Ancient Latin Research Articles

Philosophical Contributions in Deliberatio Supra Hymnum Trium Puerorum by Gerard of Cenad

The introduction of Gerard of Cenad as a philosopher at the end of eighteenth century by the Transylvanian Catholic Archbishop in Alba Iulia, Ignatius Batthya ny, was a pioneering act but it never received any notable public reaction.1 Batthya ny's 1790 edition was, it seems, an attempt to recuperate and present to ecclesiastic readers something that was more like a relic than a text since it had been preserved in only one single manuscript copy in the Library of Freising and had accumulated little notoriety among its scarcely countable medieval readers.2 Between eleventh and the eighteenth century the original manuscript did not circulate outside the Freising library at all.3 Still, a new introduction and a fresh historiographical account of Gerard's contribution as a philosopher is urgently needed today, especially following the publication of the first reliable philological commentary in English in 2004 by Elod Nemerkenyi.4Gerard the Pilgrim, Bishop, and MartyrGerard of Cenad (or Gerardo Sagredo, also called Gerhard) is an author of great religious and political importance for eleventh century medieval Hungary, still little known to modern historians and the broader public. Two medieval hagiographies preserve his biography: the Legenda Minor from the twelfth century and the much later Legenda maior.; which is more stylized and therefore less reliable as a historical source; they both contain elements that function as topoi and hagiographical canons rather than reliable biographical details.5Gerard was born in Venice in 997 and received a rigorous Benedictine education both in Venice and Bologna. He was appointed abbot in 1020. Following his years of education and canonical endeavors, an obscure pilgrimage episode followed: he had to leave Venice and join Dodge Ottone Orsello in exile; they spent a short time together in Zara (Dalmatia) and then went to the Hungarian cities of Sze kesfehe rva r (Alba Regia) and Pe cs. Until 1031, Gerard tutored the Hungarian prince Emeric, son of the King Stephen I. After the prince's death Gerard spent about seven years as hermit. Afterwards he was appointed the first bishop of the newly installed diocese of Csana d (or Morisena, today Cenad in Romania) in the eastern margins of the Hungarian Kingdom, today the Banat region in Romania. As a bishop, Gerard's mission was to educate the newly converted Catholics in the area to whom he was like a father.6 It was during these years that he wrote the Deliberatio supra hymnum trium puerorum ad Isingrimum liberalem. We cannot assume with certainty that Gerard was writing for a large audience, but rather that he was targeting particular persons of political and ecclesial responsibility.7 He founded a school and performed administrative improvements. At the end, he suffered a martyr's death in 1046 and was canonized in 1068.Sources and Readings of Gerard the PhilosopherThere is no verified information regarding Gerard's sources in extenso. In Cenad, he may have had some minimal reading material, but the Venice and Bologna of his early youth must have been much more important to him as places for study. His massive detailed biblical knowledge is accompanied by patristic references in his text and important pagan philosophers are cited as well: Thaies, Zeno, Socrates, Plato, Aristarchus, Aristotle, Chrysipus, Galen, Gorgias, Hermagoras, Porphyry, and others.Important links are claimed to Christian popular texts and authors both Latin and Greek: Augustine, Ambrose, Boethius, Cassiodorus, Jerome, Dionysus the Areopagite (most probably the Latin version made by Scotus Eriugena), Gregory the Great, Maxim the Confessor, Isidore of Seville, Raban Maur, Bede, and a variety of Florilegia containing Patristic or pre-Christian philosophical quotations. Isidore of Sevile is most probably the direct source for many of his statements, general structure, and style. And it is via patristic literature that Gerard can show some knowledge of ancient Latin authors as well. …

The Swan’s Flight: Old Words and New Music

The Swan’s Flight: Old Words and New Music Robert C. Ketterer The articles in this special volume of Syllecta Classica began as papers delivered at a conference titled “Re-Creation: Musical Reception of Classical Antiquity,” hosted by the Department of Classics and the School of Music at the University of Iowa in October of 2011.1 The conference opened on October 27 with a demonstration of the broad chronological range of musical reception. An afternoon lecture by Wendy Heller on Jacopo Peri’s late Renaissance opera Euridice was followed by an evening concert by the University of Iowa’s Center for New Music, programmed and directed by David Gompper.2 The concert had as its thematic spine twentieth-century settings of Sappho’s poetry, beginning with three of Ivor Gurney’s “Seven Sappho Songs,” including compositions by Lennox Berkeley, Steven Stuckey, Goffredo Petrassi, and concluding with Luigi Dallapiccola’s “Cinque frammenti di Saffo” and “Sex carmina Alcaei.” In between these samplings of archaic lyric there was also a wide range of pieces, from a highly colored aria for Odysseus from August Bungert’s opera Odysseus’ Heimkehr (1896) to an arresting performance of Ludwig Senfl’s 1539 setting of Horace Odes 2.20, Non usitata nec tenui ferar, re-imagined for the occasion by Gompper. Ludwig Senfl was a Swissborn [End Page 1] composer active in Germany during the early sixteenth century, whom a contemporary called in musica totius Germaniae nunc princeps (right now the first in music in all Germany).3 A prolific composer of lieder and polyphonic masses and motets, Senfl also experimented in the 1530s with setting ancient Latin poetry to rhythms that reflected the original meters. His setting of Horace’s Odes 2.20 provides a comparatively simple but clear illustration of the complications involved in the musical interpretation and performance of antiquity. I begin with a consideration of that poem and Senfl’s setting as an introduction to the issues examined in the articles that follow this essay. Non usitata nec tenui ferar closes Horace’s second book of Odes with a prediction of the poet’s immortality, and is itself an act of musical reception. The opening two stanzas are: Non usitata nec tenui ferar penna biformis per liquidum aethera vates, neque in terris morabor longius, invidia maior urbis relinquam. Non ego, pauperum sanguis parentum, non ego, quem vocas, dilecte Maecenas, obibo nec Stygia cohibebor unda. By no light or common feather shall I be borne, a singer and seer, my shape changed, through the bright air, and I shall not tarry, earthbound, much longer, but I shall leave city life, transcending pettiness. I shall not die, though from impoverished family, not I, whom you, my dear Maecenas, call friend, nor shall I be confined by the Stygian lake. The meter is Horace’s adaptation of Greek alcaics to the demands of the Latin language. The opening lines carry a memory of a choral passage in Euripides.4 But the allusion is oblique, and in the background of the [End Page 2] poem there seems to be a skein of reference that also includes the lyrics of Alcman, Theognis, and Pindar.5 The third through fifth stanzas explain that in death Horace’s spirit will be transformed into a swan, and that it will fly the circuit of the known world. The final stanza’s forbidding mourning again nods at a literary model: Absint inani funere neniae luctusque turpes et querimoniae; compesce clamorem ac sepulcri mitte supervacuos honores. Let there be no dirges with their empty mourning, nor shameful grief and lamenting; repress your noisy cries, and forget the pointless honors of a tomb. Ennius had written the couplet, Nemo me lacrimis decoret nec funera fletu / faxit. Cur? Volito vivos per ora virum (“Let no one honor me with tears, nor celebrate my funeral with weeping. Why? Alive I fly from mouth to mouth of men.”6) This epigram appears to give form both to Horace’s final thought, and perhaps also the larger conceit that his soul (and so, his poetry) will soar from east to west over the entire Augustan oikoumene. In Horace the medium is the message. Poetry lasts, and grants...

O RAPTO DE EUROPA: UMA COMPARAÇÃO ENTRE OVÍDIO E TICIANO

Nas Metamorfoses, o poeta romano Ovídio narra a fábula da transformação de Júpiter em touro a fim de seduzir a princesa fenícia Europa. Durante o período do Renascimento, como se sabe, a civilização ocidental promoveu uma intensa renovação de seus valores sob a clara influência da cultura greco-romana. Ovídio, cuja fama não cessara por toda a Idade Média, tornou-se então ainda mais conhecido, e especialmente seu poema das Metamorfoses transformou-se em admirável fonte de inspiração não só para a literatura mas também para as artes plásticas e sua nova concepção humanista. Assim, o episódio do rapto de Europa ganhou uma dramática expressão pictórica nas largas pinceladas do mestre veneziano Ticiano Vecellio, que no ápice da maturidade criativa interpretou vários mitos clássicos em suas telas. Entre os versos do antigo poeta latino e o quadro do renascentista italiano há muitas e evidentes relações. Nas Metamorfoses, o relato mítico é descrito em tantos detalhes e fixado numa poética tão expressiva, que Ticiano pôde tomar a narrativa de Ovídio como modelo para pintar “O rapto de Europa”, fazendo então um verdadeiro exercício de tradução intersemiótica ao interpretar signos verbais através de signos pictóricos.

La preceptiva sobre la narratio en los rétores latinos

This paper reviews and comments different texts containing the theories and doctrines developed by ancient Latin rhetoricians on the argumentative and persuasive characteristics of narrative discourse as opposed to explicitly argumentative discourse. As stated in the introduction and the conclusion, these theories became a source of inspiration to Rodophus Agricola’s study of the distinction expositio/argumentatio, a particularly interesting piece of his dialectic which may still be theoretically and philosophically valuable. We will review texts on narratio, most especially legal narratio, by Cicero (1 st c. BCE), Quintilian (1 st c.), Julius Severianus (2 nd c.), Fortunatianus, Marius Victorinus, Gaius Julius Victor, Sulpicius Victor (4 th c.) and Martianus Capella (5 th c.).

David Langslow and Brigitte Mair (eds), Body, Disease and Treatment in a Changing World: Latin Texts and Contexts in Ancient and Medieval Medicine, Bibliothèque d’Histoire de la Médecine et de la Santé (Lausanne: Éditions BHMS, 2010), pp. xviii + 404, Fr.68.00/€ 55.00, paperback, ISBN: 978-2-9700-6400-8

This volume contains revised and extended versions of twenty-six papers presented at the 9th International Colloquium on Ancient Latin Medical Texts, ‘Language and Context in Latin Medical Texts of the Pre-Salernitan Period’, held at the University of Manchester in 2007. While originally the speakers presented their papers in alphabetical order, a thematic arrangement was deemed more appropriate for the purposes of publication, and this comprises three sections: Graeco-Roman Medicine, Medical Language and Sociolinguistics; Texts, Transmission and Reception; and Words, Meanings and Lexical Fields. There is, perhaps inevitably, a significant amount of overlap with regard to the contents of these three sections, and among the individual papers themselves. This is not necessarily a flaw, however, as these papers generally serve to complement rather than contradict each other, several of them having grown out of collaborative research projects between scholars and institutions. The first section, Graeco-Roman Medicine, Medical Language and Sociolinguistics, contains seven papers that approach aspects of both medical and non-medical works: H. von Staden examines the presentation of parts of the body and the body as a whole in Celsus’ De medicina; F. Le Blay the presentation of the pores in the writings of Lucretius and Seneca; B. Maire the interactions of medical, social and cultural discourse in Mustio’s Gynaecia; M. Baldin the medical terminology used by Plautus, Sallust and Juvenal; and D. Crismani the treatment of lovesickness in Apuleis’ Metamorphoses. More generally, G. Marasco argues that, far from being ignorant and intent on reproducing works of the past, physicians were undertaking research and formulating new theories that would later prove crucial during the Middle Ages. The second section, Texts, Transmission and Reception, contains eleven papers, and it is here that a number of significant new discoveries are presented for the first time: S. Sconocchia publishes four excerpts from the antidotos hiera Pacchi Antiochi; M. Cronier offers some new fragments of one of the three surviving ancient translations of Dioscorides’ De materia medica; A. F. Rodriguez puts forward a fragment of De uirtute uini and a chapter on herba peonia from Thessalus of Tralles’ De plantiis; and A. G. Gonzalez presents the Agriocanna glossary as an addition to the Hermeneumata medicobotanica uetustiora. The third section, Words, Meanings and Lexical Fields, contains eight papers that focus on certain aspects of the medical and non-medical terminology utilised in medical texts, from the names of specific diseases and conditions (digestion, haemorrhois) to the concepts of love (amo and amor) and childhood (puer/puella and infans), to the physical processes by which medicinal remedies were prepared (pounding, pulping and grinding). M. Pardon-Labonnelie incorporates both Latin medical texts and the words inscribed upon collyrium stamps in her discussion of the names of eye diseases, while P. Gaillard-Seux examines the possible contextual reasons for Pliny the Elder’s apparent preoccupation with bites and poisonous substances. Befitting an international colloquium, contributions are written in English, French, Italian, German and Spanish. There are some inconsistencies in the way that they are presented. Some papers include detailed abstracts, others single sentences; some provide abstracts in both English and another language; in the majority of cases the abstracts are in a different language to the paper itself, and the choice of the language of the abstract in relation to the language of the paper is not standardised. Several variations on the Harvard System are utilised for referencing, and quotations from ancient sources are offered in Latin, Greek, English and other languages, or not at all, depending on the paper in question. There is only one illustration (a colour reproduction of MS. Bodley 130, an image that is also reproduced on the cover of the volume), but there are tables throughout. The volume does offer extensive indices (of ancient sources, and Greek and Latin words, forms and phrases) and an exhaustive general bibliography, collated from the bibliographies included in all twenty-six papers and divided into sections: catalogues of manuscripts; editions of ancient and medieval texts (since AD 1700 and before AD 1700); dictionaries, grammars and concordances; and studies for ease of use. Ultimately, Body, Disease and Treatment in a Changing World is a valuable resource for scholars of ancient and medieval medicine.

Myths: history, blood, sex and money.

Whereas the origin of the word transfusion stems from ancient Latin transfundo, which initially meant pour from one vessel to another, its acceptation was early extended to two different notions: the corruption of a population by mixture with foreigners, with sexual and hybridisation connotations (Cicero, The Speech of MT Cicero in defence of Marcus Aemilius Scaurus, 56 AD), and the transfer of a debt (Digesta justiniani, 533 AD). Both sexuality taboos and the notion of debt were thus initially present in the word transfusion. Nevertheless, the idea of taking blood from one individual to infuse it into another is quite old. Although it was not performed by the ancient Egyptians, the idea was already developed, and the concept established: transfusion (transfer of the vital spirit or idea) was present before transfusion (transfer of blood between two subjects)! Immediately, the debt acceptation of the word transfusion emerges in our minds: blood transfusion is a transfer of debts, or at least, it is potentially a transfer of debts between the recipient and the donor. It is, therefore, important to think about the debt. The donor gives his blood and is usually unpaid. The gift is the expression of his altruism, his philanthropy, or generosity. Blood is a gift, whatever the reason(s) for offering the gift. The patient benefits directly from this donated blood, this blood maintains his life; without this blood, without any transfusion, the recipient could die. The beneficiary of a transfusion is, therefore, indebted to the donor, is liable to somebody of whom he knows nothing. This complex and exemplary relationship established between two different human beings has been overshadowed by the scandal of “contaminated blood”. This scandal is fresh in our minds and still obscures our reason. Indeed, transfusion-transmitted infections were and still are a major concern for clinicians, politicians, scientists and, evidently, for donors as well as patients. Is my blood pure? Why do I have contaminated blood? What were my relations with Gods condemning me to such an impurity? Why does my blood carry this damnation that will kill me and that can murder the potential recipient of my blood?

From Marinetti to Pasolini: Massawa, the Red Sea, and the Construction of "Mediterranean Africa" in Italian Literature and Cinema

Abstract Postwar Italian historiography tended for decades to exclude colonialism from national history, and the country largely forgot its colonial past. The interconnections between the academic schools and anthropological scholarly theories that focused on the Horn of Africa during Italian colonialism and twentieth century Italian literary and cinematic representations of the Horn and the Red Sea have been understudied and underestimated. This article will argue that during Italian colonialism, Italy and the Horn of Africa were interconnected through the Mediterranean and Red Sea by scholarly, literary, cultural religious, and imaginary links that contributed to the construction of a "Mediterranean Africa," based on genetic continuities and the legacies with Latin antiquity and ancient Roman values. Such baggage affected or was affected by the building of Italian-ness after the country’s unification, Italy’s self-representation, the country’s Southern question, and its articulation of "modernity." As this article will show, the construction of "Mediterranean Africa" influenced the Italian literary and cinematic representations of Northeast Africa, throughout the 20th century; from the founder of Futurism—the Egypt born writer Filippo Tommaso Marinetti—in the first four decades of the century, to the leftist writer and filmmaker Pier Paolo Pasolini, in the 1960s and 1970s. The problematic transnational links constructed between Italy, the Horn of Africa, and the Red Sea would also surface in the works of the most prominent film directors during Fascism, Alessandro Blasetti and Mario Camerini, and other important writers, like Giovanni Comisso, Ennio Flaiano and Giorgio Manganelli.

A ROMAN INSCRIPTION IN CAPE TOWN

The South African Cultural History Museum in Cape Town is well known for its fine collections, not least those of Greek and Roman antiquities.2 On my last visit to Cape Town I was surprised to see something in the museum which I had not noticed before, a Latin inscription attached to the wall. There are of course very few ancient Latin inscriptions in South Africa.

Disease and its Treatment - (D.) Langslow, (B.) Maire (edd.) Body, Disease and Treatment in a Changing World. Latin Texts and Contexts in Ancient and Medieval Medicine. Proceedings of the Ninth International Conference ‘Ancient Latin Medical Texts’, Hulme Hall, University of Manchester, 5th–8th September 2007. Pp. xviii + 399, b/w & colour ills. Lausanne: Éditions BHMS, 2010. Paper, €55. ISBN:

Disease and its Treatment - (D.) Langslow, (B.) Maire (edd.) Body, Disease and Treatment in a Changing World. Latin Texts and Contexts in Ancient and Medieval Medicine. Proceedings of the Ninth International Conference ‘Ancient Latin Medical Texts’, Hulme Hall, University of Manchester, 5th–8th September 2007. Pp. xviii + 399, b/w & colour ills. Lausanne: Éditions BHMS, 2010. Paper, €55. ISBN: 978-2-9700640-0-8. - Volume 62 Issue 1

Un florilegio de biografías latinas (review)

Reviewed by: Un florilegio de biografías latinas Erik Ekman María José Muñoz Jiménez. Un florilegio de biografías latinas. Textes et Études du Moyen Âge 47. Louvain-la-Neuve: Fédération Internationale des Instituts d’Études Médiévales, 2008. 315 pp. ISBN: 978-2-503-52983-7 Un florilegio de biografías latinas is an edition and study of MS 7805 of the Biblioteca Nacional, Madrid, a codex of 96 folios written on Italian paper in a fifteenth-century Spanish hand (13–14). The manuscript was produced some time after 1448, which can be adduced from a reference to In Hypocritas et Delatores Invectiva published by Poggio Braciolini in this year (16). It contains excerpts of Histories of Alexander the Great by Quintus Curtius, The Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers by Diogenes Laërtius, The Twelve Caesars by Suetonius, The Life of Hadrian by Aelius Spartianus, and the History of Rome by Titus Livy. The selections from these texts are biographical and include the lives of Alexander the Great, Julius Caesar, Hannibal and Scipio Africanus. Until relatively recently philologists have neglected florilegia. These collections of fragments of classical texts copied and placed together for easy reference were considered too unoriginal, derivative, and fragmentary to be taken seriously by editors who sought to strip the medieval glosses from the texts of Greek and Latin antiquity in order to uncover the original words of an author. Fortunately, more recent scholarship has placed a higher value on these manuscripts, which offer a valuable look into the reading and writing practices of the past, as well as into literary tastes, since they contained the passages deemed most important by their compilers and readers. Un florilegio de biografías latinas is a welcome addition to the field, making this unique text, with its single manuscript witness, much more accessible to scholars. The content of MS 7805 reflects the interest in biography among humanists in the fifteenth century, including vernacular authors, like Fernán Pérez de Guzmán, author of Generaciones y semblanzas, or Fernando de Pulgar, author of Claros varones de Castilla. What is not immediately evident is the importance of this manuscript, a single witness, unlike the ubiquitous De vita et morarum philosophorum, produced in the fourteenth century and erroneously attributed to Walter de Burley. María José Muñoz Jiménez addresses this in the introduction, in which she argues that MS 7805 is likely the work of the converso author, Martín de Ávila, squire and literary companion of the Marqués de Santillana, as well as Latin secretary for important members of the clergy and for Juan II (31). Muñoz Jiménez bases her conclusion on the fact [End Page 332] that Ávila, at the behest of the Marqués de Santillana, had translated several works by Poggio Briacciolini, who is mentioned in the Florilegio. There are also several glosses in the manuscript that seem to indicate that the work was the product of a royal Latin secretary. Muñoz Jiménez’s argument is inconclusive, as she herself admits, though compelling: “En lo que se me alcanza, de todas las figuras que componen el panorama cultural de la época, Martín de Ávila parece, desde luego, la más interesada y cercana al tema tratado en el manuscrito que nos ocupa, la más relacionada con el raro producto literario que es el florilegio biográfico” (32). If Martín de Ávila did indeed produce this text with the encouragement of the Marqués de Santillana, it is not simply another example of humanist interest in biography, but a Latin text directly linked to one of the founding authors of Castilian letters. Given the specialized knowledge necessary to produce a text like this one, the author was no doubt one of a limited number of mid-fifteenth-century humanists with experience in Italy and extensive knowledge of Latin and classical letters. Its compiler was either Martín de Ávila or someone very much like him. Un florilegio de biografías latinas includes an introductory philological study and a semi-paleographic transcription of MS 7805. There are also several appendices: an edition...

From Marinetti to Pasolini: Massawa, the Red Sea, and the Construction of “Mediterranean Africa” in Italian Literature and Cinema

Postwar Italian historiography tended for decades to exclude colonialism from national history, and the country largely forgot its colonial past. The interconnections between the academic schools and anthropological scholarly theories that focused on the Horn of Africa during Italian colonialism and twentieth century Italian literary and cinematic representations of the Horn and the Red Sea have been understudied and underestimated. This article will argue that during Italian colonialism, Italy and the Horn of Africa were interconnected through the Mediterranean and Red Sea by scholarly, literary, cultural, religious, and imaginary links that contributed to the construction of a “Mediterranean Africa,” based on genetic continuities and the legacies with Latin antiquity and ancient Roman values. Such baggage affected or was affected by the building of Italian-ness after the country’s unification, Italy’s self-representation, the country’s Southern question, and its articulation of “modernity.” As this article will show, the construction of “Mediterranean Africa” influenced the Italian literary and cinematic representations of Northeast Africa, throughout the 20th century; from the founder of Futurism—the Egypt born writer Filippo Tommaso Marinetti—in the first four decades of the century, to the leftist writer and filmmaker Pier Paolo Pasolini, in the 1960s and 1970s. The problematic transnational links constructed between Italy, the Horn of Africa, and the Red Sea would also surface in the works of the most prominent film directors during Fascism, Alessandro Blasetti and Mario Camerini, and other important writers, like Giovanni Comisso, Ennio Flaiano and Giorgio Manganelli.

Scholastic Continuities in the Reproduction of Classical Sources in the Synopsis Purioris Theologiae

This article seeks to contribute to the current re-evaluation of the relationship between the Protestant Reformation and the first period of Reformed orthodoxy by examining the ways in which the authors of the Synopsis Purioris Theologiae appropriated the literatures of classical antiquity and employed them in the context of their scholastic discourses. The derivative manner in which the many references to ancient Greek and Latin writings are employed is evidenced by the demonstrable influence of three major intermediaries: medieval lexicons and anthologies, the tradition of biblical exegesis, and the writings of John Calvin. With special attention to the classical texts that are quoted in the fundamental introductory theses of several disputations, as well as in the “polemical” ones refuting non-Reformed teaching, it is argued that the Synopsis is constructed on a complexity of intertexts that extends beyond the traditionally identified patristic and medieval sources. Thus a better understanding is gained into the nature of the (dis)continuities from medieval Scholasticism to the Reformation and early Reformed orthodoxy.

Su Origene, Commento a Matteo 15, 10-19

This essay analyzes Origen's Commentary on Matthew, specifically the pericope of the 'rich young man', by comparing its ancient Latin translation to theGreek text as it stands in Klostermann's edition, taking into consideration, on the one hand, the surviving manuscripts and, on the other, the dissimilarGreek version used by the ancient translator. The paper illustrates how a painstaking research of the commentary's sources unexpectedly reveals Origen's exegesis and doctrines, which often remain hidden in modern translations of Origen's works.

Leo for mixed choir

Leo is a setting of ancient Latin text for unaccompanied mixed choir, duration: 5:45.For Zodiakos, the final concert of their 2002 season, The Esoterics commissioned twelve Washington State composers to create a suite of a cappella horoscopes from the ancient poem, Astronomica, by First Century B.C.E. poet Marcus Manilius. Each composer set verses for his or her own star sign.Leo was premiered by The Esoterics on December 7, 8, 14 & 15, 2002, in concerts in Tacoma, Mercer Island and Seattle, Washington. The score is published by Ars Nova Music, a division of Ars Nova Press. The piece was named as a Finalist in 2007 Cincinnati Camerata Composition Competition. Leo is a Project Encore selection.

Galen], Galien, Tome III: Le médecin: introduction, Caroline Petit (ed. and trans.), Collection des Universités de France (Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 2009), pp. cxl + 232, €69.00, paperback, ISBN: 978-2-251-00555-3.

[Galen], Galien, Tome III: Le médecin: introduction, Caroline Petit (ed. and trans.), Collection des Universités de France (Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 2009), pp. cxl + 232, €69.00, paperback, ISBN: 978-2-251-00555-3. - Volume 55 Issue 2

“Equally unknown and unimaginable among the ancients”: Brunelleschi’s Dome and Alberti’s <em>Lingua Toscana</em>

Leon Battista Alberti’s vernacular treatise on painting, Della Pittura (1436), is usually characterized as a translation, aimed at artists, of his Latin De Pictura. Questioning that premise, this article situates the volgare treatise and its attached dedication letter to the architect Filippo Brunelleschi within the 1430’s language debates over the role and status of the vernacular, commonly referred to as the Questione della lingua. In this context, Della Pittura served as a persuasive rebuke to humanists who suspected the young language, without a basis in ancient texts, was unable to give voice to a learned treatise. Alberti cleverly argues that the stupendously novel topics and techniques he addresses in the treatise (fifteenth-century painting and linear perspective) and in the letter (the Cathedral of Florence dome and its inventive construction) require an equally innovative language, his lingua toscana. Rather than striving to restore ancient Latin and in turn revive ancient culture, Alberti calls his contemporaries to build a modern language, capable of capturing and conveying the artistic and architectural innovations of his age.

Partial cranial trephination by means of Hippocrates' trypanon from 5th century BC Himera (Sicily, Italy)

AbstractThe paper deals with a new case of partial cranial trephination found in one of the necropolises of the Greek colony of Himera in Sicily. It is one of the very few cases of cranial trephination of Greek classical age. Macroscopic as well as radiological investigations prove that the operation was perimortal as no growth of new bone could be detected, SEM‐EDS microanalysis of the piece revealed the traces left by the tool used during trephination. The review of ancient Greek and Latin medical and surgical texts permitted us to establish that the tool used in Himera was a (trypanon) mentioned by Hippocrates and named terebra by Latin authors. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Das Drastische in der erzählenden dichtung der Antike und des Barocks

This study deals with the Ancient Latin and Old Hungarian adaptations of the most drastic myth of Tereus, Philomela and Progne. Ovid inserted the story into the 6th book of the Metamomorphoses (lines 424–674). Istvan Gyongyosi, called “Hungarian Ovid” by right, adapted an Ovidian text in compliance with baroque literary and translation aspects. The translation makes part of the poem called Csalard Cupido (Fraudulent Cupido) composed in hardly identifiable epic genre in the 17th century. The Ovidian insertion became the third part of the four-part poem, focusing on the demonstration of the outrages caused by Cupido. The main characteristics of the Gyongyosi’s adaptation are: the domestication (for example in the case of the Dionysian rites), the large insertions, the enlargement and amplification, the borrowings and changings of the motifs and patterns and the spectacular actualisation. The motive of the fire is, for example, much more emphased in the Hungarian version. Both of the authors makes capital of...

Running for office

By the time you read this article we in Great Britain will probably have been through the process (or should that be charade?) of a general election when we will all be expected to choose who will represent (or misrepresent) us in Parliament. Any day now politicians will start running around kissing babies and turning up on our doorsteps asking for our support. Currying favour with the electorate they will even offer to take the old and infirm to the polling stations in the hope that such beneficence will encourage their charges to cast their votes for them. And of course they will attempt to persuade us that their party is the only one with the policies necessary to get us out of the economic mire we find ourselves in, omitting to say that politicians helped put us there in the first place. O tempora, o mores!For the origins of the terminology we use in politics we must turn, as is so often the case, to ancient Greek and Latin for the answers to our questions.

Origin and Domestication of Cole Crops (Brassica oleracea L.): Linguistic and Literary Considerations1

Origin and Domestication of Cole Crops (Brassica oleraceaL.): Linguistic and Literary Considerations. Various attempts have been made to locate the area of domestication of Brassica oleracea crops (i.e., cole crops). Contrasting hypotheses suggest either a North Atlantic or a Mediterranean origin. In the absence of archaeological proof, linguistic and literary considerations can offer some insight into this issue. Expressions indicating a deep-rooted knowledge and use of these crops are present in early works of ancient Greek and Latin literature, while no trace of cole crops has been found in documents from ancient Egyptian or other Fertile Crescent civilizations. Most cole crop terminology used in modern European languages can etymologically be traced to ancient Latin or Greek roots, particularly those terms indicating the most obvious morphological feature of the primitive domesticated forms, i.e., the solid upright stem (kaulos, caulis). Celtic tradition is not documented earlier than the Christian era, other than in stone inscriptions, and there is no clear evidence of a “cole tradition” among the Celts. This paper gathers information from the linguistic, literary, and historical points of view that are compatible with the domestication of B. oleracea in the ancient Greek-speaking area of Central and East Mediterranean.