The medieval Horace and Horatian lyric in MS Bodmer 89

This article offers a detailed study of a twelfth-century copy of the works of the Roman poet Horace (Cologny, Fondation Martin Bodmer, MS Bodmer 89), and the extensive marginal and interlinear commentary added in the later twelfth or early thirteenth century. The commentary bears a relation to previously known scholia, ancient and medieval, but does not directly depend on any published source. After a survey of scholarship on the tradition of medieval commentary concerning Horace, the character of the new commentary is analyzed, along with that of some paratextual additions including poems, in imitation of Horatian lyric meter, and later marks of readership. The codex bears witness to medieval interest in Horace's lyric poems, which were not only read but also actively emulated. Substantial selections from the commentary and paratexts are also edited here.