Logicalia Medievalia
Latin logical manuscripts before 1220

Project

Welcome to Logicalia medievalia, one of the outreach outcomes of Caterina Tarlazzi's Rita Levi Montalcini research project conducted at at Ca’ Foscari.

The focus of Caterina’s research is the logic of Peter Abelard and his contemporaries - specifically, the so-called 'Problem of Universals', realism, and nominalism - and manuscripts transmitting logical texts in the Latin tradition (especially in the Italian peninsula).

This website has been created in order to draw together recent research on Latin logical texts from before circa 1220. It pays particular attention to research on William of Champeaux and Peter Abelard; on the so-called Long Twelfth Century (1070-1220); and on manuscripts, glosses and diagrams.

The content of the website will expand over time. At the moment, it includes: Yukio Iwakuma's extensive and important digital research material; links to other relevant digital resources; information on recent publications; and news.

Detail from Venezia, Biblioteca Marciana, Lat. Z. 497 (=1811), f. 194v

Resources

Yukio Iwakuma’s "Website" on Logical Manuscripts (circa 800-1220)

Over an academic career spanning more than forty years, Professor Iwakuma collected information on Latin logical manuscripts from circa 800 to circa 1220. He wrote up basic but informed descriptions of the logical content of more than 700 manuscripts, wrote up lists of relevant material, and transcribed hundreds of logical texts, while also preparing the critical editions of Alcuin's "Dialectica" and of the "Ars Meliduna" (currently in progress; for a recent discussion see his "Struggles with Stemmatics" in Ad Placitum. Pour Irène Rosier-Catach, II, 395-402.

This section of the website hosts material that Professor Iwakuma wishes to make available freely to researchers in the field. At the moment, he is sharing his folder HPMss. The folder is first to be downloaded and then the file 'Home' provides the first entry into the material. This version was last updated on 27/05/2021. (Use of Professor Iwakuma's research material should be duly acknowledged.)

Gallery

The images on this website (reproduced with permission) are taken from manuscript Venezia, Biblioteca Marciana, Lat. Z. 497 (=1811).

Dating back to the 11th century, this is a major collection of texts pertaining to the liberal arts. Among many others, it includes Boethius's Latin translation of Porphyry's Isagoge, with glosses and diagrams, and Pseudo-Augustine's Categoriae Decem. For an analysis of some of these diagrams, see Caterina's The Latin Tradition of Studying Porphyry's Isagoge, ca 800‒980: A Catalogue of Manuscripts, Glosses, and Diagrams in AHDLMA 2020 (stemming from Christophe Erismann's 9SALT project Reassessing Ninth Century Philosophy. A Synchronic Approach to the Logical Traditions).

A recent article by Clelia Crialesi in The Journal of Medieval Latin edits the "Excerptiuncola", a short introduction to Boethius's De arithmetica, to be found on fols. 156v-157r of this important manuscript.

The full digitisation of this manuscript was funded as part of Caterina's research project.

Other online resources

  • Robert Pasnau’s "In medias PHIL" includes relevant news, and several recordings of the Medieval Virtual Colloquium; see, for instance, Irène Rosier-Catach’s talk on "The 'linguistic turn' of medieval logic in the early 12th century".
  • Recordings of Alain de Libera's lectures at Collège de France are available online.
  • The section Che cos'è…? (Swiss Portal for Philosophy) includes a contribution by Caterina on the so-called debate over universals from the time of Peter Abelard.
  • The 'Things to download' from Paul Vincent Spade's website are fascinating to browse through.
  • Podcasts on Peter Abelard (and Heloise) can be found in Peter Adamson's History of Philosophy without any Gaps and Melvyn Bragg's In Our Time.
  • The SIEPM Virtual Library organised by Jean-Luc Solère includes several primary sources; see also the scholarly resources on Peter King's website and Corpus corporum.

Publications

This section of the website hosts information on relevant recent publications (in particular, publications discussing Iwakuma’s research material).

See the complete list of Caterina Tarlazzi's publications, including open access.

News and events

  • An online meeting that focuses on noetics in the time of Peter Abelard, organised by Laurent Cesalli and Federico Viri, will take place on 16-18 June 2021.
  • The 23rd European Symposium of Medieval Logic and Semantics, organised by Magdalena Bieniak, Krystyna Krauze-Błachowicz, Wojciech Wciórka, and Marcin Trepczyński, will be held in Warsaw in June 2022.
  • 13 May 2021: Laurent Cesalli gave an (online) talk at Ca’ Foscari PhD Seminar on Ancient and Medieval Philosophy entitled: "Réalisme et particularisme dans l'ontologie médiévale".
  • 11 May 2021: Caterina Tarlazzi gave an (online) talk at Ca’ Foscari Collegio Internazionale, in the series Special on: doing research, entitled: "Polyphonic Philosophy. New Concepts from Research on Logic in the Long Twelfth Century (c. 1070–1220)".
  • 5 May 2021: Luisa Valente gave an (online) talk at Ca’ Foscari PhD Seminar on Ancient and Medieval Philosophy, entitled: "Tipi umani e ruolo del filosofo nella società secondo Pietro Abelardo e altri pensatori del XII secolo".

About

Caterina’s Rita Levi Montalcini project (2018) is being conducted at Ca’ Foscari Dipartimento di Filosofia e Beni Culturali and at the Centro di studi sul pensiero medievale Sic et Non.

It benefits from ongoing collaborations with:

  • Irene Binini (Università di Parma)
  • Laurent Cesalli (Université de Genève, Université de Genève, FNS project “Ce que disent les propositions. Dictum et eventus chez Abélard” with Enrico Donato and Federico Viri)
  • Anne Grondeux (CNRS, Paris, edition in progress of the Glosulae in Priscianum maiorem, with Eleonora Lorenzetti)
  • Heine Hansen (Saxo institute, Copenhagen)
  • Yukio Iwakuma (Fukui Prefectural University)
  • John Marenbon (Trinity College, Cambridge)
  • Irène Rosier-Catach (EPHE and Paris VII, Paris)

For more information on researching medieval philosophy at Ca’ Foscari, see Centro di studi sul pensiero medievale Sic et Non.

Detail from Venezia, Biblioteca Marciana, Lat. Z. 497 (=1811), f. 107r