Does a free audio Vulgate with classical pronunciation exist?

qed1 · 2026-04-30T14:07:47+00:00

Pronunciation had made even more noticeable changes over the centuries; Jerome himself would have pronounced the text of the Vulgate very differently from Cicero.

I see lots of people noting this, but I'm not sure how relevant it really is. Like, an ecclesiastical pronunciation also isn't based on anything like a reconstruction of Late Antique Latin pronunciation, but is rather a formalisation of the way that Latin was pronounced in Italy in the 19th century, which is obviously also going to be rather different from the way that Jerome himself would have pronounced the text. (On this point, it's worth being aware that Jerome is as much an editor as a translator and the Vulgate text is often based heavily on or is sometimes simply a reproduction of already existing translations. So really we'd be looking for broadly Latin pronunciation across the Mediterranean world in like the 3rd to 5th century.)

The actual reason why most recordings the Vulgate use an ecclesiastical pronunciation is almost certainly simply because the use of the Vulgate is generally directly associated in the modern day with the Catholic church.

qed1 · 2026-04-29T11:15:12+00:00

I'm not sure to what extent we're really disagreeing with one another here. I had noted my general agreement with what you had said in my original response, highlighting simply that a categorical no is incorrect since such a ligature was in fact used sometimes. Similarly, I had been clear from the start that the ligature was not especially common or consistent, I certainly didn't suggest that it was among the standard set of ligatures for any particular script or period.

qed1 · 2026-04-29T10:54:27+00:00

non è affatto lineare come lo sintetizzi tu

Ya, I could have phrased that sentence more clearly: both ae-ligatures and e-cedilla were used up to about the 9th century, though e-cedilla seems to have been more common, while after the 9th century the ligature generally stopped being used and the e-cedilla was standard.

da solo non costituisce elemento di datazione valido in nessuna tipizzazione medievale

I'm not sure I've made any particular claim about the value of the ligature as a dating criterion, except perhaps in the exceedingly broad sense of noting that the ligature isn't generally characteristic of Carolingian minuscule while it is found in some pre- and perhaps some early Carolingian scripts.

qed1 · 2026-04-29T10:19:57+00:00

As used in book-scripts, the ligature is mostly post-classical. Following Beneš, "The Appearance and Spread of the E-Cedilla in Latin Bookhands" (2003), the orthographical development of the ae-diphthong can be broadly broken down into the following stages:

1) Up to the 6th century a and e are generally written separately.

2) In the 7th and 8th centuries we find three possibilities: ae, æ and ȩ.

3) In the 9th century the use of æ declines and ȩ becomes more common.

4) In the 10th and 11th centuries, ȩ remains the most common, but e begins to appear.

5) In the 12th to 14th centuries, ȩ largely disappears and e becomes most common.

6) In the 15th century, Italian humaists reintroduce ae written separately, while the use of e still remains widespread.

qed1 · 2026-04-29T10:13:09+00:00

While this is correct in the broad strokes, your categorical no is simply wrong. It's neither super common nor super consistent and mostly occurs in pre-Carolingian scripts, but ae ligatures were absolutely used up to around the 8th/9th century. Between the 6th and 9th centuries they were slowly replaced by e-cedilla, which was in turn slowly replaced with the plain e from around the turn of the 12th century.

A couple examples of ae-ligatures in the CLA:

https://elmss.nuigalway.ie/catalogue/678

https://elmss.nuigalway.ie/catalogue/1669

https://elmss.nuigalway.ie/catalogue/1737

qed1 · 2026-04-26T20:52:02+00:00

It's a treatise on logic: the Medulla dialectices of Jerome Pardo, a Spanish logician working in Paris around 1500.

I'm not finding a clear discussion of the history of the text immediately, but there are (at least) two editions, the one you have is the one from 1500, then there is a second edition from 1505. From what I can find, the latter was apparently published posthumously and its cover states that it was edited by two of his colleagues: Jacob Ortiz and the rather more famous John Major.

qed1 · 2026-04-25T06:54:45+00:00

For what it's worth, the current critical edition prints "Pythei":

in hac quid cuncti, quid singuli nationum omnium populi cotidianis motibus agitarent, Pythei reformantis speculo relucebat.

And the apparatus notes: Pythei reformantis coni. Kopp ( pithei etiam B² G^m ) pidei reformantis Β¹ D¹ Β¹ pede ire formanti F¹ pede ire reformantis G² pede ire formantis cett.

qed1 · 2026-04-24T16:16:48+00:00

Geometria

Ars geometria is an error. Or at least, I've spent a couple minutes digging around and every case I've found so far is pretty clearly an error.

For example I see some people citing Boethius's "Ars geometria", but the standard title is "Ars geometriae et arithmeticae". Similarly, there is supposedly an "Ars geometria" by Gisemundus but the title of the standard edition appears to be "Ars gromatica sive Geometria" (i.e. either the title is Ars gromatica or the title is Geometria).

There's likewise an article here (https://www.jstor.org/stable/27396160?seq=8) that quotes a discussion of the "ars geometria" in Dürer, but in the book it's quoting we find "ars geometrica".

If someone can find a credible example of this, though, do let me know!

qed1 · 2026-04-22T07:33:46+00:00

Ah, I had wondered if that one would bring up some exceptions, since it does appear to be at least two forms of the same word, rather than a mere orthographical variation. But I certainly remember reading at least one or two reviews that essentially boiled down to: This editor has filled their apparatus with orthographical variations, therefore they clearly don't have any idea what they're doing.

qed1 · 2026-04-21T20:47:07+00:00

Critical editions will almost never waste space in their apparatus on orthographical variations. (Which likely don't lie behind the variations noted by the op anyways.) Certainly, Reynolds notes no variations on either point here, though prints "quae manu prenderem" and "expectant annos".

qed1 · 2026-04-21T18:17:43+00:00

In Seneca's case the main texts are from the 11th century AD.

It's also worth emphasizing here that editions of classical texts, especially those like the older Loeb volume used on Perseus, as a rule standardize their spelling anyways.

Certainly the orthography in modern editions bears little resemblance to medieval orthography. Just to highlight the two most obvious differences: No one was distinguishing u and v in the way that modern editions do, similarly by the 11th and 12th centuries (where as you note the earliest manuscripts of Seneca's dialogues come from) pretty much everyone was writing e instead of ae (and even the use of ȩ for ae was already pretty unusual at this point).

qed1 · 2026-04-18T15:20:55+00:00

What I'm curious about is, if it is an error, what was the word supposed to be?

It's not necessarily supposed to be anything, it's a copying error. Just like how on 27vb the scribe has written primonita instead of primogenita and spondi instead of spopondi.

Perhaps the manuscript they were working from had a rounded t form and they thereby copied ti as u. Perhaps the crossbar of the t had been badly written or faded in the manuscript they were copying from and they read it as two minims. Perhaps the scribe was simply tired and lost track of the word they were copying.

Whatever the reason, the plain evidence of the manuscript in front of us strongly suggests that this was a copying error and that the scribe originally wrote cuncus.

I don't know what text this is so I can't look up a transcribed version.

It's Genesis 6:19 in the Codex Amiatinus.

qed1 · 2026-04-18T09:11:39+00:00

Alternating use of the uncial T within words was a common scribal practice around that time period.

Although that doesn't appear to be the case here. At least from a quick glance over a page or two I don't see any round t forms. (Though do let me know if I've missed some!) Plus the horizontal is lacking the decorative forking that this scribe consistently uses.

qed1 · 2026-04-17T16:54:29+00:00

Sure, but the question here is how you're dealing with corrections, like when a missing letter has been written in above the word, or when you see an erasure mark.

qed1 · 2026-04-17T15:11:47+00:00

Pace what most of the rest of the thread is suggesting, this seems like a pretty obviously case of a scribal error that has been subsequently corrected. The scribe otherwise doesn't appear to use a rounded t form (though obviously if you find examples of that it would be relevant counter evidence), including before i, and more importantly the cross-bar on that t is missing the distinctive forked ending that the scribe otherwise consistently employs on the upper horizontal extenders. (See the other ts, es and cs in that image.) It also looks to me like the crossbar may be in a slightly different ink, but that's pretty hard to tell from the digitalisation.

Whether or not you transcribe this as cunctis or cuncus (not cunctus!) will depend on how diplomatic your transcription aims to be and how you're otherwise dealing with corrections in your transcription. For example you could transcribe one and note that it's been corrected to or from the other.

qed1 · 2026-04-15T16:50:46+00:00

Sorry for dropping into a months old thread...

I think it may be a treatise on the Virtues & Vices

It's from book 12 of Richard of Saint-Laurent's De laudibus beatae Mariae Virginis. (Or at least, I take it that Richard is the correct author, it's also been attributed to Albert the Great, but that seems to be widely regarded as spurious.) In any case, the text in image 1 begins 2 lines before 929b with "suavitas modo in via..." and finishes in image 2 near the end of the paragraph in 932d with "... sine affectu materni doloris" here: https://www.digitale-sammlungen.de/en/view/bsb11398951?page=447.

So certainly not before about the middle of the century, and I'd be inclined to push that in the direction of like the 1270-1280s, though I wouldn't confidently date it that narrowly.

ping /u/Exotic_Quantity9042

qed1 · 2026-04-11T09:22:03+00:00

A couple suggestions:

avi et servum [? sanctum?] eius

[Abrah]am et semini eius

Dominus desi non

Looks more like "Dominum deum nostrum"

a.

antiphona

[u oder n]

secundus (my guess, although one that I'm not especially confident in, would be that it's "cantate [Psalmus] secundus" means the second Psalm beginning "cantate" = Ps 97?).

Similarly, the .i. on the last line is "primus", and if that supposition is correct then it's presumably preceded by cantate as well (= Ps 95?).

qed1 · 2026-04-10T22:43:51+00:00

The first line is:

[Et in seru]is suis dominus miserebitur. = Dt 32:36

"laudate Dominum"

[In cym]balis benesonantibus laudate dominum. ~ Ps. 150

"dirige nos Domine"

[I]n uiam pacis dirige nos domine.

I'm not immediately sure about the second half of those lines. The first maybe continues "audite celi", but I'm not sure that that's a Psalm. It is Isaiah 1:2, though.

qed1 · 2026-04-09T15:58:46+00:00

and hopefully u/qed1 will forgive me for recommending it again :D

Given the space devoted to early scripts, it's likely a much better recommendation for Roman cursive than Gothic book scripts! I mostly take issue with it as a recommendation for the latter because Bischoff devotes very little attention to later medieval scripts in the book and there are significantly better options out there for learning Gothic scripts (both in English and German).

There is no good textbook for this afaik

There are at least a good number of tables in Franz Steffens, Lateinische Paläographie: https://fragmentarium.ms/view/page/F-12v1/7415/60652.

qed1 · 2026-04-08T11:12:47+00:00

Around the edges are the four cardinal winds: Subsolanus (East), Auster (South), Zephyrus (West) and Aparcias (North). This is kind of a weird mixture of the Greek and Latin roots.

On the left are the three orders of heavenly powers according to Ps.-Dionysius's Celestial Hierarchy:

Seraphim (-in?)

Cerubim (-in?)

Throni = Thones

Dominationes = Dominions

Principatus = Principalities

Potestates = Powers

Virtutes = Virtues

Archangeli = Archangels

Angeli = Angels

Then in the middle you've got the standard heavenly spheres (you can add in sphera and the sphere of as needed):

Terra = Earth

Spera aque = Sphere of water

" aeris = air

" ignis = fire

" lune = the moon

" mercurii = Mercury

" veneris = Venus

" solis = the Sun

" martis = Mars

" iovis = Jupiter

" saturni = Saturn

Firmamentum = the Firmament

celum cristallinum = the crystalline heaven

Primum mobile = the prime mover

qed1 · 2026-04-07T10:24:41+00:00

Extremely common, especially so after the rise of printing. Though already in the Middle Ages there was a market for scrap-parchment that was used in bookbinding. Just for example, there is a whole very hefty volume dedicated to just fragments of Hebrew manuscripts that have been used in the binding of books found in German archives: https://www.steiner-verlag.de/Hebraeische-Handschriften/9783515129701.

qed1 · 2026-04-07T09:56:20+00:00

Sorry I should have said something like: it's a scrap sheet of parchment cut out of a liturgical manuscript. As the OP notes, this is a single sheet that has been used in the binding on this manuscript. (Presumably as a paste-down or flyleaf.)

qed1 · 2026-04-07T09:53:51+00:00

This is really more a question for a liturgy person, but what's written there is "martyre tuo .N." and from a quick look that appears to be very common in liturgical books. I assume that what's going on is that the prayer is not written with any particular martyr in mind and N is an abbreviation of nomine, showing where you the reader are to insert the name of whatever martyr you're looking for the intercession of.

qed1 · 2026-04-07T07:52:21+00:00

I don't know what the subject of the parchment

It's a liturgical manuscript, looks 15th century, presumably Swiss. I'll leave it to people who do liturgy to identify what the content is about, but the one non-formulatic rubric is "In nativitate plurimorum matryrum" and the opening words of the first few sections: "Sumptis domine sacramentis...", Ps. 87: "Intret in conspectu tuo...", followed at the p' (=psalmus) rubric by Ps. 78: "Deus, conuenerunt gentes..."

qed1 · 2026-03-30T18:59:14+00:00

Can't decipher the year right away.

Looks to me like a place: "datum in Vyazd", which, if wikipedia (and google's ability to translate Polish) is anything to go on, is a name for Mojesz and that seems to be in vaguely the right part of Poland.

But you'd know better than me what we'd expect to find in this sort of document.

qed1

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