Collectio Avellana

Title	Collectio Avellana
Key	?
Alternative title	Avellanische Sammlung (Maassen)
Wikidata Item no.	Q782846
Century	saec. VI
Place of origin	Rome
European region of origin	Central Italy
Author	Christof Rolker
No. of manuscripts	some (2–9)

The Collectio Avellana is a collection of 243 diverse imperial and papal letters dating from 366/367 to 553. Another piece, an incomplete translation of Epiphanius of Salamis, is assumed to be a later addition. The collection is mainly famous because some of the material is found only here.

There are two high medival copies, Città del Vaticano, BAV, Vat. lat. 3787 and Città del Vaticano, BAV, Vat. lat. 4961; Günther demonstrated that the latter depended on the former. There are nine more copies of the 15th and 16th centuries, all depended on the two Vatican manuscripts.

The Avellana shares material, and (according to Günther, Avellana-Studien pp. esp. 38-39) a common source, with the Collectio Berolinensis. Jasper assumed that some of the rare materials in Anselm's collection comes from the Avellana via the Collection in Two books/Eight Parts, but left the question open whether the latter depended on the Avellana directly for acts of the Roman synod of March 13, 495, JK 638, and the complete form of JK 664.

Edition

Otto Günther, Epistulae Imperatorum Pontificum Aliorum inde ab a. CCCLXVII usque ad a. DLIII datae Avellana quae dicitur Collectio, 2 vols (1895):

• vol. 1 https://archive.org/details/epistulaeimperat01gnth/page/n5/mode/2up
• vol. 2 https://archive.org/details/epistulaeimperat02gnth/page/n5/mode/2up

Literature

Maassen, Geschichte pp. 787; Günther, Avellana-Studien pp. 20-48; Jasper, Early Letters, pp. 83-85; Kéry, Collections p. 37