Reference edition:

Ciceronis Orationum Scholiastae. Asconius, Scholia Bobiensia etc., recensuit Th. Stangl, Hildesheim 1964, pp. 269-273 (Reprografischer Nachdruck der Ausgabe Wien 1912).

The oldest surviving manuscript that preserves - in order - the corpus of Cicero’s Catilinarians; the Pro Marcello, Pro Ligario, and Pro rege Deiotaro; and the Verrines is ms. London, British Library, Add. 47678 (C), olim Holkhamicus 387. Composed at Tours in a Carolingian minuscule in the first half of the 9^th c., it was subsequently held by the Abbey of Cluny, where it bore the shelfmark 498 in a catalogue dating to the middle of the 12^th c. (Reynolds 1983: 61-2; see also Munk Olsen 1982: 207-8).  The manuscript, seriously damaged, preserves a series of glosses, as well as marginal and interlinear scholia, in certain parts of the Catilinarians (viz. 1.33; 2.1-2, 4-5; 3.15, 24; 4.1, 4, 9-10), Marc. (9, 13, 17, 20, 31), Lig. (12, 21, 24, 37), Deiot. (1-2, 8, 12, 19, 25-6, 29), and Verr. 2.2.1-5, 8; its history is explained by Peterson, Collations from the Codex Cluniacensis, 1901.  Editors identify C as head of the ‘a’ family of manuscripts of the Catilinarians, two members of which are considered direct descendants of it through a lost intermediary: 1) Leiden, Bibliotheek der Rijksuniversiteit, Voss. Lat. O.2, Part 2 (V), written in France in the 10^th c.; and 2) Milan, Biblioteca Ambrosiana, Ambrosianus C 29 inf. (A, on which see Baiter 1863), written in France between the 10^th and 11^th c.  A preserves a few marginal notes on the 4^th Catilinarian and the three “Caesarian” orations (Marc., Lig., Deiot.) that find exact correspondences in C.  The scholia of A were published by Angelo Mai in 1828 (Auctores classici e Vaticanis codicibus editi.  Vol. 2.  Rome: 269-76) and by Orelli in 1833 (M. Tullii Ciceronis Opera quae supersunt omnia ac deperditorum fragmenta.  Vol. 5.2.  Zurich: 370-3); in 1901, Peterson combined these (with some corrections) with the notes contained in C, paving the way for the Thomas Stangl’s definitive 1912 edition entitled Scholia Cluniacensia et recentiora Ambrosiana.

The Scholia Cluniacensia et Ambrosiana, marginal glosses of uneven length, provide little information about the transmission or recension of Cicero’s speeches in late antiquity.  Most of the notes are linguistic in nature (e.g. Statorem] Confirmatorem: Cat 1.33 = p. 269, 2 St.; Periculo ] Experimento: Deiot. 2 = p. 272, 13 St.) or give fuller explanations of rhetorical and prosopographical references.  The only observation of some use for Cicero’s textual transmission is the discussion of the reading praetexta calumnia at Cat. 2.4 (Quem amare in praetexta calumnia coeperat = p. 269, 21 St.).  Praetexta calumnia is the reading preserved by the vast majority of medieval testimonia (and also present in the 4^th-5^th c. Barcelona papyrus edited by R. Roca Puig in 1977), but the scholiast mentions the reading praetextata calumnia, a variant whose origin can be traced in the exegetical tradition (the scholium claims: praetextatam aliqui legunt calumniam, non praetextam).  Following Lambinus, modern editors have correctly identified calumnia as a gloss or a marginal annotation resulting from the resolution of the abbreviation K (cf. Velius Longus GL 7.53.6 = 21.7 Di Napoli: Et qui ‘k’ expellunt, notam dicunt esse magis quam litteram, qua significamus ‘kalumniam,’ ‘kaput,’ ‘kalendas;’ cf. also Scaur. 15, 11-14).  This will have been placed in the margin of the manuscript to indicate Cicero’s tone (mocking the effeminacy of the Catilinarian conspirators who remained in the city), but was later imported into the text, presumably at a very early phase of transmission.  [G. La Bua; tr. C. L. Caterine].