Natura e storia del Giuseppe Flavio ambrosiano

New palaeographical, linguistic, historical and artistic facts concerning the papyrus codex Ambr. Cimelio 1 are presented. The codex appears to be the first self-standing copy, made by dictation, of the translation Cassiodorus fostered. It is therefore a pre-archetype of the text, which was published A.D. 553 at the latest; consequently the codex was written in Constantinople. It has never been bound, but the loose quires were kept in a luxurious box, whose cover was made, on both sides, of a consular diptych. Both codex and box were in the monastery of Saint Ambrose in Milan, where an insular monk in the second half of the ninth century read the text competently