ABSTRACT
Backtracking the codex beyond this speculation has proven difficult. It came into the ASV only in 1920-21 and was added to the very heterogeneous materials at the end of the fondo Segretaria di Stato, Inghilterra. 3 Possibly arranged by P. Savio and rebound as Inghilterra 31, it bears no indication of earlier collocations, nor is further information to be had in the ASV about its provenance. 4 According to BAY, Vat. lat. 9032, fos 184r-192v, fo. 190r-v, a catalogue by Costantino Ruggieri compiled at Benedict XIV's order, it or a very similar volume was no. XX XXVI of Giorgi's library. Fo. 2r bears the heading 'Ex Bibliotheca Eminentissimi Passionei', that is, Cardinal Domenico Passionei (1682-1761), cardinal librarian of the BAY as of 1738, whose own library was dispersed at his death. 5 The volume might have gone from Passionei to Giorgi's younger contemporary, the great prefect of the ASV
I was led to this codex by the somewhat misleading description in An tAthair Padraig Eric Mac Fhinn, 'Report on Vatican archives', Analecta hibernica, 16 (1946), pp. 278ff, p. 278. I am grateful to Margaret McGlyn for a rough translation of his Gaelic. 2 Mercati also added the incorrect death date for Giorgi of 10 August 1746.
