Reference edition:

Marii Victorini Ars grammatica, introduzione, testo critico e commento a cura di I. Mariotti, Firenze 1967.

This treatise, a τέχνη γραμματική that is part of a long tradition of texts dealing with specific disciplinary fields, can be ascribed to the first half of the 4th century and has been handed down mainly from three miscellaneous codices from the Carolingian period, probably from a 5th-6th century oncial manuscript. They are as follows: Vaticanus Palatinus Latinus 1753 (A), membranaceous, 9th century, copied at the Benedictine monastery of St. Nazarius in Lorsch; later interventions by a corrector antiquus (A1) and a corrector recentior (A2) are recognisable in the manuscript. From this codex derives the princeps of ch. 4 by John Sicard (Basileae 1527); between this first editorial proof and the later Camerarius (1537) a folio was lost between f. 2 and f. 3. Then there is the Parisinus Latinus 7539 (B), membranous, 9th century, copied at the Benedictine monastery of Corbie; on this codex is based the edition by Th. Gaisford (Oxonii 1837); from the latter edition Keil drew for GL 6. Finally, the Valentianus 395 ol. M. 6. 10 (V), membranaceous, 9th century, copied at the monastery of Saint-Amande-les-Eaux, apograph of A, of which it completes a lacuna and offers the original text where it is corrected by A2, having been copied after A1, but before A2. These important ancient witnesses are joined by five humanist codices: Vatic. Lat. 1493 (c); Vatic. Lat. 2725 (y); Vatic. Lat. 2930 (p); Vatic. Urb. Lat. 452 ol. 898 (u); Bariensis (k). In the manuscript tradition, the Ars of Victor Victorinus is abruptly interrupted (cf. GLK 6, p. 31, 17) due to the evident dropping into the archetype of a presumably significant portion of the text, which probably contained - after the chapters de voce, de litteris, de orthographia and de syllabis - a section de partibus orationis, with the continuation of virtutes et vitia orationis. Still following in the archetype, which was miscellaneous in nature, was the initial part of a treatise de metris in four books erroneously assigned to Marius Victorinus, and now definitively attributed to Aelius Festus Aphthonius.

The part of the work that has remained to us consists of an introduction focusing on the ars grammatica (chapter 1), followed by four sections offering notions of phonetics and investigating the sound-writing relationship. Chapter 2 de voce opens with a definition of the subject (vox est aer ictus auditu percipibilis, quantum in ipso est) and expansions of this concept; chapter 3 de litteris provides a concise description (littera est vox simplex una figura notabilis) and then presents an elementary treatment of the subject, followed by a more extensive reasoned recovery of the notions. The chapter de orthographia opens with a colloquial formula that denounces its intended use, namely classrooms with schoolchildren: nunc, quoniam res admonuit, non absurdum videtur de orthographia paucis scribere vel analogia; therein are catalogued, according to a progression that sometimes risks being desultory, a series of errors to be avoided in writing, especially in the field of emendatio and distinctio; the entire section, therefore, could be considered in the same way as a harvest of notes intended for lessons. The last portion of the text that has come down to us contains the treatise de syllabis. [D. De Rienzo]