In 1830, the Chevalier de Gregory, who had previously written a Mémoire sur le véritable Auteur de l’Imitation , made a remarkable confirmatory discovery. M. Techener, a bookseller in Paris, knowing his interest in the subject, showed him a MS. of the Imitatio of the thirteenth or fourteenth century which he had bought of an Italian. On the inside of the wooden binding M. de Gregory found the following autograph signatures:—
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- 3 Maii. Ad usum Dom-Hieronymi de Advocatis, civis Yporediae [Ivrea].
- Ad usum quoque Paracliti.
- Ad usum Hieronymi, Federici Advocatis Ceridoni, scripsi, 1568 4 die Maii.
- Ad usum Hieronymi Advocatis.
This MS. was carefully examined by experts and its age attested, and the individuals mentioned were all traced and identified as members of the Avogadro family who had lived in or near Vercelli.
We may now, I cannot but think, take it as proved that this book was in existence in the thirteenth century. We have also the evidence above referred to that it was the work of John Gersen. Who was he? The edition of De Sessa, printed at Venice in 1501, has its heading like that of Köln, quoted above. But in St. Catherine’s Abbey at Genoa, the Benedictine Cajetan (1560—1650) found a copy with this MS. note appended:—“ Hunc librum non compilavit Johannes Gersen, sed D. Johannes abbas Vercellensis, ut habetur usque hodie propria manu scriptus in eadem abbatia. ” Here it seems to be implied that the author was not the Chancellor Gerson, but an “Abbot John,” whose surname is not given. But this Abbot John was also surnamed Gersen, as appears