Textmanuscripts - Les Enluminures
215 folios on parchment, modern foliation in top right corner, possibly incomplete at the end (collation i-xvii12 [through f. 204v] xvii1 [original structure uncertain, but likely one leaf of a longer quire, with loss of text] xix10 [ff. 206-215v, originally the first quire of the manuscript]), catchwords at the end of gatherings i-xvii (ff. 12v, 24v, etc.), text in two columns, ruled in lead, full length double bounding lines in top, bottom, and outer margins, text columns ruled with double lines (ff. 1-48), ruled in lead with full length single lines on the columns and across top, with double lines in outer margin (ff. 49-215), prick marks still visible ( justification 190 x 121 mm.), written in a vertically compressed Gothic textualis libraria in two columns of 49 lines by two hands, the first with more abbreviations and more angular letter forms (ff. 1-48), the second using less abbreviations and rounder forms, marginal corrections inserted by contemporary hand throughout, source citations added marginally and red ink used to underline biblical text ff. 1-48 and 206, a later hand writing in Gothic Hybrida has made notes on ff. 2v, 3, 5, and 5v, brackets added in the margins throughout to help visualize the structure of the sermons, several tears and holes in the parchment (ff. 7, 83, 96, 97, 133, 135, 136, 163, 168, 173, 190, and 203), staining on ff. 206-215. Sixteenth-century wooden binding with nineteenth-century blind-tooled quarter-calf, an ‘S’ is written on the front cover, on the back cover ‘LIBER’ is legible with more illegible writing underneath, front and back pastedowns contain fragments of a German letter book, overall good condition. Dimensions 253 x 180 mm.
An important manuscript of the unpublished sermons of the Franciscan theologian and philosopher, Landolfo Caracciolo. One of only three manuscripts to transmit Landolfo’s prologue, it contains the complete set of sermons listed in Schneyer as well as five additional, unidentified sermons, suggesting this is likely the most complete surviving manuscript of this sermon cycle. Neatly written and well organized, it contains numerous paratextual aids that clarify the structure of the sermons and the sources used by Landolfo. Dating close to the lifetime of the author, this will be an essential witness for the constitution and recension of a critical text of Landolfo’s sermons.
1. Given the lack of decoration, it is difficult to localize this manuscript with confidence, but evidence of the script suggests it was copied by a university-trained scribe, possibly in Paris, in the fourteenth century, c. 1325-1375. Note the crossed Tironian ‘et’ and the abbreviation for ‘qui’ (‘q’ with a vertical stroke about the letter), neither which were used by Italian scribes.
2. Leaves from a German letter book were used as pastedowns. The date on one entry at the top of the back pastedown reads 1803 and includes the placename “Windesheim.” The manuscript was likely in Germany in the nineteenth century when religious houses were secularized.
ff. 1-200v, incipit, “[E]t erunt signa in sole etc. Lc 12 [sic, Luke 21:25]. Doctor eggregius Hugo libro de sacramentis dicit… [f. 4v] …qui sine fine Deus uiuit et regit in saecula saeculorum. Amen.”; … [f. 197] “Dixerunt pharisei ad Ihesum. Lc 10. Sapiens ecclesiasticus in spiritu preuidens futuram Iudeorum…de quo dicitur ipse transiens et cetera.”
Landolfo Caracciolo, Sermones dominicales (Sermons from Advent to Lent); this manuscript contains the 81 sermons listed by Schneyer in his Repertorium (1969-1990, IV, pp. 1-6), now bound out of order so that f. 1 begins with sermon 2, with the author’s prologue and the first sermon following on ff. 206-215v (see below).
There are two sermons near the beginning of the manuscript and three at the end of the manuscript not listed in Schneyer. They are as follows:
f. 28-28v, [between Schneyer 14 and 15], incipit, “Inuenta est in utero habens de spiritu sancto. Mt 5. Sanctus Iohannes lumen glorie uirginis…caritas habunda cum dicitur inuenta est et cetera.”
f.33-33v, [between Schneyer 15 and 16], incipit, “Peperit filium suum unigenitum et pannis inuoluit et reclinauit eum in presepio. Lc 2. Galatas apostolus per totum primum capitulum…uilitatem angustie que continebatur.”
ff. 200v-203v, incipit, “Respiciens Ihesus in discipulos suos etc. Mt 18. Quia caritas que nos ad proximum ordinat…quia nobis concedit etc.”
ff. 203v-204, incipit, “Si peccauerit in te frater tuus uade et corripe eum. Mt 18. Id est responde et dicitur quod si peccauerit uir in uirum…quia si peccauerit in te frater tuus etc.”
ff. 204-205v, [incomplete], incipit, “Accesserunt ad Ihesum ab Ierosolymis scribe et pharisei etc. Mt 15. Sanctus Ysaias iudaicam maliciam quam contra Christum…ad litteram sequitur hic dicitur de aquis//”
f. 206, [Prologue to the sermons], incipit, “Scincere caritatis sibi nexibus copulato fratri…distenta per orbem spacia pacis euangelio subiugatur.”
The final gathering of the manuscript contains a prologue to the sermons, which is also found in Vatican City, BAV, Vat. Lat. 13527 (not listed by Schneyer), and the first sermon listed in Schneyer. It is likely that the final gathering was separated from the manuscript and rebound at the back. The staining on the first folio (f. 206) also suggests that it was previously the first gathering in the original binding. The text of the prologue seems to agree with the Vatican manuscript, but the names of the dedicator and dedicatee are both erased in our manuscript. Nevertheless, if the text is identical to the Vatican manuscript, as seems likely then the name of the dedicatee should be “Monaldo de Perusio.”
ff. 206-215v, [Schneyer no. 1], incipit, “Vidi alterum angelum uolantem per medium celum habentem euangelium eternum ut euangelizaret sedentibus super terram. Apocalypsis 14. Gloria actuum ideo dicitur quod euangelium…qui uiuit et regnat per omnia secula seculorum. Amen.”
Our manuscript was not included in the fourteen manuscripts listed by Schneyer (v. 4, 1969-1990); there are also copies of Landolfo’s Sermones dominicales in Valencia, Biblioteca de la Catedral, MS 247 (s. xv), containing thirty-seven sermons (Olmos y Canalda, 1943, no. 247), and in Vatican City, BAV, Vat. Lat. 13527, another fourteenth-century manuscript containing a prologue similar to the one in this manuscript (Mercati, 1937, p. 496; see also Mirabile, Online Resources). These sermons have not appeared in a modern critical edition, nor have they been the subject of a modern study; indeed, they may have never appeared in print, although it is possible that a seventeenth-century printing of Landolfo’s works from Naples (Sermones in quattuor Evangelia, Naples, 1637) includes sermons found in our manuscript. This manuscript is one of the earliest complete copies of Landolfo’s Sermones; the only other complete copies from the fourteenth century are the Vatican manuscript mentioned above and Padua, Biblioteca Antoniana, MS 468 (from which Schneyer compiled his description).
Landolfo Caracciolo (b. 1280/5-1351), the “Doctor Collectivus,” belonged to the wealthy and noble Rossi branch of the Caracciolo family in Naples. From 1318-19 he lectured on the Sentences of Peter Lombard in Paris. A member of the Franciscan order, Landolfo spent much of his scholastic career in Paris defending the doctrines of Duns Scotus against Peter Auriol’s criticisms of the Subtle Doctor. This is seen most clearly in Landolfo’s Questions on the Sentences, which “often read like one long attack on his French predecessor [Auriol]” (Schabel, 2020, p. 1066) It is unknown when exactly Landolfo composed his sermons, but it is probable that he wrote them during his tenure as bishop of Castellammare di Stabia in Southern Italy from 1327-1331. The best piece of evidence for this dating of the sermons comes from the name of the dedicatee, “Monaldo de Perusio,” who is likely to be identified as Monaldo Monaldeschi (1260-1331), the Franciscan Archbishop of Benevento from 1303-1331. Landolfo mentions that Monaldo is both a Franciscan (ordinis fratrum minorum) and part of the papal curia (in romana curia). If this attribution is correct, we can establish a terminus ante quem of 1331 for the sermons. The toponym, de Perusio, perhaps referring to Perosa Argentina, is more difficult to explain, but a reappraisal of the text of Vat. Lat. 13527 and the recovery of the erased names in our manuscript may resolve the difficulty.
Medieval sermon collections often preserve Latin model sermons, which preachers would consult when composing their own sermons either in Latin or in the vernacular for lay audiences. In the fourteenth century, the “scholastic sermon” was the standard form used by preachers, especially those who were university educated. “Scholastic sermons” follow a basic structure: a thema (i.e. a biblical verse to be discussed), a prothema (a kind of prologue), a prayer for divine assistance, a bridge passage, an introduction of the thema, a division (usually into three parts), a confirmation of the members of the division, a development of the division with subdivisions, and then a final section tying together the members of the division and subdivision (see Wenzel, 2015, pp. 45-86, with examples and discussion). Landolfo adopts this framework in his sermons. For example, in the sermon beginning on f. 64v (Schneyer no. 29), the thema is Luke 2:44 “They came a day’s journey and sought him [Jesus] among their kinsfolk and acquaintance,” which Landolfo first likens to the magi who visit the Christ Child and Isaiah 60. Then he divides the thema eight times into sets of rhyming terms, including splendorem luminarem, morem maternalem, honorem singularem, and tenorem litteralem, all of which can be used as mnemonic aids and typological readings of the thema. The sermon ends with a recapitulation of one of the subdivisions, which are all tied back to the thema.
This is a well-organized manuscript. Marginal brackets are used throughout to highlight the structure of the sermons. The first scribe (ff. 1-48) also supplies red underlining for biblical quotations, and abbreviations for patristic authors quoted in the sermons. The second scribe, writing in only brown ink, supplies underlining and bracketing, but lacks abbreviated citations, instead supplying numerous corrections to the text. In many of Landolfo’s sermons, figurative interpretation structures the reading of the biblical verse, and the “figures,” i.e. typological or symbolic readings, are marked in the margin with an abbreviation for figura.
This newly identified manuscript may in fact be the most complete surviving witness to Landolfo’s Sermones dominicales. It contains the full set of sermons listed in Schneyer from Padua, Biblioteca Antoniana, MS 468 (s. xiv), plus five additional sermons, and also transmits the author’s dedicatory prologue (unknown to Schneyer). Modern scholars have underlined Landolfo Caracciolo’s importance to the history of medieval philosophy (Schabel, 2020, and studies cited), and the time is ripe for the scholarly study of his sermons, texts which may contribute to our understanding of the thought of this significant Franciscan philosopher.
Amos, T. L., E. A. Green, and B. M. Kienzle, eds. De Ore Domini: Preacher and Word in the Middle Ages, Kalamazoo, 1989.
Caracciolo, Landolfo. Sermones in quattuor Evangelia, Naples, 1637.
Delcorno, C. La predicazione nell’età communale, Florence, 1974.
Emmen, A. “Caracciolo, Landolf,” in New Catholic Encylopedia, 2nd ed., 15 vol., Washington, D.C., 2002, vol. 3, pp. 95-96.
Franz, Adolf. Drei deutsche Minoritenprediger aus dem XIII. und XIV. Jahrhundert, Freiburg im Breisgau, 1907.
Friedman, R.L. Intellectual Traditions at the Medieval University: The Use of Philosophical Psychology in Trinitarian Theology among the Franciscans and Dominicans, 1250-1350, Leiden, 2013.
Johnson, Timothy J. “Fides ex auditu: Alexander of Hales and the Franciscan School on the Ministry of Preaching,” Franciscan Studies 78 (2020): pp. 51-66.
Kienzle, Beverly Mayne, and David L. D’Avray. “Sermons,” in Medieval Latin: An Introduction and Bibliographical Guide, eds. F.A.C. Mantello and A.G. Rigg, Washington D.C., 1996: pp. 659-69.
Mercati, Giovanni. Opere Minori: Volume IV, Città del Vaticano, 1937.
Mohan, G.E. “Initia Operum Franciscalium (XIII-XV S.) D-H,” Franciscan Studies 36 (1976): pp. 92-177.
Olmos y Canalda, D. Elías. Catalogo Descriptivo: Codices de la Catedral de Valencia, 2nd ed., Valencia, 1943.
Rusconi, Roberto. Predicazione e vita religiosa nella società italiana da Carlo Magno alla Controriforma, Torino, 1981.
Schabel, Christopher. “Landolfo Caracciolo,” in Encyclopedia of Medieval Philosophy, ed. Henrik Lagerlund, 2nd ed., Dordrecht, 2020, pp. 1064-1068.
Schneyer, Johannes Baptist. Repertorium der lateinischen Sermones des Mittelalters fūr die Zeit von 1150-1350, 11 vol., Münster, 1969-1990.
Smith, Randall B. Aquinas, Bonaventure, and the Scholastic Culture of Medieval Paris: Preaching, Prologues, and Biblical Commentary, Cambridge, 2021.
Wenzel, Siegfried. Medieval Artes Praedicandi: A Synthesis of Scholastic Sermon Structure, Toronto, 2015.
Mirablile (Digital archives for medieval culture), “Landolphus Caracciolus”
https://www.mirabileweb.it/title/sermones-landulphus-caracciolus-n-1275-1299-m-1351-title/2087
“Assisi (Perugia) – S. Francesco…” [Identification of a manuscript of Landolfo’s Sermones with BAV, Vat. Lat. 13527], Mirabile, https://www.mirabileweb.it/ricabim/catalogo-della-libraria-compilato-da-frate-giovann/11903/inventory/14501
Palma, Marco. “CARACCIOLO, Landolfo,” Treccani: Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani (1976): https://www.treccani.it/enciclopedia/landolfo-caracciolo_(Dizionario-Biografico)/
Bert Roest and Maarten van der Heijden, “Franciscan Authors, 13th-18th Century: A Catalogue in Progress”
https://franciscanauthors.rich.ru.nl/index.html
Théry, Julien. “MONALDESCHI, Monaldo,” Treccani: Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani (2011): https://www.treccani.it/enciclopedia/monaldo-monaldeschi_(Dizionario-Biografico)/
TM 1306
