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Περι του Πελοποννησιακου πολεμου βιβλια οκτω … De bello Peloponnesiaco libri octo. Iidem Latine, ex interpretatione Laurentii Vallae, ab Henrico Stephano nuper recognita, quam Aemilius Portus, Francisci Porti Cretensis F. paternos commentarios accurate sequutus … novissime repurgavit …

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A richly annotated and extra-illustrated copy of Thucydides, edited and printed by perhaps the greatest Greek scholar of the sixteenth century; a bilingual edition with multilingual annotations, providing evidence of the keen interest in Thucydides demonstrated by German Protestant humanist scholars.

The numerous annotations cover books I–II, the start of book III, and books VI–VII, in both the main text and the separate commentary. As well as marginal annotations, this copy has extensive underlining and a green wash applied over some passages of text, some of which are also highlighted in green in the index; in the chronology, some additional dates have been calculated, and there are notes made about other classical texts, plausibly for teaching purposes. The notes indicate the source for variant readings (‘Hen. Steph.’ on A2^v), translations of and grammatical comments on Greek words, typographical corrections made according to the errata, and notes on other texts (such as Cicero, Herodotus, and Pausanias).

The main annotator has helpfully dated his reading; he began book II on ’28 Junii a[nn]⁠o 1602’, noting at the end of book II, ‘finivi 24 Novemb. a[nn]o 1603’; book VI is started on 12 April 1603, and at the end of book VI, he writes ‘finivi 26 Aprilis a[nn]o 1603 Mane circa horam 9 & 10 ante Meridiam’, giving not just the date but the time as well (between 9 and 10 in the morning); he begins book VII on ’28 Aprilis’, and finishes it on 3 November 1603, ‘redux a exsilio’ (returned from exile). The chart on 3a4^v seems to be some sort of teaching plan or structure, listing six different subjects, and also giving the date November 1603, ‘redux ab exilio perscripti et decrevi’ (returned from exile, I noted down and decided), which would also indicate that the annotator is a teacher. Given the later provenance of the book, it seems likely that this annotator is the Tettelbach mentioned as the previous owner by Schulius. Somewhat unusually, a few of the marginal annotations are in German.

Johann Zerner, who obtained the book in 1626, has also made notes in the book. At the end of the Life of Thucydides, β4^v, he has written out a fourteen-line verse about Herodotus and other historians (the final line is cropped), with his IZ monogram and the date 17 February 1627.

There is an unexpected mention of Elizabeth I on H6^v, ‘Regina Angliae Elizabetha’, where Thucydides has Pericles state ‘The rule of the sea is a great matter’ (Thuc. 1.143); this was written presumably around the time of Elizabeth’s death, in March 1603.

The Protestant leanings of the annotator are confirmed by notes mentioning Philipp Melanchthon (on ee1^v and ee2^v); Melanchthon, as professor of Greek at Wittenberg, wrote and lectured on Thucydides, whom he saw as a moral and rhetorical teacher. The Wittenberg connection would be reinforced by Tettelbach, if our early owner was indeed Vitus Erasmus Tettelbach; he purchased a book in Wittenberg in 1568 at the age of 18, presumably when he was a student there.

There is one note in English, in a small neat hand on gg4^v in the commentary, probably in the hand of Bishop Whittingham.

The additional letterpress tables contain genealogies, extracted from a seventeenth-century edition of Herodotus. The woodcut map of Syracuse, based on the description in Thucydides books VI–VII, is from the 1596 Tübingen octavo edition of Thucydides, printed by Georg Gruppenbach (VD16 T 1127). The map of Greece is a close copy of the one from the 1614 Strasbourg edition of Thucydides, printed by Lazarus Zetzner (VD17 23:241109C), containing text by the editor Georgius Ennenckel. These were plausibly added when the book was rebound in the early nineteenth century.

Provenance:
1. Tettelbach, plausibly Vitus Erasmus Tettelbach (or Dettelbach, 1550–1611), who died in Ansbach.

2. Johannes Nicolaus Schulius[?], purchased from the Tettelbach library, Thursday 13 June 1611, with purchase price noted.

3. Johannes Zerner, Conrector (deputy) of the Heilbronn Gymnasium, 1626; Greek had been taught at Heilbronn since the 1530s.

4. William Rollinson Whittingham (1805–1879), Episcopal Bishop of Maryland; he had both attended and lectured at the General Theological Seminary. A renowned collector of books, as was his father, he acquired a library of some 15,000 antiquarian volumes which he bequeathed to his diocese. His library was sufficiently rich in classical texts that a separate catalogue of them was produced in 1881.

5. Stinnecke Episcopal Library, Maryland: the building to house the Whittingham library was funded by a legacy left to the bishop by Henry A. Stinnecke, of Baltimore, a surgeon who had died in 1850.

6. General Theological Seminary, New York; the library was known as the St Mark’s Library from the 1960s.

USTC 698529; VD16 T 1116; GLN 15–16 3750.

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