Original scientific paper
Ex Libris Nicolai episcopi Modrussiensis: the Library of Nicholas of Modruš
Luka Špoljarić
; Central European University, Budimpešta
Abstract
The present article focuses on the library of Nicholas of Modruš (Nicolaus Episcopus Modrussiensis, ca. 1427–1480), a Croatian bishop who spent the major part of his career in Rome. Nearly a century has passed since giovanni Mercati and Carlo Frati drew attention to a number of manuscripts bearing Modruš’s coat of arms. While Mercati identified altogether twenty of them in the Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, Frati listed nine more in the Angelica, arguing moreover that a group of eighty manuscripts that these belonged to (Angg. latt. 524–603) were also once part of the bishop’s library. The discussion presented here takes the research of the two scholars as its starting point, offering new insights into the fortuna of the library and establishing a defined corpus of manuscripts that undoubtedly belonged to Nicholas. On the basis of the codicological and palaeographical analyses of this corpus, the author presents conclusions regarding the formation of the library and its composition, and regarding Nicholas’ reading practices, which are finally contextualized within the intellectual culture of Renaissance Rome. Chapter 2. Nicholas Majin bishop of Modruš presents a short chronological overview of Nicholas’ life and career, which is used to draw attention to some new pieces of evidence. Thus on the basis of a scant number of documents that offer insight into his social background, it is argued that Nicholas was born in the Dalmatian commune of Kotor into the (presumably wealthy) commoner family Majin – a conclusion contrary to a recent suggestion that he belonged to the noble family of Pasquali. The chapter also addresses Nicholas’ education under Paul of Pergola in the Venetian Scuola di Rialto, a question hitherto not considered but one that is of some importance for an analysis of his library. Drawing on the research of Margaret King, John Monfasani, and Fernando Lepori, the author stresses the scholastic training and anti-humanistic climate as one of the main formative features of Pergola’s school. An account of Nicholas’ ecclesiastical career in the Kingdom of Hungary follows, from his appointment to the see of Senj in 1457 to his transfer to the see of Modruš in 1461, where he began to play an important role in the crusading plans of Pope Pius II in the Balkans. Two of his works from this period (Dialogue on the Happiness of the Mortals and Peter’s Barge) are dedicated to the two leading prelates of the kingdom, John Vitez and Stephen Várdai respectively, and reflect Nicholas’ ambition to strengthen his position among the Hungarian elite. An account of his career in the Papal States, on which he embarks in 1464, follows; it was marked by governorships of various towns and two important diplomatic missions. The author here refers to the extant works of Modruš written during this period (On consolation, On Humility, On the Wars of the Goths, The Oration Held at the Funeral of Pietro Riario, On the Titles and Authors of the Psalms and The Defense of the Ecclesiastical Liberty). Attention is also drawn to the discovery of a previously unknown, three-times-longer copy of Nicholas’ On the Wars of the Goths (Vat. lat. 6029), and of a manuscript that preserves the copy of The Oration on the Conquest of Constantinople (Barb. lat. 43), previously also considered a lost work of his, but which, it is now decisively proven, was not authored by Nicholas at all. Chapter 3. The fortuna of the library of Nicholas of Modruš and its reconstruction introduces into the discussion a previously unconsulted inventory of 210 of Nicholas’ books that were bequeathed to the Augustinian library of Santa Maria del Popolo (Rome) by Pope Sixtus IV. This inventory dispels all of the previous doubts regarding the fortuna of the library, making it clear that after Nicholas’ death his books passed into the apostolic library, a significant portion of which was soon donated to the library Santa Maria del Popolo, passing in turn into Biblioteca Angelica in 1849. The chapter proceeds by listing the twenty manuscripts in the Vaticana identified by Mercati as Nicholas’ on the basis of coats of arms and colophons (Vatt. grr. 249, 257, and Vatt. latt. 221, 353, 376, 432, 507, 513, 995, 1527, 1532, 1544, 1579, 1729, 1748, 1752, 1756, 1759, 1762, 2059), drawing attention as well to the two volumes of Pliny the Elder’s Natural History that were missed (Vatt. latt. 1956, 1957), and three other manuscripts that were identified by later scholars (Vat. gr. 13, Vat. lat. 2372, Barb. lat. 791). The author here rejects the possibility that Nicholas owned the famous Vat. slav. 2, an opinion still held by Bulgarian scholars. An examination of the group of Frati’s eighty manuscripts that supposedly belonged to Nicholas follows. Here it is proved on the basis of the inventory of donated books and the presence of the bishop’s marginal notes that only thirteen among these undoubtedly belonged to him (Angg. latt. 537, 538, 549, 550, 551, 553, 555, 556, 559, 560, 561, 575, 577), while the same can probably be argued for four additional ones due to their codicological features (notably the paper used). Next, the attention is drawn to the three manuscripts that were among the books donated to the Santa Maria del Popolo, but which left the collection before it passed into Angelica (Vat. lat. 8764, Naz. VII.g.100, and the aforementioned Barb. lat. 791), which suggests that many others followed a similar path. Finally, manuscripts preserving Nicholas’ own works, copied for his own library, are discussed (the already mentioned Vatt. latt. 995 and 8764, in addition to which are listed Vat. lat. 6029 and Corsin. 127). The chapter thus establishes a corpus of 42 manuscripts that undoubtedly belonged to the library of Nicholas of Modruš, but which are analyzed in the following chapters as 44 items, since Corsin. 127 consists of three separate fascicules bound together after Nicholas’ death, analyzed here as Corsin. 127A, 127B and 127C. Chapter, 4. On the formation of the library, presents a diachronic analysis of the corpus based on the evidence gathered from the colophons, and the codicological and palaeographical analyses. Colophons (and possibly an appended chirographum in one case) date nine or ten manuscripts to the period between 1465 and the beginning of 1472, while eleven additional manuscripts can be dated to the same period, since they were copied on the groups of paper that include the dated manuscripts. In this respect one should highlight the group of ten manuscripts using paper bearing the watermark griffon, which includes the autograph manuscript (Corsin. 127B) preserving the previously only undated work of Nicholas, On Humility, the composition of which can now be dated to 1470. In addition, the importance of the griffon group is underlined by the fact that, next to Corsin. 127B, it includes the Naz. VII.g.100 and Barb. lat. 791, which were all copied in Nicholas’ home. Thus on the basis of evidence gathered from the paper, colophons and the hands of scribes, the author draws the conclusion that the whole group of ten griffon manuscripts was copied in the bishop’s home by the scribes that served as his familiares. Finally, palaeographical evidence is used to date the production of ten other manuscripts to the same period, which thus brings the total to 30 or 31 out of 44 manuscripts that can be established to have been copied for Nicholas immediately in the first period of his career in the Papal States. Only three manuscripts preserving his own works that were composed later can be dated to the following period, while there is not a single identified manuscript that Nicholas had with him in the period before coming to the Papal States. Moreover, it is suggested on the basis of codicological and palaeographical features of the group that the remaining ten or eleven manuscripts were also produced in the period between 1464 and 1472, during which, it now becomes clear, Nicholas was energetically forming his library. The fifth chapter, On the composition of the library and the form of the manuscripts, presents a synchronic analysis of the library, whereby four groups can be identified according to their contents and codicological and palaeographical features. The first group of 14 scholastic manuscripts reflects the bishop’s theological and philosophical background. These include various quaestiones and quodlibeticae on Aristotle’s works, commentaries on Lombard’s Sentences and the three out of four parts of The Sum of Theology of Alexander of Hales. They are typical scholastic manuscripts, written on folio-sized paper in gothic script with the text divided into two columns, and the incipit page occasionally decorated and bearing Modruš’s coat of arms. The group of 19 manuscripts preserving the works of major classical and patristic Latin writers (Cicero, Aulus gellius, Quintilian, Pliny the Elder, Augustine, Jerome, Lactantius etc.) reveals Nicholas’ ambition to form a humanistic library. The identified manuscripts of this group are all copied in humanistic script in long line on folio-size parchment; they bear Nicholas’ coat of arms and are decorated according to humanistic standards. Two greek manuscripts of Aristotle’s works, probably the most lavishly produced ones in Nicholas’ collection, prompted Mercati to address the question whether the bishop knew greek. The presence of gaza’s grammar (Vat. gr. 13) in the collection, which Nicholas acquired from Andronico Callisto – who, as was confirmed by Antonio Rollo, also copied the two manuscripts of Aristotle – sheds new light on this issue. The inventory of donated books suggests that Nicholas was collecting contemporary humanist literature, although mostly in print. Only the manuscripts bearing his own works can be identified as belonging to this, fourth group; they seem to have been undecorated, and copied in humanistic script on paper of smaller, octavo format. Finally, discussed separately is the group of three manuscripts that Nicholas acquired from other owners, which, next to the aforementioned Vat. gr. 13 and Ang. lat. 575, includes a copy of geber’s De astronomia (Vat. lat. 2059), bought from Domenico de’ Domenichi, but which once belonged to giovanni Aurispa and, it seems, Vittorino da Feltre. Chapter 6. In the margins of manuscripts addresses Nicholas’ reading practices, identifying three groups of his interventions in the manuscripts, which are also reflected by the hierarchy of colors. The first type includes emendations of the texts, appearing in the margins or inter lineas. Appearing exclusively in manuscripts of classical and patristic authors, most prominently in texts that Nicholas excerpted for his own works, these reflect the bishop’s concern for faithfully transmitting the cited passages, thereby revealing the rigorous philological standards of the Roman intellectual arena. While the first group regularly appears in brown ink, the following two, connected to the reading and memorization of the texts, are most of the time written in red ink which served to further facilitate the process. The first of the two groups encompasses Nicholas’ paratextual additions, such as titles of works and chapters, running headers, and especially the tables of contents that appear in many topologically organized works and that were meant to facilitate a quick retrieval of the needed data. The final group includes marginal notes sensu stricto, witnesses of Nicholas’ interaction with, and memorization of, the text. These can be divided into verbal and nonverbal marginal notes, but also into those that were meant to simply highlight an interesting passage and those that reflect a deeper engagement with the text. The author separately discusses those marginal notes that reveal Nicholas’ intention to learn greek, while in the end a folio of Nicholas’ copy of Lactantius (Vat. lat. 221) is used to illustrate his reading process and all the three types of his interventions in the manuscripts. The results of the previous three chapters are contextualized in seventh and final, Nicholas of Modruš and his library in the context of the intellectual culture of Renaissance Rome. The author here shows that considering its size and composition Modruš’s library represented in fact a typical library of a Roman Renaissance prelate. However, if one takes into account his education and the evidence drawn from his earlier works, the presence of classical and humanistic authors in his library represented a distinctive shift in his intellectual interests, which can be connected to his move to the Papal States in 1464. While the two works written before 1464 are theological treatises, relying mostly on the Bible and scholastic authors, the move to Rome signifies a turn towards the use of classical sources and rhetorical genres, which presented more powerful means of self¬representation in the performative and highly competitive culture of Renaissance Rome. Nicholas’ marginal notes reveal best this process of adjustment to the humanist discourse. One should not only consider his careful emendations of ancient texts in this context, or the notes that reveal his efforts to learn greek, but also those that can be found in his copy of Lactantius’ Divine Institutes, a work that among other things seemed to have served as Nicholas’ window into the world of greco-Roman mythology. In the end, the author concludes that, next to its practical function, Nicholas’ library had a role to play in the social sphere, especially if one considers the energy and expense invested into the copying and decoration of a number of manuscripts, which were thus meant to show the good tastes of their owner to every visitor of his home, and thus help towards establishing his position among the Roman ecclesiastical elite. In the final section the author draws attention to some of the attested readers who used Nicholas’ manuscripts in the following centuries, the most notable one being giovanni Pico della Mirandola. The discussion ends with the announcement of a catalog of the library currently in preparation, which should be accompanied with folio reproductions. The catalog will also include a more thorough palaeographical analysis of the hands of the scribes copying the manuscripts, and an identification of all the items listed in the inventory, manuscripts and incunables likewise. Finally, Appendix 1 presents a list of the 42 manuscripts that were undoubtedly part of Nicholas’ library along with five that probably belonged to it, while Appendix 2 offers a list of previously published reproductions of folios, for the purpose of illustrating the discussion of the material.
Keywords
Nicholas of Modruš (Nicolaus episcopus Modrussiensis); Renaissance library; manuscripts; codicology; paleography; humanism; Renaissance Rome
Hrčak ID:
79574
URI
Publication date:
5.4.2012.
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