At 02:12 PM 8/5/2002 -0400, Emma Guest-Consales wrote: > Who decides or how does >one decide whether to use Virgil or Vergil? Is it an American v English >question? In Italian he is always "Virgilio" I don't recall ever seeing >"Vergilio" even though in the 15th c. Poliziano proved that the correct >spelling is "Vergilius" not "Virgilius". Thoughts on "i" v "e" would also >be most appreciated.
This question has come up before, and as usual received a number of learned and amusing responses. One thing that has not, I think, been addressed, and that is why didn't sixteenth-century scholars adopt Poliziano's spelling (which he defended, by the way, with evidence from inscriptions)? I don't _know_ the answer to this, but let me take a stab at it. Once again, a figure I mentioned earlier this month, Pierio Valeriano, plays a key role. Valeriano respected Poliziano, but on this point he disagreed with him, arguing (in his commentary on Geo. 4.563, where Virgil signs his name to the end of the poem) that the MSS. favored "Virgilius." Why did Valeriano's opinion carry the day? Poliziano is and was more highly regarded as a scholar; however, he did not publish his findings in a book on Virgil, but in his first series of (very aptly titled) _Miscellanea_ (1.77). Valeriano, on the other hand, gave his opinion in a book entitled _Castigationes et varietates Virgilianae lectionis_ (1521), which was regularly reprinted in folio editions of Virgil's text and rapidly became the standard work on the subject. In short, the correct spelling of Virgil's name was available in the sixteenth century, but it was not given in the place that people expected to find it; as a result, the old spelling was retained. Location, location, location. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Dr. David Wilson-Okamura [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://virgil.org English Department, East Carolina University, Greenville, NC 27858-4889 ----------------------------------------------------------------------- ----------------------------------------------------------------------- To leave the Mantovano mailing list at any time, do NOT hit reply. Instead, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the message "unsubscribe mantovano" in the body (omitting the quotation marks). You can also unsubscribe at http://virgil.org/mantovano/mantovano.htm#unsub
