John Malalas in the Excerpta Constantimana de Insidiis (El)

243

unpublished specimina, while Vat. gr. 1444 has Sosower’s Chapeau 2,11 a frequent kind
of watermark which Sosower also reports for S.
3. Vat. gr. 1444: a codex by the same group of scribes
What is more, in Vat. gr. 1444 the same paper as El is only in a section copied by Mau-
romates: the so-called De mysteriis of Jamblichus, or better his Answer to Porphyrins
(fols. 92-157).12
Both manuscripts have been corrected by Arnoldus Arlenius Peraxylus, who was at
Mendoza’s service in 1542-1547;13 later, Vat. gr. 1444 was owned by Guglielmo Sirleto,
together with the other manuscripts of Arlenius, presented to the Cardinal by Fulvio
Orsini.14
The collaborators of Mauromates are almost the same as in S: Nicholas Murmuris,
Petros Karnabakas, two anonymous scribes. Besides, the paper of Mauromates differs
from the rest ofVat.gr. 1444, almost like in S, where it is found in Ic) and lib), i.e. in
Mauromates’ El and in the last section by an anonymous scribe.
In Vat. gr. 1444 the letter of Jamblichus was copied by Mauromates for Mendoza,
apparently in Venice, from the antigraphon C (today Wien, Österreichische National-
bibliothek, Phil. gr. 264), a copy which came from Florence.15 Strangely enough, Men-
doza in Venice had a copy of a copy from Marsilius Ficinus’ exemplar and not one of
Bessarion’s manuscript (today Venice, Biblioteca Marciana, gr. 244).16 Yet, in the same
years Mendoza had borrowed several Bessarion’s manuscripts from the Marciana.17
11 Sosower, Signa ojpcinarum chartariarum, p. 209.
12 Sicherl, lamblichos, pp. 51-57. At the end of the Vat. gr. 1444 <Mauromates> writes fols. 216-287 (Astro-
logical miscellany).
13 Cataldi Palau, “loannes Mauromates”, pp. 340-347.
14 For the provenance Arlenius-Pinelli-Orsini-Sirleto-Colonna-Altemps-Vatican Library, see Lilia, Vati-
canigreci, pp. 588-592 and Luca, Guglielmo Sirleto, p. 172; for Vat. gr. 1444 see Luca, Silloge, p. 341.
15 Sicherl, lamblichos, pp. 37-42: it was written by Pietro da Portico, surnamed Candido, a Camaldulensis
monk from the monastery of Santa Maria degli Angeli, in Florence; he transcribed for three times the
same manuscript of Ficinus (today Rome, Biblioteca Vallicelliana, F 20). This, in turn, was the Floren-
tine copy of the archetypus, which was in Florence at the middle of the 15th century. See Saffrey, “La
tradition manuscrite”, pp. LXXVII-LXXX.
Pietro Candido (+1512) and his Greek manuscripts have been recently studied by Speranzi, Manoscritti
greci', the monk is often confused with Pietro Candido Decembrio (1399-1477), see Carlucci, Prolego-
mena Schott, p. 294 n. 71, with bibliography.
16 Sicherl, lamblichos, p. 206 (stemma codicuni)', pp. 22-37 (V i-e. Ficinus’copy, see above n. 15).
17 Graux, Escorial, p. 410: in 1545, Mendoza had in loan a “Liber magnus et diserptus sine principio et fine,
siglato n° /575z”, which he returned in a month. But this item has nothing to do with El, as the inven-
tory of 1545/6 explains (Labowsky p. 357): “Liber magnus discerptus, sine principio et fine, cum com-
mento, in papyro”. This cannot be the model of S, given the total absence of a commentary.
The register of loans in Marciana is preserved from 1545; Canfora, Fozio ritrovato, p. 38 (with bibliogra-
phy): shortly before 1543, Arlenius-Mendoza had the Library of Photius copied directly from the two
manuscripts of Bessarion in Marciana.