Il metodo ecdotico di Quentin: gli Essais de critique textuelle (Ecdotique)

Henri Quentin, historian and hagiographer, was also the creator of an innovative philological method based on principles of mechanism and objectivity. The first exposition of the method was published in the 1922 Mémoire sur l’établissement du texte de la Vulgate. Quentin’s method was used under the author’s supervision only in two cases: the edition of the Octateuch of the Vulgate and the commented edition of the Martyrologium Hieronymianum. The system has been bitterly contested since its first appearance. Quentin, intimately convinced of the goodness of his philological method, to defend himself from the criticisms received after the publication of the Mémoire…, published the Essais de Critique textuelle (Ecdotique), that contain the most complete attempt of formalization of the method by its author. The work had an effect opposite to that sought: the dormant criticism was renewed, and the condemnation of the method was expressed without appeal. The Quentin’s method was never affirmed, nevertheless its author could count on admirers, followers and epigones. This contribution traces the debate that took place around the Quentin ecdotic system and the reasons that led to its condemnation from the publication of Essais in 1926 to the death of its author in 1935.