Premessa

The preface reconstructs the intellectual, scholarly, and editorial genesis of the study devoted to Manuscript 338 of the Biblioteca Comunale preserved at the Sacro Convento in Assisi, tracing its origins back to a lecture delivered in 2014 and its subsequent development through successive phases of revision and expansion. It situates the present work within the broader framework of renewed Franciscan studies and the commemorative initiatives connected with the eighth centenary of Francis of Assisi, while clarifying the relationship between earlier facsimile reproductions and the current, substantially updated edition. The authors outline the methodological choices that guided the reworking of the original contribution, including the integration of new palaeographical evidence and a refined analysis of the hands responsible for copying the sections containing the Canticle of the Creatures. Emphasis is placed on the manuscript’s composite and stratified nature, as well as on its value as a primary witness to the earliest transmission of Franciscan texts. The preface thus frames the volume as the outcome of long-term research and collaboration, presenting it as both a critical reassessment of previous scholarship and a significant step forward in the material and historical understanding of one of the most important Franciscan codices.