Giovanni Pontano, Commentationes in centum sententiis Ptolemaei

With more than two hundred extant manuscripts, Pseudo-Ptolemy’s Centiloquium undoubtedly is one of the most popular works of Western Latin astrology. The Commentationes in centum sententiis Ptolemaei is an astrological work in two books in which Giovanni Pontano provides an extensive commentary on the Centiloquium along with his own translation of the original text from Greek. The first book is addressed to the Duke of Urbino, Federico da Montefeltro, and the second one to Pontano’s close friend and member of the Neapolitan Academy Pietro Golino (Petrus Compater). Pontano undertook the work in 1477 and kept supplementing and revising it until 1490. The Commentationes had a substantial impact on the astrological literature of the 15^th-17^th centuries. Published posthumously in 1512 by Pietro Summonte ‒ but previously widespread through a noteworthy manuscript tradition ‒ it was reprinted over twenty times until 1674 and became the standard Latin translation of the Centiloquium. While ‒ together with the De rebus coelestibus ‒ it represents the most challenging of Pontano’s astrological prose, up to date, the Commentationes has never been published in a critical edition nor studied in its textual history.

Part I. Introduction

Chapter 1. Pseudo-Ptolemy’s Centiloquium: a text of controversial origin
The Greek tradition: an historiographical problem
The Arabic tradition
The medieval Latin tradition
The Byzantine tradition
The reception of the Centiloquium in 15th-century Italy

Chapter 2. The Commentationes in centum sententiis Ptolemaei by Giovanni Pontano
2.1 The author
2.2 Title
2.3 Dating
2.4 Sources
2.5 Influence of the Commentationes

Chapter 3. The textual tradition
3.1 The manuscripts and the main prints
3.2 The history of the text
3.2.1 The first stage of the text: Ω1 (Va + W) 1473-1474
3.2.2 The second stage of the text: Ω2 (U + Ve) 1477
3.2.3 The third stage of the text: Ω3 (Va’s Book II) after 1477 before 1479
3.2.4 The fourth stage of the text: Ω4 (Ven + T) 1479, and the codices descripti FNL
3.2.5 The fifth stage of the text: Ω5 (W2 + Vb+D) after 1479 before 1490
3.2.6 The last stage of the text: Ω6 (R) 1490
3.3 A synoptic picture of the content of the different textual stages
3.4 A diagram graphing the history of the text
3.5 Conclusion

Chapter 4. Editing Methods

Part II. Critical Edition

Glossary of Selected Words
Bibliography
Indices