The Collectio canonum Ambrosiana I in the Ms Milan, Archivio Capitolare di S. Ambrogio M. 11

The collection in the Ms Milan, Archivio Capitolare M. 11, consisting of 246 canons, was compiled for the canonry of S. Ambrogio at Milan, probably in the last decade of the 11th century. Giorgio Picasso, who published an analysis of the collection, named it Ambrosiana I. No canon in the Ambrosiana I is later than the second decree of the Roman synod of 1080 and none of the formal sources later than the 1090s. The canons are not numbered. The present analysis is based on [177] that of Picasso (MI). Picasso, following the argument of Valentino Foffano, dated the collection between 1130–1139, because he believed that the excerpts from the letter De nuptiis of Hincmar of Reims in the Ambrosiana I 192, 194–196) had been brought to Milan by Paul and Gebhard, canons of S. Mang in Regensburg. I once thought that the Hincmar text was taken directly from the Collectio Sinemuriensis, but have come to realize that it probably was taken from the late 11th century Collectio VII librorum in the Ms Turin, BNU D. IV. 33. The collection in the Turin manuscript, full of material from Poitiers, was apparently available in northern Italy in the late 11th century. There are several other canons in the Ambrosiana I which are in both the Sinemuriensis and the Collectio VII librorum. An example is the series of canons beginning with Utrum sub figura and ending with Amen, amen dico vobis … manducasti (Ambrosiana I 116–118, Sinemuriensis in the version in the Ms Madrid, BN 428, 3. 181–184 and Collectio VII librorum 5. 57–60). Other canons appear only in the Ambrosiana I and the Collectio VII librorum, however. An example: canons 170 and 184, both of which Picasso edited because he had not found them elsewhere. The Sinemuriensis is the ultimate source of a number of the canons, but the collection in the Turin manuscript is obviously the direct source.

Other formal sources are the collections of Burchard, Anselm of Lucca (or perhaps the collection in the Mss Vat. lat. 3832/Assisi, BCom 227), Deusdedit and the Diversorum patrum sententie (74T). Picasso thought that the Decretum of Ivo of Chartres was also used, but Peter Landau has shown that texts once thought to derive from the Decretum were actually from the Collectio Tripartita. As Horst Fuhrmann recognized, the texts that Picasso traced to the collection of Deusdedit are not identical with those in the Ms Vat. lat. 3833, the only surviving complete copy and the basis of the edition. This does not mean, however, that the compiler did not use another, perhaps better, copy of the collection. It only means that the copy of Deusdedit which was used was not that preserved at SS. Apostoli in Rome. The chapter number „59“ in the inscription to canon 5 of the Ambrosiana I almost certainly refers to the place of that canon in the collection of Deusdedit: 1.59. The renumbering of the collection of Deusdedit by Wolf von Glanvell – he numbers the canon 1.70 – obscures the fact.

There are other reasons, too, for believing that the collection of Deusdedit was used. These do not, however, exclude the use of an [178] intermediate collection. The inscription of canon 18 of the Ambrosiana I, Ex decretis pape Damasi caput II et Iohannis VIII pape, which, to my knowledge, is found in no other collection, almost certainly resulted from the use of a collection in which the text (Quisquis metropolitanus intra tres menses consecrationis) appeared twice. This is the case in the collection of Deusdedit where the text is attributed once to pope Damasus and once to pope John VIII. It is also the case in the Britannica and in the Caesaraugustana, both dependent on Deusdedit. Furthermore, canon 49, which is taken from from the Register of Gregory VII (8. 23), is found only in the Ambrosiana I and the collection of Deusdedit. In the latter the inscription gives the number of book and chapter, in the Ambrosiana I it does not.

Finally, the Ambrosiana I has similarities to the collection of Bonizo of Sutri. The series of forgeries mentioned above in the description of that collection is also found in the Ambrosiana I.

The Ambrosiana I, like the Ambrosiana II, contains an older core of texts which once circulated independently. These texts were used for the first part of a collection in the Ms Munich, StB Clm 12612, see above p. 168. Canons 165–169, 193, 176–178 and 173–175 of the Ambrosiana I are found on fol. 118ra–119va of the collection in the Munich manuscript. Picasso knew three of these texts only from the Milan manuscript (canons 166–168) and edited them. None of those texts which can be attributed to the Tripartita of Ivo are found in the Munich manuscript.

Literature

For the analysis see Giorgio Picasso, Collezioni canoniche Milanesi del secolo XII (Pubblicazioni dell’Università Cattolica del S. Cuore. Saggi e ricerche – Serie Terza. Scienze storiche 2, Milan 1969). The description of the codex is on pp. 15– 17, 161–222, the analysis on pp. 37–80. Pages 225–242 contain the editions of canons that Picasso had not found elsewhere. Idem, Nuove identificazioni nelle Collezioni canoniche milanesi del sec. XII, BMCL 3 (1969), pp. 139–141. See the recensions of Zelina Zafarana, Studi Medievali 11 (1970), pp. 850–852, Horst Fuhrmann, DA 27 (1971), pp. 581–583, and Hubert Mordek, ZRG Kan. 60 (1974), pp. 406–408. – For the use of the Collectio Tripartita and not the Decretum of Ivo see Landau, Kanonessammlungen in der Lombardei, pp. 448–449, 452 and n. 107. – For the use of the older core of the collection by the compiler of the collection in the Ms Munich, StB Clm 12612 see Fowler-Magerl, Vier französische und spanische Kanonessammlungen, p. 140. – Kéry, Collections p. 285. – For help with the completion of the analysis my gratitude to Annalisa Belloni and Barbara Biondi. [179]

Categories

• Clavis entries based on manuscript
• This article lacks categories
• The page should be renamed (moved)
• Collection
• Key is MI