The First Printed Editions of the Timaeus and Critias

chapter 5 The First Printed Editions of the Timaeus and Critias

1 Ficino’s Translation

The first printed text of Plato’s works was a Latin translation: in 1469 Marsilio Ficino completed his Plato translation which he made by order of Cosimo de’ Medici in Florence; the printed edition appeared in 1484.1 I will not dwell on the qualities of Ficino’s translation. Boter (1989, 276f.) gives examples, taken from the Republic, of Ficino’s way of translating Greek into Latin, of Ficino’s errors and also instances of his carelessness. None the less, it is clear that Ficino knew his Greek very well and that he consulted several Greek mss for his translation, while he even, in the words of Immisch (1903, 13f. n. 3), “infinito studio quae verteret partim aliunde partim de suo studebat emendare.”2 In 1462 Ficino received from De’ Medici a ms with the complete Plato. Sicherl (1980, 554), following Marcel (1958, 253f.), supposes that this ms was identical with a, and that a copy had been made from a at Ficino’s instigation, which, just like a, has been preserved: c. An annotation in Ficino’s hand is recognisable in c on fol. 333 (Marcel 1958, 254 n. 2; Sicherl 1962, 59). As well as a and c, Ficino also employed b and x, according to Sicherl. Boter, studying Ficino’s translation of the Republic, supposes (1989, 271–273) that Ficino drew mainly on a, but possibly he also consulted c; in addition, he also derived variants from x, β (or a derivative of β) and N. However, Blank and others (mentioned by Blank 1993, 2–4 and 8, with n. 35) have shown that there are no sound arguments for Sicherl’s (and Boter’s) conclusion that Ficino possessed or used a, b and x; in fact, no annotations from his hand are to be found in these mss; Boter was already not very sure that Ficino used a; the variants which Ficino shares with x do not prove very much, according to Blank (1993, 8 and n. 35) because most of them may have been derived from another ms. That c was used and annotated by Ficino is clear; in Leges and Epinomis corrections and variants by Ficino’s hand are to be found in the margins of c

1 See P.O. Kristeller, Supplementum Ficinianum, Florence 1937, CILf.; M. Sicherl 1980, 553f. 2 See also Boter 1989, 271 and Sicherl 1980, 554.

(Gentile 1987, 77–79). Ficino also added marginal corrections and variants in o, not only in Leges and Epinomis, but also in Epistolae and Timaeus (Gentile 1987, 70–77; see also Blank, 1993, 1ff. and 17f.). To be able to make (at least some of) these corrections in c and o, Ficino must have consulted one or more mss (see also Zerbino 1997, 127). Besides, there is also Ficino’s autograph Ambr., which, as I (following Berti 1996, 139–142 and 146) conclude on p. 320, he copied from a lost ms that was contaminated from R and served as the source for o, M and Ric. as well. Boter (1989, 274f.) inferred from a number of readings in the Republic which Ficino shares with corrections in β and N that Ficino consulted these mss too. In the Timaeus there are also instances of agreement between corrections in β and Ficino’s translation (see below). But Berti has demonstrated convincingly that this kind of agreement does not prove that Ficino actually had these mss in his own hands. It is much more probable that the agreements are the result of personal contacts between Ficino and Bessarion (the owner of N) and of the fact that mss, like β and N, were in the possession of scribes and scholars who actively exchanged corrections and variants (Berti, 1996, 143–145).

According to Blank (who follows Vitelli and Sicherl, see Blank 1993, 9f. and nn. 37–38) Ficino also made annotations in (and used) Ric., but this has been denied by Gentile (already in 1987, 69) and later again by Berti (1996, 140f.).

Which mss did Ficino employ for the Timaeus? In order to be able to answer this question I first compared variants of the distinct mss families A, F, C and g with Ficino’s translation, not only in my two sample passages—this would not offer enough instances of agreement with any conclusive force—but in the whole text of the Timaeus. Subsequently, when it appeared that Ficino agreed in variants with the group of Y within the g-family, I compared several secondary mss of this group with Ficino. In his translation of the Timaeus, Ficino agrees in all kinds of variants with the families of Cg against AF. On the other hand, I have not found any clear examples of agreement between Ficino and A against the other mss, or between Ficino and F against the other mss. Some instances of conjunctive readings of Ficino with Cg are:

20d8 ἑπτὰ] ἑπτὰ σοφῶν C2g: septem sapientium Fic. 42a5 ἐκ] ἐκεῖ Cg: illic Fic. 55c5 ἐκεῖνο] ἐκεῖνα Cg: ea Fic. 57c4 ἑκάστοτε—ὁμοιούμενα om. Cg Fic. 63c4 πολὺ om. Cg Fic. 83e1 σώματα] σῶμα Cg: corpus Fic.