INTRODUCTION
IV. The Knowledge of the Book at the Opening of the Italian Renaissance
That the Meditations were in the hands of the learned in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries is attested by the number of manuscripts of excerpts which have survived from that period. The extracts in the Munich MS. Graec. 323 (Mo 81) are indeed thought to be as late as the early sixteenth century, and the New College MS. Coll: Nov: 270, of the C class (Cv), which was written for Richard Pace, since 1519 Dean of St. Paul's, London, by Zacharias Callierges, is dated 8 December 1523, in Rome. Some scholars[1] are of opinion that the excerpts of the X group, which in most examples are mixed with extracts from Aelian's De Animalibus, are derived from an anthology made by Maximus Planudes (a.d. 1260–1310). In his Ecclesiastical History Nicephorus Callistus Xanthopoulos, a.d. 1295–1360, states[2] that 'Marcus Antoninus composed a book for the education of his son Marcus, full of all worldly experience and instruction', meaning by Marcus the Emperor Commodus, who in his inscriptions often usurped his father's name.
This false description of the Meditations has induced some writers to imagine a lost work of this character by Marcus, for which there is no evidence. It may have had another result—it perhaps suggested to Antonio Guevara his extravagant romance, commonly known as the Golden Book of the Emperor Marcus Aurelius.[3] This may well be
- ↑ See Stich's first edition of M. Ant. Praef. p. x, Leopold M. Ant. Praef. p. vi, Schenkl M. Ant. Praef. p. xv, p. xix. The evidence for the connexion with the Anthology is inconclusive.
- ↑ ὁ Μάρκος Ἀντωνῖνος οὖτος καὶ βιβλίον [παιδείας] τῷ παιδὶ Μάρκῳ συντάττει πάσης κοσμικῆς ἐμπειρίας καὶ παιδείας μεστόν Niceph. Hist. Eccl. 3. 31 (Migne, Patr. Gr. cxlv, p. 960.)
- ↑ Libro aureo de Marco Aurelio, &c. Seville, 1528 (19 subsequent editions in the XVIth cent.); Libro del Emperador Marco Aurelio co relox de principes, Valladolid, 1529 (9 subsequent issues in the XVIth cent.). English translations were: The golden boke translated out of Frenche &c., John Bourchier Knyghte, lorde Berners,
