FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   403   404   405   406   407   408   409   410   411   412   413   414   415   416   417   418   419   420   421   422   423   424   425   426   427  
428   429   430   431   432   433   434   435   436   437   438   439   440   441   442   443   444   445   446   447   448   449   450   451   452   >>   >|  
ht for MSS. of Cicero with peculiar ardour. He found the speech _pro Archia_ at Liege in 1333, and in 1345 at Verona made his famous discovery of the letters to Atticus, which revealed to the world Cicero as a man in place of the "god of eloquence" whom they had worshipped. Petrarch was under the impression in his old age that he had once possessed Cicero's lost work _de Gloria_, but it is probable that he was misled by one of the numerous passages in the extant writings dealing with this subject.[22] The letters _ad Familiares_ were discovered towards the close of the 14th century at Vercelli. The largest addition to the sum of Ciceronian writings was made by Poggio (Gian Francesco Poggio Bracciolini) in the course of his celebrated mission to the Council of Constance (1414-1417). He brought back no less than ten speeches of Cicero previously unknown to the Italians, viz. _pro Sexto Roscio_, _pro Murena_, _pro Cacina_, _de lege agraria_ i.-iii., _pro Rabirio perduellionis reo_, _pro Rabirio Postumo_, _pro Roscio Comoedo_, and _in Pisonem_. An important discovery was made at Lodi in 1422 of a MS. which, in addition to complete copies of the _de Oratore_ and _Orator_, hitherto known from mutilated MSS., contained an entirely new work, the _Brutus_. The second book of Cicero's letters to Brutus was first printed by Cratander of Basel in 1528 from a MS. obtained for him by Sichardus from the abbey of Lorsch.[23] All these MSS. are now lost, except that containing the _Epistolae ad Familiares_, a MS. written in the 9th century and now at Florence (Laur. xlix. 9). A similar fate overtook three other MSS. containing the letters to Atticus, independent of the _Veronensis_, viz. a mutilated MS. of Books i.-vii. discovered by Cardinal Capra in 1409, a Lorsch MS. used by Cratander (C), and a French MS. (Z), generally termed _Tornaesianus_ from its owner, Jean de Tournes, a printer of Lyons, probably identical with No. 492 in the old Cluny catalogue, used by Turnebus, Lambinus and Bosius. A strange mystification was practised by the last named, a scholar of singular brilliancy, who claimed to have a mutilated MS. which he called his _Decurtatus_, bought from a common soldier who had obtained it from a sacked monastery; also to have been furnished by a friend, Pierre de Crouzeil, a doctor of Limoges, with variants taken from an old MS. found at Noyon, and entered
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   403   404   405   406   407   408   409   410   411   412   413   414   415   416   417   418   419   420   421   422   423   424   425   426   427  
428   429   430   431   432   433   434   435   436   437   438   439   440   441   442   443   444   445   446   447   448   449   450   451   452   >>   >|  



Top keywords:

Cicero

 

letters

 
mutilated
 

Familiares

 
discovered
 

writings

 

century

 

Roscio

 

Cratander

 

obtained


Lorsch

 
Brutus
 

Poggio

 

Rabirio

 
addition
 
discovery
 
Atticus
 

independent

 

Veronensis

 
overtook

similar
 

Cardinal

 

generally

 

termed

 
French
 
peculiar
 

ardour

 

Archia

 

Sichardus

 

speech


Tornaesianus
 

Florence

 

Epistolae

 

written

 

soldier

 

sacked

 

monastery

 

common

 

bought

 
claimed

called

 
Decurtatus
 
furnished
 

variants

 

entered

 
Limoges
 

doctor

 
friend
 

Pierre

 
Crouzeil