Andreas Divus was a

Renaissance The Renaissance ( , ) is a Periodization, period of history and a European cultural movement covering the 15th and 16th centuries. It marked the transition from the Middle Ages to modernity and was characterized by an effort to revive and sur ...

scholar, about whose life little is known; in Italian he is called Andrea Divo giustinopolitano or di Capodistria, i.e. surnamed Justinopolitanus in Latin and implying an origin at

Koper Koper (; ) is the List of cities and towns in Slovenia, fifth-largest city in Slovenia. Located in the Slovenian Istria, Istrian region in the southwestern part of the country, Koper is the main urban center of the Slovene coast. Port of Koper i ...

, now in

Slovenia Slovenia, officially the Republic of Slovenia, is a country in Central Europe. It borders Italy to the west, Austria to the north, Hungary to the northeast, Croatia to the south and southeast, and a short (46.6 km) coastline within the Adriati ...

, which was named at different times Aegida, Justinopolis and Capodistria. He is remembered for his Latin translations of

Homer Homer (; , ; possibly born ) was an Ancient Greece, Ancient Greek poet who is credited as the author of the ''Iliad'' and the ''Odyssey'', two epic poems that are foundational works of ancient Greek literature. Despite doubts about his autho ...

; but this ''versio Latina'', in the view of modern scholarship, may have been his editorial version of a product of a tradition going back over a century of Latin translations for "crib" (reading aid) purposes.

Translations

His

Latin Latin ( or ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally spoken by the Latins (Italic tribe), Latins in Latium (now known as Lazio), the lower Tiber area aroun ...

translations of

published in 1537 (Venice) were extremely literal and ''ad verbum'' (i.e. word for word). While this was the first published version of the ''Iliad'' and ''Odyssey'' in Latin, the originality of the translation of Divus has been questioned: there are very close parallels with a much earlier translation by

Leontius Pilatus Leontius Pilatus (Greek: Λεόντιος Πιλάτος, Leontios Pilatos, Italian: Leonzio Pilato; died 1366) was an Italian scholar from Calabria and was one of the earliest promoters of Greek studies in Western Europe. Leontius translated an ...

. They were designed to be read with the Greek originals. There were two Venice editions of 1537, by Jacob a Burgofrancho and by Melchior Sessa; they share an introduction by Pier Paolo Vergerio, born at Capodistria. They were later republished by the jurist Obertus Giphanius (Hubrecht van Giffen, 1534–1604) and then used by Jean de Sponde (Spondanus) in his 1583 Homer commentary on Greek and Latin versions. The Greek was the 1572 (

Strassburg Strasbourg ( , ; ; ) is the Prefectures in France, prefecture and largest city of the Grand Est Regions of France, region of Geography of France, eastern France, in the historic region of Alsace. It is the prefecture of the Bas-Rhin Departmen ...

) edition of Giphanius. What Spondanus included for Latin was not in fact the original translation of Divus, but a 1570 Geneva revision of it, with substantial changes. They were used by

George Chapman George Chapman ( – 12 May 1634) was an English dramatist, translator and poet. He was a classical scholar whose work shows the influence of Stoicism. Chapman is seen as an anticipator of the metaphysical poets of the 17th century. He is ...

in his translations of the ''

Iliad The ''Iliad'' (; , ; ) is one of two major Ancient Greek epic poems attributed to Homer. It is one of the oldest extant works of literature still widely read by modern audiences. As with the ''Odyssey'', the poem is divided into 24 books and ...

'' and ''

Odyssey The ''Odyssey'' (; ) is one of two major epics of ancient Greek literature attributed to Homer. It is one of the oldest surviving works of literature and remains popular with modern audiences. Like the ''Iliad'', the ''Odyssey'' is divi ...

''. In fact Chapman is considered to have used the Homer edition by de Sponde, which had parallel Greek and Latin text (the Latin derived from Divus), together with a Greek lexicon attributed to Johannes Scapula, a collaborator of the printer

Henri Estienne Henri Estienne ( , ; 1528 or 15311598), also known as Henricus Stephanus ( ), was a French printer and classical scholar. He was the eldest son of Robert Estienne. He was instructed in Latin, Greek, and Hebrew by his father and would eventually ...

. It has been said that Chapman's knowledge of Greek was not strong enough to resist entirely the Latin of Divus, with infelicitous results. Divus was also used more directly by

Ezra Pound Ezra Weston Loomis Pound (30 October 1885 – 1 November 1972) was an List of poets from the United States, American poet and critic, a major figure in the early modernist poetry movement, and a Collaboration with Nazi Germany and Fascist Ita ...

in his long poem ''

The Cantos ''The Cantos'' is a long modernist poem by Ezra Pound, written in 109 canonical sections in addition to a number of drafts and fragments added as a supplement at the request of the poem's American publisher, James Laughlin. Most of it was wr ...

'', in particular for the opening Canto I ("Lie quiet Divus. I mean, that is Andreas Divus, In officina Wecheli, 1538, out of Homer"). The end of Canto I also references Latin translations of the ''

Homeric Hymns The ''Homeric Hymns'' () are a collection of thirty-three ancient Greek hymns and one epigram. The hymns praise deities of the Greek pantheon and retell mythological stories, often involving a deity's birth, their acceptance among the gods ...

'' published with the original translations of Divus, these being by Georgius Dartona known as Cretensis (the Cretan).

Notes

External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Divus, Andreas Latin writers known only from secondary sources Renaissance writers 16th-century writers Year of birth missing Year of death missing 16th-century writers in Latin