hrvatski

Nikola Vitov Gučetić (1549 – 1610): Ruke i rukopisi

This paper deals with the manuscripts of the work of Dubrovnik philosopher Nikola Vitov Gučetić (Nicolò di Vito Gozze/Gozzi ; Nicolaus Viti Gozzius, 1549-1610) and with the identification and description of the hands that physically wrote them. During his lifetime, Gučetić had ten works printed, all in Venice, in the period from 1580 to 1601, polemics with commentaries on Aristotle, dialogues modelled on those of Plato and Aristotle and commentaries to the texts of Aristotle and the Scriptures. There are also two groups of Gučetić works that are today extant in manuscript form. The first group consists of works that remained unpublished, all to be found in a single copy. Gučetić had fair copies made of some of his works that were not issued in print, and that were created partly in the early 1590s and partially up to the mid-1600s, bound in six handwritten volumes. Without any explicitly expressed wish that they should be prepared for the press or help be given to their publication, he dedicated five of them to Duke Francesco Mario II della Rovere of Urbino (1549-1631), well known lover and patron of the arts and philosophy, particularly Aristotelian, and one to the duke’s second wife, Livia della Rovere (1585-1641). Nikola’s son Vito (ca 1579 -1612) sent the manuscripts that Gučetić had had copied and that he had dedicated to the ducal patron to the Urbino court a year after the writer’s death. Today, the Urbino manuscripts are kept in the Vatican Apostolic Library in Rome (ref. Urb. lat. 499, 500, 514, 1219 and 1449) while that dedicated to Duchess Livia is now in the Oliveriana in Pesaro (Ms. 834). The works copied out in these manuscripts are listed as follows. 1. Urb. lat. 499: Varie compositioni in Theologia del Sig. Nicolò di Vito Gozzi, Gentil’huomo Raguseo, Dottore in Theologia et Filosofia, et nell’Accademia degl’Insensati di Perugia detto l’occulto. Lectures on theological subjects given in Dubrovnik in 1601 to 1603. The manuscript is a fair copy with small interventions in the hand of the author. 2. Urb. lat. 500: The same title. Lectures on theological topics, undated. The same hands as in the previous manuscript. 3. Urb. lat. 514: Nicolai Viti Gozzii, Patritii Reipub. Ragvsinae Tractatus De anima humana, De daemonibus, De angelis, De Deo. Four theological studies of 1591 to 1593. Fair copy with sporadic interventions in the hand of the author. 4. Urb. lat. 1219: Nicolai Viti Gozzii Maioris, Patritii Reipub. Ragvsinae, ex Accademia Insensatorum, in primum librum Artis rhetoricorum Aristotelis comentaria (sic). Commentaries to Book I of Aristotle’s Rhetoric. Fair copy without any authorial emendations. No explicit dating. 5. Urb. lat. 1449: Breue Compendium Nicolai Viti Gozzii Illyrici Ragusini, ex Accademia Insensatorum, in duo prima capita tertii De anima Aristotelis. A commentary on Aristotle, dated 1606. Fair copy with occasional interventions in the hand of the author. 6. Oliveriana Ms. 834: Li discorsi della immortalità e felicità humana, Gorana Stepanić: Nikola Vitov Gučetić (1549-1610): Ruke i rukopisi 259 composti per mr. Nicolo Vito di Gozze, gentil’homo Raguseo, accademico occulto. Philosophical and theological texts about human immortality and felicity. The second group of Gučetić manuscripts comprises early versions of published works. There are two manuscripts in this group, kept in the National and University Library in Zagreb, that were once part of the library of Ljudevit Gaj. Manuscript R 3230 has two works in one volume: R 3230/1: Discorsi di m. Niccolo di Vito Gozze Gentilhuomo Raugeo dell’academia degli occulti sopra le Meteore d’Aristotile ridotti in dialogo e divisi in quattro giornate. Interlocutori esso M. Niccolo di Gozze e M. Michele Monaldi. A dialogue modelled on Aristotle. A fair copy of an early version of the work in which one hand makes the fair copy while the other hand, the author’s, from f. 21r supplies smaller or larger additions to the text or emendations of whole paragraphs ; a third hand, at the beginning of the manuscript, particularly on 1r-1v, in the margins and between the lines makes major changes to the text. In the printed version (Discorsi… sopra le Metheore d’Aristotile, Venice, 1584, 21585) there is the »top« version in which the interventions of both the second and the third hand have been adopted. It is my hypothesis that the changes in the third hand are an attempt of a later owner of the manuscript to make the text conform with the printed version ; R 3230/2 Dialogo iconomico. Fiore Zuzori Maria Gondola. A dialogue based on Aristotle’s Economy. The first or early version, autograph. To some extent different from the printed version (for example, in the choice of the speakers in the dialogue) but the main structure and most of the text in the printed edition are the same (Governo della famiglia, Venice, 1589) ; R 3239: Discorsi della penitenza sopra i sette salmi penitenziali. A fair copy of an early version of the work, incomplete (containing only five psalms). In addition to the hand of the copyist there are interventions in the hand of the author putting in small corrections as well as major changes to the writing. There is also a third hand that writes out the sources in the margins and corrects and writes out paratexts. This copy differs to some extent from the final text as seen in the printed edition (Venice, 1589), at the level of expression and also in length (the published version really does discuss seven psalms). Since they are early versions of the work, the Zagreb manuscripts have no dedications. In summary, the hands that wrote out the manuscripts mentioned above are as follows: A: the author’s hand, with scruffy stokes and very hard to read. It wrote out the text Dialogo iconomico (R3230/2) and numerous larger or small interventions in all the extant manuscripts save Urb. lat. 1219 in the period of the early 1580s to at least 1606 ; B: a hand that strikes sections out and writes a new supplemented version of the text at the beginning of the work Discorsi … sopra le Meteore (R 3230/1) ; C: a collective label for notably italicised hands, some of which are perhaps identical, making the fair copy of the main text of manuscripts Urb. lat. 514 (C1), R 3230/1 (C2), R 3239 (C3) ; D: the hand of a professional scribe that copies out five of Gučetić’s manuscripts in the period between 1600 and 1606 (Urb. lat. 499, 500, 1219, 1449, Oliveriana Ms. 834) ; E: a hand that writes 260 Colloquia Maruliana XXX (2021.) out the dedication of the codices Urb. lat. 499 and 500 ; F: the hand that writes out the dedication to the work Della felicità (Oliveriana, MS 834) ; G: the hand that in the manuscript Discorsi della penitenza (R 3239) writes out a new version of the title, occasional corrections and glosses. Perhaps identical to hand D.

Nikola Vitov Gučetić, rukopisi, autograf

nije evidentirano