Winckelmann and the translation of Dioscurides / by Ludwig Edelstein.

  • Ludwig Edelstein
Date:
1936
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Winckelmann and the translation of Dioscurides / by Ludwig Edelstein. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    DIOSCURIDES LUDWIG EDELSTEIN The first German translation of Dioscurides appeared in 1546, while the second was not published until 1902.1 However, in the long period between those two dates another German version was at least planned. It was J. J. Winckelmann (1717-1768), the founder of classical archeology, who was charged with this task by G. L. Bianconi, with whom he had become acquainted in Dresden. Bian- coni, a physician at the court of Friedrich Christian of Saxony, was much interested in ancient medicine. He intended to publish an edition of Celsus.2 He asked J. J. Reiske, a very famous German philologist, to transcribe for him a Greek manuscript of Aelius Promotus, which he had had copied in Italy, but Reiske thought this bad compilation not worth publishing.3 Enthusiastic for Greek literature as a whole, Bianconi first had suggested to Winckelmann to make a German translation of Pindar and the Pindar-Scholia, but when Winckelmann explained to him the difficulties of this task, Bianconi immediately proposed another plan. Winckelmann writes about it as follows (Dec. 29, 1754) : “ Dieses (Projekt) bestand in der Verfertigung einer neuen Ubersetzung von dem griechischen Arzt Dioscorides, welches, weil Du ihn nicht kennst, ein Folioband von vier Finger Dicke ist. Alle Ausgaben davon sind gemacht ohne Collation des beriihmten griechi¬ schen Codicis von 1200 bis 1300 Jahren in der Wiener Bibliothek.4 Diese Ubersetzung sollte von Wort zu Wort gemacht werden, damit 1 1546, Frankfurt a. Main, Dioscoridis Krauterbuch, fibers, v. I. Danz v. Ast. (cf. Ludwig Choulant, Handbuch d. Biicherkunde fur d. alte Medizin, 1841, Neu- druck Miinchen 1926, p. 81, § 17) ; 1902, Stuttgart, Des Pedanios Dioskurides aus Anazarbos Arzneimittellehre in 5 Biichern, ubers. u. mit Erklarungen versehen von Prof. Dr. I. Berendes. 2 Lettres Italiennes sur Cornelius Celsus, Rome 1779. 3 It was the Swanepov of Aelius Promotus, as E. Rohde concludes from Reiske’s autobiography (cf. Kleine Schriften I, p. 381, Tubingen 1901). 4 It is the Codex Vindobonensis Med. I, written for Anicia Juliana about 500 A. D.
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