Verse inscriptions of Rome in Renaissance manuscripts: a study on the epigraphic sylloges of Michele Fabrizio Ferrarini

The thesis deals with the early manuscript transmission of pagan epigraphic poetry produced in the city of Rome. In particular, it focuses on the collections of the Carmelite monk Michele Fabrizio Ferrarini (c. 1450–1492/93), who in the last decades of the 15th century was among the most avid compilers of Carmina Latina Epigraphica and Latin inscriptions in general. Especially for those inscriptions from Rome which are no longer preserved today, his three autograph manuscripts are of special interest, as he partly used still unidentified sources. A selected portion of the carmina mainly from the so-called ‘auctarium urbanum’ of his later redactions are discussed in detail in a critical edition, including comprehensive commentaries on the transmission history of each of the texts. The examination and comparison of the manuscript and early print sources, some of which had not yet been considered by the editors of CIL VI, aimed to better understand Ferrarini’s epigraphic work in relation to that of other humanist compilers and to determine the particularities of his transmissions of metrical inscriptions within his progressively expanding text compilations.