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Inedited Letters of Fulvio Orsini to Antonio Agustin

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 December 2020

Extract

Among the classical scholars in Spain in the latter half of the sixteenth century, Antonio Agustín occupies an important place. Born on March 4, 1517 at Saragossa, he attended the Universities of Alcalá and Salamanca, and in 1536 went to Italy and studied at Bologna and Padua. During a second sojourn at Bologna, he profited by the instruction of Andrea Alciato and became acquainted with the methods of the nova jurisprudentia, which sought to replace the study of scholastic commentators by careful consultation of the original sources. He went to Florence in 1541 to study the celebrated manuscript of the Pandects and there prepared his great work, Emendationum et opinionum libri, in which he questioned the accuracy of Politian's collation of the famous manuscript. This work was published at Venice in 1543 and won him the esteem of the most noted scholars of the time, a remarkable achievement for the young man of twenty-six years.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1913

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References

page 577 note 1 The most complete biography of Agustln is found in the preface to his Diálogos de las armas, i linages de la nobleza de Espana, Madrid, 1734, by Gregorio Mayans y Siscar, a Latin translation of which was published in Vol. ii of Antonii Augustini Archiepiscopi Tarraconsensis Opera Omnia, Lucca, 1766. A considerable amount of biographical material may also be found in the letters of Agustín to Gerónimo Zurita, Fulvio Orsini and other scholars, published in the seventh volume of the Opera Omnia. I have not been able to see the collection of Agustín's letters published by Juan Andrés at Parma in 1804. A number of his letters have been published by Uztarroz and Dormer in Progresos de la Historia en Aragon, Primera Parte, Zaragoza, 1680, reprinted at Zaragoza, 1878. Pierre de Nolhac's La Bibliothèque de Fulvio Orsini, published in Vol. ixxiv of the Bibliothèque de l‘École des Hautes Études, Paris, 1887, is indispensable for a study of Agustín's relations with Italian scholars. Charles Graux gives a critical estimate of Agustín's activity as an editor of classical texts and book collector in his Essai sur les Origines du Fonds Grec de l'Escurial, Bibliothèque de l‘École des Hautes Études, Vol. xlvi, Paris, 1880. For a short account of his work in classical philology, see also J. E. Sandys, A History of Classical Scholarship, Vol. ii, Cambridge, 1908.

page 578 note 1 In 1581 Orsini re-edited the manuscript of Festus and wrote to Pinelli: “Il fragmento di Festo è quell'istesso di che fà mentione il Politiano nelle centurie et che monsig. Ant. Augustino nel stamparlo fece molti errori lui, et diede causa di fame molti al Scaligero.” De Nolhac, La Bibl. de F. O., p. 44.

page 579 note 1 Manuscript account of his life in the Bibliotheca Nacional of Madrid, 8369, Fol. 51. See also, Charles Dejob, De l'Influence du Concile de Trente sur la littérature et les beaux-arts chez les peuples catholiques, Paris, 1884.

page 580 note 1 Opera Omnia, Vol. vii, pp. 246–47.

page 580 note 2 Ibid., p. 247.

page 580 note 3 Ibid., p. 260.

page 580 note 4 Opera Omnia, Vol. vii, p. 256. See also De Nolhac, op. cit., pp. 46–48 and Graux, op. cit., pp. 93–97.

page 581 note 1 Op. cit., p. 60.

page 581 note 2 No. 5781. (Former number, Q, 87).

page 581 note 3 42 V.-43 v.

page 582 note 1 The summer residence of Cardinal Ranuccio Farnese, in whose household Orsini served as librarian, was located near Caprarola.

page 582 note 2 Agustín asked Orsini concerning a coin of Caius Pescennius Niger in a letter dated August 6, 1566. Opera Omnia, Vol. vii, p. 247.

page 582 note 3 This reference is probably to il canonico Manilio from whom Orsini obtained some of his coins and inscriptions. See De Nolhac, op. cit., p. 31.

page 582 note 4 This refers to a request of Agustín contained in a letter dated August 6, 1566. Opera Omnia, Vol. vii, p. 247.

page 582 note 5 The Portuguese Achille Estaco or Achilles Statius (1524–1581) was a prominent member of the group of scholars associated with Orsini. He is well known for his work on ancient portraits, his studies on the viri illustres of Suetonius and his commentaries on the Ars Poetica of Horace and on Catullus and Tibullus.

page 583 note 1 This is Orsini's reply to a complaint of Agustín that he has received no news from him, contained in a letter dated August 6, 1566. Opera Omnia, Vol. vii, p. 247. “ Et perchè domine vi mandai li Versi, et Inscritioni Hispaniensi, se non per hauer quel di più in contracambio che dice Hesiodo che li nostri legisti chiamano obli-gatione ad Antidora?”

page 583 note 2 In the letter dated August 6, 1566, Opera Omnia, Vol. vii, p. 247, Agustfn writes: “Del l. servivs rvfvs col tvscvl. è cosa rara, et volentieri leggerei i., sergivs, perche non hò esempio che Sergius fosse nome di famiglia.”

page 583 note 3 Cardinal Granvelle, the ambassador of Philip II at Rome, was a distinguished patron of scholars and artists, and an intimate friend of Orsini. It was due to his interest that Orsini's Virgilius illustratus was printed by Plantin in 1567. See De Nolhac's Bibl. de F. O., pp. 17–20 and the same scholar's Lettere inedite del Cardinale de Granvelle a Fulvio Orsini e al Cardinale Sirleto, Rome, 1884.

page 583 note 4 The reference is to the archaeologist Pirro Ligorio.

page 583 note 5 Ottavio Bagatto (Pacatus) was an intimate friend and collaborator of Orsini. Sandys, op. cit., p. 145, gives a short account of the work of the Augustinian monk Onofrio Panvinio (1529–1568).

page 584 note 1 The reference is to Achille Maffei, an archæologist and intimate friend of Orsini. See De Nolhac, La Bibl. de F. O., p. 43.

page 584 note 2 The reference is to the famous columna rostrata erected in the Forum to commemorate the naval victory of Duilius in the first Punic war, the base of which was discovered in 1565. Orsini and Agustín discussed the inscription in subsequent letters. The Spanish archaeologist, Pedro Chacón wrote a learned treatise on the column of Duilius, posthumously published in 1586. See Corpus insorip-tionum latinarum, Vol. i, pp. 37–40.

page 584 note 3 Letter dated August 6, 1566. Opera Omnia, Vol. vii, p. 247.

page 585 note 1 In the above-mentioned letter, Agustín wrote as follows: “In Trento hebbi di V. S. copia d'un Sasso di. Triomphi, che si trovò di nuovo; in esso è il Delmatico chiamato l. caecilivs. l. f. q. s. Fatemi piacer di scontrarlo un altra volta. perche dubito che debba essese q. f. q. n. etc. ”Item in Casa del Cardinale di Cesis si trovava un epitafio di M. Aemilio Barbula Dictatore; desidero saper se dice m. aemilivs m. f. l. n. ò vero q. f. l. n. perche mi importa saperlo.“

page 585 note 2 Ms. 5781, fol. 41.

page 585 note 3 Agustín replied in a letter dated February 10, 1567, Opera Omnia, Vol. vii, p. 248: “Il libro del Golzio non hò visto; se è bello come dite, non sarà dispiacere vederlo, contuttoche sia imperfetto.”

page 586 note 1 Ms. 5781, fol. 35–36.

page 586 note 2 Agustín replied in a letter dated April 11, 1567, Opera Omnia, Vol. vii, p. 248: “Del Nonio fù vero che in Trento scontrai uno antiquo mandatomi da M. Pietro Vittorio; non era troppo antiquo, ne troppo buono, pure ci fù guadagno per non haver visto di meglio. Di Venezia ò Padova non sò nulla.”

page 587 note 1 In the above-mentioned letter, Agustín wrote: “Dilegia M. Achille dicendo che io habbia sopra Vergilio cosa non vista dalla Sig. Vostra. Se l'ha visto egli, me l'havrà tolto, et servitosene.”

page 587 note 2 This manuscript of Porphyrio was of the ninth century. See De Nolhac, La. Bibl. de F. O., pp. 226 and 276. Orsini frequently overestimated the age of his manuscripts.

page 587 note 3 Porphyrio, in his scholia to the Odes of Horace, ii, 6, 1. 10:

Dulce pellitis ovibus Galaesi

flumen,

explains: De fertilitate autem et amoenitate tarentini agri et Ver-gilius in Georgicon quarto significat et Titinnius sic ait:

Tarentinorum hortorum odores qui geris

cum uellet intellegi florum.“ Scholia Horatiana quae feruntur Acronis et Porphyrionis post Georgium Fabricium, ed. F. Pauly, Vol. i, pp. 185–86.

page 587 note 4 In his letter of April 11, 1567, Agustln replied: “Del Viatore qui Coss. Apparuit, credo si trova in molti, et sassi, et leggi, pure mi va per la fantasia che in un cantone del Campidoglio si trova ripetito più volte.” Orsini alludes in his letter to his Virgilius illustratus, published by Plantin at Antwerp in 1567. The reference to the Aeneid is to Book xii, line 850.

page 588 note 1 For the full text of these passages, see Vitae excellentium Imperatorum, Book xviii, Chap. i and xiii.

page 598 note 2 Agustín, in his reply of April 11, 1567, acknowledges as follows the receipt of these epigrams: “Molto Magn. et Rev. Sig. Fulvio. La vostra à me carissima con li Epigrammi di Homero, et Menandro mi recò grandissimo piacere. Li versi sono belli pure non egualmente. Li duoi primi Epigrammi di Homero avanzano l'altri duoi di Menandro, et essi al terzo di Homero; l'ultimo mi pare il terzo di Menandro. —Se M. Achille Statio, ò altro più felice poeta li avril tradotti, fatemene parte.”

page 588 note 3 I have not transcribed the epigrams here since they differ only slightly from the texts as published in the Corpus Inscriptionum Graecarum, ed. Boeckhius, Vol. iii, No. 6083 and 6092, and also by G. Kaibel, Epigrammata Graeca ex lapidus conlecta, Berlin, 1878, No. 1084 and 1085. Orsini adds as a marginal note to the epigram on Homer: “quest' epigramma è sotto nome di Antipatro nel epigrammatario, però mutato non so che.” This version may be seen in the Anthologia Graeca Epigrammatum Palatine cum Planudea, ed. Stadtmueller, Leipzig, 1899, Vol. ii, Part i, No. 4.

page 589 note 1 Ms. 5781, fol. 37–39.

page 589 note 2 Orsini's notes to the works of Cicero, a part of which appeared in 1579, were published in complete form by Plantin in 1581.

page 590 note 1 Gabriello Faerno's edition of Cicero's Philippics with the Pro Fonteio, pro Flacco and in Pisonem was published in 1563 and his recension of Terence in 1565. His celebrated rendering of a hundred Aesopian fables into Latin verse was published in 1564. He died in 1561. See Sandys, op. cit., Vol. ii, p. 148.

page 590 note 2 For this edition of the Farnese fragment of Festus, see De Nolhac, La Bibl. de F. O., pp. 44–45. Orsini had planned to have this work published at Florence, but dissatisfied with the Florentine printers, he had it printed by Giorgio Ferrari at Rome. Scaliger had corrected in many places the edition of Agustín, which appeared in 1559.

page 590 note 3 The next word is illegible.

page 591 note 1 This tablet, a copy of which accompanies this letter, was bequeathed by Orsini to the Capitol Museum. See Pierre de Nolhac, Les Collections d'Antiquités de Fulvio Orsini, Mélanges d'Archéologie et d'Histoire, Rome, 1884, pp. 179–80.

page 591 note 2 These famous manuscripts of Terence and Virgil were bought from Bembo after considerable correspondence in the spring of 1579. On March 4, 1581, Orsini gained possession of the celebrated autograph manuscript of Petrarch's Canzoniere, which Bembo had used to establish the text of the Aldine edition of 1501. See de Nolhac, La Bibl. de F. O., pp. 416–17 and 100–103. In a letter dated September 10, 1581, Opera Omnia, Vol. vii, p. 262, Agustín congratulated his friend on his new acquisitions. “Delli esemplari di Vergilio, Ter-entio, et Petrarca che furono del Bembo, mi rallegro eon V. S. che siano divenuti vostri domestici col resto del suo studio.”

page 592 note 1 oβoλòς should be óβελòς

page 592 note 2 The reference is to Ambrogio Traversari (1386–1439).