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Poliziano as a Translator of Plotinus
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 20 November 2018
Extract
Although the Renaissance poet and humanist Angelo Poliziano (1454-1494) is generally considered a member of Ficino's Platonic Academy, and himself lectured extensively on the Organon of Aristotle at the Florentine Studio, he repeatedly disclaimed any pretension to being a philosopher. It is no great surprise, consequently, to find that the Index to Angeli Politiani Opera, published in Basel in 1553, contains only one reference under the name of Plotinus, the great and difficult philosopher whom Ficino introduced to the Latin West.
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References
1 Maïer, Ida, Ange Politien: La formation d'un poète humaniste (1469-1480) (Geneva, 1966), pp. 432-35.Google Scholar Cf. the table in the Appendix.
2 Maïer, , Ange Politien, pp. 372ff.Google Scholar
3 Reprinted as Volume I of the Opera Omnia, ed. I. Maïer (Turin, 1971). Our references to Opera refer indiscriminately to either edition.
4 Cf. Waschbüsch, Alfons, Polizian: Ein Beitrag zur Philosophie des Humanismus (Munich, 1972)Google Scholar, in which the correspondence between the passages in Poliziano and Plotinus is also noted (pp. 106-107, 209-11). Waschbüsch, however, fails to notice the extent and closeness of the correspondence, the apparent textual corruption of Poliziano's text, and the latter's divergences from Ficino's translation. In fact, he suggests that Poliziano may actually be copying from Ficino's published translation (p. 107). He also mistakenly dates the Dialectica minor in the academic year 1493-1494 (pp. 88-89), thus assuming the anomaly of two Praelectiones in that year, and none in 1491-1492.
5 Not in 1493, as is commonly thought. See the Appendix.
6 “Dialectica nobis in manibus, non ilia quidem, quae ars una omnium artium maxima dicitur, eademque purissima philosophiae pars est, quaeque se supra disciplinas omnes explicat, omnibus vires accommodat, omnibus fastigium imponit.” (Opera, p. 528).
7 “Ilia enim (si Plotino credimus Platonicorum summo) praestat, ut ratione quadam de quovis dicere possimus, quod sit, quo differat ab alio, in quo conveniat… . ” (Opera, p. 528).
8 See Lexicon Plotinianum, eds. J. H. Sleeman and G. Pollet (Leiden, 1980), s.v. διαλεxτιή. Somewhat surprisingly, the word occurs only in Enneads I, 3.
9 Included in his La dialettica e la retorica dell'Umanesimo (Milan, 1968), pp. 116-31. This is a reworking of an earlier essay under the same title published in Il Poliziano e il suo tempo: Atti del IV Convegno Internazionale di Studi sul Rinascimento (Florence, 1957), pp. 161-72.
10 Vasoli, La dialettica, pp. 123-4. In the earlier version of his article he quotes the entire translation as Poliziano's own words, noting the resemblance of dialectic thus conceived to “le interpretazioni plotiniane” (p. 167).
11 Marcel, Raymond, Marsile Ficin (1433-1499) (Paris, 1958), p. 504.Google Scholar
12 Marcel, , Marsile Ficin, p. 507.Google Scholar See also Kristeller, P. O., Supplementum Ficinianum (Florence, 1937), I, cxxviii.Google Scholar
13 Paul Henry and Hans-Rudolf Schwyzer, eds., Plotini opera, I (Paris, 1951), p. 76. With one slight exception, we have reproduced the Greek as printed in Henry-Schwyzer, since their text does not here differ from that of the manuscripts used by either Ficino (A and its copy F; see Henry-Schwyzer's Praefatio) or Poliziano (probably R, as we shall argue below). The exception is only one of punctuation; Henry-Schwyzer prints a comma after βλέπει at 4.18, correctly indicating that the verb should be taken absolutely. Ficino, however, construes it as governing πραγματεíαv, which presupposes no punctuation between the verb and its object. Poliziano fails to translate the verb altogether.
14 Plotini Opera: latina interpretatio. (Florentiae, 1492).
15 The order of the words in Ficino's text is nutriens animam in ipso veritatis campo.
16 Is in se ipsa based on reading εìς έαυτήv in the Greek text?
17 Vasoli, “Il Poliziano” (1957 version), p. 167 quotes the text as reading agitans, with a note explaining: “Il testo dell'ed. reca ‘agitantem.’ Ma è evidente l'errore di trascrizione.” Even with the emendation, however, the text still requires a main verb after sed, balancing the quaerit of the preceding clause. The missing verb would correspond to Plotinus’ βλέπει (Ficino's prospkit).
18 The text of 1553 at this point faithfully reflects the earliest publication of the Dialectica minor, found in the Aldus edition of the Opera of 1498.
19 See Bonitz, H., Index Aristotelicus (Berlin, 1870)Google Scholar, s.v. (col. 763b 24ff.): “Sicuti autem Ovσíα πρὡτως xαì xvρíως cernitur in ea forma, quae notione ac definitione exprimitur, ita prope ubivis τò τí ὲστιv ad formam rei notione definiendam pertinet. “For Plotinus’ use of the Aristotelian phrase, cf. Lexicon Plotinianum s.v. τíς (d).
20 He does not scruple, however, to use theoremata for θεωρήματα at 5.11.
21 On varietas as a mark of Poliziano's style, see Maïer, Ange Politien, pp. 203-18.
22 Malagoli, Luigi, “Il Poliziano poeta,” in Il Poliziano e il suo tempo, pp. 41–55.Google Scholar
23 That is, Vaticanus Reginensis Graecus 97.
24 That is, Oxoniensis Collegii Corporis Chnsti Graecus 117.
25 Henry, , Les manuscrits, p. 133.Google Scholar
26 Henry, , Les manuscrits, p. 126-28.Google Scholar See also Henry-Schwyzer, , Plotini opera, I, xvi Google Scholar, “R2 corrector, qui iam usus est interpretatione Ficini 1492, totum codicem emendavit.”
27 According to Henry, , Les manuscrits, p. 126 Google Scholar, the note ὄρoς διαλεxτιής is one of only five annotations by R2 in the first three Enneads. Moreover, it is the only one indicating the subject under discussion in the text.
28 Marcel, , Marsile Ficin, p. 504.Google Scholar
29 On Sept. 1, 1491, for example, he borrowed a copy of Hippocrates from Lorenzo's library ( Maïer, , Ange Politien, p. 433 Google Scholar).
30 On the year, see Appendix. As to the date, see Maïer, p. 45, “Tous les ans, le 18 octobre les lectores du Studio se presentaient devant leur auditoire avec une praelectio ou leçon d'ouverture de leurs cours.”