italian-studies: Scholarly discussions in any field of Italian studies
At 10:00 AM 9/1/01 -0000, you wrote:
>italian-studies: Scholarly discussions in any field of Italian studies
>
>>From tsettle Sat Sep 1 05:49:13 2001
>To: [log in to unmask]
>Subject: dante - tolomeo
>Bcc: [log in to unmask]
>
>
>Dear Italian Studies,
>
> I am hoping that some expert in the 15th c. will be able to help me.
>
> As many will know, in 1587/88 Galileo gave two lectures to the Acc.
>Fiorentina on the size, shape, etc. of the Inferno of Dante. What I have
>been doing in the last several months is looking into the background of
>those two lectures, and I have lodged up against a problem.
>
> In 1506 Girolamo Benivieni "Dialogo di Antonio Manetti ... circa al sito,
>forma ... dello Inferno ...". There he put into the mouth of Manetti some
>recommendations about what the reader ought to know in order to understand
>the issues and Manetti's own conclusions on the subject. The reader ought
>to have "qualche poco di cognizione di geometria ... arimetrica ... un poco
>di astrologia, almeno avere vista la sfera ... di cosmografia il Mantellino
>di Tolomeo e la Carta da navicare ...". -- It's the Mantellino di Tolemeo
>that I am stuck on. What is he referring to?
>
> I can think of several possibilities, including the one to the effect that
>un Mantellino or Mantellius was an editor or publisher of one of Ptolemy's
>works, possibly on geography. But I have never seen the name before this,
>and it does not eeem to appear in any of the standard Ptolemy bibliographies.
>
> Would someone here have seen it somewhere? -- In Manetti or in Landino
>or in any other of the Florentine eruditi of the late 15th century?
>
> Many thanks for any help.
>
> Tom Settle
>
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Benivieni seems to be listing a number of works of cosmography, beginning
with "il Martellino di Tolomeo," so "il Mantellino" would seem to be the
title of a work by Ptolemy. Since there were many, a title would be
necessary to indicate which one. What were the titles of the Latin
translations published before 1506? I don't know, but the Greek title used
today is (in approximate transcription) "Geographike hyphegesis" =
"Geographic manual" (or guidebook, or sketch, etc.). My conjecture -- and
it is only that -- is that "manTEllino" is an error for "manUAllino." Hard
for me to visualize the confusion paleographically, and it is not easy to
account for the diminutive, but otherwise it makes sense. At any rate, I
would try to make "Martellino" out to be an alternate title for the work we
know as the Cosmographia of Ptolemy. Let us know your conclusion.>
Richard Kay
Department of History
University of Kansas
Lawrence, KS USA 66045-2130
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