Franciscan Studies

AUREOLI'S UNPUBLISHED REPORTATIO III DIST. 3) Q. 1-2 VlTTriters who expounded the Sentences of Peter Lombard, usually " expressed their views on the Immaculate Conception in the Third Book, the Third Distinction of their Commentaries. Peter Aureoli followed the customary procedure. To make clear which of his texts are presented here, a few remarks are in order concerning Aureoli's commentaries on the Third Book of the Sentences. This also demands certain additional considerations concerning some of his other writings. In 1596 Cardinal Constantius Torri of Sarnano, O. F. M. Conv., published in Rome Aureoli's Commentary on the First Book of the Sentences. This commentary is recognized by modern scholarship as being an Ordinatio1. Cardinal Sarnano died the year of the edition of the Ordinatio, but probably had already done some preparatory work for the second volume of Aureoli's commentaries, which was eventually published in Rome, 1605, but without the name of the person(s) who actually prepared the edition. This second volume contains the Commentaries (Reportationes) of Aureoli on Books II—IV of the Sentences, plus his Quodlibet. Some twenty-five years ago F. Pelster, S. J., discovered that the text of Books II and IV as given by the 1605 edition corresponds substantially to the manuscripts of these Commentaries still in existence. But the same eminent scholar discovered also that the edited text of the Third Book does not, in a large part, correspond to the codices; for up to Dist. 23, q. 4, art. 3, — and thus with the inclusion of the Third Distinction or the texts on Immaculate Conception, — all the manuscripts known to Pelster had anothertext. Not till 1947 was a manuscript discovered which apparently contains the entire text of the 1605 edition of Book III2. It is ms. Sarnano E. 92 (fol. 1—113 or the entire codex) 1 Aureoli's Reportatio on the First Book has never been published. 2 G. Abate, O. F. M. Conv., Antichi manoscritti ed incunaboli dell'ex-biblioteca O. F. M. Conv. di S. Francesco ora Bibl. Commun, di Sarnano (Marche) in Miscellanea Francescana 47 (1947) 502. The same library possesses ms. E. 101 containing Aureoli's Ordinatio I ; the codex is mutilated now, but presumably was complete at the time of Card. Sarnano and used by him for his edit, of !59 l6oE. M. BUYTAERT from the fourteenth century. This manuscript, presumably, had been used in the edition of 1605. The Reportatio III, published in 1605, is far from complete. Peter Lombard's Third Book of the Sentences has fourty distinctions; twelve of the distinctions do not appear in the published Reportatio: Dist. 5—8, 24—26 and 28—32. On the other hand, Dist. 17 has two commentaries3, both consisting of a "quaestio unica". But the topic of the questions is different ; consequently, it might be a mistake either of the scribe or of the seventeenth century editor that the original rubrics "Dist. 17, q. 1 et 2" were twice changed to "Dist. 17, q. unica". The unpublished Reportatio is found in four codices, all of the fourteenth century: 1. Florence, Nazionale, Conv. Soppr. B. VI. 121, fol. 123—146; 2. Florence, Medicea Laurenziana, Laur. Plut. 32 dextr. 12, fol. ?—39; 3. Paris, National Library, lat. 17484, fol. 1—48»- or the entire manuscript4; 4. Toulouse, Municipal Library, ms. 243, fol. 1—395. LPT contain the so-called "collatio", three "quaes! iones ordinatae", the entire Reportatio of Book III, i. e. all the questions up to Dist. 23, q. 4, art. 3 included, of the unpublished Reportatio, and from there on, a text more or less corresponding to the edited Reportatio; finally they contain an index; it is noteworthy that in this index, L includes the "quaestiones ordinatae". N has only the Reportatio, and comes to an abrupt end in the middle of the second question of Dist. 24. Since the Reportatio as of Book III, edited in 1605, has no commentary on Dist. 24, manuscript N has almost nothing in common with this old edition. N has the rubric6, seemingly by another hand, "tertius petri aureoü". This codex has other special characteristics. AU the distinctions, from one till twenty-four, are numbered...