The Transmission of Pliny's Natural History

Michael D. Reeve

• Publisher: Edizioni di Storia e Letteratura
• Year: 2021
• Topic: Literature
• eBook ISBN:
  9788893595599
• Subtopic: Ancient & Classical Literary Criticism
• Index: Literature

The continuous manuscripts of Pliny's Natural history, one of the longest and most influential classical works to have survived, number over 120, some 70 of them produced in 15th-century Italy. Made by full collation of selected passages in every witness and by codicological study where necessary, this is the first attempt not only to determine the authorities for the text but also to show how the tradition developed from the Carolingian revival to the Renaissance. Included are editions of both the Suetonian Vita and the Brevis adnotatio de duobus Pliniis of Giovanni de Matociis. A profile is offered of Ioannes Camers, who compiled the first substantial index, and due credit given to the pioneering work of Detlef Detlefsen (1833-1911) and articles published from 1979 to 2014 by Hermann Walter. I manoscritti della Storia naturale di Plinio, una delle più lunghe opere classiche sopravvissute, sono oltre 120, di cui circa 70 prodotti nell'Italia del XV secolo. Accompagnato da uno studio codicologico e raccogliendo i passaggi selezionati di ogni testimonianza, è questo il primo tentativo – che tiene conto degli studi pioneristici di Detlef Detlefsen (1833-1911) e delle ricerche successive di Hermann Walter – non solo di determinare l'autorità del testo, ma anche di mostrare come la tradizione si sia sviluppata dalla rinascita carolingia al Rinascimento.

Table of contents

• Titlepage
• Copyright
• Table of contents
• Introduction
• 1. From a question to modern editions
• 2. The family of D and R
• 3. A rival family
• 4. Books 21-37 and further travails of E
• 5. Supplements in the twelfth century
• 6. The Vita Plinii
• 7. Three notes on the Preface
• 8. More early sets of excerpts
• 9. Further stages of supplementation
• 10. A large Italian family
• 11. Editorial consequences
• 12. Other 15th-century manuscripts
• 13. Late epitomes, excerpts, notes, commentaries
• 14. Indexing the Natural History
• 15. A campaign of collation in 16th-century France
• 16. The transmission in Antiquity
• Epilogue
• Appendix
• 1. The Brevis Adnotatio of Giovanni Mansionario
• 2. Papal copies of the Natural History, 1311-1466
• 3. Gaspare Romano and Cardinal Giovanni of Aragon
• 4. Manuscripts of the Natural History attested in 16th-century Spain
• Index of Manuscripts
• Index of passages
• General index
• Pagina vuota