Not much can be said about the commentator, whose writings were erroneously attributed until the beginning of the 19th century to the 1st century grammarian Asconius Pedianus. Some notations suggest a Christian education (as Gessner 1888, who compares the way of expressing the comments of ps. Asconius to Cicero with those of Servius to Virgil) and belonging to the school of Donatus (as Lammert 1912 from the similarities found with Girolamo, Donato's pupil).

It was Niebhur (Romische Geschichte 1827) who understood that the commentator could not have been Asconius Pedianus and the following year Madvig explored and discussed the suggestion, attributing the annotations to a much later commentator, who perhaps originally wrote his brief grammatical and rhetorical notes in the margin of a manuscript of Cicero's text, also making use of previous commentators. The notes would then have been unified with Asconius' comments in the ms. Sangallensis, now lost, who handed them down. [R. Tabacco]