Anonymous authors of three Latin mythographical texts
First page of the First Mythographer in Reg. lat. 1401
The so-calledVatican Mythographers (Latin:Mythographi Vaticani) are the anonymous authors of three Latinmythographical texts found together in a single medieval manuscript, Vatican Reg. lat. 1401.[1] The name is that used byAngelo Mai when he published thefirst edition of the works in 1831.[2] The text of theFirst Vatican Mythographer is found only in the Vatican manuscript; the second and third texts are found separately in other manuscripts, leading scholars to refer to aSecond Vatican Mythographer and aThird Vatican Mythographer.
Taken together, the works of the Vatican Mythographers provided a source-book of Greek and Roman myths and theiriconography throughout theMiddle Ages and theRenaissance. The texts, which were being copied in manuscripts as late as the 15th century, were parsedallegorically to provideChristianized moral and theological implications, "until in time the pagan divinities blossomed into full-fledged vices and virtues".[3] Theirtestimonia, sources, and parallel passages constitute central documents in the transmission of classical culture to the medieval world, which is a major theme in thehistory of ideas in the West—though the texts have also been described as "highly deceptive sources which should be used with much caution".[4]
Mai made many slips in rapidly transcribing the manuscript under difficult conditions, and he was in the habit of substituting euphemisms where the original was too sexually explicit to transcribe and publish, even in Latin. A revised, indexed edition of 1834, corrected byGeorg Heinrich Bode[5] without access to the Vatican manuscript, is the version that replaced Mai's first edition and has been drawn on in popular 20th-century anthologies of Greek mythology, such as those byEdith Hamilton,Robert Graves, andKarl Kerenyi.
The work of the First Vatican Mythographer is essentially a pared-down "fact-book" of mythology, stripped of nuance, not unlike theFabulae ofHyginus, who, however, had provided no Roman stories and so could not suffice. Classical authors are rarely quoted directly, but the author seems to have used the commentary onVirgil byServius and thescholiasts onStatius as sources. A modern edition of the text was published in 1995 by Nevio Zorzetti. On the basis of the latest source cited in it and the date of the first source to cite it, Zorzetti dates the composition of the work between the last quarter of the 9th century and the third quarter of the 11th century.[6]
Nineteen manuscripts (including several fragments)[7] are known for the second text, and more than forty for the third. The work of the Second Vatican Mythographer, which draws on that of the first, though it is considerably longer, perhaps dates to the 11th century. A modern edition of it was produced by Péter Kulcsár in 1987. In 2014, Alena Hadravová identified two new, previously unknown copies of the Second Vatican Mythographer in the National Library in Prague: MS Prague, NL, IX C 3 (1401), and MS Prague, NL, III C 18 (late 14th or early 15th century). In 2017, she published editions of both copies in a Czech-English commented book.
The work of the Third Vatican Mythographer, which differs from the others by containing "extensive allegorical interpretations",[8] has often been attributed either to a certainAlberic of London, who is named in a number of the manuscripts, or toAlexander Neckam.[9]
Burnett, Charles S. F. "A Note on the Origins of the Third Vatican Mythographer",Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes44 (1981), pp. 160–166.
Elliott, Kathleen O., and J. P. Elder. "A Critical Edition of the Vatican Mythographers",Transactions and Proceedings of the American Philological Association78 (1947), pp. 189–207. (Summarizes results of research for an edition that never materialized.)
Hadravová, Alena.Druhý Vatikánský mytograf. Dva nově identifikované rukopisy z Národní knihovny v Praze. – The Second Vatican Mythographer. Two Newly Identified Manuscripts from the National Library in Prague. Praha: Scriptorium, 2017.ISBN978-80-88013-48-8
Kulcsár, Péter.Mythographi Vaticani I et II. Corpus Christianorum Series Latina 91c. Turnhout: Brepols, 1987.ISBN978-2-503-00917-9
Pepin, Ronald E.The Vatican Mythographers. New York: Fordham University Press, 2008.ISBN978-0-8232-2892-8 (English translation of all three texts.)
Zorzetti, Nevio, and Jacques Berlioz.Le Premier mythographe du Vatican. Collection des universités de France, Série latine. Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 1995.ISBN978-2-251-01389-3 (Includes a French translation [by Berlioz] and extensive annotations.)
