Sallust, Bellum Catilinae (Conspiracy of Catiline) and Bellum Iugurthinum (Jugurthine War)

Sallust, Bellum Catilinae (Conspiracy of Catiline) and Bellum Iugurthinum (Jugurthine War)

Though they were widely known throughout the Middle Ages, Gaius Sallustius Crispius’s two writings on Roman history, the Bellum Catilinae and Bellum Iugurthinum, were harnessed anew in the fifteenth century by humanists who sought both positive and negative examples from Republican Rome for contemporary civic politics. In both texts, Sallust strove to demonstrate how the moral depravity of leaders could result in catastrophic outcomes. From the Carolingian period onward, Sallust was included as part of the study of rhetoric, a basic component of medieval education. This mid-fifteenth-century copy of Sallust’s texts is dotted with early marginal annotations, which offer alternate readings and occasional insertions into the text. There is a partially obliterated coat of arms, combined with an effaced ownership inscription that bears the name of Mario Maffei (1463–1537). Mario was a churchman and bibliophile, becoming bishop of Aquino in 1516 and Cavaillon in 1527.

Between 1455 and 1465

Manuscript on parchment, 160 fols.

University of Pennsylvania, Lawrence J. Schoenberg Collection, LJS 381

Padua (?), Italy