Reproduction of Paris lat. 7311 from Huelsenbeck, "The Manuscript Traidition of Ovid
<p>Reproduction of Paris lat. 7311 from Huelsenbeck, "<a href="http://dcc.dickinson.edu/ovid-amores/manuscript-tradition-ovids-amores">The Manuscript Traidition of Ovid's Amores</a>".</p>
Detail map of Tregaron, Wales, United Kingdom,Paris, Île-de-France, France Overview map of Tregaron, Wales, United Kingdom,Paris, Île-de-France, France

A: Tregaron, Wales, United Kingdom, B: Paris, Île-de-France, France

The Two Oldest Manuscripts of Ovid's Ars Amatoria

Circa 880 CE
Ovid Ars amatoria (Art of Love) in a volume of miscellaneous texts entitled St. Dunstan

Ovid Ars amatoria (Art of Love) in a volume of miscellaneous texts entitled St. Dunstan's Classbook (Auct.F.4.32 [2176]) in the Bodleian Library. This is p. 80 of 104pp. in the online facsimile at Digital Bodleian.

A quire of ten leaves bound up in a volume of miscellaneous contents preserved in the Bodleian Library, and called St. Dunstan's Classbook (Auct. F. 4. 32 [2176]represents the earliest surviving manuscript of Book I of Ovid's Ars amatoria (Art of Love). According to a Bodleian Library exhibition catalogue, the last leaf of the manuscript may be in St. Dunstan's hand:

"The original manuscript was probably written in Wales. There are some glosses in Old Welsh, and the 'syntax marks' . . . inserts as a help to construing are also a Welsh feature. This manuscript and the 9th-cent. French copy, Paris lat. 7311, are the oldest manuscripts of the work, and they are closely related" (Hunt, R.W., The Survival of Ancient Literature [1975] no. 117).

Digital facsimile from Digital Bodleian at this link.

Timeline Themes