Camerarius’ Conspicuous Chapter in the History of European Classical Scholarship
Nicholas A.E. Kalospyros (Athen)
Of the three criteria for a scholar to be included in the History of Classical Scholarship, according to Calder and Briggs:1 i) scholars who were innovative and exerted considerable influence upon their epoch and the forthcoming generations; ii) persons whose lives amounted to more than just bibliographies, which means that the evidence must point to something specific or rather specifically unusual about them; and iii) scholars for whom worthy biographies are available; with the exception of the third criterion – that one may substitute it with collective volumes and chronological introductions – the former two are still available in the case of Joachim Camerarius (12 Apr. 1500, Bamberg – 17 Apr. 1574, Leipzig). Besides, the history of classical scholarship is part of Rezeption, the way in which successive generations have received or reached to the heritage of ancient Greece and Rome. It is certainly not a matter of books about books, not even a collection of summarized biographies in the form of essays about the history of scholarship. It is the experience of Altertumswissenschaft. Therefore, in terms of the history of scholarship, the achievements of Joachim Camerarius, the universal scholar, consist also in the development by him of explanations of the world, that combine Christian religious viewpoints with rational as worldly ones in the vast parameters of philological knowledge.
Although my paper’s ambitions were originally limited to the perspective of locating Camerarius’ documented position in the history of German classical scholarship, afterwards the thought occurred to me that it would be more fruitful not to dislocate cultural data from the history of scholarship, such as our scholar’s pedagogical doctrines, manifested in his Oratio de studio bonarum literarum atque artium et linguae Graecae ac LatinaeCamerarius d.Ä., JoachimOratio de studio bonarum literarum atque artium et linguae Graecae ac Latinae. An attentive reader may find in this Oratio de studio bonarum literarum atque artium et linguae Graecae ac LatinaeCamerarius d.Ä., JoachimOratio de studio bonarum literarum atque artium et linguae Graecae ac Latinae, pronuntiata in Academia Lipsica à Ioachimo Camerario Pab.[ergensi] Idib.[us] Novembr.[is] Anni XLI, published in 1542 (Excusum Lipsiae, apud Iacobum Berualdum, anno MDXLII), a philological manifesto of learning and teaching classical thought, whereby humanity stands up as an argument for learning.2 This OratioCamerarius d.Ä., JoachimOratio de studio bonarum literarum atque artium et linguae Graecae ac Latinae exceeds the typographical expectations of a simple booklet about 40 pages. As usually for humanistic books, Greek and Latin poetical composition embraces the text of OratioCamerarius d.Ä., JoachimOratio de studio bonarum literarum atque artium et linguae Graecae ac Latinae: in pp. A2r–v we find a Latin poem pronounced ad Andraem et Egidium Morchios fratres […] Doctoris elegidion, dedicatorium orationis and in p. clv another poem De morte Simonis Grynei ἐπικήδειον marks the end of the book.
The author’s invocation to Deum patrem clementissimi Domini nostri Jesu Christi marks the opening of the booklet; such an invocation is certainly moved by the theological imperative that every intellectual good is proclaimed to God, the source of goodness and wisdom. Then, a rhetorical attempt to raise to God the blessings of study follows an optimistic yearning for philological science; beyond devoting his own life to studying at least splendidly his doctrina, the feeling that it was not in vain prevails.3 In Camerarius’ OratioCamerarius d.Ä., JoachimOratio de studio bonarum literarum atque artium et linguae Graecae ac Latinae we may find various termini technici usual for humanity scholars’ texts, such as disciplinarum dignitas, praestantia, doctrina, eruditio, humanitas, naturae excellentia, ingeniae et liberalis nomen. His treatise, written in a phenomenical Ciceronian style reminding us of that of Pro Archia poetaCiceroArch., exhortates enthusiasm for those who neither understood nor learned, nor would be able to perceive these courses of classical learning, but who will follow that step with great pleasure.4 In it there are quotations of CiceroCicero, MartialMartial, Plato’s RespublicaPlatonResp., Apostle PaulPaulus (Apostel), PindarPindar, DemosthenesDemosthenes and CallimachusKallimachos. His vocabulary is relatively pure from medievalisms and imitates ordinary classical style in the Humanistic era. We have to bear in mind that, although at the previous century students in conservative university curricula were usually required to limit their active vocabulary in prose to words employed by CaesarCaesar, Gaius Iulius, Cicero, and LivyLivius, and this standard provided a certain academic discipline, it is seldom sought in an age in which positivistic notions of scholarship have become so prevalent that a man may be accounted a distinguished scholar of Latin without having produced ten lines of original composition in that language. But when Latin is used as an instrument of communication, as it was in humanistic era, it becomes obvious that classical clarity cannot always be attained in the discussion of post-Classical subjects without the use of post-Classical words: for instance editio, versio, typotheta etc. Beyond Camerarius’ great qualification as an eminent writer in Latin language and Ciceronian style, we may again underline the failure of Humanism to establish a literary tradition of its own. Many scholars, by ignoring their own precursors, glanced at their contemporaries and meditated the ancients. Camerarius’ was a conflated style, formed, it would seem, almost entirely by subjective standards, whenever he imitated what pleased him mostly. Anyway, a display of polymatheia and an adhortatio to adolescent pupils to insist on the study of both classical languages but with dignity and pleasure, distill the hardship of literary studies. The most stimulating issue concerning Camerarius’ OratioCamerarius d.Ä., JoachimOratio de studio bonarum literarum atque artium et linguae Graecae ac Latinae is the pending ideological and philological argument aspiring to override pedagogical and aesthetic notions of virtue: the anthem of active Humanism and irreversible optimistic study of classical literature. The whole speech seems addressed to those that were nurturing preparatory schools as entrance to the university tuition, so that they might improve learning through philological acquaintance. It is known that under the names of Lyceum or Gymnasium those German schools gave a more complete knowledge of the two classical languages and perhaps a new thrust to philosophy. The new treatments expanded on many of Erasmus Erasmus von Rotterdam, Desiderius’ ideas and transposed them into different contexts with theological presuppositions. Again for Camerarius the study of classical texts in an academic sense could in no way be separate from their study for reasons of aesthetic appreciation and particularly moral instruction.
This moral signification of classical knowledge enables the transition to the second part of my paper, which could be phrased in the form of a twofold rhetorical question: Should we estimate the biographical events of Camerarius’ life and ascribe him an eminent position in the history of German classical scholarship or render his achievements in a brief note tractable in the pages of a biographical lexicon meant to describe the Humanistic movement?
If encyclopedically lemmatized, Camerarius (actually Joachim Kammermeister) is known as a German Humanist and poet, who came from the family of the Bamberg aldermen Liebhard, but he was generally called Kammermeister, since previous members of his family had held the office of chamberlain (camerarius) to the bishops of Bamberg. He quickly developed a particular interest in Greek, which he studied at Leipzig with the Englishman Richard CrokeCroke, Richard (1489–1558) and the German Petrus MosellanusMosellanus, Petrus (1493–1524), and also at Erfurt and Wittenberg, where he became intimate with Philipp MelanchthonMelanchthon, Philipp (1497–1560), who remained a lifelong friend. He began studies in Leipzig in 1513 (facultas artium), in Erfurt in 1518 (magister artium 1521) and in Wittenberg in 1521, where he enjoyed a close friendship with MelanchthonMelanchthon, Philipp and, thus, became a follower and pioneer of the Reformation. In 1526 he went into Prussia, and in the year following was nominated by Melanchthon to fill the office of Greek and Latin professor at the newly-founded college (Egidiengymnasium) in Nuremberg.5 He became professor of rhetoric in 1522, although he often spent long periods in Bamberg and travelling, in 1524 with MelanchthonMelanchthon, Philipp to Bretten and as LutherLuther, Martin’s emissary to ErasmusErasmus von Rotterdam, Desiderius in Basel. In 1525 he became professor of Greek in Wittenberg, in 1526 rector in Nuremberg, in 1535 professor of Greek at Tübingen, and in 1541 at Leipzig, chiefly teaching Greek and Latin. He evinced an extraordinary passion for that language, and in 1524 put forth his first work, a Latin