Beschrijving

Titel: D. Junii Juvenalis et Auli Persii Flacci Satyrae: Cum Veteris Scholiastae & Variorum Commentariis. Accurante Cornelio Schrevelio.. Schrijver: Juvenalis&Persius. Uitgever: Franciscus Hackium te Leiden, 1658 (“Lugd. Bat. Apud Franciscum Hackium. A. 1658). Taal: Latin. Bijzonderheden: Prijsband met wapen van Den Haag. Titelpagina in kwabstijl.. Extra informatie: Collation: (XVI), 638, (42 index). 19 x 12 x 4,5 cm. Binding: prize binding in vellum with the arms of Den Haag (stork). Condition: Excellent paper quality. Good condition, apart from some stains on the vellum on the backside of the binding. The engraved title page is used here for the second time. It was first used for the original edition of 1648, of which this 1658 edition is a reissue; The engraved title is executed by the Dutch Golden Age engraver Reinier van Persijn; for this edition of 1658, the X before LVIII was simply filed away from the copper plate, and at the same time the name of Persijn, just beneath the X. The title depicts allegorical scenes: on the left a naked woman sitting on a crocodile, holding in her hand a parrot; then a Janus-headed woman, with bird feet and a tail, holding up in her left hand a Momus-mask, and in her right 2 flaming hearts; in the centre sits on a throne an old woman, holding in her left hand a sack of money (?), and in her right what seems a little flask; on the right in the foreground a king reaching for that sack; he is accompanied by a priest, a farmer (?) and a soldier; in a window central above the old woman we see the ascension of the poet). Note on the author: The Roman poet Juvenalis, ca. 55-140 AD, was the last and most influential of the Roman satirists. He ‘uses names and examples from the past as protective covers for his exposés of contemporary vice and folly’. His main theme is the dissolution of the social fabric. (The Classical Tradition, Cambr. Mass., 2010, p. 501) The satires of the stoic poet Aulus Persius Flaccus form one ‘libellus’ of 6 satires, together 650 hexameters. ‘They are well described as Horatian diatribes transformed by Stoic rhetoric’. ‘He wrote in a bizarre mixture of cryptic allusions, brash colloquialisms, and forced imagery. (OCD, 2nd ed. p. 805) This edition of 1658 is a ‘Variorum’ edition. It offers the ’textus receptus’ which is widely accepted, accompanied with the commentary and the annotations of specialists, taken from earlier useful, normative or renewing editions. Editions like these, ‘cum notis Variorum’, were useful, but never broke new ground. The production of this kind of editions was the specialty of Dutch scholars of the 17th and 18th century. The compilers seldom were great scholars, but often hard working schoolmasters. Their involvement in publishing a new edition was limited to the necessary, but ungrateful task of the beast of burden. Such a plodder was the Dutch editor Cornelius Schrevelius, who taught classics at the Schola Latina at Leiden, where he had been raised himself. In 1642 he succeeded his father, Theodorus Schrevelius, as the rector (Moderator) of the school. He raised at least 11 kids, and fell in 1664 victim to the then raging plague. His first Juvenal edition he published in 1648, and it was reissued by Hackius in 1658, 1664 and in 1671. Schrevelius’ aim was to promote the studies of his young students and to instill in them a necessary fear (optatam metam), which will make them useful citizens and the pride of their parents. Juvenal is a suitable author for such an enterprise, for he flogs wrongdoers, and learns them to avoid the path of wickedness and to embrace honesty. (Dedicatio p. *2 verso). Especially in shameless times as ours, he continues, satyre is needed. Decent behaviour and faith have been replaced by deceit and swindle. In a short ‘Benigno Lectori’ (*4 verso and *5 recto) Schrevelius tells that he relies for the text on the earlier editions of Robertus Stephanus and Pithoeus, and that he excerpted the notes and commentaries of Lubinus, Farnabius and Casaubon. In addition he offers, he says, a complete and emendated edition of the old Scholiast. Schrevelius even used two excellent manuscripts which were lent to him by the Leiden professor Salmasius, which helped him to solve many difficult problems..