Renaissance Studies Vol. 12 No.

Greek epigrams and manuscripts of Damiano

Guidotto of Venice
J. MURPHY
DAVID

At the beginning of the sixteenth century, enthusiasm for Greek studies in

Venice had attained its zenith. The city’s long history of relations with the
Greek east, its community of Greek emigres, the books of Greeks and native
Venetians alike, the renown of Greek studies at the University of Padua, the
enthusiasm of the Venetian elite for humanistic pursuits, the effect, begin-
ning in the 1490s, of Aldus Manutius’ printed Greek editions - these and
other factors helped to push Greek studies in the Venice of 1500 to a peak
of popularity that almost rivalled that which they enjoyed in Florence.’ The
fact that Aldus chose Venice as the place to assemble his team of editors of
Greek authors shows that the city contained a critical mass of competent
scholars. We do not know how far Greek studies at this time extended
‘downward’ within the Venetian population from luminaries like those of
Aldus’ circle to include relatively unsung figures.*Although it cannot answer
this large question, the present study aims to draw back the curtain on the
work of one obscure Hellenist, who is not known to have been connected
with any identifiable intellectual circle, and to show something of what he
found important in the Greek texts that he now could read.
Otherwise known to us only as a copyist of Greek manuscripts, Damiano
Guidotto composed two hitherto unpublished Greek epigrams to Homer
as prefatory pieces in his Homer manuscript, Columbia MS Plimpton 3,
which he copied around 1500. Despite their slight literary value, these epi-
grams amount to a noteworthy achievement,for we know of only a handhl of
Italians in the fifteenth century who attempted classicizing Greek poetry. In
his small compositions we can see Damiano’s reverence for the civilization of
ancient Greece that he was discovering in books and his conviction that his

Earlier versions of this paper were read for The Saint Louis Conference on Manuscript Studies, 4 October
1996, and The American Philological Association, December 1997. I thank Consuelo Dutschke, Dennis 0.
Looney, Daniel J. Rettberg. Jennifer T. Roberts and David Sider for their help and suggestions.
’ The most helpful overviews of Greek studies in late fifteenth- and early sixteenthcentury Venice are those
of D. Geanakoplos, Greek Scholars in Venice (Cambridge. Mass. 1962); A. Pertusi, ‘L‘umanesimo greco dalla fme
del secolo xiv agli inizi del secolo xvi’, in Stmk dells culhcm ueneta 3/1,Dalp+imo Quathvcento 01 Concilw di T m t o
(Vicenza, 1980). 177-264; and N. G. Wilson, F m Byzantium to Ifaly. Gwek Sfudirc in fhc Zfalian Renoissonu
(Baltimore, 1992). Interest in Greek studies in Italy began to decline in the 1530s; cf. Geanakoplos, Greek
Scholnrs, 300.
* On the Aldine circle, see now Wilson, F m Byzanfium to Italy, 127-56; S. Marcon and M. Zorzi (edd.), A&
Manvzio e I’ombimte veneziano. 1494-1515 (Venice, 1994). 28-48,58-67.

0 I998 The Societyfor Rmaissance Studies, O x f d Univmity Press

 Damiano Guidotto of Venice 477
city had inherited the mantle of that civilization. We can detect modest pride
in his adding of his voice to the poetic tradition. In this paper I seek both to
publish and comment upon Damiano Guidotto’s epigrams and to establish
what we know about him, for apart from his manuscripts, I have found no
source of evidence about the man in a wide range of Venetian material from
the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries, although the family name
appears in the census of original citizen families.’ A reference in Sanudo’s
diaries to the banishment in absentia for sodomy of the brother of Vicenzo
Guidotto, secretary of the Venetian Senate, turns out to refer to a Grigorio.‘

TEXT AND TRANSLATION

fol. 70’ (cf. Fig. 1):
i a i y p o l p p a r a EES 706 ‘Oprjpov Evaiaiv (sic). G L rdv ~ 6a
p i i v o v yovl60rov rdv ~ V E T O Va c a o i r ] p h a . K a i
T O ~ T Or d /3i/3hlov K a l rrjs 66vouelas yeypa+dra I

10

All you peoples, recount the poems of this man only.

Homer spoke words first among the others.
Whatever things of wisdom and good sense Vergil spoke,
Or any of the orators, these things also he alone sings.
5 You give wisdom in the forum and virtues to warriors,
performing the holy works of the gods; and you have honor
in the eyes of all,
Showing fighters easily bested by Achilles,

’
Cf. A. da Mosto,CArchivio di Stat0 di Vmnio, indicsgenemlestorico,darniitivo ad annalitico, Bibliothkquedes
‘Annaies Institutorurn’ 5 (Rome, 1937-40). I, 75.
‘
Cf. F.Stefani (ed.), M i di Mmino Sunuto (Venice, 1879-1903), VI, col. 220. I am indebted to Dr Elisabetta
Bade for consulting Archivio di Stato di Venezia, Consiglio di Dieci, Criminali, reg. 1 (1502-1511). c. 74 for 27
August 1505, where is recorded the decision ‘quod procedatur contra Gregorium Guidoturn sodomitam
absentem .. .’ Dr Barile informs me that the name Damiano Guidotto does not appear in the admittedly
incomplete testamentary register of the ASV.
478 David J. Murphy
Speakers by Odysseus, [but showing] your own mind
as surpassing all.
The sun gleams from the sky; the light from the earth is
Homer’s sun with its rays. Homer, you excel in thought.
Whoever then denies first glory to Homer,
how shall I call him good, and how wise?

ZZ. TG ‘ 0 p ; I p q Xdpis

Thanks to Homer

Hail, renowned aged one, glory of all Hellas,

hail father of Muses, and hail, o law of the wise;
for you outstrip the thoughts of all men.
Homer, sole light of good poets,
5 the nations and land of Pelops held sway at first,
but now the people of the Venetians loves you greatly.
Long as the waves master the sea and fruit the ground,
you shall be the memorial both of Achilles and of
the deeds of Odysseus.
Not with tears shall I honor you, though you lie buried -
10 you, always glorious to our eyes.

Before we discuss the epigrams of Plimpton 3, we must identify its ex-

e m ~ l a rThe
. ~ manuscript consists of two volumes (see the description in
Appendix 11). The first contains prefatory treatises on Homer by Demetrius
Chalcondyles, pseudo-Plutarch, and Dio Chrysostom, then Guidotto’s epi-
grams, and finally the Iliad. Volume 11 contains the Odyssey. Guidotto’s model
was the first printed edition (= f), which was edited by Chalcondyles and
published in Florence in 1489 with financial support of the Nerli brothers.‘
On Plimpton 3, cf. S. de Ricci, C a w of M e d i e d and Renaissance Manuscripts in the United Stales and
Canada (New York, 1997), 11, 1754-55; S. A. Ives, ‘Corrigenda et addenda to the description of the Plimpton
manuscripts as recorded in the De Ricci Census’, Speculum, 17 (1942), 34; P. 0.Kristeller, Iterltalicum (London
and Leiden, 1990), v, 303.
‘
Cf. E. Legrand, Biblzcgraphie hellhique der ru’ et Xot‘riiccles (Paris 1885, repr. 1962), I, 9-15. On the date, cf.
G. Luck, ‘A late Greek manuscript in the Walters Art Gallery’,Jarmal ofthe Walters Art Galley, 41 (1983), 67.
 Damiano Guidotto of Venice 479

Fig. 1 MS Columbia Plimpton 3, fol. 7

0'. Photograph COUReSy of the Rare Book and Manuscript Library,
Columbia University

S. A. Ives and J. F. Kindstrand already surmised that Damiano had copied the
editio princeps, but they did not offer decisive proof. '

On manuscripts copied from printed books, cf. N. D.Reeve, 'Manuscripts copied from printed books,' in J. B.
Trapp (ed.), Manuscrips in the RYty Ymn Afw the Invention offfinting. Some Papm Read at a CoNoguium at the
WazbusgInstitute on 12-13 March 1982 (London, 1983), 12-20.
' Ives marked in pencil the textual dislocations in Plimpton 3 (see below), but he did not connect them to
any feature off. His fourteen packets of variants of Plimpton 3 and fare shelved as 'MS Coll, Plimpton, G Part
VI' in Columbia's Rare Book and Manuscript Library. lves's inconsistent method of tabulating variants renden
these collations virtually useless. For Kindstrand's view, cf. [Pluturchur]De Homem (Leipzig, 1990). xliv.
480 David J. Murphy
Such proof arises, however, from Iliad ~ 1 1 1 .On fol. 133', line 7, Guidotto
has reached XIII.343. Then follows as continuous text this series of verses:
XIII.695-'733 (fols 133'.8-133".15), XIII.383-694 (fols 13Y.16-136".17), XIII.
344-82 (fols 13W.18-137.25). From fol. 137.26, verses 734ff proceed in
order to the end of Book XIII. These dislocations correspond exactly to
the pages o f f that are out of order due to faulty foliztion and makeup of
signature 0: XIII.343 is the last verse of fol. 11' in signature 0, after which
follow XIII.695-733 (0II"),XIII.383-694 (0111'-O VI"),XIII.344-82 (0VU), and
XIII.734ff (0VII'ff). These signature and folium numbers are printed in the
lower right corners, showing that signature 0 was assembled incorrectly by
the compositor. The mistake was rectified in the first Aldine edition of 1504
(hereafter, a').
A sample of other conjunctive errors against the MSS and a': Iliad
VI.266-269 Om. f3; x.188 K a h ? ) V ] KaK?)V f3; XI.565 piOOV] p i y a s f3; XIII.160
&+dpapre, K a r ' &a.rrl6a] &$dpapr' buds f3; XVI.430 &hh$oiuiv o*povoav]
8Ah~Aois&dpovoav f3;x1x.40 e a h d a q s om. f3;Odyssey 111.191KP+T~,IV] els
Kp+7,1v f3;VI.149 dvaaaa] 8ed f3;XIII.415 muadpevos] umcvodpcvos €3; m . 9 3
$6 ZpcG ~ K ~ U Ea;r$s] S T U K L V L ~ SbKdXvpai e vmu 95 f3; XXII.223 'I&K~,Is om.
f3;XXI1.256 T d V T a ] TOMd f3; xXI11.178E)KTdS] &dS f3;~ ~ 1 v . 1p7i V5] 0;f3.'
Plimpton 3 cannot have been the exemplar off. First, Guidotto reproduces
exactly Chalcondyles' preface, including the editor's references to himself
and to the Nerli brothers in Florence. Second, the textual dislocations in Iliad
XIII match page breaks in f but are embedded in the middle of pages in 3.
Third, 3 is more corrupt. I offer only a handful of separative errors: Iliad 11.1
bvkpes] dv6pes 3; 11.14 &&yvap$c] &&yva$e 3; 11.26 &a om. 3; 11.29 ~ r a v a v 6 l ~ ]
Traau6ly 3. Guidotto's text of the two Vitae and Dio Chrysostom also follows
the printed edition slavishly while adding additional errors. Notable is
the misspelling of the title of Dio's speech. In f it appears in capitals:
l7EPI OMHPOY AOTOC N r AIQNOC XPYCOCTOMOY etc. Guidotto
misunderstood the numeral and misread the capital delta: mpL\ dp7jpou hdyos
{yalwvos ~ p u a o a r d p o vetc.
Although a host of errors of f found their way into 3, Guidotto had
access to occasional corrections or variants: cf., for example, Iliad IV. 183
&dIap&vwv et 3: 2TriOapajaas f; v.44 BLpov et 3: pLpou f: 805pov a'; v.199
i p p c p a c h a et 3: 2ppEpacjra fa' et al.; V.293 bv8eppccjva et 3: %s Kevrcjva fa' et al.
It is not possible to say whether he corrected f from another manuscript or
found corrections already made in the copy off before him (or came by them
haphazardly), but the paucity of Guidotto's corrections of f militates against
the former explanation. Some corrections he could have made on his own,
such as Odyssey vrI.159 'AAK~vo' et 3: ' A h ~ l v 'f. Guidotto's abridgement of

* I have verified the readings of f3 and the fint Aldine by autopsy. For other MSS I relied on the
extensive collations of A. Ludwich, Homni Connina (Leipzig, 1889-1907), who shows no other MS as agreeing
with f3 in any of these readings. On the Aldine Homer, cf. Marcon and Zorzi (note 2 above) nos. 98-102,
pp. 234-5.
 Damiano Guidotto of Venice 48 1
Chalcondyles’ hypotheses of the several books of the poems will have been
carried out on his own.
Identification of Guidotto’s exemplar provides a terminus post quem of
AD 1489 for Plimpton 3. The watermark (cf. Appendix 11) shows that it
cannot be much later than 1503. A date in the 1490s or c. 1500 is therefore to
be accepted.
No one writes in Greek, said Pietro Bembo, except as a game - so we may
guess that Damiano had been learning Greek meter and wanted to try his
hand at it.’ Yet it does not follow that an Italian’s thoughts expressed in Greek
were not serious. Damiano’s productions give an example of what someone
of his milieu could think about as he read Homer. For us, admittedly, what
stands out most about the epigrams is the banality of their ideas. Despite
Plato, pagan aqtiquity by the Roman period was praising Homer as the fount
of all wisdom.” Although some humanists had viewed pagan poets with
unease, Damiano shows no such ambivalence,and I take lines 11-12 of Poem
I as reinforcement of the poem’s general tone of praise rather than as
polemic against humanist critics of poetry.” In any case, the hackneyed
notion that all wisdom is found in Homer is presented as a fresh discovery
by Guidotto. A key aspect of Homer’s importance comes through in lines
3-4 of Poem I: Homer has led the way both for poetry and for rhetoric.
It would be both false and absurd to say simply that all that is good in
Vergil is somehow derived from Homer, although one cannot prove that
Damiano does not mean this. More charitably, one may suppose that by
the synecdoche of Vergil, Damiano means that Latin poetry as a whole,
not only Greek, draws inspiration from Homer (cf. Ovid, Amores 111.ix.25-6:
‘Maeoniden, a quo, ceu fonte perenni, vatum Pieriis ora rigantur aquis’).
Since the poets and orators had constituted the foundation of formal educa-
tion in antiquity and had been revived in the humanistic program, the notion
of going to their source must have seemed exciting to one who could say that
Homer contained the seeds of all later writings.
If we ask where Damiano got this idea, we need look no farther than
Chalcondyles’ preface. From there, Damiano had copied out the words ‘this
book will provide no ordinary boon to those who understand all Homer’s
compositions accurately. Practically everyone agrees that he is the wellspring
of the Greek language and that he provides an example of human life.
He has become as it were the illuminator of the other poets’ - compare
Chalcondyles’ #wumjpa T&V 6Mwv TOLTT&V with Guidotto’s phrase T O C V T C ~ V

Pietro Bembo, Rase &l& mlgar lingua (ed. Marti (Padua, 1955)), 1.6,p. 13. Although the work was
published in 1525,book I had been completed by 1512 (Marti, v-vii).
LO
On this point, cf. M. Hilgruber, LXe prnrdoplutarchuche SchnJlDe Homm I, Beitdge zur Altertumskunde
57 (Stuttgart and Leipzig, 1994),5-35.
Of the many treatments of humanist ambivalence toward ancient poets, cf. M. L. King, V m h n
Humanism in an Age of Pahicion Dominance (Princeton, 1986), 157-61,on Ermolao Barbaro the Elder. G.
Ekhard, ‘The humanists and classical poetry. A crisis of conscience’, Studifmncesi, 25/75 (1981),424-39;on
the earlier period, see now W. G. Craven, ‘Coluccio Salutati’s defence of poetry’, Rmairconce Studies, 10 (1996).
1-30.
482 David J. Murphy
&yaO&v $bas - ‘both Greek and Latin, and of the rest of liberal education’ -
literally, r e p i hdyovs rai&ka, ‘education about words.”‘
That Homer was the first practitioner of rhetoric is a suggestion Plat0
had made in the Phaedrus (261b-c), where Nestor and Odysseus are shown as
persuasive orators. Furthermore, Protagoras is made to announce (Protagoras
338e-39a) that study of poetry is a big part of the training that he as a sophist
expects of his pupils. Sophists in fact may have been the first to attribute to
Homer the invention of rhetoric.I3But, again, in Guidotto’s case we need not
suppose that he draws on any source beyond the preface of the printed
edition for his conviction that Homer instructs prose writers, for he had
copied these words of Pseudo-Plutarch: ‘Homer will be revealed as having
penetrated to the midst of all knowledge and craft about words and as having
provided many starting points . . . to those after him, not only to the poets
but also to prose writers . . .’I4 Pseudo-Plutarch analyzes the rhetorical devices
in Homer and the types of rhetorical style that individual characters can be
said to adopt in their speeches (II.clxiii-cl~v,pp. 87-95 Kindstrand).
Guidotto of course was not the only Italian to suggest that an orator needs
to know his Homer; anyone who had read Quintilian could say that (cf.
Institutio Oratoria II.xvii.8-lo, X.i.46-5 1). Indeed, the same pseudo-Plutarchan
treatise influenced Angelo Poliziano, whose Oratio in Expositione Homeri of
1486, published in the Opera Omnia by Aldo Manuzio in 1498, takes over
the arguments of the ancient grammarian lock, stock, and barrel.I5Poliziano
had already pillaged it in his Ambra, a poem about Homer first published
in Florence in 1485, wherein he derived the branches of knowledge from
Homer.I6 The third s m o of Antonio Urceo Cortesi, known as Codrus,
professor of Greek in Bologna, again follows the arguments of Pseudo-
P1uta~ch.l~ This discourse was printed posthumously in Codrus’ Opera in
Bologna in 1502. Yet we need not suppose that Guidotto had read Poliziano
or Codrus, for all three men were drawing on the same source.
Damiano in 1.5 attributes to Homer the capacity to provide us with models
of both the warlike and the forensic virtues, and he offers the examples of

I‘ Chalcondyled preface, fol. A i f : ‘o&% ye r$v ruXoCoav & # A e a a v aaplxor r’ 2 v r o b n d v r a rd ‘Op<pw

o u v r e r a y p i v a BKPL/~&Sovvrciow 0“v & ~ ~ empp j v r r v a Rjs ‘EAAqvrmis ~ L ~ ~ K Trod O Vr e &vOpwnhov /3lov

aapdscrypa, K a i orov d w o s j p a r&v a A w v a o i q r d v c E A A ~ v w vre K a i A a r b w v , njr T C W q s n r p i Adyous

nar8tias i y r p b a y~vi&G, &A a d v r w v crxeSAv &poXdyqrar.’
Is Cf. Hillgruber, o i C p s u l o p l u t a n h u c ~Schnft,13-14.
‘+avCirar ndoqs A O Y L K ~ Sanronjpqs K a i r i x v ? s CVTAS yrv6pevos K a i a o ~ ~ d&doppcis s K a i oiovti
m i p p a r a . . . r o i s per’ a&& rrapeornpivos, K a ; 06 70;s r o r q r a i s p6vov &d K a ; rois mC&v
ouv8Crars. . .’ (pseudo-Plutarch,De H o m m ii.6.3 (p. 9 Kindstrand)).
15
Cf. text in reprint of 1553 Basel edition, I. Maier (ed.), O p m Omnia I, Monurnenta politica philosophica
hurnanistica rariora ser. 1, 16 (Turin, 1971), 477-92. O n Poliziano’s virtual plagiarism of pseudo-Plutarch, cf.
Wilson, Fivm Byzantium to ItoZy, 101-5;Hillgruber, D i e ~ l u t a n h i c c h cSchnft, 78.
16
Cf. I. del Lungo (ed.),h e volgan inedite epOerie Latine e G n c k edik e inedik di Angel0 Poliziam (Florence,
1867), 333-68; repr. I. Maier (ed.), Angelus Polilianus. Opera Omnia 11, Monurnenta phdosophica humanistica
rariora ser. 1, 17 (Turin, 1970);phototypical reproduction of first Florentine edition in P. Galand (trans.),Ange
Politien. L a Siluu (Paris, 1987).
I’ Cf. Hillgruber, Die pseudcplutanhische Schnft, 78 n. 287. On Cortesi, cf. E. Raimondi, Codm e l’umancsimo
a Bobgna (Bologna, 1950).
 Damiuno Guidotto of Venice 483
Achilles and Odysseus in lines 7-8. Although any humanist would have
known the conceit that Homer teaches virtue (cf. Horace, Epistles u.i), it
looks as though Guidotto lifted this notion, too, from Pseudo-Plutarch, for
the latter had observed that through Achilles, Homer shows us bravery of
body in the Iliad, and through Odysseus, nobleness of soul in the Odyssey
(II.iv.5, p. 8 Kindstrand).
Despite his inability to make original use of antiquity’s ideas about the
value of Homer, the fact that Guidotto found them a fit subject of poetry
shows his interest in the humanistic program. It was traditional to divide
the liberal arts into poetry and rhetoric, as Guidotto did in 1.3-4.To see in
Homer a key to mastery of a cultured education is but a narrowing of focus of
the pleas for Greek studies that Pietro Bembo and Scipio Forteguerri urged
upon the Venetians.” By attributing love of Homer to the Venetian people,
Guidotto issues an implicit call to his city not only to save the Greek heritage
but to be improved by it: for if Homer teaches all virtues, then true love of
Homer must entail that one seek to live by his wisdom.
The topic of Greek studies in Venice leads to the only idea in the poems
that is not contained in Chalcondyles’ prefatory material, namely, the notion
that Greek studies have qualified Venice to take upon herself the civiliz-
ing role once played by ancient Greece (cf. ;&a. . . 1T&lonos, 11.5, which
plural must denote the ancient Greeks, whatever Damiano may think of
the now-fallen Byzantine state). In Poem 11.5-6, the verses set forth a double
comparison, in which two terms remain implicit: ‘As Greece used to hold
sway (Kpa7&o), <now Venice does>; <as the Greeks used to do>, now the
Venetians love Homer.’ Guidotto’s decision to use the form ‘EVETOV in verse
6, rather than the more common Byzantine BEVETOV, itself connects us to the
ancient world by recalling Homer’s ’EVCTO~ (cf. Appendix I, note on 11.6).
Chroniclers in the twelfth century and later had invented a legendary origin
of Venice from the Trojan Antenor and the Eneti.Ig We cannot prove that
Guidotto intended to invoke this myth, for the spelling EVET TO^ was used
for ‘Venetians’ often enough without reference to it.m Knowing the myth,

’’ For summaries of Pietro Bembo’s unpublished essay of 1494, in which he urged the value of Greek
studies in Venice, cf. A. Pertusi, ‘L‘umanesimogreco dafla fine del secolo xiv agli inizi del secolo mi’in Storia
&&a culturn m t a 3/& Dal prima Quaftrocnzto a1 Concilio di T m t o (Vicenra, 1980). 185-9; Wilson, Fmm
Byuntium to Italy, 125-6.
Forteguerri delivered his Orntio de loudibuc litemrum p c a r u m as an inaugural lecture for the Aldine
Academy in Venice. It was published by Aldus in 1504; cf. Marcon and Zoni, A& Manurao. no. 94-5, p. 233.
See reprint in Stephanus’ ThDaunrrgmruulinguae (repr. Valpi (London, 1816-18). I, viii-xiv).
I9
Cf. H. Buchthal, Hittoria Tmiana Studies in ihe Hittory of Medieval Smclor Illumination, Studies of the
Warburg Institute 32 (London and Leiden, 1971), 58-9; D. Robey andJ. Law,The Venetian myth and the De
Republica Veneta of Pier Paolo Vergerio’, Rinuscinrmto, ser. 2. 15 (1975),3-59, esp. 19, 40; P. F. Brown, Vmice
&Antiquity. The Vmction Senseof the Past (New Haven and London, 1996), 13, 24-5,31-2.41-2,70-4, 156.
Both Greeks and Italians used the name ’Evcroi/’Evtsiai: Pietro Bembo in 1493, ‘cis ’Evcrlav’
(cf. E. Travi (ed.), Pictm Bembo. Lcttm I (Bologna, 1987), no. 3, p. 5); Ioannes Rhosus in 1497, ‘2v ’Evcslars’,
and Nikodemos-Nadalios Kalaphantes in the same year, ‘&@as ’Evrso3s Kai ‘EAAqvas’ (cf.
P. Mauroeides-Ploumides,“’Eyypa+a &va+&eva mis +drs s d v ‘EMjvwv 4 s Bevcri’as or&rCA7 roc 10
a&va’, Thcsauritmcrlo, 8 (1971), 136, 142); Forteguerri at the end of the abovementioned oration on the
founding of Aldus’ academy in 1504, ‘ A dvSpcs %vcroC Musurus likewise in his 1498 preface to the Aldine
484 David J. Murphy
however, one can read the couplet on two levels. On the literary level, we find
the paradox that, although the Greeks once held sway, now the vanquished -
i.e. the Eneti, refugees from Troy - are the ones who love the very poet who
immortalized their defeat. Tracing their origin to the Homeric world, the
Venetians have as rightful a claim to the poet as did the Greeks. The verb
K ~ U T E ~ Tgives
O a political sense to the verses, too: the Hellenic thalasso-
cracy has long since been supplanted by the Venetian. As the Venetians of
the present have succeeded to the Greeks' former political position, so have
they inherited their cultural patrimony. Damiano does not contrast the Eneti
to the Greeks in order to focus attention on the myth of the republic's civic
origins." For him, the Venetians' succession to the ancient Greeks' love
of Homer signifies that they have appropriated the humanizing legacy of
Hellenic civilization, inasmuch as all Greek knowledge and excellence is
virtually contained in Homer.
Damiano's line of thought resembles that of writers who around this time
were claiming that her humanism won for Venice the status of a new Athens.=
Marcus Musurus in his preface to the Aldine Aristophanes suggested that one
need not attend the Great Dionysia for comic performances, since Aldus has
made Aristophanes available at all times, and he went on to assert a likeness
between the Venetian republic and ancient Athens.%In the aforementioned
epigram of about the same year (cf. note 20 above), Musurus envisioned the
Venetian shore replacing the Castalian spring as the temple of the Muses.
This image of Venice as a renewal or successor of ancient Greece is not

Aristophanes (note 23 below). These and other writers often still preferred the more common spelling, cf., for
example, '&<rwv 6' aiyrahds' of Musurus' epigram ofjust before 1500 (cf. F. M. Pontani, 'Epigrammi inediti
di Marco Musuro', Archcorogin Clussica, 25-26 (1973-4), 576) and ' ~ w & w vat\& dpxrpeSdvrwv' in Musurus'
epigram in Aldine Plato of 1513 (fol. 1.4~);Ioannes Nathanael's 'r& '&TL&' (fol. 339') versus 'r&u Bwrs&v'
(fol. 340")in Marc.gr. 554 (coll. 414), copied by him in 1538 (cf. E. Mioni, Codiccs GmciM~anw&ptiBibliothecae
Diui Marci Venetiarum II (Rome, 1985), 455-6). For a third form of the name, cf. the possessor note of Fmcesco
Barbaro, AD 1420, 'ZK T& OBeverrrjv' (cf. B. Vancamp, 'Le texte de I'Hippias Majeur de Platon dans le
Vindobonensis suppl. gr. 39 (F)', Philologus, 139 (1995), 239).
Cf. Buchthal, Histmia Tmranu, and Robey and Law, T h e Venetian myth'; King, Venetian Humanism,
passim, esp. 134-5, 174-5, with extensive bibliography at 174 n. 231; also J. Grubb, 'When myths lose power:
four decades of Venetian historiography,'Jounurl ofModmt Hittmy. 58 (1986), 43-94; G. Benzoni, 'Venezia,
ossia il mito modulato,' Stud Ven, NS 19 (1990), 15-33 = V. Branca and C . Ossola (edd.), Crisi e rinnovatnmti nell'
autunno del Rinascimmto u Vmnia, CiviltA Veneziana Saggi 38 (Florence, 1991). 43-59.
!a On this theme, cf. Benzoni (note 21 above), 25; idnn, 'Venezia e la Grecia', Zd V c h . Rivistu &l& Ciuiltd.
Ifalianu,27 (1983),42 1-39, esp. 427-29. Venice was also called a new Sparta: cf. Benedetto Accolti in the early
1460s. who also called her senate a new 'Romanorum Senatum' (Diahgusde pmcstantia Virorummi ncvi (ed.
Parma, 1689). 43); R Black, Bnedetto Accolti and the Flantim RenuLrrance (Cambridge, 1985) 184-6, and on the
date, 190; other writers in J. T. Roberts, Athens on Trial. The Antidnnomtic T d i t i o n in Wesfern Thought
rinceton, 1994). 127-9.
"2s +. . . +is 'Aptoro+vous Oupkhas 0; pdvov iyopivwv 8bovuu;wv d e i y a t v , ale; rrpoxr;povs Ka;
.
navsaXoJ BEhaOat rrapaoKeudoas (SC. 2hGos). . r j s y d p dO?valwu rrohrralas, 8s 4 fiaorhr's a&r) T&V
~ d h e w vCosrv 05 K ~ T ' : x q Xwpei, 76s ;Iprororpdvovs K W ~ Y eiK6vas ~ ~ S eivar, rrapd R ~ V T W V oxc6dv
Apohdyrlrai' (Aristophonis Ccmoediae Nmm (Venice, 1498). fol. 2"". Musurus does not explicitly assimilate
Venice to ancient Athens by virtue of her humanism, but he associates the ideas: ' T & 8' 'IraA&v o'aors hlav
~ T T L K & r j s yX&n)s &erv E'onodGaorar, Ka; R ~ V Ui ~ p i f l c j soiSa. 70;s ye p+v ti& r+s EBTUXOJS s d v
'Ever& dprorooroKparovp&ors O V ~ K ~ + O U , Kal a i r & 64 r&v e&a~prG&v rots ymaror+ors 76 $Oos.. .'
 Damiano Guidotto of Venice 485
opposed to that which Cardinal Bessarion had had in mind a generation
earlier when he had called the city a second Byzantium, for although he
meant that Venice was the choice place of debarkation for modern Greeks
emigrating to the West, Bessarion thought the point important because
Venice could preserve and transmit the Hellenic legacy - not merely the
Byzantine - salvaged in his vast library.“ A revivification of ancient Greece
through a revival of her literature is just what Aldus had in view when he
would call Venice ‘alteras Athenas’.%Forteguerri’s thought was akin to this
when in his Academic oration he substituted the Venetians for Demosthenes’
Athenian addressees, for he took pains to say that the quantity of Greek
books in Venice, especially now of Aldine editions, made the Republic a
notable center for learning Greek (p. xiv, ed. Valpi). Guidotto’s second epi-
gram reveals that a conception of Venice as ‘altera Graecia’ was not confined
to the intellectual Clite but could touch quite ordinary humanists as well.
‘Altera Graecia’, for, unlike Aldus and many humanists elsewhere,
Damiano does not claim that his city’s Greek studies make of it a new Athens.
That comparison had become a stock way of flattering a city’s learned
teachers and enthusiastic students of Greek.%Instead, by contrasting the
bygone Greek nation (E‘8vea. . . l7&iords T E KUL‘ yaia, 11.5) to the whole
Venetian people (/la&), Guidotto manages to attribute love of Homer to a
wider circle than professional humanists. By this he implies that virtue -
which Homer teaches - makes the Venetians great and cements the republic’s
power, insofar as it unites all her citizens in striving for the good and
grandeur of their republic. Guidotto’sthought is consistent with the theme of

*‘ Cf. the EpitrOla to Doge Cristoforo Moro and the Venetian Senate, which Bessarion wrote on 31 May 1468
as a preamble to the Instrumenturn DonationisLibrolvrn by which he donated his library to the Republic: ‘. . ,
cum enim in civitatem vestram omnes fere totius orbis nationes maxime confluant, turn praecipue graeci, qui
e suis provinciis navigio venientes Venetiis primum descendunt, ea praeterea vobiscum necessitudine devincti,
ut ad vestram appulsi urbem quasi alterum Byzantium introire videantur’. See text in L Labowsky, Bes.wi~m’s
Libms), and the Bibliotcco Mamiun~SLr Early Inventories, Sussidi Eruditi, 31 (Rome, 1979). 148.
’’ Cf. the preface to the 1514 edition of Pindar ct al. (dated January 1513 rnna v m t o ) : ‘. . . revertimur
Venetias, quas Athenas alteras hoc tempore possumus dicere, cum propter alios plurimos singulari doctrina
praeditos viros, tum propter Musurum nostrum . . .’, and the preface to volume one of the 1513 edition of
Greek orators: ‘. . . Venetiae hoc tempore Athenae alterae vere dici possunt propter literas Graecas, quarum
SNdiOSi undique concurrunt ad Marcum Musurum . . .*.Cf. G. Orlandi (ed.),A& Manuzio editore. Wick
p”f,””i no& ai &ti, Documenti sulle arti del libro XI [Milan, 19751, I nos. LXXI and LXXV, p. 106,115.
(A) Florence as a new Athens: Poliziano, (horio in Eqwitione Homm‘ of 1486, Opem omnia (Basel, 1553,
repr. Torino, 1970). 477,492; cf. Wilson, Frar B p n h m to Italy,101-2; Aldus, referring to the age of Lorenzo
the Magnificent, in the preface to the 1513 Plato (Orlandi, I 120, no. uucvm). Other comparisons, beginning
with that by Cino Rinucci in 1397, were collected by J. T. Roberts,‘Florentineperceptions of Athenian democ-
racy’. Medieudia d Humanistica, 15 (1987), 26-7, and Athmc on Trial, 121-7. (B) Bologna as a new Athens:
Giovanni Toscanella and many other Bolognese profewon ins. xv; cf. Rairnondi Codm e I’umunesinw, 50-1. (C)
Leo X’s Rome as a new Athens: Musurus in the preface to the 1513 Aldine Plato: “Eu ‘phpg 66 KW at70rs
dvq&otrau d&ivar ’Avri’ rot ihtouoii 06p#prv dprrqkipear’ Omnia Platonic Opem (Venice, 1513), I 4”. (D)
Messina as a new Athens: Aldus, in the preface to his reprint of Constantine Lapcaris’ grammar, c. 1501-03
(Marcon and Zoni, A& Manuzio, 223), referring to Lascaris’ activities in that city. (E) Demetrius Chalcondyles
now represents in himself the bygone Athens: Aldus, preface to the 1503 edition of Euripides (Orlandi, I 73,
no. XLVI).
486 DavidJ. Murphr
civic unanimity that had dominated Venetian humanism of the Quattrocento
and that persisted into the next ~entury.‘~
The third interesting feature of the epigrams is the fact that Damiano
attempted them at all, for the output of extant poetry written by Renaissance
Westerners in Greek is slim compared with that in Latin. In the mid-fifteenth
century, the Greek expatriate Janus Lascaris penned epigrams in classical
style to associates and hoped-for patrons, and he was followed in this practice
by Francesco Filelfo, who believed himself to be the first Italian to write
Greek verse. Neither man’s Greek poems were widely circulated.P8Angelo
Poliziano’s Greek verses in a number of meters made up the first collection
of neo-Greek verse by an Italian to be printed. They were published after
the author’s death in the Aldine Opera of 1498.” The collection includes
a poem by the teenaged scholar, Alessandra Scala, to whom Poliziano had
sent several admiring lyrics, and a poem by Scipio Forteguerri extolling
Poliziano’s learning. Poliziano had written to Codrus (Epistulae v.vi) that
he hoped to publish the poems to encourage others to write their own. In
the early Cinquecento, Italian scholars of Greek such as Lazaro Bonamico
sent epigrams to learned associates,mand Philip Melanchthon began to
experiment with Greek poetry in various meters.”
Guidotto’s interest in the epigram may have been piqued by reading
Poliziano or the PZunudean Anthology, edited by Janus Lascaris in 1494,” which
includes epigrams to Homer (iv.292-304). In any case, his idea of composing
epigrams as a preface to a book certainly must have come from his observa-
tion of such compositions in manuscripts or, what is more likely, in printed
editions. Verses written in Byzantine manuscripts most commonly were cast
in dodecasyllables and came at the end of a codex. We do have examples of
elegiac couplets addressed to or about an ancient author that appear in the
middle of a manuscript or at its end; for example, the epigram to Euclid
at the end of Nor. Laur. gr. plut. 28.2 or that on Aristotle in Marc. gr. 201

27 On this point I follow King, Vmetian Humanism, 241-3.

On Lascaris’ Greek epigrams, cf. A. Meschini (ed.), Giano Loskoris, Epigmmmi greci (Padua, 1976);
Wilson, From Byzantium to Ituly, 99. On those of Filelfo, cf. D. Robin, ‘Unknown Greek poems of Francesco
Filelfo’, Renaissance Quarterly, 37 (1984), 173-206; Wilson, Fwm Byzantium fo Italy, 48, 171 n. 1.
29 For a critical text, cf. A. Ardizzoni (ed.), Poliziano, Epigmmmi greci, Biblioteca di studi superiori, 12
(Florence, 1951).
Cf. A. Meschini, ‘Inediti greci di Lazar0 Bonamico’, in Medioeuo e Rinarcimento V m t o con a b i studi in
onon di Lino Lazzurini, Medioevo e Umanesimo 35. i (Padua, 1979). 51-68. At some point, Bonamico received
Greek verses from a certain Daniel (see 62).
” Many are collected in C. G. Bretschneider (ed.), Cmpus R e f d o o n r m Philippi Melanthonis Opna quae
supmunt omnia x (Halle, 1842). Carminum libri quattuor, passim. Cf. also A. Ernesti, H o w ‘ Opem Omnia
(Leipzig, 1759), I, x; K. Hartfelder, Philipp Melanchthon alr Raeceptm G m n i a e , Monumenta Germaniae
Paedagogica VII (Berlin, 1889; repr. Nieuwkoop. 1964). 648-9; M. P. Fleischer, ‘Melanchthon as praeceptor of
late-humanist poetry’, Sixteenth CenhrryJmml,29 (1989), 569.
’* Cf. Wilson, From Byzantium to Italy, 98. The young Poliziano had learned much from a manuscript of the
Anth Planudea (Vat. gr. 1373); cf. E. Mioni, ‘L‘Antologia Planudea di Angelo Poliziano’, in Medioeuo e
Rinarcimento Veneto (note 30 above), I, 541-55.
 Damiano Guidotto of Venice 487
(coll. 780).= An occasional Byzantine manuscript may carry verses at the
beginning - sometimes about the ensuing work, as, for example, the verses
on astrology in Flor. b u r . gr. plut. 28.16 or those introducing the synaxarion,
Vat. gr. 1613, and sometimes on extraneous topics, as with the epigrams on
the death of Michael Palaeologus and Manuel Phakrases in Marc. gr. 464
(coll. 762).” Humanist readers might inscribe books with verses of their own
composition, l i e the dedicatory epigram, the final four verses of which are
in Greek, written by Girolamo da Castello for Guarino Veronese in 1442, or
the dedications of MUSUTUS.~~ Prefatory Greek epigrams in Aldines, however,
regularly appear at the book’s beginning, where they can advertise both the
book and the editors’ learning. Volume I of the Aldine Aristotle of 1495
opens with three Greek epigrams: one by Forteguerri, one by Aldus, and one
anonymous; Aldus wrote a Greek epigram for the Thesaurus Cornu Copiae et
Horti Adonidis of 1496; Forteguerri and Musurus wrote Greek epigrams for
the Aldine lexicon of 1497; Forteguerri supplied a Greek epigram for the
Aldine texts of Aristophanes and Nonnus, the young Aleandro for the
Plutarch of 1509, Musurus for the Plato of 1513, and so on. Living as he did
in Venice, Guidotto had many opportunities to come into contact with
printed Greek books, and that his idea of penning prefatory epigrams came
from their example is an attractive hypothesis.

It remains to discuss Damiano Guidotto’s activity as a copyist. His hand is

like other northern Italian hands of this period.= Notable are the looped
epsilon-iota ligature almost resembling omicron, the tall tau and tall, narrow
theta, the wide mu, and the open beta with no descender (cf. Figs 1 and 2).
Iota subscript and adscript are absent. Abbreviations are rare save for nomina
sacra. .Guidotto uses a sepia ink that falls into lighter colour ranges in later
parts of the codex, and he rubricates important initial letters as well as
captions of the hypotheses and books of the poems. He employs a thicker
pen on fols 121-200, where thirty-one lines are ruled per page as against
the usual thirty. This pen causes elongation of certain strokes in the tall
tau and epsilon-iota ligature. Not having seen an identified example of

’’ Cf. A. M. Bandini, Catabgus codicum manuscriptmum Biblwthecac Mediceac Laurntiam II (repr. Leipdg,
1961), col. 13; E. Mioni, Codiurgmcci manurrripti Bibliothecac Divi Mam. VenetirrrumI (Rome, 1981). 314. These
two epigrams appear in E. Cougny, Epigmmmatum Anthobgia Palolina cum Plan& et appmdicc nom 111 (Paris,
1890), Epigmmmata dbmonrhntiua, nos. 116 and 209.
34
Cf. Bandini. col. 31; H. Delehaye, Propyheum ad Acta Sondorum N o u m h k (Brussels, 1902). col. xxv-xxvi;
A. Turyn, Dated Greek Manusmiptr ofthe Thirteenth and Fourtamth Centuriesin the Libmries of Italy (Urbana, 1972),
I, 2 4 6 Mioni, Codices, II 249.
35 For Girolamo’s epigram, cf. R Sabbadini, Epistola~iadi Guarino Vmmcsc, MisccUam di storia V m t a , ser.
3, t. 11 (Venice, 1916), Ep. 778A, 424; t. 14 (Venice, 1919), 381-2. On Musurus, cf. Pontani ‘Epigrammi‘,
passim, and Wilson, F m Bpnntium to Italy, 148, on elegiac couplets at the end of B.L. MS Burney 96 (Attic
orators).
On his hand, cf. S. Bemardinello, Autogmfi greci c grecelatini in occidente (Padua, 1979), 16 and tav. rrld;
E. Gamillscheg and D. Harlfinger. Repcrtorium dcr Griechuchen Kopistcn. 800-1600 (hereafter, RGK). I.
Handschriftcn aus Bibliotheken Gross Britanniens (Vienna, 1981). A.89; 11. Handschriften aus Bibliotheken
Fmnkreichs (Vienna, 1989), A.119; P. Eleuteri and P. Canart, Srrittumpca neU’lJmanesimo Italian0 (Milan, 1991),
89 no. XXX.
Fig. 2 MS Walters 354, fol. 4‘. Photograph courtesy of The Walters Art Gallery

Guidotto’s Latin script, 1 cannot be sure whether he wrote the possessor

notes (cf. Appendix 11).
Guidotto can be shown to have worked on ten MSS.” Eight were purchased
in the last century by English collectors:
1. London, British Library (hereafter B.L.), MS Additional 39614.
Xenophon, HeZZenica (not Plato, contra Vogel-Gardthausen and RGK). A
note on fol. 1 says that this and the following two MSS were written by

’’ Cf. lists and bibliography in sources cited above in note 36; M. Vogel and V. Gardthausen, Diegrkchischen
Schrkber des Mitfekzltm und der Renaissance, Zentralblatt fur Bibliothekswesen, Beih. 23 (Leipzig, 1909),438;
P. Moraux, Aristoteles Graecw: Die p‘echischm Manutkripte der Asistdcles, Peripatoi. Phdologisch-Historische
Studien zum Aristotelismus. Bd 8, I (Berlin and New York,1976), 133-5.None of these studies gives a complete
list of the Guidotto MSS. Descriptions of Plimpton 3 and Walters 354 below are based on autopsy.
 Dumiano Guidotto of Venice 489
Guidotto and were bought by Lord Robert Curzon in 1834 from a priest
of the monastery of San Francesco della Vigna in Venice (= SFV).=
2. B.L., MS Additional 39615. Hermogenes, De constitutionibus. On fol. 22"is
the note 'pertinet ad locum s. francisci a vinea'.
3. B.L., MS Additional 39616. Plutarch, De instructione plerorum.
According to the same note in MS Additional 39614, five other volumes
from the same set were owned by the Rev. Walter Sneyd. The two volumes of
Plimpton 3 give us this total, as is evident in what follows. Sneyd's library was
sold by Sotheby's in December, 1903,39and the Guidotto MSS bore the lot
numbers as stated below (Moraux errs):
4. Baltimore, Walters Art Gallery, MS 354 (de Ricci, I 760, no. 17).
Thucydides (Sotheby lot 780). See on this below.
5. New York, Columbia MS Plimpton 3 (Sotheby lot 379). According to de
Ricci, Sneyd's 1837 catalogue states that this and the next manuscript
were purchased by Sneyd in 1835 as part of the collection of Matteo
Luigi Canonici, S.J.'' If de Ricci has reported it correctly, this catalogue
entry looks like a mistake, for the above-mentioned note in B.L. Add.
39614 as well as Sneyd's pencilled note in Walters 354 (cf. below) create
the impression that Sneyd acquired all his Guidotto MSS from Padre
Bravia of SFV. My suspicion is that after the Canonici sale, Sneyd became
confused while cataloging his now extensive holdings and could no
longer remember exactly which Greek MSS came from Bravia and which
from the Canonici hoard (cf. the vague words '3 or 4 other Gr. MSS.'
in Sneyd's note in Walters 354, as though the purchase were no longer
recent). George A. Plimpton came to own MS 3 in 1912.
6. Columbia MS Plimpton 16. Fols 2'-38' Aristotle, M u p u Moralia; fols
40'-111' Theodore Gaza, Introductivu grammatice ($Sotheby lot 52). This
codex was written by the scribe who collaborated on Duke Perkins 30
(cf. Moraux, 134), although Damiano added titles, key words and textual
references in the margin, and signature numbers. The paper bears the
same watermark as that of Plimpton 3, Walters 354, and part of Duke
Perkins 30, and the chain and laid wire marks are the same distance apart
as in Plimpton 3. At the end of book 4 of Theodore Gaza, Guidotto wrote
a rCsumC of the four book titles, followed by ' x d p ~ sT C ~8cCi he?.
7. (Sotheby lot 48),Aristides, location as yet unknown. No manuscript in
the list of C. A. Behr can be identified with it."
8. Durham, Duke Perkins Library MS Gr. 30, containing Porphyry's Isugoge
and Aristotle's Organon, of which the Posterior Anulytia was copied by the
38
Cf. British Museum, Corologuc of Additiuns LO the Manuscripts 1916-1920 (London, 1933), 93-4.
39 ..
Cf. Sotheby, Wilkinson & Hodge, Catalogue of a Selected Portion of the Libmry . of thc Late Rev. Walter
Snqd, Dec. 16, 1903 (London. 1908).
40
De Ricci, II 1755. On the enormous Canonici collection, cf. I. Merolle, L'Abate Matteo Luigi Cananici c fa
mn biblioteca I m a n a s d t i Cammici e CummicisOmnu, delle bibliotechefiormtinc (Rome and Florence, 1958).
41
Cf. F. W. Lenz and C. A. Behr, Aelii Arirtidis opm quae exrtant amnia I (Leiden, 1976). ix-lxvi.
490 DavidJ Murphy
collaborator who copied Plimpton 16 (cf. Moraux, 133-5). The subscrip
tion on fol. 208” reads ‘T~AOSTOG Gaphvou TOG ~LSOITOVyrypa+hos*
a4v BEG’. Possessor notes of SFV are found on fol. 1 and 208. Water-
marks date from the last decades of s. xv to 1503, and a crossbow similar
to Harlfinger arbaZ2te 32 (cf. Appendix I1 below) appears on fols 86-121,
which folia were copied by the collaborator. Moraux speculates that this
codex may have arrived in England as part of the Canonici sale; it
belonged to Holland House in London before coming to Duke.
Finally, Paris. gr. 2941 and 2942 of Demosthenes were acquired in the
mid-sixteenth century by Jean Hurault, ambassador to Constantinople and
Venice. They also are signed by Guidotto.”
Damiano’s output forms the beginning of a serviceable library of Greek
works. Standard titles of a humanist Greek curriculum dominate, from which
one can detect an interest in morals and human behavior. Based on his
request that his collaborator supply Anal. Post., which was lacking in his
own exemplar of Duke 30 (Moraux, 134), we may speculate that Damiano
was copying texts for himself rather than serving as an amanuensis for
another collector. The nature of Guidotto’s contribution to Plimpton 16
(cf. above) and the presence of our two epigrams under Damiano Guidotto’s
own name in Plimpton 3 provide additional evidence for this assumption.
Guidotto’s repeated 04v t9+ in his subscriptions may indicate that he was an
ecclesiastic. The expensive paper, careful rubrication, and large margins
contribute to the production of a sumptuous codex. The Homer volumes
bear no sign of the corrections, reader’s notes, or marginalia that would show
that they were much read. The same is true of the Walters Thucydides (cf.
below). Guidotto looks more like a collector of some means than a scholar.
To Damiano Guidotto must be ascribed Walters 354 (cf. fig. 2), and the
above description of the key features of his hand applies to it. Walters 354 is
written on the same paper as that of Plimpton 3 and 16 and fols 86-119 of
Duke 30 (watermark similar to Harlfinger’s arbaDte 32). At the end of the
histories, on fol. 338‘ Damiano wrote A o s 04, BEG. On fol. 339’-’ follows a
list of the speeches and documents in Thucydides’ history, identified by first
lines, signature numbers, and sometimes also by folium numbers. At the end
of this list is written ‘pertinet ad locum S. Francisci a Vinea’ in the same hand
as that of the possessor notes in the Plimpton MSS, in a darker brown ink
and with a finer pen than Guidotto’s. Throughout, Guidotto writes various
speaker names in the margin.”
On fol. A’, Walter Sneyd pencilled this note:
42
Cf. H. Omont, Inventaire sommnire des manuccTitr gncr & h Bibliolhiquc Notimale (Paris, 1888). 111.66,and
Inhodvctimr to this work (Paris, 1898), xix.
43 A full description of the MS will appear in the catalog now being prepared by Lillian Randall; cf. E. Burin
and E. Dove,‘Manuscripts in the Walters Art Gallery: a concordance’,Journal of the Waltm Art Gal+, 49/50
(1991/2), 83-96.
 Damiano Guidotto of Venice 491
This M.S. was formerly in the Library of the wealthy Monastery of S.
Francesco della Vigna at Venice. I bought it from an old priest, named
P. Bravia - a Canon of that Church - into whose hands it appears to have
passed on the dissolution of the above mentioned Monastery at the close
of the last century. I obtained from him 3 or 4 other Gr. MSS., all of which
are marked as belonging to that monastic library. Bought at Venice, Nov.
lst, 1832.

It appears that after Sneyd bought certain MSS during his Venetian trip
of 1832, he formed the plan of returning to buy the much larger Canonici
collection, which Giovanni Perissinotti, its then owner, was trying to sell (cf.
Merolle, ix-x, 48-57).
Despite their faults, Damiano’s epigrams do show how a minor figure
could be inspired by leading ideas of his day. His epigrams reveal that he read
Homer with no little interest in what he took to be Homer’s moral content. In
this reading Guidotto, as Chalcondyles, Poliziano, and Codrus had done,
shows the influence of readings of Homer that had been practised in the
Greek world of the Roman period, as that influence was mediated to the
Renaissance by pseudo-Plutarch and Dio. What is more, Guidotto’s civil
status evidences how humanism in Venice was spreading beyond the ranks of
patricians, who had dominated its previous generations. It was spreading in
other cities, too. Of those Renaissance writers of Greek poetry known to me
to predate 1500, the one who most resembles Guidotto is the Florentine
Alessandra Scala, for like him, she was not a renowned writer but just a lover
of the classics who was inspired to add her voice to the tradition. The
productions of such people show us the extent to which the interests of
geniuses like Poliziano also caught the imagination of contemporaries of
slimmer talents, those who in their numbers were expanding humanism
beyond a scholar’s fashion into a spirit of an age.

New York, The Nightingale-Bamford School

APPENDIX I. THE GREEK OF THE EPIGRAMS

One notices the mixture of Attic and Ionic forms such as $\Los-~&os, pdv~s-p04vos,
+Gs-+dos, as well as variation in terminations (d+Bdpoiow. . . Ijpedpots 11.10), in
contraction (vdou 1.8,&ea 11.5,K~UT&J 11.7 versus d p v e h a ~1.11,+povotv.ra 1.12,+ ~ h e i
I I . ~ ) ,in absence of augment ( K ~ U T E ~ T O11,.5 versus &d+Bys 11.9) and in doubling of
consonants (’O8uamjos-’08umjos; cf. o’ooa 1.3, +peaob 1.10).This fluctuation occurs
for metrical reasons, as is common in poetry. Ablatival suffiies in o6puvdBev and
yljBcv 1.9 and the word 6ndl;ers 1.5 are also typical of poetry. A mute and a liquid do
not make position at 1.10 but do so at 1.11 and 11.9.Guidotto violates certain norms of
the elegiac distich, probably unknowingly: all hexameters have penthemimeral
caesura; a stop too often follows the caesura in the pentameter; bucolic caesura
follows a long syllable at 1.7, 9, and 11 and 11.1,5, 7, and 9; the last syllable of the first
492 DavidJ. M u 7 p h y
hemiepes is long by position at 1.8, 10, and 12 and 11.6and 8; and the hemiepes ends
in an iambic word at 11.10.Absence of necessary enjambement contributes to a choppy
structure of cola.@

Notes
Colophon: for &uiuiv, Guidotto means aivcuiv, ‘praise’. E and ui had been
pronounced alike since the second century AD; cf. W.S. Allen, Vox Gmeca3 (Cambridge,
1987), 78-9.
1.1: ~ T E T Efor &JTETE, second aorist imperative of & h w ; cf. H. G. Liddell and R.
Scott, A Greek-English Lexicong (Oxford, 1996, hereafter, LSJ), S.V. CUWOV. For
aspiration, a phenomenon not uncommon (for example, Francesco Contarini’s
spellings ‘Hetruria’ and ‘Etruria’, A. Segariui, Nuouo Archivio Veneto, ns 12 [1906], 276
nn. 2 and 4,292), cf. ‘EVETOS for ’EVETOIS, for which see on 11.6.Fluctuations in the use
of breathing marks arise because vowels had ceased to be aspirated in Greek by the
fourth century AD (Allen, Vox Graecu, 53).
1.2:; ? j p a ~.~. ;4~.
. @vui usually means ‘to assert, affirm’ and introduces some
form of indirect statement. Verses like Odyssey xvII.584 mpds [E?VOV &hOai h o s do
not provide true parallels for Guidotto’s attempt to refer to literary composition. We
might prefer an epic imperfect A&, although use of that verb to mean ‘say, speak’ is
pos t-Homeric.
1.3: Mdpwv, that is, Vergil. The ‘a’ is short in Vergil’s Latin cognomen and in forms
of the name in Greek and Latin poetry (cf. Odyssey D(.197; Ennius in Varro, De Lingua
L u t i n a v.14 = Trug. Rel. v. 170 Vahl.; Fulgentius, Mythologiae 11.15; Propertius
II.xxxii. 14).
1.6: &p6 ;;far can mean both ‘performing the sacrifices’ and ‘accomplishing the
holy deeds’ (cf. LSJ s.v.). The first syllable of k p d is properly short, but initial
tribrachic forms of this adjective are well attested; cf., for example, Odyssey v.102;
Callimachus, Hymns 111.200;Apollonius, Argonautica 1.960; Anth. Gruecu II.i.244. In
those cases, however, the third element in the verse is long, and to fit the meter here
one must resort to synezesis on kph or on Be&. Better had Damiano written Ip6 with
long iota (cf., for example, Iliad v.178, Odyssey 111.278).
1.7:the alpha in 8 ~ l f u sis properly long by nature. viK&&i c. gen., ‘to be inferior to,
yield to’: cf. LSJ S.V. 11.3.~ U X O ~ V T Ushould
S be in middle voice, for active voice forms of
-pax& appear only in compound verbs.
1.8: for iruph meaning ‘above, surpassing’ cf., for example, Plato Ep. vii 340d2,
Critiar 118b3, Aristides Dion. 29.9, Greg. Naz. Or. 42 (MPG 36.461.1).
1.10:the line does not scan, for the iota should be long with accent circumflex, i.e.
~KT~ULV.
11.1:a clumsy line, for diereses after the third, fourth, and fifth feet break it into
pieces.
11.2: although he addressed Homer with the vocative ykpov in line 1 , Guidotto
reverts to nominative i r ~ ~ ?asj prequired by the meter.
11.6: T&V ‘Eve.r&v. The ’EVETOL’ were a Paphlagonian tribe allied with Troy, some of

44 On the elegiac distich, cf. M. L. Clarke, ‘The hexameter in Greek elegiacs’, C[arcical Rm.ew, NS 5 (1955),
18; D. Koneniewski, Griechischz Metrik (Darmstadt, 1968), 35-8; A. S . F. Gow and D. L. Page, The Greek
Anthology. The Garland of Philip and Some Contempormy Epigmms (Cambridge, 1968), I, xli-xliv; M. van e k e ,
‘Greek elegiac verse rhythm’, Glottu, 66 (1988), 149-55.
 Damiano Guidotto of Venice 493
whom sailed west with Antenor after Troy’s fall to settle in the Adriatic gulf and found
Padua. Cf. niad 11.851-2, Alcman 1.51, Livy I.i, Vergil Aeneid 1.242-9. For the aspirated
form, cf. Servius on Aeneid 11.243, ‘Henetus rex, qui Venetiam tenuit, a cuius nomine
Henetiam dictam posteri Venetiam nominarunt’; also Aldo Manuzio, “ E ~ E T L ~‘in cL~’,
Venice’, in the dedicatory epistle to his 1503 edition of opuscula of Xenophon et al.
(Orlandi 1.79,no. LI)and elsewhere.
1 1 . 7 when the whole action is in the future, &JS with subjunctive, meaning ‘aslong
as’, regularly takes Bv in Attic prose. This rule is not always observed in poetry and in
dialects. Filelfo frequently omits Bv when Attic would have it; cf. D. Robin (note 28
above), 202 n. 9. Guidotto creates an unattested Ionic form d p o d p r ) ~ in ; Homer and
elsewhere, we find the accusative Zpoupuv. He may have been influenced by the
metrical pattern of ~ u p r r d v6po&pr)sat Iliad n1.246.For the phrase, cf. also Zliud VI.142,
XXI.465, Hymn to Demeter 471.
11.9: in Homer and later, KaLrrrp meaning ‘although’ is construed with the
participle; cf. W. W. Goodwin, Greek Moods and Tenses‘ (Boston, 1890, repr.
Philadelphia, 1992), 859-60; LSJ S.V. 11.
I i . 1 0 O;K Zv n & o W is so-called Anticipatory or Homeric subjunctive; Goodwin
284-6.

APPENDIX 11. DESCRIPTION OF PLIMPTON 3

Columbia Us Plimpton 3, s. xP-xviin, consists of two volumes of fols 336 and 209.
Because the Plimpton MSS are now being catalogued, I describe only a few features of
the codex. The paper is of high quality. Laid wire marks are 18 mm/20 and run
vertically. Chain marks range between 35 and 45 mm apart, averaging 38 mm. The
watermark, partially discernible in the tight binding, is a crossbow inside a circle
similar to Briquet 746 (Italy and Vienna, 1469-1503) and very like Harlfinger urbu@te
32 (Florence, 1494). The same watermark appears in three other Guidotto MSS:
Plimpton 16, Walters 354, and on fols 86-121 of Duke Perkins 30 (q.v. supra). Writing
lines have been scored without the benefit of vertical lines, presumably by use of a
frame.
When Plimpton 3 was bound in the nineteenth century, signature 2 of vol. I was
wrongly bound to follow fol. 32‘ instead of fol. 8’. This error was made easier by the
absence of signature or folium numbers in the prefatory material (the present
numbers were added in pencil by Samuel Ives). Damiano himself foliated only the
Homeric poems, beginning with ‘1’ on what is now fol. 71‘ in vol. I.
On fols 2‘4” of vol. I, Guidotto copied the preface written by Demetrius
Chalcondyles for the first printed edition (Florence, 1489). After this he copied the
other prefatory essays in the first edition: pseudo-Herodotus, Vita Homeri (cf. T. W.
Allen (ed.), Homeri Opera v (Oxford, 1912), 192-218), fols 4‘-8’, 33‘-37’;
pseudo-Plutarch Vita Homeri (cf. J. F. Kindstrand, [Pluta~chzrr]De Homero (Leipzig,
1990), and now J.J. Keaney and R. Lamberton, [Plutarch]Essay on the Lij2 and Poetry of
Homer, American Philological Association, American Classical Studies, 40 (Atlanta,
1996)), fols 37’-4OV, 9‘-32’, 41‘-63‘; Dio Chrysostom, or. LIII De Homero (cf. J. von
h i m , h i s hmis gum uocunt Chrysostomum q w e mtant omnia II (Berlin, 1896),
109:13), fols 63‘-65’. After blank leaves 66‘-70‘, on fol. 70’ follow Damiano
Guidotto’s colophon and epigrams as transcribed above (cf. Fig. 1). The Iliad occupies
fols 71‘-332‘. At its close, Damiano wrote ‘T&OS T+S 706 dp4pou Ad8os’. Then in a
finer pen are written the words ‘pertinet ad locum s. francisci a vinea venetiarum’.
494 DavidJ Murphy
Volume 11contains the Odyssey in 26 signatures. On fol. 1‘ top are the words ‘loci s.
francisci a vinea’ written in the same hand and pen as those on 332‘ of vol. I. The note
has subsequently been crossed out. At the close of the Odyssq, on fol.206‘, Damiano
wrote ‘ T ~ A O Sdpipov dSuooclas a;v BcG.’ Then in the aforementioned fine pen is
written ‘pertinetad locum s. francisci a vinea’.