Scholia Bernensia in Vergili Bucolica et Georgica. Vol. 2, Fasc. 1 : In Georgica Commentarii (Prooemium/Liber I 1-42) (review)

Luca Cadili, a young Italian Latinist, here gives us the first of a number of fascicles that will present a new edition of the Berne scholia to Vergil's Eclogues and Georgics. The present volume, as the title announces, treats the proem (2–21) and the first forty-seven lines of G. 1 (22–135), followed by a variety of indices (136–53, names, notable subjects) and an appendix of variants (see below). The introduction, written in clear and attractive Latin (with only one error I noticed: I, textum constituendum est qui) gives a description of the methods employed in the edition, along with a Conspectus codicum, signorum et subsidiorum, including bibliography (i–xxii).

For the Georgics, the Berne Scholia (so called since two of the MSS containing scholia to the whole poem are in that city) fall into two recensions, Berne Scholia A (ΣBA for Cadili, Brevis Expositio), containing entries on G. 1–2 only, and Berne Scholia B (ΣBB), preserving comments for the whole poem. For ΣBA, Cadili collated the four MSS L, N, P (which stops after G. 2.91), and G, whose consensus, the hyparchetype Ψ, he prints on the left-hand side of the edition, while ΣBB is represented on the right-hand side by two columns, containing his B (Bernensis 172) and V (cod. Vossianus lat. F 79+cod. Parisinus lat. 1750). His C (Bernensis 167) is derivative of B, and its readings are reported in appendix A. Here Cadili builds on the work of Suringar, Hagen (who shares the dedication with Cadili's brother), and Funaioli.

Cadili resists positing an archetype and has a good and succinct discussion (ii) of the ultimate authorship of the scholia, following a subscription from the ΣBB recension at the end of the Eclogues commentary: haec omnia de commentariis Romanorum, id est Titi Galli et Gaudentii et maxime Iunilii Flagrii Mediolanensisi. The text of Cadili is presented in these three columns, with a double apparatus criticus, following Erbse's practice for the Homeric scholia, the upper recording all MS variants, the lower, an "apparatus fontium" with material indicating sources of the scholia, references to Greek and Latin texts, and necessary interpretive material. Below the apparatus there appear relevant excerpts from Servius and others, chiefly [Probus], probably integrated by Gaudentius. The reader can see just to what extent Servius guided the construction of the Berne scholia, from which Servius and DServius may now easily be disentangled. An elaborate but precise set of signs (ix–xiv), although not for the fainthearted, allow the reader to reconstruct relationships among the various scholia, marginal comments, corrections, and the like.

This is a work of immense learning and toil, such as one rarely sees any longer, particularly in a scholar of Cadili's age—he is also the author of an excellent 2001 monograph on the Hellenistic intertexts of the Georgics. Just from the fourty-two lines of Georgics 1 treated in this fascicle, it is clear that the full edition will be a work of value to anyone interested in the text, surrounding scholiastic tradition, and interpretation of Vergil's poem. I here take but one example, 1.19, the allusive reference to Triptolemus in Vergil's opening prayer: PVER MONSTRATOR ARATRI VNCI. Over the course of two very dense pages (86–89) the reader is presented with the ΣBA tradition to the left, ΣBB in its two columns to the left, can see exactly how the recensions differ, and how much is owed to Servius, and here particularly DServius. At the same time, the simplicity of Ψ's qui usum serendi primus invenit et mortalibus tradidit may betray the thinking of a scholiast more engaged with the actual Georgics than with antiquarian and other lines of inquiry (relationship to Osiris, details of the Elusinian myth, etc.). The lower apparatus provides...