Colloquia Maruliana ..., Vol. 3 , 1994.
Izvorni znanstveni članak
A New Marulić: Vita divi Hieronymi
Darko Novaković
Sažetak
Even if it is well known to the students of national literary historiography that Marko Marulić (1450-1524), the “father of Croatian literature”, wrote a Life of St. Jerome, the text was retained lost. Yet, a codex containing the Latin life of Jerome exists in the British Library in London (Ms. Add. 18.029) and was registered on several occasions (Catalogue of Additions to the Manuscripts in the British Library in the Years 1848-1853. London 1868, p. 72; Index of Manuscripts in the British Library. Vol. 7, Cambridge 1985, p. 33; P.O. Kristeller Iter Italicum. Volume IV /Alia itinera II/: Great Britain to Spain. London & Leiden 1989, p. 103).
The full title of Marulić’s text reads: The Life of Saint Jerome Presbyter Composed by Marko Marulić; with the Miracles which Cyril, the Bishop of Nazareth, Narrated about him, Added in Abbreviated Form (Vita diui Hieronymi Presbiteri a Marco Marulo edita: adiectis miraculis que de illo Cyrillus Nazarethi episcopus commemorat in summamque redactis breuiorem). The whereabouts of the manuscript in the last two centuries is revealed by a couple of short annotations written on the title page: HIC LIBBER (sic!) EST MEI Francisci Mainardi Ferrariensis 1790, and, beneath, Purchased at Rodd‚s sale. Feb 1850 (Lot 574). After Marulić´s death the codex passed into the possession of Split Dominicans. Subsequently, it was carried from the monastic library to Italy. This happened, most probably, after the plague in Split, in 1784, when the monastery was, first, turned into the lazaret for the aristocracy and, then, given over to the “gravediggers and the lowest strata of the city populace” to live in. In Italy the manuscript was bought or purchased in some other way by a member of the famous family of London booksellers, the Rodds. It seems that the new owner of the manuscript was Thomas Rodd Jr. (1796-1849) This renown bibliophile died without a heir and the manuscript was put for auction within ten months of his death.
The codex is on fine parchment, comparatively small in size (152x102 mm) and bound in hard covers of a later date (160x110 mm). The codex comprises 42 folios. It should be noted that the original numbering in Roman numerals did not include the title folio (i.e. 2 = I, 3 = II etc.). With the exception of a part of the first, second and last folios, the manuscript is in a very good state of preservation. It is written in nice hand, in an uniform rhythm of 22 lines per page. The titles and the marginal notes referring to the contents are set off in red ink, which, in some places, is slightly faded. Although the specialists will easily notice that the codex was not written in a single effort, all the folios were evidently written by the same hand. It is certain that what we have here is Marulić’s autograph. The quality of the employed materials and the care with which it was written point to the conclusion that this copy must have been intended for Marulić’s personal library. That the London codex is Marulić’s autograph may be confirmed by some details characteristic of Marulić, like the spiral marginal signs indicating quotations or the drawings of hands with a pointed finger stressing the maxims in the text. Even the orthography is the one we know from other Marulić’s autographs: the systematic use of “e” and “ij”, the consistent spelling of consyderare, desyderare, demones, penitere etc.
Vita diui Hieronymi is, undoubtedly, the most important text of the codex. However, apart from the Saint‚s biography, the London manuscript also contains some shorter texts. Immediately preceding the Life is a dedicatory poem for the pope Leo X (1v: Pro sanctissimo patre Leone decimo Pont. max. M. Maruli oratio). The Saint‚s biography, as it may be inferred already from the title, is subdivided into smaller units: the prose prologue (2-2v: Legimus diui Hieronymi presbiteri uitam autore incerto...), the biography proper (2v-21: Hieronymus presbiter /ut ipse de se testatur.../), the epitaph in twelve elegiac distichs (21: Condita Hironymi recubant hoc ossa sepulchro), the abbreviated account of the Saint‚s posthumous miracles, as announced in the title (21v-20: Miracula eius post obitum), and the list of Saint‚s works (30v’37: Opera quae scripsit). The manuscript ends with two texts already known, more or less in the form in which they were published for the first time by Ivan Lučić (Ioannes Lucius) in his famous De regno Dalmatiae et Croatiae (Amsterdam, 1666): a polemic discussion on Jerome‚s origins (37-41: In eos qui beatum Hieronymum Italum fuisse contendunt) and the laudatory poem in Saint‚s honor (41’42: De laudibus diui Hieronymi carmen).
The personal motifs which spurred Marulić to write Jerome‚s biography are clearly stated in the short prologue: The author was motivated by the chronological disorder which he had noticed in the anonymous biography which he had read, as well as by the fact that it had left out some episodes “which could have stressed more fully the saintliness of the man and be of profit to us” (2). Therefore, he decided to put the events into the right chronological order and make up for the factual omissions, relying primarily on the words of Jerome himself and the testimonies of Augustine, Cyril and Sulpicius Severus: Nihil intactum pretermittam quod de illo usquam legere potui, ne tantus ac talis uir sua laude (quantum in me est) fraudetur (2-2v).
Marulić’s main sources were the known anonymous hagiographies (1) Hieronymus noster and (2) Plerosque nimirum; also (3) Vita sancti Hieronymi collecta ex tractatibus eius ac sanctorum Augustini, Damasi, Gregorii, Gelasii, et aliorum patrum sanctorum, whose author was Nicolò Maniacoria (Nicola Maniacutia), Roman biblicist from the mid-12th century. Also, he abundantly drew on epistolary apocrypha by Pseudo-Eusebius (Epistula Eusebii Cremonensis de morte Hieronymi), Pseudo-Augustine (Epistula sancti Augustini ad Cyrillum Hierosolymitanum de magnificentiis beati Hieronymi) and Pseudo-Cyril (Epistula Cyrilli ad Augustinum de miraculis Hieronymi). For the data on Jerome‚s life Marulić relied on two incunabula: the two-volume edition of Jerome‚s letters compiled by an unknown typographer, in Parma, in 1484, and the two-volume edition of Jerome‚s biblical commentaries printed in Venice, in 1497 and 1498 by Giovanni and Gregorio de‚ Gregori.
Marulić finished the biography in spring 1507, as is witnessed by his letter to the Venetian notary Jacopo Grassolari. Anticipating in a way the problems that would block the publication of the text he wrote that he would be content if others do a better job, following his steps (fortasse aliquis ... nostro exemplo prouocatus, idem et exquisitiore stilo et sententiis grauioribus efficiet. Tunc ego ista nostratia libenter aboleri patiar). As early as 1513, or shortly afterwards, he still hoped that he would be able to print this work; as is witnessed by the subsequent interpolation of the dedicatory poem for Leo X (1513-1521). Anyway, in 1522 he printed the same poem at the end of his epistle to Hadrian VI, changing only the name of the addressee in the 1st and 13th lines (Leoni : Adriano). It is obvious that he no more counted on the publication of his Life.
The reason for his giving up almost certainly lies in the fact that in the meantime, in Basel, appeared Erasmus‚s edition of Jerome, marking the turning-point in jeromian philology. It was preceded by the famous Vita composed by Erasmus himself. Undoubtedly, Marulić was aware that his Life did not satisfy the high standards set by this editorial enterprise. Of this were probably also aware his compatriots Vinko Pribojević (Vincentius Priboevius, born at the start of the second half of the 15th century, died after1532) and Ivan Lučić (Ioannes Lucius, 1604-1679), who of the whole codex used only the texts that were not controversial (In eos qui beatum Hieronymum Italum fuisse contendunt and De laudibus diui Hieronymi carmen), passing over in silence the rest.
This study is followed by the editio princeps of Marulić’s Vita diui Hieronymi (edited by Darko Novaković).
Ključne riječi
Hrčak ID:
9850
URI
Datum izdavanja:
22.4.1994.
Posjeta: 2.839 *