Note sulla «biblioteca longobarda» della cattedrale di Verona. A partire da Ver. VII (7), X (8), XLII (40), XLVI (44), LIII (51), LIX (57), LXI (59)

This essay investigates the formation and characteristics of the so-called “Lombard library” of the Cathedral of Verona between the seventh and eighth centuries, challenging traditional historiographical assumptions of cultural discontinuity and documentary scarcity during the Lombard period. Through a close palaeographical, codicological, and textual analysis of a coherent group of early medieval manuscripts preserved in the Biblioteca Capitolare of Verona, the study reconstructs a phase of intense intellectual activity situated between the late antique book world and the Carolingian renewal. The author adopts a methodological approach grounded in case studies, focusing on colophons, subscriptions, and material features that reveal changing notions of authorship, scribal identity, and the symbolic centrality of the book. Particular emphasis is placed on the transition from professional urban scribes to ecclesiastical copyists and on the growing dominance of the codex as a self-referential object of memory, devotion, and authority. By situating the Veronese evidence within the broader context of the Three Chapters controversy and the cultural networks of northern Italy, the essay argues for the existence of a locally rooted yet externally connected documentary environment. The “Lombard library” thus emerges not as a shadowy interlude, but as a structurally complex and intellectually productive phase in the longue durée history of medieval book culture.