Editing Etymologiae (section)

== Reception ==

[[File:Isidoro de Sevilla (José Alcoverro) 01.jpg|thumb|upright|1892 statue of Isidore of Seville in Madrid by [[José Alcoverro]]]]

=== Middle Ages ===

Isidore was widely influential throughout the [[Middle Ages]], feeding directly into word lists and encyclopaedias by [[Papias (lexicographer)|Papias]], [[Huguccio]], [[Bartholomaeus Anglicus]] and [[Vincent of Beauvais]], as well as being used everywhere in the form of small snippets.{{sfn|Hexter|2010|pp=489–490}} His influence also pertained to early medieval riddle collections such as the [[Bern Riddles]] or the {{lang|la|Aenigmata}} of [[Aldhelm]]. He was cited by [[Dante Alighieri]], quoted by [[Geoffrey Chaucer]], and his name was mentioned by the poets [[Giovanni Boccaccio|Boccaccio]], [[Petrarch]] and [[John Gower]] among others. Dante went so far as to place Isidore in Paradise in the final part of his ''[[Divine Comedy]]'', ''[[Paradiso (Dante)|Paradiso]]'' (10.130–131).{{sfn|Hexter|2010|pp=489–490}}

Throughout the Middle Ages, the {{lang|la|Etymologiae}} was the textbook most in use, regarded so highly as a repository of classical learning that, in a great measure, it superseded the use of the individual works of the classics themselves, full texts of which were no longer copied and thus were lost. It was one of the most popular compendia in medieval libraries.{{sfn|Barney et al.|2006|pp=24–26}}

=== Modern ===

"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," [[Wallace Lindsay]] noted in 1911, having recently edited Isidore for the [[Clarendon Press]],{{sfn|Lindsay|1911a|pp=42–53}}{{sfn|Lindsay|1911b}} with the further observation, however, that a portion of the texts quoted have otherwise been lost: the {{lang|la|Prata}} of [[Suetonius]], for instance, can only be reconstructed from Isidore's excerpts.{{sfn|Lindsay|1911a|pp=24–26}}

In the view of John T. Hamilton, writing in ''The Classical Tradition'' in 2010, "Our knowledge of ancient and early medieval thought owes an enormous amount to this encyclopedia, a reflective catalogue of received wisdom, which the authors of the only complete translation into English introduce as "arguably the most influential book, after the Bible, in the learned world of the Latin West for nearly a thousand years"{{sfn|Barney et al.|2006|p=3}} These days, of course, Isidore and his ''Etymologies'' are anything but household names... but the Vatican has named Isidore the patron saint of the Internet, which is likely to make his work slightly better known.<ref>{{Cite web |url=https://gizmodo.com/the-patron-saint-of-the-internet-is-isidore-of-seville-1595023500 |title=The patron saint of the internet is Isidore of Seville, who tried to record everything ever known |date=11 October 2015 |access-date=2019-05-17 |archive-date=2019-05-17 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190517044920/https://gizmodo.com/the-patron-saint-of-the-internet-is-isidore-of-seville-1595023500 |url-status=live }}</ref>

Ralph Hexter, also writing in ''The Classical Tradition'', comments on "Isidore's largest and massively influential work... on which he was still at work at the time of his death... his own architecture for the whole is relatively clear (if somewhat arbitrary)... At the deepest level Isidore's encyclopedia is rooted in the dream that language can capture the universe and that if we but parse it correctly, it can lead us to the proper understanding of God's creation. His word derivations are not based on principles of historical linguistics but follow their own logic... Isidore is the master of bricolage... His reductions and compilations did indeed transmit ancient learning, but Isidore, who often relied on [[scholia]] and earlier compilations, is often simplistic scientifically and philosophically, especially compared to .. figures such as [[Ambrose]] and Augustine."{{sfn|Hexter|2010|pp=489–490}}

[[File:Internet map 1024 - transparent, inverted.png|thumb|[[Encyclopedia]] as network of knowledge: [[Pope John Paul II]] considered nominating Isidore of Seville as the [[patron saint]] of the [[Internet]]]]

Writing in ''[[The Daily Telegraph]]'', Peter Jones compares {{lang|la|Etymologiae}} to the Internet:

{{blockquote|One might have thought that Isidore, Bishop of Seville, AD 600-636, had already suffered enough by having Oxford's computerised 'student administration project', planned since 2002, named after him. But five years ago Pope John Paul II compounded his misfortune by proposing (evidently) to nominate [Isidore] as the patron saint of the internet. 

It was, indeed, a tempting choice. Isidore's ''Etymologies'', published in 20 books after his death, was an encyclopedia of all human knowledge, glossed with his own derivations of the technical terms relevant to the topic in hand. Derivations apart, it was lifted from sources almost entirely at second or third hand ..., none of it checked, and much of it unconditional eyewash – the internet, in other words, to a T. 

By the same token, Isidore's work was phenomenally influential throughout the West for 1,000 years, 'a basic book' of the Middle Ages, as one scholar put it, second only to the Bible. Written in simple Latin, it was all a man needed in order to have access to everything he wanted to know about the world but never dared to ask, from the 28 types of common noun to the names of women's outer garments. Today, one internet connection serves precisely the same purpose.<ref name=JonesTelegraph>{{cite web |url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/3654846/Patron-saint-of-the-internet.html | title=Patron saint of the internet | newspaper=[[The Daily Telegraph]] | date=27 August 2006 | access-date=15 June 2014 | author=Jones, Peter | archive-date=29 March 2015 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150329010052/http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/3654846/Patron-saint-of-the-internet.html | url-status=live }}</ref>}}