Allegorizzare le «Etymologiae»: l'irlandese Probo e gli estratti esegetici del codice Laon BM 447

During the first half of the 9th century, Isidor’s Etymologiae spread throughout the Carolingian Empire and enjoyed an extraordinary success. Appreciated in the monastic school for their encyclopaedic contents, they were modified, interpolated, reduced and glossed, according to the editors’ different needs. One of the most relevant examples of their Medieval fortune is the De rerum naturis, written by Rabanus Maurus between 842 and 845: in his work the abbot of Fulda filled the Isidor’s text with a huge amount of excerpta from the Church Fathers, creating a twenty-two-book encyclopaedia aimed at providing teachers with an exegetical textbook, useful for the understanding of the Bible. The same purpose moved the scribes who put a series of glosses along the margins of manuscript Laon, Bibliothèque Municipale, 447. The paper analyses this significant case-study: firstly, are concisely presented the information about the manuscript and are outlined the various layers of glosses that cover it, in order to inquire their origins and aims; secondly, are published the exegetical glosses and are also illustrated their sources and genesis; in conclusion, it is argued that this allegorical use of Etymologiae reflects the influence of Rabanus’s teaching.