Silvae Morales (1492)

This chapter provides a close reading of Badius’s commentary methods in an early work, the Silvae morales (1492). This is a compilation of twelve books of poetry excerpts grouped around various moral themes and accompanied by a substantial commentary. Badius’s focus was primarily on the Latin classics (the moral epigrams of pseudo­Virgil, the Odes and Epistles of Horace, the Annales of Ennius, and the satires of Juvenal and Persius); but the later books also contain works by fifteenth­century humanist authors (Mantuan’s Contra poetas, Sulpizio’s Carmen iuvenile) and some of the mainstays of the medieval grammar curriculum (Cato’s distichs and the Parabolae of Alain de Lille). The chapter focuses in particular on the literary techniques Badius used to situate his text within certain traditions, and on his manipulation of ‘silva’ symbolism throughout the work to guide the reader’s encounter with the text.

Badius and Textual Culture

This chapter is divided into three parts. The first focuses on the first two parts of Varro’s definition of the role of the grammarian: lectio and enarratio. It shows how Badius used figurative language to conceptualize these roles, paying particular attention to the symbolism of initiation and sacred mystery, and to concepts of copia and excess. The second looks at emendatio and iudicium. This section incorporates an account of Badius’s attitudes towards textual scholarship and editing, and examines the medical and bodily metaphors he used to characterize this work. The third part considers the ways in which Badius presented and conceptualized the various aspects of the printing process: from patronage and the acquisition of exemplars to the issuing of privileges. In this domain Badius used figurative language grounded in concepts of property and theft, friendship and sociability, and familial relations.

Self-Representation and Authorship

This chapter broaches the question of Badius’s self-presentation. Badius as a writer was a producer of ‘secondary’ works – commentaries, ‘epitomes’, supplements, compilations, dedicatory epistles. The language of authorial presence and appropriation associated with Renaissance writers like Erasmus is in direct contrast with the language of Badius’s paratext, which tends always in the opposite direction of self-abnegation and disavowal of ownership. His self-presentation is here read in the context of changing concepts of authorship during the period in which he was active, and is framed in terms of the rhetorical construction of ethos in his dedications and prefaces, his engagements with northern Christian humanism, and the demands of patronage.

The Commerce of Learning

This chapter explores Badius’s use of language associated with the domains of commerce and finance, and demonstrates that he used metaphors drawn from these domains to make sense of potential contradictions between his scholarly and printing roles. It gives an account of the ‘Ciceronianus’ controversy, as a result of which French humanists excluded Badius from their ranks, and looks at how Badius defined himself in relation to major scholarly figures of his period: Erasmus, Aldus Manutius, Guillaume Budé. It also looks at the ways Badius engaged in debate about the ‘value’ of printing, the ethics of the print trade and the status of knowledge in the marketplace. Finally it examines Badius’s conceptualization of commentary in terms of market exchange and finance.

Jodocus Badius Ascensius: The Making of a Name

This chapter, by way of introduction, explores the life and work of Badius, drawing on judgements by his contemporaries and posterity. It introduces Badius via perspectives on the various roles he played throughout his career in the learned culture of the Renaissance: poet, schoolmaster, commentator, editor, scholar-printer. His biography is presented in the context of the groups and networks with which he identified, both secular humanist and religious, in the Low Countries, Italy, Germany, England and France. Educated by the Ghent Common Life Brethren, in the early part of his career he worked in Lyon for the press of Johann Trechsel, and belonged to a group of northern European humanists who circulated and published devotional poetry. He became known as an editor, grammarian and writer of commentaries, and established his own press in 1503 in Paris, where he associated with the best known humanist scholars of the day: Robert Gaguin, Lefèvre d’Etaples, Guillaume Budé, Erasmus.

Badius’s Commentary Editions: The Classical Poets

This chapter traces the evolution of Badius’s commentary practice by studying the grammatical commentaries he composed on the classical authors central to his pedagogical programme: Terence, Virgil, Horace, Persius and Juvenal. Placing these in the wider context of humanist education, the chapter considers aspects of presentation and mise-en-page, and analyses Badius’s changing commentary methods and the audiences for which he was writing. It pays particular attention to the methods used to orient and guide the reader through the text: introductory sections, rules, illustrations, etc.

Defining Commentary

The chapter examines aspects of the history and theory of commentary, and places Badius’s own commentary practice within these contexts. It focuses in particular of the tradition of grammatica associated with the grammarians of Late Antiquity: Servius, Donatus, Diomedes. The chapter distinguishes between the designations used for different types of humanist commentary in the Renaissance, and narrows the focus to Badius’s own ‘familiar commentary’ (familiaris interpretatio). In his commentaries, on medieval and religious texts as well as on humanist and classical authors, Badius maintained an identifiably ‘humanist’ approach which was nevertheless firmly grounded in a long tradition of pedagogical commentary, bringing out the moral meanings of a text through a close examination of grammar and style. The chapter examines the defining features of this type of commentary, its composition and uses, and analyses the figurative language Badius used to characterize his commentary text.

‘Morals and Letters’

This chapter examines Badius’s conception of the pedagogical function of literature, and sets it in the context of late medieval and humanist debates about poetry, education and ethics. It considers Badius’s ideas about the links between poetry and moral instruction alongside those of contemporary writers Jacob Wimpfeling and Battista Spagnoli (Mantuan). Badius saw all of his familiar commentary texts as providing moral instruction in some sense. The chapter examines in particular Badius’s prefaces, prologues and commentaries on Roman satire (Horace, Juvenal and Persius) and Roman comedy (Terence); and his two adaptations of the Ship of Fools.