The Extractiones de Talmud and their relationship to the Hebrew Talmud manuscripts of the biblioteca Nazionale Centrale of Florence (MS Magl. coll. II.I.7, 8 and 9)

© 2017 CSIC. The Talmud manuscripts Magl. coll. II.I.8 and 9 of the Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale of Florence contain marginal Talmud-translations in Latin which correspond to the 13th century translation Extractiones de Talmud. The two manuscripts are described and their textual evidence is compared both with the Latin manuscript tradition of the Extractiones and with the Hebrew/Aramaic Talmudic text which they contain, trying to answer the question of whether the Florence manuscripts are the Vorlage of the Latin translation of the Talmud. The matter reveals itself as complex: striking analogies seem to suggest an affirmative answer to the question at stake; however, evidence can also be found which rather supports the opposite conclusion. Nevertheless, the Florence manuscripts certainly belong to a Hebrew/Aramaic tradition which is very close to the Vorlage of the Extractiones. Moreover, the Latin text they offer in their magins reflects a prior stage of work in the production of the Extractiones, featuring unique variants and passages, which are corrected or omitted in the rest of the Latin manuscript tradition.