Ancora sui manoscritti del Museo Diocesano di Salerno: le Enarrationes in Psalmos di Sant'Agostino

The essay presents some observations about a giant copy of St. Augustine's Commentary on the Psalms found in the Museo Diocesano of Salerno. It is the first of two vol- umes, the second of which is now lost. The manuscript belongs to a large group of manuscripts, other than Giant Bibles, displaying similar paleographical, codicological, and decorative features of these Pandects. This codex, likely made in the Umbro-Roman region in the early twelfth century, shows all the characteristics of an early 'geometrical style' of advanced character; it exhibits mostly 'full shaft' initials, few 'hollow shaft' letters in a late version, and one zoomorphic initial. The decorative programme is unfinished. On the front guard sheet of the volume there are inscriptions, by several hands, showing that it was in the cathedral of Salerno in the Middle Ages. The hypothesis that the codex entered the cathedral's manuscript collection under the episcopate of Alfano II (1085/6?-1121) is unprovable but not unlikely.