Isidorus versificatus – The Rewriting of an Isidorian Text in the 12th Century

Abstract

Isidorus versificatus, a 12th-century anonymous Latin poem edited in 1975 by Christian Hünemörder, puts into verse fragments of Book XI (De homine et portentis) and Book XII (De animalibus) of Isidore of Seville’s Etymologies (7th century). Our paper aims to examine how the medieval text modifies the claim of the encyclopedic prose on which it is based. We undertook a contrastive parallel reading of the two texts and found that, in rewriting the text, the medieval versifier reduced the informative dimension of the source by eliminating a critical amount of scholarly data, such as definitions, classifications, etymological approaches, and geographic information. Thus, within the epistemological horizon of the 7th century, it becomes possible to classify the medieval text as a scientific one. Furthermore, the unknown author eliminated the Isidorian theological considerations that helped identify the status of portents and animals within Creation. This has led us to question whether the versified version belongs to the genre of the Lehrgedicht assumed by its editor. Thus, we advance the hypothesis that the literary purpose pursued by the anonymous poet was to create a text that emphasizes the presence of mirabilia.