Georg Sibutus was probably born in Tannroda, a small town near Weimar. He was crowned poeta laureatus by King Maximilian at the Diet of Cologne in 1505. Sibutus subsequently became a lecturer of poetics and rhetoric at the newly founded (1502) University of Wittenberg. In 1507, two poems by Sibutus appeared in print; these offer an insight into the intellectual currents at the pre-Reformation University of Wittenberg. Christina Meckelnborg and Bernd Schneider deserve praise for their enterprise to make these poems more accessible to a wider audience. Before the poems’ introductions, editions, translations, and commentaries, the two authors present a meticulously researched vita of Georg Sibutus on about sixty pages. Based on numerous testimonies that were partly included (with German translation) in appendix 1, Meckelnborg and Schneider add much to the current state of research and correct some widespread errors, among them Sibutus's year of birth, which they convincingly put around 1486.
The vita is followed by substantial introductions to the poems, which place the works in their broader intellectual context. The first poem, the so-called “Carmen de musca Chilianea” (The poem on Kilian's fly), is a casual, hexametrical poem, in which the persona of the poet relates an afternoon visit of his friend Kilian Reuter (“Chilianus Eques”). Reuter boasted about being able to draw a fly that could fool a warbler. However, Reuter failed completely and is consequently mocked by Sibutus and members of his household. Meckelnborg and Schneider demonstrate that this playful poem draws on trends in contemporary fine arts. An obvious connection is Lucas Cranach's woodcut on the title page. Furthermore, trompe l'oeil elements were a common feature in paintings of this time, and the authors suggest a specific connection to Albrecht Dürer's Feast of the Rosary (1506). In this oil painting (Meckelnborg and Schneider reproduce a copy in the appendix), Dürer depicted a fly in live size to fool onlookers. Moreover, another painting by Dürer, Christ among the Doctors (1506), apparently influenced Sibutus's poem. Dürer had called his painting an “opus quinque dierum” (work of five days); similarly, Sibutus labeled his poem “carmen in tribus horis editum” (poem produced in three hours). Sibutus thus applied the concept of Schnellmalerei (quick painting) to poetry. The short period in which the poem was apparently written might account for some ineptitudes in content and language, as the authors rightly claim.
The second poem, “Carmen de puella” (The poem about the girl), is very different in tone and content. It is an erotic poem of one hundred hexameters, in which a young girl talks in an obscene manner to the newly wed persona of the poet about the carnal pleasures that students should enjoy. Meckelnborg and Schneider convincingly argue that Neo-Latin erotic poetry flourished at the university in these years, under the influence of the Italian Richard Sbrulius, who came to Wittenberg in 1507. There are a number of similar poems by other members of the university collected in a manuscript by Dietrich Bloch that is now preserved in the library of Wolfenbüttel (Codex Guelferbytanus 58.6 Aug. 2°). The authors edited and translated some of these poems and included them in appendix 2. “Carmen de puella” seems incomplete because the full title suggested that the girl claimed real joy is only found in marriage. However, this part is missing, and a note at the end promises that it will be submitted later, which never happened.
In the editions, the Latin texts have been normalized to some degree, and sometimes emendations of obvious mistakes have been noted in an apparatus. The facing German prose translations are readable and reliable. The lemmatized commentaries that follow the text and the translation of each poem deal with language, grammar, content, and editorial questions. In sum, the authors have done an excellent job in editing, translating, and commenting on these interesting poems. The book is a much-welcomed contribution to the fields of Neo-Latin and Renaissance studies.
