Iter Gallicum - Source-gathering trip to France

For a long time I had been planning a source-gathering trip to France due to the fact that some manuscripts of Biondo's Decades were in its libraries. The loud construction site on our building in Jyväskylä helped to set the trip on May-June 2023. Furthermore, since our seven-month-old daughter was now part of our lives, we decided it was best that she and my wife both accompanied me to France. This way we wouldn't have to spend any time apart from each other. In the next three blogs, I give some glimpses of what I have discovered on my voyage.

The aim of this journey was to consult, digitize and analyse five manuscripts, one in Besançon, three in Paris, and one in Saint-Omer. Some of the manuscripts had very scarce information online, so I was partly going in blind. The first destination was Besançon in the Eastern France, so we decided to fly to Zurich, and head to Besançon by train. The train journey took about four hours and finally Besançon was within sight.

Besançon is an ancient city as it has had occupants since Antiquity. It was called Vesontio by the Romans and Julius Caesar writes about the city in his Gallic Wars this way:

Vesontio [...] is the largest town of the Sequani, [...] and so fortified was it by the nature of the ground, as to afford a great facility for protracting the war, inasmuch as the river Doubs almost surrounds the whole town, as though it were traced round it with a pair of compasses. A mountain of great height shuts in the remaining space, which is not more than 600 feet, where the river leaves a gap, in such a manner that the roots of that mountain extend to the river's bank on either side. A wall thrown around it makes a citadel of this [mountain], and connects it with the town. (De bello Gallico 1.38).

Intertextuality in Biondo's works

Few days ago, I noticed a small, but quite interesting piece of information while researching a copy of the first decade of Biondo (Vat. Lat. 1936). The scribe of the copy had the habit of copying everything from the model, even marginal texts and colophons. He also copied a certain marginal note in the seventh book on f. 120r, which raised my eyebrows:

Luceolim co(e)ptum postea hui(c) et in Italia desc(ri)psi : fuisse : ubi nu(n)c pons est luceolis dictus oppido p(ro)xim(us) Canthiano, Urbinu(m) int(er) et Eugubiu(m) civitates. In vetustissima oli(m) flaminia via.

When did the decline of the Roman Empire start? Biondo's interpretation of the inclinatio

We are all familiar with Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (1776). Though it is often the first book we think when discussing about the decline of Rome, it is by no means the first attempt in history that tries to explain what exactly happened to the Roman Empire in the Late Antiquity. Multiple Renaissance humanists like Leonardo Bruni and Poggio Bracciolini have pondered this question as well. However, the one who truly took it to another level was Flavio Biondo. As the title of his largest historiographical work, Historiarum ab inclinatione Romanorum imperii decades (The decades of histories from the decline of the Empire of the Romans, 1453), might reveal, Biondo built his whole work (or at least the first 10 books) around the subject. But why and when did Biondo think this inclinatio started? Below, I try to present how Biondo sees this topic.

My first visit to the Vatican library - Spring in Rome as PhD student

[This post is a translation of a blog post I wrote on JYU Medieval studies blog in June 2020. The original post can be found here.]

The first spring of my doctorate program started with a bang. I spent the spring of 2020 in the Finnish Institute in Rome, where I worked as a part of the research group of the director Arja Karivieri. The building where the institute is situated, Villa Lante, is without a doubt on the best spot in Rome, from which one can admire all of Rome. The surroundings were motivational to say the least, and I was looking forward to the working possibilities of the coming spring. Along with the work in the research group, my aim was to start to write my doctoral thesis as efficiently as possible. Because my research focus deals with Italian Renaissance manuscripts and incunables, the Eternal City offered a perfect framework. I had planned to utilize the multiple libraries of Rome to find research literature, but my main aim was to visit the Vatican Apostolic Library, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana.

A view from the balcony of Villa Lante. Picture: Riikka Vuoksenmaa

 

Why study book history?

This question is one I have heard countless of times (along with: Who really needs to study medieval history? But that one is a subject for another time). I do not intend to give a full and satisfactory answer, for my focus is going to be on my views and why I think book history is an important discipline.

History is, in essence, stories. Those stories are told over and over again. One key feature about stories is that they spread the ideas within them. Thus, ideas move through humanity via stories. While the most common way to tell a story is orally, the most enduring one is text. Today, ideas spread through internet, social media and other electronic devices. It might appear that no one reads physical texts anymore. Well, before the digital age, information and ideas had to be transferred usually via written texts. And before the newspaper industry, that format was a book, or a codex.

Studying a copy of Decades in the Biblioteca Angelica in Rome last June.

Book history studies the books as vessels which transmit ideas among humans. Well, at least in one sense. It also studies the book itself, its dimensions, structure, material, writing, layout etc. Just like scholars who study social media platforms and newspapers, book historians study the book. The physical appearance of a book can tell us much about the technology of the period when the book was made. It can also help in locating the origin of a book, whether it is a manuscript or a printed book. The used writing material informs us what kind of animal skins were used, whether some animals were popular in specific regions etc. Moreover, finding a watermark in a paper manuscript can point to a specific paper manufacturer revealing important information of the paper trade.

Subject of my doctoral thesis

Hopefully, this is going to be my longest blog post. I intend to keep the rest of my posts short for the purpose of not using too much time on the blog alone. Below I try to lay down the subject of my doctoral thesis. I try to be as clear as I can and to avoid using too confusing language. Obviously, I cannot write about my topic conclusively, that is reserved for my actual thesis. However, I find it helpful to write my thought process in a more relaxed manner. This might help me organize my thoughts and bring up new ideas regarding my research.