Juan Luis de la Cerda

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Juan Luis de la Cerda SJ , Latinized Ioannes Ludovicus de la Cerda (* around 1558 in Toledo ; † 1643 in Madrid ) was a Spanish Catholic religious priest ( Jesuit ), classical philologist and founder of the modern critical interpretation of Virgil .

Life and achievement

Born in Toledo in 1558, he entered the Jesuit order at the age of 16 . After training within the Order , he was appointed professor of grammar in 1585 at the age of 27 . He remained academically active for fifty years, mostly in Madrid .

De la Cerda's monumental, annotated Virgil edition with a total of over 2000 pages in folio format is what Karl Büchner calls "one of the most original works of his time". This commentary appeared in three parts, without being conceived as a closed, self-contained, complete commentary:

  • Commentary on the Eclogues and the Georgica (Frankfurt am Main 1608; Lyon 1619),
  • Commentary on the Aeneid books I - VI (Lyon 1612; Frankfurt a. M. 1613),
  • Commentary on the Aeneid Books VII - XII (Lyon 1617).

Reprints were made e.g. B. Cologne 1628, Cologne 1642 and Cologne 1647.

For his commentary, De la Cerda includes 303 authors from Greek and Latin, pagan and Christian antiquity and 150 authors from more recent times.

“With astonishing erudition and extraordinary familiarity with the ancient and humanistic texts, de la Cerda has compiled an overwhelming wealth of explanatory material on over 2000 pages, but has also managed to merge it with his own. One of his main concerns was, following Julius Caesar Scaliger , to show the superiority of Virgil over Homer. That is why he pushed the comparison with Homer further. It is therefore understandable that among the earlier vellumers, he attached the greatest weight to the judgment of Germain Vaillant de Guélis . Of course, de la Cerda hardly contributed anything to the text design. Christian Gottlob Heyne used de la Cerda’s commentary thoroughly and valued it very much ( dissertissimos, eruditissimos et luculentissimos commentarios condidit ; the fact that de la Cerda sometimes lacked the sharpness of judgment when selecting the material is more a mistake of the time than of the commentator). “Of the important Vergil commentators after Christian Gottlob Heyne , John Conington , Eduard Norden and JW Mackail only consulted De la Cerda sporadically. Despite striking notes in the magisterial study by Georg Nicolaus Knauer to Homer -Imitation Virgil done so far neither an invaluable theme dealing with De la Cerdas oeuvre still targeted, intensive evaluation of its analyzes.

Editions

P. Vergilii Maronis

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Karl Büchner: Art. P. Vergilius Maro. In: RE VIII / A (1955), col. 1482, lines 48f.
  2. ↑ Chr. Gottl. Heyne: P. Virgilii Maronis opera varietate lectionis et perpetua adnotatione illustrata. Ed. quarta, curavit Ge. Phil. Wagner. Leipzig / London 1832 (reprint Hildesheim 1968), vol. 4, p. 674.
  3. ↑ Bernd Schneider: [Explanation on exhibit D33]. In: Bernd Schneider (ed.): Virgil. Manuscripts and prints from the Herzog August Library. With contributions by Susanne Netzer and Heinrich Rumphorst, introduced by Bernhard Kytzler (exhibition catalogs of the Herzog August Library, No. 37). Wolfenbüttel 1982, p. 90b.

literature

  • J. Stevens, SJ: Le Père Juan de la Cerda, SJ (1558-1643), commentateur de Virgile. Diss. Phil. Louvain 1931/32. - See L'Année Philologique 8 (1935), p. 133.
  • J. Stevens, SJ: Un humaniste espagnol. Le Père Juan de la Cerda, SJ (1558-1643), commentateur de Virgile. In: Les Études Classiques (Namur) 13 (1945), 210-221.
  • Georg Nicolaus Knauer : The Aeneid and Homer (Hypomnemata 7). Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht 1964, pp. 82–87.
  • Bernd Schneider (ed.): Virgil. Manuscripts and prints from the Herzog August Library . With contributions by Susanne Netzer and Heinrich Rumphorst, introduced by Bernhard Kytzler (exhibition catalogs of the Herzog August Library, No. 37). Wolfenbüttel 1982, especially no.D 33 (p. 90a-b; fig .: p. 89), no. 36 (p. 91a-b), D 42 (p. 95a-96b; fig .: p. 95 ).
  • Werner Suerbaum : Handbook of the illustrated Virgil editions 1502-1840. History, typology, cycles and annotated catalog of the woodcuts and copper engravings for the Aeneid in old prints. With special consideration of the holdings of the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek München and its digitized images of works by P. Vergilius Maro as well as with the supplement of 2 DVDs (Bibliographies on Classical Philology 3). Hildesheim: Olms 2008, p. 328f.
personal data
SURNAME Cerda, Juan Luis de la
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Cerda, Ioannes Ludivicus de la
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Spanish Catholic religious priest (Jesuit), classical philologist and Virgil interpreter
DATE OF BIRTH around 1558
PLACE OF BIRTH Toledo
DATE OF DEATH 1643
Place of death Madrid