INHALT und ABSTRACTS

The Medieval Legends of Philosophers and Scholars, in Micrologus. Nature, Sciences and Medival Societies, 21 (2013), S. XIV-634. Euro 80.

Agostino PARAVICINI BAGLIANI, Introduction, S. VII–XIV.

Aurélien ROBERT, Épicure et les épicuriens au Moyen Âge, S. 3–46.

Joëlle DUCOS, Platon et Socrate dans la littérature médiévale française. Entre morale et légende. S. 47–80.

Delphine CARRON FAIVRE, Les suicides de Caton. Légendes médiévales autour de la mort d’un stoïcien romain, S. 81–102.

Étienne WOLFF, La légende d’Apulée, de son époque à la fin du XVe siècle, S. 103–114.

Jean-Marc MANDOSIO, Les vies légendaires d’Apollonius de Tyane, mage et philosophe, S. 115–144.

David JUSTE, Les textes astrologiques latins attribués à Aristote, S. 145–164.

Antonella SANNINO, I ritratti leggendari di Ermete Trismegisto, S. 165–192.

Jean-Patrice BOUDET, Ptolémée dans l’Occident médiéval: roi, savant et philosophe, S. 193–218.

Julien VERONESE, Virgile et la naissance de l’ars notoria, S. 210–242.

Patrick GAUTIER DALCHE, Le ‘Tuyau’ de Gerbert, ou la légende savante de l’astronome: origines, thèmes, échos contemporains (avec un appendice critique), S. 243–276.

Charles BURNETT, The Legend of Constantine the African, S. 277–294.

Agostino PARAVICINI BAGLIANI, La légende médiévale d’Albert le Grand (1270–1435). Premières recherches, S. 295–368.

Amos BERTOLACCI, Albertus Magnus and ‘Avenzoreth’ (Ibn Zur‘a, D. 1008): Legend or Reality?, S. 369–396.

Jean WIRTH, Légende et miracles de Saint Thomas d’Aquin, S. 397–410.

Sebastià GIRALT, The Legend of Arnau de Vilanova, from the Middle Ages to the Early Modern Times, S. 411–444.

Laurence MOULINIER-BROGI – Marilyn NICOUD, „Fama ou légende?“. De la vie de quelques médecins italiens d'après les témoignages médiévaux, S. 445–470.

Michela PEREIRA, Il santo alchimista. Intrecci leggendari attorno a Raimondo Lullo, S. 471–516.

Graziana CIOLA, Giovanni di Rupescissa: autobiografia, profezia e leggenda, S. 517–579.

Reimund LEICHT, Miracles for the Sake of the Master of Reason Hillel. Ben Samuel of Verona’s Legendary Account of the Maimonidean Controversy, S. 579–600.

Index of names (persons, places), S. 599–630, by Agostino PARAVICINI BAGLIANI
Index of manuscripts, S. 631–634, by Agostino PARAVICINI BAGLIANI

ABSTRACTS

Aurélien ROBERT, Épicure et les épicuriens au Moyen Âge, S. 3–46.
The meaning of the term ‘Epicurean’ seems to rest on a legend, that of an Epicurus enjoying all the pleasures.Yet we know how much Epicurus’s teaching differs from this. It is frequent to read that the Christian thinkers worked to remove Epicurus from the history of the philosophy by reporting these narratives or inventing new legends similar to those transmitted by the famous book X of Diogenes Laertius’s Lives and doctrines of the illustrious philosophers. This vision of the history of the Epicureanism raises nevertheless several problems. Indeed, not only the medieval thinkers did not know Diogenes Laertius’s book – no more than the works of Epicurus. Moreover, they do not seem to use legends in order to attack Epicurus’s doctrine. From the XIIth century, the gap between Epicurus and the Epicureans was accepted. The former was recognized for his wisdom – in particular thanks to Seneca’s Letters – in spite of his philosophical and theological errors; the Epicureans were considered as having misunderstood the philosopher or simply as having followed the popular legend.This attitude can be found in the Lives of Epicurus which were written in the XIIIth and XIVth centuries and which are based on the ancient doxography, in particular the Stoics and the Church Father. The portrait of Epicurus changes however according to the authors, since some of them stress the theological criticism, while others only retain its wisest dicta. In any case, none of them uses the slander for their criticism of the founder of the Garden.

Joëlle DUCOS, Platon et Socrate dans la littérature médiévale française. Entre morale et légende. S. 47–80.
Aristotle, his person and his authority have very much inspired scholars writing French, who made him philosophers’ prince or, from a contrary point of view, ridicule him. But it is not the same about Plato and Socrates: their names are quoted, but their life is little evocated, before wider diffusion of developments about them.This present study want to analyze the change between antic biography and French texts, by transition in latin (Vicentius Bellavicensis, Johannes Saresberiensis) to prove how biography becomes legendary life, specially from three XIIIrd ‘s books, Gossouin of Metz’ Image du Monde, the Baudoin d’Avesnes’s chronicle and the Placides et Timeo.

Delphine CARRON FAIVRE, Les suicides de Caton. Légendes médiévales autour de la mort d’un stoïcien romain, S. 81–102.
The Roman Stoic Cato the Younger (Cato of Utica) killed himself with a sword upon learning of the defeat of Pompey's army by Julius Caesar's forces at Thapsus. This ardent defender of the Republic had to die along with what he saw as the demise of the political freedom. Many ancient authors, pagans and Christians, recount the circumstances and motivations of this suicide, often considered heroic (Cicero, Seneca, Lucan, Florus, etc.), although a polemic tradition also exists (Caeser, Augustine). The Middle Ages created two chief legends about the death of this philosopher: Cato took his life by drinking poison, just like other great 'Stoic' philosophers, such as Seneca or Socrates; Cato committed suicide to shorten the suffering due to quartan fever, a disease associated with the sin of envy.We analyze the material reasons (related to textual transmission) as well as the motivations that led certain medieval authors to develop and transmit such legends.

Étienne WOLFF, La légende d’Apulée, de son époque à la fin du XVe siècle, S. 103–114.
Apuleius wished to be considered for a philosopher, but in his lifetime already had a reputation as a magician, reflected or aroused by the action which was brought against him at Oea (he was accused of using magic to seduce a wealthy widow) and his novel The Metamorphoses (where magic plays an important role). Platonic and magician, these are the two aspects that dominate in the overall image transmitted to us from him, from Antiquity to the Renaissance. His reputation as a magician was helped by the autobiographical reading that was made of his novel The Metamorphoses from Augustine and that has not been questioned before the fifteenth century.

Jean-Marc MANDOSIO, Les vies légendaires d’Apollonius de Tyane, mage et philosophe, S. 115–144.
Philosopher, magus, sorcerer? Or maybe philosopher and magus? Since Apollonius’s posthumous fame began in the 2nd century A.D., he was praised as a holy man with supernatural powers, although some considered him as a mere charlatan. Hailed as a ‘pagan Christ’ by the anti-Christian polemists, he was not as widely despised by the Fathers of the Church as is commonly thought. In the Muslim world, he was the ‘master of talismans’; there the Pythagorean wiseman that he actually was became Hermes Trismegistus’s heir, who revealed the ‘secrets of creation’ to the world. This conception entered the Western world in the 12th century, but its spread was limited by the inability of most medieval translators – with some remarkable exceptions – to recognize Apollonius behind the Arabic name Balînûs. The ‘classical’ legend rose from its ashes in the 15th century, when Philostratus’s Life of Apollonius was translated. As Apollonius became more popular than ever, the Late Ancient controversy about his and Jesus’s miracles was also revived. The ‘modern’ interpretation of Apollonius’s legend began in the 17th century, when people generally stopped believing that his wondrous feats could be true.

David JUSTE, Les textes astrologiques latins attribués à Aristote, S. 145–164.
Aristotle is often quoted as an authority in medieval astrological texts. There are at least two reasons for this. One is that Aristotle was partly responsible for the idea – widely accepted until the seventeenth century – that terrestrial events are caused by the movements of the celestial spheres, as stated in his De caelo, Meteorologica and De generatione et corruptione. The second reason is that some medieval scholars sincerely believed that Aristotle was an astrologer or, at least, that he was the author of astrological texts. This article deals with this second point. I discuss three medieval accounts (by Simon de Phares, Roger Bacon and the author of the Speculum astronomiae) and ten Latin astrological treatises which circulated under the name of Aristotle in the manuscripts.These treatises cover a wide variety of topics, including nativities, interrogations, astral magic, astrological physiognomy, and astrometeorology.

Antonella SANNINO, I ritratti leggendari di Ermete Trismegisto, S. 165–192.
At the basis of several mythological interpretations of Hermes Trismegistus (the personification of the cosmopolitan Hellenistic Hermes and the Egyptian god Thoth), there is a strong tension characterizing his dual nature, human and divine. The aim of this essay is to investigate the different instances of this tension in the Asclepius, in the Arabic sources of the prologue De tribus Mercuriis, in the Liber Planetarum ex scientia Abel, in De quindecim stellis, quindecim lapidibus, quindecim Herbis et quindecim imaginibus, in the Glosae super Trismegistum, in the Asclepius’s manuscript tradition. These texts feed the medieval imagination while also informing the configuration of Hermes’s modern identity, which is in turn represented as a primal source of wisdom, as a prophet of monotheism (or as the author of an extensive output sacral aura of a prophet in the guise of pagan Christian revelation), as the repository of three ancient traditions of wisdom (logic, physics, ethics) and as the founder of astrology, alchemy, and magic. A brief analysis of the iconological representation of Siena Cathedral and Florence manuscript of the Laurentian Library, Ashburn. 1166, 1475, c. 1v. completes this overview. The legendary fortune of Hermes Trismegistus is bound to live on, in its different adaptations, after the discovery of the origin of the apocryphal literature by Isaac Causabon.

Jean-Patrice BOUDET, Ptolémée dans l’Occident médiéval: roi, savant et philosophe, S. 193–218.
While in the Arab world, the confusion between the scholar Claudius Ptolemy and an Hellenistic king was clearly denounced at least since the tenth century as a rough chronological error, this identification, although obsoleted by the translation of the Almagest by Gerard of Cremona ca. 1175, remained in the medieval West a major apologetics argument for proponents of astrology. Some of the dicta contained in the prologue of the Almagest were a source of thinking for medieval scholars but they had a limited success compared to a maxim attributed to Ptolemy and used ad nauseum from the middle of the thirteenth century: Vir sapiens dominabitur astris, «The wise man will dominate the stars». This paper is a ‘mise au point’ on what we know about the history of this aphorism, inspired by the verba 5 and 8 of the Centiloquium, and tries to understand its signification among the intellectuals of the last centuries of the Middle Ages.

Julien VERONESE, Virgile et la naissance de l’ars notoria, S. 210–242.
From the second half of the XIIth century on,Virgil, considered by the medieval tradition as a wise person or a philosopher, sees attributing a variable number of marvels. In the panel of the founding narratives of Virgil as magician, one presents a certain peculiarity: it is the one where Gervase of Tilbury (Otia imperialia, c. 1214) associates the poet with the birth or the discovery of a real tradition of ritual magic, the Ars notoria, attested by numerous manuscripts from the beginning of the XIIIth century and able to give knowledge and science to its user. At first sight this association can seem fortuitous, because the ars, placed in manuscripts under the patronage of Solomon and Apollonius, integrates at no time the poet of Mantua into the network of its authorities. However, it is not the case. By a series of indications, it seems that the literary tradition represented by Dolopathos of Jean de Haute-Seille (end of the XIIth) had a direct influence on the environment from which arises the Ars notoria, what Gervase would be in reality only the reporter.The initial model – Virgil – would thus have been disqualified as authority for the benefit of other more common in magic context.

Patrick GAUTIER DALCHE, Le ‘Tuyau’ de Gerbert, ou la légende savante de l’astronome: origines, thèmes, échos contemporains (avec un appendice critique), S. 243–276.
According to an erudite legend, Gerbert of Aurillac had carried some extraordinary scientific experiments.The roots of that legend can be traced back to the Middle Ages; however, it is not before the nineteenth century that the fame of an astronome well ahead of his time was revived in Auvergne. At that time, Gerbert was credited with the invention of a ‘pipe’ considered as a predecessor of the telescope. That object gave him a considerable bibliographical fortune. The attribution of a De utilitatibus astrolabii to Gerbert offered by some twelfth and thirteenth century manuscripts can be considered as a part of the same trend aiming at justifying a universally acknowledged talent with the help of some precise and concrete data.Two recent examples concerning Gerbert’s alleged connections with Arabic science make use of the ‘pipe’ to foster the attribution of the De utilitatibus astrolabii.We can evaluate those studies with the help of the notion of ‘critical legend’. This oxymoron emphasize the idea that an old legend may still influence some modern theories apparently elaborated with the help of a rigorous scientific method.

Charles BURNETT, The Legend of Constantine the African, S. 277–294.
This paper explores the legend that Constantine the African, translator of a large number of medical works from Arabic into Latin in the late eleventh century, was a plagiarist. The meaning of ‘plagiarism’ in the Middle Ages is explored. The origins and development of this accusation against Constantine are described and it is asked whether the accusation is justified. The paper ends with the rallying to Constantine’s defense by Henricus Petri who produced an edition of Constantine’s works in Basel (1536-1539).

Agostino PARAVICINI BAGLIANI, La légende médiévale d’Albert le Grand (1270–1435). Premières recherches, S. 295–368.
The legend of Albert the Great developed itself on different levels, scholarly and popular. This contribution, which is intended to be only a first step towards a future synthesis on this long-lived legend, concentrates on a series of witnesses concerning Albert the Great as a scholar in the field of the philosophy of nature from the last years of his life till the last decades of the XIVth and the first decades of the XVth century. The texts are submitted to a detailed analysis and are reported in the appendix. A common element emerges with force, the fact that Albert the Great’s science is mostly emphasized – with more or less rhetorical amplitude – as ‘omniscience’. Albert the Great’s ‘omniscience’ needs at the same time to be constantly legitimated, particularly by Dominican friars who did not limit their creativity in finding more and more arguments. Another element is particularly important: the comparison, or even competition, with Thomas Aquinas, before and after Thomas’ canonization.

Amos BERTOLACCI, Albertus Magnus and ‘Avenzoreth’ (Ibn Zur‘a, D. 1008): Legend or Reality?, S. 369–396.
References to an unidentified author (“Avenzoreth”) occur in some of the commentaries on Aristotle by Albertus Magnus, who is apparently the only Latin scholar who quoted him. This author is credited with a pessimistic view on the beastly nature of man and the lack of freedom in human condition. In Albertus’ report,Avenzoreth shows legendary traits: he is presented as a priest, who lived in the East, and pronounced a spirited and vivid oracle against mankind (“Vae vobis, homines, qui computati estis in numero bestiarum, mutua servitute laborantes, ut ex vobis nascatur liber”, a dictum repeated with small variations in all citations by Albertus). The article aims at showing that, despite his seemingly mythical profile,Avenzoreth corresponds to a real Arabic author: in all likelihood he can be identified with a theologian and philosopher active in Baghdad at the turn between the tenth and the eleventh century, Abu¯ ‘Alı¯ ‘Isa¯ Ibn Zur‘a (d. 1008).

Jean WIRTH, Légende et miracles de Saint Thomas d’Aquin, S. 397–410.
Because the work of saint Thomas Aquinas doesn’t give any autobiographic information, the essential part of what we learn about his life comes from the canonisation process and the legends. Significant contradictions come into sight between these hagiographic sources, about the miracles which are attributed to him, the tribulations of his mortal remains, his gluttony or his asceticism. His supposed abduction by members of his family had the complicity of the emperor for guelph authors, of the pope for ghibelline ones. The contradictions are equally strong between his supposed opinions and his work. For example, nothing is said about his aristotelianism and his theology is supposed inspired by nobody else than the Bible and the Fathers. We can conclude that we know almost nothing about his life and that each modern biographer composes with the different sources the portrait of the saint he wishes to give.

Sebastià GIRALT, The Legend of Arnau de Vilanova, from the Middle Ages to the Early Modern Times, S. 411–444.
Although the contemporary research has managed to reveal his historical figure, the legend of the physician and religious reformer Arnau de Vilanova (c. 1240-1311) has not vanished yet. This article reviews Arnau’s biographical accounts or allusions to him made by medieval and early modern authors in order to explore how his myth was created and developed from his lifetime to the Early Modern Ages. Arnau’s medieval legends as a necromancer, alchemist and prophet converged into an archetypical image of him as a physician-magician and polymath according to the Renaissance ideal. Each one of the three medieval traditions seems to have been born separately. However, the religious nonconformism of the historical Arnau and the image of him which was transmitted by the detractors of his spiritual thought apparently had an outstanding role in their origin.

Laurence MOULINIER-BROGI – Marilyn NICOUD, „Fama ou légende?“. De la vie de quelques médecins italiens d'après les témoignages médiévaux, S. 445–470.
Looking for the tracks of the memory of certain doctors in the Middle Ages, one can question a wide range of sources; what emerges is the figure of an admired intellectual, with an international reputation, about whom cities sometimes compete; but practitioners also appear as a profession arising rivalries and conflicts, even critics and mockeries for specific failings. It is doubtless in the genre of the urban eulogy, a genre rapidly expanding in communal Italy, that the doctors reach completely in the group portrait. As a matter of fact, the memory of the medieval practitioners seems to have been more cultivated in Italy than in the other spaces and it can be easily explained. In Italy, the early development of the medical activity, associated associations confered from the XIIIth century on a social and intellectual recognition to the doctors, who took sometimes also an important part to the political life of the city. But behind the praising accounts, individual or collective, concerning the physicians, defaults or less glorious behaviors or actions can also be found in this laudatory literature, and we can wonder if they are real or the fruit of the imagination.We know how much the fama was important for the doctors: as they often recognize themselves, the infamia was indeed the most dreaded danger.This papers tries eventually to determine on which conditions the fama of a practitioner stops being simple fame, to become legend.

Michela PEREIRA, Il santo alchimista. Intrecci leggendari attorno a Raimondo Lullo, S. 471–516.
Lull’s autobiography, a relevant contribute to his self-presentation as Doctor Illuminatus, was also at the origin of legendary motives (love desenchantment, martyrdom, visions and other wonderful episodes witnessing his wisdom), that converged into a tale first developed in Mallorquine tradition and later accepted by Lull’s pious followers and by Lullian scholars. At the same time, an alchemical legend was slowly emerging from motives embedded in the works on alchemy falsely attributed to Lull: his being taught alchemy by Arnald of Villanova, the journey to England, the ambivalent relationship to the English king. Eventually the two tales conflate into one in XVIIIth century Hermeticism, outside Lullian and pseudo- Lullian environments. Thus Lull, saint and alchemist, became an outstanding representative of the occult tradition.

Graziana CIOLA, Giovanni di Rupescissa: autobiografia, profezia e leggenda, S. 517–579.
John of Rupescissa’s life appears to be as colourful and eventful as the legendary traditions built around it – and it is sometimes hardly distinguishable from these legends. This paper deals with Rupescissa’s figure on three levels: the one based on the few certified data and documents we can access, John’s autobiography, and the more or less legendary tradition developing around his character. Starting with an analysis of the autobiographical passages in John’s works, in particular with the descriptions of his imprisonment, this paper shows how John’s autobiography presents some incoherencies, it’s not to be taken as a completely reliable historical source, and it seems to be at the origins of John’s prophetic fame and of the development of the legendary tradition. Indeed, in John’s autobiographical selfportrait, the apologetic instances and the justification of his prophetic activities are strictly interwoven and play a central role. By reporting sometimes an edited version of the events and presenting himself as a sorely suffering prisoner, John proves to actually be the true prophet of the final tribulations and, by doing so, he aims to be proven innocent of the accusations raised against him. In the end, by incrementing his own prophetic fame, it is in the first place Rupescissa who makes a legend out of himself.

Reimund LEICHT, Miracles for the Sake of the Master of Reason Hillel. Ben Samuel of Verona’s Legendary Account of the Maimonidean Controversy, S. 579–600.
There is nothing surprising in the creation of popular legends about a sage like the Jewish philosopher, physician and jurist Moses Maimonides (1135–1204). A more surprising phenomenon is the existence of legendary accounts about Maimonides, which were created by Jewish intellectuals – his ‘rationalistic’ defenders in the course of the Maimonidean controversies,which haunted the Jewish communities in the 13th and early 14th centuries. Hillel ben Samuel of Verona’s (ca. 1120–1295) interpretation of the events, which is found in one of his famous letters to Maestro Gaio, is generally dismissed by modern scholarship as utterly unreliable as a historical source, but it appears in a new light if interpreted not as a historical forgery but a conscious attempt to depict Maimonides as a divinely legitimized authority elevated above mundane disputes.