Ἀνθολογία διαφορῶν ἐπιγραμμάτων παλαιῶν, εἰς ἑπτὰ βιβλία διῃρημένη. Florilegium diversorum epigrammatum veterum..

[Geneva:]: Excudebat Henricus Stephanus, [for Ulrich Fugger], 1566. Hardcover. Fine. Bound in seventeenth-century limp vellum. A fine copy, profusely annotated, with scattered instances of damp-staining in the lower margin, and a small piece of the blank margin of leaf y2 snipped away; leaves z7 & 8 with a small marginal paper flaws. Printed in Claude Garamond's Greek type ('grecs du roi'). The extensive translations and annotations are in two different hands, one sixteenth- and the other eighteenth-century. The earlier ones were made by a certain "P (?) Robertus"; the later ones by the poet Johannes Nicolaus Goetzius (1721-1781). On the pastedown is the name of a third owner, Th. Fritzsche (dated 1872), who later added quotations from a study on the Greek Anthology by Georg Finster, published 1876.

THE TRANSLATIONS AND ANNOTATIONS:

1. The first annotator identifies himself on the title-page: "Verus huius libri possessor P(?) Robertus" and "Emptus genevae 16 calendas Augusti: Anno a Christo nato. 1584" ("The true owner of this books is JN Robertus. The book was bought in Geneva on 17 July 1584.") Robertus translated nearly 300 epigrams, writing these translations on the inner margins; in the outer margins he transcribed translations by other humanists (or made references to them.) Among these humanists are Henricus Stephanus (apparently his Epigrammata selecta, 1570), Bellicarius, i. e. François Beaucaire de Peguillon, who published his Latin translation of the first book of the Anthology in 1543 (see Hutton 93 ff.), Andrea Alciatus (Emblemata), Ottomar Luscinius (Nachtigall; in Selecta Epigrammta, Basel 1529), Janus Cornarius (also in the 1529 Basel edition), Thomas More, Paul Melissus Schedius, Janus Pannonius (Epigrammata, Basel 1518), Ursinus Velius (Poemata, Basel 1522), Johannes Gorraeus, Arnoldus Vesaliensis, and perhaps a few more. The references end on page 151, his translations continue to page 303.

The second owner, Johann Nikolaus Götz (1721-1781), is identified by his inscription on the title-page, "Joh. Nic. Goetzii, ex dono d: Wund Consiliarii ecclesiastici Palatini 1772." This may be the churchman I. W. F. Wund, director of the Gymnasium at Heidelberg. (See Johann Heinrich Andreae: Spicilegium post contatum historico-litterarium De Gymnasio Heidelbergensis ..., Heidelberg 1765 p. 14, footnote).

Goetz (1721-1781) was a pastor and poet. It is said that he can hardly be overestimated as a gifted translator of Greek works into German; his German translation of Anacreon, first published in 1746, was of great influence on contemporary poetry, initiating the anacreontic movement in German poetry; his work was highly esteemed by Herder, Wieland, Voß, Lessing, Goethe and others.

In our copy, Goetz translated more than 700 epigrams from Greek into Latin; they are written on the outer margins of the pages. In addition to translating the poems, he makes references to Helvetius (De l'esprit), Grotius, Heinsius, Francius, Ausonius, Buchanan, Johannes Secundus, Young (Nachtgedanken /Night Thoughts), Charpentier, Diogenes Laertius, Opitz, Poliziano, Catullus, and others.

Many annotations by Goetz refer to the Poemata, Amsterdam 1682, of the Dutch poet Petrus Francius/Pieter de Fransz. Fabricius (Bibliotheca Graeca, 1795, vol. iv, p. 448) writes about this Dutch poet: „Ab eo temporare qui operae pretium in hoc genere fecerit memorare juvat unum Petrum Francium, Amstelodamensium nuper Musarum decus, in cujus Poematis bene multa exstant Epigrammata translata de Graeco suavissime et felicissime. Viderunt lucem Amst. 1682.12. & 1697.8." See also Hutton, The Greek Anthology ... pp. 271f. Many other annotations refer (by page number) to translations of various poems from the Anthology made by Daniel Heinsius and published in his Poemata Graeca & e graecis latine reddita (Leiden 1640.)
 
Here are two examples of the translations by Goetz:

1.
(In Therimachum, Greek text, p. 283):
Αὐτόματοι δείλῃ ποτὶ ταὐλίον αἱ βόες ἦλθον
ἐξ ὄρεος πολλῇ νιφόμεναι χιόνι,
αἰαῖ, Θηρίμαχος δὲ παρὰ δρυῒ τὸν μάκρον εὕδει
ὕπνον, ἐκοιμήθηδ᾿ἐκπυρὸςουρανίου.
  
(Goetz' translation, in the outer margin opposite the printed Greek):
Spontaneae timidae ad stabulum vaccae
venerunt ex monte, multa adspersa nive.
Hei, hei, Therimachus v. prope quercum
longe dormit somnum: jacet v. ex igne coeli.
(„v." stands for: vacat. Goetz uses it when he omits a particle like δέ in his translation.)

For comparison, here is Heinsius' version, to which Goetz refers at the top of the page ("Dan. Heins. Poemata, p. 129-131"):

Ad stabulum moestae veniunt e monte juvencae
Sponte sua, multis irriguae nivibus.
At te Therimache, hanc ad quercum longa tenet nox,
Sopitum teli viribus aetherei.


2.
(Hegesippi in Timonem Misanthropum, p. 218):
Ὀξεῖαι πάντη περὶ τὸν τάφον εἰσὶν ἄκανθαι
Καὶ σκόλοπες‧ βλάψεις τοὺς πόδας, ἢν προσίης‧
Τίμων μίσάνθρωπος ἐνοικέω. ἀλλὰ πάρελθε
οἰμώζειν εἴπας πολλά. πάρελθε μόνον. 

(Goetz' translation, again in the outer margin opposite the printed Greek):
Acuta ubique circa tumulum sunt
vepres et pali : nocebis pedibus
si accedas. Timon Misanthropus
inhabito, sed praeteri multa ma-
ledicens. Praeteri solum.

For comparison, here is Petrus Francius' version, from his "Poemata" (1682), to which Goetz refers at the foot of his own translation ("Francius p. 264"):

Vepribus ac palis bustum hoc vallatur acutis.                        
Effugite hinc: plantas ne fera laedat humus.                          
Hanc habito Timon, generis vestri hostis: abite,                    
et mihi, quae vultis, dicite; abite modo.                             
 
On page 522 Goetz has added, together with his Latin translation, a Greek epigram of Meleager not present in Estienne's edition:

Οὔριος ἐμπνεύσας ναύταις νότος, ὠ δυσέρωτες,
Secundus spirans nautis notus, o infelices in amore,
Ἥμισύ μεν ψυχᾶς ἅρπασεν Ἀνδράγαθον.
Dimidium animae meae rapuit Andragathum.
Τρὶς μάκαρεσ νᾶες, τρὶς δ᾿ ὄλβια κύματα πόντου,
Ter felices naves, ter felices fluctus maris,
Τετράκι δ᾿ εὐδαίμων παιδοφορῶν ἄνεμος.
Quatuor beatus puerum ferens ventas!
Εἴθ᾿ εἴην δελφίς, ἵν᾿ ἐμοῖς βαστακτὸς ἐν᾿ ὤμοις
Utinam Dephin essem, ut, meis portatus humeris,
Πορθμευθεὶς ἐσίδῃ τὰν γλυκύπαιδα ῾Ρόδον.
Per fretum traiectus videre posset divitem dulcium puellarum [sic!] Rhodum.

The Planudean Anthology:

The collection of Greek epigrams was written by the Byzantine scholar Maximus Planudes (hence its traditional appellation "Planudean".) It was the first collection of Greek epigrams to be printed (1494) and the only one known until the Palatine Anthology emerged from obscurity (1606) to supersede it. Though it should be noted that Planudes' collection includes 400 epigrams not in the Palatine collection.

Born at Nicodemia in 1260, Planudes experienced the first great flourishing of the Palaiologan Renaissance, during the reigns of the Emperors Michael VIII Palaiologus and his son Andronikos II. The greater part of his life was spent in Constantinople, where as a monk he devoted himself to study and teaching. On entering the monastery he changed his original name Manuel to Maximus. Planudes based his work upon the compilation of Constantine Cephalas (Konstantanos Kephalas), a Byzantine schoolmaster who, in about the year 900, excerpted all the major ancient manuscript collections of epigrams. Planudes' autograph manuscript is now in Venice, dated 1301, perhaps a mistake for 1299.

Although the collection had been printed before (by Alopa in 1494, Aldus in 1503 and again in 1514, etc.), "Henri Estienne's important edition... provided a much better text than any of its predecessors. For this edition Henri devised a system of diacritical marks 'peculiar to himself' ('notae sibi peculiares') to denote various classes of proper nouns: e.g. persons and famous animals, nations and cities, mountains, and bodies of water; he also employs in the margins the symbol of the hand with pointing finger to call attention to gnomic expressions in the text-this was already used in Estienne's 1557 Aeschylus. The volume contains 15 pages of 'Annotationes' by Estienne, who, in the course of these, gives a Latin translation of one epigram (AP 6.76), and then provides fifty different alternate versions of the last distich! In his preface to the reader, Henri claims that he performed this poetic tour de force in order to kindle the interest of young readers ('ad accendendum iuvenum studium'); it may, however, have been intended as an advertisement for his forthcoming book of translations, which Henri announces at the end of his preface." (Schreiber, The Estiennes).