Curiosities of the Royal Library at Dresden

478.) Commentarii a Philippo Beroaldo conditi in Asinum aureum Lucii Apuleji. Commentaries composed by Philippus Beroaldus on the Golden Ass of Lucius Apuleius. At the end it stands: Impressum Venetiis per Simonem Papiensem dictum Bivilaquam Anno Domini JESU Christi 1501. Die XXIX. Aprilis' f. Printed in Venice by Simon the Pavian, called Bivilaqua, in the year of our Lord Jesus Christ 1501, on the 29th of April.

In the judgment of Apuleius and his writings, one must walk the middle path, and indeed do justice to his philosophy and learning, but without presenting his African expressions as a model of Latin purity and noble eloquence. Beroaldus has failed greatly in this, that from him and other such writers he habituated himself to a reprehensible style of writing, which consists of unusual words, flowery and forced expressions, and heaped-up epithets, and propagated this among his students; even if he otherwise made himself well-deserving of this author through these extensive explanations. The text of Apuleius is included, as is the life of the same written by Beroaldus. In it and in the preceding preface, he creates a representation of Apuleius that does not correspond at all to the truth. He claims

that he was considered a great magician and that the story went around that he performed many miracles, even though he rejected the art of magic himself. Regarding his style, however, Beroaldus became so enamored that he cannot refrain from writing: "In our Lucius there are not a few words between the thighs a play on sexual innuendo often associated with Apuleius, by which I am more delighted than I use; but very many which I use just as much as I am delighted by. And truly, he is a most elegant innovator of words, and with such decorum and charm that nothing more decent or pleasant could be made. Finally, this ass of ours, just as he is called in word, so he is seen to be golden in fact, fashioned and composed with such wit of speech, with such cultivation, and with such elegance of not-at-all trivial words, that it could most deservedly be said of him that the Muses would have spoken in Apuleian speech, if they wished to speak Latin, etc." See regarding Apuleius, Gaddius de Scriptt. non Ecclesiasticis on non-ecclesiastical writers Vol. I, p. 33, and regarding Beroaldus, the same Gaddius ibid. p. 78, and Niceron Vol. XXV, p. 374.