Translating Homeric scholia: five case studies from the fourteenth to the eighteenth century

Translating scholia is not as unusual a practice as one might believe at first sight, and the reasons for it have been manifold throughout the centuries of early modern Europe. Without a basic knowledge of the language many of these observations (above all, those pertaining to grammar and etymology) remain virtually incom- prehensible to the reader. Still, a first, judicious Latin rendering of these short annotations is essential in order to disentangle the many traps hidden under the surface of an apparently `easy' language, and to obtain thus useful material for lecturing on ancient poets (Poliziano, possibly Leontius) for future researchers (Poliziano, Budé), and for making the heritage of ancient commentaries available to a wider public of scholars (Mariner, Bongiovanni, partly even Leontius). Through a good translation, it becomes much easier to understand the degree to which these texts are intertwined in the literary history of the ancient world.