Latin textual criticism

Catullus's book of poems starts with a small but controversial textual problem: in the second line of the first poem should modern editors write 'arido ... pumice' or 'arida ... pumice' (meaning 'with dry pumice-stone')? This article offers a fresh study of this problem, in the first place by re-examining the evidence available: the witnesses who write 'arido', the quotation of the passage by the fourteenth-century antiquarian writer Guglielmo da Pastrengo, who writes 'arida', and the testimony of Servius. I argue that the evidence of these testimonia is inconclusive, and on their basis alone one could write either form; however, the reading 'arido ... pumice' with 'pumex' used surprisingly in the feminine is strongly supported by the existence of a group of Latin nouns of the third declension the gender of which is also flexible.

This article has appeared in "Quaderni Urbinati di Cultura Classica" 109 (2015), 137-152. The attached file contains a pre-publication version.

Commento analitico ai capitoli 75-77 del Satyricon, porzione del romanzo petroniano nota come "autobiografia di Trimalchione". La figura letteraria di Trimalchione è stata costruita da Petronio come rappresentante di un preciso ceto sociale: quello dei liberti arricchiti presenti nell'area commerciale campana che aspirano ad un riconoscimento nel tessuto sociale grazie alle loro cospicue possibilità economiche.

An overview of the variety of textual differences that exist between the Apocalypse in Codex Sinaiticus and the book in modern critical editions, thereby offering a window into the book's early readership. There is also a YouTube link to the lecture version of this paper, which was recently delivered at Samford University for their Holley Hull Lecture Series: https://vimeo.com/878444925/a35492dd8b?share=copy&fbclid=IwAR10Iu7HKuAjjcEcDdxgfT7XKqe2F6W6Bwb1cVHafNO0Yz6g4VhsIhXHMz4

'This paper is devoted to three problems regarding the lost Codex Veronensis (V), from which all manuscripts of Catullus famously descend.
  First, it studies the problem of the identity of the Codex Veronensis. Our only piece of direct evidence for its existence is an epigram by Benvenuto dei Campesati that celebrates the "resurrection" of Catullus, that is, the triumphant return of a copy of his poems to his hometown Verona. Most recent scholars have taken this enigmatic epigram to refer to the archetype of the tradition, and they have accepted Campesani's claim that it actually returned to Verona; but both the identification of the manuscript with the archetype and the truthfulness of Campesani's statement have been called into question. This paper argues that the majority view is very likely correct.
  The second part of the paper touches on the notorious problem whether all of Catullus' humanistic manuscripts descend from the Codex Veronensis. It offers evidence that the 'base text' of all of them descends from the lost sub-subarchetype X. However, this evidence does not enable us to eliminate the possibility of contamination from a source not descended from V.
  The third part of the paper puts to the test the old hypothesis that the exceptionally bad quality of the manuscripts of Catullus can be ascribed to V, or at any rate to a very late stage of the transmission. It offers proof that the text started to be damaged extensively at an early date, very likely already in Antiquity.'

An earlier version of the paper was delivered at the international conference 'What Catullus Wrote' in Munich on 21 May 2011. A lightly revised version has appeared in print in the volume 'What Catullus Wrote'.

The publication of Josef Schmid's landmark work on the textual history of the Apocalypse seemingly established the Andreas Text Type as a fourth-century product. The primary evidence for Schmid's claim came from the fourth-century corrections of the Apocalypse in Codex Sinaiticus, corrections which bore a close resemblance to the Andreas text of the Apocalypse. Schmid's reconstruction, however, is flawed. The fourth-century corrections he identified are actually from the seventh-century. The data supporting a fourth-century Andreas text type does not exist. Schmid's widely influential error appears to have been based on a misreading of Milne and Skeat's "Scribes and Correctors of the Codex Sinaiticus."

A short article on the origin and development of the longer Trinitarian text of 1 John 5:7-8 as found in the Textus Receptus. The typos that are present in this draft will be corrected before the final version is submitted for publication. These include: Lachman > Lachmann; 1881 > 1831; Montifortianus > Montfortianus; [Ayuso] Ionneum > Ioanneum; [Bludau 1903-1] Bibeldruchen > Bibeldrucken; [Bludau 1919-1] den Glaubensbekenntnis > dem Glaubensbekenntnis; [Fischer] pseudo-autustinischen > pseudo-augustinischen; obiectarum. > obiectarum.’; [Rivière] es trois > des trois. Thanks to Jeff Cate, Peter Gurry, and especially Jan Krans for alerting me to these when it was originally posted on academia in 2015. The data of this DRAFT will also fully updated and footnoted in the 2020 peer-reviewed version in "Early Christianity."

Emendations to Catullus' poems:
•frg. 14b: as Avantius (1502) suggested, insert after 16.13, the corruption explained paleographically.
•43.5: suggested deletion on paleographical grounds.
•frg. 58b: insert after 55.14, the corruption explained paleographically.
•55.17 read: non qui Pegaseo ferar uolatu.
•55.15-18: explained one-breath references to Talos, Ladas, Perseus, and Rhesus.
•55.4 read: te in circo, te in moenibus Cybebes.
•55.9 read: "occultastis" sic reflagitabam.
•55.11 read: quaedam <"en, en"> inquit sinum reduc<ens>.
•55.27-8 read: cum te lacteolae tenent puellae / sic linguam clauso tenens in ore.
•55.32 defended the sense of nostri.
•55: few words about peculiarities of the metre.

This paper reviews the seven manuscript witnesses for the Collectio canonum Sanblasiana, a large and ancient collection of Latin canons dating to about the year 500. Included are catalogues of the manuscripts' contents, assessments of their codicology, and a (preliminary) attempt to establish their place in the textual tradition of the Sanblasiana.

This new edition (currently in early draft) aims to replace that of H.J. Schmitz, now nearly 120 years old. It is based on a fresh assessment of all the available manuscript evidence as well as recent research into source material. The edition will include indices, commentary, translation (English), and exhaustive source information. A draft edition is currently available here for viewing or download as a PDF. More information available at http://individual.utoronto.ca/michaelelliot/manuscripts/texts/poenitentiale_ecgberhti.html.

This note argues in favour of pectus auorsum in FRHist F , which is the reading attested in all Nonian manuscripts, and against the commonly accepted conjecture pectus aduorsum, which is nothing other than an easily explicable simplification.

In this paper, I provide a new way to read the “Sabine” gloss in Varro LL 5.97 substantiated by philological and linguistic arguments. While Varro explains Lat. porcus ‘pig’ as a loan word either from “Sabine” (apruno porco) or Greek (πορκη πορκος), it is clear that porcus is inherited from PIE. Based on the findings that both Lat. porcus as well as Umbr. abron- denote only the domesticated pig (and not the wild boar, as Lat. aper does), it is likely that the gloss apruno porco is Sabellic (Oscan) and denotes the “male domesticated pig”. It is furthermore argued that Gk. πόρκος ‘(kind of fish trap)’ is named after its pig-like shape and is thus cognate with Lat. porcus ‘pig’ etc.

A review of A Gospel Synopsis of the Greek Text of Matthew, Mark and Luke: A Comparison of Codex Bezae and Codex Vaticanus. Edited by Jenny Read-Heimerdinger and Josep Rius-Camp, in collaboration with Enric Muñarch. Leiden: Brill, 2014. Pp. xxi + 315. Cloth, $240.00.

This new edition (currently in early draft) aims to replace that of P.W. Finserwalder, now nearly 100 years old. It is based on a fresh assessment of the manuscript evidence, and is the first edition to present together the texts of the Canones Basilienses, the Canones Cottoniani, the Capitula Dacheriana, the Canones Gregorii, and the Paenitentiale Umbrense, the latter also being presented for the first time in its original single-book form (rather than the later two-book form). The edition will include indices, commentary, translation (English), and exhaustive source information. Draft editions of all five versions (without sources) are available here for viewing or download as a PDF. More information, including a synoptic edition (wherein the chapters of all five versions are presented together in a single table) can be found at http://individual.utoronto.ca/michaelelliot/manuscripts/texts/iudicia_theodori.html.

(The file available below is a pre-print version. If you would like a copy of the published version [which has different pagination] for the purposes of private study, please message/email me. The published version is available for preview at www.academia.edu/29411014/Proceedings_of_the_Fourteenth_International_Congress_of_Medieval_Canon_Law_Monumenta_Iuris_Canonici_series_C_Subsidia_vol._15_, and for sale through the BAV at www.vatlib.it/home.php?pag=detteditoria&idogg=MIC_15.)

The Wigorniensis, the one major canonical collection known to have been compiled in Anglo-Saxon England, has been the subject of much controversy and confusion over the last five hundred years. The edition published in 1999 represents the culmination of several scholars’ efforts at the end of the twentieth century to resolve some of this confusion. However, the editors’ decision to edit only about half of the collection’s content ensured that much about the collection would remain obscure. The present paper seeks to bring attention to the collection in its entirety, and explores some of the problems still surrounding the collection’s origin, authorship, and later development. It is argued that the original version of the collection (‘A’, or the versio primitiva) probably originated outside the control of Wulfstan, Bishop of Worcester (1002 – 1016) and Archbishop of York (1002 – 1023), but that all subsequent versions represent successive Wulfstanian adaptations of the original core. The collection’s textual tradition is examined and found to be, apparently, chaotic. A solution to this apparent chaos is proposed based on the peculiar conditions of manuscript production current in Worcester during Wulfstan’s pontificate, wherein individual gatherings (‘booklets’) were copied and combined in different ways to produce larger composite volumes of canonical material. It is suggested that other early medieval collections exhibiting symptoms of Ursprungskontamination similar to those of the Wigorniensis may have been produced under similar conditions.

This review article discusses two commentaries on Tacitus' Annals: The Annals of Tacitus, Book 4. Edited with a Commentary by A.J. Woodman (CUP 2018, Cambridge Classical Texts and Commentaries 58) and Tacitus, Annals, Book XV. Edited by Rhiannon Ash (CUP 2018, Cambridge Greek and Latin Classics).

In Catull. 63.40 read "lustravit aethera altum". In Ennius read: "interea sol altus recessit in infera noctis".

Note: after publishing the article, I have discovered that this same conjecture for Catull. 63.40 was already suggested by Frölich in the 19th century.

The poems of Catullus barely managed to survive the Middle Ages. All surviving copies of the collection derive from an extremely corrupt manuscript, and scholars have been working since the Renaissance to reconstruct the original text. This volume aims to contribute to this effort. Its six authors represent different generations of scholarship and of academic tradition. They here study aspects of the manuscript tradition of the poems and their editorial history as well as contributing directly to the reconstruction of the text. The volume aims to set an example of a collaborative approach to textual criticism, in which significant choices are based not on the judgement of a single authoritative editor, but on the outcome of debate between scholars who represent a broad range of viewpoints.

The so-called “Commonplace Book” of Archbishop Wulfstan refers to a family of manuscripts that preserves a corpus of miscellaneous material ostensibly assembled by Wulfstan in the first two decades of the eleventh century. Despite its immense importance to the field of Anglo-Saxon studies, the Commonplace Book remains poorly understood as a coherent textual entity in its own right. Little is yet known of the conditions of its production or the principles behind its organization. Almost nothing is known about exactly how and by whom (other than Wulfstan) it was used. This study attempts to shed some light on the first two issues, namely the method of production and principles of organization of the Commonplace Book. In considering these issues, some interesting aspects of Wulfstan’s literary and editorial habits are brought to light. Several Latin texts authored by Wulfstan are also edited here for the first time.

The purpose of this paper is to reconsider a hitherto neglected fragment which Priscian (6.21 = Gramm. II 212, 23 - 213, 6 Hertz) attributes to a play by the Atellane playwright Pomponius entitled Lar familiaris “The Household-God”. First, I discuss the grammatical context of the fragment (concentrating on the noun lactes “small intestines”), the title of the play, and the content of the fragment (including the comic supplication of the unnamed speaker); then, I focus on the textual problems surrounding the sexual term uaso (OLD s.v. “one having a large male sexual organ”), which is otherwise unattested in extant Latin literature, and which is, in fact, Otto Ribbeck’s imaginative emendation in his attempt to make sense of the difficult manuscript readings in Priscian’s text. I argue against this conjecture and the various interpretations that have been put forth so far in relation to this fragment, and propose my own emendation and reading of the fragment based on an entirely new examination of the early medieval manuscripts of Priscian.

Varro, "De lingua Latina" V 49: iam diu enim late avaritia unae est - versio Latina. Commentatio primum Polonice scripta et publici iuris facta anno 2012 in "Glosy filologiczno-filozoficzne na marginesie prac Profesora Juliusza Domańskiego w 85 rocznicę Jego urodzin" (ISBN 978-83-933962-3-8, ISBN 978-83-931033-9-3), pp. 45-54.