n Comments on: 1.14 Teachers’ Editions, Mid-Century and Beyond http://www.humanismforsale.org/text/archives/110 Making and Marketing Schoolbooks in Italy, 1450-1650 Sun, 25 Dec 2011 13:41:49 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 By: Paul Gehl http://www.humanismforsale.org/text/archives/110/comment-page-1#comment-341 Paul Gehl Tue, 20 Sep 2011 21:23:28 +0000 http://www.humanismforsale.org/text/?p=110#comment-341 Hi, Janice. The hyper-extended commentaries we see in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries are definitely a creation of the market for print. Some heavily commented texts existed in the Middle Ages, but they were reference copies owned by teachers, scholars, or libraries and usually confected exclusively for local use. Students most often took down the text and whatever notes they needed by dictation. The separate commentaries by humanists were intended for advanced study; I have never seen one bound with a base text, but that may just be because I have not been looking for them. As to the degree of dependence on commentaries, that is hard to say. Certainly there were more choices, and I suspect teachers by the early sixteenth century would not have been comfortable teaching without a commentary to hand. But what we know of teaching in the late Middle Ages and early Renaissance suggests that was always true. Hi, Janice. The hyper-extended commentaries we see in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries are definitely a creation of the market for print. Some heavily commented texts existed in the Middle Ages, but they were reference copies owned by teachers, scholars, or libraries and usually confected exclusively for local use. Students most often took down the text and whatever notes they needed by dictation. The separate commentaries by humanists were intended for advanced study; I have never seen one bound with a base text, but that may just be because I have not been looking for them. As to the degree of dependence on commentaries, that is hard to say. Certainly there were more choices, and I suspect teachers by the early sixteenth century would not have been comfortable teaching without a commentary to hand. But what we know of teaching in the late Middle Ages and early Renaissance suggests that was always true.

]]> By: Janice Gunther http://www.humanismforsale.org/text/archives/110/comment-page-1#comment-337 Janice Gunther Tue, 20 Sep 2011 13:10:39 +0000 http://www.humanismforsale.org/text/?p=110#comment-337 I can understand why teachers would want editions of Terence with several commentaries and an extensive critical apparatus. But would young students also own copies of Terence with at least some apparatus, or would they use copies without much/any apparatus and make annotations themselves? In reading about all these editions, I keep comparing them to the appearance of the chaste manuscript version of chapter 1.05. But even in manuscript, you mentioned that there were plenty of commentaries and annotations. Do we find manuscript copies of Terence where the commentaries crowd out the text, or were they normally copied separately, and perhaps bound together? You also mentioned that the de Gouveia commentary was printed separately- how frequently were commentaries printed separately (and perhaps bound with another copy of Terence)? Do you think that teachers became increasingly reliant on commentaries in their teaching, compared with the 15th century, or did they just have more choices? Thanks! I can understand why teachers would want editions of Terence with several commentaries and an extensive critical apparatus. But would young students also own copies of Terence with at least some apparatus, or would they use copies without much/any apparatus and make annotations themselves? In reading about all these editions, I keep comparing them to the appearance of the chaste manuscript version of chapter 1.05. But even in manuscript, you mentioned that there were plenty of commentaries and annotations. Do we find manuscript copies of Terence where the commentaries crowd out the text, or were they normally copied separately, and perhaps bound together? You also mentioned that the de Gouveia commentary was printed separately- how frequently were commentaries printed separately (and perhaps bound with another copy of Terence)? Do you think that teachers became increasingly reliant on commentaries in their teaching, compared with the 15th century, or did they just have more choices? Thanks!

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