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A Note on the "First" Edition of the Latin Translation of Some of Lucian of Samosata's Dialogues

Author(s): Jos Ruysschaert Source: Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, Vol. 16, No. 1/2 (1953), pp. 161-162Published by: The Warburg InstituteStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/750235Accessed: 17-04-2015 16:38 UTC

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LUCIAN OF SAMOSATA'S DIALOGUES i6i A NOTE ON THE "FIRST"

EDITION OF THE LATIN TRANS- LATION OF SOME OF LUCIAN OF

SAMOSATA'S DIALOGUES

n an extremely interesting article published in this Journal (XIV, 1951, pp. 7-20), Mr.

E. P. Goldschmidt draws attention to an im- portant typographical peculiarity in a volume, published in Rome by Lauer in about 1470, which contains the Latin translation of five dialogues by Lucian of Samosata and one by Maffeo de Lodi, published under the name of Lucian (Hain i0269). Mr. Goldschmidt, examining various copies of this edition, has found in some of them the separate printed leaf indicating the titles to be entered by the rubricator in the spaces left for that purpose by the typographers. This discovery, valu- able on account of the rarity of such leaves, is particularly interesting because it supplies us-often correctly-with the names of the translators of these dialogues. Thus we learn that the first dialogue, the Charon, is trans- lated by Rinuccio Aretino, the second, the Timon, by a certain Bertholdus, and the last two, the Tyrannus and the Vitarum Auctio, by Cristoforo Persona. But the publisher was wrong in two cases: the third dialogue, the Palinurus, is not by Lucian, but is the work of Maffeo Vegio, the humanist; while the fourth (the Scipio), by Lucian, was not translated by Leonard& Bruni Aretino, but by Giovanni Aurispa.

Unfortunately, by some strange chance, and entirely in good faith, Mr. Goldschmidt was unaware that the contents of this separate leaf had already been published. In 1915, in the Nuovo Archivio Veneto (XXX, pp. 2 19-220), Remigio Sabbadini, writing on "Antonio da Romagno e Pietro Marcello", mentions the first two dialogues we have just quoted, and believes he is able to establish that the trans- lator of the Charon is Pellegrino Zambeccari, Chancellor of Bologna. He thinks he can prove this "merce una stampa dell'ultimo quattrocento che assegna la traduzione di questo dialogo a Pellegrino Zambeccari". He notes that he owes this information to M. N. Caccia. The information was incorrect, and one can see at once where it originated: a hasty reading of the separate leaf led the informant to mistake the Timon for the Charon, and to pass over Bertholdus, although he was named as the translator, in favour of Zam- beccari, for whom the translation was des- tined, and who was the eventual corrector of it. Sabbadini himself examined without delay

the incunabulum preserved in the Lauren- ziana in Florence; and in the same periodical (XXXI, 1916, pp. 260-262) he published a note entitled "Ancora Pietro Marcello", cor- recting the error in the earlier article. Begin- ning with a resume of the latter, Sabbadini points out on this occasion that the two dialogues are published in a Latin version, together with eight others, in a Venetian incunabulum of 1494. He goes on to discuss the Roman incunabulum studied by Mr. Goldschmidt; he gives the press-mark of the copy preserved in the Laurenziana, publishes the text of the rubricator's page, and draws the full conclusions from it. Mr. Goldschmidt was unaware of this latter article. And, to his misfortune, his researches led him to consult the Epistolario de Pellegrino Zambeccari, pub- lished by Ludovico Frati in I929. On page xxii of this work Frati gives a resume of Sabbadini's second article, referring to it in a note. Frati's information, at which Mr. Goldschmidt stopped, is on a level with that of Caccia: having read Sabbadini's article too hastily, Frati calmly writes that the incunabulum "trovato" by Sabbadini (and he quotes the same press-mark for it) is a translation of the Charon by a certain Berthol- dus, printed in Venice in 1494! It only remained for Mr. Goldschmidt to look in Florence for the incunabulum invented by Frati. This he did-in vain.

A reading of Sabbadini's second article clears up one of Mr. Goldschmidt's major difficulties. On the other hand, however, perhaps the latter has solved another problem a little too hastily-the question of the editio princeps itself. Is it in the full sense of the term a "first edition"? In his Editiones saeculi XV pleraeque bibliographis ignotae-a work not con- sulted by Mr. Goldschmidt-published in Florence in 1930, Th. Accurti mentions (pp. 47-48, n. 92) an edition of the Latin translation of the two last dialogues, Tyrannus and Vitarum auctio, which he identifies as also coming from Lauer's press, and which he dates as round about the same year-1470. In his short description, Accurti unhesitat- ingly attributes the translation of these two dialogues to Cristoforo Persona. If he makes this attribution, it is certainly because he has had an opportunity of examining a copy of the incunabulum with the six dialogues in Rome, in the Corsiniana, and because he has carefully read the separate leaf published by Sabbadini and by Mr. Goldschmidt. But must we accept this attribution, made by the Roman publisher and confirmed by Sab- badini and Accurti? Or should we rather

II*

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162 MISCELLANEOUS NOTES adopt the opinion of Mr. Goldschmidt, who attributes the translation of the Vitarum auctio to Rinuccio Aretino? To throw doubt on the attribution to Persona, Mr. Goldschmidt declares (basing his argument on a study of Mr. Lockwood) that the printed text is the same as that which the manuscripts attribute to Rinuccio Aretino. Mr. Lockwood only names a series of manuscripts which contain Rinuccio's translation; he does not mention any edition of this text. I do not know which manuscripts Mr. Goldschmidt has had the opportunity of studying, but the only one which I have been able to see (Vat. lat. 4155, fols. 37v-42) offers a translation entirely dif- ferent from that of the incunabulum, and therefore gives no reason for doubting Cristo- foro Persona's claim to the printed text. Until we have proof to the contrary, Persona is indeed, therefore, the translator of the two dialogues entitled Tyrannus and Vitarum auctio.

But let us pass on to the very rare edition mentioned by Accurti, who knows only two copies of it. Its twenty folios contain, without any title, the translation of the two dialogues at the end of the incunabulum studied by Mr. Goldschmidt. The text is the same, and it is printed on the same press; but the edition is a different one. The pages of text in the former measure 152 mm. x Ioo mm.; in the latter, 172 mm. X 10 o5 mm. The former con- tain 24 lines of text, the latter 27. Which of the two editions was the first? It seems more likely that the edition of the two dialogues should have preceded the one of six; the work of some Roman personality of the day, it no doubt met with such success that Lauer decided to bring out a new edition, adding to it a group of translations of other dialogues which he had by him. This probability seems to me to be strongly upheld by the page of titles for the rubricator published by Mr. Goldschmidt. The list of titles does indeed look as if the rubrics of the last two dialogues had been taken just as they were from the page of titles which no doubt accompanied their previous publication. In fact, while in the case of the first four dialogues the incipit of the text of the dialogues or of the dedica- tions follows immediately after the matter to be inscribed by the rubricator, these incipits are completely lacking in the indications con- cerning the last two dialogues. Moreover, the way Luc*ian is named in the title of the fifth dialogue-Luciani uiri clarissimi-can only be explained if this title was originally destined to mark the beginning of a work.

Mr. Goldschmidt has the merit of being the first to draw attention to the typographical

interest of the separate title-page. These few notes are only intended to bear witness to the interest aroused by his study. I say this all the more gladly since Sabbadini's article was hidden in a periodical which, for I916, has on the cover both "n. Ioi" and "nuova serie n. 6I", while inside it there appears "nuova serie... anno XVI" and "tomo XXXI". It was sufficient for Frati just to quote volume 3 ', without indicating the year, for the article to escape the most diligent research.

Jost RUYSSCHAERT THE ILLUSION OF POSTEL'S

FEMINISMx A note on the interpretation of his

Tres Merveilleuses Victoires des Femmes du Nouveau Monde

G uillaume Postel enjoys to-day an estab- lished reputation as a feminist, largely on account of his Tris Merveilleuses Victoires des Femmes du Nouveau Monde

...

. 2 This note is

an attempt to show that that reputation is misleading; no claim is made, of course, to do justice here to the whole range of Postel's philosophy: only those aspects of his system bearing more or less directly on the question of his "feminism" are considered.

The Victoires des Femmes has been taken as a feminist polemic by many scholars. One, in the course of an authoritative study of the Querelle des Femmes, calls it briefly an apologie du sexefiminin,3 and Postel's latest biographer gives a similar verdict.4 Postel has been acclaimed as a defender in the Renaissance of the rights and dignities of women,5 as the inheritor of the mediaeval courtly tradition,6 as a descen-

I This study was made possible by a generous grant from the Central Research Fund of the University of London.

2 The full title continues et comment elles doivent a tout le monde par raison commander et mesme a ceulx qui auront la monarchie du monde vieil. Paris, 1553. All references are to the Brunet edition at Turin, 1869, which is also used for the Evangelike Regne associated with the Victoires des Femmes. This edition, referred to below as Brunet, has the merit of being accessible: it contains many in- accuracies which at times quite destroy the meaning of the original.

3 A. Lefranc, (Euvres de Rabelais: Introduction to the Tiers Livre, Paris, 1931, p. liv f.

4 D. Restoux, G. P. Ap6tre de la Concorde du Monde, Mortain, 193 1, p. 72. This work contains many strange views on Postel.

5 L. McD. Richardson, Forerunners of Feminism in France, Johns Hopkins Press, 1929, p. o103. Cf. also E. Dermenghem, Thomas Morus et les Utopistes de la Renaissance, Paris, 1927, p. 209. 6 See article by E. Brouette in Satan, Sheed and Ward, London, 1951, p. 313. This view seems in- defensible.

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Article Contentsp. 161p. 162

Issue Table of ContentsJournal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, Vol. 16, No. 1/2 (1953), pp. 1-170Front MatterThe Castle of Gaillon in 1509-10 [pp. 1-12]St. Francis and the Birds of the Apocalypse [pp. 13-23]Jewish Antecedents of Christian Art [pp. 24-44]A Newly Discovered Manuscript of Opicinus de Canistris: A Preliminary Report [pp. 45-57]Notes on Some Early Giotto Sources [pp. 58-80]The Modus Tenendi Parliamentum [pp. 81-99]Orpheus the Theologian and Renaissance Platonists [pp. 100-120]The Conflict of Ideals in Mutianus Rufus: A Study in the Religious Philosophy of Northern Humanism [pp. 121-143]Heliodorus' Aethiopica in Art [pp. 144-152]Miscellaneous NotesJob and Christ: The Development of a Devotional Image [pp. 153-158]Two Mysterious Busts at the Porta Nolana in Naples [pp. 158-159]A Lost Painting in Henry III's Palace at Westminster [pp. 160]A Note on the "First" Edition of the Latin Translation of Some of Lucian of Samosata's Dialogues [pp. 161-162]The Illusion of Postel's Feminism [pp. 162-170]