Raphael Regius (; it, Raffaele Regio; c. 1440 – 1520) was a Venetian

humanist Humanism is a philosophical stance that emphasizes the individual and social potential and agency of human beings. It considers human beings the starting point for serious moral and philosophical inquiry. The meaning of the term "humani ...

, who was active first in

Padua Padua ( ; it, Padova ; vec, Pàdova) is a city and ''comune'' in Veneto, northern Italy. Padua is on the river Bacchiglione, west of Venice. It is the capital of the province of Padua. It is also the economic and communications hub of the ...

, where he made a reputation as one of the outstanding Classical scholars, then in

Venice Venice ( ; it, Venezia ; vec, Venesia or ) is a city in northeastern Italy and the capital of the Veneto Regions of Italy, region. It is built on a group of 118 small islands that are separated by canals and linked by over 400 ...

, where he moved in the periphery of an elite group composed of a handful of publicly sanctioned scholars, salaried lecturers employed by the

Serenissima aSerenissima ( heMost Serene) may refer to: Certain countries * , a name for the Republic of Venice * , the official Latin name of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth Art, entertainment, and media * La Serenissima (musical ensemble), a Britis ...

itself: on the fringes of this elite world also moved the scholar-printer

Aldus Manutius Aldus Pius Manutius (; it, Aldo Pio Manuzio; 6 February 1515) was an Italian printer and humanist who founded the Aldine Press. Manutius devoted the later part of his life to publishing and disseminating rare texts. His interest in and preserv ...

(Lowry 1979).

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The most famous achievement of Regius is his demonstration that the ''Rhetorica ad C. Herennium'', or ''Rhetorica secunda'', was not written by

Cicero Marcus Tullius Cicero ( ; ; 3 January 106 BC – 7 December 43 BC) was a Roman statesman, lawyer, scholar, philosopher, and academic skeptic, who tried to uphold optimate principles during the political crises that led to the estab ...

, a milestone in the development of

textual criticism Textual criticism is a branch of textual scholarship, philology, and of literary criticism that is concerned with the identification of textual variants, or different versions, of either manuscripts or of printed books. Such texts may range in ...

. His bitter rivalry with other scholars and scorn for the ''"semidocti"'' reflect familiar competitive strains in the sometimes vituperative temper of

Renaissance humanism Renaissance humanism was a revival in the study of classical antiquity, at first in Italy and then spreading across Western Europe in the 14th, 15th, and 16th centuries. During the period, the term ''humanist'' ( it, umanista) referred to teache ...

. Regio, or Regius as he signed himself, was doubtless a pupil of Benedetto Brugnolo, a central figure among Venetian humanists, who headed the Scuola di San Marco and delivered daily lectures at the foot of the

Campanile A bell tower is a tower that contains one or more bells, or that is designed to hold bells even if it has none. Such a tower commonly serves as part of a Christian church, and will contain church bells, but there are also many secular bell tower ...

from 1466 until he died in 1502, "universally lamented and aged over ninety" (Lowry). In his edition of

Quintilian Marcus Fabius Quintilianus (; 35 – 100 AD) was a Roman educator and rhetorician from Hispania, widely referred to in medieval schools of rhetoric and in Renaissance writing. In English translation, he is usually referred to as Quintilia ...

's ''Institutiones Oratoria'' ("Institutes of Oratory") Regius was the first to attempt corrections of the numerous errors (''"depravationes"'') in Quintilian's text. In his treatise on the text of Quintilian, the ''Problemata'' (probably 1492), he laid out his methods in textual criticism, which offer "insights that are still valid and useful for the modern textual critic,"Johan Schloemann, reviewing Dopp 1999,
Bryn Mawr Classical Review 2001
. though Regius depends more on his own rationalization (''"ratio"'') for resolution of textual difficulties than on an appreciation of the relationships among manuscripts, for which a modern scholar would strive. Regius recognized how glosses could creep into a text and corrupt it. Regius published commentary (''enarrationes'') on

Ovid Pūblius Ovidius Nāsō (; 20 March 43 BC – 17/18 AD), known in English as Ovid ( ), was a Roman poet who lived during the reign of Augustus. He was a contemporary of the older Virgil and Horace, with whom he is often ranked as one of the th ...

's ''

Metamorphoses The ''Metamorphoses'' ( la, Metamorphōsēs, from grc, μεταμορφώσεις: "Transformations") is a Latin narrative poem from 8 CE by the Roman poet Ovid. It is considered his ''magnum opus''. The poem chronicles the history of the wo ...

'' (Venice, ca. 1518), which became the most frequently printed edition of Ovid's Latin poem in the sixteenth century.

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References

*Martin Lowry, 1979. ''The World of Aldus Manutius'' (Ithaca: Cornell University Press)

...'' (Stuttgart: Steiner) *J. J. Murphy and M. Winterbottom, "Raffaele Regio's Quaestio Doubting Cicero's Authorship of the Rhetorica ad Herennium: Introduction and Text", in ''Rhetorica'' 17 (1999), pp 77–87. *Pierre Maréchaux, « L’arrière-fable : la préface de Marot à la Métamorphose et les commentaire latins d’Ovide ». ''Clément Marot « Prince des poëtes françois » 1496-1996. Actes du Colloque international de Cahors en Quercy 21-15 mai 1996 réunis et présentés par Gérard Defaux et Michel Simonin''. Paris, Champion, 1997, pp. 77-92 n Marot and Regius *Pierre Maréchaux, « Regius (Regio Raffaele) (1440–1520). '' Centuriae latinae. Cent une figures humanistes de la Renaissance aux Lumières offertes à Jacques Chomarat''. Genève, Droz, 1997, pp. 657-665. *Pierre Maréchaux, « D’un sens à l’autre : Continuité et rupture à travers les commentaires des Métamorphoses d’Ovide du XIVe siècle au XVIe siècle ». '' Thèmes et figures mythiques, l’Héritage classique'', Cahiers TEXTUEL n°33, septembre 1997, pp. 19-31. {{DEFAULTSORT:Regius, Raphael Italian Renaissance humanists 1520 deaths Year of birth uncertain

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