Tuesday, September 24, 2013

Joseph William Moss' Manual

Schwabii Vindiciae credulitatis Livii -- whatever that is, I found a reference to it in A Manual of Classical Bibliography: Comprising a Copious Detail of the Various Editions, Commentaries, and Works Critical and Illustrative; and Translations into the English, French, Italian, Spanish, German, and, Occasionally, Other Languages, of the Greek and Latin Classics, vol 2, by Joseph William Moss, BA of Magdalen Hall, Oxford, published in London, 1825. They still write book titles like they used to, but only rarely, and that's a shame. The title of Schwabii Vindiciae Credulitatis Livii, published in 1773, also intrigued me, and I went looking for a copy of it. I didn't find one. Only references to it, in Moss' Manuel, in the 1st volume, libri I-VI, of Kreyssig's 1829 edition of Livy, published in Rome, in Baehr's Geschichte der römischen litteratur, 3rd ed, vol 2, Carlsruhe (sic!), 1845, and in the first volume of Le sette cose fatali di Roma antica by Francesco Cancellieri, Rome, 1812.

Schwabii Vindiciae credulitatis Livii, I will have you one day!

In the meantime, though, Moss' Manual iss a Ding! as Kreyssig, or perhaps more likely Kreyssig's landlady, might have said, if she were interested in such things -- and why should we leap to the conclusion that she couldn't have been? The selection on Livy alone, pp 186-222, iss a Ding. I'm still looking for a list of manuscripts of Livy, and here I've stumbled across a beautifully annotated list of everything Liviana (up until 1825) except the manuscripts. Look for India and you'll find America, as they say. "Sed longe praestantissimam editionem debemus Arnoldo Drackenborchio Prof. Trajectino. Sex priora Voll. habent Livii textura et Suppl. Freinsh. aeptimum varies primum libellos ad Livium ipsum, ejus historiam et loca quaedam Liviana pertinentes, ut Thomasini T. Livium, Morhofii de Patavinitate Liv. Sigonii Chronologiam et defenaionee, lac. Oronovii Epp. super locis Livii, Excerpta e lac. Perozinii Animadv. hist, et I. Fr. Gronovii Obs. L. IV. Dodwelli Diss, de Fragm. Liv. Bulialdi Ep. super XXXVII. 4. Aegyptii de SCto de Bacchanalibus etc. Praefationes edd. praecipuarum. Praeterea Catalogum MSS. quibus ipse usus est[...]"

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