I (Versio Italico)

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The Italian branch of the Seven Sages is usually reffered to as Version I, or the Versio Italico, in scholarship, and the texts are often titled Il Libro dei Sette Savi di Roma. This is an umbrella version used to refer to a group of six different Italian redactions. While the Version I pattern is assumed to stem originally from the Version A tradition, the Versio Italico versions evolved sepately from the Italian Version A texts. The Italian witness to the Seven Sages tradition are therefore split into two distinct groups - those that are part of the A family, and the Version I family, described here.

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:


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 (listed below as separate tales, though narrated jointly), then each of the seven sages tells another tale. Malchidas's tale is also a tripartite narrative, split into three separate tales below, but usually listed as one block of narration in criticism. Therefore, before the prince at last tells Vaticinium to bring about the narrative's conclusion, 22 (or, if we divide the narratives, as below, 26) stories have already been told, with more than half of them on the final day.


the first four of these narratives all give the prince the unusual name 'Stefano' (something shared with one of the Italian Version A texts, the Storia favolosa di Stefano),

Identification and general Information
Reference Number
Siglum of the version of the Seven Sages I (Versio Italico)
Version Number
Title Versio Italico
Author
Tradition and Lineage
Branch of the tradition Seven Sages of Rome
Adapted from (version) A (Seven Sages), French Version A: Roman des Sept Sages
Adapted into (version) Storia di Stefano, L'Amabile di Continentia, Erasto, Versio Italica historiae septem sapientum (L), Il Libro dei Sette Savi de Roma (C), Storia d'una Crudele Matrigna (M)
Source for composition and adaptation information
Recorded secondary versions
Connected manuscripts
Language and Composition
Original language of version
Language of text Italian
Regional or specific language of version Veneto, Toscano
Translated into (languages)
Place of composition Northern Italy
Date of composition 1250 - 1400
Islamic date of composition
Hebrew date of composition
Source for date of composition
Modern Scholarship and Editions
Modern research literature
Modern Editions
Notes and Commentary
Note
Notes on motifs
Notes on the frame
Pattern of embedded stories in this version

Connected prints








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