Thursday, November 30, 2017

Aldus Manutius Sets His Text

One of the great watersheds of world history was the recent conquest of Constantinople in 1453. Much more than the military and naval battles that overtook this now diminished city-state with its environs, this grand city had once been the great capital of the great Eastern Empire of Rome. As part of that grand edifice, along with the great churches and convents that the capital had supported for over a thousand years, were its books. And for a time, as important as these books were, were those who knew what was in which of them.

There were few readers of ancient Greek outside of Greek monasteries, and no systematic way of disseminating this knowledge (until the spread of the printing press over the next few generations). It fell to people like Cardinal Nicenas, known as Bessarion, to carry these Greek texts, and by virtue of their foresight then became of central importance to the transmission of so many of the various documents of the wider western civilization. And often by precarious boat. He at least knew what he was bringing in the decades before the final battles.

By the time the great capital fell, he was already living in Italy. In 1468, Bessarion gave a great gift of many such documents to the city of Venice. It took nearly fifty years for the city to find the time and money to properly house them with attendant losses in her wet climate. But Aldo Manutius found time for some specific items to publish.

Another of these transmitters of crucial import was Constantine Lascaris. Born to a noble family in Constantinople, he escaped to Rhodes in 1453. Later he managed to find patronage under Francesco Sforza in Milan. There Lascaris must have spent ten years or so at the court in Milan, hired on to teach Greek to the famous leader's clever daughter, Ippolita. These must have been the happiest of sad circumstances for him in Milan compared with the lives of multitudes that could escape the city of his birth or, find rest and welcome elsewhere. Thousands had left and thousands remained in Constantinople. When the great Sforza died in 1466 , through the help of Bessarion himself, a 'chair' was found for Lascaris in Messina. He would stay there in Sicily teaching Greek to the monks of St Basil (and others along the way) until his death from the plague in 1501.

Lascaris wrote a grammar for Greek while in Milan, and later saw it published in 1476. This grammar Aldo Maunzio knew had seen additional versions (1480 in Milan and, out of Verona in 1489, 1491), before he built his press in Venice. He aimed to press one with more recent corrections and much additional material. Manutius says he received such a version personally corrected by Lascaris himself from Pietro Bembo and Angelo Gabriele who, he says, had studied under the great teacher while in Messina. But the process for Manuzio was much more than finding a good recent and corrected manuscript. It took years for him to set it all up.

His motivations for the project can be seen clearly in the order that he accomplished things. First the mechanics, the press itself, the letters carved, the weights and levers calibrated. These and the ink and paper all had to be paid for. Then the first work to appear was a Latin grammar in spring of 1493. This Aldo dedicated to a former student of his, Alberto Pio. More on him later. In addition to this former student turned benefactor, another patron was Lorenzo Maioli. Later, Marcus Musurus, another like Lascaris (also a Greek refugee), would become central to the circle of production at the Aldine press.

Next in the series after the Latin was the Greek grammar. This, based on that by Constantine Lascaris, appeared finally two years later, in March of 1495. After this the series of works of Aristotle began appearing, and still more. But by then, Venice and Italy had been transformed by war. It was on everybody's mind. In an era full of recurring war, recurring plague, recurring controversy and upset, the view into another age, for Aldus, could bring a measure of clarity. As well as an income and association with important people. But the wars that would sweep across Italy over the next twenty years would continually beset and trouble him.

In this very first of publications, Manuzio saw fit to complain about them, resorting to his knowledge base. The production was of enormous expense, partly due to the wars themselves, because,
"God is angry at our misdeeds, and look as if they will soon upset or indeed shatter the whole world, on account of the multifarious crimes of humanity, far more numerous and serious than those which were once the reason for an angry God to submerge and destroy in a flood the whole human race. How very true, Valerius Maximus [1st c. CE], is that remark of yours, a golden saying which deserves to be quoted: "With slow steps divine anger moves to punish, and it compensates for its slow pace by the gravity of the punishment." There is a well known proverb in the vernacular: "Ancient misdeed, recent punishment."... would that we were human in reality as well as in name, not just in name but in practice to be counted among the animals. Cicero says, "Some people are men not in reality but in name." ... God will bring these matters also to an end." i,1
Showing a strong faith in righteous retribution of a vengeful God, Manutius also reaches back to the time of Christ to prove the ancients as well had stern warnings for current affairs.
_________________________________________-
Manutius, Aldus: The Greek Classics ed. & trans. by N.G. Wilson, for The I Tatti Renaissance Library (ITRI); by The President and Fellows of Harvard College, USA 2016

University in Wittenberg: Back of the Front

Lyndal Roper in the new biography of Martin Luther describes Wittenberg as a sleepy, out of the way, provincial sort of university town in the early 1500's. "An obscure university in an unknown corner ... created the kind of small community in which a man like Luther could flourish, where he could develop his ideas unhindered, outside the restrictions of an older, more established institution." [p. 63] It was already the site of much construction and with Luther's fame came many more students and scholars and, through the sixteenth century, much more expansion and attention.

Roper tells us it was a fortress town when it was founded just over five-hundred years before. A colonial fortress. As the populations expanded east again in the late tenth century, Wittenberg was one of the places where the Saxons put down roots on the edge of Slavic territory. Just 10km from the point the River Elbe turned west, the town grew up on the north side of the river that it hugged.

For centuries a moat surrounded the wall around town. Remnants can be still seen of this in the Stadtgraben that runs in places. The two roads, one north to Potsdam and Berlin, the other south in the direction of Leipzig, along with the river traffic of the Elbe, kept the town informed of the happenings afar, but not close enough to be in them. Nevertheless conflicts arose within between the local Slavic Wends and the ruling Saxon class.

On one side of town was the Elector's Castle where semblance of governance resided since 1485. On the other was the Augustinian monastery where, among many others, Martin Luther took study in 1508-09 and, where he returned in 1511. Just off Collegienstraße in buildings built to house adherents, Luther moved into a very collegiate atmosphere. Considered unsophisticated to outsiders, lacking taste or fashion, the University in Wittenberg had previously been founded by Friedrich III, Elector of Saxony as late as 1502.

The previous elector had been Friedrich's father, Ernest, who had won Wittenberg in the Treaty of Leipzig of 1485. But the year after, both Friedrich's parents had died and he, at the age of twenty-three had to take on the role. Having a fascination for Christian relics, Friedrich used some of the proceeds from his silver and growing tin mines far to the south in the Ore Mountains, to invest in these items of then universal wonder. They were a big draw and money and people poured into town. Regulations on new constructions, tax exemption on current building projects spurred new growth over the prior 'low wooden houses'. [pp. 64, 66]

This Elector even kept a hand over how the school would be run, using part of both the Augustinian and Franciscan monasteries as hands to administer it and offer themselves as 'core lecturers' to students. Roper makes it explicit.
"The whole enterprise was funded out of the foundation of All Saints, which had grown rich on the money made from pilgrims who came to view Friedrich's astonishing collection of relics. These funds were topped up with money from the Elector's own treasury, yet the university's finances were still stretched and Wittenberg found it difficult to compete with the academic salaries offered by Tübingen, Leipzig, or Cologne.... More than once Luther would have to wring more money out of the Elector to help keep Melanchthon, the new professor of Greek, who became Luther's right-hand man." [p.67]
This revenue stream for Friedrich had direct competition in the sale of papal indulgences. When the university was founded the Church in Rome was in a period that found as many ways as possible to encourage these. Indulgences, according to Rome's logic, paid off the expiation of sins, which in turn cut the penitent's time in purgatory. Pilgrimages to view relics, on the other hand, could encourage the faithful to give money (or goods and services) in hopes of more immediate gratification. To simply view a relic might elicit a miracle for the beholding faithful. This was enough for many, and it wasn't Rome's answer in far off Wittenberg.
"Friedrich refused to permit indulgences to be sold in his territory, partly because he feared that the Wittenberg pilgrimage trade might be endangered if indulgences were preached in other churches in Saxony." [p.67]
It was a good trade that promoted local patriotism with so many holy relics. Artists were encouraged to build proper reliquaries, a book with illustrations of these and their items was produced in 1509 by Lucas Cranach the Elder. But all of this could occur only because of the Elector. There was no council of oligarchs, no semblance of deliberation among peers. The court here presided over wills, properties, disputes and the important ones were decided by Friedrich himself. Nothing of substance happened without a question being asked of him and him agreeing to it.
"Ultimate power was vested in the princely ruler, and closeness to the Elector, not membership of the council, was what gave an individual political influence." [pp. 70-1]
This was what a prince did in those times. Power came from above. Luther would have little experience with any other arrangement and this would inform his understanding and Roper says, effect where Lutheranism would spread.
__________________________________
notes and quotes from Roper, Lyndal: Martin Luther: Renegade and Prophet; Random House, NY, 2017

Tuesday, November 28, 2017

Girolamo Savonarola: Dialogue On Truth of Prophecy: ii, prelude

Meeting foreign pilgrims [advenae peregre],
"Deambulanti in secessu... secumque divina meditanti..."
...'walking in a hidden place... and thinking with himself things of divinity', the newcomers ask Savonarola if he can help them find Girolamo of Ferrara. After awhile he admits to being the one they sought and agrees to answer their questions. The dialogue that follows, across many books, Savonarola wrote through 1497 as a kind of defense in allegory for the charges against him of false prophecy. What the author says in the text that they are doing from the outset is asking to dispute. This was an accepted, formal discussion of a topic, in a method polished over centuries by scholastics. Savonarola states in his premise statement (what he calls argumentum) that the topic of this dialogue is the truth of prophecy, which refers to things foretold by himself, Girolamo. The result was an explanation for a certain audience. This text may have been completed by November 1497, but, rather than quickly being published, it was shelved until later.

After an introduction to his themes in book one, Savonarola turns to dispute with Uriah, the first of these seven 'pilgrims' in book two. First determining that the color of a lily is white despite what anyone else might say, Savonarola next asks, 'Unde hoc?', or 'where does this come from?' This pilgrim, Uriah, then answers that the notion of whiteness of the lily comes 'a forma', from its form. This discussion then sprouts into a lengthy one about the nature of sight, regarding proximity, clarity of judgement and the necessary presence of light, which fills the intervening space between object and viewer. The light which allows for the focus by the eye, is then expounded upon as a substantial, concrete analog to the transmission of spiritual, or supernatural, or even invisible matters of faith.

Several times the pilgrim asks Savonarola about the point of discussing light and images as related to form. A reader in his time familiar with basic scholastic inquiry would recognize these as accepted understandings of the nature of sight, form, light, and its judgement, based on their working knowledge of Aristotle and Thomas Aquinas. So, for an audience, like Uriah and the others it would seem superficially to be treading already proven ground, and, it's worth noting, as basic notions in optics and discernment, these were the accepted norms of the educated late-Medieval or Renaissance European. Aristotle's separate notions of matter and form are clear here, as well as Aquinas on form and sight.

Further, Savonarola develops a keen Socratic method in his disputation. A question is followed by an answer which is followed by more questions, leading to specific conclusions which reveal potentially different understandings. These are all solidly found as basic notional underpinnings in the classic western civilization self-conception. As a dialogue undergoing disputation, Savonarola has himself describe himself as explaining these, in order to show himself as well within the status quo, culturally, intellectually, spiritually and scholastically speaking, for his audience, the prospective reader. There is a lot going on here. For example:
Girolamo:... if perception really proceeded from the form and nature of vision, then one would be able to see at all times. For what is natural is always in operation. But we cannot see in the dark, even though we have the capacity for sight.
Uriah: It is not the nature of vision that one sees in the shadows but in the light, by whose action the medium is made transparent; the species of the object is carried through the medium to the eye, and transmits its form to it, and thus "informed," the eye sees. ii,3 
Again:
Girolamo: The visual sense is informed by the power of light, then, so that it may distinguish colors.
Uriah: Just so. For who may see without light?
Girolamo: And you do not think that vision can be deceived in any way?
Uriah: Regarding its proper object, if the object lies at the right distance... [it] can, however, be mistaken when drawing conclusions about an object from characteristics it shares in common with other objects, and when drawing conclusions about an object from its accidental attributes. 
Here, Savonarola is quick to point out how we do make mistakes by comparing proper, common and accidental objects. These are constructions of Aquinas in his description of sight and perception. Savonarola's examples are immediate, found in life. Near sees better than far, variations in size, number, quality grow mistakes: 'the sun looks small, birds high aflight seem round, stars twinkle or the heavens look constant.' Again, 'Flavor does not follow from color.' ii,4

But, again, following Aquinas, Savonarola reminds that the proper objects of sight are like the proper objects of the intellect.
Girolamo: Just as the proper object of vision stands in relation to vision itself, so, too, the proper object of the intellect stands in relation to the intellect: neither can be deceived regarding its proper object. ii,6
Uriah agrees. Even the philosophers can agree quod quid est,  'that which is' remains among first principles. And so it is. All of this is important to understand where Savonarola is going. With this maintained, Savonarola breaks out asking, in what ways is the intellect deceived if not in first principles? Here, Uriah gives a staggered response: those farther away from the senses - since everything is known thru sense perception - are prone to mistaken conclusions. Math is a subject where the intellect can only rarely be deceived. But, Uriah says, in the natural sciences many conclusions are false, and, in divine matters, very little is understood at all. ii,7

Savonarola accepts all this and also says that the study of supernatural things is prone to mistakes as are accidental objects. He means here spiritual things are prone to misapprehension, misunderstanding, on the sideline laying dormant without real study, as if only on the periphery. Unfortunately, not proper objects. All this is groundwork. For here it is that Savonarola next takes his turn and presents the basic arguments underlying the controversial gist of his singular preaching of the preceding several years.
_______________________________

It's worth mentioning again here the physical context which this Dominican friar found himself. Savonarola had been named as excommunicated from the Church by the Pope earlier, the very year that he began writing this. For years previously, he had gained a great deal of power in the dynamic City of Florence through his preaching and his dramatic stunts. Here he was, in the convent of San Marco, defending his right to prophesize( if that was what God willed) and, regardless of what the pope, or anyone else might say: preaching only sometimes, writing, working over the arguments, and their presentations. In a letter sent mid-November, 1497 to the Duke of Ferrara, Ercole d'Este, Savonarola boasted all was well and that there might even be a reprieve or reconsideration from Rome. But, in the City and all 'round published pamphlets mocked him, people in the streets hurled passing insults at his followers, and the youth brawled in the public spaces. 

In quick bursts, Girolamo has come to his central points. If Christians do not believe him when he says there are both Christians in fact and, also in name, then they also may lack faith. He asks his Uriah if he is a Christian in name [nomen] only, or in fact [re ipsa]. In a surprised response Uriah retorts that, it was often heard, Savonarola had dared to call those who would not believe him to not truly be Christian. Savonarola denies it, asserting that only 'those who contradicted him with unheeding closed minds did he accuse of not being true Christians'. [... qui protervo et obstinato animo contradicunt, dixi non esse vere Christianos.] ii,9

When asked why, Girolamo says no one of closed minds can dismiss that which is divinely revealed unless they have 'lost the light of supernatural light'. Worth quoting as there is much packed into spare latin as our editor and translator points out.
Girolamo: Quia nemo divinis revelationibus obstinato potest animo contradicere, nisi supernaturale fidei lumen amiserit. [ii,10]

Though we don't have to believe everything God reveals, he says, we should test all things and, like scripture says, 'hold to what is good' [I Thess. 5:20-21]. Quickly, the friar says he has said nothing against natural reason, or scripture, nothing contrary to the Church. In fact all he has said was within the bounds of reason, scripture, and crucially, that all things are possible by God. Doesn't the lack of belief in these things then show lack of faith in those who fight against them?

Carefully, Savonarola has turned the tables and made his attackers (but not his current written audience) the ones who lack faith, the ones who are Christian in name only. They are the ones who ignore natural reason, sacred scripture, and the power of God. The friar has just begun here but, since he believes that if what he says can be shown by natural reason, is borne up by scripture, and all things are possible by God, then, he asks, why would anyone want to refute them? He will continue with his Uriah and the other six interlocutors.

________________________________
Savornarola, Girolamo: Apologetic Writings; ed. and trans. in english , by M. Michele Mulchahey, for The I Tatti Renaissance Library (ITRI); by The President and Fellows of Harvard College, USA 2015

Thursday, November 2, 2017

more news late oct 2017

Lots of things have been happening that aren't given much notice because of the constant shocks to the senses with the other major stories, but in any other period would seem rather alarming indeed.
This Senator decided he'd had enough.

Then there's this US Congresswoman who's getting death threats. And yes, there were four US soldiers killed in Niger a couple weeks ago which surprised everyone. The WH Admin doesn't like talking about that one much which has alarmed many. President's Trump Chief of Staff General Kelly said the widow of one of the fallen soldiers was lying about Trump's call. This Congresswoman spoke up for the widow and Trump's Chief arranger seemed unconcerned what she thought. And then the threats came.
Some of Congress managed to make it easier for some businesses to exploit consumers more easily.
But surely, they wouldn't let this happen, would they?
See them rise and fall.
Then this happened on Monday opening the gates of speculation with some specific bits of clarity.
Even going at them with the clarity of footnotes.
In the UK, one Aaron Banks was exposed causing all manner of trouble with the people most clinging to power there.
________________________________________

And then Tuesday was Halloween and somebody drove a rented truck down a bike lane in Manhattan killing eight and wounding eleven more. Unlike the shooting spree on a Las Vegas crowd October 1st, the feds are immediately saying this one on New York is definitely terrorism.
________________________________________

A way things used to be.
Time lapse of a funeral procession for the late King of Thailand.