À propos d’un manuscrit de Nicolò Leonico Tomeo, le modèle de l’édition princeps du Lapidaire orphique

Abstract

Numerous links exist between manuscripts that belonged to the Paduan philosopher Nicola Leonico Tomeo and the editions published by Aldus Manutius and his heirs. This article investigates the case of MS Paris, BNF, Greek 2764. As is demonstrated by discreet markings made with dry point, MS 2764 provided the copy-text for the edition of the Orphic Lithica published by Gian Francesco d’Asola in 1517. It was also used for the first edition of Colluthus, prepared by Aldus Manutius in 1504. Contrary to what might be thought on the basis of both marginal branches and a dedication to a woman named Fosca, MS 2764 was not copied by Tomeo. Tomeo was only the owner and annotator of the MS. It was, in fact, written by a copyist belonging to Tomeo’s circle who imitated his master’s marginalia in order to pay tribute to him. Three copies of the Orphic Lithica produced around that time by Zacharias Callierges enable us to identify the scribe’s circle. Further analysis of MS 2764 shows that the marginalia so far ascribed to Tomeo were in fact quite common in his circle. Two appendices to the article aim at offering a glimpse of Tomeo’s rich library. The first one lists and describes 12 manuscripts (now in the BnF) that were copied by Tomeo. It also tries to identify three different writing styles and to differentiate the folios that were copied by Tomeo himself from those that were written by collaborators using a very similar style of writing. The second appendix lists 16 manuscripts (also preserved in the BnF) that were annotated by Tomeo.