Storia d'una Crudele Matrigna (M)
The Version I text Storia d'una Crudele Matrigna has often been given the siglum M (for 'Matrigna') in scholarship. There was some controversy about its original reception: it was first published by Giovanni Della Lucia in Venice, 1832, under the title Novella antica scritta nel buon secolo della lingua; it was then reprinted by Gaetano Romagnoli in 1862. Apparently Della Lucia had taken 'some liberties' with the text, 'Tuscanizing' the prose of a Venetian manuscript, which prompted sustained debate about the authenticity of the text as a medieval narrative (see Wikeley (1983) and D'Agostino (2022)). This was laid to rest when the fifteenth-century manuscript was rediscovered and edited in 1883 by Franz Roediger.
Crudele Matrigna is one of the three texts that forms the 'ramo italico antico', the old branch of the Italian Seven Sages texts, alongside the Latin Versio Italica historiae septem sapientum (L), and Italian Il Libro dei Sette Savi de Roma (C). Like both of these redactions, Crudele Matrigna has fourteen, rather than the expected fifteen, stories. The storytelling contest begins with the sages' first story, Canis, rather than a story told by the empress; her story Senescalcus is omitted entirely, and she tells six rather than seven stories. Some scholarship (Rajna) suggests this omission may have been made out of prudishness (as Senescalcus is the most explicit of the tales usually found in the Version A pattern); whatever the reason, the change necessitated a reordering of the narrative components of the text (see story order, below).
D'Agostino (2022) explores the complex relationship between the three 'ramo antico' redactions at length. Through close analysis of the textual variations across all manuscript witness of the three redactions, D'Agostino 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 Latin text was the source for Il Libro dei Sette Savi de Roma (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).
| Identification and general Information | |
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| Reference Number | |
| Siglum of the version of the Seven Sages | |
| Version Number | |
| Title | |
| Author | |
| Tradition and Lineage | |
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| Branch of the tradition | West |
| Adapted from (version) | Versio Italica historiae septem sapientum (L) |
| Adapted into (version) | |
| Source for composition and adaptation information | D'Agostino (2022) |
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| Language and Composition | |
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| Original language of version | Italian |
| Language of text | Italian |
| Regional or specific language of version | |
| Translated into (languages) | |
| Place of composition | Venice, Italy |
| Date of composition | 1350 - 1450 |
| Islamic date of composition | |
| Hebrew date of composition | |
| Source for date of composition | |
| Modern Scholarship and Editions | |
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| Modern research literature | Roediger (1883), Della Lucia (1832), D'Agostino (2022), Wikeley (1983), Runte, Wikeley, Farrell (1984), Rajna (1880), Paris (1876), D'Ancona (1864), Cesari (1896), Segre (1959), Mussafia (1867), Bianchi (2014-2015), Lusiani (2019), Cappelli (1865) |
| Modern Editions | Roediger, Libro de' sette savi (1883), Della Lucia, Novella antica (1832), Lusiani, Il Libro dei sette savî di Roma (2019) |
| Notes and Commentary | |
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| Note | Also known as Novella antica, Scritta nel buon secolo della lingua and Libro de' sette savi di Roma. |
| Notes on motifs | |
| Notes on the frame | Property "Has Note On The Frame" (as page type) with input value "According to Wikeley (1983), the prince is called Stefano." contains invalid characters or is incomplete and therefore can cause unexpected results during a query or annotation process.According to Wikeley (1983), the prince is called Stefano. |
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