No CrossRef data available.
Article contents
The Thirteenth Recorded Manuscript of the Cronaca di Partenope
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 December 2020
Extract
To the dozen MSS. of the Cronaca di Partenope previously known to students of medieval Neapolitan literature, one may now add a thirteenth codex of this “prima opera scritta nel dialetto napoletano.” This text is found in M 801 of the Pierpont Morgan Library, a MS. as well known to the art historian as it is (apparently) unfamiliar to literary historians. For the past half-century the Cronaca di Partenope in M 801 has been described as a “diary of events at Naples,” a title which was fathered upon the present tract by no less an authority than Sir Edward Maunde Thompson.
- Type
- Research Article
- Information
- Copyright
- Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1952
References
1 Besides the five MSS. discussed in the text below, there are recorded these: Palermo MS. 1.D.14; Modena (Estense) MS. viii.B.4; Paris, Bibl. Nat. MS. Italien 303 and MS. Italien 304; Vatican MS. Vat. Lat. 4061; Naples, Società napoletana di storia patria, MS. xxxii.D.14 bis; and collection of the late Professor Giuliano Vanzolini of Pesaro. Compare Gennaro Maria Monti, “La ‘Cronaca di Partenope’ (Premessa all 'edizione critica),” Annali del Seminario Giuridico Economico della R. Università di Bari, Anno v (1932), fasc. ii (reprint of 52 pp.), and Tammaro de Marmis, La biblioteca napoletana dei Re d'Aragona (Milano, 1947), ii, 56-57.
2 Bartolomeo Capasso, Le fonti della storia delle provincie napoletane dal 568 al 1500, ed. Mastrojanni (Napoli, 1902), p. 137.
3 For a further discussion of this MS., see my paper “The Fasciculus temporum and Morgan Manuscript 801,” Speculum (forthcoming).
4 It was thus described in a letter from Thompson, then Keeper of MSS. in the British Museum, to Henry Hucks Gibbs (later Lord Aldenham), dated 5 June 1880, and this title was subsequently adopted in the several catalogues of the Aldenham Library. See A Catalogue of Some Printed Books and Manuscripts at St. Dunstan's, Regent's Park, and Aldenham House, Herts. Collected by Henry Hucks Gibbs (London, 1888), p. 185; Catalogue of the Aldenham Library mainly collected by Henry Hucks Gibbs, First Lord Aldenham (Letchworth, 1914), p. 461; and The Aldenham Library. Catalogue of the Famous Library, the Property of the Rt. Honourable Lord Aldenham. The First Portion (Sale catalogue—London, Sotheby & Co., 24 March 1937, lot 250).
5 “I bagni di Pozzuoli, poemetto napolitano del secolo xiv,” Archivio storico per le province napoletane, xi (1886), 597-750.
6 The work was printed, according to the colophon, “in la ínclita Cita de Neapole per M. Euangelista di Presenzani de Pauia adi xxvii. de Aprile. xiiii. indictione dala Natiuita del nostro Signore M. D. xxvi.” Quoted from the copy belonging to the writer, sig. X5v.
7 Monti (op. cit., p. 15) remarks that the MS. was a “copia—a noi pare—dell'edizione del 1526.” My own study of the MS. confirms Monti's observation.
8 The text in this MS. ends with the account of “La Spelonga”; this is also the case in the two early MSS. of the Biblioteca Nazionale, while Pèrcopo supplies seven more chapters found in the Società MS., as well as still another (no. iv) on “La fommarola d'Agnano.”
9 This text is found on folio 158v of the MS. Two corrections have been made: the [è] is wanting in the MS. and [?agio] has been supplied where two wormholes have consumed enough of the text to make the original word illegible. The scribe of the MS., one Bernardinus de Turricella de Capitulo, adds the words “primo scriptore” (not found in the other MSS.) apparently so that the reader will understand that it was not he himself who saw this miraculous cure, but that he found the story in his source.
10 In Appendice ii (pp. 726-729), Pèrcopo prints a chapter from the Cronaca on Virgil and the Baths of Pozzuoli. This chapter occurs as no. 26 in the Naples MS. xiv.D.7 and Società MS. XX.C.5, while it is numbered 29 in M 801 and Del Tuppo (sig. b2). The Morgan-Del Tuppo text differs notably from the Neapolitan codices but shows a close affinity with the Palermo MS. 1.D.14 of 1380.
11 This edition is described by Mariano Fava and Giovanni Bresciano, La stampa a Napoli nel XV secolo (Leipzig, 1911-12), ii, 59, no. 68. Two copies are preserved in the Biblioteca Nazionale, Naples (ix.B.34 and xiv.B.46).
12 The account of Arco in M 801 (f. 85) agrees completely with the Del Tuppo print (sig. i2), apart from minor orthographical variations; it reads: “Ala sinistra parte delo lato de tre pergole e un bangnio chiamato arco doue se restaurano li hommini debili. restaura le menbre. conforta lo stomaco et aiuta tutti le interiore.” (Del Tuppo prints “hōi” and “mēbre”!) The 1526 edition offers the following: “Nella sinistra parte dello laco di auerno nello quale: e alta profundita & grande copia de diuersi pesci: sono de ce [i.e., diece] bagni de lequale lo primo dala forma e chiamato archo del quale e mirabile uirtu in restaurare li defecti: etiam dio in gli corpi guasti Restaura le membra: conforta lo stomacho: aiuta a tutti li interiori: non ioua alo uentre infiato ne melza: ne allo fecato infiato” (sig. V2).
13 Since it is clear from the confusing slips and occasional omissions in the MS. that the text of the printed book cannot have been set from M 801, it again follows that the MS. must be a copy of the edition. Furthermore the MS. often repeats misprints found in the printed text, as for example: folio 54 “constolatione” and “costellatione” (so in Tuppo, sig. a7v, ll. 20 and 28; 1526 edition, sig. C1, has “constellatione” twice); folio 64v “Guiscandi” (so Tuppo, sig. d6, l. 16; 1526 ed., sig. I3v, has “Guiscardo”) and “tranchedo guascardo” (so Tuppo, sig. d6, l. 21; 1526 ed., sig. I3v, has “Tanchredo Guiscardo”); etc.
14 Probably the scribe intended this to be read “A chiamando ...” which would give an entirely different (and incorrect) meaning to the passage.
15 See Adriano Cappelli, Dizionario di abbreviature latine ed italiane (Milano, 1912), p. 355.
16 For the appearance and use of these “guide-letters,” compare Konrad Haebler, Handbuch der Inkunabelkunde (Leipzig, 1925), pp. 91-92.
17 For further details and bibliography, consult George Sarton, Introduction to the History of Science (Baltimore, 1927-48), ii, 438-439. The work is sometimes known under the title De balneis terrae laborts, a title which is also justified by the Paris MS. Italien 301 (f. 156v, col. 2, l. 22): “la prouincia de terra de lauore haue bagni che curano li malati.”.
18 See Fava and Bresciano, op. cit., p. 81, no. 92. I am deeply obliged to Dr. Dorothy M. Schullian of the Army Medical Library for her truly remarkable kindness and generosity in lending me her typescript copy of this edition. Such scholarly cooperation is as rare as it is appreciated!
19 Arnold of Brussels was working in Naples in his capacity as scribe as early as 10 July 1455 and as late as 26 May 1492. For further details, see Konrad Haebler, Die deutsehen Buchdrucker des XV. Jahrhunderts im Auslande (München, 1924), p. 137 ff.
20 It seems likely, from Pèrcopo's discussion, that the Italian prose version of the Cronaca MSS. belongs to the closing years of the 14th century, nearly a century before the appearance of the first printed edition.
21 According to Monti, op. cit., p. 16, the editor was Leonardo Astrino of S. Giovanni Rotondo (Gargano) and the work was undertaken at the instance of Antonio de Falco and Giacomo Bondino. See Astrino's letter on verso of title page of 1526 edition.
22 The present writer has in hand a lengthier study of the Baths of Pozzuoli and Ischia, where further reasons will be listed in support of this contention. For a possible explanation as to why this copy of a printed book was made, consult my paper cited in note 3 above.