology, Vol. 3, No. 3 (Jul., 1908), pp. 233-256 (JSTOR)