Notes to the translation of Fischer's edition

The Latin text is taken from the 1493 edition by Kilian Fischer, referenced against the text of the 'Quaracchi edition' (Opera Omnia S. Bonaventurae, Ad Claras Aquas, 1885). All significant differences between the two editions I have marked in the following way:

maxime in angelo bono [/beato] – Fischer has 'bono', Quaracchi has 'beato'.
sicut patet in petro et {in} paulo – Fischer has 'in', Quaracchi does not
duo dicit, [scilicet] - Fischer does not have 'scilicet', Quaracchi does

Images of the original Fischer text are linked to at the beginning of each page section, for the benefit of readers interested in how early Latin texts actually looked. Although the text is an early printed edition, or incunabulum, the contractions, spellings and conventions are similar to those used in manuscripts as far back as the ninth century. (e.g. the rendering of 'et' '&', 'quod', 'scilicet' and many others), and this may be useful for researchers working on other digital manuscripts.

It may surprise some readers that before the sixteenth century there was an honorific capital used for ordinary proper names, and for starting sentences, but no capital for 'deus', which is always lower case. Many spellings are different (For example, 'quam' is a different word depending on whether it is a pronoun or an adverb) .

Punctuation is very different, and shows us how much of the Latin we read is in fact 'modern'. Pretty much all the punctuation, indentation, capitalisation, use of quotation marks &c that we see in modern editions of medieval and ancient Latin is an imposition by modern editors. (For example, the translation by Freddoso of Ockham's Summa Logicae contains indentations, lower case, numbered propositions, section headings, quotation marks and all the apparatus of the modern publishing system, which almost certainly would not have been in the original text, i.e. the primary source material for the work).

Sections are often chopped up in different ways. What appears as the very final thought in a modern text, placed at the end of a paragraph or section of even a chapter, may appear as the beginnning of a paragraph, section or chapter in the original.

In the 'digital Latin' I have preserved all spelling and punctuation, where possible to do so using standard Ascii. As this would have been impossible in the translation, I have imposed my own punctuation in the English. Where there are differences between Fischer and Quaracchi, I have translated the Fischer, noting any important differences. Where this was impossible, I have followed the Quaracchi.

Where the are references to the scriptures, I have used the King James translation of the Vulgate wherever possible, noting any differences in the Latin.

There are some other notes on this edition, together with images of the text, at my website here.

Thanks must go to Br. Alexis Bugnolo for his immense patience and help. I am not a Latinist, but a philosopher, and this translation would not have been possible without Alexis help and enouragment involvement. We have made every effort to weed out errors in transcription, spelling, and translation. Any remaining ones are of course own.

Edward Buckner
London, April 2007