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Containing books XXVIII-XXXV of the Moralia in Iob, the manuscript comes from the library of the Benedictine Foundation of St. Martin Outside the Walls in Trier. Restored and reformed after the Norman Invasion of 882, in large part under the leadership of Archbishop Dietrich I (965-977), it remained a modica congregatio within which it is difficult to imagine the existence of a scriptorium dedicated to self-sufficient production of the volumes required for the institutional and private life in the community. As recent studies have shown, the example on exhibit, dating from the 10th century and minus the first sheet (which is most likely to be identified with the rare frontispiece containing the pontiff’s portrait now in the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston), would seem rather to be traceable to a scriptorium located in the area of what is now Belgium. […]. The Gregorian example was produced by several attentive copyists with clear tendencies to lean to the right, as shown by the numerous erasures and corrections in the text. Later hands entered notabilia and auctoritates in the margins, juxtaposed to more neutral signs of attention, such as manicula, monograms on nota and stylised signs of embellishment. […].
FABRIZIO CRIVELLO and DONATELLA FRIOLI
Reproduced here: frontispiece with portrait of the pontiff now in the Museum on Fine Arts in Boston, MA.
The complete record can be found in the exhibit catalogue Gregorio Magno e l'invenzione del Medioevo, ed. Luigi G. G. Ricci, Florence, SISMEL - Edizioni del Galluzzo 2006 (Archivum Gregorianum, 9).