Abstract

The present article provides a full description of the little known 9 th century Nuremberg fragment of the “Historia Augusta” (Stadtbibliothek Fragm. lat. 7) as well as an extensive discussion of the work’s Carolingian manuscript tradition. It is demonstrated 1.) that the Nuremberg fragment most probably is a remnant of a volume from the former library of Murbach (= M) which was used by Erasmus and Froben for their edition of 1518, 2.) that M, the excerpts preserved in Vatican Pal. lat. 886 (= Π), and also Vatican Pal. lat. 899 (= P), our most important witness to the text, go back independently to a common exemplar, 3.) that Sedulius Scottus († ca. 875) culled the extracts preserved in his „Collectaneum miscellaneum“ from P, in which his typical excerption signs are still visible. Due to its close kinship to P, the Murbach copy did by no means contain a version of the “Historia Augusta” different from P or even more original than P, as has been variously claimed in recent years.