Within the Versio Italico branch, the various redactions demonstrate some clear differences. However, they all linked by their distinctive pattern of embedded tales. In all the Versio Italico redactions, the storytelling contest begins with the sages' first story, Canis, rather than a story told by the empress, as we see in the Version A and Historia patterns. The empress's usual story Senescalcus is omitted entirely, and she usually tells six rather than seven stories. Some scholarship (Rajna) suggests this omission may have been made out of prudishness (as Senescalcus is one of the most explicit of the tales usually found in the European Seven Sages tradition); whatever the reason, the change necessitated a reordering of the narrative components of the text (see story order, below). While some of the Versio Italico redactions add or change stories later in the text, the initial pattern holds clear for all of them.
The six Versio Italico redactions are:
- Il Libro dei Sette Savi de Roma (C) - 14th c., first edited by Capelli
- Storia d'una Crudele Matrigna (M) - 15th c., first edited by Della Lucia
- Versio Italica historiae septem sapientum (L) - 15th c., in Latin; first edited by Mussafia
- Storia di Stefano (R) - 15th c., verse in ottava rima; first edited by Rajna
- L'Amabile di Continentia -15th c., first edited by Cesari
- Erasto (Es)
These six versions redactions are often split into distinct sub-groups in scholarship. For example, the first three of these texts constitute the 'rama antico', or old branch of Version I. Il Libro dei Sette Savi (C) and the Storia d'una Crudele Matrigna (M) are closely related, and one or both of them may have derived from the Latin Versio Italica historiae septem sapientum (L) (the only non-Italian text in this part of the tradition); none are direct translations of each other, however. All three of these redactions have fourteen rather than the expected fifteen stories. D'Agostino (2022) explores the complex relationship between the three 'ramo antico' redactions at length, and suggests that the Latin Versio Italica (or some specific manuscript witnesses of that version) may have been the source for the Storia d'una Crudele Matrigna, as many scholars have suggested (Paris (1876), Rajna (1880), etc.). However, D'Agostino does not concur with Gaston Paris' insistance that the extant Latin text was the source for the Libro (C) as well, instead suggesting that C and L both derived from a shared (lost) source, with intervening textual variation, cross-contamination, and mediation (p. 271-75).
All three of the 'rama antico' texts also share an unusual name for the prince. In Libro (C), Crudele Matrigna (M), and the Latin Versio Italica (L), the prince is named 'Stefano' - a name also found in the verse redaction, the Storia di Stefano (R). (This name also appears in one of the Italian Version A texts, the Storia favolosa di Stefano (S), suggesting some cross-pollination between the A and I traditions.) The Storia di Stefano diverges from the 'rama antico' in the latter half of the text, however. The narrative begins with the first sage's story Canis and continues as expected through the 13th story, the sage Charaus' rendition of Puteus. However, instead of then concluding with Prince Stefano's tale, all of the previous tale-tellers have a chance to speak once more, on the 8th day. The empress tells a three-part story, then each of the seven sages tells another tale before the prince at last tells Vaticinium to bring about the narrative's conclusion. Almost all of these stories are unique to this version, with the exception of Senes (found in the Dolopathos texts), and Disputatio gestu (found in the Ottoman Forty Viziers narrative).
The final two redactions of the Versio Italico, L'Amabile di Continentia and Erasto, are closely related, and distinguished from the other redactions: in these texts, the prince is not named Stefano, but Erasto. L'Amabile is critically assumed to be Erasto's source (see Cesari (1896), Wikeley (1983), etc.). In both texts the stepmother is named Afrodisia, while the sages are given names designed to sound Greek: Euprosigoro, Dimurgo, Terno, Enoscopo, Filando, Agato, and Leuco (see Cesari (1896)). These redactions drop several of the expected Versio Italico embedded stories (Vidua, Puteus, Avis), usually told by the sages, and replace them with several new tales: Corpus Delicti, Zelus, and Caepulla. Additionally, unlike the 'rama antico' texts, L'Amabile and Erasto give the stepmother a seventh story, a new story titled Puer Adoptatus, bringing the narrative total back to fifteen. Of these four new texts, none are found elsewhere in the Seven Sages tradition, with the exception of Caepulla, which also appears in the Forty Viziers: Ḥikāyet-i Ḳırḳ Vezīr. Another distinguishing element is the fact that, rather than facing public execution, the empress kills herself in prison in at the end of the narrative. While L'Amabile di Continentia exists in a handful of manuscripts, Erasto (or, achieved wild popularity in early print, appearing in more than thirty different editions before the end of the sixteenth century. It was then translated into French, Italian, and Spanish.
It is worth noting that two different stories found in the Forty Viziers appear in the expanded Versio Italico traditions - the L'Amabile and Erasto pattern, and the Storia di Stefano verse. Given the fact that very few of the embedded stories in the Forty Viziers appear in the Seven Sages tradition at all, this is especially noteworthy.
Identification & General Information
Tradition & Lineage
Recorded Secondary Versions
Connected Manuscripts
Language & Composition
Modern Scholarship & Editions
Pattern of Embedded Stories in This Version
| Has Short Title | Has Sequence Number | Has Narrator | Has Name Variation |
|---|---|---|---|
| Canis – The Faithful Dog | 1 | ||
| Arbor – The Tree | 2 | Empress | |
| Medicus – The Doctor | 3 | ||
| Aper – The Boar and the Fruit | 4 | Empress | |
| Tentamina – The Test | 5 | ||
| Sapientes – The Wise Men | 6 | Empress | |
| Avis – The Bird | 7 | ||
| Gaza – The Treasure | 8 | Empress | |
| Inclusa – The Imprisoned Wife | 9 | ||
| Roma – Rome Besieged | 10 | Empress | |
| Vidua – The Widow | 11 | ||
| Virgilius – Virgil's Marvels | 12 | Empress | |
| Puteus – The Well | 13 |
Connected Prints