Manoscritti prodotti per Exemplar e pecia conservati nelle Biblioteche Austriache

In medieval universities the pecia system worked as follows: a bookseller (stationarius) obtained a fair copy or exemplar of the work to be copied and sold. From this exemplar he made a copy-text of his own, which generally was divided into a number of equal units or pecie. Working from the manuscripts produced by this book trade, Jean Destrez, the pioneering scholar in this field, was able to deduce the mechanisms of stationer-production. He visited libraries in France, Italy and Great Britain, but not in Germany and Austria, compiling a list of more then 600 works diffuses by means of exemplar and pecia, discovering a total of 82 exemplaria and 1,800 manuscripts with indications of pecia. Modern research on the university authors of the thirteenth and fourteenth-century has vindicated the importance of Destrez`s work: the dissemination of texts by means of rented peciae is basic to a knowledge of medieval book production, to the editing of medieval texts and to the history of the diffusion of ideas in the Middle Ages. During my research in the Austrian libraries I discovered three exemplaria (preserved in Admont, Zwettl and Wien). Among these the exemplar of Zwettl with the Speculum iudiciale of Guillelmus Durante is of particular interest since it is the first original Bolognese exemplar to be discovered until now; (is was realised in the workshop of Arditio at the end of thirteenth century). Another 145 manuscripts that I have personnally discovered and described in this catalogue are pecia-copies, containing in large part texts of canon and Roman law (Decretum, Decretales, Digestum, etc.), but also philosophical, theological and medical works, including such fundamental Medieval authors as Albertus Magnus, Aristoteles, Alexander de Hales, Hugo de Santo Caro, Richardus de Mediavilla, Thomas Aquin and Galen. This is the result e of the visits that I have made to the libraries of Admont, Graz, Innsbruck, Klosterneuburg, Kremsmünster, Lilienfeld, Linz, Melk, Salzburg, Schägl, St. Florian, Vorau, Zwettl and Wien. Unfortunately I was not able to visit libraries like Heiligenkreuz since for religious reasons access in not permitted to woman. Time did not permit visits to some other libraries such as Klagenfurt and Altenburg.