L’ARS PRISCIANI NELL’OPERA DI PIETRO DA PISA (CON UN’APPENDICE SU PAOLO DIACONO)

Limited and mostly indirect is the knowledge of Priscian’s Ars that is believed to underlie grammar teaching in the earliest centuries of the Middle Ages. This contribution seeks to highlight the role played by Peter of Pisa in the dissemination of Priscian’s major work within the court of Charlemagne. We focus on Peter’s grammatical works, demons trating that they draw directly on Priscian’s Ars. The first part of the article analyses the composition methodology of the Quaestiunculae in Priscianum, transmitted by the manu script Brussel, Koninklijke Bibliotheek van België, II 2572. This work represents an attempt to abridge and rewrite books 1-16 of the Ars Prisciani in a question-and-answer format. Such a broad and deep engagement with Priscian’s text had instead a rather limited influence on the composition of Peter’s Ars grammatica. The second part of the article addresses the relationship of Peter’s indirect testimony with the direct tradition of Priscian’s Ars, placing it in the stemma codicum of the Ars and discussing the consequences that can be drawn from this with regard to the history of the transmission of the Ars and some aspects of the constitution of its new critical text. The paper is completed by two appendices: the first one lists Priscian’s passages used by Peter; the second one analyses the relationship of the excerpta collected by Paul the Deacon with those by Peter and with Priscian’s manuscripts.