This book is an Italian translation and commentary of Cédric Giraud’s Latin edition of Hugh of St. Victor’sDe vanitate rerum mundanarum and Dialogus de creatione mundi in the series Corpus Christianorum in Translation. By a careful study of the surviving manuscripts of the two works, Giraud was able to unravel their complicated textual history. Hugh of St. Victor (d. 1141) wrote a work entitled De vanitate rerum mundanarum, which included the first two books of what is now known as De vanitate and two additional books which soon began to circulate separately as Dialogus de creatione mundi. Revisiting the De vanitate, Hugh wrote a second version which retained the first two books of the original De vanitate and two additional newly written books. He incorporated some of the contents and text of the Dialogus de creatione mundi into his theological summa, De sacramentis. Giraud’s edition includes what he identified as Hugh’s final versions of the two works, both about 60 pages in length.
Vilardo’s book is an Italian translation of Giraud’s critical edition of the two texts, with a lengthy introduction and 60 pages of notes commenting on the De vanitate. Her introduction consists of three parts. First, she presents some preliminary questions about the textual history of the two texts, considers the idea of “contempt of the world,” common in twelfth-century authors but troubling to modern readers, and discusses Hugh’s sources (1-15).
In the second major part of her introduction, Vilardo summarizes the contents and sources of theDialogus (15-61). The Dialogus begins with the question of what existed before creation and proceeds to the creation of humans and the appearance of sin. Hugh introduces four places introduced by creation—heaven, paradise, the world, and hell—and four kinds of judgment. Hugh uses the term sacramentum in a wider way than has been customary, since Peter Lombard’s list of seven became normative shortly after Hugh’s death. Hugh’s list of sacraments includes the Incarnation and the works of healing and strengthening that flow from that Incarnation to believers who perform good works. The sources of theDialogus (and the De vanitate) are Scripture, Augustine, and other early Christian writers, but inDialogus Hugh also draws on sources closer to his own time, such as sentence collections associated with the School of Laon.
In the final part of her introduction (61-82), Vilardo provides examples of where Hugh copied or reworked elements from the Dialogus into De sacramentis,1.6-8. She follows this with parallels between Hugh’s final version of the Dialogus and the two books which replaced it in the revised De vanitate. After her introduction, Vilardo provides a bibliography of primary and secondary literature cited in her study (83-91).
The next section of the book (93-147) is her translation of Hugh’s final version of De vanitate in which Anima and Ratio consider the disappointing results of staking one’s life on the things of the created world. Before their dialogue begins, there is a brief introduction addressed to the unclean world. We can learn several things by comparing Vilardo’s translation of this section with the Latin original and an English translation of this same paragraph in Sr. Penelope Lawson’s translation of the original version ofDe vanitate as edited by Karl Müller in 1913, which Lawson included in her book, Hugh of Saint-Victor,Selected Spiritual Writings (New York: Harper & Row,1962).
Giraud: O munde immunde, quare dileximus te? Hic est ergo fructus
tuus? Haec promissio tua? Haec spes nostra? Quare speravimus?
Quare credidimus? Quare cogitare noluimus? Ecce quomodo decepti sumus.
Nichil reliqui habemus, inanes remansimus. O munde immunde,
quare dileximus te? (137)
Vilardo: O mundo immondo, perché ti abbiamo amato? É questa dunque la
tua recompensa? Questa la tua promessa? Questa la nostra speranza?
Perché abbiamo creduto? Perché abbiamo sperato? Perché non abbiamo
voluto pensare? Ecce come siamo stati ingannati. Non ci resta nulla,
siamo rimasti vuoti. O mondo immondo, perché ti abbiamo amato? (95)
Lawson: O unclean world how have we loved you? Is this, then,
you fruit? Is this the promise that you make, are these our hopes? Why
have we hoped in you? Why have we put our trust in you? Why have we
refused to stop and think? Consider how we have been deceived. Nothing
is left to us, and we go on our way empty. O unclean world, what is
this love that we have given you? (157)
Hugh’s paragraph is artfully constructed. The identical questions at the beginning and end form an inclusion. After the initial address to the world, there are three tricolons, the first asks three questions “Is this/are there...?” Then another tricolon asks, “Why have we...,” and a third exclaims, “Look at us...” The first tricolon laments unfilled hopes, the second questions why we have hoped and believed without thinking, and the third points to the nothingness felt as a result within and without. Vilardo has captured Hugh’s style as well as his meaning, as she does throughout her translations. Lawson felt the need to be somewhat less literal to convey Hugh’s meaning.
This opening paragraph is followed by the four books of Hugh’s revised De vanitate. In Book I, Ratio and Anima distinguish physical and spiritual eyes, then contemplate visions of five promising earthly undertakings that end in disaster: people sailing on the sea; merchants transporting merchandise, who are attacked by armed robbers; the house of rich man; a wedding; and a group of students. They are all shown to be vanity of vanity. In Book II, the dialog partners consider the mutability and impermanence of things. The world is like a flood rushing downward into oblivion, whereas God abides. The human heart and the church are like an ark riding upon this flood. We must remain in the ark, until the waters recede and the divine mercy takes us to the lasing joys of the house of God. This leads to a discussion of the beginning of all things in Book III. After considering that, Hugh turns to the creation of human beings and the biblical account of the descendants of Seth and Cain down to the Babylonian Empire. Book IV begins with Moses and the Exodus and proceeds through the judges, David, and the prophets. Hugh quickly comes to the birth of Christ, the gospels and the Acts of the Apostles, the early martyrs and the desert monks, early Christian writers, and the entire community of those whose thoughts and desires are focused on God. Throughout this historical narration Hugh blends biblical and secular history and the deeds of both the just and wicked.
The next major section of the book (147-207) is composed of 172 notes commenting on the four books of the Hugh’s De vanitate and presenting parallels elsewhere in Hugh’s oeuvre and in his sources, especially St. Augustine. It is Vilardo’s most original contribution and the one from which those already familiar with Hugh’s work will learn the most.
The final section is Vilardo’s translation of the Dialogus (209-248). That is followed by indexes of biblical references, non-biblical sources, names, and places. Much of what the book contains can be found in or deduced from Giraud’s edition, but Vilardo has made her own contribution toward appreciating and understanding the two works she ably translates.