Un’esposizione duecentesca del decalogo

Among the Florentine vernacular texts copied into the MS. BNCF II.iv.111 by a certain Maestro Fantino da San Friano in 1274 or 1275 is a short exposition of the Decalogue, possibly the earliest example of its kind. This treatise, which also appears in the MS. I.VI.4 of the Biblioteca Comunale in Siena, presents the commandments not in the order in which the appear in the Bible, but divided between praecepta negativa and praecepta adfirmativa. The exposition is complicated and often contradictory and shows how in the 13th century A.D. there could still be room for even radical experimentation in religious matters.