Title: In T. Lucretii Cari De rerum natura libros commentarius
First published: 1850
Description: The <i>Commentarius</i> (Commentary) is the second volume of Karl (Carl) Lachmann's first edition of Lucretius, <i>De rerum natura</i> (Lucretius wrote in the Late Republican Rome, at the middle of 1st century b.C., the most important Latin work about Epicurus' <i>Perì phýseōs</i> and among the most important ones, with the <i>Georgics</i> of Virgil, in Latin didactic poetry). Lachmann was one of the leading German classicists (and as a distinguished Germanist made relevant editions, too, of many Middle High German poets: see also <a href="http://openlibrary.org/works/OL13156554W/Karl_Lachmann_eine_Biographie/" title="Title"><i>Karl Lachmann. Eine Biographie</i></a>, by Martin Julius Hertz, 1851). The two books were the principal occupation of his live from 1845 and are the founding work of 19th century classical philology and modern textual criticism; while drawing the stemma of the older extant MSS of Lucretius with a rigidly scientific recensio Lachmann succeeded in tracing back the lost archetype of the <I>De rerum natura</i> (written during the Carolingian Renaissance) and developed the method which still today is named from him (Lachmann's method, or Lachmannsche Methode: see Sebastiano Timpanaro, <a href="http://openlibrary.org/works/OL11382656W/La_genesi_del_metodo_del_Lachmann/" title="Title"><i>La genesi del metodo del Lachmann</i></a>, Firenze 1963, and many other revised editions; English ed. <a href="http://openlibrary.org/works/OL3160621W/The_genesis_of_Lachmann's_method" title="Title"><i>The genesis of Lachmann's method</i></a>, Chicago 2005; French ed. <a href="https://openlibrary.org/works/OL17316768W/La_Genèse_de_la_méthode_de_Lachmann._Traduction_française_par_Aude_Cohen-Skalli_et_Alain_Segonds" title="Title"><i>La Genèse de la méthode de Lachmann</i></a>, Paris 2016). 
A second, revised edition (both the text of Lucretius and the Commentary) was published in 1855.
Subjects: Classical philology, German philology, History and criticism, Criticism, Textual, Textual criticism, Criticism and interpretation, Lachmann's Method, Latin didactic poetry, Ancient Philosophy, Epicurus, Epicureans (Greek Philosophy), Epicureanism in Rome
People: Titus Lucretius Carus, Karl Lachmann (1793-1851), Martin Julius Hertz, Sebastiano Timpanaro
LC classification: PA6484 .L3 1850