Works
It is on his skill as a reader of palimpsests that Mai's fame chiefly rests. To the period of his residence at Milan belong:
- fragments of Cicero's judicial orations Pro Scauro, Pro Tullio, Pro Flacco, and his In Clodium et Curionem, De aere alieno Milonis, and De rege Alexandrino (1814)
- M. Corn. Frontonis opera inedita, cum epistolis item ineditis, Antonini Pii, Marci Aurelii, Lucii Veri et Appiani (1815; new ed., 1823, with more than 100 additional letters found in the Vatican library)
- portions of eight speeches of Quintus Aurelius Symmachus
- fragments of Plautus
- the oration of Isaeus' De hereditate Cleonymi
- the last nine books of the Antiquities of Dionysius of Halicarnassus, and a number of other works.
- Cicero's De Re Publica, published as M Tullii Ciceronis de republica quae supersunt, Rome, 1822
- Scriptorum veterum nova collectio, e Vaticanis codicibus edita in 1825-1838
- Classici scriptores e Vaticanis codicibus editi in 1828-1838
- Spicilegium Romanum in 1839-1844 (Tomus III, Tomus IX)
- Patrum nova bibliotheca in 1845-1853
His edition of the celebrated Codex Vaticanus Graecus 1209, completed in 1838, but not published (ostensibly the ground of inaccuracies) till four years after his death (1858), is the least satisfactory of his labours and was superseded by the edition of Vercellone and Cozza (1868), which itself leaves much to be desired.
Although Mai was not as successful in textual criticism as in the decipherment of manuscripts, he will always be remembered as a laborious and persevering pioneer, by whose efforts many ancient writings have been rescued from oblivion.
Read more about this topic: Angelo Mai
Famous quotes containing the word works:
“Do not worry about the incarnation of ideas. If you are a poet, your works will contain them without your knowledgethey will be both moral and national if you follow your inspiration freely.”
—Vissarion Belinsky (18101848)
“Night and Day ve been tampered with,
Every quality and pith
Surcharged and sultry with a power
That works its will on age and hour.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (18031882)
“Piety practised in solitude, like the flower that blooms in the desert, may give its fragrance to the winds of heaven, and delight those unbodied spirits that survey the works of God and the actions of men; but it bestows no assistance upon earthly beings, and however free from taints of impurity, yet wants the sacred splendour of beneficence.”
—Samuel Johnson (17091784)