multum dormit.  Et dicitur sic quod sompnus facit glires pingues et crescere.’  Here is another piece of natural history.  ’Irundo ab aer dicitur:  quia non residens sed in aere capiens cibos edat, quasi in aere edens.’  There is simplicity in the following:  ‘Nix a nubes, quia a nube venit.’  Again:  ’Ouis ab offero vel obluo:  quia antiquitus in inicio non tauri sed oues in sacrificio mactarentur.  Priscianus vero dicit quod descendit a Greco ... oys.’  Besides his philology the good Dominican was also a theologian; and when he comes to the words upon which his world was built, he cannot dismiss them as lightly as the snow.  So Antichristus has two columns, that is to say a folio page:  confiteor 11/2, conscientia 21/4, ordo 21/2, virgo two columns.

Much light is thrown on Balbi’s work by the dictionary of his predecessor, Huguitio of Pisa, Bishop of Ferrara (d. 1210).  The title of this, Liber deriuationum, indicates its character.  Instead of the alphabetical principle the words are arranged according to their etymology; all that are assigned to a given root being grouped together.  This made it necessary, or at any rate desirable, to find a derivation for every word; and with ingenuity to aid this was done as far as possible.  Besides derivatives even compounds came under the simple root; and in consequence it must have been extremely difficult to find a word unless one already knew a good deal about it.  It is no wonder that the book was never printed; although it occurs frequently in the catalogues of mediaeval libraries.

A few examples will suffice.  Under capio are found capax, captiuus, capillus, caput with all its derivatives, anceps, praeceps, principium, caper, capus, caupo, cippus, scipio, sceptrum; and even cassis and catena.  Similarly under nubo come nubes, nebula, nebulo, nix, niger, nimpha, limpha, limpidus.  With such a book as one’s only support it was clearly of the highest importance to be good at etymology; with ouis, for instance, not to be troubled by Priscian’s fanciful derivation from the Greek, but to know that it came from offero, and was therefore to be found under fero; or again to look for hirundo under aer.  Nor need we be surprised at the strange derivations upon which arguments were sometimes founded:  that Sprenger, the inquisitor, could explain femina ‘quia minorem habet et seruat fidem’; or the preacher over whom Erasmus’ Folly makes merry, find authority for burning heretics in the Apostle’s command ‘Haereticum deuita’.

We are now in a position to understand Balbi’s performance in the Catholicon.  From the apologetic tone of his preface it is clear that he felt Huguitio’s work to be the really scientific thing, the only book that a scholar would consult:  but evidently experience had shown the difficulty of using it, and therefore for the weakness of lesser men like himself he reverted to the sequence of the alphabet.  In cumbering himself with derivations, too, he shows that he knows his place.  He may have had a glimmering that some of them were absurd; and that Priscian with his reference to the Greek was a safer guide.  But to a scholar brought up on Huguitio derivations were of the first importance; and to leave them out would have been only another mark of inferiority.