Reference edition:

Mythographi Vaticani I et II, cura et studio P. Kulcsar Turnhout 1987.

In 1831, Angelo Mai published the texts of three mythographers in the third volume of the Classici auctores e Vaticanis codicibus editi. These three texts later were known under the name Mythographi Vaticani [see the card for Mythographus Vaticanus I]. As he explains in the preface, Mai drew the first two mythographers from the manuscript Vat. Reg. lat. 1406, while for the third he used several codices: Vat. lat. 3413, Vat. Reg. lat. 1290, Vat. Pal. lat. 1726, and Vat. lat. 1960 (Mai 1831, pp. v-vi; Elliott-Elder 1947, p. 192).

In 1834, Georg H. Bode, a professor at the University of Göttingen, republished the text of the three Vatican mythographers, accompanied by a rich series of critical notes. However, he did not produce a new collation of the manuscript Reg. lat. 1406, or take into consideration any other witnesses to the collection; rather, he tried to fix the errors contained in Mai’s edition ope ingenii or ex fontibus (Bode 1834, Notae criticae pp. 3-4; Elliott-Elder 1947, pp. 202-203; Kulcsár 1987, pp. vi-xi; Zorzetti 1993). The first critical edition of Mythographus II is edited by Péter Kulcsár and published in the volume 91c of the Corpus Christianorum. Series Latina (Kulcsár 1987, pp. 92-295).

Like the Mythographus I, the Mythographus II is anonymous. Mai suggests an attribution to Lactantius Placidus (Mai 1831, pp. vii-ix), while the German philologist Max Manitius suggests Remigius of Auxerre (Manitius 1911, p. 511); more recently, scholars have left the question essentially open, only limiting it chronologically to the Carolingian or post-Carolingian era (Elliott-Elder 1947, p. 202; Zorzetti-Berlioz 1995, pp. xi-xii; Dain 2000, pp. 8-9; Pepin 2008, pp. 5-6; Basile 2013, p. 14). It is commonly accepted that the Mythographus II appeared later than the Mythographus I (Dain 2000, pp. 8-9).

The work opens with a paragraph on the fable and the origins of this literary genre. There follow 275 entries of various lengths. They address, first of all, classical mythology; several central themes can be identified, such as Apollo (28-34), Venus (40-46), Ceres (117-119) and Hercules (172-193). After this come facts concerning history, geography, and Greek and Roman culture (229-234, on some cities, islands, and promontories; 236-244, on some episodes of Roman history from the monarchy to the principate; 264-265, on Archilochus and Hipponax; 273, on Romulus and the Tarpean rock). In some cases, the myths are accompanied by explanationes and interpretationes (128-129, on Ixion; 135-136, on the Gorgons; 140-141, on King Midas).

The Mythographus II uses roughly the same sources as the Mythographus I: Servius’ commentary on Virgil, the works of Isidore, Fulgentius, and Hyginus, the Narrationes fabularum Ovidianarum, and the scholia on Horace, Statius, Lucan and Juvenal (Keseling 1908; Dain 2000, pp. 15-27). It is also very probable that the Mythographus I was among the sources of the Mythographus II (Keseling 1908, pp. 116-130). [G. Cattaneo, tr. di C. Belanger]