The Letters of Alciphron and Theophylact Simocatta

Abstract

In this article, I analyse the manuscript sources used by Marcus Musurus for the letters of Alciphron and Theophylact Simocatta, examining in both cases the organisation of the letters, the reasons for what may be disturbances in their order, the possible Druckvorlage, and the variants in the Aldine edition traceable to attempts by Musurus to improve the text. Although it is quite difficult to recover the original shape of the works of Alciphron and Theophylact Simocatta, the modern reader still confronts numerous questions: did the Aldine editor combine and reorganise letters found in different manuscripts, or did he reproduce one or more manuscripts that contained precisely these letters and in this particular order? How does the editio princeps differ from modern editions in the organisation of the two authors’ letters? And how does this organisation affect how we interpret the letters of Alciphron and Theophylact Simocatta today?