The handsome first edition, the Chatsworth copy, of Hadrianus Junius’ abridgement of Eustathius’ massive commentary on Homer; inscribed to and possibly annotated by ‘internationally famous polyglot poet, scholar, diplomat’, and dedicated proponent of women’s education, Karel Utenhove the younger (1536-1600).
The inscription on the title page, dated 1591, indicates that the volume was a gift to Utenhove from German physician, and professor at the University of Cologne Heinrich Botter(1568-1612), whose Commentariolus Parallelos Utenhove would write the preface for, several years later. Utenhove also composed verse for the birth of Botter’s daughter Elizabeth, probably in the 1590s; this volume is perhaps a quid pro quo.
By the time of this inscription Utenhove had settled in Cologne, but his long career as a tutor, poet and diplomat in the decades prior had seen the Flemish scholar travel from his home town in Ghent, to France – as a tutor to the three daughters of French intellectual and cultural patron Jean de Morel – and to England, where his students included Mildred Cecil, wife of William Cecil, Lord Burghley (his patron) and where he was known to Elizabeth I as ‘a rare young man for his learning universally, and especially for his singular knowledge in the Greek tongue’ (letter dated 7 February 1562, quoted in van Dorsten, pp. 6-7, from SP 70/35 no. 660). ‘A genial man, with a gift for friendship nearly as remarkable as his gift for languages, [his] acquaintance included scholars in England, France, the Low Countries and the Holy Roman Empire’ (Stevenson, p.240). During his time in England, he even travelled to Edinburgh and the court of the poetry-loving Mary Queen of Scots, in 1561 (van Dorsten, p.8).
‘Karel Utenhove came from a family with an extraordinary tradition of educating daughters. His father had been a friend of Erasmus for a time, and perhaps imbibed Erasmus’ admiration for the relatively new concept of the ‘learned household’, exemplified by the family of Thomas More’ (Stevenson, p.244). The women of Utenhove’s own family – his adopted daughter, Anna Utenhovia, and nieces – who were tutored by him, were known as Latin poets in their own right, and through Utenhove they maintained contact with a variety of Protestant humanists in his circle. ‘This group of women showed something of the mobility we associate with male humanists’; Utenhove appears to have gone to great lengths to encourage these connections between the learned women of his acquaintance, and to promote the intellectual rigour of their work in print.
Hadrianus Junius’ abridgement of twelfth-century churchman Eustathius’ commentary – according to the title page, a cornucopia, or ‘horn of plenty’ - was first printed between 1542 and 1550 by Antonio Blado at Rome, in four large folio volumes. The Froben Press also issued the full version of Eustathius’ commentaries in three volumes in 1559-60; the present work was printed by the Froben and Bischoff partnership in Basel in 1558. Eusthathius’ commentary was intended for general readers and students, and draws heavily on other scholia and works now lost. Junius used a manuscript of the text in Bologna for his edition, and makes frequent reference to Eustathius in another of his works, his Adversa of 1556, which also contains a set of Greek elegaics by Karel Utenhove at the end of the preliminary material. The lengthy undated dedication here is by the ardent Protestant Greek (and Hebrew) scholar Laurence Humphrey (1525/7?-1589) and is addressed to the President and fellows of Magdalen College, Oxford, of which he himself became president in 1561 (see ODNB). He was eventually obliged to leave Oxford for Switzerland upon the accession to the throne of the Catholic, Mary Tudor.
Neither the text nor the commentary here are lineated in print, which has been rectified in manuscript, at least in part, by an early reader, perhaps Utenhove himself. It was certainly by someone who knew the text well, and who has read it carefully. In some places, where there is a gap in the text of Homer, the missing text has been carefully written in an early hand at the foot or the top of the page (Iliad V 2 lines added on p. 132; Iliad VI 18 lines (389-406) added at foot of page 161; Iliad X 116-118, also added at foot of page 241. Od. 5. 508-520 & Od. 5. 521-537.There is also a passage crossed out, Iliad XII 230-246). The leaves with the most extensive annotations are slightly larger than the remainder of the book block, and have been folded (as have further annotations alongside the index), which indicates that they took place prior to the book block being trimmed and bound thus. The folds would suggest that they were deliberately protected from the binder’s blade by the owner who commissioned the binding in the eighteenth century, a curious decision given evidence of washing elsewhere.
Provenance: 1. Presented by physician and editor of Vesalius Henricus Botter to polymath and scholar Karel Utenhove the younger (1536-1600), ‘a genial man, with a gift for friendship nearly as remarkable as his gift for languages’; with gift inscription at the foot of the title page as follows: ‘nobilitate vero, atque eruditionis solida praestanti viro D Carolo Utenhovio Neulandiae Domino, amico suo integerrimo dedit Henr. Botterus D M apud Colonienses eis to ths filias mnhmosunon anno 1595 27 Aug Coloniae.’ 2. Chatsworth House Library, with their shelfmark ‘29C’and bookplate; probably acquired amongst the en bloc purchase of the library of Thomas Dampier, Bishop of Ely (1748-1812) by the sixth Duke of Devonshire. Dampier’s library was immensely rich in Greek texts, many rare, some unique. Sold at Christie’s, 31 March 1982, lot 737.
J. Stevenson, Women Latin Poets: Language, Gender and Authority from Antiquity to the Eighteenth Century (Oxford, 2008).
Adams E1106. Hoffmann II, p. 116. Not in Geistlicher Geist aus Basler Pressen, 1992. VD16 H 4594.
