Angelo Poliziano

 

Angelus Politianus, Angelo Ambrogini from Montepulciano. (1454-1494). Florentine humanist and poet.

 

 

Relations with Pomponio Leto (testimonia):

 

1) Miscellaneorum centuria prima, cap. 44

 

Angelus Politianus, Miscellaneorum centuria prima. Florence: Antonio di Bartolommeo Miscomini, 19 Sept. 1489. HC(+ Add) 13221*. Not seen.

 

Text established from:

Omnia opera Angeli Politiani et alia quaedam lectu digna. Venice: Aldus Manutius, Romanus, July 1498. HC 13218*. sig. E7^v.

Angeli Politiani opera, quae quidem extitere hactenus, omnia. Basileae, apud Nicolaum Episcopium iuniorem, MDLIII, p.262.

 

Ed.: H. Katayama (Tokyo 1982).

 

Pegaseium nectar legi oportere apud Persium, non melos.

[sig. E7^v] ... Sed et Pomponius Laetus Romanae princeps achademiae, diligentissimus homo antiquitatis, ueterem se habere Persianum codicem multis audientibus affirmauit, huic nostrae lectioni suffragantem.

 

In Persius one should read Pegaseium nectar, not melos..
... But also Pomponio Leto, the head of the Roman academy, a man of great diligence concerning Antiquity, asserted in front of a large audience that he had an old manuscript of Persius which supported this our reading.

 

Note: melos is the reading of the Persius-Vulgate in the 15th century (cp. Bartolommeo Fonzio's commentary, Venice: Peregrinus de Pasqualibus and Dionysius Bertochus, 10 Sept. 1484, HCR 12724, sig. a iir). Poliziano's proposal corresponds to the modern text of Persius, prol. 13-14.

 

 

2) Miscellaneorum centuria prima, cap. 73

 

ed. 1498, sig. G8^rsq.; ed. 1553, p. 284

 

Vocabulum quod est expernata, Catullianis uideri exemplaribus reponendum.

[sig. G8^r] ... Ostendit mihi Romae abhinc quadriennium Manilius Rallus, Graecus homo, sed Latinis literis adprime excultus, fragmentum quoddam Sexti Pompei Festi (nam ita erat in titulo) sanè quam uetustum, sed pleraque mutilatum praerosumque à muribus. Quod me magnopere tenuit, siquidem reliquiae illae qualescunque ex integro ipso uolumine superabant, quod auctor Festus composuerat, non ex hoc autem compendiario, quod nunc in manibus coactum uiolenter et decurtatum, scilicet ab ignobili et indocto quodam, nec isto quoque nomine satis bene de litteris merito. Non nullas quoque ex eodem fragmento Pomponius Laetus, uir antiquitatis et literarum bonarum consultissimus, sibi pagellas retinuerat, quas itidem legendas mihi describendasque dedit. Ex lectione igitur ea suspicatus utique sum, uerbum me Catullianum quasi postliminio in suas sedes reuocaturum. Siquidem ubi exponitur in hoc compendiario uocabulum 'suppernati', quod eos significare ostendit, quibus foemina sunt succisa in modum suillarum pernarum, atque ex Ennio uersus allegatur: "His pernas succidit iniqua superbia Poeni", hoc utique loco uetus codex circumrosam plane habet expositionem, sed ita tamen, ut appareat ex reliquiis litterarum male coheraentibus, [sig. G8^v] Catullum quoque post Ennium adduci, citarique eum uersiculum, qui nunc mendose sic legitur: "Infossa Liguri iacet separata securi." Nam ut de carminis residuo nihil mihi arrogem temere, uidebar sane tum syllabatim quaeque olfactans, etiam pro explorato afferre posse, 'expernata' legendum in eo, non 'separata', quantum ex paucis illis poteram ueluti minutalibus aut ramentis colligere, quantumque etiam uel ex oblitteratis penè iam uestigiis ariolari. ...

 

The word expernata should be restored in Catullus.

... Manlio Rallo, a Greek, but very knowlegable in Latin letters, showed me in Rome four years ago, what according the headline was a fragment of Festus, very old, but mutilated and all around gnawed by mice. It fascinated me because, whatever the state of these fragments, they came from the work in its entirety, not from the epitome circulating in our days, which was compiled by a man of vulgar incompetence, who thus has done a great disservice to literature. Some further pages of this fragment Leto had retained, which he let me read and copy. Reading them made me suspect that the Catullian word should be restored to its former citizenship. In the epitome, in the explanation of suppernati, the author explains that the word designs people with their hips cut out like hams, and cites the verse of Ennius: 'His pernas succidit iniqua superbia Poeni (These have their hips cut out by the injustice of arrogant Carthage)'. Here the old manuscript has an explanation which is heavily gnawed off, but the rests of some letters seem to indicate that Catullus was mentioned after Ennius, with a citation of the verse, which nowadays is read in a corrupt form: 'Infossa Liguri iacet separata securi'. I make no claims about the rest of the poem, but from sniffing at the words syllable by syllable, I believed to be able to state unequivocally that one should read expernata, not separata, — at least as far as anything could be concluded from these morsels or chips, or divined from the nearly vanished letters.

 

Note: Politian's claim to have read expernata in Catullus 17,19 in the codex Farnesinus of Festus (Festus, p.305 M.) has not found credence with scholars of Festus or Catullus. The word is not attested elsewhere in classical literature.

 

 

3) Correspondence between Poliziano and Leto

 

coming soon in the section 'Textus'.

 

 

 

 

 

Johann Ramminger (14 Nov. 2005, 14 Dec. 2005)

 

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last changed on 14 Dec. 2005 by j.ramminger