FREEMAN, Arthur.

Catullus Carmen 17.6 and Other Mysteries. A Study in Editorial Conflict, Eccentricity, Forgery, and Restitution. With a checklist of significant printed editions of Catullus in Latin, 1472-2005.

This partly historical, partly philological essay offers a general account of the early preservation, post-medieval recovery, and Renaissance evolution of the text of Catullus, with specific reference to one speculative reading in Carmen 17 (‘De Colonia’), and certain humanist twists and forgeries that accompanied its long editorial history.

Accompanying the narrative is a substantial bibliographical appendix that provides a checklist of significant editions of Catullus in Latin from 1475 to the present day, with brief notes of relevance and location.

Arthur Freeman is a rare book dealer and writer living in London. In 2014 Quaritch published his Bibliotheca Fictiva: a Collection of Books and Manuscripts Relating to Literary Forgery 400 BC – AD 2000. Catullus Carmen 17.6 is the second footnote to that book, following Julia Alpinula (2015).

SAPPHO AND OTHERS LANTIER, É[tienne] F[rançois de].

The Travels of Antenor in Greece and Asia: from a Greek Manuscript found at Herculaneum: including some Account of Egypt. Translated from the French … With additional Notes by the English Translator. In three Volumes …

First English edition, first published in French in Paris in ‘An VI de la République’ (1797-8). The Travels of Antenor is a work of fiction (‘ne sont qu’un roman d’imagination’), based ostensibly on an ancient Greek manuscript found at the site, recently discovered, of Herculaneum. The genesis of the story is an extension of its fiction: at the King’s palace and museum at Naples, Lantier meets the Abbé Spalatini and his team, who are engaged in deciphering the site’s ancient manuscripts; disdaining Antenor, the Abbé allows Lantier to borrow the manuscript, where he finds an autobiography-cum-travel narrative which covers almost the entire spectrum of Greek legend and antiquity through the protagonist’s anecdotes, conversations, and travels.