La "Consolació de la Filosofia" en la versió catalana de Pere Saplana i Antoni Genebreda (1358/1362)

Abstract

The Consolatio Philosophae of the Roman scholar Boethius (around 480-524 AD) is, as the numerous manuscripts, translations, and commentaries show, undoubtedly the most influential work of late antiquity for the medieval West. Between 1358 and 1362, two Catalan Dominicans, Pere Saplana and Antoni Genebreda, created and published a Catalan version of the Latin book for the first time. It consists of a very free adaptation and a lengthy commentary that is occasionally inserted. The thesis advocated by Jordi Rubió i Balaguer that this Catalan version of Boethius is dependent on the Consolatio commentary by Thomas Anglicus can be refuted by a closer comparison of the two works. The Catalan Boethius is a clear testimony to a medieval interpretatio christiana of the Roman Neoplatonist, which on the one hand is deeply influenced by the spiritual current of the contemptus mundi and on the other hand testifies to the humanistic interest of the Catalan intellectuality of the 14th century. As a linguistic creation, the work is of great importance. It makes the struggle of a young language visible when dealing with its “mother tongue”, Latin. In conveying such an inaccessible area as ancient Neo-Platonism, the authors had to create new ways of expressing themselves. Freely developed anecdotes to illustrate the transmitted content, as well as the retelling of the Orpheus myth based on the Boethic version, undoubtedly deserve our attention as significant examples of medieval narrative prose. A close relationship with the language of Bernat Metge, especially in his first work Llibre de Fortuna e Prudència, an imitation of the Consolatio of Boethius, can be identified. A literary dependency of this book on the Dominican version, which was written some twenty years earlier, would even be possible. The Catalan version has been translated into Castilian and edited four times. A direct translation of the Consolatio into Castilian was only published in 1516 by Alberto de Aguayo.