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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 23 December 2013
H. van Thiel demonstrated only 16 years ago that the text of Longus's novel rests on two manuscripts, Laur. conv. sopp. 627 (s. xiii2) and Vat. gr. 1348 (s. xvi1). The descripti nevertheless yield historical information, and so it is as well to establish their relationships. Three scholars who knew them at first hand have tried: A. Kairis in his edition (Athens 1932), H. Dörrie in De Longi Achillis Tatii Heliodori memoria (Göttingen 1935), and E. Vilborg in his edition of Achilles Tatius (Gothenburg 1955). None of them arrived at the truth. Perhaps the same applies to me, because I have contented myself with collating at most book i and checking a few passages elsewhere; but I can give reasons for my disagreement.
I will first set out my stemma. As everyone's symbols conflict, I will use none except F for the Laurentianus and V for the Vaticanus, but in my discussion I will abbreviate the shelfmarks. Relationships that I do not discuss are adequately treated by Kairis, Dörrie, or Vilborg.
1 RhM civ (1961) 356–62.
2 It may differ in Achilles Tatius, but I doubt it.
3 For microfilms of Tübingen Mb 16, Vat. gr. 1347 and 1350, and the Laurentianus, I am indebted to their custodians; for photographs of the Laurentianus and Vat. gr. 1348 used by the late Douglas Young, to Professor William Slater. The other manuscripts not derived from editions I have seen on the spot.
4 The customary A for the Laurentianus falsely implies superiority to the Vaticanus; the most recent editors of Chariton, Achilles Tatius, and Xenophon Ephesius, call it F(lorentinus), and there is a strong case for uniformity. B for the Vaticanus then loses its foundation, and not everyone has adopted it anyway.
5 That they came from F has been doubted for the reason mentioned by van Thiel (361); but 1347 has no variants between iii 31.2 ἥδη and iv 8.1 κєνὸν (iv 4.3 ὁ δὲ and iv 7.5 κατα- correct slips in copying, as the hand and 1350 show), and iii 32.1–iv 7.5 is missing from F through loss of a leaf. People ignore this defect in F when they extol it for preserving the shorter passage absent from V and its descendants, i 12.4–17.4.
6 Omont, H., Catalogues des manuscrits grecs de Fontainebleau sous François Ier et Henri II (Paris 1889) 119 no. 349Google Scholar; Delisle, L., Le cabinet des manuscrits de la Bibliothèque Imperiale i (Paris 1868) 152Google Scholar. Delisle read the date on f. 69v of Paris gr. 3064 as 1529, but I am not sure it is not 1539; if he was right, what I am about to say has even more force.
7 2913 in van Thiel's summary (356) should read 2895.
8 ‘Codice di Longo fatto copiare da Fulvio Orsini su di un codice che sta alla Vaticana sul principio della stampa. ll codice di Longo del Sig. A. Astori è scritto da Giovanni Onorio greco, di cui si serviva il chiarissimo Fulvio Orsini, come si può rilevare da molti altri codici della Vaticana.’ Dörrie (33) reports that this note was written in 1860 and surmises that it reproduces an earlier one, as it must if Mercati was right that ‘sul principio della stampa’ belongs to the next sentence. The microfilm left me in doubt whether Giovanni Onorio did indeed write Tüb. as well as 1350 and 2367, but Dr Dieter Harlfinger kindly tells me: ‘Der Tubingensis Mb 16 ist in der Tat von Ioannes Honorius Hydruntinus geschrieben. Er datiert um 1535, da sein Wasserzeichen (gekreuzte Pfeile) identisch in dem a. 1535 inVenedig von Ange Vergèce geschriebenen Paris. gr. 1822 wiederkehrt’.
9 According to Dörrie (26), ‘pars quidem bibliothecae Alamannianae inter libros Strozzianos inserta est’, and Augusto Guida, whose comments on this article have greatly assisted me, points out that Labbeus, Ph., Nova bibliotheca mss. librorum (Paris 1653) 171Google Scholar, mentions a Longus in Stroziana. Labbeus's source, however, was a catalogue compiled by Scipione Tetti no later than 1573, 25 years before Columbanius's edition and 30 before the death of Luigi Alamanni; cf. ibid. 166 and de Nolhac, P., La bibliothèque de Fulvio Orsini (Paris 1887) 90 n. 2Google Scholar.
10 See p. 82, note on p. 8.4: ‘Ita ex cod. Ursin. locum concinnavimus (is enim antequam nos hunc librum inpressioni subiiciendum traderemus locos aliquot cum suis codicibus collatos Roma ad nos remiserat)’.
11 I am much obliged to John Taylor for examining the last, copied from an edition no earlier than Villoison's. On the others see Dörrie (27).
12 Annibal Caro: lettere familiari, ed. A. Greco (Florence 1957–61), no. 27–28 bis §4. For other references see nos 119 §3, 414 §4, 416 §3, 663 §3. As only two of these passages appear in the index under Longo Sofista, there may be more.
13 ‘In nessun caso il C. avrebbe potuto reperire la parte mancante dell’ opera nel codice laurenziano che gli aveva offerto l'Allegretti (il ritrova mento del romanzo integrale di Longo Sofista risale ai primi anni del Ottocento)’ says Mutini, C., Diz. Biog. degli Italiani xx (Rome 1977) 502Google Scholar. Why ‘laurenziano’?
14 The first edition (Parma 1786) was printed from a Neapolitan Farnesianus not in Caro's hand; see Faelli, E., Il Bibliofilo vii (1886) 84Google Scholar. Terence Hunt very kindly looked for it in the Biblioteca Nazionale, but without success. Older spelling and better readings are found in Vat. lat. 3221, owned by Orsini (see Nolhac, op. cit. in n. 9, p. 9 and p. 394 no. 27), and Ambros. N 140 sup., assigned by the entry in the Inventario Ceruti to s. xvi but by the index to s. xvii.
15 G. Dalmeyda amplifies this discovery, made by Hulubei, A., in Rev. de Phil. lx (1934) 169–81Google Scholar.
16 Clément, L., Henri Estienne et son oeuvre française (Paris 1898) 468–9Google Scholar.
17 Renouard, A. A., Annales de l'imprimerie des Estienne 2 (Paris 1843) 374Google Scholar.
