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The First Call for Press Censorship: Niccolò Perotti, Giovanni Andrea Bussi, Antonio Moreto, and the Editing of Pliny's Natural History*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 November 2018

John Monfasani*
Affiliation:
University At Albany, State University of New York

Extract

In 1478, twenty-three years after Johann Gutenberg printed the 42- line Bible in Mainz, the town fathers of Cologne engaged in “the first censorship trial on record” as they sued to stop the distribution of a printed book which challenged their authority. The next year Pope Sixtus IV inaugurated papal legislation of press censorship by authorizing the University of Cologne to police virtually every aspect of the new industry. These actions of 1478 and 1479 are the earliest known instances of press censorship. They also reflect the political, moral, and religious concerns which would henceforth dominate press censorship. But as far as I can tell, the first call for press censorship had actually occurred nearly a decade earlier, and had absolutely nothing at all to do with religion, morals, or politics.

Type
Studies
Copyright
Copyright © Renaissance Society of America 1988

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Footnotes

*

I wish to thank Paul Oskar Kristeller and Concetta Bianca for suggestions and corrections. The anonymous readers of the manuscript for Renaissance Quarterly also gave useful advice. I list here bibliographical abbreviations used in the notes and appendices: BMC = Catalogue of Books Printed in the XVth Century Now in the British Museum, 12 vols., rept. with addenda and corrigenda (London, 1963-1971). C = W. A. Copinger, Supplement to Main's Repertorium hibliographicum, 2 vols. (London, 1895-1902). Goff= F. Goff, Incunabula in American Libraries (New York, 1964). GW = Gesamtkatalog der Wiegendrucke (Leipzig, 1925ff.) H = L. Hain, Repertorium hibliographicum, in quo libri omnes ab arte typographica inventa usque ad annum M. D. typis expressi ordine alphabetico recensentur, 2 vols, in 4 (Stuttgart and Paris, 1823-1838). ICI = Indice generate degli incunaboli delle biblioteche d'Italia, 5 vols. (Rome, 1943-1972). R = D. Reichling, Appendices ad Hainii-Copingeri Repertorium hibliographicum, additiones et emendationes, 6 vols. (Munich, 1905-1911); Supplementum (Munich, 1914).

References

1 Zaretsky, O., Der erste Cölner Zensurprozess: Ein Beitrag zur Cölner Geschichte und Inkunabelkunde (Cologne, 1906)Google Scholar, who corrects Voullième, E., Der Buchdruck Kölns bis zum Ende des fünfzehnten Jahrhunderts (Bonn, 1902)Google Scholar, lxxx-lxxxiii. See also Hirsch, R., Printing, Selling and Reading 1450-I550 (Wiesbaden, 1967) 88 Google Scholar.

2 Both Voullième lxxxiv, and Hilgers, J., Der Index der Vergotenen Bücher (Freiburg i. B., 1904)Google Scholar 479-80, edit the brief. It is calendared in Hilgers, J., Die Bücherverbote in Papstbriefen: Kanonistisch-bibliographische Studie (Freiburg i. B., 1907)Google Scholar 17. As the brief makes clear, the University of Cologne had petitioned Sixtus for this authority.

3 I disagree with Hirsch, Printing, 87, who takes up a suggestion of Kapp, F., Geschichte des deutscher Buchhandels bis in das siebzehnte Jahrhunderts (Leipzig, 1886) 525 Google Scholar, and describes Petrus Negri's Tractatus contra Iudeos printed by Conrad Fyner at Esslingen in 1475 (H 11885), as “the earliest recorded example of an approbatur or nihil obstat” (see also Hirsch's “Pre-Reformation Censorship of Printed Books,” The Library Chronicle, 2 1 [r955]: 100-105, a t 100-101). The volume contains no formal approbatur to print. Negri addressed the treatise to the Bishop of Regensburg, who had asked him to write it. At the end, on fol. [49] (I used the copy in Beinecke Library, Yale University), Negri remarked: “Ut autem opusculum hoc, quod manu propria scriptum reverendissime paternitati tue corrigendum approbandumque obtuleram, pluribus prodesse ac latius divulgari possit diligentissime correctum arte impressoria in presentia mea figurari feci.” Negri is not saying that he received the bishop's approval to print the book, as Kapp and Hirsch believed, but rather (1) that he had asked the bishop to correct and approve the book, and (2) that he, Negri, chose to have it printed so as to reach the largest number of readers. Asking the dedicatee to correct and approve a book was not an uncommon practice before printing, and was especially appropriate in this case since the treatise was a theological work and the dedicatee was the bishop who had commissioned it (for classical examples of this practice see W. Speyer, Biichervernichtung und Zensur des Geistes bei Heiden,Juden und Christen [Stuttgart, 1981] 96-98). We have no evidence that the bishop gave formal approval to print. Printing was exclusively Negri's choice, as he specifically tells us in the quoted passage. In the next lines Negri threatens legal action in diocesan court against anyone who would vitiose aut incorrecie reprint the treatise and especially its Hebrew texts. He was concerned here not with unauthorized reprinting, but exclusively with inaccurate reprinting. He would press Charges, he warned, if the printer did not use a corrector competenter instructus.

4 In addition to the works of Hilgers cited in note 2 above, see Lopez, P., Sul libro a stampa e le origini della censura ecclesiastica (Naples, 1972)Google Scholar; Hirsch, Printing, Sjff., which incorporates his “Pre-Reformation Censorship;” Grendler, Paul F., The Roman Inquisition and the Venetian Press, 154O-1605, (Princeton, 1977)Google Scholar. See also Speyer, Buchervernichtung und Zensur, cited in the previous note; and Gil, L., Censura en el mundo antiguo (Madrid, 1961)Google Scholar. Plato called for censorship in the Republic, but for moral, not literary, reasons; and the efforts of literary scholars in antiquity to establish correct texts and canons of authentic texts remained private in nature (see Speyer, Büchervernichtung und Zenzur 101-104).

5 The standard study is Mercati, G., Per la cronologia della vita e degli scritti di Niccolò Perotti arcivescovo di Siponto, Studi e Testi, 44 (Rome, 1925)Google Scholar. I offer a revised chronology of Perotti's early life in an appendix to my “II Perotti e la controversia fra platonici ed aristotelici,” Res Publica Litterarum, 4 (1981): 195-231, at 225ff. This number of Res Publica Litterarum contains the proceedings of an international conference on Perotti, with articles by P. O. Kristeller, A. Michel, and others. See also Prete, S., Osservazioni e note sull'umanista Niccolò Perotti cittadino veneziano Centro Tedesco di Studi Veneziani, Quaderni, 20 (Venice, 1981)Google Scholar, and my “Bessarion Latinus,” Rinascimento, ns 21 (1981): 165-209, and “Still More on Bessarion Latinus,” ibid., 23 (1983): 217-35.

6 The preface to Pope Paul II, edited by M. Miglio in Bussi, G.A., Le prejazioni alle edizioni di Sweynheym e Pannartz prototipografi romani (Milan, 1978)Google Scholar 44-46, carries the date, 1470, in the sixth year of the pontificate. Therefore, Bussi wrote it between 1 January and 30 August 1470. This edition was the first Sweynheim and Pannartz published in 1470; see Miglio, Le prejazioni 99; Feld, M. D., “Sweynheym and Pannartz, Cardinal Bessarion, Neoplatonism: Renaissance Humanism and Two Early Printers' Choice of Texts,” Harvard Library Bulletin, 30 (1982): 282335 Google Scholar, at 287. For the history of the edition see P. Casciano, “II ms. Angelicano 1097, fase preparatoria per l'edizione del Plinio di Sweynheym e Pannartz (H 1308),” in Scrittura biblioteche e stampa a Roma nel Quattrocento: Aspetti eproblemi, Atti del Seminario 1-2giugno 1979, 2 vols., eds. C. Bianca, P. Farenga, G. Lombardi, A. G. Luciani, andM. Miglio, Littera Antiqua, 1.1- 2 (Vatican City, 1980): 383-94; A. Marucchi, “Note sul manoscritto [Vat. lat. 5991] di cui si è servito Giovanni Andrea Bussi per l'edizione del Plinio del 1470,” Institut de recherche et d'histoire des textes, Bulletin, 15 (1967-68): 155-82; and Sabbadini, R., “Le edizioni quattrocentistiche della Storia Naturale di Plinio,” Studi italiani difilologia classica, 8 (1900)Google Scholar: 439-48.

7 For Bussi see Miglio's, M. biography in Bussi, Le prejazioni xviiff., and his article, “Giovanni Andrea Bussi,” in the Dizionario biografico degli italiani, 15 Google Scholar: 565-74.

8 The literature is summed up in Feld, “Sweynheym and Pannartz” 285fF.; and C. Frova and M. Miglio, “Dal ms. Sublacense XLII all ‘editioprinceps del De Civitate Dei di sant’ Agostino (H2046),” Scrittura, 1.1: 245-73.

9 The princeps (H 13087) was printed by Ioannes de Spira at Venice in 1469 (for bibliography see Goff P-786). The year is given in the colophon. A notarial document dated Venice, 18 September 1469 speaks of the edition of Pliny as completed. See Fulin, R., “Documenti per servire alia storia della tipografia veneziana,” Archivio Veneto, 23 (1882)Google Scholar: 84-212, at 99-100. See also M. Schiavone, “Dah” editio princeps della Naturalis Historia ad opera di Giovanni da Spira all’ edizione Lione di 1561,” in Plinio e la natura: Atti del ciclo di conferenze sugli aspetti naturalistici dell'opera pliniana, Como 1979 (Como, 1982) 95-108.

10 For instance, in his critique of Perotti's own edition of the Natural History, Cornelio Vitelli chided Perotti for not giving Bussi his due as the one “qui primus omnium impressoribus Romanis Plynium recognovit” (see n. 42 below). I could find no reference to the Venetian princeps in the contemporary controversy concerning the text of Pliny.

11 More work is needed on Barbo, but for an overview of the literature see G. Gualdo, “Barbo, Marco,” Dizionario biografico degli italiani, 6: 249-52. For Guarneri see Mercati, Per la cronologia 90; and Billanovich, G., “Il Petrarca e i retori latini minori,” Italia medioevale e umanistica, 5 (1962)Google Scholar: 103-64, at 130-31. I have not had access to Prete, S., Il codice di Columella di Stefano Guamieri, Fonti e Studi, 2 (Fano, 1974)Google Scholar.

12 E.g., Prete, S., “Problems of Textual Criticism: Niccolò Perotti's Letter to Francesco Guarnieri,” Troisième Congrès International d'Etudes Néo-latines Tours … 1976,2 vol*. (Paris, 1980)Google Scholar 1:15-26; and idem, “La lettera di Niccolo Perotti a Francesco Guanieri,” Studi Piceni, 43 (1976): 115-26; A. Dihle, “Niccolò Perottis Beitrag zur Enstehung der philologischen Methode,” Res Publica Litterarum, 4 (1981): 67-76, at 69ff.; J.-C. Margolin, “La fonction pragmatique et I'influence culturelle de la Cornucopiae de Niccolo Perotti,” ibid. 123-71, at 129.

13 Nauert, C. G., Jr., “Caius Plinius Secundus,” Catalogus translationum et commentariorum: Mediaeval and Renaissance Latin Translations and Commentaries, 4, ed. E. F. Cranz (Washington, D.C., 1980): 223422 Google Scholar, at 308 and 325, does refer to the “pre-publication censorship” which Perotti wished to impose, but does not elaborate. Miglio, in Bussi, Prefazioni li n. 42, remarks that the letter is “interessante” for Perotti's “proposta di una censura filologica.”

14 Mercati, Per la cronologia 83, 90-91, where he insisted that the letter is poco prima Perotti's 1473 edition of Pliny, for which it served as a sort of advertisement. Mercati rejected out of hand the suggestion of 1471 put forward by Torre, A. Delia, Storia dell' Accademia Platonica in Firenze (Florence, 1902)Google Scholar I5n.

15 See Appendix I, sentence 23, where Perotti calls Marco Barbo another Maecenas at the side of Caesar. Barbo could only play that role as long as his uncle, Pope Paul II, was alive. In what follows I am refining, but in some respects not duplicating, the argument I first put forth in “Platina, Capranica, and Perotti: Bessarion's Latin Eulogists and His Date of Birth,” n. 8, forthcoming in the acts of the Convegno di studi su Bartolomeo Sacchi, detto il Platina.

16 Appendix I, sent. 21.

17 H 13125; Scrittura, 1.2, num. 39; Goff P-830. Campano's preface is addressed to Cardinal Francesco Todeschini-Piccolomini, the future Pius III. The edition lacks a colophon. I consulted the copy at the John Pierpont Morgan Library, New York.

18 H 13646; Scrittura, 1.2, num. 53; Goff Q-24. This preface is also addressed to Cardinal Todeschini-Piccolomini. The edition carries a colophon which runs, in part: “Absolutum Rome … anno salutis MCCCCLXX, die vero tenia mensis Augusti” (seen at the John Pierpont Morgan Library). The preface is available in Botfield, B., Prefaces to the First Editions of the Greek and Roman Classics and of the Sacred Scriptures (London, 1861)Google Scholar, 102-104.

19 H 15115; Scrittura, 1.2, num. 52; Goff S-815. I consulted the copy of the John Pierpont Morgan Library. Botfield 104-105 reprints the preface (to Cardinal Todeschini- Piccolomini).

20 For Campano's editorial work see Lesca, G., Giovanni Campano detto 1'Episcopus aprutinus (Pontedera, 1892)Google Scholar 67-68; Hausmann, F.-R., “Giovanni Antonio Campano (1429-1477): Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte des italienischen Humanismus im Quattrocento,” Römanische historische Mitteilungen, 12 (1970)Google Scholar: 125-78, at 155-56; and especially Bernardo, F. Di., Un vescovo umanista alia Corte pontificio Giannantonio Campano (1429- 1477) (Rome, 1975)Google Scholar 233-44. Hausmann did not discuss the prefaces in his Giovanni Antonio Campano (1429-1477): Erläuterungen und Ergänzungen zu seinen Briefen, Diss., Freiburg i. B., 1968). On the assumption that Plutarch was first, we have the following sequence of prefaces by Campano: (all the prefaces are to Cardinal Todeschini- Piccolomini except num. 3).

  • 1. Plutarch, Vitae, U. Han (late 1469-early 1470; see note 17 above for references).

  • 2. Cicero, Philippicae, U. Han (early 1470); preface in Botfield 108-109 (Scrittura, 1.2, num. 37; Gesamtkatalogder Wiegendrucke6794; GoffC-546).

  • 3. To Cardinal Iacopo Ammannati for Livy, U. Han (mid-1470), mentioned as recent (nuperj in the preface to num. 4 (H 10129; Scrittura, 1.2, num. 41; GofrL-237).

  • 4. quintilian, Institutiones, (J. P. de Lignamine), 3 August 1470 (see n. 18 above for references).

  • 5. Suetonius, Vitae Caesarum, (J. P. de Lignamine), August 1470; see n. 19 above for references).

  • 6. Phalaris, Epistole, tr. Fr. Griffolini, (U. Han, mid-1470-1471; Scrittura, 1.2, num. 77; GoffP-547).

Three errors run through the standard treatments of Campano's editorial work. The first is the dating of the prefaces (Di Bernardo's is the same as mine except that he reverses nums. 1 and 2 and dates num. 2 to 1469). The second is the assumption that Campano's censura of pseudo-Quintilian's Declamationes to Cardinal Francesco Todeschini-Piccolomini, found in Mencken's edition on 540-44 is a preface like the other censurae in this section (entitled Appendix). However, this text is a simple letter. Campano never published it as a preface to an edition. The third reflects a confusion abottf Campano's preface to Quintilian's Institutiones oratoriae, concerning which see n. 58 below.

21 Seen. 6 above.

22 See Bussi, Prefazioni 47-48, dated 1470 in the sixth year of the pontificate, i.e., 1 January-29 August 1470. Miglio, the editor, recognized that Bussi was referring to Perotti (see xliv), but I would not follow him in assuming knowledge of the letter not only because Bussi picked on a purely marginal point in Perotti's letter, but also because Bussi specifically states that he had been told about the practice of his critics (“quidam dicuntur mihi”) and is still waiting for them to reveal themselves (“Nee conscii sibi a me dictum de se putent, per me facillime latebunt. Si se ipsi prodider int…”). Miglio li n. 38, also adheres to Mercati's mistaken dating of 1473, misled by Mercati's misdating of Perotti's work on Statius. I correct this error of Mercati in my “Platina, Capranica,” n. 8 (cited in n. 15 above). Since the volume of Cicero's letters was the second edition produced by Bussi in 1470 (Pliny being the first) and was followed in turn before 30 August by a re-edition of Jerome's letters and the Lactantius' opera (see 4:15; Miglio in Bussi, Prefazioni 99; and Feld, “Sweynheym and Pannartz” 286-88), it is reasonable to suppose that Bussi wrote his preface to Cicero's letters in the spring rather than in the summer of 1470.

23 Appendix I, sent. 2. This is part of a six-line poem which appears in editions nos. 1-3 listed in n. 20 above.

24 For instance, of the books printed at Rome before 1501 only about 12% contained texts of ancient authors, and most of these classical texts were produced in the early years of Roman printing (“Materiali e ipotesi per la stampa a Roma,” Scrittura, 1.1: 213-44, at 217). for a sound summing-up of the statistical evidence see Hirsch, Printing 125ff.

25 Appendix I, sent. 8.

26 Appendix I, sent. 9.

27 See my George of Trebizond: A Biography and a Study of His Rhetoric and Logic (Leiden, 1976) 152-54.

28 Bussi, Prefazioni, ed. Miglio 44: “Iuvit sane ac mirifice iuvit conatus meos … vir summae eruditionis et sapientiae, Theodorus meus Gaza.” Bussi thanked Gaza for his help in prefaces to other editions as well. Perotti avoided criticizing Gaza by assuming that Bussi erred where he did not follow Gaza's advice (Appendix I, sent. 32).

29 Appendix I, sent. 36-41.

30 Ibid., sent. 42. For manuscripts of the letter see the introduction to the Appendix I Below.

31 See Sabbadini, R., “Le edizioni quattrocentistiche della S. N. di Plinio,” Studi italiani Di filologia classica, 8 (1910)Google Scholar: 439-48; the introduction of G. Pozzi to his edition of Barbaro, Ermolao, Castigationes Plinianae et in Pomponium Melam (Padua, 1973)Google Scholar cxii sq.; Nauert, “Plinius” 309ff.; and idem, “Humanists, Scientists, and Pliny: Changing Approaches to a Classical Author,” The American Historical Review, 84 (1979): 72-85, at 76 sq.

32 Grafton, A., Joseph Scaliger: A Study in the History of Classical Scholarship, 1 (Oxford, 1983)Google Scholar: 14, correctly stresses the large advantages printing brought to students of classical texts. But there were some costs, for which see especially Kenney, E. J., The Classical Text: Aspects of Editing in the Age of the Printed Book (Berkeley, 1974)Google Scholar ch. 1.

33 Calderini claimed to have in his possession the copy of Bussi's edition which Perotti corrected and then used as the printer's copy for his own edition of Pliny in 1473. See Calderini's Defensio adversus Brotheum … cum recriminatione retaxationis Plinianae in qua Brotheus CC et LXX locis praestantissitnum scriptorem depravavit, which was appended to his commentary on luvenal (I used the edition of Venice, 1476-1477 [GW 5886; GofFC-35], sig. k4): “Plinium a doctissimis viris emendatum tu in ducentis et septuaginta quinque locis pervertisti … At manus tua in margine codicis Pliniani est, quern librariis pro exemplo tradidisti. Hie apud me est… At quadringenti codices qui ex tuo exemplo manarunt testes sunt.” And sig. ks: “… in margine codicis Pliniani qui apud me est.” For Calderini's and other contemporary humanists’ practice of referring to a printed edition as a “codex” see Rizzo, S., Il lessico Jilologico degli umanisti (Rome, 1973)Google Scholar 69ff.

34 Kenney, Classical Text 7 n. 2 and 10, where he is dependent on S. Rizzo, Il lessico filologico 160-61; and Istituo Nazionale di studi sul Rinascimento, Mostra del Poliziano nella Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana, ed. A. Perosa (Florence, 1954) passim (see esp. 13- 16, 20-21, 25-27). Poliziano based his collation of Pliny's Natural History on Perotti's 1473 edition (ibid. 22). See also Hunt, R. W. et al., The Survival of Ancient Literature (Oxford, 1975)Google Scholar, 89 n. 150.

35 Kenney, Classical Text 13, 18-19, 23-26. Cf Metzger, B., The Text oj the New Testament (Oxford, 1964)Google Scholar 103, “Subsequent editors, though making a number alterations in Erasmus’ text [editioprinceps of 1516], essentially reproduced this debased form of the Greek Testament. Having secured an undeserved preeminence, what came to be called the Textus Receptus of the New Testament resisted for 400 years all scholarly efforts to displace it in favour an earlier and more accurate text.”

36 Appendix I, sent. 15. I prove in n. 8 of “Platina, Capranica” (see n. 15 above) that Perotti worked with Pomponio Leto on Martial and Statius in 1469-1470.

37 In addition to the articles of Prete and Dihle cited in n. 12 above, see also Dunston, A.J., “Studies in Domizio Calderini,” Italia medioevale e umanistica, 11 (1968)Google Scholar: 7 1 - 150, at 127-37; Sabbadini, “Le edizioni quattrocentistiche” 443-45; and idem, “ Un Marziale ambrosiano,” Classici e umanisti da codici ambrosiani, (Florence, 1933) 53-66 (a revision of his “Spogli ambrosiani latini,” Studi italiani di filologia dassica, n [1903]: 166-388, at 329-42). An interesting problem connected with Perotti's classical scholarship is the large number of classical passages quoted in his Cornucopiae which are not to be found in any modern critical editions. Perotti is defended against the charge of wholesale fabrication by Oliver, R. P., “ ‘New Fragments’ of Latin Authors in Perotti's Cornucopiae,’ ” Transactions of the American Philological Association, 78 (1947)Google Scholar: 376- 424; and by Bertini, F., “Niccolò Perotti e il De compendiosa doctrina di Nonio Marcello,” Res Publica Litterarum, 4 (1981): 2741 Google Scholar.

38 I know of only one substantial humanist controversy concerning textual emendation before 1470: that on the text of Livy in which Lorenzo Valla, Bartolomeo Facio, and Antonio Beccadelli engaged in the 1440s at the south Italian court of King Alfonso of Aragon. See G. Billanovich and M. Ferrari, “Per la fortuna di Tito Livio nel Rinascimento italiano: Le Emendationes in T. Livium del Valla,” Italia medioevale e umanistica, 1 (1958): 245-64; and the introduction of M. Regoliosi to her edition of Valla, Lorenzo, Antidotum in Facium (Padua, 1981)Google Scholar xxv-xxvi, lxvii-lxxvii, and cxxiv-cxxxvii. Of interest for the ambience of the new generation of humanists is C. Dionisotti, “Calderini, Poliziano e altri,” Italia medioevale e umanistica, n (1968): 151-85.

39 Appendix, sent. 22-29.

40 Appendix, sent. 34.

41 The studies of Perotti's textual scholarship cited in notes 12 and 37 above do not touch on his treatment of chronology in the Cornucopiae and other writings. In her discussion of a somewhat different but related issue, humanist “datazione dei codici,” Rizzo, Il lessico filologico 147-68, drew most of her data from Poliziano, who generally viewed pre-fourteenth-century manuscripts as codices vetusti and manuscripts written in that century or the next codices novi. In the context of Perotti's remark concerning the ninth century, it is interesting to note that apart from excerpts and fragments, the earli est extant manuscripts of the Naturalis historia date from the ninth century; see Secundus, C. Plinius, Histore naturlle, Livre I, ed. tr. J. Beaujeau, introd. A. Ernout (Paris, 1950)Google Scholar 2off.

42 It is unclear exactly when Vitelli wrote his letter. I take the dating of the edition from IGI7418. The controversy provoked Francesco Patrizi to write and undated, 34 line poem entitled “Ad Perotum antistitem Sipontinum et Cornelium Bononium certantes inter se de epistola Plinii ad Titum Vespasianum,” which can be read in L. F. Smith, “A Notice of the Epigrammata of Francesco Patrizi, Bishop of Gaeta,” Studies in the Renaissance, 1$ (1968): 92-143, at 121-22 (see also 105-108). Vitelli addressed his letter to “Parthenius Benacensis.” There were three contemporaries, all connected wt*ii Rome, to whom this name could apply, but Vitelli's addressee is most probably Bartolomeo Partenio of Verona, who was a professor at the Sapienza in Rome at the same time as Pomponio Leto; see Nolhac, P. de, “Recherche sur un compagnon de Pomponius Laetus,” Ecole française de Rome, Mélanges d'archéologie et d'histoire, 6 (1886)Google Scholar: 139-46, at 140 (see also Sabbadini, “Un Marziale” 55 n. 3). For Vitelli see R. Weiss, “Cornelio Vitelli in France and England, ”Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, 2 (1938-1939): 219-26. See also Pozzi in Hermolai Barbari Castigationes Plinianae cxxxvi ff.; and Nauert, “Caius Plinius” 329-32, who gives excerpts from Vitelli's critique of Perotti.

43 For the editions of Perotti's letter see Nauert, “Caius Plinius” 328-29.

44 Approximately twenty-five classical editions were produced at Rome between 1465 and 1469; see Scrittura, 1.2, nums. 2-4, 6-8, 10-16, 18, 19, 21-29, 31.

45 The British Library in London does not contain all the classical editions produced in Europe outside of Rome before 1470, but it unquestionably has a high percentage of them. According to BMC, apart from editions of Donatus’ grammar, only two classical editions at Mainz (1: 16, 23-24), one at Strasbourg (1: 53), three at Cologne (1: 179- 81), and four at Venice (5: 152-53, 189) can be firmly dated before 1470. As far as I can tell, M. Flodr, Incunabula dassicomm (Amsterdam, 1973) adds only one definitively pre- 1470 classical edition missing from BMC(121, Cicero num. 315, published in Cologne). I also counted in BMCseven undated classical editions at Strasbourg and three at Cologne which may pre-date 1470. One may legitimately doubt whether Perotti was aware of even half of these editions.

46 Appendix, sent. 45-46.

47 Seen. 36 above.

48 See my “Bessarion Latinus,” and “Still More on Bessarion Latinus,” cited in n. 5 above.

49 See my “Il Perotti e la controversial.

50 Paul Il had scant interest in these literary quarrels. As Bussi himself admits, the pope did not even bother to read the prefaces which Bussi addressed to him (Miglio, in his edition of Bussi, Prefazioni lviii).

51 Merula's letter, first published in his In librum de homine Galeotti Martii, Venice, 1476, fols. 62-67v (Goff M-504; I used the copy of the Yale University Medical Library), was addressed to Antonio Vinciguerra (“Chronicus”), who apparently was in Rome at the time (see R. L. Rambaldi in Nuovo Archivio Veneto, ns 10.1 [1905]: 134) and was dated Venice, 28 February 1471 (in the subscription to the letter to Vinciguerra) and 1 March 1471 (in the subscription to the Emendationes proper). Merula sent only a sampling of errors, and asked Vinciguerra to show them to Bussi (“correctori ostendas”) to see if he could give a ratio for his shockingly frivolous method of emendation. Like Perotti, Merula also remarked on the claims in Bussi's preface, but unlike Perotti he also allotted some of the blame to Theodore Gaza (” Vix credere possumus duos eruditos viros … in turpissima errata fuisse prolapsos.“).

52 See Nauert, “Caius Plinius” 310 and 330; and F. Gabotto and A. Badini Confalonieri, “Vita di Giorgio Merula,” Rivista di storia, arte, archeologia dellaprovincia di Alessandria, 2 (1893): 5-66, 279-356, at 350ff., and in the reprint as a book (Alessandria, 1893) 1371F.

53 See Pozzi's introduction to Hermolai Barbari Castigationes Plinianae cxii ff.; and Nauert, “Caius Plinius” 338-48.

54 Information concerning Moreto is sparse. See Fulin, “Documenti” (above, n. 9), 135, num. 86; 137, num. 92; and 146-47, num. 118, recording Moreto's requests for privileges from the Venetian government for books he had printed or planned to print; and the same, “Nuovi documenti per servire alia storia della tipografia veneziana,” Archivio Veneto, 23 (1882): 390-404, where are published several lists of books with their prices which Moreto consigned to Domenico Gillio to sell in Padua in 1480. Fulin also publishes a second ducment dated Venice, 25 June 1507, in which Moreto contracted to become a partner in a compagnia for the purpose of printing works which would carry the marcha of the compagnia and the notice “per Baptistam de Tortis.” Billanovich, M., “Francesco Colonna, il Polifilo e la famiglia Lelli,” Italia medioevale e umanistica, 19 (1976)Google Scholar: 419-28, at 420 n. 5 cites a testament of 18 Sept. 1512, Venice, in which Moreto is named an executor. She also remarks that Moreto appears in other documents from the contrado of S. Giuliano, Venice. See also BMC, 7: 1142-1143; Querini, A.M., Specimen variae literaturae quae in urbe Brixia eiusque ditionepaulo post typographiae incunabula florebat, 2 parts in 1 vol. (Brescia, 1739)Google Scholar, 1: 55-56; A. Perosa, “L'edizione veneta di Quintiliano coi commenti del Valla, di Pomponio Leto e di Sulpizio da Veroli,” in Miscellanea Augusto Campana, 2 vols. (Padua, 1981) 575-610, at 608-610; and V. Cremona, “L'umanesimo bresciano,” in Storia di Brescia, 2 (Brescia, 1963): 539-95, at 556 and 560 (note that on 556 n. 4 he confuses the French scholar, Marc Antoine Muret with Moreto). Finally, P. O. Kristeller, Iter Italicum, 3 vols, to date (London-Leiden, 1963- 83), 1: 419, and 2: 270, reports manuscript copies of Moreto's letter to Iacopo Zeno (see n. 66 below), and 1: 255, and 2: 374, copies of Giano Parrasio's letter to Moreto (see n. 72 below).

55 Moreto's edition (Comucopiae linguae Latinae, Venice, Baptista de Tortis, 19 Oct. 1490) was the first to append the letter to Guarneri (fols. 287-291V) to the Comucopiae. Fol. 286v contains an undated letter of Marcantonio Sabellico to Moreto praising the Comucopiae and ending ”… antistitis nostri [i.e., Perotti] opus … ad me misisti quod quidem tu … diligenter recognitione adhibita rebusque perspicue digcstis accuratissime per hos dies imprimendum curaras.” For more information on this edition see the introduction in Appendix I and the listing in Appendix II. I used the copy of the New York Public Library. Moreto's was the third edition of the Comucopiae; see F.-R. Hausmann, “Martialis, Marcus Valerius,” Catalogus translationum et commentariorum, 4: 249-96, at 270. The first was only the year before, in 1489.

56 See the apparatus to sent. 23 in Appendix I.

57 According to T. Dibdin, Bibliotheca Spenceriana, 7 vols. (London, 1814-1823), 2: 417, Count [Karoly] Reviczky [ = von Revisnye] in his “MS. Memoranda” had noted this deplorable practice of Moreto (I could not find the quotation in Reviczky's Bibliotheca Graeca et Latina, 2nd ed. [Berlin, 1794]): “Ceterum hie ille est Antonius Moretus, immodicus propriijactator honoris, qui impudentia audaci epistolas Campani et Pompom Laeti ad alios scriptas suo nomini inscriptas publicare non est veritus.”

58 The letter in question is Campano's preface to the cardinal for the 1470 edition of Quintilian listed in n. 20 above (inc. Utinam quod nuper in Livio), which Moreto appropriated for the 1494, Venice edition of Quintilian (H 13654; BMC5: 393), and which then entered Ferno's edition of the opera (Rome, 1495, fol. 47) with the title “Censura in Quintiliani Institutiones.” The letter is found in J. Mencken's edition (Leipzig, 1707, 550-53) with the title “Ciceronis et Quintiliani comparatio;” and is duly listed as such in Hausmann's Giovanni Antonio Campano 414. Di Bernardo (see n. 20 above) accepts Moreto's fabrication as genuine, and compounds the error by confusing Campano's letter to Cardinal Francesco Todeschini-Piccolomini on pseudo- Qutntilian's Declamationes with his genuine preface to the same for Quintilian's Institutiones oratoriae (p. 208 n. 29; 240; also see the end of n. 20 above). But both Perosa (see the end of n. 54 above) and Farenga, P., “Le prefazioni alle edizioni romane di Giovanni Fillipo de Lignamine,” in Scrittura, biblioteche e stampa a Roma nel Quattrocento: Atti del 2° seminario, 6-8 maggio 1982, eds. M. Miglio, P. Farenga, and A. Modigliani, Littera Antiqua, III (Vatican City, 1983)Google Scholar 135-74, at 136 n. 5, saw and explained the falsification perpetrated by Moreto.

59 See Appendix II below for this edition of 11 May 1491. This must be the fabrication to which Reviczky referred in the eighteenth century (see n. 57 above).

60 See Appendix II for the edition of Isocrates and Herodotus of 1495.

61 Ibid., for the edition of 1492 June 18.

62 Ibid., for the edition of 1490 October 19; andn. 55 above.

63 Ibid., for the edition of 1475 April 30.

64 In addition to the 1490 edition of the Cornucopiae Moreto had a hand in the 1475 edition of Perotti's Rudimenta Grammatices; see n. 67 below.

65 The 1474 edition of Calderini's commentary on Martial carries his Defensio cum recriminatione against Perotti. The 1475 edition of Calderini's commentary on Juvenal has his Aduersus Brotheum against Perotti. Both editions contains postfaces of the editor, Giovanni Calfurnio, to Moreto; see Appendix II below.

66 See Appendix II below.

67 Ibid. The preface is edited in Querini, Specimen, II, 59-60: “… brevi epistola quemadmodum petieras quid de hoc sentirem, tibi declarare ut hunc [i.e., libellum] tu, qui es iuvenis doctissimus et omnia emendata excolis, impressoribus tuis quamprimum traderes et imprimendum diligenter, ut omnia consuevisti, curares.” On Calfurnio see my article, “Calfurnio's Identification of Pseudepigrapha,” in this issue. In V. Cian, “Un umanista bergamasco del Rinascimento,” Archivio storico lombardo, ser. 4, 14 (1910): 221-48, 239, Moreto is mentioned in the inventory of the books left by Calfurnio at his death in 1503: “… et domini Antonii Moreti, mercatoris librorum in civitate Veneciarum.”

68 See n. 65. Fol. 17ir _ v contains Calfurnio's epilogue to Moreto: “Domitii Calderini in Valerium Martialem commentarios ut diligenter recognoscerem tua partim adhortatio, partim nostra pervetus familiaritas impulit, quos a Romanis impressoribus adeo corruptos depravatosque inter emendandum invenimus ut nullum verbum nullaque vox in his integra fuerit aut in qua non aliquid erroris deprensum sit. Verum eo libentius id laboris suscipi quod ea maxima [correxi maxime] cura ac diligentia in imprimendis voluminibus uteris quod emendatum a correctoribus acceperis non solum accurate serves sed ut interdum melius efficias.”

69 See n. 65 above. The letter is edited in Dibdin, Bibliotheca Spenceriana 7: 98: “… Domitio … studiosi plurimum debeant, ut tibi quoque se debere fateantur necesse est qui curas et eniteris ut haec diligenter impressa ad studiosorum manus perveniant. Nam ceteri impressores qui tuo consilio non utuntur, libros depravare consueverunt, quod certe huic arti turpissimum est.”

70 See Appendix II below and Querini, Specimen, 1: 54. Moreto also made the original transcription of Calfurnio's commentary on the Heautontimorumenos (sig. & 8): “Insup er annotatiunculas quasdam perbreves in Heauton., te potissimum, quem plurimi facio, adhortante, adiunxi, quas, me ex tempore dictante, Antonius Moretus Brixiensis adolescens eruditissimus exscripsit, qui, ut sane de litteris Latinis bene meritus est, hae ut una cum Donato diligenter imprimerentur, curavit.”

71 I wish to thank Mrs. Phyllis Gordan for allowing me to consult her copy of this edition. In the preface (fol. 1), Regio speaks only of Moreto giving him Ognibene's commentary on the De officiis to correct; but the edition also contains works of Cicero and commentaries on the same (see Appendix Il below). The earlier edition about which Regio was complaining was that of Horace with the commentaries of Pseudo- Arco and Porphyrius printed after 13 August 1481 (HC 8878). Regio explains his approach to editing the commentary as follows; “Rogatu enim tuo quasdam in Ciceronis Officio expositiones ab Omnibono Vicentino, eloquentissimo litteratore, collectas ea lege suscepi corrigendas ut nihil ipse de meo adderem, superflua vero, siqua essent, adimerim.”

72 See his De rebus per epistolam quaesitis (I used the edition of 1567, Paris, 28-32, photocopies of which I owe to the kindness of Prof. Concetta Bianca); see also Querini, Specimen, 1: 55. Parrasio worked for Minuziano after coming to Milan in 1499. Neither Parco, F. Lo, Aulo Giano Parrasio: Studio biografico-critico (Vasto, 1899)Google Scholar, nor Delaruelle, L., “La séjour à Milan d'Aulo Giano Parrasio,” Archivio storico lombardo, 32 (1905)Google Scholar: 152-71, speak of Moreto.

73 See D. Schullian, “Valerius Maximus,” in Catalogus translationum et commentariorum, 5 (1984): 287-403, at 366.

74 See Appendix Il below.

75 On Becichemo see C. H. Clough in Dizionario biografico degli italiani, 7: 511-15; Cremona, “L'umanesimo bresciano” 557 ff.; and Nauert, “Gaius Plinius” 352-56. See Becichemo's Centuria epistolicarum quaestionum cap. 57 (I used the edition of Brescia, 1504, sig. qi, a photocopy of which Prof. Concetta Bianca sent me). This passage is also quoted by Querini, Specimen, 1: 55: “Facis tu, Morete mi, quod neque Tryphon, neque quisquam alius bibliopola priscis faciebat temporibus, ut non modo incorrecta serves auctorum monumenta, sed et ab erroribus obscuris et a paucissimis animadversis vendicare labores. De Apuleiani Asini titulo scribam, quod sentio. Tu Sabellicum nostrum et alios eruditos viros, qui quotidie ad te divertunt, consules, quodque magis vero proximum videbitur, sequeris.”

76 Ibid., and cap. 58, sig. q2r-v.

77 See Sabellico's Epistolarumfamiliarum libri XII (Venice, 1502) fol. 60v, which was the postface (sig. h6) to the edition of Sabellico's works De Latinae linguae reparatione, De situ urbis, and De praetorio officio printed c. 1494; see Appendix II below.

78 See the previous note.

79 The postface is on fol. 286v of the Comucopiae edition; it can also be read in Sabellico's Epistolaefamiliaefol. 61.

80 See Sabellico's preface to Cardinal Domenico Grimani excerpted in Nauert, “Caius Plinius” 345: “Quae res effecit ut amicorum quidam et in his Antonius Moretus, homo, ut nosti, nostratium litterarum perbelle eruditus, studiorumque fautor maximus, nunquam postea efflagitare a me destiterint ut Plinianas eiusmodi annotationes quam pressissime possem in ordinem redigerem, redactas in apertum referrem.”

81 Nauert, “Caius Plinius” 309 n. 40.

82 See Appendix II. In a preface of 6 Nov. 1493 (sig. a2v), he says: “Saepe enim vir egregius Antonius Moretus Brixiensis … [commentarium] a me petit itaque, et amico et occasioni satisfacere volui.”

83 Ibid., sig. aiv. Since the covering letter for this preface (see the next note) is dated 30 August and the edition is dated 6 July 1496, the preface must date to the summer of 1495: “Tu, mi Antoni Morette, Omnium (modo non invideant) consensu dignissimus iudicaveris … qui quicquid rei litterariae pro tuo exactissimo iudicio fore arbitr,aris adiumento, diligenter vel anxie potius investigas et vel ab invitis dominis extorques, tradis impressoribus, et, ut quam optime ac emendatissime imprimantur, operam das, non minus pro tarn ardenti in Latinam linguam studio et in literas ac doctos omnes observantia habiturus apud posteros non minus quam aut Triphon ille bibliopola … Ego tamen debeamne tibi, quod nostras in Rhetoricos ad Herennium date impressoribus enarratiunculas et voluisti et properasti, non satis scio, quippe qui vereor ne, dum consulere portasse famae credis, malivolorum et invidorum lacerandum ineptis potius obiicias voculis.”

84 One colophon (fol. 70v, after the Panepistemon)) reports Venice, Christophorus de Pensis, the other colophon is on fol. 64 after Vitruvius. The edition contains Vitruvius, De architectura; Poliziano, Panepistemon and Lamia; Frontinus, De aquaeductibus. C 6269; BMC, 5: 474; IGI10347; Goff V-307; seen at Avery Library (Columbia University) and the Huntington Library. Pace BMC, I doubt this is the edition for which a privilege was granted Francesco Cattaneo on 24 November 1495 by the Venetian government (Fulin, “Documenti” [above, n. 9], 119, num. 39); also see L. A. Ciapponi, “Vitruvius,” in the Catalogus translationum et commentariorum (above, n. 13), 3 (1976): 399-409, at 401 col. 2. In a letter to Moreto of 30 August, Vicenza (1495), published in the 1496 edition of his commentary on the Ad Herennium Maturanzio stated: “Misi ad te epistolam quam addas enarrationibus illis nostris in Rhetoricos ad Herennium… . Quando acceperis pergratum erit si admonebis et simul Vitruvium tuum iandiu per tot viros clarissimos recognitum nos transmittas velim.”

Another neglected piece of information concerning the first edition of Vitruvius (Rome, c. i486, printer unknown) is a statement of Ioannes Britannicus Brixiensis in a letter of i486 to Hieronymus Advocatus Ambrosii Iurisconsulti, edited by Querini, Specimen, 1: 118-20, in which Britiannicus tells Hieronymus (119): “Fecisti enim tua industria, studio, et labore ut Vitruvius de Architectura, qui iam tot saeculis in lucem caput suum proferre non audebat, quod ex omni parte mancum, lacerum, mutilatum se sentiebat, nunc politus, purus, integer hue et illuc gestiat meare, omnibus cams occurrat, omnibus gratus excipiatur.”

85 E.g., see Appendix II for the editions of Iason Mainus c. 1489, of Pliny the Younger c. 1492, of Antonius Guainerius in 1500, and of Becichemo in 1506 below. From Fulin, “Documenti” (above, n. 54), we know that on 29 October 1498 Moreto gained privileges for the printing of “Antonio de Butrio, Socino, Jason, Capella, li testi di Aristotele traducti per Argiropulo cum commenti … le opere del Mirandola, la defension Platonica [Bessarion?]; Ascanio et Probo, Fortunatiano, el Savonarola et Polibio.” Except for Iason Mainus, I have not found Moreto's name in editions of these authors though I have not methodically explored all possible candidates. In a document of 17 September 1502, he obtained a privilege for editions of “Rasis, Marsilio [of Inghen? Ficino?], Aretino [Bruni?], Strabone, Temistio, Cipriano, tutti i commenti di Avicenna e di Aristotile.”

86 I note here Querini's quotation (Specimen, 1: 88) from what he called Moreto's preface to his Adnotationes to Horace's Ars poetica. I have found no evidence of these adnotationes. Querini cites no source; I suspect he is guilty of some sort of error.

87 For example, in 1506 at Venice, Bernardo de’ Vitali printed an edition of Marino Becichemo's opera which Becichemo had personally entrusted to Moreto because the first edition at Brescia the year before had been so filled with errors. See Appendix II for this edition. Clough (above n. 75) 512, comments on this second edition by Moreto that “anche questa e piena di errori tipografici.”