Un ciclo arturiano con interpolazioni bibliche: il ms. Bodmer 147 e le sue fonti

Abstract

In an important contribution from 1974, Françoise Vielliard shed light on an intriguing late thirteenth-early fourteenth-centuries manuscript, Cologny-Genève, Bodmer 147. The manuscript includes several interpolations of religious texts in Old French prose in the Lancelot-Grail Cycle. Among the religious texts are four of the Old Testament books (Genesis, Judith and 1-2 Maccabees) and some excerpts from the Gospels. According to Vielliard, these interpolations are likely drawn from the so-called Bible française du xiiie siècle, the most important, complete and widespread vernacular version of the thirteenth century; whereas Michel Zink has suggested that the excerpts from the Gospels do not originate from the Bible française, but rather from Maurice de Sully’s homiliary. The present essay aims to verify the sources used by the compilator of ms. Bodmer 147. The comparison of some selected passages will show that he or she did not use the Bible française, but rather different materials: in addition to Maurice de Sully’s homiliary, the compilator probably owned a Gospel harmony as well as a Bible close to that used by the fourteenth-century translator of the Bible anglo-normande. Finally, the essay will introduce new evidence about the hitherto unidentified fourteenth-century owner of the Bodmer manuscript, “Antonius de Raçygnano”.