Ellen van Heteren
A mystery traveller
In the mid-seventeenth century, the Dutch city of Haarlem was a centre of culture, learning and art. In this city lived Theodorus Schrevelius, humanist and poet. Born in Haarlem in 1572, Schrevelius studied the classic languages. He became conrector and later rector of the Latin School in his home city. After twenty-four years of service, he was fired because of his remonstrant religious orientation and moved to Leiden, where he also filled the role of rector. Later, he was able to move back to Haarlem. Nearing the end of his life, he wrote the Harlemias, which added to a long list of publications by his hand. After over three hundred years, a copy of this book ended up in the special collections of the Royal Dutch Institute in Rome (KNIR). What is the story of this mystery traveller?
The Harlemias, printed in Haarlem by Thomas Fonteyn in 1648, was written because of Schrevelius’s love for the city in which he was born and raised. The author wrote a history of this city from its first building blocks to his own time. In doing so, he covered many different aspects of this history, which he divided into six ‘books’. The first book tells the tale of the city’s origins, the second of the famous siege of Haarlem, and the third that of the Dutch Revolt and reformation that followed. From the fourth book on, the subjects get more thematic: The fourth book summarizes all the city’s privileges and nobility; the fifth describes the rise of institutions such as the military, schools and police; the sixth book is all about the civility of Haarlem, its important magistrates, learned men, artisans and artists, and all other workers. The work was originally written in Latin and published in 1647, but soon it was rewritten in vernacular Dutch, because the author wanted to share his love for his city with everyone and not just the learned elite, as Schrevelius shares in his foreword to the reader. The books are accompanied by several poems and laudatory speeches.
After this engraving follows the typographical title page on which it, of course, states the entire title, the author and the impressum. On the back of this folio, someone has left their initials or some type of illegible signature. The engraving was an intricate part of the book as the same engraving is found in all other books from the print of 1648. A reprint from 1754 shows a different engraving. The larger part of the book is printed in a gothic letter, but some exceptions occur when names, poems or any type of citation is written.
Overall, the book and its paper are in excellent condition. There are no tears or breaks and no signs of biological infestations except for a little bookworm who left tiny holes in pages 247-383. With the exception of the end leaves and title pages, not a single marginalium can be found. These first few pages do carry interesting information about the provenance of the book. Most of these are, unsurprisingly, stamps and pencil-written signatures of libraries that held this book. Far more interesting, however, is a loose piece of paper that was put between the pages of the book. It contains an invitation for two persons to a concert that was organised by the Acedemie de France a Rome. A previous owner thus was somehow related to the French Academy of Rome. The catalogue of the KNIR library only reveals that the object was added to the collection in 2018, although I find this somewhat unlikely. Unfortunately, the KNIR does not seem to keep any other information about when or how this book came into the possession of the KNIR, whether it has ever been in the French Institute, or when it was bought by or donated to either institution.
Commenting on the past
Justus Lipsius is best known for his revival of ancient stoicism and making it compatible with Christianity. Thus, he extensively studied the works of the philosopher Seneca the Younger. There is however one ancient author who might have been as dear to Lipsius as Seneca: Tacitus. The young humanist was probably introduced to both authors during his trip to Rome when he met the French humanist Marcus Antonius Muretus (1526-1586), who was known for his interest in imperial Roman literature. Lipsius became almost obsessed with the two authors and dedicated most of his life to studying them. In 1574 he published his first edition of Tacitus which contained a series of notae. Throughout his life he released multiple revisions to his edition and expansions to the notae making it a separate commentary. A total of seven different editions were made by his hand, working together with Plantin Press.
explanation in italic. Lipsius often quotes sources from antiquity in his explanation. When he cites Greek sources he always cites the original Greek and sometimes adds a translation. When citing inscriptions he offers a transcription of the relevant part. There are printed notes in the margins, which either refer to ancient sources or summarize Lipsius’ argument.
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The layout for the commentary feels very intuitive for someone who is used to working with modern commentaries on authors from antiquity. The indents make it very easy to identify where a new part of the commentary starts and the variation between roman and italic make it easy to identify which part is quoted and which part is Lipsius’ commentary (although most modern texts would probably switch it around, using italic for the citation and roman for commentary). The most challenging part of using the book is the lack of references to pagination or subdivisions to the text of the Annales, which makes it difficult to find a specific part of the commentary. This does however mean that the commentary can be used with any edition of Tacitus’ text rather than just the one Lipsius released, so it may have been a conscious decision not to refer to pages of the accompanying edition. While the commentary itself is rarely used today, many of the emendations that Lipsius made stood the test of time and can still be found in modern editions of Tacitus.
The book is an octavo, meaning that it is rather small. Because of this it was probably easy to travel with. The lack of decoration (except for a decorated initial at the beginning) point to the book being a real object of use, rather than an object of prestige.
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It is therefore a bit surprising that the copy at the KNIR is lacking many traces of readers. Only a few pages contain annotations. These annotations (pp. 68, 69 and 468) are additional references to other authors from antiquity. The title page also has a shelf mark of the library of the Roman College. The book is still in its original binding, but still in relatively good condition. The spine is however showing clear signs of wear. The bottom was originally painted red but most of this paint has fallen off, possibly due to being held there too often as the damage is almost exactly where the book would be held if held in the hand.
One possible explanation for the rather pristine and undamaged condition of the book, while also showing signs of repeated use by the damage on the spine, is that it was taken to a library at an early age. There it could have been used repeatedly and not have received many annotations or damage from carelessness as could happen when in personal use. The shelf mark of the Roman College gives us the latest date for when it was adopted in the library, because the library of the Roman College was abolished 1871, meaning that before that the book had to have been in their library. It is however quite possible that this happened much earlier.
While the commentary is rarely used today, it is still surprisingly easy to navigate and work with. How much the copy at the KNIR was used in the past is debatable. Its rather pristine condition does not seem to suggest a lot of usage, but the damage at the spine might be from repeated holding. A long history at a library would explain the condition of the book.
The Ad annales Taciti liber commentarius, sive notae is a commentary on the Roman historian Tacitus by the Dutch humanist Justus Lipsius (1547-1606). It was the first systematic commentary to have been published on any work from Tacitus. Therefore, it stands at the start of a long tradition of commentaries on Tacitus. But how useful was it, for past and current readers?
Commentaries on ancient authors were very popular in the Renaissance as there was a large revival in the reading and studying of these authors. The commentary on Tacitus’ Annales certainly met a large need, as no commentary on any of Tacitus’ works yet existed and the text was known to be at times notoriously difficult and corrupt.
The commentary itself is very methodological and largely philological in nature. Great care is taken in offering variant reading, commenting on unresolved issues and offering conjectures based on historical facts and Lipsius’ knowledge on Tacitus’ Latin. The seven editions that were released in Lipsius’ lifetime differ greatly from each other in both form -over which Lipsius had a large amount of control- and content. In some editions the commentary and text were bundled in one book, while in other editions the text and the commentary were released separately.
The edition at the KNIR is part of Lipsius’ second Tacitus edition and the first proper commentary Lipsius published. The first edition already had a series of notae attached to it, but these were much shorter (about 100 pages of octavo for Tacitus’ Opera omnia against the nearly 500 pages for just the Annales) and less complete. Many explanations of the events in the text were added to these notae, with many references to ancient sources. Some of the notes take on the length of entire essays. Others take on the length of short essays, like the digression on pp. 76-77 on the royal line of the Parthians.
The commentary follows the order of the text in the Annales, meaning that it would probably be ideal to have a copy of the text open on one’s desk when using the commentary. Each paragraph (marked with an indent) first cites the text in a roman fond, after which follows Lipsius’
Vincent de Kruif
2- Justus Lipsius, Ad annales Taciti liber commentarius, p. 1.
Bibliography
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Bom, Erik de, “Justus Lipsius (1547-1606) De filoloog als politicoloog: een contradictio in terminis?”. In Een nieuwe wereld denkers uit de Nederlanden over politiek en maatschappij (1500-1700). Utrecht: Polis / Klement, 2015, 115-152.
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Céard, Jean, “Theory and practices of Commentary in the renaissance”. In The Unfolding of Words Commentary in the Age of Erasmus, edited by Judith Rice Anderson. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2012, 3-25.
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Justus Lipsius, Ad annales Taciti liber commentarius, sive notae. Antwerpen: Christophe Plantin, 1583, KNIR, Rome, Italy.
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Landtsheer, Jeanine de, “Commentaries on Tacitus by Justus Lipsius”. In The Unfolding of Words Commentary in the Age of Erasmus, edited by Judith Rice Anderson. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2012, 188-232.
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Tacitus, F. R. D. Goodyear (ed.), The Annals of Tactus : Books 1-6. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1972.
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Ufficio centrale per i Beni librari e gli Istituti culturali, Biblioteche d'Italia : le biblioteche pubbliche statali. 1991.
1 – Portrait of Justus Lipsius by Pieter de Jode.
3- Justus Lipsius, Ad annales Taciti liber commentarius, p. 468.