Vercelli Book

The Vercelli Book

Following his postdoctoral work in Göttingen, the German lawyer and legal historian Friedreich Bluhme (1797–1874) was on a research trip in 1822 to study the holdings and history of Italian libraries when he discovered an Anglo-Saxon manuscript. Adorned by only a pair of zoomorphic initials, the 10th century manuscript that became known as the Vercelli Book has nevertheless proved to be one of the oldest and most precious sources of Old English to survive to the present.

An Unusual Florilegium

Florilegium is a word from medieval Latin indicating a compilation of excerpts from other works. It literally translates as “a gathering of flowers”: as flos (flower) and legere (to gather). Although they are normally assembled systematically, the Vercelli Book is seemingly without structure, despite how neatly and elegantly it was written by a single well-practiced hand. It is possible that the texts were arranged according to the scribe’s own interest in penitential and eschatological themes; the glorification of an ascetic lifestyle seems to be a consistent theme as well. Nonetheless, the scribe remains unknown, which is consistent with the Anglo-Saxon tradition of anonymous religious writing. The codex contains 23 prose homilies and a prose vita of Saint Guthlac, which are interspersed with six poems: Andreas, The Fates of the Apostles, Soul and Body, Dream of the Rood, Elene, and a fragment of a homiletic poem.

An Anglo-Saxon Manuscript in Italy

It is not known for how many centuries the manuscript lay hidden among the holdings of the Capitulary Library. The only logical explanation for it being there is the existence of a hospice specifically catering to English pilgrims, which was founded by Jacopo Guala Bicchieri (d. 1227), Bishop of Vercelli and former papal legate to the Kingdom of England between 1216 and 1218. Thus, the manuscript was likely acquired by Bicchieri, who brought it back with him to Italy. How or when it came into the library remains a mystery and it is one of the few Anglo-Saxon manuscripts found outside of modern Britain.