Abstract

The production of the ‘Gallarati Scotti Gellius’, MS Milan, Ambr. S.P. 10/28, hitherto known principally for its splendid miniatures by Guglielmo Giraldi, should be attributed to the pen and ‘ingenium’ of Niccolò Volpe, teacher of grammar and rhetoric at the university of Bologna. By a complex procedure, partly codicological, Volpe produced a Gellius auctus, completed at Bologna in 1448 for an unknown customer. To the text of the ‘Noctes Atticae’ he added a substantial number of ‘marginalia’ from classical, medieval and humanistic authors. A notable feature is the ‘Orthographia’ of Giovanni Tortelli in a preliminary version. Unexpected is the large-scale use of the ‘De proprietatibus rerum’ of Bartolomaeus Anglicus to supplement Gellius on medical matters. Volpe’s critical interest in the text of Gellius makes this MS of fundamental importance for the transmission of the test in the humanistic period