The manuscripts of the early Middle Ages

In the early Middle Ages, the Cassinese scriptorium stood out for its intense cultural activity, characterized mainly by the collection and transcription of sacred and classical texts. The most important examples from this period are the grammatical miscellany Paris, BnF, lat. 7530, the Cassiodorus Bamberg. Misc. Patr. 61 or the Isidorus Cava 2, all currently preserved outside of Montecassino. In the Abbey’s Archive there are still preserved manuscripts of scholastic content and use and a few illuminated testimonies of the highest level, produced during the ninth century (until the Saracen destruction of the year 883 and the subsequent transfer of the monks first to Teano and then to Capua): in this group there are the Casin. 3, an astronomical miscellany, and Casin. 97, a collection of medical treatises. The monumental codex of the Rule, Casin. 175, was also produced in Capua during the exile: through the dedication miniature, in which Abbot John I appears, it is possible to date the manuscript between 915 and 934. This is the first of similar dedication scenes taken up in manuscripts of later ages (Casin. 73, Casin. 99 and Vat. lat. 1202).

Theobaldian Age

Two of the most famous representatives of Cassinese book production were produced duringe the age of abbot Theobald: the Moralia of Gregory the Great (Casin. 73) and the De rerum naturis of Rabanus Maurus (Casin. 132). This latter codex is decorated with more than 300 miniatures that reflect a magnificent figurative commentary on the medieval world, in which are combined sacred history and human history, plants, animals, the nature of soul and body, atmospheric phenomena and the computation of time, city and country life, monsters and wonders, everyday objects and work, and the cycle of life between birth and death.

Desiderian Age

The library of abbot Desiderius was rich both in the books promoted by him and in other earlier ones and gifts from outside. The preservation of some of the best-known ancient and medieval texts was made possible during the Desiderian age, thanks to a precise project of renovatio librorum, and especially the setting up of luxury codices intended by the abbot for the basilica’s liturgical equipment: few examples are the lectionary Vatican City, BAV, Vat. lat. 1202, the homilaries Casin. 98 and 99, the Exultets, London, BL, Additional 30337, Vatican City, BAV, Vat. lat. 3784 and Barb. Lat. 592.

Manuscripts in Caroline script

Between the late 11th century and the first decade of the 12th century, the Caroline is found either used in co-presence with Beneventan script or for writing low-quality manuscripts or marginal annotations. From the fourth decade of the 12th century, however, we find the first codices written entirely in Caroline minuscule, such as Casin. 257 and 361: two small manuscripts that are believed to be partially autographs of Peter Deacon, who arrived in Montecassino at the age of five anche presumably learned to write in Caroline in the Abbey’s scriptorium, in which different graphic models coexisted side by side. All manuscripts produced in the 12th century and written in Caroline display a Cassinese type of decoration, echoing forms canonized in the Desiderian age, especially with regard to the initial letters, in which there is a prevalence of ribbon-like types (consisting of multicolored webbing on a gold background and complemented by polychrome racemes), and gilded trellis types (in which the letters consist of gold racemes on a red, purple or blue background).

After the middle of the 12th century, manuscripts in Caroline, or Carolin-based script (this latter is an expression that represent the graphic panorama evolved from the forms proper to Caroline toward textualis), with Cassinese decoration increases markedly: examples of this, in addition to numerous glossed Bibles, are Casin. 264, an Exodus with ordinary gloss, and the Casin. 557, a complete Bible, both due in part to the hand of the same scribe, Ferro, working at Montecassino during the abbacy of Theodinus, between 1166 and 1167.

Both manuscripts represent a novelty for Montecassino’s book production, especially the Iron Bible, which, with its small size and reduced form of writing, is configured as a codex for personal study quite different from the Beneventan Bibles: these latter books were intended for public reading, or from the apparatus liturgical books, for which the Beneventan script continued to be used at least throughout the 12th century. As for the decoration, in Casin. 557, alongside the numerous Cassinese initials, the watermarked initials make one of their first appearances in this scriptorium: this kind of initials will be prevalent in another complete Bible produced at Montecassino in the 13th century, the Casin. 35. 35.

Gothic script models and the textualis

During the 13th century Gothic models of French import penetrated into Montecassino in the ornamental types: Casin. 440, which contains Bernard Aiglerio’s Commentary on the Rule; Casin. 246 and Casin. 254, two glossed Bibles, and with them there was the success of transitional minuscules that evolved into the forms proper to the textualis. Between the mid-13th and early 14th centuries some complete Bibles of French origin arrive at Montecassino, such as Casin. 508, 509 and 519, although it is not always possible to circumscribe the time of entry into the Abbey.

The fifteenth century

During the fifteenth century, the Abbey lost invaluable manuscripts because of humanistic ‘manuscript hunters’ such as Poggio Bracciolini and Niccolò Niccoli. Some examples are: the well-known codex BPL 118 from the Bibliotheek der Rijksuniversiteit in Leiden, in Beneventan minuscule from the Desiderian period, containing Cicero’s De natura deorum, De divinatione and De legibus; some manuscripts now preserved at the Laurentian Library in Florence, such as the Tacitus Apuleius, Laurentian 68.2, and the Varro, Laurentian 51.10. Other spoliations occur with some of the commendatory popes, as in the case of Abbot Desiderius’ lectionary (Vat. lat. 1202), which is mentioned in the catalog of Cassinese manuscripts commissioned by the commendatory pope Paul II contained in Vat. lat. 3961 and which was already present among the Latin codices of the Vatican Library under Sixtus IV: Desiderius’lectinary would have arrived there with other Cassinese specimens requested by Paul II himself.
The scriptorium, however, did not interrupt its activity: new transcriptions were edited of hagiographic texts (Casin. 466), commentaries on biblical texts (Casin. 131), extracts from Gregory the Great’s Moralia (Casin. 118); simultaneously, new texts were also produced.

The Choir books

Since the 15th century, the history of the Montecassino scriptorium, and of the Abbey itself, can be reconstructed through the study of the choir book, consisting of seventy-two manuscripts datable between the 15th and 19th centuries. The collection includes manuscripts for church service (graduals and kyrials) and books for the liturgy of the hours (antiphonals, psalters and hymnals), written in Gothic choral script, with square notation on a tetragrammaton. Twenty-seven choral manuscripts were produced at Montecassino in the sixteenth century and reflect, in their liturgical content and manner of arrangement, the unification of the Abbey with the Congregation of St. Justine on November 11, 1504: this event marks a spiritual and cultural renewal for the Abbey. The commissioning of the choir books is generally attributed to Abbot Ignazio Squarcialupi (October 1510-December 1516; May 1520-December 1521; January 1524-December 1526). These manuscripts were decorated by the leading master illuminators of the time, such as the Master of the Bolea altarpiece, Giovanni and Francesco Boccardi, Matteo da Terranova, and Aloyse da Napoli. In addition, there are twenty-four manuscripts from the Monastery of SS. Severino and Sossio, which arrived following the suppression of the Neapolitan monastery in 1798. Other five manuscripts arrived in the Abbey from the Monastery of S. Pietro in Modena in March 1897. Three other manuscripts of different provenance are part of the collection. The remaining part of the ensemble consists of forty codices, mostly set up at Montecassino or commissioned by the Abbey between the 16th and 19th centuries.

Currently, the Cassinese collection includes 1,200 codices (medieval and modern) and a substantial amount of fragments. The manuscript collection reflects the physiognomy of the medieval library: codices acquired in modern times and volumes made directly on site. Primary points of access to the collection are the catalog edited by Mauro Inguanez in the 20th century, in which only the first 600 signatures are recorded, and the unpublished inventory of the 18th century, which ends at number 8744.