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| Paleography
Exercises |
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The
Politics and Economics of Aristotle, from a 1451 copy of a Latin translation (from a private collection). |
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This
segment of a page shows the explicit
for the Economics of Aristotle, followed
by the scribe's
colophon.
This work was translated into Latin by Leonardo Aretino for Cosimo de
Medici, as detailed in the explicit for the Politics section and the incipit
for the Economics section. This particular
copy was made for Giovanni Amerino, doctor of civil and canon law and
auditor, or ecclesiastical court judge, for Francesco Sforza-Visconti,
Duke of Milan. In other words we are dealing with a prestigious volume
produced for some of the most important and influential people in Italy
at the time.
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The
choice of work exemplifies the interest in the revival of Classical works
during the Renaissance in Italy. The script
could be described as a humanistic
display script which combines some features from the rotunda
form of formal Gothic
book hand
used in Italy, a more rounded and less compressed form than that of France
and other northern areas, with letter forms derived more directly from
the revival of Caroline
minuscule. |
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I
have chosen this example rather than a segment from the core text because
you can get yourself a copy of Aristotle at any good bookshop, but the
scribe's colophon, here displayed in rubric,
adds a little individual touch to the book. Also, I can't help but feel
that this is a very Italian kind of Latin, with all those -issomos
in it, so maybe there are some cultural characteristics showing themselves
here. (I once had an Italian language tutor who
would shout "Bravissimo!" or "Benissimo!" at any student
who managed to utter even a semi-coherent sentence in Italian - very encouraging!) |
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overview | text | alphabet
| abbreviations | exercises
| transcript
| translation
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Click
on each of the above to walk your way through the text. The transcript will
appear in a separate window so that you can use it for reference at any time.
These exercises are designed to guide you through the text, not test you,
so you can cheat as much as you like. |
 Script sample for this example |
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Index
of Exercises |
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Index
of Scripts |
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