TEXT AND CONTEXT Frank Coulson, Series Editor ANTIQUARIAN VOICES THE ROMAN ACADEMY AND THE COMMENTARY TRADITION ON OVID’S FASTI Angela Fritsen Copyright © 2015 by The Ohio State University. All rights reserved. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Fritsen, Angela, author. Antiquarian voices : the Roman Academy and the commentary tradition on Ovid’s Fasti / Angela Fritsen. pages cm — (Text and context) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-0-8142-1284-4 (cloth : alk. paper) 1. Ovid, 43 BC–17 AD or 18 AD Fasti. 2. Didactic poetry, Latin—History and criticism. I. Title. II. Series: Text and context (Columbus, Ohio) PA6519.F9F75 2015 871'.01—dc23 2015008656 Cover design by AuthorSupport.com Text design by Juliet Williams Type set in Adobe Garamond Pro Printed by Thomson-Shore, Inc. Cover image: Calendar of Romulus. P. Ovidii Nasonis Fastorum Libri diligenti emendatione typis impresse aptissimisque figuris ornate commentatoribus Antonio Constantio Fanensi Paulo Marso Piscinate viris clarissimis additis (Toscolano: Alexander Paganinus, 1527), fol. A1r. *52L–479, Houghton Library, Harvard University. CONTENTS List of Illustrations Abbreviations Acknowledgments Preface ONE • Reading Ovid’s Fasti The Author and His Work Aetas Ovidiana The Fate of Ovid’s Severed Book TWO • Fifteenth-Century Revival Time and Place Teaching Particulars The Dedication of the Fasti THREE • Commentary and Professional Identity An Invitation to Comment Aggravations of Print Primacy and Print Authorship FOUR • Antiquarianism I: The Roman Academy, the Fasti, and a New Historicism Ovid as Guide to the City Context: The Roman Academy The Earlier Generation of Antiquarians The Fasti and First-Hand Observation in Rome Travel and Testing Auctoritas FIVE • Antiquarianism II: Christian Fasti and Papal Connections On Superstition and Magic The Roman Academy and Anniversaries The Old and New Rome Propaganda for the Church AFTERWORD APPENDIX I • Renaissance Commentaries on Ovid’s Fasti APPENDIX II • Comparison of Manuscript Glosses in Vat. lat. 1595, Ottob. lat. 1982, and Vat. lat. 3263 Bibliography Indices General Index Index Locorum Index Manuscriptorum ILLUSTRATIONS FIGURE 1 January in the 1527 composite Fasti commentary FIGURE 2 Pomponio Leto, Fasti with glosses (ca. 1469/1470) FIGURE 3 Ovidius de Fastis cum duobus commentariis (fol. a1v.) FIGURE 4 Ovidius de Fastis cum duobus commentariis (fol. a1r.) FIGURE 5 Portrait of Pomponio Leto in Elogia virorum literis illustrium FIGURE 6 Paolo Marsi, editio princeps (1482), Colophon FIGURE 7 Ciriaco d’Ancona, autograph Fasti (1427) FIGURE 8 Forum Boarium and Temple of Janus FIGURE 9 Antonio Costanzi, autograph manuscript (1480) FIGURE 10 Andrea Mantegna, The Introduction of the Cult of Cybele at Rome, 1505–6 ABBREVIATIONS ANRW Aufstieg und Niedergang der römischen Welt (Berlin and New York: W. de Gruyter, 1972–) CIL Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum (Berlin: Deutsche Akademie der Wissenschaften, 1893–) CTC Catalogus Translationum et Commentariorum (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 1960–) DBI Dizionario biografico degli Italiani (Rome: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana, 1960–) LTUR Lexicon Topographicum Urbis Romae, ed. E. M. Steinby (Rome: Quasar, 1993–2000) RE Pauly’s Realencyclopädie der Classischen Altertumswissenschaft (Stuttgart: J. B. Metzler and A. Druckenmüller, 1893–1980) RIS Rerum Italicarum Scriptores, ed. L. A. Muratori (Milan: Ex typographia Societatis palatinae in regia curia, 1723–51) ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I will always be grateful to the late Jozef IJsewijn, who instilled in me a love for Neo-Latin literature and the classical tradition. My work on Renaissance commentaries would not have been possible without Ralph Hexter and Frank Coulson. They were there for me at the beginning of my project and at its end, and I thank them. I have been the fortunate recipient of a variety of support from the Knights of Columbus Vatican Film Library, the Newberry Library, the Harvard University Center for Italian Renaissance Studies (Villa I Tatti), and the American Academy in Rome, and I have benefitted from the conversations of my colleagues in these places. I would like to thank furthermore the staff and librarians at the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Biblioteca Angelica, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, Biblioteca Comunale Ariostea, and Biblioteca Vallicelliana. For their goodwill and support I would like to mention in particular Robert Babcock, Geoffrey Eatough, Maia Gahtan, Phil Gavitt, Craig Kallendorf, Marc Laureys, Gianpiero Nasci, Mary Quinlan-McGrath, Maria Paola Saci, Barbara Shailor, and Fabio Troncarelli. My very special thanks go to Julia Gaisser, who has been both a sharp reader and my advocate; any shortcomings of my book are my own. I am grateful to my parents and to my husband Eric, who patiently helped and waited. Thank you to Tara Cyphers, Martin Boyne, and everyone at The Ohio State University Press for their invaluable assistance. Images in this book are reproduced, all rights reserved, by kind permission of the following: Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana; Houghton Library, Harvard University; Huntington Library, San Marino, California; National Gallery Picture Library, London. PREFACE If Homer had hoped for ten tongues to tell his story (Iliad 2.489) and Vergil for a hundred (Georgics 2.43), then Ovid in an exaggerated ploy of inadequacy wished for a thousand (Fasti 2.119). Ovid might have been surprised at the multiplication of mouths not his own. Multilingual editions and translations, scholarly discussions and articles point to a resurgence in popularity of his poem on the Roman calendar year, the Fasti.1 My purpose is to present a different renaissance of the poem, one that took place 500 years ago. This book examines the humanist Fasti commentaries by Paolo Marsi (1440–84) and Antonio Costanzi (1436–90), widely disseminated in the first age of print and extensively available in reissues, composite editions, and collected works of Ovid (see Appendix I). My argument is that Ovid’s poem on the ancient festival calendar flourished in quattrocento Italy and in a Roman milieu. In particular, members of the Roman Academy studied Ovid’s Fasti with a passion. Antiquarianism is the tie that bound the fifteenth-century humanists who were involved in the Roman Academy. Restoring classical texts, reconstructing history and topography, visiting monuments and catacombs, reviving celebrations: in these pursuits and more, the Academicians brought the ancient city of Rome to life. The Academicians were professors and students; they were curial officials, commissioned secretaries, poets, and diplomats; they were members of the aristocracy and dilettantes. They met in classrooms, in homes, in printing houses, and in the field. The City was an open textbook for them. In their antiquarian endeavors, they sought to return the City to its original splendor. Ovid’s Fasti acted as interpretive guide. With this book I hope to contribute to the history of classical scholarship and the history of ideas, with reception history as my guide. Literary encounters do not occur in isolation; instead, we are influenced by contemporary and previous societal values and constraints.2 The positivistic approach, to discover the original meaning of a text, leads to inconclusive results. This is not to deny authorial intention, but to argue for earlier ways of reading as a complementary hermeneutical guide. In examining earlier readings we might broaden and challenge our own interpretations and in the process even arrive at a clearer definition of the meaning in the text. Commentaries and glosses are invaluable tools for pulling together lines of thought, and they are the foundation for my arguments, as well as the very subject under consideration. Indeed, the commentary has come to be studied as a genre in its own right.3 Notes and commentaries from previous generations yield a wealth of learning now forgotten, and