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Notes
See the introduction by Benedetto Soldati to his edition of Ioannis Ioviani Pontani Carmina (Firenze, 1902), I, ix-xxxiii; and Erasmo Percopo, "La Biblioteca di Gioviano Pontano," In Onore di Giovanni Gioviano Pontano, L'Accademia Pontaniana (Naples, 1926), pp. 53-65.
I am indebted to Mr. T. J. Brown, of the Department of Manuscripts, British Museum, for calling the manuscript to my attention. I have also to acknowledge the permission of the Trustees of the British Museum to reproduce four pages of the MS. as illustrations of this study.
The glory of Pontanus's library had been the great Vatican Virgil; but this had passed into Pietro Bembo's possession on the way to its eventual destination some years before Pontanus's death.
Actius Sincerus was the sobriquet bestowed on Sannazaro by Pontanus, in accordance with the custom of the Accademia. Thus Pontanus had also given himself a middle name, Jovianus.
Bound in at the beginning of Add. MS. 12,027 is a modern manuscript in French containing fourteen leaves (two are blank), signed "E. Audin" and dated "Florence, 30 November 1821." In it Audin discusses the manuscript and attempts to relate it to the printed editions known to him. Unfortunately, the undated edition actually printed from the manuscript was not among these, and consequently much of Audin's speculation is without foundation.
Similar markings are used at several other points in the manuscript to indicate shorter insertions.
Tonsa is an abbreviation for littera tonsa (lettera tonda, lettre tondue). In the thirteenth century litterae tonsae meant a perpendicular and elongated alphabet, derived in part from capitals and uncials and in part from minuscules, used for the headings of papal bulls and to signalize letters or words supplied in copies of earlier documents to fill lacunae; see L. Delisle, "Les 'Litterae Tonsae' à la Chancellerie romaine au XIIIe Siècle," Bibliothèque de l'École des Chartes, LXII (1901), 256-263. I am indebted to Mr. Stanley Morison for this reference. But to the humanist scribes and their followers, litterae tonsae came to mean the upright roman script as differentiated from the cursive. Thus at the end of the sixteenth century the writing-master Marc'Antonio Rossi (Giardino de Scrittore, Rome, 1598) explains that his lettera antica tonda derives from the ancient Roman majuscule (plate 80), and proceeds to give nine plates of specimens of various sizes. Evidently the phrase meant the same a century earlier, and Summonte's direction referred to a roman capital to be inserted in the manner customary in early books.
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