Ricerc@Sapienza

The paper presents the history of the discovery of Codex Argenteus, the largest and most famous extant Gothic manuscript, found in the abbey of Werden in the mid-16th century. The first quotations and excerpts are surveyed, up to the editio princeps in 1665. The ideology of its early reception is then taken into consideration: Codex Argenteus played a central role in the Gothicism debate, i.e. the postulation of a special link of one’s own mother tongue, culture and ethnicity with Gothic heritage. Three aspects are chosen to exemplify the Gothicist attitude: the idea of the Gothic Bible as a historical precedent of the Reformist translations of the Sacred Scriptures into vernacular languages; the myth of linguistic similarity between Gothic and Low German dialects (the lack of the zweite Lautverschiebung is suggested to be the main reason); the semiotic significance of typography in the first printed renderings of the Gothic texts (an explanation for Vulcanius’ mention of “Belgian letters” is proposed).