AVELLANA, COLLECTION. - It is a collection, compiled by an unknown author in Rome in 553 or shortly thereafter, containing various documents from the years 367-553, above all pontifical letters (decretals) and imperial rescripts or constitutions, besides some other documents of lower ecclesiastical or lay authority. It is of great interest for ecclesiastical history and also, though to a lesser degree, for canon law, especially because the text of many — about 200 — of the documents contained in it is not found in other collections that have come down to us, nor is it otherwise known (it is probable that the compiler drew, besides on private sources and collections now lost, also directly on the pontifical archives); and furthermore because a large part of them constitutes a precious documentation on facts of great historical importance: such as, for example, the exile of Pope Liberius, the schism of Ursinus, the question of Celestius, the question of the Three Chapters. Also noteworthy are groups of letters of the popes Simplicius, Gelasius I and Hormisdas.
It is held that all the documents contained in this collection are authentic, with the exception of letters nos. 71-78, which present themselves as addressed to Bishop Peter of Antioch.
The collection has been preserved for us in eleven codices: two on parchment of the 11th century; the others on paper, of the 15th-17th centuries. The name of A. was given to this collection by the Ballerini brothers, who believed that the most authoritative codex was the one found in the monastery of S. Croce di Fonte Avellana (diocese of Gubbio): a parchment codex, perhaps of the first half of the 11th century (now cod. Vaticanus 4661). This opinion remained undisputed for a long time until William Meyer, and more recently Otto Günther, demonstrated instead that the oldest and most authoritative is cod. Vat. lat. 3787, probably of the beginning of the 11th century.
Many incomplete editions were made, the first of which in 1591 in Rome, edited by Cardinal Antonio D'Aquino (later completed by Baronio, in vols. IV-VII of his Annales); the only complete and critical one is that of O. Günther, in vol. XXXV of the Corpus scriptorum ecclesiasticorum latinorum (Vienna 1895-98).
Bibliography2 works
Pio Ciprotti