Original scientific paper
The Benessa Edition of Silius Italicus’ Epic: the overall framework
Vlado Rezar
orcid.org/0000-0001-5109-5554
; Filozofski fakultet Sveučilišta u Zagrebu, Zagreb, Hrvatska
Abstract
The editio princeps of the longest Roman epic, Punica, by Silius Italicus, in 17 books and more than 12,000 hexameters, was printed in Rome in 1471. By the middle of the 16th century it would appear throughout the centres of European humanism in fifteen more editions. Responsible for the first printing in octavo format in Lyons in 1514 was Dubrovnik merchant and Latinist poet Damjan Beneša / Damianus Benessa (1476-1539). Because of the small number of copies printed and because it is among the celebrated Aldine printing forgeries, this edition is mentioned today on the whole as a valuable typographic artefact. It is less well known that Benessa, apart from a new format and typeface, offered the readers an emended Latin text, which editors all the way down to modern times would refer to as one of the best. The article endeavours to indicate the place of Benessa’s philological undertaking in the tradition of editing the text of Silius’ epic, and at the same time to throw light on the circumstances in which the Lyonnese edition came into being in the first place, thus supplementing the existing picture of Benessa as an all-round humanist.
Keywords
Silius Italicus; Punica; Damianus Benessa; Lyons edition of 1514; humanist; textual criticism
Hrčak ID:
100998
URI
Publication date:
22.4.2013.
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