L'Edizione eschilea del 1557: il contributo di Henri Estienne

Abstract

The Florentine philologist Pier Vettori (16th century) decided to commit his edition of Aeschyluss tragedies (1557) to Henri Estienne as on the one hand he could not avail himself of Italian and Florentine printers and on the other hand he was aiming at starting a profitable cooperation with one of the most powerful printing houses in Europe. According to some published and unpublished papers, Vettori and Estienne are thought of having arranged for the edition between 1554-1555. However, the work was delayed by Estiennes wish to enrich it with a personal critical contribution (Observationes in Aeschyli locos qui varie scribuntur) and by his frequent journeys to Switzerland and France (1554-1556). Estiennes contribution resulted to be anything but minor: with only few corrections to the text proposed by Vettori, Estiennes conjectures and textual choices showed both his deep knowledge of Greek texts and his interest in collecting, organizing and discussing classical literature foreshadowing his most important work, the Thesaurus Linguae Graecae.