Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 8.djvu/315

 JACOPONE

263

JACOPONE

Legend ", which, with two other poems, forms the trilogy entitled "Christus", owes its name and many of its ideas to the " Golden Legend" of de Voragine.

Bernard Guidonis (d. 1331), also a Dominican, made a vain attempt to supplant it by a more reliable work of the same character, which he entitled "Spec- ulum Sanctorum", In 1500 as many as seventy- four Latfu editions of the " Legenda Aurea" had been published, not counting the three translations into English, five French, eight Italian, fourteen Low Ger- man, and three Bohemian. The first printed edition was in Latin, and was produced at Basle in 1470. Many succeeding editions contain additions of the lives of later saints or of feasts introduced after the thirteenth century. The best Latin edition was pre- pared by Graesse (Dresden and Leipzig, 1S46, 1850, and Breslau, 1890). The first English edition was printed by William Caxton at London in 1483 from a version made about 1450. It was inscribed: "The Golden Legend. FjTiysshed at Westmere the twenty day of Novembre/ the yere of our Lord M/CCC't'/- LXXXIII/. By me Wyllyam Caxton." In this edition some of the less credible legends of the original are omitted. The publication was made at the instance of the Earl of Arimdel, who agreed to take "a reasonable number of copies", and to pay as an annuity " a buck in summer and a doe in winter " (see Putnam, " Books and their Makers in the Middle Ages", New York and London, II, 1897, 118). Cax- ton's edition was re-edited and modernized by Ellis (London and New York, 1900). The first French version that appeared in print was made by Jean Batallier, and printed at Lyons in 1476. A French translation, made by Jean Belet de Vigny in the fourteenth century, was first printed at Paris in 1488. Recent French editions were prepared by Brunet, signed M. G. B. (Paris, 1843 and 1908); by de Wy- zewa (Paris, 1902); and by Roze (Paris, 1902). An Italian translation by Nicolas Manerbi was printed in 1475, probably at Venice; a Bohemian one was printed at Pilsen between 1475 and 1479, and another at Prague in 1495; a Low German one at Delft in 1472, and at Gouda in 1478. A German reproduction in poetry was made by ICralik (Munich, 1902).

Another important work of Jacopo de Voragine is his so-called "Chronicon Genuense", a chronicle of Genoa reaching to 1296. Part of this chronicle, which is a valuable source of Genoese history, was published by Muratori in "Rerum Italicarum Scrip- tores" (Milan, 172:5-51), IX, 5-56. Concerning it see Mannucci, "La cronaca di Jacopo da Viraggio" (Geneva, 1904). He is also the author of a collection of 307 sermons, "Sermones de Sanctis, de tempore, quadragesimales, de Beata Maria Virgine". They have been repeatedly printed, both separately and collectively. The earliest edition of the whole col- lection was printed in 1484, probably at Venice, where they were published a second time in 1497 and repeatedly thereafter. His remaining Uterary productions are "Defensorium contra impugnantes Fratres Pra;dicatores " (Venice, 1504), which is a defence of the Dominicans against some who accused them of not leading an Apostolic life; "Summarium virtutum et vitiorum " (Basle, 1497), which is an epitome of a work of the same title, written by William Peraldus, a Dominican who died about thirty years before Jacopo de Voragine. A theo- logical work, entitled "De operibus et opusculis Sancti .\ugustini", is also generally ascribed to him, but its authenticity has not yet been sufficiently established. It is known that he was a close student of St. .\ugustine. Some, relying on the authority of Sixtus of Siena, ascribe to him also an Italian trans- lation of the Bible, but no manuscript or print of it has ever been found.

Butler. Legenda Aurea — Legende Doree — Golden Legend 'tBaUimore, 1899); Richabpson, Jacohus de Voragine and the

Golden Legend in The Princeton Theological Review, T (1903), 267-81 ; Idem, Voragine as a Preacher, ibid., II (1904), 442- 64; The Golden Legend in The Church Quarterly Review, LVII (London. 1903), 29-52; W.\resquiel, Le bienheureux Jacques de Voragine (Paris, 1902); Baddrill.\rt, La psychologie de la Legende Doree in Minerva, V (Strasburg, 1902), 24-43; Brous-
 * , La Legende Doree in L' Vniversitc Catholique, new series.

XLIV (Lyons. 1903). 321-57; Pelazza. Vila del beato Gia coma da Varazze, dell' ordine de' /rati Predicatori. arcivescovo Gcnova (Genoa, 1867). MiCHAEL Ott.

di

Jacopone da Todi, properly Jacopo Benedicti or Benedetti, Franciscan poet, b. at Todi in the first half of the thirteenth centurj- d. at Collazzone about 1306. Very little is known with certainty about the life of this extraordinary man. Although the oldest lives go back only to the fifteenth centurj', yet a few earlier records exist. The oldest and most authentic document we have is Jacopone's signature to the manifesto of Cardinals Jacopo and Pietro Colonna against Boniface VIII (q. v.), dated Lun- ghezza (between.

" ' r

Rome and Tivoli),

10 May, 1297. [See text in ' ' .\rchiv f iir Litteratur und Kirchengesch.", V (1889), 509 sq.].An- gelo Clareno in his ' ' Chronica septem Tribulationum ", written about 1323 ["Archiv f. Litt. u. Kirchengesch.",

11 .(1886), 308; DoUinger, " Bei- tnige zur Sekten- gesch.", II (Mu- nich, 1890), 492], mentions Jacobus Tudertus among those spiritual friars who, in 1294, sent a deputation to Celestine V (q. v.), to ask permis- sion to live sep- arate from the

Jaiopo.ne da Todi Before the

Blessed Virgin

After a woo<lcut in the " Laudi "

(Florence, 1490)

other friars and obser\'e the Franciscan Rule in its perfection — a request which was granted. Tlie next reference to the poet is found in Alvarus Pela- gius's "De Planctu Ecclesia; ", written principally in 1330; he cjuotes two of Jacopone's sayings (lib. II, cc. Lxxiii and Ixxvi; ed. Venice, 1560, f. 196 r b, and f. 204 r b), and calls him a perfect Friar Minor. This passage occurs also in "Chronica XXIV generalium" ("Analecta Franciscana ", III, Quar- acchi, 1897, 460), which was compiled in great part before 1369 and completed in 1374. About 1335 the "Catalogus sanctorum Fratrum Minorum" (in "Spec- ulum Vitae beati Francisci et Sociorum eius", Venice, 1504, f. 200 r; cf. the separate reprint of the "Cat- alogus" by Lemmens, Rome, 1903, 9) uses even more emphatic words of praise. Some further de- tails about Jacopone are given by Bartholomew of Pisa in 1385 ["Liber conformitatum " (ed. Milan, 1510), fructus VIII, pars ii, f. 60 v a to f. 61 v a: cf. "Ana- lecta Franciscana", IV (Quaracchi, 1906), 235-40]. It may be taken for granted that all these writers knew nothing of the detailed lives of Jacopone which appear in the fifteenth century. The "Chronica XXIV generahum " and Bartholomew of Pisa would certainly have inserted one or other, as they were wont to do in other cases. Those lives can "all be reduced to one, inserted in the chronicle commonly called "Franceschina", attributed to Jacopo Oddi, O.F.M. (d. 1488; see bibliography). The historical value of this and similar lives has been recently denied by GiuUo Bertoni ("La Leggenda Jacoponica "