Reference edition:

M. Annei Lucani, Commenta Bernensia, edidit H. Usener, Lipsiae 1869 (= Hildesheim 1967)

The edition of the Commenta Bernensia that was published by Usener determines the beginning of a modern and more reliable history of the scholia on Lucan’s poem (Esposito 2004: 11). The manuscript that contains its base is Codex Bernensis litt. 370 saec. X (C).  The editor also availed himself of Codex Bernensis litt. 45 saec. X (B), but chose not to publish a relevant part of the glosses and scholia of this testimony: he generally justifies the multiple omissions - signaled in the apparatus - by highlighting the ineptitude of the commentator, though well aware of the risks that he ran in selecting the transmitted text on the basis of a valuation of its content.

In the collection we find scholiographic material of differing types: there are brief scholia comprising an explanation through synonym or synonyms otherwise marked by the collocation id est or the adverb scilicet; annotations that illuminate a passage by clarifying its sense (introduced by hic sensus est, sensus, sensus hic est); those that furnish the ordo verborum (chiefly with the preparatory formula ordo); and those that explain suggestive words or phrases (for the most part through subauditur, subaudimus, and subaudis), rhetorical figures, or the logical function of a word; there is, on the other hand, a fairly consistent number of annotations of larger extent and complexity, with an ambition to exegesis (Esposito 2004: 26).

There are many scholia that refer to other auctores, among whom are Vergil (the one cited most in support of the exegesis), Terence, Ovid, Statius, Horace, Plautus, Lucretius, Ennius, Sallust, Cicero, and Livy, while others contain metatextual references.  Some entries are missing.

Preceding the scholia are Suetonius’ life of Lucan (Svetoni Vita Lucani) and the poet’s epitaph (Epitaphion Lucani).  The scholia on books 1-2, 5, and 9-10 of the Bellum Civile are preceded by a brief summary of their contents.  In particular, the synthesis of the second book is configured as a poem in hexameters attributed to Sidonius Suddiaconus, while versions in both prose and verse are supplied for liber quintus.  [B. Strona; tr. C. L. Caterine].