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Finding Facts in Pliny's Encyclopaedia: The Summarivm of the Natural History1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 July 2014

Aude Doody
Aude Doody*
Affiliation:
Corpus Christi College, Cambridge
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Extract

Pliny's encyclopaedia demands a very particular approach from its readers. The key paradox of the genre is that, having gone to the immense effort of gathering together information covering all the branches of human knowledge, it expects its readers not to read it all. The tension between the unifying discourse of complete knowledge and its practical segmentation into digestible chunks requires a certain amount of conceptual shimmying on the part of the reader. How relevant is the surrounding information to the single fact retrieved? In the case of Pliny, the possibility of understanding disembodied sections and facts in isolation is a promise held out to the reader by the book itself: Pliny explicitly gives his blessing in the preface and provides a summarium to aid in the process. This summarium takes up all of Book One of the Natural History, listing the contents of other 36 books, together with the sources Pliny consulted. But although the paratext promotes one model of how to read the Natural History, the text itself is ambivalent; the insistency of linear narrative never quite surrenders to the allure of complete segmentation. There is a logic to the Natural History that only reveals itself to the reader who follows the stream of information from fact to fact, section to section, book to book, subject to subject.

Type
Research Article
Information
Ramus , Volume 30 , Issue 1 , 2001 , pp. 1 - 22
Copyright
Copyright © Aureal Publications 2001

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Footnotes

1.

An earlier version of this paper was presented at a conference on ‘Ordering Knowledge in the Roman Empire’ at St. John's College, Cambridge in December 2001. My thanks to all who participated in the discussion, which was instrumental in forming the final shape of my argument. Philip Hardie made many helpful interventions at successive stages of this article's development and Mary Beard was insightful and encouraging at its inception. Michael Reeve was a careful reader and provided me with essential guidance on the early printed tradition. I am grateful for their assistance, though naturally, all remaining errors are my own.

References

2. See Beagon, M., Roman Nature: The Thought of Pliny the Elder, Oxford Monographs (Oxford 1992)Google Scholar; Citroni Marchetti, S., Plinio il Vecchio e la tradizione del moralismo romano (Pisa 1991)Google Scholar; Conte, G.B., ‘The Inventory of the World: Form of Nature and the Encyclopedic Project in the Work of Pliny the Elder’, in Genres and Readers, tr. G.W. Most (Baltimore & London 1994)Google Scholar; Wallace-Hadrill, A., ‘Pliny the Elder and Man’s Unnatural History’, G&R 37 (1990), 80–96Google Scholar.

3. See, for instance, Isager, J., Pliny on Art and Society: The Elder Pliny’s Chapters on the History of Art (London 1991)Google Scholar, and Healy, J.F., Pliny the Elder on Science and Technology (Oxford 1999)Google Scholar.

4. The British Library contains all 15 editions, several in multiple copies; see Klebs, A.C., ‘Incunable Editions of Pliny’s Historia Naturalis’, Isis 24 (1935), 120fGoogle Scholar., on the collection. The University Library at Cambridge houses 6 editions: Jenson (1472), Manzolus (1479), Portilia (1481), Novimagio (1483), Sarazin (1487), Blavis (1491). See n.5 below for details.

5. (1) Venice: Johannes de Spira 1469 (editio princeps, editor unknown). (2) Giovanni Andrea Bussi, Bishop of Aleria. Rome: Sweynheym and Pannartz 1470; reproduced Venice: Jenson 1472. (3) Niccolò Perotti. Rome: Sweynheym and Pannartz 1473. (4) Filippo Beroaldo. Parma: Stephanus Corallus 1476; reproduced Treviso: Manzolus 1479; Parma: Portilia 1480; Parma: Portilia 1481; Venice: Novimagio 1483; Venice: Sarazin 1487; Venice: Thomas Blavis 1491. (5) Angelo and Giacomo Britannici. Brescia: Angelo and Giacomo Britannici 1496; reproduced Venice: Bartolomeo Zani 1496. (6) Giovanni Battista Palmari (incorporating Hermolaus Barbarus’ commentary). Venice: Benalius 1497; reproduced Venice: J. Alvisius 1499. There were also 3 separate editions of the Italian translation by Cristoforo Landino—Venice: Jenson 1476; Venice: Phil. Petri 1481; Venice: B. Zani 1489. See Sabbadini, R., ‘La edizione quattrocentesche della S.N. di Plinio’, SIFC 8 (1900), 439–48Google Scholar; see also Nauert, C.G., ‘Caius Plinius Secundus’, in F.E. Cranz & P.O. Kristeller (eds), Catalogus Translationum et Commentariorum: Medieval and Renaissance Latin Translations and Commentaries, Vol. 4 (Washington DC 1980), 297–422Google Scholar.

6. See Davies, M., ‘Making Sense of Pliny in the Quattrocento’, Renaissance Studies 9 (1995), 240–257CrossRefGoogle Scholar, at 247f.; Fera, V., ‘Un laboratorio filologico di fine quattrocento la Naturalis historia,’ in O. Pecere & M. Reeve (eds.), Formative Stages of Classical Traditions: Latin Texts from Antiquity to the Renaissance (Spoleto 1995), 435–66Google Scholar; Monfasani, J., ‘The First Call for Press Censorship: Niccolò Perotti, Giovanni Andrea Bussi, Antonio Moreto, and the Editing of Pliny’s Natural History’, RenQ 41 (1988), 1–31Google Scholar.

7. Although J. Sillig in his edition of 1851 was the first to point this out, it was D. Detlefsen who went on to establish the recension of the manuscript tradition that is still the basis for new editions of Pliny’s text. See Detlefsen’s 1866 edition of the Natural History, and especially his article on Pliny’s indices, , ‘Die Indices der Naturalis Historiae des Plinius’, Philologus 28 (1869), 701–16Google Scholar.

8. See Davies (n.5 above), 241; Detlefsen (n.6 above), 707; Sabbadini (n.4 above).

9. On the nature of paratext, including the table of contents, see Genette, G., Paratexts: Thresholds of Interpretation (Cambridge 1997)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

10. On M, see Ernout, A., ‘Introduction’, in Pline l’Ancien, Histoire Naturelle: Livre 1, ed. J. Beaujeu (Paris 1950), 5–35Google Scholar; Reynolds, L.D., ‘The Elder Pliny’, in Texts and Transmission (Oxford 1983), 307–16Google Scholar. The codex is generally believed to have become the dominant form for literature between the third and the fourth century, developing from its earlier adoption by Christians for copies of sacred texts. See Kenyon, G., Books and Readers in Ancient Greece and Rome2 (Oxford 1951)Google Scholar; Marichal, R., ‘Du volumen au codex’, in J. Vezin & H.-J. Martin (eds.), Mise en page et mise en texte du livre manuscrit (Paris 1990), 45–54Google Scholar; Roberts, C.H. & Skeat, T.C., The Birth of the Codex (Oxford 1985)Google Scholar; Turner, E.G., The Typology of the Early Codex (Philadelphia 1977)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

11. J. Irigoin, ‘Titres, sous-titres et sommaires dans les oeuvres des historiens grecs du ler siècle apres J.-C’, , in Fredouille, J.-C., Goulet-Cazé, M.-O., Hoffmann, P. & Petitmengin, P. (eds.), Titres et articulations du texte dans les oeuvres antiques: Actes du Colloque International de Chantilly, 13–14 décembre 1994 (Paris 1997), 127–34, at 133fGoogle Scholar.

12. On the evolution of the index, see M., & Rouse, R., ‘La naissance des index’, in H.-J. Martin, R. Chattier & F.-P. Viret (eds.), Histoire de l’edition française (Paris 1982), 77–85Google Scholar, and ‘Concordances et index’, in Vezin & Martin (n.10 above), 219–28.

13. See B.-J. Schröder, Titel und Text (Berlin 1999) for a thorough investigation of the history of titles and subtitles in Latin texts. Another recent work is Fredouille et al. (n.11 above), in which on lemmata and summaria see especially Irigoin (also cited n.11 above) and P. Petitmengin, ‘Capitula païens et Chrétiens’, at 491–507.

14. There is one intriguing exception to this general practice. The 1470 edition of Giovanni Andrea Bussi published by Sweynheym and Pannartz contained no running capitula. However they were re-instated by Nicolas Jenson in his 1472 re-edition of Bussi’s text, and Sweynheym and Pannartz’s 1473 edition of the Natural History, edited by Niccolò Perotti, also printed capitula. On the manuscripts Bussi used, see Casciano, P., ‘Il ms. Angelicano 1097, fase prepatoria per l’edizione del Plinio di Sweynheym e Pannartz (H 13088)’, in C. Bianca (ed.), Scrittura biblioteche e stampa a Roma nel Quattrocento: Aspetti e problemi, Atti del Seminario 1–2 giugno 1979 (Vatican City 1980), 383–94Google Scholar; A. Marucchi, ‘Note sul manoscritto di cui si servito Giovanni Andrea Bussi per 1’edizione del Plinio del 1470’, Institut de recherche et d’histoire des textes, Bulletin 15 (1967–8), 155–82. On the controversy surrounding its publication, see Monfasani (n.6 above); Prete, S., ‘La lettura di Niccolò Perotti a Francesco Guarnieri’, Studia Picena 43 (1976), 115–26Google Scholar; cf. also Davies (n.6 above), Fera (n.6 above) and Nauert (n.5 above).

15. Four new editions have appeared in the last thirty years: König, R. & Winkler, G. (eds.), Naturkunde/Naturalis historiae libri XXXVII (Munich 1973–)Google Scholar; Conte, G.B., Barchiesi, A., Frugoni, C. & Ranucci, G. (eds.), Storia naturale: Gaio Plinio Secondo (Turin 1982)Google Scholar; Gabba, E., Grilli, A.et al. (eds.), Plinii Naturalis Historia/ Plinio, Storia naturale (Pisa 1984–1987)Google Scholar; Serbat, G., Fontàn, A., Moure, A.M. Casas (eds.), Historia natural: Plinio el Viejo (Madrid 1995–)Google Scholar.

16. For examples see Blavis (1491) for capitula in capital letters, Zani (1496) for more indistinguishable ones, and Jenson (1476)/British Library Catalogue (hereafter BLC) C.3.d.2 for an example of hand embellished capitula.

17. Corallus (1476)/BLC IC30223. See BLC C.3.d.l for another copy of this edition, which has finely illuminated initial capitals, but is without any notes or scholarly additions.

18. Sweynheym & Pannartz (1473)/BLC IC. 17212; Jenson (1476)/BLC C.3.d.2; Zani (1489)/ BLC IB.23218; Blavis (1491)/BLC IB.21874.

19. Britannici (1496) and Zani (1496). These represent the 12th and 13th editions of the complete Latin text. See also Benalius (1497), Alvisius (1499).

20. The summaria of Books 2, 7, 8, 19, 35 and 37 do not follow this formula. Interestingly, the initial formula of the summaria of Books 26 and 27 follows the same pattern as the rest but assumes that the summarium has been read right through from the beginning, in that they claim to contain ‘the remaining medicines by classes’ (reliquae per genera medicinae, 26) and ‘the remaining types of plants and the medicines derived from them’ (reliqua genera herbarum, medicinae ex his, 27).

21. Spira (1469)/BLC C.2.d.5; Sweynheym & Pannartz (1470)/BLC C.2.d.b.

22. Of the books on herbal medicine, only Book 26 contains entries that list the illness rather than the medical derivative; of the books on animal substances, only Book 31 does not contain any references to specific illnesses—a pattern which reflects the fact that Pliny groups materia medica by illness more frequently in the books on animal derivatives.

23. I have looked at two copies of this edition, one in the British Library (C.3.d.3) and one in the University Library at Cambridge (SSS.2.5). The Cambridge copy has illuminated capitals at the beginning of each book, and the initial capital of each paragraph is written in blue or red ink, so that the initial L of Libro above has been added in red by the rubricator. The British Library copy has no additions of this kind.

24. The Latin is awkward here. Medieval orthography regularly causes confusion with h’s, which were silent, so ‘orthopnoeas’ becomes ‘hortopnoeas’ and ‘hepatitis’ becomes ‘epaticis’ in the early printed text, ‘iacinoris’ is written where we might expect ‘iocinoris’ or ‘iecinoris’, and ‘reuibus’ is a misprint for ‘renibus’. These emendations are reflected in the translation.

25. On the Medicina Plinii and Pighnucci’s 1509 edition, based on manuscripts of the Physica, see Castiglioni, A., ‘Pseudo-Plinian Medicine’, BHM 20 (1946), 201–06Google ScholarPubMed; Önnerfors, A., In Medicinam Plinii studia philologica (Lund 1963)Google Scholar, and ‘Die mittelalterichen Fassungen der Medicina Plinii’, Berliner Medizin 16 (1965), 652–55Google Scholar; Rose, V., ‘Über die Medicina Plinii’, Hermes 8 (1874), 18–74Google Scholar.