MASTER NEGA TIVE NO. 93-81172 MICROFILMED 1993 COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY LIBRARIES/NEW YORK as part of the "Foundations of Western Civilization Preservation Project" Funded by the NATIONAL ENDOWMENT FOR THE HUMANITIES Reproductions may not be made without permission from Columbia University Library COPYRIGHT STATEMENT The copyright law of the United States - Title 17, United State s Code - concerns the making of photocopies or other reproductions of copyrighted material. Under certain conditions specified in the law, libraries and archives are authorized to furnish a photocopy reproduction. One of these specified conditions photocopv or other reproduction is not to be I i -^ I purpose other than private st research/ If a user r ? %,^ A H f^f copy or repr use/' that user may be % 1 X. ft** J ? I rf"'% .# M A %0m. cop ^rsnip, or or later uses, a j - excess of "fair nc infringement. T copy or r f tftutlon reserves the right to refuse to accept a if, in its judgement, fulfillment of the order nt!on of the copyright law. #- J?ai^ ^ ^ S 4'^^ A UTHO " : LEIGHTON, ROBERT TUI.E: THE MEDICEAN MANUSCRIPTS PLACi DA TE: [1 890] COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY LIBRARIES PRESERVATION DEPARTMENT Master Negative # BIBLIOGRAPHIC MICROFORM TARGET Restrictions on Use: Original Material as Filmed - Existing Bibliographic Record 7 Lcighton, Kobert Fonlor, 1858- The Llodicean mnuncripts of Cicero's letters, ty Dr. Robert F.Leirhton. . . "E::tracted fror. t)io Transactions of tho /oneri- can rlulo^ocicil ar,cociation. vol.IOI, 18P0." \ TECHNICAL MICROFORM DATA FILM SIZE: 3£cn.^ REDUCTION RATIO: IMAGE PLACEMENT: lA @) IB IIB DATE FILMED;.: JL I '2. /_3_3_ INITIALS -^__i^L FILMED BY: RESEARCH PUBLICATIONS. INC WOODBRinn F CT ' I IX c Association for Information and Image Management 1100 Wayne Avenue, Suite 1100 Silver Spring. Maryland 20910 301/587-8202 Centimeter 12 3 4 5 8 TTTT(Ti I I I I II I I M I I ■ "|"("|"|"|"|"|"|"|" "f« 9 10 11 12 13 imnJimjmn|mJ iiliii 14 15 mm uliuiki Inches TTT 1.0 1-^ 1^ MUM 1.4 2.5 22 I.I 2.0 1.8 1.6 1.25 TTT MfiNUFfiCTURED TO fillM STPNDfiRDS BY nPPLIED IMfiGE, INC. (/l/ytL 7Tz: or -u. Ok Ttc^ /I 11 J 7 THfc MEDICEAN MANUSCRIPTS OF CICERO'S LETTERS. HV DR. ROBKRT K LEIGHTON. Extracted from the Transactions of the Amer.n,, Philological Associnfi.nt, Vol. XXr, rSi^o. Extracted from the Transactions of the American Philological Association, Vol. XXL f III. —- T/ie Mcdiccan Mss. of Cicero's Letters. By ROBERT F. LEIGHTON, Ph.D. The Mss. containing Cicero's letters have been preserved in two separate groups : the one containing the letters ad Familiarcs, with other writings of Cicero ; the other, the let- ters to Atticus, Oiiintus Cicero, Brutus, the spurious letter to Octavius Caesar,! and also other writings of Cicero. These two groups of letters are never found all united in one codex. Each group has a history of its own, and the neglect or in- ability of those scholars who wrote of these letters, immedi- ately after their rediscovery in the fourteenth century, to designate accurately and definitely the codex the writer had in mind, has been a fruitful source of error. In fact, it is necessary at the outset to divest our minds of the idea that mediaeval scholars had the same accurate knowledge of the contents and arrangement of these codices that we possess For nearly a century after their rediscovery, the description of these codices and the references to them are, as I have stated, so vague and indefinite that it is often difificult, some- times impossible, to determine which group of letters the writer wishes to designate. In the following paper, it will be my purpose to confine my remarks mainly to two Medicean Mss., the two which contain both collections of Cicero's letters, now in the Lau- rentian Library in Florence, Italy, and which were copied in the fourteenth century from the oldest, best-known, and on the whole the most valuable and reliable codices, containing the text of these letters known to have been extant since the revival of learning. The codex containing the correspond- ence with Brutus, the letters to Atticus, and Quintus Cicero, to enumerate the collections in the order they stand in the ^ No further notice will be taken of this letter. 6o Robert F. Leighton, [1890. codex, is catalogued as Cod. Med. Pint, xlix, No. xviii, and is generally considered to be a copy made by Petrarch in the fourteenth century. The other codex, that containing the letters ad Fam., catalogued as Cod. Med. Pint, xlix. No. vii, is a copy, also ascribed to Petrarch, made in the fourteenth century from a Vercelli codex, which dates from the eleventh century, and which was regarded until recently as the sole authority for the -text of the letters it contains. This opin- ion, however, as to the value of this ancient codex, which was considered so well founded, and which Orelli ^ put forth with so much confidence and ability in the masterly preface to his edition of Cicero's letters in 1845, has been, within a few years, overthrown by the discovery of two exceedingly valua- ble independent codices,^ one of which I collated in 1876, the Harlcianian, No. 2773, now in the British Museum, and briefly described in a paper read at the meeting at Newport.^ The rediscovery of Cicero's letters after their disappear- ance towards the middle of the twelfth century has been as- cribed by scholars with great unanimity to Petrarch. Accord- ing to Orelli, who was one of the first to collect and critically examine the evidence in regard to the history of these Mss., Petrarch discovered the archetypes of these Medicean Mss., that containing the Atticus collection at Verona, in 1345, the other somewhat later, probably at Vercelli, and made copies from both with his own hand, which are the transcripts in question, now in the Laurentian Library, catalogued as I have described. One of the original codices has also been preserved, and is still in the Laurentian Library by the side of these copies, viz., that containing the letters ad Fani. It is catalogued as Cod. Med. Pint, xlix. No. ix. The other original codex, that containing the letters to Atticus, Q. Cicero, Brutus, etc., is lost. Orelli, as I have stated, was somewhat over-confident in assuming that these archetypes, 1 Ciceronis 0pp. Rec, Edit. Alt., vol. iii, Turici, 1845. 2Thurot, Ciceron Epistolae ad Familiares, Notice sur un ^Tanuscrit du xii* Siecle. « An Account of a nno Ms. of Cicero's Letters ad familiares, R. F. Leighton, Trans. Am. Phil. Ass., No. io 12. I Vol. xxi.] The Mediceafi Mss. of Cicero s Letters. 61 ^ 41 supposed to have been discovered and copied by Petrarch, were the sole authorities for the text of Cicero's letters. Orelli knew of the existence of other Mss. of these letters in Germany, France, and England, but he was so positive that all existing Mss. of these letters were copied directly or indirectly from the two archetypes mentioned, that he seems never to have given the others the consideration they deserve, or at least with one or two unimportant exceptions to have regarded it worth his while to examine them criti- cally. Orelli, as I shall show further on, was also undoubt- edly hasty in assuming that Petrarch discovered the Mss. containing both collections of these letters. So far as the letters ad Fam. are concerned, Orelli adduces not a particle of proof to show that Petrarch ever knew even of their existence. On this indefinite and unsatisfactory basis, the history of these Mss. rested, until Moritz Haupt,i in 1856, published the well-known letters in the Ber. Lect. Cat., which he used and others have continued to use as proof that Petrarch dis- covered the Mss. containing both collections of Cicero's let- ters, but whether the Ms. containing the letters ad Fam. was found at Verona with the other, or at Vercelli, he left unde- termined. That question, it has long been supposed, was settled by Hofmann,^ who maintained that Petrarch discov- ered the Atticus collection at Verona in 1345, and the other collection, the letters ad Fam., some years afterwards ac Ver- celli, probably about the year 1370. Here the investigation rested, apparently on sure ground, although the evidence brought forward by Hofmann, especially so far as the letters ad Fam. are concerned, was of the scantiest and most unsatis- factory character, until the appearance of the writer's ^ paper on the letters ad Fam. in 1876, and especially one by Prof. Voigt,* in 1879, and another by Dr. Viertel,^ also in 1879, 1 Index Lectionum Berol. hib. 1856; reprinted in Opuscula, vol. ii, p. II2 seq. Lips. 1856. 2 Kritischer Apparat zu Ciceros Brief en an Atticus, Berlin, 1863. ' Ilistoria Critica M. Tullii Ciceronis Epistularum ad Familiares, Lips. * G. Voigt, Die Ifandschriftliche Ucberlieferunc^ von Cicero's Brief en. * Die Wiederauffindung von Cicero's Brief en durch Petrarca, Konigsberg. 62 Robert F. Leii^htoHi [1890. both of which last assail vigorously, and, as it seems to me, successfully, the position taken by Orelli, Haupt, and Hof- mann, as to Petrarch's finding the letters ad Fani. at Ver- celli. Prof. Voigt maintains that Petrarch not only did not discover the letters ad Fain., but that he did not even know of the existence of these letters. He rests his arguments mainly on the well-known facts that Petrarch never mentions or refers to these letters, although he often quotes from the Atticus collection ; that he never mentions the discovery of but one collection, which from the description and the nu- merous quotations must have been the Atticus collection ; that in the preface^ to his own familiar letters, 1359, he con- trasts the number of his own correspondents with the fewness of the correspondents of ancient letter-writers, referring to Brutus, Atticus, Quintus, and Cicero's son as the correspond- ents of Cicero ; and that as late as 1372, only two years before his death, Petrarch speaks of Cicero's letters as consisting of tria volumina, evidently the letters of the Atticus collection. Finally, on the 28th of November, 1373,- only seven months before his death, Petrarch, in his search for passages that should indicate Cicero's relations to Caesar, enumerates^ all the works of Cicero then known to him. How could he omit the letters ad Favi.y if these had been known to him, in which this subject is fully discussed, notably in the long and well-known letter to Lentulus, ad Fam. i, 9 ? The truth is, Petrarch never knew of the existence of the letters ad Fam. These facts on which both Voigt and Viertel base their arguments were not unknown to Hofmann, but he contro- verted them by the positive statement of Flavins Blondus ^ (i 388-1463) to the effect that Petrarch cpistolas Ciceronis Lentnlo inscriptas (i.e. epistolae ad Fam.) Verccllis rcperisse ^ Epp. de Reb. Fam.y Fracassetti, Flor. 1859-1863. The passage reads as fol- lows: Epicurus philosophus vulgo infamis^sed maiorum iudicio maptuSj epistolas suas duobiis ant t rib us inscripsit, Idomeneo^ Poly ae no et Mctrodoro. Totidem paene suas Cicero : Bru/o, Attico et Cicerottibus suis, fratri scilicet ac filio. Seneca perpaucas praeter quam Lucilio suo scribit. 2 According to Korting, p. 38S f. ' De Re Publica Optime Administrando^ p. 419. * Italia Illustratay Basil. 1599, p. 346. Vol. xxi.] The Mediceaji Mss. of Cicero s Letters. 63 se gloriatiis est. This passage from Blondus, Viertel dis- credits.i Blondus had already ascribed the discovery of the Atticus collection to Poggio; and inasmuch as he was aware that Petrarch had discovered some of Cicero's letters, noth- ing was left but to make him the discoverer of the only other collection then known to be extant. The words reperisse se gloriatiis est undoubtedly refer to the first words of Petrarch's letter to Cicero, dated ' apad superosVcrowdi, June 16, 1345.' Not having the letter before him, and being uninformed as to the extent of Cicero's extant correspondence, Blondus probably confused the two finds. Dr. Viertel leaves un- touched the belief that Petrarch was the discoverer of the Atticus collection. With this brief summary of the discussion as to the origin and history of the extant Medicean Mss. containing Cicero's letters, I now pass on to the real purpose of this paper, which is, after examining the facts as to Petrarch's connection with these Ciceronian Mss., to account for the existence of the two Medicean transcripts of these letters now in the Lauren- tian Library. One is catalogued as Cod. Med. xlix. No. xviii, and contains the letters to Atticus, Brutus, Quintus Cicero,' and the spurious letter to Octavius ; the other, which is cata- logued as Cod. Med. xlix, No. vii, contains the letters ad Fam. 1 It is worth while to examine this passage from Biondo on which Hofmann bases his arguments. It is quoted in full on p. 64 of this paper. In quoting the passage Hofmann omits enim etsi as not essential to the sense. On examining the context, however, we notice that there is no corresponding clause to the one introduced by etsi. In the Kgl. Oeffentl. Bib. at Dresden is a codex — the Ms. F. 66 — which contains Biondo's Roma Instaurata, a greater part of the Italia Illustrata, etc. This Ms. was copied under the supervision of Biondo's own son, Girolamo Biondo, and contains numerous corrections and remarks in the margin, presumably made at his direction (Voigt, Ueber die Ilandschriftliche Ueberliefi rung von Cicero's Brie/en, p. 50). Its authenticity and general correctness is therefore beyond question. On fol. 210. directly following the passage quoted, are four lines rendered wholly or partially illegible;^ the words have been apparently erased intentionally. In the edition pubhshed' at Verona in 1482, at Venice in 1500, and at Basle in 153 1, the erased words are omitted. It is idle to speculate on what may have been the meaning of the words or the purpose of erasing them. Nothing definite can be determined until an older Ms. is found containing the passage unimpaired. The erasure, however, destroys the force of the passage for Hofmann's purpose. 64 Robert F. Lei sr J it on, [1890. Both of these copies, as I have stated, have long been as- cribed to Petrarch, that of the Atticus collection with great positiveness. The present is a very opportune time for reexamining Petrarch's connection with the Medicean Mss. of Cicero's letters, because the recent discovery and publication of a large batch of Petrarch's letters, although disclosing no new material essential to this discussion, have rendered it pretty certain that no unpublished letters containing statements irreconcilable with those we now have in regard to his knowl- edge of Cicero's correspondence are likely to come to the light. It is necessary, in the first place, in order to clear the way for the discussion as to the reported discovery and transcrip- tion of these codices by Petrarch, to reexamine the state- ments made by Blondus as to the discovery of these ]\Iss. Blondus, whose position in the literary world gave him every facility for acquiring information, was born only fourteen years after Petrarch's death. His works, although they con- tain numerous errors, must still be considered, for that age, marvels of industry and as too important to be ignored. Hofmann uses, without a scruple, a passage, to which refer- ence has been made, from the Italia II lust rata, to prove that Petrarch found the letters ad Fam., but rejects a statement in another passage in the same connection which ascribes the discovery of the letters of the Atticus collection to Poggio. The two passages read as follows : — Primus vera omnium Franciscus Petrarcha tnai^no vir iui^cnio maiore- que diligentia et poesim et eloquentiam excitare coepit, nee tamen eum attigit Ciceronianae eloquentiae florem, quo multos in hoc seculo videmus ornatos ; in quo quidem nos librorum magis quam ingenii carentiam defectumque cuipamus ; ipse enim etsi epistolas Ciceronis Lentulo in- scriptas Vercellis reperisse gtoriatus est, tres Ciceronis de oratore et instilutionupn orator iarum (luintitiani libros non nisi laceros mutilosque vidit . . . et quum magnus bene discendi ardor ?nultos in Italia apprc- hendisset {i.e. after Emanuel Chrysoloras had introduced and taught Greek literature) conciliujnque a pud Const ant iam Germaniae ab universo populo f^hrisiiano haberetur, quaerere ibi et investigare coeperunt ex nostratibus niulti, si quos Germaniae loca Constantiae proxima ex deperditis Romano- rum et Italiae otim libris in monasteriorum latebris occultarent. Quint i- i « I Vol. xxi.] The Alediceaii Mss. in Cicero's Letters. 6s lianusque integer repertus a Poggio pritmwi transcriptus in Italiam venit, secutaeque sunt incerto nobis datae libertatis patronae Ciceronis ad Atticum epistolae. Hofmann considers the first passage, which I shall examine more carefully further on, sufficient without a bit of corrobo- rative evidence to prove that Petrarch discovered the letters ad Fam.f but rejects the second passage, which ascribes the discovery of the Atticus collection to Poggio, both because he had other evidence to prove that Petrarch found these letters and also because it is certain ^ that these letters were known in Italy before the sitting of the council of Constance. Blondus is also in error in ascribing the rediscovery of Quin- tilian to Poggio. Lapo da Castiglionchio had sent Petrarch a fragmentary copy of this author as early as 1350.^ Again, Blondus errs in asserting that Petrarch did not know Cicero's de Oratore. Petrarch knew the book well and often makes citations from it, a number of which may be found on p. 455, chap, ii, of his Res Mcmor., taken from De Orat. c. 52, 175 and 176.^ But Vespasiano Fiorentino,* who wrote about 1450, seems also inclined to ascribe the discovery of the Atticus collection to Poggio. Too much stress, however, must not be laid on these statements of Blondus and of Ves- pasiano, especially in the absence of corroborative evidence. In the fifteenth century it was the fashion in Italy to ascribe the origin of new ideas and enterprises to the locality in and around Constance. Then, it should be noted that Poggio himself never claims to have made such an important liter- ary find as Cicero's letters to Atticus. Again, neither Blon- dus nor Vespasiano positively ascribe the discovery of these letters to Poggio. The words from ijtcerto to patronae in the last line of the passage cited from Blondus are, so far as / can see, untranslatable, and it is useless to conjecture 1 From Petrarch's own letters and also from a letter of Leonardus Arretinus (Leonardo Bruni); Epist. iii, 13, ed. Mehus. to Niccolo Niccoli. . 2 Epist. Eatnil. xxiv, 7, ed. Eracassatti. ^ Hortis, M. T. Cicerone nelle Opere del Petrarca e del Boccaccio, Triest, 1878, p. 28. * Pure a Costanza trovaronsi le pistole di Tullio ad Attic o, delle quali non ho notizia, Poggio Fiorcntino, § 2, ed. Bartoli, Eir. 1859. 66 Robert F. L eight on y [1890. what the meaning may be, until an older Ms. is consulted Fmally, we know from Petrarch, and also from Leonardo Brum, that there were, before the date of Poggio's alleged discovery, at least two codices of these letters in Italy, the one found at Verona by Petrarch himself, and the other at Pistoia by Bartolommeo Capra. It is probable that Blondus and Vespasiano confused the discovery of this Ms. with the services which Poggio is known to have rendered Cosimo Medici in copying for him the letters of the Atticus collec- tion - a transcript that is still extant, now in the Laurentian library, and is catalogued as Cod. Poggianus, Its chirog- raphy is a marvel of beauty and elegance. The chief evidence of Petrarch's having found Cicero's letters is his own famous letter ^ to Cicero in the other world, dated 'apud superos' Verona, June 16, 1345. This letter is assumed to have been penned by Petrarch on the spot where the find was made, and in the first joy and excitement of his great discovery. Epistolas tuas din mnltumque perqiiisitas atque ubi viinime rebar inventas, avidissime perlegi are the opening words. The place of finding the codex has been mferred from the fact that the letter is dated Verona. The find evidently might have been made elsewhere, and the letter announcing it written after Petrarch's return to Verona. Still a discovery made a few years ago by Detlessen,2 who was examining the Mss. in the Verona librarv, renders it probable that Cicero's letters to Brutus were in the library in 1329, the date assigned to the newly discovered M.s. This Ms. contains Flons Moralimn Auctoritatjim, by an unknown author. Two citations found by Detlessen in this Ms. are made from Cicero's correspondence with Brutus, viz. chap. 11, 2 : Cic. li. 3 EpL ad Bnitum, and chap, iii, 15 : Tulius in quadam Ep. ad Brutuni. The Verona codex contained but one book of the Brutine correspondence, while three are mentioned here. It is possible that ad Quintum Fmfrem is to be read in place of ad Brut., the compiler writing ad Brut because this collection stood first in the Ms. It is a pity 1 De Rebus Fam. xxiv, ed. Fracassatti, Flor. 1 859-1 863. 8 Nene Jahrb.fur Phil. u. Paed., 1863, p. 553. I f \ Vol. xxi.] The Medicean Mss. of Cicerds Letters. 67 that Detlessen had not copied the citation. The reference, however, renders it certain that a codex containing at least some of Cicero's letters and presumably the one found six- teen years later by Petrarch, was in the Verona library in 1329. Detlessen 1 also succeeded in finding another notice of the Verona codex, this time in a work by Guglielmo da Pastrengo, entitled De Originibns Rerum. Pastrengo was a collector of literary notices and titles of books which he had seen or read. Among the titles under Cicero's name are men- tioned in a general way numerous collections of his letters now no longer extant, and then comes the following entry, with the number of books in each collection accurately stated :-— Ad Brutuvi, lib. i ; Ad Quintum Ciceronem fratrem, lib. iii ; Ad Atti- cum, lib. xvi. Pastrengo might have obtained the titles of the other collections of Cicero's letters referred to from some of the ancient authors. Macrobius {Sat. ii, i) mentions the letters ad Cormlium Nepotem ; Priscian (ix, 10, 54), those ad CaL vinn, ad filiiim (viii, 17, 96), ad Pausam (xv, 3, 14), and Suetonius {Caes. 9), those ad Axium ; but his information as to the Atticus group was obtained presumably from the codex itself. This view is confirmed by the fact that but one of the two books of the Brutine correspondence is mentioned, the same that the Verona codex contained. No mention whatever is made in this compilation of the letters ad Fam. ; hence we may safely infer that these letters were not at least contained in the Verona codex, as some maintain was the case, and that they probably were not then in the Verona library, and further that they were not known even by title to Pastrengo, who, it is well to note, was a friend of Petrarch, one of the latter's familiar letters being addressed to him.2 This notice from Pastrengo confirms the view that a codex containing Cicero's letters to Atticus, etc. was in the Verona library, not that it was there, as Giuliari^ asserts, before Petrarch's discovery. The earliest date that can be assigned 1 L. c. p. 553. ^^pp. de Rebus Fam. et Var. 35; dated Aug. 10, 1361. » Francesco Petrarca e la sua scoperta delle epistole di M. Tullio Cicerone in Verona, Firenze 1876, p. 357. 68 Robert F. Leighton, [1890. to Pastrengo's work is 1345. On the 70th fol. is the follow- ing entry under Livius : In cuius viodico lapidco tmnulo sic Icgitur: V.F. T. Liuius Liuie, etc.^ This stone is known to have been repolished and reerected by the order of Giacomo of Carrara, 1345- 1350. Finally, Coluccio Salutato's letter, from which I shall presently quote, confirms the view that Petrarch's find was made in Verona. As to the exact locality in Verona where the codex was found we know nothing more than the opening words of Petrarch's letter tell us : uhi viiiiime rebar invcntas, i.c.y not in a library, not where books were usually kept. Coluccio, in the letter referred to, speaks of the find being made in a church. Before leaving Petrarch's letter, it will be well to note what the opening words seem to imply, that Petrarch supposed he had discovered all of Cicero's letters, for he writes epistolas tuas din inultumque pcrquisitaSy etc., avidissimc pcrlcgiy />., Petrarch writes (addressing Cicero) "of finding your letters (not some of your letters), for which I have long sought," etc. From Petrarch's description of the Ms. containing the letters he found, we may infer that it was then in a bad con- dition ; its leaves were torn and eaten ; it was setiio obmtas. Petrarch also tells us that he copied the letters with his own hand, because they were inaccessible to common copyists. He further states that he was actuated to this labor both from a desire to possess {Juibcndi cupiditas) these priceless treasures, and also from a lack of confidence in the accuracy of common scribes and their ability to decipher the writing already somewhat indistinct and in some places nearly illegi- ble. Writing of his copy to his friend Neri Morando, in 1358 or 1359 (t^^ date of the letter is uncertain-), Petrarch says : — Est mihi volumen epistolarum eiits (Ciceronis) ingens, quod ipse olim tnanti propria, quia exemplar scriptoribus intpervium erat, scripsi, adversa tunc valet udine ; sed corporis incnmmndum et laborem operis magnus amor ^ Hortis, Cenni di Giov. Boccacci intorno a Tito Livio^ '877, p. 97 seq. ^ Epp. Rer. Fam. xxi, 10; as to the plan of arranging his letters, Petrarch (^Ep. xxiv, 13) says: Non rerum^ sed temporum rationem habui praeter has enim ultimas veteribus inscriptas illustribtis viris . . . ac praeter primam^ quae . . . locum praefaiionis obtinuit^ caetera paene omnia quo inciderant scripta sunt ordine. Vol. x.\i.] The Medicean Mss. of Cicero s Letters. 69 • et delect alio et habendi cupiditas vincebant. Nunc librum, ut tnihi semper ad manum esset, in bibliothecae (i.e., in his villa, on the Adda, where he then lived) ostia posti innixum stare solitum vedisti, etc. From the foregoing extract, it appears that Petrarch's transcript formed a large folio volume, in nowise similar to the quarto volume now in the Laurentian library, long sup- posed to be the identical copy made by Petrarch. As to the contents of this 'volumen,' Petrarch gives us no definite information. He simply writes of having volumen ingens of Cicero's letters, without designating even the collection from which the letters were copied. It has been assumed, mainly from the fact that Petrarch at once, even in the letter announcing the find and subsequently, quoted copiously from the Atticus group ^ — quotations often of considerable length made with accuracy, from all three collections, and extending in the letters to Atticus through fourteen books — from this, I repeat, it has been assumed that Petrarch must have dis- covered a codex containing the letters to Atticus, Quintus Cicero, and Brutus, and copied the whole codex. Petrarch, however, never states in any of his extant works that he copied or even found the letters of the Atticus group; he speaks simply of finding unexpectedly and of copying Cicero's letters without asserting even that he copied all he found. These circumstances alone, unsupported as they are by cor- roborative evidence, seems to me altogether insufficient to prove that Petrarch found in Verona and copied the codex containing the Atticus group of letters, which we know from other sources, was in the Verona library about the time of the alleged discovery. Orelli collected from Petrarch's works numerous references to Cicero's letters, but a completer list was made by Viertel, and published in the Anhang of his paper which I have already mentioned. From these citations it appears that Petrarch 'must have had some knowledge of Cicero's letters to Atticus, Quintus Cicero, and Brutus, 1 That Petrarch never quoted from the letters ad Earn., so far as his extant correspondence shows, is no positive proof that this collection was unknown to him; excerpts m'ght have been made of which Coluccio had no information. This, if a fact, would have to be proved. ;o Robert F. LcigJitoUy [1890. before the date of the reported find, as well as of several other collections no longer extant. This knowledge, how- ever, was gained not from the letters themselves but from passages picked up here and there in the writings of other ancient authors. For example, Petrarch quotes in a letter, dated 1343, the following words from one of Cicero's letters : Scribe quidqiiid in biiccam vcnerit^ a passage, which, as he tells us himself, he found in Seneca {Ep. 118, i) : et de Cicero Jiis epistolis Scnccae priusquain oculis crcdidi ineis} Seneca mentions Cicero's letters four times ; viz., Ep. 97, 4, where he quotes from ad Att. i, 16, 5; 118, i and 2; Dc Brevit. Vitae, 5, 2, where a passage is cited not found in our present text, and Ep. 21,3. Petrarch evidently knew some- thing of Cicero's letters before the find at Verona ; that find materially extended his knowledge, for his citations are thence- forth vastly more numerous and lengthy. From these citations we can hardly conjecture more than that Petrarch copied such letters from the codex, in order to have them ready at hand, as he wished to use in his literary work. This is exactly what we should expect him in this case to do, considering the size of the codex — it contained Epp, ad M. Brutuni libri, ii ; Epp. ad Quintum Fratrcni /ibri, iii ; Epp. ad Atticiim libri, xvi. — and Petrarch's distaste for such work. In 1363, on returning Cicero's oration pro Plancio, which he had borrowed from his friend Lapo da Castiglionchio to copy, Petrarch expresses, in a letter ^ sent with the Ms., apologizing for keeping it so long, — he had kept it four years, — because he could find no competent copyist, and was at last compelled to copy it himself — in this letter Petrarch ex- presses strongly his impatience at such work. What a tremen- dous task it would have been in comparison to copy the letters of the Atticus group, containing, as I should judge, nearly fifteen times as much matter. Is it probable that Petrarch, who complained of his arm being lamed from copying pro Plancioy eveT undertook such a tremendous task as copying the Atticus collection of letters ? If Petrarch ever made * Epp. de Rebus Fam., iii, p. 18. * L.c. xviii, 12, Vol. xxi.] The Medicean Mss. of Cicero s Letters. 71 such a copy, would not the fact have been known to some of his friends ; would not the transcript have been found in his library after his death } Not one of Petrarch's friends, so far as we can learn, ever knew of his possessing a copy of these letters, and no such copy was found among his books after his death. On this last point we fortunately have direct and satis- factory evidence. Petrarch died on the 20th of July, 1374. Coluccio Salutato (i 330-1406), the eminent scholar and states- man, — who came to P'lorence to live in 1374, and was made Lord Chancellor in 1375, and who was also an intimate friend and correspondent of Petrarch, — knew probably from Pe- trarch's letter dated ' apud superos; that the latter had discovered letters of Cicero in Verona {quos scio fiiisse in ecclesia Veronensi), and he ardently desired to possess a copy of them. P^or this purpose he entered into correspondence with the Veronese Gasparre de' Broaspini, also Petrarch's in- timate friend and correspondent, from whom he had already received the promise of a copy of the poems of Propertius and Catullus, which were also in Petrarch's library. In answer to his inquiries he must have received information that Broaspini himself possessed a collection of only sixty of Cicero's letters, for in a subsequent letter,^ dated probably Oct. 17, 1374, Coluccio continues, in reference to Cicero's letters, as follows : — Ciceroni's epistolas^ ut alias dixi, omnes vellem, et libri qiiantitatem rogo not am facias. I lias circiter LX, quas habere te dicis, nescio an in continu- al opcre an exxerptas habeas at que delect as, et ideo arbitrio tuo dimiserim numquid illarujn me velis esse participem. From the foregoing extract it is evident that neither Coluccio nor the literati in Florence possessed, at that time, 1 Sachs. Gesellschafl d. Wiss., 1849, P- 257 ff. : among the letters reprinted in Ilauptii OpHsc, vol. i, p. 279 ff. The letter dated July 20, 1874, the day of Pe- trarch's death, and also the letter of Benvenuto da Imola, July 25, the day on which C. received the news of P.'s death, were copied by Mommsen from cod. Gaddianus. The date of the letter from which the extract in the text is taken is uncertain : Florentiae xxi, kl. decemaris. Another Ms. (Bandini, vol. iii, p. 563) gives: Flor. xvi, kal. Novembr. The year is determined from the neniae at Petrarch's death mentioned in the letter. 72 Robert F. Leirhton, [1890. any definite information in regard to Cicero's letters. No copy of them at that time, evidently, was to be found in Florence ; otherwise Coluccio, considering his zeal for the new learning, would have known of it. We may also infer, considering Broaspini's intimate relations with Petrarch's family, that no codex containing Cicero's letters was found in Petrarch's library, but only the sixty letters which Petrarch had probably copied in Verona, in order that he might have ready at hand such passages as he wished to use in his his- torical and other literary work. The passages from these letters cited by Petrarch prove their source ; for they are all from the letters to Atticus, Ouintus Cicero, and Ikutus, ex- cept a few citations which might have been found in letters addressed to Pompey, Caesar, Brutus, etc., which are also included in the Atticus collection. Petrarch 1 presented his library, in 1362, to the city of Venice, on condition that it should be preserved in a fire- proof building and kept intact. The conditions were accepted,- and, after Petrarch's death, the library was sent to Venice, and with it, probably, the copy of the Verona codex, in case one was ever made by Petrarch. In 1877 I made a diligent search in the Venetian Library for Mss. of Cicero's letters, but did not succeed in finding any of special interest or impor- tance. Still, the fact that Petrarch's alleged transcript is not in Venice, even if that were satisfactorily established, would prove nothing ; because the conditions which Petrarch im- posed when disposing of his library were not, according to Poggio, respected : Fr. Pctrarca liabiiit itigcntcm copimn libro rnniy qui post eiiis obitinn onines vcmividati et variis Jioninibus dispertiti stmt. On the whole, therefore, it seems to me, although the sub- ject needs further investigation, that the weight of evidence is against Petrarch's having copied more than sixty letters from the Verona codex ; these were used by him for literary purposes, and were found in his library after his death ; they, or a copy of them, were transmitted, as we shall see, by Broas- 1 L.c. p. 276, Basle, 1538; cf. Fracassetti, v, p. 381 ff. Vol. xxi.] The Me dice an Mss. of Cicero's Letters. 73 pini to Coluccio.i Not a trace of any transcript of the whole Verona codex by Petrarch has ever been found. The * voiu- men iugens ' of Cicero's letters, which Petrarch writes of possessing, was probably a folio volume, — like the one con- taining his own letters, owned by Ludovico Beccatelli, of which I shall presently speak, — and contained copies of such letters and other matter as he wished to preserve and have ready at hand for use in his literary work. The chief evidence relied on by Orelli, Haupt, Hofmann, and others to prove that Petrarch discovered and copied the Verona codex was the existence, in the Laurentian Library, of the very copy which was made, as they supposed beyond a doubt, by Petrarch's own hand. This copy, as I shall prove, wasjiot due to Petrarch, but to Coluccio Salutato. The argu- ment, therefore, falls of itself ; and nothing is left but the fact that Petrarch copied sixty of Cicero's letters. Whether Petrarch's copy was made from the Verona codex, which we know from Pastrengo was in the Verona Library in 1350, or from a smaller and incomplete codex found ^ in ccclesia Vero- nensi' we have at present no means of determining. A very slight examination, however, of these Medicean transcripts, and a comparison of the text of the one — that containing the letters ad Fam. — with the original, which is also there, side by side with the copies, ought to have convinced any one who, divesting himself of all preconceived notions as to Petrarch's part in the work, entered upon the investigation with impar- tiality, that these copies never could have been made by Petrarch, but that they were undoubtedly the work of scribes ignorant of Latin. Petrarch, as we can well imagine, set a high standard of literary excellence and accuracy. Ignorant or careless scribes he condemned without mercy.^ Is it prob- able that this great litterateiir committed the same errors he so strongly condemned in others } Let us note a few of the most conspicuous inaccuracies in these copies, sufficient, at least, to render it improbable that the transcription was done by Petrarch. He certainly would not have written cnrihn for Curiuvi (Att. i, i. 2) ; not tiirium for Therniiirn (i, 1.2); not * Ep. Var. 43; cf. Fracassetti, vol. v, p. 376. 2 d^ j^efn. Utr. Fort., i, 43. 74 Robert F. Leigh ton ^ [1890. regimun for rcgnuni (i, i. 2); not dissent for dissident; not eiiis for ^/ /> (i, i. 3); not cognoscere for eognosce (i, i. 3); not 7'^;/mV for ventitet (i, i. 4) ; not detractionibus for ^^^ /^ rationibns (i, 2. i) ; not /// ex eofttcntione for /// ^/ eon. (i, 5. 4) ; not aecedcnte for aecidente (i, 14. 5); not i/^'r//^j for verita est (iv, 15. 4); not provinciarnm ior provineialinvt (i, 17. 5). In short, not to continue this list of errors, which might be extended to almost any length, it is safe to assert that there is hardly a single letter of any considerable length, in the whole collection, that would be intelligible, from beginning to end, without the corrections and marginal readings, so care- lessly and inaccurately is the copying done. It has, in fact, long been a mystery how such a scholar as Petrarch could have been satisfied with copie of such inestimable literary treasures so inaccurately made. Let us now trace the origin of the report that Petrarch copied these codices. Referring to the works of Laurentius Mehusi and to the Catalogue 2 of Bandini, the latter of whom traced with unwearied patience and remarkable ingenuity and critical skill the history of the Mss. in the Laurentian Library, we learn that the report originated with Angelus Politianus, who had seen these Mss., and had compared the one containing the letters ad Fam. Politian states, without giving his authority, that Petrarch is reported to have copied this latter Ms. : JVactus sum Ciceronis epistolarum familiarum vol h men antiquissimum, . . . turn ex eo ipso altenun descriptum, sicuti qitidam putatit, Francisci Petrarchae manu^ It is easy to conceive, considering Petrarch's unrivalled position in the literary world, how such a report might have originated. To confirm it, here were one of the original codices and the copies of both in the library side by side. What more convincing evidence was needed > In the general enthusiasm for Petrarch, no one noticed that Petrarch's letter 1 Vita Ambrosii Traversarii,^^. 200 ff., 1759. 2 Cat, Cod. Lat. Bib. Med. Laurent., vols, ii and iii, Flor. 1775-76; vol. ii, P- 464 f. 8 Miscell., c. 25. Vol. xxi.] The Medicean Mss. of Cicero s Letters. 7b S V' to Cicero, dated ' apnd superoSy referred exclusively to the Atticus collection. Neither does Politian seem to have noted the numerous inaccuracies in the copies, or if noted, they were regarded as of no significance. Several folios in the ar- chetype had been transposed, — a fact which Mommsen after- wards proved, — and yet Petrarch, if he were the transcriber, copied these like any hired scribe, without noticing the error. After the report was once started, Petrarch's name did the rest ; it was everywhere credited and accepted without ques- tion or doubt. Petrus Victorius^ adopted it and tried to strengthen it by proofs. ** I," he affirms, " know more of the Ms. of the Atticus collection than Politian did; he knew only that the Ms. belonged to Petrarch, but I know that Petrarch copied it with his own hand, not alone this Ms., but also the one containing the letters ad Fam.'' As proof, Victorius mentions the French shape of the letters, a style of writing acquired by Petrarch during his residence in France. To confirm his view he submitted the Ms. of the Atticus collection to some French students, who happened to be on a visit to Rome, but all doubt was removed when he compared it with a Ms.2 copy of Petrarch's own letters, which Archbishop Beccatelli owned, and which was supposed to be autographic beyond question, simply because Petrarch's initials, F. P., were inscribed on the volume. On comparing the apograph of the Atticus collection with those supposed Petrarchean autographs, Victorius found a remarkable simi- larity, sufficient, at least, to justify him in asserting that the writing in both copies was done by the same hand. This comparison, it should be observed, even admitting that the letters owned by Beccatelli were autographic — which I shall show was not the case — proves nothing as to the letters ad Fam. ; these Victorius was sure Petrarch copied, no proof of that was needed. Bandini stamped the report with the authority of his name by admitting it into his catalogue, and from that time on it has been universally accepted. At first ^ The celebrated editor of Cicero's correspondence, and the one to whom is due the present designation of the letters ad Fam. ; see Graevius, vol. ii, p. 324. 2 Cod. Plut. liii, n. xxxv, cf. Bandini, vol. ii, p. 624, and Politiani MiscelL, 25 ff. 76 Robert F. LeightoUy [1890. Bandini considered the marginal notes to be Petrarch's also, but this view he finally abandoned, and ascribed them subsequently, as Mehus had done, to Niccolo Niccoli. Finally, if more proof were needed to substantiate the report, which ascribes these Medicean copies to Petrarch, Mommsen placed the seal of confirmation on it, when after a critical examination and comparison of the letters of the Atticus collection, he pronounced them to have been copied by Petrarch's own hand as far as the words mtri Icgis dies, Att. vii, 7. 6, from which point on, several hands, he aflfirms, are distinguishable.^ It is well to note here that the most Mommsen could determine from a comparison of the Ms. in question with the supposed Beccatellian autographa was, that the writing was done by the same hand or by persons who wrote similarly, not that both were done by Petrarch. Even the determination of the former was no easy task. Detles- sen, one of the most experienced and skilful judges of such matters, says : " Es ist ungemein schwer, die Identitiit der Schreiber zweier verschiedener codices zu constatiren, zumal, wenn diese recht schon und regelmassig geschrieben sind."^ In order to come to a satisfactory and well-grounded conclu- sion, Mommsen, it would seem, evidently ought to have had before him not only the Mss. under consideration, but also photographic specimens of the handwriting of the most cele- brated Italian scholars of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. It should be noted in passing that could Mommsen's opin- ion be established, then the chief copyist must have received help — an unmistakable indication that hired scribes were employed — and also that this Medicean copy of the Atticus collection at least cannot be the identical copy made by Petrarch ; for we know from Petrarch's own words that his whole codex was copied by his own hand : Volumen epistolarum eius ingens, quod ipse olim 7nanu propria quia exemplar scriptoribus impervium erat^ scripsi. But the Ms. of Petrarch's letters owned by Beccatelli, ^ Hofmann, I.e. p. lO; M. gave the result of his researches to H. 2 L.c. p. 561. I Vol. xxi.] The Medicean Mss. of Cicero's Letters, 77 Petrarch's biographer, was not autographic, although sup- posed to be such by Beccatelli, who proved its autography, as we have seen, by comparing it with the Ms. containing the letters of the Atticus collection, which it was assumed without question was copied by Petrarch {quos ab eo descrip^ tos constat)} This, of course, was simply reasoning in a circle, and nothing definite or satisfactory could be deter- mined. Mehus, who had every opportunity of knowing, tells us how this Ms. copy of Petrarch's letters owned by Becca- telli was made : Ego autem iudico, codicem ilium conflattun esse ex variorum epistolis , iisdemqtte autographis, atque adeo varia scriptum manu. Bandini had not overlooked this statement by Mehus, but he was so infatuated with the idea that these Medicean copies of Cicero's letters were made by Petrarch, that, even against his better judgment, he pronounced the writing in both sets of Mss., viz. that containing Petrarch's letters and those containing Cicero's letters, to be done by the same hand. This opinion surprises us the more, because Bandini must have had some acquaintance with Petrarch's handwriting, having in his possession a copy of Cicero's de Officiis and Paradoxa, both of which contained glosses from Petrarch's \\^XiA{Petrarcliae autem mantis tam mihi nota est quam famili- arissimi sui cuique) ; and also because he admits that the chirography of this Ms. varies so much, — not only the chi- rography, but the quality and size of the paper, the ink, etc., — that it is impossible to attribute its production to one scribe.2 The important bearing that this Ms. copy of Petrarch's letters, owned by Beccatelli, has on the point under discussion justifies me in dwelling a moment longer on it. Petrarch's correspondence, as we know, was immense, and he must have often dictated his letters or furnished rough drafts of them 1 Mehus, 1.0. p. 253 f.; of. Bandini, ii, p. 624. 2 Fateor equidem, si haec omnia, quae Petrarchae existimantur scripta inter se comparentur, aliqitid invirtm, atque adeo multtim discriminis posse deprehendi, Bandini, iii, p. 92 f. 78 Robert F. L eight on^ [1890. to copyists,! of whom he had several. This fact may be inferred from the use of dictata instead of scripta in a letter found in De Reb. Fam. xxiv, 13 : quae dietata serins praevenit cornites et locmn praefationis obtinuit. In this way it may have happened that some of these copies which Beccatelli had were autographic, but the most of them were not. This latter fact Beccatelli suspected {suspicabatur coniecturas quas- dcun secHius Francisci Patrarehae esse), but naturally it was easy for him to be convinced of their autography, and after Victorius compared them with the letters of the Atticus collec- tion, and found a remarkable similarity,^ his doubts vanished. Beccatelli's Ms. came into the Medicean library, and received the inscription, Fpistolae Fra?ieisei Petrarchae eiiis vianu exaratae ; this put a stamp of genuineness upon it that no one until recently has been inclined to question.^ If we turn now to examine the Mss. themselves, we find only confirmatory evidence of the view already stated, viz. that the Medicean transcript of the Atticus collection (omit- ting from consideration the letters ad Fam., which it is cer- tain Petrarch never saw) is not identical with the copy made by Petrarch. On the codex are these words : Hie liber est Pyeri Colueeii de Stegnajio. The owner's name was once written on the other transcript, that containing the letters ad Fam. y but some one intentionally erased it. On the mar- gin of both transcripts are numerous corrections and con- jectural readings, which all admit were made by Coluccio. A Latin translation of the Greek in the text, which in the let- ters to Atticus is very considerable, is also added on the margin. This Greek text Mehus^ ascribed to Petrarch, the translation to Donato Acciaiuoli, who at one time owned the Ms. containing the letters ad Fam. Bandini ascribed the whole to Coluccio Salutato. The fact is, neither Petrarch's nor Coluccio's knowledge of Greek was sufficient for this lZ>./«w.xviii,5; xxii, 19; naturally Petrarch kept copies of his letters; those that he had written with his own hand, he certainly would not copy himself, when he had copyists employed for this very work. 2 Singulisque litteris formisque ipsarum ponderatis convenire omnia mirifiu inter se animadvertimus. 8 Voigt. I.e. p. 54. 4 l.^. p. 220. V » % Vol. xxi.] The Medicean Mss. of Cicero s Letters. 79 work. These Greek glosses were added, Ambrogio Traver- sari 1 tells us positively, by Chrysoloras, the celebrated Greek scholar, who lived at IHorence about 1396: Ciceronis epistolas ad Aitkuvi qiiibus noster Manuel {i.e. Chrysoloras) restiiuit Graccas literas. This passage must undoubtedly refer to the transcript under consideration, for it is certain there was but this one Ms. in Florence at that time containing the letters of the Atticus collection. Had Petrarch copied either of these Medicean transcripts, is it probable that Coluccio, who knew Petrarch's handwriting,2 would have suppressed all mention of this service to literature } The mere fact that Petrarch had copied the Ms. would have rendered it doubly dear to Coluccio, and he would undoubtedly have added an inscrip- tion something like the following: Ipsius Petrarehae manu scriptus. When the Ms. came into the hands of Donato Acciaiuoli, he was careful to record that he had purchased it of Donatus Arretinus, the son of the celebrated Leonardo Bruni.^ There is one other test, almost decisive in itself, against the identity of this Medicean transcript with the one Petrarch made. Petrarch, in one of his letters,* quotes from ad Att. vi, I. 1 2,5 the passage containing the saying of Isocrates in regard to his two pupils, Ephorus and Theopompus, ascrib- ing it incorrectly to Socrates {Socratictim illud), thus proving * Ep. vi, 6, rec. Canneto. 2 Coluccio had received but one letter direct from Petrarch, Ep. Sen. xi, 4. « It may be of interest to add here that the codex containing the letter! of the Atticus collection passed from Coluccio to Leonardo Bruni (cf. Bandini, iv, p. 49; also i:p. /.eonardi, ed. Mehus, ii, 189), and from him to his son Donato, from whom Donato Acciaiuoli bought it (cf. Politiani Miscell. liii). After that it came into the hands of an unknown grammarian, from him it passed on to Barptolo- maeus Cavalcantcs, and finally to Petrus Victorius, who made it the basis of the text of his edition of these letters, and finally presented it with the rest of his books to the great Medicean Library, founded by Cosmo Medici in 1444 (cf. Vic- tor U Ep. i, Ep. 5, written to Barptolomaeus Cavalcantes), where it is still to be found. * Ep. Fam. iv, 14. * Alter, uti dixit Isocrates in Ephoro et Theopompojrenis eget, alter calcaribus. 8o Robert F. Leighto7i, [1890. Vol. xxi.] The Medicean Mss. of Cicero s Letters. 81 that the text of his copy differed from that of the present Medicean transcript, which has Isocrates, the correct reading. All known Mss. of Petrarch's letter containing the passage in question has the same reading, Socraticum illnd, a form that could hardly have been corrupted from I socraticum, which itself is an irregular formation. Petrarch evidently would have written Isocrateum or Isocratium, neither of which could hardly have changed to Socraticum} Then, again, it is hardly probable that Petrarch knew enough about the writings of Isocrates to suggest or to warrant the conversion of the name into an adjective — a form that we might reason- ably expect would be used in case the aphorism had been cor- rectly credited to Socrates. This variant, then, adds another striking piece of evidence to that already enumerated that our Medicean transcript was not identical with Petrarch's copy. The fact is, there is not a particle of evidence to prove that Petrarch ever copied, ever even knew of the existence of, these Medicean transcripts of Cicero's letter. It is safe to say that no one would ever have thought of ascribing the transcript of the letters ad Fam. to Petrarch, a collection which he never mentions or refers to in any way, of which there was not a particle of evidence that he even knew of its existence, had it not been that he discovered letters of Cicero at Verona. Then his exalted position as a patron of learning and the foremost reviver of ancient literature in Italy caused scholars to assume on insufficient evidence that this great litterateur must have discovered also the other collection of Cicero's letters. Even the great Bandini was misled by the halo that had gathered round Petrarch's name, and headed the description of these Mss. in his catalogue with : Cicero nis epistolae fam i Hares libri xvi. a Francisco Pet rare ha quam deligentissime transcripti exantiquissimo exemplari {Pint, xlix, Cod. vii) and Ciceronis Epistolae ad Atticum manu Francisci Petrarchae exaratae {Pint, xlix, Cod. xviii). If neither of these Medicean copies of Cicero's letters is to be ascribed to Petrarch, the question arises, who did procure them and bring them to Florence, then the literary centre of 1 Viertel, I.e. p. 21 f. \\ Italy } This great service was rendered to the literary world by Coluccio Salutato, who, as we have seen, came to Flor- ence in 1374, and commenced his search at once for these letters. He knew that Petrarch had found Cicero's letters, — quas scio fuisse in ecclcsia Veronensi, — and he at once en' tered into correspondence, as we have seen, with Gasparre de' Broaspini in regard to these letters, and learned that only sixty of Cicero's letters were known to be in Verona, the same that had been found in Petrarch's library after the lat- ter's death. ^ In a subsequent letter, written probably in November of 1378, Coluccio requests Broaspini: Epistolas Ciceronis, si pot cs, per Jiunc mittc^ a request that was fulfilled, as we may infer from the fact that Coluccio soon afterwards used, in a communication to Lambardo da Serico, a quotation from one of Cicero's letters to Q. Cicero (i. 3), which he undoubtedly obtained from one of Petrarch's letters^ or from one of these sixty letters. Coluccio continued his search with unabated zeal, and soon learned from Petrarch's son-in- law, Francescola da Brossano,* that the Duke of Milan, Gian Galeazzo, had received in 1389 or 1390 as a present a number of Mss. from the libraries in Verona and Vercelli. Coluccio at once applied to his friend, the poet Antonio Loschi, in Milan, for information in regard tc these Mss., and also to Pasquino de' Cappelli, the duke's prime minister, for permis- sion to have them copied.^ From Loschi, with whom Coluc- 1 Ber. SlUchs. Ges. d. Wiss. p. 259. 2 Banrlini, iii, p. 565. The letter is dated Flor., xvii, Nov. The year is not given; the preceding letter is dated xi, Nov., 1378; see also p. 82. *In Ep. Earn, viii, 7, Petrarch uses the same quotation; the letter to Lom- bardo of Padua can be found in Bandini, vol. iii, p. 568. The year is uncertain; one of the following letters is dated 1383. * Giov. da Schio, Sulla vita e sugli scritti di Antonio Loschi Vicentino, Padova, 1858, p. 74: Eranceschetto da Brossano aveva scritto a Coluccio^ die tra i codici viandati al Duca (he was not made duke until 1395) in dono dalle biblioteche di Verona e di Vercelli, etc. * These are among the celebrated letters, to which reference has already been made, reprinted by Haupt in Index Led. Cat. Berol. hib., 1856. The corre- spondence with Loschi can be found in Schio, p. 137. The letters to Cappelli, Mommsen copied from Cod. Riccardianus, 898, and fixed the date of the first letter September 24, 1390, as Haupt also did. 82 Robert F. L eight on y [1890. Vol. xxi.] The Me dice an Mss. of Cicero's Letters. 83 cio had long maintained correspondence, he learned that among the Mss. received from Verona and Vercelli were two codices containing Cicero's letters. Coluccio naturally as- sumed that both codices contained the same letters, viz. those found by Petrarch in Verona, simply because he had never heard of any other collection of Cicero's letters. After long waiting and a lengthy correspondence, which is given in full by Hortis ^ and Schio,^ the consent of the grand duke was at last obtained to use the Mss., and a copy of one of them containing Cicero's letters was made, and transmitted to Coluccio to Florence, in September, 1390.^ But what was Coluccio's surprise, on receiving the long coveted and widely sought Ms., to discover that it contained none of the sixty letters, copies of which he had in his possession, procured some years before from Broaspini, nor indeed any of the letters found by Petrarch at Verona, with which he was already somewhat familiar from Petrarch's citations, but new and different letters, viz. the collection ad FamiliareSy which now for the first time was rediscovered and made known to the literary world. Coluccio knew, as he tells us, from the contents that the Ms. he had just received must have been copied from the Vercelli codex : Sentio quidcm cpistolarutn Ciceronis phirimum abesse, putoque quod has habueris ab ecclesia Vercellensi. Vcntm compertujn habeo quod in ecdesia Veronensi solebat aliud et (eius) epistolarum esse volumcn cuius, ut per aliquas epistolas inde desumptas quas habeo {i.e. the sixty letters already mentioned) et per excerpta Petrarchae (the passa<2^es cited by Pe- trarch) clarissime video, (quod) inter has penitus tiihil extat. 1 L.c. p. 99 ff. 2 L.c. p. 158 ff. 3 The exact date is uncertain. Coluccio, while waiting for a reply to his letter to Cappelli, wrote again to Loschi on the 2ist of July, begging for copies of the Mss. He also instructed the Florentine embassy in Milan to cooperate in secur- ing copies of these Mss., if possible. Caeterum expecto Ciceronianas illas epist- olas, he wrote, tamquam diiinum quoddam nttinns, ex quo te rogatum velim, ut et exemplos qtiaternulos collii^as. . . . Did quidem non potest quanti cum anxie- tate torquear cxpectando. This letter to Loschi is given by Schio, on p. 155; it was obtained from the cod, Ambrosianus. The date, 1390, is fixed by Mommsen both from the letters that follow and also from other circumstances, especially the political relations of the city at that time. II I This extract shows us how little Coluccio and other scholars in Florence knew of Cicero's letters in 1390, or even of the contents of the Verona codex. Had Coluccio possessed accurate and definite information as to the contents of the Verona codex, he would then have written that the codex, which he had just received, contained none of Cicero's letters to Atticus, Quintus Cicero, and Brutus, and would have asked to have these letters copied also and sent to him. The fact is, scholars knew at that time nothing whatever about the arrangement of Cicero's letters, and very little about the con- tents of the various collections. Coluccio naturally assumed that the other codex contained letters similarly arranged to those in the codex he had just received, hence he has no more definite designation for them than simply epistolae. The extract tells us also that the Ms. was copied from the Vercelli codex, and therefore contained none of the letters found in the Verona codex, as Coluccio could himself judge {saitio quidem plurivium abesse) from the collection of sixty already in his possession copied from that codex and also from Petrarch's excerpts (penitus nihil extat). It is, therefore, safe to assume that the Ms. just received by Coluccio did not con- tain all of Cicero's letters, but only the letters ad Fam. That Coluccio received the letters ad Fam. from Milan, both Haupt and Hofmann admitted, but they assumed that our present Medicean copy containing these letters could not be the transcript received by Coluccio. Hofmann believed he had proved, as we have seen, that the original Vercelli codex was found and transcribed by Petrarch and that this transcript was in the Laurentian Library, and hence he had no hesitancy in affirming *' dass er (d. h. Coluccio) damals von Pasquino {i.e. de' Cappelli) weder den noch vorhanden Urcodex {j.e. Cod. Med. Pint, xlix, No. ix), noch die ebenfalls noch vorhandene Abschrift Petrarcas {Cod. Med. Pint, xlix. No. vii) erhalten hat." ^ With Hofmann's premises no other conclusion could be derived from the passage from Coluccio under consideration, ^ Krit. Appar. z. Cic. Brief, an Att. p. 6. 84 Robert F. LeightoUy [1890. except the one he formed. But as it is certain that Petrarch never knew of the existence of the letters ad Fam., this Medicean transcript must have had a different origin than that assigned it by Hofmann. Let us now return to Coluccio and his continued efforts to secure a transcript of the other Ms. in Milan, that containing the rest of Cicero's extant letters, viz. the letters to Atticus, Q. Cicero, and Brutus. What he had received only whetted his appetite for more. He was even more eager than ever to possess a complete collection of Cicero's letters. He applied to himself the well-known lines cf Ovid : Dumquc sitim scdare aipity sitis altera crcvit, but long years passed without his hopes being realized. Milan was at war with the Florentine Republic (i390-i39-)» and no notice was taken of Coluccio's request. 1 At last peace was made at Genoa in January, 1392, and then Coluccio, who had written as many as six times, received the gratifying intelligence from Cappelli that his request had not been forgotten, but that a copy of the Ms. had been prepared for him. " God is my witness," writes Coluccio to Cappelli, ''with what joy I received the news of your having caused a copy of the Verona codex to be made for me." 2 In the same letter he beseeches Cappelli to send him through the Florentine embassy the transcript as soon as possible. Here the correspondence unfortunately breaks off, and we have no further evidence from this source that the transcript of these letters, which we have seen that Cappelli had caused to be prepared for Coluccio, was ever sent. The circum- stances would seem to indicate that the commission, which had been partly executed, was completed, and that Coluccio received a copy of the letters to Atticus, O. Cicero, and Brutus, as we know he had already received that of the 1 Coluccio's letter to Cappelli is to be found in Haupt's Opmcula, vol. ii, p. 113; for the letter to Loschi, see Schio,l.c. p. 157. 2 Hortis, I.e. p. 104; the letter is dated July 16, 1392, and runs as follows: Nunc autem quanto perceperim gaudio, dens tesiiSy te Ciceronis epistolas de Vfrona meo nomine examplari iussisse. Gratias ago diligentiae et diUctioni tuae, rogo- que ut quant primum et si potes per oratores nostros qui veniunt istuc mitias. Vol. xxi.] TJie Medicean Mss. of Cicero's Letters. 85 V vV> II A other collection. Turning now to an examination of the transcript of the Atticus collection, which at present is in the Laurentian Library, we find on the codex itself ample and convincing evidence that it was once owned and used by Coluccio, — in the numerous notes, interlineations, glosses, and marginal readings inserted by Coluccio, with the oft- repeated words : additiim est a Coluccio Saliitato, Cohicciiis arbi- tratus fiiit additum esse, etc.; pidavit Cohiccitis addeiidum esse, etc. The identity of Coluccio's transcript containing the letters ad Fain, with the alleged Petrarchean copy of the same letters, is also confirmed in a remarkable and un- expected manner by evidence from a wholly unlooked for quarter. In the same flntens, in the Laurentian Library, with the transcript under consideration, is another Ciceronean codex containing the letters ad Fain., catalogued by Bandini ^ as n. XV, also dating from the fourteenth century. On the margin of this codex are notes that prove beyond question that its owner must have used Coluccio's transcript. On p. ^6, b, to the sentence, ille autem, qui sciret se nepotem bellum tibicinein habere et sat bonuin unctorem, — a passage that is found in ad Fam. vii, 24, 2, — is added a note in the margin that the restoration of the passage is due to Coluccio : addi- tum est a Coluccio Salutato, id quod est in textu inter a et b. This passage is found in the text of the Vercelli archetype but not in that of the alleged Petrarchean transcript ; in the latter Coluccio inserted it in the margin. Again, to com- plures in perturbatione rei publicae consulares dicti, quorum nemo consularis habitus nisi qui animo exstitit in rem pub- licam consulari, — a passage that is found in our edition, in ad Fain, x, 6, 3, — a note is added in the margin crediting the restoration of nisi qui animo exstitit in rem pjiblicam con- sulari to Cduccio: Putavit Colucius addendum esse hoc. These words, again, are found in the Vercelli archetype and not in the text of the alleged Petrarchean transcript, but are written on the margin of the latter by Coluccio's own hand.^ Coluccio would evidently record his emendations, conjectures, u, p. 470. 2 Hofmann, I.e. p. 7. 86 Robert F. Lci^/itofi, [1890. I marginal readings, and restorations of text in his own codex, which we have seen he received from Pasquino, in Milan. The conclusion seems almost irresistible that Coluccio's tran- script must have been the identical alleged Petrarchean copy. What, too, could be more in accord with the evidence I have presented than the conjecture that the eagerly desired and long sought transcript of the Verona codex was finally obtained by Coluccio, and that this, together with the tran- script of the Vercelli archetype, which we are certain he received, are the two celebrated Medicean copies, so long ascribed to Petrarch, but really made for Coluccio Salutato, in Milan, probably by the same scribes, and transmitted to him to Plorence, then the literary metropolis of Italy, where they were made accessible to scholars. On the one (that containinir the letters of the Atticus collection), the owner's name, as I have stated, still stands : Hie liber Colneeii Pyeri de Stignano ; from the other, the inscription, which was probably the same, has been intentionally erased. Both codices are in the same handwriting ; both have marginal readings, notes, glosses, and interlineations, etc., made by Coluccio's hand ; both contain the restoration and translation of the Greek text, apparently in the same hand, a service which we have seen was rendered by Chrysoloras, — circum- stances which in themselves would be sufficient to prove that these are the copies which Pasquino caused to be made for Coluccio, and transmitted to Florence, had not Petrarch's ex- alted position as the foremost reviver of learning influenced scholars, without sufficient investigation, to ascribe the origin of these transcripts to him. The two transcripts are cata- logued by Bandini : that containing the letters ad Fain, as Cod. Med. Pint, xlix, n. vii ; the* other, containing the letters of the Atticus collection, as Cod. Med. Pltit. xlix, n. xviii. The copy containing the letters ad Fam. was made, as we learn from the correspondence, from the archetype which was sent from Vercelli,^ now the celebrated Cod. Med. Pint, xlix, n. ix, one of the gems of the library, dating as it docs from the eleventh century. Hence the remarkable similarity between ^ The Vercellensian archetype remained but a few years in Milan, and then it was taken to Plorence. «.% V ,i