One or two Hands?Arabic Script in Latin Manuscripts, Latin Script in Arabic Manuscripts
Abstract. This paper aims to present some new cases of bilingual texts in Latin and Arabic as well as Arabic glossae in Latin manuscripts and vice versa. I am going to illustrate and examines some examples and discussing whether a same hand wrote in two alphabets (and languages) – namely Arabic and Latin – or not.
Bilingual texts in Latin and Arabic as well as Arabic glossae in Latin manuscripts – and vice versa – were produced in various regions of the Medieval world: Visigothic Spain, Mount Sinai, Monte Cassino. The presence, in various epochs, of Latin scribes in the Arab Orient, or that of Arabic writers in the Latin West, lead us to interrogate ourselves on the identity of those scribes. Research on the graphic education of digraphic and bilingual copyists (and readers) and their skills to learn, imitate, or simply reproduce a script they could (or could not) understand, is still in its infancy. Michelle Brown, for instance, noticed that in St Catherine it is possible to find copies of early Western scripts (Visigothic, Beneventan, Luxeuil and Caroline minuscule) that might represent the attempts of Sinai scribes to copy Western, imported manuscript hands.
I already had the occasion to identify a same copyist writing in Latin and Arabic in a bilingual fragment (D’Ottone 2013). Through careful examination I was also able to detect that a same copyist glossed, in both Latin and Arabic, the famous Visigothic Bible of Danila (D’Ottone Rambach 2018).
The communication I am proposing aims to present some new cases and examines whether a same hand wrote in two alphabets (and languages) – namely Arabic and Latin. Also, the influence that the Arabic or Latin script exerted on these scribes, and the results – more or less successful – they achieved will be considered. The manuscript evidence that will be inspected comes from two main areas: Spain and Montecassino, in the West, and St Catherine’s, in the Middle East. Considering the manuscript evidence and extra-textual hints (colours of ink-s, devices employed for connecting the text to a glossa, etc.) new and old evidence will be discussed. This research will possibly open new scenarios for the cultural exchanges, the history of ideas, and religious controversy, and it will hopefully allow to reconsider critically the dating of same famous witnesses.