MORE AND LESS EVIDENCE FOR THE TEXT OF JULIUS EXUPERANTIUS

Abstract

This paper examines a neglected fifteenth-century manuscript of the opusculum of Julius Exuperantius. It argues that that manuscript (Bologna, Biblioteca Universitaria, 748) is a sibling of Vatican City, BAV, Vat. lat. 3334, and situates the new manuscript in the stemma established by the last editor. It then proposes a modification to that editor's stemma, arguing that those two fifteenth-century manuscripts in fact descend from Milan, BA, H 37 sup., once owned by Francesco Pizolpasso. Finally, it considers the implications of those arguments for the editing and the history of the text.

There is both more evidence and less evidence to edit the opusculum of Julius Exuperantius than has yet been acknowledged. Nevio Zorzetti's edition¹ of the text was founded on five witnesses:

P

Paris, BNF, lat. 6085 (variously dated between s. x and s. xii, Fleury)²

M

Munich, BSB, Clm 29358 (1 (s. x 2/2, Freising [?]; fragmentary)³

A

Milan, BA, H 37 sup. (c.1432–9, Basel [?]; poss. Pizolpasso)⁴

V

Vatican City, BAV, Vat. lat. 3334 (non ante 1453, Bologna; scr. Perotti)⁵

g

Bremen, SUB, Ms.c.35 (s. XVI; scr. Melchior Goldast)⁶

Zorzetti was unable to see g, which was deemed missing for part of the twentieth century. He assigned the other four manuscripts to a stemma which I reproduce in updated form:

There is, however, a bit more to say about the transmission of the text. Here I first identify some additional evidence for the text of Exuperantius, in a neglected sibling of V. Subsequently, I propose that A is, in fact, the source of the other fifteenth-century manuscripts; accordingly, of the fifteenth-century manuscripts only A has independent evidence to offer in reconstructing ω, while the readings of V and its new sibling show instead the admittedly modest corrections made by humanist readers of the text.

The neglected sibling of V is a manuscript that once belonged to the long-serving Bolognese professor Giovanni Garzoni (1419–1505),⁷ which I shall call J:

Bologna, Biblioteca Universitaria, 748

Chart., fols. VI (numbered I–II, 1–4), 77 (numbered 5–81), I’ (numbered 82); s. xv 4/4 (part 1 dated 11 June 1475), Bologna. The manuscript has both an original foliation in red ink and a modern foliation in pencil; I follow the latter. 292 x 217 mm. Gatherings: 1–7¹⁰, 8⁶⁺¹. Catchwords: horizontal, outside right ruling, at the foot of the page on last verso of gatherings 1–7. Written in two parts. Contents: (part 1) fols. 5r–79r, Cicero, Philippicae orationes, with colophon ‘Bon(oniae) .M. CCCC LXXV die undecima Iunii per me magistrum nicolaum de balen’; (part 2) fols. 79r–81r, Julius Exuperantius, Opusculum, written in the hand of Giovanni Garzoni, who also annotated part 1; fol. 81v, blank.

On fol. 5r, arms drawn in pen, three flowers above a triple mount, flanked by the initials ‘I. G.’ (= Iohannes Garzon). On flyleaves III–VI (numbered 1–4) are some notes related to the Philippics, a letter from Battista Guarino to Garzoni, and excerpts from, especially, Plutarch in Latin translation; these items are all written in the hand of Garzoni.

The manuscript received brief description at L. Frati, ‘Indice dei codici latini conservati nella R. Biblioteca Universitaria di Bologna’, SIFC 16 (1908), 103–482, at 262, where only its text of the Philippics is mentioned. The manuscript was catalogued more fully by Manfré (n. 7), 42, who correctly transcribed the title Julii grammatici de Mario libellus but did not connect it with the name of Julius Exuperantius.

J is most closely related to V, sharing with it numerous readings that have thus far been reported (or ought to have been reported) as individual errors or innovations of V:

1.5 promiserat] promiscuerat; 1.5 imperatori] imperio; 1.9 peteretque celsiora] peteret altiora; 2.10 ostentabat] ostendebat; 2.13 populo] om.; 2.16 patria [sic JV]; 3.13 auferretur [sic JV]; 4.4 Romam uenit] Romam; 5.10 perditorum et] perditorum ac; 5.13 trucidaretur] fugaretur; 6.3 ne] cum J : qum V; 6.13 et] ac; 9.6 quis] quibus; 11.10 Pyrenaeo] pireno J : pyreno V

Individual errors of J and of V show that neither manuscript was copied from the other:

1.11 tunc] tunc illum J; 2.18 belli tempore] tempore belli J; 10.14 cupientes] rapientes J

5.10 seruis] om. V; 9.4 praesidia] praesidium V; 9.7 et uetante] a uetante V

Accordingly, J could be attached to the relevant part of Zorzetti's stemma in the following way:

V, as is well established, was written not earlier than 1453 by Niccolò Perotti, since it contains a copy of Bessarion's letter to Francesco Foscari originally written at Bologna on 13 July 1453. The text of Julius Exuperantius in J was written by Garzoni certainly after 11 June 1475, and almost certainly in Bologna. Since both V and J have a connection with that city, it seems most plausible that their common ancestor γ should also be situated there.

Having added some new evidence for the text and the transmission of Exuperantius, I shall now take it away. When Francesco Pini first reported the variants of V in 1956 and signalled that the manuscript was closely related to A, he assumed that A and V were independent of each other. That assumption was taken over by Zorzetti, and I know of no evidence suggesting that it has come under suspicion. Now A, owned by Pizolpasso (†1443), cannot descend from V, written by Perotti no earlier than 1453. What evidence is there to show that V (and, now with it, J) does not descend from A?

Had that question been asked, it might have been answered with the following list of errors of A that are not found in (J)V, compiled from the reports of Pini and Zorzetti:

2.16 patria] patriae A : patriam P

3.13 auferretur] auferetur AP

4.2 Valerianisque] galerianisque A

4.6 cum] cum cum A

4.7 impetu detrusit] detrusit impetu A

8.9 ac] at A

8.11 ob] et ob A

Three of these seven errors are correctible. At 3.13 the text Sulpicius … legem tulit ut auferetur Syllae prouincia et Mario daretur in A, and especially daretur, easily produces the required correction aufer<r>etur. Similarly the dittography at 4.6⁸ and the common exchange at 8.9 of ac and at are simple corrections for an attentive reader. The errors at 4.2 and at 4.7 fall away just as quickly, that at 4.2 because A in fact has the correct reading Valerianisque against the error galerianisque in JV, that at 4.7 because detrusit impetu is the uncorrected reading of A, but, as Sabbadini (n. 4) reported, the transposition was corrected to read impetu detrusit, as in the rest of the transmission.

The two remaining errors require a little more explanation. At 2.16, in a sentence that has caused problems throughout the transmission, the text of A is nonsensical, but there are enough clues to put the conjecture patria within the reach of an attentive reader (Julius Exuperantius page 2.13–16; I quote the text of A):

nam populus Romanus per classes diuidebatur et pro patrimonii facultate censebatur: et hi omnes quibus res erant, ad militiam ducebantur. diligenter enim pro uictoria laborabant, qui cum libertate bona patriae defendebant.

At issue is generational wealth (pro patrimonii facultate; omnes quibus res erant) as a qualification for military service. Since the reading bona patriae is illogical (everyone, and not merely those with property, would work diligently if defending the bona patriae) and since an alternative such as cum libertate bona is nonsensical, it seems an easy step for a fifteenth-century reader to the conclusions that patriae is corrupt and that, in a context focussed on property qualifications and generational wealth, the reading ought instead to be bona patria.

The case for the independence of J and V from A therefore rests on a single error, for which I again quote the text of A (Julius Exuperantius page 8.11–13):

cuius socius et administer Perpenna et ob delictum tanti facinoris supplicium timens ex Sardinia in Hispaniam transuectus est ac se Sertorio sociauit qui tunc Romanum armis quassabat imperium.

The intrusive et after the name of Perpenna seems best explained as a slip by Pizolpasso's scribe, who evidently interpreted the words cuius socius et administer Perpenna as describing two individuals, and expected that there would follow the mention of a third individual. The continuation of the sentence makes clear that only one individual is meant, and it leaves the intrusive et without point. The correction is far from obvious, but it is, I think, within reach of the fifteenth-century reader whose manuscript γ also contained the corrections aufer<r>etur and bona patria[e] already mentioned.

A therefore has no individual errors that could not have been corrected by an attentive reader. There are good reasons to believe that a new edition of Julius Exuperantius would offer improvements over the current standard, beginning even from a revision of Zorzetti's stemma as follows:

That edition could be based upon PMA and perhaps g (the evidence of which remains to be assessed), while the readings of γ and its descendants need be cited only occasionally and as modest conjectures.

Long ago Sabbadini, believing A to be the only extant fifteenth-century manuscript, inferred that Pizolpasso was responsible for the humanist rediscovery of the text of Exuperantius.⁹ Although that claim probably gives Pizolpasso credit for someone else's work, it now appears that the manuscript he possessed was the source for knowledge of the text in the fifteenth century. A transcript of it, γ, was available in Bologna, which was in turn copied by Perotti and Garzoni. Pizolpasso came from a Bolognese family, and it seems logical to assume that his connections with that city will account for the presence of γ there.