The Lemma De predicatoribus in Iacobus de Benevento’s Viridarium consolationis: An Unexpected Preaching Tract in a Dominican Florilegium

Abstract

ABSTRACT This article introduces editions of two distinct versions of a short Latin text on preaching that appears in an influential Latin florilegium. While the voice of the compiler is absent or minimal in the other topics covered by this anthology of authoritative quotations, the lemma De predicatoribus contains extensive original lines composed by the florilegist, Iacobus de Benevento (c. 1255/71). Because this florilegium was intended primarily as a resource for preachers to compose sermons, its reception in later texts probably includes some of those original lines authored by Iacobus, unwittingly disseminated in Latin and Romance language sermons and perhaps examples of ars predicandi along with the transmitted quotations, where they would likely be misattributed to major authors such as Gregory the Great.