of Palermo the liberation of three of his monks who had
been captured and enslaved. Around 980, fl eeing further
Arab incursions and his own growing fame, Nilus and
his comrades left the eastern empire for good and were
welcomed in the Latin west by the Lombard prince of
Capua, Pandulf Ironhead. At the behest of Pandulf’s
successor Landulf IV, Abbot Aligern of Monte Cassino
installed them in 981 at the abbey’s daughter house at
Vallelucio (now Valleluce), where they participated to a
limited extent in the life of the neighboring Benedictine
community. Here Nilus composed an offi ce for Saint
Benedict and probably some of his other poetry.
After Aligern’s death, relations between the two
groups soured, and in 994 and 995 Nilus founded a new
monastery at tiny Serperi (now Sèrapo) in the duchy of
Gaeta. From here he made journeys to Rome, where
he failed to persuade his fellow Rossanese, John Phila-
gathus, to renounce the papacy he had assumed in 997
after the ouster from the city of the imperially selected
incumbent, Gregory V; and where, too, after John had
been deposed and later blinded, Nilus attempted in an
interview with the emperor Otto III to have the former
antipope released to his custody. In 1004, the aged Nilus
left Serperi and, staying at a small Greek monastery in
the Alban hills not far from Rome, obtained land for a
new foundation from Gregory I, count of Tusculum.
Nilus died there shortly after his monks had arrived at
the nearby site and begun work on what would become
the famous Greek abbey of Grottaferrata.
Nilus’s surviving verse, all in his native Greek, is not
a large body of work. Specimens of his scribal work and
that of his students also survive, however. His correspon-
dence does not survive, apart from brief summaries and
extracts (mostly in the Life, a partly eyewitness account
sometimes ascribed to his companion and successor
Bartholomew of Grottaferrata). To Nilus himself has
been ascribed, on very slender grounds, the commentary
of Nilus the Monk on the Perí stáseon (On Issues) of
the ancient Greek rhetorician Hermogenes.
Further Reading
Editions
Gassisi, Sofronio, ed. Poesie di San Nilo Iuniore e di Paolo mo-
naco, abbati di Grottaferrata, nuova edizione con ritocchi
ed aggiunte. Innografi Italo-Greci, Fasc. 1. Rome: Tipografi a
Poliglotta della S. C. de Prop. Fide, 1906.
Giovanelli, Germano, ed. Bíos kaí politeia toû hosíou patròs
hemôn Neílou toû Néou. Grottaferrata: Badia di Grottafer-
rata, 1972. (Bartholomew, Saint, Abbot of Grottaferrata,
ascribed author.)
Translations
Giovanelli, Germano, trans. Vita di S. Nilo, fondatore e patrono di
Grottaferrata. Grottaferrata: Badia di Grottaferrata, 1966.
Romano, Roberto, trans. “S. Nilo di Rossano, Kondakion per S.
Nilo di Ancira.” Italoellenika, 5, 1994–1998, pp. 401–405.
Manuscripts
Caruso, Stefano. “Un tabù etico e fi lologico: La mutilazione
verecundiae gratia del Cryptensis B.b II (Bìos di Nilo da
Rossano).” PA N: Studi dell’ Istituto di fi lologia latina “Giusto
Monaco,” 15–16, 1998, pp. 169–193.
D’Oria, Filippo, “Attività scrittoria e cultura greca in ambito
longobardo (note e spunti di rifl essione).” In Scrittura e pro-
duzione documentaria nel Mezzogiorno longobardo: Atti del
convegno internazionale di studio (Badia di Cava, 3–5 ottobre
1990 ), ed. Giovanni Vitolo and Francesco Mottola. Cava dei
Tirreni: Badia di Cava, 1991, pp. 131–167. (See especially
pp. 135–144.)
Gassisi, Sofronio, “I manoscritti autografi di S. Nilo Iuniore,
fondatore del monastera di S. M. di Grottaferrata.” Oriens
Christianus, 4, 1904, pp. 308–370.
Critical Studies
Atti del Congresso Internazionale su s. Nilo di Rossano ( 28
settembre–1 ottobre 1986). Rossano and Grottaferrata: n.p.,
1989.
Follieri, Enrica. “Per una nuova edizione della Vita di san Nilo
da Rossano.” Bollettino della Badia Greca di Grottaferrata,
n.s., 51, 1997, pp. 71–92.
Luzzatti Laganà, Francesca. “Catechesi e spiritualità nella Vita di
S. Nilo di Rossano: Donne, ebrei e `santa follia.’ ” Quaderni
Storici, 93, 1996, pp. 709–737. (Year 31, number 3.)
Romano, Roberto. “Il commentario a Ermogne attribuito a S.
Nilo di Rossano.” Epeterìs Hetaireías Byzantinôn Spoudôn,
47, 1987–1989, pp. 253–269.
Rousseau, Olivier. “La visite de Nil de Rossano au Mont-Cas-
sin.” In La chiesa greca in Italia dall’VII al XVI secolo: Atti
del convegno storico interecclesiale (Bari, 30 apr.-4 magg.
1969 ), Vol. 3. Italia Sacra, 20–22. Padua: Antenore, 1973,
pp. 1111–1137.
Sansterre, Jean-Marie. “Les coryphées des apôtres, Rome et la
papauté dans les Vies des saints Nil et Barthélemy de Grot-
taferrata.” Byzantion, 55, 1985, pp. 516–543.
——. “Otton III et les saints ascètes de son temps.” Rivista di
Storia della Chiesa in Italia, 43, 1989, pp. 377–412. (See
especially pp. 390–396.)
——. “Saint Nil de Rossano et le monachisme latin.” Bollet-
tino della Badia Greca di Grottaferrata, n.s., 45, 1991, pp.
339–386.
John B. DillonNOTKER LABEO (ca. 950–1022)
Also known as Notker III and Notker Teutonicus (Not-
ker the German), Notker Labeo (the lip) was a St. Gall
monk and teacher best known for his Old High German
translation-commentaries of Latin classroom texts. In a
letter to Bishop Hugo of Sitten (ca. 1019–1020), Notker
refers to the vernacular translation project on which
he has embarked as something uncommon and revo-
lutionary and notes that it may even shock his reader.
He argues, however, that students can understand texts
in their mother tongue much more easily than in Latin.
Notker’s translation method adopts contemporary gloss-
ing practices (syntactical, morphological, and lexical)
and develops and integrates them into a continuous
Latin/German text. First Notker often rearranges the
word order of the original Latin into a variant of theNOTKER LABEO