“Reject Aeneas, Accept Pius”: Selected Letters of Aeneas Sylvius Piccolomini (Pope Pius II) (review)

One of the most mysterious and meteoric religious conversions of the early Renaissance is that of Aeneas Sylvius Piccolomini, author of a famous and scurrilous story of adulterous love (The Two Lovers), father of (at least) two illegitimate children, bishop, cardinal, and pope. Equally enigmatic were his political shifts from committed conciliarist at Basel and neutrality with Emperor Frederick III to reconciliation with the pope whom Basel had tried to dethrone and fervent opposition to conciliar authority over the papacy. This selection from Aeneas’s Latin correspondence runs chronologically from 1432 and ends with two papal letters from 1459 and 1463. Each letter has a brief contextual note and short but helpful footnotes that resolve basic issues such as identities, dates, and historical and textual cruces. The excellent introduction provides a clear and well-documented account of Aeneas’s life and career. Historians without a command of Latin should be grateful to the translators for this primary material with its context so well articulated.

There are, however, some drawbacks. First, the translations are difficult to comprehend, perhaps because the translators stick so closely to Aeneas’s Latin idiom. This often leads to obscurity, as in letter 6 (p. 76), where quantum cum Deo fieri poterit is rendered “as far as could be done with God” (the meaning may perhaps be “as far as theological considerations will permit” or simply “as far as God wills us to do”). In letter 27 (p. 155), Nam quid prodest se ipsum affligere is presented as “For what is useful in afflicting oneself?” (a high-style version might be “For what is the profit in self-punishment?” versus a low-style rendition of “Why beat yourself up?”). Second, some serious errors exist, such as in letter 23. At p.138 tune an ego insaniam, ut Terentii verbis utamur is translated “(that you might see) whether I am insane, as we use the words of Terence.” The correct version should be “(that you might see) whether it is you or I who is raving, to use Terence’s words.” At p. 141 cum Christi verbo beatus Petrus ad ecclesiam remissus fuerit, tamquam ad superiorem atque ultimum tribunal is rendered “blessed Peter was told by Christ to tell the church as if it were a superior and final tribunal.” A more accurate rendering is “St. Peter on Christ’s command was referred back to the church as though to a superior [institution] and the ultimate court of appeal.” In letter 27 (p. 155), something has gone seriously awry with the first sentence of paragraph 4. Not only is duntaxat (“only”) translated as though it meant “while” (dum), but a whole clause has been omitted, resulting in the nonsensical “which I commend to you and your faith, as if my own life and my dear heart.” In letter 35 (p. 170), the editors adopt from Wolkan’s apparatus criticus the ms. reading rem concilii (see n. 414). They fail to see that Wolkan rejected this in favor of his own emendation concilium because the clause as transmitted has two objects and at least one subject is required. The reader will be misled by the quite impossible “so that this man . . . may promote the interest of the council,” when the more likely meaning (with Wolkan’s emendation) is “that the council may promote this man.” In letter 51 (p. 204), the translator has omitted a negative in the clause rendered “so that Tuscany should be without such splendour.” There are also misprints that might mislead. Letter 75 (p. 300) has “Powerful was powerful” instead of “Larissa was powerful”); at p. 313 is “conversed with me” instead of “conversed with men”; and at p. 314 is the startling “the land flowing with milk and money.”

This book could have been improved by the participation of classical philologists, who...