Inge Šegvić-Belamarić ( paper was held at FIEC, 2009.in Berlin)

Writing by Candlelight:the Lucubration as Topos-Formula from Cicero to Lucić

In all the colours of the rainbow, via its “heralds”,

the Renaissance drank at the wells of Antiquity, just

as Ovid’s Iris fed the clouds by drawing up the water

from the earth. The heralds were numerous and mighty.

Organised in academies, armed with Greek (Aldus,

Erasmus), with the apparatus criticus, famed printing

houses and libraries, brilliant individualities, with

powerful will, all round (like Leon Battista Alberti),

believing in God (Marulić, Erasmus). And when they

resorted to topoi, they drew from the wells of

antiquity. Here we shall endeavour, “inasmuch as our

strengths will allow us”, to follow the development of

one such topos, one that is omnipresent and yet little

studied in the literature. It is our intention here to

follow the concept of the lucubratio from Antiquity to the

Renaissance, in the literal and in the figurative

meaning of the word, as well as in more complex topos-

formulae.

The image of the nocturnal writer showed up in the

second half of the 2nd century. It was used by Aulus

Gelius in his Attic Nights:

Since in these long winter nights (longinquis perhiemem noctibus), in the landscape of Attica.. I

began to write these notes, I have called themAttic Nights (eas inscripsimus noctium esse Atticarum).1

The actual title of Gellius’ work had a dazzling

posthumous life in the Renaissance period, for we can

find titles such as Noctes Parisinae, Noctes Brixianae, Vesperae

Groninganae, as well as Roman Nights, American Nights, and

Italian Hours. 2

His idea of placing his work under the protection of

night, as he says in the preface, was, though, not an

entirely new idea in the prose literature of Imperial

Rome. As early as AD 62, Seneca in one of his earliest

epistulae morales wrote that he was “appropriating a part

of the night for his studies” (partem noctium studiis

vindico), describing his battle with sleep.3

Yet strangely enough only the Australian philologist

James Kerr has dealt at any length with the phenomenon

of the lucubration culture, paying particular attention

to the image of the night scene with the writer at his

desk, analysing it through the eyes of the audience of

the time and over the whole range of Roman nocturnal

practices, ranging from literary genres, from Cato’s or

Varo’s agricultural manuals to all the familiar aspects

of a well-run household, for which a good part of the1 Aulus Gellius, Noctes Atticae, Praef. 4.2 For more information on this see: James Kerr, »NocturnalWriters in Imperial Rome: The Culture of Lucubration«, ClassicalPhilology 99.3 (2004): 209-42.3 L. Annaei Senecae Epistularum moralium ad Lucilium liber primus I, Ep.8.1.

night had necessarily to be sacrificed, whether by

extending the day into the night or starting the day

much before dawn. But he pays attention to all the

evil twins of our lucubrantes – the lucifuges, that is, all

those who flouted public standards, who spared not at

their night time banquets. Finally, he shows the writer

isolated in his cabinet as a target of scoffing: thus

his muse was to advise Martial:

As for these matters (tragedy, epic) leave them toserious and austere writers who see the lamps,wretches, in the midst of night (quos miseros noctelucerna videt). But you (thou) paint your handsomebooks with Roman humour... 4

Instead of wasting the night writing, Martial will be

able to have a good time, since for him it is not the

time when he will write “his night time pages” rather

when he will read them (cf. 11.20).5 On the other

hand, as against Petronius’ nights there is Lucretius’

hyper-moralism: his lucubration is the genuine and

lasting model for the frugality of the Roman home.

But more than in these realia, we are interested here in

the fortune of this topos. Curtius, in his celebrated

European Literature and the Latin Middle Ages, sets out numerous

topoi in the literature of the Middle Ages and

Antiquity, from the most general (for example

“stressing the writer’s incapacity to put the subject

4 Martialis 8.3.17-19.5 J. Kerr, »Nocturnal Writers in Imperial Rome«: 239.

before the reader the way it merits”) to some that are

very specific. In the framework of the comprehensive

treatment of the literary topic, Curtius says that only

one concluding topos from Antiquity was transferred to

the medieval period: the phrase “we should complete our

work for the dusk is falling”. We can find it for

example in the classic work of Cicero On the Orator which

ends with the admonition: “for the setting of the sun

warns of this” (III 209).

Where he speaks of the evaluation of the book from

those of Ptolemy to the waning of Later Antiquity,

Curtius (in chapter 16) mentions that the creation of

poems was gradually turned into laborious nocturnal

work at the desk, and that at the end writers had

become the mere “compilers of pages”. Although he does

not mention the term lucubratio, he indirectly draws

attention to his Greek equivalent (agrpynia,

sleeplessness, the nocturnal work of intellectual

workers to the abridgement of their sleep), in the

context of the allegory of Martianus Capella The Marriage

of Philology with Mercury: philology, should it wish to

achieve immortality, must suffer from Sleeplessness.

It could be said that this concept, the point and

meaning of which are covered by the words vigilia, nocturna

vigilia, lucubratio and the agrypnia already mentioned – is

one of the most frequent in the exordial topic. Let us

consider just one of its late reflections: Hermolaus

Barbarus (1453-1493) in the exordium of his famed

Castigationes Plinianae, with his own corrections of the

Naturalis historia of Pliny the Elder, the most translated

text of the Roman period, clearly explains the topos of

the dedication to the ruler and the habits of ancient

authors:

To Alexander the Sixth – those who dedicate thefruits of their night time work (lucubrationes suas)to the emperors follow the ancient habit. It isnot important what the subject, if it be notdisgraceful, for the literary work has always hadits dignity, and, if I say so, the privilege ofrulers considering themselves honourable andfamous when works are dedicated to them. Hence nospecies is contemptible, and Julius Polluxdedicated to the Emperor Commodus the work OnGrammar, Vitruvius to Augustus his treatise OnArchitecture, Opianus the On Fish to Antoninus, andDiophantus to King Deiotar his On Agriculture.6

Hermolaius points out: the supreme pontiff would even

have the right to be angry had the dedication been

wanting. In fact, it is not only the corrector who

resorts to the ruler’s protection, but also Pliny

himself, who in these documents is practically born

6 Quoted from: HERMOLAI BARBARI CASTIGATIONES PLINIANAE ET INPOMPONIUM MELAM, a valuable incunabulum that is kept inthe library of the parish church in Skradin. It was printedat Eucharias Silber, Rome, 1492, specialised in the mostimportant ancient writers in critical revisions of theHumanist circle around Pomponius Laetus. (For the characterof Silber’s publishing ventures see more details in: IngeŠegvić-Belamarić and Joško Belamarić, Stare i rijetke knjige izknjižnice Klasične gimnazije u Splitu, Split 1995: 49-55.)

again. Thus, Barbarus thinks, Pliny will be protected

by the papal authority, and will not remain or become

again “the prey of the worst of thieves” (pessimorum

latronum praeda fieret).

The topos of the ruler’s protection, the search for and

securing of a kind of immunity is not of course on its

own in the topic of the exordium. Barbarus follows the

usual repertoire of commonplaces: the dedication to the

ruler and – which I would like to bring out in

particular – the lucubratio formula, alongside the search

for protection from a person of high status and power.

In fact, we will only not find in Barbarus the topos of

modesty, which is very common in the exordium. He is

not bothered by any “sense of his own incapacity”.

Following the unconventionality that he had shown as an

eighteen year old when he wrote the work De coelibatu (on

discovering the self in philosophy, contemplation and

solitude), opposing thus his famous grandfather

Francesco and his De re uxoria (in which the virtues of

the state of marriage are celebrated), Hermolaius in

the continuation of the introduction boasts of having

corrected almost five thousand errors of Pliny’s

transcribers and three hundred in the case of Pomponius

Melus and as many with other authors, “urgently, by the

way, carrying out other matters”.

Although an admirer of Cicero who in the time of the

Renaissance, as Burchardt puts it, was “the purest

wellspring”, Hermolaius dared – and he was an important

figure in Venetian Humanism, educated in the famed

Pomponius Laetus academy in which we can find (among

others) our own Ilija Crijević (Aelius Lampridius), the

two sons of Coriolanus Cippico, Iohannes and Alvise –

to aspire to an individual Latinity (of course with

Politianus). Still, the expression lucubrationes in his

introduction stems beyond any doubt from the pen of

Cicero, and so we have to return to the very beginnings

of the line of development of this topos.

The transitive use of the verb can be nicely observed

in the letter to Brutus in the introduction of Cicero’s

Paradoxes (Cicero, Paradoxa stoicorum, praef. 5). This is,

as Swedish philologist Tore Janson notes, the earliest

reference to the motif of the writer’s night work in

Latin prose.7 There are many such places in Cicero.

Receive, then, this work written to candlelight,in these nights that are ever shorter, for thegift of long vigils is dedicated to your name.Thus you will try this kind of exercise that Ihave long been wont to use for, in the school theyare called discussions, I transmit them into ourmanner of speaking. I do not ask that you replywhen you receive this work; it is not, that is,such that it can be placed on the Acropolis likethe famed Minerva of Phidias, and yet it seems asif it were created in the same workshop.8

7 Tore Janson, Latin Prose Prefaces: Studies in Literary Conventions,Stockholm 1964: 97-98.8 Cicero dedicated the work Paradoxa ad M. Brutum and theBrutus sive de claris oratioribus “give of long vigils” to Marcus

The lucubratio is often linked with finishing or

polishing a work, as shown by the use of terms like

elucubrare.9 In the word lucubratum the writer emphasises

that the writing is precious precisely because of the

relinquishment of sleep in the nights that are anyway

short, and in its importance it comes close to what the

Theusaurus linguae latinae gives for the ppp. lucubratissimus –

pro adj. i. u. maxima vel nimia diligentia elaboratus, or something

equivalent to it.

The famous orator in the word opusculum in the

paragraph referred to also follows the topos of

modesty, which is a characteristic pre-Christian term

(says Curtius), however much the phenomenon of humility

developed with Christianity. Cicero thinks it

particularly germane for the writer to manifest

humility and modesty: Prece et obsecratione humili ac supplici

utemur (De inv. I, 16, 22). From the forensic speeches,

this topos is transferred to other kinds, an exemplary

specimen being the introduction to Cicero’s work The

Orator.

Cicero also uses the expression opera subsciva for works

that he wrote in his own spare time, that is, at night.

Thus in his Philippics he says that he wrote (perfecisse) all

his works (omnia genera monumentorum meorum) so that his

Junius Brutus, the plotter against Caesar. Inspired by thework of he same name of Aristotle, in 44 BC he wrote thework Topica in which he treats of rhetorical commonplaces. 9 J. Kerr, »Nocturnal Writers in Imperial Rome« : 228.

vigils (meae vigiliae) should bring glory to the Roman

people.10 It is interesting that the adjective subcisivus

was a technical term used for the remains of land after

surveying, or the part remaining after the distribution

of the field to the veterans: Subsiciva, quae diversis per

veteranos agris carptim superfuerunt... (Suet. Dom. 9, fin). In a

figurative sense the expression could easily take on

the meaning of work that was done in the spare time.

Pliny the Elder too, with whom Hermolaius was so

manfully engaged, divided his time so that he did his

personal business at night (subcicivis temporibus ista curamus,

id est nocturnis). It was just at that time of day that

the first jewel of ancient encyclopaedia writing was

created, the Historia naturalis. The author dedicated it to

the Emperor Titus (as we have said already, according

to the habits of the favourite topos of the exordium).

In the celebrated words of the epigrammatic closure,

profecto enim vita vigilia est, Pliny gives his own idea about

the meaning of life: this kind of work prolongs it. In

the expression cum somno valetudinem computamus he

describes the intellectual who as if with an

apothecary’s scales determines the minimum of sleep

necessary for the writer to stay healthy. His nephew

Pliny the Younger in a letter to Bebius states the

reasons for the uncommon success attained by his uncle:

in the description of Pliny the Elder and his extreme

10 In M. Antonium oratio Philippica, II,2,8,20.

parsimonia temporis (3.5.13; spec 3.5.8-9) he gives us a

classical picture of many night writers.

Do you marvel how a man so busy might have writtenso many books dealing in them with so many subtlequestions? ... But he was astute in mind, with anincredible ardour, and an indescribable ability tokeep vigil (summa vigilantia). He started with nightwork on the feast of Vulcan [i.e. August 23], notfor the sake of an auspicious outcome (lucubrare11

Vulcanalibus incipiebat non auspicandi causa sed studendi)12

but in order to work into the small hours (statim anocte multa), in winter from the seventh hour, or,at the latest, about eight, often about six. Hewas a really light sleeper, and often he wouldstart and break it off between jobs. Before dawnhe went to Vespasian – and he too worked at night(nam ille quoque noctibus utebatur) – and thence would goto perform his public duties. When he returnedhome, he devoted the rest of his time to hisstudies.

The estate of his uncle makes this description (3.5.17)

extremely probable: “he left me 160 books of

commentaries on various themes, written on both sides

of the papyrus, in the tiniest hand, which greatly

multiplies the said number” (electorumque commentarios

11 The verb lucubrare, from which the terms lucubramentum,lucubratius, lucubratorius, lucubrum, lucubratio are derived, can occurtransitively or intransitively. Intransitively per vigilias (sc.fere lumine apposito) occupatum esse( = agrypno) means to workkeeping awake by candelight. Thesaurus gives two nuancedmeanings: one cum respectu operandi, studendi, and the other merofere respectu vigilandi, custodiendi.12 For auspices see J. Kerr, »Nocturnal Writers in ImperialRome« : note. 80 on p. 235.

centum sexaginta mihi reliquit, opisthographos quidem et minutissimis

scriptos; qua ratione multiplicatur hic numerus). Writing on both

sides of the sheet is the physical evidence of the

laborious nocturnal activity of Pliny.13

Cicero, then, kept awake to cultivate oratory:

according to him, it was more useful to the state than

poetry. Pliny dedicated his nights to the creation of a

work that would become the encyclopaedia of the ancient

world; nor did Seneca have time for sleep, for he wrote

for an audience that would read him one day in the

future.

Here I have hidden away (in cubiculo) and closed thedoor in order to be able to be serviceable tomany. Not a day passes by in idleness. I takepart of the day for study, I have no time forsleep, but, while it is taking hold of me, I holdopen my eyes, weary of work, so they do not closefrom vigil keeping. Thus I have not removedmyself only from people but also of things, andparticularly private affairs. I do the job of mysuccessors. (Ep. 8. 1).

Quintilian in the Education of Orators – “one of the

most eminent writings that we have from Roman

Antiquity” (Mommsen) – pays particular attention to the

conditions in which one has to work in order to become

an ideal orator; such a man is also an ideal man. For

the art of oratory is “the most precious gift of the

gods” and accordingly the perfection of the human

13 Ibid: 235.

spirit. Quintilian recommends anyone who works for the

good of the patria to write in a locked room. The best

way, he says, was that of Demosthenes

who retired to a place that no sound could reachand from which there was no view at all, for hewas afraid that his eyes would divert his soul tosome other interest... Let those who work at nightthen (lucubranes) keep at their work the silence ofthe night (silentium noctis), a closed room (clausumcubiculum) and just one lamp (lumen unum).14

Still, he was more moderate than Pliny: “From the night

time one may take only the time not necessary for

sleeping and that will not truncate sleep”. He has his

own definition of lucubratio: Est tamen lucubratio, quotiens ad

eam integri ad refecti venimus, optimum secreti genus.15 Night work

though, whenever we approach it fresh and relaxed, is

the finest form of solitariness.16

By contrast to the account of Quintilian, Seneca was

not preparing for a public address. He was writing for

an audience that would read his work at some time in

14 Ideoque lucubrantes silentium noctis et clausum cubiculumet lumen unum velut rectos maxime teneat (M. Fabi QuintilianiInstitutionis oratoriae liber decimus, 3.25).15 Institvtio oratoria, 3 §I In this sense we can find lucubratio inthe Thesaurus. The noun that is sometimes in the codiceswritten lug- comes in the meaning actio lucubrandi (cf. agrypnia, vigilia,nocturna vigilia), and then cum respectu studendi, scribendi, disputandi,as we found it in Quintilian.16 Here, in order to talk of the concept of solitude, fromCicero to Petrarch, we would have to open parentheses thatwould far exceed the framework of the topic.

the future. As Kerr says, Quintilian’s nocturnal

withdrawal brought out the ethos of an ambience that

was not less distanced from the everyday hubbub of the

town or less complex than that of the classical

pastoral locus amoenus, in which the natural landscape

inspired composition and the performance of poetry.17

Quintilian’s lucubratio is logically located in the

cubiculum, which stresses the role of the writer as

pater familias, as do the subtle analyses of the moral

topography contained in the Roman domus: the link

between it and the master was always the cubiculum18.

The uncommon amalgam of private, one might say even

secretive intellectual activity of individual and the

interest of the public good is described by the

characteristic paradigm of otium and solitudo, which was

expressed by Scipio Africanus, claiming that he was

never so much involved in public activities as when he

was taking his ease.19

17 J. Kerr, »Nocturnal Writers in Imperial Rome«: 214; ibid,320.18 See also a study that discusses the importance of thecubiculum for the development of private devotion in LateAntique Rome: Kristina Sessa, »Christianity and theCubiculum: Spiritual Politics and Domestic Space in LateAntique Rome «, Journal of Early Christian Studies 15/2 (2007): 171-204. 19 (Cic. Off. 3.1 = Cato Hist. frag. 127 Leo: numquam se minusotiosum esse quam cum otiosus, nec minus solum quam cum solus esset.) See:J. Kerr, »Nocturnal Writers in Imperial Rome« : 216.

Going back to the Renaissance, we shall return to

Marulić, who used the concept twice for his works,

calling De Bene Vivendi “qualescunque lucubrationes”,

while in the dedication to Quinquaginta parabolae he asks

canon of Split and his good friend and fellow townsman

Thomas Niger “that in giving an opinion about my little

work (ad proferendam de nostra lucubratiuncula sententiam) you be

guided only by pure sincerity of heart to all,

particularly to those who you wish in every respect to

be correct and faultless”.20 Marulić has previously

stated the promptings for hoc opusculum, as the feeling

that the recommendation of such a highly valued person

would secure protection “from every attack of all

others” (satis me ab omni aliorum iniuria tutum putabo).

The lucubratio formula appears here, of course, together

with the formula of praise and the formula of

protection. If vigilantia is one of the virtues that is

required from rulers and other public officers, then

another reason for the use of the same word would be

the irrelevance of the time of the writing. (The first,

naturally, would be that a lucubratiuncula is an

opusculum.) Marulić undoubtedly does have this virtue,

and it need not surprise us to read in Božičević’s Life

of Marko Marulić of Split:

20 Quam ob rem rogo, ad proferendam de nostra lucubratiuncula sententiamnihil aliud Te moveat nisi syncera illa animi Tui in omnes fides, et in eos praecipue,quos omni ex parte correctos emendatosque fieri exoptas.

While still a boy he showed exceptional talent, inhis youth he never gave himself over (as othersusually do) to pleasures of the flesh, but spentall his time learning, in night work tocandlelight; he was dear to all, to all likeable,loved by all. 21

Famed for his works in Croatian and Latin, in his

dedicatory epistle to Toma Niger, pleased at his

appointment as bishop of Skradin and dedicating to him

the Dialogus de laudibus Herculis (Dialogue about the praises

of Hercules), Marulić was to express his delight with

the books of Erasmus that the friend had sent to him.

He says that he has greatly enjoyed reading them for

since the time of St Jerome there had been no

theologians in the country of such beauty of refined

expression. Marulić and Erasmus shared the same

admiration for the first translator of the Bible, which

21 Frane Božićević, Život Marka Marulića Splićanina, Split, 2007, astranslated by Bratislav Lučin. In the work »Marulićevilatinski paratekstovi«, Colloquia Maruliana XII (2003): 59-72,Gorana Stepanić quotes both of the statements in whichMarulić calls his own work lucbratio, night work, the fruit ofvigil and work by candlelight, thus bringing out his ownindustry. Dealing with the epistolary dedications, theauthor precisely determines this dedication as an “openletter”, citing the usual elements of a text so formalised:the cause of the writing of the work, a short synopsis,justification of the choice of top, mention of models and oon. She also quotes other commonplaces in Marulić’s Latinepistles. Marulić was thus a learned inheritor of a longtradition of Latin prose epistolary forewords, or prefatorydedications, a tradition that was established in LaterAntiquity and that had formulated the commonplaces that heused.

they themselves were devotedly involved in, just as

both of them in terms of the same vocations shared the

title of Christian Humanists. It is certain that both

of them took the concept of the lucubratio from Jerome:

he was one of the main mediators of the topoi of

ancient rhetoric that came into the literature of the

Christian Middle Ages. Talking of translating the Book

of Judith (praef. Vulg. Iudith, p. 213, 7) Jerome uses the

diminutive lucubratiuncula i.q. lucubratio brevior vel minoris momenti

sc. dedita lectioni, studiis, scriptioni (Thesaurus):

sepositis occupationibus, quibus vehementer arctabar, huic (i.e. the

Book of Judith) unam lucubratiunculam dedi, magis sensum e

sensu, quam ex verbo ad verbum transferens.

In the famed letter to Eustochia Jerome recommends her

to wake and to pray at nights.22 This was the lucubratio

cum respectu orandi: Quin potius semper ingemina: "Super lectum meum

in noctibus quaesivi quem dilexi anima mea" (Ad Eustochium, 17).22 We should mention that Minucius Felix, Oct. 8, says ofChristians that they are »latebrosa et lucifugax natio«,Eric. R. Doods, Pogani i kršćani u epohi tjeskobe (Croatian transl. ofPagan and Christian in an Age of Anxiety), Split 1999: 124 It is knownthat, as a result of such recommendations, the CatholicChurch introduced nocturnes into the breviary, sung in thesilence of the night. (Ante lucanos ad canendum Christout deo, says Pliny the Younger, and Tertullian says thatthey met ante lucem or antelucanis coetibus). Jerome’s epistle wasused in the organisation of convents after the Council ofAachen in 817. The Clares, known for their strict enclosure,had within their rules the mentioned obligatory “nighthours”: at night they rose, put on their robes and preparedfor prayer. This form of piety became a specific feature ofthe order.

In addition he repeats everywhere: “on my bed at night

I sought what delighted my soul”

And then: Esto cicada noctium. Lava per singulas noctes lectum tuum,

in lacrimis stratum tuum riga, vigila etfiere sicut passer in solitudine.

The cicada is, as one that sings both day and night, a

true model for Eustochia. And Jerome’s concept of

lucubrationes clearly does not follow just Cicero but

draws even more probably on the images of the Old

Testament. In the Song of Songs these are the words of

the betrothed that seeks her bridegroom:

By night on my bed I sought him whom my soul

loveth.

The recommendation to Eustochia has its source in Psalm

102 (101) where the fainting man in trouble pours out

his woes before Jehovah:

Similis factus sum pellicano solitudinis;

factus sum sicut nycticorax in domicilio.

Vigilavi, et factus sum sicut passer solitarius in tecto.

I am like a pelican of the wilderness: I am likean owl of the desert.

I watch, and am as a sparrow alone upon the housetop

Lucubratio as term, of course, was often used for

Christian prayers, and it still has a powerful

religious charge. Jan Ziolkowski, on the other hand,

has shown that the lucubratio belongs to a broad network

of types of nocturnal inspiration such as the

“Christian rumination” and some of the Celtic traditions

in the composition of bardic poetry.23

Erasmus too, as we have said, took over from Jerome the

expression lucubratio. It was in the last two decades of

his life a favourite word, and he used it twice in the

titles of his works: Lucubratiunculae aliquot (Antwerpen,

1503) and Lucubrationes (Strasbourg, Schurer 1515). The

first collection, Some Short Lucubrations was published in

the Theodorica Martensa, a miscellany of short studies on

religious topics, and suggests that the author wrote

them “to the light of the oil lamp”. The central part

of this volume is the Enchiridion militis Christiani (Manual of

the Christian Soldier). In fact, they are letters to a

friend, with instructions on how to live the Christian

life, how to recognise the dangers for the spirit, and

how to put them aside.

A less famous but not less interesting work of Erasmus’

early theology is the Disputatiuncula de taedio, pavore, tristicia

Iesu, in which he publishes an expanded version of the

letters he had sent his friend John Colet, discussing

23 J. M. Ziolkowski, »Classical Influences on Medieval LatinViews of Poetic Inspiration«, Latin Poetry and the Classical Tradition:Essays in Medieval and Renaissance Literature, ed. P. Goodman & O.Murray, 15-38. Oxford 1990: 19-21 (quote from p. 20); seealso J. Kerr, »Nocturnal Writers in Imperial Rome« : 240.

with them the causes of Christ’s agony in the Garden of

Gethesemane.24

Erasmus’ ample correspondence is full of the expression

lucubrationes. Among his best friends, he had two famous

printers, Johannes Frobenius and Aldus Manutius.25 To

Aldus he writes: Existimarim lucubrationes meas immortalitate

donatas, si tuis excusae formulis in luce exierint, maxime minutioribus illis

omnium nitidissimis.

Without entering any more widely into this problem

area, we should say that the ancient writers were happy

to give very general titles, such as Tusculanae

disputationes, Noctes Atticae.26. Pliny the Elder wrote about

this ironically in the Natural History referring to the

titles of the Greeks. Because of the titles

Cornucopiae, Violets, Love Poems, Muses, Meadows (of course,

this is some Florilegium), he says: you could lose a

wager, for when you open the book, you will find only a

void. He says that the Roman titles of works are more

24 For more of this see: Daniel T. Lochman, »Colet andErasmus: Disputatiuncula and the Controversy of Letter andSpirit«, Sixteenth Century Journal, 20/1 (1989): 77-78.25 A characteristic title from Aldus as publisher is, forexample: Omnes M. Tulli Ciceronis Orationes DoctissimorumVirorum Lucubrationes Accuratae in Unum Volumen Collectae,Locisque Non Paucis Ad Veritatem Emendatae... Q. AsconiiPediani Patavini Commentatio Locorum Obscurorum ex PrimaOratione M. Tullii Ciceronis in C. Verrem, quae DivinatioDicitur Argumentum, Aldus Venetiis 1552.— For all this,particularly interesting is: Amiel D. Vardi, »Why AtticNights? On What's in a name«, The Classical Quarterly, 43/1(1993): 298-301.

26

serious and he cites them, perhaps also ironically:

Antiquities, Examples, Skills – although they might seem to us

equally general. The most witty is the Lucubrationes, a

work of someone whom Pliny claimed to have been a

drunk, which accounts for his name (quia Bibaculus erat et

vocatur). This was Catullus’ contemporary Marcus Furius

Bibaculus who, according to Jerome, was born in Cremona

in 103 BC. He was ridiculed for his florid, exaggerated

manner of expression. He was mentioned by Quintilian,

who said that the acerbity and sharpness of the iamb

was mirrored best in Horace and Bibaculus. 27

The lucubrationes to be found in titles can be translated

in various ways. In the modern Furius Bibaculus as

“talks by candlelight”, but best as studies or

discussions28. It became from the Renaissance on a

common manner of giving titles: for example:

Lucubrationes aliquot Laurentii Vallae ad linguam Latinae

restaurationem (1532), Aldi Manutii Romani summo viri ingenio et

singulari doctrina lucubrationes (1514), or Martini Luteri

lucubrationes in Psalmum XXI (1522)… And so finally

lucubratio is a metonym for opus lucubrando conscriptum or

instrumentum, quo utuntur lucubrantes ( i.q. nocturna lumina).

27 Marcus Fabius Quintilianus, Obrazovanje govornika (= Educationof an Orator), tr. P. Pejčinović, Sarajevo 1967: 388.2829 Thus Branimir Glavičić in his translation of these worksof Marulic does not make a difference between the expressionhoc opusculum and lucubratiuncula, translating them both by theword “little work”.

A the beginning of his celebrated work De regno Dalmatiae

et Croatiae (in a preface called Lectori Dalmatae veritatem

amanti, to the Dalmatia Reader, the lover of truth) the

father of Croatian historiography Ivan Lučić (Iohannes

Lucius) says that he wanted to found his writing on

primary historical sources, thinking that historical

documents were more credible than any work of history.

Since he could not follow the unbroken thread of

history, he says in the title that he did not want to

put “history” rather “investigation” aware that any

synthesis would be premature, that he had written a

work that was a “work in progress”, however copious it

might be.

De Regno, that then unparalleled testimonium amoris patriae,

was completed in 1662, but the printing hung fire, and

when he received the first edition (Amsterdam, 1666) he

was not pleased. (He was sorry, among other things, for

example, that Johannese Blaeu had not printed the

dedication to Ban Petar Zrinski on the map Illyricum

hodiernum.) But for us what is interesting is the

apparently slight change of the greeting that Blaeu

sent to Lučić in the second edition of 1668. While in

the first edition we can find the sentence: sed praecipue

eam mihi notam facere cum lucubrationes tuas praestantissimas, quibus

Patriae tuae illustrissimae monumenta, iam dudum densis obvoluta

tenebris, in lucem protaxisti, typis meis exorandas obtulisti, instead

of lucubrationes there is indagationes tuas Dalmaticas. Or in

the translation of Bruna Kuntić-Makvić who drew my

attention to this place: “But in particular you wished

that I know it (friendship) when you offered to have

printed in my printing works your Dalmatian research,

with which you brought to the light of day the

monuments of your worthy homeland, long since covered

in thick darkness.”

It is clear that Lučić thought the expression

lucubrationes insufficiently precise, the more so that

with this by now very vague topos in a way the

comprehensiveness of the scientific exploit into which

he had invested all his forces would be in a sense

underrated.29

How today can we imagine night in Antiquity? Six ante

meridian hours, six post meridian hours to the setting

sun, and twelve at night. In daytime, the sundial

would more or less show the time. But at night? The

number of burned down candles? The measures of oil

consumed in the lamps? The number of tales told of

night time tale-tellers or sheets of paper covered in

ink? Many were awake: the astronomers measured the

sky, the pater familias cast his auspices, authors were

wresting from the night moments for their precious

writings, generals were hatching plans, emperors taking

care for empires.

29 I thank, not at all at the end, Marko Grčić and BratislavLučin, also night writers, who found time to read the finalversion of this article and helped me with invaluableadvice.

Egon Friedell says that “in a world without a dial, in

which there was never a bell and in which the pendulum

did not strike, in which no one had a watch in his

pocket and no one knew what hour had struck, there is

something spectral for us.” But I believe that people

of Antiquity, indeed Friedell himself, would find

today’s night that too, the city sky that is without

stars, the land without fireflies, the eternal day in

which the ants do the third shift.

The time of day was created by God himself, thought

Ambrose, so that man should be delivered from boredom.

The writers we have been concerned with here did not

know of this concept: they, waking, brought the words

lucubrare and lucubrate from real life into the life of

literature.