Universal Vocabulario (1490) by Alfonso de Palencia and its connections with Nonio Marcelo’s late-Roman vocabulary

Abstract

The tradition of literary quotations in dictionaries stems back to Greek and Latin dictionaries of the Antiquity. In the Middle Ages, the most important dictionaries of Latin were based on a rather heterogeneous canon consisting of texts from the classical Antiquity and early Christian period as well as grammars and lexicographical works from the medieval period not reflecting the latinitas of Cicero and Vergil. The humanists aspired to restore the use of classical Latin, and set out to make the ancient classics available in the original. The invention of the printing press facilitated a wider distribution of ancient texts, which benefitted the development of better dictionaries that referred to "authoritative" texts. Around the same time, in 1470, a late Roman dictionary was published, which went unnoticed throughout the Middle Ages: De compendiosa doctrina by Nonius Marcellus. This dictionary is a compilation of vocabularies based systematically on quotations from "authoritative" texts from the period of the Roman Republic. Two years later, Alfonso de Palencia issued a dictionary of synonyms, De synonymis elegantibus libri III, which was clearly influenced by Nonius Marcellus's dictionary. In 1490, Palencia published his Universal Vocabulario en latín y en romance. This work is based on a medieval dictionary, but uses quotations from classical writers that are not taken from the original texts, but rather from Nonius Marcellus's work. The Universal Vocabulario is by no means the only dictionary which depends heavily on Nonius Marcellus's dictionary. During the following century, many authors – including Ambrosius Calepinus and Robert Estienne – drew on Nonius Marcellus's work. De compendiosa doctrina was the model which enabled humanist lexicographers to reactivate the principle of “authorities”, which in turn inspired the lexicography of European vernacular languages.