Wolfram Ax, ed. Von Eleganz und Barbarei. Lateinische Grammatik und Stilistik in Renaissance und Barock.

(Wolfenbutteler Forschungen, 95.) Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag, 2001. 288 pp. illus. index. 69 [euro]. ISBN: 3-447-04493-4.

Von Eleganz und Barbarei is the result of an "Arbeitsgesprach" in Wolfenbuttel 1999) focusing on the Latin grammar and style between ca. 1440 and 1740. After considerable changes in the course of these centuries the ideas on this subject still partly determine our own attitude toward Latin both in theory and in practice.

The book opens with a contribution on an earlier period (R. Glei on the Grammatica speculativa of Thomas von Erfurt [ca. 1300]), thus offering a frame of reference for the (r)evolution in the approach of Latin grammar during modern times. Erfurt's influential grammatica speculativa was intended as a theoretical-philosophical approach as opposed to the grammars of late antiquity, especially Donatus, commonly used at medieval schools. The main theme of this chronologically ordered book is illustrated in nine articles equally spread over the early and later Renaissance and the Baroque.

By far the strongest humanist criticism against medieval Latin was the supposed corruption of the pure, classical language with Cicero as its chief model, although this limitation of good and elegant Latin was soon opposed, for instance, by Politianus and Erasmus, and culminating with Justus Lipsius at the end of the sixteenth century. Hence the attempt of a number of Renaissance grammarians to reconstruct this Latin of the first century B.C.E. At the same time the humanists became gradually aware that the Latin of the classical period too had been subject to a permanent evolution and that authors of a specific period each had their own linguistic idiosyncrasies. Particularly, grammarians of the Baroque applied themselves to an ever more-refined distinction between periods, as is clearly illustrated by S. Dopp's contribution on Olaf Borch's Cogitationes de variis Latinae linguae aetatibus (1675), which also counters certain ideas of Caspar Schoppius and Gerardus Joannes Vossius.

Wolfram Ax examines Lorenzo Valla's Elegantiarum linguae latinae libri sex, pointing out its dependency on Priscian's Institutiones grammaticae. F.J. Worstbrock dwells upon Niccolo Perotti's Rudimenta grammatices, refuting at the same time W. Keith Percival's criticism about its complete lack of originality. Perotti considered the parts on morphology and syntax as stepping stones to his main purpose, the writing of a clear text, which is discussed in the third part (neglected by Percival) using letter writing as a starting point with probably the first explicit and exclusive recommendation of Cicero as a model. F. Grewing draws attention to two treatises of the rather-unknown grammarian Adrianio Castellesi. With his De sermone Latino (1514) he was the first to distinguish the ancient Latin into four periods. By calling the age of Cicero and his contemporaries, including the authors of the Augustan period, tempus perfectum he advertises himself as a strictly puristic Ciceronian, a tendency also endorsed by De modis Latine loquendi (1515), an alphabetically-ordered repertory for Latin grammar and style as used in the tempus petfectum. P. Swiggers focuses on the Institutiones grammaticae Latinae (1538) of Nicolas Clenardus, far less known than his Hebrew or Greek grammar. With frequent references to the correspondence Swiggers pays special attention to Clenardus' didactical concepts. It would be interesting to compare Clenardus' use of dialogues to the early Colloquia of Erasmus. Jurgen Leonhardt presents a highly-elucidating analysis of Gerardus Ioannes Vossius' ideas on Latin grammar and style, with particular attention to his De arte grammatica libri septem (1635) and De vitiis sermonis (1645). Marcus Beck discusses the Antibarbarus (1677) and its sequel, Curaeposteriores (1680), of Christoph Cellarius, first director of the Collegium elegantioris litteraturae at Halle University. D. Cherubim, writing about Julius Caesar Scaliger's De causis linguae Latinae, and G. Vogt-Spira about Francisco Sanchez's Minerva seu de causis linguae Latinae, approach the subject of humanist grammarians from the viewpoint of linguistic philosophy. K. Jensen chooses an interesting approach of the evolution between medieval and early Renaissance grammar training by examining "Patterns of Continuity and Change" in elementary Latin grammars printed in the fifteenth century.

Von Eleganz und Barbarei is a carefully edited publication with hardly any noticeable language or printing errors. Editor Wolfram Ax wrote an elucidating and pertinent introduction. The book ends with a welcome Index nominum, although one might ask why contemporary names were included as well.

JEANINE DE LANDTSHEER

Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Belgium