Studies in the Transmission of Latin Texts

After a brief introduction on stemmatic method, this book contains genealogical investigations of the textual traditions of Quintus Curtius Rufus and then Dictys Cretensis. The sections on each author begin with a list of MSS and incunables that will be discussed (they number just over 150 for Curtius, about 80 for Dictys) and then a survey of existing scholarship. There then follows the classification of the MSS and incunables; most of the MSS of both authors were produced in Italy in the fifteenth-century. In the section on Curtius MSS B = Bern, Burgerbibliothek 451, Br = Brussels 10161, and A= Paris, lat. 5720, owned by Petrarch are shown to have been very productive. For Dictys it is argued that a stemma codicum can be established. First witnesses related to G = Sankt Gallen, Stiftsbibliothek 197 (these include an important lost MS of Poggio) are discussed, then those related to MS E, the codex Aesinas, owned by Stefano Guarnieri. There follows discussion of the archetype, of the way in which proper attention to the stemma codicum can improve the text, and of the excerpts from Dictys found in MSS of Dares.