BEST, R.I. Intro. by. The Commentary on the Psalms with Glosses in Old-Irish preserved in the Ambrosian Library (MS. C 301 inf.). Collotype facsimile.

Dublin: Published by the Royal Irish Academy, 1936. Large folio. pp. viii, 39, 146 (plates), 14 (plates), plus erratum. Quarter black arlen blue papered boards. A fine copy.

This codex together with other precious Irish Manuscripts, including the Antiphonary of Bangor, passed to the Ambrosian Library from the monastery of Bobbio in the year 1606, as is recorded in an entry inserted by the first prefect of the Ambrosiana, Antonio Olgiato. The ancient library of the monastery founded by St. Columbanus in the year 608 having survived the vicissitudes of the middle ages, was in that year laid under contribution by Pope Paul V for the benefit of the Vatican Library and by Cardinal Borromeo for the Ambrosiana, then in course of formation. The final dispersal of the library took place in 1803, when by order of Napoleon‟s French Republican Government all that remained of the books and manuscripts, including „21 fragmens d‟antiques mss.‟, were sold by public auction. Some of these were acquired through the Abbate Amadeo Peyron for the University Library of Turin. The Psalter volume was ascribed to Jerome in an Inventory of the Library drawn up in 1461. However Domenico Vallarsi threw out the suggestion that the commentary was certainly not by Jerome, and might well be that of Columbanus. Vallarsi‟s conjecture was based on the statement of Jonas, the biographer of Columbanus, that the Saint in his youth had written a commentary on the Psalms, and that there was a marked similarity in the latinity to that of Columbanus; that the manuscript was the work of an Irish scribe, and came from Bobbio, and further, that in a ninth-century catalogue of the library of St. Gall such a work was actually recorded, viz. „Expositio sancti Columbani super omnes psalmos‟. The attribution of the commentary to Columbanus, so plausible on the face of it, was accepted without question by Peyron, Zeuss, Nigra, Ascoli, and others though rejected by Bruno Krusch, the editor of Jonas‟s life of the Saint.

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