Commentatore per professione: temi ricorrenti e luoghi paralleli nelle expositiones di Nicola Trevet OP (c. 1258 – post 1334)

Abstract

Jakub Kujawiński: A Commentator by Profession: Recurrent Topics and Parallel Places in the Expositions of Nicholas Trevet OP (c. 1258 – after 1334)

Nicholas Trevet’s commentaries range from biblical exegeses to expositions of the authors of Christian and Classical antiquity. Previous scholarship, however, has paid insufficient attention to how Trevet pro-duced this variety in a relatively short time. The issue can be addressed by looking at select topics that recur in several commentaries. First, by comparing the explanations of the labours of Hercules in the commen-taries on Boethius’s Consolation, Seneca’s Tragedies, and St Augustine’s City of God, this study reveals how Trevet accumulated and reused his knowledge of classical culture. Second, by examining the information Trevet provides about Livy, this article shows how Trevet dealt with the scarce evidence relating to the Roman historian that was available in his times. In his early commentary on St Jerome’s Letter to Paulinus, for example, Trevet used uncommon sources, viz. Seneca the Elder’s Controversiae and Flavius Josephus, but he was not directly familiar with Livy’s work. He only came to know the Livian corpus when commissioned to expound on the first and third decades and gradually developed an approximate idea of the work’s original scope, as illustrated in the commentary on the City of God. This comparative approach enables a more comprehensive understanding of Trevet’s legacy.