Comments on
2.06 Beyond the Donat
Further on Boccardo, usually called by his self-assigned Greek name Pilade or Pylades, see now Simone Signaroli, “Plauto nel cimento della filologia umanistica,” in Viaggi di testi e di libri, ed. by Valentina Grobhovaz, Udine, Forum, 2011, pp. 95-100.
Traditionalizing, certainly. And your point is well taken that we need always to be careful about anachronisms. But in this case I really think the package is, especially from a design point of view, medievalizing. Nowhere in Italy at this date would this degree and type of ornament have been used for anything but a prettified children’s book. I wish I had photos to insert here, but the 1597 and 1611 editions are hard to find. I consulted a copies of both at the Brera –perhaps I can get images eventually.
Interest might be heightened by some reference to the printing history of the Doctrinale and commentaries thereon. The humanists did not have it all their way, not at first, anyway, for there was a struggle between advocates of humanist culture in which choice Latinity was of central importance and retailers of the traditional scholastic culture in which Latin was essential, to be sure, but a Latin taught with less emphasis on style and a Latin that produced and tolerated the languages-for-special-purposes of all disciplines and trades.
medievalizing package] Yes, from our perspective – in its time the book would have been “traditionalizing” in its content and appearance, yet it contains additional texts, advertised and not, which would make it “new and improved”