Astronomicon

And now for the third and least faithful representative of α, the cod. Venetus Venetian manuscript, of which I give an account on pp. 103 sq. That in spite of its corruption and interpolation it is independently though not immediately derived from α can most clearly be shown by v 443:

‘ molliter ut liquidis per humum ponuntur in undis ’ softly as they are placed through the ground into the liquid waves : molliter ut MG, tollitur ut L, mollitur Ven.

The reading of α must have been mollitur ut, rightly corrected by G, whether from conjecture or another source, wrongly and diversely altered by L and Ven. Again at II 368:

‘ alterius ductus locus est per transita signa ’ the place of another duct is through the crossed signs,

where LG have alternis and Ven. ulterius, it appears that α, like M, had alterius.* Against Mr Thielscher’s particular theory (Philol. LXVI p. 119), which he supports with no proof or argument, that Ven. was an apograph of L, there can be adduced also this example : III 487 multiplicans deciens] multiplicans decens M, multiplicatis decens L, multiplica (space) dece (space) G Ven. The reading of L is clearly legible, and, although it is unmetrical, G does not thus omit letters for that reason, and Ven. omits wholesale and not piecemeal. The letters were obscure in α : the parents (γ and δ) of G and Ven. could not make them out at all ; L deciphered them imperfectly. In cases such as II 665 nec iungitur G Ven., ne ciugitur M, nec pingitur L, it might possibly be contended that the true reading was restored by conjecture and was not in α. But, as I said above, if the Cusanus is an apograph of L (and it certainly is), then Ven. was not. The theory that Ven. was derived from G has not yet been propounded.

I have now shown that G is an independent authority, separately derived, like L, from α. But this, though true, is not a truth of the first importance ; for the chief value of G lies in what it has derived from a source other than α. Whereas M and L are simple mss, G is a compound, and must be considered twice. I now leave behind the division between M (or β) and GL (or α) and come to another line of severance no less deep though formerly much less evident. It was in 1907 that Breiter’s full though very inaccurate collation of L disclosed what neither Jacob nor even Bechert had enabled us to see : the division between LM and GL².

Some of the many readings common and peculiar to G and L² are certainly false and obviously conjectures. Others are no less certainly true ; and certainly true are likewise a few readings peculiar to L² and a large number peculiar to G. Some of these are doubtless conjectures, and others may be ; and critics who

• That the Cusanus also has alterius is a delusion of Breiter’s, repeated as usual by van Wageningen.