Andreas Divus was a

Renaissance The Renaissance ( , ) , from , with the same meanings. is a period in European history marking the transition from the Middle Ages to modernity and covering the 15th and 16th centuries, characterized by an effort to revive and surpass ideas ...

scholar, about whose life little is known; in Italian he is called Andrea Divo giustinopolitano or di Capodistria, i.e. surnamed Justinopolitanus in Latin and implying an origin at

Koper Koper (; it, Capodistria, hr, Kopar) is the fifth largest city in Slovenia. Located in the Istrian region in the southwestern part of the country, approximately five kilometres () south of the border with Italy and 20 kilometres () from Triest ...

, now in

Slovenia Slovenia ( ; sl, Slovenija ), officially the Republic of Slovenia (Slovene: , abbr.: ''RS''), is a country in Central Europe. It is bordered by Italy to the west, Austria to the north, Hungary to the northeast, Croatia to the southeast, an ...

, which was named at different times Aegida, Justinopolis and Capodistria. He is remembered for his Latin translations of

Homer Homer (; grc, Ὅμηρος , ''Hómēros'') (born ) was a Greek poet who is credited as the author of the ''Iliad'' and the ''Odyssey'', two epic poems that are foundational works of ancient Greek literature. Homer is considered one of the ...

; but this ''versio Latina'', in the view of modern scholarship, may have been his editorial version of a product of a tradition going back over a century of Latin translations for "crib" (reading aid) purposes.

Translations

His

Latin Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...

translations of

published in 1537 (Venice) were extremely literal and ''ad verbum'' (i.e. word for word). While this was the first published version of the ''Iliad'' and ''Odyssey'' in Latin, the originality of the translation of Divus has been questioned: there are very close parallels with a much earlier translation by

Leontius Pilatus Leontius Pilatus (Greek: Λεόντιος Πιλάτος, Leontios Pilatos, Italian: Leonzio Pilato; died 1366) was an Italian scholar from Calabria and was one of the earliest promoters of Greek studies in Western Europe. Leontius translated and c ...

. They were designed to be read with the Greek originals. There were two Venice editions of 1537, by Jacob a Burgofrancho and by Melchior Sessa; they share an introduction by

Pier Paolo Vergerio Pier Paolo Vergerio ( 1498 – October 4, 1565), the Younger, was an Italian papal nuncio and later Protestant reformer. Life He was born at Capodistria (Koper), Istria, then part of the Venetian Republic and studied jurisprudence in Padua, wh ...

, born at Capodistria. They were later republished by the jurist Obertus Giphanius (Hubrecht van Giffen, 1534–1604) and then used by

Jean de Sponde Jean de Sponde (''Joanes Ezponda''; 1557 in Basque – 18 March 1595) was a Baroque French poet. Biography Born at Mauléon, in what is now Pyrénées-Atlantiques, Jean de Sponde was raised in an austere Protestant family in the Basque region ...

(Spondanus) in his 1583 Homer commentary on Greek and Latin versions. The Greek was the 1572 (

Strassburg Strasbourg (, , ; german: Straßburg ; gsw, label=Bas Rhin Alsatian, Strossburi , gsw, label=Haut Rhin Alsatian, Strossburig ) is the prefecture and largest city of the Grand Est region of eastern France and the official seat of the Eur ...

) edition of Giphanius. What Spondanus included for Latin was not in fact the original translation of Divus, but a 1570 Geneva revision of it, with substantial changes. They were used by

George Chapman George Chapman (Hitchin, Hertfordshire, – London, 12 May 1634) was an English dramatist, translator and poet. He was a classical scholar whose work shows the influence of Stoicism. Chapman has been speculated to be the Rival Poet of Shak ...

in his translations of the ''

Iliad The ''Iliad'' (; grc, Ἰλιάς, Iliás, ; "a poem about Ilium") is one of two major ancient Greek epic poems attributed to Homer. It is one of the oldest extant works of literature still widely read by modern audiences. As with the ''Odysse ...

'' and ''

Odyssey The ''Odyssey'' (; grc, Ὀδύσσεια, Odýsseia, ) is one of two major Ancient Greek literature, ancient Greek Epic poetry, epic poems attributed to Homer. It is one of the oldest extant works of literature still widely read by moder ...

''. In fact Chapman is considered to have used the Homer edition by de Sponde, which had parallel Greek and Latin text (the Latin derived from Divus), together with a Greek lexicon attributed to Johannes Scapula, a collaborator of the printer

Henri Estienne Henri Estienne (; ; 1528 or 15311598), also known as Henricus Stephanus (), was a French printer and classical scholar. He was the eldest son of Robert Estienne. He was instructed in Latin, Greek, and Hebrew by his father and would eventually tak ...

. It has been said that Chapman's knowledge of Greek was not strong enough to resist entirely the Latin of Divus, with infelicitous results. Divus was also used more directly by

Ezra Pound Ezra Weston Loomis Pound (30 October 1885 – 1 November 1972) was an expatriate American poet and critic, a major figure in the early modernist poetry movement, and a Fascism, fascist collaborator in Italy during World War II. His works ...

in his long poem ''

The Cantos ''The Cantos'' by Ezra Pound is a long, incomplete poem in 120 sections, each of which is a ''canto''. Most of it was written between 1915 and 1962, although much of the early work was abandoned and the early cantos, as finally published, date ...

'', in particular for the opening Canto I ("Lie quiet Divus. I mean, that is Andreas Divus, In officina Wecheli, 1538, out of Homer"). The end of Canto I also references Latin translations of the ''

Homeric Hymns The ''Homeric Hymns'' () are a collection of thirty-three anonymous ancient Greek hymns celebrating individual gods. The hymns are "Homeric" in the sense that they employ the same epic meter—dactylic hexameter—as the ''Iliad'' and ''Odyssey'', ...

'' published with the original translations of Divus, these being by Georgius Dartona known as Cretensis (the Cretan).

Notes

External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Divus, Andreas Latin writers known only from secondary sources Renaissance writers 16th-century writers Year of birth missing Year of death missing 16th-century Latin-language writers