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Aesticampianus' Commentary on the De Grammatica of Martianus Capella

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 November 2018

Cora E. Lutz
Cora E. Lutz*
Affiliation:
Beinecke Library, Yale University
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Extract

George Saintsbury, on the occasion of the seventy-fifth birthday of the eminent scholar Dr. Frederick J. Furnivall, wrote a poem to pay tribute to his friend's achievements in philology. It begins:

Partes meae sunt quatuor—Dame Grammar saith, saith she,

In Martian of the Goatlings (full quaintly writeth he!)

Litterae, Litteratura, Litteratus, Litterate!

Type
Research Article
Information
Renaissance Quarterly , Volume 26 , Issue 2 , Summer 1973 , pp. 157 - 166
Copyright
Copyright © Renaissance Society of America 1973

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References

1 An English Miscellany, Presented to Dr. Furnivall in Honour of his Seventy-fifth Birthday (Oxford, 1901), p. 1.

2 Book in, p. 231 (p. 86,11. 5-6 in the edition of A. Dick [Leipzig, 1925]). All references will be to Dick's edition.

3 This occurs at the end of Book ix. Among the manuscripts that preserve this addition, I note Cambridge, Corpus Christi College 153, fol. 67, a manuscript of the ninth century, and Oxford, Merton College 291, fol. 94v, a manuscript of the twelfth century.

4 Cf. Lutz, C. E., ‘Remigius’ ideas on the classification of the seven liberal arts,’ Traditio 12 (1956), 78–84.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

5 Cf. Lutz, C. E., Remigii Autissiodorensis Commentum in Marlianum Capellam Libri I-II (Leyden, 1962), pp. 23–24.Google Scholar

6 Martiani Minei Felicis Capellae Carthaginiensis Satyricon (Leyden, 1599). He calls his exegesis Februa in Satyricon Martiani Capellae.

7 Grammatica Martiani Foelicis Capellae cum Iohannis Rhagii Aesticampiani Rhetoris et poete prejatione. Impressa Frankophordio per honestos viros Nicolaum Lamperter et Balthasar Murrer. Anno Domini MDVII. I am using a microfilm of the copy of the book which is now in the Universitätsbibliothek in Munich. It bears the shelfmark 4° A. lat.46. It has sixty-one pages.

8 Martianus’ representations of the arts determined their iconography throughout the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. Cf. R. van Marie, Iconographie de V art profane au Moyen- Age et à la Renaissance (La Haye, 1932), pp. 203-279.

9 Ulrici Hutteni ad studiosos adulescentes de liberalibus studiis Elegiaca exhortatio.

10 Commentarii Iohannis Rhagii Aesticampiani Rhetoris et poetae laureati in Grainmaticam Marticmi Capellae et Donatifiguras. Impressa Frankophordio per honestos viros Nicolaum Lamperter et Balthasar Murrer. Anno Domini MDVIII. It is eighty-six pages long. This text was listed under its full title in J. A. Fabricius, Bibliotheca Latina Mediae et Infimac Aetatis, vi (Hamburg, 1736), 201, but it has long been thought a mere ghost. Happily, two copies were tracked down by Dr. Emilie Boer of the Deutsche Akademie dcr Wissenschaften zu Berlin. One is in Munich in the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek with the shelfmark 4° L. lat.426; the other is in the Sächsische Landcsbibliothek at Dresden with the shelfmark Lit.6. rom.B.1806. I am using a microfilm of the latter. I wish to express my thanks to Dr. Boer for her very generous help in locating the books, and to the Sachsische Landesbibliothek for permitting me to study and to quote from the book.

For the commentaries on Martianus Capella, see my article in Catalogue Translationum et Commentariorum, vol. n, ed. P. O. Kristeller and F. E. Cranz (Washington, 1971), 367- 381. I discovered the Aesticampianus commentary while I was preparing this article, although too late for inclusion.

11 P. 2: ‘Facturum me, Nepotes dulcissimi, rem et vobis iucundam et ceteris quoque iuvenibus pergratam arbitror, si et obscuritatem et ieiunitatem Capellae nostri quibusdam in locis quam brevissimis turn graecorum turn latinorum vocabulorum annotamcntis, ita ut quaeque mihi notatu digna occurrent, obiter illustrem.'

12 P. 3:

'Ut rudibus pueris monstratur littera primum

Per faciem nomenque suum componitur usus;

Tunc coniuncta suis formatur syllaba nodis;

Hinc verbis structura venit per verba ligandi,

Tunc rerum vires atque artis traditur usus,

Inque pedes proprios nascentia carmina surgunt;

Singulaque in summa prodest didicisse priora.’ Astr. II.755-761

13 P. 3. This material is taken largely from Herodotus, Hist, v.58, Pliny, H.N. VII.56, Tacitus, Ann. xi.14, and Lucan, Bellutn Civile III.220.

14 I have not located the source of these verses. Cornelius Agrippa von Nettesheim (1486-1535) in his De incertitudine et vanitate scientiarum declamatio, in ch. 2, says that he found the verses in ‘pervetusto codice,’ and he quotes them. Joannes Brassicanus of Tübingen (fl. 1508), in his Institutiones grammaticae, quotes the lines without naming his source. Petrus Crinitus (1465-1504), in his De honesta disciplina (Basel, 1536), Lib. XVII, pp. 250-251, does indeed mention finding the verses ‘in pervetusto codice ex biblioteca septimana’ and repeats them.

15 P. 9. Commenting upon Martianus 87.4 Y velut Greca reiecta, he gives as his source the Littera Pythagorae which the Middle Ages attributed to Virgil.

16 P. 10:

'Inventa autem est y a Pallamede cum grues videret volare. Mar.

“Turbabis versus nee littera tota volabit

Unam perdideris si Palamedis avem.” ‘ Martial XIII.75-76

17 P. 14.

18 P. 15.

19 P. 7.

20 P. 7.

21 P. 7. He quotes the De Oratore I, 42, 187: ‘In grammaticis poetarum pertractatio, historiarum cognitio, verborum interpretatio, pronuntiandi quidam sonus’ requiritur.

22 P. 8. Cf. Funaioli, G., Grammaticae Romanae Fragmenta (Leipzig, 1969), p. 266 (no. 236).Google Scholar

23 P. 8. One has the impression that Aesticampianus was commenting upon Martianus with one eye upon Donatus. For example, on p. 37 he says, ‘Declinationes eorundem et hie Martianus insinuat et Donatus aperte explicat.'

24 This is, of course, the traditional division.

25 P. 60: ‘De supino vel participiali in um Martianus noster tacet.'

26 p. 71.

27 P. 66: ‘De constructione pluribus agam, Nepotes studiosissimi, ne fundamentis grammatice que sunt in litteris, syllabis, dictionibusque artificiose positis ipsa oratio quasi acdificium quoddam structure totius magnificum deesse videatur.'

28 E.g., p. 66:’ Vocalis vel substantialis ut sum vel vocor Joannes…. ut doceo grammaticam… . Posco te librum meum. Doceo te litteras; tu doceris a me litteras.'

29 86.7.

30 P. 5. Cf. De Grammaticis 4.

31 P. 84. Cf. Terence, Andria 1, 2, 23.

32 P. 21. Cf. Suetonius, Deperditorum lihrorum reliquiae, ed. C. L. Roth, p. 286.

33 P. 26: ‘Ut Serenus parva sabucus item hircino condita sevo'; cf. Quinti Sereni Liber Medicinahs, ed. F. Vollmer (Corpus Medicorum Latinorum, vol. II, fasc. 3), Leipzig, 1916, ch. XLI, 1. 780.

34 P. 4: ‘At divus martyr Cyprianus Saturnum in latium eas primum tulisse ac imprimere docuisse.’ Cf. Cyprianus, Quod idola dii non sint, 2, in his Opera, ed. G. Hartel (Corpus Scriptorum Ecclesiasticorum Latinorum, vol. 3, pt. 1), Vienna, 1868, p. 20.

35 P. 9: ‘Papyrianus refert harmoniam litterariam esse vim litterarum que auribus inspiretur.’ I have not located this reference.

36 P. 60: ‘unde fatisco que Valla meditativa seu exercitativa appellat.’ Cf. Lorenzo Valla, Elegantiarum Libri VI (Venice, 1536), pp. 24b and 25a.

37 P. 6. He begins with a distich parodying the end of 49:

'Tantum parva suo debet Verona Catullo

Quantum smagnam suo Mantua Virgilio.’ He then quotes all of 49 and 6 lines of 14.

38 P. 20. He cites Statius and Eusebius as his sources.

39 P. 22.

40 P. 20.

41 P. 23.

42 P. 20.

43 P. 20.

44 P. 4. Cf. Augustinus, De doctrina Christiana n.11.

45 149.18 to 150.13.

46 P. 77: ‘Et ego quoque eandem commentariolis meis tanquam pedissequis quibusdam, si deus voluerit, comitabor quos et vobis, Nepotes optimi, legendos esse censeo.’ In 1509 Aesticampianus published Martianus’ De Rhetorica, and at the end of his text he added: ‘Commentarios Aesticampiani tui diligens lector expecta.’ So far as I know, he never fulfilled this promise.

47 Pp. 77-84. Cf. Donatus, Arsgrammatica (Keil, Grammatici Latini lv.392-395).

48 P. 84: ‘Ita perspicue et breviter Donatus noster loquitur ut vix aliquid quo minus vel obscurior vel prolixior reddatur adduci potest.'

49 P. 84.

50 P. 85.

51 P. 86, where he is paraphrasing Horace C. 1.7.25-26.

52 P. 86:

'Ergo brevi vades, ne te via longa moretur,

Calle; per hunc petulans ire Capella solet,

Cuius hie interpres vepreta recondita purgat;

Falce nova tritam te iubet ire viam.'

53 Christopher Manlius, Lusatiae Liber VII De viris illustribus, in C. G. Hoffmann, Scriptores rerum Lusaticarum, 1 (Leipzig, 1719), 435.

54 Op. tit. 434-435.

55 J. A. Fabricius, Bibliotheca Latina Mediae et Infimae Aetatis, VI (Hamburg, 1736), 198- 202; Neue Deutsche Biographie, I (1953), 92-93 (by H. Grimm); K. Schottenloher, Bibliographie zur Deutschen Ceschichte im Zeitalter der Glaubensspaltung, 1 (1933), nos. 96-103; G. Bauch, ‘Johannes Rhagius Aesticampianus,’ Archiv fuer Litteraturgeschichte, 12 (1884), 321-370.

56 This is given in full by Manlius and in an abbreviated version in Fabricius.

57 Cf. C. E. Lutz, ‘Aesticampianus’ edition of the Tabula attributed to Cebes,’ Yale University Library Gazette, 45 (1971), 110-117.