Tradizioni testuali e (ri)scrittura della storia. Il caso del Breve chronicon de rebus Siculis

Scholars have long studied the so-called Breve chronicon de rebus Siculis as a key source for im-portant historical information, including the crusade of Frederick II. At the same time, however, this source provides crucial and concrete clues that identify the typical process involved in the re-writing of chronicles. Two main manuscripts transmit this work, yet each manuscript offers widely variable texts at several junctures. The conclusion of the Breve chronicon de rebus Siculis, for example, is to-tally discordant in the two manuscripts, but throughout each manuscript their scribes transmit factu-al data in remarkably different manners. For instance, one can look at the place in which the chroni-cler speaks of the destruction of Siponto and the exile of its inhabitants: the years of exile and the names of the sovereigns who allowed their return vary in the two manuscripts, but the changes are absolutely congruent with chronology. If we look at this phenomenon abstractly, regardless of how medieval chronicles effectively circulated and how they were copied, at least one of the two texts altered the historical information. However, this text does not constitute a “forgery” since the philo-logical interpretation of a chronicle is completely different from the interpretation of a document. The writing of history is an irrepressible part of the human experience and anyone who holds a pen in his hands feels compelled to write information on the present and past. But at the same time in which he retrieves and transcribes information, he also starts to alter everything because in the pro-cess of composition, he ultimately expresses an essential part of himself. Furthermore, a copying scribe, especially if he is not a professional one, selects and summarizes news in order to adapt them to his own interests and his own world.