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The Sources of the Secret des Secrets of Jofroi de Watreford

Hamilton, George L.

A French version of the pseudo-Aristotelian, Secretum Secretorum, made in the second half of the thirteenth century by the Dominican Jofroi de Watreford, assisted in some way by Servale Copale, has attracted more attention than it would have otherwise done owing to a statement of the principal author in the dedicatory introduction.

This general statement upon the sources of the work has been misunderstood, and has called forth unnecessary explanations, because more specific statements in other parts of the work have not been noted. The passage cited above was probably the only authority on which the historian of the Dominican order based his assertion that Jofroi knew both Arabic and Greek, and Knust believed it sufficient evidence for the existence of a Greek Secretum Secretorum.

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Title
Romanic Review

More About This Work

Academic Units
French and Romance Philology
Publisher
Columbia University Press
Published Here
July 15, 2015

Notes

Source: gallica.bnf.fr / Bibliothèque nationale de France