Studies in the Transmission of Latin Texts Volume II: Vitruvius, Cato, De agricultura and Varro, De re rustica, Porphyrio, and Priscian, Periegesis

This volumes offers a study of all known manuscripts and incunabular editions of four classical texts: Vitruvius' De architectura, Cato's De agri cultura, Varro's De re rustica, Porphyrio's Commentary on Horace, and Priscian's Periegesis. The total number of witnesses involved comes to over 200; many of the manuscripts were produced in France or Italy, but English, German, Polish, and Swiss manuscripts also feature. For each text, the genealogical affiliations of its manuscript copies are determined (in many cases for the first time), as is the manner in which each was dispersed throughout medieval Europe and transmitted from antiquity through the Middle Ages to the first printed editions. S. P. Oakley shows that clear and decisive results can be achieved by application of the so-called stemmatic method and establishes which manuscripts future editors should use in editing these texts. Manuscripts that are not needed by future editors are discussed as fully as those that are, and many localizations and derivations are established. The result is a detailed study that deepens knowledge of the transmission of classical Latin texts, especially in the Renaissance, of scribal practice, and of techniques that can be deployed in the genealogical study of manuscripts and incunables.

S. P. Oakley, University of Cambridge, Kennedy Professor of Latin

Stephen Oakley, FBA, was born in Dorset and educated at Queens' College, Cambridge, where he studied for the Classical Tripos and for his Ph.D. He has since taught at Emmanuel College, Cambridge and the University of Reading, and is currently Kennedy Professor of Latin in the University of Cambridge and Fellow of Emmanuel College.

VITRUVIUS
1. Introduction
2. The witnesses
3. The progress of scholarship
4. Ω: the archetype
5. H and α
6. The Γ Family
7. The β Family
8. Hybrid witnesses
9. Catalogue entries
10. The transmission in outline
11. Conclusions
12. End-Note: some manuscripts of Faventinus
CATO, DE AGRI CVLTVRA AND VARRO, DE RE RVSTICA
13. Introduction
14. The extant witnesses
15. The progress of scholarship
16. Ω: the archetype
17. The classification of the extant witnesses
18. Problematic or otherwise interesting passages
19. Conclusions
PORPHYRIO
20. The excerpting of Porphyrio s commentary on Horace
21. The extant witnesses
22. Editing the abbreviated commentary: the progress of scholarship
23. Porphyrio in the Middle Ages
24. Enoch of Ascoli and Porphyrio
25. V and M, and the recentiores
26. The localization of V and M and the transmission of Porphyrio in the Middle Ages
27. The diffusion of the text in the Renaissance
28. Conclusions
PRISCIAN, PERIEGESIS
29. Introduction
30. The manuscripts
31. The progress of scholarship
32. The γ Family
33. The δ Family
34. The ε Family
35. Manuscripts that are contaminated or are otherwise difficult to place
36. The early history of the text
37. Conclusions