La traduzione rutena della Historia Trium Regum di Johannes da Hildesheim. Una ricostruzione preliminare

This paper addresses several preliminary aims in the consideration of the Povest’ o trex korolex volxvax, a Ruthenian translation from the Latin Historia Trium Regum of Johannes de Hildesheim, of the last quarter of the 15th century. The codex containing this known translation (Q.I.391, conserved in the Russian Public Library in Petersburg) itself holds considerable importance concerning the history of relations between the Romance-language/Germanic literary cultures (both Latin and vernacular) and the Eastern Slavic orthodox culture. Soon after, in Muscovy, the account of the “Three Kings” was twice recopied, resulting in a total of three manuscripts still extant. Although, in 1903, the literary historian Vladimir Peretc prepared an accurate edition of the Q.I.391 Povest’, he could not at that time compare the text with the two Muscovite texts. The current paper aims to: 1) provide amended descriptions of the two Muscovite manuscripts; 2) prove, through textual criticism, that these two manuscripts were drawn from a codex interpositus, and that this interpositus and the text of Q.I. 391 had both been drawn from an archetypal translation in Ruthenian; 3) note several specificities of the Ruthenian translation in comparison to the original Latin.