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The Verse Embellishments of the ‘Milleloquium Sancti Augustini’

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 July 2016

Bernard M. Peebles
Bernard M. Peebles*
Affiliation:
The Catholic University of America
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Extract

Not overfamiliar, it seems, to students of late medieval patristic scholarship is the Milleloquium veritatis S. Augustini, the work of a fourte enth-century Augustinian Hermit, Bartholomew, native of the city of Urbino and for the last three years of his life (1347-1350) its bishop. This impressive compilation was produced largely at Bologna, where Bartholomew devoted much of his maturity to teaching, applying thus the fruit of earlier studies at Paris that had led to the doctorate in theology. While the composition of a treatise De Romani pontijicis Christi viearii auctoritate appears to have had great weight in deciding Pope Clement VI to grant the see of Urbino to Bartholomew, it is for his Augustinian Milleloquium — and for a similarly organized and similarly titled compilation frem the works of St. Ambrose — that he is chief'y known to scholars. The Milleloquium S. Augustini contains perhaps fifteen thousand excerpts from the writings that its compiler regarded, not always correctly, of course, as works of Augustine's. These excerpts, selected for significant. treatment of the themes with which they deal, are set out — hence Bartholomew's titles — under some 1000 alphabetically arranged subject headings running from ABEL to ZJZANIA. Produced in a period that, like Pope Clement VI himself, was ‘compendiorum avidissimus,’6 the Milleloquium did not fail of success: to this fact the not fewer than forty surviving manuscripts” and a series of five or six printings' from 1555 to 1734 amply testify. In recent times the utility of the Milleloquium as a subject index to Augustine was noted by Ludwig Traube, while Père Joseph de Ghellinck indicated how the work could be helpful ‘en faisant parfois retrouver au lecteur des textes peu connus.’ Doubtless, too, this rich assembly has its simple appeal to the hurried scholar who would quickly find an apt sententia from Augustine on this subject or that, and even to the pigri lectores et inbecillitatis sarcina gravati who were the expected clientele of a yet earlier florileqium from Augustine with which we shall shortly deal.

Type
Miscellany
Information
Traditio , Volume 10 , 1954 , pp. 555 - 566
Copyright
Copyright © Fordham University Press 

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References

1 On Bartholomew see Th. Disdier, M. in DHGE 6 (1932) 1034f. Additional to Disdier's bibliography: Denifle, H., O.P., Ergänzungen zu … Luther und Luthertum I: Quellenbelege (Mainz 1905) 195-197: Perini, D. A., Bibliographia Augustiniana …: Scriptores Itali I (Florence 1929) 203-205; Arbesmann, R., O.S.A. and W. Hümpfner, O.S.A. (edd.), Jordani de Saxonia … Liber Vitasfratrum (New York 1943) 239, 475f., and other refs, listed in the Index, p. 354 (to which add xxiv, xxvi); Arbesmann,’ Outstanding Augustinian Humanists,’ The Tagastan 10 (Washington 1947) 101-112 (esp. 102f.); Fitzpatrick, V. J., M.S.SS.T., Bartholomaeus of Urbino: The Sermons Embraced in his ‘Milleloquium Augustini’, S. (unpublished M.A. diss., The Catholic University of America, Washington 1954), where Chaps. II and III deal generally with Bartholomew and the Milleloquium.Google Scholar

2 Cf. Perini, Bibl. Aug. I 204 (No. 7),Google Scholar

3 The opinion advanced by Disdier. DHGE 6.1034. Others hold that it was Clement's admiration for the Milleloquium that decided him: perhaps first to express this opinion was Petrarch, Fam. 8.6.2 (ed. Rossi, V. [cit. infra n. 20] II 173).Google Scholar

4 On this title and its congeners. see Lehmann, P. Mittelalterliche Büchertitel I (Sitzungsb. der Bayer. Akad. der Wiss., Phil.-hist. Kl., Jahrgang 1948, Heft 4) 63; also Bartholomew's pleasantry in the closing explicit of the Milleloquium (infra 558).Google Scholar

5 So, with the Milleloquium in mind. wrote Petrarch of Pope Clement (loc. cit. supra n. 3).Google Scholar

6 Father Fitzpatrick lists more than thirty MSS (Barth. Urb. [cit. supra n. 1] 39-41) and nine or ten additional are enumerated by Ministeri, P. B. (op. cit. infra n. 44), 223f.Google Scholar

7 Lyons 1555 (editio princeps); Paris 1645. 1649, 1672: Brescia 1734 (V. Oblet, in DThC 2.437, appears to record a Lyons printing of 1644). The Paris printings of 1645, 1649, 1672 present the text as edited and reworked by Joannes Collierius.Google Scholar

8 Vorlesungen und Abhandlungen II (Munich 1911) 50.Google Scholar

9 Patristique et moyen âge III (Gembloux 1948) 113.Google Scholar

10 The Florigerus liber dealt with infra at n. 36; the phrase is from the prologue of the work, printed by Morin from three Basel MSS, op. cit. (infra n. 38) 211f.Google Scholar

11 Collierius (supra n. 7) transferred it to the early pages of the book.Google Scholar

12 It is this list that is the special concern of Father Fitzpatrick, Barth. Urb. (cit. supra n. 1).Google Scholar

13 Cf. the judgment of Denifle quoted infra at n. 40.Google Scholar

14 Sabbadini, R., Le scoperte dei codici latini e greci ne’ secoli XIV e XV: Nuove ricerche… (Florence 1914) 164.Google Scholar

15 The date is given in the colophon (fol. 475v), which is interpreted by Delisle, L., Cabinet des manuscrits I (Paris 1868) 492, and Bibl. Nat., Catalogue général des manuscrits latins II (Paris 1940) 327. Complete microfilm copy owned by the Catholic University of America.Google Scholar

16 This edition has been available only in selected pages reproduced on microfilm from a copy in the Bibl. Nat.; for the reproduction I am grateful to the kind offices of Gilbert Ouy, M., of the Cabinet des manuscrits. Of the book itself I know no copy in the U.S.A.Google Scholar

17 Catalogue général II 328: ‘Écriture et décoration italiennes.’ In 1426 the two volumes that form the MS were in the Visconti collection at Pavia; see the relevant inventory entries published by P. de Nolhac (see infra n. 31): Mélanges Havet 483 n.1; Pétrarque et l'humanisme II 298 n. 1.Google Scholar

18 Molinier, A., Catalogue des manuscrits de la Bibliothèque Mazarine I (Paris 1885) 296.Google Scholar

19 Here, as for the variants reported infra n. 32, the text given in the Vattasso-Franchi de’ Cavalieri catalogue has been followed. Too late to avail myself of the fact, I note, from Manuscripta 1.1 (April 1954) 3, that a microfilm of this MS and of its mate, Vat. lat. 518, is owned by the Vatican Manuscript Depository of the Knights of Columbus Foundation, St. Louis University.Google Scholar

20 Petrarca, F., Le familiari : Edizione critica per cura di Vittorio Rossi II (Edizione nazionale delle opere di Petrarca, F. XI; Florence 1934) 173f. Google Scholar

21 By Ugo Mariani, O.E.S.A., Il Petrarca e gli Agostiniani (Storia e letteratura 12; Rome 1946) 51.Google Scholar

22 See Arbesmann-Hümpfner, , Liber Vitasfratrum xvi n. 32, who cite Sabazio, G., ‘Lo studio di Bologna: Lettori Agostiniani,’ Bollettino Storico Agostiniano 2 (1928) 185–188.Google Scholar

23 On Petrarch's stay in Bologna, see, in general, Tatham, E. H. R., Francesco Petrarca , the First Modern Man of Letters I (London 1925) 109–137.Google Scholar

24 See Sabbadini, , op. cit. (supra n. 14) 157-163.Google Scholar

25 On the date of the elevation, see Eubel, C., Hierarchia catholica medii aevi I (2nd ed. Münster 1913) 509; van Moé, op. cit. (infra n. 28) 269 with nn. 1, 2. — For Petrarch's letter the date 1348-1349 is proposed by Professor Ernest Wilkins, H., The Prose Letters of Petrarch: A Manual (New York n.d. [1951?]) 67. The circumstances considered in the present note would seem to favor the earlier year.Google Scholar

26 Petrarch, Fam. 8.6.5 (ed. I, Rossi 174).Google Scholar

27 Lettere di Francesco Petrarca delle cose familiari libri ventiquattro… II (Florence 1864) 321f. Google Scholar

28 ‘Les Ermites de Saint-Augustin, amis de Pétrarque,’ École Française de Rome, Mélanges d'archéologie et d'histoire 46 (1929) 258–280, esp. 267-270; at 270 n. 1, MS 647 is cited in error for MS 648.Google Scholar

29 See supra n. 21.Google Scholar

30 Father Arbesmann (in The Tagastan 10.102f. [cf. supra n. 1]) does indeed refer to de Nolhac, but his necessarily brief treatment does not amount to a correction. Sabbadini, Scoperte 164, Burdach loc. cit. (infra n. 33), and Rossi loc. cit. (infra n. 35) all show full awareness of the significance of de Nolhac's find.Google Scholar

31 A shorter but substantially equivalent termination is found in MS Vat. lat. 519 (cit. supra at n. 19), fol. 544rb (according to the Vattasso-Franchi de’ Cavalieri catalogue). — De Nolhac's report of his discovery was first given in the Mélanges Havet, J. (Paris 1895) 481–483; it was repeated in his Pétrarque et l'humanisme (new ed. Paris 1907) II 297f.Google Scholar

32 Variants in V (see supra at n. 19): (the prose text) 1 Dominabilis tamen / Petraccha 2 qui nunc om. / est om. / laureatus] add. et moderno tempore / unicus] solus 4 cum … dictasset om. Google Scholar

33 Burdach, K. Aus Petrarcas ältestem deutschen Schülerkreise: Texte und Untersuchungen (id. [ed.], Vom Mittelalter zu Reformation 4; Berlin 1929) 42f. (I owe my knowledge of this book to the kindness of Professor Wilkins.) Burdach notes that Petrarch very rarely composed in elegiacs.Google Scholar

34 Mélanges Havet 481; Pétrarque et l'humanisme. II 297.Google Scholar

35 Rossi's note in his edition of Le familiari II 174 (on lines 30f. of Fam. 8.6).Google Scholar

36 Catalogue (cit. supra n. 18) I 294.Google Scholar

37 Other MSS of the Milleloquium prologue must be controlled before a safe conjecture can be made. Possibly P 1, with its 8½ foot hexameter, is unique.Google Scholar

38 There is no need here to give a longer treatment of FL. In the Basler Zeitschrift für Geschichte und Altertumskunde 26 (1927) 211–213 (part of the study ‘A travers les Manuscripts de Bâle’ [175–249]), Dom Germain Morin, O.S.B., analyzed the work and printed the 4-line verse prologue, the prose prologue, and the index capitum; his sources were four MSS of Basel (saec. XIII-XIV). Later, as Dr. Hunt, R. W. graciously informed me, Dom André Wilmart, O.S.B., in his Auteurs spirituels et textes dévots du moyen âge (Paris 1932) 453 n. 3, extended the list of MSS (enumerating 11 in English libraries [for Cambr., Trin. Coll. 146 read 164], 7 on the Continent) and listed various titles under which the work is known. Wilmart concludes that the work was composed in the thirteenth century at the latest ‘pour les besoins des écolâtres.’ Morin (p. 185) declared that the work circulated ‘dès le XIe/XIIe siècle’ in the region of Constance and St. Gall. If the Flores Augustini cited in an 11th/12th-cent. catalogue of Petershausen is our FL, then the earlier date is indeed established. But are we sure of the identity? Among actual MSS the oldest among those reported by Morin and Wilmart is Reims 549 (saec. XIII). — The ascription to Bede of the prefatory verses (perfect, dissylabic end rhymes and all) and of the prose prologue, found in the Oriel College MS, is far from universal. If Bede wrote the prose prologue, he compiled the whole florilegium, since the prologue gives a close analysis of the work. There seems to be little or nothing to support such an attribution —no more, indeed, than there is to support the attribution to him of the compilation from Augustine made in the ninth century by Florus of Lyons. For this Bede-Florus confusion, see Laistner, M. L. W. (with the collaboration of King, H. H.), A Hand-list of Bede Manuscripts (Ithaca 1943) 37f. To Professor Laistner and to his colleague, Professor Charles Jones, W., I am indebted for kind assistance in the matter of FL.Google Scholar

39 See the preceding note.Google Scholar

40 Denifle, , op. cit. (supra n. 1) 195.Google Scholar

41 Eugenius, edd., corr. Fitzpatrick (Barth. Urb. 36f.).Google Scholar

42 Giovanni, 's words are reported in Sabbadini, Scoperte 163 n. 35.Google Scholar

43 Op. cit. 163.Google Scholar

44 The dates here given are those argued for by Ministeri, P. B.,’ De Augustini de Ancona O.E.S.A. († 1328) vita et operibus,’ Analecta Augustiniana 22 (1951/52) 7-56, 145-262 (see esp. 56). The traditional dates: 1240/3-1328.Google Scholar

45 The tradition is recorded by Triumphus’ younger contemporary, Jordanus of Saxony, Liber Vitasfratrum 2.22 (ed. Arbesmann-Hümpfner, p. 239): ‘Item ipse incepit solemnem compilationem de dictis sancti Augustini… Quam studiosus vir frater Bartholomaeus de Urbino ulterius prosecutus est et complevit ac Milleloquium appellavit.’Google Scholar

46 The problem may not have seemed of interest to Padre Ministeri (cf. n. 44), who, in any event, does nothing with it in dealing (223f.) with the Milleloquium of Triumphus. The MSS listed appear to be simply MSS of the Milleloquium as completed by Bartholomew; even so, the new items are most welcome. (As for printed editions, it is not clear why of the Brescia edition of 1734 only coll. 1-955 should be called to the reader's attention.) In this connection Padre Ministeri makes no mention of what appears to be a genuinely pertinent document for determining the relation of Triumphus to the completed Milleloquium: Flores Beati Augustini, seu Milleloquium ex scriptis Augustini, S. auctore Augus tino Triumpho Anconitano…, MS Florence, Laur. 13.15 (saec. XIV), fol. 1-177 (cited by Perini, Bibl. Aug. IV [Florence 1937] 25), though (p. 170) fol. 178-256 are cited as containing Triumphus’ Tractatus de amore Spiritus Sancti. — Work has been begun at the Catholic University of America to determine the relation of the Laurentian Flores to the completed Milleloquium. Google Scholar

47 (Orleans 1752; anastatic reprint Rome 1927) I 250. The Carmelites of Whitcfriars Hall, Washington, kindly consulted for me their copy of the Bibliotheca. Google Scholar

48 The hymn is Chevalier 10443/4 (not later than saec. XV); in the Monastic Breviary it is appointed for March 21. — Dom Guéranger gives the text under that date in the Lenten volume of his Année liturgique. Google Scholar

49 Ferreri, On, see DThK 3.1009 (Kramer, H.), Enciclopedia cattolica 5.1199 (Mancone, A.).Google Scholar

50 Copy in the Library of Congress (Rare Books Division).Google Scholar

51 Fols. xlixr-lr, lr-lir respectively.Google Scholar

52 In Ferreri's own text, however, we can only be surprised at the indicative used in the indirect question introduced by ‘memoret quis unquam?’ (21f., notes). If Ferreri meant the ‘quot’ sentence to be exclamatory and ‘memoret quis unquam?’ parenthetical, then his printer served him badly.Google Scholar