From Milan to Europe. The transmission and diffusion of the works of St Ambrose

Institute of English Studies

John Coffin Memorial Annual Palaeography Lecture

'From Milan to Europe. The transmission and diffusion of the works of St Ambrose' by Professor Mirella Ferrari (Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, Milan)

A number of works of Ambrose, bishop of Milan (+397), had immediate circulation and were widely read in the Roman Empire; in the Carolingian Renaissance they are found in different textual families in MSS written both in North and South of Europe. On the contrary, several of Ambrose’s works had a more restricted circulation: in the IXth century they were apparently known only in Milan. In the Xth and XIth century the movement of Cluny, the Cistercians and other orders appreciated Ambrose and brought his texts all over Europe. In the XIIth century in Milan the devotion to the Patron Saint led to the preparation of ‘critical editions’ of his opera omnia, which circulated down to the Council of Basle and the Renaissance.

Professor Mirella Ferrari (Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, Milan) is a member of the Comité International de Paléographie Latine and Dottore ad honorem, Biblioteca Ambrosiana (2004). She was Visiting Professor at the Graduate School of Library and Information Science, UCLA, and compiled the catalogue Medieval and Renaissance Manuscripts at the University of California, Los Angeles (University of California Press, 1991). Her research interests focus mainly on early manuscripts and monastic scriptoria, and she gave the Lyell Lectures at Oxford University in 2006-07 on ‘The Scriptorium and Library of Bobbio’. She has published extensively, recent works including: ‘Tra libri, testi e documenti: luogo e strumenti di scrittura personale’, in I luoghi dello scrivere da Francesco Petrarca agli albori dell’età moderna, eds C. Tristano et al (Spoleto, 2006); and ‘Una collezione di frammenti’, in Cremona, una cattedrale, una città (Milan, 2007), while she co-edited Nuove ricerche su codici in scrittura latina dell’Ambrosiana: atti del convegno, Milano, 6-7 ottobre, Bibliotheca erudita, 31 (2007).