Medieval Latin

in collaborazione con la BIBLIOTECA AMBROSIANA volumi della collana sono stampati con il finanziamento del Ministero per i Beni e le Attività Culturali IACOPO DA VARAllE Legenda aurea con le miniature del codice Ambrosiano C 240 mf. a cura di 384 LI De passione Domini La Passione del Signore 402 DE TEMPORE RECONCILIATIONIS IL TEMPO DELLA RICONCILIAZIONE 402 Claudio Leonardi Firenze, 18 ottobre 2007, festa di 5. Luca I. Sulla biografia dell'autore della Legenda aurea, cfr. la sintesi esaustiva di Carla Casagrande, v. Iacopo da Varazze, in Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani, Roma 2004. 2. Sulla modalità di composizione del leggendario, cfr. G. P. Maggioni, Ricerche sulla composizione e sulla trasmissione della "Legenda aurea", Spoleto, Centro Italiano di Studi sull'Alto Medioevo 1995 (Biblioteca di Medioevo Latino 8), pp. 61o. XVIII INTRODUZIONE INTRODUZIONE XIX

The Chronograph of 354 has been held in high estimation since the beginning of the ninth century. Its illustrations, calendar, consular fasti, Easter table, and lists of urban prefects, bishops of Rome, and martyrs makes it not only a useful and beautiful text but one particularly evocative of the time and place of its creation. In spite of the major studies of this work that have been undertaken since 1850 its history from its creation in Rome in the last months of 353 down to the copying of the surviving manuscripts is still only incompletely understood. The results of modern analysis have left incomplete, contradictory, and often tralatitious conclusions that are in need of a reevaluation from fi rst principles, which is presented here. This reevaluation not only clarifi es the historical journey of this text through 1,600 years, but also establishes which texts were, and were not, part of the original compilation in 353.

Scrutinizes a short Latin poem written in the first quarter of the eleventh century, and refutes Alan Dundes's dismissal of literary evidence and to underscore the pertinence of studying medieval literature in coming to grips with that beautiful and elusive phenomenon to which English-speakers give the name `fairy tale.' Egbert of Liege's `De puella a lupellis seruata'; The medieval background of `Little Red Riding Hood.'

Antologia e commento di Giovanni Paolo Maggioni. Traduzione italiana coordinata da Francesco Stella.
La Legenda aurea di Iacopo da Varazze è una delle opere agiografiche più rilevanti della cultura medievale e l'immensa fortuna di cui ha goduto nel corso dei secoli deriva anche dalla sua importanza storica, antropologica, iconografica. L'edizione critica di Giovanni Paolo Maggioni si è imposta come uno degli studi più completi ed è diventata un punto di riferimento per gli studiosi. La SISMEL o Edizioni del Galluzzo intende ora mettere a disposizione il testo in italiano (con la traduzione coordinata da Francesco Stella) in formato elettronico organizzandolo in una serie di raccolte antologiche di sicuro interesse. Le figure dei grandi santi che vengono presentate qui sono un po' diverse rispetto agli schemi propri delle figure agiografiche che costituiscono l'argomento della maggior parte dei capitoli della Legenda aurea anche perché, per queste grandi figure della santità in Occidente, è stata invece la vicenda biografica a segnarne l'incardinamento nella storia della Chiesa e il culto che ne è conseguito. Alla radice di queste leggende vi sono dunque delle esistenze reali, raccontate e interpretate da biografi e agiografi. I santi inclusi in questa raccolta sono: San Martino, Sant'Ambrogio, Sant'Agostino, San Girolamo, San Benedetto, San Gregorio, San Remigio e la sua traslazione, San Tommaso di Canterbury, San Francesco, San Domenico, Santa Elisabetta, San Pietro Martire.

Organized with the assistance of an international advisory committee of medievalists from several disciplines, Medieval Latin: An Introduction and Bibliographical Guide is a new standard guide to the Latin language and literature of the period from c. A.D. 200 to 1500. It promises to be indispensable as a handbook in university courses in Medieval Latin and as a point of departure for the study of Latin texts and documents in any of the fields of medieval studies.

Comprehensive in scope, the guide provides introductions to, and bibliographic orientations in, all the main areas of Medieval Latin language, literature, and scholarship. Part One consists of an introduction and sizable listing of general print and electronic reference and research tools. Part Two focuses on issues of language, with introductions to such topics as Biblical and Christian Latin, and Medieval Latin pronunciation, orthography, morphology and syntax, word formation and lexicography, metrics, prose styles, and so on. There are chapters on the Latin used in administration, law, music, commerce, the liturgy, theology and philosophy, science and technology, and daily life. Part Three offers a systematic overview of Medieval Latin literature, with introductions to a wide range of genres and to translations from and into Latin. Each chapter concludes with a bibliography of fundamental works--texts, lexica, studies, and research aids.

This guide satisfies a long-standing need for a reference tool in English that focuses on medieval latinity in all its specialized aspects. It will be welcomed by students, teachers, professional latinists, medievalists, humanists, and general readers interested in the role of Latin as the learned lingua franca of western Europe. It may also prove valuable to reference librarians assembling collections concerned with Latin authors and texts of the postclassical period.

The article discusses the cultures of authority during the long 12th century. The author defines the long 12th century as one that extends from after the Great Schism of 1054 to the Fourth Lateran Council in 1215. The author mentions "auctoritas," which means "authority" as a word that belongs to the lasting coinage of Latin language. The term is paired with other words such as "potestas" and "imperium" during the old times until the Middle Ages.

Practically every text produced in medieval Italy (one might say: in Western Europe) supposes an ongoing dialogue between two languages. Latin texts like charters, chronicles, hagiographical treatises, etc., all derive from vernacular narrations and statements; vernacular texts, on the other hand, are heavily conditioned by the fact that teaching of literacy was carried out in Latin. The vernacular elements in early medieval Tuscan charters fall into different categories: proper names necessary from a legal point of view (and often transparent as to their meaning), usually introduced by a formula like "ubi dicitur/qui dicitur"; vulgarisms used alongside correct Latin terms, specifying and precising the meaning of these; common vernacular terms, declined and used in a Latin context (this is probably the stylistic level intended by the well known expression "Latinum circa romançum"). Distinction must be made between synchronic vulgarisms and vernacular terms already incorporated into medieval Latin (e.g. "guerra", "treugua"), which ought to be considered separately by lexicographers.

The Latin quotation in the title of this article is taken from the Admonitio generalis, a key document of Charlemagne's reforms circulated in 789. In a well-known passage, to which the title refers, Charlemagne calls for the establishment of schools and adds a set of subjects that might be interpreted as the school curriculum. The whole passage has caused quite a few problems for scholars on account of its seemingly corrupt grammar and ambiguous vocabulary. In this article, I revisit the term 'nota' and provide some new insights in how it should be understood. I argue that the graphic symbols meant by this term include manuscript abbreviations, shorthand as well as technical signs, such as the critical signs to be found in Carolingian pandect Bibles.

From the tenth through the twelfth centuries some manuscripts containing Virgil's poems contain the musical notation known as neumes. Thereafter such notation of Virgil apparently ceases for centuries. The neumes (and singing) may have fallen by the wayside as new practices developed of singing Latin rhythmic poems or vernacular songs based on Virgil, rather than excerpts from Virgil's own quantitative poetry. In prefaces to the Paraclete Hymnbook Peter Abelard quotes observations by Heloise on the need for a more regular syllable count than in quantitative hymns. Virgilian reception and musical notation may have evolved together away from quantitative Latin.

""In the language of most superior jurisdictions in the end of the Middle Ages, the concept of enormitas included the most serious breaches of the legitimate order. It is suggested here that this concept was created during the 12th century in the practice of papal government and ecclesiastical reform. First, around 1130-1150, an « enormity » refered to a simple canonical irregularity without indicating any level of seriousness. From 1150-1160 on, the meaning changed. « Enormity » started to denote a blend of breach of rules or law, sin or stain and potentially radical subversion of the christian order. Although it remained typical of the ecclesiastical sphere, this new concept quickly spread broadly in the secular world, with a sense that was very similar to that of roman « atrocity » but had specific features. The enormitas of the 13th and 14th centuries was structurally unstable and protean. The perimeter of its field as a legal definition was variable, just as were its procedural implications. In many cases, the concept tended to embrace the whole criminal sphere (or « grand criminel », as it was called in France). Its use developed in concomitance with the rise of inquisitorial or « extraordinary » procedures, which were defined by an unprecedented expansion of the arbitrium judicis and therefore by situations of more or less generalized exceptionality with regard to traditional rules. While contributing to delimit the criminal sphere, enormitas thus created a continuum between the restricted field of crime of lese-majesty and that of ordinary crimes.


Dans le langage de la plupart des juridictions supérieures d’Occident à la fin du Moyen Âge, la catégorie de l’enormitas recouvrait les plus graves atteintes à l’ordre légitime. On montre ici que cette catégorie a été élaborée au XIIe siècle dans la pratique du gouvernement pontifical et de la réforme ecclésiastique. En premier lieu, dans les années 1130-1150, une « énormité » désigna une simple irrégularité canonique, sans référence à un quelconque degré de gravité. À partir des années 1150-1160, le contenu de la notion évolua. Elle commença à qualifier – et qualifia dès lors jusqu’à la fin du Moyen Âge et bien au-delà – un mixte d’infraction aux règles ou à la loi, de péché ou souillure et de subversion potentiellement radicale de l’ordre chrétien. Même si elle resta typique de la sphère ecclésiastique, cette nouvelle catégorie connut rapidement une vaste diffusion au sein du monde séculier, dans des acceptions qui présentaient de fortes similitudes avec la notion romaine d’atrocitas, mais aussi des caractéristiques spécifiques. L’enormitas des XIIIe-XIVe siècles était une notion structurellement instable, protéiforme. Le périmètre de son champ d’application comme qualification juridique, tout comme ses implications procédurales, demeuraient variables. Dans de nombreux contextes, la catégorie tendait à embrasser l’ensemble de la sphère criminelle (ou du « grand criminel »). Son usage se développa en concomitance avec l’apparition de procédures inquisitoires ou « extraordinaires » caractérisées par une dilatation sans précédent de l’arbitrium judicis et donc par des situations d’exceptionnalité plus ou moins généralisée eu égard aux règles de droit traditionnelles. Tout en contribuant à délimiter le champ du pénal, l’enormitas ménageait donc un continuum entre la sphère restreinte des crimes de lèse-majesté et celle des crimes ordinaires.""

A cura di Laura Andreani e Agostino Paravicini Bagliani.
Nei giorni 10-12 novembre 2016, l’Opera del Duomo di Orvieto in collaborazione con la SISMEL ha riunito studiosi di teologia e antropologia politica per approfondire il tema del rapporto tra Cristo e il potere, che è al centro della teologia politica medievale e moderna, almeno dagli studi di Ernst H. Kantorowicz sulle Laudes regiae in poi. Il convegno ha messo a confronto le modalità – concettuali, metaforiche, rituali, oltre che politiche e istituzionali – che hanno indotto le varie sovranità medievali a porsi in riferimento a Cristo, «Re dei re e Signore dei signori» (Ap 19, 16). Per comprendere le varie strategie fondate su questa complessa cristomimesi, partendo da studi che possono essere considerati come rappresentativi, un’attenzione particolare è stata rivolta alle sovranità universali (Bisanzio, Impero, Papato), ad alcune sovranità regali (Sicilia, Francia, Inghilterra, Napoli, Portogallo, Castiglia), alle corti ducali della Borgogna e di Casa Savoia, oltre che ad aspetti storico-artistici legati a vicende culturali e politiche della cattedrale orvietana.
From the 10th to 12th November 2016, the Opera of the Duomo of Orvieto together with the SISMEL has gathered high-level scholars of theology and political anthropology to deepen the topics about the relationship between Christ and power, which is at the center of medieval and modern political theology, at least starting from the
studies of Ernst H. Kantorowicz on Laudes regiae forwards. The meeting has compared the modes – conceptual, metaphorical, ritual, as well as political and institutional – that have induced the various medieval sovereignties to refer to Christ «King of the kings and Lord of lords» (Ap 19, 16). To undertake the various strategies based on this complex Christomimesis, starting with studies that can be considered representative, special attention has been given to universal sovereignties (Byzantium, Empire, Papacy), to some kingdoms (Sicily, France, England, Naples, Portugal, Castile), to the ducal courts of Burgundy and Savoy, as well as to historical-artistic aspects linked with cultural and political events of the Orvietan cathedral.

Edizione critica a cura di Annalia Marchisio.
La narrazione del viaggio in Asia intrapreso nella prima metà del Trecento dal francescano Odorico da Pordenone, e conosciuta con il convenzionale titolo di «Relatio de mirabilibus orientalium Tatarorum», è una delle prime descrizioni dell’Estremo Oriente medievale. Scritta nel 1330, l’opera conobbe un immediato successo in tutta Europa, testimoniato dagli oltre cento manoscritti conservati in latino, italiano, francese, tedesco, castigliano e gallese. Il volume contiene la prima edizione critica del testo latino basata sull’analisi dell’intera tradizione manoscritta, e la ricostruzione della complessa storia del testo, che vede la presenza di un archetipo della tradizione sottoposto a diverse campagne di modifica e di numerose redazioni, anche molto diverse tra loro.

Life-Writing The academic study of charisma has long been where Max Weber put it: in the areas of religious experience, political leadership, and social interaction. Looming behind these domains, where living people embody charisma and influence admirers in a variety of ways, is a very broad realm in which neither Weber nor the sociologists, historians, psychologists who followed him had any interest: art and literature. These exercise charismatic effects no less than human beings; in fact one of the reasons why art and literature exist is to give fascinating people an earthly afterlife.1 One topic of many in this area of interest in medieval studies is charismatic effects in the saint's life. The literary/hagiographic form responds to and inter­ acts in a wide variety of ways with the actual effect of the personal presence of the living saint. To see that interaction at its most critical, we must imagine the crisis within a religious movement upon the death of a charismatic leader. If the guidance of an ordered monastic life had been regulated by the charis­ matic force of a leader's personal presence, then the bereaved community faces a serious problem, a leadership vacuum. It had two options: it either " went straight " by taking over a conventional rule of life and so abandoning its charismatic phase (Gert Melville calls it " Entcharismatisierung "),2 or con­ tinued to live through the charisma of its founder. Or some combination of the * This study is a lightly revised version of the keynote address at the NYU conference which led to the publication of this volume. I omit discussion and bibliography on the Weberian tradi­ tion of scholarship on charisma, and refer the interested reader to my book, Enchantment: On Charisma and the Sublime in the Arts of the West (Philadelphia, 2012).

"The romantic tale of Peter Abelard and Heloise has been widely known for centuries. The legend relates in part to the letters exchanged between the two, years after Abelard had been castrated at the behest of Heloise's vindictive uncle, Fulbert.

These "personal" letters form the basis for bestselling compilations of works by Abelard and Heloise in translation, such as the recently revised Penguin The Letters of Abelard and Heloise or the new Hackett Abelard and Heloise, The Letters and Other Writings. They hold fascination for the light they shed on the relationship between the man and woman, as teacher and student, lovers, husband and wife, monk and nun, abbot and mother superior, and much more.

The popularity of the "personal" letters has generated considerable fanfare for the publication of another set of correspondence printed under the title The Lost Love Letters of Heloise and Abelard. The authorship of all these letters has been contested repeatedly, with the last-mentioned collection being the center of a present firestorm.

Generally ignored have been nearly a dozen other letters or letter-like texts, unassailably the work of Peter Abelard. Jan M. Ziolkowski's comprehensive and learned translation of these texts affords insight into Abelard's thinking over a much longer sweep of time and offers snapshots of the great twelfth-century philosopher and theologian in a variety of contexts. One group shows him engaging with Heloise and nuns of the Paraclete, another with Bernard of Clairvaux, and a third with four entirely different addressees on four entirely different topics. Broadening our panorama of the twelfth-century Renaissance, the picture presented by these texts complements, complicates, and enriches Abelard's autobiographical letter of consolation and his personal letters to Heloise."

En el presente artículo, ofreceremos algunos elementos cruciales de la importancia del latín jurídico y la necesidad que hace falta en aprender latín a los estudiantes de derecho y no solo dejarlo como una lengua del ayer. Aprender latín jurídico ha de ser más que importante en la formación de todo profesional del derecho. El latín no ha muerto, menos para los abogados.

The concept of " a language " (Einzelsprache, that is, one of many extant languages) and its opposition to " dialect " (considered as a " non-language, " and thus subjugable to an already recognized language merely as " its " dialect) is the way people tend to think about languages in the West today. It appears to be a value-free, self-evident conception of the linguistic position. So much so that the concept of " language " was included neither in Immanuel Kant's system of categories, nor in the authoritative Geschichtliche Grundbegriffe: Historisches Lexikon zur politisch sozialen Sprache in Deutschland. This paper sketches the rise of the " dialect vs language " opposition in classical Greek, its transposition onto classical Latin, and its transfer, through medieval and renaissance Latin, to the early modern period. On the way, the Greek and Latin terms for " language " (and also for " dialect ") sometimes functioned as synonyms for peoples (that is, ethnic groups), which – importantly – contributed to the rise of the normative equation of language with 1 I thank Michael O Gorman for his wise advice, ideas, useful references, and for help with polishing the prose of this article.

Textes réunis par Tiziana Suarez-Nani et Agostino Paravicini Bagliani.
Qu’est-ce que la matière? Cette question a traversé l’histoire
de la culture occidentale et a interpellé de nombreux philosophes
et scientifiques, dont les théories témoignent d’une étonnante diversité.
Le Moyen Âge latin a donné un apport significatif à l’élaboration
de cette notion qui, à partir de Platon et d’Aristote, allait
devenir l’un des pivots de la philosophie de la nature et de la
métaphysique occidentales. Le colloque Micrologus dont nous publions
les Actes a permis de compléter et d’approfondir l’étude
des conceptions médiévales de la matière élaborées entre le XIIe
et le XVIe siècle. Grâce à des approches disciplinaires diversifiées,
à la prise en compte de contextes et de genres littéraires distincts
ainsi que d’auteurs encore peu étudiés aujourd’hui, ces contributions
permettent au lecteur de découvrir les multiples facettes que la notion de matière, ses représentations et sa perception ont revêtues dans la pensée et la culture médiévale.

The Ars edendi Lectures are organized by the research programme of the same name based at Stockholm University and funded by the Bank of Sweden Tercentenary Foundation. Both the programme and the lectures focus on editorial method and theory as applied to dynamic textual traditions of medieval Latin and Greek works. For the Lecture Series, leading scholars are invited to share their expertise regarding textual criticism and the art of editing. In this volume, the first in a planned series of four, Nigel Wilson guides future editors to new challenges and indicates how their work will be markedly different on account of advances in related technologies. In Jan Ziokowski's lecture, new technology is also strongly present as he reflects on the future of the printed book and the work of critical editing in the digital age. Technology of a more specific kind is treated by Timothy Janz, who accounts for a method under development to identify scribes with more certainty by their script alone. In the last two lectures here, the focus shifts from hard technology to a greater sensitivity in the editing of texts as regards both linguistic forms and aesthetics in the Middle Ages. Peter Stotz examines the first volume of the Corpus rhythmorum musicum, giving examples of where such a sensitivity can create more credible editions. Pascale Bourgain emphasizes the importance of a stylistic awareness on behalf of the editor and how the lack of it can distort the author's original sense.

As with the first two works in her visionary trilogy, St. Hildegard of Bingen’s masterpiece, the Liber diuinorum operum (written 1165–1173/74), includes as a “Table of Contents” summaries for each of its 316 chapters, originally composed separately from the main text but later distributed throughout, either before each of its three parts or, in one recension, before each chapter. It has been generally, if silently, assumed that Hildegard herself composed these summaries. However, a detailed study of the Capitula reveals significant divergences from the Visionary Doctor in terms of vocabulary and expression, interpretation, and style. Further technical aspects of the compositional process indicate that she was likely not their author. The second half of this study considers who among the circle of men who helped her in her final years might have been responsible for writing these summaries. After examining the roles of the three provosts or her abbey – Volmar of Disibodenberg, Godfrey of Disibodenberg, and Guibert of Gembloux – I turn to the adiutores whom Hildegard specifically mentioned in the “Epilogue” to the Liber diuinorum operum: Ludwig, abbot of St. Eucharius and Matthias in Trier; Godfrey of Kahler, a monk of St. Eucharius among the sapientes whom Ludwig sent to Hildegard’s aid; and Wezelin, her nephew and provost of St. Andreas in Cologne. The final two men – Godfrey of St. Eucharius and Wezelin – prove to be the only two probable candidates. In composing these Capitula, their author helped Hildegard to make her challenging visionary text more accessible by schematizing the work and orienting the reader.

Dag Norberg's analysis and interpretation of Medieval Latin versification, which was published in French in 1958 and remains the standard work on the subject, appears here for the first time in English with a detailed, scholarly introduction by Jan Ziolkowski that reviews the developments of the past fifty years.

A cura di Alessandra Bartolomei Romagnoli, Alfonso Marini.
Il volume che inaugura la collana del Corpus Coelestinianum è dedicato alla canonizzazione di Pietro del Morrone-Celestino V. In questo primo tomo viene offerta l’edizione della documentazione del processo, a cura di Alfonso Marini, tramandata dal manoscritto 1071 della Bibliothèque de l’Arsenal di Parigi; Alessandra Bartolomei Romagnoli pubblica il processo-verbale dell’ultimo concistoro segreto preparatorio alla canonizzazione oltre che il capitolo sulla relativa cerimonia, ad opera del cardinale Jacopo Caetani Stefaneschi, che figura nell’Ordo XIV. I testi originali latini sono accompagnati dalla traduzione in italiano. Nel secondo tomo verranno pubblicati, a cura di Alfonso Marini, gli atti del processo informativo tramandati nel codice conservato nell’Archivio Capitolare di S. Panfilo di Sulmona (Archivio Santo Spirito del Morrone, 14), il cui contenuto e i cui problemi critici vengono da lui presentati e discussi nell’introduzione al presente volume.

BISLAM. Bibliotheca Scriptorum Latinorum Medii Recentiorisque Aevi. II Censimento onomastico e letterario degli autori latini del medioevo. Identificazione, classificazione per genere letterario e bibliografia fondamentale è un repertorio onomastico, biografico, bibliografico e storico-letterario della letteratura mediolatina. Il volume offre agli studiosi e ai catalogatori un ausilio alla risoluzione dei problemi di identificazione degli autori attivi tra la fine del V e l’inizio del XVI secolo, fornendo sintetiche notizie biografiche, un elenco delle varianti dei loro nomi in latino e nelle lingue moderne, nonché un primo orientamento bibliografico, con l'indicazione dei principali generi letterari delle loro opere. Gli strumenti di ricerca dei quali è dotato il cd-rom che correda l’opera permettono un rapido reperimento delle informazioni contenute nel volume, consentendo anche di incrociare numerosi parametri onomastici, biografici, cronologici e storico-letterari. Con questa nuova edizione della Bibliotheca Scriptorum Latinorum Medii Recentiorisque Aevi, la Società Internazionale per lo Studio del Medioevo Latino porta a compimento la pubblicazione dei risultati di dodici anni di ricerca che hanno prodotto il catalogo bio-bibliografico, onomastico e letterario degli autori latini del medioevo. Essa comprende 13.174 voci su altrettanti autori e 83.124 varianti dei loro nomi. Mentre la prima edizione, pubblicata nel 2003, censiva circa 5.300 autori e 12.500 varianti nominali, questa edizione, che comprende la prima al suo interno, va ampiamente oltre, non soltanto per il numero di autori trattati, ma per la quantità di informazioni offerte su ciascuno di essi. Infatti, oltre alle diverse forme dei nomi, fornisce anche le date nelle quali essi furono attivi, l'indicazione dei momenti più importanti della loro carriera, dei generi letterari che hanno praticato e brevi note che spiegano i principali problemi di identificazione e di attribuzione delle loro opere. Ciascuna notizia è corredata dei riferimenti alle fonti consultate. Le informazioni presenti sono il risultato dello spoglio integrale di 47 repertori specialistici, scelti per affidabilità e completezza. I dati estratti sono stati valutati criticamente e corretti conformemente agli studi recenti più autorevoli, integrandoli con un numero quanto mai ampio di edizioni, saggi specialistici, enciclopedie, bibliografie e cataloghi. Corredata da un cd-rom, l’opera si configura attualmente come il più esauriente repertorio onomastico e bio-bibliografico sugli autori della letteratura latina medievale.

Un sentito grazie va d"obbligo in primo luogo al mio tutor, Prof. Giuseppe Germano, guida sempre preziosa, punto di riferimento scientifico e umano, senza le cui preziose indicazioni e direttive non mi sarebbe stato in alcun modo possibile condurre a termine il presente lavoro.

Excerpts from reviews:

"This study of medieval Latin beast poetry provides scholarly discussion and idiomatic translations of a number of important poems that have been largely neglected by Anglo-American scholarship. The author's thesis-that these early writers were pioneers working with a new genre and therefore had a freedom forced upon them-permits him to employ a formalistic approach showing how the underlying meaning of these works is often determined by the writers' use of classical and Christian source materials. Ziolkowski's source work, along with his translations, is itself a pioneering effort, making a little-known group of poems more accessible to both specialists and nonspecialists." -- Michael P. Kuczynski, Speculum, 1994

"Although fables of course figure largely in medieval beast literature, the use of animal characters extends far beyond the exemplary genre. The Owl and the Nightingale, Chaucer's Nun's Priest's Tale and The Parliament of Fowls, the Roman de Renart and its analogues in other languages, all witness to the range of texts in which animals speak up. The present study focuses on the Latin development. In that tradition, one of the arguable masterpieces of twelfth-century literature, the Ysengrimus, and one of the same period's most successful and widely read works, Nigel Whiteacre's Speculum stultorum (Chaucer's Nun's Priest's Daun Burnel the Asse), both employ the anthropomorphic mode." -- David Townsend, The Review of English Studies, 1996

The End and Beyond was launched 8 December 2014 in Cork.

The IRC [Irish Research Council] have featured The End and Beyond on their home page!
http://www.research.ie/

What awaits us beyond the grave is perhaps the fundamental human mystery. Visionary accounts of the afterlife are attested long before the Common Era, and loomed large in the imaginative universe of early Christianity. The medieval Irish inherited and further transformed this tradition, producing vivid eschatological narratives which had a profound impact throughout Europe as well as being texts of remarkable literary and spiritual power in their own right.
This collection, comprising editions and translations of thirty-five texts together with several in-depth studies, is the most comprehensive survey of medieval Irish eschatology ever undertaken: included are sources from the Old Irish, Middle Irish and Early Modern Irish periods, and related material in Latin and Old English. A fascinating collection for anyone interested in the spiritual world of the medieval Irish, this book will also be a valuable resource for medievalists and religious historians generally.

Il volume propone l’edizione critica della «Navigatio sancti Brendani», uno dei più straordinari testi narrativi del Medioevo latino, con prolegomeni completi (descrizione estesa dei manoscritti, giustificazione della ricostruzione stemmatica e di tutte le scelte di «emendatio» e «selectio») e con apparato critico integrale. La scelta di mettere a disposizione e discutere l’intera documentazione su cui si sono fondati lo studio della tradizione e la constitutio textus risponde a due obiettivi: da un lato, è intesa a rendere trasparente ai lettori dell’edizione il processo ecdotico che vi è sotteso, a partire dal lungo lavoro di Giovanni Orlandi fino al completamento da parte di Rossana Guglielmetti; dall’altro, vuole offrire agli studiosi della fortuna dell’opera, anche al di fuori del perimetro latino, tutte le coordinate testuali utili a collocare ogni episodio di trasmissione indiretta del racconto in rapporto alla Navigatio ‘originale’. Questa «editio maior» porta a coronamento la ricerca che ha trovato già espressione nell’edizione pubblicata nel 2014 «Navigatio sancti Brendani. Alla scoperta dei segreti meravigliosi del mondo (Per Verba 30)», dove il testo è presentato con traduzione, commento e un’ampia introduzione storico-letteraria, che qui non si sono ripetuti.

Antologia e commento a cura di Giovanni Paolo Maggioni. Traduzione italiana coordinata da Francesco Stella.
La Legenda aurea di Iacopo da Varazze è una delle opere agiografiche più rilevanti della cultura medievale e l'immensa fortuna di cui ha goduto nel corso dei secoli deriva anche dalla sua importanza storica, antropologica, iconografica. L'edizione critica di Giovanni Paolo Maggioni si è imposta come uno degli studi più completi ed è diventata un punto di riferimento per gli studiosi. La SISMEL o Edizioni del Galluzzo intende ora mettere a disposizione il testo in italiano (con la traduzione coordinata da Francesco Stella) in formato elettronico organizzandolo in una serie di raccolte antologiche di sicuro interesse.
Questa raccolta è incentrata sulle vicende legate a Maria e Gesù, come la Natività di entrambi, l'Annunciazione, la Circoncisione, l'Epifania, la Passione, Resurrezione e Ascensione del Signore, la Purificazione e l'Assunzione della Vergine Maria. Le fonti principali utilizzate da Iacopo sono naturalmente quelle neotestamentarie, ma per illuminare le numerose zone d'ombra rimaste l'autore domenicano ha fatto ricorso, con una certa prudenza, anche ai racconti apocrifi e questo ha permesso di integrare i racconti evangelici di Gesù e di Maria con particolari estremamente suggestivi e forse anche un po' bizzarri per il gusto moderno. Nei capitoli dedicati alla Vergine è interessante anche l'inserimento di un grande numero di exempla, brevi racconti esemplari assai utilizzati dai predicatori, utili per celebrare la maestà della Madre di Dio, baluardo nella lotta contro il Male.

In these essays Peter Dronke looks at some of the relations between sacred and profane ideas and images, and Christian and pagan motifs, particularly in the early Middle Ages. The first two parts of the book dwell on aspects of (in the widest sense) Christian Platonism, the one part focussing on themes, the other on some of the greatest thinkers in the Latin world, from Boethius in the sixth century to Thierry of Chartres in the twelfth. The emphasis throughout is on transformations and syncretisms far more than disjunctions. The final group of essays is concerned with poetic texts, Latin and vernacular, in which non-sacred elements make their way into the sacred, the biblical and the saintly realms. A brief Epilogue glances at early medieval profane poetry outside as well as within Europe.

English recension available in Speculum n° 86, 2011/2, p. 499-500. This book is divided in two basic parts. Part one follows the birth of the so-called collection of dictamina/letters of Petrus de Vinea, and is consequently a sort of history of the rhetorical Latin practices at the court and chancery of Frederic II of Sicily and his sons. It envisions the social milieu as well as the rhetorical techniques and their uses for propaganda. The second and more innovative part is a global european exploration on the fortune and reuse of this important textual collection, which worked as a matrix/writing guide in most European royal chanceries from 1280 onwards. Separated chapters are devoted to England, France, the Empire and Bohemia, and Italy. Short sketches on the spanish peninsula, Hungary and Poland have still to be completed by coming papers. Hence the title, as the book can serve as a global essay on the chancery rhetoric and the rhetoric of power in 1200-1400 Europe. Since 2008, a new (usefull, but far from definitive) edition of the Petrus de Vinea letters has been published under the supervision of Edoardo d'Angelo (Pier della VIgna, Epistolario). I have myself added new material that could fit in the second part (reuse of the sources in Aragon, Castile, Poland...). But the book remains more or less valid...

After an overview of late medieval Latin biblical mnemonic tools with a special attention to those transmitted in Bohemia, the study moves to an analysis of the most singular biblical retelling from Bohemia, the Biblia picta Velislai (Velislav bible) from ca. 1340. While this “biblical comics” displays many inconsistencies both in its visual and textual aspects (e.g. there are only nine precepts of the Decalogue included), the author argues that it was quite common during the Middle Ages and did not exclude its use for education and meditation. Like substantially later Manualník by Jan Amos Komenský (1623, printed 1658), the main aim of this and other biblical retellings was the moral edification of the readers.

In article, an analyse of ethnonyms included in so called Bavarian Geographer, a historical source from 9th – early 10th century, is given. Actual state of scientific research on tribal names is summarized, latinized transcritions of the proper names are analyzed and previous etymological interpretations are verified. Also there are some new etymological interpretations of a few demonyms and topo-ethnonyms. Analysis of proper names revealed that there are names of Slavic, Paleobalkan, Celtic, German, Baltic and Oriental origin.

Édition critique, introduction et notes par Oleg Voskoboynikov.
Michel Scot, traducteur arabisant, médicin, astrologue-encyclopédiste au service de l'empereur Frédéric II, eut dès son siècle une aura quelque peu mystérieuse d'un savant qui «semble avoir connu vraiment les jeux trompeurs de la sorcellerie», si l'on croit Dante qui le jugea digne de son Enfer (XX, 115-17). Mais ses contemporains ont su apprécier aussi sa contribution à la marche triomphale de l'aristotélisme. Par rapport à ses traductions, son oevre magistrale propre, le Liber introductorius (ca. 1220-1235), eut une diffusion relativement restreinte et une tradition manuscrite compliquée. Aujourd'hui, cet auteur ne risque plus de passer aux oubliettes de l'histoire des idées et des sciences. Cette édition n'a pas l'ambition de ressusciter un soldat inconnu, mais de lui rendre justice, en faisant connaître deux de ses traités dont la paternité ne fait pas de doute: le Liber particularis et le Liber physionomie. Ils forment la deuxième et la troisième partie du Liber introductorius. Tout en participant à un project commun, chacun possède sa structure, sa problématique, voire son style. Le Liber particularis traite particulariter, «en détails», les grandes thèmes de la cosmologie médiévale. Le deuxième est le premier livre de l'Occident médiéval consacré exclusivement à la physiognomonie, un savoir à succès prodigieux jusqu'au XIXe siècle.

This is a critical edition of the second and last draft of Giovanni Bertoldi's Latin commentary on Dante's "Commedia", extending until "Inferno", XIII. The introduction provides an in-depth analysis of the manuscript tradition of the entire commentary, with a constitution of an elaborated "stemma codicum" envisioning the presence of both drafts.