Plautus in der Frühen Neuzeit

And so as I said, as I was thinking about it afterwards, and every time that my own laziness and your proofreaders’ carelessness would come to mind, I kept getting anxious that copies of my edition would be published full of mistakes.

CamerariusCamerarius d.Ä., Joachim goes on to say that the more he thought about it, the more he decided his work on Plautus was not blasphemous; on the contrary, it would prove useful, even necessary, for scholars to become acquainted with Plautus’ writings if they wanted to truly understand Latin. Confident in that belief, therefore, he adds:

[…] quod credibile esset te aliquando Plautina nostra exempla de officina tua denuo esse emissurum, sepositis aliis rebus, annotavi ea quae perperam expressa essent, ut altera editio tua esset inculpatior. Haec publice hic edi volui, ideo, ut qui iam exempla illa9 comparassent, de nostra subiectione errata possent corrigere, nam omnino decrevimus hoc quasi cumulo studii nostri extremam manum imponere ei labori, quem huic autori impendimus.10 Ne tamen nimis exilis et parvus esset hic libellus si nihil nisi correctiones erratorum in officina complecteretur, addidimus et Georgii Fabricii eruditiss. viri summi nostri, incredibilis diligentiae praeclariss. studio conquisita quaedam, habitura momenti et adiumenti allatura plurimum ad Plautinarum fabularum fructuosam lectionem. Quae mitto ad te et peto ut secundum illa ubi iterum edere Plauti fabularum nostrarum exempla volueris, libros corrigi, et, nisi tibi non videatur, hunc etiam libellum istic iam exprimi cures. [The rest of the letter is general flattery.]

Because it seemed likely you’d eventually republish my edition of Plautus, I put other business aside and drew up a list of things that had been printed mistakenly, so that your second printing would be less open to criticism. I wanted the list to be published here so that people who have already bought the first edition could use this appendix to correct the mistakes. You see, I have firmly decided that with this mass (as it were) of my attention [ i.e. the list or appendix], to put my finishing stroke on the effort I’m giving to Plautus. Still, so that this pamphlet won’t be too small or insubstantial if all it contains is a list of typos, I’ve also added a number of things hunted down by Georg FabriciusFabricius, Georg. They will make a tremendous impact and offer a ton of help for reading Plautus’ plays properly. I’m sending them to you, and I ask than when you do want to reprint my edition of Plautus’ plays, you use it to correct them; and unless you don’t think it’s a good idea, I ask that you soon have this pamphlet printed there in Basel, too.

But HervagiusHervagius, Johannes ignored that last request. As the title page announces, the pamphlet was printed not in Basel but in Leipzig, where CamerariusCamerarius d.Ä., Joachim lived. It is impossible to say whether HervagiusHervagius, Johannes took offense at what now looks like an “open letter to HervagiusHervagius, Johannes,” in which CamerariusCamerarius d.Ä., Joachim waffles between accepting and rejecting blame for “mistakes” in the text, but it would be reasonable.

To sum up, my case remains circumstantial. I doubt the camel FabriciusFabricius, Georg mentions in his 1549 letter is the Vetus, though a palaeographer could change my mind (ch. 6), and I cannot prove it is the Decurtatus (ch. 7), because the Decurtatus contains no notes resembling HassensteinHassenstein, Bohuslaus von’s handwriting, and nothing is written on its untrimmed front, top, or bottom edges. If proof does exist – a shelfmark, say, or a handwritten title – a peek behind its binding might tell us. When I asked the Heidelberg librarian to pull it off and check, however, she politely refused.1

Nevertheless, if the salt road that brought us Plautus did pass through Bohemia, then in these days of increasing interest in provenance, some folks at the Lobkowicz Library might want their book back.

Hactenus en potui; tu nunc succede camelis

curandis, aliquis lector amice, mihi.

Summa: librum Decurtatum decorticet audax,

et Veteri impositas cum veter, ede notas.

Camel B, the Vetus, is digitized online at https://digi.ub.uni-heidelberg.de/diglit/bav_pal_lat_1615/0001.

Camel C, the Decurtatus, is digitized online at https://digi.ub.uni-heidelberg.de/diglit/cpl1613/0001/image.

Camel D, Cusanus’ stick of dynamite, is digitized online at https://digi.vatlib.it/view/MSS_Vat.lat.3870.

Bandini, Giorgia: Il CamerarioCamerarius d.Ä., Joachim e la Rudens Rudens: tracce ‘materiali’ del lavoro nei codici plautini B.e C., in: Renato Raffaelli / Alba Tontini (edd.): Lecturae Plautinae Sarsinates XVII: RudensRudens (Sarsina, 28 settembre 2013), Urbino 2014.

Boldan, Kamil: Rekonstrukce knihovny Bohuslava Hasištejnského z Lobkovic, Prague 2009.

CamerariusCamerarius d.Ä., Joachim, Joachim: M. Accii Plauti Comoediae V, Lipsiae, in officina Valentini Papae, 1545 [contains Amphitruo Amphitruo, Asinaria Asinaria, Curculio Curculio, Casina Casina, and Cistellaria Cistellaria].

CamerariusCamerarius d.Ä., Joachim, Joachim: M. Accii Plauti Comoediae VI. Lipsiae: in officina Valentini Papae, 1549 [contains Epidicus Epidicus, Bacchides Bacchides, Mercator Mercator, Pseudolus Pseudolus, Rudens Rudens, and Persa Persa].

CamerariusCamerarius d.Ä., Joachim, Joachim: Indicationes multorum quae ad lectionem fabularum Plauti nonnihil momenti afferre possint. Quae collegit Georgius FabriciusFabricius, Georg Chemnicensis. Emendationes editi exempli Plautini a Ioachimo CamerarioCamerarius d.Ä., Joachim, de recognitione ipsius, Lipsiae, in officina Valentini Papae, 1553 (= CamerariusCamerarius d.Ä., Joachim 1553a).

CamerariusCamerarius d.Ä., Joachim, Joachim: Narratio de H. Eobano Hesso, comprehendens mentionem de compluribus illius aetatis doctis & eruditis viris, Nuremberg 1553 (= CamerariusCamerarius d.Ä., Joachim 1553b).

CamerariusCamerarius d.Ä., Joachim, Joachim. 1566. Letter to Johannes Oporinus. Printed in Ritschl KS 3, 70–73.

CamerariusCamerarius d.Ä., Joachim, Joachim: Joachimi Camerarii (I) orationes, carmina, commentarii, epistolae latinae et graecae (maximam partem apographa), (Ludwig CamerariusCamerarius d.Ä., Joachim, Kalligraf), 1586, 1590 und früher (?) – BSB Clm 10393, [S.l.], [BSB-Hss Clm 10393] (Bavarian State Library).

FabriciusFabricius, Georg, Georg: Letter to Joachim CamerariusCamerarius d.Ä., Joachim (manuscript), Nr. 183 (p. 201r) of Gelehrte Korrespondenz der Camerarii (ohne Familienbriefe), diplomatische und politische Korrespondenz des Ludwig und Joachim IV. CamerariusCamerarius d.Ä., Joachim, 1549, BSB Clm 10431 (Bavarian State Library).

FabriciusFabricius, Georg, Georg: Elegantiarum ex Plauto et Terentio libri duo. Antwerp: apud Guilielmum Simonem, 1566.

Hardin, Richard: The Reception of Plautus in Northern Europe: The Earlier Sixteenth Century, Viator 43, 2012, 333–356.

Hardin, Richard: Plautus and the English Renaissance of Comedy, Madison 2017.

Mazzi, Curzio: Leone Allacci e la Palatina di Heidelberg, I., Il Propugnatore 4, 1892, 261–307.

Mazzi, Curzio: Leone Allacci e la Palatina di Heidelberg, II. Il Propugnatore 5, 1893, 130–206.

Melchior, Adam: Vitae Germanorum philosophorum, Frankfurt 1615.

Mitis, Thomas: Illustris ac generosi D. D. Bohuslai Hassensteynii a Lobkovitz etc., baronis Bohemici […] Farrago prima poematum, Prague 1562.

Mitis, Thomas: Viri Incomparabilis, ac D.D. Bohuslai Hassensteynii Lucubrationes Oratoriae, Prague 1563.

PareusPareus, Johann Philipp, Johann Philipp: M. Acci Plauti Sarsinatis Umbri Comoediae XX. Frankfurt 1641.