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The Literary Discoveries of Poggio

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 October 2009

Abstract

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Type
Original Contributions
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 1899

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References

page 119 note 1 i.e. of all MSS. except Laur. plut. liv. 5, which represents a copy taken by Bartolomeo de Montepoliciano, and the Pistoia MS. (Forteguerri 37) attributed by Kiessliug and Schoell to Sozomenus.

page 120 note 1 Two other Vatican MSS. (Vat. 3330, 3331), containing the 3rd and 4th Decads of Livy, are reputed to have been written by Poggio, on the strength of an entry to that effect on the first page of each of them, signed F. TJrsini. These signatures, I am informed by Father Ehrle, are not the work of Orsini himself, since in his will he directs that his name should be put into his books. I reject the ascription of these MSS. to Poggio. The hand is quite different, being larger and coarser. The writer was an ignorant person who misspells common words, writing e.g. Sciciliam for Siciliam (3330, f. 1). Poggio nowhere signs his name, as he does in the MSS. mentioned above. Further, the dates at which the MSS. were written, viz. 1453 and 1455 are strongly against the statement. In 1455 Poggio would be 75 years of age. His letters ten years earlier are full of complaints about his bad sight and the trouble of writing. Thus in July 1444, he says —superiora in librarii manu. Nam et anni suadent scribendi laborem subterfugere et accurate litteras componere est mihi difficillimum tum aculorum tum manus culpa (MS. Riccard. 759, f. 191 b), and some years earlier, superiora sunt librariorum manu. Nam raptim cum scripsissem rescribendae litterae fuerunt, quod mihi est difficillimum. Laborem enim in diem libentius declino, scribendi manu mea praesertim (f. 173).

page 120 note 1 0. E. Schmidt, die handschriftliche Ueberlieferung der Briefe Ciceros an Atticus, pp. 32–34 (Leipzig, 1887).

page 121 note 1 F. Barbaro to Poggio (Epp. 1. 1), quia te et Bartholomaeum ad hoc munus obeundum summi Romanae ecclesiae principes delectos publice dimiserunt: in another passage addressing Poggio he speaks of the ancient authors whom Bartholomaeo, collega tuo, adiutore…in Latium reduxisti. For the special connection of Bartholomeo with Silius, v. infra.

page 121 note 2 This MS. was collated for Silius Italicus by Blass in 1870. Blass attaches great value to it for Silius, considering it the best of one of the two groups of uncontaminated MSS. It has not been collated for Valerius Flaccus by any modern scholar.

page 121 note 3 It must not be thought that this is the only proof. I could fill pages with illustrations of the way in which corrections of the first hand in μ are accepted in π1 or proprii errores are reproduced. For the sake of brevity I confine myself to this, the most striking, proof.

page 122 note 1 My collation of π2 was incomplete ; and I have not noted its reading here. This remark applies to other cases where I quote π1 only. For a similar reason I sometimes do not give the reading of Ott., but only of its gemellus Q.

page 202 note 1 Lanr. plut. liv. 5. I cannot agree with Kiessling and Schoell who consider that this was written by Bartolomeo himself. It is in a formal hand, quite different from that employed in another MS. (Laur. plut. lxxx. sup. 42) which contains various works written by him at Constance with subscriptiones to that effect, which have greater claims to authenticity. The subscriptio in liv. 5 occurs on fol. 73b after Asconius, but there are no similar subscriptiones to the other works contained in the MS., viz. Ant. Lusci, Inquisitio Artis in Orationes IV. Ciceronis, and various speeches of Cicero. Further, the text of this MS. is largely affected by conjectures made in the margin of μ. I conclude, therefore, that the subscriptio of Bartolomeo was copied, just as that of Poggio has been reproduced in so many of the copies of works discovered by him.

page 125 note 1 privatam V.

page 125 note 2 vivant Mitt. (-at V). The reference, as Prof. Sabbadini points out to me, is to the saying of Tiberius about Galba (Suet. Galba iv.), vivat sane, ait, quando id ad nos nihil pertinet. Poggio is purposely using guarded language, which would be intelligible to his correspondent.

page 125 note 3 Guarino left Venice when it was visited by the plague in 1416. Prof. Sabbadini suggests that he may have wished to gain a post in the service of the new Pope. At the end of 1418 he settled at Verona.

page 125 note 4 i.e. Cardinal Zabarella, Archbishop of Florence, who died on Sept. 17, 1417. Poggio in his funeral oration says of him is unus erat maxime ad quern docti homines et Musarum amici sine fastidioso stomacho possent adire.

page 125 note 5 This appears to refer to the Pope.

page 125 note 6 Cf. Suet. Tib. eh. xxi., miserum populum Romanum qui sub tarn, lentis maxillis erit, said by Augustus of Tiberius.

page 125 note 7 honorari indignos quosqne V.

page 125 note 8 comestiva sua V, om. Mitt.

page 125 note 9 Franscesco Bracco of Cremona, a scholar frequently mentioned in the letters of Poggio.

page 125 note 10 Cincio Romano.

page 125 note 11 evomerem V.

page 125 note 12 opera mea V.

page 125 note 13 possent V.

page 125 note 14 Alamano Adimano, Archbishop of Pisa and Cardinal of St. Eusebius. He is said to have discovered Pompeius Trogus in Spain.

page 125 note 15 Presbyter qui tibi V : qui Presbyter tibi Mitt.

page 125 note 16 Opus V.

page 125 note 17 i.e. Ciceronis. Poggio refers to his orationes Cluniacenses.

page 125 note 18 nolo hie V, hie nolo Mitt.

page 125 note 19 i.e. ‘delivered.’

page 125 note 20 i.e. ‘he will go a nd fetch the copy himself.’

page 125 note 21 i.e. ‘aid in the decipherment or interpretation.’

page 125 note 22 i.e. curiae. Prof. Sabbadini has very kindly given me a copy of an unedited letter of Poggio, written to F. Barbaro immediately afterwards, in which he says cognovi vos commotos propter novum consilium meum, verentes ne desperations mei curiam relinquam. (Bertoliana di Vicenza cod. 492, f. 80).

page 126 note 1 Poggio says that he obtained them ex monasterio Cluniaeensi, and calls them his Cluniacenses (Tonelli, vol. i., pp. 100, 153). In a subscripto to a MS. Abbat. Flor. S. Maria they are said to have been fonnd in silvis Lingonum. Reifferscheid (Rhein. Mus. xxiii., p. 146) conjectures that they were found at Langres.

page 126 note 2 Prof. Sabbadini would now assign it to July or Aug. 1418.

page 126 note 3 Centotrenta Lettere inedite di Francesco Barbaro, Salerno, 1884, ed. Remigio Sabbadini.

page 126 note 4 In a letter to Niccolo Niecoll alluded to above, Poggio says, Lucretium [tenuisti per annos quattuordecim, eodem modo Asconium Pediamtm, sic et Petronium Arbitrum et Statium Silvarum. (Tonelli i., p. 303.

page 127 note 1 Philelfo says of A. Barbadori quern nunc audio istic agere relegatum ah iisqui Fhrentiae principatum tenent. In the printed book isticagere is given as one word. Blass proposes to read isto earere, a very unfortunate emendation.

page 127 note 2 This is termed 0 by Blass. He places Ottob. 1258 among the interpolated MSS., so that here, as for Valerius Flaccus, it appears to be inferior to Q.

page 127 note 3 p. 239, n.

page 128 note 1 That this description does not necessarily imply great antiquity has already been pointed out by Dr. Krohn. He says ‘Es war hbchst wahrscheinlich keine alte Handschrift, sondern eine Abschrift…. aus der Zeit des Kostnitzner Konzils, die aber nach Polizianos Urteil die Mutter aller ihm bekannten Silvenhandschriften, in diesem Sinne also die älteste, war.’ ed. Vollmer, p. 42. The Editor of the Review sends me the following citation from the praefatio to Schwabe's Catullus, which shows how a MS. at Milan (Ambrosianus D 24) written about 1500 was dated by a historian of that city not very far on in the 16th century : “Ripamontius in hist, urbis Mediolani 20, 15 narrat Frederico Borromaeo Cardinali ab ep. melfitano donatum esse ‘Catullum, quern aut poetae ipsius manu aut aetate eerte ilia scriptum diceret quisquis perite faciem ductusque litterarum aestimaret.’”

page 128 note 2 Finis Adest Vbrf Precivm Vvlt Scriptor Hebere (Class. Review, December, 1898, p. 445).

page 129 note 1 Mittarelli's catalogue was published in 1779.