IX. THE POETICS IN THE

RENAISSANCE-ITALY

ALTHOUGH the modern study of the Poetics is often dated from the latter half of the fifteenth century, the beginnings really are hidden. No doubt Hermann's Latin version of Averroes had reached Italy as well as the England of Roger Bacon; but there was another Latin translation, by Martinus of Tortosa, Spain, in the fourteenth century. And Averroes' teachings, taken over from the Jews, were current at the University of Padua in the time of Luther; the Latin abridgment of the Poetics was printed at Venice in 1481, and again in 1525. The Arabic subordination of poetic theory, with rhetoric, to logic did not readily yield to the study of poetry for itself, where the Ars Poetica of Horace was not concerned. In the Dantesque tradition, the Poetics, probably unknown to Boccaccio, is obscurely alluded to in Petrarch, and Benvenuto's commentary (c. 1376-9) on on the Divina Commedia cites Averroes' abridgment.

A century later, Politian owns a manuscript of the Poetics, and shows an acquaintance (1483) with the Greek text. The number of Renaissance manuscripts yet surviving indicates that the work was accessible to his contemporaries, to whom, as to their followers in the sixteenth century, it must have seemed one that had been long neglected.

With Politian, then, begins the recorded modern study of the Poetics in Greek. While the Aldine Aristotle (1495-8), perhaps still reflecting the thirteenth-century preoccupation with the other works, did not include the Poetics, in 1498 there was printed a Latin translation by Georgio Valla, and therewith the treatise was open to the learned world. Judged by present standards, Valla's rendering was not too scholarly, nor done from the best available manuscript; but we should not estimate Renaissance scholarship by later standards which its pioneering efforts alone made possible. At length, in 1508, appeared the editio princeps of the Greek text, with that of the Rhetoric, in volume 1, as usually reckoned, of the Aldine Rhetores Græci. Notwithstanding the corruptions, probably due to the editor, Demetrius Ducas, the prestige of an Aldine

made this the accepted text of the Poetics (challenged only in Morel's edition, Paris, 1555, and Tyrwhitt's, Oxford, 1794) down into the nineteenth century. The Greek treatise was first included with the complete works in 1531, in the Basel edition, supervised by Erasmus; the second Aldine edition of Aristotle, 1551-3, contained it, and likewise Silburg's edition, Frankfort, 1584-7.

Probably no Greek book save the New Testament has been so often printed as the Poetics. It has appeared sometimes alone, sometimes with the Rhetoric, sometimes with the Ars Poetica and Longinus On the Sublime. After 1508 there might be mentioned the Venetian editions of 1523, 1536, 1546, 1551; Robortelli's, 1548; Leyden, 1548; Paris, 1555 (Morel's); Florence, 1560, 1564 (Victorius'); Venice, 1572; Paris, 1630; Oxford, 1760; Göttingen, 1764 (Buhle's); Leipsic, 1786 (Reiz's); Oxford, 1794 (Tyrwhitt's). In noting these few we have not specified translations and commentaries. Pazzi's text of 1536 accompanied a revised Latin translation. Robortelli's thin folio of 1548, the first critical edition, included a Latin translation and a learned commentary. The next year came

B. Segni's Italian version, the first translation into any modern tongue; the book could now be read by those who had little or no classical learning. From this point on, to list the texts, translations, and commentaries, and discussions of passages in the work, would require an ample bibliography.

Even the Italian commentaries 11 must here be cursorily dealt with. The first to be published, Robortelli's (1548), was by a vigorous scholar, now in mid-career, who six years later brought out the editio princeps of Longinus On the Sublime, and who in the course of his life (1516-67) held professorships at Lucca, Pisa, Venice, Padua, and Bologna. But as early as 1540, Lombardi had intended to lecture on the Poetics before an Academy at Padua; his death prevented this. Before 1543 it was a regular academic exercise to compare a Greek tragedy and a Senecan, with the demands of the Poetics as a standard. Yet Maggi is said to have been the first actually to interpret the work in public, certainly before April, 1549. Its influence may be partly gathered from the file of commentators, with their dates of composition or publication: Cintio, 1543; Robortelli, 1548; Maggi and

Lombardi, 1550; Maggi (alone) 1550; Muzio, 1551; Lionardi, 1554; Capriano, 1555; Fracastoro, 1555; Caro, 1558; Bernardo Tasso, 1559; Minturno, 1559 (also 1564); Vettori (Victorius), 1560; Partenio, 1560; Scaliger, 1561; Trissino, 1563; Speroni, 1565; Piccolomini, 1575; A. Segni, 1581; Patrizzi, 1586; Denores, 1587; Rossi, 1590; Varchi, 1590; Riccoboni, 1591; Summo, 1600. Castelvetro (1570) I reserve till later. There are also unpublished commentaries among the manuscripts in the Italian libraries. One important treatise, Beni's, was published in 1613. Galluzzi's (1621) may have been read by Milton.

Had the Italian scholars no interest outside their arts of poetry and discussions of Aristotle? We must view this activity in perspective. In other fields we see a like fecundity, as witness books on courtesy, books on pastimes, editions of Greek and Latin poets-all the varied labors of the Renaissance. Nor were the arts of poetry altogether based on Aristotle. Horace was eagerly studied; while later commentators borrowed from earlier, notably from Scaliger and Castelvetro. Not all these writers would accept the alleged