THE AMBROSIANUS MANUSCRIPT AND ITS VARIANTS: A STUDY IN COMPARISON WITH THE GALATIAN ETHIOPIC MANUSCRIPT

Novum Testamentum Graecum, Editio Critica Maior

In his Foreword, Michael D. Reeve concisely points out the principal aim of this book: to ‘acquaint English-speaking scholars with the work of such figures as Michele Barbi, Gianfranco Contini, Cesare Segre, Alfredo Stussi, and Alberto Varvaro’, and indeed Paolo Trovato ‘sternly warns against the inaccurate and outdated accounts of genealogical methods often given by scholars impatient with them’ (p. 11). The book is divided into two parts, ‘Theories’ and ‘Practical Applications’, followed by a Conclusion. The first part introduces us to four main interwoven strands: the definition of the core concepts of textual criticism; the methods and practices on which the study of the textual tradition and the preparation of a (good) scientific edition are grounded; the historical genesis of those concepts, methods, and practices; and their present and future. In the second part, Trovato analyses three textual traditions of increasing richness and intricacy: Tractatus de locis et statu sancte terre jerosolimitane; Jean Renart's Lai de l'ombre; and Dante's Commedia. The structure and history of textual traditions are investigated in a thorough way: the concept of archetype; the relation between the extant witnesses and what must have been the real manuscript production; the lack of symmetry in stemmata; the (plausible) historical reason for their prevalent two-branch articulation; the genesis and diffusion of vulgate texts. These themes are all of key interest for the comprehension of the history and even the aesthetics of medieval texts: as textual traditions, the structure and dynamics of these texts can be regarded as the fabric of the medieval literary system and cultural space. While the book focuses on textual criticism applied to romance texts in general, it can be recommended also to specialists in French literature as it deals with the textual tradition of a number of medieval French classics (the Chanson de Roland, Chrétien de Troyes, and, more extensively, the Lai de l'ombre) and some decisive moments of French medieval studies (for example, the works of Gaston Paris, Joseph Bédier, and Félix Lecoy). Trovato's book is thus useful and innovative, and it is to be hoped that its Italian publisher will succeed in the task of securing a wider, English-speaking audience. The ‘non-standard’ element, signposted by the title, might cause some perplexity. This volume is a didactic tool and at the same time a passionate and combative pamphlet; it speaks to students and colleagues at the same time and with the same stance; it alternates more accessible sections, dedicated to classic case studies, with in-depth research on texts that may be unfamiliar to students of Romance languages and literatures outside of continental Europe; it offers a general presentation of the whole discipline but also condensed versions of some of Trovato's works and projects, giving a central position to the author's personal scholarly itinerary. Trovato's work is at the same time exemplary and sui generis in the framework of Italian neo-Lachmannism, and without a doubt deserves attention and active consideration abroad.

Since its first edition, published in 1992, Tov's volume on textual criticism has been the guide for students and scholars on the textual history and analysis of the Hebrew Bible. The various editions have been updated in light of new discoveries and changes in the practices of textual criticism. This fourth edition contains a significant number of changes, both in organization and judgment. These changes are set out in the preface to the volume. The work provides a comprehensive assessment of the textual tradition of the Hebrew Bible by reviewing the different textual traditions and the practices of textual criticism. Part One reviews the textual traditions related to the Hebrew Bible, and Part Two describes the practices of textual criticism. The complexity of the subject matter is overcome by Tov's ability to explain clearly and precisely the issues being addressed. A helpful element of the book is the numerous examples and the “suggestions for exercises” (Chapter 16). These provide students with the opportunity not only to read about textual criticism but also to see it in action and practice it. Students and scholars who are willing to patiently engage in this book will reap immense rewards.

“Holding Living Bodies in Graveyards”: The Violence of Keeping Ethiopian Manuscripts in Western Institutions

The Textual Criticism of Visual and Aural Works G. Thomas Tanselle (bio) Textual criticism—the study of the relationships among variant texts of works—has primarily been associated, throughout its long history extending back to antiquity, with verbal works as transmitted on tangible objects such as parchment and paper. But all works, whether constructed of words or not, have had histories that—if fully told—would reveal stages of growth and change, reflecting not only their creators’ intentions but also the effects of their passage to the public and through time. All works, in other words, have textual histories. Whether or not one chooses in every case to use the word “text” to refer to the arrangement of elements that make up a work is irrelevant; the point is that the issues and problems dealt with in the textual criticism of verbal works have their counterparts in the study of all other works. One reason that this point has not been as widely acknowledged as it ought to have been is perhaps the fact that the varying media used in different arts affect the nature of the accompanying scholarship. The textual criticism of verbal works, for example, often leads to the production of scholarly editions, which embody insights derived from the study of textual history. Because the medium of verbal works—language—is fundamentally intangible, a work can be represented by a text in a newly produced physical object (the one conveying the scholarly edition) without making any alterations to the historic artifacts that had transmitted earlier texts of the work to the present. But a work in a tangible medium, like a painting or a sculpture, cannot as freely be accorded scholarly editions, since any alteration deemed appropriate by the editor would permanently alter the artifact that uniquely is the site of the intended work and thus would deprive the future of some of the evidence that had been available to the editor. Regardless of whether textual scholarship leads to editions or to essays, the medium employed in each art determines the nature of the evidence available for reconstructing textual history. (I am not speaking of the quantity of evidence, which can vary irrespective of the medium.) [End Page 1] The evolution of the text of a painting, for example, may be attested to by sketches, which are analogous in some respects to the drafts of a verbal work. But, being made of a physical material that is applied to a physical surface, a painting may preserve earlier stages of its text that exist on the same surface beneath the layer of paint that is now on top, and these stages can be revealed, in varying degrees, by modern technology. Some works in intangible media, such as literature and music, can be transmitted either by direct imitation or by tangible aides-memoirs. When a textual tradition is entirely of the intangible kind, knowledge of a work’s history is dependent on memory; when texts are passed along in physical objects, there is direct access to certain moments of the past (the moments when the documents were prepared), but the texts thus reported are not necessarily more trustworthy than those carried forward in human memory. The objects, however, inevitably carry traces of their own manufacture; and when those clues are uncovered through analysis, they can help explain how the text came to be constituted as it is. This procedure is the counterpart to scrutinizing a canvas for underlying layers of paint: the examination of objects can be as crucial to reconstructing textual histories of works in intangible media as it is for those in tangible media. Textual critics must of course assess whatever evidence is available to them, but the process must take into account the fact that some evidence may be transmitted by media different from the medium of the work itself. Furthermore, the textual history of a work proceeds beyond the point at which the creator or creators of the work die or cease to make changes in it. The discipline of textual criticism has traditionally focused on the evolution of texts only up to that point, though the evidence often has to come, by default, from later...

Hebrew Studies 35 (1994) 232 Reviews topics. In the end, by insisting on the operational priority of the synchronic analysis, Talstra sets himself in opposition to the approach of Richter and his followers (Dietrich, Veijola), who begin with historical criticism in order to determine a more original text as a first stage, thus effectively putting the diachronic cart before the synchronic horse. Richard D. Nelson Lutheran Theological Seminary Gettysburg. PA 15243 TEXTUAL CRITICISM OF THE HEBREW BIBLE. By Emanuel Tov. Pp. xl + 456. Minneapolis: Fortress Press; Assen, the Netherlands: Van Gorcum, 1992. Cloth, $40.00. "[Textual criticism] is an art in the full sense of the word, a faculty which can be developed, guided by intuition based on wide experience" (p. 309). Emanuel Tov's wide experience is the foundation for this seemingly scientific guide to the art of textual criticism. Tov's many contributions to this aspect of biblical study are well known, especially his work on the Septuagint and more recently on the Dead Sea Scrolls. One would be hard pressed to think of a candidate more qualified than Tov to write a work such as this. The work under review is a revised and enlarged English edition of Tov's Biqqoret Nusah ha-Miqra'- Pirqe Mabo' (Jerusalem: Mosad Bialik, 1989), a reworking which the author describes as extensive (p. xxxv). More than simply an expression of Tov's scholarship, this work grows out of his experience teaching textual criticism in the classroom. The book not only balances an objective survey of the state of the art with Tov's personal approach to various issues, it also combines much of interest to specialists in a manner accessible to those using this work as an introductory textbook. The book is laid out in nine chapters of highly variable length (ranging from 4.5 pages [chap. 5] to 133 pages [chap. 2]), preceded by abbreviations and basic bibliography, and followed by a collection of 30 plates as well as indices of ancient sources, authors, and subjects. Each chapter and subsection has its own, often lengthy, bibliography. Tov has obviously thought carefully about the arrangement of this work, and sticks to it with rugged determination. What the book thus gains in clarity, it sometimes loses in extensive cross-references. Hebrew Studies 35 (1994) 233 Reviews Tov begins with an apologia for the task of textual criticism in biblical studies, highlighting various kinds of textual problems to be found in the Tanak. This provides the preparation for the marathon journey undertaken through chap. 2, in which Tov traverses exhaustively the textual witnesses used as evidence by text critics of the Hebrew Bible. This includes matters preserved by the Masoretic tradition itself as well as other textual traditions such as the Samaritan Pentateuch and related texts, the DSS, and the ancient translations, with the Septuagint here receiving pride of place. This lengthy tour reminds one how much of "scholarship" is simply (!) careful description . The variety of witnesses raises the question of the history of the biblical text, treated in chaps. 3 and 4, the former dealing with the history of scholarship and theoretical concerns, the latter describing technical matters of scribal transmission. With chap. 5 Tov embarks on a slightly different task, that of working through the nuts-and-bolts of the job of the text critic. According to Tov, text critics collect and evaluate variant readings or texts, often with a view to determining an "original" fonn of the text. It is not always obvious whether Tov is being prescriptive or merely descriptive, but he leaves no doubt that one must choose what stage of textual transmission is being examined, with Tov's own choice limiting textual evaluation to "readings created during textual transmission. excluding those created in earlier stages, during the literary growth of the book, even though they are included in textual witnesses" (p. 291). The principles guiding the task of evaluation are outlined in chap. 6, which describes varieties of evidence (internal and external) as well as the axioms of text critical practice (e.g., lectio dijJicilior and lectio brevior). He concludes by pointing out the limitation of such rules and stressing the importance of experience and common sense...

For some time, scholars have been using computer-assisted methods to produce graphic representations of the relationships between witnesses within a textual tradition.[1][1] The use of methods originally developed by evolutionary biologists has been called into question on account of the perceived lack of identity between two different disciplines. This view arises from a misunderstanding about how the methods work in relation to texts and how the resulting stemmata should be interpreted. This article refines textual critical terminology, particularly the distinction between textual traditions and manuscript traditions, in the context of the use of computer-assisted stemmatological methods to further our understanding of how these fit within the wider theoretical framework of textual criticism and scholarly editing, and makes explicit the way in which stemmata produced by using evolutionary biology software should be read. [1]: #fn-1

On the occasion of the jubilee of the GCS, also its Latin counterpart, the CSEL, organised by the Austrian Academy of Sciences since 1864, has been invited to give a short account on characteristics and problems of Latin Christian text tradition. So it is a great honour for both of us to present, out of our personal work, some examples of this tradition, being sometimes analogous, sometimes different from Greek traditions worked on by the editors of the GCS series. To begin with, just a few words on the Latin version of St Basil's Ascetic Rules, represented by the so-called 'Parvum Asceticum', the original (and shorter) version of the more expanded 'Regulae brevius et fusius tractatae', published in PG 31. While the larger version has been preserved in its original Greek text, its earlier form has survived only by its Syriac and Latin versions, the latter done by Rufinus of Aquileia in the year 396 on demand of an unknown abbot of a monastery somewhere on the coastline of Southern Italy (RBasRuf; first critical edition by K. Zelzer, CSEL 86, Vienna 1986). Therefore this text is of interest for scholars both working on St Basil's monastic writings, as witness of the lost Greek original, and those concerned with early western monastic tradition, for the RBasRuf was the earliest form of monastic regulations written in Latin, and later was recommended, together with the works of John Cassian, by St Benedict to his monks as textbook for spiritual studies. Unlike St Benedict's Rule, it has come down to us also by some four to five precarolingian manuscripts from Italy, Spain (?) and Corbie from the 6 t h century to around 700; ten more manuscripts of the 9 t h and 10 t h centuries preserve texts from Lerins, from the Frankish empire and from wisigothic Spain. Since all of those already follow their own textual traditions, sometimes also a look into the Greek text of PG 31 was helpful to find out the (supposed) original Latin variant. Those early textual differences and some fragments and quotations within historical documents from the early 6 t h century onwards (e.g. Vita Patrum Iurensium 174) show that the RBasRuf must already have spread widely in early western monastic times. Next to St Basil's Rule we were concerned with the textual tradition of St Benedict's Rule, edited by Rudolf Hanslik (CSEL 75, Vienna 2 1977) and by Adalbert de Vogue - Jean Neufville (SC 181-186, Paris 1971/72; the latter responsible for the section on textual tradition). Unlike the RBasRuf, St Benedict's Rule is preserved by far more manuscripts, but only by a single precarolingic one: by Oxford, Bodl. Hatton 48, of the 8 t h century, most probably written at Worcester. To tell a long story in a few words: Traube's traditional hypothesis of 'pure' (original, but kept close at Monte Cassino), 'interpolated' (worked over in late 6 t h century Rome and alone propagated in precarolingian times, represented by the Oxford codex) and 'contaminated' texts ('interpolated' text corrected to a copy of the 'pure' text only in carolingian times), basically taken over by the editors of both modern editions, had to be revised, by the actual evidence of the manuscript tradition, towards a more 'natural' view of the textual tradition: the so-called 'interpolated' text, still much nearer to the 'pure' one (and better preserved in Britain than in the Frankish regions), turned out to have been only an early branch of the precarolingian development, and the so-called 'contaminated' text, presenting a lot of variants not at all extant in the 'pure' nor the 'interpolated' texts (which Traube and his followers obviously were not willing to realise), clearly appeared as the result of a more or less continuous development of the text during Merowingian times on the Continent, which continued into the following centuries and spread out all over Europe with the Normans. A still different picture of both literary and textual problems is shown by the two Latin versions of the Apoc

Latin Literature

Reviewed by: “The Tale of Gamelyn” of the Canterbury Tales: An Annotated Edition A. S. G. Edwards Nila Vázquez, ed. “The Tale of Gamelyn” of the Canterbury Tales: An Annotated Edition. Lewiston, N. Y.: Edwin Mellen Press, 2009. Pp. 466. $175.30. The Middle English romance of Gamelyn (902 lines in couplets in its fullest form) survives in twenty-seven manuscripts, far more than for any other such romance. Its survival seems less an indication of its popularity than of the company it keeps: it appears only in manuscripts of the Canterbury Tales, generally as a continuation of The Cook's Tale. No [End Page 377] critical edition has ever been published based on the evidence of all the manuscripts. Nila Vázquez's edition does not fill this gap. It contains two main elements. There is what is termed a “Critical Edition” of Gamelyn (294– 332), together with an “Apparatus Criticus” (332–79). This is preceded by a series of what are termed “diplomatic editions” of ten manuscripts. These are the basis for what is termed a “Synoptic Edition,” which, she explains, “is conformed by [sic] the different diplomatic editions of the manuscripts in which the text appears” (37). Vázquez goes on to describe the reasons for the choice of these manuscripts: The manuscripts to be collated against the base text [Corpus] were selected taking into account a combination of significant criteria. On the one hand, their nature as old (i.e. closer to Chaucer's lifetime) and valuable manuscripts. On the other hand, their representativeness within the general classification in the textual tradition of the Canterbury Tales. . . . Bearing all these criteria in mind, a first group of manuscripts, comprising [Harley 7334, Lansdowne 851 and Petworth] was selected. . . . A second group of manuscripts includes [CUL Mm.II.5, Lichfield Cathedral and BL Royal 18.C.II], which together with [Petworth], are some of the best representatives of type d. . . . Thirdly, [Fitzwilliam McClean 181] and [sic] exemplify type d with some variations. Finally [Christ Church 152] was selected on account of its classification as another worthy manuscript and its close relation with the oldest exemplars. (36) Several aspects of these statements of method may be unclear to many students of Middle English manuscripts. What is a “synoptic edition”? Does it differ from a critical edition? Such questions do not receive answers. What is clear is that the grounds on which the majority of surviving manuscripts of Gamelyn are ignored are wholly unsound. The assumption that only “old” manuscripts should be of concern to the editor is wholly without justification. Age does not provide a criterion for ignoring the majority of the manuscripts of Gamelyn: there is no reason why later manuscripts should not preserve forms of the text, or particular readings, that need to be considered by the editor. And to choose to select manuscripts for scrutiny on criteria that may have no bearing on the text of Gamelyn (“some of the best representatives of type d” of the Canterbury Tales and “another ‘worthy’ manuscript”) is simply nonsensical. The only responsible way the textual tradition for Gamelyn [End Page 378] can be established is through collation of all manuscripts and analysis of the evidence from such a collation. These fundamental confusions about method extend into the form of this edition. Why are ten “diplomatic” transcripts of manuscripts actually presented in this volume? Especially since Vázquez has no clear understanding of what a diplomatic transcript is: in hers, the expansion of contractions is silent; and at times (e.g., 262, line 547; 266, line 711), they are not expanded at all; seemingly otiose terminal flourishes are, however, regularly recorded. What is gained by providing “diplomatic” transcriptions of a number of manuscripts rather than collating all of them? No answer presents itself to this question. But what comparison of these transcripts with the “Apparatus Criticus” reveals is that, far from actually recording “all the details regarding different manuscript occurrences” (294), there are a number of substantive readings occurring in the “diplomatic transcripts” that do not appear in this “apparatus.” Space permits only examples from Lansdowne 851 (L) and Harley 7334 (H), lines 1–20; Vázquez's text provides...

editions have been updated in light of new discoveries and changes in the practices of textual criticism.This fourth edition contains a significant number of changes, both in organization and judgment.These changes are set out in the preface to the volume.The work provides a comprehensive assessment of the textual tradition of the Hebrew Bible by reviewing the different textual traditions and the practices of textual criticism.Part One reviews the textual traditions related to the Hebrew Bible, and Part Two describes the practices of textual criticism.The complexity of the subject matter is overcome by Tov's ability to explain clearly and precisely the issues being addressed.A helpful element of the book is the numerous examples and the "suggestions for exercises" (Chapter 16).These provide students with the opportunity not only to read about textual criticism but also to see it in action and practice it.Students and scholars who are willing to patiently engage in this book will reap immense rewards.

More than 140 years have gone by since R. Hercher’s 1864 Teubner edition, a book with serious editorial shortcomings which have been often underlined in recent publications. This new text offers an accurate and new critical edition as a result of an extensive and detailed work undertook by a team of scholars of the University of Oviedo (Spain), under the direction of the Professor Manuela García Valdés. The text has been established on the basis of a complete collation of all the most significant manuscripts of Aelians’ textual tradition. This is the first edition with an accurate and scientific critical apparatus by applying the scope of textual criticism and ecdotics. The edition also takes into account the literary koiné of II-III centuries AD and the authors’ own style. This edition offers to all scholars a reliable text as a starting point for future research on Aelians’ Language and Stoic thought. It will be also useful for studies on zoology, on animals’ habits and behaviour, medieval bestiaries, and on the concepts of Science and Technique in Late Antiquity. Confronted with his wealth of materials, the author writes each chapter as a finished unit, as a short story. He uses a wide variety of both literary and linguistic expedients, resorting to formal and content resources.

Unlike the Qurʾan, the Hebrew Bible and New Testament traditions have been extensively studied in the past three centuries. While scholarly editions of texts are often based on rigorous studies of their manuscript traditions, the current text of the Qurʾan relies instead on one traditional text, the so-called ʿUthmānic recension. A critical edition has never been produced for the Qurʾan based on extant manuscripts. The scholarly consensus that the study of a text should be based on the analysis of the oldest and best manuscripts does not apply to the case of the Qurʾan, which relies on Muslim traditional sources that render the text based on the “consensus” of Muslim scholars. Western scholarship on the Qurʾan already acknowledges this shortcoming and tries to circumvent it through different methods. According to Andrew Rippin in “The Present Status of Tafsir Studies,” one of Arthur Jeffery’s major interests was to construct a printed text of the Qurʾan complete with a critical apparatus of textual and orthographic variants, but the project did not come to fruition. That being said, the study of Qurʾanic manuscripts is experiencing a significant surge in growth and vitality due to the widespread availability of digital manuscripts. With the discovery and digitization of more manuscripts, it might not be too far in the future that we get such a critical edition.

At one time most editors and textual critics would have agreed that the purpose of textual criticism and editing was to present the best possible text, if necessary by creating composite texts that were supposed to represent the text as it should have been. Today scholars question the assumptions and results of the older forms of textual criticism, finding, for instance, that these composite texts often seriously misrepresent the texts and textual traditions, for they represent no attested text of the work of literature, no text experienced by any readers. As Lauri Honko notes in the preface to Textualization of Oral Epics, the movement in epic studies, as in other areas of folklore studies, has been toward the study of performance in an effort to "stay as close to the oral rendition of an epic text as possible and to listen carefully to the poet's voice" (p. vii). The two books under review here are important statements of this new trend in epic studies.

Second, the textual tradition goes back to one single codex, the Parisinus 451 (= A), a manuscript copied in 914 by Baanes for Arethas, archbishop of Caesarea. And third, in his critical edition of the treatise, Eduard Schwartz has considerably improved the understanding of the text, helped by Ulrich von Wilamowitz-Moellendorff ('Athenagorae alter editor,' Schwartz's Preface, p. XXX). But that was in 1891.2 Since then no textual criticism known to me has appeared.3 Schoedel's handy edition, in the Oxford Early Christian Texts series (1972), follows Schwartz's edition: where it does not, it offers no better text.4