EMENDING AND DEFENDING THE VULGATE OLD TESTAMENT: AGOSTINO STEUCO’S QUARREL WITH ERASMUS Ronald K. Delph The publication of Agostino Steuco’s annotations on the Pentateuch in 1529 by the Aldine Press in Venice marked a major development in humanist Old Testament scholarship. Steuco’s annotations repre- sented one of the first systematic attempts by a Renaissance humanist to correct the Latin Vulgate text of the Old Testament ad Hebraicam veritatem, according to the Hebrew truth.1 Steuco’s annotations presented a conscious attempt to set out clearly for Old Testament scholars a set of scholarly procedures that they themselves could easily use while emending the Old Testament text. Moreover, he established high stan- dards for annotating and commenting upon the Old Testament text, insisting upon a rigorous philological and historical understanding of the Hebrew.2 What made Steuco’s textual emendations particularly valuable and of excellent quality was first and foremost, his solid command of Rab- binical and Old Testament Hebrew, as well as the Latin, Greek, and Aramaic languages.3 Secondly, he had direct access to the Grimani 1 For contemporary Italian biblical humanists and their reception at the papal court, see the essay by Paul Grendler in this volume above, pp. 227–76. 2 References to Steuco’s annotations in this study are based upon the Veteris Testamenti ad veritatem Hebraicam recognitio (Lyon, 1531). This is by far the best edition of the work I have consulted. The Hebrew in the 1529 Aldine edition lacks the points or vowel markings, and numerous errors plague the 1590/91 Venetian edition of the Opera omnia. I have not systematically consulted the edition in the 1577/78 Paris Opera omnia. At Deut. 18:21 (p. 718), Steuco wrote of his efforts to emend the Vulgate text based upon a careful collation of the Vulgate with the Hebrew and Greek texts, “In qua re, etsi multa a me fortasse praetermissa sunt, viam saltem caeteris qui in eo laborare voluerint, ostendimus.” 3 Steuco (1497–1548) learned Hebrew and Aramaic while studying at the University of Bologna from 1517–1525. During these years Giovanni Flaminio held the chair of Hebrew and Aramaic at the university. Steuco also probably attended the lectures of the humanists Giovan Battista Pio and Romulo Amaseo, both of whom taught rheto- ric and poetry at the university in these same years. For Steuco’s career, beginning in Gubbio where he was born, up through his ten-year tenure as Vatican Librarian under Paul III from 1538–1548, see Theobald Freudenberger, Augustinus Steuchus aus Gubbio, Augustinerchorherr und päpstlicher Bibliothekar (1497–1548) (Münster in Westfalen, 1935); for his student days in Bologna, see esp. pp. 30–36. 298 ronald k. delph Library in Venice, which in the early sixteenth century housed one of the best collections of Hebraica and scholarly works on the Old Testa- ment in Europe. Steuco belonged to the Congregation of Augustinian Canons of San Salvatore of Bologna whose members controlled the monastery of Sant’ Antonio in Venice where the Grimani Library was located. In the spring of 1525 Steuco’s superiors in the order appointed him custodian in charge of the collection.4 Working at the monastery of Sant’Antonio while he composed his annotations, he thus had a wide array of Hebrew and Aramaic manuscripts and early printed works by Jewish authors at his disposal. The most important of these were several manuscripts containing the Hebrew Old Testament text of the Bible.5 Another work that he found extremely useful in establishing the vera lectio or true reading of the Old Testament was the Targum Onkelos, an Aramaic translation of the text of the Hebrew Pentateuch given final form sometime between the late first and early third century A.D.6 He also had on hand a number of commentaries on the Hebrew Old Testament by several medieval Jewish exegetes from which he drew extensively to gain a literal and historical appreciation of the Old Testament text. Of great use to him were the commentaries of Rabbi Solomon or Rashi (1040–1105); Abraham ibn Ezra (1089–1164); David Kimhi (1160–1235); and Moses ben Nahman or Nahmanides (1194–1270).7 Additionally the Grimani Library housed the Hebrew 4 For Steuco’s appointment as custodian of the Grimani Library, see Freudenberger, Augustinus Steuchus, pp. 41–43. For Cardinal Domenico Grimani’s collection which included many Hebrew and Aramaic works from the library of Pico della Mirandola, see Giovanni Mercati, Codici Latini Pico Grimani Pio (Vatican City, 1938), pp. 1–38; Giuliano Tamani,“La Bibliothèque Hébraique du Cardinal Domenico Grimani,” in Georges Vajda, ed., Actes du XXIXe Congrès international des orientalistes. Études hébraiques (Paris, 1975), pp. 10–45; and Theobald Freudenberger, “Die Bibliothek des Kardinals Domenico Grimani,” Historisches Jahrbuch 56 (1936), 19–23. 5 We can ascertain with a fair degree of certainty many of the specific Hebrew authors and works Steuco had at his disposal in the Grimani library from an inventory of Hebrew works owned by Cardinal Grimani. This inventory is found in manuscript form in the Biblioteca Marciana, Venice (hereafter BMV), Classe XIV, 182 (4669), “Index librorum Hebraicorum Rmi. D.D. Dominici Cardinalis Grimani.” The inventory lists a total of 193 codices, some containing more than one work. Two manuscript copies of the Hebrew Bible are listed at numbers 1 and 149 (fols. 1r and 10v). 6 BMV, Classe XIV, 182 (4669), an Aramaic translation of the Bible is listed at number 139 (fol. 10r). 7 BMV, Classe XIV, 182 (4669), Rabbi Solomon’s commentary on the Pentateuch is listed at number 139 (fol. 10r). Three copies of Ibn Ezra’s commentary on the Penta- teuch are listed at numbers 54, 104, 185 (fols. 4v, 8r, 13r). David Kimhi’s commentary .