Il palinsesto veronese delle Istituzioni di Gaio : dall’apografo di Böcking all’apografo di Studemund

Abstract

This article revisits the 19th-century attempts to reconstruct the Codex Veronensis of Gaius’ Institutiones. It centres on Eduard Böcking’s ambitious plan to produce a precise apograph at a moment when this palimpsest had already been compromised by aggressive chemical treatments. With the manuscript largely unreadable, Böcking turned to the transcriptions of Göschen and Bluhme, comparing and copying them with exceptional care. Using archival evidences, the study exposes the technical limits, institutional choices, and scholarly expectations that shaped this enterprise. It also reassesses how Böcking’s work – despite its constraints – prepared the ground for Studemund’s later, more successful recovery of the text.