| Popis: |
Ms. CLXXI of the Biblioteca Capitolare of Vercelli offers an excellent case study on the subject of the discard and reuse of documentary sources. It was produced between 1163 and 1210 to copy the Liber contra Catharos by Ekbert of Schönau, by means of a very extensive and consistent reuse operation: the manuscript consists almost entirely of palimpsest folia, which were obtained by reusing 10th- and 11th-century charters from the archives of the Eusebian church. The study presents the results of the research on the codex, preliminary to the complete multispectral analysis of the palimpsests, that is currently underway. The investigations will allow the textual restitution (at least partial) of the approximately 50 original documents: an important corpus both in terms of quantity – the contemporary charters currently preserved at the Capitolare are 30 in all – and in terms of quality, because it bears witness to a crucial and very little-documented phase in the history of the Eusebian episcopate, firmly intertwined with that of the kingdom. Equally significant, from the point of view of both cultural and religious history, as well as ecclesiastical and political history, is the reuse of the material for the copy of the Liber contra Catharos in Vercelli, in one of the oldest witnesses of the anti-heretical work. However, the restitution of the scriptio inferior on the one hand, and the contextualisation and significance of the reuse on the other, do not exhaust the informative potential and historical value of the palimpsest manuscript, if considered as a source in itself. The paper is focused on the central moment of the discard, which is investigated as evidence of the transformations in documentary and archival practices that occurred in the second half of the 12th century, in the broader context of the patrimonial and institutional transformations of the Vercelli church. |
