Il Liber monialium ed il Libro de l'antiquità di suor Orsola Formicini. Le Clarisse e la storia del venerabile monastero romano dei Santi Cosma e Damiano in Mica Aurea detto di San Cosimato in Trastevere

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The codices Varia 6 and Varia 5 in the Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale in Rome preserve the first and second edition respectively of the manuscript chronicle of the Roman monastery of SS. Cosma e Damiano in Mica Aurea, known later as S. Cosimato in Trastevere. Founded as a male Benedictine monastery (in the tenth century) and then entrusted to a female Franciscan community in the lifetime of Saint Clare (in the thirteenth century), it was the first Poor Clare nunnery established in Rome. The Chronicle, written by Abbess Orsola Formicini (from the late sixteenth to early seventeenth century) is also based on the study of documents from the Benedictine period, which she saved from destruction (Archivio di Stato di Roma, Fondo SS.Cosma e Damiano in Mica Aurea), and enjoyed a more ample diffusion, which was, however, often accompanied by criticism and misunderstandings. Retracing the compositional iter of the two manuscripts allows one to appreciate fully the value of their textual context, in terms of its narrative composition and historical testimony. From a codicological and palaeographic perspective these manuscripts constitute an interesting example of the production of monastic chronicles. In this case one has also to evaluate the illutrations of the two codices under examination, composed of small sacred images, cut out and glued to the pages, which represent an example of ‘holy pictures’ which is very rare for their number, antiquity, and common provenance.