Aldus Manutius and the Learning of Greek: the Aldine Appendix

chapter 1 Aldus Manutius and the Learning of Greek: the Aldine Appendix

Paola Tomè (†)

When Manutius (Aldo Manuzio, 1449–1515) came to Venice at the tail end of the fifteenth century and opened the printing shop which would be so suc cessful, Greek studies had already taken hold at least half a century before. According to Manutius, by that time, the ever-increasing numbers of keen admirers of the Greek language had reached considerable proportions: by then not only youngsters, but also mature men engaged in the most diverse kinds of activity wanted to learn the language in order to gain access to all major disciplines.1 In order to secure a place in the market, a skilful balance had to be found between tradition and innovation: a balance which, on the one hand, would satisfy the requirements of schools and, on the other, would serve the needs of readers of various degrees of proficiency. On the whole, however, proficiency in Greek was not as high as we might be led to believe when we read the Aldine prefaces: throughout the fifteenth and most of the sixteenth century, the kind of Greek that was best known on the shores of the Mediterranean was the language spoken in ports and taverns, rather than that of Homer and Aristophanes, evidently. Meanwhile, Hellenic studies only slowly moved north of the Alps, where Greek learning was disseminated by scholars trained in Italy, even if was mainly according to methods of the first teachers.2 Aldus Manutius took great pains to promote Greek studies, and he did so in four innovative ways: (1) through the selection and assembly of grammatical and lexicographic texts which were new in the study of Greek; (2) through the

1 See the dedicatory letter to Aristotle’s Organon (1495) in Manutius (2016: 12–13). About Aldus Manutius see generally DBI: LXIX, s.v. “Manuzio, Aldo, Il Vecchio” and Kallendorf (2011); re garding Greek studies in the West at the time, see at least Geanakoplos (1962) (with a special focus on Venice); Weiss (1969); Weiss (1977); Berschin (1989); Wilson (1996); Wilson (2000); and, more recently, Carpinato & Tribulato (2014). Renouard (1934: 329–32, 332–36, 337–39) published the three catalogues put together by Aldus with the help of the “Neacademia”. About the “Neacademia”, founded by Manutius at the end of fifteenth century, see Pagliaroli (2009–2010). On Aldus’s contribution to the return of Greek studies in Western Europe, see Hexter (1998); Flogaus (2008); Tomè (2015); Pontani (2016); and Tomè (2019). 2 See Ciccolella (2008); Botley (2010); Rollo (2012); Markopoulos (2014: 86–92).

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2020 | doi:10.1163/9789004402461_003 32 Tomè inclusion of Latin versions of elementary Greek texts at the end of editions and textbooks; (3) through printing Greek authors skilfully, often accompanied by their Latin translations; and (4) through taking great philological care to establish the Greek texts by checking them against the largest number of originals available to him (usually at least three). In this article, I will deal with the first of these four aspects (grammar and lexicography), concentrating on the contents of one of Manutius’s grammatical texts, up till now little known to the world of scholars.

1 Innovative Grammatical and Lexicographic Texts for the Study of Greek

From 1494 until 1515 (the year of his death), Aldus Manutius printed at least six Greek grammar works, with and without a Latin translation, and eight Greek lexicons of different types. If we include his last work (a Greek gram mar published posthumously by Marcus Musurus),3 this amounts to fifteen publications, which were essential to learning Greek. Apart from this, we have Aldus’s numerous prefaces, grammatical writings, some translations, the attri butions of which is not always certain, and his philological work, all of which stand as monuments to his extraordinary gifts as a scholar.4 While the first period of Greek studies in Italy was dominated by the erotemata—simple manuals in question-and-answer form introduced into the West by Manuel Chrysoloras (c.1350–1415) and translated into Latin by Guarino of Verona (1374–1460)—it was Manutius, in fact, who sealed the suc cess of the “new” manuals by Constantine Lascaris (1434–1501) and Theodore Gaza (1398–1475),5 which also circulated in maior and minor versions. Replacing the weighty Byzantine miscellanea, they dealt with basic and advanced morphology, syntax, spelling, prosody, and notions of style.6

3 About Musurus, see now Speranzi (2013). 4 See Brown (2008); Zorzi (1994); Plebani (1994); Grendler (1989). The Aldine prefaces to Greek Classics have been recently translated and edited in by Nigel Guy Wilson (Musurus 2016). 5 See DBI: LII, s.v. “Gaza, Teodoro” and DBI: LXIII, s.v. “Lascaris, Costantino”. 6 On the most important Greek grammars, lexica, and miscellaneous treatises about syntax, spelling, prosody, and notions of style see: Pertusi (1962), Plebani (1994: 94–95), Wilson (2000: 179–80), Botley (2010: 1–6, 14–25) on Gaza; Botley (2010: 26–31) on Lascaris; Botley (2010: 33) on Aldus; Botley (2010: 36–40) on Bolzanio; see also Rollo (2012: 35–45) and Nuti (2014: 235–40, 250–66, 269–74). About Urbano Bolzanio, who composed the first Greek grammar in Latin, see also DBI: XXXII, s.v. “Dalle Fosse (Bolzanio), Urbano” and Scapecchi (2001).