Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 10.djvu/449

 9 th S. X. DEC. 6, 1902.]

NOTES AND QUERIES.

441

LONDON, SATURDAY, DECEMBER 6, 1902.

CONTENTS. No. 258.

NOTES: Or San Michele, 441 Dr. Carruthers, 442 Ancient Demesne or Cornwall Fee, 443 "Boast": its

Language, 446 ' Epigram on Coleman the Jesuit 'Dis- appearing London, 447.

QUERIES: Nashe and Greene Queries Mixed Marriages Oglander Family Irish Recitation Dean Aldrich Portraits of Herefordshire Catholic Family, 447 Skerratt =Carleton Dandridge Derret Family Watchhouses to prevent Bodysnatehing Wilkinson, Bishop of Chester " Half-bull "=Half-crown Novel attributed to Scott Life of a Lawyer ' Stoyles Parish Registers ^Eolian Harp" Place " Gassee, Pentonville, 448" Spice," 449.

REPLIES : Bruce and Burns, 449 Lady Whitmore, 450 Burials in Westminster "Swift's starling" Anglo- Saxon Names for Birds lanthe Lamb on the Ass Greek and Russian Ecclesiastical Vestments, 451 Latin Conver- sationManor Court R^lls, 452 Lally Tollendal Snow- ball Family Castle Carewe " Fert, Pert, Fert," 453 Groat : Bits" Behind each cloud," &c. " Whipping the cat," Folk-lore : Sieve and Shears Family Crests Black Fast Hawtrey's ' Nugse' " Tandem" Carpenter, Town Clerk of London, 455 Shakespeare and Jonson Lin guistic Curiosities P. J. Bailey" To the nines," 456 Verifying References and Quotations^-Gardner Barony "By gar" " Beer " : " Bur," 457 Irish and Scotch Old Houses- Admiral Edwards, 458.

NOTES ON BOOKS : Alger's 'Paris in 1789-94' ' Roches- ter an4 other Literary Rakes of the Court of Charles II.' " Miniature Series of Painters" Reviews and Magazines.

Notices to Correspondents.

OR SAN MICHELE.

BAEDEKER'S ' Guide to Italy ' says of the celebrated church in Florence thus named that its "square form still indicates its original destination as a corn-hall (Horreum Sancti Michaelis}" and I believe this etymo- logical suggestion is repeated in Murray's guide. Philological profundity is not a characteristic of guide-book editors, but is expected from the compiler of a dictionary of Romance derivatives from Latin. Imagine, then, my astonishment on reading the follow- ing in Korting's ' Lateinisch-romanisches Worterbuch' (Paderborn, 1891): "Horreum n., Scheune, Speicher ; ital. or in Or San Michele; franz. orge in salorge, Salzhaufe. Vergl. Biigge, Romania, iii. 157."

I make bold to assert that neither the Italian or nor the French -orge in salorge (the early spelling is talorges, as in the ' Diet, de TreVoux'), to which may be added O,Fr. orgerie, "marche aux grains,"* is derived from horreum. This Latin word ^ having, it seems, been excluded from the lingua rustica, has given no kindred vocable to the Romance

originally bere-ern, barley-place.
 * From hordeum, barley. Compare our "barn,"

anguages. Those who propound such an etymology should show at least that the Florentine " corn-hall " was named horreum Sancti Michaelis in Latin of the period, though even this would not help, as the Italian name, whatever it was, must have preceded the Latin, and I shall prove presently that the earliest mention of the Italian is not as "Or San Michele." The alleged Latin designation is evidently the fabrication of a modern word-guesser, who knew little of the literature and less of the bistory of Florence.

The views of Italian writers on the meaning of " Or San Michele " are very different from those of Baedeker and Korting. Thus in the ' Novissima Guida dei Viaggiatori in Italia ' (Milan and Florence, 1834, p. 316) we are informed that " Or-San-Michele, o sia S. Michele in Orto, e un grande edifizio isolate, "

. In Tommaseo and Bellini's magnificent ' Dizionario della Lingua Italiana ' the follow- ing paragraph appears under the word ' Orto ' : " Madonna dell' orto, tit. di Chiesa e di contrada che aveva in orjgine verdura $ intorno. A Malesp. ' Capit6 in orto San Michele.'* E per iscorcio : Or San Michele. Star da Or San Michele, quasi tutt' una voce." Two instances of this use of "Madonna" occur to me. In one Sacchetti relates : " lo scrittore vidi gia uno, ch'avea perduto una gatta, botarsi, se la ritrovasse, mandarla di cera a nostra Donna d'Orto San Michele, e cosi fece" (Nov. 109). In the other he says :

"Orcagna fu capo maestro dell' oratorio

nobile di Nostra Donna d' Orto San Michele " (Nov. 136). Orcagna's work in this oratorio of "Orsanmichele" is described at some length by VasarL So, too, Villani whose life-dates were contemporaneous with the construction of the " corn-hall " and with the subsequent changes down to 1348 giving accounts of these events in books vii. cap. 97, viii. 71, xi. 66, and always using the appella- tion " Orto san Michele," mentions in the last-cited passage (a description of the erection of " i pilastri della loggia d' Orto s. Michele") a " compagnia di madonna santa Maria d' Orto san Michele." Another example of the meaning that Or has for Italians is furnished by the explanation of " lo chiasso- lino che va in Orto San Michele " (Sacchetti, Nov. 159) as a lane " tra Calimala e Orsam- michele," which Ottavio Gigli, a recent editor of Sacchetti, gives in the index locorum (Florence, 1886).

My next notice is from the ' Guida di Firenze,' &c., Florence, 1820, i. 219 :

" Santo " is not shortened to " San."
 * Cap. clxiv., but in my copy of Malispini