Transmission of Knowledge in the Late Middle Ages and the Renaissance

The nineteenth century saw the rapid development of textual criticism for establishing the “best” and “most authentic” forms of both Ancient and Mediaeval texts thanks to the method perfected by Karl Lachmann, who based himself on the insights gained during the eighteenth century.  Lachmann’s method has been further refined by later philologists, with, most interestingly, the use of computers in establishing the mutual relations of manuscript witnesses since the last decades of the twentieth century. However, the interest in what form the texts, both Ancient and Mediaeval, were actually circulating in the Late Middle Ages and in the Renaissance, has been slow to emerge as an area of scholarly interest. In other words: what did the readers actually get in front of their eyes, and acted upon as, say, doctors, historians, theologians between the thirteenth and sixteenth centuries?

This volume explores the Late Medieval and Renaissance transmission of texts of different genres, languages and periods from the book historical point of view, taking into consideration not only the textual but also the material aspect of the traditions. 

The authors include eminent specialists as well as mid- and early career scholars.

Outi Merisalo, Introduction

I. Roman law

Mario Varvaro, Note sulla definizione della possessio nel Festo Farnesiano (Napoli, BNN, IV. A. 3)

II. Medicine

Stefania Fortuna, La tradizione latina di Galeno e il De farmaciis

Monica H. Green, Recovering ‘Ancient’ Gynaecology. The Humanist Rediscovery of the Eleventh-Century Gynaecological Corpus

Iolanda Ventura, Una trasmissione complessa da rivedere. Appunti sul corpus di scritti di Giovanni di Saint-Amand

Vivian Nutton, The Transmission of Medical Knowledge in Script and Print

III. Religious literature

Elena Parina, Maria Volkonskaya, Middle Welsh texts on the Virtues of the Mass in their European context

IV. Historiography

Samu Niskanen, Copyists and redactors. Towards a prolegomenon to the editio princeps of Peregrinatio Antiochie per Vrbanum papam facta

Jakub Kujawiński, Saved in Translation. Vernacular translations from Paris, BNF, fr. 688, as witnesses of lost texts, manuscripts and readings

Concetta Bianca, Revisione d’autore o intervento ideologico? A proposito del De expeditione in Turcos di Biondo Flavio

Miika Kuha, The Reception of Humanist Historiography in Venice. Simultaneous Copying of the De gestis, moribus et nobilitate civitatis Venetiarum by Lorenzo de' Monaci at the Beginning of the Sixteenth Century

Susanna Niiranen, From Prison to Print. Johannes Messenius' Scondia illustrata as a co-product of early modern prison writing

V. Military literature

Joëlle Ducos, De la glose à la parenthèse. Traduire Végèce en français au XVI^e siècle

VI. Poetry

Lorenzo Amato, Le serie di madrigali alla Strozzi. Una prima ricognizione e analisi socio-culturale di un genere poetico granducale

Paul Gwynne, Problems Mainly Propertian. Francesco Sperulo and Renaissance Commentary

Abbreviations of Library Names

Index codicum
Index rerum
Index nominum

Illustrations