270 ABStract This article is a coda to Paul Oskar Once Again: Kristeller’s criticism of the scholarly behavior of Raymond Klibansky Paul Oskar (d. 2005) found in my 2015 article “Kristelleriana: Two Biographical Notes.” In a letter of 24 February Kristeller 1995 to the independent scholar W. Cameron McEwan, Kristeller and Raymond (d. 1999) accused Klibansky of refusing to acknowledge Kristeller’s discoveries concerning the Renaissance Klibansky philosopher Nicholas of Cusa and explained how he had been warned against Klibansky by the distinguished JOHN MonFASani contemporary scholars Ernst Cassirer, University at Albany, Erwin Panoksky, David Ross, and State University of New York, Richard Walser. Department of History, 1400 Washington Ave, Albany, NY, United States of America [email protected] https://doi.org/10.5507/aither.2020.015 INTERNATIONAL ISSUE NO. 8/2020 JOHN MonFASani 271 ONCE AgAIN: PAUL OSKAR KRISTELLER AND RAymOND KLIBANSky Some years ago I published slightly even though they share the same a memorandum that Paul Oskar Kris- basic theme, Klibansky’s bad behavior teller (1905–1999) left behind in his pa- as a scholar. The letter to McEwen is dis- pers at Columbia University detailing the tinguished by Kristeller’s much greater moral failings as a scholar of Raymond concern to record the agreement of other Klibansky (1905–2005), a tabula pecca- scholars concerning Klibansky’s bad torum, as I described it in the abstract character. In a letter 18 February 1995, of the article.1 Recently, however, I have McEwan had posed a series of questions come across a passage in the correspond- to Kristeller concerning his relationship ence between W. Cameron McEwen and with Martin Heidegger, Klibansky, and Kristeller that adds significant details other figures in the years before World and color to Kristeller’s complaints about War II. Kristeller responded on 24 Febru- Klibansky.2 The two texts overlap only ary in part as follows (I have introduced a sequential number between square 1 Monfasani 2015. brackets before each item to be discused 2 This correspondence can be found in Co- so as to facilitate later reference): lumbia University’s Rare Book & Manu- script Library, Paul Oskar Kristeller Pa- pers, Correspondence, Box 35, Folder 6. and is also from McEwen. A partner in an The earliest preserved letter in the collec- online publishing firm, McEwen published tion is one of 19 April 1994 from McEwen; on modern philosophy as an independent the last was written on 19 September 1996 scholar. INTERNATIONAL ISSUE NO. 8/2020 272 My hostile relations with Kliban- Cassirer on the 100th anniversary of sky go back to 1937. [1] In that year his birth, it didn’t3 contain a contri- I found in the Biblioteca Civica in Ber- bution by me, although I should have gamo ms. Gamma IV, 19 (Iter I, pg. normally been among those included. 8b). This ms., written on paper in the This means that Klibansky either did XVth cent. of 10 fols., contains Pro- not invite me to contribute a paper or clus, Platonis Theologica translated [had decided] not to include it in case by Petrus Balbus Pisanus, ep. Tropi- I had sent him one. ensis, dated March 22, 1462. In his preface to Ferdinand I, King of Naples Kristeller’s recollection was not al- and Sicily (fols. 1-4v), inc. Nicolaus de ways accurate in recalling various mo- Cusa Sancti Petri ad Vincula Presbiter ments of his life,4 but in my earlier article cardinalis, prudentissime atque in- on his criticism of Klibansky I found no victissime regum, in which he states misstatements. Indeed, more than half that he undertook this translation on of his criticisms could actually be doc- the request of Nicolaus Cusanus, but umented as being true, while the oth- only completed it after his death in ers could not be verified nor falsified for 1464. I communicated this important one reason or another, such as reports of fact by word of mouth to Klibansky, personal conversation (e. g., “Klibansky and soon afterwards he repeated it offered to pay [Ernst Moritz] Morasse in print without giving me any credit. for finding errors in my Supplementum [2] When I later found an important Ficinianum. Manasse refused and told me Cusanus Ms. in Brussels I published about it”).5 In the new tabula peccatorum its description, including a preface of the respective text in my contribution 3 Kristeller wrote “it didn’t” in the margin after deleting “does” in the text proper. to the anniversary conference on Cu- 4 To cite three instances: in his oral his- sanus in Bressanone in 1954. This Ms. tory memoir Reminiscences (Columbia had remained unknown before this to University, Oral History Archives, Rare Book & Manuscript Library) Kristeller mis- Klibansky. I remember that both [3] takenly asserted that he came to America Cassirer and [4] Panofsky orally told on the liner Saturnia, when in fact he me that they had reservations about sailed on the Vulcania, the Saturnia’s sis- ter ship; see Monfasani 2020, p. 373, n. 2. him, and that [5] Sir David Ross from In several accounts of his life, he spoke Oxford when he visited Columbia ca. of playing trio (he was an exceptionally capable pianist) in Marburg in 1926 with 1939 told me that I should be very cau- Karl Löwith and Hans Gadamer, when in tious in my dealings with Klibansky. fact Gadamer played no instrument and I also remember that [6] Richard Wal- was not part of the group; see Monfasani 2018, p. 10, n. 8. Finally, as W. Cameron ser who contributed an important edi- McEwen pointed out in his correspon- tion to the series Plato Arabus edited dence, Kristeller was wrong to say in an by Klibansky had considerable trouble interview that Martin Heidegger came to Italy in 1938 when the date in fact was with him. [7] Finally, when Klibansky 1936; see Monfasani 2018, p. 22, n. 49. edited in 1964 a volume in honor of 5 Monfasani 2015, p. 407. INTERNATIONAL ISSUE NO. 8/2020 JOHN MONFASANI 273 ONCE AGAIN: PAUL OSKAR KRISTELLER AND RaYMOND KLIBANSKY published in this article, Kristeller was Ferrante of Naples and explained how certainly confused about one item as the great Platonist philosopher, Cardi- we shall see, but in the case of the other nal Nicholas of Cusa (1401–1464) had charges in the list he was either demon- commissioned Balbi to make the trans- strably correct or plausibly so. We can lation.7 Yet, when Klibansky announced start with the first [1], concerning Kliban- the discovery in the Proceedings of the sky’s behavior when faced with Kristell- British Academy in 1949,8 he said not er’s discovery of a translation of Proclus. a word about the discoverer or how he Raymond Klibansky first made his himself had learned of the discovery. reputation in 1929 with the announce- Even such a learned specialist in Pro- ment that he had discovered a medieval clan studies as Father H.-D. Saffrey in Latin translation of Proclus’commen- his 1979 article on Balbi’s translation tary on Plato’s Parmenides that preserves could, without any knowledge of the true a segment of text no longer extent in the state of the facts, cite Klibansky for first Greek. He would then go on to publish announcing the discovery and Kristeller in 1939 a landmark guide to the history merely for the description of the man- of medieval Platonism, The Continuity of uscript fourteen years later in the first the Platonic Tradition during the Middle volume of his Iter Italicum.9 Ages, which served as a programmatic teller records the years he visited. The first is statement for the grand editorial pro- precisely 1937. In the letter to McEwen, Kris- ject Corpus Platonicum Medii Aevi, for teller was guilty of another error. Having which he served as the general editor. obviously given a quick glance at the Iter, where Balbi’s preface is correctly described And finally, in 1953, in conjunction with as running to f. 10, he inadvertently de- Lotte Labowsky, he published the lost scribed the manuscript to McEwen as having part of Proclus’ Parmenides commentary 10 folios when in fact it contains 179 folios. 7 Kristeller referred in a less precise man- preserved in the medieval Latin trans- ner to Klibansky’s failure to acknowledge lation of William of Moerbeke. Having his discovery of the Bergamo manuscript thus from the earliest stages of his career in two of the list of twenty-six charges he laid against Klibansky in the memoran- been intimately connected with Proclus dum published by me in Monfasani 2015, and the scholarship of the medieval Pla- p. 406, item 2: “My work in Italy. I found a few Cusanus mss. and sent them to tonic tradition, Klibansky knew well the [Ernst] Hoffmann. Used by [Paul] Wilpert great significance of Kristeller’s discov- and Gerda von Bredow”; and Monfasani ery in Bergamo in 1937 of a manuscript 2015, p. 407, item 4: “I may have given Klibansky the Bergamo manuscript of of a known but previously anonymous Proclus tr. Petrus Balbus of which he translation of Proclus’ Platonic Theology made so much fuss. His offer to give his extensive material on [Ludwig] Bertalot that bore a dedication of the translator, (my talk with [Gertrud] “Bing”.” 6 Pietro Balbi. The dedication was to King 8 In a report on Plato Latinus, Klibansky 1949, p. 11, he announced the discovery of 6 See Kristeller’s description of manuscript the manuscript in Bergamo. Bergamo, Biblioteca Civica, Gamma IV 19 9 Saffrey 1979, p. 429, reprinted in Saffrey (now cod. MA 490) in Kristeller 1963, 8a.