OF TIBULLUS

For the other reading, although inferior, obtained primacy, having been propagated through the Venetian and Aldine editions, which I finally discovered had flowed from the Roman edition. This Roman edition, therefore, should be considered as a second primary source; it was itself undoubtedly derived from a manuscript, though a less corrected one, and after I carefully examined it long ago, it was produced in 1475 with the commentaries of Cyllenius attached, which he had prepared for his own written manuscript. From this, the Brescian (1486) and Venetian (1487, 1491, 1493, 1500, and 1520) editions were eagerly struck, though they were interpolated here and there in various ways from Cyllenius’s commentaries and perhaps other editions, for which, as I said, a different manuscript served as the foundation. These were followed by the Aldine editions, which formerly, when I lived in Dresden, were not at hand, but now, thanks to the benevolence of the Georgia Augusta library and of my most learned and kind friends, Duvius and Brandesius, and my colleague Kulenkamp, they have been offered and sent to me. By comparing these copies, I was finally led onto the path where I could detect the certain traces of the propagated reading of Tibullus. For in my previous review, I had indeed understood that the Colinaean, Gryphian, Basilean, and other editions differed greatly among themselves, yet I could not find a certain standard by which to refer their discrepancy. For Broukhusius, who possessed a great mass of variant readings, had labored little over the editions and their authority. I now understand, therefore, that the first Aldine of 1502 expressed the Venetian editions just mentioned, yet not one alone; rather, it corrected the context here and there, partly from comparing several editions of this kind among themselves, and partly by the judgment of a learned man, for it does not appear that a written manuscript was employed. The second Aldine followed in 1515, curated by a most learned man and corrected with a great apparatus of erudition—if not by comparing written books, though it is probable that this was done, yet by a subtle and, setting aside a few things, successful critique. In this edition, most of the spurious verses were removed or marked with asterisks, and a clear foundation was laid for a more corrected reading of Tibullus. All the following editions have followed one or the other of these Aldines, but, what is strange, the selection was not always made with good judgment, for the former [Aldine], which is undoubtedly far inferior to the latter,