Textus Originalis
Henricus Stephanus ut est princeps editorum Diodori Siculi, ita ea quoque re ceteris excellit, quod ad opera Diodori edenda ipse libros manu scriptos inquisivit et consuluit. Nam Petrus Wesselingius, praestantissimus secundum Stephanum Diodori editor, omnes codicum collationes debet aliis, inprimis Franc. Dionysio Camusato, qui cum Josepho Wasse Diodori opera correcta edere animum induxerat; Camusati mortui scripta per Jac. Ph. D'Orvillium, qui ea suo aere redemerat, in Wesselingi manus venerunt. Eademque fortunae invidia accidit, ut Richardus Bergmann, qui quod Bekker et Dindorf omiserant, ipsos Diodori codices adiit, morte immatura abreptus his suis collationibus tanto labore ac sudore conquisitis ipse uti nequiret: quod eo magis dolemus, quo maiores exspectationes vir tam eximiae diligentiae commovit, etiamsi praeter varias codicum lectiones in scriniis eius nihil ad editionem Diodori parandam utile inventum est. Bergmanni collationes per Teubner bibliopolam de scriptoribus antiquis bene meritum conservatae mihique ante duodeviginti menses traditae ad novam editionem curandam optimo fuerunt adiumento. Quam ob causam
Traduzione
English — scholarly
ARETHE Knowledge Engineering DivisionHenri Estienne, as he is the foremost among the editors of Diodorus Siculus, so too does he surpass all others in this respect: that in preparing Diodorus' works for publication, he himself sought out and consulted the manuscripts. For Petrus Wesselingius, the most distinguished editor of Diodorus after Estienne, owed all his manuscript collations to others — above all to François Denis Camussat, who together with Joseph Wasse had resolved to publish a corrected edition of Diodorus' works. Upon Camussat's death, his papers passed through Jacques Philippe d'Orville, who had purchased them at his own expense, into the hands of Wesseling. And by that same cruel stroke of fortune it came to pass that Richard Bergmann — who undertook what Bekker and Dindorf had neglected, going directly to the Diodorus manuscripts themselves — was snatched away by an untimely death and could not himself make use of the collations he had gathered with such immense labor and toil. We mourn this all the more because this man of such extraordinary diligence had raised the highest expectations, even though nothing useful for preparing an edition of Diodorus was found among his papers beyond the various manuscript readings. Bergmann's collations, preserved through the good offices of the Teubner publishing house — so deserving of ancient authors — and delivered to me eighteen months ago, have been of the greatest assistance in preparing this new edition. For which reason
Commentario Arethe
Henricus Stephanus
Henri Estienne (Henricus Stephanus, 1528–1598), the great Genevan printer-scholar, published the editio princeps of Diodorus Siculus in 1559. Son of Robert Estienne, he was one of the towering figures of Renaissance philology. His edition of Diodorus was based on manuscripts he personally examined — a practice that, as Vogel here emphasizes, distinguished him from later editors who relied on second-hand collations.
Petrus Wesselingius
Peter Wesseling (1692–1764), Dutch classical scholar and professor at Utrecht. His monumental edition of Diodorus (Amsterdam, 1746) remained the standard for over a century. Vogel's point is crucial for understanding the editorial tradition: Wesseling never personally inspected manuscripts, relying entirely on collations made by others — particularly Camussat, whose death created a chain of scholarly inheritance that Vogel traces with detective-like precision.
Richardus Bergmann
Richard Bergmann (dates uncertain, d. before 1887), the tragic figure of Diodoran studies. He was the first scholar since Estienne to personally collate the manuscripts of Diodorus — and he died before he could use his work. His collations, painstakingly recording not just variant readings but also accents, breathings, punctuation, abbreviations, and letter forms, were preserved by the Teubner press and became the foundation of Vogel's edition. The entire praefatio is dedicated to his memory.
ipsos Diodori codices adiit
This phrase — 'he went directly to the Diodorus manuscripts themselves' — encapsulates the revolution in 19th-century philology: the shift from relying on printed editions to examining original manuscripts (autopsy). The German school of textual criticism (Lachmann, Madvig, Wilamowitz) made this the gold standard. Vogel's tribute to Bergmann is also a methodological manifesto.