chapter 15 « Catullum Numquam Antea Lectum […] Lego »: A Short Analysis of ’ Fortune in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries

Alina Laura de Luca

The Liber Catulli Veronensis has a mysterious history full of twists and turns, chance discoveries and sudden disappearances, avid attempts at correction and of convictions for obscenity. We know that it had an enormous and imme- diate popularity among poets of the ‘Golden Age’ and was read and discussed from the second to the fourth century.1 However, the study and discussion of Catullus in the Middle Ages have left only a few traces. He is mentioned two or three times and he is not listed in the manuscript catalogues of monastic libraries during the Carolingian age; whereas in the same period we witness a multiplication of copies of , , , and . Nevertheless, there is evidence that Catullus was being read in France and northern Italy: in the late ninth century poem 62 was included in a florilegium;2 in 966 Raterio, Bishop of Verona, was reading Catullus, as he says in one of his sermons: “I read Catullus that has never been accessed before”.3 However, the Liber soon disap- peared, or more probably it lay undisturbed in the Chapter Library of Verona throughout most of the Middle Ages.4

1 The modern study of Kenneth Quinn, The Catullan revolution (Melbourne, Melbourne University Press, 1959), describes the impact that Catullus had on Roman poetry. Individual Catullan poems were admired and imitated by the Augustan poets, above all by elegists, and his popularity continued later with , , and Pomponius. In the fourth century Nonius Marcellus, Aelius Donatus and Servius quoted single verses of Catullus. 2 Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale, Lat. 8071: it contains Cat. 62, various minor works and selec- tions from Martial, Juvenal and Seneca’s tragedies. The florilegium is referred to as ‘T’ after his sixteenth-century owner, Jacques-Auguste de Thou. 3 The text of Raterius runs as follows: Quid de me dicere, quid valeo cogitare (et ut turpia subsid- ens honesta solum, prohibita licet, depromam), si in lege Dei, ut debitorem me fore non nescio die meditor et nocte, Catullum numquam antea lectum, Plautum quando iam olim lego neglec- tum, musicam quando saepe rogatus expono, cum nequeam (primo aritmetico scilicet cassatus auxilio), cf. Benny R. Reece (ed.), Sermo de Maria et Martha in Sermones Ratherii episcopi Veronensis (Worcester, Mass., Holy Cross College, 1969), p. 86. 4 The last medieval ‘sighting’ of Catullus is connected not with Italy or France but with Britain. Its echo is found in the twelfth-century De gestis regum Anglorum of William of Malmesbury.

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330 De Luca

Eventually, it came dramatically to light at the end of the thirteenth century. The date and the circumstances of its discovery are obscure, as is the identity of the finder. We only know that the discovery was commemorated by Benvenuto Campesani of Vicenza (d. 1323),5 with an enthusiastic but ambiguous epigram.6 However, the manuscript usually called Veronensis deperditus (v) disappeared again, but not before it had been copied at least twice: from these copies have descended our oldest Catullus codices.7 It seems that before its disappearance v was studied in Verona by several anthologists. Petrarch himself quoted or discussed Catullus several times; dur- ing the fifteenth century, Catullan verses were imitated and studied, and in the decade from 1472 to 1481 six editions were published; however Catullus, unlike and , his companions in the 1472 , still lacked a commentary.8 This was because of the confused text conditions: many of the poems were transmitted together and scholars disagreed on their separation; others were beset by corruptions that obscured their meaning.9

This is a problematic piece of evidence because William apparently never left England and there is no other evidence about a presence of Catullus in Britain before the fifteenth century. 5 Cf. Roberto Weiss, ‘Benvenuto Campesani (1250/55-1323)’, Bollettino del Museo Civico di Padova, xliv (1955), pp. 129–144. 6 Ad patriam venio longis a finibus exul; / causa mei reditus compatriota fuit, / scilicet a calamis tribuit cui Francia nomen / quique notat turbe pretereuntis iter. / Quo licet ingenio vestrum cel- ebrate Catullum, / cuius sub modio clausa papirus erat. According to some scholars, Benvenuto’s epigram contests the idea that the manuscript remained in Verona: after a period of distant exile Catullus returned to his homeland thanks to a fellow countryman. Others consider this unlikely: “longis a finibus exul” is a metaphorical expression and this idea is confirmed by the last pentameter where sub modio clausa means “in bushel”, that is, “in a hidden place”. 7 Sangermanensis Parisinus 14137 (G); Oxoniensis Bodleianus Canonicianus Latinus 30 (O). Apographs of a twin of G: Vaticanus Ottobonianus Lat. 1829 (R); Marciamus Venetus Latinus cl. xii, 80 (M). 8 By now regular companions of Catullus in the manuscripts, as well as the Silvae of Statius. 9 For example, the codex emended by Baptista Guarinus (1435–1505) probably before 1496 was corrupt and he published his results as a nitidum et tersum , according to Alexander’s Guarinus Preface to his Catullan commentary. The exact date of Baptista Guarinus’ emenda- tions is unknown; neither manuscript or editions contains his name; as we know from sev- eral sources, Baptista presented the work to the city of Verona and it was finally published by his son, Alexander Guarinus, in his commentary aimed to preserve and explain his father’s work; cf. A. Guarini Ferrariensis expositiones in C.V. Catullum Veronensem per Baptistam patrem emendatum (Venice, Georgium de Rusconibus, 1521).