medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
Dear Laura,
Modern Italian doesn't seem to have a word for 'clerestory'. The
concept is ordinarily expressed through an explanatory noun phrase,
e.g. 'parete munita di finestre'. I would think that medieval Latin in
Italy also lacked such a word, except perhaps as an occasional literal
translation of MFr 'clere voye' (ancestral to ModFr 'claire-voie' =
Engl. 'clerestory'). The (region of) upper windows would be expressed
as 'fenestrae superiores' (vel sim.; no surprise here).
Like you, I don't think Italian 'clero' (= Engl. 'clergy','clergyman')
is meant here. Late medieval Tuscan had a French-derived synonym
for 'chiaro' spelled 'clero' (the _Grande Dizionario della Lingua
Italiana_, s.v. 'clero' 2, gives examples from Brunetto Latini and
Rustico di Filippo). A substantive use of that could indicate
a 'clearly lit (often sunlit) area' (not attested specifically for the
unusual 'clero' 2 but commonly part of the semantic field
of 'chiaro'). In this case 'per' would probably best be interpreted
as 'through'.
Hope this helps.
Best,
John Dillon
On Friday, November 4, 2005, at 5:38 am, Laura Jacobus wrote:
> I'm using a description of sacra rappresentatione in which the
> holy spirit in the form of a dove descends 'per clero'. Normally
> these things wizz down from high places, so I wonder whether this
> could in some way have the meaning of 'from a clerestory'. All
> the dictionaries I've consulted would lead to the dove descending
> 'by the agency of a cleric' which seems rather unsatisfactory to
> me. How were clerestories referred to in medieval latin?
>
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