The 1488 Virgil Commentary

Chapter 7 The 1488 Virgil Commentary

1 Overview

In 1488 Landino’s great commentary on Virgil’s Aeneid was published.1 It was a highly influential commentary, included in a majority of the 35 editions of Virgil published over the next dozen years.2 In many ways it is a culmination of the work Landino did on the Aeneid dating back to the beginning of his career in the Florentine Studio. It incorporates material from his lecture notes as well as the Disputationes Camaldulenses, mixing grammatical analyses with allegorical interpretations. Whereas the Disputationes covers Books I–VI of the Aeneid according to the chronological order of events, the commentary, like the 1462–63 lectures, follows the order of the Books from I–XII. The commentary is in Latin and is clearly based on twenty-five years worth of lecture notes from his time teaching the Aeneid. Landino does not present analyses that vary dramatically from his 1462–63 lectures, except that he covers more subjects such as geography and history, cites a broader range of authorities, and incorporates allegorical elements from the Disputationes. Noticeably, he does not add much new material from Ficino’s work on Plato that came out in the 1480s. To a large extent the Platonic elements he had incorporated into the Disputationes are simply repeated here. He also does not change what he previously wrote about the powers of the mind, the appetite, the virtues, or the highest good. In this chapter I would like to compare the commentary with his 1462–63 lectures on Virgil regarding some of the concepts we have previously examined in order to see how Landino’s thought has developed. I will also examine some topics that have not appeared much before. One such topic is the relation be- tween the literal and allegorical levels of interpretation. Another is the way that he interprets Books VII to XII of the Aeneid since these were not covered in the lecture notes that survive or in the Disputationes. In the commentary Landino focuses primarily on grammatical and rhetorical analyses, with allegorical interpretations included as he thinks appropriate.

1 Virgil, Opera cum Seruii Donati Christophori Landini Domitii Calderini commentariis. Anton Koberger: Nuremberg, 1492. This is the edition I will use here, hereafter Commentariis. Unless otherwise indicated, all translations are mine. 2 Kallendorf, In Praise of Aeneas, 129.

He writes, “Just as we engaged in the work of a philosopher in our Camaldu- lenses interpretation, so in this commentary we perform the office of a gram- marian and rhetorician.”3 With this stated goal the commentary begins with a proem and then a line-by-line analysis of the entire Aeneid. Generally, he picks out a word or phrase that he finds noteworthy, gives its meaning and significance in the story of the Aeneid, describes ways that it was used in clas- sical authors, and provides interpretations from other commentators, such as Servius.4 That the commentary is primarily based on his lecture notes is shown by his tendency to refer to himself talking and to end many of the allegorical interpretations with a reference to his Disputationes for those who want more.5 One other indication of the way the commentary follows his lecture notes is that he does not use the terms otium and negotium for modes of life as he did in the Disputationes, but returns to the terminology of the lectures, namely that the three lives are the life of pleasure, the active life, and the contempla- tive life; the terms pleasure, action, and contemplation (and speculation) are used interchangeably with them. For Landino, just as poetry includes all the liberal arts so, too, does the interpretation of poetry. He draws upon grammar, rhetoric, philosophy, theology, geography, history, art, music, and military knowledge to accomplish his dual purpose of grammatical analysis and rhetorical encouragement to seek the highest good. The commentary clearly is based on the presupposition that the Aeneid should be understood as an epic poem teaching us how to live well, to improve in eloquence, and to reach our fulfillment. At the outset he writes,

Who, I ask, does not know the admirable and almost divine skill of that one [Virgil] which shows us that the highest good of man consists in

3 Commentariis, f. 78, “Nam quemadmodum in chamaldulensibus philosophi interpretis munus obivimus: sic in his commentarii grammatici rhetorisque vices praestabimus.” 4 Along with numerous references to Servius, which we would expect, he also includes many Greek and Roman authors, church fathers, and medieval thinkers. Authorities cited by name include (not in order) Statius, Cicero, Plutarch, Terence, Homer, Hesiod, Dionysius, Augustine, Aristotle, Plato, Petrarch, Symonides, Macrobius, Dante, Donatus, Catullus, Salu- tati, Lucan, Pythagoras, Pliny, Strabo, Herodotus, Curtius, Diodorus, Horace, Theocritus, and Albert the Great. He clearly sees himself as belonging with these authorities since he refers to his own Disputationes numerous times. Similar to the 1462–63 lectures, he does not cite Thomas Aquinas by name. 5 For example, Commentariis, f. 83v, “Verum haec ut dixi in nostris chamaldulensibus disputa- tionibus latius invenies.” “But these things I have talked about you will find more fully in our Camaldulensian Disputations.”