The oldest codex of the University of Salamanca

Abstract

This paper reconsiders the chronology of the Greek manuscript 2722 of Salamanca University, which contains a catena in Isaiam. Basing on paleographical evidence, I conclude that it was transcribed in the third quarter of the tenth century, which means it is the oldest codex of Salamanca University, a century older than the famous Liber canticorum et horarum. It is also on paleographical evidence that I locate in Byzantium the interventions by several readers dating from the eleventh to the fourteenth century, while I locate the Latin translation ad litteram of several passages from Isaiah in a humanistic milieu, whether Italian or Spanish. I come to the conclusion that this manuscript arrived at Colegio Mayor de San Bartolomé in the second half of the fifteenth century. In the middle of the sixteenth century it catched the attention of Cardinal Francisco de Mendoza y Bovadilla.