Paulinus Minorita (aka Paolino Veneto) References

Paolino's earliest work is Trattato de regimine rectoris ('treatise on the conduct of a lord'). ^[17] It is a treatise on government of the mirror for princes genre.^[18] It was written between 1313 and 1315 in Venetian (with a Latin prologue) and dedicated to the Venetian duke of Candia, a member of the Badoer family named Marino.^[19] It is divided into three sections on governing oneself, governing one's family and political governance.^[20] Its structure and content are based on the De regimine principum of Giles of Rome or possibly on the French translation by Henri de Gauchi.^[18] Compared to Giles, Paolino is pithy and practical.^[21]

Paolino wrote three universal chronicles in Latin.^[22] He worked on the project from 1306 to 1331.^[16] In chronological order the three are the Epithoma, Compendium and Satirica.^[23]

• The Notabilium historiarum Epithoma ('epitome of notable histories') runs from Creation to the death of the Emperor Henry VII in 1313.^[24] Completed before 1316, it is the most traditional of the three and is based on Vincent of Beauvais's Speculum historiale.^[16] It is preserved in four 14th-century manuscripts, all now in Florence.^[25]


• The Compendium^[4] or Chronologia magna ('great chronology') covers the same period as the Epithoma with the addition of a section on Outremer, a mappa mundi and a map of the Holy Land.^[21] It was completed between 1321 and 1323, but updated later.^[2] It survives in both long and short versions^[4] in five manuscripts, including what is probably an autograph, Biblioteca Marciana MS lat. 399.^[21] There also survives a translation and adaptation in Old Occitan.^[4] The Occitan version, L'Abreujamen de las estorias, survives in a single manuscript Egerton MS 1500 that was produced in Avignon between 1321 and 1324.^[26]


• The Satirica rerum gestarum ('satyricon of the deeds of the world') runs from Creation to 1320.^[27] It is divided into 238 chapters.^[16] Paolino finished working on it only after his election as bishop.^[28] It differs from the others by the inclusion of some saints' lives, notably that of Francis of Assisi, and an account of Pietro da Macerata and Pietro da Fossombrone, founders of the Fraticelli, whom Paolino regarded as heretics. It is preserved in four 14th-century and five 15th-century manuscripts.^[21] The manuscript Vat. lat. 1960 in the Vatican Library includes a notice of the martyrdom of Thomas of Tolentino in India in 1321.^[29]

The impetus for Paolino to write an expanded version of his Epithoma, which resulted in the Compendium and Satirica, was his meeting with Marino Sanudo and his review of Sanudo's Liber secretorum, which resulted in a correspondence between the two. These interactions broadened Paolino's geographical scope.^[16]

No complete edition of any of the chronicles exists, owing in part to the complexity of the manuscripts, which are replete with large tables.^[16] Certain excerpts have been extracted and published separately.^[9]

Paolino was widely used as a source in the 14th and 15th centuries. His contemporary, Andrea Dandolo, cites the Satirica in his Chronica per extensum descripta. He was also used by Poggio Bracciolini, Coluccio Salutati and Jan Długosz.^[4] Boccaccio had a mixed opinion of Paolino as a historian. In the eighth chapter of Book XIV of his Genealogie deorum gentilium, published around 1363, he praised him, but he left critical remarks in his own copy of Paolino's Compendium. He considered him often to be, in the words of Roberta Morosini, "confused and ignorant". Nonetheless, he copied the account of the life of Muḥammad in Paolino's Satirica into one of his notebooks, the Zibaldone Magliabechiano, under the title De Maumeth propheta Saracenorum.^[30]

The Epithoma and Satirica today are not highly valued for their historical information. The Compendium, however, does contain some valuable information on early Franciscan history.^[9]

The so-called fifth biography of Pope Clement V (1305–1314) and the fourth of John XXII (1316–1334) are in fact extracts from the Satirica that circulated independently.^[31]

Paolino's works on the Franciscans are more valuable today as sources of information than his universal chronicles. His Provinciale ordinis fratrum minorum catalogues the provinces, custodies and convents of the contemporary Franciscan order.^[9] It was produced around 1334. Paolino is probably also responsible for compiling the Liber privilegiorum ordinis Minorum found in the manuscript Pontificia Biblioteca Antoniana [it], MS 49. Written around 1323, it contains copies of papal privileges granted to the Franciscans.^[4]

Paolino also wrote an outline of the ecclesiastical provinces and diocese subject to Rome, entitled Provinciale Romanae curiae.^[4]

Paolino wrote four standalone treatises as supplements to the Satirica, to which they were usually appended: De mapa mundi ('on world maps'), De ludo scachorum ('on the game of chess'), De diis gentium et fabulis poetarum ('on the gods of the pagans and the fables of the poets') and De providentia et fortuna ('on providence and fate').^[32]

Eubel, Konrad, ed. (1892). Provinciale ordinis fratrum minorum. Florence: Quaracchi.

Mussafia, Adolfo, ed. (1868). Trattato de regimine rectoris di Fra Paolino Minorita. Vienna and Florence.

• Anderson, David (1996). "Fra Paolino's 'De Providentia et fortuna'". Das Mittelalter. 1 (1): 51–74. doi:10.1524/mial.1996.1.1.51. S2CID 171003084.
• Botana, Federico (2013). "The Making of L'Abreujamen de las estorias (Egerton MS. 1500)" (PDF). Electronic British Library Journal. 17: 1–32.
• Bruni, Gerardo (1935). "Paolino Minorita". Enciclopedia Italiana. Vol. 26: Paleo–Pete. Rome: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana.
• Cecchini, Francesca (1998). "Paolino Veneto". Enciclopedia dell'Arte Medievale. Vol. 9: Osso–Ribāṭ. Rome: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana.
• Daniel, E. Randolph (2010). "Paulinus of Venice". In Graeme Dunphy (ed.). Encyclopedia of the Medieval Chronicle. Vol. 2: J–Z. Leiden: Brill. pp. 1193–1194.
• Fontana, Emanuele (2014). "Paolino da Venezia, vescovo di Pozzuoli". Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani, Volume 81: Pansini–Pazienza (in Italian). Rome: Istituto dell'Enciclopedia Italiana. ISBN 978-8-81200032-6.
• Ghinato, Alberto (1951). Fr. Paolino da Venezia O.F.M., vescovo di Pozzuoli († 1344). Rome.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
• Ibarz, Alexander (2013). "The Provenance of the Abreujamens de las estorias (London, British Library, Egerton MS. 1500) and the Identification of Scribal Hands (c. 1323)". Electronic British Library Journal. 17: 1–26.
• Lea, Henry Charles (2010) [1888]. A History of the Inquisition of the Middle Ages. Vol. 2. Cambridge University Press.
• Lock, Peter, ed. (2016) [2011]. Marino Sanudo Torsello, The Book of the Secrets of the Faithful of the Cross: Liber Secretorum Fidelium Crucis. New York and Oxford: Routledge.
• Menache, Sophia (1998). Clement V. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
• Miller, Suzanne Mariko (2007). Venice in the East Adriatic: Experiences and Experiments in Colonial Rule in Dalmatia and Istria (c. 1150–1358) (PhD dissertation). Stanford University.
• Mollat, Guillaume (1917). Étude critique sur les Vitae Paparum Avenionensium d'Étienne Baluze. Paris: Letouzey.
• Morosini, Roberta (2013). "Giovanni Boccaccio". In David Thomas; Alex Mallett (eds.). Christian–Muslim Relations: A Bibliographical History. Vol. 5 (1350–1500). Leiden: Brill. pp. 76–87. doi:10.1163/1877-8054_cmri_COM_24574.
• Morosini, Roberta; Ciccuto, Marcello, eds. (2020). Paolino Veneto: Storico, Narratore e Geografo. Rome: L'Erma di Bretschneider.
• Smith, J. J. (2003). "Paulinus of Venice". New Catholic Encyclopedia. Vol. 11: Pau–Red (2nd ed.). Farmington Hills, MI: Gale. p. 39.
• von den Brincken, Anna-Dorothee (2000). "Paulinus Minorita of Venice". In John Block Friedman; Kristen Mossler Figg (eds.). Trade, Travel, and Exploration in the Middle Ages: An Encyclopedia. New York: Routledge. pp. 470–472.