RICERCA ITALIANA     

Critical editions and scholarly commentaries on texts of the Augustan and early Imperial period

Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa

Abstract

The research project of the five research units, inspired by the project of a new critical edition of Vergil's Aeneid commissioned to the main proponent, G. B. Conte, by Saur Verlag for the Teubner series, will center in particular on the publication of new critical editions (notably that of Vergil's Aeneid) and scholarly commentaries on critically assessed texts. The classical authors who will be the targets of this editorial enterprise will be mainly Vergil, Horace, Properce, the two Senecas, and the fragments of Roman mime. Even if the main target of the project is editorial and ecdotic, as well as exegetical, editions and commentaries published by members of our research group will aim at a substantial re-interpretation of the Augustan literary system, with a particular attention for the interaction of the literary genres. thse objectives have been selected with an eye to the most significant representatives of the transition between the late augustan period and the early imperial age.
The commentaries will be composed according to common criteria, and publication of new works will be decided collegially. Each volume will be preceded by a wide-ranging introductory essay, which will set out the guidelines in the interpretation of the text. The notes will be focalized on issues of a textual-critical nature, as well as relating to matters of literary interpretation. Intertextuality and parody will also be considered. Attention will also be devoted to the 'nachleben' of all authors under study. <<<

Principal Investigator

Gian Biagio Conte Scuola Normale Superiore di PISA

Research Objectives

Even if the main target of the project is editorial and ecdotic, as well as exegetical, editions and commentaries published by members of our research group will aim at a substantial re-interpretation of the Augustan literary system, with a particular attention for the interaction of the literary genres. these objectives have been selected with an eye to the most significant representatives of the transition between the late augustan period and the early imperial age. The most important authors on which these editorial activities will center will be Vergil (critical edition of Aeneid), Horace (editions of Odes I-II), Properce (Elegies IV), the two Senecas (commentaries on Controversiae and Suasoriae, Hercules Oetaeus), the fragments of Roman mime. For details see the descriptions of specific tasks assigned to the local units as described in 2.3.
The commentaries will be composed according to common criteria, and publication of new works will be decided collegially. Each volume will be preceded by a wide-ranging introductory essay, which will set out the guidelines in the interpretation of the text. The notes will be focalized on issues of a textual-critical nature, as well as relating to matters of literary interpretation. Intertextuality and parody will also be considered. Attention will also be devoted to the 'nachleben' of all authors under study. <<<

Timescale

24 months

National and international background

VERGIL
The present research originates from a proposal issued by Teubner to the proponent, Prof. Conte, to edit a new critical edition of Vergil's Aeneid, to replace the two older editions of Ribbeck and Janell. It is generally assumed that Vergil is among ancient writers one of those with the strongest and soundest textual tradition. Yet, the study of the numerous variant readings preserved by the direct and indirect tradition, as well as the presence of undeniable corruptions and lacunae spread over the entire tradition force on us the conviction that the poem was never completed - a fact that sometimes modern editors seem to forget when they come to establishing the text. Mynors' splendid 1969 Oxford edition, to give just one example, gives a very smooth text, which has become a new vulgata. Mynors, however, seems to glide over passages which are decidedly problematic, and would require further thought. A good starting point is offered by the critical apparatus of two Italian editions, Sabbadini 1930 and Geymonat ("Corpus Paravianum"), 1973, which is also the most recent critical edition of Vergil we have. The latter edition's apparatus contains much erudition which is more pertinent for the history of the text of Vergil than for the users of a critical text. One of the objectves of the new critical edition will be to find a third way between the excessive briefness of Mynors's apparatus and the superabundance of Geymonat's. Coming to a review of previous editions, Ribbeck's Vergilian studies were perhaps the earliest sign of a new trend in Germany, reacting against the prevalently negative view of Vergil in nineteenth century German scholarship. Ribbeck's edition, for which he collated numerous ancient and medieval MSS, can be considered the first modern critical edition. Next to Mediceus, styled 'longe praestantissimus' already by Heinsius, Ribbeck gave great importance to Palatinus. Ribbeck's edition is also marked by some idiosyncratic features, such as the great number of transpositions and deletions which were later ignored by subsequent editors. Thse arbitrary corrections, however, had the great merit of marking off real difficulties in the understanding of the text. Sabbadini's edition is characterized by a great emphasis on the systematic study and collation of MSS. Sabbadini was right, with Ribbeck, to re-evaluate the Palatinus, against the long-established preference for Mediceus. Sabbadini also maintained the impossibility to trace a stemma highlighting the relationships between the MSS. Sabbadini emphasized the lack of an orthographic norm for Vergil's times, and decided to follow the spelling of the MSS, with a bias for the archaizing spellings. In the establishment of the text, he was mainly conservative, and assigned central importance to the evidence found in the indirect tradition (grammarians and commentators). He was very cautious in adopting conjectures and transpositions of modern scholars. Mynors was the first of modern editors to pay attention to the history of Vergil's text in the Middle Ages , collating 13 Carolingian MSS. As to spelling, Mynors decided to make the orthography homogeneous, doing away with most archaisms in spite of Sabbadini's claim that Vergil's contemporaries had no fixed orthographical norms. After Geymonat's edition, great attention has been devoted to the indirect tradition, especially thanks to Sebastiano Timpanaro (Per la storia della filologia virgiliana antica, 1986, and Virgilianisti antichi e moderni, 2001) and ML Delvigo (Testo virgiliano e tradizione indiretta: le varianti probiane, 1987). Also important are the discussions on the existence of an archetype, championed most decidedly by Edward Courtney in recent years. All these new developments will be obviously be taken account of in the new edition.
HORACE
In spite of recent critical editions (Klingner 1959, III ed.; Borszak 1984; Shackleton Bailey 1985; Venini 1991), Horace's text needs a revision of textual transmission on the basis of up-to-date studies; the exegesis too needs revision and deeper investigation, in comparison with previous commentaries: Kiessling-Heinze (complete but out-of-date); Nisbet-Hubbard; La Penna (anthological commentary); Elisa Romano (good but succinct).
PROPERCE
It is well known that Propertius' Elegies need new commentaries: the last commentaries are that of Camps (Cambridge 1964) and P. Fedeli(Bari 1965), but many and very innovative is the new bibliography. The recensio can't to be based on the manuscripts used by editors of the XX century. We need a sistematic recognition of the manuscript tradition, for the recensio and the commentary. Still more critic is the situation of exil Ovidius works: we'll commentate elegies in which poet treats his biography; it's well known, infact, that the only worthwhile commentary on the Tristia is the Luck one (Heidelberg 1967-779) even though he leaves many pending problems.
Further the Epistulae ex Ponto had only partial commentaries. Among than Galasso commentary on the second book (Florence 1995) is the only worthy of mention.
SENECA THE ELDER
No modern commentaries on the works of the Elder Seneca are available (the only exception is the insufficient and partial commentary on the Suasoriae by W. A. Edward, Cambridge, 1928). Even the critical editions of the Oratorum atque Rhetorum Sententiae, Divisiones, Colores are now out of date, and a renewal of these working tools is in order. Indeed, as already pointed out by the pages devoted to this topic by Michael Winterbottom in Reynolds' Texts and Transmission, no MS of the recentiores has ever been investigated more than superficially, and ot is not know whether or not any of them is a carrier of independent readings stemming from some late-antique tradition. As far as translations are concerned, we are very well served by Winterbottom's own Loeb (1974), as well as by Bornecque old, still serviceable 1923 French translation. The best critical edition is that of H. J. Mueller (Wien, 1887). Prior to that, mention must be made of the editions of C. Bursian (Leipzig, 1857), and A. Kiessling (Leipzig, 1872), more acute perhaps than Mueller, but inferior to him for the accuracy of the MSS' reports and the fullness of the critical apparatus. Good information of MSS subsequently come to the attention of scholars can be found in H. Vervliet, in Scriptorium 13 (1959), 80-1, and "L'Antiquité Classique" 33 (1964), 431-41.
ROMAN MIME
The only existing modern critical editions of the fragments of Roman mime are the two editions of M. Bonaria (respectively Genoa 1955, and Rome 1965) and the older edition of O. Ribbeck, Scaenicae Romanorum poesis fragmenta, III ed. 1898, vol. 2. Other partial editions, mainly of Laberius only, can be found, for example that, inclusive of a translation and notes, by Warmington, in Remains of Old Latin, Loeb CL 1926. This brief overview of the situation makes it clear the urgent need for an accurate re-examen of the tradition of the mimical fragments, as well as their exegesis. This study demands accurate and sophisticated qualities and expertise. In particular, an excellent knowledge of the palliata is a must, as well as great familiarity with archaic and dramatic metres, and an indepth knowledge of the problems of the textual transmissions of the quoters.
RECEPTION STUDIES
The publication of the new critical edition of the Adagia (plus Chomrat's and Mann Philipp's studies) has been the base for a study on quotations from Horace in Erasmus' Adagia which will shed new light on the Erasmian interpretation of Horace's poetic and philosophical message.
As regardS Virgil's reception, a georgic poem by G. Mengozzi, published in 1888, the Thuscae Romandiolae Ceres, is going to be examined: both the relationships with the Latin model and possible ones with Pascoli's Latin works will be verified. The obvious starting points are Traina's studies on ‘Latin Pascoli’ (see the 2006 third edition of Il Latino del Pascoli) and his relationship with the so called Scuola classica romagnola. A further research regards Virgil's presence in the Elizabethan Drama, starting from the analysis of Christopher Marlowe's Tragedy of Dido queen of Carthage. This research, which tackles one of Marlowe's less known plays, enlarges the bibliography on the reception of the classics in the English drama (pivotal are the essays by T.S. Eliot and Ch. Martindale's more recent works) where works on Ovid and Seneca still have the lion's share. <<<