A 15th-century Codex

Among the manuscripts treasured by the Biblioteca Nazionale Universitaria of Turin, there is a codex dating from the early 15th century, entitled De insulis et earum proprietatibus (‘Of islands and their properties’) – possibly complimenting Giovanni Boccaccio’s De montibus et silvis, de fontibus et lacubus et fluminibus ac etiam de stagnis et paludibus nec non et de maribus seu diversis maris nominibus. It was written by Florentine Domenico Silvestri. I came across and consulted this MS in December 1995.

The De insulis and other codices had escaped the fire which destroyed other manuscripts and the church of Santo Spirito in the second half of the 15th century. It had another very narrow escape when the Biblioteca in Turin caught fire on the night between Monday 25 and Tuesday 26 January 1904.

In this manuscript – a sort of an encyclopedia with information about islands – reference is made to both of the islands of Malta and Gozo. Although the indication may not be precise, Silvestri cites an island where, he writes, the shipwreck of St Paul took place.

In the days of the Florentine writer, it was known as Mitellino. This does not seem to match with the author’s opinion: ‘quod mihi non bene congruit’. Most of the facts given under this name are related to the passage taken from the Acts of the Apostles, where Luke narrates St Paul’s shipwreck on an island, the welcome he was given by the inhabitants, the bonfire the people lit to warm themselves, the viper that went up the Apostle’s hand and the healing of Publius’ father (Silvestri states ‘brother’). This could have been taken from one of the ‘Vulgata Latina’ – Latin Vulgate – copies of the Bible of the times. Silvestri wrote when printing was not yet ‘invented’, and the small number of copies of Latin translations available and perhaps within reach of the few who could read were chained to benches. Silvestri summarised this biblical event in his own words.

Silvestri says that together with Paul there were only 76 men (as in ancient versions), while, in fact, Luke states there were 276.

Besides, Silvestri states that a) the shipwrecked themselves lit the bonfire to warm themselves while St Luke narrates: ‘And the natives showed us unusual kindness, for they kindled a fire and welcomed us all,’ (Acts of the Apostles, 28: 1-2) and b) St Paul healed Publius’ brother of ‘fluxum ventris et intestinorum excoriationem’, while in the Acts, the version states that the Apostle healed Publius’ father of ‘febribus et dysenteria’ (‘Publius’ father lay sick with fever and dysentery’).

The account

An English version of his account – in his own words – is the following:

‘Mytilene is the island which as some say is today called Mitellino; this does not match well with my opinion. It is situated in the Aegean sea, a part of the Adriatic sea; I do not believe Pliny thought so. Near this island there extends a certain elbow-shaped shore by name Bitalassus ...; here two stormy seas meet from either side. When the winds blow, approach to the island is difficult, because the waves break on the shore alternately.

‘In that place the Alexandrine ship carrying the apostle Paul with 76 men on his way to Rome ran aground after having been tossed by storms on the peak of those billows. Through Paul’s prayers all of them swam safely to this island; only the ship was lost. Dripping with sea-water, they rested on the shore, and to warm themselves, first they struck a spark out of flint and made a fire with the dry leaves put around as fuel; they readily created flames from tinder.

‘But it happened that a snake hidden in the stalks, while escaping from the heat, attacked Paul’s hand as he pressed down little bundles of shrub twigs. Paul shook it off into the fire.

‘In fact, the inhabitants who were on the spot, not oblivious of his human nature, thought that he would immediately become swollen and die there and then, as usual. They blamed Paul with words saying that he was guilty of some crime since he had escaped from the danger of the sea and met a beast’s bite. Moreover, when they saw that he was unhurt and suffered no harm, they cried out: “Unless God is here, he would have died.” He performed many miracles for those who came together to him, while he warned them that he was not a god, but he was called God’s messenger. He healed especially Publius’ brother who was suffering from fever, stomach haemorrhage and burning intestinal pain; Publius was the chief of the island.’

Domenico Silvestri

Domenico Silvestri was born of a humble family in Florence about 1335. He was married twice and had several children. He was most involved in public life between 1370 and 1400.

Silvestri was a prolific poet. His works in low Latin include a sonnet addressed to Adriano de Rossi and the translation of Petrarch’s Latin Invective contra medicum. But the most important work of his is the De insulis, which is also in Latin.

It has been estimated that Silvestri took more than 20 years to finish the De insulis, and from information given in the corpus the work might have been executed between 1385 and 1406. Due to the fact that some islands had in the past been referred to by different names, together with the limited knowledge of the world of the times, it was very difficult, if not even impossible, to gather with precision all the information and variants in one relative insertion.

Silvestri quotes Greek and Latin authors of antiquity, together with the ‘modern’ and contemporary writers, scrupulously. These include Pliny, Pomponius Mela, Solinus, Isidor from Seville, Guido from Ravenna, Papia, Marco Polo, Boccaccio, Livy, Quinto Curzio Rufo, Eusebius, Egesippus, Justin, Orosius, Paolo Diacono and others. Still, Silvestri does not simply collect and reproduce the information given by them.