Probably in Italy, as elsewhere, only single books or sections of the Bible were first trans- lated ; and those the books most in use for deyo-
* Romania, xxiii, 386. In this article the late M. Berger
gives a very careful account of the early Italian Bible, and many facts have been taken from it,
CONTINENTAL VERSIONS
CONTINENTAL VERSIONS | 407
tional purposes, or for edification, such as the Gospels, the Psalms, and the Sapiential books of the OT, and more particularly the Book of Pro- verbs. Thus the earliest MS of the version which is assigned doubtfully to the 13th cent., a MS in the library of St. Mark at Venice (Cl. i. ital. 80), is a translation only of the Gospels and Epistles of the Sundays according to the Roman year. Other MSS of the Gospels consist of extracts, making a harmony of the Four Gospels, beginning some- times with one, sometimes with another, this harmony being often paraphrastic. Others give a complete text of the Gospels; and of these com- plete MSS Berger enumerates six of the 14th and 15th centuries.
2. To those parts of the Bible which have been mentioned, translations of the rest were subse- quently added, the OT being for the most part the latest to be dealt with. The completion of the translation was probably the work of the Domini- cans of the 14th cent.; but complete Bibles, owing to their expense, were rare. As elsewhere, the historical books of the OT were at first para- phrased rather than translated, on the plan of the Historia Scholastica or the French Bible Historiale, modelled on it. In this form we find a good deal of the OT in a Siena MS (I. v. 5) of the 14th cen- tury. Another Siena MS (F. iii. 4) is ‘our best MS’ of the OT, the whole of which it contains. This last MS dates from the 14th or 15th cent., and is interesting for the old order in which the books ' of the Bible are found, and the old system of divi- sions of the text. Other noteworthy MSS are two belonging to the Riccardi Library in Florence, one of which (MS 1250) is a 15th cent. MS of the whole NT; the other (MS 1252) is a 14th cent. MS of the second half of the Bible from Ecclesiasticus to Revelation. The first half of the Bible, Genesis to Ps 14, is found in a Laurentian MS (Ashb. 1102) of the year 1466 ; while a Paris MS (tad. 3 and 4) of the year 1472 contains the second and third volumes of a Bible, beginning with Ezra. The only complete MS of the whole Bible which has come down to us is also in the Bibliotheque Nationale at Paris (MS, ita/. 1 and 2). This dates from the end of the 15th cent., and with the other Paris MS came from the library of the kings of Naples, and no doubt represents a version made there.
3. The MSS, in which the version is contained either wholly or in part, have many of them been carefully examined with a view to the evidence which they afford in regard to its general character and history. This may be summarized as follows. The language is, as a rule, the Tuscan dialect as spoken at Florence in the 14th cent.; but in some cases, é.g. in the Psalter contained in the St. Mark MS, ital. 57, the influence of the Venetian dialect is evident, and the MS of the Gospels (MS, z¢a/. i. 3) in the same library is in pure Venetian. The text found in both these MSS, as might be ex- pected, represents a different underlying text from that found in the majority of MSS.
In the Pentateuch the MSS as a rule present one and the same version; but one MS (Riccard. 1655), containing Genesis only, preserves a text quite different from that of the other MSS, such as Siena MS, F. iii. 4. In the historical books we have two versions—one more incorrect, abounding in glosses and paraphrase, and therefore probably the earlier, found in the Siena MS (I. v. 5); the other more literal and exact (Siena MS, F. iii. 4, Paris, Bibl. Nat. ital. 3). In the Psalter we find many variants in the comparatively large number of MSS, but these really represent only one original version. In the Book of Proverbs, one of the earliest books to be translated, there are almost as many versions as there are MSS. Of
the Book of Judith there are two versions—the one free, the other literal. For the rest of the OT, though there are many variants, yet these do not indicate more than one translation.
Passing to the NT, we find that most of the MSS of the Gospels go back to one and the same version. An exception must be made in respect of the Venetian text (Mare. MS, ial. i. 3) already mentioned, which stands alone. The MSS of the Acts vary in the glosses which they insert; and Minocchi traces three redactions of the version, but these are not independent. The translator’s name is given in a prologue found in some MSS as Domenico Cavalea, a Dominican of Pisa, who died in 1342. A curious fact mentioned by Berger (.c. pp. 391, 392) is that this version has been used in two MSS connected with the Vaud, and is the source of an otherwise untraced rendering of Ac 16 onwards, found in those MSS. The process of Italian indebtedness to France has here been reversed. In St. Paul’s Epistles there is only one version, though it has passed through more than one redaction. The version found in Riceard. 1252 seems at first sight to be independent; but there are expressions, which it has in common with other MSS, which point the other way. In the Catholic Epistles we find, as elsewhere, two translations—the one incorrect and glossed, the other literal. Most MSS of the Apocalypse con- tain the same text, but one (Riceard. 1349) is quite independent, and is related to the Provencal texts. The most striking and sufficient proof of this is the rendering of the words ‘one like unto the son of Man’ by ‘one like the son of the Virgin,’ a rendering found in several versions connected with the south of France.