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The poems ex Graeco by Petrus Crinitus (1474–1507) and the validation of his major themes

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Hoc faciat animus noster: omnia, quibus est adiutus, abscondat; ipsum tantum ostendat, quod efficit. Seneca the Younger, Ep. mor. 84)

Abstract

In addition to imitating ancient Latin like Aulus Gellius, Suetonius Tranquillus, and the poet Horace in his writings, the Florentine Petrus Crinitus (1474–1507) also composed Latin poems ex Graeco, taking as his models poems from the Greek Anthology and prose texts from the Apophthegmata Laconica of Ps. Plutarch. Crinitus, however, produced serious and even melancholy adaptations, downplaying the humor present in the Greek models. His poems ex Graeco thereby reflect the serious tone and didactic themes of his other poems. Crinitus' selective handling of his Greek models is evident when his poems ex Graeco are compared with their Greek sources and with other poems in his extant collection to which they are thematically related.

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References

  1. Sesto Prete, Studies in Latin Poets of the Quattrocento, University of Kansas Humanistic Studies 49 (Lawrence, KS: University of Kansas Press, 1978), 4.

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  2. Die Poemata des Petrus Crinitus und ihre Horazimitation. Einleitung, Text, Übersetzung und Kommentar, ed. Anna Mastrogianni, Hamburger Beiträge zur neulateinische Philologie 3 (Münster: Lit, 2002). Crinitus' poems, totalling fifty-eight pieces divided into two books, were first published posthumously in 1507 and 1509.

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  3. Mastrogianni observes that Crinitus' poems addressed to friends, real or fictitious, “immer horazischen Geist atmen” (13). For a discussion of other influences on Crinitus see Jean-Louis Charlet, “Le choix des mètres dans les Poemata de Pietro Crinito,” Bibliothèque d'Humanisme et Renaissance 67 (2005), 17–26.

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  4. The new edition acknowledges that Crinitus' poems ex Graeco deserve attention, but they are not selected for detailed commentary. In general they are considered as failing to duplicate the poetic gravity of the originals. “Aufmerksamkeit verdienen seine Dichtungen ex Graeco. Zwar können auch sie die Prägnanz der Originale nicht wiederholen,” etc. (Mastrogianni, 14).

  5. That collection gave the name florilegium (anthology) to subsequent collections of Greek epigrams. The first Aldina edition of 1503 goes under the name Florilegium diversorum epigrammatum in septem libros (sic). Planudes had revised a now lost collection that Constantine Cephalas made in the tenth century, the collection believed to be the basis of the anthology uniquely preserved in the Palatine manuscript of Heidelberg, the best-known collection of Greek epigrams today. Because of the universal familiarity with the poems of the Anthology in that version, and following what has become a stardard practice, reference to the poems of the Anthology in this study is to the Palatine anthology (The Greek Anthology, with an English Translation, 5 vols., ed. and trans. W.R. Paton, ser. Loeb Classical Library [Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press 1956–60]).

  6. The first edition of the Planudean Anthology was printed by Lorenzo d'Alopa. The first Aldine edition was published in 1503. There was an edition by the Giuntina press of Florence in 1519, two years before the second Aldine edition.

  7. James Hutton, The Greek Anthology in Italy to the Year 1800, Cornell Studies in English 23 (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press and London: H. Milford and Oxford University Press, 1935), 132, says that the Anthology was a book that “thoroughly laid hold of Poliziano's mind.” Angelo Poliziano died just a month after publication of the Anthology. Thus his imitation of the anthology comes from versions in manuscript (Hutton, 124).

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  8. It is suspected that Alessandra's epigrams were written by her teacher Janus Lascaris, or at least with his help. See Hutton, p. 128 for one of her poems, in elegiac couplets.

  9. “The poets of the Quattrocento set a new task for themselves, that of imitating the ancients. But there was a change over the course of the century in the genres of poetry which they chose to imitate. While Latin poets in the early years of the Quattrocento favored the genres of epigram and elegy, more complex lyrical forms, especially imitations of the work of Catullus and Horace, are quite common in the works of Angelo Poliziano (1545–1494), Giovanni Pontano (1426–1503), and Michele Marullo Tarcaniota (1453–1500), poets who wrote at the end of the century” (Sesto Prete, Studies in Latin Poets of the Quattrocento [above, n.1], 1). For relevant poems of Poliziano see Silvae, ed. and trans. Charles Fantazzi, The I Tatti Renaissance Library 14 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2004); Angeli Politiani Liber epigrammatum Graecorum, ed. Filippomaria Pontani, Edizione nazionale dei testi umanistici 5 (Rome: Edizioni di storia e letteratura, 2002); The Stanze of Angelo Poliziano, trans. David Quint (University Park, Pa.: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1993). For Giovanni Pontano see Poesie d'amore di Giovanni Pontano, ed. Sesto Prete, Collezione di poesia 149 (Torino: Giulio Einaudi, 1978). For Marullo see Carmina, ed. Alessandro Perosa, ser. Bibliotheca scriptorum latinorum mediae et recentioris aetatis (Zurich: In aedibus Thesauri mundi, 1951); Donatella Coppini, Inni naturali: introduzione, traduzione italiana, commento, Il nuovo melograno 21: Sezione scrittori latini del medioevo e del rinascimento 2 (Florence: Le Lettere, 1995).

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  10. Translations are the present author's unless otherwise noted.

  11. See J. Hutton, The Greek Anthology in Italy to the Year 1800 (above, n. 7),, 146, “A translation of A.P. 16.388 must have been made from the Anthology, since this anacreontic appears nowhere else.” Book 16 of the A.P. comprises anacreontics originally added to Book 15. These poems were previously added to the Anthologia Planudea.

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  12. An early collection of Greek epigrams, that of Meleagros of Gadara (ca. 60 b.c.), was called Στέφανος, ‘Garland.’

  13. See Carm. 1.3.1; 1.19.5; 1.30; 1.38; 3.19.

  14. “Der humorvolle Ton und die spielerisch aufeinanderfolgenden Überraschungen des einmaligen Anakreonteums sind abhanden gekommen, so daß die Vorlage dieses zum Schluss auf Glykera gerichteten Stücks kaum wiederzuerkennen ist” (Mastrogianni, 241).

  15. See James Hutton, The Greek Anthology in Italy to the Year 1800 (above, n.7),, 146. Ioannes Soter's collection: Epigrammata Graeca veterum elegantissima, eademque Latine utriusque linguae viris doctissimis versa, atque in rem studiosorum e diversis autoribus per Ioannem Soterem collecta (Köln, 1525; Freiburg-im-Breisgau, 1544).

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  16. Plutarch, Moralia, vol. 2, ed. W. Nachstädt, W. Sieveking & J.B. Titchener, ser. Bibliotheca scriptorum Graecorum et Romanorum Teubneriana (Leipzig: Teubner, 1935), p. 138. Plutarch's Moralia, Vol. 3, trans. Frank Cole Babbitt, ser. Loeb Classical Library (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press and London: W. Heinemann, 1931, repr. 1999), p. 298.

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  17. “Der Dreiteilige Chor der Lakedämonier bei Plutarch und Petrus Crinitus,” Philologus 145 (2001), 150–157.

  18. See, Ludwig, “Der dreiteilige Chor,” 150, where he cites the following version of the Plutarchan Greek text as discussed by Angelo Poliziano: “Chorus erat Lacedaemoniorum trifarius, senum, puerorum, iuvenum. Canebant autem senes ita ἄμμɛς ποτ’ ἦμɛν ἄλκιμοι νɛανίι. Quo significabant fuisse quondam se robustos iuvenes. Pueri vero sic ἄμμɛς δὲγ’ ἐσόμɛθα πολλῷ κάῤ\(\mathop \rho \limits^` \)ονɛς. Ex quo se futuros longe his meliores profitebantur. Iuvenum autem cantio haec ἄμμɛς δἐ γ‚ ɛἰμέν. ἀι δέ λῆςαὐγάδɛο. Indicans ipsos iam id esse, quod vel illi fuissent, vel hi futuros sperarent, eiusque rei paratos facere periculum.” The text is from Plutarch, Apophthegmata Laconica 238A-B:

  19. “Dort wo sie nicht nachdichten, sondern [wie in II 27 verlorene antike Dichtung, vor allem Chorlyrik, poetisch rekonstruieren wollen, (I 19, I 21, und II 16)], bezeugen sie eine lebendige Freude an der Antike, die dem poeta doctus nicht nur exempla (z.B. II 17) und die Folie für seine eigenen Vorstellungen liefert, sondern ihm wirkliche Renaissance ist” (Mastrogianni, 14).

  20. Mastrogianni, 2, refers to MS Florence, Laurentianus 90 sup. 8.

  21. James Hutton, The Greek Anthology in Italy to the Year 1800 (above, n. 7),, 163 notes that Dazzi translates A.P. 6.163; 7.308; 9.138, 231; 11.19, 77, 131, 159, 166, 169, 186, 187, 198, 214, 406; 12.60; 16.19. Dazzi's poems were published in Florence 1549 (Andreae Dactii … Poemata [Florentiae: apud Laurentium Torrentinum]).

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  22. Sesto Prete, Studies in Latin Poets of the Quattrocento (above, n. 1),, 107. Costanzi's anecdote about the short man wearing a long sword recalls the anecdote, reported by Macrobius, Saturnalia 2.3.2, about Cicero's remark on his son-in-law Dolabella, “Who has bound my son-in-law to the sword?” (I am grateful to the editor, Professor Haase, for pointing out this echo.)

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  1. Department of Classics and Early Christian Literature, Ave Maria University, 1025 Commons Circle, 34119, Naples, FL

    Daniel J. Nodes

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Nodes, D.J. The poems ex Graeco by Petrus Crinitus (1474–1507) and the validation of his major themes. Int class trad 11, 524–537 (2005). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12138-005-0017-0

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