Lucrezio e Carlo Magno. A proposito dell’epistola di Dungal sulle eclissi (MGH Epistolae IV Karolini aevi II, pp. 570-578)

Abstract

It is generally assumed that Lucretius’ De Rerum Natura disappeared with the end of antiquity and did not reappear until Poggio Bracciolini’s rediscovery (1417). Yet, the oldest and most valuable manuscripts of DRN were copied in the Carolingian age and reflect a high degree of attention to Lucretius’ text and its content. In the present paper, I argue that by studying more carefully the origin and diffusion of Lucretian manuscripts in Carolingian Europe, it is possible to detect an almost unrecognized connection between textual tradition, grammatical erudition, and literary imitatio. In the first section, I offer an overview of the reception of DRN in such representative ninth-century writers as Ermenrich of Ellwangen, Heiric of Auxerre, Walahfrid Strabo, and John Scottus Eriugena. In these authors, very much as in Augustan and imperial Latin literature, the echo of Lucretius’ poetry can be perceived through the filter of allusion, intertextuality, and intergeneric adaptation. In the second section, I focus on the special case of Dungal, an Irish monk, scholar, and writer who migrated to Charlemagne’s court and has been identified by Bernhard Bischoff with the 'corrector Saxonicus' of Lucretius’ Codex Oblongus. Dungal’s familiarity with the text of DRN is mirrored in his 811 letter to Charlemagne on the eclipses (MGH Epistolae IV Karolini aevi II, pp. 570-578). Even if Macrobius and Pliny are prominent among Dungal’s ancient sources, Lucretius’ astronomical doctrine and history of humankind seem to have left a trace in the letter’s literary background. Moreover, Dungal’s acceptance of the antipodes theory might help explain the textual condition of Lucr. 1, 1068-1075 in the Codex Oblongus.