In the terminology of the medieval faculties of arts a sophisma was a proposition that

produced problems for logic or grammar because, apparently, it could be shown to be

both true and false or both grammatically correct and incorrect. Analysis of sophismata

played a major role in university teaching, and a rich literature reflecting this practice is still

preserved, ranging from brief presentations of each sophismatic proposition followed by

proof, disproof and solution, to massive reports of public disputations that must have

lasted for several hours, and purely literary imitations of such oral discussions.

Sophismata are a mine of information to anyone interested in the development of

medieval logic and grammar, as they were the vehicle for cutting-edge research. This,

however, has only been recognized during the last few decades, and few have exploited

the mine because very few of the preserved collections of sophismata are available in

print, many even remaining unrecognized, as compilers of manuscript catalogues often

overlook or mislabel them.

This catalogue offers the first ever opportunity to orient oneself in the jungle of

13th-century texts on sophismata , edited and unedited alike. It lists and describes every

single collection, but also, importantly, in an alphabetical catalogue of sophismatic

propositions, under each lists every occurrence of it in the corpus, with information about

where each occurrence is found in manuscripts or editions, the syncategoreme to which

it belongs, the kind of analysis it displays, what is the solution offered, and which

questions, if any, receive special attention in quaestiones/problemata , an incipit and an

explicit where there is no edition available, and finally, what secondary literature there is,

if any.

Some 3.000 entries make up the body of the catalogue, which is completed by

extensive indices by topics and by logical tools used in the solutions, offering scholars a

multiplicity of ways to find exactly the information they are looking for.