# Andreas Divus

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**Andreas Divus** was a 16th-century [Renaissance](/source/Renaissance) scholar, about whose life little is known; in Italian he is called **Andrea Divo giustinopolitano** or **di Capodistria**, i.e. surnamed Justinopolitanus in Latin and implying an origin at [Koper](/source/Koper), now in [Slovenia](/source/Slovenia), which was named at different times Aegida, Justinopolis and Capodistria. He is remembered for his Latin translations of [Homer](/source/Homer); but this *versio Latina*, in the view of modern scholarship, may have been his editorial version of a product of a tradition going back over a century of Latin translations for "crib" (reading aid) purposes.

## Translations

His [Latin](/source/Latin) translations of [Homer](/source/Homer) published in 1537 (Venice) were extremely literal and *ad verbum* (i.e. word for word). While this was the first published version of the *Iliad* and *Odyssey* in Latin, the originality of the translation of Divus has been questioned: there are very close parallels with a much earlier translation by [Leontius Pilatus](/source/Leontius_Pilatus). They were designed to be read with the Greek originals. There were two Venice editions of 1537, by Jacob a Burgofrancho and by Melchior Sessa; they share an introduction by [Pier Paolo Vergerio](/source/Pier_Paolo_Vergerio), born at Capodistria.[1]

They were later republished by the jurist Obertus Giphanius (Hubrecht van Giffen, 1534–1604) and then used by [Jean de Sponde](/source/Jean_de_Sponde) (Spondanus) in his 1583 Homer commentary on Greek and Latin versions. The Greek was the 1572 ([Strassburg](/source/Strassburg)) edition of Giphanius.[2] What Spondanus included for Latin was not in fact the original translation of Divus, but a 1570 Geneva revision of it, with substantial changes.[3]

They were used by [George Chapman](/source/George_Chapman) in his translations of the *[Iliad](/source/Iliad)* and *[Odyssey](/source/Odyssey)*. In fact Chapman is considered to have used the Homer edition by de Sponde, which had parallel Greek and Latin text (the Latin derived from Divus), together with a Greek lexicon attributed to [Johannes Scapula](/source/Johannes_Scapula), a collaborator of the printer [Henri Estienne](/source/Henri_Estienne).[4][5] It has been said that Chapman's knowledge of Greek was not strong enough to resist entirely the Latin of Divus, with infelicitous results.[6]

Divus was also used more directly by [Ezra Pound](/source/Ezra_Pound) in his long poem *[The Cantos](/source/The_Cantos)*, in particular for the opening Canto I ("Lie quiet Divus. I mean, that is Andreas Divus, In officina Wecheli, 1538, out of Homer").[7][8][9] The end of Canto I also references Latin translations of the *[Homeric Hymns](/source/Homeric_Hymns)* published with the original translations of Divus, these being by [Georgius Dartona](/source/Georgius_Dartona) known as Cretensis (the Cretan).[10]

## Notes

1. [Robin Sowerby, *The Homeric Versio Latina* (PDF)](https://www.ideals.illinois.edu/bitstream/handle/2142/13053/illinoisclassica211996SOWERBY.pdf?sequence=2), at pp. 7-8 of PDF.

1. (in French) [http://www.cairn.info/revue-d-histoire-litteraire-de-la-france-2003-3-page-707.htm](http://www.cairn.info/revue-d-histoire-litteraire-de-la-france-2003-3-page-707.htm)

1. Sowerby

1. H. C. Fay, *Chapman's Materials for his Translation of Homer*, Review of English Studies, Volume II, Issue 5, pp. 121-128 (1951)

1. (in German) [http://www.richardwolf.de/latein/scapula.htm](http://www.richardwolf.de/latein/scapula.htm)

1. ["Chapman's Homer. The Iliad – Bryn Mawr Classical Review"](http://bmcr.brynmawr.edu/1999/1999-10-14.html)

1. [William Cookson](/source/William_Cookson_(poet)), *A Guide to the Cantos of Ezra Pound* (2001), pp. 3-4.

1. Carroll F. Terrell, *A Companion to The Cantos of Ezra Pound* (1993), p. 1.

1. ["Modern American Poetry"](http://www.english.illinois.edu/maps/poets/m_r/pound/canto1.htm)

1. ["Odyssey Convocation"](http://academic.reed.edu/humanities/hum110/odysseyconvocation2001.html)

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