The Disorder in P and M of Cicero’s Letters Ad familiares, with a List of Extant Manuscripts

Abstract

The 15th-century manuscripts of Cicero’s letters Ad familiares are often said to descend from M (s. IX) by way of its copy P (a. 1392), and accordingly the argument was put forward in 2024, with consequences for dating, that any reading also found as a correction of Niccoli’s in P spread from P. Both views are challenged here and the former blamed on a misapprehension of Politian’s about the disorder that he found in the quires of P. When not conjectural, Salutati’s corrections in P are taken back to another copy of M written in northern Italy, Niccoli’s to M itself; Vat. Lat. 1688, hitherto ignored, is shown to be the earliest copy of P, made before all the corrections. For the benefit of anyone who may wish to explore the work done by humanists on a text that captivated them, a lightly annotated list of extant manuscripts is appended.