Commentaria ad Rhetoricam Ciceronis

MS Codex 1629 fol. 1r

The text contained in MS Codex 1629 is a fourteenth-century commentary on the Commentaria ad Herrenium, the foundational ancient text for the study of Latin rhetoric. The Commentaria ad Herrenium describes the method for structuring an argument, three distinct styles of speech, as well as a number of rhetorical devices The Commentaria ad Herrenium was attributed to Cicero in the middle ages, but that attribution is no longer accepted. 

MS Codex 1629 contains signs of heavy use, including numerous marginal notes, extensive underlining, and frequent manicules pointing to significant passages. Several pages seem to have been copied on reused parchment and faint traces of text from legal documents can be seen. The reuse of legal documents for the treatise makes tangible the connection between the law and rhetoric that had existed since antiquity.

The ancient notion of rhetoric encapsulated in the Commentaria ad Herrenium focuses on rhetoric as a skill used for public speeches. Although this function for rhetoric continued, during the early middle ages rhetoric was increasingly taught as a skill used in writing letters. This new emphasis in the teaching of rhetoric is seen in LJS 101 with the inclusion of a model letter from a monk to his abbot.