Non-mechanical omissions. An insight into the early stages of Priscian’s transmission

As part of a larger collaborative research project for a new critical edition of the Ars Prisciani, this article investigates a particular feature of the manuscript transmission of the work. As other scholars (de nonno, Rosellini) have already pointed out with regard to specific witnesses or sections of the Ars, some codices omit (or, on the con- trary, supply) whole sentences and passages of varying lengths, whose omission cannot be justified either as the result of a mechanical error such as a saut du même au même or of material damage. Based on a complete survey of peculiar omissions of this kind in all 8th-9th-century Ad witnesses of the Ars and on the most recent progress in the re- construction of the stemma codicum for some books of the Ars, this article casts light on some aspects of the composition process of Priscian’s major work, as well as of its early transmission.