DOCSLIB.ORG

INTRODUCTION Caesar Has Never Been an Author in Search of An

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
INTRODUCTION Caesar Has Never Been an Author in Search of An INTRODUCTION Caesar has never been an author in search of an editor. Witness the large number of printed texts of the Commentaries. 1 With this indisputable fact in mind, one wonders if anything more can be said about the textual transmission of an ancient writer who has enjoyed such popularity. The explanation and justification for this study are simply that the basic problems confronting any editor who approaches his task systematically are still unresolved for the Civil War. A brief survey of various editions from the Renaissance to the present will supply the background needed to make this clear, and may also be of interest to those concerned with the history of scholarship. The first phase in the editing of the Civil War belongs solely to Italian incunabula. Giovanni Andrea Bussi (Joannes Andreas Aleriensis) is responsible for the editio princeps which was printed in 1469 at Rome by Conrad Sweynheym and Arnold Pannartz 2 and contains the genuine as well as the spurious Wars. Born in 1417 at Vigevano, Bussi pursued a somewhat undistinguished career until 1451 when he became an acolyte to Pope Nicholas V. Hence­ forth his path lay in the service of pontiffs and cardinals, and he was named Bishop of Accia (Corsica) in 1462 by Pius II and trans­ ferred to the see of Aleria on that same island by Paul II in 1466. 3 Whether a matter of personal preference or whether he could not get away from more pressing duties, he appears never to have gone to Corsica. As an editor of classical works during a three-year association with Sweynheym and Pannartz (1469-71), he ranks among the most active scholars of the period: to him are due first editions of such authors as Apuleius, Aulus Gellius, Cicero (letters 1 There have been well over a hundred editions of the Civil War. For a chronological list of the early texts see the editio Bipontina (1782), vol. i, pp. xxiv-xxxv and the reprint of the Delphin Classic by A. J. Valpy (London, 1819), vol. v, pp. 2045-69 1 Catalogue ofBooks Printed in the XV th Century now in the British Museum, part iv (1916), p. 7. Sweynheym and Pannartz printed their first books in 1465 at Subiaco, but by 1467 had moved to Rome and were established in the house of the Massimo. 8 For the details of Bussi's life see Erich Meuthen, 'Briefe des Aleriensis an die Sforza', Romische Quartalschrift fur christliche Altertumskunde und Kirchengeschichte 59 (1964), pp. 88-99. Suppl. to Mnemosyne XXIII 2 INTRODUCTION and speeches), Livy, Lucan, Pliny the Elder, and Silius Italicus. The edition of Caesar has a general praefatio in place of the usual dedicatory epistle to Pope Paul; it promises numerous benefits to the reader, but does not mention that any manuscripts have been consulted. The fact that Bussi put out four other texts during the same year may have some bearing on the quality of his Caesar. This 'edition' of the Civil War is seemingly nothing more than a reproduction of the more common branch of the vulgate.1 It contains a number of nonsensical readings and grammatical errors 2 which indicate that he did not exercise the editorial prero­ gatives of conjecture and correction as in his 1470 Pliny edition.3 Consequently his text would have developed, at best, only the reader's ingenuity. However, apart from the obvious advantage of the greater availability of the Commentaries, the editio princeps is notable for two reasons: this strain of the vulgate became the textus receptus for the next four centuries and is easily recognized; the precedent for the publication of the entire corpus in a single volume was thus established, and the Civil War was rarely, if ever, issued separately until the end of the nineteenth century. This convention has undoubtedly contributed to the overshadowing of the text by the more famous Gallic War. Two years passed before another edition appeared. In 1471 Nicholas Jenson, a native of Sommevoire near Troyes, published at Venice a text whose readings closely resemble those of the editio princeps. This edition, together with a reprint in 1472 by Sweynheym and Pannartz of Bussi's effort, seemed to satisfy the immediate demand for copies of the Commentaries, for it was not until 1477 that a third printer included Caesar among his titles - Antonius Zarotus at Milan. Having learned the trade as foreman to the Milanese printer Pamfilo Castaldi in 1471, Zarotus entered in 1472 into partnership with Gabriel de Orsonibus, Cola Montanus, and Gabriel Paveri-Fontana, but later struck out on his own. The edition of Caesar belongs to his period of indepen­ dent activity. Although his text may be merely a reprint of 1 Cf. pp. 48-49. 8 For example 1-4-4 Caesar, 15.5 Ulcillem, 18.2 Lucetio. 3 Cf. Adriana Marucchi, 'Note sul manoscritto [Vat. Lat. 5991] di cui e servito Giovanni Andrea Bussi per l'edizione di Plinio del 1470', BIRT 15 (1967-68), pp. 175-82. I have not succeeded in locating any manuscript of Caesar which belonged to or was corrected by Bussi. .
Load more

Recommended publications
  • World Without End Nicholas of Cusa's View of Time And
    WORLD WITHOUT END NICHOLAS OF CUSA’S VIEW OF TIME AND ETERNITY Matthieu van der Meer* In his preface to the first printed edition of Apuleius’ works, Giovanni Andrea Bussi, librarian of the Vatican Library, praised his former patron Cardinal Nicholas of Cusa (1401-1464) as a connoisseur, not only of authors from an- cient times, but also from the media tempestas.1 Until recently, Bussi’s remark was considered to be the first witness of Renaissance self-awareness.2 No doubt, many authors (e.g. Petrarch, Salutati, Bruni) at that time were striving for the realisation of a new concept of man in which human dependence on God (oratio) and independence through man’s own rational powers (ratio) were united.3 Subsequently, the study of what it means to be human, the studia hu- manitatis, changed the traditional curricula and opened new intellectual hori- zons. Even if Bussi’s phrase media tempestas is less new than it has been pre- sumed to be, it characterises Nicholas of Cusa as a figure at the crossroads of the middle ages and the age of humanism.4 Ever since the renewed interest in * The author wishes to thank Anthony Lewis, Daniel O’Connell and Albrecht Diem for their comments. 1 M. Miglio, Giovanni Andrea Bussi. Prefazioni alle edizioni di Sweynheym e Pan- nartz (Milan, 1978), p. 17: “Vir ipse, quod rarum est in Germanis, supra opinionem elo- quens et latinus, historias idem omnes non priscas modo, sed mediae tempestatis, tum veteres, tum recentiores usque ad nostra temp ora, memoria, retinebat”. 2 T.
    [Show full text]
  • Colin Mcallister Regnum Caelorum Terrestre: the Apocalyptic Vision of Lactantius May 2016
    Colin McAllister Regnum Caelorum Terrestre: The Apocalyptic Vision of Lactantius May 2016 Abstract: The writings of the early fourth-century Christian apologist L. Caecilius Firmianus Lactantius have been extensively studied by historians, classicists, philosophers and theologians. But his unique apocalyptic eschatology expounded in book VII of the Divinae Institutiones, his largest work, has been relatively neglected. This paper will distill Lactantius’s complex narrative and summarize his sources. In particular, I investigate his chiliasm and the nature of the intermediate state, as well as his portrayal of the Antichrist. I argue that his apocalypticism is not an indiscriminate synthesis of varying sources - as it often stated - but is essentially based on the Book of Revelation and other Patristic sources. +++++ The eminent expert on all things apocalyptic, Bernard McGinn, wrote: Even the students and admirers of Lactantius have not bestowed undue praise upon him. To Rene Pichon [who wrote in 1901 what is perhaps still the seminal work on Lactantius’ thought] ‘Lactantius is mediocre in the Latin sense of the word - and also a bit in the French sense’; to Vincenzo Loi [who studied Lactantius’ use of the Bible] ‘Lactantius is neither a philosophical or theological genius nor linguistic genius.’ Despite these uneven appraisals, the writings of the early fourth-century Christian apologist L. Caecilius Firmianus Lactantius [c. 250-325] hold, it seems, a little something for everyone.1 Political historians study Lactantius as an important historical witness to the crucial transitional period from the Great Persecution of Diocletian to the ascension of Constantine, and for insight into the career of the philosopher Porphyry.2 Classicists and 1 All dates are anno domini unless otherwise indicated.
    [Show full text]
  • AUGUSTINUS HIPPONENSIS, Enarrationes in Psalmos CXX-CXXXIII in Latin, Decorated Manuscript on Parchment Northern Italy, Likely Milan (Abbey of Morimondo?), C
    AUGUSTINUS HIPPONENSIS, Enarrationes in Psalmos CXX-CXXXIII In Latin, decorated manuscript on parchment Northern Italy, likely Milan (Abbey of Morimondo?), c. 1150-1175 99 ff., preceded and followed by a modern parchment flyleaf, missing at least a quire at the beginning (collation: i-xii8, xiii3), written by a single scribe above the top line in a twelfth-century relatively angular minuscule in brown ink, text copied on 25 lines (justification: 115/125 x 75 mm), added explicits and chapter headings at the end of each textual division in a different rounded script (most in pale brown ink, some in pale red ink), prickings in outer margins, ruled in hard point, catchwords on ff. 32v and 40v, rubrics in bright red, liturgical lessons marked in the margins in red or brown ink roman numerals (sometimes preceded by the letter “lc” for “lectio” (e.g. f. 8), some initials and capitals stroked in red, larger painted 3-line high initials in red, one 4-line high initial in green with downward extension for a further eight lines, some with ornamental flourishing (e.g. f. 82v), some contemporary annotations and/or corrections. Bound in a modern tanned pigskin binding over wooden boards, renewed parchment pastedown and flyleaves, brass catches and clasps, fine restored condition (some leaves cropped a bit shorter, a few waterstains in bottom right corner of a number of folios, never affecting legibility). Dimensions 165 x 105 mm. Twelfth-century copy of the middle section of the important and influential exegetical treatise devoted to the Psalms, Augustine’s longest work. The codex boasts a twelfth-century ex-libris from the abbey of Morimondo, and it appears in the Morimondo Library Catalogue datable to the third quarter of the twelfth century.
    [Show full text]
  • In Calumniatorem Platonis
    N ICCOLÒ P EROTTI AND B ESSARION’ S I N C ALUMNIATOREM P LATONIS By John Monfasani Perotti’s role in revising Bessarion’s Latin for the 1469 edition has long been established. It now seems probable that Giovanni Andrea Bussi helped with Bessarion’s various Latin revisions prior to 1469 and perhaps with the Latin of the new Bk. 3 of the 1469 edition. Giovanni Gatti, OP, however, was responsible for the mass of scholastic citations in the new Bk. 3. Pe- rotti’s intervention resulted in the translations of classical Greek sources being noticeably different from Bessarion’s original translations, especially in the case of Greek poetry. Perotti completed his revision in just a few months between April and August 1469. I would like to revisit in this paper a topic I first discussed in three articles of the early 1980s.1 I argued in those articles that Niccolò Perotti was re- sponsible for the Latin of the 1469 edition of Cardinal Bessarion’s In Ca- lumniatorem Platonis. I could not produce an autograph manuscript which would have, in a sense, caught Perotti in the act of revising Bessarion’s original Latin text, but I believed I had collected persuasive circumstantial evidence. Not only had I found in the Biblioteca Nazionale in Florence Pe- rotti’s own copy of the 1469 In Calumniatorem which he had corrected in his own hand as if he were the author,2 but in the Biblioteca Ambrosiana in Milan I had also discovered Perotti’s autograph of his Latin revision of a corpus of Bessarion opuscules already available in Bessarion’s own ver- sion,3 achieved it would seem, in the same period that he, Perotti, revised the Latin of the In Calumniatorem as part of a large project to re-present Bessarion to the Latin West in a more polished Latin dress.
    [Show full text]
  • Historiae Ab Initio Bellorum Civilium
    Maria Chiara Scappaticcio Historiae ab initio bellorum civilium: Exegetical Surveys on the Direct Transmission of Seneca the Elder’s Historiographical Work Abstract: Working on P.Herc. 1067 has revealed it to be the only direct witness to the otherwise unknown Seneca the Elder’s Historiae ab initio bellorum civilium. This paper highlights the importance of philological work on unpublished Latin literary papyri in order to open new perspectives on the study of Latin literature and to write new chapters of it. An overview of the reconstructable contents is offered through a work of Quellenforschung of Imperial historiography and biography. Reading the text of P.Herc. 1067 together with the Tiberian chapters from the Annales of Tacitus, the historical work of Cassius Dio and the Lives of Suetonius is instructive in order to recover possible traits of the plot of a section of the historiographical work by Seneca the Elder. Genesis: P.Herc. 1067, Robert Marichal, and the authorship of an Annaeus Recovering new fragments of Latin literature from papyri is not predictable; it is complex and often hard to achieve, but it can lead to unexpected results. When The research leading to these results has received funding from the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation program (Grant agree- ment no. 636983); ERC-PLATINUM project, University of Naples ‘Federico II’, I lead as Principal Investigator. The present work represents an abridged version of Scappaticcio (2018) (submitted in July 2017), an exegetical contribution of all the text transmitted by P.Herc. 1067, based on the editio princeps of the papyrus published by Piano (2017b) within the project PLATINUM.
    [Show full text]
  • EK Schreiber
    E.K. Schreiber Rare Books List of 16th- 18th-Century Books And a Remarkable Early 15th-Century MS Document 285 Central Park West . New York, NY 10024 Telephone: (212) 873-3180; (212) 873-3181 Email: [email protected] Web: www.ekslibris.com ***Visitors by Appointment Only*** E.K. Schreiber. New York, NY 10024. (212) 873-3180 [email protected] ______________________________________________________________________________________ 1. AESCHYLUS. [Greek] Αἰσχύλου τραγωδιάι Ζ ... σχολία εἰς τὰς αὐτὰς τραγωδίας. Aeschyli Tragoediae VII. (Ed. P. Vettori & H. Estienne). [Geneva]: Henri Estienne, 1557. $5,600 4to (leaf size: 244 x 170 mm), [4] leaves, 397 (numbered 395: with 2 unnumbered pages [fol. n2] between pp. 138 and 139) pp., [1] blank leaf. Greek type; Estienne device [Schreiber 15] on title. 18th-century white calf, double gilt fillet round sides, brown morocco label on spine titled in gilt; all edges gilt; copy ruled in red throughout; on the front paste-down is the engraved armorial bookplate of Robert Shafto, Esq., of Benwell; on the rear paste-down is the engraved armorial bookplate of William Adair, Esq.; old, unobtrusive ownership signature on title; binding somewhat soiled; overall a fine, wide-margined copy. First complete edition of the tragedies of the first dramatist of Western civilization. This edition is important for including the editio princeps of Agamemnon, the greatest Aeschylean tragedy, and one of the greatest masterpieces of Western dramatic literature. The three previous editions (the Aldine of 1518, and Robortello's and Turnèbe's editions of 1552) had all been based on a manuscript tradition exhibiting a lacuna of more than two-thirds of Agamemnon.
    [Show full text]
  • The First Printed Edition of the Greek Text of Aristophanes' Nine Comedies
    The first printed edition of the Greek text of Aristophanes’ nine comedies, published by Aldus Manutius. Aristophanes. Comoediae Novem. Venice: Aldus Manutius, 1498. Folio, 13 inches x 9 1/16 inches (330 x 230 mm), 696 pages. The earliest printed texts of the ancient classics were almost exclusively Latin. Only toward the end of the fifteenth century was a programmatic effort made to bring the Greek classics into print. The campaign was led by Aldus Manutius (ca. 1450–1515), a sometime classical tutor, with the assistance of several Greek exiles, chief among them the Cretan scholar Marcus Musurus (ca. 1470–1517). Aldus was not the first to print books in Greek—editions of Homer, Theocritus, and Hesiod had already been produced elsewhere —but he did publish the first editions of some 30 classical authors. These editiones principes included the Greek texts of Aristotle (1495), Aristophanes (1498), Herodotus (1502), Sophocles (1502), Euripides (1503), Demosthenes (1504), Plato (1513), Pindar (1513), Pausanias (1516), and Aeschylus (1518). This editio princeps of Aristophanes includes a preface recommending the plays not as masterworks of literature but as a guide to conversation: a reader steeped in Aristophanes (the editors claimed) could not help but have learned to speak a pure and fluent Attic Greek. This stance was in perfect keeping with Aldus’s attitude to typography. His fonts imitated the swift cursive Greek in contemporary commercial use, with its many ligatures and abbreviations, rather than the formal uncial types of earlier printers. It was not always possible to gather together an author’s entire surviving work: this edition contains only nine of the plays.
    [Show full text]
  • Lucretius, His Copyists and the Horrors of the Underworld (De Rerum Natura 3.978-1023)
    ACTA CLASSICA XXIX (1986) 43 - 56 ISSN 0065-1141 LUCRETIUS, HIS COPYISTS AND THE HORRORS OF THE UNDERWORLD (DE RERUM NATURA 3.978-1023) by H .D . Jocelyn (University of MC;lnchester) Epicurus denied that the underworld depicted by poets' and painters' existed3 and gave an allegorical interpretation of the particular punishments said to be suffered there.4 What men feared in the afterlife took place according to him in this life. The idea came to Epicurus from the writings of Democritus. 5 It turned up in various forms in the teachings of other philosophical schools. 6 Lucretius no doubt would have taken the general substance of his criticism of conventional beliefs about the afterlife from Epicurus. Some details, however, reflect the life of Republican Rome rather than that of fourth century Athens. Most modern discussion has revolved slowly and uselessly around the question of how widespread belief in an afterlife was among Lucretius' readers. 7 Only a few scholars have tried to grapple with the problem of the origin of the details of Lucretius' argument.8 Something, I believe, remains to be said about these details. The text itself presents a number of problems. At five points'' our two witnesses of the direct tradition, codd. Leiden, Bib!. d. Rijksuniv. Voss. Lat. F. 30 (0) and Q. 94 (Q), vary; at one of these most editors seem to me to err about what lay in the archetype. At thirteen points"' 0 and Q agree in manifest nonsense too great even for the most conservative of editors to stomach; at two further points at least I find it difficult to believe that Lucretius wrote what is transmitted.
    [Show full text]
  • Akroterion 60 (2015) 33-63 34 DIJKSTRA & HERMANS
    View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by Akroterion (E-Journal) MUSURUS’ HOMERIC ODE TO PLATO AND HIS REQUESTS TO POPE LEO X1 R Dijkstra (Radboud University, Nijmegen) & E Hermans (Institute for the Study of the Ancient World, New York University) This article provides the first philological analysis and interpretation of the ode to Plato written by Marcus Musurus in 1513 in Venice and published as a dedicatory poem in the editio princeps of the works of Plato. Musurus asks pope Leo X to found a Greek academy in Rome and start a crusade against the Ottoman empire to liberate Greece. The article includes the first English translation of the entire poem since Roscoe (1805). Key words Musurus, Greek academy, Plato, Homer, crusades The year 1513 is probably most famous for the accession of the Medici pope Leo X. However, it also saw the publication of the first edition of the complete works of Plato in Greek. This edition, printed by the press of Aldus Manutius in Venice, was accompanied by a dedicatory poem, about which the contemporary historian Paolo Giovio made the flattering remark: (sc. poema) commendatione publica cum antiquis elegantia comparandum.2 The poem, written by Marcus Musurus, is indeed a remarkable literary achievement. Although it is often referred to in modern scholarship in the context of the history of Greek humanism, it has never been treated in depth.3 1 We would like to thank the anonymous referee of Akroterion, Philip Mitsis (New York University), Leslie Pierce (New York University) and in particular Han Lamers (Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin) for their remarks and suggestions.
    [Show full text]
  • Pliny, Naturalis Historia Xxx, 11)
    THE ENIGMA OF THE MAGICIAN LOTAPES (PLINY, NATURALIS HISTORIA XXX, 11) BY STEPHEN GERO Eberhard-Karls-Universität Tübingen In a famous passage Pliny the Elder refers to a school of magic which, long after the time of Zoroaster, originated from Moses, Jannes, Lotapes and the Jews: "est et alia magices factio a Mose et Janne et Lotape ac Judaeis pendens, sed multis milibus annorum post Zoro- astren."' Moses' reputation as a powerful magician needs no comment here;' Jannes is also well known as an Egyptian wizard who resisted Moses.' The name of Lotapes by contrast has been a crux interpretum ever since the publication of Pliny's text in the fifteenth century.' The purpose of the present contribution is to survey the emendations and explanations which have been hitherto proposed and to proffer, with all due caution, still another, hopefully more satisfactory, solution. 1. The Printed Text and Its Interpretation The initial efforts at understanding the precise import of the pas- sage have been hindered by the unfortunate fact that at the point of 1 Ed. C. Mayhoff, C. Plini SecundiNaturalis Historiae libri XXXVII, vol. 4 (Leipzig, 1907; reprint Stuttgart, 1967), p. 423, lines 16-18. 2 See e.g. J.G. Gager, Mosesin Greco-RomanPaganism (Nashville/New York, 1972),pp. 134ff. 3 See the dossier now assembled in A. Pietersma, TheApocryphon of Jannesand Jambres the Magicians(Leiden, 1994), especially pp. 24ff. and the present writer's "Parerga to 'The Book of Jannes and Jambres,'" Journal for the Studyof the Pseudepigrapha9 (1991), pp. 67ff. 4 Though Pliny's work was of course much used also earlier, the passage of interest here was not cited or commented upon by any author in late antiquity or in the Middle Ages, to my knowledge.
    [Show full text]
  • Reading Lucretius in the Renais Sance 
    I TATTI STUDIES IN ITALIAN RE NAIS SANCE HISTORY Sponsored by Villa I Tatti Harvard University Center for Italian Re nais sance Studies Florence, Italy Reading Lucretius IN THE Re nais sance Ada Palmer Cambridge, Massachusetts London, En gland 2014 Copyright © 2014 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College all rights reserved Printed in the United States of America First printing This book was published with the assistance of the Melbern G. Glasscock Center for Humanities Research at Texas A&M University. Library of Congress Cataloging- in- Publication Data Palmer, Ada. Reading Lucretius in the Renaissance / Ada Palmer. pages cm. — (I Tatti studies in Italian Renaissance history) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-0-674-72557-7 (alk. paper) 1. Lucretius Carus, Titus. De rerum natura I. Title. PA6495.P35 2014 871'.01—dc23 2014002577 Contents List of Tables and Figures vii Preface xi 1. Religion Trampled Underfoot 1 Epicurus, Atomism, Atheism, and Skepticism in the Re nais sance 2. Unchristian Opinion 43 Lucretius’s First Re nais sance Readers 3. Between Fits of Madness 97 Ancient References and Proto- Biographies 4. The Lofty Madness of Wise Lucretius 140 The Re nais sance Biographies 5. The Poverty of the Language 192 The Lucretian Print Tradition Conclusion 233 Deceived but Not Betrayed Appendix A: Lucretius Manuscripts 243 Appendix B: Capitula 250 Appendix C: Lucretius Editions 258 Notes 265 Bibliography 335 A c k n o w l e d g m e n t s 3 5 5 Index 359 Tables and Figures Tables 2.1. Manuscript sizes and materials 48 2.2.
    [Show full text]
  • LUCRETIUS 3.955 Tieth Century, When It Has Been Accepted By
    LUCRETIUS 3.955 In the course of his sermon on the theme that 'death is nothing to us' (3.830-1094), Lucretius, wanting to address some strong words to those who complaìn when it is time for them to die, uses the rethorically-effec- tive and tactfull device of putting them into the mouth of a personified Na- ture. Nature is made to speak twice - first in 933-949, then in 955-962. The frst speech is addressed to one who complains about death, al- though he has had the opportunity to lead a pleasurable life. Nature says that, if he has taken advantage of that opportunity, he should retire like a satisfied guest at the end of a banquet, while, if he has wasted it, there is no point in seeking to prolong a life which is miserable. The addressee, who, it is implied (946-947,952), is not of advanced age, is called frst mortalis (933>, then stulte (939). The addressee of the second speech is an elderly person (952: gran- dior... seniorque), who, having wasted life's opportunities, whines and whinges when his time to die comes. Nature rebukes him in harsher tones (953: non merito inclamet magis et voce increpet acri?) and, if one accepts the reading of O and Q, begins thus: aufer abhinc lacrimas, baratre, et cotnpesce querellas! (955) Although this may be what Lucretius wrote, baratre has worried editors for half a millennium. It does not occur elsewhere in Latin, while in Greek all we have is a doubtful occurrence in Lucian Pseudol.17, where Fópo- Opov, the last in a list of six terms of abuse, is accusative and so could be neuter rather than masculine, and the following statement of Pseudo-Am- monius Diff.B94 p.24 Nickau: Búpo0pog pèv yòp ò papú0pou &froE &vOprorog.
    [Show full text]