Giuseppe Pascale

SUMMARY: Twelve later manuscripts (recentiores) of six speeches of Themistius (orationes II, IV, V, VII, IX, X) derive from a lost common ancestor (omega). Description and collation of the MSS are provided and a stemma codicum is given. The lost ancestor omega is identified with a composite MS, probably written in the 14th century, formerly in the library of the Escorial, where it was destroyed by fire in 1671; a previous owner was Diego Hurtado de Mendoza, ambassador of Charles V in Venice (1539-1546). Janus Lascaris saw omega in Corfu in 1491, when it was in possession of Dimitrios Trivolis, a well known Greek copyist. Lascaris described it in his notebook Vat. Gr. 1412 and had Themistius copied. This copy, Par. Gr. 2079 (late 15th century), the oldest of the twelve recentiores, was not only owned by Janus Lascaris, but shows several marginal notes in his hand. A MS of the same family lies behind the editio princeps, printed by Henricus Stephanus (1562). In 1605 Georgius Remus, a jurist, prepared the first Latin translation of the six speeches and called them orationes Augustales.