Heritage and Innovation in the Grammatical Analysis of Latin: The Ars Ambrosiana commentary (6th/7th century) on Donatus (ca. 350 A.D.)

The Ars Ambrosiana is an early medieval Latin grammatical commentary on Donatus’ Ars maior, written in Northern Italy in the 6th or 7th century A.D. In comparison with preceding grammatical commentaries, the Ars Ambrosiana displays a much more profound Christian-exegetical way of thinking. This study opens with an overview of the historical-cultural context of the grammatical commentary and of the general way of thinking of its anonymous author. The remainder of the article consists in an analysis of the, to some extent highly original, framework which the author uses for describing the Latin language, illustrated by a brief study of the terms agnitio (“recognition”) and nuntiatio (“[linguistic] form”), and their combinations with the adjectives specialis (“special”) and tota (“entire/whole”).