This, to a large extent, Vollmer and Giarratano have accomplished.
Vollmer, too, rejects the idea invented by the humanists, that Apicius
had a collaborator, editor or commentator in the person of Cœlius
or Cælius. This name, so Vollmer claims, has been added to the book by
medieval scholars without any reason except conjecture for such
action. They have been misled by the mutilated title: Api... Cæ...;
Vollmer reconstructs this title as follows:
API[cii artis magiri- (or) opsartyti-]
CÆ[libri X]
Remember, it is the title page only that is thus mutilated. The ten
books or chapters bear the full name of Apicius, never at any time
does the name of Cœlius appear in the text, or at the head of the
chapters.
The _Archetypus_, with the book and the chapters carefully indexed and
numbered as they were, with each article neatly titled, the captions
and capital letters rubricated--heightened by red color, and with its
proper spacing of the articles and chapters must once have been a
representative example of the art of book making as it flourished
towards the end of the period that sealed the fate of the Roman
empire, when books of a technical nature, law books, almanacs, army
lists had been developed to a high point of perfection. Luxurious
finish, elaborate illumination point to the fact that our book (the
Vatican copy) was intended for the use in some aristocratic household.
THE EXCERPTS OF VINIDARIUS
And now, from a source totally different than the two important
manuscripts so much discussed here, we receive additional proof of the
authenticity of Apicius. In the _codex Salmasianus_ (cf. III,
Apiciana) we find some thirty formulæ attributed to Apicius, entitled:
_Apici excerpta a Vinidario vir. inl._ They have been accepted as
genuine by Salmasius and other early scholars. Schuch incorporated the
_excerpta_ with his Apicius, placing the formulæ in what he believed
to be the proper order. This course, for obvious reasons, is not to be
recommended. To be sure, the _excerpta_ are Apician enough in
character, though only a few correspond to, or are actual duplicates
of, the Apician precepts. They are additions to the stock of authentic
Apician recipes. As such, they may not be included but be appended to
the traditional text. The _excerpta_ encourage the belief that at the
time of Vinidarius (got. Vinithaharjis) about the fifth century there
must have been in circulation an Apicius (collection of recipes) much
more complete than the one handed down to us through Fulda. It is
furthermore interesting to note that the _excerpta_, too, are silent
about Cœlius.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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