Lucretius Franco-Hibernicus: Dicuil's Liber de Astronomia and the Carolingian Reception of De Rerum Natura, Illinois Classical Studies 45.1 (2020), pp. 224-252 (original) (raw)
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In the twenty-first century, the chance to discover, study and edit a quasi-unknown and disregarded Latin text from the Early Medieval Ages is absolutely rare. The Homiliary of Luculentius offers such a seldom opportunity and all indicators at present favour our hypothesis that this considerable source, known only from selected parts, is a rarity in the proper sense: it appears to be the earliest autochthonous Latin monument of the so-called Spanish March, the north-eastern part of the Iberian Peninsula dominated by the Carolingians and their culture. Our new research project aims at the full edition of this work, the identification of its sources and the religious, social and political contextualisation of the probably monastic author and his network. The exploration of this work will fundamentally change our vision of Carolingian culture in a still underrated periphery of Charlemagne’s Empire.
The social logic of historiographical compendia in the Carolingian period
2012
About twenty years ago, Gabrielle M. Spiegel published her article ‘History, Historicism and the Social Logic of the Text’, which is to my mind still one of the best discussions of the consequences of the linguistic turn for research on medieval texts.1 It appeared in Speculum as part of a collection of essays about the perspectives of what was called new philology at the time. In this volume a number of medievalists reflected on the challenges and opportunities that accompanied the new concepts and approaches to texts that French postmodernism had inspired. The new, postmodern concept of the text extended the meaning of the literary work beyond what had been seen as an intricate relationship to the author, to the social reality of the work’s production and reception. In what Roland Barthes famously called his semiological adventure, a text came to be understood not only as a ‘signification, but as a signifier, not a group of closed signs endowed with a meaning to be discovered, but...
Lost in Translation. The Sixteenth Century Vernacular Lucretius
De Gruyter, P. Hardie, V. Prosperi, D. Zucca (eds.), LUCRETIUS POET AND PHILOSOPHER Background and Fortunes of ›De Rerum Natura‹, 2020
In the Renaissance admiration for Lucretius was widespread, but it nevertheless had to comply with a set of unwritten rules in order for the De Rerum Natura to be read and allowed into humanist culture. Spared from the index of forbidden books, humanists had to be particularly careful when handling this epicurean, materialistic, soul's-immortality-denying poem. The key factor was probably the prohibition on translating the poem into the vernacular: the fate met by Alessandro Marchetti's belated attempt is usually proof enough of the perils that awaited the transgressors. What became explicit in Marchetti's case had implicitly been the rule since the poem's unearthing: this only partially discouraged humanists enticed by the charm of Lucretius' poetry. Not only did the DRN serve as model for vernacular or neo-Latin poetry in general, but also literal translations of Lucretian lines or groups of lines appear everywhere in Italian vernacular poetry of the time. Not surprisingly then, the scholarship keeps tenuous trace of not one but two complete, unpublished sixteenth-century vernacular translations of the DRN: one by Neapolitan aristocrat Giovan Francesco Muscettola, the other by professional letterato and philosopher Tito Giovanni Ganzarini from Scandiano. Nothing remains of either translation, but much can be inferred regarding their quality, relevance and circulation from the two authors' circumstances, their epistolaries, their surviving writings. The aim of this paper is to outline this neglected but all-important episode within the history of Lucretius' Renaissance reception.
• Illo Humphrey | PhD-HDR | UPX-Nanterre-UFR Phillia | CNU – 18 • • Mediævalist | Musicologist | Proto-Philologist | Concert-Baritone | Trilingual simultaneous Interpreter • • https://u-bordeaux3.academia.edu/IlloHumphrey | https://u-bordeaux3.academia.edu/IlloHumphrey/Papers • • RMA Study Days | SOAS – University of London | 9-XI-2019: « Iconography as a source for Music History » • • Lecture – Concert | « Observations on the elements of music and philosophy in the Carolingian illumination David rex et prop[heta] » • • This pedagogical Mini-Lecture – Concert, guided by the main theme of the Royal Music Association Study Days-2019 – that is to say, Iconography as a source for Music History, explores what one may legitimately call iconographic proto-philology, which is a new composite approach and methodology that allows one to determine and to identify by critical deduction the invisible ties between the intangible and tangible elements of a given research, and thereby to formulate well-founded hypotheses, and to arrive at sound conclusions concerning studies in Iconographia. Presented here are a few pertinent observations on the elements of music and philosophy in the magnificent Carolingian illumination David rex et prop[heta], which is the frontispiece of the Book of Psalms in the monumental Bible in-folio, known as the 1st Bible of Charles the Bald (*823-†877), written between 844-851 at the scriptorium of Saint-Martin of Tours and conserved in the codex Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, Fonds latin 1, f. 215v • • OUTLINE: This pedagogical mini-Lecture on the Carolingian philosophy of iconography, namely: on the well-known illumination David rex et prop[heta], is sevenfold. The 7 closely interrelated capitula [chapters] briefly developed here are as follows: [¶1] Brief introduction: On the “Ordo palatii”, the royal and imperial Carolingian network of monastic schools • [¶2] The 1st Bible of Charles II “The Bald” (*823-†877) | Paris, BnF, Fonds latin 1 (Tours, ca. 844-851), folio 215v: Description and analysis of the Carolingian illumination David rex et prop[heta] • [¶3] Philosophy of Numbers and Proportions | Philosophy of Musical Sounds | The Regime of the Octave • [¶4] The Philosophy of Carolingian Iconography and its Proto-Philology: De institutione imagine, an experimental and iconographical analysis based on the principle of the « substantia numeri » | (infra, p. 3) • [¶5] The Summa bona | Quattuor virtutes animae | Quattuor virtutes cardinales: Prvdentia • Ivstitia • Fortitvdo • Temperantia : τὰ ἀγαθά• θεῖα καὶ ἀνθρώπινα: the Highest divine and human Good, ἡ ϕρόνησις καὶ ἡ ὑγίεια: wisdom and hygiene, ἡ σωϕροσύνη καὶ τὸ κάλλος: temperance et beauty, ἡ δικαιοσύνη καὶ ἡ ἰσχύς: justice and power, ἡ ἀνδρεία καὶ ὁ πλοῦτος: courage and wealth, cf. Πλάτων, Νόμοι ἢ Νομοθεσίαι МΓ’, χλα’ [Pláton, Laws or Legislations in 43 Books] 631-C ; Paris, BnF, Fonds grec 1807, 9th c., f. 157v, text and glosses ; W.C. Greene, Scholia Platonica, p. 303 • [¶6] The Admmonitio generalis and the sevenfold canon of the Liberal Arts (Quadruvium [sic] / Quattuor metheseos disciplinae: ars arithmetica• ars musica• ars geometrica• ars astronomica• | Trivium: ars grammatica• ars dialectica uel logica• ars rhetorica•) and the remarkable pedagogical blueprint outlined in the well-known Carolingian Capitularium XXII, called Admonitio generalis (see article 72), which was probably drafted in extenso by the Alcuinus Euboricensis, that is to say Alcuin of York (*ca. 732 – †Tours, 804 | Minister of Education and Culture under Charlemagne, and lay Abbot of the Benedictine Abbey of Saint-Martin of Tours, 795-796 to 804) » | (infra, p. 4-5) • [¶7] Conclusion | Key-Words | Bibliography • • © Illo Humphrey | PhD-HDR | scripsi et subscripsi • • Associate Researcher | UR 24142 PLURIELLES – LaPRIL | Université Bordeaux Montaigne | F-33607 Pessac • • Mediævalist | Musicologist | Proto-Philologist | Concert-Baritone | Trilingual simultaneous Interpreter • • https://plurielles.u-bordeaux-montaigne.fr/membres/illo-humphrey •
Revista Signum, 2018
This article is a follow-up on the recent editio princeps of the Pauca de barbarismo collecta de multis, a Carolingian grammar on the traditional topic of the uitia et uirtutes orationis. Here are some observations on questions that have remained open and suggestions for further research. As for the authorship of the treatise, here it is suggested that the most likely author is Clemens Scottus, master of the palace school in the early ninth century. It is still doubtful whether Clemens also wrote one of two extant grammars on the parts of speech. The second question concerns the position of a Bamberg manuscript within the tradition of this treatise. It is cautiously suggested that the branch in which this manuscript belongs is the product of a revision. The third question concerns the relationship between the Pauca de barbarismo and some ninth-century commentaries on Aelius Donatus’ Ars maior. Our treatise is earlier but more research is needed to clarify its position within this group of analogous texts.