This article is devoted to the textual transmission of Aristotle’s Metaphysics books Kappa and Lambda, with special reference to manuscript Ab (Florence, Laur. 87.12), which often disagrees with the most ancient manuscripts of the Metaphysics (E and J). It has played a prominent part in the XIXth and XXth century editions and has been regarded as evidence for an independent tradition, possibly going back to antiquity, to Aristotle’s times, or to a papyrus exemplar. But it appears that this cannot be true for the last books of the Metaphysics: in 1979 Harlfinger showed that for the final part of book Lambda (1073a to the end) and for the whole of books My and Ny, Ab belongs to the same a family as E and J, and therefore it is not a witness to a b family. In Harlfinger’s footsteps, the present article goes further and argues that this is the case for the final part of book Kappa (1065a to the end) and for the whole of book Lambda.
Themistius orationes IV-V-VII-IX-X are transmitted by the MS tradition in this succession and appears to have been a corpusculum of late antique origin. The text of or. IV has been collated in all the extant witnesses (twenty in number); a selective collation has been carried on for orr. V-VII-IX-X. A description of the medieval manuscripts is provided and their relationships are estabilished. All the Renaissance MSS (twelve in number) are demonstrated to derive from a lost ancestor (W). Hence a stemma codicum is drawn, where the medieval MSS and omega find their place.
A bifolium from an 11th-century liturgical book of Ambrosian rite is used as fly-leaf in MS Vercelli, Biblioteca Capitolare, CXV (a 10th-century Lectionary). Unlike Sacramentaries, where Praefationes and Orationes are arranged together, the fragment offers a set of Prefaces from the first week after Easter to the first sunday after Pentecost, followed by fragments of saint’s feasts. It appears to have originally belonged to a Libellus praefationum, a sort of book the existence of which has been supposed by Judith Frei. A critical edition of the fragment is provided.
The Ambrosian Sacramentary Vercelli, Biblioteca Capitolare, CXXXVI appears to be linked to a
significant increase of production of liturgical manuscripts due to the changed necessities of the Milanese Church in the 11th Century. A new analysis of the Vercelli Sacramentary sheds light on the history of the manuscript. A description of the MS content and codicological features is provided, with particular attention to its hitherto unnoticed flyleaf. The iconographical and stylistical comparison with other Sacramentaries of the Milanese group, which share iconographical and stylistical traits, suggests a datation to the first quarter of the 11th century.
The mediaeval Latin manuscripts preserved in the Library of the Russian Academy of Sciences,
Saint-Petersburg, have been described in a recent catalogue and microfiches of most of them are available at IRHT, Paris. Through examination of these microfiches, liturgical manuscripts of Italian origin, which are object of Iter Liturgicum Italicum data-base, have been studied and additional identifications of texts, specific liturgical uses, provenances are here given.
The present paper is part of a literary and linguistic research in progress on nine Anglo-Saxon poetic (metrical) charms, which alternate prose and poetry. Each charm is analysed in its own content and linguistic components in order to offer a precise and exhaustive view of its meaning. The content analysis often refers to the interpretation of images implied in the magic process. The distinctive traits of the Anglo-Saxon culture do really emerge not only with reference to religion, witchcraft and medical science but also to the various aspects of rural life in those times. Among the structural elements and the characteristics which all contribute to the definition of a magical text, the most important are textual communication, style, ritual issues and language. So a pathway of images and meanings can be traced in order to be enabled to define the cultural world and the average Anglo- Saxon’s “Weltanschauung”. The analysis of what can be defined “magical language” allows to focus on the formal aspects and to connect them to the Anglo-Saxon poetical language. If from one side it can be claimed that there does not exist a properly called magical language, or at least it barely exists, from the other it comes out that the magic power of these texts is embedded in the rite, in the singing rhythm and in the repetition of words and sounds.
The abbreviated version of Thomas of Cantimpré’s Liber de natura rerum, the so-called “Thomas III”, is a striking example of the liberty medieval copyists of specialist prose took in copying a text.
They add, omit, rearrange, rewrite the original work in order to improve its contents, acting more as co-authors than as mere copyists. Several versions of the text are recognizable, and MSS trasmitting different stages of rewriting are grouped.
In medieval collections of miracula many stories are about sick persons who are healed by a particular saint after fruitless pilgrimages to other saints’ tombs. Similar miracles are included in Vita Ansuini BHL 555, Miracula Audoeni BHL 760 and Vita Geraldi BHL 3417. The exceptional feature here lies in the fact that Ansuinus, Audoenus and Adalardus of Corbie perform the miracle after a sort of failure of the archangel Michael. Some points in the Vita Ansuini, concerning the Saint honoured by angels, suggest a theological background based on New Testament passages; but most interestingly these Vitae are a sign of the changing devotion and of the acknowledged pre-eminence of saints over angels.
In the Archivio Storico Diocesano of Naples there is a series of 365 parchment documents from the Collegio degli Ebdomadari, called also Confratres Sancti Salvatoris, a congregation active in the Cathedral of Naples. The documents span from 1332 to 1681. The oldest among them, nineteen in number, dating 1332-1353, are here studied and edited or summarized. They include different sorts of deeds: nine chartae venditionis, two chartae promissionis, one charta renunciationis, an obligation, two wills, two pro anima deeds of gift, one charta divisionis and one inductio in corporalem possessionem. The Ebdomadari appear to be active in the acquisition of real estates in a specific zone of Naples (Forcella); in this activity they developed connections with Neapolitan families whose interests were tied to those of important persons of the episcopacy of Naples.
This article surveys the known manuscripts of the Interpretationes Vergilianae of Tiberius Claudius Donatus and offers a new perspective on what has been deduced concerning that text’s transmission. In particular, it adds two new manuscripts to the last survey of the text (by Peter K. Marshall in 1990) and proposes a connection between a 15th-Century MS (Wellesley, Mass., Wellesley College Library, MS 7) and the lost Reichenau manuscript, which, if real, could alter scholars’ understanding of how and when this text reached the Italian humanists. It concludes with an argument in favor of a new critical edition, especially in light of so many recent discoveries.
The article aims at giving a general view of the legal regulation of the lakes of Insubria from antiquity to the end of the Middle Ages. The survey include the definitions of lakes, rivers and other sorts of public waters given by Roman jurists; the Notitia dignitatum is examined. For the early Middle Ages main sources are Capitularia of the Frankish kings and German emperors. In the age of the Communes, the most important issues are the Diet of Roncaglia (1158) and the Peace of Constance (1183), when the Emperor acknowledged the rights of the Lombard Communes on the lakes of the region. Statutes and dispatches provide information on the lakes Verbano, Lario, Ceresio under the Visconti-Sforza rule.