Provenance Mysteries: Xenophon, Opera omnia

mtlibrary

Aug 31

The August 20222 provenance mystery features Xenophon, Opera omnia, printed in Basel by Thomas Guarin in 1572.

As can been seen with this image of the book's title page, there is a scored-out inscription on it. The first letter, Q, can be made out, but nothing more definitive (apart from 'quid'), although at first glance it looks like a motto rather than a person's name. The scored-out 'C.ii.' and 'D.23' are shelfmarks previously used by the library, dating to the seventeenth and eighteenth-centuries, respectively. The underscored 'o' is probably a bookseller's price code.

On the verso of the title page, as shown in this image, is an inscription, likely dated to the sixteenth, or seventeenth-century. It is in Greek and Latin, as the book itself. There is also a small bit of marginalia on page three, as shown here, also in Greek and Latin. I unfortunately do not read Greek, so this is a provenance mystery in more ways than one: can anything be made of the scored-out inscription on the title page? Is the Greek hand recognisable and identifiable? What does the Greek and Latin inscription say? Any comments on this query are welcome.

The book consists of the collected works of Xenophon (two volumes in one). Xenophon was, of course, a Greek historian whose prose works had a strong influence on Latin literature well beyond his death in 350 BC; his works were translated in a variety of European languages in the sixteenth-century.

The work was edited by Johannes Leunclavius (1533?-1593?), a German philologist, historian and jurist who has also been described as an 'orientalist' as he published and annotated Byzantine sources into Latin (although he did not translate them himself). He accompanied Heinrich von Lichtenstein on his diplomatic mission to Istanbul in 1584. Apparently Henri Estienne, the classical sixteenth-century scholar, was unhappy with Leunclavius's first edition (1569) of this bilingual edition of Xenophon, as it provided too much competition for his own edition of Xenophon's works which he published in 1561, Xenophontis omnia quae extant opera.

Unfortunately the book is heavily damaged, and thus difficult to photograph well. We welcome offers to sponsor the repair of this book, which would cost approximately £800. If you are interested in sponsoring the book's repair, please contact the Librarian at: library@middletemple.org.uk.

Renae Satterley

Librarian

August 2022

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