La versione di Dzierlaw del Livre di Jean Mandeville : una traduzione latina della redazione tedesca di Otto von Diemeringen

The paper presents a new branch of the wide European diffusion of Jean de Mandeville’s Livre des merveilles du Monde: it is a Latin translation from Otto von Diemeringen’s Middle-German version of the Livre. The author is Dzierław Makocic, from the vicariate of Skalbmierski in southern Poland, who worked on the translation before 1464. His work is currently preserved into three manuscripts (two in Wrocław and one in L’viv) bearing an incomplete text, perhaps because Dzierław didn’t complete his work: of the original five Diemeringen’s books, only three are preserved in manuscripts that have most of the Dzierław’s translation. Beside this long translation a L’viv manuscript contains a Latin compendium made by Dzierław himself from Diemeringen’s version. A fifth manuscript, now in Krakow, shows a mixed version: the Dzierław’s long translation is interrupted by a compendium made by Maciej Pałęcki, Polish student and copyist of the codex. The paper gives a description of the five manuscripts, with particular attention to the L’viv ones, analyzed in person. Dzierław’s modus operandi is shown through comparison of some passages of the long translation, the abridged one and Diemeringen’s original Middle-German text.