The parchment codex Strasbourg, Seminarbibl., Cod. C. V. 16.6. 4° (first two decades of the 13th century) that preserved the Straßburger Alexander was unfortunately
destroyed in a fire in 1870, during the Franco-Prussian war. Thanks to some early editors, we have access to the texts that were handed down in the manuscript, namely
two Middle-High-German devotional poems, preceding the Alexanderlied, and an incomplete hagiographic version of the life of Pilatus, following it. It is the longest
redaction of the poem on Alexander and recounts the whole biography of the Macedonian king, with his Indian campaigns, up until his failed attempt at conquering Earthly
Paradise, his conversion and death.
An idea of how the manuscript looked like is provided by Schreiber’s 1828 lithography, while other important paleographic and codicological information can be found in
a copy of Massmann’s 1828 edition which was annotated by Franz Roth after a collation with the manuscript. This annotated copy is now housed in Strasbourg at the
Bibliothèque nationale et universitaire under the signature Ms. 2.379 and is used in the digital edition instead of the manuscript facsimile. S’s digital edition is now
in its Beta version and consists of a normalized text and the copy annotated by Roth. A future release will showcase the critical edition, some additions, such as lists
of named entities, hotspots that help deciphering the most important notes by Roth, and an apparatus of critical notes.
The interpretative transcription of S was performed by the PI and main editor Prof. Maria Adele Cipolla, with the assistance of Drr. Giulia D’Agostino and Lorenzo Ferroni
(University of Verona).
Here you can access the edition: https://dh.dlls.univr.it/dse/dal-s/.
S – Straßburger Alexander
