Attribuzioni controverse: la mano di Rabano Mauro nei codici fuldensi

Abstract

This article revisits the longstanding and complex question of the identification of Hrabanus Maurus’s hand in manuscripts of Fulda provenance. The debate stems from the palaeographic studies initiated by Hans Butzmann’s recognition of two key manuscripts housed in the Herzog-August Bibliothek in Wolfenbüttel – Cod. Weiss. 92 and Cod. Weiss. 84 – as autographic witnesses to Hrabanus’s Commentarium in Hiezechielem. These codices, traditionally considered idiographic, have served as a crucial starting point for subsequent attributions of marginalia and textual sections in other Fulda-related manuscripts to the same scribe, presumed to be Hrabanus himself. Based on Butzmann’s foundational hypothesis, a wider corpus has gradually been identified as potentially bearing annotations or partial writings by the same hand. These include Wolfenbüttel, Herzog-August Bibliothek, Weiss. 86, Marburg, Hessisches Staatsarchiv, Best. K Nr. 424, Kassel, Gesamthochschulbibliothek, 2° astron. 2 and 2° theol. 36 and Città del Vaticano, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, Reg. lat. 124. The present study undertakes a comprehensive re-examination of the initial evidence, assessing the plausibility of the original identification. Moreover, each manuscript in which a hand previously attributed to Hrabanus is found is reassessed individually, in order to refine the scope of what can be definitively ascribed to the same hand. The investigation aims to clarify the current state of the question and to verify the reliability of existing identifications, through a direct and comparative analysis of the relevant manuscripts.