A Venetian in the Hungarian Kingdom? Cerbanus Cerbano and his Biography

Abstract

This study pieces together the biography of a certain Cerbanus who translated Byzantine Greek works into Latin between 1131 and 1150 in the Hungarian Kingdom. The author argues for the scholarly view that the Cerbanus Cerbano of Venetian origin is the same person as the Cerbanus who gifted Abbot David of Pannonhalma with the translation of Maximos Confessor’s Chapters on Charity. The identity can be the most convincingly argued on the basis of the expertise in Greek and Latin and the literary interest which characterized both people. This claim, according to all likelihood, shall be bolstered by the stylistic analysis of the works which survived under Cerbanus’ name. The second argument which supports the two people’s identity is the lack of chronological discrepancy between the two biographies. Therefore, those can be sewn together and summarized as follows.

Cerbanus Cerbano was born to a noble Venetian family. Among his ancestors a patriarch of Grado and another member of the Venetian elite are documented, while Cerbanus himself was a priest. The cleric spent some time in the courts of emperor Alexios I Komnenos and John II Komnenos and it can not be discarded that he used his expertise in Greek and Latin. Cerbanus joined the Venetian expedition to the Holy Land (1122–1125) on their return in Rhodos. The fleet wintered at Chios where Cerbanus privately decided to steal the relics of Isidoros. With that, the cleric roused the doge to anger. Presumably as member of the expedition, Cerbanus returned to Venice in 1125 where he wrote, or finished the account telling the relics’ theft (Translatio Isidori). The next detail we have about Cerbanus is the introductory letter to his translation of Maximos Confessor’s Chapters on Charity which tells that the priest was the guest of David, the abbot of the Benedictine monastery of Pannonhalma in Hungary. Cerbanus travelled to Pásztó where he found Maximos’ manuscript he translated. In all likelihood, Cerbanus also made his partial translation of John Damascene’s On the Orthodox Faith in the Hungarian Kingdom. Cerbanus’ translation of Maximos is dated to 1131–1150, whereas his Damascene-interpretation before 1145.