MS. Holkham Gr. 104

Provenance and Acquisition

The fact that the order of the books here is reversed and the codex starts with books X-XV, then follows with books III-IX led Diller to identify the codex with MS thought to be lost from the library of Cardinal Domenico Grimani, which had similar characteristics in terms of book order. It is recorded in his inventory as follows: ‘387. Athenaei dipnosophistici libri in ligando transpositi.’ See MS Vat. lat. 3960, ff. 1*-13*, tit. Index voluminum graecorum Bibliothecae in A. Diller, H. D. Saffrey, L. G. Westerink (eds), D. Card. Grimani. Bibliotheca graeca manuscripta cardinalis Dominici Grimani (1461–1523), Venice, 2003, p. 164, . See also A. Diller, ‘The excerpt from Timaeus Locrus 22’, Revue d'histoire des textes, 12–13 (1982–1983), 1985, pp. 365–366, . This MS is however absent from both the old inventory of Grimani’s library in Sant'Antonio di Castello compiled in 1598 (cf. A. Diller, H. D. Saffrey, L. G. Westerink (eds), D. Card. Grimani. Bibliotheca graeca manuscripta cardinalis Dominici Grimani (1461–1523), pp. 191- 195; cf. pp. IX-X, ), as well as from the catalogue of Tomasini d. 1650 (op. cit, pp. 197–203). Cf. also D. F. Jackson, ‘A List of the Greek MSS of Domenico Grimani’, Scriptorium, 62 (1), (2008) 164–169, . This disturbed book order seems to be quite common and is to be found also in 1505–1506, when Paolo de Ganale/de Canal (the scribe of MS Palatinus Heidelbergensis gr. 47) completed first on August 22, 1505 the books X to XV, and only a year later on April 21, 1506 did he copy books III to IX. See J. Irigoin, ‘L'édition princeps d'Athénée et ses sources’, Revue des Études Grecques, 80, fascicule 379–383, (1967) 424, . Τhe hitherto lost ‘Codex Farnesianus’ from Rome, is a codex praised by Isaac Casaubon, editor of Athenaeus Deipnosophistae, in his Praefatio ad lectorem (1597–1600): I. Casauboni, Animadversionum in Athenaei Dipnosophistas libri XV. Opus nunc primum in lucem editum, Lugduni, apud Antonium De Harsy (excudebat Guichardus Iullieron), 1600, p. 43, (reprinted also in: Isaac Casaubon, Epistolae: insertis ad easdem responsionibus, Rotterdam, 1709, p. 29, ). Casaubon claimed that Codex Farnesianus had a much superior text than the others ‘(exemplum) longe … et emendatius et integrius’, but he was unable to consult it in person. Nevertheless he managed to get what he needed thanks to reports of readings made by his father-in-law H. Stephanus and Benedetto Egio of Spoletto who saw the MS, and thus his edition was offering for the first time a large portion of a text which was missing from the Aldine by Marcus Musurus (1514) and the successive edition of 1535 in Basel. In the Aldine a lacuna was indicated with λείπει (Book XV, 674a-696a III, p. 489, 15–541.7 ed. Keibel). Codex Farnesianum was deemed to have served as the exemplar of MS Holkham Gr. 104. On this, see A. L. Di Lello-Finuoli, ‘Per la storia del testo di Ateneo’, p. 138 and fn. 26–27; cf. p. 137 fn. 25, p. 172. There is also a possibility that MS Holkham Gr. 104 was one of the apographs (or copy of copies) of the famous MS Marcianus gr. Z. 447 (coll. 820) with the unepitomized Deipnosophistai. See W. G. Arnott, ‘Athenaeus and the Epitome: Texts, Manuscripts and Early Editions’, in Athenaeus and His World. Reading Greek Culture in the Roman Empire. Athenaeus Conference in Exeter, Sept. 1–5 1997, D. Braund – J. Wilkins (eds), Exeter, University of Exeter Press, 2000, p. 46, . However, exact codicological characteristics not only in book order, but also in terms of size (both in-folio) as well as content (exactly the same gap occurs in book IX, as in MS Holkham Gr. 104, is attested in Farnesianus), presented already by A. L. Di Lello-Finuoli, caused Vendruscolo to regard MS Holkham Gr. 104 not only as just an apograph of Farnesianus, but as the Farnesianus itself. See F. Vendruscolo, ‘Una lunga latitanza: il famoso 'Farnesianus' di Ateneo’, in A. Bravo Garcia (eds), The Legacy of Bernard de Montfaucon: Three Hundred Years of Studies on Greek Handwriting. Proceedings of the Seventh International Colloquium of Greek Palaeography (Madrid - Salamanca, 15–20 September 2008), Bibliologia 31, Turnhout, 2010, pp. 209–216, 785–787, . Vendruscolo concludes his thorough examination by not ruling out the possibility that Farnesianus has never moved from Rome to the Convent of Sant’ Antonio di Castello. Its mention however in the inventory entitled ‘Libri greci qui habentur in ⟨bi⟩bli[bi]otheca Sancti Antonii’ (op. cit., p. 169, no. A 86) does not necessarily imply transfer of the MS to Venice, but rather that this inventory simply copies titles from an older Manuscripts’ Index of 1522 (or a similar old source). Given the fate of the Farnesiani Collection, which was moved from Rome to Parma, around the mid-1600s, and then to Naples in 1734, Vendruscolo – contrary to the scholarly belief that the Athenaeus codex together with about forty other Greek manuscripts, was lost or destroyed sometime between 1641 and 1747 –, finds support in documents from Thomas Coke’s visits in Parma and suggests the purchase of Farnesianus in one of Coke’s two excursions there: 10–13 November 1714, or 10–23 December 1716. See Library of the Earl of Leicester, F/TC 4, olim MS. 733, Thomas Coke, Account Books of his Expenses Abroad, 1712–1718, reproduced in CD-ROM by Microform Academic Publishers, Wakefield, 2006: ‘Paid at seeing the duke’s apartments and Library - 06 0 [?]’, p. 91; ‘Paid for Imbalage of 3 boxes with pictures and one of books - 05 70 [...] Paid at the Library - 00 60’, p. 180; For his second visit in 1716, see Ms. F/TC 2 (olim MS. 732b). The issue is still open, but Vendruscolo has to be given credit for his research.

Catalogue Nrs: front paste-down (in pencil): MS. Holkham Gr. 103/; fol. i(r): D5^B.4 No 280(post cor. 284) 64/450 (= Libr. of the Earl of Leicester, 284).