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162 C&tcHina Velculesco, V. Guruianu 10

Special mention should be madę for the name Ustia (ms. 1436), attribu-ted to an austral star, in opposition to Tramandana that can be seen only in ciur hemisphere. In case we consider it as a corrupt form, this can be re-lated either to the Latin ustio "buming” (or to another derivative of the root ust- of the verb urerc “to set to fire; to bum; to dry") or to the Slavonic word oycT — meaning "mouth, river mouth". May be we should not ex-clude the possibility of a Latin word ostia "mouth (es) of a river" which is explained and appears in Isidor of Sevilla's work; this latter is freąuently used by Apianus in his Cosmography. ³¹ Finally, the same word can be rela-ted to the Greek noun 'Earta (Hestia) which applies (in the astronomie model attributed to Philolaos, a follower ©f Pytagoras — 5th century B.C.) to fire in the centre of the Universe and can be seen only in the Southern hemisphere. It is encircled by ten heavenly bodies among which the Earth and the Sun (See Pierre Devambez, Robert Flacelidre, Pierre Maxim Schuhl Roland Martin, Dictionnaire de la civilization greegue, Paris, 1966, pp. 65—66; and also A. Bailly, Dictionnaire grec-franęais, Paris, 1950, p. 816).

Ali these Slavonic, Italian, Latin and Greek traces in the manuscript copied by Costea Dascalul shall be properly interpreted only when we get morę information of the foreign source existing at the basis of the Romanian ver-sion.

In contrast with the text copied in Brasov where brief geographical information existed side by side short historical facts and "fairy tales" the geography translated from the first part of Botero's book Le relationi umver-sali comes closer to the modem aspect of this scientific domain. The Romanian text contains two additional chapters about the Romanian provinces (one small-size fragment on Wallachia and a morę detailed one about Moldavia). It is preserved in a manuscript dating at the beginning of the 18th century (Rom. ms. B.A.R. 3515) which resembles the one copied by Antim Ieromo-nahul in 1766— 1767 at the Monastery of Cozia (Rom. ms. B.A.R. 1556), We leam from is that Antim Ieromonahul "when he became abbot ar Amota was murdered in his bed by two gypsies and two Romanians". In the copy madę by Antim (ms. 1556) the chapter on Wallachia is bigger than the exis-ting one in ms. 3515; it contains additional and interesting information on monasteries and boroughs. Some of it probably belongs to Antim himself (for instance it makes references to an event of 1764) but it is possible that another information might be older than ms. 3515. The list of the boroughs in Wallachia is interrupted by the assertion "there are other boroughs not mentioned here" (f. 84/11—12). Both the lines prior to this assertion and the following ones are reproduced in ms. 1556 (f. 86/1 and 88/6) too. It is possible that in ms. 3515 an elimination of a morę detailed description exist-ing in an earlier source might be pointed out, but it is also possible that some-'one (noticing the brief chapter dealing with Wallachia as compared to the chapter on Moldavia) should have replaced a simple statement by a description of the missing places.

⁸¹ Isidor of Sevilla, op. cit., col, 525; Petrus Apianus, Gemma Frisius, Cosmographia, Antwerpen, 1584, pp. 135, 137; Miron Costin (Opere edited by P. P. Panaitescu) ąuotes tbe place called Ustia on tbe baaiks of the Nistru. See also, “Manuscriptum", 1991, loc. cit. ’