Produzione e circolazione libraria dentro e fuori del regno: la formazione di una ‘biblioteca longobarda’

This essay addresses the long-debated problem of book production and circulation in Lombard Italy by examining the formation of a coherent manuscript milieu conventionally described as a “Lombard library.” Adopting a strictly palaeographical and codicological perspective, the study challenges historiographical narratives of cultural impoverishment in the centuries between the sixth and eighth, arguing instead for a structurally complex and materially rich documentary environment. The analysis is grounded in the exceptional case of the Cathedral Library of Verona, whose uninterrupted continuity of function and preservation makes it possible to observe the complementary dynamics of local manuscript production and external acquisitions across the transition from Late Antiquity to the early Middle Ages. Through close examination of colophons, subscriptions, scripts, mise en page, paratextual devices, and material features, the essay reconstructs the gradual shift from late antique professional scribes to ecclesiastical copyists and highlights changing conceptions of authorship, authority, and the book as an autonomous object of memory. Particular emphasis is placed on manuscript groups associated with the Three Chapters controversy, whose graphic coherence and doctrinal orientation support the hypothesis of a Veronese centre of production actively engaged in wider theological and political networks. By foregrounding material evidence over abstract models, the essay proposes the “Lombard library” not as a shadowy interlude, but as a decisive phase in the longue durée history of medieval book culture.