Reception in the Netherlands and Flanders

[Justus Lipsius (1547-1601)] The University of Leiden owns a copy of Pio’s Sidonius edition, Basel 1542, with notes by Justus Lipsius (Special Collections 765 C 1).


 

Adriaan van Schrieck (1560-1621) wrote Van t’beghin der eerster volcken van Europen, in-sonderheyt vanden oorspronck ende saecken der Neder-Landren … verre te boven gaen den Griecken ende Romainen in ouderdom ende spraecke (Ypres, 1614) [‘On the beginnings of the first peoples of Europe, in particular on the origin and the history of the natives of the Low Countries [that] they surpass by far the Greeks and the Romans in antiquity and language’]. Wilfully etymologizing all ancient names, tracing them back to a supposedly Dutch/ Flemish origin, van Schrieck gives a patriotic account of the history of the Low Countries and ‘the world’s oldest language’. He repeadly cites, and translates, Sidonius, especially the Panegyrics, for instance in this passage in book 18, chapter 41 (p. 436), where he interprets Sidon. Carm. 5.211-24, the episode of Aëtius’ ambush against the Franks in Artois, at Vicus Helena (it is still not known where exactly this was: van Schrieck mentions the identification by some with Hedin, at the same time happily deriving Helena from ‘Dutch’ Hel-inne, ‘Sloping-inward’, Declivitas-interior as he says). The complete, downloadable text is on Google Books.


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Gerard Vossius (1577-1649) repeatedly cites Sidonius as an authority on matters poetical in Poeticarum institutionum libri tres; he used Sirmond’s edition (see edition of Vossius’ book with translation and commentary by Jan Bloemendal, Leiden, 2010).


 

Hugo de Groot (1583–1645), a Dutch legal scholar, owned a copy of Sidonius and used it in his commentary on the Lex Burgundionum. The copy in question is Sirmond’s first edition of 1614; the passage concerned is Ep. 4.24 Non est, cur dicere incipias, Habeo consortes, nec dum celebrata divisio est; … etc.

Source: P.J. Verdam, Een commentaar van Hugo de Groot op de Lex Romana Burgundionum, Amsterdam, 1963, p. 57 (PDF here).


Hugo de Groot

[Constantijn Huygens (1596-1687)] Catalogus der Bibliotheek van Constantyn Huygens verkocht op de Groote Zaal van het Hof te ‘s-Gravenhage 1688, ‘s- Gravenhage: Van Stockum, 1903. Section ‘Libri miscellanei in octavo’ #418: Sol. Sidonii Apollinaris Opera 1552/1598-.