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The Richard Rufus of Cornwall Project

Preparing Critical Editions of Rufus' Extant Works

Supported in part by the National Endowment for the Humanities


Bacon compared with Rufus

Most of Bacon's citations of Rufus are paraphrases. However, at least one of his citations of Rufus' In Physicam includes a short verbatim quotation. According to Bacon, proponents of a position he rejects (alia positio) believe that a measure such as a denary does not number ten things because they are those ten things but because one is replicated ten times among them. At In Physicam 4.3.18 (p. 180), Rufus uses the same words to explain what appears to him (mihi videtur). The two statements are reproduced below using the stylistic conventions of the Bacon edition (Opera hactenus inedita (OHI) 13: 277).

Bacon, OHI 13: 277
Similiter dicunt de denario quia
non numerat hec .x.
quia hec .x., sed quia in his est
totius replicatum.
Rufus, In Phys., p. 180
Propterea mihi videtur ...
Denarius mensurat hec .x. non
quia hec, sed quia in his est
unum totius replicatum,
et illud invenitur in omnibus decem.