Classics in Vivarium: the Survival and Transmission of Classics in the Early Middle Ages

The survival of classical books in the Early Middle Ages is a question never-entirely-answered that still tackles our attention. The distinctiveness of the classical works was fading at the time of the late antiquity, while Christianity was taking over the primacy and the throne over the society and the civilization. Vivarium was a unique foundation in terms of launching a program of Christian education, enhanced with secular studies. Cassiodorus provided his monks with an opulent library. This library in Vivarium was enriched by both Christian and classical works and was literally the only library enhanced with the classical authors at the time; other monastic schools of this kind rejected classical writers as well as classical education altogether. In the history of scholarship it was presumed that Cassiodorus was responsible for the transmission of the books to the posterity and that his role was crucial in this preservation. Still, Cassiodorus? aim was of a different kind. Having not been able to foresee the imminent devastation as well as the sharp edges between the two eras the way we see them today, he could not predict tendencies in neglecting classics.