‘Frammenti’ di testo nella tradizione in sassone antico: il caso del Pal. Lat. 1447 della Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana

‘Fragments’ of text in the Old Saxon tradition: Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, ms. Pal. Lat. 1447 Latin computistic texts and significant ‘fragments’ of the Old Saxon literary tradition are preserved in ms. Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, Pal. Lat. 1447, including a very important evidence of the contacts between England and the Continent in Anglo-Saxon times, i.e. 26 lines of the poem Genesis similarly attested in the Old English Genesis B. A careful analysis of the contents of this miscellaneous manuscript written in Mainz at the beginning of the IXth century, probably for didactic purposes, shows an interesting stratification of texts during the ages. In particular, a reconsideration of the vernacular sections reveals that these texts are not to be intended as fragmentary but as ‘unities’ essentially complete in themselves: their examination can thus throw light on the reasons why they were inserted in the manuscript among other texts without any apparent connection with them.