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Valla, Juvenal, and Probus

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 August 2017

William S. Anderson*
Affiliation:
University of California, Berkeley

Extract

Ever since Giorgio Valla printed his edition and commentary of the Satires of Juvenal, for nearly five hundred years now, scholars have realized the importance of large portions of the commentary. Before putting together his notes and publishing them in 1486, Valla combined them with the material he had gleaned from a mutilated MS, which he for some reason believed the work of Probus. After Valla, nobody ever saw his ‘Probus,’ and it is to be assumed that, having taken what he wanted from the MS, Valla saw no objection to destroying it. A hundred years later, Pithou's discovery of his excellent MS, containing both a superior text of the Satires and a full set of scholia, confirmed the value of Valla's ‘Probus,’ but also revealed the fragmentary manner of its preservation, whether because of its condition when found or because of Valla's omissions. Still another witness on behalf of theses good scholia, also full, appeared at St. Gall and was published by Cramer (Hamburg 1823). During the next century, much work was done to establish an edition of the older and more reliable scholia, first of all by study of Pithou's MS (known as P and so referred to hereafter), the MS of St. Gall (S in most editions and so referred to hereafter), and of ’Probus’ (to which I shall hereafter refer without quotation marks) as elicited from the comments of Valla; then by research into the later, contaminated ‘secondary scholia.’ In the excellent edition by Paul Wessner, the labors of many scholars bore fruit.

Type
Articles
Copyright
Copyright © 1965 New York, Fordham University Press 

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References

1 Cramer, D. A. G., In D. Iunii Iuvenalis satiras commentarii vetusti (Hamburg 1823). For critical comment on Cramer's work see Wessner (cited below) p. xx.Google Scholar

2 Wessner, P. Scholia in Iuvenalem vetustiora (Leipzig 1931).Google Scholar

3 Knoche, U. D. Iunius Juvenalis, Saturae: mit kritischem Apparat (Munich 1950).Google Scholar

4 Knoche uses still other rubrics: cf. comm. Vallae 3.24 adn. Vallae 8.175 Valla ex cod. 4.147. Knoche however, gives only random readings from Valla. To take Satire 3 as an example, he reports on 24, 67, 142, 168, 187, 203, 208, 212, 217, 218, 263, and 311, a mere twelve lines in all. As the reader will shortly see, a full collation of Satire 3 or any other Satire in Valla's edition requires much more exactitude.Google Scholar

5 Knoche wrongly assigns this reading to a special MS of Valla; in fact Valla reads tubas in his text, but tubam in the commentary where he discusses the passage.Google Scholar

6 Knoche's apparatus should here be corrected.Google Scholar

7 Knoche would have done well at 218 to distinguish between the reading of Valla's text and the unusual lemma of the commentary. See p. 393.Google Scholar

8 Valla at no point suggests that he reads tortisque; he does, however, cite a passage of Martial (Spect. 3.9-10) who describes the Sygambri and the Aethiopes as tortis crinibus. Google Scholar

9 Again, in both cases, Knoche would have done well to distinguish the reading of Valla's text from the lemma.Google Scholar

10 This is an important and correct reading. However, I suspect that it can be classified more accurately as a reading of the younger contaminated MSS of which Valla's is one representative.Google Scholar

11 Knoche's apparatus here should be corrected.Google Scholar

12 See Handschriftlichen Grundlagen der Juvenalüberlieferung (Philologus, Supplement-band 33.1 [1940]) 160ff.Google Scholar

13 We might add to the list in Satire 3 Valla's comment on 36-7, where he appears to argue from a reading vulgus cam libet which disagrees with his text's vulgi quemlibet. Google Scholar

14 I infer this reading from Valla's comment; ‘sensus est: o iuvenes circumspicite…’.Google Scholar

15 Valla knows of still a third reading: ‘sunt qui tomatilla, legunt.’Google Scholar

16 Knoche's apparatus here should be corrected.Google Scholar

17 I infer this reading from the way Valla presents his comment on this line. He cites and discusses torvus first and separately; then twice he gives the lemma Sicula cum coniuge. Google Scholar

18 See above n. 12. Knoche, in Gnomon 10 (1934) 590-603, reviewed Wessner's edition of the scholia but at that time he apparently did not entertain the same reservations which he would voice in 1940.Google Scholar

19 Wessner, p. 264.Google Scholar

20 ‘Licet tamen suspicari hanc satyram non esse Iuvenalis; nam in plerisque antiquissimis codicibus nuspiam est.’Google Scholar

21 This reading of the vetustissimus seriously weakens Knoche's case, for while PH give exhortata, it appears that GU follow the Vulgate exorata. In other words, GU show no relationship to the vetustissimus at this stage. See above under (2) ANTIQUISSIMI (PL.), on 1.161 verbum. Google Scholar

22 Knoche has made a mistake in his apparatus here. He has failed to observe that Valla's text omits 8.7 anyway, as we should expect from its proved affiliation with the Vulgate. Inasmuch as Valla at no time refers to 8.7 in any manner, it seems impossible that he could have meant by hic versiculus the omitted line. Rather, as I am convinced from studying the context, hic versiculus refers to 8.6, the line which Valla is commenting on. Ironically enough, had Knoche observed this fact, he would have been able to use this omission to support his argument about the close relationship between Valla's antiquissimus and U.Google Scholar

23 Prior to the work of Valla, only one man had published together a text and commentary on Juvenal. He was Calderinus, whose important edition was printed in Venice in 1475. When Valla's edition appeared, scholars quickly demanded a combined edition. Hence, five years after the appearance of Valla's commentary, the first of four selected commentaries, a skillful combination of Calderinus and Valla was printed, to be followed swiftly by three others in Venice alone between 1491 and 1498. For this bibliographical information I have principally employed M. B. Stilwell Incunabula in American Libraries (New York 1940). See also C. F. Bühler, ‘The Earliest Editions of Juvenal,’ Studies in the Renaissance 2 (1955) 84-95; E. M. Sanford, ‘Juvenal,’ Catalogus translationum et commentariorum (Washington 1960) 175-238; M. E. Cosenza, Dictionary of the Italian Humanists (Boston 1962) IV 3545–49. It should be added, as Sanford shows that A. Sabinus published a brief commentary in Rome in 1474 and Giorgio Merula an important commentary in Venice in 1478.Google Scholar

24 Most of this quotation is cited by Wessner, pp. XX-XXI. However, because he omitted the end, I here print the text of the entire passage that I have translated above: ‘sane comperti mihi sunt nuper Probi grammatici in Iuvenalem commentarii quantum adhuc audiverim nulli alii cogniti, sed mirae brevitatis. alioquin tamen perquam opportunos aliquando se nobis obtulerunt; obtulissent vero sese adhuc magis nisi nobis singula rimantibus codicis nimium cariosa invidisset vetustas, et si in omnes libros comperti habeantur, qui vix tertii libri secundam attigere satyram. invigilavimus vero ipsi si modo id consequi potuimus, ut omnis huius poetae pateret eruditio. Probi interpretamenta, cuiusmodi ea fuerunt, quae plane perexigua sunt, ne in minima quidem parte subtraximus aut immutavimus. cetera quanam peritia nostra et quonam demum iudicio aliena tradiderimus, docti et pariter acuti viri iudicarint. quae quotacumque sint, talia esse puto ut nec nos nec alios nostrae paeniteat pigeatque industriae.’Google Scholar

25 Pasquali, G., Storia della tradizione e critica del testo (Florence 1952 2) 49ff.Google Scholar

26 Stephan, C., De Pithoeanis in Iuvenalem scholiis (Diss. Bonn 1882) 26ff.Google Scholar

27 Schopen (Bonn 1847) and more extensively Van Gigch (Leyden 1849) had studied and published collations of three MSS: Leid. Voss. Q.18 (= V in Wessner), Leid, Voss. F. 64 (= B in Wessner), and Leid. bibl. publ. 82 (= L in Wessner). Since 1882, we have gathered considerably more information about other MSS that contain the secondary scholia. Cf. Wessner, pp. XXIIIff.; also his useful discussions in Jahresbericht über die Fortschritte der klassischen Altertumswissenschaft 113 (1902) 215-19; 139 (1908) 189-94; and 188 (1921) 234-6.Google Scholar

28 I consider these corruptions of the correct scholia, perhaps due to the mutilated state of Probus’ MS. Thus, for potentis, the original probably exhibited a barely readable petentis. Google Scholar

29 These are all noted by Stephan, pp. 37ff., but unaccountably ignored by Wessner.Google Scholar

30 I consider this a confused expansion of what probably lay in the commentary studied by Valla.Google Scholar

31 Valla has presumably split up the single note that he found in his original.Google Scholar

32 Valla has apparently misread solidi and then altered the structure of the note to make it conform with soliti. Google Scholar

33 This seems to be another instance of the division of a simple note by Valla.Google Scholar

34 I take it that Valla could hardly decipher Probus at this point; otherwise the error about Cicero would never have occurred.Google Scholar

35 Cf. L at 462.Google Scholar

36 This note also may have been altered from the original because of Probus’ mutilation.Google Scholar

37 Wessner quotes Valla for one note on 516. If I am correct, the gloss on vestitur shows how much Valla could abbreviate his original (or possibly how much a source other than Probus had abbreviated the older scholia).Google Scholar

38 I take it that, once again, Valla has split the original comment; this passage together with what Wessner cites for 619 forms a fairly coherent whole that approximates PS. Between Valla's two good notes comes a citation of Suetonian information about Caligula.Google Scholar

39 Cf. the other scholia on 8.32.Google Scholar

40 Valla may himself have expanded the citation of Lucan which, in PS, is limited to two words from 1.431.Google Scholar

41 Since I know of no reviewer who has corrected Wessner's errors, let me point out those that affect his report of Valla. 1.7 ‘item,’ not ‘idem’; 2.15 ‘Matris Deorum,’ not ‘Deum’; 2.21 Wessner implies that Valla reads ‘declinantem te,’ whereas in fact Valla has ‘declinante te.’ 2.67 Valla's note on Creticus comes at 67, not 2.78. 3.12 Valla's note on Egeria belongs here, not at 17. 3.198 ‘aliud Vergilianum,’ not ‘illud Vergilianum.’ (Stephan, p. 50, has this correct.) 3.221 after ‘Persicum,’ read ‘autem.’ 4.14 ‘obicias,’ not ‘obicies.’ 4.53 The lemma should be corrected to ‘si quid.’ 4.94 in the third line of the quotation from Statius, Valla has ‘nomine,’ not ‘nomina.’ (W. Morel, Fragmenta poetarum latinorum [Leipzig 1927] 134, read this correctly). 6.225 Valla differs slightly from LZ: he reads ‘sunt vero flammea quibus … etc.’ 6.297 ‘quod,’ not ‘quid.’ 6.385 ‘consulebant,’ not ‘consulebat.’ 6.537 ‘membri muliebris,’ not ‘membri mulieris.’ 6.587 Valla quotes even more of Lucan than Wessner admits, namely, part of 1.609, electa cervice marem. 6.616 Valla cites less of Vergil than Wessner states, namely, ‘quaeritur—revulsus.’ 7.134 ‘dicitur vulgo’ (like L), not ‘vulgo dicitur.’Google Scholar

42 Stephan, p. 69.Google Scholar

43 Stephan, pp. 69-70.Google Scholar

44 Wessner, p. XVIII.Google Scholar

45 Stephan, pp. 70-71.Google Scholar

46 Wessner, p. xxii.Google Scholar

47 Stephan, p. 29, Wessner, p. xxii.Google Scholar

48 See above n. 12.Google Scholar

49 I find it hard to believe that the secondary scholia lacked a note identifying Nestor here and Mithridates at 10.273.Google Scholar

50 Although Valla has the correct note, he seems to have misunderstood it; for, instead of citing 1.108, he unaccountably quotes 1.25.Google Scholar

51 The Bobiensis Fragment provides additional evidence 14.325 to 15.35. At no point does Valla's source challenge the Bobiensis.Google Scholar

52 On the significance of Valla, see G. Tiraboschi, Storia della letteratura italiana (Milan 1824) VI 1564ff., and J. L. Heiberg, ‘Beiträge zur Geschichte Georg Vallas und seiner Bibliothek,’ Beihefte zum Centralblatt für Bibliothekswissenschaft 16 (1896) 353-481. Heiberg, pp. 389ff., provides a full list of Valla's extensive publications, beginning with a study of Galen in 1481. The biography of Valla by G. Poggiali, Memorie per la storia letteraria di Piacenza (Piacenza 1789) I 131-70, was inaccessible to me.Google Scholar