Author: PETRONIUS.
Title: T. Petronij Arbitri, eqvitis Romani, Satyricon. In Capita dissectum, Cum omnibus omnium Interpretvm Obseruationibus, Notis, & Commentariis: Hactenus sigallatim, Nunc tandem sub vnum conscpectum, ad calcern cuiusque capitis, collocatis. Cum novo insuper & locupletissimo Rerum & verborum Indice. Accedunt & alla nonjulla Petroniorum Fragment aVetervmque Poetarvm Ctalecta, Svipici AEquve Vita et Satyra.
Description: Geneva. Excudebat Iohannes Mercerius, 1629. 4to, 233 x 162 mms., pp. [xi], 44, 69 [70 blank, 71 - 84 Index], 430, misbound, with the Fragmenta following page 44 and the note to the reader, contemporary full vellum, with yapp edges, and the contemporary inscription on the title-page "Sum ex Libris Cornely van Lodensteyn" on the title-page. This is a rather interesting provenance in that van Lodensteyn (1552 - 1636), the twelfth of fourteen children, was a magistrate in Delft, where he died. Later in the 17th century, his descendants emigrated to New Jersey. This edition of the Satyricon was edited by Theodorus de Juges. The text ultimately derives from one manuscript source, that of Scaliger, and the texts of Tornaesius (1575) and Pithoeus (1577, 1587). While scholars and critics alike have been generous in their admiration for the narrative, some of the naughty bits were troublesome to an earlier generation, e. g., the German historian Barthold Georg Niebuhr (1776 - 1831), who commented in 1821 in a paper on Curtius and Petronius, "The disgusting indecencies of which the remains of Petronius are full (although the inoffensive, nay, the pure predominates even in amount) give him so bad a name, that he who confesses an intimate acquaintance with the poem, and expresses gratification with it, exposes himself to a severe judgment and affords a good opportunity for sanctimonious hypocrisy.... It is very probable that the great majority of those who have, since the days of the past, regaled themselves with this work, have done so from a corrupt heart...." For the genealogy of the early if not first owner, Cornelius van Lodensteyn, see Genealogies of New Jersey Families (2010).

Keywords: classics association copy literature


See more books from our catalog: Classics