the impact of the Quedlinburg Itala

The Septuagint plays an important role in the textual criticism of Samuel–Kings. There are important variants between the MT and the LXX and many scholars have argued that the Greek text preserves an older form of the text. However, using the Greek translation of Samuel–Kings has issues of its own, as there have been several revisions that affected many Greek witnesses. In recent years scholars of the Septuagint have been paying more attention to the texts of the Vetus Latina, the Old Latin translation, to overcome these issues. The Vetus Latina is important because it translates a Greek text that was, to a large extent, free from the inner Greek revisions. Some of the recent studies of the Vetus Latina have shown that the Greek Vorlage of the early Latin translations is much more complex than previously thought, most notably Gesche (2018). Several major witnesses have been the focus of recent studies, such as the Palimpsestus Vindobonensis (Tekoniemi 2021) or the quotations of Lucifer of Cagliari (Kauhanen 2018). These studies have shown that the Vetus Latina is a valuable resource when resolving some long-standing textual issues in Samuel–Kings. This paper proposes an analysis of one of the lesser known, but not less interesting, manuscripts of the Vetus Latina: the Quedlinburg Itala. The Quedlinburg Itala is the name given to the remaining 6 leaves of an early 5th century Italian manuscript that contained an old Latin translation of Samuel and Kings. Mostly known for their pictorial tradition, they have been little studied from a text critical point of view and can provide us with a unique view into the pluriformity of the Old Latin text. The six remaining leaves contain three leaves with fragments of Samuel (1 Sam 9:1–8; 15:10–18; 2 Sam 2:29–3:5) and three leaves with one large fragment of Kings (1 Kings 5:17–6:7). I will discuss the most important variants found in these fragments, especially those interesting for a diachronical study of Samuel-Kings. I will especially focus on several variants where Quedlinburg does not agree with the Vaticanus text, but does agree with both the Antiochean text and the MT. This runs contrary to what is normally observed in the non-kaige sections and thus will provide an interesting insight into the relationship between the Old Greek and the MT.