Le redazioni ΦΔ delle Institutiones di Cassiodoro. Considerazioni preliminari all’edizione critica

This paper illustrates the general setting of a new critical edition of Cassiodo - rus’ Institutiones’ ΦΔ interpolated recensions and outlines the main problems and challenges that the editor must face. These two texts, commonly regarded as the product of different early medieval scholars, who worked of the same basic text (II) adding new material about the Liberal Arts, have been studied so far with reference to Mynors’ 1937 edition of the Institutiones. Mynors’ main interest was to identify the authentic Cassiodorean text Ω: As a consequence, he only collated a few ΦΔ witnesses (without providing a stemma codicum) and only printed a selection of D’s later additions. Since 1937, scholars have long debated the nature of ΦΔ’s textual forms, as well as the chronological and geographical settings of the interpolators: The specific purpose of this paper is to further investigate the complex relationship between ΦΔ’s basic text and Cassiodorus’ final version Ω, so as to fully understand the nature of the II text printed by the editor.