BAC 116

Johannes Reuchlin’s Scaenica progymnasmata or Henno (1498) and Jacob Spiegel’s Commentary (1512)
Neo-Latin Comedy and Transnational Learning

Jan Bloemendal (Ed.)
in Collaboration with a Seminar Group of the Ruhr University Bochum

Johannes Reuchlin’s comic Latin farce Henno (1498) is one of the best-known and most influential plays of early modern Europe. It was reprinted and translated many times and inspired other playwrights. One of the boy actors at the first performance, Jacob Spiegel, wrote an extensive commentary on the play that was published in 1512 and reprinted in 1519. Both the play itself and the commentary are transnational: the motifs of the play are drawn from French farce and Italian commedia dell’arte, and inspired others in Europe; the commentary cites texts from Italy, France, and Germany, among other countries. The present edition presents Henno, for the first time with an English translation, Spiegel’s commentary, with notes tracking the sources of the commentary, and an introduction with a bibliography of all editions.

ISBN 978-3-98940-032-0, 464 pages, 5 figs., hard cover, Euro 68,- 2024