Abstract

This paper arises from the need for a careful examination of Günther's edition of "Collectio Avellana" (1895) in view of the formulation of the forthcoming proposals and suggestions for a transfer of a digital edition of this Collection and of the most famous canonical Collections online. This has led to tackling the complex problem of the manuscript tradition of the Avellana collection, as witnessed by the ancestor of its tradition (Vat. Lat. 3787) and its almost contemporary Vatican apograph. Starting from the examination of the different hands of copyists who took turns in the drafting of Vatican 3787, and through a sample examination of corrupt textual passages and vulgar mistakes in some epistles, also testified in other manuscripts and shared by Avellana and other collections, it is hypothesized that the Avellana collection may have originated in Polirone from the "conflatio" of three "collectiunculae".