An Astrological Path to Wisdom. Richard de Fournival, Roger Bacon and the Attribution of the Pseudo-Ovidian De vetula

This paper discusses the main data concerning the transmission of the pseudo-Ovidian poem De vetula and the story of its attribution to Richard Fournival. Though Fournival’s literary skills and multi-faceted interests in medicine, physiology, astrology and courtly life may bear witness to his paternity of the poem, this remains as tentative as acknowledged in 1968 by the two editors of the work, Dorothy Robathan and Paul Klopsch. My intention is to figure out what really associates the De vetula to the poet of Amiens and, conversely, what suggests other possible candidates. The latter goal is developed in the second part of the paper, which illustrates the figure of Ovid as portrayed in the poem, namely the lover and gambler whose change of life is determined by means of an intellectual journey, which has its philosophical culmination in the science of astrology and its finality in discovering the celestial signs of the Christian victory against the advent of the Antichrist. To this purpose, the author proposes an adaptation of Arabic astrological sources, in turn re-employed by Roger Bacon, who shows a clear understanding of how «Ovid» makes up his prophecies. This evidence, along with other literary and doctrinal aspects point to a link of the poem with the early English Franciscan milieu, perhaps even with Bacon himself.