The Manuscript Tradition of Seneca'sNatural Questions: Addenda

Abstract

Two new manuscripts have come to my attention since I made a study of the MS. tradition of Seneca'sNatural Questions. The first is Munich, Bayerische Staats-bibliothek, Clm 18961, part ii (foll. 25–46v), which I shall call Y, a late-ninth-century manuscript from Brittany or the lower Loire. It contains a short collection of theological and philosophical excerpts from a variety of authors, a collection emanating from the circle of Alcuin, probably from the generation after Alcuin himself. Included in the collection are three extracts from the preface of Book 1 of Seneca'sNatural Questions. Since the earliest surviving manuscripts of the Seneca work hitherto known are from the twelfth century, it is of considerable interest to see how the text of theNatural Questionsin these excerpts relates to the later MS. tradition.