Ro: Stemma in the Roda Codex

Notes

Spain, Madrid, Real Academia de la Historia, cod. 78 (Códice de Roda), folios 198v-206r.

Seven full-page spreads plus an intervening spread (folios 200v-201r) devoted to an Isidorian mappamundi and what it means; in Visgothic script in black ink with many roundels apparently drawn freehand; parchment, 29 x 21 cm.

This is the most accurate copy in Spain of the Great Stemma. Its decoration is ambitious, with top bars which mostly have outline drawings of faces as their end-markers; the final page has an outline drawing of three Magi bearing gifts to the Christ Child and mother.

Given siglum Ro by Załuska (Liminaires).

The Codex

232 folios, dated to late 10th or early 11th century. Parchment, 29 x 21 cm. Text: 23 x 15 cm or less. A miscellany of two main parts: The History of Paulus Orosius (1r-155r) and fragments of various chronicles (156r-232r). Titles in Visigothic capitals in red and blue; polychrome primary initials, ornamented.

Attributed to a scribe of the late 10th or early 11th century.

Former ownership: Made for King Sancho Garcés II under the direction of Sisebut, abbot of Pamplona. It vanished in the 19th century and mysteriously re-emerged in the 1920s.

The rest of the codex contains:

Paulus Orosius, Historia (part only) (fols. 1r - 155r);
Isidore of Seville (ca. 560-636), Historia de regibus Gothorum, Vandalorum et Suevorum;
Isidore of Seville, Chronica;
Epitome Ovetensis, the most ancient version of chronicles developed a century earlier in Oviedo;
Smaradgus. Collectiones in epistolas et evangelia;
History of the Visigothic kingdom and of the Asturian monarchy;
Other texts on the history of Navarre, including genealogies of the Christian kingdoms of the Pyrenees in the 9th and 10th centuries.

Related (Alpha Recension)

Ta: Spain, Madrid, Archivo Histórico Nacional, cód. 1097B (Tábara)

G: Spain, Girona, Museu de Catedral, Inv. 7(11)

Tu: Italy, Turin, Bib. Naz. Universitaria di Torino, lat. 93 / Sgn. I.II.1

R: England, Manchester, Rylands University Library, ms. lat. 8

Pc: Spain, Madrid, MAN, 1962/73/2 and New York, Metropolitan Museum, 1991.232.2a-d (Cardeña)

H: New York, Pierpont Morgan Library, M. 429 (Las Huelgas)

Bibliography:

Carlos Villamarín, Helena de. “El Códice de Roda (Madrid, BRAH 78) Como Compilación de Voluntad Historiográfica.” Edad Media: Revista de Historia 12 (2011): 119–42.

Domínguez Bordona, Jesús. Manuscritos con pinturas. Notas para un inventario de los conservados en colecciones públicas y particulares de España. Madrid: Centro de Estudios Históricos, 1933, n. 378

Ruiz García, Elisa. Catálogo de la sección de Códices. Madrid: Real Academia de la Historia, 1997, cod. 78

Załuska, Yolanta. “Les Feuillets Liminaires.” In El Beato de Saint-Sever, Ms. Lat. 8878 de La Bibliothèque Nationale de Paris, edited by Xavier Barral i Altet. Madrid [Spain]: Edílan, 1984.

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The Great Stemma: A Graphic History in the Fifth Century by Jean-Baptiste Piggin is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.