AEVUM

The De Compendiosa Doctrina of Nonius Marcellus we know today is the result of a ninth century Carolingian edition. The examination of the sixteen surviving ninth century manuscripts allows to establish their relations, to identify their geographical origin and, for the most important of them, their initiators. Lupus of Ferrières appears as the dominant personality of the enterprise, assisted by Heiric dit d’Auxerre. The oldest manuscript, Leiden Voss. Lat. F 73, may have been brought by Lupus from Tours to the scriptorium of Hincmar of Reims, where the whole edition was realised, culminating in the creation of the Vulgate of Nonius, the doctored text as W.M. Lindsay called it.

The most ancient testimony of De natura hominis of Meletius has been discovered in the San Martino Parish Historical Library located in the town of Tirano (Italy). The fragment, coming from a Byzantine codex datable on palaeographic bases around the middle of the 10th century, was reused to reinforce the spine and plates of a copy of the second volume of the Digestum Infortiatum printed in Lyon in 1569 by the Giunta brothers. The finding confirms the chronology of Meletius’s text as having been written before tenth century. Waiting for the full recovery of the underlying layers, a description and an edition of the fragment visible on the first compartment of the spine between the headcap and the first raised band are here provided.

Handbooks were fundamental to the development of medieval inquisition procedure from the mid-thirteenth century on. The earliest of these handbooks to survive, the 1244 Ordo processus Narbonensis, speaks to this early stage of development, but until now it has only been known in a nineteenth-century transcription. This article presents the rediscovered manuscript, which also contains a more substantial and hitherto unknown Lombard inquisitorial collection. The presence of the Ordo in this larger collection is evidence of an inquisitorial culture shared across regional and institutional boundaries. An edition of the Ordo, and of several otherwise unknown items, are included in appendix.

Armenian literature, notably from 11th century, is rich in prophetic texts. This paper investigates the Latin tradition of one of these texts, the Visio et Prophetia Norsei viri Dei, a considerably stratified work in its Armenian tradition, attributed to the 4th century patriarch Nersēs the Great. The paper aims to define when and in what context this work may have been translated from Armenian to Latin, providing a brief presentation of the text, a general overview of the current state of research, a focus on the origin of the Latin version and its diffusion in the West, and a critical edition of the text based on the four known manuscripts.

The handwriting supposed to be that of John Camateros patriarch of Constantinople appears in some marginal annotations of the manuscript Ambr. M 66 sup. (late 10th century; rhetorical works of Aphthonius and Hermogenes). In fol. 310v the very ex libris of the byzantine scholar can be read. A dream recounted by the same scholar on f. 311r is here transcribed and translated, together with two metrical compositions by Tzetzes, which should originally belong to his commentary to Hermogenes.

This article analyses the narrative devices used by Ramon Muntaner in chapters 44-59 of his Chronicle, which are devoted to events prior to the outbreak of the War of the Sicilian Vespers (1282-1302). Taking a comparative approach, the author examines this section of the book by confronting it with the versions of the same events found in other chroniclers of the period, while at the same time paying attention to those which, especially if considered its narrative disposition and style, seem to be the main literary models upon which Muntaner’s account is based, namely the roman courtois tradition.

At least since 1338 Petrarch used to present himself in the act of reading and writing in the open air, while laying in the grass. The painter Simone Martini portrayed in the same pose the poet Virgil in the ‘Virgilio Ambrosiano’ illuminated front page, whose iconographic program was developed by Petrarch exactly in 1338: Petrarca finxit, Symon pinxit. The drawing of Vaucluse too in the Pliny the Elder MS Par. Lat. 6802, now attributed to Boccaccio, was conceived at Petrarch’s suggestion, Petrarca finxit, Iohannes pinxit. In the same way, but in Greek letters, Boccaccio copied a Dante manuscript, now in Toledo and subscribed below the portrait of Homer at the end. Both the illumination and drawings evoke a subtle relationship between Virgil and Petrarch and between Homer/Dante and Boccaccio.

Basing on a new autograph by copist Malachias, alias Anonymus Aristotelicus, preserved in El Escorial, Ω I 7, this paper examines the intellectual milieu in which this 14th century scholar worked. It is concluded that Malachias was an hieromonachus in the monastery of Prodromus-Petra in Constantinople, and a more concrete historical identity is given to this figure.

Three historiographical works, relatively close to each other and produced within a short period of time (XIVth century and the first half of the XVth), are designated with the term epitome despite being writings of a considerable extension: Paolino Veneto’s Notabilium ystoriarum epithoma, Petrarch’s De viris illustribus in the title given by Lombardo della Seta, and Sicco Polenton’s Epithoma in vitas scriptorum illustrium Latinae linguae. The hypothesis that is defended here is that, in all of them, epitome must be understood as a synonym for compilatio: this would explain the sense of Lombardo’s choice and would restore its true title to Polenton’s work, which was rejected by Ullman in his edition.

Navigatio sancti Brendani, a cura di R.E. Guglielmlmetti, edd. G. Orlandi – R.E. Guglielmetti (M. Sirtoli);
Liutprando di Cremona, De Iohanne papa et Ottone imperatore. Crimini, deposizione e morte di un pontefice maledetto, a cura di P. Chiesa (M. Sirtoli);
Aelredi Rievallensis Opera historica et hagiographica, edidit D. Pezzini (M. Ferrari); 
A. Vauchez, Saint Homebon de Crémone: «père des pauvres» et patron des tailleurs. Vies médiévales et histoire du culte, avec la collaboration de U. Longo et L. Albiero et le concours de V. Souche-Hazebrouck (G. Chiapparini);
B. FitzGerald, Inspiration and Authority in the Middle Ages. Prophets and their Critics from Scholasticism to Humanism (M. Lodone);
«Moribus antiquis sibi me fecere poetam». Albertino Mussato nel VII centenario dell’incoronazione poetica (Padova 1315-2015), a cura di R. Modonutti e E. Zucchi (S. Brusa);
L. Chuhan Campbell, The Medieval Merlin Tradition in France and Italy: Prophecy, Paradox, and Translatio (M. Lodone);
Boccaccio e la Francia. Boccace et la France, a cura di Ph. Guérin e A. Robin (S. Brambilla);
Iohannes de Segarellis, Elucidatio tragoediarum Senecae. Thyestes / Tantalus, edizione critica a cura di P. Mascoli (E. Romanini);
Scrittrici Mistiche Europee. Secoli XIV-XV, Vol. II, a cura di A. Bartolomei Romagnoli – A. Degl’Innocenti – F. Santi (D. Pezzini);
V. Cappozzo, Dizionario dei sogni nel medioevo. Il Somniale Danielis in manoscritti letterari (M. Lodone);
Ingenio facilis. Per Giovanni Orlandi (1938-2007), a cura di P. Chiesa – A.M. Fagnoni – R.E. Guglielmetti (M. Ferrari).