| Veronese Riddle | |
|---|---|
 Original text | |
| Full title | Indovinello Veronese (Italian) |
| Language | Medieval Latin[1] / Early Romance |
| Date | 8th or early 9th century |
| Provenance | Verona,Italy |
| Genre | Riddle |
| This article is part ofthe series on the |
| Italian language |
|---|
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TheVeronese Riddle (Italian:Indovinello veronese) is ariddle written in eitherMedieval Latin or earlyRomance on theVerona Orational, probably in the 8th or early 9th century, by aChristianmonk fromVerona, in northernItaly. It is an example of awriting-riddle, a popular genre in theMiddle Ages and still in circulation in recent times. Discovered byLuigi Schiaparelli in 1924, it may be the earliest extant example of Romance writing in Italy.[2]
The riddle is written in two lines without word divisions.[3] Asemi-diplomatic transcription (with line numbering added) is as follows:
Monteverdi 1937 argues that the riddle is structured as two poetic lines ofrhythmic hexameter.[1]
A literal translation reads:
Se pareba boves
alba pratalia araba
et albo versorio teneba
et negro semen seminaba
He led oxen in front of him
ploughed white fields
And held a white plough
And sowed black seed
The subject of the sentence, which is left implicit, is generally assumed to be a ploughman. The solution of the riddle then consists of identifying this ploughman with the writer or scribe himself: the oxen are a metaphor for his fingers, which draw a feather (the white plow) across the page (the white field), leaving a trail of ink (the black seed).[1]
There are a few complications to the interpretation of the first clause. The translation above is based on assuming that⟨pareba⟩ is a form of the verbparare 'lead' and⟨se⟩ is a reflexive pronoun (corresponding to Classical Latinsibi).[1]Vincent (2016) instead takes the verb as a form ofparere 'seem', and accordingly translates "se pareba boves" as "it (the hand) seemed like oxen".[4]
The placement of the word⟨se⟩ at the start of the sentence violates an observed generalization about the position of proclitic pronouns in medieval Romance languages, called the Tobler-Mussafia law. Instead of a pronoun,⟨se⟩ has sometimes been read as an adverb derived from Latinsic, or as a prefix forming a word like⟨separaba⟩.[5] However,Pescarini (2021) concludes the word is most likely a pronoun, but one that functions grammatically as a weak tonic form rather than a proclitic.[5]
The Riddle was written in Verona at the end of the eighth century or beginning of the ninth on a page of a preexistingliturgical text,[3] theVerona Orational (codex LXXXIX (89) of theBiblioteca Capitolare di Verona). The parchment is aMozarabic (i.e. Visigothic) oration by theSpanishChristian Church, probably written inToledo. The book was brought from there toCagliari and then toPisa before reaching theChapter of Verona.
The riddle was probably written by a scribe as aprobatio pennae[6] (a test to check that a pen was writing well). It was discovered by Schiapparelli in 1924.[3]
Beneath the riddle, the page contains another line, unquestionably in Latin, which reads "✝ gratias tibi agimus omnip[oten]s sempiterne d[eu]s". Based on thehandwriting,Stefanini (2004) interprets this as a second note written by a separate scribe.[3]
The text diverges from Classical Latin in the following traits, which can be considered vernacular features.
On the other hand, in a few aspects the text appears to share features with Classical Latin as opposed to vernacular speech:
Some features of the text are shared with Classical Latin, but can also be found to some extent in vernacular languages of Italy:
There has been debate over what language the riddle is written in[1] and to what extent the author intended to represent a language distinct from Latin. It has been variously argued to be a Latin text with vernacular influence,[4] a conscious representation of a Veronese "volgare",[7] or a Latin-Romance hybrid (that is, a text written in a style that may have intentionally simplified or modified the conventions of written Latin to bring it closer to the spoken vernacular language).[10]
Though initially hailed as the earliest document in a vernacular of Italy in the first years following Schiapparelli's discovery, today the record has been disputed by many scholars fromBruno Migliorini toCesare Segre andFrancesco Bruni, who have placed it at the latest stage ofVulgar Latin, though this very term is far from being clear-cut, and Migliorini himself considers it dilapidated.[citation needed] At present, thePlacito Capuano (AD 960; the first in a series of four documents dated AD 960–963 issued by aCapuan court) is considered to be the oldestundisputed example of Romance writing in Italy.[11][12]
