Scrivere per la memoria. Le collezioni di Raterio di Verona

WRITING TO MEMORY: RATHERIUS OF VERONA AND HIS COLLECTIONS For whom was Ratherius of Verona writing his sophisticated texts? Through a deeper analysis of the manuscripts containing the two main collections of Ratherian works, Laon 274 and Clm 6340, the author of this study highlights that both have seemingly been built according to a distinct authorial design. In the first, Laon 274, each text is marked by a sequence chapter number: the title placed at the head of the first text can be reasonably intended as the title of the whole collection and provides the key to the correct interpretation of the texts. The second, Clm 6340, shows the hand of the author in several corrections (two of them misread by the former editor), whose number is lower in the older text and increases in the texts likely dated around July 968, immediately before Ratherius left Verona for the last time. These corrections are examined, and a new hypothesis is proposed concerning a short fragment of a letter (ep. 23) written at the beginning of the manuscript in Clm 6340. Both of the collections intend to draw up a complete and accurate file of the hard-earned experience of Ratherius’ third Veronese episcopate and submit them to the judgment of the ages.