Questions terminologiques et questions de méthode : autour de Giorgio Cencetti, Emanuele Casamassima et Albert Derolez

Abstract

The theoretical principles and terminology developed by leading palaeographers in the latter half of the twentieth century risk falling into oblivion before their full potential has been realised. Essential contributions have been made by two Italian scholars, Giorgio Cencetti and Emanuele Casamassima, whose outlooks, though historically related, are in the end divergent. Cencetti developed a truly historical concept of writing, which he stated in theoretical terms and went on to illustrate thoroughly, embracing the whole field of Latin scripts in a fluid and dynamic vision, sensitive to the human and technical factors liable to explain its evolution. From a distinctly more abstract, structuralist perspective, Casamassima developed a sophisticated theoretical apparatus that is useful for highlighting the underlying logic of writing as a system. Another approach, with essentially catalographic aims, seeks to organise the history of scripts into a general scheme based on a coherent typology and nomenclature. The system, advocated fifty years ago by Gerard Lieftinck for Gothic scripts, was recently expanded and perfected by Albert Derolez, in a book that ought to renew, rather than close, the debate on the relationship between terminology and methods.