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First printed edition of 1472 (by Guntherus Zainer, Augsburg), title page of book 14 (de terra et partibus), illustrated with a T and O map.

Etymologiae (or Origines) is an encyclopedia compiled by Isidore of Seville (died 636) towards the end of his life, at the urging of his friend Braulio, Bishop of Saragossa, to whom Isidore, at the end of his life, sent his codex inemendatus ("unedited book"), which seems to have begun circulating before Braurio was able to revise it, and issue it, with a dedication to the late King Sisebut. Partly as a consequence, three families of texts have been distinguished, including a "compressed" text with many omissions, and an expanded text with interpolations.

Etymologiae presents in abbreviated form much of that part of the learning of antiquity that Christians thought worth preserving. Etymologies, often very learned and far-fetched, a favorite trope of Antiquity, form the subject of just one of the encyclopedia's twenty books. Isidore's vast encyclopedia systematizing ancient learning includes subjects from theology to furniture and provided a rich source of classical lore and learning for medieval writers.

In all, Isidore quotes from 154 authors, both Christian and pagan. Many of the Christian authors he read in the originals; of the pagans, many he consulted in current compilations. Bishop Braulio, to whom Isidore dedicated it and sent it for correction, divided it into its twenty books.

• Book I: de grammatica; Trivium: grammar
• Book II: de rhetorica et dialectica; Trivium: rhetoric and dialectic
• Book III: de mathematica; Quadrivium: mathematics, geometry, music, astronomy
• Book IV: de medicina; medicine
• Book V: de legibus et temporibus; law and chronology
• Book VI: de libris et officiis ecclesiasticis; Ecclesiastical books and offices
• Book VII: de deo, angelis et sanctis; God, angels and saints: hierarchies of heaven and earth
• Book VIII: de ecclesia et sectis; The Roman Catholic Church and Jews and heretical sects, philosophers (pagans), prophets and sibyls
• Book IX: de linguis, gentibus, regnis, militia, civibus, affinitatibus; Languages, peoples, kingdoms, cities and titles
• Book X: de vocabulis; Etymologies
• Book XI: de homines et portentis; Mankind, portents and transformations
• Book XII: de animalibus; Beasts and birds
• Book XIII: de mundo et partibus; The physical world, atoms, elements, natural phenomena
• Book XIV: de terra et partibus; Geography: Earth, Asia, Europe, Libya, islands, promontories, mountains, caves
• Book XV: de aedificiis et agris; Public buildings, public works, roads
• Book XVI: de lapidibus et metallis; Metals and stones
• Book XVII: de rebus rusticis; Agriculture
• Book XVIII: de bello et ludis; Terms of war, games, jurisprudence
• Book XIX: de navibus, aedificiis et vestibus; Ships, houses and clothes
• Book XX: de domo et instrumentis domesticis; Food, tools and furnishings

"An editor's enthusiasm is soon chilled by the discovery that Isidore's book is really a mosaic of pieces borrowed from previous writers, sacred and profane, often their 'ipsa verba' without alteration," W. M. Lindsay noted in 1911, having recently edited Isidore for the Clarendon Press,^[1] with the further observation, however, that a portion of the texts quoted have otherwise been lost. In the second book, dealing with dialectic and rhetoric, Isidore is heavily indebted to translations from the Greek by Boethius, and in treating logic, Cassiodorus, who provided the gist of Isidore's treatment of arithmetic in Book III. Caelius Aurelianus contributes generously to that part of the fourth book which deals with medicine. Isidore's view of Roman law in the fifth book is viewed through the lens of the Visigothic compendiary called the Breviary of Alaric, which was based on the Code of Theodosius, which Isidore never saw. Through Isidore's condensed paraphrase a third-hand memory of Roman law passed to the Early Middle Ages. Lactantius is the author most extensively quoted in the eleventh book, concerning man. The twelfth, thirteenth, and fourteenth books are largely based on the writings of Pliny and Solinus; whilst the lost Prata of Suetonius, which can be partly pieced together from its quoted passages in Etymolgiae, seems to have inspired the general plan of the "Etymologiae", as well as many of its details.

Through the Middle Ages Etymologiae was the textbook most in use, regarded so highly as a depository of classical learning that, in a great measure, it superseded the use of the individual works of the classics themselves, full texts of which were no longer copied and thus were lost. The book was not only one of the most popular compendia in medieval libraries but was printed in at least ten editions between 1470 and 1530, showing Isidore's continued popularity in the Renaissance, rivalling Vincent of Beauvais.

A stylized map based on Etymologiae was printed in 1472 in Augsburg, featuring the world as a wheel. The continent Asia is peopled by descendants of Sem or Shem, Africa by descendants of Ham and Europe by descendants of Japheth, the sons of Noah. This map reflects Isidore's sixth century view; we now know that, although undoubtedly widely read, Isidore was not always correct in his conjectures.

• St. Gall Abbey library
  • Cod. Sang. 232 lib. XI-XX (9th c.)
  • Cod. Sang. 237 (9th c.)

1. ^ Isidori Hispalensis Episcopi Etymologiarum Sive Originum Libri XX (Oxford: Clarendon Press), 1911; see W. M. Lindsay, "The Editing of Isidore Etymologiae" The Classical Quarterly 5.1 (January 1911, pp. 42-53( p 42.

• Etymologiae at LacusCurtius
• Etymologiae at The Latin Library
• Summary of contents in English (starts on page 57)