INTRODUCTION
family of excerpts (Mo 2), which is nearly related to A.
Lucas Holste[1] (1596–1661) of Hamburg, the learned custos first of the Barberini collection, then of the Vatican Library, was meanwhile visiting Oxford, Paris, and Florence, studying manuscripts, primarily for his edition of the Greek geographers. When in France he bought the Lyons edition of Marcus and Marinus, and discovering in Florence that the Life of Proclus was existent in its complete form, he contemplated editing both works. He made a proposal to the Elzevirs[2] in 1636 for an edition of the Meditations, to be accompanied by other authors. He was a man of larger projects than performance, and only a part of his store of learning was published by himself or posthumously. In the case of the Meditations, he may have abandoned his project when Gataker's edition appeared. His adversaria on Marcus and Marinus are noted in his copy of the Lyons text, which is now in the Bodleian, a part of the D'Orville purchase of 1805. He has collated the text of the Meditations with a manuscript of the X excerpts at Florence, L. 4[3], and the Marinus text with Med. Laur. LXXXVI. 3, which he elsewhere says is 'the
- ↑ Lucas Holste (Holstenius) of Hamburg, created Primarius et Major Custos of the Vatican Library by Innocent X, 2 September 1653, died 2 February 1661. There is a most interesting account of his life and labours by Boissonade in Michaud's Biographie Universelle, Milton visited him when staying in Rome.
- ↑ Writing to Peiresc from Aquae Sextiae, he says: 'Procli Vitam Lugduni editam cum Antonino de Vitae Suae Officiis in transitu mihi comparavi . . . meum exemplar (sc. Marini) dimidio auctius est; 'he intends to publish Marinus: 'sequetur deinceps Vita Procli auctore Marino media (leg. dimidia) parte auctior quam hactenus edita fuit' Boissonade, Lucae Holstenii Epistolae, p. 85, p. 47. His proposal is dated Idibus Maiis 1636: 'Quae de . . . Paraenesion M. Aurelii Imp. nova editione Graeco-Latina tecum egi patruis tuis significabis, quibussi consilium hoc probetur, singulos ego auctores diligentissime emendatos, quod quidem tu oculata fide testari poteris, subpeditabo' (to Lud. Elzevir, from Rome), Meursii, Op. vol. xi, p. 599 F, ed. 1762, Boissonade, l.c., p. 267. In a letter to Donio, Holste mentions: 'li miei Geographi e Filosofi antichi, Hierocle, M. Antonino, Arriano', Boissonade l.c., p. 307.
- ↑ Med. Laurent, lix. 44; this is made certain, inter alia, by his citing ὤστε xi. 9, a variant which is only in L 4 and P 6.
