Opera. Ed. and comm: Christophorus Landinus

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FLORENCEANTONIO MIS COMINI

HORATIUS FLACCUS, OU1NTUS. Opera cum commento Landini.

An ode by Angelo Poligiano to Horace is printed on the back of the

second leai. Then tollows a Proemium by Landino, and a list of the nam es explained in the commentaries. The list occupieS Seven pages, three column Son each page. Aiter a secorid introduction by Landino, the poems begin onleai ΙΟ. The volume contains the complete poetical works ot Horace. The io urbooks of the Odes occupy leaves 1 146; the Epodes, leaves I 47-I6I; the Carmen Seculare, the nexi two leaves; the Ars Poetica, leaves I 64-178: the two bookSol the Satirae, leaves Ι7 23o: and finalty the two books of the Epistolae,

It would be supererogatory to offer here biographical or critical notes abolit the most popular poet oi antiquity. Merely a iew dateS are jotted down. Horace was horia in 65 B. C., being fixe years younger than Virgil, his devotediri end, who introduced hi in to MaecenaS, the greateSt oi literary patrons. The sirst three books of the Odes, whicli contain the most valvabie part oi Horace's work, appeared in 23 B. C. The poei s lite on his Sabine farin, whicli Maecenas presented to him, was that oi quiet, yet eager en joyment. To saymore than this would inevitably lead to a discussion Oi the philosophy oi Horace that philosophy oi common Sense and wise eclecticism with whichev ery line of his poetry is imbue l. During the last thirty years of his lite herare ly leti his country home. He di ed there in 8 B. C., at the age of fifty-Seven. Iany lines and phrases of Ηorace have become proverbial. Such is theaurea mediocritas recommended to Licinius Murena in the poem reproduced in part - as a characteristic example oi Horace'S art - in the iacsimile on page VI. A recent translation Oi the verse, by AleXander F. ΜuriSon, may begiven here:

Is neither alarum to puraue the deest Non cautious in Iour horror of the squalla,

More frequently it is the might' pine

able. Uniortunately, Licinius was not the kind of person who would profit hywiSe counSelS. In 22 B. C., he took part in the conspiracy oi Fannius Caepio again St Augustus, and the angry Emperor had him executed, in spite of the

intercession Oi MaecenRS. For notes ori Landino, the firSt modern commentator On Horace, See