Collectio Ambrosiana II

The canonistic material in the Ms Milan, Biblioteca Ambrosiana I. 145 inf., altogether 396 canons, was copied at Milan by a number of different scribes and does not constitute a unitary collection nor does it fill the entire manuscript. The most recent analysis of the canonistic material is that of Giorgio Picasso. He calls it the Ambrosiana II. The present analysis (MJ) uses his numbering. It can be assumed that the collection was compiled for use at Milan, probably by canons. Canon 228 is a long letter to an archbishop of Milan and canon 235 a letter of Petrus Damiani to Milanese clerics. The most recent text is canon 119, a letter of pope Urban II (JL 5388). The most recent formal sources are: the Tripartita of Ivo of Chartres and the Liber sententiarum of 125 Magister A (canons 46–168) which means that the surviving form of the collection was completed in the first half of the 12th century. A series of canons on marriage (canons 52–64 and 83) taken ultimately from the sentences of Magister A was used for the appendix to the Collectio XX librorum in the Ms Vat. lat. 1350.

The manuscript contains a core of texts older than the rest of the accumulated material, however. This core represents an earlier, once independent collection. In the Ambrosiana II it extends from canon 170 to canon 237. The most recent text is canon 236, a pseudo-Gregorian text, attributed here to Alexander II (Ecclesia que per pactionem pretii, JE † 1948). The sources of this older core are the Liber decretorum of Burchard in the form augmented in northern Italy and a Beneventan collection – perhaps the Collectio IX librorum or a derivative. Following the older core of texts are penitential canons, many of them from the penitential Vallicelliana I.

A number of canons found in the older core were used for the collection of the canonry of Saint-Hilaire-le-Grand (canons 175, 199, 173, 236, 181, 237, 185, 234, 188, 206, 228). This core of texts was also used for a collection in the Ms Munich, StB Clm 16086 from the canonry of Sankt Nikola in Passau (170, 172, 175–176, 178–179, 182– 193, 196–204, 213, 217, 227, 229–237).

Literature

For the analysis see Giorgio Picasso, Collezioni canoniche milanesi del secolo XII, Milan 1969. A description of the manuscript is found on pp. 20–23, a description of the collection on pp. 161–222, the analysis of the collection on pp. 81–143; for important additions see also Horst Fuhrmann’s recension in DA 27 (1971), pp. 581– 583. See also Giorgio Picasso, Nuove identificazioni nelle Collezioni canoniche milanesi del sec. XII, BMCL 3 (1969), pp.139–141. – For the Collectio XX librorum, see Roberto Bellini, Un abrégé del Decreto di Burcardo di Worms: La collezione canonica in 20 libri (Ms. Vat. Lat. 1350), Apollinaris 69 (1996), pp. 119– 195. – For the use of Burchard in the augmented form common to northern and central Italy, see Fowler-Magerl, Fine Distinctions, pp. 148–149. For the Tripartita as the source of canons in the manuscript (and not the Decretum of Ivo as was once thought) see Landau, Kanonessammlungen in der Lombardei, pp. 452 with n. 107 and 456. For the use of the sentences of Magister A see Hubert Mordek, Systematische Kanonessammlungen vor Gratian: Forschungsstand und neue Aufgaben, in: Proceedings of the 6th ICMCL, p. 197. – On pages 243–248 of the analysis Picasso edited texts not known to him elsewhere. Some of the same canons can be found in the Ms Munich, StB Clm 16086 see Fowler-Magerl, Vier and franzöische und spanische vorgratianische Kanonessammlungen, pp. 140–141. For the use of 126 the core of Ambrosiana II for the collection of the canonry of Saint-Hilaire see p. 176 n. 145. – Kéry, Canonical Collections, p. 292.