MANIACORIA, Nicola. — Deacon of the church of S. Lorenzo in Damaso in Rome during the time of Lucius II (1144-45). Later he became a Cistercian monk in the monastery of S. Anastasio alle Tre Fontane under Abbot Bernardo (later Pope Eugenius III).
M. composed an excellent pamphlet entitled *Suffraganeus bibliothecæ*, published by J. P. P. Martin (*Introduction à la critique générale de l'Ancien Testament. De l'origine du Pentateuque*, Paris 1886-87, pp. cv-cviii) and by H. Deniffe in 1888 (*Archiv für Literatur und Kirchengeschichte*, 4 [1888], pp. 270-79). In it M., who knew Hebrew, offers excellent advice for the correction of biblical manuscripts and their faithful transcription. He also wrote a *Life of St. Jerome* (*Beati Eteronymi vita*: PL 22, 183-202), perhaps around 1150, using the genuine or spurious writings of the Saint, of St. Augustine, of St. Damasus, of St. Gelasius and of St. Gregory; it represents an advance over earlier biographies of this kind, even though it simply incorporates many legendary and anachronistic details. M. revised the entire Bible, paying special attention to the Psalter, based on the Hebrew text. He composed a *Libellus de corruptione et correctione Psalmorum et aliarum quarundam Scripturarum*; this work (still unpublished), like the *Suffraganeus*, is an expression of M.’s critical impulse, which he always exercised with great care for the exact transmission of biblical or patristic texts by monastic copyists. A work known and cited by the liturgist Odo, hitherto untraced, was of a liturgical nature: *De ecclesiasticis officiis secundum ordinem ecclesiae Romane*.