GRAPHIA AUREAE URBIS. — From the sole manuscript that has transmitted it (Laurenziano LXXXIX, inf. 41, 13th century), it appears to be, rather than an organic work, a juxtaposition of texts differing in author and age.
In a first, historical section, there is an account of the fabulous origins of Rome, from the supposed arrival of Noah in Italy to the foundation of the Urbs: this framework, while indulging the tendencies of the age, is here partly justified by the divine preordination of the city chosen for hegemony over the world, first through an irresistible military power, and then through spiritual primacy. Against this background stands the text of the Mirabilia, with almost negligible updates; but with a more rational arrangement of the legendary material, logically brought closer to the moment around which it had clung like tenacious ivy. This new arrangement of the parts of the Mirabilia is the product of anonymous collaboration, intended to make the booklet ever more suitable for the purposes of a guide for visitors to the Urbs.
From this internal description one passes ex abrupto to a third section, consisting of a curious document, likewise lacking organic unity, which Schramm entitled Libellus de caerimoniis aulae imperatoris. It begins
with a reworking of an older list of seven judges, representatives of the imperial palace’s high bureaucracy. Gross errors of etymology are found on the part of a scholar with little knowledge of Greek, and only a fleeting reference to reality opens a glimpse into the chronology of the document: comes autem Caesariani Palatii dictator Tusculanensis est. A comes sacri Lateranensis Palatii was indeed an Alberico of Tusculum between 1026 and 1028, but, inadvertently, the text passes from the imperial palace to the Lateran patriarchium.
The ceremonial that follows in the document is marked by the same confusions and inconsistencies, which gives grounds for supposing that the author of the list was also the author of the ceremonial. In this, no place is assigned to the clergy, and the person of the emperor is closer to a Caesar or an Octavian than to a Constantine, in whose figure Old Testament, Christian, and Roman traditions seem to converge.
Even in the three formulas that conclude this strange document (the appointment of a patrician, a judge, and a citizen), the reflection of the Roman imperial idea is always immanent, in an atmosphere of believers in, or dupes of, the revival of a tradition that was still effective and operative if called back to life by a powerful personality. We are in the historical climate of the renovatio.