LIBER PONTIFICALIS. - It is the collection of the biographies of the bishops of Rome from St. Peter to Pius II. Martin of Opava was the first to attribute its authorship to Damasus (cf. Chronicon summonum pontificum imperatorumque ac de septem aetatibus mundi, up to 1247, Turin 1477), an attribution that is then found in some 15th-century manuscripts, which bear in the margin, or in the text of the biography of Martin V, the annotation: Liber iste intitulatur Damasus de gestis pontificum. Onofrio Panvinio in his Fastorum libri V a Romulo rege usque ad imperatorem Carolum V (Venice 1558) held that the biographies of the popes should be attributed to the following authors: to Damasus, the Lives from Peter to Liberius; to Anastasius the Librarian, from Damasus to Nicholas I; to William the Bi-
librarian, from Adrian II to Alexander II; to Pandulf of Pisa, from Gregory VII to Honorius II; to Martin of Opava, from Innocent II to Honorius IV; to Dietrich of Niem, from Honorius IV to Urban VI; to an unknown author, from Boniface IX to Martin V. The attribution to Anastasius the Librarian, although not supported by any manuscript, met with great favor.
I. EDITIONS
The first complete text of the L. P. was published by G. Buys from cod. Vat. lat. 3764: Anastasii S. R. E. bibliothecarii Historiae de vitis Romanorum pontificum a b. Petro apostolo usque ad Nicolaum I, nunquam hactenus typis excussae. Deinde vita Hadriani II et Stephani VI, auctore Guilelmo bibliothecario (Mainz 1602). The edition was appended by C. A. Fabrot to the Historia tripartita, in vol. 20 of the Louvre Byzantines (Paris 1648). Another edition, edited by Fr. Bianchini: Anastasii Bibliothecarii de vitis Romanorum pontificum a Petro apostolo ad Nicolaum I adiectis vitis Hadriani II et Stephani II auctore Guilelmo Bibliothecario (4 vols., Rome 1718-35, which extend as far as the whole of Paul I; the 5th vol. was not printed), in which, after Pope Silverius, the variants of the Farnese manuscript are used, today lost, but known to Lucas Holstenius and reproduced by E. Schelstrate. Bianchini's text, with some variants, passed into Pl. 127-28; and Muratori had already inserted it in his Rerum Italicarum Scriptores (III, 1, Milan 1723) with Bianchini's preface and the dissertations of E. Schelstrate (Antiquitas Ecclesiae illustrata, 1, Rome 1688) and of G. Ciampini. There followed the ed. of Giovanni Vignoli (3 vols., ibid. 1724-55), which extends as far as Stephen V.
But the truly critical edition is that of L. Duchesne, Le L. P., texte, introduction et commentaire (2 vols., Paris 1886-92), who availed himself of his preliminary work: Etude sur le L. P. (ibid. 1877), especially as regards the 125 manuscripts, which he collated there. The commentary illustrates historically and critically almost every sentence, turning to wonderful account the documentation offered by other literary and monumental sources.
On the initiative of H. Pertz, the MGH society, wishing to include the L. P. in its collection, had from as early as 1822 begun a series of studies, which appeared in the Archiv and Neues Archiv and elsewhere; for example, J. M. Watterich, Pontificum Romanorum, qui fuerunt inde ab exeunte saec. IX usque ad finem saec. XIII vitae ab aequalibus conscriptae (Leipzig 1862) and R. A. Lipsius, Chronologie der römischen Bischöfe (Kiel 1869). But it entrusted the task of the edition first to Pabst and then to Th. Mommsen, who began its publication in the series: Gesta pontificum Romanorum of the MGH: L. P., pars prior (1898). Preceded by a laborious introduction, but without commentary on the text, the volume extends as far as the whole life of Pope Constantine (708-12); the continuation, entrusted to W. Levison, has not yet been published.
In 1911 Fr. J. M. March discovered in the cathedral library of Tortosa and published a manuscript of the L. P., older, more complete and more correct than the Vat. lat. 3764, which contains the biographies of the popes down to Honorius II: L. P. prout exstat in codice manuscripto Dertusensi textum genuinum complectens hactenus ex parte editum Pandulphi scriptoris pontificii (Barcelona 1925).
Finally R. Valentini and G. Zucchetti, in the Codice topografico della città di Roma (II, Rome 1942, pp. 209-340) have reproduced from the L. P. the topographical notices relating to the city of Rome, down to Honorius II, omitting however the topographical indications of the donations attributed to Constantine inserted in the biography of Pope Sylvester.
II. DATE OF COMPOSITION
Duchesne placed the first compilation of the L. P. before 530, probably under Hormisdas (514-23). It is known only in the two compendia "Felician" and "Cononian," the first so called because it stops at Felix IV (526-30), the second because it reaches Conon (686-87). The complete revised text would be from the middle of the 6th century (L. Duchesne, Le L. P., I, p. LVII ff.).
Mommsen, on the other hand, emphasized the diversity of the two epitomes, indicating that they came from two different texts; he placed the date of a first recension in the first decades of the 7th century and of a second in the middle of that same century; he held that the author of the life of St. Peter had in mind the letter of Gregory the Great to the patriarch Eulogius, and saw a confirmation of his thesis in the silence of Gregory of Tours (538-94), of Isidore of Seville (d. 636) and in the attribution to Clement of the pre-Easter fast, an institution later than 604. In any case the date of composition is earlier than the end of the 7th century, to which the codex Neapolitanus IV, A, 8 belongs. Against Mommsen's thesis Duchesne replied with La nouvelle édition du L. P. (in Mélanges d'arch. et d'hist., 18 [1898], pp. 381-417).
III. SOURCES
Already in the 2nd century Hegesippus and Irenaeus had before their eyes a list of the bishops of Rome; shortly afterward Hippolytus inserted another one as well in his γεονυκῶν; in the 4th century the Chronographer of 354 contains the Liberian Catalogue, which stops at the election of Pope Liberius (352). The author, besides the Liberian Catalogue and the later ones, knew the De viris illustribus of St. Jerome, the Recognitiones Pseudo Clementinae, the Constitutum Silvestri, the Passio Marcelli, the Gesta Liberii, the Gesta Xysti (Sixtus III), the De purgatione; the pseudo Council of Sinuessa and the Passions of the Roman martyrs; hence the apocryphal notices, to which manifest historical errors are added.
Duchesne also examined many later catalogues and some of them, in particular in the article Serge III et Jean XI (in Mélanges d'arch. et d'hist., 33 [1913], pp. 25-55); in an appendix he then gave notice of the catalogue of Pomposa or Estense H. 4, 6, because it came from the Este Library, in Modena (ibid., pp. 56-64). It is interrupted at the life of Adrian I, but is completed by a catalogue down to the 9th year of Gregory VII (1082).
O. Holder-Egger published the catalogue contained in the Cassinese manuscript, unknown to Duchesne (Neues Archiv, 26 [1901], pp. 548-55); B. Albers that of ms. Vat. Urbinate 585 (Ein Papstkatalog des XI. Jahrhunderts, in Römische Quartalschrift, 15 [1901], pp. 103-14); B. Pesci illustrated the one that Sigeric, archbishop of Canterbury, brought to England in 990 and which went from John X to John XIV (L'istinerario romano di Sigerico arcivescovo di Canterbury e la lista dei papi da lui portata in Inghilterra, in Riv. di arch. crist., 13 [1936], pp. 43-60).
The anonymous author of the L. P. declares in his preface that he knew the Liber Canonum written by Dionysius the Little at the end of the 5th century. Among the sources Mommsen added the Chronica Italica for the lives of Liberius, Felix II and John I.
IV. CONTINUATIONS
After Felix IV, according to Duchesne the lives from Boniface II (530-32) up to the beginning of that of Silverius (536-37) are the work of one and the same person present at the Gothic siege (537-38), an enemy of Silverius and devoted to Dioscorus, the competitor of Boniface II. The lives from Vigilius to Benedict I (575-79) were composed in the time of Pelagius II, whose biography was written together with that of Gregory I, after 604; from Pelagius I to Boniface V (556-625) the lives are of homogeneous composition; after Honorius I (625-38) they were compiled by individuals; but from Adeodatus II to Conon (672-87), they become uniform again; the life of Gregory II (715-31) was drafted while the Pope was still living and Bella was able to make use of it; genuine narratives are those of Zachary, of Stephen II and III (741-757); brief is that of Paul I (757-67). The life of Adrian I (772-95) was drafted in a first stage down to the capture of Pavia (774); for the second part extensive use was made of the archives of the Lateran patriarchate, as regards donations, restorations of churches, deaconries, walls, aqueducts, agricultural colonies; in it are found notices of the Second Council of Nicaea and of the flooding of the Tiber in 791. The life of Leo III (795-816) too is composed with extracts from archival documents, to which are added the account of the revolt of 799, of the flight, of the Pope's return and of the coronation of Charlemagne. Very brief is the life of Eugene II (824-27) and incomplete that of Valentine (827). Of Sergius II (844-47) there are two recensions. That of Leo IV (847-55) is ordered chronologically, and with precious details differing in structure and style are the lives of Benedict III (855-58) and the first part of that of Nicholas I (858-67), in which Duchesne recognizes the hand of Anastasius the Librarian or of one of his circle. The life of Adrian II (867-72) stops at 870; those from John VIII (872-82) through all of Adrian III (885) are missing; the biography of Stephen V (885-91) halts at 886. The lives up to Gregory VII (1073-1085) are arid; then the known authors are the Roman cleric Pandulf (ca. 1137) and Peter William of St-Gilles (1142); Cardinal Bosone continues on the model of the ancient ones, down to Alexander III (1159-81); but the work remains interrupted by the death of the author; isolated biographies follow from Innocent III to Gregory X (1198-1276). The biographies of Boniface IX (1389-1404), Innocent VII (1404-1406) and Gregory XII (1406-15), inserted in Cod. Vallicelliano C. 79, come from a chronicle different from that used in the redaction of Cod. Vallicelliano C. 25, where different assessments are found concerning Urban VI (1378-89), Boniface IX (1389-1404), Eugene IV (1431-47) and Nicholas V (1447-55) down to the living Pius II (1458-64).
V. CONTENT AND VALUE
In the oldest part the content is in general uniform: the name of the pope, his homeland, his paternity, the duration of the pontificate in years, months and days, sometimes with the synchronism of the emperors or of the Gothic kings of Italy and the two extreme consular dates of the pontificate. Then the pope's decrees on discipline or liturgy, foundations and endowments of churches and historical events. Finally the list of the ordinations of priests and deacons for the churches of Rome and of the consecrations of bishops. Place and date of the pope's burial.
The notices, very brief at the beginning, begin to expand in the 4th century; but there are divergences regarding the order of the popes. Even the figures for ordinations in the ancient part are fictitious: the obituary dates, from Zephyrinus to Felix III, do not agree with those provided by other documents; accuracy begins only with Anastasius II (496-498). Even the vacancy of the See and its duration, in the L. P., does not correspond with the real one from Pontian to John I (514-23). Disciplinary and liturgical decrees in force at the time of the redaction are distributed without foundation among the lives of the early popes and must therefore be taken with reservation. Both the author of the first redaction and the anonymous continuators belonged to the lower clergy of the Lateran patriarchate, and their language is that of the common people of the time, as are the topographical indications, which, however, prove to be accurate.
Per il periodo seguente il valore storico è vario secondo i diversi autori.
Duchesne compares the importance of the L. P. for the historical literature of the Middle Ages with that of the papacy in the political world of that time. Despite its anachronisms, its gaps and its great imperfections, it remains and will always remain one of the principal documents of the history of the popes and above all of the history of Rome in the Middle Ages, of its monuments, of its internal crises, of its religious and political institutions (L. Duchesne, L. P., I, Paris 1886, preface).
VI. «L. P.» DI ALTRE CHIESE. - The L. P. had a great diffusion in the Carolingian era; at that time the principal churches and the most flourishing abbeys wished to possess a copy, indeed it served as the model for drawing up the Gesta episcoporum or abbatum. Thus other Churches, in imitation of those of Rome, had the lives of their bishops. Such are, for example, the Liber episcopalis of Auxerre (PL 138, 219), compiled under Bishop Wala (873-79), by the clerics Alanus and Rainogala together with the monk Henry; the Gundecarii L. P. Echitetensis (Eichstätt), written in 1171-1172 (in MGH, Scriptores, VII, pp. 239-53; PL 146, 985); the episcopal book of the Church of Le Mans: Actus Pontificum Cenomannis in urbe degentium, drawn up there in the 9th century, which runs from St. Julian to Alberic (32-57); the Liber episcopalis of the Church of Metz, drawn up in 784 by Paul the Deacon: but interesting only for the biographies of the holy bishops Clement, Autore, Arnulf and Chrodegang; the Liber episcopalis of Naples (v.), inspired by the Roman one and which stops at Anastasius I (872); the L. P. of Ravenna, drawn up ca. 1841 by Agnellus (v.); the Liber episcopalis Viennensis Ecclesiae, caused to be drawn up by Archbishop Leodegarius (Leger; 1030-70; ed. L. Duchesne, Fastes épiscopaux de l'ancienne Gaule, I, 2nd ed., Paris 1907, pp. 178-203).
BIBLI. Per le opere di L. Duchesne relative al L. P., v. DUCHENNE, L.-M.-O., I, II L. P. e gli studi ad esso ispirati; F. X. Glasschroder, Des Lucas Holstenius Sammlung von Papstleben, in Röm. Quartalschrift, 4 (1890), p. 125 seg.; id., Vitae aliquot pontificum sac. XV. ibid., 5 (1891), p. 178 seg.; id., Zur Quellenkunde der Papstgeschichte des XIV. Jahrh., in Hist. Jahrbuch, 11 (1890), p. 240 seg.; A. Harnack, Über die Ordinationen im Papstbuch, in Sitzungsber. der Abad. der Wissenschaft. zu Berlin, 1891, p. 761 seg.; Th. Mommsen, Ordo et spatia episcoporum Romanorum in L. P., in Neues Archiv, 21 (1894), p. 333 seg.; G. Waitz, Über die verschiedenen Texte des L. P., in Neues Archiv, 4 (1879), pp. 216-73; id., Über den sogenannten Catalogus Cononianus der Päpste, ibid., 9 (1884), p. 459; id., Über die italienischen Handschriften des L. P., ibid., 10 (1885), pp. 455-65; id., Über den sogenannten Catalogus Felicianus der Päpste, ibid., 11 (1886), pp. 217-99; T. G. Rosenfeld, Über die Composition des L. P. bis zu Constantin, Marburg 1896; H. Grisar, Il L. P. sino al sec. IX, in Anal. Romana, Roma 1899, pp. 1-25; W. Levison, Die Papstgeschichte des Pseudo-Liutprand und der Codex Farnesianus des L. P., in Neues Archiv, 36 (1911), pp. 417-38; E. Caspar, Die älteste römische Bischofsliste. Kritische Studien zum Formproblem des Eusebianischen Kanon sowie der ältesten Bischofslisten und ihrer Entstehung aus apostolischen Sukzessionreichen, Berlino 1926; M. Buchner, Zur Überlieferungsgeschichte des L. P. und seiner Verbreitung im Frankenreich um das IX. Jahrh., in Röm. Quartalschrift, 24 (1926), pp. 141-66; E. Caspar, Gesch. des Papsttums, II, Berlino 1933, pp. 314-20; R. Vieillard, Les titres romains et les deux éditions du L. P., in Riv. d'arch. crist., 5 (1928), pp. 89-103; J. M. Longkofler, Die Vorstufen zu den höheren Weißen nach dem L. P., in Zeitschrift für katholische Theologie, 61 (1942), pp. 1-19.