Primary Literature: Bibliographical Note

The number of Philodemus’ philosophical books and the complexities of their preservation in papyri with multiple parts and, at times, in multiple copies, makes it impractical to give a complete list here. Luckily, there are now several fairly complete bibliographies online, to which the reader is referred below, with links. What follows here are notes intended to orient further reading on both general and particular topics, and a list of works referred to in the present article.

General accounts of Philodemus are given by Gigante 1995, Erler 1994 and, most recently, Longo Auricchio et al. 2011. All these works discuss Philodemus’ life and list his works, with extensive bibliography.

In the secondary literature, references to texts of Herculaneum papyri are usually given in terms of the inventory number, then column or fragment number, then line number (e.g., PHerc. 1497.21.14; often, columns have Roman numerals). Older publications will refer to the volume and page number of the engraved facsimile, e.g., V(olumina) H(erculanensia)² XII 67. Many publications give volume and page numbers of a standard late-19^th or early 20^th century edition, as for Sudhaus 1892–6 and Jensen 1907 and 1911.

Introductions to the Herculaneum library are given by Gigante 1995, Capasso 1991, Delattre 2006. Del Mastro 2005 is an online database of papyri, with descriptions, bibliographies, and one image of the writing of each papyrus), building on the prior descriptions and bibliography of Gigante 1979 and its bibliographical supplements in Capasso 1989 and Del Mastro 2000. Travaglione 2008 (cf. Del Mastro 2010) provides a comprehensive listing of the papyri and their actual condition.

For the study of the bibliological and palaeographical aspects of the Herculaneum papyri, Cavallo 1983 is fundamental, along with Capasso 1991 and Del Mastro 2014. Studies useful for studying the grammar and orthography of Philodemus papyri are found in a number of the introductions to recent editions, especially Obbink 1996 and Janko 2000, in many articles in Cronache Ercolanesi, as well as in Crönert 1903. There are also special lexica: Vooijs 1934, Vooijs-van Krevelen 1941, and Usener 1977.

The first publications of some edited texts of Herculaneum papyri were in the series Herculanensium Voluminum quae supersunt. Tomus I-XI, Naples: Regia Typographia 1793–1855, the so-called ‘Collectio prima’ (VH). These were followed by publications in two volumes of some of the drawings made for William Hayter in Naples between 1802 and 1806: Herculanensium Voluminum Pars Prima, Oxford: Clarendon Press 1824 and Pars Secunda, Oxford: Clarendon Press 1825. The drawings present in the Officina dei Papiri in 1806, when Hayter took them away, and now kept in Oxford’s Bodleian Library, are known as the O disegni; they can be viewed in digital photographs via the website of the Friends of Herculaneum Society (see Other Internet Resources: Online Texts, below). These drawings were replaced in Naples with new drawings, and others were made as new papyri were opened (’N disegni’, dating from post-1806; earlier drawings of PHerc. 1008, 1424, 1674, 1675 which were in the hands of the Greek scholar Pasquale Baffi at the time of his execution for participation in the Parthenopean Revolution of 1799, still exist in Naples, alongside those made later of the same papyri). The majority of the drawings kept in Naples were engraved and published in the series Herculanensium Voluminum quae supersunt. Collectio altera, Naples: Museum Publicum 1862–76 (VH²), and it was in those volumes that most of the texts became known to scholars; only one volume was published of a third collection, Herculanensium Voluminum quae supersunt. Collectio tertia, Milan: Hoepli 1914.

With the publication of drawings of the texts, scholars outside Naples began to study and edit them. A number of the texts from the late 19^th and early 20^th centuries remain standard references, but as they were made primarily on the basis of the disegni, with only sporadic consultation of the papyri themselves, they must now be redone. In some cases, new editions of parts of these texts have been and continue to be published, e.g., Longo Auricchio 1977 (Rhetoric I-II), Ranocchia 2007 (On Arrogance cols. 10–24).

Since 1970 the International Center for the Study of the Herculaneum Papyri (CISPE), founded by Marcello Gigante, has published a journal, Cronache Ercolanesi (CErc), dedicated to studies of Herculaneum, including studies of Philodemean philosophy and editions of texts. The ‘Notiziario’ at the back of each annual issue gives a list of scholars working on editions of individual papyri, so that scholars interested in particular texts may contact those engaged in editing them. CISPE also sponsors a series of editions, La scuola di Epicuro, now up to 19 volumes (plus 5 ‘supplements’ containing Epicurean texts not from Herculaneum). These are often the most recent and authoritative editions of their texts, with Italian translation and commentary. Since the 1990s a team of scholars has been working, originally with the support of the National Endowment for the Humanities, to publish Philodemus’ works on music, rhetoric, and poetics; the first volume in this series is Janko 2000. The newest editions often follow the helpful format for Herculaneum texts devised by Obbink 1996, giving the papyrus text in columnar format and textual apparatus on the left-hand (verso) side of each opening, while the right-hand (recto) side gives the text in continuous lines and an English translation. Recent editions of Philodemus’ books include translations into a modern European language; French translations of a number of his books are found in Delattre and Pigeaud, eds., 2010.

Works cited: Secondary Literature

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