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The Roman tragedies in the spotlight of two famous Leiden philologists; one part in an unrecorded variant issue

SCRIVERIUS, Petrus (ed.).
Collectanea veterum tragicorum, Livii Andronici, Q. Ennii, Cn. Naevii, M. Pacuvii, L. Attii, aliorumque fragmenta; et circa ipsa notae breves.
Quibus accedunt singulari libello Castigationes & Notae uberiores Gerardi Joannis Vossii.

With Maire's printer's device (Breugelmans, Ill.1, device 2) on title; device on second title (see <I>Bibl. Belg</I>. V, p. 127).

Leiden, Johannes Maire, 1620. 2 parts in one vol. 8vo. 17th-century dark brown calf, triple fillets along the edges with blind tooled delicately ornamented centre piece, ribbed spine with brown leather label lettered in gold, red painted edges. With Maire's printer's device (Breugelmans, Ill.1, device 2) on title; device on second title (see Bibl. Belg. V, p. 127). LXXII, 190, (2); VIII, p. 1-176, 179-192, (2, blank).

With:
(2) The second part of: SENECA [Opera omnia], ed. Petrus Scriverius, containing commentaries on the text by Justus Lipsius, Franciscus Raphelengius, Josephus Justus Scaliger, Daniel Heinsius and others. Leiden, Henricus Haestens for Johannes Maire, 1620. 8vo. 413, (3, including the last blank) pp.

The well-known philologist Petrus Scriverius (1576-1660) was still working on a new edition of Seneca's tragedies when in 1620 his edition of all the extant fragments of the earlier Roman tragedians was first published by the Leiden printed Johannes Maire (the present work). He dedicated the edition to the famous philologist and scholar Gerardus Joannes Vossius (1577-1649), who published a number of critical notes on the fragments in a second part with a separate title page: Gerardi Joannis Vosii in fragmenta L. Livii Andronici, Q. Ennii, C. Naevii, M. Pacuvii, & L. Attii, castigationes & notae (Leiden, Johannes Maire, 1620).
After his dedicatory poem to Vossius, Scriverius begins with a number of 'testimonia' on the ancient tragedians (64 unnumbered pages), followed by the collected fragments on 190 pp.

The second part by Vossius is here in a variant issue containing an unrecorded dedicatory letter by Vossius to his friend Rochus van den Honert (1572-1638), a Dutch magistrate from Dordrecht and at the time Curator of the Leiden University. The letter (ff. 2r-4v) is dated: Leiden, XVII Kal. Oct. 1620 (=15 September 1620), just one day after the Preface by Vossius ("Ad benevolum lectorem"; ff. 2r-3v, f. 4 being blank) as printed in all other known copies, which is dated: Leiden, Postr. Id. Sept. 1620 (=14 September 1620). The beginning (same type) and end of the text of both, the letter and the preface, are the same, but the letter addressed to Van den Honert has a longer text and is about one and a half page larger. The letter is concluded by a greeting formula: "Deus Opt. Max. quam diutissimè te , V.A. salvum ac incolumen conservet". Apparently Vossius has changed his preface into a dedicatory letter to Van den Honert at the last moment, when most of the printing was already done. Even Breugelmans doesn't mention this variant issue in his extensive bibliography of the printer Maire, and in the Inventory of the correspondence of Gerardus Joannes Vossius (1993) by G.A.C. van der Lem, the letter is not mentioned. This second part is the only work of pure textual criticism Vossius has published.

Ad 2: The book was originally planned as the third and fourth part of an even more ambitious publication with the edition of the text of Seneca's tragedies, edited by Scriverius as the first, and a collection of the commentaries on those tragedies as the second part. At the close of 1620 almost everything had been printed, but Scriverius held up the final publication because he wished to verify a few more things. It was at least a year and a half before Scriverius was finished and as a consequence there are copies of the first part with '1620' as well as '1621' on the title: Seneca Tragicus, L. Annaeus, [Opera omnia]. Ex recensione & muséo Petri Scriverii. Quid textui seriò castigato accedat, aversa pagina indicabit.
In our copy only the second part of the latter work is bound together with the edition of and commentaries on the fragments of the Roman tragedians. This part has 413 pages with half-titles for all the commentaries on Seneca's text. Pp. 1-57: Justus Lipsius, Animadversiones in Tragoedias quae L. Annaeo Senecae tribuuntur; p. 59-84: Franciscus Raphelengius, Ad Tragoedias ... notae; p.85-91: Q. Septimius Florens Christianus, Ad Thebaidem notae; p. 93-139: Hieronymus Commelinus, Ad Senecam lectiones variae è manuscriptis libris Bibliothecae Palatinae aliisque (1589); pp. 141-169: Josephus Justus Scaliger, In Senecae tragoedias animadversiones (Scriptae in Bataviâ circa annum 1600); pp. 171-275: Janus Gruterus, In L. Annaei Senecae tragoedias notae; pp. 277-348: Daniel Heinsius, In L. & M. Annaei Senecae ac reliquorum quae extant tragoedias animadversiones et notae; emendatiores & auctiores denuo editae 1620; pp. 349-377: Johannes Isacius Pontanus, In Senecae tragoedias animasversiones, nunc primum editae. 1620; pp. 379-413: Georgius Fabricius, In Senecae tragoediis lectionis diversitas (1566); p. (414): the impressum: "Excudebat Henricus ab Haestens, 1620".

Good copies with bookplate of 'J.E.' (= John Evelyn).- (Faint water stain in lower outer corner throughout).

Bibl. Belg. V, pp. 126-7; Rademaker, Vossius (1981), p. 169; P. Tuynman,'Petrus Scriverius 12 January 1567 - 30 April 1660', in: Quaerendo, 7 (1977), pp. 4-45, esp. p. 22, nr. 2 and 3; ad 1: Breugelmans, Fac et spera, 1620,2; Petit, Lijst, p. 165, nr. 7; ad 2: Breugelmans, 1620,4 (2).

Related Subjects: 17th Century Greek & Latin Literary History, Classics Literary History, Drama & Comedie Netherlands Philology

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