Résumé :
The article reconstructs the history of Vat. Barb. gr. 57, a manuscript hitherto ne-
glected by scholars. It contains textual and exegetical notes by Johannes Kessel –
whose biography is provided because he is little known in the philological literature
– and by Lukas Holste on Jamblichus’ De vita Pythagorica and Protrepticus. To illu-
strate the work of these two intellectuals, several passages treated by them are discus-
sed, which are also useful in drawing information about Holste’s planned but never-
published edition of Jamblichus. The paper closes with two appendices: the first
identifies Par. gr. 1981 as the manuscriptus regius used by Holste, while the second
lists Kessel’s and Holste’s conjectures contained in Vat. Barb. gr. 57, all unpublished
except for the latter’s few that were already known from his thickly annotated copy
of the editio Arceriana.