Giulio Pomponio Leto (1428-1498) was one of the most influential Roman humanists of the second half of the fifteenth century. We have waited a long time for an edition of his commentary on the Aeneid. In 1983 Aldo Lunelli signalled his interest, adding Ms. Verona Capit. CLXIV (151)=V (a manuscript of the Aeneid written and annotated by Leto) to the other manuscripts and printed books then known, notably Oxford, Bodleian Library, Ms. Add. C. 136=A in which Albinia della Mare had discovered autograph notes some years previously.[1] In the meantime the various works that we have from Pomponio Leto’s enormous and multi-faceted productiveness have become much better known,[2] especially thanks to publications of the Association Roma nel Rinascimento (see BMCR 2012.02.13), the most recent being published in 2025,[3] and the website Repertorium Pomponianum
There are several reasons why Leto’s commentary on the Aeneid is significant. It is considered the first modern commentary on Virgil and was one of the first printed (Brescia, c. 1490?), albeit under obscure circumstances which are discussed in the Introduzione. Then there are the ‘new’ materials to which he had access, in particular Le scoperte bobbiesi: first, the so-called Codex Mediceus (Florence, Bibl. Med. Laur. plut. 39,1), a fifth-century manuscript that was brought to Rome from the Abbey of Bobbio in 1467 and which Leto for a while had in his possession, probably after his liberation from the Castel S. Angelo in 1469-1470; second, not only did he have the Life of Virgil and the commentary on the Eclogues and Georgics attributed to Probus but a manuscript from his circle showing knowledge of it survives (BAV, Vat. lat. 3255).[4] Somehow a copy of the Bobbio manuscript had reached Leto by 1471. Another interesting aspect of Leto’s Aeneid commentary that Fabio Stok highlights is its attention to intertextuality, that is, it contains citations from authors to whom Virgil alludes (Homer, Ennius) and citations from Virgil’s epic successors, Silius Italicus and Valerius Flaccus (on both of whom Leto worked). And it was influential. Quotations from it are repeated countless times in scholarship on the Aeneid and in lexica dating from the following centuries (sometimes attributed to Servius).
The concise preliminary matter of the volume (Introduzione, Nota critica) is intended primarily to explain the purposes and principles of the edition. The edition itself takes up the bulk of the book and is followed by an Appendice ortografica e morfologica, and Index nominum. The Introduction is confined to matters strictly relevant to the Aeneid commentary, a complicated topic enough, and mainly focuses on Books I and II. Leto’s work on the Aeneid spans a long period and we lack the circumstantial information that would allow us to track it. A cautious account of its progress emerges from Stok’s examination of specific problematic and interesting aspects.
In the section on Il codice di Verona Stok compares V (probably the oldest witness) with A (one of the latest) and concludes that they were composed independently, perhaps because Leto no longer had access to V. In Il commento all‘Eneide Stok groups A together with C (Oxford, Bodleian Library, Canon. Class. 54) and B (the Brescia edition), which contain the same version of the commentary, one that Leto worked on c. 1470 to the mid-1480s. Incidentally, the chronological argument based on Domizio Calderini’s death in 1478 (pp. XV-XVI) is not entirely convincing, as the opinion attributed to ‘Domitius meus’ in the note on Aen. 7.83 need not have come from Calderini in person: it is very close to his note on Silius Italicus 6.174.[5] L’edizione bresciana is another knotty topic, as Leto seems to have protested that the first volume of his Virgil commentary printed (c. 1487) appeared under his name without his knowledge but, it is suggested, he perhaps allowed the one containing the Aeneid commentary. In V and A the notes accompany a text of the Aeneid, corrected from time to time in the light of the Codex Mediceus and Leto’s work on it (Il testo virgiliano).
We now come to the nature of the commentary (Le caratteristiche del commento) and its sources (Le fonti del commento). Stok characterizes the commentary as essentially explanatory of the text but identifies four innovative aspects: an interest in textual matters, an attention to rhetoric and rhetorical figures (combined with a systematic combing of Quintilian for references to Virgil), the openness to intertextuality and the space given to mythological, historical and cultural questions. Most of these traits have parallels in the lectures of others in the Roman Studio but it is beyond Stok’s remit to pursue this. The same commonality largely applies to the selection of prose sources, though there are some interesting absences or quasi-absences (Appian, Plutarch) and presences (pseudo-Messalla, De Augusti Caesaris progenie) to observe.
Under Strategia delle citazioni and Pomponio commentatore Stok discusses the question of direct and indirect sources and whether the names of authors actually used are acknowledged, focusing on Book I. Varro is the author most cited by name, but not always directly. In the two books there are a number of interesting places where Leto expresses an opinion in the first person or assumes a magisterial role in other ways. Disagreement, particularly with Servius, can be veiled by ‘errant qui’ or ‘sunt qui’. Another question that arises here is who was the Pomponius Sabinus, sometimes cited in James Henry’s Aeneidea (1881) in the same breath as Servius? Stok (in Pomponius Sabinus) rehearses the curious train of events by which Leto’s commentary came to be known under the misnomer of Pomponius Sabinus. (This is most easily followed if read while looking at Georg Fabricius’ edition of Virgil [Basel, 1561].)
In the Nota critica Stok explains the disparate nature of the witnesses, the relationships between them and how the resulting problems have been handled in the edition, discussing some examples of these in detail. Despite all the difficulties, it is possible to present a unified version of the commentary with variants signaled in the apparatus criticus. Readings in the text of the Aeneid, and the lemmata (where appropriate) are taken into account too, with folio references for the manuscripts. Corrections of B in the edition of Oporinus and some of its own variants (Johannes Herbst, Basel, 1544) are noted where they contribute. The apparatus fontium includes both explicit and implicit sources, and direct and indirect ones as well. The translators of the Greek texts are acknowledged too when they are relevant to the constitution of the text.[6]
Some curious things emerge from the apparatus fontium. At first I was sceptical when for ‘hic Hostia ab Anco Martio condita ad excipiendam aleam maris’ (I 6a) I was directed to Columella, I praef. 8 maris et negotiationis alea sit optabilior, but somewhat more accepting when I came to ‘propter merces primi mortalium negotiatores in marina alea’ (1 344), where there is no reference to Columella. In I 6a the reference to Isidore for ‘Sidona’ should be emended to Orig. 15.1.27 and Servius Georg. 2.506 added for ‘Sarram…lingua Syra piscis “sear” dicitur’. At other places I have noticed references not attached to the right line (I 12b [Teucro], 41b [Tullus Hostilius], 54 [Cato]). Tracking down the sources is never an easy task, especially for the longer notes where Leto can pass from one source to another without a signal. This type of note is less frequent in Book II (edited by Nicola Lanzarone), which overwhelmingly relies on Servius and Dictys Cretensis.[7] Even when names are named mysteries remain, e.g. ‘Dionysius idem ait, Iunonem esse terram’ (I 47) and ‘Et carceres multos in multitudine ad captivos rettulit Cato’ (I 54).
It is not meant as faint praise to say that this edition will be an essential tool for anyone working on Leto’s scholarship and that of his students, contemporaries and successors and will contribute to the story of the reception of Virgil in the Renaissance and beyond.
Notes
[1] Aldo Lunelli, ‘Il commento virgiliano di Pomponio Leto’, in Atti del Convegno Virgiliano di Brindisi … , Istituto di filologia latina dell’Università di Perugia, 1983, 309-322.
[2] See Maria Accame, Pomponio Leto. Vita e insegnamento, Tivoli, 2008, 92 n. 10.
[3] I contributi di Pomponio Leto e della sua cerchia agli studi umanistici di filologia e storiografia. Atti delle giornate di studi, Roma 15-16 maggio 2025, ed. by Marianne Pade, Patricia J. Osmond, Giancarlo Abbamonte, Fabio Stok, Rome, 2025.
[4] The brief reference to this manuscript on p. XII is misleading and whether or how much of it is ‘autograph’ is disputed.
[5] Frances Muecke, ‘Angelo Poliziano, Pomponio Leto, Domizio Calderini, and the Codex Mediceus‘, Roma nel Rinascimento, 2003, 234 n. 23.
[6] For Herodotus Leto must have used Lorenzo Valla’s translation (relevant at I 338b?).
[7] At II 355 ‘lupi…edunt terram’ perhaps comes from Arist. HA 8.7.1.