‘HE DOES NOT SPEAK GOLDEN WORDS: HE BRAYS.’ APULEIUS’ STYLE AND HUMANISTIC LEXICOGRAPHY*

CLEMENTINA MARSICO

It is well known that Filippo Beroaldo was not the only Italian Humanist scholar with a passion for Apuleius. Between the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, the Metamorphoses were imitated in vernacular literature on a number of occasions. Moreover, Apuleius’ fame as a philosophus platonicus, which was already consolidated in the Middle Ages, brought about a widespread dissemination of both authentic philosophical writings and numerous pseudo-epigraphic Apuleian works on various themes.¹ With respect to language, Antonio Stramaglia has convincingly demonstrated that the use of Apuleius as an authoritative linguistic model rests on a long tradition stretching back to late antiquity which, while limited in terms of quantity, was extremely significant.² According to Stramaglia, this tradition may be linked to the subsequent presence of Apuleian texts in several masterpieces of fifteenth-century scholarship which generations of humanists used in perfecting their Latin: Giovanni Tortelli’s Orthographia and Niccolò Perotti’s Cornu copiae. This would clearly mean that Apuleius also played an important role in the Latin revival of the fifteenth century.³

In this chapter, I intend to assess this assumption, delving further into certain aspects of Apuleian reusage in the works of Tortelli and Perotti, and comparing them to the different attitude towards the Madaurensis’ Latin found in Lorenzo Valla’s writings. The goal is to identify the moment in the fifteenth century at which Apuleius started to be considered as an example of linguistic authority by evaluating his presence in several fundamental instruments for the study of Latin: Valla’s linguistic writings and the previously cited texts by Tortelli and Perotti.⁴

To anticipate the results, I argue here that Apuleius was not a linguistic model for Valla, and nor was he for Tortelli. While it is true that Beroaldo was not the only writer responsible for Apuleius’ success as auctor in the linguistic arena, it is important to provide evidence for the change of direction in humanistic lexicography that occurred between the first and the second halves of the fifteenth century. That is to say, amongst the multitude of models that Valla and Tortelli offered to their contemporaries for learning Latin, Apuleius only actually held a marginal position. The same cannot, however, be said in the case of Perotti.

Valla, Tortelli, and Perotti were bound by both friendship and intellectual affinity. To the first, the most famous of the triad, can be attributed the most important work for the restoration of Latin, the Elegantie lingue latine. The second, Giovanni Tortelli, was the author of an imposing encyclopaedic work, the Commentariorum grammaticorum de orthographia dictionum e Graecis tractarum libri (better known as the Orthographia), in which the most disparate themes were treated, starting from orthography. Finally, Niccolò Perotti, younger than both Valla and Tortelli, composed at the end of his life (and therefore almost thirty years after the dissemination of the writings of Valla and Tortelli) a commentary on Martial entitled the Cornu copiae, which is, in reality, a vast encyclopaedic dictionary of Latin.

The debts of Tortelli and Perotti to the Elegantie are numerous:⁵ it has already been established that many lexical, morphological, and syntactic definitions, in addition to a significant number of sources, pass from the Elegantie to the Orthographia and to the Cornu copiae. The shared ambitions of the writings and their underlying conception of the language, as well as the quantity of materials that are repeated throughout the three works, have led scholars to define them as kindred and even complementary.⁶ This does not mean, however, that there are no differences, nor that the differences that can be identified are insignificant. We shall examine the way in which Apuleius is used in the texts of our three humanists in order to illustrate some of these differences more clearly.⁷

Lorenzo Valla and Apuleius’ Latin

First disseminated in 1449, together with the Raudensiane note and the Antidotum in Facium, the six books that made up the Elegantie sought to restore the Latin language, which had, by Valla’s time, become quite different from the language of Cicero and Quintilian.⁸ As medieval barbarisms had polluted communication right down to its core, it was thought necessary to begin the process of recovery by returning to a basic quality of the language, its ‘elegantia’, made up of ‘latinitas’ (correctness) and ‘explanatio’ (clarity of the language).⁹ To bring the ‘elegantia’ of the language to light, proponents of this programme believed, there was only one, laborious path: the meticulous study of the language of the great writers of the past. The Elegantie’s Latin is thus based on the way these writers used language, and, consequently, on the exempla of an enormous number of auctores from all periods and disciplines. The catalogued authors range from comic writers to historians, poets, orators, rhetoricians, grammarians, polygraphs, jurists, and the Fathers of the Church.¹⁰ From these elements, a grand fresco unfolds that testifies to the variety and the richness of Latin. This fresco, however, has many shades.

First of all, although the sources cited are numerous, the most central reference models are only two in number: Cicero and Quintilian. As Valla writes in chapter I, XIII, ‘here above all we will analyse that which is worthy of the ears of the scholars of the perfect Latinity and ‘elegantia’, observed especially by M. T. Cicero and M. F. Quintilian, the two luminaries and jewels of not only all knowledge, but also of the eloquence of Latin’.¹¹

Second, in the Elegantie the humanist demonstrates a refined perception of the historical evolutions of Latin. He clarifies, for example, the difference between the forms used in Cicero’s time and those used in Quintilian’s; the archaic forms of the Plautine lexicon, despite being included, are characterized as ‘vetustissimae’ and are not always accepted. The employment of such an abundant range of sources did not mean that all of the catalogued forms in the Elegantie had to be judged as equal. The preferred forms are the ‘usitatae’; majority rules in the most complicated cases.¹²

Notwithstanding these points, it will not be surprising that there are only two Apuleian quotes in the Elegantie, both taken from the Apologia. The first passage is in chapter I, V of the Elegantie, where Valla concentrates on diminutives formed with the suffix - ulus; amongst the many entries, the humanist inserts ‘pulvisculum’ (dust, powder), considered a regular diminutive in terms of meaning and suffixation, but not with respect to its gender.¹³ Valla knows two passages, in fact, in which the word has two different genders: one is taken from Hieronymus’ work, in which ‘pulvisculum’ is neutral, while the other is taken from the Apologia, where ‘pulvisculus’ is masculine.¹⁴

This is one of the many open chapters of the Elegantie: the author does not propose unequivocal solutions, limiting himself instead to presenting the reader with the various possibilities found in ancient texts. One of these is offered by Apuleius.

More interesting, however, is the second passage, taken from chapter V, XLII. Despite softening his position at the end of the chapter, Valla claims that Apuleius does not know the correct meaning of the verb ‘gratulor’ and that he used it incorrectly in the Apologia:

According to Valla the verb ‘gratulor’ means ‘give thanks’, ‘congratulate’, and not, instead, ‘be glad’, ‘enjoy’, and requires, for its meaning, a dative that indicates the beneficiary of the verb. However, poets often imply the dative, and perhaps it is precisely this that is to blame for the misunderstanding that Valla finds in Apuleius’ text, namely the mix-up of meaning between ‘gratulor’ and ‘gaudeo’. For Valla, the passage of the Apologia can be understood only by interpreting ‘gratulor’ as ‘I rejoice, I am glad’ (Apuleius, accused of preparing spells using fish, rejoices in the fact that his enemies do not know some of his readings, from which he could have learned to prepare poisons even without fish). This interpretation of the verb, however, is incorrect because ‘gratulor’ defines a behaviour that does not always indicate an authentic internal joy. Often, the humanist writes, false friends hypocritically congratulate (‘gratulari’) someone without feeling any sort of happiness (without ‘gaudere’, therefore), but rather envying their success. To soften the criticism Valla, concludes this part by affirming that, perhaps, despite being in prose and not in verse, a ‘mihi’ in Apuleius’ text could have also been implied (to be understood thus as ‘I rejoice with myself’).¹⁸ In the Elegantie, therefore, while Apuleius is a quotable auctor, it is only for the very rare cases in which the examined usages are not entirely trustworthy.

Let us move on to the Raudensiane note, which, in the Vallian project to publish a vast linguistic summa, make up the seventh and eight books of the Elegantie.¹⁹ In this case as well, the citations from Apuleius can be counted on a single hand. Of the three, one is the reuse of

a citation present in the Imitationes rhetoricae by Antonio da Rho, the work that Valla takes apart point by point in the Raudensiane.²⁰ In the second, Valla gives a positive evaluation of Apuleius, even if it appears to be almost incidental:

In this case, the Apuleian example is valid and is even defined as specific to ‘eruditi’ (directly after Apuleius’ text, in fact, Valla proposes a Ciceronian example).

Nevertheless, to gain a more precise idea of Valla’s opinion of Apuleius’ style, another passage from the Raudensiane must be considered—a passage which, as has been written, ‘machte Schule’ (the play on words can be found in Giovanni Pontano, Philipp Melanchthon, Gilbert Cousin, Juan Luis Vives, and others).²²

Valla calls Varro into question because Raudense cites a passage from the Attic Nights in which Gellius, in turn, is quoting Varro. The humanist does not dispute the linguistic expression in itself, but rather the sources on which Antonio da Rho founds his argument, here and elsewhere. In the Imitationes rhetoricae, in fact, Gellius’ name, like that of Apuleius, appears multiple times. However, they alone do not provide an adequate guide in the search for ‘latinitas’. One of them, Gellius, is an excessively curious and pedantic author. For the other, Apuleius, the same holds true, especially with respect to the Metamorphoses (in which the protagonist Lucius is characterized by an exceptional ‘curiositas’):²⁴ he who proposes the Metamorphoses as a stylistic model will be followed by braying donkeys like Lucius. The evaluation is one of the most severe critiques in Valla’s work (similar expressions can be found only with respect to later authors, such as Isidore, Alexander de Villedieu, and Giovanni Balbi).

Nevertheless, we have seen that some examples from Apuleian works (although not his novel) are cited in Valla’s writings. Apuleius is even considered in one passage to be a learned writer. How must one then interpret this violent attack? Despite not wanting to define Valla as an admirer of Apuleius, it must be noted that the negative evaluation of the Madaurensis’ style is framed in a polemical work written against Raudense’s Imitationes. The humanist here attempts to undermine the very foundations of that work, forcefully emphasizing that even the models chosen by Antonio are altogether inadequate. Raudense looks to identify the precise meaning of the words, their ‘elegantia’, but he does so using Apuleius’ Latin as a model, a Latin full of audacious neologisms, archaic and popular forms, hapax, refined expressions, and Greek calques. In Valla’s view, which is substantiated by Quintilian’s analysis of the language, the only guide towards the ‘elegantia’ is the ‘consuetudo’, the ‘certissima loquendi magistra’, to which the humanist frequently refers.²⁵ Choosing Apuleius as a reference is, essentially, a step in the opposite direction.²⁶

Apuleius’ function in Tortelli’s ‘Orthographia’

The Orthographia is a vast encyclopaedic work, the principal goal of which is the restoration of the orthography of true or presumed Greek words transposed into Latin.²⁷ In the alphabetic section, more than three thousand four hundred lemmas are analysed.²⁸ Starting from the orthography of the selected words (terms related to technical languages, names of real or legendary figures, or toponyms, for example), Tortelli studies various themes which often distance him from the original orthographical goal.

The arsenal of ancient Greek and Latin sources used to explain the entries and to enrich the discourse is impressive. Amongst the numerous auctores explicitly cited by Tortelli, the name of Apuleius can also be found. However, I do not believe it is correct to affirm, as Stramaglia has proposed, that a ‘conspicuous presence of Apuleius’ can be noted in the Orthographia.²⁹ In the approximately 380 pages of the Vat. Lat. 1478 (one of the most authoritative witnesses of the Orthographia),³⁰ Tortelli mentions Apuleius on only a small number of occasions: as far as I have been able to tell, his name appears only ten times in all. It is important to clarify that I do not include in this count citations from Apuleius the grammarian—author of a De nota aspirationis and a De diphthongis, probably composed in the medieval period, and almost always referred to by Tortelli as Apuleius or Apulegius grammaticus— as these are not pertinent to our discussion.³¹

Let us turn now to the texts to clarify the methods and aims of the reuse of Apuleius in Tortelli’s masterpiece. The first reference to Apuleius can be found at the entry for Archimedes. Tortelli uses the Apologia here (without, however, citing it word for word) as the source for a brief historical report on Archimedes, defined as one of the most clever men in the field of geometric science:

In the entry for crocodilus, Apuleius’ text is used to describe a characteristic of the exotic animal:

In the entry devoted to Epimenides, Apuleius is introduced to testify to the philosopher’s Cretan origin:

In the quoted passages, Apuleius’ text is not used to document the correct spelling of Archimedes, crocodilus, and Epimenides. This is also the case in the other seven citations of Apuleius in the Orthographia: in the entries for Hippocrates, Magus, Pythagora, Protagora, and Samothracia, the Apologia and the Florida are used to provide information on doctors, philosophers, and distant locations. Of Asclepiades, for example, Apuleius recalls a miraculous recovery; of Thessaly he recounts its ill fame as a land home to sorcerers; of

Pythagoras he speaks of an extraordinary beauty, and of Protagoras an exceptional linguistic fluency.³³

The analysis of the passages in which Tortelli explicitly cites Apuleius’ works allows for some considerations concerning the ways in which the humanist uses the ancient source. Besides the novel, which is practically never cited,³⁴ the Apologia and the Florida are used as sources of information on little-known figures or locations, to confer greater authority to the accounts, and to justify affirmations made, all in the spirit of the historical-antiquarian research specific to the Orthographia. Apuleius’ texts, rarely cited in any case, are never used to support the underlying linguistic discussion.³⁵

A new role: Apuleius in Perotti’s ‘Cornu copiae’

The Cornu copiae is the work to which Niccolò Perotti dedicated his efforts after retiring from the political arena in 1477. The humanist never actually saw the publication of his work, as it was only printed in 1489.³⁶ Much like the Orthographia, the work is encyclopaedic in nature. Starting from the lemmas of Martial (of which the Liber Spectaculorum and the first book of epigrams are commented upon), Perotti examines entire series of terms, more or less linked either etymologically or semantically, discussing their meaning and proposing citations of authors to provide examples of usage. A single Martial lemma thus offers the starting point for the examination of hundreds of other lemmas, based on an infinite number of models. The evident preference for authors from Archaic literature has already been noted. Among the principal sources, there are—as the studies by the research team led by J.-L. Charlet have shown—many pre-existent lexicographical collections, including medieval ones, and, above all, the Elegantie and the Orthographia.

Perotti’s re-usage of Apuleius—which has been framed within the complex question of the presence in the Cornu copiae of otherwise unknown fragments of classical authors—was first studied in detail by Sesto Prete and then in greater depth by Francesca Brancaleone.³⁷ I refer the reader to these studies for significant clarifications. Here, I will only present a summary of Perotti’s Apuleian readings, highlighting the purposes to which Apuleius’ texts are bent.

Approximately fifty citations of authentic Apuleian works have been identified in the Cornu copiae (from the Metamorphoses, De mundo, De deo Socratis, and De Platone). Perotti was probably able to consult them in the editio princeps, given his easy access to the library of Cardinal Bessarion, who was very interested, as is well known, in the valorization of Latin Platonism. Indeed, he was even the inspiration behind Bussi’s printed edition, of which he possessed two copies (in addition to two Apuleian manuscripts).³⁸

Beyond the unquestionably authentic citations, various scholars have identified 161 further references to Apuleius. However, it has not been possible to find the material attributed to Apuleius in these cases in any modern edition of his works. These references have been carefully studied, both because of their significant quantity and for the affinities that the lexicon of these pericopes shares with the Apuleian idiolect. There has not, as yet, been any universalized explanation for all of the fragments taken collectively. In some cases, scholars have considered them to be the result of lapses in Perotti’s memory and imprecise recollections of Apuleian material. In other cases, it is not possible either to conclusively assert that these passages do not have an Apuleian origin, or to affirm that they do by reference to a possible lost work or version, or even to show with confidence that they at least derived from a source that Perotti believed to be Apuleian. The hypothesis that the unidentified fragments are from other works attributed to Apuleius between the Middle Ages and the Renaissance has been proposed by some scholars but has not yet been demonstrated conclusively. The situation is rendered even more complex both by Perotti’s usage of the De nota aspirationis and the De dipthongis of Apuleius the grammarian, and by the possibility that sections of the work by Lucius Caecilius Minutianus Apuleius, often confused with the Madaurensis, were already in circulation in Perotti’s time.³⁹

In any case, what is important to note in terms of the present research is that Perotti uses Apuleius’ work (both the authentic texts and those of more dubious paternity) in a much more ample fashion than do Valla and Tortelli, and he does so in order to reach different goals. In some rare cases, the texts of Apuleius (and above all his novel) are cited to illustrate the meaning of common words. See, for example, the following passage:

Much more frequently, Perotti uses the texts in order to focus on peculiarities in Apuleius’ language, such as diminutives, archaisms, rare terms, or late terms:

At other times, in a way that is very similar to Tortelli, Perotti also cites Apuleius, although not as a linguistic authority but, rather, in order to extract information, especially that of a philosophical nature:

It is clear that, despite the fact that the Ciceronian lexicon constitutes the primary reference for Perotti in his Cornu copiae as well, Apuleius ascends to the status of auctor worthy of scholarly attention. His texts are just as valid as are those of Cicero or Virgil for illustrating some of the peculiarities of Latin, despite Perotti’s deep knowledge of Valla’s linguistic works, and therefore of his opinions on Apuleius’ bad Latin. It has been authoritatively shown, in fact, that Valla represents for Perotti ‘l’autorité la plus sûre et le garant de la latinité’ and that the Cornu copiae can be read, largely, as a lexicographical and encyclopaedical complement to the Elegantie.⁴⁶ The distinguo, nevertheless, are still important to point out.

As has been said, Valla knew of Apuleius’ work (at least of his novel, the Apologia, and the Florida) and, albeit rarely, he put it to use. This was because the humanist showed an unmistakable interest in the language of all of the epochs that preceded the fall of Rome. However, his use of Apuleius always evidenced the nuances, praises, disagreements, and various underlying degrees of the historical evolution of the language. Plautus, Pliny the Elder, Apuleius, Gellius—authors loved by Perotti and increasingly well-studied in the second half of the fifteenth century, when Perotti worked on the Cornu copiae, and when the work of Valla and Tortelli had been in wide circulation for around thirty years—are also present in the Elegantie, although not overwhelmingly so. Rather, they are often used only to advance doubts or as springboards for pungent critiques. In the thirty years that divide the Elegantie and the Orthographia from the Cornu copiae, the revival of the ancient tradition had progressed. The ‘arduous frontiers of latinitas’ (the Archaic and Silver Ages of Latinity),⁴⁷ to which Valla had conceded very little space, became better known and increasingly appreciated: archaisms, rare terms, neologisms—carefully avoided by Valla— aroused the interests of young, combative humanists and, consequently, found ample space in the new lexicographical studies, of which Perotti is one of the best representatives.

Ludwig Boltzmann Institut für Neulateinische Studien, Innsbruck

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^* I am grateful to Mariangela Regoliosi for her useful suggestions.

¹ For Apuleius’ Nachleben, see especially R. H. F. Carver, The Protean Ass: The ‘Metamorphoses’ of Apuleius from Antiquity to the Renaissance (Oxford 2007); J. H. Gaisser, The Fortune of Apuleius and the ‘Golden Ass’. A Study in Transmission and Reception (Princeton-Oxford 2008). From a linguistic point of view that is relevant for this article, see also: S. Prete, ‘La questione della lingua latina nel Quattrocento e l’importanza dell’opera di Apuleio’, in Groningen Colloquia on the Novel, eds H. Hofmann and M. Zimmerman (Groningen 1988) I 123–40; J. F. D’Amico, ‘The progress of Renaissance Latin prose: the case of Apuleianism’, Renaissance Quarterly 37 (1984) 351–92; H. E. Elsom, ‘Apuleius in Erasmus’ Lingua’, Res Publica Litterarum 11 (1988) 125–40.

² Cf. A. Stramaglia, ‘Apuleio come auctor: premesse tardoantiche di un uso umanistico’, Studi umanistici piceni 16 (1996) 137–61 (later in O. Pecere and A. Stramaglia, Studi apuleiani. Note di aggiornamento di L. Graverini (Cassino 2003) 119–52, from which I quote).

³ See Stramaglia, ‘Apuleio’ (n. 2, above) 119–20 with references to R. Sabbadini, Storia del ciceronianismo e di altre questioni letterarie nell’età della Rinascenza (Turin 1885) 42–45, to Prete ‘La questione’ (n. 1, above), and to D’Amico ‘The Progress’ (n. 1, above). However, the reuse of Apuleius in Tortelli’s work plays a very marginal role in these last two papers (see, respectively, 137 and 369).

⁴ For Apuleius’ reuse in another lexicographical work of that time, Nestore Dionigi’s dictionary, see J.-L. Charlet, ‘Nestor Denys de Novare, moine et lexicographe latin du Quattrocento’, Res publica litterarum 15 (1991) 19–47 (26–31).

⁵ For the relations between the three works, see O. Besomi, ‘Dai ‘Gesta Ferdinandi regis Aragonum’ del Valla al ‘De orthographia’ del Tortelli’, Italia medioevale e umanistica 9 (1966) 75–121; M. Regoliosi, ‘Nuove ricerche intorno a Giovanni Tortelli. 2. La vita di Giovanni Tortelli’, Italia medioevale e umanistica 12 (1969) 129–96 (137– 38); M. Furno, ‘Du De orthographia de G. Tortelli au Cornu copiae de N. Perotti: points communs et divergences’, Res publica litterarum 12 (1989) 59–68; M. Pade, ‘Valla e Perotti’, Studi umanistici piceni 20 (2000) 72–85; J. -L. Charlet, ‘Tortelli, Perotti et les Élégances de L. Valla’, Res publica litterarum 24 (2001) 94–105; J. -L. Charlet, ‘Les instruments de lexicographie latine de l’époque humaniste’, in Il latino nell’età dell’Umanesimo. Atti del Convegno Mantova, 26–27 ottobre 2001, ed. G. Bernardi Perini (Florence 2004) 167–96; G. Donati, ‘L’Orthographia’ di Giovanni Tortelli (Messina 2006), 13–14, 29–53, 69; J.-L. Charlet, La restauration du latin au quattrocento: Valla, Tortelli, Perotti, in Giovanni Tortelli primo bibliotecario della Vaticana, eds A. Manfredi, C. Marsico, and M. Regoliosi (Vatican City 2016) 249–64; C. Marsico, ‘Dal Valla al Tortelli. Il V libro delle Elegantie e l’Orthographia’, in Giovanni Tortelli primo bibliotecario, eds Manfredi, Marsico, and Regoliosi (see this note, above) 209–47.

⁶ See J.-L. Charlet, ‘L’encyclopédisme latin humaniste: de la lexicographie à l’encyclopédie (XVe-début XVI s.)’, Moderni e Antichi. Quaderni del Centro di Studi sul Classicismo 2–3 (2004–2005) 285–306 (286, 290).

⁷ To be clear, all of the testimonies presented here involve explicit mentions of Apuleius; I will not venture into the sphere of the less-defined allusions.

⁸ The bibliography on the Elegantie is large; I will only refer to a number of recent works from which it is possible to obtain further bibliography: Lorenzo Valla. La riforma della lingua e della logica. Atti del convegno del comitato nazionale VI centenario della nascita di Lorenzo Valla (Prato, 4–7 giugno 2008), ed. M. Regoliosi (Florence 2010); La diffusione europea del pensiero del Valla. Atti del convegno del comitato nazionale VI centenario della nascita di Lorenzo Valla (Prato, 3–6 dicembre 2008), eds M. Regoliosi and C. Marsico (Florence 2013). For the editorial work for the critical edition of the Elegantie, see: M. Regoliosi, Nel cantiere del Valla. Elaborazione e montaggio delle ‘Elegantie’ (Rome 1993); M. Regoliosi, Per l’edizione delle Elegantie, in Pubblicare il Valla, ed. M. Regoliosi (Florence 2008) 297–304; C. Marsico, Per l’edizione delle ‘Elegantie’. Studio sul V libro (Florence 2013). For the Raudensiane note and the Antidotum in Facium, see: L. Valle, Raudensiane note, ed. G. M. Corrias (Florence 2007); L. Valle, Antidotum in Facium, ed. M. Regoliosi (Padua 1981).

⁹ For the ‘elegantia’ in Valla’s works, see D. Marsh, ‘Grammar, method and polemic in Lorenzo Valla’s ‘Elegantiae’’, Rinascimento 19 (1979) 91–116; V. De Caprio, ‘L’idea di elegantia nelle Elegantiae di Lorenzo Valla, in Le parole ‘giudiziose’. Indagine sul lessico della critica umanistico-rinascimentale, eds R. Alhaique Pettinelli, S. Benedetti, and P. Petteruti Pellegrino (Rome 2008) 99–115.

¹⁰ For a general (but not complete) overview of the authors quoted in the Elegantie, see V. De Caprio, ‘Appunti sul classicismo delle Eleganze’, F.M. Annali dell’Istituto di Filologia moderna dell’Università di Roma 1–2 (1981) 59–80; V. De Caprio, ‘La rinascita della cultura di Roma: la tradizione latina nelle “Eleganze” di Lorenzo Valla’, in Umanesimo a Roma nel Quattrocento. Atti del Convegno (New York, 1–4 dicembre 1981), eds P. Brezzi and M. De Panizza Lorch (New York 1984) 163–90.

¹¹ ‘[…] in hoc potissimum loco exequemur rem dignam auribus studiosorum de exactissima antiquorum latinitate et elegantia a Marco Cicerone Marcoque Fabio Quintiliano precipue observata, duobus luminibus atque oculis quum omnis sapientie, tum vero eloquentie Latine’ (Elegantie, p. 19). In the absence of a critical edition, I cite the Elegantie from the vulgate, the version found in the Opera published in Basel in 1540 in the anastatic reprint L. Vallae, Elegantiarum libri, in L. Valla, Opera omnia, ed. E. Garin (Turin 1962), indicating the number of the book, the chapter, and the page number, with the exception of the citations of book V which are taken from Marsico, Per l’edizione (n. 8, above). Hereafter when reproducing Valla’s texts, I have normalized them to the orthographic uses of the author, particularly regarding the lack of indications of diphthongs, and I have modified the punctuation where necessary. All translations are my own unless otherwise indicated.

¹² For Valla’s ideas on the language, see M. Regoliosi, ‘Le Elegantie del Valla come “grammatica” antinormativa’, Studi di grammatica italiana 19 (2000) 315–36.

¹³ See Thesaurus linguae Latinae X.II, 2633, s.v. pulvisculus (-um).

¹⁴ It is interesting to note that one of the two chapters in which Apuleius is quoted in the Elegantie is devoted to the diminutive, which is a peculiar aspect of his language; see L. Pasetti, Plauto in Apuleio (Bologna 2007) 11–60 (with further bibliography) and for ‘pulvisculus / -m’, 21–22.

¹⁵ Elegantie, 8. ‘Sarritorem’ is in the Basel print; the Elegantie’s manuscripts (including the Escorial, M III 13, corrected by Valla) have ‘surritorem’ instead of ‘converritorem’ (‘one who sweeps together’) as in the critical edition. ‘Surritorem’ or ‘sarritorem’ are not even registered in Apuleius’ modern editions. ‘Surritor’ seems to be a mistake, probably caused by the difficulty of the correct ‘converritor’; it could be a deformation of ‘sarritor’ or ‘saritor’, from ‘sarrio’ or ‘sario’ (‘to hoe’). Many manuscripts, probably because of the meaning of ‘sarritor’, read ‘ne qua visatur terra […]’ instead of ‘tetra’.

¹⁶ The translation of Apuleius is by S. Harrison, J. Hilton, and V. Hunink (Apuleius, Rhetorical Works (Oxford 2001)), with appropriate changes.

¹⁷ Marsico, Per l’edizione (n. 8, above) 292–93.

¹⁸ It is interesting to note that, in the Cornu copiae, Perotti rewrites Valla’s entire chapter, in doing so eliminating the criticism of Apuleius: see Nicolai Perotti, Cornu Copiae seu linguae Latinae commentarii, ed. J.-L. Charlet, 8 vols (Sassoferrato 1989–2001) III (1993) 116, 46–47 (with a reference to the Elegantie). Hereafter I cite this work using the abbreviation CC, along with the number of the volume, lemma, and page.

¹⁹ Cf. Regoliosi, Nel cantiere (n. 8, above) 1–35.

²⁰ See Valle, Raudensiane note (n. 8, above) I XV 32–33 (on Apul. Met. 5.20 and the expression ‘gradus pensiles’).

²¹ Valle, Raudensiane note (n. 8, above) II II 15–16.

²² Cf. K. Krautter, Philologische Methode und Humanistiche Existenz. Filippo Beroaldo und sei Kommentar zum ‘Goldenen Esel’ des Apuleius (München 1971) 97; E. Norden, Die antike Kunstprosa: vom VI Jahrhundert bis in die Zeit der Renaissance, 2 vols (Stuttgard 1958) II 590–91, 778–79; Elsom, Apuleius (n. 1, above) 126–27.

²³ Valle, Raudensiane note (n. 8, above) I XV 16.

²⁴ For ‘curiositas’ in Apuleius, see C. Moreschini, ‘Ancora sulla curiositas in Apuleio’, in Studi classici in onore di Quintino Cataudella, 3 vols (Catania 1972) III 517–24; D’Amico, Progress (n. 1, above) 388–89; F. Bertini, ‘The Golden Ass and its Nachleben in the Middle Ages and in the Renaissance’, in Fictional Traces: Receptions of the Ancient Novel, eds M. P. Futre Pinheiro and S. J. Harrison, 2 vols (Groningen 2011) II 61–82 (61–63).

²⁵ The fundamental work on Valla and Quintilian is S. I. Camporeale, Lorenzo Valla. Umanesimo e teologia (Florence 1972); see also M. Regoliosi, ‘Valla e Quintiliano’, in Quintilien ancien et moderne. Etudes réunies eds P. Galand, F. Hallyn, C. Lévy, and W. Verbaal (Turnhout 2009) 233–78, from which it is possible to obtain further bibliography.

²⁶ To complete the list of explicit quotations of Apuleius in Valla’s linguistic writings, I mention the three short references to the author in the Antidotum in Facium (n. 8, above): I II 15; I XIV 20; II VI 24.

²⁷ An introduction to the Orthographia can be found in M. Regoliosi, ‘Ritratto di Giovanni Tortelli Aretino’ and in G. Donati, ‘Per l’edizione critica dell’Orthographia’, both in Giovanni Tortelli primo bibliotecario (n. 5, above) 17–57, 135–69.

²⁸ For the list of the words analysed, see Donati, L’Orthographia (n. 5, above) 354–83.

²⁹ Stramaglia, ‘Apuleio’ (n. 2, above) 119.

³⁰ See Donati, ‘Per l’edizione’ (n. 27, above) 143–55.

³¹ For Apuleius the grammarian, see L. Biondi, ‘Mai, Osann e Apuleius grammaticus. Un testis antiquior del «de nota aspirationis» e del «de diphthongis»’, Acme 50 (1997) 65–108; Charlet, ‘Nestor’ (n. 4, above) 26–31; L. Biondi, Recta scriptura. Ortografia ed etimologia nei trattati mediolatini del grammatico Apuleio (Milan 2011).

³² Hereafter I cite the Orthographia from the codex Vaticanus latinus 1478, introducing punctuation and italics for the words analysed by Tortelli.

³³ See Orth. f. 188r (on Hippocrates with reference to Apul. Fl. 19); f. 221r (on Magus with a general reference to the Apologia); f. 282v (on Pythagoras with reference to Apol. 4 and Fl. 15); f. 308r (on Protagoras with reference to Fl. 18); f. 330r (on Samothracia with reference to Fl. 15). To complete the list of the explicit citations of Apuleius in the Orthographia, in the entry Magus Tortelli partially cites and partially paraphrases the famous extract of book 18 of the De civitate Dei in which Augustine declares he is aware of the fantastical tales linked to the transformation of men into animals, similar to those of Apuleius (see Orth. f. 221v).

³⁴ The novel is only quoted by Augustine: see n. 33, above.

³⁵ For the copies of Apuleius’ texts in the Vatican Library when Tortelli worked there, see A. Manfredi, I codici latini di Niccolò V. Edizione degli inventari e identificazione dei manoscritti (Vatican City 1994), numbers 610, 663, 688.

³⁶ For a profile of Perotti, see J.-L. Charlet, ‘Perotti (Niccolò)’, in Centuriae latinae. Cent une figures humanistes de la Renaissance aux Lumières offertes à Jacques Chomarat, ed. C. Nativel (Genève 1997) 601–05. For the Cornu copiae, see the introduction of Perotti, Cornu copiae (n. 18, above) (1989) I. In volume VIII, eds J. -L. Charlet, M. Pade, J. Ramminger, and F. Stok (2001) 304–05 the reader can find a complete list of Apuleius’ quotations in the Cornu copiae.

³⁷ See Prete, ‘La questione’ (n. 1, above) 133–38; S. Prete, ‘Frammenti di Apuleio e pseudo-apuleiani nel Cornu copiae di Niccolò Perotti’, Nuovi Studi Fanesi 2 (1987) 39–63, and especially F. Brancaleone, ‘Considerazioni sulle citazioni apuleiane e pseudo-apuleiane nel Cornu copiae di Perotti’, Studi umanistici piceni 14 (1994) 49–54; F. Brancaleone, Citazioni ‘apuleiane’ nel ‘Cornu copiae’ di Niccolò Perotti (Genoa 2000).

³⁸ For this theme and the role of Bessarion in Bussi’s print, see Gaisser, Fortunes of Apuleius (n. 1, above) 158–61.

³⁹ For the moment we only know about a circulation of Minutianus’ works starting from 1516. For his work, see H. D. Jocelyn, ‘L. Caecilius Minutianus Apuleius’, in Homo sapiens. Homo humanus. I. La cultura italiana tra il passato ed il presente in un disegno di pace universale. Atti del XXVII convegno internazionale del centro di studi umanistici, Montepulciano - Palazzo Tarugi, 1986, ed. G. Tarugi (Florence 1990), 207–18; A. S. Hollis, ‘“Apuleius” de Orthographia, Callimachus fr. [815] Pf. and Euphorion 166 Meineke’, Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik 92 (1992) 109–14.

⁴⁰ CC IV 88, p. 36. As in the case of Tortelli, the quotations of Apuleius are not literal.

⁴¹ CC I 455, p. 161.

⁴² CC X 102, p. 59.

⁴³ CC I 88, p. 44.

⁴⁴ CC X 117, pp. 63–64.

⁴⁵ CC XIX 13, p. 180.

⁴⁶ Charlet, ‘Tortelli, Perotti’ (n. 5, above) 104–05.

⁴⁷ I translate from C. Dionisotti, Gli umanisti e il volgare fra Quattro e Cinquecento, ed. V. Fera (Milan 2003) 74 (orig. Florence 1968).