GENESI E TRASMISSIONE DI UN FALSO GREGORIANO NEL SECOLO IX: L'EP. IX, 148 / GENESIS AND TRANSMISSION OF A GREGORIAN FORGERY: THE EP.IX, 148

This contribution examines the genesis and the diffusion of an interpolated letter, the Ep. IX, 148, ascribed to Pope Gregory the Great. The forgery was realized in the environment of the papal Curia during the council that took place in Rom in 769. The letter had two different purposes: proving, by appealing to the authority of Gregory, the legitimacy of the images' veneration and the possibility to reintegrate in the primitive honor the priests guilty of some crime. In the following decades, the transmission of the manuscript of the forgery mainly occurs across the Alps, while the text of the letter – destined to converge into the corpus of the Pseudo-Isidorian decretals – is included both into the Penitentials of Hraban and in the controversy between the archbishop Hincmar of Reims and his nephew, the bishop of Laon.