The book under review provides a well-researched compendium of problems and approaches in a field that is still largely unexplored and where new findings are a daily occurrence. The possibility of pursuing comprehensive investigations in the domain of medieval translations from Greek to Latin suffers from an atavistic hindrance: the endemic lack of thorough inventories of translators, versions, and manuscripts, to the point that an exhaustive repertory of medieval translations is possibly the ultimate scholarly desideratum in the field. Bara’s intent to compile a database of translators (22 n2)—a possible initial step—can be met with only full encouragement; meanwhile, in the absence of such an instrument, interpretative analyses fall inevitably short of capturing the full complexity of production, reception and impact of translations in the Middle Ages. Nonetheless, if that “ultimate desideratum” eventually is accomplished, it will be thanks to endeavors such as Latin Translations of Greek Texts from the 11th to the 13th century.
The editors call attention to the lack of an “overarching framework explaining the flurry of translation activity from the mid-eleventh century (...) as a coherent response to a specific set of historical circumstances” (x, xi). In other words, this book raises on a smaller scale the same question that hovers over medieval Greek-Latin translations as a whole and tackles the issue through a complementary combination of comprehensive analyses (chs. 1 and 2) and monographic papers. Toma and Bara’s choice to center the volume on the years 1050-1300 CE is strategic, as in this exceptionally intellectually lively medieval era, a flourishing translating activity catalyzed an in-depth renewal of the philosophical, scientific, medical, and theological cultural systems in the Latin-speaking world. Following in the footsteps of Charles Haskins—often evoked—several papers explore two major factors that underlie the revival of Greek-Latin translations in the “twelfth-century Renaissance” and beyond: 1) the increasing attention to the scientific and philosophical knowledge conveyed in Greek books, never exploited before; 2) the increasing availability of occasions for exchanges between Greek- and Latin-speaking environments (trading settlements of Pisan, Venetians, and Amalfitans in the Eastern Mediterranean, theological debates between Byzantine and Latin savants, multicultural areas such as Norman Sicily, personal networks of the likes of William of Moerbeke, Bartholomew of Messina, James of Venice, and Burgundio of Pisa).
As these three centuries have long been identified as a golden age for medieval Greek-Latin translations, particular attention to these elements is not a novelty as such. Yet several chapters testify to how extensive the uncharted territory remains, and shed fresh light on individual translators, versions, and cultural milieux, as well as the impactful cultural dynamics these fueled. At the same time, they illustrate the crucial methodological approaches necessary to broaden the understanding of medieval Greek-Latin translations as a whole: critique of attribution, linguistic and philological examinations, analysis of local historical circumstances, and accounts of trade and circulation of manuscripts.
Certainly innovative is the interdisciplinary approach to Greek-Latin medieval exchanges that the volume seeks to foster. This goal is pursued by bringing together investigations in four “fields” (xi): I. Texts and Transmission (chs. 3-6); II. Translators and Methods (chs. 7-9); III. Greek-Latin Polemic (chs. 10-11); IV. Multilingual Practices (chs. 12-15). In this way, the volume “includes” not only “textual evidence,” but also “other media types, such as inscriptions, graffiti, and art historical objects” (xii). Hostetler, Latin Responses to Greek Inscriptions (ch. 14), analyzes the Latin translations of Greek inscriptions on Byzantine reliquaries once they fell into the hands of Western owners. Ingrand-Varenne, “The Bilingual Inscriptions in the Nativity Church in Bethlehem”(ch. 15), considers the bilingual inscriptions on painted figures of saints in the Nativity Church, and the various ways in which they were adapted when transposed into the second language for cultic, political, and practical reasons. Fisher, “Translators, Translations, and Bilinguals in Thirteenth-Century Constantinople” (ch. 7), within a broader picture of bilingual traditions in thirteenth-century Constantinople, comments upon frescoes captioned in Latin in a Franciscan Church. While these studies showcase that bilingual practices expanded beyond merely literary texts, whether these practices fall outside the “textual” domain is debatable. Whether intended as “involving the language” (as in linguistics), or as “written” as opposed to “oral,” the word “textual” applies equally to all the mentioned manifestations. My understanding is that it is employed here as “literary” as opposed to “non-literary” (graffiti and inscriptions involve the written word, they fall within the “textual” domain even if they do not belong to literary production). For this reason, an expression such as “literary translation” (Mészáros, 7) is to be preferred to “textual translation” (xvi; 98). In spite of this ambiguity, it is to the book’s credit that it addresses the relationships between “multilingualism” and “translation,” shedding light on the reciprocal influence (or lack thereof) of bilingual environments and the activity of translators in socio-historical contexts, from Nicaea to Constantinople, from Norman Sicily to Palestine.
Chapters 1-2 provide the general coordinates for the entire volume. In “The Status of the Greek Language in the West until the End of the Thirteenth Century. A Brief Survey” (ch. 1) Tamás Mészáros summarizes the circumstances that allowed Greek to survive in the Latin West, with a special focus on glossaries and lists of words as tools for studying Greek and their improvement between the eleventh and thirteenth century. As Mészáros remarks, knowledge of Greek relied mostly on local favorable circumstances; however, the picture emerging from the article appears to somehow still cling to a vexed interpretation that underestimates the impact of Greek-Latin exchanges, especially in the early Middle Ages. To give just one example, a massive number of hagiographic versions were produced even before the Carolingian Age. Cautiousness is always in order, but such sharp statements as the “Greeklessness” of the Middle Ages (Carlotta Dionisotti, 1980, quoted in the Foreword, ix) are no longer fully aligned with historical evidence. Since 1980, a myriad of studies has immensely advanced the field and yielded a more nuanced picture of the osmosis between the Latin and the Greek cultures—which, while remaining a minority phenomenon, was surely more profound than previously thought. This very book is per se a challenge to the commonplace narrative, and the times are ripe to no longer regard medieval Greek-Latin exchanges as occasional and ultimately incidental, but rather as an integral component of the formation of Western medieval culture.
Bara, “‘Greek Thought, Latin Culture’: Triggers and Tendencies behind Greek-Latin Translations”(ch. 2) constitutes the most thorough and up-to-date survey of translating activity from 1050-1300 CE. Bara inventories authors, translated works, and circumstances of production; ties these to the biographical trajectory of the translators; provides the status quaestionis and updated bibliography, with useful notes about works still in need of investigation (23, 33, 49). Such an impeccable, state-of-the-art overview would, in theory, serve as an excellent building block for the more comprehensive repository we envisage. Based on his survey, Bara then identifies four “general factors behind” (68) the production of translations: 1) the expansion of Western Europe; 2) polemics between Latins and Greeks; 3) educational reforms and universities; 4) patrons. Bara records roughly 190 individual translations, but hints at the fact that the overall number is significantly higher. First of all, hagiography—always very productive—has been left out “due to the lack of genre-specific and up-to-date overviews,” even though Bara still correctly acknowledges its influence and impact (66). Second—he notes—the surviving patrimony has not been entirely explored yet; therefore, discoveries and new ascriptions are surely poised to further expand the corpus. Bara also brings to the fore an important question that lingers behind the whole collection: whether, in line with Haskins, it is appropriate to speak of a “translation movement”—defined as a “concerted effort to achieve a particular goal” (67; “movement” recurs consistently, 210, 234, 236)—or whether one should simply speak of a looser “phenomenon” (22, 68, 159), if the “‘translation’ movement consists of accounts of accidental events and personal stories” (75). Even without making the answer explicit, several chapters of this book provide insights into the factors that make the “movement” idea attractive: personal acquaintances and striking analogies in technique among translators (e.g., Burgundio of Pisa, Moses of Bergamo, James of Venice); shared interests and efforts towards achieving integral translation of fundamental corpora, first and foremost those of Galen and Aristotle; the existence of circles (e.g., Grosseteste) and shared intellectual networks (as is the case with William of Moerbeke and Bartholomew of Messina); revisions, continuations, and reworking of previously made translations (as with John Damascene and the Corpus Dionysiacum, let alone Aristotle).
The outlined themes are only a few of the overarching topics that unite the volume, creating a coherent whole in spite of the diversity of approaches and methods. Still others will emerge from the following summary of the individual chapters, where I highlight the primary advancements they offer regarding specific problems.
I. Beullens, “Between Success and Failure: Latin Medieval Translations of Aristotle’s Zoology” (ch. 3), makes a strong case for the ascription to Bartholomew of Messina of an anonymous version of Aristotle’s De partibus animalium. This study is exemplary in its analysis of evidence from the manuscript tradition and its material aspects, language, style, and translation technique for attribution purposes. It testifies to the attribution of anonymous and unstudied translations as a domain where vast space remains for further discoveries. Dunne, “The Reception of the Parva naturalia” (ch. 4) provides an updated status quaestionis on the medieval translations of this Aristotelian corpus and its manuscript transmission. It also focuses on a crucial aspect of the medieval reception of Aristotle: namely, the flourishing tradition of commentaries based on the newly produced translations. In Lauxtermann, “The Latin Translation of the Eugenian Recension of Stephanites and Ichnelates” (ch. 5), a painstaking textual criticism analysis allows for the unravelling of the intricate manuscript transmission of stories originating from the Arabic Kalilah, translated into Greek and then into Latin in the milieu of the Hohenstaufen court. Among the most interesting conclusions reached by Lauxtermann is that the translator used both a Greek and an Arabic manuscript. The presence of Grecisms, loanwords, and explanatory glosses is a distinctive trait of this age’s translations, shared by the likes of Burgundio of Pisa, Grosseteste, and others (150). Degni, “Translators, Networks, Production and the Travel of Manuscripts between the East and West” (ch. 6), focuses on the Latin translations of the Corpus Dionysiacum. Degni tackles the unexplored translations by John Saracen (mid-twelfth century), and examines Saracen’s letters and prefaces to illustrate the commission, the context, and the methods of his versions. The article effectively showcases the interrelations of topics across the book, touching upon the debate about literalism and Saracen’s stance on it, as well as the thread of reworkings of Greek-Latin corpora (pseudo-Dionysius was addressed by Hilduin, John Scottus, Anastasius Bibliothecarius, Saracen, and Grosseteste, possibly using Greek manuscripts very close to Saracen’s).
While chs. 3-6 form a uniform tier characterized by textual criticism and manuscript-centered approaches, sections II-IV encompass a broader spectrum of analyses and methods.
II. Fisher (ch. 7) explores the relationships between bilingualism and the production of translations, and supplies complementary insights into translations from Latin to Greek at Constantinople and in other Greek-speaking milieus. In “A Philosophical Debate at the Nicaean Court [1253] and the Thirteenth-Century Translation Movementi” (ch. 8) Angelov draws attention to the reasons that made Nicaea a hub for scholars interested in Greek-Latin translations. Angelov offers the text, translation and commentary for a Greek letter sent by Theodor II Laskaris to Andronicus of Sardi. This document bears witness to a philosophical debate connected to a Latin embassy, and Angelov suggests that a list of disciplines discussed in the letter aligns well with the translation program of Moerbeke. As earlier with Saracen, in Urso, “In Search of Perfect Equivalence: The uerbum de uerbo Method in Burgundio of Pisa’s Translations of Galenic Works” (ch. 9), the translator’s own reflections on his activity take center stage. By closely reading two programmatic pieces by Burgundio (the prologues to his versions of Chrysostom’s Homilies on the Gospel of John and on the Gospel of Matthew), Urso accounts for Burgundio’s positioning in the long-standing medieval debate between translating ad verbum and ad sensum. She offers a granular interpretation of Burgundio’s own theorization and implementation of literalism, with a selection of examples mainly drawn from the version of Galen’s De interioribus. Thus, Urso shows how deeply intertwined Burgundio’s scientific and patristic translations are, several of which are still unpublished or unstudied altogether. [1]
In sections III and IV the volume shifts from granular analysis of individual Latin translations to the broader cultural, ideological, and material frameworks in which the exchange between Greek and Latin speakers took place.
With section III (Greek-Latin Polemics), the book addresses one of the major factors triggering exchanges: the theological and philosophical debates between Catholics and Orthodox in the wake of the Great Schism. Bucossi, “The Filioque Lost in Translation during the Twelfth Century” (ch. 10) centers on the problems prompted by the need to transpose the technical language (and its theological implications) into another language. By examining documents from both sides, Bucossi addresses theoretical reflections as well as practical solutions devised to cope with the shortcomings of Latin when dealing with highly technical vocabulary “which encapsulate thorough and complex argumentations that cannot be properly translated into another language” (263). Transmission issues are not overlooked, as emphasis is placed on Anselm of Havelberg and Hugo Eterianus as indirect witnesses to the arguments and the words of Greek theologians. Furthermore, Bucossi correctly remarks on the lack of reliable critical editions as a scholarly limit that undermines research in the field (285). The lexicological analysis is a trait d’union with the following paper (D’Amelia, “‘Translating Bread’: Notions of Etymology and Theory of Meaning in the Latin-Greek Controversy on the Azymes” [ch. 11]). Facing the exigency of establishing the correct meanings of words in a theological controversy—D’Amelia shows—Greek and Latin theologians attempted the path of etymology. Importantly, the paper stresses the need to be aware of the textual corruptions that make such research harder (311), and hence calls for reliable critical editions of the sources.
In section IV, Multilingual Practices are explored. Morton, “Untranslatable Law: Explaining the (Non-)Transfer of Byzantine Legal Knowledge in Medieval Southern Italy” (ch. 12) offers an overview of the interlinguistic dynamics in the juridical culture of the multilingual Kingdom of Sicily. In the last three papers, multilingual practices in a variety of media are explored. In addition to inscriptions on reliquaries and captions of frescoes (chs. 14 and 15, see above), Shawcross, “Translation and Other Forms of Contact between the Greek and Latin Languages in Western European Liturgical Manuscripts”(ch. 15) brings in the evidence of bilingual manuscripts, reflecting on the difference between “translation” and “transliteration.”
The combination of an up-to-date general summary—Bara’s overview—that provides the general picture, and a series of papers that tackle individual problems at a more granular level, creates a mosaic that comes together as the reader proceeds, and in which the recurrences of the themes, figures, texts, and methodological issues addressed from different angles, progressively increases the depth. At the same time, the individual articles will make it perfectly possible for specialists to garner insights into the specific problems they address. While achieving absolute uniformity in quality and relevance among all papers is almost inherently impossible for a collective volume, Latin Translations of Greek Texts from the 11th to the 13th Century constitutes no exception. Nevertheless, it represents remarkable advancements on many levels and will henceforth prove a foundational work for further research in the fascinating world of late medieval Greek-Latin interactions.
Appendix. In the following paragraphs, I propose a few methodological and bibliographical remarks on selected specific passages.
Mészáros, p. 2 fn5. While certainly quoting seminal works, this note does not fully reflect the breadth of scholarship on the fate of Greek in the Middle Ages. While most of the following items appear elsewhere in the volume anyway, to collect them here would have been helpful for the non-specialist reader. For example (by no means exhaustive): Siegmund, Die Überlieferung der griechischen christlichen Literatur in der lateinischen Kirche bis zum zwölwten Jahrhundert (1949, outdated but still a reference); D’Alverny, Translations and Translators, in Renaissance and Renewal in the Twelfth Century, 1982; Chiesa, Ad verbum o ad sensum? Modelli e coscienza metodologica della traduzione tra tarda antichità e alto medioevo, “Medioevo e Rinascimento” 1987; Traduction et traducteurs au Moyen Âge, ed. Contamine, 1989; Chiesa, Le traduzioni, in Lo spazio letterario del medioevo, 1995; Les traducteurs au travail. Leurs manuscrits et leurs méthodes, ed. Hamesse, 1999; Burman, The Cultures and Dynamics of Translation into Medieval Latin, in The Oxford Handbook of Medieval Latin Literature, 2012.
Bara, p. 24. John of Amalfi’s versions of the life of St. Eirene and the bios of John the Almsgiver are not in fact unpublished. They have been edited by E. D’Angelo, La fondazione dell’Ospedale di Gerusalemme e gli orizzonti mediterranei della cultura di Amalfi medievale, in Parva pro magnis munera. Études de littérature tardo-antique et médiévales offertes à François Dolbeau par ses élèves, ed. M. Goullet, Turnhout 2009, pp. 357-396, and by P. Chiesa, Vita e morte di Giovanni Calibita e Giovanni l'Elemosiniere. Due testi “amalfitani” inediti, Cava dei Tirreni 1995, respectively. A valuable bibliographic addition for Eirene would be R. Guglielmetti, Le Vite latine di santa Irene. Studio ed edizione critica, “Filologia Mediolatina”, 18 (2011), pp. 159-279.
Bara, pp. 40-42. Two further patristic translations have been recently (though most likely after this volume was submitted) ascribed to Burgundio of Pisa. See (with apologies for the self-citation) R. Macchioro, On Burgundio Pisanus’ authorship of the Latin version of Basil’s “Hexaemeron”. The manuscripts and their glosses, “Filologia Mediolatina”, 31 (2024), pp. 25-55, and Greek (Self)Glosses in Translation. Burgundio of Pisa and the Latin Version of (pseudo)Basil’s Commentary on Isaiah in the Casinensis 246, “Scripta” 26 (2026, forthcoming).
Bara, pp. 73-74. When analyzing “educational reforms and universities” as a factor conducive to translations, it would be highly interesting to discuss to what extent the new educational systems triggered translations, or whether it was instead the availability of revolutionary material—especially the whole Aristotelian corpus (translations of authentic and spurious works, plus commentaries), and Latin commentaries on the translated corpus—that prompted a deep renovation of the intellectual system. Chicken and egg question? Perhaps, but still worth exploring.
Lauxtermann, p. 152: “None of the Greek manuscripts (apart from apographs) offer exactly the same text: some present subtle rewritings, others brutal interventions and adaptations”. Since technically every manuscript of a work—except for the autograph—is an ‘apograph’, to avoid ambiguities it seems that the more specific term descriptus (i.e., a ms copied from another extant manuscript) would be appropriate here.
Lauxtermann, p. 153: “Kingdom of Sicily under Frederick II Hohenstaufen (...) open to foreign sources of wisdom and knowledge and curious to investigate new ideas, but also autocratic, medieval in the bad sense of the word” [italic is mine]. After it took decades to eventually eradicate from scholarship the connotation of “medieval” as “obscure, barbarian, underdeveloped”—and this cliché still lingers in popular culture—we medievalists should all beware of naïve, ambiguous formulae liable to perpetuate this trope.
Fisher, pp. 186-187. The “assumptions” [p. 186] that guided tours of the church took place, in which frescoes were explained and the Latin captions could promote the learning of the language, are fascinating. However, as formulated, they seem to depend on a modern conception of “tourism” that does not necessarily apply to 13th-century Constantinople. I do not contend this is impossible, but as a reader would like to know whether there is further historical evidence (literary or documentary) for such a peculiar interlinguistic interaction.
Fisher, pp. 192-193. The two alternative forms of the Franciscan John’s surname (Parastron or Baraston, as per p. 192) are respectively traced to an origin in Parastos (Bythinia)—which would make him a Greek native speaker—or to his Venetian social position as barasto—which would make him a Latin native speaker. However, one may observe that both forms conform to Greek, not Latin, morphology, and that (especially if the second form was Barastron, as per p. 193) the two words are so phonetically close that they are likely variants of the same name.
Angelov, p. 225. Since Angelov re-collated again the manuscript of the letter by Laskaris, the choice to maintain in his edition the classicized orthography restored by the 1898 editor appears overly conservative, as Laskaris’ orthography very likely reflected contemporary Byzantine usage.
Urso, pp. 248-249. Urso emphasizes Burgundio’s use of “double translations” and “double designations” as a “most striking feature” of his method (239), and a deciding factor when it comes to new ascriptions. As Burgundio specialists are aware, these double translations and double designations often appear as glosses (devised by Burgundio himself) in the manuscripts transmitting his work. In this regard, a passage from the prologue to Chrysostom’s Homilies on John is open interpretation. Burgundio writes uerbum ex uerbo statui transferendum, deficienciam quidem dictionum interuenientem duabus uel etiam tribus dictionibus adiectis replens, ydioma vero quod barbarismo uel metaplasmo vel scemate uel tropo fit, recta et propria sermocinatione retorquens (quoted at p. 249). Urso expounds thi as if Burgundio “legitimizes the use of periphrastic translations as an exception to the rule that would have the exact correspondence of a Greek word with a Latin one and sacrifices the rendering of some figures to the correctness and propriety of the Latin language”. I am inclined to believe—along with Fernand Bossier and Riccardo Saccenti [2]—that Burgundio is instead referring precisely to the double translations in gloss. For this interpretation, the use of the word adiectis (duabus vel etiam tribus dictionibus) is crucial. The action described is “adding” (as Urso acknowledges in her translation of the passage), not “replacing”, as would be the case if a “periphrastic translation” was used in place of a literal one. Instead, what is described here is perfectly consistent with Burgundio’s usus as evidenced by the glosses: he reproduces the Greek literally (thereby coining neologisms and calques, both lexical and syntactical, foreign to the Latin language), but then adds a more fluent Latin word/expression as a gloss. [3] The discussion remains open; editions and analysis of the many yet unpublished Burgundio’s translations will further contribute to the debate.
Shawcross, pp. 368-369. The variations between singular “sin” and plural “sins” in both the Latin and the Greek (“peccatum/peccata”, “amarthian/amarthias”) across manuscript witnesses of the Greek-Latin Gloria may simply be due to polygenetic scribal variation. It is hence rather uncautious to assume that “new combinations (...) resulted in the creation of further manuscript branches”, all the more so if contamination was also at work—which Shawcross seems to allude to when saying that “scribes who made these exemplars had access to two independent manuscript traditions”.
Shawcross, p. 387. “In the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, this identification of Greek as a vehicle for agendas distinct from that of the Roman Church (...) led to the articulation among members of the Dominican Order of radical plans for the extirpation of both the language and its script”. This passage raises an interesting question about the positions on the Greek language within the Dominican Order. As this book testifies, a number of Dominicans played a pivotal role in the transmission of Greek culture to the Latin West (most notably William of Moerbeke). What did the different stances depend upon? Whether the material is scientific/philosophical versus theological? Varying specific historical and local circumstances? Is there any retrievable pattern? This may be an intriguing topic for a targeted investigation.
Ingrand-Varenne, p. 444. Rex Amalricus…quintus regnabat. Based on Latin grammar (use of adjective in the nominative), and in light of the fact that “in many inscriptions, such a dating refers to a period or a mandate rather than being anchored to a precise date”, I believe quintus definitely refers to Amalricus’ regnal title (the 5th) rather than to the specific year of reign at the time.
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Notes:
1. For possible new ascriptions see the last section of the review.
2. Bossier, L’élaboration du vocabulaire philosophique chez Burgundio de Pise, in Aux origines du lexique philosophique européen. L’influence de la “latinitas”, ed. J Hamesse (Louvain-La-Neuve, 1997), 81-116, p. 84 fn10; Saccenti is already quoted by Urso, p. 249 fn53.
3. The translations of the word μάχιμοι in the De interioribus (see p. 250) might also be interpreted along this line: Urso remarks that the manuscript “display the variant ‘litigiosi’ in place of the more literal ‘bellicosi’,” and that “this double translation of μάχιμοι reveals that Burgundio was uncertain whether the Greek text presents a metaphor, and that in the uncertainty he chose to remain faithful to his model.” However, it may be that bellicosi is the literal translation (the Latin word that is the exact calque), whereas litigiosi is a Latin term more suitable to the context, especially if—this is not explicit in the article—the “variant” appears as a gloss in those manuscripts.