The Bobbio Scholiast was an anonymous scholiast working in the 7th century at the monastery of Bobbio

Bobbio Abbey

Bobbio Abbey is a monastery founded by Irish Saint Columbanus in 614, around which later grew up the town of Bobbio, in the province of Piacenza, Emilia-Romagna, Italy. It is dedicated to Saint Columbanus...

 and known for his annotations of texts from classical antiquity

Classical antiquity

Classical antiquity is a broad term for a long period of cultural history centered on the Mediterranean Sea, comprising the interlocking civilizations of ancient Greece and ancient Rome, collectively known as the Greco-Roman world...

. He is a unique source for some information about ancient Rome

Ancient Rome

Ancient Rome was a thriving civilization that grew on the Italian Peninsula as early as the 8th century BC. Located along the Mediterranean Sea and centered on the city of Rome, it expanded to one of the largest empires in the ancient world....

, particularly biographical data and certain details of historical events, and appears to have had access to sources now lost.

Although many commentaries

Commentary (philology)

In philology, a commentary is a line-by-line or even word-by-word explication usually attached to an edition of a text in the same or an accompanying volume. It may draw on methodologies of close reading and literary criticism, but its primary purpose is to elucidate the language of the text and...

 and scholia were produced at the monastery, which was famous for its literary culture and vast library, the label "Bobbio Scholiast" has attached itself mainly to the scholia on a selection of Cicero

Cicero

Marcus Tullius Cicero , was a Roman philosopher, statesman, lawyer, political theorist, and Roman constitutionalist. He came from a wealthy municipal family of the equestrian order, and is widely considered one of Rome's greatest orators and prose stylists.He introduced the Romans to the chief...

's speeches.

Editions

• Hildebrant, Paul. Scholia in Ciceronis orationes bobiensia. Leipzig 1907, Teubner edition reprinted 1971. Full text (1907) online.
• Stangl, Thomas.
  Thomas Stangl
  ----Thomas Stangl was a German classical scholar and text critic. He is found referenced most often for his edition of scholia to Cicero's speeches , especially for his work on Asconius and the Bobbio Scholiast....
  
  Ciceronis orationum scholiastae. Leipzig 1912, vol. 2.

External links

• Latin text of Scholia Bobiensia in HTML format
• English translation of excerpts from Scholia Bobiensia