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Renaissance Readers and Ancient Texts: Comments on Some Commentaries*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 November 2018

Anthony Grafton
Anthony Grafton*
Affiliation:
Princeton University
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Extract

In autumn, 1465, two humanists agreed to have a battle. Lorenzo Guidetti was a disciple and friend of Cristoforo Landino, the most prominent teacher of rhetoric in the Florentine Studio. Buonaccorso Massari was a pupil of a less famous master, Giovanni Pietro of Lucca. Naturally, Massari began the fight, with all the pretended friendliness and genuine desire to insert knives in backs that characterize the intellectual at his deadliest. Massari had heard that Landino would lecture on Cicero's Epistolae ad Familiares during the academic year 1465-6. “I am an eager student,” he wrote to Guidetti on 14 September, “and I would be grateful to know what Landino said when he explained the first letter. For in my view it is quite hard because of the historical questions involved, and few have the ability to tackle so great an enterprise.“

Type
Research Article
Information
Renaissance Quarterly , Volume 38 , Issue 4 , Winter 1985 , pp. 615 - 649
Copyright
Copyright © Renaissance Society of America 1985

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Footnotes

*

In this paper I attempt to skate over much thin ice. For aid in a dangerous enterprise I owe thanks to several friends with whom I have discussed texts and issues—above all S. Camporeale, H. J. de Jonge, A. C. Dionisotti, G. W. Most, and D. Quint; to H. Goodman and J. Polachek, who gave guidance on Sinological problems and bibliography; and to the audiences at Princeton University, Pembroke College Oxford, the Herzog August Bibliothek, Wolfenbüttel, and the first National Conference of the Renaissance Society at the Huntington Library (22-3 March 1985), who heard and responded to earlier drafts. Special thanks to E. Duval, G. W. Pigman III, and J. M. Weiss for their immediate reactions at the last-mentioned occasion.

References

1 B. Massari to L. Guidetti, 14 September 1465, edited (along with the rest of the correspondence between the two) by Cardini, R., La critica del Landino (Florence, 1973), p. 267 Google Scholar: “Ego, qui discendi cupidus sum, libenter ex te cognoscerem quid in ea prima epistola exponenda dixerit: est enim—ut arbitror—propter historiam diffcilis, et pauci sunt qui tantae rei magnos conatus assequi possint.” For the circumstances, see pp. 39-41. For the most part I follow Cardini's magisterial analysis of the debate (pp. 41-62).

2 Guidetti to Massari, 18 September 1465; Cardini, Critica, p. 268: “Quod vero de historia eius epistolae non nulli tarn anxii sunt, loquar tecum aperte quod sentio, neque amicissimo homini sententiam meam occultabo. Equidem non animadverto, mi Bonaccursi, cur stilum atque elegantiam in scribendis epistolis cupienti tantopere haec res inquirenda sit. Itaque illud in primis placet et sequor, quod de Landino meo saepissime audio: esse ante omnia elaborandum, ut quo dicendi genere, qua verborum compositione, quibus flosculis quaque sobrietate contexendae epistolae sint intelligamus… . “

3 Critka, p. 268.

4 Massari to Guidetti, 26 September 1465, Critica, p. 270.

5 Critica, p. 271.

6 Guidetti to Massari, 25 October 1465; Critica, pp. 273-74: “Est enim probi praeceptoris, cum aliquid explicandum assumit, et ad ornate loquendum et recte vivendum discipulos instruere. Locus aliquis obscurior incident, et in quo neutrum istorum versetur: hunc si, quoniam praesto se illi offeret, exponet laudabo, si non illi praesto succurret, non iccirco negligentem putabo si non exprimet. Si vero istud nescio quid minutum multa cura, multo temporis dispendio investigare volet, prorsus curiosum appellabo … . “

7 Critica, p. 274: “Puto ergo expositoris officium esse primo ut ex historia hoc edoceat, nihil publice in senatu apud priscos actum, quin prius dii an id iuberent consul erentur, quod, si ea in re adversam illorum mentem reperirent, religione impediri dicebant. Addet, si eruditorum ingenia et tempus ita postulaverit, quot modis haec scrutarentur, proferetque breviter duo in ea re genera, naturae unum, alterum artis;… At siquis odiosius instet et quaenam in senatu religio iactaretur interroget, proferam si scivero, sin minus ingenue me nescire fatebor neque propterea non adimplesse expositoris munus verebor …Deinde ad singulorum verborum vim et notionem revertar: exprimam quid sit senatus, unde dictus, a quo Romae inventus, a quo auctus, quanta illi dignitas, quanta auctoritas in re publica fuerit, quot genera senatorum, qui maiorum quive minorum gentium appellati sint, qui consulares, qui pedarii et reliqua multa. Nee tacebo de religionis diffinitione et sitne an ‘a religando’ an ‘a relegando’ an ‘a relegendo’ dicta; eodem pacto calumniam prosequar … “

8 Massari to Guidetti, 31 October 1465; Critica, p. 279: “Ego ex te loci illius explanationem amice requirebam, non interpretis munus et praeceptoris officium; et nos Macrobium, Valerium, Agelium et Ciceronis De divinatione librum vidimus, sed non tamen ex hoc quid sentiat illic Cicero cognoscere possumus. Dicas, oro, si placet, quae sit ilia ‘religionis calumnia'; utrum autem religio ‘a religando’ an ‘a relegendo’ sit dicta et calumnia ‘a calvendo’ non laboro.”

9 For a brief description of these two genres see Grafton, A., “On the Scholarship of Politian and its Context,“ Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, 40 (1977), 152-62CrossRefGoogle Scholar, with ample bibliography.

10 For Machiavelli's views see above all the preface to his Discourses on Livy; for Guicciardini I quote Ricordi C 110, in his Opere, ed. V. de Caprariis (Milan and Naples, 1953). p. 120 : “Quanto si ingannono coloro che a ogni parola allegano e Romani!” The translation is that of Domandi, M., Maxims and Reflections of a Renaissance Statesman (New York, 1965), p. 69 Google Scholar.

11 See Moss, A., Ovid in Renaissance France (London, 1982), pp. 23–36 Google Scholar; in fact, of course, Rabelais’ attack on allegorical readings needs to be interpreted with care and in the light of his own use of Lavinius’ allegories in the body of his writing; see Quint, D., Origin and Originality in Renaissance Literature (New Haven and London, 1983), p. 170 Google Scholar.

12 For Lipsius see Oestreich, G., Neostoicism and the Early Modern State, ed. H. G. Koenigsberger (Cambridge, 1982)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Scaliger's comment appears in his table-talk, the Scaligerana (Cologne, 1695), p. 245: ”… neque est Politicus, nee potest quicquam in Politia: nihil possunt pedantes in illis rebus; nee ego nee alius doctus possemus scribere in Politicis.” Yet Scaliger himself could be quite inconsistent in his views on the practical uses of scholarship. In 1606, he produced an edition of Caesar for Plantin, with no formal commentary and an anonymous prefatory letter (in fact by Lipsius) insisting that the proper way to read this sort of text was that of the “politicus” rather than the textual critic: “Quam multi jam, qui libros tantum legunt ut emendent? ut illos meliores faciant, non ut sese? Itaque toti in voculis aut syllabis aliquot examinandis sunt: et segetem illam uberem rerum sententiarumque subterhabent, paleis modo lectis” (C. Iulii Caesaris quae extant ex emendatione Ios. Scaligeri [Leiden, 1635], sig. **r).

13 See for example de Nolhac, P., Pétrarque et I'humanisme, 2d ed. (Paris, 1907)Google Scholar; Sabbadini, R., Il metodo degli umanisti (Florence, 1922)Google Scholar; Ullman, B. L., The Humanism of Coluccio Salutati (Padua, 1963)Google Scholar; Weiss, R., The Renaissance Discovery of Classical Antiquity (Oxford, , 1969)Google Scholar; Billanovich, G., “Petrarch and the Textual Tradition of Livy,” Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, 14 (1951), 137–208 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Timpanaro, S., La genesi del metodo del Lachmann, new ed. (Padua, 1981)Google Scholar; Rizzo, S., Il lessico filologico degli umanisti (Rome, 1973)Google Scholar.

14 See for example Reynolds, L. D. and Wilson, N. G., Scribes and Scholars, 2nd ed. (Oxford, 1974)Google Scholar; Burke, P., The Renaissance Sense of the Past (New York, 1969)Google Scholar; Kelley, D. R., Foundations of Modern Historical Scholarship (New York and London, 1970)Google Scholar; Bentley, J., Humanists and Holy Writ (Princeton, 1983)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

15 Lowry, M., The World of Aldus Manutius (Oxford, 1979), p. 238 Google Scholar.

16 Mund-Dopchie, M., La survie d'Eschyle à la Renaissance (Louvain, 1984), pp. 8, 96-97Google Scholar.

17 Panizza, L., “Textual Interpretation in Italy, 1350-1450: Seneca's Letter I to Lucilius,” Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, 46 (1983), 40–62 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Timpanaro, S., “Atlas cum compare gibbo,” Rinascimento, 2 (1951), 311—318 Google Scholar; Dunston, J., “Studies in Domizio Calderini,” Italia Medioevale e Umanistica, 11 (1968), 71–150 Google Scholar; Coppini, D., “Filologi del Quattrocento al lavoro su due passi di Properzio,” Rinascimento, 16 (1976), 219-21Google Scholar; Kraye, J., “Cicero, Stoicism and Textual Criticism: Poliziano on ,” Rinascimento, 23 (1983), 79–110 Google Scholar;

18 Mund-Dopchie, , La survie d'Eschyle, chap, v; cf. the even more pointed account by J. A. Gruys, The Early Printed Editions (1518-1664) of Aeschylus (Nieuwkoop, 1981), pp. 77–96 Google Scholar. Cf. Porro, A., “Pier Vettori editore di testi greci: la ‘Poetica’ di Aristotele,” Italia Medioevale e Umanistica, 26 (1983), 307-58Google Scholar.

19 Franklin, J., Jean Bodin and the Sixteenth-Century Revolution in the Methodology of Law and History (New York and London, 1963), pp. 140-1CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

20 Bodin, J., Methodus ad facilem historiarum cognitionem (Paris, 1572 [1st ed. 1566]), p. 60 Google Scholar: “Eorum vero minus probandae sunt narrationes qui nihil aliud habent quam quod ab aliis audierunt … nee publica monumenta viderunt. Itaque optimi scriptores quo maior fides scriptis haberetur e publicis monumentis ea se collegisse aiunt.“

21 In many respects, of course, Bodin did subscribe to conventional notions about the uniformity of human nature and the value of history as a guide to conduct. See in general Nadel, G., “Philosophy of History before Historicism,” History & Theory, 3 (1964) 291–315 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Koselleck, R., “Historia magistra vitae: Über die Auflösung des Topos im Horizont neuzeitlich bewegter Geschichte,” Vergangene Zukunji (Frankfurt, 1984 [1st ed. 1979]), pp. 38–66 Google Scholar; Kessler, E., “Das rhetorische Modell der Historiographie,” Formen der Geschichtsschreibung, ed R. Koselleck et al., Beitrage zur Historik, 4 (Munich, 1982), pp. 37–85 Google Scholar.

22 Goez, W., “Die Anfänge der historischen Methoden-Reflexion im italienischen Humanismus,” Geschichte in der Gegenwart: Festschrift für Kurt Kluxen, ed E. Heinen and H.J. Schoeps (Paderborn, 1972), pp. 3–21 Google Scholar; Goez, , “Die Anfänge der historischen Methoden-Reflexion in der italienischen Renaissance und ihre Aufnahme in der Geschichtsschreibung des deutschen Humanismus,” Archiv für Kulturgeschichte, 56 (1974), 25–48 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

23 Metasthenes, in Commentaria fratris Ioannis Annii Viterbensis … super opera diversorum auctorum de Antiquitatibus loquentium confecta (Rome, 1498) (unpaginated): “Qui de temporibus scribere parant necesse est illos non solo auditu et opinione chronographiam scribere: ne cum per opiniones scribunt uti Greci: cum ipsis pariter et se et alios decipiant: et per omnem vitam aberrent. Verum absque ullo errore fiet: si solos annales duarum monarchiarum assecuti: ceteros omnes ut fabulatores reiecerimus. In his enim tam liquide atque vere digesta sunt tempora: reges et nomina quam apud eos splendidissime regnatum est. Neque tamen omnes recipiendi sunt qui de his regibus scribunt: sed solum sacerdotes illius regni: penes quos est publica et probata fides annalium suorum: qualis est Berosus [whose works also appeared in Annius’ collection]. Nam is Caldeus omne tempus Assyriorum digessit ex antiquorum annalibus, quem solum vel maxime unum Perse nunc sequimur.” Bodin inserts the last two sentences into the Methodus, as valid prescriptions for source-criticism.

24 Annius's gloss, in the Commentaria: “Dat regulas temporum Metasthenes: ut ex eis sciamus iudicare qui autores sint accipiendi in chronographia: et qui reiciendi. Prima regula est ista: Suscipiendi sunt absque repugnantia omnes qui publica et probata fide scripserunt. Et declarat quod sacerdotes olim erant publici notarii rerum gestarum et temporum: qui presentes essent, aut ex antiquioribus copiarent: sicut nunc instrumentum publicum et probatum dicitur: quod a notario presente publicatur et scribitur: aut ex antiquiore notario per presentem notarium traducitur.“

25 Guenée, B., Histoire et culture historique dans l'Occident médiéval (Paris, 1980), pp. 133-40Google Scholar.

26 See in general Levine, J. M., “Reginald Pecock and Lorenzo Valla on the Donation of Constantine,” Studies in the Renaissance, 20 (1973), 118-43CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Setz, W., Lorenzo Vallas Schrift gegen die Konstantinische Schenkung (Tübingen, 1975)Google Scholar; Lebram, J. C. H., “Ein Streit um die Hebräische Bibel und die Septuaginta,” Leiden University in the Seventeenth Century, ed. Th. H. Lunsingh Scheurleer (Leiden, 1975), p. 37 Google Scholar; de Jonge, H. J., “Die Patriarchentestamente von Roger Bacon bis Richard Simon,” Studies on the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs, ed. M. de Jonge (Leiden, 1975), pp. 3–42 Google Scholar; Purnell, F., Jr., “Francesco Patrizi and the Critics of Hermes Trismegistus,” Journal of Medieval and Renaissance Studies, 6 (1976), 155-78Google Scholar; Grafton, A., “Protestant versus Prophet: Isaac Casaubon on Hermes Trismegistus,” Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, 46 (1983), 78–93 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

27 See the classic articles by Momigliano, A., “Ancient History and the Antiquarian,” Studies in Historiography (New York, 1966), pp. 1–39 Google Scholar, and Waterbolk, E. H., “Reacties op het historisch pyrrhonisme,” Bijdragen voor de Geschiedenis der Nederlanden, 15 (1960), 81–102 Google Scholar, repr. in Mythe & Werkelijkheid, ed J. A. L. Lancée (Utrecht, 1979). pp. 68-85; Erasmus, H. J., The Origins of Rome in Historiography from Petrarch to Perizonius (Assen, 1962)Google Scholar; Wagner, F., Die Anfänge der modernen Geschichtswissenschaft im 17. Jahrhundert, S. B. Bayer. Akad., phil.-hist. Kl., 1979, Heft 2 (Munich, 1979)Google Scholar; W. Hardtwig, “Die Verwissenschaftlichung der Geschichtsschreibung und die Ästhetisierung der Darstellung,” Formen der Geschichtsschreibung, ed. Koselleck et al., pp. 147- 191; and cf. Kraus, A., “Grundzüge barocker Geschichtsschreibung,” Bayerische Geschichtswissenschaft in drei Jahrhunderten (Munich, 1979), pp. 11–33 Google Scholar, and Historische Kritik in der Theologie: Beitrage zu ihrer Geschichte, ed. G. Schwaiger (Gottingen, 1980).

28 Grafton, A., “Rhetoric, Philology and Egyptomania in the 1570s …,” Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, 42 (1979), 183 Google Scholar; Grafton, “Protestant versus Prophet,” pp. 80, 86-87.

29 F. Bacon, De augmentis scientiarum, 2. 4; The Works of Lord Bacon (London, 1879), II, 317: “Ante omnia etiam id agi volumus (quod civilis historiae decus est, et quasi anima) ut cum eventis causae copulentur: videlicet ut memorentur naturae regionum ac populorum; indolesque apta et habilis, aut inepta et inhabilis ad disciplinas diversas; accidentia temporum, quae scientiis adversa fuerint aut propitia; zeli et mixturae religionum; malitia. et favores legum; virtutes denique insignes et efficacia quorundam virorum, erga literas promovendas, et similia.“

30 Bacon, II, 317: “ … ut ex eorum [= libri praecipui of each period] non perlectione (id enim infinitum quiddam esset) sed degustatione, et observatione argumenti, styli, methodi, genius illius temporis literarius, veluti incantatione quadam, a mortuis evocetur.” Bacon also urges that the historian not occupy himself “criticorum more” with praise and blame, “sed plane historice res ipsae narrentur, judicium parcius interponatur.“

31 Hassinger, E., Empirisch-rationaler Historismus (Bern and Munich, 1978), pp. 101-47Google Scholar, as qualified and extended by Muhlack, U., “Empirisch-rationaler Historismus,” Historische Zeitschrift, 232 (1981), 605-16CrossRefGoogle Scholar; cf. Schulin, E., Traditionskritik und Rekonstruktionsversuch (Göttingen, 1979), esp. p. 260 Google Scholar n. 40.

32 For a programmatic reference to Bacon's plan, see Rambach, J. J., “Entwurf der künftig auszuarbeitenden Litterairhistorie,” Versuch einer pragmatischen Litterairhistorie (Halle, 1770), pp. 182-83Google Scholar; for Heyne's essay see for example Grafton, A., “ Prolegomena to Friedrich August Wolf,” Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, 44 (1981), 101-29CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Experts disagree on the extent to which humanistic philology of this kind anticipated the historical philology of the nineteenth century; see, in addition to the works cited in n. 31, Reill, P. H., The German Enlightenment and the Rise of Historicism (Berkeley, 1975)Google Scholar; Friederich, C., “Johann Martin Chladenius: Die allgemeine Hermeneutik und das Problem der Geschichte,” Klassiker der Hermeneutik, ed. U. Nassen (Paderborn, 1982), pp. 43–75 Google Scholar; and Patsch, H., “Friedrich August Wolf und Friedrich Ast: Die Hermeneutik als Appendix der Philologie,” Klassiker der Hermeneutik, pp. 76–107 Google Scholar.

33 Seznec, J., The Survival of the Pagan Gods, trans. B. F. Sessions (New York, 1953)Google Scholar; Allen, D. C., Mysteriously Meant (Baltimore and London, 1970)Google Scholar; Mäier, I., “Une page inédite de Politien: la note du Vat. lat. 3617 sur Démétrius Triclinius, commentateur d'Homère,” Bibliothèque d'Humanisme et Renaissance, 16 (1954), 7–17 Google Scholar; Levine [Rubinstein], A., “The Notes to Poliziano's ‘Iliad,’“ Italia Medioevale e Umanistica, 25 (1982), 205-39Google Scholar: Moss, Ovid in Renaissance France, esp. pp. 44-53, which show deftly how later sixteenth-century commentators both preserved and updated traditional modes of explication; Allen, M., Marsilio Ficino and the Phaedran Charioteer (Berkeley, 1981)Google Scholar; Allen, , The Platonism of Marsilio Ficino (Berkeley, 1984)Google Scholar; Murrin, M., The Veil of Allegory (Chicago and London, 1969)Google Scholar; Murrin, , The Allegorical Epic (Chicago and London, 1980)Google Scholar; Quint, Origin and Originality.

34 Lemmi, C., The Classic Deities in Bacon (Baltimore, 1933)Google Scholar; Rossi, P., Francis Bacon: From Magic to Science, trans. S. Rabinovitch (Chicago, 1968)Google Scholar, ch. III.

35 Bacon, De augmentis scientiarum, 2. 13; Works, II, 323: “Utrum vero fabulis veteribus poetarum subsit aliquis sensus mysticus, dubitationem nonnullam habet; atque ipsi certe fatemur nos in earn sententiam propendere, ut non paucis antiquorum poetarum fabulis mysterium infusum fuisse putemus.“

36 McGuire, J. E. and Rattansi, P. M., “Newton and the ‘Pipes of Pan,’“ Notes and Records of the Royal Society of London, 21 (1966)Google Scholar; Walker, D. P., The Ancient Theology (London, 1972)Google Scholar, chaps, vi-vii.

37 Croll, M., Style, Rhetoric and Rhythm (Princeton, 1966)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; D'Amico, J., “The Progress of Renaissance Latin Prose: the Case of Apuleianism,” Renaissance Quarterly, 37 (1984), 351-92CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Fumaroli, M., L'âge de l'éloquence (Geneva, 1980)Google Scholar; Kühlmann, W., Gelehrtenrepublik und Fürstenstaat (Tübingen, 1982)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

38 Garin, E., “Le favole antiche,” Medioevo e Rinascimento (Bari, 1954), pp. 66–89 Google Scholar.

39 Cardini, La critica del Landino, pp. 62-65. For another powerful statement of such views see Panofsky, E., Renaissance and Renascences in Western Art, 2d ed. (New York, 1969)Google Scholar; for a case study which partly confirms and partly challenges them—and to which this article owes much—see Rice, E. F., Jr., “Humanist Aristotelianism in France: Jacques Lefèvre d'Étaples and his Circle,” in Humanism in France at the End of the Middle Ages and in the Early Renaissance, ed. A. H. T. Levi (Manchester, 1970), pp. 132-49.Google Scholar

40 Poliziano, A., “Oratio super Fabio Quintiliano et Statii Sylvis,” in Prosatori latini del Quattrocento, ed. E. Garin (Milan and Naples, 1952), p. 878 Google Scholar: “Postremo ne illud quidem magni fecerim quod horum scriptorum saeculo corrupta iam fuisse eloquentia obiciatur, nam si rectius inspexerimus, non tarn corruptam atque depravatam illam, quam dicendi mutatum genus intelligemus. Neque autem statim deterius dixerimus quod diversum sit.” These justly famous sentences should not be made to bear a heavier weight of interpretation than they can hold, for they are adapted from an ancient source, Tacitus Dialogus de oratoribus 18. 3: “hoc interim probasse contentus sum, non esse unum eloquentiae vultum, sed (in) illis quoque quos vocatis antiquos plures species deprehendi, nee statim deterius esse quod diversum est… “; I owe this point to Quint, Origin and Originality, pp. 223-24 n. 15.

41 J. J. Scaliger to C. Salmasius, 20 November [Julian style] 1607; Scaliger, Epistolae, ed. D. Heinsius (Leiden, 1627), p. 530 (ep. 247). This influential periodization (which affected Winckelmann among many others) rests on an analogy between the history of Greek literature and the natural year or the life of an organism; thus it implies that a decline is necessary even as it defends the products of that decline. See Rehm, W., Der Untergang Roms im abendländischen Denken (Leipzig, 1930), pp. 76, 112, 154, 162Google Scholar; Pfeiffer, R., Die Klassische Philologie von Petrarca bis Mommsen (Munich, 1982), pp. 150-51Google Scholar; for the limits of Scaliger's appreciation of later Greek poetry see Meter, J. H., The Literary Theories of Daniel Heinsius (Assen, 1984), p. 21 Google Scholar.

42 A. Alciato, ep. ded. to In tres libros posteriores Codicis Iustiniani annotatiunculae [1513], in Le lettere di Andrea Alciato giureconsulto, ed. G. L. Barni (Florence, 1953), pp. 219-20.

43 F. Bacon, De sapientia veterum, praefatio; Works, II, 704: “Quare quae dicta sunt, ita claudemus. Sapientia prisci seculi, aut magna aut felix fuit: magna, si de industria excogitata est figura sive tropus: felix, si homines, aliud agentes, materiam et occasionem tantae contemplationum dignitati praebuere. Operam autem nostram (si quid in ea sit quod juvet) in neutra re male collocatam censebimus. Aut enim antiquitatem illustrabimus, aut res ipsas.” For the sources of this passage see Lemmi, The Classic Deities in Bacon, pp. 41-45; for its interpretation see above all Jardine, L., Francis Bacon: Discovery and the Art of Discourse (Cambridge, 1974), pp. 192-93Google Scholar n. 2.

44 See the classic study by Dionisotti, C., “Calderini, Poliziano e altri,” Italia Medioevalee Umanistica, II (1968), 151-79Google Scholar.

45 Poliziano, A., Commento inedito alle Selve di Stazio, ed. L. Cesarini Martinelli (Florence, 1978), p. 7 Google Scholar: “Olfacite, quaeso, singula ipsa verba, videbitis profecto familiariora esse quam quae in alienam uxorem conveniant. ‘Rarissima,’ inquit, ‘uxorum': ‘uxorum,’ non feminarum, ‘uxorum’ quod videlicet et memoriam coniugis colat et vivum suaviter amet. ‘Cum hunc forte diem consideraremus': et particula ipsa ‘forte’ et numerus multitudinis in verbo ‘consideraremus’ familiarius quiddam procul dubio significant… . Neque vos deterreri oportet quod earn in epistola Claudiam vocet… .” On this commentary see above all the interpretative article by its editor, “In margine al commento di Angelo Poliziano alle ‘Selve’ di Stazio,” Interpres, 1 (1978), 96-145. And for an addition to the text see Martinelli, Cesarini, “Un ritrovamento polizianesco: il fascicolo perduto del commento alle Selve di Stazio,” Rinascimento, 22 (1982), 183–212 Google Scholar. In this particular passage there is a real difficulty—the meaning of “consideraremus,” which Poliziano does not discuss directly (modern editors offer many conjectures here).

46 Poliziano, Commento inedito, p. 51: “Quapropter si nimium fortasse quam par fuerat assentationi imperatoriae poeta indulget, tantum abest ut sit ei vitio vertendum, ut contra maxime sit laudandus, quod et temporibus cesserit et velificationem suam ad tempestatem accommodaverit.” Poliziano, of course, knew better than the professional scholars of more modern times just what was required of a court poet.

47 Poliziano, Commento, pp. 430-31: “Versari autem debet monodia in laudatione generis, naturae, educationis, eruditionis, studiorum, factorum, ita ut minime quidem servetur ordo, ut videatur qui loquitur excidisse materia ob luctum. Quod si iuvenis sit, affectus inde eruendi sunt: quod ante diem obierit, quod parentes, quod amicos spe privarit, quod non vulgaris esset, set talis talisque, quapropter non esse reprehendendos qui eum lugeant, atque hie luctum qua possit augendum esse. Turn accedendum ad secundam partem, idest ad consolationem … Atque haec omnia mirifice videtur poeta observasse… . “

48 Poliziano, Commento, pp. 431-37.

49 Fera, V., Una ignota Expositio Suetoni del Poliziano (Messina, 1983), p. 224 Google Scholar, on Nero 52 (Poliziano had already incorporated this argument, together with a bit of Suetonius’ phrasing to make its source apparent to cognoscenti, in his Miscellaneorum centuria prima [Florence, 1489], chap. xli). It should be said in passing that Fera's introduction, pp. 33-84, is now the most penetrating study of Poliziano's scholarship in print, and that his edition of Poliziano's lectures sets a new standard for annotation of such texts; by providing the notes of earlier humanists which Poliziano used and reacted to, Fera gives a rich introduction to the scholarship of Poliziano's generation. For a survey of earlier work on Poliziano—work which emphasizes, and rightly so, the modernity of his philological technique—see Krautter, K., “Der ‘Grammaticus’ Poliziano in der Auseinandersetzung mit zeitgenössischen Humanisten,” in Die Antike-Rezeption in den Wissenschafien während der Renaissance (Weinheim, 1983), pp. 103-16.Google Scholar

50 Fera, Una ignota Expositio, p. 119 on Caligula 34; for Pucci see Fuiano, M., Insegnamento ecultura a Napoli nel Rinascimento, I (Naples, 1971), pp. 88–89 Google Scholar, 141; Fuiano shows that Pucci reads Plato in the distorting light of Quintilian.

51 For Petrarch see de Nolhac, Pétrarque et l'humanistne, I, 123-61; Krautter, K., Die Renaissance der Bukolik in der lateinischen Literatur des XIV. Jahrhunderts: von Dante bis Petrarca (Munich, 1983)Google Scholar; Kahn, V., “The Figure of the Reader in Petrarch's Secretum ,” PMLA, 100 (1985), 154-66CrossRefGoogle Scholar; for Salutati see Von Martin, A., Coluccio Salutati's Traktat “Vom Tyrannen “ (Berlin and Leipzig, 1913), pp. 77–98 Google Scholar; Ullman, Humanism of Salutati, pp. 21-26, 95-97; Witt, R. C., Hercules at the Crossroads (Durham, N.C., 1983)Google Scholar, esp. chap. viii.

52 Grafton, “Protestant versus Prophet.“

53 Mund-Dopchie, La survie d'Eschyle, pp. 377-78.

54 Scaligerana, p. 37: “Mais cettuy-cy [Dorat] commence à s'apoltronner, & s'amuse à chercher toute la Bible dans Homere.” For a sample and study of the interpretations that incensed Scaliger, see Demerson, G., “Dorat, commentateur d'Homère,” Etudes seiziémistes offertes à V.-L. Saulnier (Geneva, 1980), pp. 223-34Google Scholar. Cf. Ph. Ford, “Conrad Gesner et le fabuleux manteau,” Bibliothèque d'Humanisme et Renaissance, 47 (1985), 305-320.

55 Scaliger, J. J., Elenchus utriusque orationis chronologicae D. Davidis Parei (Leiden, 1607), pp. 80–81 Google Scholar. Admittedly euhemerism does not read a modern idea or belief into an ancient text, and it differs to that extent from moral, theological and physical allegories. But it shares with them the property of seeking to substitute for the text a sense more in keeping with modern notions of what is possible or plausible; and even the rationalizing mythographers of the eighteenth century, with their vision of the preserved myths as transformations of primitive experiences of nature, fall to some extent within the allegorical tradition that Scaliger applies here. See in general Manuel, F. E., The Eighteenth Century Confronts the Gods (Cambridge, Mass., 1963)Google Scholar.

56 Scaliger, Elenchus, p. 81.

57 J. LeClerc, Ars Critica, 4th ed. (Amsterdam, 1712), I, 304-305 (criticizing Hugo Grotius for taking Seneca's Stoic anima mundi as the Christian soul); I, 288-90 (criticizing ancient scholars for failing to see that Homer had known astronomy quite thoroughly, a point which LeClerc supports by taking passages as wildly out of context as Grotius had taken his quotation from Seneca). In the first instance LeClerc seeks to alienate modern readers from ancient text, in the second to eliminate historical distance. Yet he includes both arguments in a work meant to serve as a systematic handbook of hermeneutics and criticism, and sees no contradiction (any more than he did between his historical exegesis of the New Testament and his unhistorical efforts to prove that all the best pagans agreed De ueritate religionis Christianae).

58 For Beroaldo's understanding of the duties of a commentator see Grafton, “The Scholarship of Politian,” pp. 187-88; for his methods see Krautter, K., Philologische Methode und humanistische Existenz (Munich, 1971)Google Scholar; Casella, M. T., “Il metodo dei commentatori umanistici esemplato sul Beroaldo,” Studi medievali, 3d ser., 16 (1975), 627–701 Google Scholar; Coppini, “Filologi del Quattrocento,” p. 221-29.

59 Erasmus to M. Lypsius, 7 May 1518; Opus epistolarum Des. Erasmi Roterodami, ed. P. S. Allen et al. (Oxford, 1906-58), III, 328; quoted by Moss, Ovid in Renaissance France, p. 26 (tr. R. A. B. Mynors and D. F. S. Thomson in Collected Works of Erasmus, VI [Toronto, 1982], 23-24).

60 See Panizza, “Textual Interpretation in Italy,” pp. 59-60.

61 Erasmus, Enchiridion militis Christiani [1503]; Ausgewahlte Werke, ed. H. Holborn and A. Holborn (Munich, 1933; repr. 1964), p. 32: “Sed uti divina scriptura non multum habet fructus, si in littera persistas haereasque, ita non parum utilis est Homerica Vergilianaque poesis, si memineris earn totam esse allegoricam.“

62 Erasmus, Enchiridion, p. 71: “Quid interest Regum aut Iudicum libros legas an Livianam historiam, modo in neutra spectes allegoriam?“

63 Had Erasmus wanted an easier Virgilian nut to crack, he could have found one with little or no effort—e.g. “ Tendebantque manus ripae ulterioris amore.”

64 Erasmus, De ratione studii [1512], ed. J.-C. Margolin; Erasmus, Opera Omnia, 1, pt. 2 (Amsterdam, 1971), pp. 139-140: “Atque ita fiet (si modo sit ingenii dextri praeceptor), ut etiam si quid incident quod inficere possit aetatem illam, non solum non officiat moribus, verumetiam utilitatem aliquam adferat, videlicet animis partim ad annotationem intends, partim ad altiores cogitationes avocatis. Veluti si quis praelecturus secundam Maronis aeglogam, commoda praefatione praeparet, vel potius praemuniat auditorum animos ad hunc modum, ut dicat: amicitiam non coire nisi inter similes, similitudinem enim esse benivolentiae mutuae conciliatricem, contra dissimilitudinem odii dissidiique parentem. Quoque maior ac verior stabiliorque similitudo fuerit, hoc firmior atque arctior est amicitia. Id nimirum sibi velle tot apud auctores proverbia. Boni ad bonorum convivia et invocati accedunt; et simile gaudet simili; et aequalis aequalem delectat; et aequalem tibi uxorem quaere… . “

65 Erasmus, De ratione studii, pp. 140-42.

66 De ratione studii, p. 142: “Haec, inquam, si praefetur, turn autem locos demonstratorios perperam et bucolice a rustico affectatos indicet, nihil opinor turpe veniet in mentem auditoribus, nisi si quis iam corruptus accesserit… . Hoc exemplum verbosius exposui, quo facilius in caeteris, item sibi quisque similia reperiat.” Note that Erasmus makes clear that he considers this an exemplary exposition to be imitated by his readers, and that his suppression of homosexual passion is not unique to this pedagogical context. Erasmus also discreetly fudged references to pederasty when translating Plutarch and Xenophon; see Rummel, E., Erasmus as a Translator of the Classics (Toronto, 1985), pp. 79, 120CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

67 Kühlmann, Gelehrtenrepublik und Fürstenstaat; P. Burke, “Tacitism,” Tacitus, ed. T. A. Dorey (New York, 1969), pp. 149-71; J. H. M. Salmon, “Cicero and Tacitus in Sixteenth-Century France,” American Historical Review, 85 (1980), 307-31; Stolleis, M., Arcana imperii und Ratio status (Göttingen, 1980)Google Scholar; Wansink, H., Politieke wetenschappen aande Leidse Universiteit, 1575-±1650 (Utrecht, 1981)Google Scholar.

68 Lipsius, J., Ad Annates Corn. Taciti liber commentarius sive notae (Antwerp, 1581)Google Scholar, ep. ded., ed. by P. Schrij vers before his article “Justus Lipsius: Grandeur en misère van het pragmatisme,” in Rijksuniversiteit te Leiden: Voordrachten, Faculteitendag 1980 (Leiden, 1981), pp. 43-44: “Nee utiles omnes [scil. historiae] nobis pari gradu; ea, ut censeo, maxime, in qua similitudo et imago plurima temporum nostrorum … Cuius generis si ulla est fuitque, inter Graecos aut Latinos: earn esse Cornelii Taciti Historiam adfirmate apud vos dico, Ordines illustres. Non adfert ille vobis speciosa bella aut triumphos, quorum finis sola voluptas legentis sit; non seditiones aut conciones Tribunicias, agrarias frumentariasve leges; quae nihil ad saecli huius usum: reges ecce vobis et monarchas, et velut theatrum hodiernae vitae. Video alibi Principem in leges et iura, subditosque in Principem insurgentes. Invenio artes machinasque opprimendae, et infelicem impetum recipiendae libertatis. Lego iterum eversos prostratosque tyrannos, et infidam semper potentiam cum nimia est. Nee absunt etiam reciperatae libertatis mala, confusio, aemulatioque inter pares, avaritia, rapinae, et ex publico non in publicum quaesitae opes. Utilem magnumque scriptorem, deus bone! et quem in manibus eorum esse expediat, in quorum manu gubernaculum et reip. clavus.“

69 Lipsius to I. Wowerius, 3 November 1603; Lipsius, Epistolarum selectarum centuria quarta miscellanea postuma (Antwerp, 1611), p. 70 (ep. lxxxiv): “Ego ad sapientiam primus vel solus mei aevi Musas converti: ego e Philologia Philosophiam feci. Vide Constantiam meam, dicet: vide Politica, idem: & hoc utrumque opus est, cui vita fortasse cum Latinis litteris manebit. Quid in Tacito, Plinio, Epistolis, Militia, Admirandis, Seneca, nonne finis idem & fructus apparet?“

70 For warfare see Oestreich, Neostoicism; for medicine The Medical Renaissance of the Sixteenth Century, ed. A. Wear et al. (Cambridge, 1985). Naturally, late Renaissance scholars took a rather severe view of those ancient writers who did not seem to meet their standards for utility; see for instance Hirzel, R., Plutarch (Leipzig, 1912), pp. 118—21Google Scholar.

71 Seneca Epistulae morales 108. 24, on Virgil Ceorgics 3.284. Cf. Lipsius's enthusiastic argumentum for this letter in his edition of Seneca's Opera (Antwerp, 1605), p. 633: “Ostendit deinde, vario fine atque animo ad auctores legendos veniri: nos autem debere illo Philosophi. Pareamus: et legite atque audite vos o Philologi.” True, Lipsius did more justice to the alien and merely historical features of Roman Stoicism than some of his contemporaries—and his readers; see Ettinghausen, H., Francisco de Quevedo and the Neostok Movement (Oxford, 1972)Google Scholar. But the fundamental eclecticism of his approach is clear from Abel, G., Stoizismus und Frühe Neuzeit (Berlin and New York, 1978)Google Scholar, chap. iv.

72 Grafton, “Rhetoric, Philology and Egyptomania …“

73 Cf. Dreitzel, H., “Die Entwicklung der Historie zur Wissenschaft,” Zeitschriji für Historische Forschung, 3 (1981), 257-84Google Scholar.

74 Montaigne, Essais 3. 13; The Complete Essays of Montaigne, trans. D. M. Frame (Stanford, 1965), p. 819. For Montaigne's positions in the debate sketched here—and for some helpful discussion of the views of Renaissance Jurists—see I. Maclean, “The *” Place of Interpretation: Montaigne and Humanist Jurists on Words, Intention and Meaning,” Neo-Latin and the Vernacular in Renaissance France, ed. G. Castor and T. Cave (Oxford, 1984), pp. 252-72. By the late seventeenth century such perceptions of the individuality of periods and texts had become acute. Both attackers of the ancients as primitive and defenders of them as pure and vital treated Homer's poems as the products of a society basically different from that of modern Europe. See Jauss, H. R., Literaturgeschichte als Provokation (Frankfurt, 1974 [first ed. 1970]), pp. 29–38 Google Scholar.

75 See above all the seminal article by H. H. Gray, “Renaissance Humanism: The Pursuit of Eloquence, “Journal of the History of Ideas, 24 (1963), repr. in Renaissance Essays, ed. P.O. Kristeller and P. P. Wiener (New York, 1968), 199-216.

76 Erasmus, Methodus [1516]; Ausgewählte Werke, ed. Holborn and Holborn, p. 157: “Deinde admonendus, ut diligenter observet totum ilium Christi circulum et orbem, quomodo natus, quomodo educatus, quomodo adoleverit, qualis fuerit erga parentes et agnatos, quomodo ingressus evangelizandi negotium; quam varius in edendis miraculis, quam varius in responsis.” On this side of Erasmus’ hermeneutics see Weiss, J. M., “Ecclesiastes and Erasmus: the Mirror and the Image,” Archiv für Reformationsgeschichte, 65 (1974), 101–104 Google Scholar.

77 See Gray, “Renaissance Humanism,” pp. 213-14; V. de Caprio, “Retorica e ideologia nella Dedamatio di Lorenzo Valla sulla donazione di Costantino,” Paragone, 29, no. 338 (1978), 36-56; G. W. Most, “Rhetorik und Hermeneutik: zur Konstitution der Neuzeitlichkeit,” Antike undAbendland, 30 (1984), 62-79. John Tinkler's forthcoming study of Renaissance rhetoric offers an even more detailed analysis.

78 A. Grafton, Joseph Scaliger, I (Oxford, 1983), chaps, i, iv.

79 Garin, E., L'educazione umanistica in Italia (Bari, 1953), p. 7 Google Scholar.

80 Murrin, Veil of Allegory, p. 53; see also Walker, D. P., “Esoteric Symbolism,” in his Music, Spirit and Language in the Renaissance, ed. P. Gouk (London, 1985)Google Scholar, chap. xv.

81 Petrarch, Secretum II; Opere, ed. G. Ponte (Milan, 1968), p. 504: “Aug. Preclare lucem sub nubibus invenisti.“

82 Petrarch, Secretum, p. 522: “Aug. Laudo hec, quibus abundare te video, poetice narrationis archana. Sive enim id Virgilius ipse sensit, dum scriberet, sive ab omni tali consideratione remotissimus, maritimam his versibus et nil aliud describere voluit tempestatem; hoc tamen, quod de irarum impetu et rationis imperio dixisti, facete satis et proprie dictum puto.” For a penetrating analysis see Kahn, “The Figure of the Reader.”

83 Bodin, J., Colloquium Heptaplomeres, ed. L. Noack (Schwerin, 1857; repr. Hildesheim, 1970), p. 76 Google Scholar:

SENAMUS: Nulla res me diutius exercuit, quam arboris utriusque ac serpentis allegoria.

SALOMO: Et graecis et latinis interpretibus est ignota. Ac tametsi quidam ex Ebraeis arcanos allegoriae sensus aperuerint, omnia tamen eorum studia inania futura sunt, nisi Deus mentes nostras ad haec percipienda illustrarit.

FRIDERICUS: Periculi plena res mihi videtur, sacrae scripturae litteras ad allegoriam deduci, ne rerum gestarum historia in fabulas evanescat.

OCTAVIUS: An ullum, Friderice, serpentis cum muliere colloquium fuisse putas? qui odio tarn implacabili inter se certant, ut serpentis intuitu solo mulier abortum patiatur ac in turba virorum unam mulierem ad ultionem serpens petat ac persequatur. Nihil ergo verius dici potuit, quam illud: Littera oaidit, spiritus vivificat.

SALOMO: In sacris litteris historia pura saepe narratur, ut cum censetur populus et suis quibusque tribubus duces attribuuntur. Est etiam cum historia quidem narratur, sed praeter historiam allegoria latet occulta… .

84 Such tensions were felt already in antiquity, as Seneca's letter 108 shows; see also Coulter, J., The Literary Microcosm (Leiden, 1976), pp. 10–11 Google Scholar. Parallel studies might well be mounted for Renaissance legal thought and theology (for the latter see for example de Jonge, H. J., “Hugo Grotius: exègète du Nouveau Testament,” The World of Hugo Grotius (1583-1645) [Amsterdam and Maarssen, 1984], pp. 97–115)Google Scholar. And an interesting parallel—in addition to those cited below—is offered by Jansen, J. J. G., The Interpretation of the Koran in Modern Egypt (Leiden, 1974; repr. 1980)Google Scholar.

85 Fuhrmann, M., “Friedrich August Wolf,” Deutsche Vierteljahrsschrift für Literaturwissenschaft und Geistesgeschichte, 33 (1959), 187–236 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Horstmann, A., “Die ‘Klassische Philologie’ zwischen Humanismus und Historismus: Friedrich August Wolf und die Begründung der modernen Altertumswissenschaft,” Berichte zur Wissenschaftsgeschichte, 1 (1978), 51–70 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Lanza, D., “Friedrich August Wolf: l'antico e il classico,” Belfagor, 36 (1981), 529-53Google Scholar.

86 F. A. Wolf, Prolegomena ad Homerum [1795], ed. R. Peppmüller (Halle, 1884; repr. Hildesheim, 1963), chap. 1, p. 205: “at historiae quasi obloquitur ipse vates, et contra testatur sensus legentis … Immo congruunt in iis omnia ferme in idem ingenium, in eosdem mores, in eandem formulam sentiendi et loquendi. Earn rem quisque intime sentit, qui accurate et cum sensu legit… . “ I quote the translation by A. Grafton, G. W. Most and J. E. G. Zetzel (Princeton, 1985), p. 210.

87 Grafton, A., “Polyhistor into Philolog: Notes on the Transformation of German Classical Scholarship, 1780-1850,” History of Universities, 3 (1983), 159-92Google Scholar.

88 In much of what follows I rely on B. Elman's impressive survey, From Philosophy to Philology (Cambridge, Mass., 1984).

89 Nivison, D. S., “Protest against Conventions and Conventions of Protest,” in Confucianism and Chinese Civilization, ed. A. F. Wright (Stanford, 1975), pp. 227-51Google Scholar.

90 Yuan Mei, quoted by Elman, From Philosophy to Philology, p. 200.

91 Kuei Chuang to Ku Yen-wu, 1668; quoted by Elman, From Philosophy to Philology, p. 30.

92 See T. C. Bartlett, “Ku Yen-wu's Thought in the Mid-Seventeenth Century Context,” Ph.D. dissertation (Princeton University, 1985), which reveals a civic humanist side to Ch'ing scholarship.

93 Quoted by D. S. Nivison in his masterly The Life and Thought of Chang Hsiiehch'eng (1738-1801) (Stanford, 1966), pp. 176-77. For a Renaissance parallel see I. Maclean, “Montaigne, Cardano: The Reading of Subtlety/The Subtlety of Reading,” French Studies, 37 (1983), 143-56.

94 Nivison, Chang Hsüeh-ch'eng, p. 178.

95 For a subtle treatment of many of the problems attacked here, see Muhlack, U., “Klassische Philologie zwischen Humanismus und Neuhumanismus,” Wissenschaften im Zeitalter der Aujklärung, ed. R. Vierhaus (Göttingen, 1985), pp. 93–119 Google Scholar.

95 For a subtle treatment of many of the problems attacked here, see Muhlack, U., “Klassische Philologie zwischen Humanismus und Neuhumanismus,” Wissenschaften im Zeitalter der Aujklärung, ed. R. Vierhaus (Göttingen, 1985), pp. 93–119 Google Scholar.