Scrivere in Italia prima e dopo la guerra gotica

The purpose of this essay is to focus on any signs of teaching, writing and manuscript circulation in Italy which are specifically datable from 535 to 575, that is, from Justinian’s campaign to the progressive Lombard conquest of the Italian peninsula. Thanks to these precise chronological limits, it will be possible to concentrate on the consequences of the Gothic war on the Italian cultural system and to identify some relevant elements of continuity with the previous decades. Such analysis will firstly focus on manuscripts’ subscriptiones comprehensive of date and place of origin, which convey relevant information about Italian book production during – and right after – the Gothic war. Then, it will list and consider some relevant hints of book circulation, teaching and the formation of new libraries in the same years, starting from the central (and richly documented) experience of Cassiodorus at the Vivarium monastery in Squillace.