CHAPTER 4 Thais Walks the German Streets: Text, Gloss, and Illustration in Neidhart’s 1486 German Edition of Terence’s Eunuchus

James H. Kim On Chong-Gossard*

In the centuries-long history of illustrated texts of Terence, one gem that is often overlooked is the German translation of Terence’s Eunuchus, financed by Hans Neidhart of Ulm and printed in 1486 by Conrad Dinckmut.1 Produced a mere generation after the invention of movable type and the printing press, this incunabulum is a testament to what the new technology of the printed book could achieve in bringing a single play of Terence to a German-speaking readership. Specifically, Terence’s Latin was translated into the vernacular Swabian dialect, also called West Upper German,2 so the play could be eas- ily read by those whom Neidhart assumed shared his humanist interests in Terence—namely, the rhetorical excellence of his plays, their learnedness, and their moral lessons. The incunabulum also remained a luxury item and was designed to look like a manuscript, with red-rubrics, Gothic font, illustrations derived from Terence’s manuscript tradition, and a traditional presentation of primary text and glosses. All of this was designed to direct the reader not only to accept the work as an authoritative new edition of Terence, but also to empathize with the characters of the drama, and even to visualize a perfor- mance with a contemporary look—and all of this with a moral lesson to be learned, especially about love affairs with prostitutes.

* The research for this chapter was supported under the Australia Research Council’s Discovery Projects funding scheme, for a project entitled “The Transformations of Terence: Ancient Drama, New Media, and Contemporary Reception” (project number DP110101571) awarded to Prof. Bernard J. Muir and myself at the University of Melbourne as co-chief investigators from 2011–2013. 1 I use the standard spelling of these men’s names, which in the incunabulum itself are spelled ‘Hanns Nythart zů Ulm’ and ‘Cůnrad Dinckmůt.’ 2 Ulm, Freiburg im Breisgau, Basel and Tübingen are Alpine cities whose local dialects have traditionally been grouped together as West Upper German, or Alemannic. Other cities in this dialect group include Strassburg, Stuttgart, and (Bavarian Swabia) Augsburg.

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General Overview

Neidhart’s edition of the Eunuchus is credited as the first German translation of a play of Terence, during an explosive period of classical learning in north- ern Europe. The arrival of humanism into southern Germany was evidenced not least by the founding of universities, the majority of them in the West Upper German region, including Albrechts University (now the University of Freiburg) in 1457, the University of Basel in 1460, and the University of Tübingen in 1477.3 Hans Neidhart himself was perhaps not the most famous German humanist, and he was better known as a Bürgermeister of Ulm from 1478 until the late 1480s.4 Yet he made an impression on his contemporary Felix Fabri, the Dominican theologian, who in his autobiographical Tractatus de civi- tate Ulmensi described Hans Neidhart as

a secular man, and without a degree in scholarly prominence (sine gradu scholaris eminentiae), but one who opens up (books of) learned history and the volumes of orators and poets, and who reads bucolics and com- edies, Vergil’s Aeneid, Seneca’s tragedies, and other intelligent works.5

Given the implication that Hans Neidhart did not even have a university degree (gradus), there remains some doubt whether he was in fact the translator and editor of the Eunuchus, or merely an initiator and financier of the publica- tion, given the imprecision of the colophon on the final page (N93r [F203]) of the incunabulum: “Dise Comedia hat Hanns Nythart zů Ulm lassen trucken den Cůnrad Dinckmůt” (“Hans Neidhart of Ulm had Conrad Dinckmut print this comedy”).6 Since it is also known that Neidhart provided financial backing for the Schwäbische Chronik of Thomas Lirer, also published by Dinckmut in 1486, it is unclear whether the phrase ‘hat lassen trucken’ means any more than a similar economic involvement in the Eunuchus on Neidhart’s part. For this reason, the publication of the Eunuchus is often referred to simply as ‘die

3 Ulm itself did not have a university until 1967. 4 Fischer 1915 vi argues for a term of office from 1478 to 1489, which would mean the Eunuchus translation was printed while he was Bürgermeister. 5 Amelung 1972 20. All translations of Latin and German are my own. 6 Throughout this article I will refer to the pagination of Neidhart’s incunabulum and Fischer’s edition with the following citation method: N aij r = Neidhart aij recto, N28r = Neidhart 28 recto, N24v = Neidhart 24 verso, F32 = Fischer p. 32.