«Summa cronicarum» : un’opera incompiuta e perduta di Galvano Fiamma

In eleven points of his Cronica universalis sive generalis, the Dominican friar Galvaneus de la Flamma (Milan, ca. 1282-1345) refers to a mysterious Summa cronicarum, otherwise unknown. References analysis leads to the conclusion that the Summa is not an external source quoted by Galvano, but a work of himself, now lost; the author refers to it for widening the topic in the Universalis he is dealing with. Since references are only to Summa’s prima pars, the work was likely never finished; actually, nor the Cronica universalis is. The cross references enable us to understand the contents of the Summa (a discussion per questiones related to ancient biblical history) and its internal organization (the same as the Thomas Aquinas’ Summa theologie, structured in partes, questiones and articuli). Writing the Summa cronicarum, Galvaneus probably intended to support a historiographic text (the Cronica universalis) with a parallel philosophical treatise; on the same line, the author had previously added to a chronicle of Milanese argument (the so-called Cronica Galvagnana) a treaty per questiones on local history (the Cronica extravagans).