Ricerc@Sapienza

The paper presents the history of reception of the Codex Argenteus, from its discovery until the first printed edition in 1665, with a special reference to the Gothicism debate. Three aspects are taken into consideration: the idea of the Gothic Bible as a historical antecedent of the Protestant vernacular translations of the Bible; the myth of linguistic similarity between Gothic and Low German varieties, especially Frisian; and the ideology of the typographic rendering of the Gothic texts: an explanation for B. Vulcanius’ mention of “Belgian letters” is proposed.