Textual Contamination and Ideological Censorship in the Epistula Hipparchi De Taxone (Montecassino, Biblioteca dell’ Abbazia, V. 97, PP. 532B-533A)
Authors
Arsenio Ferraces Rodríguez
University of Coruña Department of Letters Rúa Lisboa, 715008 - Coruña
Keywords:
De taxone , Medicine , Magic , Christianity , Paganism
Abstract
The Epistula Hipparchi De taxone – also known by the title De taxone – is a short anonymous text on medical uses of the badger, which belongs to the collection of pharmacological works coming from late antiquity and contained in numerous Medieval manuscripts and Renaissance editions. This article provides an examination, with the edition, of the version preserved in the manuscript of Montecassino, Biblioteca dell’Abbazia, V. 97, of the 10th century. It shows that the Cassinensis version is (1) contaminated, based on previous α and β manuscripts, and (2) abbreviated. The author deleted any original magical references to magic in order to provide a neutral therapeutical text, and defend Christian orthodoxy in the conflict with Paganism.
