Sidonius Apollinaris: Selected Letters now has its own page in the ‘Publications’ section of the Propylaeum portal ‘Sidonius Apollinaris’, which carries on the sidonapol.org initiative.
This page, among other things, features an overview of the letters selected for the book and a useful ‘Updates and corrections‘ paragraph, like the other publications comprised in the ‘Publications’ section: Writing to Survive, New Approaches and the Companion.
Alison John’s Learning and Power in Late Antique Gaul is published. It is available for purchase here.
Joop van Waarden’s ‘Green & Yellow’ Sidonius Apollinaris: Selected Letters is published. There is a 20% discount on this title expiring 31 March, code JOOP2026. For more information, and to order visit the Cambridge catalogue, entering the code at checkout.
Download the table of contents
Inevitably, this is also the start of a list of Addenda et corrigenda
Page 59 2nd para, line 11: add another closing parenthesis after “Intro 4.1)”.
Page 73 lemma Litteras tuas Romae positus accepi, add: “right from the start, hints at Hor. Sat. 1.5.1 accepit … Roma“.
Page 76 lines 9-10 delete “but the Peutingeriana does not indicate a postal road”.
Page 79 lemma largum suspirata proximitas, line 4: read Cremonae instead of Cremona.
Page 85 lemma triumphalibus apostolorum liminibus affusus, keyword limen, add: “cf. Hor. Sat. 1.5.99 limine sacro: whereas Horace parades his disbelief, Sidonius does the opposite”.
Manuscript Périgord 43, in the French National Library, is a volume of notes by Abbé Lespine (1757-1831) towards a Vitae sanctorum Petragorici; on f. 31 r., it contains a list of selected letters by Sidonius according to their addressees, most probably (following the order of the collection) Epp. 3.2, 3.8, 3.10, 4.21, 4.23, 4.25, 5.2, 5.4, 5.7, 5.15, 5.16, 6.12 [sic], 6.1, 6.4, 6.10, 7.1, 7.5, 7.13, 8.10, 8.12, 8.14, 9.7, 9.9 and 9.12. Lespine transcribed it, as he indicates, from Heinrich Canisius’ edition of MS Sankt Gallen 190 (see Manuscripts D105) in Antiquae lectiones, tomus V (Ingolstadt, 1604), pp. 455-56 — an edition which he also excerpted for Ruricius of Limoges and Desiderius of Cahors.
Early-modern and modern commentaries are typically found as part of editions of Sidonius’ work. There is, however, a separate manuscript series of notes towards a commentary on the Epithalamium for Ruricius and Hiberia (Carm. 10-11) by the French historiographer Étienne Baluze (1630-1718) in BNF Baluze 126. It is in several parts: ff. 172-194 on the Epithalamium (on its beginnning in particular here); ff. 195-199 quotations and various notes, possibly relating to the commentary; ff. 200-213 on de Praefatio. Interestingly, Baluze tries to solve the conundrum of the opening of the Epithalamium by interpreting Cyaneas … cautes as the capes of Rio and Antirrio, which delimit the Gulf of Corinth to the west.
At the invitation of the EHESS, Fabrizio Oppedisano (SNS Pisa) is to give four lectures in Paris, in October and November, on Late Antiquity and the Early Middle-Ages. Two bear on fifth-century Gaul: ‘L’empereur Majorien à Lyon: la vision “poétique” de Sidoine Apollinaire’ and ‘Les Burgondes et les équilibres incertains de la Gaul romaine au milieu de Ve siècle après J.-C.’.
Download flyer here.
Sidonius’ poem for the dedication of Bishop Patiens’ church in Lyon (Carm. 27 in Ep. 2.10, including the prose introduction paras 2b-4) has been translated into French and Russian by Sergey Kim as part of a two-volume box Les saints de Lyon: I Martyrs de Lyon, II Les saints évêques de Lyon, Saints bilingues vols 3-4, Ferney-Voltaire: Eikôn, 2024 (in part 2, 135-45).
Item in catalogue here
Links to two digitized manuscripts from the Herzog August Library in Wolfenbüttel have been added to the Manuscripts page.
New Appointment
Sara Fascione has been recently appointed as ‘chargée de cours’ of Latin Language and Literature at the University of Liège, in Belgium. She will work on the letter collections by Fronto, Symmachus and, of course, Sidonius, trying to cast further light on the dynamics of reception and circulation of letter collections in late antiquity.
On Monday 9 September, Matthijs Zoeter received his Doctorate in History in Ghent with a thesis titled ‘Beyond the Letter: (Self-)Presentation of Basil of Caesarea in his Letters, Letter Collection, and Manuscripts’ (supervisor Prof. Lieve Van Hoof, co-supervisor Dr Jeroen Wijnendaele).
Matthijs graduated in Nijmegen in 2019 with a thesis on the letters of Sidonius Apollinaris. His CV is here.
