Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-q99xh Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-26T06:18:07.115Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

V.—Bibliographical Notes on the English Translation of Polydore Vergil's work, “De Inventoribus Rerum.”

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 January 2012

John Ferguson
Get access

Extract

Considering how characteristic of this century are the development of invention and the application of discoveries in pure science to every-day uses, the history of invention, and the comparison of recent advances with those in the past, ought to be interesting and instructive. For the materials for such a narrative and such a comparison the historian has to depend on what remains of the practical works of former times, on allusions to their uses by contemporary writers, on early descriptions of the arts, on collections of technical receipts, and especially on the labours of previous historians, who—perhaps under great disadvantages—have already laboriously brought together some of the needed material and have begun the record. Among the most distinguished pioneers of such historical inquiry stands Polydore Vergil.

Type
Research Article
Information
Archaeologia , Volume 51 , Issue 1 , 1888 , pp. 107 - 141
Copyright
Copyright © The Society of Antiquaries of London 1888

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

page 108 note a See – Bibliographical Notes on Histories of Inventions and Books of Secrets,” Parts II. and III. in Transactions of the Archaeological Society of Glasgow, vol. ii. 1883, pp. 232–242Google Scholar; and, New Series, vol. i. 1886, pp. 195–199. The present paper has grown out of these and is supplemental to them.

page 108 note b The Cornucopie, a commentary on the De Spectaculis and first book of the Epigrams of Martial, was published in 1489 by the nephew of Perottus, though Vergil gets the credit of having collated it with a MS. and corrected it (Ellis's Preface, p. xix.) Of this work there were several editions. That of 1496 was printed at Venice by Joannes de Tridino, who afterwards printed editions both of the Proverbs and of the History of Inventions of Vergil himself. In the British Museum are copies of the 1496 and 1498 editions. That of 1496 is the finer book. The other omits certain addresses and verses, and is a quite inferior reprint by Ulrich Scinzenzeler at Milan. Perottus fills a place in the history of classical and Italian learning; for details reference may be made to Niceron, , Mémoires, Paris, 1729, ix. p. 374Google Scholar; Heeren, , Geschichte des Studiums der classischen Litteratur, Göttingen, 1801, ii. pp. 272–74Google Scholar; Tiraboschi, , Storia della Letteratura Italiana, Firenze, 1809, vi. p. 1099Google Scholar; Graesse, , Literärgeschichte, Dresden, 1843, II. iii. pp. 695–97Google Scholar; Voigt, , Die Wiederbelebung des classischen Alterthums, Berlin, 1881, ii. 134Google Scholar. Portraits of Perottus are given by Jovius, Paulus, Elogia Virorwm literis illustrium, Basil., 1577, p. 22Google Scholar; and by Freher, , Theatrum Virorum Eruditione Clarorum, Norib., 1688, plate 2, and p. 21Google Scholar.

page 108 note c A copy of the first edition is in my own possession, and I have seen besides the editions of Venice, 1500; Argent. 1511; Basil. 1521, 1525, 1550. In the British Museum Catalogue there are twelve editions; in the collection at Keir there are five, Catalogue, 1860, p. 100. The 1511 copy is in Sir –William Hamilton's collection in the University Library, Glasgow. It is not in the British Museum or at Keir, and I do not remember noticing it in other lists.

page 109 note a Writing in December 1517, lie refers to twelve years having elapsed since he had begun the history.

page 110 note a Bale, in his list of Vergil's writings (Illustrium Maioris Britanniae Scriptorum … Summarium, Gippeswici, 1548, f. 223), enters this as a separate treatise with the title: De ritibus christianorum, li. v.

page 110 note b This date and item of biography have been overlooked by Sir Henry Ellis.

page 112 note a Dictionnaire, 1720, iv. p. 2832, note D.

page 112 note b In Svo. ff. 171. There is a copy in the British Museum.

page 112 note c This book merits a word in passing. Vergil is only one of twenty-five commentators on Horace's works, besides those who have commented separate portions, included by Höniger in his edition—of which he says on the title, with a feeling of relief and an air of triumph: iam pridem, in stvdiosœ ivventvtis gratiam et vtiliiatem post Hercvleos labores edita. The work compiled so benevolently forms a large folio, closely printed, of some 1140 pages, besides a mass of prolegomena and indices. One can only think of the change that has come over studious youth in 300 years, when one compares Höniger's cyclopaedia with a modern school or college selection.

page 112 note a Typographical Antiquities, London, 1749, p. 148Google Scholar. Herbert, (Typographical Antiquities, London,. 1785, i. p. 342Google Scholar) gives the title at greater length.

page 113 note a Bale, in his list of Vergil's works above-mentioned (§ 8, note a), quotes Epistolas eruditas, li. i. 1 know of no separate work of Vergil's with that title. Does Bale refer to his prefatory epistles ?

page 113 note b “Turbata Anglia in patriam rediit, vbi & senex obiit CIƆ.IƆLII teste Andr. Theueto, in Virorum Illustrium Historia,” says the notice of Vergil prefixed to Stoer's edition of the Inventions, 1604. Ellis (p. xx.) does not allude to Thevet's statement at all, and says that some authorities place Vergil's death in 1562, but he shows that 1555 is more probably correct.

page 113 note c Vergil discusses the question of precedence with some degree of warmth in the first epistle to Richard Pace, prefixed to the 1521 edition of the Proverbs. Ellis has omitted this; apparently he did not know the 1521 edition.

page 113 note d Gildas de Excidio Britanniae. Ad Fidern Godicum Manuscriptorum recensuit Josephus Stevenson. London, for the English Historical Society, 1838, 8vo. pp. xx. xxi. Gildas has been often printed. There is an old English version by Habington, London, 1638, and a modern one by Dr. J. A. Giles, London, 1841, 8vo.

page 114 note a Biographia Britannica Literaria, London, 1842, i. p. 128Google Scholar.

page 114 note b They have been reiterated even by Grraesse, Trèsor de Livres Rares, Dresden, 1867, vi. ii. p. 284. This is how he puts it: – Cette histoire a été écrite à la faveur de la reine Marie et du parti catholique: on dit que l'auteur a été un grand faussaire qui, pour cacher ses nombreuses altérations des faits, a détruit un grand nombre de mss. historiques.” It is sufficient to repeat as a reply to this, that the history was begun in 1505, and that Mary was not born till 1516; that the work was finished in 1533, and that – la reine Marie – began her reign in 1553, by which time Vergil was probably in Italy. The rest of Grraesse's statement is presumably equally correct. Finally Graesse's article on Vergil's works is an instance of the higgledy-piggledy in arrangement.

page 114 note c For one or two additional particulars, see Dennistoun's, Memoirs of the Dukes of Uroino, London, 1851, ii. p. 110Google Scholar.

page 114 note d For another account, see the papers mentioned above, § 3, note a.

page 114 note e Beyträge zur Geschichte der Erfindungen, Leipzig, 1792, iii. pp. 571–8Google Scholar. Trans. Archaeol. Soc. Glasgow, ii. p. 233Google Scholar. From this latter list there has been omitted an edition, Basil., 1521, Svo. mentioned by Beckmann, but I know nothing about it.

page 115 note a Trans. Archaeol. Soc. Glasgow (N. S.), i. p. 195Google Scholar.

page 115 note b Ibid. i. p. 196.

page 115 note c Ibid. 1883, ii. p. 237, and (N. S.), i. p. 198. Of Senant's edition the only copy I know of and have seen is in the Bodleian.

page 117 note a Beyträge, iii. p. 573Google Scholar.

page 117 note b Bibliotheca Britannica, ii. 932Google Scholar, o.

page 117 note c Gerardus Joannes Vossius (De Historicis Latinis, Lugd. Bat. 1651, p. 678) says that the eight books were printed in 1499. Maittaire (Annales Typographies, Amstel. 1733, p. 692) corrects this error partially, by saying that the last five books did not appear before 1517, but Panzer (Annales Typographies Norimb., 1795, iii. p. 456) states the fact rather differently when he says that the work which contained only three books in the original edition was enlarged with other five in 1517 by Polydorus.

page 117 note d Compare Reusch, , Der Index der Verbotenen Bücher, Bonn, 1883, i. p. 155Google Scholar. He does not allude to an edition of 1517.

page 118 note a Compare Renouard, Annales … des Estienne, Paris, 1843, p. 29, No. 21; and p. 32, No. 24.

page 118 note b Trans. Archaeol. Soc. Glasgow, 1883, ii. p. 238Google Scholar.

page 120 note a Trans. Archaeol. Soc. Glasgow, 1883, ii. p. 235Google Scholar.

page 120 note b Beyträge, iii. p. 573Google Scholar.

page 120 note c Dictionnaire, 1720, iv. p. 2834Google Scholar.

page 121 note a The second shorter letter appeared for the first time to my knowledge in the edition of 1525, prefixed to the fourth book (§ 23). Thereafter it occurs in the Basel editions: 1532, 1544, 1546, 1563; Rome, 1576, 1585; Stoer's edition, 1604; Zetzner's, Argent., 1606; Cologne, 1626; Leyden, 1644; Amsterdam, 1671; in the German translation, Augsburg, 1544; in the Italian translations, 1543, 1550, 1587, 1680. In the editions of 1606, 1644, 1671, the date at the end of the letter is erroneously printed 1518 for 1517.