Read on Twitter
My latest article is out! It discusses a *huge* encyclopedia of saints (Catalogo de li santi) made in Naples around 1485, now partially preserved in this pretty manuscript from @HoughtonLib.
Who said that Italian humanists only liked Latin/Greek and the classics? A thread. 1/
Who said that Italian humanists only liked Latin/Greek and the classics? A thread. 1/
@HoughtonLib MS Typ. 142 is a complicated collection of saints' lives. The artist (Matteo Felice) did not finish the illustrations planned for this manuscript, leaving them at different stages of completion. What about the text? Hint: Things are even *more* complicated. 2/
With 250 chapters, Typ. 142 is the tip of a lost iceberg: an Italian encyclopedia of saints in alphabetical order made of ~1k chapters titled dedicated to an unknown prince. The book's intended title was "Catalogue of male and female saints" (Cathalogo de li santi e sante) 3/
The author of the Catalogo was almost finished (he'd gotten at least to the letter P), but for some reason, he could complete and review his encyclopedia. That's why we only have a few letters left (A-F-G-H-I) in Typ. 142. 4/
The Catalogo is interesting not only for its impressive size but also for the variety of sources used to build these chapters. The author, I contend in my article, used at least three categories of sources: martyrologies, abbreviated legendaries, and traditional saints' lives. 5/
