Textual Criticism and Editing

The move to a computerised world has simplified in many ways the typesetting of complex documents, and yet the preparation of critical editions is still lacking: the commonly used word processors in the market do not allow typesetting critical apparatus where the lemmas are referred to by line numbers, and the price of dedicated software is very high. Today, publishers construct critical editions manually with the assistance of graphic designers. In this paper I suggest the use of a freeware, versatile typesetting system, LaTeX, which allows logically correct coding of critical apparatus in multiple languages. The system’s abilities are demonstrated with a critical edition of a few verses from Isaiah, which is supplemented by the source code.

Remarks on a rare Latin term: perquaqua(m), also writen per quaqua(m). The ThLL question its existence. However, it is attested in the manuscript tradition of Jordanes, Pseudo-Sisbert of Toledo, Venantius Fortunatus, and Stepelinus's Miracula sancti Trudonis. Sometimes it has been deleted or corrected both by scribes and editors, but its existence should be beyond doubt. An emedation by Krusch to Vita Germani 57, proposed and afterwards discarded by Krusch himself, is defended.

The manuscript Vatican Ross. 350 (15th century, 2nd half) transmits a hitherto unidentified text. It corresponds to a passage extracted from Ephraim’s Liber de compunctione cordis, the late-antique translation of the Greek Λόγος ἀσκητικός, partially derived from Syriac sources. The fragment actually dates back at least to the Carolingian period, as shown by the manuscripts Angers, Bibliothèque Municipale, 279 (270) and Düsseldorf, Universitäts- und Landesbibliothek, B. 3. Its study and edition allow offering some general remarks on Ephraim’s Latin and Greek manuscript tradition and the influence of this passage and other related texts during the Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages.

At the end of the Renotatio Isidori, Braulio of Zaragoza mentions Isidore of Seville’s fight against the heresy of the Acephali. In the text of the manuscripts the last sentence (eam adseruit veritatem) is commonly accepted as corrupt; it was rightly printed between cruces desperationis in the most recent critical edition. This paper proposes reading sanctam for eam, which may have arisen through the misinterpretation of the common abbreviation ɾcam. The expression sancta veritas is regularly used by Late Antique and Early Medieval authors to refer to Holy Scripture and its catholic, orthodox interpretation.

Madrid, Biblioteca Nacional de España, 194 is the oldest extant Beneventan homiliary. As an appendix to his detailed study of this codex, Raymond Étaix transcribed a sermon
of which this manuscript is the only known witness (CPL 1160a, 18-20). Although Étaix already emended certain faults, some errors remained unsolved. This paper presents a new critical edition including the discussion of the last sentence of the text, now transcribed under ultraviolet light. The text is followed by critical notes in which the corruptions identified by Étaix are corrected; some hitherto unnoticed faults are identified and emended as well.

Il libro V dell’Ars grammatica di Prisciano (VI sec. d. C.) contiene una sezione dedicata ai nomi di genere ‘dubbio’, cioè incerto. Oggetto di questa sezione sono gli usi linguistici dei vetustissimi, cioè autori di età repubblicana e protoimperiale; Prisciano, che si basa dichiaratamente sugli spogli di grammatici precedenti, Plinio il Vecchio e Probo, offre indicazioni sul genere grammaticale di circa cinquanta lemmi. La sua testimonianza è particolarmente preziosa e insieme problematica perché in molti casi priva di riscontro nella documentazione letteraria ed epigrafica superstite. Alla luce della nuova collazione integrale dei testimoni di IX e X secolo dell’Ars per il libro V, si analizzeranno alcuni passi del capitolo sui nomina generis dubii in cui le scelte dell’editore critico di Prisciano hanno anche delle ricadute sulla storia della lingua e della linguistica latina.