IN THIS
SECTION we offer some of the curiosities that strike us while advancing in our editions and other projects: things that
have stirred our interest, either because they illustrate a passage
held to be obscure, or because they give us the surprise
of an unexpected fact, or
simply because browsing through the books we have felt that we
had learnt something new.
We write these notes in order to share our
certainties and doubts. Their aim is to be useful to our
fellow humanists. And our wish is that over time they might form an archive of dates on various
aspects of the culture of the sixteenth and seventeenth
centuries.
In this silva
there are also included reviews on publications and events that
relate to our work. Thus we will be grateful for notices on
editorial news, meetings of researchers, and conferences, as well as of other
projects.
We are bold enough to consider this our silva
a digital review, and its articles
will follow each other with frequency. If any reader should wish to quote from them,
he or she can do so by indicating the source in this way:
"His Master’s Voice. Johannes Sambucus and
his dog Bombo,"
Silva 3, 15-12-2004 (www.studiolum.com/en/silva3.htm).
When the articles or reviews are signed
as studiolum, it means that its
authors are to be regarded as Antonio Bernat Vistarini, Emilio Blanco, John T. Cull
and Tamás Sajó, that is, the editors of silva.
However, this
silva is also open to anyone who
wishes to collaborate with a work of his or her own. Naturally,
in the
event of publication, the authors will be identified with their own name. |
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It was a
sentence and opinion of that great Philosopher Plato, that
man was not born for himself only, but also for the use and
utility of his motherland, and of his friends. And all the school of
the Stoics conforms with this, asserting that people were created
and formed for the sake of [other] people, and thus they were born
obliged to help each other, and to be of use to one another. So if
the natural light in itself shows and declares this to us, how much
more the Christian man should understand this, to whom the Divine
Law bids to love his neighbour as himself. This being known to me,
and several times considered by me, o Christian and friendly reader,
I, having spent a large part of my life in reading and browsing
through many books, and in various studies, I decided that if in
these I have acquired any erudition or knowledge of things (which,
of course, is very little), I am obliged to share it, and make
participants in it
my fellow countryment and neighbors, by writing something
that should be public to everybody. And as in these and similar
things the judgements of people are so different, and each goes his own way, I also follow my own, so I contrived and decided to
write this book with different discourses and chapters dedicated to
different subjects, without keeping myself to one, or keeping order
in them. This is why I gave it the name Silva
(that is forest): for in the forests the plants and trees grow without any
order or rule. And although this way of writing is new in our Spanish
language, and I believe to be the first to have taken this invention
in it, nevertheless in the Greek and Latin tongues very eminent
Authors wrote in this way, such as Athenaus, Vindex Caecilius, Aulus
Gellius, Macrobius, and even in our times Petrus Crinitus, Ludovicus
Caelius, Nicolaus Leonicus, and many others. And as the Spanish
language, if one considers it well, does not have reason to
recognize itself inferior to any other: therefore I do not see why
one should not dare to take over the inventions of the others, and
treat high subjects, as the Italians and other nations do in
their own languages; for in Spain there are not missing witty and
high geniuses. Therefore I, appreciating the language learnt from my
Fathers and of my Tutors, wanted to offer these vigiliae to
those who do not understand the Latin books. They are those whom I
principally want to enjoy this work, for they are the most in
number, and they have the greatest need of it, and the greatest
desire to know about these things. For I tried to speak about
matters that are not very common, nor vulgar, but are high and
very useful, at least in my judgement. How much study it has cost me to write and order this work, and how many books I had to read
and browse, this I leave to the judgement of the discreet and
benevolent reader, for I do not care to place overmuch value on it. Neither will I
answer to the malicious, nor defend my work from murmurers, as
all people do in their forewords, for I know well how many errors,
inadvertencies and carelessnesses it contains. On the contrary, I
will regard it a singular benefice, if you will advise me about my
errors, in order that I might, if God wills, emend and revise them. And
if someone reads my book with the sole intention of besmirching and
judging it, I want to warn him that he is committing an offence to
God with this, and that he should rather set himself to writing and
composing something for the common good, instead of obstructing and
despising those who animate themselves and get on with doing it. And
let both
the former and the latter be be assured that I did what I could, and made every
effort not to commit errors in anything, and make my work very
perfect; and they should accept my intention with good reason and
mind, even if it perhaps does not merit it. Concerning historical
truth and all pertaining to it, I certainly did not say or write
anything that I have not read in some book of great authority, as I
refer to it in most cases. So it will be a just thing that before
anyone judges what he is going to read, first he considers the
authority and reason I offer. For not everything that one does not know
or understand has to be regarded as uncertain. Finally I conclude
that this writing, being dedicated to His Imperial Majesty our Lord,
to such a high name, should be treated with consideration, even
if it does not merit it. (Pedro Mexía,
Silva de varia lección, Madrid: Matheo de Espinosa y Arteaga,
1673, «Prooemium and preface of the work», s.n.). |