834707768

13 Cosmographies in Romanian 165

of the Synopsis of Kiev — which is actually totally different from Gheorghe Brancovici’s work Hronica Sloveanilor (The Chronicie of the Slovens), a fact already demonstrated by P. P. Panaitescu sińce 1940³⁹ It seems that about 1700 a first Romanian version of the Synopsis was madę followed by two others in the second half of the 18th century.

The later partial or total copies of such translations, as well as the print-ing of an abridged variant in 1837 (which mentions several analogies with Botero’s work) contributed to the spreading in our culture of short praise-worthy presentations about Asia, Africa and Europa in the exact succession inherited from the Antiąuity. America is reminded only as "lumea cea noao ... fara de scrisoare" (the new world... without description) (Rom. ms. BAR 1014 f. 14^r/21 —24).

If in the manuscript of §chei (ms. 1436) and those related to it, only some descriptions of Asia are preserved from the Cosmographiesj in other two manuscripts (Rom. ms. B.A.R. 1135 — copied between 1796—1787 by Ioachim Barbatescu, a monk in the monastery Bistrifa in Oltenia — and the Rom. ms. B.A.R. 2000 — copied probably in Moldavia in the early years of the 19th century) we find only descriptions of Lybia, Ethiopia and Egypt having common as well as different parts. In order to describe the monastery of Sinai the two manuscripts use different sources.

Side by side previous manuscripts (that totally ignored or just left aside the information on the New World), by the end of the 18th century some translations circulated containing data on this continent as well as on other geographical places.

Even in the manuscript 1267 (previously ąuoted in connection with Botero’s book) two pages are copied by Anatolie of R&mnic too which con-tain fragments of a Gheografie (Geography). The first page (f. 366) contains a short prcsentation of Asia, probably a version of a text existing in the list of conventional signs accompanying a map or a Ptolemaic "tabula”, from a

similar work with P. Apianus’ Cosmografia. The title of the fragment on A-

sia in ms. 1267 is Tabla 15.

On f. 367 of the abę>ve-mentioned manuscript we have another fragment than the one on f. 366 (running titles: Gheografia) representing the end of a short description of the Americas: *'Ostroavele Bermudesti asijderea sa stapanescu de agliceani, ostroavele Califęynia care sint aflate de ghispanti ęi altele” (the Bermudas Islands belonging to the English, the California Isles discovered by the Spaniards a.s.o.).

We should mention the introduction in the translation from Botero’s book (ms. 1267, f. 122—123) where the voyages madę by Columbus, Magel-lanus and other sailors are mentioned. Yet the Romanian translator stopped probably before the pages on the discovery of America, a chapter which is left empty by Anatolie of Ramnic, in contrast with Antim of Cozia (ms. 1267, f. 349-r365^v).

³⁹ P. P. Panaitescu, Istoria slavilor in rom&nepte in secolul al XVIIAea_i in Revista is-1oric5 romAnS”, X, 1940, pp. 80—129. See also the Romanian manuscripts existing in B.A.R. under the nos: 3671, 4649, 3229.