The Organisation and Structure of Old English Encyclopaedic Notes

Secular Learning in Anglo-Saxon England, ed. Chardonnens and Carella Amsterdamer Beiträge zur älteren Germanistik, 2012

The Catholic Historical Review, 2010

Quaerendo 43, Brill: Leiden, 61-82, 2013

The Thesaurus antiquitatum et historiarum Italiae is a collection of accounts on Italian history and antiquities that was published in Leiden at the beginning of the eighteenth century by the Dutch publisher Pieter van der Aa. This publication offers a splendid opportunity to shed light on the ‘behind the scenes’ dynamics of what turned out to be a rather cumbersome undertaking. Drawing on epistolary material, this paper investigates the obstacles that Van der Aa encountered in gathering the material and concentrates in particular on the involvement of the Italian scholars that the Dutch publisher contacted to obtain advice and sources. Inexplicably at first glance, they hold contradictory opinions about Van der Aa’s initiative, from praise to open opposition. The sources presented here demonstrate that this situation was caused by the existence of similar ongoing Italian projects in competition with the Dutch collection on Italian history and antiquities. Particularly telling is the attitude of the famous Italian historian Lodovico Antonio Muratori, who felt a growing antagonism towards Van der Aa’s project, since he matured his plans to publish the Rerum Italicarum scriptores that partially overlapped with the Thesaurus.

2017

The early to mid-fourteenth century saw the production in England of anumber of multilingual codiceso fm ixed content. The trilingual manuscriptC ambridge University Library,MSGg.1.1,which wasalso produced at this time, and has been described as representing 'an entirelibraryinitself ',appears to follow in that tradition. It containsnoless than fifty-twotexts, in English, Anglo-Norman and Latin. In this essaythe position of the English textsi nt he codexw ill be considered as part of the larger question as to the intentional and predetermined coherence of the codex'sc ontent and the readerso ra udience at which itw as aimed. Open-Access-Publikation im Sinne der CC-Lizenz BY-NC-ND 4.0