This study analyzes how Filippo Beroaldo the Elder (1453–1505), in his Oratio habita in enarratione Lucii Apuleii, forges not only his commentator persona but also his identity as a Gellius redivivus. Footnote 1 I hope to show that the rhetorical strategies deployed in this oratio showcase a refined attempt on Beroaldo’s part to shape his identity against the cultural and academic background of late fifteenth-century Italy. Indeed, the humanist situates himself in open contrast with mainstream tendencies in the matter of style and literary taste. By choosing to comment on Apuleius and by pitching his commentary while assuming a Gellian persona, he situates himself in the minority of the Apuleianists. His taste for archaic and late Latin goes against the norm established by the Ciceronianists. He thus claims for himself a specific political and intellectual stance.Footnote 2 This study sheds light on the political and ideological consequences of self-fashioning practices among the humanists by elucidating Beroaldo’s strategies in this speech.Footnote 3
Beroaldo was one of the most influential figures in Renaissance Italy, even though he is little known today and scholars have only recently taken an interest in his life and work.Footnote 4 A professor of rhetoric and poetry, he conducted most of his research and teaching-related activities in his home city, Bologna, apart from the year 1476 that he spent in Paris, where he taught at the Universitas. Footnote 5 Beroaldo’s Oratio habita in enarratione Lucii Apuleii was published in 1500 in Bologna in his Orationes et poemata. Its publication preceded the series of lectures on Apuleius that he was to give at the University in 1500 using his newly composed commentary on the Metamorphoses. Footnote 6 The short oration presents a series of prefatory features that were meant to justify and promote Beroaldo’s literary and scholarly work on Apuleius.Footnote 7 The text, to my knowledge, is only available in the original printed edition and in its subsequent reprints; it has not been edited or translated in modern times, and I know of no scholarly work that is explicitly or exclusively dedicated to it.Footnote 8 This study offers the text, a translation, and a commentary on it—the first attempt to make Beroaldo’s Oratio habita in enarratione Lucii Apuleii available to a wider audience of scholars and readers.
In this introduction, I examine the pose Beroaldo assumes throughout the speech, with a predominant focus on the way in which he constructs his commentator persona, in which he fashions his identity.Footnote 9 I analyze the intricate and complex web of references to ancient authors and their relation to the persona Beroaldo assumes in the speech. I argue that these references to ancient authors, especially to Aulus Gellius, constitute more than a case of showy imitatio. Footnote 10 Beroaldo impersonates, indeed embodies, his claimed model, Aulus Gellius, in the same way in which Apuleius embodied his own model Plato, as other scholars have discussed.Footnote 11 My contention is that Beroaldo encapsulates an Apuleian gesture—the embodiment of one’s model—and that, in doing so, he indirectly embodies Apuleius himself.Footnote 12 In a peculiar metamorphosis, the author of the commentary on the Metamorphoses becomes an alter Apuleius, so to speak, by indirectly embodying Apuleius through Gellius.Footnote 13 This pose that Beroaldo showcases in the oration corresponds to the persona that he is constructing for himself as a commentator. It is by conflating his identity with that of the author of the text on which he is commenting that he can fully attain the goal he sets himself as a commentator, as he made clear in a meticulously expressed metaphor:
Interpres involucra explicat, obscura illustrat, arcana revelat et quod ille [poeta] strictim et quasi transeunter attingit, hic [interpres] copiose et diligenter enodat.Footnote 14
The commentator unfolds the wrappers, sheds light on obscure matters, unveils the mysteries, and what the poet touches upon compactly and cursorily, the commentator elucidates at length and carefully.
Indeed, Beroaldo conceives of the relationship between commentator and author as being very close, as he states in the prefatory epistle to the commentary to Propertius that he published in 1487:
Illi [poetae] deo pleni deo dignissima eloquuntur. Hi [commentatores] poetica inflammatione calentes divinas interpretationes excudunt. […] Non est sine deo bonus poeta. Non est sine poetico afflatu bonus interpres. Ille tamquam oraculum. Hic tamquam oraculi explicator. […] Quo circa poetae primo in loco venerandi sunt. Secundum poetas ipsi interpretes honorandi, quorum lucubrationes etiam posteris prosunt, nec minus habent emolumenti quam ipsi poetae oblectamenti.
Those, the poets, full of God, pronounce words most worthy of him. These, the authors of commentaries, inspired by poetical inflammation, forge divine interpretations. […] There is no good poet without God. There is no good interpreter without poetical inspiration. The former is similar to an oracle. The latter resembles the explainer of an oracle. […] Therefore, the poets are to be honored in the first place. In second place, after the poets, these interpreters themselves are to be honored, whose nocturnal works are useful also for future generations, and offer no less benefit than the poets’s works offer delight.Footnote 15
Commenting on this passage, Anselmi highlights that the praise of the poet’s work is accompanied by the praise of the commentator’s work in order to show that the two figures must be closely related and that they exist almost symbiotically.Footnote 16 This division of textual labor suggests the presence of a hierarchy deus-poeta-commentator. This hierarchy has a Platonic origin. In Timaeus 71e–72c, one finds a similar distinction between μάντις and ὑποκριτής/προφήτης, the suggestive wellspring for the language of divinatio that was commonly invoked among humanists to describe their philological endeavors.Footnote 17 The Platonic source is particularly relevant for our study insofar as Beroaldo, in this oration, is promulgating a commentary on a prominent Platonic philosopher, Apuleius. It appears clear that, if the goal of the commentator is indeed to elucidate the original text, the same sort of inspiration that the poet needs for his composition is crucial for the commentator to accomplish his explicatory task. By implication, this chain of inspiration would naturally be extended to the reader as well: God inspires the poet, the poet inspires the commentator, and the commentator inspires the reader in turn.Footnote 18 The link between poeta and commentator helps us to understand why it is necessary to impersonate the author one is commenting upon. There cannot be a better explicator oraculi than one who becomes the oraculum himself, or comes as close to it as possible.
Beroaldo chose Aulus Gellius as the ancient model for his lucubratio, an author whose taste for erudite and diverse topics was well known, and whose ornate and lively style was of the greatest interest to Beroaldo.Footnote 19 In choosing Gellius as his dominant model, I argue that Beroaldo does more than merely select an intellectual reference-point. Rather, by emulating him, he tries to become Gellius. I then analyze the stance that Beroaldo takes towards Gellius as a doublet of sorts—a reflection, so to speak, of Apuleius’s stance towards Plato. I thereby identify an Apuleian gesture in Beroaldo’s embodiment of Gellius, a gesture that allows him to fulfill the modus explicandi he describes in the already quoted passage of his Commentarii in Propertium.
Aulus Gellius as a Model in the Oratio habita
Beroaldo’s interest in Gellius is obvious. He produced an edition of the author in 1503, which was printed in Bologna by the same editor who printed his commentary on Apuleius. The value of this edition is exemplified by the fact that it set the standard for the later Parisian edition of 1508.Footnote 20 This interest in Gellius seems to be anticipated in the Oratio habita, where the commentator not only quotes explicitly from the Noctes Atticae, but also establishes those quotations as a critical reference-point for his own work. The sheer number of quotations from, and allusions to, the Noctes Atticae, especially the praefatio, shows that Beroaldo was an avid reader of this work. Gellius is the most quoted ancient authority in the Oratio habita, followed by Pliny and Ammianus Marcellinus. There are no fewer than twelve quotations or explicit allusions to the Noctes Atticae in Beroaldo’s speech.
Another Gellian element of the Oratio habita lies in the choice of vocabulary that the author uses to characterize his commentary on Apuleius. On several occasions, Beroaldo refers to his work as a commentarius (commentarios hosce might refer to the Gellian commentationes hasce of NA, praef. 4), and his use of lucubratio surely echoes Gellius’s use of the word in NA, praef. 13–15. In light of these resonances, Beroaldo in his Oratio habita is positioning his commentary as thoroughly Gellian in nature and also in method. As Anthony Grafton has written, Gellius was established in the Renaissance as the patron of modern philology, who oversaw the creation of the first body of knowledge and technical vocabulary available to the modern philologist, in the continuation of the manners of the erudite sophists of the Roman empire.Footnote 21 In the Oratio habita, however, Gellius plays a still greater and more specific role than that of a general model for technical writing in Latin.
The choice of Gellius as a model is reflected in the structure of the speech itself. The first part is appealingly rhythmic in its flow because of the anaphora of hinc, a word that appears five times in the text. The first hinc indicates that nocturnal work is practiced also by farmers and soldiers. The second introduces the mention of the rex Indorum and his nocturnal advisers, followed by the maximi imperatores, then the uiri doctissimi. Only in the last instance is Aulus Gellius himself introduced. Note the crescendo of this structure: from the least docti to the most doctus, each hinc introduces a higher category of men who engaged in lucubratio. Gellius then brings that order to a climax: his work, we infer, constitutes the most accomplished example of lucubratio. Beroaldo is the last one mentioned who practiced lucubration, but unlike the others he is not introduced by a hinc. Breaking the anaphoric rhythm of the adverb hinc allows him all the more strikingly to draw the audience’s or the reader’s attention to this passage. Something happens in the transition from Gellius to Beroaldo, and the nos quoque reveals it. Beroaldo is signaling to the audience that he does not need to create a new category introduced by a new hinc for himself, because he is to be assigned to the very category that he has created for Gellius. In effect, his work is a continuatio of Gellius’s Noctes Atticae. And if, by extension, the Commentarii a Philippo Beroaldo conditi in Asinum aureum Lucii Apuleii are the continuation of the Noctes Atticae, so too is Beroaldo a Gellius rediuiuus. Footnote 22
Becoming Aulus Gellius
In the Renaissance, Aulus Gellius was an author of the highest importance because he provided a model for the scholarly life and engagement to both the early and later humanists. Grafton has persuasively demonstrated that in the fifteenth century, humanists developed a special affinity with the text of the Noctes Atticae, which came to be seen as a source and model from which they could draw at will and modify.Footnote 23 Very much like the humanists, Gellius presents himself in praef. 1–2 as energetically annotating, excerpting, and compiling. This practice of reading and writing as two activities that go together was not uncommon in the fifteenth century, with Gellius serving as the perfect ancient model of it.Footnote 24 Grafton points out how philological practices in humanist libraries were grounded in an unbroken and organic relationship between reading and writing. The margins of the book became open territory that was explored by the pen of the humanists, and annotation was the means connecting these two practices: “The library melted imperceptibly into each new book that its owner produced.”Footnote 25
This widespread humanist practice explains the complex system of quotation that structures Beroaldo’s Oratio habita. To take the example of Julian the Emperor, the whole notice on him is drawn from Beroaldo’s source, Ammianus Marcellinus. Beroaldo did not slavishly copy his source. He also added to, cut, and modified it at will; he recycled it, giving it new life. Furthermore, although Beroaldo was restricted in the choice of his source (Ammianus) by his subject matter (Julian’s life), his abundant use of it remains noteworthy, for the late Roman historian’s style shows a strong influence from Apuleius’s Metamorphoses. Footnote 26 Although this practice resonates more generally with the Gellian method as widely applied by humanists, Beroaldo positioned himself as reviving this Gellian practice in a peculiar way. Other humanists followed Gellius as he reworked excerpts and quotations. So too did Beroaldo, but he assumed a more direct Gellian posture by choosing tο imitate the Gellian style with a marked thoroughness, which was a somewhat unpopular stance, as D’Amico and Harrison have shown.Footnote 27 Indeed, as the most prominent of those who professed their Apuleianism, Beroaldo saw his stylistic choice as a reaction to the far more normative penchant for and widespread practice of Ciceronianism.Footnote 28 Aulus Gellius, along with Apuleius, played a major role in the formation of Beroaldo’s stylistic preferences. Thus, Beroaldo’s relationship with the Gellian model is exceptional in that it goes beyond the sole appropriation of the author’s excerpting method, as shown by Grafton, for Beroaldo even appropriated Gellius’s style, a choice that earned him harsh criticism from other humanists.Footnote 29 As we shall see, this posture had political consequences for Beroaldo as well.
It is, therefore, unsurprising that Beroaldo also used the same vocabulary as Gellius to describe literary production. So, for example, Gellius writes in NA praef. 13:
Primitias quasdam et quasi libamenta ingenuarum artium dedimus, quae uirum ciuiliter eruditum neque audisse umquam neque attigisse, si non inutile, at quidem certe indecorum est.
But I have presented the first fruits, so to speak, and a kind of foretaste of the liberal arts; that a man of unpretentious education has never heard of these or come into contact with them is certainly unbecoming, if not disadvantageous.
Beroaldo too presented his literary accomplishments via a culinary image: “As far as I am concerned, I know that I labored with my own strength and according to my intelligence, so that these pages would be as food for the stomachs and the taste of good men” (quod meum est scio me pro uiribus et ingenii captu elaborasse, ut haec edulia facerent ad stomachum bonorum atque gustatum). In both cases, since Beroaldo’s passage is reminiscent of Gellius’s, the literary labor results in an ‘edible’ product useful to the learned. In one case, the literary work is to benefit uirum ciuiliter eruditum; in the other, utility goes ad stomachum bonorum, where the adjective bonus has a Ciceronian connotation, which echoes what is expressed in Gellius’s periphrasis.Footnote 30
Beroaldo’s use of the adjective subsiciuus to indicate spare time is also paralleled in Gell. NA praef. 23. Through this further hint at the tight bond between Gellius and Beroaldo, the latter wanted his lucubrationes to be compared with Gellius’s; he wanted to be included in the same group as Gellius by avoiding a new hinc; and he wanted to apply Gellius’s method to his own Apuleian commentary. Hence Gellius’s characterization of his Noctes Atticae as “those volumes filled with multifarious erudition and the highest elegance” (uolumina illa multiiugae eruditionis lucidissimaeque elegantiae refertissima) is secondarily relevant for Beroaldo’s own work as well, as Beroaldo’s use of nos quoque to connect the two sentences makes clear.
The Noctes Atticae are, therefore, more than a model for Beroaldo. They also embody the spirit in which he brings antiquity to life, as if he were bringing Gellius back to life through the voice that speaks in the Oratio habita, a sort of necromancy that fits well the atmosphere of Apuleius’s novel. The connections between the two texts go beyond the practice of imitatio, however. Beroaldo did not want merely to build on the Noctes Atticae, but rather, to use Gellius’s vibrant method to inform, energize, and guide his own work on Apuleius. The phrase nos quoque opens the possibility of becoming Gellius rather than of just imitating Gellius. This Gellian posture is claimed as Beroaldo’s own in the Commentarii to the Golden Ass. If we refer back to the deus-poeta-commentator-lector model, it seems particularly relevant that Beroaldo positioned himself in this oratio as a reader of Gellius, that is, as someone inspired by Gellius, a commentator par excellence. This position allows him to ascend the hierarchy from mere reader to attain enough authority to become the commentator of Apuleius. If this is indeed the case, then why does Beroaldo embody an author other than the one on whom he is commenting? In other words, if he recognized a strong bond between the poeta-oraculum and the commentator-oraculi explicator, why did he create such a strong embodied relationship with an author other than Apuleius?Footnote 31
Embodying the Model
The Gellian stance Beroaldo assumed parallels Apuleius’s stance towards Plato, and, therefore, Beroaldo embodied Gellius because Apuleius embodied Plato, thus reproducing an Apuleian emulative technique. His metamorphosis into the author of the Metamorphoses is almost total. In what follows, I first briefly outline how Apuleius embodies, becomes, Plato. The model one wishes to embody goes beyond more normative aemulatio and imitatio to enter the dimension of the lived personification. In other words, for Apuleius, being a philosophus Platonicus becomes a chief element of his identity, just as for Beroaldo the ultimate goal is to be a Gellian scholar. These identities have literary, ethical, and political consequences for the literary personae displaying them.
In the construction not only of his Platonism but also of his larger cultural identity, Richard Fletcher argues that Apuleius produces an “impersonation of philosophy,” that is, he gives a body to Platonic philosophy by conflating his own literary production, his philosophical interests, and his intellectual identity with Plato’s.Footnote 32 More precisely, Fletcher distinguishes an Apuleian technique that he calls “biographical exegesis.” Apuleius conflates his own voice with Plato’s, offering his own biographical trajectory as an embodiment of Plato.Footnote 33 The result of this influences and structures the construction of Apuleius’s identity in the Apologia and the Florida as well.
It appears clear that for Apuleius, Plato is more than just an intellectual reference-point, but also a truly active model to follow. As R. Nenadic writes:
an activity, poetry, in which the biographer moves through the life of his subject—drawing on the synthesis or expansion, across various texts, of the themes found in the poems—and in which, moreover, the lives of both biographer and subject become entangled, so that, through the figure of Plato, the life of Apuleius is also revealed.Footnote 34
A clear example to illustrate this phenomenon is found in the Apology, where Apuleius took on the identity of the philosophus Platonicus as a defense against the accusation of magic.Footnote 35 He conflated his own defense with a wider defense of philosophy, that is, Platonic philosophy, and he thereby merged his own persona with Plato’s: “because it had fallen to the lot of my ability and of my skill, while you are the judge, to defend philosophy before the ignorant and to demonstrate my innocence” (quod mihi copia et facultas te iudice optigit purgandae apud imperitos philosophiae et probandi mei).Footnote 36 As a comparison to this conflation of Apuleius’s innocence with the defense of Platonic philosophy, one may add Fletcher’s analysis of Fl. 18.15–16, where Apuleius “juxtaposes his childhood education in Carthage (where he is speaking) with his philosophical training in Athens.”Footnote 37
ita mihi et patria in concilio Africae, id est uestro, et pueritia apud uos et magistri uos et secta, licet Athenis Atticis confirmata, tamen hic incohata est, et uox mea utraque lingua iam uestris auribus ante proxumum sexennium probe cognita, quin et libri mei non alia ubique laude carius censentur quam quod iudicio uestro comprobantur.
Thus, my homeland is in the council of Africa, that is, your own council, and my childhood was with you, and you were my teachers, and my philosophical schooling, although strengthened in Attic Athens, was nonetheless begun here, and my voice was well known to your ears for the last six years in both languages, and moreover my books are not more highly appreciated anywhere with praises than they are by your approving judgment.
After Apuleius’s comparison of his patria, Carthage, with his philosophical patria, Athens, Fletcher highlights how the author compares his autobiography to the biographical exegesis of the De Platone. Indeed, the “unrefined and unfinished opinions” (impolitas sententias et inchoatas) that characterized philosophy before Plato are reflected in Apuleius’s strengthening in Athens (confirmata) of his philosophical training that had begun (incohata) in Carthage.Footnote 38 This philosophical bridge between Apuleian Carthage and Platonic Athens allows us to situate the two philosophers in a sort of continuum that is warranted by Apuleius’s embodiment of Plato.
Beroaldo’s treatment of Gellian material in the Oratio habita resembles Apuleius in his relationship with Plato: Beroaldo ‘becomes’ Aulus Gellius just as Apuleius ‘becomes’ Plato. For both authors, the presence of a model is more than merely fictional; it is a lived presence, and even a form of embodiment or metamorphosis. Beroaldo dedicated himself to his studies in the same way—via lucubratio—as Gellius did; Apuleius nourished his life and his literary existence through the resource of Platonic philosophy, which deeply shaped his identity. That Beroaldo’s approach to Gellius constitutes more than a superficial form of imitation seems confirmed by the commitment to the full integration of Gellius’s style, which is peculiar to Beroaldo. As his student Jean de Pins wrote: “his choice, too studiously selected, of old-fashioned, antique, and obsolete words, had once somewhat corrupted his diction and the power of his speech” (Corruperat olim nonnihil orationem ac vim dicendi studiose nimis affectata priscorum veterumque et obsoletorum verborum lectio).Footnote 39 Andrea Severi has similarly identified in Beroaldo the same interest in playing with “masks” that one can find in Apuleius. In this respect, Apuleius legitimizes and reinforces Beroaldo’s positioning since the former represented a model to which he aspires.Footnote 40
In assuming such an Apuleian stance, Berolado is communicating in advance to his audience what kind of commentator persona they will soon find in his commentary. He does not embody Gellius for nothing. This embodiment of the author of the Noctes Atticae gives him an ethical and intellectual profile or stature that then enables his metamorphosis into Apuleius in the commentary itself. This form of embodiment has been well recognized by previous scholars. Gaisser writes:
By opening a window—many windows, in fact—from Apuleius’ world into that of contemporary Bologna, the digression brought the ancient novel to life—or we could say that they brought modern life into the ancient novel. But that is not their only function. Beroaldo’s digressions correspond to the embedded tales in the ‘Golden Ass’, and he uses them in imitation of Apuleius’ technique. He even describes them in similar language.Footnote 41
Carver has also analyzed Beroaldo’s world as mirroring Apuleius’s, as when, for instance, in Beroaldo’s commentary, Bologna is compared to Hypata, or when Lucius’s experience of initiation in the cults of Isis offers a parallel for—and even a key to—understanding the power of studia humanitatis. Carver describes this process as follows:
The whole business of editing, annotating, reading, and imitating Classical authors such as Apuleius involved, for Beroaldo and his circle, a transformation of self: Lucius’ metamorphosis from a donkey into a disciple of Isis becomes a metaphor for the transformative effects of the studia humanitatis. Footnote 42
It is, therefore, plausible that Beroaldo hinted at this posture when he presented his commentary to his audience in the Oratio habita using his Gellian embodiment to gain a more credible persona commentatoris before he embraced his impersonation of Apuleius in his Commentarii.
Beroaldo’s embodiment of Gellius and his choice of commenting on Apuleius also had political consequences. Andrea Severi proposed that Apuleius’s model as a provincial could have been useful for Beroaldo’s countless foreign students in Bologna.Footnote 43 In addition, Apuleius’s provincialism and Gellius’s stylistic marginalization may have been political models of resistance to the Roman Ciceronianism that ruled Latin letters in Beroaldo’s own time.Footnote 44 Therefore, in his self-fashioning, Beroaldo became a Gellius redivivus and an Apuleius alter to convey not only a stylistic and literary choice but also a declaration of independence in his political and academic choices.
Principles of the Edition
For the edition of the text, I have expanded the abbreviations and eliminated the ligatures, capitalized proper names, and the beginning of sentences. I have maintained the original punctuation where possible and tried to start a new sentence where a capital letter followed a double punctus; the uirgula suspensiua has been maintained where possible but otherwise suppressed. I have preserved the humanistic spelling even where this might differ from the traditional use in the field of the Classics; I printed the text using the grapheme u for both the vowel and the semi-consonant. A peculiar trait of this text is the presence of blank spaces for capital letters at the beginning of each text, described as “spazi riservati ai capilettera con letterine guida” for the copy at Pavia, Biblioteca Universitaria, 111.C.4.Footnote 45
Text and Translation
Oratio habita in enarratione Lucii Apuleii
Vetus est apud Graecos prouerbium uiri spectabilissimi, quod sic inquit: ἐν νυκτὶ βουλή, id est in nocte consilium; quo significatur consultationes nocturnas longe meliores salubrioresque esse diurnis cogitationibus et quod nox accommodatissima est utilibus inuentis, quae a clarissimis conditoribus fecunda operum merito dicta est. Hinc in re rustica antelucanae uespertinaeque lucubrationes, in re militari uigiliae castrenses. Hinc sapientes Indorum noctu cum rege ex instituto prope solemni disputabant tamquam id tempus ad capienda consilia sit accomodatius. Hinc maximi quoque imperatores super magnis imperii rebus per noctem consultare consueuerunt, ex quorum cohorte, ut caeteros praeteream, Iulianus celebratur, quod noctes ad officia tripartita diuideret uidelicet quietis et publicae rei atque Musarum, qui nocte dimidiata semper exurgens Mercurio supplicabat, quem motum mentium et ingenii acumen suscitantem theologicae prodidere doctrinae. Mox cum ardua et seria ad imperium pertinentia negotia uigilanter procurasset, ad procudendum ingenium et studia excolenda uertebatur, et quasi pabula quaedam animo ad sublimiora scandenti conquirens per omnia philosophiae membra discurrebat, poeticen quoque et rhetoricen lucubratione nocturna percolens, quem memoriae ipsius dolium exhausisse prodiderunt. Hinc etiam uiri doctissimi libros suos titulo lucubrationum inscripsere. Qui de nocte uigilantes excudunt monumenta perennia aguntque nocturnis horis negotium posterorum, qui lychnobii, hoc est ad lucernam uiuentes, elegantissime honestissimeque possunt appellari. Hinc A. Gellius uolumina illa multiiugae eruditionis lucidissimaeque elegantiae refertissima inscripsit noctium Acticarum, quoniam per noctes hybernas in agro Attico commentationes eas ad lucernam elucubrauerat. Nos quoque nocturnis lucubrationibus, ea enim mihi subsiciua tempora sunt, commentarios hosce Apuleianos sub incude nostra litteratoria diis bene fauentibus excudimus, ita uitam haud dubie prorogantes. Vita enim, ut dicitur, uigililiaFootnote 46 est et, ut ueteres dixere, dum talia mussitamus, pluribus horis uiuimus. In hisce autem commentariis componendis eadem mihi fuit ratio quae in aliis quoque complusculis quae iam pridem edidimus, ut uidelicet pro uirili parte iuuaremus Latinae linguae atque latinitatis studiosos, nec non humanioris disciplinae affectatores. Scribit Plato deum facto mundo, exultasse gaudio. Ego, ut minima maximis caduca perpetuis nugatoria diuinis comparem, afficior gaudio non mediocri, cum uideo commentarios diutinis uigiliis absolutos per ora uirorum et manus uolitantes circumferri, cum labores nostros neque cassos neque penitendos fuisse conspicio. Sed aliorum sit iudicium et censura super nostris lucubrationibus. Quod meum est scio me pro uiribus et ingenii captu elaborasse, ut haec edulia facerent ad stomachum bonorum atque gustatum. Illis uero quibus cuncta putere uidentur et acescere quorum stomachus est morosior, nostra condimenta non condiuntur, phagoloedori, sic enim appellantur qui maledictis et conuitiis pascuntur, ne attingant nostras dapes, ne uirulenta lingua et palato bonos cibos inficiant, uituperones obtrectatoresque, quorum dentes canini sunt et linguae acuminatae ad detrahendum procul sint a meis uoluminibus, quamquam ego talium uiperarum iampridem morsus uirulentos alexipharmaco doctrinae munitus expello, et eorum maledicta instar Catonis sino preterfluere. Quin immo ut illorum inuidentia fiat irritatior utque magis magisque rumpantur, non desinam hanc scribendi commentandique prouinciam, cui satis idoneus esse uideor, et quam diu mihi uita suppetet, tam diu semper aliquid in officina nostra litteraria litteratum excudetur. Extant ingenii nostri, extant eruditionis, quantulacumque est in omni scriptionis genere: monumenta, orationes, poemata, epistolae, annotationes, commentarii. Quae omnia nisi mihi, bibliopolae blandiuntur, expetuntur a studiosis, probantur a doctis, teruntur manibus scholasticorum tam prouincialium quam Italicorum. Bene habet, hic est fructus laboris, hoc premium: huc lucubrationes nostrae diriguntur, ut placeant, ut prosint, ut interpretationes nostrae non egeant interprete, quo nihil in commentatore potest esse uitiosius. Nam sicuti poeta comicus lepidum, satyricus figuratum, panegyrista plausibile, epigrammmatista lasciuum componere solent et debent, ita commentator lucidum condet, quem nihil magis decet quam rerum uerborumque perspicuitas. Caeterum, nouissimum opus sub incude nostra procusum recentissimaque fetura est haec Apuleiana fabricatio, haec asini aurei bracteata concinnatio. Quae cum ex Luciani filis texta sit, cumque ex Luciani racemis Lucius noster uindemiam sibi collegerit, non intempestiuum erit pauca quedam super Luciano percensere. Et quoniam haec metamorphosis, idest asini aurei transfiguratio, referri conducenter potest ad Pythagoricam metempsycosin atque palingenesian, idest transanimationem regenerationemque, non pigebit de Pythagora, mox de Pythagorico Apollonio Tyaneo prolixius fabulari, necnon de magia non nulla digna scitu nec indigna relatu sermocinari. Vos ut cepistis queso, diligenter attendite.
Finis
There is among the Greeks an ancient adage of a most admirable man, which says: la nuit porte conseil, which means ‘the night bears advice.’Footnote 47 By this it is meant that nocturnal deliberations are by far better and healthier than daily reflections and that the night is best suited for abundant ideas, night that has been justly called favorable to labors by the most famous authors. Hence in rural matters there are works accomplished at nightfall and before the day, by lamp-light; in warfare there are the night shifts watching the camp. Hence, the wisemen among the Indians following a nearly solemn tradition discussed with the king by night, as if that time were more suited to make decisions. Hence, even the most important emperors were accustomed to take decisions during the night on the matters most important for the empire. Among them, not to mention the others, Julian is praised because he used to divide the night to accomplish three kinds of duties, namely: rest, the affairs of the State, and the cult of the Muses, Julian who, getting up always at midnight, worshipped Mercury whom the religious writings bequeathed to be able to excite the movement of the minds and to produce the sharpness of intelligence. Thereupon, after he had carefully attended to the difficult and serious matters that pertained to the empire, he turned away to cultivate his intelligence and carefully practice his studies, and almost looking for some kind of nourishment for his soul climbing to the highest, he hastened through every branch of philosophy, cultivating it both poetically and rhetorically in nocturnal studies at the lamp-light, he who, as they reported, emptied the large jar of memory itself. Hence indeed the most learned men inscribed their books with the title of Lucubrationes (‘nocturnal studies’). And, staying awake, they compose by night eternal monuments, and they accomplish, in the hours of the night, their duties towards the future generations. They can be called, most elegantly and becomingly, lychnobii, that is, ‘those who live at the lamp-light.’ Hence, Aulus Gellius entitled those volumes filled with multifarious erudition and the highest elegance Attic Nights, because, on wintery nights in an Attic landscape, he composed at the lamp-light of an oil lamp these learned pages. We as well, during work by night at the lamp-light, these are indeed my moments of spare time, we composed these Apuleian commentaries, under our literary anvil, with the encouragement of the gods, thus extending, without any doubt, our life. Life indeed, as they say, is a vigil and, as the ancient said, while we spend such a moment in silence, we live for more hours. In writing these commentaries, I maintained the same principle that I had for the other several ones that I had already published beforehand, so that we could clearly help at the utmost of our ability those who study the Latin language and culture and those who strive for the literary studies. Plato writes that God, once the world was created, rejoiced with delight. I, to compare the smallest with the biggest, the transitory with the eternal, the futile with the divine, experience a not inferior joy when I see that my commentaries freed from the long-lasting vigils pass around, flying to and fro, on the mouths and in the hands of men, when I realize that our labors had been neither hollow nor blamable. But I leave to others the judgment and the opinion upon our nocturnal studies. As far as I am concerned, I know that I labored with my own strength and according to my intelligence, so that these pages would be as food for the stomachs and the taste of good men. But those for whom everything seems to be putrid and sour, whose stomach is extremely capricious, our seasoning will not please them, phagoloedori (‘those who feast on abuse’), as they are indeed called, those who are nourished by altercations and outcries, let them not approach our banquet, let them not corrupt the food with their poisonous tongues and palates, these blamers and detractors, let their dog-teeth and tongues sharpened for insult be away from my books, even though I, provided with the antidote of my science, have since long driven away the poisonous bites of such vipers, and I let pass away their altercations, as Cato did. Nay, rather, so that their envy becomes more provoked and that they be more and more destroyed, I shall not leave the office of writing and commenting, at which I seem to be quite talented, and as long as I live, something learned in our literary workshop will be composed. What remains of our intelligence, what remains of our learning—however slight it may be—is in every genre of our writing: histories, speeches, poems, letters, notes, and commentaries. All these, if not me, please booksellers, are sought after by scholars, are approved by the wisemen, are consumed by the hands of scholastics, abroad as in Italy. Very well: this is the result of my labor, this is the reward: our studies are directed toward this goal, that they please, they be useful, that our interpretations lack not an interpreter, since nothing for a commentator could be more faulty. Indeed, as the comic poet is used to and must compose a pleasant poem, as the satirist a vivid one, the panegyrist a praiseworthy one, the epigrammatist a licentious one, in the same way, the commentator will compose a perspicuous one, for whom nothing is more fitting than the clearness in words and meaning. As for the rest, our newest work brought forth under our anvil and our most recent offspring is this Apuleian construction, this gilt composition of the Golden Ass. And since it is woven with threads from Lucian, and, since our Lucius prepared his vintage with clusters from Lucian, it will not be inconvenient to spend a few words on Lucian. And since this metamorphosis, that is, the transformation of the golden ass, can becomingly be referred to Pythagorean metempsychosis and palingenesis, that is, the migration of the soul and the regeneration, it will not displease to speak more broadly of Pythagoras and thereupon of the Pythagorean Apollonius of Tyana, and to discuss as well several things worth knowing and not unworthy of being mentioned about magic. You, as you have undertaken, I beg you, diligently pay attention.
The End
Commentary
Vetus est … in nocte consilium: Apud Graecos: a programmatic element, since it not only refers to the quotation that follows, but also suggests the relationship of the Asinus Aureus to the Greek Ὄνος attributed by Beroaldo to Lucian. Viri spectabilissimi: The reference is probably Her. 7.12: “νυκτὶ δὲ βουλὴν διδούς” (“having taken advice by night”). It is also found in other authors such as Menander and Epicharmus; compare also Erasmus Adagia 2.2.43.Footnote 48 Quo significatur … dicta est: The text that follows the quotation already presents an interpretation of it, since the short proverb is glossed by Beroaldo to orient his audience in their own interpretation of the speech. He is here foreshadowing the role that nocturnal study plays in the construction of his commentating persona. A clarissimis conditoribus: The reference is primarily to Statius. Fecunda operum merito dicta est: Compare Stat. Theb. 10.192. This exegesis of a Greek maxim with a quotation from a Latin author, who is qualified as clarissimus, whereas Herodotus was uetus, is also a hint at Beroaldo’s practice of commentary. He is keen to use material from both Greek and Roman culture to elucidate what he is commenting on. Hinc in re rustica … castrenses: A long series of examples of the benefits of nighttime activities follows. They all differ in context, but all aim at showing that night is indeed the best moment for any sort of occupation, even as important as those of daylight: “These phrases illustrate how night could be converted into a time for the most important, daytime tasks—that is, as an extension of the day itself,” notes Ker in discussing the ancient authors used by Beroaldo.Footnote 49 In re rustica antelucanae uespertinaeque lucubrationes: Compare Colum. Rust. 11.2: “et Augusti mensis dies antelucanis et uespertinis temporibus” (“those days of the month of August and in the hours before daylight and in the evening”); and Plin. NH 18.233: “reliqua opera nocturna maxime uigilia constent, cum sint noctes tanto ampliores, […] et in lucubratione uespertina ridicas V, palos X, totidem antelucana” (“and the other kinds of work may be arranged chiefly in the night time, as the nights are so much longer […] and by artificial light five props and ten poles in an evening and the same number in the early morning”).Footnote 50 In re militari uigiliae castrenses: The reference might be to Plin. NH 10.46. Hinc sapientes … accomodatius: This anecdote is derived from a long tradition of examples of ancient Indian wisemen giving advice to kings. See, for example, Str. 15.1.66. Another possible source is Alexander’s meeting with the Indian philosophers, the Brahmans.Footnote 51 Sapientes Indorum noctu cum rege ex instituto prope solemni disputabant: This example denotes an orientalist gaze: even in faraway India they think in the same way as ancient Greeks and Romans did.Footnote 52 Tamquam id tempus ad capienda consilia sit accomodatius: Beroaldo is again establishing a hierarchy between day and night, identifying the latter as more equipped for intellectual activities. Hinc maximi quoque … prodidere doctrinae: Drawing on the previous example of the king of the Indians, Beroaldo focuses on the case of ancient emperors who dedicated themselves to nights of reflection and study. There is a possible reminiscence of Cic. Off. 3.1. Ex quorum […] celebratur: Beroaldo makes the transition from the general idea of the imperator philosophus to the specific case of the emperor Julian II (331–363 CE).Footnote 53 Julian II, also known as Julian the Philosopher, perfectly fits this oratio: he was inspired by Hermes, in a way that reminds the audience of Beroaldo’s own take on the divine inspiration bestowed upon the poets. Similarly, the emperor-philosopher receives inspiration via Hermes.Footnote 54 The close relationship between Apuleius and this god is made explicit in Apologia 61–63, where he says that he keeps a wooden statuette of Mercury everywhere. The choice of Ammianus as a source may well be necessitated by the availability of ancient discussions of Julian, but it might also reflect the heavy Apuleian character of the Res Gestae. Quod noctes… doctrinae: This part of the speech is taken almost directly from Amm. Marc. 16.5.4–5: “Hinc contingebat ut noctes ad officia diuideret tripertita, quietis et publicae rei et musarum, […] et nocte dimidiata semper exsurgens, […] occulte Mercurio supplicabat, quem mundi uelociorem sensum esse motum mentium suscitantem, theologicae prodidere doctrinae” (“So it came about that he divided his nights according to a threefold schedule — rest, affairs of state, and the Muses, […] And when the night was half over, he always got up, […] whom the teaching of the theologians stated to be the swift intelligence of the universe, arousing the activity of men’s minds”).Footnote 55 Mox cum ardua … exhausisse prodiderunt: The focus on Julian and on his balance between nocturnal otium and negotium continues. Again, Beroaldo chooses carefully what to integrate of Ammianus in his own speech, thus rewriting the text of his source. See Amm. Marc. 16.5.6–8: “Post quae ut ardua et seria terminata, ad procudendum ingenium vertebatur, et incredibile quo quantoque ardore, principalium rerum notitiam celsam indagans, et quasi pabula quaedam animo ad sublimiora scandenti conquirens, per omnia philosophiae membra prudenter disputando currebat. Sed tamen cum haec effecte pleneque colligeret, nec humiliora despexit, poeticam mediocriter et rhetoricam tractans […] credendum est hunc etiam tum adultum totum memoriae dolium (si usquam repperiri potuit) exhausisse” (“And after bringing these (as his lofty and serious tasks) to an end, he turned to the exercise of his intellect, and it is unbelievable with what great eagerness he sought out the sublime knowledge of all chiefest things, and as if in search of some sort of sustenance for a soul soaring to loftier levels, ran through all the departments of philosophy in his learned discussions. And yet, though he gained full and exhaustive knowledge in this sphere, he did not neglect more humble subjects, studying poetry to a moderate degree, and rhetoric […] we must believe that Julian, when only just arrived at manhood, had drained the entire cask of memory, if such could be found anywhere”).Footnote 56 The choice of omnia philosophiae membra by Beroaldo might also be a reference to Apul. Plat. 1.3.5: “Nam quamuis de diuersis officinis haec ei essent philosophiae membra suscepta […] unum tamen ex omnibus et quasi proprii partus corpus effecit” (“Indeed, even though the limbs of philosophy had been assembled by him from different schools, […] nonetheless he made from them a unified single body, as if it were his offspring”), thus strengthening the connection with Apuleius. Hinc etiam … inscripsere: The series of hinc resumes, and from the example of the imperatores Beroaldo transitions to those of the scriptores and their works. Viri doctissimi libros suos titulo lucubrationum inscripsere: The identification is not self-evident, since no extant ancient author used this title for their works, but Pliny in NH Praef. 24 writes: “at cum intraueris, di deaeque, quam nihil in medio inuenies! nostri grauiores Antiquitatum, Exemplorum Artiumque, facetissimi Lucubrationum, puto quia Bibaculus erat et uocabatur” (“But when you get into [these books], gods and goddesses, they are full of nothing! Our more serious authors use the titles Antiquities, Examples and Crafts and the wittiest Nocturnal Studies, since their author was Drunkard, in name and in deeds”). Mayhoff mentions all the textual difficulties of the passage, while Ballester thinks that the textual corruptions do not allow us to conclude that a certain Bibaculus wrote a book called Lucubrationes. Footnote 57 These problems notwithstanding, it is probable that Beroaldo has this Plinian passage in mind when he identifies uiri doctissimi, the plural being encouraged by the genitive facetissimi that falsely suggests a parallel with the nominative grauiores. This interpretation seems corroborated by a locus of Gellius’s preface which discusses the titles chosen by other authors. See Gell. NA praef. 7–8: “Sunt etiam, qui λύχνους inscripserint, sunt item, qui στρωματεῖς, sunt adeo, qui πανδέκτας, et Ἑλικῶνα et προβλήματα et ἐγχειρίδια et παραξιφίδας” (“There are authors who entitled their works Lamps, there are those who called them Patchworks, also Encyclopedias and Helicon and Problems and Handbooks and Side-Knives”). Given that Gellius mentions a title related to the lucubratio (λύχνους), it seems probable that Beroaldo conflated the two sources, which could also justify the plural uiri doctissimi. Qui de nocte … possunt appellari: Beroaldo is describing those authors who wrote by night, presenting their choice as not only aesthetic, but also as morally positive. Qui de nocte uigilantes excudunt monumenta perennia: The reference to monumenta perennia is clearly to Hor. Carm. 3.30.1. Moreover, the choice of excudere connects this passage to Tac. Dial. 9.3: “magna noctium parte unum librum excudit et elucubrauit,” where the metaphor of the hammering is tied to nocturnal work (see also Cic. Att. 15.27.2). Aguntque nocturnis horis negotium posterorum: The reference is to Sen. Ep. 8.2. This reference to Seneca’s Epistulae morales is developed in the following use of lychnobii, attested only in this work. Qui lychnobii, hoc est ad lucernam uiuentes: The reference is to Sen. Ep. 122.16: “Itaque credendo dicentibus illum ‘quibusdam avarum et sordidum uos,’ inquit, ‘illum et lychnobium dicetis’” (“Accordingly, if you believe those who call him tight-fisted and mean, you will call him also a slave of the lamp”). Hinc A. Gellius … elucubrauerat: This last instance of hinc in the speech signifies that Beroaldo has reached the highest point of his list of examples. Beroaldo starts with the lowest nocturnal occupations (hinc in re rustica … in re militari), and he then progresses to a higher example (hinc sapientes Indorum), then to an even higher one (hinc maximi imperatores), before he reaches the most knowledgeable men (hinc uiri doctissimi) and, finally, the climax: Aulus Gellius (hinc A. Gellius), the model to whom he aspires. Volumina illa […] Acticarum: The use of the adjective multiiugus is clearly derived from Apuleius, who uses it in multiple contexts referring to learning. See, for instance, Apul. Apol. 36: “qui pro tua eruditione legisti profecto Aristotelis περὶ ζῴων γενέσεως, περὶ ζῴων ἀνατομῆς, περὶ ζῴων ἱστορίας multiiuga uolumina” (“You who, thanks to your learning, have read indeed the manyfold volumes of Aristotle On the Birth of Animals, On the Anatomy of Animals, On the History of Animals”); and Apul. Flor. 15.22: “tot tamque multiiugis calicibus disciplinarum toto orbe haustis” (“having drunk so many cups of such manifold knowledge throughout the world”).Footnote 58 Inscripsit noctium Acticarum: The phrase reuses Gellius’s verb at NA praef. 4: “idcirco eas inscripsimus noctium esse Atticarum” (“for this reason, we inscribed these [commentaries] with the title of Attic Nights”). The lucidissima elegantia mentioned here responds ironically to Gellius’s own ironic declaration in NA praef. 10: “quanto cessimus in cura et elegantia scriptionis” (“as much as we lacked in care and elegance of my style”). Beroaldo is recognizing in his model Gellius the value that he himself denied to his own work, as one does in a locus humilitatis. Quoniam […] elucubrauerat: The text has to be read in close comparison with the preface of the Attic Nights, since commentationes appears in NA praef. 4, and per noctes hybernas corresponds to longinquis per hiemem noctibus, and in agro Attico to in agro terrae Atticae. Nos quoque … prorogantes: The logical connection between what precedes is clear. As Gellius did, I, Beroaldo, did as well. Nocturnis lucubrationibus: The meaning is strengthened by the adjective, since the noun alone could bear the same meaning. Ea enim mihi subsiciua tempora sunt: The model for subsiciua tempora may be Cic. Leg. 1.9: is subsiciuis, ut ais, temporibus; Plin. HN praef. 18: “occupati officiis subsiciuisque temporibus ista curamus, id est nocturnis”; or Gell. NA praef. 23: “ea omnia subsiciua et subsecondaria tempora.” In any case, Beroaldo is establishing a sort of equivalence between his own work and the lucubrationes of ancient authors, especially Gellius’s. Commentarios hosce Apuleianos: Beroaldo refers to his work as commentarios hosce, whereas Gellius refers to his as commentationes hasce (Gell. NA praef. 4). The connection is striking, the uariatio witty. Sub incude nostra litteratoria diis bene fauentibus excudimus: The wordplay between in-cude and ex-cudimus signals Beroaldo’s attention to the form of his speech, which has to befit Apuleius’s and Gellius’s styles. The reference to the gods is a reminiscence of diis bene iuuantibus at Gell. NA praef. 24. The expression prorogare uitam seems to hint at Apul. Met. 11.6.7 where, at the end of her speech to Lucius, Isis says: “scies ultra statuta fato tuo spatia uitam quoque tibi prorogare mihi tantum licere” (“You will know that I alone can prolong your life further beyond the boundaries established by your fate”). This is a fitting image, since Beroaldo, as Carver suggested, interprets the initiation to Isis as the initiation to the studia humanitatis. Footnote 59 Vita enim … horis uiuimus: The reference to the transitory life well suits the desire for immortality that Beroaldo has just expressed through the glory given to him by his work. Vita enim, ut dicitur, uigilia est: The reference is to Plin. HN praef. 18: “profecto enim uita uigilia est.” Vt ueteres dixere, dum talia mussitamus, pluribus horis uiuimus: Another reference to Plin. HN praef. 18, but the construction of Beroaldo’s text is more complex, since he quotes Pliny quoting Varro: “quod, dum ista, ut ait M. Varro, musinamur, pluribus horis uiuimus” (“Since, as says Marcus Varro, when we dally in these reflections, we live for more hours”). In hisce autem … affectatores: The focus is now on Beroaldo’s method. He did not change his practice but respected the same standards of his previous commentaries.Footnote 60 Vt pro uirili parte iuuaremus: Possibly a reference to Liv. Praef. 3: “utcumque erit, iuuabit tamen rerum gestarum memoriae principis terrarum populi pro uirili parte et ipsum consuluisse” (“Whatever things will be, it will be however pleasant to myself to have been of utility as much as I could for remembering the deeds accomplished by the most important people of the world”). Latinae […] affectatores: Beroaldo thus identifies his targeted audience, that is, for the most part, his own students.Footnote 61 Scribit Plato … fuisse conspicio: In the form of an amusing recusatio, Beroaldo compares his own work to that of the Platonic Demiurge in the Timaeus. Scribit Plato deum facto mundo, exultasse gaudio: Plato Tim. 37c. Quod meum … atque gustatum: The image is traditional, binding literature and food. The trope is well established in Plato’s Symposium, Plutarch’s Quaestiones conviviales, Athenaeus’s Deipnosophistae, and Petronius’s episode of the Cena Trimalchionis (unknown to Beroaldo). Compare the Gellian preface NA praef. 13: “primitias quasdam et quasi libamenta ingenuarum artium dedimus,” which adds an additional intertextual layer with the Attic Nights. Edulia: An Apuleian word (Apol. 29; Flor. 6.7; and Met. 6.28.6 and 10.13.3) that is also found in Gell. NA 17.11.6. Ad stomachum bonorum atque gustatum: The commentary has to be both useful and pleasant. Compare Hor. Ars P. 343: “omne tulit punctum qui miscuit utile dulci.”Footnote 62 Illis uero … sino preterfluere: Beroaldo persists with the metaphor: his work is not suitable for those who criticize everything. The term acescere is particularly strong and remains in the same semantic field, since it shares the stem with acetum and denotes these sour critics. The image of the morosus stomachus seems borrowed from Sen. Ep. 78.11, where the Stoic philosopher describes how the excess of something inevitably evinces disgust. The word phagoloedori is unattested in Antiquity but listed in the DMLBS s.v. phagolidorus. The etymology is clear from the stem φάγ- (“to eat”) and from λοιδορέω (“to insult”). Vituperones: A Gellian word (NA 19.7.16). Their tongues and teeth threaten Beroaldo’s uolumina, but he possesses the antidote, alexipharmacon, a rare word one finds, as expected, in Plin. HN 21.146, that, by its use, shows how learned Beroaldo is, for he possesses the antidote of learning (doctrinae) and shows as much with this rare hapax. Et eorum maledicta instar Catonis sino preterfluere: The reference is to a fragment of Cato’s De re militari—now Cat. Mil. frg. 1 Iordan—preserved in Plin. HN praef. 31. A parallel for this sentence can be found in NA praef. 19, where Gellius invites those who are not used to the labors of the Muses to “abeant a Noctibus his procul, atque alia sibi oblectamenta quaerant” (“Let them go away from these Nights and find for themselves other amusements”). Quin immo … excudetur: Ignoring the critics is a motif that can be traced back at least to Callimachus (Aetia frg. 1 Pfeiffer) and Beroaldo decides to keep writing despite them. Once again, the source of inspiration is Gell. NA praef. 20: “atque etiam, quo sit quorundam male doctorum hominum scaeuitas et inuidentia irritatior.” Beroaldo will not abandon his own literary activities; he will not stop writing as long as he lives. The image of the ‘literary workshop’ is Apuleian as well. Compare Pl. 1.3.187: de diuersis officinis, with reference to Plato’s unifying the corpus of philosophy; and Fl. 9.14: in opificiis opera, speaking of Hippias’s literary career.Footnote 63 Extant ingenii … commentarii: A clear allusion to Apul. Flor. 9.27–29, as also noted by Sandy.Footnote 64 Beroaldo is projecting Apuleius’s career on to his own, conflating the commentator and the author in a sole persona loquens. Quae omnia … hoc premium: Beroaldo notes the appreciation his work has received among professionals and scholars. The quae refers to his whole oeuvre, which received the approbation of a variety of figures who made up the intellectual landscape of his own time. Nisi mihi, bibliopolae blandiuntur: This form of recusatio allows Beroaldo to quote Plin. Ep. 1.2.6, albeit modifying it so that he can proceed with his captatio beneuolentiae. The term bibliopola is attested in classical antiquity only in Mart. 4.72.2 and in Plin. Ep. 9.11.2.Footnote 65 Teruntur manibus scholasticorum tam prouincialium quam Italicorum: On this passage, see the testimony of Fileno della Tuata: “Era in questa terra doxento scholari oltramontani per lui, che dopo la soa morte tutti se partino.”Footnote 66 Huc lucubrationes … esse uitiosius: One can detect in this sentence a form of irony directed at the material dimension of the circulation of Beroaldo’s commentary, as Gaisser suggests: “As we might say today, the Apuleius commentary was expected to be a blockbuster.”Footnote 67 Beroaldo was encouraged by his publisher to sell as many copies as possible, and he could therefore be hinting here at the fact that, if interpretationes nostrae egeant interprete, he might not get the money the contract guaranteed him. Nam sicuti … uerborumque perspicuitas: In this short Ars Poetica, Beroaldo is imitating Sid. Apoll. Epist. 4.1.2: “et si quid heroicus arduum comicus lepidum, lyricus cantilenosum orator declamatorium, historicus uerum satiricus figuratum, grammaticus regulare panegyrista plausibile, sophista serium epigrammatista lasciuum, commentator lucidum iurisconsultus obscurum multifariam condiderunt…” (“And if the epic poet achieved something lofty, the comic something witty, the lyric something melodious, the orator something rhetorical, the historian something true, the satirist some fanciful bitterness, the grammarian something conform to the rules, the panegyrist something laudatory, the sophist something grave, the epigrammatist something frolicsome, the commentator something lucid, the jurist something obscure…”). In the context of a letter sent to the husband of his cousin, who also happens to be one of Sidonius’s friends, the author stresses the common bond that connects the two learned men. Beroaldo’s purpose in quoting this text is to establish, with the members of his audience who are able to understand the reference, a similar connection. He is carefully selecting those who are able to belong in the elite community of the Republic of Letters.Footnote 68 Ceterum … concinnatio: The use of fetura hints clearly at the beginning of Pliny’s Natural History, where, in the very first sentence of the praefatio, the word is employed to designate the HN itself. The way in which Beroaldo hints at the Metamorphoses is quite sophisticated: haec asini aurei bracteata concinnatio where, for the sake of uariatio, the adjective meaning “made of gold” is used in two different forms, one of which is much rarer (bracteatus). This double usage hints at the alternative title for the Metamorphoses, which appeared for the first time in Augustine, the Asinus Aureus (August. De civ. D. 18.18).Footnote 69 The play on aurei and bracteata hints at the Apuleian iunctura in Met. 11.16.8 bracteis aureis, referring to the stern of the boat used in the Nauigium Isidis. Quae cum … percensere: The sentence refers to the supposed relationship between Apuleius and what students of the ancient novel call the Ps.-Lucianic Ὄνος.Footnote 70 Pauca quaedam: The printed text has quedam, but the iunctura is Gellian (see praef. 13; NA 12.2.13 and 14.1.5) and highlights the blend between Gellian and Apuleian material at the points where the theme of the oratio shifts toward the Golden Ass. Et quoniam … sermocinari: The end of the speech offers a rapid survey of the fundamental morality of the story that Beroaldo mentions only briefly, since he is interested not in allegorical explanations, but in historical connections, as he states in his own commentary: “sed non tam allegorias in explicatione huiusce fabulae sectabimur, quam historicum sensum, et rerum reconditarum uerborumque interpretationem explicabimus, ne philosophaster magis uidear quam commentator” (“But we will not eagerly follow so much the allegory in the explanation of this fairy tale [Cupid and Psyche] as the historical sense and we will explain the interpretation of the meaning of obscure concepts and words, lest I would seem more of a bad philosopher than a commentator”).Footnote 71 Therefore, Beroaldo connects this morality with the larger historical picture of the cultural milieu in which Apuleius lived. The importance of Pythagoreanism for Apuleius cannot be underestimated, and Beroaldo is particularly sensitive to the teachings of Pythagoras, a tendency in keeping with the interest of his contemporaries in this philosophical tradition.Footnote 72 The mention of Apollonius of Tyana is warranted by his Pythagorean interests; the link in an Apuleian commentary is easily explained, since the two figures, Apuleius and Apollonius, were considered equally powerful pagan counterparts of Christ in Late Antiquity.Footnote 73 Non digna … relatu: the expression is a reelaboration of Aen. 9.595 here negated and repurposed toward the speakability of magic and related matters.
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