On Plagiarisms in the "Minerva" of Franciscus Sanctius [Reprint 2020 ed.] 9783112330203, 9783112330197

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W. K E I T H P E R C I V A L

On Plagiarisms in the Minerva of Franciscus Sanctius

LISSE/NETHERLANDS

THE PETER DE RIDDER PRESS 1975

© Copyright reserved No part of this book may be translated or reproduced in any form, by print, photoprint, microfilm, or any other means, without written permission from the author.

The text of this article is reprinted from UT VIDEAM: CONTRIBUTIONS TO AN UNDERSTANDING OF LINGUISTICS For Pieter Verbürg on the Occasion of His 70th Birthday pp. 249-61

Printed in Belgium by NICI, Ghent

The purpose of this paper is to document a little known fact, namely that the Minerva of Franciscus Sanctius (1587) contains a number of obvious plagiarisms. What follows here may be regarded as in tne nature of a footnote to Professor Verburg's characterization of Sanctius's feud with the Elder Scaliger as a mere family quarrel, 1 for as we shall see presently the bulk of the plagiarized passages are from Scaliger's celebrated treatise on grammatical theory. Space does not permit me to take up the general question of Sanctius's relations to his predecessors, an issue which I have broached elsewhere2 but which still awaits more extensive investigation. Sanctius's attitude to the grammatical tradition was curiously ambivalent. At the very beginning of the Minerva he grandly advocates examining all questions on the basis of reason alone without regard to authority: "Itaque nisi te totum inquisitioni tradideris, nisi artis tuae quam tractas causas rationesque probe fueris perscrutatus, crede te alienis oculis videre, alienisque auribus audire" (f. 5V, Book I, Chap. I). 3 This is, of course, a fine precept in theory but alas far from easy to follow in practice. Even the most uncompromisingly radical thinker owes something to his predecessors and Sanctius, who was much less of a revolutionary than he appears to be at first sight, is no exception to this rule. In any case we must remember that he lived in an age in which appeals to authority, and particularly ancient authority, still carried much weight. It is not surprising, therefore, that in spite of his resolution to be intellectually independent he never fails to assemble scriptural backing for his more radical departures from the grammatical tradition. A good example of Sanctius's procedure is his defence of the thesis that the category of neuter verbs can be eliminated. (Neuter verbs were traditionally defined as verbs which do not conjugate in the passive voice and were therefore considered to belong in a genus co-ordinate with the actives and the passives.) To combat this view Sanctius appeals

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to the authority of Aristotle, who maintained that all motion is either action or the undergoing of action ('passion') and that there is no category intermediate between the two : "Quoniam ex Aristotele citavimus omnem motum aut actionem aut passionem esse, nihilque medium quod neutrum possit vere appellari, consentaneum erit verba neutra reicere, quibus videlicet id quod non est in rerum natura velint grammatici nuncupari" (f. 93r, Book III, Chap. 3). To balance this Sanctius also produces a modern authority for the same view. The Elder Scaliger had proposed in his De causis linguae Latinae (1540) that verbs should be categorized as either active or passive and Sanctius hastens to quote the relevant passage: "Nobis autem, inquit Caesar Scaliger, satis sit universum verborum ambitum in duo dividere, quae actionem et passionem significent, quem ad modum horum utrumque ad unum quippe ad ipsum EST, quod est utriusque radix et fundamentum" (f. 89v, Book III, Chap. 2).4 But as if this were not enough his next step is to corroborate Scaliger's position by appropriate quotations from Aristotle and Cicero: "Hanc Scaligeri rationem sic confirmare possumus : Philosophia, id est recta et incorrupta iudicandi ratio nullum concedit medium inter agere et pati. Omnis namque motus aut actio est aut passio. Immo, si rem penitus inspicias, actio et passio nihil differunt nisi ratione quadam sicut acclive et declive, id quod docet Aristoteles 3. Physic, cap. 3 [202a12-22]. Quare quod in rerum natura non est, ne nomen quidem habebit. Nihil enim agens, inquit Cicero, ne cogitari quidem potest quale sit. Idem secundo De Natura Deorum 'mihi', inquit, 'qui nihil agit esse omnino non videtur' ... An nescis omnem causam efficientem debere necessario effectum producere, deinde etiam effectum non posse consistere sine causa? Quanto rectius Aristoteles qui libro primo de generatione et interitu [Chap. 7] asserit in omni actione alteram esse quod agat, alteram quod patiatur. A philosophis, inquis, ista sumis. Metuebam ne a lenonibus diceres, quasi ulla sit ars quae possit esse a ratione aliena. ... Sed si philosophos spernis, audi etiam grammaticos antiquos" (ff. 89v-90r, Book III, Chap. 2). He then proceeds to quote from Priscian, Lebrija, Scaliger, and, finally (f. 91r), Aristotle again. Thus Sanctius's contention that the class of neuter verbs can be dispensed with is not his own idea and the arguments he marshals to support the contention are all borrowed from other sources also. What we have then is an elaborate network of mutually supporting quotations from both ancient and modern authors. In the case I have just cited Sanctius is at least good enough to mention the names of his authorities. In many instances, however, he does not

PLAGIARISMS IN THE

Minerva

OF SANCTIUS

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choose to specify all his sources. An interesting example of this can be found in his thesis that three parts of speech (noun, verb, and particle) suffice to express everything which needs to be expressed in language: "Cum igitur oratio sit finis grammatici, excutiamus ex quibus haec oratio possit constitui ita ut nihil sit quod per orationem non possimus enuntiare. Sunt autem haec tria: nomen, verbum, particulae. Nam apud Hebraeos tres sunt partes orationis: nomen, verbum, et dictio consignificans. Arabes quoque has tantum tres orationis partes habent" (f. 10r, Book I, Chap. 2). This passage has led a number of historians to conclude that Sanctius was influenced by Arabic grammatical theory. 5 But as Constantino Garcia has pointed out, 6 there is no other evidence in Sanctius's biography and works of any interest in or reference to Arabic. The sources of this notion are in fact classical, as the rest of the paragraph in which this discussion occurs makes abundantly clear. However, there are in addition two more recent sources for the idea which Sanctius does not mention for us and with which we may assume he was in all probability familiar. The first of these is the Latin grammar of Juan de Pastrana, which was widely used in the Iberian peninsula in the fifteenth and well into the sixteenth century. This work begins as follows: "Partes orationis quot sunt? Quattuor. Quae sunt? Littera, syllaba, dictio, et constructio. Quot sunt dictiones? Tres. Quae? Nomen, verbum, adverbium. Quid est nomen? Quod declinatur per casus. Verbum? Quod declinatur sine casibus. Adverbium? Quod non declinatur." 7 Note that Pastrana has the same three parts of speech as Sanctius but he defines them differently, i.e. morphologically rather than semantically. While it is clear that Sanctius was aware of Pastrana's grammar and familiar with its contents,8 we cannot know for sure whether the passage I have just quoted influenced him. The second possible source for the notion is Petrus Ramus's Scholae Grammaticae (1559). Ramus's discussion of the parts of speech reads as follows: "Aristoteles vocis genera duo: KatTiyoprina icai cnjv5etT^ov: KaxiiyopifmaToq species duas: nomen et verbum fecerat, et recte. At grammatici pro duobus generibus eorumque binis partibus alii quinque, alii septem, plerique fere omnes octo, nonnulli decern fecerunt. At, inquiet Aristoteles, generalia generaliter explicanda sunt. Analogia declinationum et generum in pronominibus et participiis nulla specialis est; tota est generalis. Praepositiones et interiectiones, sicut adverbia, sunt velut adiectiva singularum vocum. Sunto igitur genera duo:

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KaTTiyoprina Kaictov8ect|x6