Explanation and Origins of The "Indovinello" (Riddle)
The lines of this riddle tell us of a somebody with a "pair of oxen" (boves) who used to plow "white fields" (alba pratalia) with a "white plow" (albo versorio), sowing a "black seed" (negro semen). This person is the writer himself, the monk whose business is to copy old manuscripts. The two oxen are his fingers which draw a white feather (the white plow) across the page (the white fields), leaving black ink marks (black seed).
This document dates to the late 8th-early 9th century and was followed by a small thanksgiving prayer in Latin: gratias tibi agimus omnip(oten)s sempiterne d(eu)s. These lines were written on codex LXXXIX (89) of the Biblioteca Capitolare di Verona. The parchment, discovered by Schiapparelli in 1924 is a Mozarabic oration by the Spanish Christian Church, i.e. a document in a Romance language first written in Spain in an area influenced by the Moorish culture, probably around Toledo. It was then brought to Cagliari and then Pisa before reaching the Chapter of Verona.
Read more about this topic: Veronese Riddle
Famous quotes containing the words explanation and/or origins:
“Herein is the explanation of the analogies, which exist in all the arts. They are the re-appearance of one mind, working in many materials to many temporary ends. Raphael paints wisdom, Handel sings it, Phidias carves it, Shakspeare writes it, Wren builds it, Columbus sails it, Luther preaches it, Washington arms it, Watt mechanizes it. Painting was called “silent poetry,” and poetry “speaking painting.” The laws of each art are convertible into the laws of every other.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“Compare the history of the novel to that of rock ‘n’ roll. Both started out a minority taste, became a mass taste, and then splintered into several subgenres. Both have been the typical cultural expressions of classes and epochs. Both started out aggressively fighting for their share of attention, novels attacking the drama, the tract, and the poem, rock attacking jazz and pop and rolling over classical music.”
—W. T. Lhamon, U.S. educator, critic. “Material Differences,” Deliberate Speed: The Origins of a Cultural Style in the American 1950s, Smithsonian (1990)