Abstract

The two oldest manuscripts of the "Collectio Avellana", Vat. Lat. 3787 and 4961 were written in Polirone and Nonantola between the end of the eleventh to the century and the beginnig of the twelfth centuries. Vat. Lat. 4961 is a direct copy of the other manuscript, as the text and the marginal notes (reproduced very precisely in the apograph) prove. There was no second model, as Günther assumed on the basis of the repetition of part of ep. 103 and the "inscriptio" in ep. 104 at the end of Vat. Lat. 4961: it is a typical case of "horror vacui". The "Damianus clericus Sancte Romane Ecclesie", cited in Vat. Lat. 4945, is identified as Pier Damiani's nephew, who was later abbot of Nonantola, prior of Fonte Avellana and promoter of the transcription of twelve manuscripts of the utmost textual importance.