This study attends to the so-called “auctores antiquissimi”, i.e. to those scholars whose works contain the oldest records of Roman inscriptions of Austria. The examination focuses on the oldest auctores - “antiquissimi” in the proper sense of the word - and therefore chronologically on the end of the 15th and the first third of the 16th century. The geographical focus is to be found in the province of Noricum, which covered a great part of today’s Austria and parts of Bavaria and Northern Slovenia.
After the examination of the two oldest (medieval) copies of Noric inscriptions and a glance at humanism in Italy and its corresponding spread in the area of the Eastern Alps the study focusses on the phase of the rising archeological research under emperor Maximilian I. One of the main tasks is to ask which humanists were not only interested in Roman inscriptions but copied their texts on the spot or collected such copies. The background for these issues is to be found in the question whether the so-called „Antiquus Austriacus“ - according to Theodor Mommsen the oldest collector of Noric inscriptions - is actually to be identified with Augustinus Prygl Tyfernus, a Slovenian humanist in Vienna, as supposed repeatedly.
The recent investigations of Augustinus’ collection, preserved in form of two manuscript copies, open the possibility of relating Johannes Fuchsmagen, imperial councillor to Maximilian I., with the origination of these transcripts. Additionally, it can be demonstrated that Fuchsmagen was apparently interested in the texts and originals of Roman inscriptions.
The examination of two hardly noticed manuscripts from the national libraries of Austria and of the Czech Republic leads to revealing results.
First it can be shown that the Viennese manuscript comprises (besides a now identified Italian collection) the register of the collection of Prague, then that this manuscript traces back to Fuchsmagen and therefore deserves to be regarded as “Fuchsmagen-Collection“.
Additionally, it is possible to provide a more precise assessment of the date of the parchment manuscript of Prague. Finally, this manuscript is the only one so far known containing all inscriptions of which Mommsen ascribed the oldest copy to the so-called „Antiquus Austriacus“, while at the same time including all those monuments which later supposedly became part of this anonymous collection. Therefore the “Antiquus-Austriacus-Collection“
can be examined more closely and compared with the collections of Peutinger, Choler and Apianus/Amantius. In connection with other results concerning Johannes Fuchsmagen the conclusion is inevitable that his activity as a collector must be concealed behind the expression “Antiquus Austriacus”. Furthermore, it can be proved that the Fuchsmagen- Collection was meant to be a preliminary work preparing a printed edition as it served as a main source for the publication of Apianus/Amantius (printed in 1534) for the Roman provinces of Austria.
