INTRODUCTION
was produced under the auspices of the learned naturalist and humanist, Conrad Gesner (a.d. 1516–65), who says in his dedicatory letter[1] that he 'received the books of Marcus from the gifted poet Michael Toxites[2] from the library of Otto Heinrich, Prince Palatine', that is from the famous collection at Heidelberg. Conrad Gesner, writing in 1562, states that he 'gave the books of M. Antoninus and Marinus to his cousin Andrew to print in 1558, with Latin translations, of Antoninus by William Xylander, of Marinus by a friend, a learned youth, who modestly desired to be anonymous'.[3]
Xylander dates his Latin dedication from Heidelberg in October 1558, whither he had recently gone from Basel to become professor of Greek and later librarian to the Prince Palatine. It looks as though the printers took the volume to pieces and sent the Marcus leaves to Xylander, for the latter says in the dedicatory introduction to his second edition (Basel, Guarinus 1568): 'the copy of Antoninus which I used was, so Gesner stated, taken from a volume belonging to the famous library of the late illustrious Elector Palatine, Otto Heinrich.'[4] He implies, that
- ↑ τούτου τὰ βιβλία παρὰ καλοῡ κἀγαθοῡ ἀνδρὀς Μιχαήλου Τοξίτου, ποιητοῡ εὐφυεστάτου (ἐκ τοῦ Ὄθωνος Είνερίχου τοῦ Παλατίνου ἄρχοντος λαμπροτάτου βιβλιοθήκης) λαβών p. 10.
- ↑ Michael Schutz genannt Toxites, C. Schmidt, Strassburg, 1888, see Schenkl's edition of M. Ant., p. viii.
- ↑ Morelli, prefect of the Bibliotheca Marciana, writes to Boissonade: 'Interpres Latinus quinam fuerit cum Fabricio ignoro . . . testatur Conr. Gesnerus in Epistola ann. 1562 ad Guillclmum Turnerum de libris a se editis, Tiguri impressa ann. 1566 cum vita Gesneri auctore Iosia Simlero, se Antonini et Marini libros Andreae patrueli anno 1558 excudendos dedisse, una cum translationibus latinis, in Antonini quidem libros Guil. Xylandri, in Marini vero Proclum, amici cujusdam nostri, iuvenis pereruditi, qui prac modcstia nomen suum exprimi noluit' J. F. Boissonade, Marinus, Vita Procli, Leipsic, 1814, p. ix.
- ↑ 'Cum enim ex eodem omnia haec opuscula penu sint deprompta, (nam Antonini exemplum quo usus sum, de Palatini Electoris illustrissimi inclytae memoriae Othonis Henrici, et bibliothecae libro fuisse transsumtum, Gesnerus, vir incomparabilis doctrinae ac humanitatis . . . affirmauit) idemque iis interpres, tarmet si diversis temporibus, contigerit' p. 4. He refers to inedita, Antoninus Liberalis,
