The Renaissance Editions of Festus: Identifying Paulus Diaconus

Only through a protracted and challenging process at the end of the nineteenth-century was Paul the Deacon (Paulus Diaconus) correctly identified as the author of the abridged version of Festus’s De verborum significatione that was in circulation in medieval times. However, a group of French scholars had already reached this conclusion during the Renaissance. The purpose of this study is to reconstruct the cultural path followed by the antiquarians and philologists who were able to make this important discovery ante litteram: by examining the many Renaissance editions of Festus, the perception of Paul’s authorship emerges, revealing how scholars realised that the unidentified Paulus was in fact the Diaconus historian of the Goths and Lombards.Only through a protracted and challenging process at the end of the nineteenth-century was Paul the Deacon (Paulus Diaconus) correctly identified as the author of the abridged version of Festus's De verborum significatione that was in circulation in medieval times. However, a group of French scholars had already reached this conclusion during the Renaissance. The purpose of this study is to reconstruct the cultural path followed by the antiquarians and philologists who were able to make this important discovery ante litteram: by examining the many Renaissance editions of Festus, the perception of Paul's authorship emerges, revealing how scholars realised that the unidentified Paulus was in fact the Diaconus historian of the Goths and Lombards