Graziano, Domenico (2025) I paratesti nelle edizioni a stampa di opere scientifiche greche e latine (XV-XVI s.). [Tesi di dottorato]

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Abstract

Starting from the mid-15th century, the spreading of movable type printing in Europe marked a cultural revolution. My dissertation project has focussed on one of the less studied actors of such revolution, which played an important role in the production and transmission of ideas: the paratextual apparatus of early modern editions of ancient scientific works in Latin and Greek. The corpus I outlined is made up of two sections: – On one hand, paratexts of editions and commentaries of Lucretius’ poem, printed between 1472 and 1515, namely the incunabula of the De rerum natura and two sixteenth-century editions: the second Aldina, which offers the opportunity to explore the evolution of Aldus Manutius’ views and editorial strategies concerning the same text; and the first commentary on the poem to reach print, the curious Paraphrasis by the little-known Raffaele Franceschi; – On the other hand, I considered the introductions written for his editorial endeavours by the Greek scholar and protestant theologian Simon Grynaeus, who, during the fourth decade of the 16th century, worked together with the publishers of Basel in spreading capital texts, such as the first edition of Euclid’s Elements in the original Greek. The research has touched in particular Grynaeus’ preface to Aristophanes’ comedies, which serves as a paradigmatic case study for exploring his approach towards texts with a long fortune, while also providing an overview of the innovative teaching methodologies he proposed – above all the desired shift from a purely linguistic and literary study of ancient texts to one capable of grasping the interplay between their formal and conceptual aspects, essential for appreciating the scientific works he intended to integrate into the school canon; then I considered the introductions to the editiones principes of the original Greek of Euclid’s Elements and Ptolemy’s Almagest, which reflect a unified editorial and cultural project and constitute the summa of Grynaeus’ thought on the role of the Quadrivium within the new Christian and humanist culture he advocated. The editions included in the corpus have been selected because of the impact of ancient scientific texts on Renaissance culture, but also by virtue of the complementary characteristics of the two sets of sources: – The selection of Lucretian paratexts was motivated by the significant interest generated by the reception of De rerum natura during the Renaissance and the supposed importance of the rediscovery of Epicureanism for the development of modern thought. The choice to collect the paratexts from a single editorial history aims to explore the potential of a systematic reading of this material within the field of classical tradition studies. Moreover, following the history of the editions of a single work allows one to reveal the dialogue between an edition and those that preceded it. – Regarding the paratexts of Grynaeus, the approach has been that of a synchronic study of the paratexts produced by a single intellectual, operating within a well-defined environment and time frame. Grynaeus devoted himself to the publication of editions of classical texts, and his output is entirely represented by such editions and the paratexts he wrote to guide their reading. Grynaeus used the paratextual space to promote his pedagogical and religious ideas, to support a cultural program that prioritized Greek science over Latin rhetoric, and to maintain relationships with patrons of European significance. My work has consisted in collecting, editing and annotating this material. The final product of the project has been twofold: – A dissertation, whose first part presents the results of the diachronical study of the liminal texts produced around Lucretius’ poem during the Renaissance; while the second aims to remove from obscurity the intellectual and editorial work of Simon Grynaeus, leading figure of the Swiss Reformation, unjustly forgotten in the shadow of his great contemporaries, such as Erasmus of Rotterdam and Philip Melanchthon. Thus, while keeping the focus on ancient Greek and Latin texts thematically coherent, the research spaces from the extensive editorial history of a well-studied author to the paratextual contributions of a nearly forgotten editor, who published various ancient texts over the span of a decade. – Together with the dissertation, a semantic database has been prepared, hosted by the University of Innsbruck, which will allow scholars of different disciplines to query these valuable yet understudied documents of classical reception and the intellectual history of the Renaissance. The purpose of this project has been to produce a thoroughly annotated scholarly edition of interesting sources of the dynamic relationship between classical literature and the intellectuals of modern Europe, protagonists of the humanistic movement and the scientific revolution. Both the database and the thesis aim to reveal the diverse ways of collecting and interpreting the printed paratexts of the early modern era as a dynamic network. The expandable semantic database, in particular, provides researchers with tools to explore various approaches to the same material, offering a platform for new perspectives and deeper insights.

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