Salvatore Monda, who has just published an edition of Plautus’ Vidularia (reviewed in BMCR 2005.05.36), has simultaneously overseen a re-publication of Roberto Calderan’s edition, with commentary, of the same play, first published in 1982 (Palermo: Vittorietti; Graecolatina, 1).
The unanimous reviewers of the first edition of the book (including S. Rizzo, RFIC 112, 1984, 212-216; G. Barabino, Maia 38, 1986, 185-187; G. Polara, Orpheus 5, 1984 213-216; G. Solimano, Paideia 39 1984 212-214; and especially H.D. Jocelyn, CR 35, 1985, 28-31) had it right. This is a learned, careful, and diligent work of scholarship, distinguished especially because Calderan, with special permission, inspected the Ambrosianus palimpsest himself and managed to tidy up the apparatus by ejecting a number of impossible conjectures. He presents a conservative text and an intelligent commentary, which, together with the article by K. Dér in CQ 37, 1987, 432-443, continues to serve as the basis for all discussion of the play.
I have not collated the new edition of this book with the old, and so cannot say for certain how much has changed from the first edition. But to judge from the paucity of Monda’s editorial insertions, which are signalled by square brackets and which serve mostly to update bibiliographical information, it looks like the content is virtually unaltered from the first edition. The typeset and formatting, on the other hand, have been entirely redone to conform to the other volumes issuing from QuattroVenti, and so I infer that the pagination has changed: the original page count was 193 pp., versus pp. 169 + xi here, which now includes a new biographical preface by M. De Nonno (for Calderan died young), and a very brief preliminary note by S. Monda. A concordance at the back coördinates the numeration of Calderan’s text with that of Leo, Studemund, Goetz, and Goetz-Schoell, taken over from the first edition. (Anachronistic as it may be, it would have helped to include the numeration from Monda’s new edition as well.)
The publisher deserves our gratitude for making this attractive book available again, and at an excellent price.