Studia Humanitatis: Essays in Honour of Marianne Pade on the Occasion of her Sixty-Fifth Birthday 8 March 2022
Nordic Journal of Renaissance Studies 18 • 2022
Abstracts
Giancarlo Abbamonte & Fabio Stok
Sulle orme di Pomponio Leto: Il commento alle Georgiche di Aurelio Lippo Brandolini
Pomponio Leto inaugurated a new way of interpreting Virgil's Georgics. He made use of technical works of the classical literature (Theophrastus' works on plants, Columella, Varro, Pliny the Elder, Strabo for geography, etc.), in order to comment on Georgics. Aurelio Brandolini, who was probably in touch with Leto during his stay in Rome (c. 1480-1490), wrote an unpublished commentary on the Georgics, which is today the ms. Vatican City, Bibliotheca Apostolica Vaticana, Vat. lat. 2740. This commentary already presents many aspects of the new trend in Georgics inaugurated by Leto.
Lorenzo Amato
"I più dolci di stile che ci sieno": Le Lune o Endimioni di Giovan Battista Strozzi il Giovane: Edizione critica e commento
The ms. Vatican City, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, Barb. Lat. 3996 contains an anthology of poems written by Giovan Battista Strozzi the Younger (1551-1634) destined to cardinal Pietro Aldobrandini. In a letter in the volume, the poet calls the ten madrigals entitled The Moons some of the "sweetest in style" that he had ever written. The madrigals describe a night scene with Selene (the moon, Strozzi's alter ego) staring at a dormant Endymion (probably Torquato Malaspina). They show a typically manneristic taste for repetition. This article will present a critical edition based on the Barberini manuscript and two autographs complete with with an introduction and full commentary of the poems.
Anders Kirk Borggaard
Dennom til villie som Latinen icke vel kunde forstaa: Translating as an act of confessionalisation in Niels Hanssøn Saxild's Danish translation of Hans Olufsøn Slangerup's In obitum Friderici II Oratio Funebris
This article explores how Niels Hanssøn Saxild translated Hans Olufsøn Slangerup's Latin oration on the death of King Frederik II into Danish for the benefit of a readership outside the academic environment. Inspired by Marianne Pade's identification of a "confessionalised" translation practice influenced by the educational ideals of the protestant Reformation, it is argued that Saxild produced a translation that was not only confessionalised but also confessionalising, as it aimed at providing his readers with easily adoptable lessons on Lutheran theology.
Julia Haig Gaisser
Poets at the St. Anne Altar: Self-reflection in the Coryciana
The early sixteenth-century Roman humanists wrote reams of occasional verse, ringing changes on themes provided by particular topics. In the Coryciana (1524), around 130 poets celebrated Andrea Sansovino's sculpture of St. Anne, the Virgin, and the infant Jesus on an altar commissioned by Johannes Goritz (Corycius) in the church of Sant'Agostino. They treated the numinous power of the statues, the generosity of Goritz, and the artistry of Sansovino, but also their own role as interpreters. This paper suggests that the poets present themselves as creators of the altar on a par with Goritz and Sansovino, as essential participants in the religious occasion, and as part of a divinely inspired human trinity.
Peter Gillgren
John III Vasa and Uppsala Cathedral as a Renaissance Mausoleum
When Uppsala Cathedral was refurbished in the late sixteenth century, John III Vasa made sure that the Vasa dynasty, his own closest allies and the just fight against Eric XIV were prominently displayed. The presence of the national saints St Eric and St Bridget were retained. Side-altars were kept and built in the newly furnished chapels, interconnecting them with the service at the high altar. One single artist, Willem Boy, was made responsible for the most important works. The campaign connected Uppsala Cathedral with continental prototypes, while contrasting with the ideals of Swedish funerary chapels in the following Baroque period.
Paul Gwynne
A Play by Pomponio Leto: Vatican City, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, Vat.lat. 7192, fols 297r–298v
The miscellany BAV, Vat. lat. 7129 once in the possession of the humanist and antiquarian Angelo Colocci (1474-1549) contains a single bifolio un-related to any of the surrounding texts (fols 297r–298v). This paper argues that the text (a free Latin verse translation of a Lucianic dialogue) is a fragment of a play performed by members of the Roman Academy, and furthermore, that it is an autograph sheet written in the hand of polymath Pomponio Leto (Pomponius Laetus, 1425–1498).
Annet den Haan
From sedes to solium: Dating the Bible translations of Giannozzo Manetti (1396–1459)
In the 1450s, the Florentine humanist Giannozzo Manetti (1396-1459) translated the Psalter and the New Testament into Latin. These translations were part of a larger translation project, originally intended to comprise the entire Bible, which Manetti took up at the court of Pope Nicholas V (1447-1455). It is unclear when each part of the translation was written, and which one was made first. This paper explores the possibilities of using Manetti's lexical choices to reconstruct the translation process and to come to a relative dating of his Psalter and his New Testament.
James Hankins
How to Avoid a Revolution: Francesco Patrizi of Siena on Stability in Republican Regimes
Francesco Patrizi of Siena (1413-1494), the greatest political philosopher of the fifteenth century, was the first to make extensive use of the flood of new Latin translations of Greek historical, biographical, ethnographical and philosophical writings produced by quattrocento Italian humanists after 1400. This article explores how he exploits these fresh sources to produce new answers to a problem posed by Aristotle in Politics 5-6: how best to ensure the stability of "political" or power-sharing regimes.
Maria Fabricius Hansen
Fireworks and Allegorical Festival Culture in Sixteenth-Century Italy
Fireworks became an important part of festival culture in the sixteenth century, both celebrations at court and festivals connected to religious holidays. This essay considers the forms and uses of fireworks as well as how audiences perceived them. What may today be seen as mere explosions of fire and light tended to be understood allegorically in sixteenth-century Europe. Fireworks contributed to a wider, complex production of meaning at festivals, typical of the visual culture of the period and grounded in reigning concepts of nature and its materials.
Trine Arlund Hass & Sine Grove Saxkjær
Pope Julius II and Gaius Julius Caesar: The powerful, pliable past
This paper explores how the reputation and achievements of Gaius Julius Caesar were used to stage the della Rovere pope Julius II (1443-1513, pope from 1503). Assuming that the pontifical name to be more than merely an adequate translation of his given name, Giuliano, the paper first examines the role of Julius Caesar's architectural plans in the building programme of Pope Julius II's, next presents a reading of the eclogue "Damon" written by the Venetian humanist Andrea Navagero, suggesting that Navagero establishes Julius II as an emulated Caesar in his poem.
Christine Jeanneret
Invisible Music: Hearing and Listening in the Early Modern World
At Rosenborg Castle in Copenhagen, Christian IV used two of his favourite artforms, music and architecture, to create his invisible music, a sonic technology that left his visitors astonished. This surprising listening experience gives historians and sensory and performance studies scholars the perfect tool to study early modern hearing and listening practices. The dissociation of sound from its source was experienced as a marvellous sound technology. The diffusion of music through sonic vents in the castle created a spatialization of music that required the perambulation of the listeners, creating a full bodily experience. The staging and performativity of this extraordinary listening experience also brings new insights into court and privacy studies.
Minna Skafte Jensen
Marin Barleti (c. 1460–after 1512) and the System of Patronage
The Albanian humanist Marin Barleti composed his works as an exile in Venice. With his first book, De Obsidione Scodrensi, 1504, he applied to the doge for patronage, but does not seem to have had success, perhaps understandably. An analysis of his work reveals how he omitted most of the flattery that would have been expected; while in general he praises Venice, much unexpressed criticism of the city is to be found between the lines.
Andrew Laird
Latin letters and an Amerindian vernacular: The creation of Nahuatl literature in early colonial Mexico
Literature in Nahuatl was engendered by the interaction between Latin and Nahuatl after the Spanish incursion into Mexico. Missionaries initially viewed Amerindian tongues as vernaculars - from which Latin, constituted from written letters, was categorically distinct. But the dominant directionality of translation from Latin to Nahuatl characterised the practical relation between the two languages, and an illustrative review of specific texts shows that Nahuatl literature, conveyed by the Roman alphabet, was generated from a culture of translation. Although that literature has many distinctive features, its emergence in the 1500s followed the template of the earlier rise of vernacular writing in Europe.
Marc Laureys
Poetic crisis talks between Constantinople and Rome
In two verse epistles, written in the months leading up to Pius II's ill-fated journey to Ancona (June-July 1464), Nicolaus de Valle (1444-1473), a Roman humanist and translator of Homer and Hesiod, put on stage Constantinople and Rome as two sisters, the former in dire straits, the latter rushing to help. The two epistolary poems constitute a hitherto little noticed contribution to the debate surrounding a new crusade against the Turks in the aftermath of the fall of Constantinople and evince at the same time the early humanistic reception of Ovid's Heroides, in combination with a variety of other literary sources.
Outi Merisalo
"Iam nouus in terras alto descendit Olympo Iuppiter": Patronage and propaganda in the time of Leo X (1513–1521)
Giovanni de' Medici (1475-1521), son of Lorenzo il Magnifico, was destined to a brilliant ecclesiastical career that eventually led him to the Holy See as pope Leo X (1513-1521). His reign, marked by wars and the emergence of protestantism, was also a period of intense artistic activity in Rome, with Raphael, Michelangelo, Sangallo as well as a plethora of humanist authors engaged in celebrating Leo's feats. This article explores Leo's patronage and propaganda, in particular through an analysis of one of the numerous poems dedicated to him by Giano Vitale Castalio of Naples (Ianus Vitalis Castalius, c. 1485-c. 1560) at the beginning of his pontificate.
Giovanna Murano
Una miscellanea astrologico-astronomica
The surviving part of the rich collection of scientific manuscripts that once belonged to the library of San Marco in Florence was described at the beginning of the last century by the Danish palaeographer and historian of mathematics Axel Anton Bjørnbo (1874-1911). Despite the importance of San Marco library, this section is the only one to have been described in a systematical way. This article will focus on the ms. Florence, Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale, Conv. Soppr. J. III. 28 (San Marco 180), one of the manuscripts described by Bjørnbo. Palaeographical and textual evidence suggest that this miscellany was one of the sources of Coluccio Salutati's astronomical and astrological knowledge and that he probaby used it for his De fato et fortuna.
Susanna Niiranen
"Optime educatus": Book historical perspectives on Prince Sigismund's education in sixteenth-century Sweden
The article analyses some aspects of writing in Prince Sigismund Vasa's (1566-1632) education in the latter half of sixteenth-century Sweden. The focus is on the rare, hand-written material of his youth, which reflects the educational ideals, practices and strategies in the inter-confessional Jagiellon-Vasa family and at their court(s) in the context of a complex political situation. One example is young Sigismund's salutation to the Pope included in her mother's, Catherine Jagiellon's (1526-1583), letter. In addition, two letters held at the Riksarkivet (Swedish National Archives), Stockholm, categorized as "royal autographs" are explored and transcribed for the first time.
Francesca Niutta
Un nuovo codice per Pio II
This paper adds a new item to the library of Pius II. A hitherto unknown manuscript that was dedicated to the pope when he was staying in Siena on his return from the diet of Mantua in 1460 has recently appeared on the antiquarian book market. It is the presentation copy of a little-known dialogue by Girolamo Aliotti; it offers a point of view on the outcome of the crusade which is quite different from the numerous texts on this subject. The coat of arms on the first leaf resembles coats of arms on some other manuscripts connected to Pius II and painted by an unidentified artist.
Patricia Osmond
Rescuing the Remains of Sallust's Historiae: From Petrarch to Perotti
After the last known copy of Sallust's Historiae (covering the period 78-67 BC) perished in the early Middle Ages, little was remembered of this "plenissima" and "perpetua" history. But we see a reawakening of interest in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries: in Petrarch's praises of the work; in the efforts of humanists, especially Pomponio Leto, to preserve and publish the larger fragments (the speeches and letters from Vatican City, Bibliotheca Apostolica Vaticana, Vat. lat. 3864); and in the growing attention, especially by Valla and Perotti, to the smaller fragments from the indirect tradition, important sources for the study of the Latin language.
Johann Ramminger
Towards a Digital Profile of Early Modern Latin: Word frequency and dispersion in some Neo-Latin historiographical texts
The paper examines some textual metrics commonly applied to English texts in corpus linguistics, specifically their usefulness for Latin, specifically for Neo-Latin texts. They are tested on a corpus of five Neo-Latin historiographical texts on the background of Livy's Ab urbe condita (since it was considered a stylistic ideal by many later historiographers). The metrics concern frequency (Gini-Index and Lorenz-curve) and dispersion (inter-arrival time and dpnorm Gries). The analyses throw light on the inner structure of Latin texts in general (esp. the relative frequency of grammatical words vs. lexical words) and connect words and ideas in the political and social realities of the worlds depicted by chronologically disparate texts (e.g., dispersion of rex in Livy and Valla's Gesta Ferdinandi).
Bernd Roling
Ignis fatuus: Debatten über das Irrlicht in der lateinischen frühneuzeitlich-protestantischen Universitätskultur
Since early modern times, the Will-o'-the-Wisp was well known in folklore and part of the local traditions also in Germany and Scandinavia. While popular superstition connected the ignis fatuus, as it was called in Latin, with the Souls of the Purgatory or with demonic forces, since the sixteenth century the university culture tried to develop an explanation, based on natural laws. How did these physical explanations change over time? And how did the scholars integrate the possible demonic nature of the fire? To survey the many hypotheses and their development, this article will examine a series of Latin academic dissertations. Continuity and transformation of the ignis fatuus will be reconstructed through the analysis of Aristotelian, Cartesian and Post-Cartesian treatises.
Lucia Gualdo Rosa
Lo splendore di una grande capitale dall'età del Boccaccio alla fine del regno
Questo articolo porta su alcune descrizioni della Napoli angioina e aragonese. Nelle opere di Boccaccio, che visse a Napoli dal 1327 al 1340, spiccano espressioni di entusiasmo per le bellezze e tante attrattive della città partenopea lasciata con rammarico. Al suo ritorno, anni più tardi, fu però trattato malissimo e rifugì a Venezia da Petrarca. Altri ammiratori di Napoli furono l'umanista siciliano Giovanni Aurispa, che conobbe la città nella gioventù, dal 1390 al 1402, lo stesso Carlo VIII, re di Francia, che la conquistò nel 1495, e Iacopo Sannazzaro, che ne descrisse gli splendori in un'elegia nel 1501.
Lene Schøsler & Michael Skovgaard-Hansen
"Cum essem monachus, nihil aliud feci, quam quod perdidi tempus, adflixi meam valetudinem" (Martin Luther), "Time is money" (Benjamin Franklin): Investigation du concept TEMPUS (temps)
The aim of our investigation is to test the hypothesis that language, society and conceptualisation are connected in such a way that societal and conceptual changes manifest themselves in the language. We use the texts of Calvin and Luther as objects of investigation, more precisely their use of the word tempus, because their period witnessed remarkable changes in society and ideology. Our investigation presents a chronological analysis of the use of the word tempus and raises the following questions: Its exact meaning in classical antiquity? Identical meaning during the Reformation? Influence of the Greek equivalent in the original New Testament? Did the catchword "Time is money" originate with the reformers? (Max Weber)
Keith Sidwell
Who translated Lucian for Ercole d'Este (Vatican, Chigi L.VI.215)?
The anonymous Lucian translations in Vatican MS Chigi L.VI.215 have recently been attributed to Nicolaus Leonicenus. But their sixteenth century publisher (a Ferrarese) attributed Lucius siue Asinus to Boiardo, and the rest to Leonicenus, though several texts have no Greek original. Reexamination of the evidence for attribution and the methodology used to argue the pieces were made directly from Greek into Italian suggests rather that Leonicenus' contributions were the selection of texts and Latin versions of them. Boiardo did translate the Asinus, from Leonicenus' Latin, but the rest (which used his versions and Latin texts of apocrypha) must remain anonymous.
Karen Skovgaard-Petersen
"A matter for the history of the human spirit": On C. A. Klotz' assessment of Saxo Grammaticus' history of Denmark in his edition of 1771
After its first appearance in print in 1514, Saxo Grammaticus' medieval history of Denmark enjoyed a considerable reputation for its elegant Latin in the emergent European republic of learning. In the following centuries it was published again several times, the most important edition being that of Stephanius in 1644-1645. In 1771 a new edition appeared, published by C. A. Klotz in Leipzig. The paper discusses Klotz' general assessment of Saxo arguing that Klotz is at one and the same time a late representative of the European republic of learning and an exponent of Enlightenment ideas.
Ditlev Tamm
Civis europeus sum: Some thoughts on Latin for lawyers
Latin has a long history among lawyers. In this contribution we will look at this history and give examples of how lawyers made their own lawyers' Latin.
Benjamin Wallura
Hermes' Herb: Homer's moly and Early Modern Iatrophilology
Homer was an epic poet - and a mine of information. To early modern readers, medical and pharmaceutical (if not magical) knowledge appeared to be more than present in the Iliad and the Odyssey. A Homeric plant most heatily discussed was the herb moly (μῶλυ) which Hermes gave to Ulysses in order to protect him from the incantations of Circe (Od. X, 302-307). This paper will explore some of the most significant debates dedicated to this Homeric plant in early modern iatrophilology.
Anna Wegener
The child at the mirror: Niels Bredal's Børne Speigel (1568)
Niels Bredal's conduct book Børne Speigel (1568) has received surprisingly scant attention despite being considered the first work of children's literature in Danish. In Børne Speigel, an adult speaker directs his words to a young narratee, a 'you'. In this article, I explore the identity of this 'you' in an attempt to picture how children in early modern Denmark might have lived. I also discuss Bredal's possible sources of inspiration, showing that Børne Speigel is indebted not only to Erasmus' De civilitate morum puerilium (1530), as many scholars have pointed out, but also to Martin Luther's Kleiner Katechismus (1529).
Peter Zeeberg
The language of the professors: Latin/Danish code-switching around 1600
Among bilinguals code-switching, the mixing of languages, is extremely common, especially in spoken language, but also in writing. This phenomenon has been studied extensively over the last decennia in bilingual communities all over the world. The present article looks into a similar bilingual community in the past, namely sixteenth and seventeenth-century academics, who were as fluent in Latin as in the vernacular. The source material for the study is taken from the minutes of the professors' assembly, the consistorium, at the University of Copenhagen, 1599-1608. These texts are written partly in Danish, partly in Latin, and partly in a mixture of the two. Some passages may reflect the words actually spoken at the meetings, but in general it is advisable to consider the material as written language. The code-switching is in many ways typical of a bilingual community, but it also demonstrates the different roles of the two languages within this community.
Lene Østermark-Johansen
The Dream of a German Renaissance: Conrad Celtis, Albrecht Dürer, and Apollo in Walter Pater's "Duke Carl of Rosenmold" (1887)
A reference to the German humanist Conrad Celtis's Ars Versificandi (1486) and to his "Ode to Apollo" occurs rather surprisingly in a short piece of fiction, "Duke Carl of Rosenmold", published in 1887 by the English classics don, writer, and critic Walter Pater. This essay explores Pater's "Duke Carl" as a Victorian caricature of Celtis and discusses potential sources for Pater's late Victorian interest in Celtis, in his friend and collaborator, Albrecht Dürer, and their mutual cult of Apollo, the god of the arts and of light.