Verder oa.
Anatolius and the Excerpta Vaticana et Laurentiana
Jan H.A. Lokin and Roos Meijering
This book consists of three parts. What they have in common is their concern with the
collection of texts that the authors propose to call Excerpta Vaticana et Laurentiana.
This collection was first published by Ferrini in 1883 under the name of Anecdota
Laurentiana et Vaticana, after the manuscripts in which he had found them: the codex
Laurentianus 80.6 and codex Vaticanus Palatinus 19.
The majority of these texts have their origin in the Greek Codex version of the
antecessor Anatolius. Yet the new edition presented in Part I does not attempt to
reconstruct the original sixth-century text or any other which the compiler may have used
as a source. It includes fragments that are definitely not by Anatolius. The accompanying
English translation also is primarily meant to reflect the late-Byzantine compilation.
However, most legal historians who take any interest in it are likely to do so because of
its being based on Anatolius' Codex summa. As a compromise, the authors have therefore
placed footnotes at phrases for which they hesitate to hold Anatolius responsible. These
footnotes refer the reader to the second part of the book, a brief philological commentary
by Roos Meijering on those instances where, in the opinion of the authors, the text of the
Excerpta deviates from what must have been in the original sources used by the compiler.
Finally, Part III, also by Roos Meijering, deals with the compilation in terms of what it
says about the Codex work of Anatolius.
