RHT 9 (2014) abstracts English - Institut de recherche et d`histoire

REVUE D’HISTOIRE DES TEXTES
Nouvelle série, tome IX, 2014
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ABSTRACTS
Gerard BOTER, Studies in the Textual Tradition of Philostratus’ Life of Apollonius of Tyana – Revue
d’histoire des textes, n.s., t. IX, 2014, p. 1-49.
This article, which is devoted to the textual tradition of Philostratus’ Life of Apollonius of
Tyana (VA), is a sequel to G. J. BOTER, Towards a new critical edition of Philostratus’ Life of
Apollonius : the affiliation of the manuscripts, in K. Demoen, D. Praet (eds.), Theios Sophistes,
Leiden-Boston, 2009, p. 21-56. The article consists of four parts. The first part contains a
codicological description of the sixteen extant manuscripts that contain (large portions of) the text.
The second part is concerned with twelve manuscripts that contain excerpts or fragments of the VA.
The third part is devoted to the treatise by Eusebius and the excerpts in Photius’ Bibliotheca and the
Suda. The fourth part, finally, gives a correction of the stemma that was presented in the 2009 article :
it is shown that Scorialensis Φ.III.8 (E) is the source of the common ancestor of Parisinus gr. 1696 (P)
and Marcianus gr. XI.29 (M) and not its gemellus.
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András NÉMETH, Fragments from the Earliest Parchment Manuscript of Eustratius’ Commentary on
Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics – Revue d’histoire des textes, n.s., t. IX, 2014, p. 51-78.
This paper presents two new fragments from a twelfth-century Byzantine luxury parchment
codex, the earliest manuscript evidence of Eustratius’ commentary on EN 1. The new discovery sheds
light on an important but hardly visible twelfth-century phase in the transmission of the Greek
commentaries on EN 1-10, very probably in Constantinople and under the patronage of the court. A
detailed analysis indicates that the early phase of the textual transmission seems to precede the period
from which the collective transmission of the various larger sets of commentaries on EN 1-10 is
attested (Vaticanus gr. 269, Laurentianus 85.1, Parisinus Coislin. 161). The textual family of the new
fragments has remained in the shadows due to the success of the other branch, which was canonized
by Robert Grosseteste’s Latin translation in the mid-thirteenth century, by the editio princeps (Venice,
1536), and bu Heylbut’s critical edition (Berlin, 1892). The specific features of the new Budapest
fragments and its twin, Vaticanus gr. 320, may elucidate the transmission process of other Aristotelian
commentaries.
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Aude COHEN-SKALLI, De Byzance à Messine : les Vitae Siculorum de Constantin Lascaris, leur
genèse et leur tradition – Revue d’histoire des textes, n.s., t. IX, 2014, p. 79-116.
Scholars’ knowledge of a short work by Constantin Lascaris entitled Vitae illustrium
philosophorum Siculorum et Calabrorum, which has been a source of debate in Diodorean studies, has
until now relied on a heavily revised version made by Francesco Maurolico in the sixteenth century. It
is thus necessary to return to the original text of the last known work of the humanist, published at
Messina in 1499. The treatise offers a list of the σοφοὶ Σικελιῶται in Antiquity, making its way around
the island apparently in a symbolic manner, taking Messina as the dedicatee and point of departure.
The article concentrates on the context of the publication of this little incunable, by a printer who
seems to have worked for the school of Lascaris, on the textual tradition of the treatise, of which a
rough draft exists in Matritensis 4629, on its sources, and on the original meaning of this « tour » of
Sicily.
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Iñigo RUIZ ARZALLUZ, Una didascalia olvidada a la Hecyra de Terencio – Revue d’histoire des textes,
n.s., t. IX, 2014, p. 117-139.
A few fifteenth-century witnesses transmit a didascalia to Terence’s Hecyra that is different
from the two known so far and which is difficult to understand as a forgery or distortion of other
didascaliae by Terence. The text, clearly corrupt (which is another argument in favour of its
authenticity), might well be the result of a recomposition of various ancient glosses related to
subsequent performances of the comedy. The witnesses, closely related to copies of Terence owned by
Petrarch and generally displaying a very good text, may have preserved the didascalia through a
process of contamination, in the same way that the alter exitus of Andria, the Vita Ambrosiana of
Terence, and the perioca to Eunuchus have survived.
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Francesca PICCIONI, Sulla tradizione manoscritta dei Florida di Apuleio : il ruolo dell’Ambrosiano
N 180 sup. – Revue d’histoire des textes, n.s., t. IX, 2014, p. 141-156.
This contribution offers the results of the first complete analysis of the text of Apuleius’
Florida in the Ambrosianus codex N 180 sup. (= A), long identified as a worthy witness, but never
thoroughly examined or used, except in a few studies and editions of the Metamorphoses. While
preparing a new edition of De magia and Florida, I studied the manuscript in depth. This led me to
identify a series of significant uariae lectiones never mentioned before. These variants, however, can
easily be interpreted as conjectures derived from the context, often correcting a mistake or a graphic
inaccuracy in the Laurentianus codex 68.2 (= F). Apart from these readings, there are significant
errors that definitely connect the Ambrosianus to the Laurentianus. The latter is without a doubt the
ancestor of the entire tradition that has come down to us. Nonetheless, A is an important witness, in
that it preserves the original facies of F, unaltered by the often faded ink or the erasures and
corrections of later hands. This investigation implies the evident need for a new complete collation of
F and of its direct apograph, the Laurentianus codex 29.2 (= f). In the autopsy of F, the use of
sophisticated optical instruments brought to light the true readings of the original manuscript, even in
passages that were very hard to read.
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Fabio TRONCARELLI, Inaudita in excerpta : la « Vita di Boezio » di Jordanes e i suoi lettori (Giovanni
de’ Matociis, Jacques Sirmond, Nicolas Caussin) – Revue d’histoire des textes, n.s., t. IX,
2014, p. 157-199.
Giovanni Diacono († 1337) mentions in his Historiae imperiales (unedited) a Vita Boecii
written by Jordanes. The present article offers an analysis of the different allusions to the Vita of
Boethius made by Giovanni Diacono, evaluating the interesting information they contain and
comparing them with the text of Anonymous Valesianus II, which is similar but with significant
differences in redaction. Also examined are the notes of Jacques Sirmond on the Historiae imperiales,
which attest the interest of the great French scholar for the lost Vita Boecii of Jordanes. Extracts of the
Vita quite probably figured in the celebrated codex claromontanus by Anonymous Valsianus II, which
was owned by Sirmond, who urged Nicolas Caussin to read it.
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Pietro COLLETTA, Un compendio inedito di storia siciliana conservato a Besançon – Revue d’histoire
des textes, n.s., t. IX, 2014, p. 201-220.
Manuscript 675 in Besançon (mid fifteenth century) contains an abridged version of the first
thirty chapters of the Cronica Sicilie, one of the most important historiographic texts concerning
fourteenth-century Sicily. The article provides an edition of that abridgement, presented in parallel
with the text of the Cronica Sicilie, as well as a study of the variants showing that the abridgement
derives from a particular branch of the Cronica’s textual tradition, that of manuscript B. As to the
method and intention of the redaction of the abridgement, it seems that, although the stratified text is
the result of successive interventions, the aim was to preserve only the entries of genealogical or
dynastic interest, attesting the continuity of the Sicilian monarchy, from the Normans of the eleventh
century to the Aragonese house of the fourteenth century. The text was not meant to be read
independently, but in the context of the manuscript that transmits it, which contains an organised
collection of texts, mostly historiographic and in Latin, brought together in order to recount the whole
history of the regnum Sicilie, from its mythical origins to the middle of the fifteenth century.
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Sebastià GIRALT, Magic in Occitan and Latin in ms. Vaticano, BAV, Barb. lat. 3589 – Revue d’histoire
des textes, n.s., t. IX, 2014, p. 221-272.
MS Vatican BAV, Barb. lat. 3589 has been known to scholars since the nineteenth century, but
has never been thoroughly studied. This article investigates its contents and its composition,
identifying its texts and, so far as possible, their sources, while searching for clues concerning the
compiler’s background and manner of working. The codex has proved to be an outstanding document
for the study of medieval magic for many reasons. It brings to light previously unnoticed works, such
as the remarkable Libre de puritats, and provides a rare sampling of necromancy in a Romance
language – Occitan – interacting with Latin. It also constitutes a new witness, although incomplete, for
writings about occult arts known through other Latin manuscripts, in particular the Liber septem
planetarum ex scientia Abel, the De officiis spirituum and perhaps the Liber Veneris. In addition, the
codex shows evidence of the use of fundamental manuals of magic, such as Liber Razielis and
Picatrix, whose medieval circulation is not well known, and gives the titles of many lost works and
information about their contents. Last but not least, it offers a window on the way in which an early
fifteenth-century necromancer formed his own collection of magic books and resources.
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Olivier DELSAUX, Simon de Plumetot et sa copie des poésies d’Eustache Deschamps. Une édition
génétique au début du XVe siècle ? (partie I) – Revue d’histoire des textes, n.s., t. IX, 2014,
p. 273-349.
The article is a textual and material study of the manuscript Paris, BNF, n.a.fr. 6221, copied
and corrected by the French jurist and scholar Simon de Plumetot (1371-1443), who is recognized
today as a precursor of collectors of autograph works. The paper reconsiders this copy of Eustache
Deschamps’ poetry in the broader context of Plumetot as scribe and bibliophile and assesses the nature
of the models he worked from. By analyzing the status and intention of the manuscript, the author reevaluates the quality of the testimony offered by the second largest collection of Deschamps’ poetry.
More generally, the paper brings up the question of the place that should be given to transcriber’s
background and interests when editing and studying the transmission of fourteenth and fifteenthcentury French texts.
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Leonardo TARÁN, The text of Simplicius’s Commentary on Aristotle’s Physics and the question of
supralinear omicron in Greek manuscripts – Revue d’histoire des textes, n.s., t. IX, 2014,
p. 351-358.
The purpose of this paper is to show that, contrary to what is claimed in some elementary
introductions to Greek paleography, the symbol here called superscript omicron (e.g. κόσµο) is not a
mere abbreviation for the ending omicron-sigma (-ος), but a symbol of suspension that may stand for
any ending. The article originated in the author’s study of the manuscripts of Simplicius’s
Commentary on Aristotle’s Physics and in connection with the edition of Hermann Diels. It became
evident that while Diels did not himself collate any of the Greek manuscripts on which he based his
edition, those who did collate for him failed to send him the full information ; thus, when they saw
superscript omicron, they frequently just told him that the word in question ended in omicron-sigma.
However, in a few instances they did report that the word had a superscript omicron, and in such cases
Diels so reported it ; this shows that he must have known that such an ending in the manuscripts could
be meant to represent any grammatical case of which omicron was the first letter. Finally, the article
offers examples of papyri which clearly indicate that superscript omicron is to be interpreted as a
symbol of suspension.
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Davide BALDI, Sub voce ἐτυµολογία – Revue d’histoire des textes, n.s., t. IX, 2014, p. 359-374.
The explication of the term etymologia in the Greek language begins with Plato’s Cratylus.
However, extensive interpretations accompanied by some examples can be found only in Late
Antiquity. In the Viae dux of Anastasius Sinaita (7th century) a whole chapter, whose beginning
reproduces Plato’s definition, explains the concept of etymology. This chapter had its own textual
transmission and the compiler of the Etymologicum Gudianum (late 11th century) copied it in a short
glossa. Yet, the Etymologicum Genuinum (second half of the 9th century) presents, for the first time, a
wide and detailed glossa of the term Etymologia. The paper offers a translation and a discussion of this
text and its fortune, which is largely based on the Ars grammatica by Dionysius Thrax and its
commentaries. Moreover, the Lexicon Zonarae (between the 12th and 13th centuries), the most recent
of the Byzantine Etymologica, whose glossa conflates Etymologicum Genuinum’s and Gudianum’s
interpretations, will be discussed.
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Saulo DELLE DONNE, Il codice greco Corpus Christi College 486 di Cambridge : contenuto,
organizzazione testuale e legami con l’Italia Meridionale – Revue d’histoire des textes, n.s.,
t. IX, 2014, p. 375-393.
The Greek manuscript 486 in the Parker Library at Corpus Christi College (Cambridge, UK),
which may be dated to the beginning of the thirteenth century, has previously escaped scholarly
attention. After giving the most important results of a palaeographical and codicological study, which
will be published elsewhere, this paper presents the salient features of each of the fifteen texts in the
manuscript and draws attention to two texts that are already published (the verses of Eustathius of
Ikonium and the epistle to Paul, bishop of Gallipoli). Six, mostly anonymous, unedited texts are
identified and described : a verse piece on the iamb ; an essay on the iamb ; the Epistle on the Fast of
Ascension Day by Nicon of the Black Mountain ; a tract On the bishop Paphnutius ; an Expositio
brevis on the different fasts ; a treatise on the Praesanctificati. Judged as a whole, the manuscript is
clearly an organised miscellany of selected texts coming from South of Italy and, more specifically,
Calabria or Otranto.