Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Author(s): E. P. Goldschmidt
Source: Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, Vol. 14, No. 1/2 (1951), pp. 7-20
Published by: The Warburg Institute
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/750349 .
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By E. P. Goldschmidt
of
first edition the original Greek text of
Lucian's Dialogues came out
Theat Florence in 1496. But long before then the amusing and irreverent
compositions of the second-century Syrian author were known to a wide circle
of scholars and littirateursand had produced their effect on various writers.
Such names as Leon Battista Alberti, Jo. Pontanus, Matteo Maria Boiardo
stand out among a multitude of lesser authors whose works betray an admiring
acquaintance with the "scoffer at the gods" (subsannator deorum). Some of
them may have read their Lucian in Greek manuscripts, but many more knew
him only in Latin translations. A number of early Latin versions of single
dialogues existed and exists in manuscripts, and several had appeared in print
before the Greek original became widely accessible, proving that there was a
current demand for such light literature in the second half of the fifteenth
century. There are, as far as I could ascertain, twenty-one distinct editions
of thirteen different dialogues in Latin before the year 1500. The origin of
these translations, the identity of their authors, the tradition of these Latin
texts, offer problems that have not so far been satisfactorilyinvestigated. I will
leave aside all antecedent and subsequent complications that present them-
selves, and I will concentrate on describing the nature, the contents and the
probable origin of one such edition only, the earliest of all, which was printed
at Rome in 1470 and contains six (or rather five) Lucianic Dialogues in Latin.
I will only remarkthat, far from "throwing light" on anything whatsoever, such
research as I have indulged in greatly adds to the complexity of the situation
and, as is so often the case, seems to create more problems than it solves.
The art of printing reached Italy within a dozen years from its invention,
and the two German practitioners who had acquired their skill at Mayence
itself, Conrad Sweynheym and Arnold Pannartz, were brought to Rome by
1467, after they had produced the first examples of their craft in the Benedic-
tine monastery of Subiaco. The perfervid humanist popes, Nicholas V and
Pius II, were by then no longer alive, and their successor on St. Peter's throne,
Paul II Barbo, was personally less eagerly in favour, perhaps even a little
suspicious, of such studies. Still, the atmosphere of Rome in these years
remained imbued with their enthusiasm for classical learning; the college of
Cardinals was in its majority created by the Piccolomini pope and, more
important still, the huge body of officials of the Curia, comprising such men
as Hermolaus Barbarus, Domitius Calderinus, Leonardo Dati, and Gasparo
da Verona could fairly be described as a professional corporation of Latin
stylists. These scribes of the Papal Chancery, the bureaucracy of the world
government of the Roman church, formed the dominant social background
of the city from which prelates were chosen and cardinals emerged. Their
gossip made reputations and ruined careers, and their tastes determined the
fashionable lines of interest among the higher clergy, both resident and visiting
from abroad. In a society so strangely constituted, the commission of a blatant
error of syntax in a letter could make a man ridiculous for the rest of his life,
and the acquaintance with a rare or unknown classical text would confer an
aura of distinction on its possessor.
7
de
parefhrntt. :,
fun :
Cha -:oth ::uler--
cultustel1octores
Luctaniurib AMexa:.derde uniattoneu
clariffi8iFabula lt .
itap,.culus u untVitor
intertocutores
uendtttolne
MercuriusLtrptor Philofopbus.
Sheet of Rubrics supplied with Lauer's Lucian, Rome, 1470 (p. 10)
Urbinas, vir utriusque juris . . ." and is here printed in its proper place.
Another dedication to Lorenzo Colonna, belonging to the same dialogue, is
found in this edition also, but misplaced on Fol. 56b in front of the Tirannus.
On these two dedicatory letters see Lockwood, loc. cit., p. 53 and p. 96.1
II. Timon.
Lucian's dialogue on the Misanthrope (Dindorf V) which perhaps had
as momentous an influence on European literature as any of his writings;
M. M. Boiardo's Timone,Shakespeare's Timonof Athens,Moliere's Misanthrope
derive from it.
The sheet of rubrics gives the heading:
Hoc Luciani opus per me Bertoldum ex greco translatum tibi de Czambec-
cariis mitto, oratorum inclite Peregrine, ut ex correctione tua et labore
meo aliqua eternitas oriatur.
The information contained in this rubric is new and important. Of the
translator Bertoldus nothing at all is known so far, but the patron to whom
he addresseshis version, Peregrino de' Zambeccari, was chancellor of Bologna
and died soon after 14oo. The dedication therefore demands a remarkably
early date for this translation, a period much earlier than that in which Greek
manuscripts become ordinarily current in Italy, a date anterior by a quarter
of a century to the return of Aurispa and Rinuccio from Constantinople
(1423) with their codex of Lucian's dialogues.
It is, fortunately, possible to confirm this early date from two independent
sources and so to establish the authenticity of the rubric.
The same version of the Timon,together with a Latin translation of the
Charon(to which I have referredabove) is found in a MS. in the Laurenziana
at Florence, Plu. XXV sin. 9. There it has no heading or dedication, nor
does it give the translator's name. The Codex comes from Santa Croce and
has the full subscription:
1403. 26 mai. scripta sunt haec Florentiae Frater Thedaldus tunc vacans.
On Thedaldo della Casa and his gift of books to Santa Croce in 1406 see
R. Sabbadini: Scoperte. Nuove Ricerche,p. 175.2
Reliable confirmation that a translation, and presumably this translation,
of the Timonwas in existence in 1403 comes from another source. Remigio
Sabbadini in NuovoArchivioVeneto,1915, N.S. XXX, pp. 219 ff., published a
letter from Antonio di Romagno, dated January 16, 1403, addressed to Pietro
Marcello, Bishop of Ceneda (1399-1409, died 1429). In this letter Antonio
gratefully acknowledges the loan of a book to which he refers as "tuum
Timonem." Without disrespect for the great authority of Sabbadini we must
1
See also the rubricator-sheet, lines io- 2, 2The only other MS. known to me con-
where the editor notices that the letter to taining these two early translations of the
Colonna is wrongly placed, but creates fresh Charon and the Timon is Vat. lat. 989, fols.
confusion by suggesting it belongs in front of 81-96, but it neither gives a translator's name
the Palinurus. nor can it be dated.