Valentin Rose (philologist)

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Valentin Rose (born January 8, 1829 in Berlin ; † December 25, 1916 there ) was a German librarian and classical philologist . He is best known for his editions of the Aristotle Fragments (1863, 1870, 1886).

Valentin Rose

Life

Valentin Rose came from a family of merchants and scholars from the Brandenburg region , who were in the third generation in Berlin. His great-grandfather Valentin Rose the Elder (1736–1771) founded the “ Zum Weißen Schwan” pharmacy in 1761 . His father Gustav Rose (1798–1873) had been professor of mineralogy at Berlin University since 1826 .

Valentin Rose studied philology there. During his studies he came to Aristotle research, to which he devoted a large part of his life. After receiving his doctorate in 1854, he was employed on January 8, 1855 at the Royal Library in Berlin , to which he belonged for half a century. From 1884 to 1885 he was acting head of the library. On April 1, 1886, he was appointed head of the manuscript department, which he expanded into one of the world's leading institutes. On September 30, 1905, he retired.

At the Manuscript Department of the Royal Library, Rose had been responsible for cataloging Latin and Greek manuscripts since 1888. In addition to the catalogs, which appeared from 1893 to 1905, Rose published numerous individual finds, including primarily medical-historical and hortological writings.

Since August 1872 Rose was married to Marie Poggendorff (born August 12, 1838-1910), the daughter of the physicist Johann Christian Poggendorff .

Collection of the Aristotle Fragments

In addition to his work in the library service, Rose continued to study the philosophy of Aristotle. In his doctoral thesis (1854) he had already examined the arrangement and authenticity of the testified writings of Aristotle. In the following years Rose collected the fragments of the Aristotelian writings that had come down to us from other ancient writers. He came to the conclusion that none of the alleged fragments actually came from Aristotle. Rather, the lost scriptures from which they are said to have originated never existed. Accordingly, the 700-page book in which he wrote down his research was entitled Aristotle pseudepigraphus (1863).

Rose's bold thesis met with strong opposition. The importance of his work was nevertheless recognized. He also won the award assignment of the Prussian Academy of Sciences (1866), which advertised a collection of fragments to complement its basic Aristotle Complete Edition (edited by Immanuel Bekker ). Rose completed the collection on July 6, 1867 and gave it the title Aristotelis qui ferebantur librorum fragmenta , with which he again acknowledged his initial thesis . The Academy initially hesitated to include the work in its complete edition, but when a second call for tenders for the task (1869) did not produce any result, it published Rose's collection in 1870 under the title he had chosen. The work was published separately by Teubner-Verlag in 1886.

Rose stuck to his thesis until the end of his life - even after the considerable papyrus finds since 1891 - and remained isolated in the professional world. Nonetheless, his collection of fragments represented a unique research tool that remained unreplaceable until the 20th century. The new editions by Richard Rudolf Walzer (1934) and WD Ross (1955) were largely based on Rose's work. An independent revision was first presented by Olof Gigon (1987).

Fonts

  • De Aristotelis librorum ordine et auctoritate commentatio. Reimer, Berlin 1854, (digitized version) .
  • Aristotle pseudepigraphus. Teubner, Berlin 1863 (reprographic reprint. Olms, Hildesheim et al. 1971).
  • Anecdota Graeca et Graecolatina. Communications from manuscripts on the history of Greek science. Two notebooks. Duemmler, Berlin 1864-1870.
  • Plinii secundi quae fertur una cum Gargilii Martialis medicina. Nunc primum edita. Teubner, Leipzig 1875 (digitized version)
  • Aristotelis qui ferebantur librorum fragmenta. Teubner, Leipzig 1886 (reprint. Teubner, Stuttgart 1967).

literature

  • Emil Jacobs : Valentin Rose. An obituary. In: Central Journal for Libraries . Vol. 34, 1917, pp. 168-182, digitized .
  • Eugen Paunel: The State Library in Berlin. Its history and organization during the first two centuries since it opened. 1661-1871. de Gruyter, Berlin 1965, Figure 46 (picture).
  • Hans Lülfing : Valentin Rose. Classical philology and manuscript cataloging. In: Studies on book and library science. Vol. 4, 1986, ISSN  0323-8911 , pp. 102-110.
  • James I. Porter: Skeptical Philology. In: James I. Porter: Nietzsche and the Philology of the Future. Stanford University Press, Stanford CA 2000, ISBN 0-8047-3667-7 , pp. 32-81.
  • Hellmut Flashar : Foreword. In: Ernst Grumach (founder), Hellmut Flashar (ed.): Aristoteles. Works. In German translation. Volume 20: Fragments. Part 1: Fragments on philosophy, rhetoric, poetics, poetry. Akademie-Verlag, Berlin 2006, ISBN 3-05-004072-6 , pp. 9-12.

Web links

Wikisource: Valentin Rose  - Sources and full texts
personal data
SURNAME Rose, valentine
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German librarian and classical philologist
DATE OF BIRTH January 8, 1829
PLACE OF BIRTH Berlin
DATE OF DEATH December 25, 1916
Place of death Berlin