[11]: 262–263  Punctuation is rare (accents and breathings have been added by a later hand) except for some blank spaces, diaeresis on initial iotas and upsilons, abbreviations of the nomina sacra (abbreviations of certain words and names considered sacred in Christianity) and markings of OT citations.

[9] In Judges the text differs substantially from that of the majority of manuscripts, but agrees with the Old Latin, Sahidic version and Cyril of Alexandria.

"[2]: 335 The codex originally contained a virtually complete copy of the Greek Old Testament (known as the Septuagint / LXX), lacking only 1-4 Maccabees and the Prayer of Manasseh.

[16] The order of the Old Testament books in the codex is as follows: Genesis to 2 Chronicles as normal; 1 Esdras; 2 Esdras (Ezra–Nehemiah); the Psalms; Proverbs; Ecclesiastes; Song of Songs; Job; Wisdom; Ecclesiasticus; Esther; Judith; Tobit; the minor prophets from Hosea to Malachi (but in the order: Hosea, Amos, Micah, Joel, Obadiah, Jonah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Haggai, Zechariah, Malachi); Isaiah; Jeremiah; Baruch; Lamentations and the Epistle of Jeremiah; Ezekiel and Daniel.

[18][19] The text of the New Testament lacks several passages: Gospel of Matthew 27:49 The provenance and early history of the codex are uncertain;[2] Rome (Hort), southern Italy, Alexandria (Kenyon,[13]: 88 ), and Caesarea (T. C. Skeat; Burkitt[25]) have been suggested as possible origins.

Hort based his argument for Rome mainly on certain spellings of proper names, such as Ισακ and Ιστραηλ, which show a Western or Latin influence.

[26]: 264–267  Robinson cautiously suggests however, the system of chapter divisions was introduced into the Vulgate by Jerome himself, due to his studies at Caesarea.

[29] T. C. Skeat first argued that Codex Vaticanus was among the 50 Bibles that the Emperor Constantine I ordered Eusebius of Caesarea to produce.

[42][21]: 251–262 On page 1512, next to Hebrews 1:3, the text contains a marginal note, "Fool and knave, leave the old reading and do not change it!"

– "ἀμαθέστατε καὶ κακέ, ἄφες τὸν παλαιόν, μὴ μεταποίει" which may suggest unauthorised correcting was a recognized problem in scriptoriums.

[43] The manuscript is believed to have been housed in Caesarea in the 6th century, together with Codex Sinaiticus, as they have the same unique division of chapters in Acts.

[44][45][13]: 77 In the 16th century, Western scholars became aware of the manuscript as a consequence of the correspondence between Erasmus and the prefects of the Vatican Library, successively Paulus Bombasius, and Juan Ginés de Sepúlveda.

[n 3] Consequently, the Codex Vaticanus acquired the reputation of being an old Greek manuscript that agreed with the Vulgate rather than with the Textus Receptus.

[5] Giulio Bartolocci, librarian of the Vatican, produced a collation in 1669 which was not published; it was never used until a copy of it was found in the Royal Library at Paris by Scholz in 1819.

[48] A further collation was made by scholar Andrew Birch, who, in 1798, in Copenhagen, edited some textual variants of the Acts of the Apostles and the Epistles,[49] in 1800 for the Book of Revelation,[50] in 1801 for the Gospels.

[52] The reading Ισραηλ could be found in the codex 130, housed at the Vatican Library, under shelf number Vat.

[4] John Mill wrote in his Prolegomena (1707): "in Occidentalium gratiam a Latino scriba exaratum" (written by a Latin scribe for the western world).

According to him, this codex had no authority whatsoever (sed ut vel hoc constaret, Codicem nullus esse auctoris).

In the second (1796) edition of his Greek NT, Griesbach added Codex Vaticanus as a witness to the Alexandrian text in Mark, Luke, and John.

[56] In 1799, as a result of the Treaty of Tolentino, the manuscript was sent to Paris as a victory trophy for Napoleon, but in 1815 it was returned to the Vatican Library.

[58][11]: 165 Cardinal Angelo Mai prepared the first typographical facsimile edition between 1828 and 1838, which did not appear until 1857, three years after his death, and which was considered unsatisfactory.

[60] The number of errors was extraordinarily high, and also no attention was paid to distinguish readings of the first hand versus correctors.

[63] "They would not let me open it without searching my pockets, and depriving me of pen, ink, and paper; and at the same time two prelati kept me in constant conversation in Latin, and if I looked at a passage too long, they would snatch the book out of my hand".

During a large part of the 19th century, the authorities of the Vatican Library obstructed scholars who wished to study the codex in detail.

"[65] Scrivener in 1861 commented: "Codex Vaticanus 1209 is probably the oldest large vellum manuscript in existence, and is the glory of the great Vatican Library in Rome.

To these legitimate sources of deep interest must be added the almost romantic curiosity which has been excited by the jealous watchfulness of its official guardians, with whom an honest zeal for its safe preservation seems to have now degenerated into a species of capricious wilfulness, and who have shewn a strange incapacity for making themselves the proper use of a treasure they scarcely permit others more than to gaze upon".

[7]: 114  Burgon was a defender of the Traditional Text and for him Codex Vaticanus, as well as codices Sinaiticus and Bezae, were the most corrupt documents extant.

He received a special order from Cardinal Antonelli "per verificare", to verify passages, but this license was interpreted by the librarian to mean that he was to see the book, but not to use it.

[1]: 68 In 1999, the Istituto Poligrafico e Zecca dello Stato in Rome (the Italian State Printing House and Mint) published a limited edition, full-color, exact scale facsimile of Codex Vaticanus.

[2]: 26–30 According to the commonly accepted opinion of the textual critics, it is the most important witness of the text of the Gospels, in the Acts and Catholic epistles, with a stature equal to Codex Sinaiticus,[72] although in the Pauline epistles it includes Western readings and the value of the text is somewhat less than the Codex Sinaiticus.