Tuesday, June 12, 2007

A Colophon

In the midst of doing a ms. inventory of the works of Petrus Thomae, 14th. cen. spanish scotist, who served as papal penetentiary and was then jailed on a sorcery charge (d. prior to 1340), I came across the following odd little colophon. The citation is Napoli, Biblioteca Nazionale Vittorio Emanuele II, Cod. 493 (VIII.F.17), f. 109ra. It is from his work entitled De esse intelligibili

Expliciunt tractatus Petri Thome.
Hos qui tractatus
studuit bene mente levatus,
hiis erit armatus
scotista non viciatus.

Here's a rough translation: "Here ends the treatise of Petrus Thomae. Those who studied well the treatise having been lifted in thought will have been armored by these things not conquered." I'm not sure where "Scotista" goes; one would think those "those scotists" who have studied etc., but the cases don't match. Or perhaps one is armed by "scotistic matters". Not that it matters; just a scotistic doggerel from the medium aevum.

3 comments:

Michael Sullivan said...

Perhaps "scotista" is singular, referring to Petrus? Perhaps it's an ablative? "armed by the scotus they will be not conquered" etc.

Michael Sullivan said...

sorry, "armed by the scotist" of course.

"Hos" and "studuit" don't seem to agree either.

Lee Faber said...

Makes sense; he was the Doctor Strenuus, Invincibilis, Proficuus and Serenus after all.