442 Mele
Christendom: African; Hispanic (Visigothic then Mozarabic) and Gallican,
belonging to the Gallic liturgies; Insular (in the British Isles); Ambrosian,
Aquileian, and Beneventan in Italy; Roman (in the Carolingian period: Franco-
Roman).35 The Byzantine liturgy, of Jerusalemite and Antiochene origin, was
deeply rooted in southern Italy, as well as in Sardinia.36 Despite being politi-
cally dominated by Byzantium until the eleventh century, the island never lost
contact with the world of Latin liturgy.
4 Echoes of Latin Songs in Sardinia
The oldest dated manuscript in Visigothic minuscule, the Orationale Veronensis
LXXXIX,37 which contains numerous antiphons and circulated on the island
between 711 and 732, is among the rare documentation of the musical implica-
tions of the Latin liturgical presence in Sardinia during the Byzantine period.38
The Orationale belonged to Visigothic clergymen from Tarragona, who fled the
Iberian Peninsula after the Islamic invasion.39 The presence of the Orationale
in Cagliari is proven by an ownership note, which reads “Flavius Sergius, ‘bi-
cidominus’ of the holy church of Cagliari.”40 The texts of the Orationale pri-
marily relate to the Office, but some also concern the Mass.41 The antiphons
therein contained are among the most ancient handed down by the codes, but
the Orationale is not used in the monumental Corpus Antiphonalium Officii.42
Alongside the prayers contained in the codex, Gregori Sunyol and Higinio
35 Baroffio, “Liturgia,” pp. 740–744: “B. Le famiglie liturgiche occidentali.”
36 Ibid., p. 740.
37 Verona, Biblioteca Capitolare, cod. LXXXIX (olim 84), seventh/eighth century (before 711).
The code includes in the f.3r the “Veronese Riddle,” considered among the earliest attesta-
tion of the Italian vernacular. See José Vives, ed., Oracional Visigótico (Barcelona, 1946).
38 For a substantial bibliography on the code, see Giampaolo Mele, “Culto e liturgia in
Sardegna tra Grecìa e Romània: il codice LXXXIX ‘veronensis’ (‘Orazionale Visigotico’),”
in Poteri religiosi e istituzioni: il culto di San Costantino Imperatore tra Oriente e Occidente,
eds Francesco Sini and Pietro Paolo Onida (Turin, 2003), pp. 399–430.
39 Luigi Schiaparelli, “Note paleografiche. Sulla data e prove nienza del Cod. LXXXIX
della Bibl. Cap. di Verona (Orationalis Mozarabicus),” Archivio Storico Italiano 7:1 (1924),
pp. 107–117. The name “Mozarabic Orational” used by Schiaparelli is obviously replaced
with that of “Visigothic Orational.”
40 On the fol. 1r of cod. LXXXIX, see Mele, “Culto e liturgia in Sardegna,” pp. 413–414, n. 28.
41 Miquel dels Sants Gros i Pujol, “Les misses dels folis preliminars de l’Oracional Hispànic
de Verona,” Miscellània Litúrgica Catalana 1 (1978), pp. 53–68.
42 René Jean Hesbert, Corpus Antiphonalium Officii, 6 vols (Rome, 1963–1979).