Sicco Polenton, Lives of the Famous Latin Authors

Offering an anthology of the first history of Latin literature, Sicco Polenton’sScriptorum illustrium Latinae linguae libri XVIIIis a collection of biographies that spans the period from ancient Rome to the 15th century.Compiled between 1419 and 1433, the main focus of theScriptores illustresis on the life and works of ancient Latin authors, but Polenton also displays a wider interest in the history of Roman culture, institutions and society, which he constantly interlaces with literary issues. This anthology offers the first English translation of carefully selected passages of theScriptores illustres, in order to provide scholars and students with an accessible overview of the work’s structure and style, as well as its impact on early 15th-century scholarship. It is the first modern edition of Polenton’s work to be annotated, thereby providing an historical context for the work. The commentary sheds new light on the complexity of Polenton’s original research into his classical sources, and the anthology fills a gap in Anglophone scholarship, which has in recent decades paid little attention to Polenton and his intellectual profile. This volume provides an introduction to Sicco Polenton’s considerable history of Latin literature, the Scriptorum illustrium Latinae linguae libri XVIII, through a careful selection of passages that are edited anew, translated into English, and annotated. The work was written intermittently between 1419 and 1437, and two versions survive; the later one, used here, is found in an autograph manuscript. Sicco’s text is one of the earliest substantial works on literary history to be able to make use of the new translations of Greek sources that had shed light on Latin literature and on ancient Roman culture and history, and came, as such, to be an important work in the development of subsequent humanist thought. The passages of the Scriptores illustres chosen for translation and annotation here have been selected in order to provide an overview of the shape and structure of Sicco’s work: alongside the prologues of several books, particular attention is paid to his treatment of the poets, as it is in their lives that he provides the fullest and most detailed expression of his understanding of the development of Latinity. In the light of Sicco’s especial interest in prose authors, parts of his sizeable life of Cicero are also treated.