Parallel Editions Research Articles

ТОБОЖЊА КОТОРСКА ПОВЕЉА КРАЉА СТЕФАНА НЕМАЊИЋА – ПРИЛОГ ТРАДИЦИЈИ ПРЕПИСА САЧУВАНИХ У ЦЕТИЊСКИМ ЗБОРНИЦИМА

The paper deals with later transcriptions of the alleged charter of Stefan Nemanjić, associated in literature and tradition with the city of Cattaro. These are two texts created in the 18th century – one is preserved in “Cetinjski ljetopis” (“Annals of Cetinje”, kept in the Cetinje monastery) and the other in the cartulary “Epoha Crnojevića” (kept in the Archival and Library Department of the National Museum of Montenegro in Cetinje). Although containing obvious additions in the form of historical narration, while elements of known diplomatic practice are mainly absent, the traces of documentary records can be recognised in these copies. By means of diplomatic and legal-historical analysis, the paper examines their mutual relationship, the assumed joint template and its credibility as historical source. An attempt was also made at determining the likely addressee of the source document(s), the remains of which have been preserved in the mentioned transcriptions. Finally, the multilayered tradition of these texts has been treated. The paper offers new parallel editions of both versions as well as their quality images.

Remembering Carol Lazzaro-Weis (1949–2022)

Remembering Carol Lazzaro-Weis (1949–2022)

Volgens het boekje: Gerard Leeus Nederlandstalige editie van de Meditationes de vita et passione Jesu Christi

This essay explores the Dutch recension of the richly illustrated Latin Meditationes de vita et passione Jesu Christi, a weekly excersie that went directly into print and was first published by Gerard Leeu in Antwerp on 10 February 1485. The Dutch text appeared about two years later, on 5 Janruary 1487. Both the Dutch and the Latin texts contain at their core the sixty-five prayers on the Passion (from Christ’s agony in the Garden of Gethsemane to his funeral) from Jordan of Quedlinburg’s Meditationes de passione Christi (1365). Each of the prayers is accompanied by a woodcut, which in itself was an important innovation and departure from previous manuscript transmission that did not systematically illustrate each prayer. Furthermore, the compiler of the weekly exercise used Jordan’s prayers as his reference point, and divided them over five days of the week (Monday-Friday). He added other (meditative) texts and prayers so that readers are presented with an exercise for each day of the week that permits them to meditate on the entire life of Christ (from Mary’s visit to Elizabeth to Mary’s Ascension), as well as on other subjects, such as the four last things (death, judgement, hell, heaven) throughout the week. Here, images are also used as an integral part of the meditative exercise. The printed text might have been based on a similar exercise found in a manuscript from South-Holland, currently held at The Hague, Royal Library, 133 H 1. Moreover, the Dutch edition of 1487 is not just a translation of Leeu’s earlier Latin edition: apart from changes to its physical appearance, the text has undergone a siginificant reworking as well. The meditations to be performed before lunch, before and after dinner, and before going to sleep, are longer and much more detailed than in the Latin edition, allowing unexperienced readers to use these ‘intimate scripts’ in their meditations. Leeu’s parallel editions of the Latin and Dutch Meditationes thus provided various groups of readers (Latinate, non-Latinate, those familiar with meditative techniques and the Gospels, and those who were not) to participate in affective meditation on Christ’s life and to deepen their spiritual lifes in a similar fashion despite the differences in their background.

Imperial Postscript to the Tangut, Chinese and Tibetan Editions of the dhāraṇī-sūtras in the Collection of the IOM, RAS

Three parallel editions of dhāraṇī-sūtras in Tangut, Chinese and Tibetan languages were published in the Tangut state in 1149. The Tibetan edition is of particular importance, because until recently specimens of printing in Tibetan, that could belong to an earlier date, have not been found anywhere. All the editions are equal in terms of their contents and contain the postscript written by the Emperor Renzong. The main goal of the article is to introduce the previously unpublished Tibetan text of the postscript in correspondence with the Tangut and Chinese versions. Besides, the article provides information about the study, preservation state, and codicology of all the three editions.

"Sefer Hasidim" and the Ashkenazic Book in Medieval Europe by Ivan G. Marcus (review)

Reviewed by: "Sefer Hasidim" and the Ashkenazic Book in Medieval Europe by Ivan G. Marcus Rella Kushelevsky Ivan G. Marcus. "Sefer Hasidim" and the Ashkenazic Book in Medieval Europe. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2018. xiii + 202 pp. doi:10.1017/S0364009419000680 Ivan Marcus's groundbreaking work goes right to the heart of issues central to the study of Ashkenaz both currently and in the past, through the fascinating prism of the writing and composition processes of Sefer Ḥasidim. Diving deep into twenty manuscripts and sixty printed editions of the text, Marcus presents Sefer Ḥasidim as an "open book," by which he means that there is no one single, complete, homogenous work or Ur-text. Marcus writes: The meaning I am giving to "open book" in the case of Sefer Hasidim … refers to an author: • Composing a work in short text units that he sometimes rewrites; • Combining them disjunctively (without linear coherence); and • Producing more than one parallel edition. … The term "open book" here refers to writing parallel editions of a book so that there never was only one original edition from which the others are derived. (5) He likens the composition process of Sefer Ḥasidim to an inverted pyramid (4) at whose broad base are thousands of small units of text that the author channeled into a number of parallel versions at the bottom tip (as opposed to numerous variants derived from a single Ur-text at the top of a pyramid). Marcus further determines that all fourteen extant versions of Sefer Ḥasidim are of equal value and that it is not possible to reduce one or the other by sublimating them within any particular hierarchy. That is because "most of the Sefer Hasidim manuscripts contain some paragraph passages that are not found in either SHB [Sefer Ḥasidim Bologna] or SHP [Sefer Ḥasidim Parma], and each edition or small set of editions is independent of SHB and SHP even when one or more blocks of passages appear in more than one of them. The editions differ with respect to the order of the paragraphs as well as the contents" (17). It is this thesis that underlies the book with its accompanying catalog. The first chapter, following the introduction, lays out the theory of Sefer Ḥasidim as an open book; it presents detailed and convincing evidence for this argument based on the work's entire corpus of manuscripts and printed editions, which attest to the independence of the small textual units within the work's [End Page 468] composition processes. Marcus contrasts this open book format to an author's reediting of his own text or to changes made by scribes in the course of the book's transmission. The second chapter examines the "open book" thesis in relation to other texts written by Judah he-Ḥasid and his students, such as Eleazar of Worms, and shows the fluidity and overlapping attached to the concept of text in their writings. A large section of this chapter is devoted to Sefer ha-Ḥasidut, also known as "the French Sefer Ḥasidim," and examines its structure, historical context, and impact. The chapter ends with a reconsideration of penitential practices in German Pietist writings and in Ashkenaz in general. In the third chapter Marcus presents a biographical profile of Judah he-Ḥasid, compiled by comparing traditions written by his sons and students, hagiographic stories written after his lifetime, and stories from the Sefer Ḥasidim corpus itself. Using a historic-anthropological approach, with all its inherent advantages and disadvantages, Marcus recreates a "tale of four cities" (10)—Speyer, Regensburg, Worms, and Mainz—as a cultural geography related to the biographies of R. Samuel, R. Judah, and R. Eleazar. The chapter concludes with a discussion on what is often a contentious issue for Ashkenaz scholars: whether Hasidei Ashkenaz can best be understood as a movement or as a circle of individuals; and the extent to which depictions of Ashkenazic society in various versions of Sefer Ḥasidim actually have a basis in reality. The fourth chapter sets Sefer Ḥasidim within the broader context of books in Ashkenaz that, according to Marcus, appear to have, "to one degree or another," an "open book" format, pointing out how the...

Digital Learning Aids for Nynorsk Pupils in School: - A Politically Sensitive Area or a Question of a Deeper Scientific Understanding of Learning?

This position paper focuses on Nynorsk in the digital era and the need for research-based knowledge about it in school settings in Norway. The Norwegian language situation is exceptional because Norway has two written standards, Bokmål (majority variety) and Nynorsk (minority variety), and both the Education Act and the Norwegian Directorate of Education require that publishers provide parallel editions of all paper-based and digital learning aids for pupils. However, a national report by Skjær,Eiksund, Fretland, Holen & Netteland(2008) revealed that few publishers have developed and offered digital learning aids in Nynorsk. In 2015 the situation appears to be largely unchanged, even though the authorities, language organisations and “leadings lights” have taken several initiatives to encourage compliance with the Education Act; however, what is needed is further research into the situation of parallel editions of digital learning aids. This is of particular interest today since the pupils in the county with the highest rate (97%) of Nynorsk-pupils has consistently been at the top of the list as one of the best performing counties in Norway in national tests since 2006 (Directorate of Education 2015). In addition, Vangsnes, Söderlund & Blekesaune (2015) find that municipalities in Norway with more than 50% Nynorsk-pupils achieve better in National tests when compared to Bokmål municipalities. The main message in our position paper is that the digital revolution might have changed some underlying premises for how we understand and use language and dialects, and the need for parallel editions of digital learning aids in Bokmål and Nynorsk is no longer a question of economics or of political statements for or against Nynorsk, etc., but is instead a question of a more nuanced scientific understanding of learning and achievement in today’s digitized school. The achievements of Nynorsk pupils in national tests is one indicator of school performance, but to understand what causes this relationship further research is required and several indicators should be developed. In this case, it concerns Nynorsk pupils, but in a broader sense, it concerns pupils in general, and how they learn in school.

Ethics, methods and diversity in the use of new media

Ethics, methods and diversity in the use of new media

Méliès’ A Trip to the Moon in Colour

GEORGES MÉLIÈS: A TRIP TO THE MOON IN COLOURWithout doubt, the DVD medium can now be considered as a kind of video establishment. Even the more recent Blu-ray disc (BD) is becoming a familiar sight in home theatres. Thousands of new movie titles, many in parallel editions are flooding the video stores, while the prices are sinking, pushed down by generous sales. Moreover, the restoration of old films, shattering cultural, geographical and temporal boundaries are becoming more frequent and more sophisticated, taking advantage of advanced restoration technologies....

Bekenntnisse einer Giftmischerin, von ihr selbst geschrieben , and: Confessions of a Poisoner Written by Herself (review)

Raleigh Whitinger and Diana Spokiene, eds., Bekenntnisse einer Giftmischerin, von ihr selbst geschrieben. New York: MLA 2009. 220 pp. Raleigh Whitinger and Diana Spokiene, trans., Confessions of a Poisoner Written by Herself. New York: MLA 2009. 196 pp. If the book title piques enough interest in a potential reader to move on to the cover text, its cleverly placed attention-getters will seduce this reader to open the book and start reading: Berlin, 1803, readers rushed to their bookstores and libraries to learn more about Countess Charlotte Ursinus, who had murdered several people with poison and was now in prison.To their surprise, Bekenntnisse einer Giftmischerin, von ihr selbst geschrieben turned out to be not account by this serial killer but a novel, its author anonymous and its pages filled with promiscuous sex, sharp social criticism, and dark humor. This fictional autobiography is divided into three books. All three parts are in the form of a continuous letter written to a mysterious friend Julie Z., whose name appears as the intended recipient of the confessions at the beginning and who is addressed repeatedly throughout the novel in self-reflective passages that often focus on the narrator's purpose in writing. Julie Z., initially described as the embodiment of traditional feminine virtues, becomes idealized model of womanhood against which the narrator projects her own deviant personality, way of thinking, and actions. In the first book, the protagonist recalls her upbringing, education, family relationships, and view on society until she becomes orphaned at age eighteen. By that time she has been seduced by her French tutor, has suffered a violent abortion, and has been molested by her father. She interprets these events as factors that set her up corruption and crime. The second book focuses on her life as a wife, in which she explains her moral decline from adulteress to murderess as unavoidable fate created by a combination of circumstances and her strong-tempered character. The third book begins after the protagonist has committed the first murder, that of her husband, and her lover has subsequently committed suicide out of guilt. This part recounts a series of crimes as unavoidable consequences of the first act of murder. The letter ends with appeal to reform the gender-specific upbringing and education of young women as a safeguard against the kind of life revealed in the poisoner's confessions. Throughout, this novel strikes a new tone in its clarity and candor, giving glimpses into the mind of intelligent woman of the time. It not only reiterates the generally known social limitations that women were subject to but also draws a mind map of the elaborate considerations, calculations of judgment, and precautions behind a woman's acting or speaking in order to protect her good reputation and project image of innocence. Furthermore, sections that present practical philosophy through a young woman's eyes give a refreshing perspective on late eighteenth-century social and family life. Aside from being an entertaining read (vu), this novel in a new, critically edited, and unabridged German version and its parallel version in English translation is not meant just leisurely consumption but also academic reading, specifically for students in German, comparative literature, and women's studies. Both the German and the English version come with a thoroughly researched introduction in English. As the editors/translators point out in their Note on the Text, these two new parallel editions replace two out-of-print editions. One was published in 1923 with the full-length text of the original. The other one is abridged version from 1988 that purposely omitted passages of social commentary and sections with glaring anti-Semitic stereotyping. …

Using standardized video cases for assessment of medical communication skills: Reliability of an objective structured video examination by computer

Objective Using standardized video cases in a computerized objective structured video examination (OSVE) aims to measure cognitive scripts underlying overt communication behavior by questions on knowledge, understanding and performance. In this study the reliability of the OSVE assessment is analyzed using the generalizability theory. Methods Third year undergraduate medical students from the Academic Medical Center of the University of Amsterdam answered short-essay questions on three video cases, respectively about history taking, breaking bad news, and decision making. Of 200 participants, 116 completed all three video cases. Students were assessed in three shifts, each using a set of parallel case editions. About half of all available exams were scored independently by two raters using a detailed rating manual derived from the other half. Analyzed were the reliability of the assessment, the inter-rater reliability, and interrelatedness of the three types of video cases and their parallel editions, by computing a generalizability coefficient G. Results The test score showed a normal distribution. The students performed relatively well on the history taking type of video cases, and relatively poor on decision making and did relatively poor on the understanding (‘knows why/when’) type of questions. The reliability of the assessment was acceptable ( G = 0.66). It can be improved by including up to seven cases in the OSVE. The inter-rater reliability was very good ( G = 0.93). The parallel editions of the video cases appeared to be more alike ( G = 0.60) than the three case types ( G = 0.47). Discussion The additional value of an OSVE is the differential picture that is obtained about covert cognitive scripts underlying overt communication behavior in different types of consultations, indicated by the differing levels of knowledge, understanding and performance. The validation of the OSVE score requires more research. Conclusion and practice implications A computerized OSVE has been successfully applied with third year undergraduate medical students. The test score meets psychometric criteria, enabling a proper discrimination between adequately and poorly performing students. The high inter-rater reliability indicates that a single rater is permitted.

Exposing undergraduate students to database system internals

In Spring 2003, Joe Hellerstein at Berkeley and Natassa Ailamaki at CMU collaborated in designing and running parallel editions of an undergraduate database course that exposed students to developing code in the core of a ful-function database system. As part of this exercise, our course teams developed new programming projects based on the PostgreSQL open-source DBMS. This report describes our experience with this effort.

Karl Eibl , Fotis Jannidis , Marianne Willems (review)

MLR,96.3,200I 883 (Stuttgart: Metzler, I985),to whichtheauthors acknowledge their debt.The changes inthe political climate andthediversification ofliterary methodologies are linked, notalways insufficient detail, tothe'Lenzrenaissance' intheI970Sand I980S.A brief butpithy summary oftheveritable boominLenzscholarship in Germany and abroad is the result. The finalchapter, entitled 'The Lenz Bicentennial', surveys theincreasingly 'apolitical' (p. IO5)direction oftheflourishing Lenzindustry during theI990S,particularly intheUnited States. Possible future lines ofenquiry aresuggested, themost important ofwhich concerns the lack ofa critical edition, although thisis somewhat underplayed. Attheendofthe volume anextensive, butbynomeans exhaustive, bibliography isgiven. At timesLeidnerand Wurst, perhapsoverly keento maketheir'cultural experiment' work, are guilty ofgeneralizations and inaccuracies (forexample, Alfred notMaurice Jarry, p.49).Nevertheless, given this short study's scopeand widetarget audience, theauthors do provide a timely and readily digestible retrospective bothonthevarious attempts totackle the'Ratsel'ofLenzand,less convincingly, ontheevolution ofcriticism itself. LONDON JAMES GIBBONS Der junge Goethe inseiner Zeit. Sdmtliche Werke, Briefe, Wagebucher und Schrzften bisI775. Ed.byKARL EIBL, FOTIS JANNIDIS andMARIANNE WILLEMS. Frankfurt a.M. andLeipzig: Insel.I998. 706+ 773pp.+ CD-ROM. DM 88. Several applications ofelectronic technology tothepresentation ofliterary texts haverecently appeared atanaffiordable price, butthis isoneofthe first that hasthe completeness that isrequired for serious academic research andthe first I amaware ofthat intelligently combines theresources ofdiXerent media, theprinted book, CD-ROM andWorld-Wide Web.LikeDer junge Goethe, edited byHannaFischerLamberg , in6 volumes (Berlin, I963-74),which itfollows intextual matters, this edition covers thecomplete output ofGoethe before hismove toWeimar inI775, butcontains a great dealofadditional material aswellastheelectronic means for processing it.Itisalsoconsiderably fuller inits annotations. Thepresent package isbasedontherecognition that printed booksaremore convenient forsustained reading thancomputer screens. The twovolumes of printed matter contain a generous selection ofGoethe's writing from this period, andthey havethebenefit over Derjunge Goethe ofoften allowing thereader toseea particular poemindifferent contexts when itappeared inmore than onecollection. Theonly disappointment isthat relatively few ofGoethe's letters areincluded. The CD-ROM,onthe other hand, contains, asfar asispossible, everything that Goethe wrote before hewent toWeimar (including further letters andlegaldocuments, as wellas several drawings), and doesso in a form which allowsthetexts to be searched, analysed andcopied bymeans ofthe'Folio Views' programme provided, which, with a certain amount ofpractice, works well. However, the particular value ofthis package lies justasmuch inthewealth ofadditional material contained on theCD-ROM,which justifies the phrase 'inseiner Zeit':itcontains sections notby Goethe incollaborative writings (Von deutscher Art und Kunst, 246articles from the Frankfurter Gelehrten Anzeigen ofI772),lateradaptations ofearlier works (parallel editions ofFaust andWerther), andlater reflections byGoethe onthis period ofhis life (including thecomplete Dichtung undWahrheit). Atthesametime itincludes a selection ofcontemporary texts (byLenz,Klinger, Nicolai andothers) which reflect onGoethe as a historical phenomenon, andalsotexts known tohaveinfluenced Goethe, including Hederich's complete Mythologisches Lexikon (though not indigitized 884 Revzews form) andthefull text oftheBible.Evenwith this quantity ofmaterial there are, perhaps inevitably, problems ofseleetion: poems inwhieh Lenzrefers toGoethe are missing, and,more seriously, theoriginal sourees ofsomeofGoethe's translations ('Naeh Falkonet und uberFalkonet'), but theresourees of thispaekageare nevertheless invaluable. Therearerather more misprints than onewould like, and these ofeourse eanplayhavoewith eleetronie searehes, butevenheretheeditors forestall eritieism. They havesetupa web-site from whieh itispossible todownload a maskthateorreets known misprints, so thattheuserean always updatethe eleetronie version ofthetext. Thisisan edition that isindispensable for researeh into the earlier Goethe, butitisalsoa model ofthe way that teehnology eanenhanee the more traditional print medium. UNIVERSITY OF BIRMINGHAM DAVID HILL DerWeimarer Musenhof: Literatur, Musik und Wanz, Gartenkunst, Geselligkeit, Malerei. By GABRIELE BUSCH-SALMEN, WALTER SALMEN and CHRISTOPH MICHEL. Stuttgart andWeimar: Metzler. I998. Viii + 237 pp. DM 78. Thisisa beautifully presented andfinely illustrated hardbaek volume intowhieh mueh effiort hasobviously beenputtoensure that visual matter andeommentary are as praetieally orientated as possible. The result is an aeeessible arrayof faseinating primary material, whieh, together with some straightforward narrative, sueeeeds inproviding a eomprehensive overview oflife atAnnaAmalia's Musenhof: High-quality reproduetions of watereolours, oil-paintings, silhouettes, musieal examples, maps andphotographs allhelp tobring eighteenth-eentury Weimar very mueh alive. Inspite ofthetitle's allusion tofive main subjeet areas theauthors' departure point for sueha wideexpanse ofinformation isWieland's ideaofa 'Verbund der sehwesterliehen Kunste' theseopeofthebookaetually extends beyond even these. Chapter 2,'HauserundRaumeimWeiehbild derResidenz', for example, examines theimportanee oftherebuilding oftheResidenzsehloss andofAnna Amalia'soecupaney oftheWittumspalais forthedevelopment oftheMusenhof; whilst Chapter 5,'Singen inSehule, Kirehe undHaus',likewise looks outside the immediate eonfines ofthe eourt toprovide thereader with information rarely dealt with in soeialandcultural studies on...

Russian Archives in Transition: Caught Between Political Crossfire and Economic Crisis

This article results from the author's experience in Russia during 1992, where, under IREX sponsorship, she was working collaboratively with the State Archival Service of the Russian Federation—Rosarkhiv (until the October 1992 presidential decree took effect in December 1992, the Committee for Archival Affairs of the Russian Federation—Roskomarkhiv), the State Public Historical Library (GPIB), and the St. Petersburg Branch of the Archive of the Russian Academy of Sciences establishing a computerized database (ArcheoBiblioBase) for a directory and bibliography of finding aids for archives and manuscript repositories throughout the Russian Federation. In addition to the sources cited, coverage of many issues comes from a multitude of discussions with Russian archival leaders. Particular appreciation is due to the several friends and colleagues on both sides of the Atlantic who critiqued earlier drafts. A slightly variant form of the present article appears as the introduction to Russian Archives 1993: A Brief Directory, Part 1: Moscow and St. Petersburg, Preliminary English Version, edited with an introduction by Patricia Kennedy Grimsted; foreword by Vladimir Petrovich Kozlov (Washington, D.C.: IREX, February 1993). A Russian translation of this article will appear in Novaia i noveishchaia istorii, 1994, no. 1. An earlier version of this text, together with prefatory commentary by Vladimir Kozlov, Deputy Chairman of Rosarkhiv, appeared in the July and September editions of that directory. The article continues the Grimsted series published in the American Archivist and distributed by IREX: Patricia Kennedy Grimsted, "Glasnost" in the Archives? Recent Developments on the Soviet Archival Scene," American Archivist (AA) 52 (Spring 1989): 214-36; see also comments by two Russian specialists in AA 53 (Summer 1990): 468-75, and the present director of the Estonian archives in AA 53 (Fall 1990): 576-81; Grimsted, "Perestroika in the Archives? Further Efforts at Soviet Archival Reform," AA 54 (Winter 1991): 70-95 (a pamphlet reprint is available from IREX; describes conditions in Soviet archives to the end of 1990); "Beyond Perestroika: Soviet Archives After the August Coup," AA 55 (Winter 1992): 94-124 (an expanded preprint is available from IREX; continues the story to the end of 1991). See also the booklet, Intellectual Access to Soviet-Area Archvies: What Is to Be Done? (Princeton, N.J., March 1992; IREX preprint). The article remains as it was revised at the end of January 1993. Although the present version (15 September 1993) is edited slightly due to publication delays in the American Archivist (especially in regard to temporal references and a few factual errors), it does not take into account the important developments on the Russian scene in the subsequent months of 1993. To be sure, revelations from declassified secret contemporary files continue. Scandals in connection with the sale of publication rights to sensational unclassified documents have occasioned the firing of most of the leadership and the closing for several months of the Center for the Storage of Contemporary Documents (TsKhSD) at the former Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) Central Committee headquarters at Staryi Ploshchad. Budgetary deficiencies forced most central archives to close for the month of August, and maintenance problems kept the elevators shut down in the stacks of the State Archive of the Russian Federation (GA RF) for most of the year. A conservative parliament has held up the restitution of captured records. Most important, on a more positive note, on 7 July 1993 parliament passed the Law on the Archival Fond of the Russian Federation and Archives ("Osnovy zakonodatel'stva Rossiiskoi Federatsii ob Arkhivnom fonde Rossiiskoi Federatsii i arkhivakh"), and it was subsequently signed into law by President Yeltsin, giving Russia its first comprehenisve archival law in history. The new law replaces the series of Soviet-style decrees, but considerable opposition can already be heard about various provisions of the new law, especially the lack of respect for private archives. An initial decree of implementation-"On the Realization of State Policy in Archival Affairs" ("O realizatsii gosudarstvennoi politiki v arkhivnom dele"—Postanovlenie SM RF)—was issued by the Council of Ministers on 23 August 1993, and additional plans for implementation are being being drawn up. Economic and administrative remedies to other archival problems are still being considered. The Presidential Archive is being moved to Staryi Ploshchad, while controversy continues about the extent of transfer and access that will be possible to KGB files of various categories. Discussion of these and other developments on the Russian archival scene will require a new essay, which is now being prepared as introduction for the published edition of the collaborative directory resulting from further updating of ArcheoBiblioBase. Archives in Russia 1994 is now planned for publication in parallel Russian and English editions in 1994.

SOME CONSIDERATIONS IN MAINTAINING ADAPTIVE TEST ITEM POOLS

ABSTRACTThe construction of parallel editions of conventional tests for purposes of test security while maintaining score comparability has always been a recognized and difficult problem in psychometrics and test construction. The introduction of new modes of testing, e.g., adaptive testing, changes the nature of the problem but does not make it disappear. Items in adaptive test item pools may become overused and require replacement. However, in order to insure score comparability, important characteristics of the pool must remain constant. Three methods of selecting candidate new items and three methods of identifying items for replacement are developed and compared with each other and with a previous method through a simulation study.

Amorosa Visione: Bilingual Edition by Giovanni Boccaccio

REVIEWS to the materials investigated should be that ofanother ill-fitting coat. This review, of course, may be similarly related to its subject. ROY]. PEARCY University of Oklahoma GIOVANNI BOCCACCIO. Amorosa Visione: Bilingual Edition. Trans. RobertHollander, TimothyHampton, and Margherita Frankel, Intro. by Vittore Branca. Hanover and London: University Press of New England, 1986. Pp. xxix, 255. $30.00. Boccaccio's Amorosa Visione sees a worldly dreamer-narrator wandering past triumphs of Wisdom, Fame, Wealth, Love, and Fortune before dis­ covering his beloved in a locus amoenus; there is a surprise ending. The poem, in fifty cantos of terza rima, is not one ofBoccaccio's more accom­ plished performances. Its ambitions are excessive and contradictory: Boc­ caccio wants to be a dreamer in the French ditsamoreuxstyle, a disciple of Dante (who is discovered in the triumph of Wisdom), a mythographer (some three hundred exemplary figures are included) and an autobio­ graphical apologist who gazes at his avaricious father, bewails his own poverty, and contemplates the possibility of artistic fame. At its worst the poem bogs down in a welter of catalogues and mechanical formulas: Boccaccio as Lydgate. And its brighter moments come almost as an escape from the higher design; the mythographical material onJove andJuno, for example, accumulates to form a marital drama that has thecomicvigor ofa Decameron novella. For all its apparent shortcomings, however, this Boc­ caccian text was immensely successful in the Middle Ages and the Renais­ sance; only the Decameron proved more popular. Petrarch, an early admirer, was inspired to compose his own Trionfi. The Boccaccian and Petrarchan poems were subsequently often read as two halves ofa diptych. They exerted a powerful and widespread influence on the visual arts, on Italian poets, and, directly or indirectly, on foreign authors such as Christine de Pisan, Chaucer, Stephen Hawes, and Queen Elizabeth I. Medievalists wishing to consider Chaucer in his European setting will find this new bilingual edition of the Amorosa Visione extremely useful. 193 STUDIES IN THE AGE OF CHAUCER Boccaccio's poem survives in two versions: A (represented by eight manu­ scripts but not printed until 1818) and B (no manuscripts; editio princeps 1521). Version A has been assigned to the period 1342-43, and B (in which A is modestly reworked in the direction of expanded humanist schol­ arship), to 1355-60. The B text bears some signs of tinkering by its sixteenth-century editor, Girolamo Claricio. Hollander, Hampton, and Frankel juxtapose Branca's edition ofB with their own English translation. This translation is excellent and should stand as a model for future parallel editions. It remains faithfulnot only to the letterofthe original but also, as far as possible, to its syntax and prosody. Each translated line attempts to keep in step with the Italian: some lines require only six English syllables; some require fourteen. Such a translation allows the English reader to maintain very close contact with Boccaccio's poem. The translation is accurate, and the text is remarkably free from any kind of error. The publishers and sponsors ofthis volume are to be congratulated for produc­ ing an edition that is twice as attractive as the recent Garland Fzlostrato for less than half the price. This edition is accompanied by serviceable notes and is prefaced with an introduction by Vittore Branca (translated from his edition of 1974). This tribute to Branca, the greatest Boccaccio scholar of this century, is a generous one since Branca's views on the Visione often differ from the published opinions of Hollander. The volume also features an index of names (compiled by Olga Branca) which covers both A and B texts. Italian spellings are retained, and the English reader will need to exercise a little ingenuity in tracking down Hercules, Hero, Homer, and Oedipus (Ercole, Ero, Omero, Edipo). But Chaucerians should find Boccaccio's poem well worth reading. The Visione shares a good deal ofcommon ground with the dream poems Chaucer wrote after his first visit to Italy in 1373. In The House ofFame, Chaucer struggles, like Boccaccio before him, to sustain a first encounter with Dante within a French-derived dream-vision format. Both poets evolve a technique ofdescribing paintings to narrate the themes offame, fortune, and disastrous love...

Jan van Doesborch (?-1536), printer of English texts

AbstractThe article Jan van Doesborch (?-1536), printer of English books examines in how far this printer-publisher issued texts in Dutch-English parallel editions so as to gain understanding of the artistic and commercial considerations which played a part in the production of books and further to reconstruct the extent, especially of the production of books in the Dutch language within the whole of Jan van Doesborch's output. When his output is put together it appears that Jan van Doesborch employed strict criteria in deciding to issue a particular text in English translation and that arbitrary choice was out of the question. Beside reprints of very popular small school textbooks, Jan van Doesborch produced books in the English language only if he was the first to print them in the English-speaking countries and if they were in prose. On the strength of this investigation it is possible to maintain that Jan van Doesborch could have printed Dutch language editions also only of those works of fiction which he printed in English. Jan van Doesborch's selection policy and his pursuance of both the English and Dutch markets by means of parallel productions may have influenced the form in which these texts were published. Differences in form and content, especially between Mary of Nemmegen and Mariken van Nieumeghen have to be seen in this light.