Looking for Vulcanius: Plethora and Lacunae

Total Page:16

File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb

Looking for Vulcanius: Plethora and Lacunae © 2010 by Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands (ISBN: 978-90-04-19209-6) LOOKING FOR VULCANIUS: PLETHORA AND LACUNAE Hélène Cazes In 1910, as an introduction to Codices Vulcaniani, P.C. Molhuysen could summarize in one and half page what was known about Vulca- nius: birth and death dates (1538–1614), family (the son of the Bruges humanist Petrus Vulcanius), studies (in Leuven and Ghent, then with Cassander in Germany), employment held (secretary to Francisco da Mendoza and his brother in Spain, preceptor in the Sudermanns’ house, editor and translator in Geneva, secretary to Marnix, professor in Leiden), and collections (manuscripts, essentially). From there, it is possible to gaze both at the plethora of information waiting to be studied; and, at the same time, at the insuperable lacunae, that seem to be inherent in the story of Bonaventura Vulcanius. By the humanist himself, much had been passed on to the library or to common store of knowledge: books written, editions provided, commentaries published or ready for publication, classes taught and remembered, manuscripts collected, papers, and even two portraits. Moreover, he had been given the opportunity to write not only a poetic epitaph for himself but also to compose, or at least supervise, his own first biography. Though he left behind a considerable num- ber of documents and testimonies, Bonaventura Vulcanius also left a cloud of mystery around his name, his activities and his beliefs. In this case, too, much information, volunteered by various interested parties has maintained and even thickened the mysteries raised by his silences, his departures, or his allegiances. One explanation for this paradox—information muddling the out- lines of portraits and biographies—may well reside in the part played by Bonaventura Vulcanius himself in the composition of his legend. Another explanation may be found in the very nature of his scholar- ship and writing: devoting most of his life to editions and translations, Vulcanius is always defining his writing as an epigone, an inferior imi- tation. The position of second seems to please him, for that is precisely the position of the mediator, who passes on, reconciles, and transmits the legacy of the Ancients. His own poetry, Alexandrian in its inspi- ration, in its forms, and even in its languages, plays with echoes and 2 hélène cazes reminiscences. Furthermore, the collections of books and manuscripts, that are now part of the Leiden University Library,1 can be understood as yet another kind of mediation. The position of intermediary makes for an uncomfortable journey for posterity: middle men seem to lack glamour, and modesty is one of their major qualities. Studying the legacy, the works, and also the networks of Bonaventura Vulcanius amounts, then, to a series of group portraits, here assembled as in a gallery: the subject is seldom at the centre of the image, and, when he is, the portrait is seldom true. As an attempt to give fair recognition to a complex figure, this vol- ume does not pretend to give answers when questions are still in the asking. Moreover, it aims to restore the aura of discretion and silence in which Vulcanius wrapped his private life and opinions. In this per- spective, we have gathered different perspectives, without excluding any of them, and propose various takes on the same question. The editor encouraged the inclusion and edition of much unedited mate- rial, with the hope that this very volume will, in turn, encourage new research and fruitful connections. The organization of the papers follows the constitution of an imagi- nary biography, starting with the first testimonies left about Vulca- nius: the early biographical accounts—for instance, the funeral oration delivered by Petrus Cunaeus—but also all the clues found in the papers and unedited works left by Vulcanius. The introduction, edition and English translation of Vulcanius’ eulogy by Chris Heesakkers and Wil Heesakkers-Kamerbeek provide a provisional biographical setting where to place the overview on a writing career given by Harm-Jan van Dam. The frame is thereby set, and so are the driving and prob- lematic questions surrounding Bonaventura Vulcanius’ biography. The following papers examines the sets of elusive legacies, found in docu- ments and testimonies provided by the portraits of Vulcanius and by book sales catalogues. Kasper van Ommen draws up the first inventory of Vulcanius’ portraits and, after replacing their production within the humanist context of author’s portraits, locates, describes and analyses them. Paul Smith emphasizes the necessary caution to be used when looking at an inventory where titles and owners of the books are not described in a standardized manner. Nonetheless, he derives from the 1 Leiden, UL, in this volume. looking for vulcanius: plethora and lacunae 3 two extant lists of books we possess a profile of reader and collector for Vulcanius. The next group of papers on “Routes of exile and convictions” fol- lows the discontinuous traces of Vulcanius after his Spanish years: Elly Ledegang-Keegstra shows a not so young but very humble Vulcanius in Geneva, welcomed by Beza and eager to declare his allegiance to the master. Hugues Daussy underlines the role of Vulcanius in pass- ing out information about the status of Protestants and the Civil Wars in France. Kees Meerhoff examines the entries of the Album Amico- rum pertaining to Heidelberg: he introduces the little society of Dutch exiles, rocked by religious dissent and changes in dynastic confessions, but always true to the values of scholarship and humanism. The study of Anton van der Lem shows us the manuscripts known as parts of Cod. Vulc. 104 and their crucial importance for the history of the Dutch Revolt. In “Looking Back”, Karel Bostoen and Alfons Dewitte return to the beginnings: family, first masters, training years in Bruges. What is left of these loyalties when Vulcanius has settled in Leiden? Manuscripts, letters, trips, and common friends give partial answers; poems give some other ones—different, often contradictory ones. The picture is being muddled, by its own subject, it seems. Chris Heesakkers and Jeanine De Landtsheer give a portrait of another tonality in the chapter on “Homes: Professor in Leiden”. Exploring the networks established by Vulcanius during his profes- sorship, they unveil a perpetual second place-holder, who was bright, productive, faithful to his University, well deserving, but never made “Rector Magnificus”. Chris Heesakkers tells of the friendship with the Dousa family and presents an edition of some laudatory poems it inspired. Jeanine De Landtsheer explores the relationship with Lipsius and finds a close complicity between the two colleagues when, living in the same town, they seem determined not to write about it! Unearth- ing many unedited poems, she draws a vivid picture of the intellectual life around the first year of Leiden University. The works of Vulcanius, edited and unedited during his lifetime, are far from exhaustively described in the last chapters. Two sets of works, innovative and representative at their time, are there summa- rized: the editions of Patristic and Byzantine texts, so often remarked on by his early biographers, and the passion for the first appearances of Dutch, but also Germanic and Celtic languages. Thomas Conley brings together a critical bibliography of all the editions of Greek 4 hélène cazes authors, which highlights the immense and hitherto unfairly appraised philological work of Vulcanius. Gilbert Tournoy follows with minute exactitude the brief collaboration of Henri Estienne and Bonaventura Vulcanius in 1575 for the translation of Arrian’s works. Dirk Van Miert, working on the same titles, vividly presents the impatience of Scaliger and of Heidelberg scholars towards the aging Vulcanius, which reminds the reader of the letter of Abraham Schultetus quoted by Bayle: at the end of his life, the professor, blind and ill, would still conceive of ambitious philological projects. The last part of the volume examines other Vulcanius’ researches on ancient European non Latin languages and scripts, including runes, Celtic scripts, northern ancient alphabets, Gipsy language etc. Toon van Hal tracks the informants of Vulcanius from Leiden to Denmark, Norway, and England for the book on runes and Celtic scripts. In the same perspective, Thomas Conley adds a note and query: he restores to Vulcanius a 1595 edition of De Gestis Lombardicis. The interest of Vulcanius for Germanic and Celtic languages is then analyzed by Kees Dekker and put into the larger context of the earliest European Germanic Studies. In a broad paper that replaces the work of Vulcanius within the history of philol- ogy, he shows, once more, the audacious and foundational intuitions of Vulcanius. The conclusion is left open, perhaps for a future volume—the aim of this collection of papers being not to propose yet another Vulcanius but to explore, with some sense of marvel, the many portraits, lives, figures, temperaments, and works attributed to a formidably industri- ous and productive humanist..
Recommended publications
  • The Many Lives of Bonaventura Vulcanius 1614–2010 (Exploring Biographies and Introducing This Collection of Papers)*
    © 2010 by Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands (ISBN: 978-90-04-19209-6) THE MANY LIVES OF BONAVENTURA VULCANIUS 1614–2010 (EXPLORING BIOGRAPHIES AND INTRODUCING THIS COLLECTION OF PAPERS)* Hélène Cazes Ter denos docui Leidis binosque per annos Cattigenum pubem Graijugenum ore loqui. Nunc manibus, pedibusque oculisque, atque auribus aeger, Et senio languens, lampada trado aliis.1 [For two and thirty years I have in Leiden Taught the Cattis’ youth to speak the Acheans’ language. Now my hands, feet, eyes, and ears are aching; Drained by old age, the flame I pass to others.] This epitaph—composed for himself by Vulcanius—is the first portrait of the humanist to be collected in this volume of Vulcanius’ studies: the two elegant Latin distiches were given, surely by the author and biographee himself, to the young Joannes Meursius (1579–1639), who was then gathering material for his professors’ biographies, the Icons of illustrious men, which would be published in 1613. We know of several manuscript versions of this poem, now kept among Vulcanius’ papers at the University Library of Leiden: these drafts attest to the * I would like to thank the following persons and Institutes for making this research possible, accurate, and fruitful: the Scaliger Institute of the University Library in Leiden and the Brill Publishers, who granted me a Brill Fellowship for a proj- ect on Bonaventura Vulcanius’ Album Amicorum. I am particularly grateful for the trust, guidance, and support of the curators and staff of Leiden’s library, notably Dr. Anton van der Lem, Mr. Kasper Van Ommen, Prof.
    [Show full text]
  • Corpus Eve , Historiographie Des Serments De Strasbourg Le De Literis Et Lingua Getarum Sive Gothorum De Bonaventura Vulcanius (1597)
    Corpus Eve Émergence du Vernaculaire en Europe Historiographie des Serments de Strasbourg Le De literis et lingua Getarum sive Gothorum de Bonaventura Vulcanius (1597). Les Serments de Strasbourg au service de la défense et illustration des langues germaniques Maurizio Busca Édition électronique URL : http://journals.openedition.org/eve/1562 ISSN : 2425-1593 Éditeur : Université de Savoie, Université Jean Moulin - Lyon 3 Référence électronique Maurizio Busca, « Le De literis et lingua Getarum sive Gothorum de Bonaventura Vulcanius (1597). Les Serments de Strasbourg au service de la défense et illustration des langues germaniques », Corpus Eve [En ligne], Historiographie des Serments de Strasbourg, mis en ligne le 10 octobre 2019, consulté le 11 octobre 2019. URL : http://journals.openedition.org/eve/1562 Ce document a été généré automatiquement le 11 octobre 2019. © Tous droits réservés Le De literis et lingua Getarum sive Gothorum de Bonaventura Vulcanius (1597)... 1 Le De literis et lingua Getarum sive Gothorum de Bonaventura Vulcanius (1597). Les Serments de Strasbourg au service de la défense et illustration des langues germaniques Maurizio Busca RÉFÉRENCE De literis & lingua Getarum, Sive Gothorum. Item de Notis Lombardicis. Quibus accesserunt Specimina variarum Linguarum, quarum Indicem pagina quæ Præfationem sequitur ostendit, Editore Bon. Vulcanio Brugensi, Lugduni Batavorum, Ex officina Plantiniana, Apud Franciscum Raphelengium, 1597. Notice biographique 1 Fils de l’humaniste Petrus Vulcanius1, Bonaventura Vulcanius naît à Bruges en 15382. Au cours de ses études à Gand, à Louvain et à Cologne il acquiert une excellente maîtrise du latin et du grec qui lui vaut, à l’âge de 21 ans, la charge de secrétaire et bibliothécaire de l’évêque de Burgos, Francisco de Mendoza y Bobadilla, puis du frère de ce dernier, l’archidiacre de Tolède, Ferdinando.
    [Show full text]
  • The Humanist Discourse in the Northern Netherlands
    UvA-DARE (Digital Academic Repository) Clashes of discourses: Humanists and Calvinists in seventeenth-century academic Leiden Kromhout, D. Publication date 2016 Document Version Final published version Link to publication Citation for published version (APA): Kromhout, D. (2016). Clashes of discourses: Humanists and Calvinists in seventeenth- century academic Leiden. General rights It is not permitted to download or to forward/distribute the text or part of it without the consent of the author(s) and/or copyright holder(s), other than for strictly personal, individual use, unless the work is under an open content license (like Creative Commons). Disclaimer/Complaints regulations If you believe that digital publication of certain material infringes any of your rights or (privacy) interests, please let the Library know, stating your reasons. In case of a legitimate complaint, the Library will make the material inaccessible and/or remove it from the website. Please Ask the Library: https://uba.uva.nl/en/contact, or a letter to: Library of the University of Amsterdam, Secretariat, Singel 425, 1012 WP Amsterdam, The Netherlands. You will be contacted as soon as possible. UvA-DARE is a service provided by the library of the University of Amsterdam (https://dare.uva.nl) Download date:26 Sep 2021 Chapter 1: The humanist discourse in the Northern Netherlands This chapter will characterize the discourse of the Leiden humanists in the first decade of the seventeenth century. This discourse was in many aspects identical to the discourse of the Republic of Letters. The first section will show how this humanist discourse found its place at Leiden University through the hands of Janus Dousa and others.
    [Show full text]
  • Poems on the Threshold: Neo-Latin Carmina Liminaria
    Chapter 3 Poems on the Threshold: Neo-Latin carmina liminaria Harm-Jan van Dam Introduction Imagine someone about four hundred years ago picking up a new Latin book, for instance the fourth edition of Daniel Heinsius’ poetry, published in Leiden, shown at the end of this paper. It dates from 1613, as the colophon at the end of the book states. Readers enter the book through the frontispiece or main entrance, with its promises of sublime poetry given by the crown- ing of Pegasus, and of a text so much more correct and complete according to the inscription (emendata locis infinitis & aucta) that it would be better to throw away their earlier editions. The entrance draws the reader inside to the next page where he may learn the book’s contents (indicem . aversa indicat pagina). That index is followed first by a prose Dedicatio addressed to one of the Governors of Leiden University, then by a poem in six elegiac distichs on Heinsius’ Elegies by Joseph Scaliger, a letter by Hugo Grotius ending with seven distichs, and a Greek poem of sixteen distichs by Heinsius’ colleague Petrus Cunaeus. Finally Heinsius devotes six pages to an Address Amico lectori. Then, stepping across the threshold, the reader at last enters the house itself, the first book of the Elegies.1 Many, if not most, early modern books begin like this, with various prelimi- nary matter in prose and especially in poetry. Nevertheless, not much has been written on poems preceding the main text of books.2 They are often designated 1 Respectively pp.
    [Show full text]
  • Neo Latin News New.Pdf (158.4Kb)
    ♦ 194 seventeenth-century news NEO-LATIN NEWS Vol. 59, Nos. 3 & 4. Jointly with SCN. NLN is the official publica- tion of the American Association for Neo-Latin Studies. Edited by Craig Kallendorf, Texas A&M University; Western European Editor: Gilbert Tournoy, Leuven; Eastern European Editors: Jerzy Axer, Barbara Milewska-Wazbinska, and Katarzyna Tomaszuk, Centre for Studies in the Classical Tradition in Poland and East- Central Europe, University of Warsaw. Founding Editors: James R. Naiden, Southern Oregon University, and J. Max Patrick, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee and Graduate School, New York University. ♦ Angelo Poliziano. Lamia: Text, Translation, and Introductory Studies. Ed. by Christopher S. Celenza. Brill’s Studies in Intellectual History, 189; Brill’s Texts and Sources in Intellectual History, 7. Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2010. xiv + 272 pp. The text at the center of this book is a praelectio, or preliminary oration, delivered in the fall of 1492 to open a course on Aristotle’s Prior Analytics being taught at the Florentine university by Angelo Poliziano. The decision to teach Aristotle was a controversial one: no one challenged Poliziano’s ability to handle the Greek, but his background was in literature and he held the chair in rhetoric and poetics, not philosophy. ThePrior Analytics, focused on the use of syllogisms, struck some of his contemporaries as an especially inflammatory choice, and as is always the case, the backbiting soon reached his ears. To Poliziano, a member of the late fifteenth-century Florentine intellectual community who gossiped about him as he sought to expand his teaching portfolio was a sorcerer or enchantress who sucked the blood of her victims—a lamia, in Latin.
    [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 French Connection (Part 2): Research Journal - Volume 07 - 2010 on the Trail of Jacques Le Doux Online Research Journal Article C.W.H.Gamble
    The Marlowe Society The French Connection (Part 2): Research Journal - Volume 07 - 2010 On the Trail of Jacques Le Doux Online Research Journal Article C.W.H.Gamble The French Connection (Part 2) On the Trail of Jacques Le Doux Introduction This article is the sequel to an essay first published in 2009 in the Online Research Journal of the Marlowe Society (Vol.6) 1, under the title The French Connection: New Leads on Monsieur Le Doux . In view of the extent of the new documentary evidence here presented, and the chronological overlap, the reader may wish to refer to the previous article for additional information on the links between “Le Doux” and Christopher Marlowe, and indeed on Marlowe’s claim to the authorship of the works of “Shake-speare”. I should begin by giving a brief outline of the background to the historical events and negotiations which are discussed in both articles, with apologies to those readers for whom this is already familiar ground: 1. In 1568 the United Provinces of the Netherlands rose in revolt against Spanish Habsburg rule. Their cause gained the open support of Queen Elizabeth during the mid-1580s; England provided both funds and military forces for the continuance of the war against Spanish occupation, a lengthy conflict which was not resolved until 1609, when peace was made with Spain. The Earl of Essex, Robert Devereux, saw service in the Netherlands under the Earl of Leicester (1585-1586) and later, in 1591, led a force into France in support of King Henri IV against the Catholic League; Essex’s brother Walter was killed at the siege of Rouen.
    [Show full text]
  • The Anglo-Saxon Collections of Johannes De Laet (1581–1649) and Sir Simonds D’Ewes (1602–1650) Bremmer Jr., Rolf H.; Hall T.N., Scragg D
    “Mine is Bigger than Yours”: The Anglo-Saxon Collections of Johannes de Laet (1581–1649) and Sir Simonds D’Ewes (1602–1650) Bremmer Jr., Rolf H.; Hall T.N., Scragg D. Citation Bremmer Jr., R. H. (2008). “Mine is Bigger than Yours”: The Anglo- Saxon Collections of Johannes de Laet (1581–1649) and Sir Simonds D’Ewes (1602–1650). In S. D. Hall T.N. (Ed.), Anglo-Saxon Books and Their Readers: Essays in Celebration of Helmut Gneuss’s ‘Handlist of Anglo-Saxon Manuscripts’ (pp. 136-174). Kalamazoo, MI: Western Michigan University Press. Retrieved from https://hdl.handle.net/1887/14081 Version: Not Applicable (or Unknown) License: Leiden University Non-exclusive license Downloaded from: https://hdl.handle.net/1887/14081 Note: To cite this publication please use the final published version (if applicable). “Mine Is Bigger Than Yours”: The Anglo-Saxon Collections of Johannes de Laet (1581–1649) and Sir Simonds D’Ewes (1602–50) Rolf H. Bremmer, Jr. Today the community of Anglo-Saxonists is a global affair. Their presence at the yearly conferences in Kalamazoo and Leeds and the biennial gath- erings of the International Society of Anglo-Saxonists gives a lively testimony to this simple observation. Though the scale of this international community today is no doubt unprecedented, it is remarkable that Anglo-Saxon studies have almost from the start attracted the interest of scholars who were not English. In this essay I shall focus on two early Anglo-Saxonists, the Dutch- man Johannes de Laet and the Englishman Sir Simonds D’Ewes, both of whom were involved, as competitors and collaborators, in the compilation of an Anglo-Saxon dictionary in the 1630s and 1640s.
    [Show full text]
  • Thesis (Complete)
    UvA-DARE (Digital Academic Repository) Clashes of discourses: Humanists and Calvinists in seventeenth-century academic Leiden Kromhout, D. Publication date 2016 Document Version Final published version Link to publication Citation for published version (APA): Kromhout, D. (2016). Clashes of discourses: Humanists and Calvinists in seventeenth- century academic Leiden. General rights It is not permitted to download or to forward/distribute the text or part of it without the consent of the author(s) and/or copyright holder(s), other than for strictly personal, individual use, unless the work is under an open content license (like Creative Commons). Disclaimer/Complaints regulations If you believe that digital publication of certain material infringes any of your rights or (privacy) interests, please let the Library know, stating your reasons. In case of a legitimate complaint, the Library will make the material inaccessible and/or remove it from the website. Please Ask the Library: https://uba.uva.nl/en/contact, or a letter to: Library of the University of Amsterdam, Secretariat, Singel 425, 1012 WP Amsterdam, The Netherlands. You will be contacted as soon as possible. UvA-DARE is a service provided by the library of the University of Amsterdam (https://dare.uva.nl) Download date:25 Sep 2021 Clashes of Discourses Humanists and Calvinists in Seventeenth-Century Academic Leiden David Kromhout cover.indd 1 11-02-16 14:34 Clashes of Discourses Humanists and Calvinists in Seventeenth-Century Academic Leiden David Kromhout Clashes of Discourses Humanists and Calvinists in Seventeenth-Century Academic Leiden ACADEMISCH PROEFSCHRIFT ter verkrijging van de graad van doctor aan de Universiteit van Amsterdam op gezag van de Rector Magnificus prof.
    [Show full text]
  • Neo-Latin News NEO-LATIN NEWS
    neo-latin news 75 NEO-LATIN NEWS Vol. 69, Nos. 1 & 2. Jointly with SCN. NLN is the official publica- tion of the American Association for Neo-Latin Studies. Edited by Craig Kallendorf, Texas A&M University; Western European Editor: Gilbert Tournoy, Leuven; Eastern European Editors: Jerzy Axer, Barbara Milewska-Wazbinska, and Katarzyna To- maszuk, Centre for Studies in the Classical Tradition in Poland and East-Central Europe, University of Warsaw. Founding Editors: James R. Naiden, Southern Oregon University, and J. Max Patrick, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee and Graduate School, New York University. ♦ Before Utopia: The Making of Thomas More’s Mind. By Ross Dealy. Toronto, Buffalo, and London: University of Toronto Press, 2020. xii + 400 pp. $120. As the title suggests, this is a traditional intellectual biography in which a scholar investigates the evolution of a famous person’s thought, looking for influences from the subject’s past and filiations in his or her present. While the book is long and the development is detailed, Dealy’s main point is deceptively simple. Stripped of all its accompanying nuance and support, his argument is that prior to 1504, More vacillated between whether he should choose the active or contemplative life. This reflects an either / or world view, but that world view changed in late 1504, when More came to recognize that he did not have to choose because each life requires the other. This new both / and world view was radically transformative, and Dealy rightly asks how and why it came to be. The proximate cause, he argues, was Erasmus, in particular Erasmus’s De taedio Iesu and Enchiridion, which led More to see that Stoicism offered a world view that had a place for both the worldly and the non-worldly, honestum and utile, a unitary understanding that supplied an intellectual method that functioned as well at the beginning of the sixteenth century as it did in antiquity.
    [Show full text]
  • Codex Argenteus and Its Printed Editions
    CoDec ARG ente us and its printed editions Lars Munkhammar 2010 Content The Codex Argenteus – A General Presentation 2 The Project 4 The Goths, the Gothic Language and the Gothic Bible 6 The Mystery of the Thousand Years 10 Werden – Uppsala 13 Codex Argenteus – A Codicological Description 15 An Old Codex in a New Europe 24 Franciscus Junius 1665 28 Georg Stiernhielm 1671 35 Erik Benzelius 1750 38 Zahn’s Edition 1805 – Johan Ihre & Erik Sotberg 41 Gabelentz & Löbe 1836 43 Uppström 1854 & 1857 44 The Facsimile Edition of 1927 46 References 48 1 The Codex Argenteus – A General Presentation THE CODEX ARGENTEUS – THE ‘SILVER BIBLE ’ IN Uppsala University Library is the most comprehensive still existing text in the Gothic language. It contains what is left of a deluxe book of the four Gospels, an evangeliarium , written in the early 6th century in Northern Italy, probably in Ravenna, and probably for the Ostrogothic King Theoderic the Great. The text is part of Wulfila’s translation of the Bible from Greek into Gothic, made in the 4th century. The Codex Argenteus is written in silver- and gold-ink on very thin purple parchment of extremely high quality. For a long time it was alleged that the parchment was made from the skin of new-born or even unborn calves, but modern research shows that it was more likely made from the skin of kids. The purple colour does not come from the purple snail but from vegetable dyes. The silver text is predominant, which explains why the book is called ‘the Silver Book’, or the Codex Argenteus .
    [Show full text]
  • 66 1&2 Full Text.Pdf (1.289Mb)
    EVENTEENTH- ENTURY EWS SPRING - SUMMER 2008 Vol. 66 Nos. 1&2 Including THE NEO-LATIN NEWS Vol. 56, Nos. 1&2 SEVENTEENTH-CENTURY NEWS VOLUME 66, Nos. 1&2 SPRING-SUMMER, 2008 SCN, an official organ of the Milton Society of America and of the Milton Section of the Modern Language Association, is published as a double issue two times each year with the support of the English Departments of: University of Akron Oklahoma State University Texas A&M University SUBMISSIONS: As a scholarly review journal, SCN publishes only commis- sioned reviews. As a service to the scholarly community, SCN also publishes news items. A current style sheet, previous volumes’ Tables of Contents, and other information all may be obtained via our home page on the World Wide Web. Books for review and queries should be sent to: Prof. Donald R. Dickson English Department 4227 Texas A&M University College Station, Texas 77843-4227 E-Mail: [email protected] WWW: http://www-english.tamu.edu/pubs/scn/ ISSN 0037-3028 SEVENTEENTH-CENTURY NEWS EDITOR DONALD R. DICKSON Texas A&M University ASSOCIATE EDITORS James Egan, University of Akron Jeffrey Walker, Oklahoma State University Michele Marrapodi, University of Palermo Patricia Garcia, Our Lady of the Lake University E. Joe Johnson, Clayton State University EDITORIAL ASSISTANTS Mark A. Houston, Texas A&M University Jacob A. Tootalian, Texas A&M University CONTENTS VOLUME 66, NOS. 1&2 SPRING-SUMMER, 2008 REVIEWS John Stubbs, John Donne: The Reformed Soul. ...................... Review by SEAN MCDOWELL ....................................................................... 1 Jonathan Burton, Traffic and Turning: Islam and English Drama, 1579- 1624.
    [Show full text]