Antonio Cassarino's Latin translation of Plutarch's Bruta animalia ratione uti

Abstract

The present paper aims at giving a text edition of Antonio Cassarino's humanist Latin translation of Plutarch's dialogue Bruta animalia ratione uti. This is the earliest of three translations made of this dialogue in the course of the 15th century. The text itself is extant in three different manuscripts, one of which is a codex of the Vatican Library (Vat. lat. 3349), compiled after Cassarino's death by Panormita. A comparison of the text variants has led to several results. First, some of the errors shared by all three manuscripts show that they go back to a common archetype already at some distance from the translator's original copy. Second, Panormita relied heavily on a codex of the Biblioteca della Società Siciliana per la Storia Patria in Palermo (MS Lodi XII E 13) in preparing his own version. Third, the Vatican codex is far from being the best representative of Cassarino's original translation. Though Panormita corrected several of the common inherited errors, he made changes to the text without consulting the Greek. In almost every instance, it is a codex of the Biblioteca Casanatense of Rome (Bibl. Casan. 665 C II 8) which gives the best reading, providing the clue for a successful reconstruction of the text. An attempt will be made to trace the version contained in this codex back to a certain person named Balbi, referred to in the dedicatory letter as being a learned expert of both languages, Greek and Latin. Along with the establishment of the text, it will also be possible to define the original Greek source codex Cassarino used for his translation (Vat. Pal. gr. 170).