Tacitus "Kis írásai"

"Minor Works

The three minor works of Tacitus - the Dialogus, the Agricola, and the Germania - were little known before the renaissance. However a number of manuscripts did survive at that time, and were copied. Unfortunately most of the originals were then lost, and the details are disputed. The monasteries were very reluctant to part with their treasures (even if they didn't look bother after them) and so the process whereby the MSS were 'liberated' is usually very unclear.

The sole survivor is the Codex Aesinas Latinus 8, which was discovered by Prof. Cesare Annibaldi in the private library of Count Aurelio Guglielmi Balleani of Iesi in the autumn of 1902. The MS was thought lost again, but in 1980 was in the hands of Count Balleschi-Balleani, the great-nephew of Count Aurelio Guglielmi Balleani of Iesi.5 It was on loan to the Biblioteca Nazionale in Florence, and was damaged in the flooding of the Arno in the 1960's. However in recent years it was sold to the Biblioteca Nazionale in Rome, where it is now Cod. Vitt. Em. 1631.11

The Aesinas contains Dictys Cretensis, Bellum Troianum, partly in the 15th century hand of Stefano Guarnieri; Agricola 13.1-40.2 in a hand from the second quarter IXth century, with the missing start and end added in Guarnieri's hand; and the Germania, entirely in Guarnieri's hand."