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Die Deutschen Humanisten: Dokumente zur Überlieferung derantiken und mittelalterlichen Literatur in der Frühen Neuzeit

Bernstein, Eckhard.

Renaissance Quarterly, Volume 60, Number 1, Spring 2007, pp.

232-234 (Review)

Published by Renaissance Society of America

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required the insistence on the right of free trade of both the Dutch and the Asianrulers, and the development of the VOC’s right to defend itself against Iberian

aggression in the early stages of Dutch interloping in the East Indies. Soon enough,the legal strategies of the VOC, as formulated by Grotius, had to account for theinterloping of new competitors from France and England. Whereas Dutch diplo-matic pressure aborted the French initiatives, the initiatives of the English EastIndies Company required a second line of thought, already existent in De Jure Praedae . In negotiations with the English in the 1610s, Grotius elaborated oncontract law, arguing that the English natural right of free trade did not precludethe (natural) right of the Dutch to enforce the observance of contracts. He thushelped formulate the VOC’s strategy in the East Indies that was increasingly

becoming one of protecting (even by force) the interests of its trading empireagainst breach of contract: meaning Asian trade partners trading with new com-petitors from England.

In short, Profit and Principle convincingly argues how De Jure Praedae and Mare Librum were part of the day-to-day legal, political, and diplomatic practicesof a talented young jurist, politician, and diplomat. Legal principles served profitand national interest. Instead of presenting him as one of the great champions of contemporary international law, Van Ittersum pictures Grotius convincingly asone of the masterminds behind the making of the Dutch Republic as a major

economic, military, political, and diplomatic power and of its aggressive policies.In the introduction, Van Ittersum criticizes the Cambridge School for not havingattempted to contextualize the works of political theorists more radically. In thisbook, convincingly and comprehensively, now and then somewhat redundantly,she demonstrates what such a contextualization brings us. This book would havehad even more poignancy if Van Ittersum had returned to her initial criticism,further elaborating on it from the arguments presented in this well-researchedstudy.

A RJAN VAN DIXHOORN

Antwerp University

Wilhelm Kühlmann, Volker Hartmann, and Susann El Kholi, eds. Die Deutschen Humanisten: Dokumente zur Überlieferung der antiken und mittelalterlichen Literatur in der Frühen Neuzeit .2 vols. Europa Humanistica. Turnhout: Brepols Publishers, 2005. 1,222 pp. €85. ISBN:2–503–52017–0.

One of the lasting achievements of the European humanists was to makeavailable to the learned public important aspects of the literary past by editingand publishing ancient and medieval texts. With the Renaissance humanists thesystematic study of antiquity ( Altertumswissenschaft ) began. This, of course, is a

well-known fact. What is lacking in many cases is a precise knowledge of thephilological practice: that is, knowledge about the intentions, methods, and work

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of the editors. And this knowledge should not be limited to the best-known editors

but should also extend to those hundreds of humanists who labored to rescue

ancient and medieval texts from obscurity. A new project called Die deutschenHumanisten tries to fill this gap. The two volumes under review here are the first

of a planned series of bio-bibliographical portraits of German humanists. The

intention is to document the reception of ancient and medieval authors in the early

modern period in Germany. Inspired by Jean-François Maillard, who in 1999

published his La France des Humanistes , the work is part of a European project led

by the Paris Centre National de la Recherche whose aim is a complete reconstruc-

tion of the various forms of textual reception.

Given the extent of the humanist networks in Europe, it is clear that such an

ambitious project can only be undertaken by confining oneself in each case to

certain geographically defined areas and limited periods. Kühlmann and his fellow

scholars have done precisely that. They concentrate on the Palatinate, whose court

and university at Heidelberg had become in the decades before the outbreak of the

Thirty Years’ War a center of humanist activity. Within this period and territory

the editors have concentrated on two leading representatives of late humanism,

Marquard Freher (1565–1614) and Janus Gruter (1560–1627), devoting one

volume to each of these scholars. Freher was a jurist, legal scholar, historian, and

diplomat who placed his extensive philological work in the service of the Palatinecourt. As the author of the Origines Palatinae he became the father of Palatine

historiography. His editorial work comprises thirty-three predominantly Latin

works. However, the majority of the texts he edited were not from antiquity, as one

would expect from a humanist, but from the Middle Ages; a group of texts,

especially legal documents, stemmed also from the early modern period. Ancientliterature is represented only by an edition of Ausonius’s Mosella and by theFacetiae of Hierocles. His special interests included also compilations of historicaltexts from German, Russian, and Bohemian history.

Janus Gruter differed from Freher both in his biography and the choice of the authors he edited. Born in the Netherlands, he studied in England, theNetherlands, France, and Germany before becoming professor of history anddirector of the famous Bibliotheca Palatina in Heidelberg. In spite of numerouspersonal tragedies — he lost four wives and several children — as well as profes-sional tragedies — he had to witness the removal of the Bibliotheca Palatina to theVatican — he kept up an untiring program of editing. In contrast to Freher,however, Gruter was mainly interested in Latin literature. A number of his editionsof Seneca, Cicero, Plautus, Livy, Sallust, and Tacitus have acquired canonicalstatus. In addition to these editions he also edited fifteen volumes of Neo-Latinpoetry with a total of 17,000 pages — a truly Herculean deed, through whichthousands of poems that would otherwise be lost were saved for posterity. Hisbibliography of edited works in Kühlmann’s book comprises thirty items.

What Kühlmann and his colleagues have done, in addition to systematically listing and describing with exemplary thoroughness the editions published by

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Freher and Gruter, is to publish the so called paratexts: that is, prefaces, dedica-tions, and accompanying poems that usually preceded an edition. These paratexts

are preceded by a brief German summary and provided with a detailed commen-tary explaining biographical, historical, and mythological allusions as well asbibliographical references to these allusions. The accompanying Latin poems arenot summarized in German, however. The decision to concentrate on the paratexts

was a wise one, as they are extremely revealing for a number of reasons. Not only do they point to the wide range of recipients and dedicatees — including emper-ors, kings, princes, city councils, and fellow scholars — and the truly internationalnetwork of the res publica humanistica; they also gave the humanist editors aplatform to justify the selection of a particular work, to steer the reception, and to

explain their methods. In other words, they are a key to understanding the philo-logical practice of the time, allowing us a look into the humanist workshop.

Each volume is organized according to the following principles: the biograph-ical sketch of the humanists is followed by a chronologically-arranged bibliography divided into reference works and monographs and articles. The following partrecords the authors that were edited by Freher and Gruter. Four different indicesof over 100 pages facilitate the use of this work.

The two volumes, consisting of a total of 1,222 pages, are not meant to beread from cover-to-cover. They are reference works that offer a wealth of carefully

prepared material, but material that still has to be interpreted and analyzed by future scholars.

Die deutschen Humanisten is thus a contribution to the reception of ancientand medieval authors during the early modern period as well as a contribution toa future history of humanist philology: an auspicious beginning of a project thatmight take many years to complete.

ECKHARD BERNSTEIN

Freiburg im Breisgau

Jane Stevenson. Women Latin Poets: Language, Gender, and Authority, from Antiquity to the Eighteenth Century .Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005. 680 pp. bibl. $165. ISBN: 0–19–818502–2.

This erudite book which, not surprisingly given its scope, took ten years toprepare, presents over three hundred women Latinists together with examples of some of their poetry, both in the original and in carefully wrought English trans-lations. Were this rescue from oblivion or near-oblivion not sufficiently groundbreaking in itself, the work also, in a nuanced but strongly argued prologue,introduction, and conclusion, turns on its head the enduring opinion that virtually no women knew Latin in the post-classical world and were therefore marginalizedand disempowered both in public life and the republic of letters for as long as Latinremained the mark of the educated elite. It speaks to all scholars of women’sstudies, regardless of particular discipline, country, or period, within an 1,800-year

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