Michał Czerenkiewicz

The Oration Aderat nuper (1445) by Enea Silvio Piccolomini

The article consists of two parts: the introduction and a collective translation of an address delivered by Enea Silvio Piccolomini on 25 November 1445 in Vienna, and published subsequently. Currently referred to as Quodlibet Viennense, Aderat nuper oration or Piccolomini’s letter 104, the speech follows the convention of a free dispute (de quolibet). Its content and circumstances of the oration have been dealt with by Alphons Lhotsky, Guido Kisch, Michael Cotta-Schonberg and Juliusz Domański in their texts devoted to Piccolomini. The author refers to these works, focusing especially on the latest edition of Cotta-Schonberg (made public on the Internet) and Domański’s findings, as well as makes references to the 15th century incunabula items.

The introduction presents the circumstances of Piccolomini’s stay at the Vienna court of Frederick III in the 1440s. It also discusses texts in which Piccolomini shared his views on poetry, and goes on to characterise the structure of the de quolibet dispute in comparison to the speech under scrutiny, which reveals several differences between a typical quodlibet and Piccolomini’s text. Additionally, the question is raised about the presence and role of a third person involved in the process of writing down a spoken text, which is today known from print mainly.

The topics touched upon by Piccolomini’s address are also discussed. The orator replies to three questions that he has been asked, the most important of which is the second one, as evidenced by the space devoted to it. The three questions oscillate around i) ethical issues, i.e. alleged equipollence of knowledge on ethics (scientia moralis) with prudence (prudentia), ii) insufficient, but according to Piccolomini necessary presence of poets in social life and defence of poetry against accusations of immorality, and iii) high prices of such writing materials as paper and parchment. The translated text was created collectively during a Neo-Latin studies seminar carried out by Professor Juliusz Domański in the Institute of Classical Studies at the University of Warsaw in the academic cycles 2008/2009 and 2009/2010. Professor Domański has made a handwritten transcription of one of the manuscript versions of this oration, which was then read by the courses’ attendees.

Studia Neo(Latina) rediviva. A Few Remarks on and Postulates for Neo-Latin studies

The main aim of the paper is to present the major perspectives on some of the most important issues related to contemporary neo-Latin studies. Their status as an autonomous discipline independent from classical philology is still an object of many contemporary disputes and controversies among the philologists and historians of literature, philosophy (ideas) or culture. One promoter of neo-Latin studies in Poland, Maria Cytowska, claimed that these studies are a branch derived from classical philology and aimed at neo-Latin literature flourishing in Europe from the fourteenth century until nowadays. According to this view, strongly related to the estimation and hierarchisation of both disciplines, neo-Latin studies appear to be subordinated to their – metaphorically speaking– ‘older sister’, namely classical philology. The question concerning the perspectives in studies on neo-Latin texts is always involved in a much more complicated question about their disciplinary status and boundaries.

The Renaissance, or the initial period in the history of early modern Europe, also has great significance for the evolution of Latin. Humanists were interested in the rebirth of the stylistic models that they rediscovered in the books of ancient writers, especially Cicero, Vergil, Ovid, Horace, and Livy. As Ann Moss says, it was a Latin “language turn,” a kind of radical reorientation in thinking about Latin. The main object of their observations and interests was language in use, analysed in a wide context (grammatical, rhetorical, and logical) and applied to academic debates, religious polemics, and the art of interpretation. The philological activity of Renaissance humanists (editions, translations, and commentaries of ancient authors) is considered as the inauguration of neo-Latin culture.

Neo-Latin studies, both interdisciplinary and comparative, could be currently a great chance for the revival of classical philology, whose role and significance in the Polish educational system seems to be increasingly marginalised. There are three main fields of studies on neo-Latin literature: monographic researches on neo-Latin authors (e.g. Kochanowski, Szymonowic or Sarbiewski), critical editions of neo-Latin texts, and their translations from Latin into vernacular languages with appropriate commentaries. The studies mentioned above should be practised simultaneously, we believe, to give us a better and more comprehensive understanding of early modern culture in Europe.

This text discusses various possibilities for conducting research concentrated primarily on literary culture in early modern Europe. It brings consideration of issues such as: literary criticism in neo-Latin studies, various aspects of working on critical editions of texts written in Latin, translation studies associated with a variety of methodological approaches (hermeneutics, semiotics, structuralism, deconstruction, cultural studies), and competences – both linguistic and philological – of a perfect neo-Latinist. The paper is treated by its authors as a reference point for further discussions and investigations on neo-Latin culture in early modern Europe and one of its intrinsic parts, namely Poland.

Szymon Starowolski, Vitae antistitum Cracoviensium

(fragment: Petrus Vissus, episcopus Cracoviensis XXXII)