Academic literature on the topic 'Liber Pontificalis'

Artykuł Liturgia w „Liber Pontificalis” rozpoczyna się od ukazania historii Liber Pontificalis, która pokazuje, że nie można mówić o jednym autorze tej księgi. Opracowanie jest podzielone na pięć części: 1. Msza Święta; 2. Sakrament święceń; 3. Rok liturgiczny; 4. Przestrzeń; 5. Inne przejawy związane z liturgią. Cztery części zawierają zagadnienia, które są w nich pogrupowane tematycznie, ponieważ dają pewną całość. Natomiast ostatnia część obejmuje problematykę występującą w pojedynczych zapisach. Krytyczne podejście do Liber Pontificalis, w zestawieniu biogramów z innymi źródłami historycznymi, ukazuje, że nie wszystkie normy przypisywane niektórym papieżom są wiarygodne. Te anachronizmy wynikają z faktu, że księga nie pochodzi od jednego autora, a szczególnie początkowe pontyfikaty były spisywane dużo później. Poza tym w tym dziele oprócz liturgii znajdują się informacje dotyczące innych dziedzin, które nie były przedmiotem badań tego opracowania.

The aim of this article was to describe how were plagues and illnesses perceived by the authors of the Liber Pontificalis. In the first part circumstances in which the first draft of the Liber Pontificalis was composed were analysed. Attention was given particularly to disadvantages that affected the population of Italy in the 6th century. The second part was devoted to plagues recorded in the Liber Pontificalis. When dealing with the plague the authors of the Liber Pontificalis used several terms like: pestilentia, clades, mors. Usually plagues were presented as caused by natural factors, but there was also a fragment attributing the eruption of the pestilence to divine disfavor. The third part was concerned with diseases that had affected individuals. The majority of cases where diseases were mentioned in the Liber Pontificalis referred to the health of the popes. In the collection of papal biographies there were also descriptions of diseases that had affected other people: an emperor, bishop, soldier, clerk. Some of the illnesses appeared terminal but all of them affected the person`s life.

This article explores the degree to which the rule and style of the bishops of Rome after the deposition of the last Roman emperor in the West in 476 had any imperial elements, in the light of the evidence contained within the Liber pontificalis. Papal rule in Rome was cast as a replacement of imperial rule in religious matters, an opportunity for the bishop to assume political responsibility and also a deliberate emulation of imperial behaviour. This is manifest above all in the textual record in the Liber pontificalis of the papal embellishment of Rome, and in the physical evidence of the extant basilicas of the city. The deliberately imperial elements of papal self-presentation and the importance of Rome's primacy, apostolic succession and orthodoxy, all articulated so emphatically within the Liber pontificalis, indicate the multitude of strands by which the papacy wove the fabric of its own imperium or power.

Two case studies from eighth-century Rome, recorded in the early medieval history of the popes known as the Liber pontificalis, serve to introduce both the problems of the relations between secular or public and ecclesiastical or canon law in early medieval Rome and the development of early medieval canon law more generally. The Synod of Rome in 769 was convened by Pope Stephen III some months after his election in order to justify the deposition of his immediate predecessor, Pope Constantine II (767–8). Stephen's successor, Pope Hadrian, subsequently presided over a murder investigation involving Stephen's supporters. The murders and the legal process they precipitated form the bulk of the discussion. The article explores the immediate implications of both the murders and the convening of the Synod of Rome, together with the references to law-making and decree-giving by the pope embedded in the historical narrative of the Liber pontificalis, as well as the possible role of the Liber pontificalis itself in bolstering the imaginative and historical understanding of papal and synodal authority. The wider legal or procedural knowledge invoked and the development of both canon law and papal authority in the early Middle Ages are addressed. The general categories within which most scholars have been working hitherto mask the questions about the complicated and still insufficiently understood status and function of early medieval manuscript compilations of secular and canon law, and about the authority and applicability of the texts they contain.

The Liber pontificalis, the serial biography of the popes running from Saint Peter to the end of the ninth century, first compiled in Rome during the ‘Gothic Wars’ in the sixth century and continued at various stages in the next three centuries, offers a distinctive narrative of the history of Rome and of the papacy in the early Middle Ages. This paper argues that the seventh- and early eighth-century sections, too often simply mined for nuggets of information about church buildings, represent the pope in a particular way both in relation to Byzantium in theological and political terms, and as the successor to Saint Peter in Rome. The papal narrative undermines the usual assumptions about the so-called ‘Byzantine Reconquest’ and the Roman perception, if not the reality, of the degree to which ‘Byzantine rule’ was exercised in Italy between the middle of the sixth and first half of the eighth century. Lastly, these ‘continuations’ have important implications for any interpretation of the purpose and construction of the Liber pontificalis, and of its dissemination beyond Rome in the seventh and eighth centuries.

Il Liber testimoniorum del discipulus Gregorii Paterio è una raccolta di estratti esegetici dalle opere di papa Gregorio Magno (590-604), ordinati secondo loro originaria successione all'interno della Scrittura. Per le sue caratteristiche può essere considerato il primo florilegio esegetico monoautoriale noto nell'ambito della letteratura cristiana di lingua latina. La tesi dottorale di F. Martello prende in esame i precedenti letterari dell'opera; le attestazioni antiche relative alla sua diffusione entro il IX secolo e il problema dell'identificazione dell'autore con il notarius ecclesiae Romanae e secundicerius Paterio citato in più occasioni nel Registrum epistolarum gregoriano in qualità di cancelliere. Sulla base di tale identificazione, nell'intento di ricostruire l'identità biografica e professionale dell'autore e il contesto della sua attività, viene dedicato un lungo excursus alle origini e alle funzioni della categoria dei notarii ecclesiae Romanae, che vengono ricostruite attraverso il censimento (eseguito su base proposografica) e l'analisi delle testimonianze presenti nelle fonti edite (diplomatiche, epigrafiche, letterarie) fino alla metà del VII secolo. Uno spazio autonomo è dedicato alla discussione dei riferimenti presenti nel Liber pontificalis, nel Registrum gregoriano e negli Atti del sinodo lateranense del 649. L'esame diretto di una parte cospicua della tradizione manoscritta permette di precisare i confini e la struttura della parte originale pervenuta del Liber di Paterio (che comprende quattordici libri della Bibbia dalla Genesi al Cantico dei Cantici) liberandolo dalle interpolazioni che caratterizzano le edizioni a stampa, dovute all'impiego, per l'editio princeps del 1553, del codice I 360 inf della Biblioteca Ambrosiana di Milano. L'identificazione dei principali errori che caratterizzano i testimoni permette il loro raggruppamento in famiglie e la costituzione del nucleo centrale di uno stemma codicum. Al fine di ricostruire la storia del testo vengono esaminati i tentativi di integrazione e completamento del Liber compiuti nel corso del Medioevo. Alcuni di questi progetti, come il Gregorialis di Alulfo e il Supplementum Paterii di Bruno, pur nati con l'intento di imitare e proseguire il lavoro di Paterio si dimostrano opere con un proprio valore letterario. Nel caso dell'anonima raccolta dello Pseudo Paterio A si ha invece, probabilmente, la semplificazione e il riutilizzo di florilegi esegetici gregoriani precedenti (tra le sue fonti è possibile riconoscere anche una raccolta gregoriana inedita di Floro di Lione). La compresenza di tanti completamenti del Liber ha generato confusione nei suoi editori: vengono passate in rassegna le forme che l'opera assume nel corso delle successive edizioni a stampa. Contemporaneamente, si nota come la raccolta di Paterio inizi, dalla seconda metà del XVII secolo, ad assumere importanza rispetto alla definizione dei limiti della produzione da considerare autentica di Gregorio Magno. In epoca contemporanea il Liber testimoniorum, benché relegato in uno spazio estremamente marginale degli studi gregoriani, si è rivelato di estrema importanza nell'economia della tesi elaborata da Francis Clark circa la pseudoepigrafia dei Dialogi gregoriani. In realtà, nell'elaborare tale tesi e immaginare il ruolo avuto nella costruzione dell'opera dal cosiddetto "Dialogista" lo studioso è stato fortemente influenzato proprio dalla figura e dalle notizie sull'attività di Paterio. Molto scarso è stato finora l'interesse per l'opera anche nell'ambito degli studi sui florilegi di testi patristici, mentre, secondo la ricerca di Martello, il Liber avrebbe costituito un modello per il genere del florilegio esegetico che ha avuto grande sviluppo nei secoli successivi. L'analisi del prologo del Liber rivela l'impiego di immagini e stilemi gregoriani; si notano somiglianze con il linguaggio delle lettere del Registrum e con i Dialogi. L'analisi dei paragrafi dell'opera rivela invece le tecniche redazionali adottate da Paterio, che ha rielaborato i testi gregoriani di partenza per costruire delle unità esegetiche autonome sia dal punto di vista del significato che della sintassi, pronte per poter essere eventualmente riutilizzate in nuovi contesti. L'opera, nelle intenzioni del committente – Gregorio stesso –, doveva probabilmente costituire uno strumento di orientamento nella sua produzione, ad uso degli addetti allo scrinium romano, ma gli adattamenti ai testi messi in atto da Paterio fanno pensare che quest'ultimo intendesse costituire un repertorio esegetico con destinazione più ampia. La ricerca di Martello si completa con un censimento della tradizione manoscritta dell'opera e con la ricostruzione del testo del prologo e della sezione sul Cantico dei Cantici basata sul codice 220 della Biblioteca municipale di Amiens, il testimone che più sembra avvicinarsi all'archetipo almeno dal punto di vista strutturale, che viene confrontato con un gruppo di testimoni appartenenti a rami diversi della tradizione.
The late sixth century anthology known as Liber Testimoniorum by the discipulus Gregorii Paterius is probably the first, in Christian Latin literature, to collect exegetic excerpts from the works of one single Father – namely pope Gregory the Great (590-604) – and arrange them according to their order of appearance in the Scriptures. Fabrizio Martello's doctoral thesis explores the literary models the author might have been aware of, collects ancient evidence of the work's circulation until the ninth century and tackles the problem of identifying the author with a notarius Ecclesiae Romanae and secundicerius named Paterius, a writer of chancery documents quoted at various times in Gregory's Registrum Epistolarum. In order to reconstruct Paterius's biographical and professional identity as well as the context he worked in, a wide excursus in the dissertation is devoted to the origins and the tasks of the notarii Ecclesiae Romanae. The reconstruction is based on a prosopographic census of the references to papal notaries existing in published diplomatic, epigraphic and literary sources up to the first half of the seventh century. A closer examination is devoted to some of the sources involved in the enquiry, i.e. the Liber Pontificalis, the Gregorian Registrum and the Acts of the Lateran Synod of 649. Through the direct examination of a substantial part of circulating manuscript tradition, Martello is able to recognise the interpolations that characterize modern printed editions of the work (due to the use of Codex I 360 inf of the Ambrosiana Library in Milan in the context of the 1553 editio princeps), and is able to set the boundaries and to identify the structure of authentic Paterius extant work. This is represented by fourteen sections relating to as many books of the Old Testament, from Genesis to the Canticle of Canticles. The thesis also offers a core stemma codicum, based on the recognition of the main errors in the manuscript tradition. During the Middle Ages various attempts were made to complete or imitate the Liber Testimoniorum project: some of these, as the Gregorialis by Alulfus of Tournai and the Supplementum Paterii by the monk Bruno possess a literary value of their own. The anonymous collection by Pseudo-Paterius A, instead, is probably made up of previous Gregorian anthologies, summarised or simply reproduced in their entirety (among its sources we recognise an unpublished Gregorian collection by Florus of Lyon). The simultaneous existence of different recensions of the Liber has caused great confusion among modern editors. Martello examines the configurations the work displays throughout its various editions. In the meantime he notes how – from the second half of the seventeenth century – the Liber becomes increasingly important in the eyes of editors of Gregorian work intent on outlining the boundaries of Gregory's actual – authentic – literary production. Long exiled to the extreme fringe of Gregorian studies, the Liber Testimoniorum recently attracted the attention of scholars at the time of the debate generated by Francis Clark's thesis surrounding the authenticity of Gregorian Dialogues. It is appropriate to recall that while developing the idea of the so-called "Dialogist", Clark himself was deeply influenced by what is known about Paterius. Scholars' interest for this work in the context of studies on Florilegia of patristic texts has been so far rather low. However, Martello underlines, the Liber could have constituted the main pattern of the exegetic anthology genre itself, which would have largely developed in mediaeval times. The analysis of the work's Prologue reveals the use of Gregorian literary and stylistic figures. For example, strong similarities can be seen with the language of the Registrum letters and with the Dialogues. An examination of the exegetic paragraphs shows the editorial techniques adopted by Paterius, who elaborated Gregorian passages in order to construct exegetic units independent both in form and in meaning from the original context, and potentially usable elsewhere. In the intentions of its patron – Gregory himself – the anthology should probably become an index for his own literary production to be used mainly, if not exclusively, by Roman scrinium personnel. Adjustments to the excerpts by the author may however indicate that Paterius rather wanted to offer a gregorian exegetic repertory to a wider public. The research on the Liber Testimoniorum is completed by a census of the manuscript tradition and the reconstruction of two key portions of the work, the Prologue and the section pertaining to the Canticle of Canticles, based on the Amiens Municipal Library 220 manuscript – which seems to resemble the archetype most closely, at least from a structural point of view. This is collated with a group of manuscripts representing different branches of the tradition.

Lothar looms large in the Liber pontificalis of Ravenna, an episcopal gesta composed after 846 by a local cleric of that city named Agnellus. In its prefatory verse, Lothar was tied to the memory of his grandfather Charlemagne, and afterwards was presented as an ally of the city and its church, a relationship sealed by the service of the bishop George (837-846) as godfather to Lothar’s daughter Rotruda. Furthermore, upon the death of Louis the Pious, as part of an embassy attempting to resolve the conflicts between Lothar and his brothers, George sought to affirm Ravenna privileges on the eve of the battle of Fontenoy, an event described quite differently from other sources. Completed following these struggles, the Liber pontificalis of Ravenna used this image of Lothar to further claims of the special status of the city, especially in its independence from Rome and longstanding imperial connections, and actively sought to legitimize Lothar’s own position through a juxtaposition with Charlemagne. Although preserved in the accounts of the bishops of Ravenna, the singular efforts to elevate and memorialize Lothar differ from other contemporary institutional chronicles, and underscore the tension inherent in the narrative.