Petrus Thomae — an Early Follower of Duns Scotus, Minorite from Barcelona and Author of Metaphysical Treatises

The article serves as a historical-philosophical introduction to the Russian translation of the Latin text of the 11th question of the metaphysical treatise of Peter Thomae, OFM “De modis distinctionum” (written around 1325). We present therein the biography of this Franciscan theologian and philosopher from Barcelona, list and briefly characterize all his works that have come down to us (together with their respective editions). The article also shows why the metaphysical legacy of this early follower of John Duns Scotus is of particular importance. Then we outline and characterize the general structure of the whole treatise and of the quaestio to which the text we publish belongs. In conclusion, we describe the type of the Latin original that served as the basis for our translation, namely the collated text of three manuscripts from the 14th century and of one from the 15th century.

La rappresentazione dell’intervento di Cesare in battaglia come strategia narrativa nel De bello Gallico: un’analisi stilistica

The article scrutinises Cae­sar’s De bello Gallico narrative through offering an exhaustive analysis of one of the most relevant narrative strategies the Cae­sarian storytelling relies on: the artful representation of Cae­sar’s intervention in battle. The paper firstly illustrates how the accounts of Cae­sar’s activities during the combat are always depicted, across the seven books, as the turning point of a difficult situation for the Romans. Moreover, the article clarifies that these scenes share not only the exceptional results achieved by the commander, but also significant similarities on the diegetic, stylistic and rhetorical level. On this basis, the article argues that such analogies are part of a narrative strategy operating whenever the text describes Cae­sar’s action in a combat. A stylistic and rhetorical investigation on four exemplary cases is undertaken (Gall. 2.15-28, 3.14-15, 6.8 and 7.87); these passages are representative of the De bello Gallico general trend in depicting the author’s efforts during a struggle. The enquiry reveals that the Latin text always presents a comparable sequence of events preceding and following the account of Cae­sar’s accomplishments in battle and that similar lexicon and rhetorical figures are employed to support Cae­sar’s self-presentation as infallible commander.

The beginnings of Hungarian lexicography. From the first glossaries to multilingual dictionaries

This study aims to present the beginnings of Hungarian lexicography, with a special focus on certain works that are closely connected with Transylvania. The early glossaries, starting with the 13th century, are either marginal or interlinear. The only early source in which glossaries are intertextual, distinguished from the Latin text by underlining, is Sermones Dominicales, a compilation of sermons written in the first half of the 15th century. The vocabularies and nomenclatures under analysis were elaborated between the 14th century and the end of the 16th century, most of them being based on lists of Latin words grouped according to semantic fields. The only work that was elaborated based on the Hungarian lexis is the Nomenclature from Schlägl, a copy dating from around 1405 of a document written a few decades before. Among these vocabularies there are some that could be regarded as the first attempts to elaborate specialized dictionaries. Starting with the 16th century, several dictionaries in which the title-words are arranged alphabetically were identified. However, the early dictionaries are either unfinished or only partially preserved. The most representative dictionaries, mainly multilingual, were elaborated starting with the late 16th century. Our presentation ends with József Benkő’s botanical dictionaries, edited in 1783, which mark the beginnings of modern Hungarian lexicography.

Legenda aurea latina, elementos apócrifos y tradición catalana

A study on Iacobus de Voragine’s warnings and observations about the apocryphal nature of some narrative elements within his Golden Legend. According to G. P. Maggioni's theory, most of these observations were inserted by Voragine in his second redaction of the work (LA2), and here we analyse to what extent and in what ways they are cited in the Legenda Aurea’s Catalan tradition, taking as the study’s basis the most recent edition of the Latin text (Maggion 2007) and four of the most important manuscripts of the Catalan tradition. We aim to provide new data about the textual history of the Catalan Golden Legend and its Latin model; and also, to find out to what extent the Catalan tradition was concerned with pinpointing its apocryphal material for the audience’s benefit.

Itinerario de un texto de Erasmo: el Sermón de las misericordias de Dios en castellano (1528, 1544 y 1549)

In this article, I study some aspects of the Spanish translation of Erasmus of Rotterdam’s De immensa Dei misericordia concio: the Sermón de la grandeza y muchedumbre de las misericordias de Dios. I review the context in which the three known editions (Logroño, 1528; Seville, 1544; Antwerp 1549) were produced in the light of other translations, such as the Italian one. I also examine the passages expurgated from the Latin text in Gaspar de Quiroga’s 1584 Inquisitorial Index and summarise critical opinion concerning the allegedly polemical nature of this pious work. According to some scholars, this apparently orthodox sermon by Erasmus may well have encouraged a rather heterodox interpretation in certain contexts.

SOME CONSIDERATIONS ON THE ATTRIBUTION OF THE ‘NEW APULEIUS’

The ‘New Apuleius’ is a set of Latin summaries of Plato's works first published in 2016 by Justin Stover, who attributed it to Apuleius. The present article attempts to assess two key aspects of Stover's argument, viz. his reconstruction of the manuscript transmission of the new text and his use of computer-assisted stylometric techniques. The authors suggest that both strands of his argument are inconclusive. First, it is argued that the transposition of gatherings in the archetype of the Apuleian philosophica as envisaged by Stover is highly unrealistic. Second, replications of Stover's stylometric experiments show that their results are highly dependent on the particular algorithm settings and on the composition of the corpus. It is further shown that Stover's choice of highly specialized stylometric techniques is suboptimal, because popular generalist methods for statistical data analysis are demonstrably more successful in correctly identifying authors of Latin text fragments and do not support the case for Apuleius’ authorship of the new text. The authors conclude that there are no solid grounds to conclude that the ‘New Apuleius’ was indeed written by Apuleius.

THE TROIA CHRONICLE AND HISTORIOGRAPHICAL PRODUCTION IN MEDIEVAL PUGLIA

Historiographical production within twelfth-century Puglia seems to have been markedly limited, and this frustrates attempts to access internal perspectives on a region which played a pivotal socio-political and economic role within southern Italy as it fell under Norman rule, and was subsequently absorbed into the new Kingdom of Sicily in 1130. It might, however, be possible to bolster the region's twelfth-century historiographical outputs if we were to include a largely overlooked and problematic source, the so-called Fragmentary Troia Chronicle. It is a short, hybridized and fragmented Latin text usually assumed to be late twelfth-century as a result of its chronological coverage. It consists of an annalistic-style account of political and religious events mostly of relevance to the northern Pugliese city of Troia and its bishopric, and ostensibly covers 1014 to 1124/7. It is accompanied by what also seems to be an appendix of documents (some dated later than the annalistic section) associated with the city's bishopric. This article therefore offers the first extended analysis of the Troia Chronicle's place within Pugliese historiographical production. It revisits questions around its authenticity, examines potential contexts surrounding its production and content, and provides the first English translation of the narrative section of the chronicle. In so doing, it argues that we must tread carefully when using this source, but that the Troia Chronicle's existence and its main chronological focus could at the very least hold significance as a marker of an enduring remembrance of a vibrant era of episcopal, literary and urban development in this Pugliese city in the eleventh and twelfth centuries.

The Name ‘Palestine’ in Classical Greek Texts

This article provides a contextualised exposition of classical Greek texts, in chronological order, from Herodotus to Eusebius of Caesarea (5th century BC-4th century AD), with brief biographical reviews and in which the name ‘Palestine’ appears. A Latin text by Pomponius Mela is also included for its reference to Gaza which, with the exception of the Septuagint texts, predates Arrian, Arrian of Nicomedia, a Greek historian of the Roman period, by nearly a century. The selection of classical texts explored in this article is not intended to be exhaustive; however, the exploration of these texts in connection with Palestine has never been attempted before. While avoiding historical, philosophical or literary criticism of these texts, this article focuses on the specific considerations of the name ‘Palestine’ in the classical literature.

Miles tutus fuit – Venator interiit

The study deals with the history of a tombstone found at the archaeological excavations in the Franciscan church of Szigetvár in the winter of 2020. Th e archaeological find is remarkable in several respects. Its unique character is provided by the fact that its upper surface is covered not only with a coat of arms, but also with a lengthy Latin text. An investigation of the inscription revealed that the deceased, a certain Major (Supremus Vigiliarum Praefectus) Johann Collet, died in 1703 during a hunt in the vicinity of Szigetvár. The study briefly presents the historical context of the case: the situation of Szigetvár in the turn of the 17th and 18th centuries, the use of the church by the Franciscan order, as well as the most important moments of the 2020 archeological excavation.