1. Chapman’s Homer, ed. Allardyce Nicoll, two vols., second edition, London, 1967, volume 1 (The Iliad) p. 10. The various stages in which Chapman translated the poem are described by Nicoll on pages xiv–xvii. For Chapman’s gradual Homeric enlightenment, see my article ‘Chapman’s Discovery of Homer’,Translation and Literature, 1 (1991), pp. 26–51.
2. Nicoll,op. cit., ‘Chapman’s Discovery of Homer’,Translation and Literature, 1 (1991), p. 42. In ‘The Preface to the Reader’ of 1611 (p. 17), Chapman singles out for criticism the Latin prose version of Laurentius Valla (see below note 45 ‘Laurentii Vallae Opuscula Tria’,Sitzungsberichte der Philosophisch-Historischen Classe, Akademie der Wissenschaften, Wien, 1869, p. 371) and the version in Latin verse of the German humanist Eobanus Hessus (1488–1540),Poetarum omnium seculorum longe principis Homeri Ilias... latino carmine reddita H. Eobano Hesso interprete Basle, 1540. In his commentary, he reveals their shortcomings in specific examples on pages 319, 368–70. 389. For his criticisms of the commentators, see, for example, pages 141, 279, 403–4, and 454. On Chapman’s relation to the humanist tradition, see Frank L. Schoell,Études sur l’humanisme en Angleterre à la fin de la Renaissance, Paris, 1926; H.C. Fay, ‘Chapman’s Materials for his Translation of Homer’,Review of English Studies n.s. 2 (1951), pp. 121–8; Edward Phinney, Jr., ‘Continental Humanists and Chapman’sIliad’, Studies in the Renaissance 12 (1965), pp. 218–26; Rudolph Sühnel,Homer und die englische Humanität: Chapmans und Popes Übersetzungskunst im Rahmen der humanistischen Tradition, Tübindingen, 1958, ‘Chapman’s Discovery of Homer’, pp.46–9.
3. See Georg Voigt,Die Wiederbelebung des Classischen Altertums oder das erste Jahrhundert des Humanismus, Berlin, 2 vols., 1859 (3rd edition, Berlin, 1893; repr. [as ‘4th ed.’] Berlin, 1960)=Il Risorgimento dell’antichità classica, tr. D. Valbusa, Firenze, 1889–97 (repr. Firenze, 1968); Georg Finsler,Homer in der Neuzeit von Dante bis Goethe, Berlin, 1912; Giuseppe Toffanin, ‘Omero e il Rinascimento Italiano’,Comparative Literature 1 (1949), pp. 55–62; Howard Clarke,Homer’s Readers: An Historical Introduction to the Iliad and the Odyssey, London and Toronto, 1981. General studies do not pursue the detail; detailed studies of particular aspects of the transmission and reception of Homer (as given below) do not convey the larger picture.
4. Pierre de Nolhac,Pétrarque et l’Humanisme, 2 vols., 2nd edn., Paris, 1907 (repr. Paris, 1965), pp. 187–8. For Petrarch generally, see ‘Petrarch and the Humanist Traditions’, in:Renaissance Humanism: Foundations, Forms, and Legacy, ed. Albert Rabil, Jr., 3 vols., Philadelphia, 1988, vol. 1, pp. 71–140.
5. For textual problems, see Nicholas Mann, “The Making of Petrarch’s “Bucolicum carmen”,Italia medioevale e unmanistica 20 (1977), pp. 127–182. For the text and an English translation, see Thomas G. Bergin,Petrarch’s Bucolicum Carmen, New Haven and London, 1974. For a modern commentary and information about earlier commentaries, see Francesco Petrarca,Il Bucolicum Carmen e i suoi commenti inediti, ed. Antonio Avena, Padova, 1906, pp. 95–99 (Ekl. 1), pp. 169–175 (Anon.), and pp. 247–286 (Francesco Piendibeni); andIl ‘Bucolicum Carmen’ di Francesco Petrarca, ed. and trans. Tonino T. Mattucci, Pisa, 1970, pp. 30–44. For further discussion, see Wilfried Barner, ‘Musische und monastische Existenz: Petrarcas 1. Ekloge’, in: Walter Haug and Burghart Wachinger (eds.),Traditionswandel und Traditionsverhalten, Fortuna Vitrea. Arbeiten zur literarischen Tradition zwischen dem 13. und 16. Jahrhundert, vol. 5, Tübingen, 1991, pp. 1–23; and Aldo S. Bernardo, ‘The Crux of Petrarch’s Poetic Dilemma’,Mediaevalia 15 (1993) [for 1989], pp. 145–163, esp. 150 f.