Ciceros De officiis im humanistischen Schulunterricht – Hieronymus Wolf und sein besonderer Kommentar (1563)

Hieronymus Wolf (1516–1580), rector at the Gymnasium of Augsburg and city librarian, was one of the most prominent Classicists of the 16th century. His work deserves more scholarly attention than it has hitherto received. His editions, accompanied by commentaries and translations, of the Greek orators Isocrates, Demosthenes and Aeschines as well as of Byzantine authors were outstanding. Nicolaus Reusner called him a “philologus incomparabilis”. Laudatory poems on him and his epitaphs are analyzed in this article. He was a student of Melanchthon and a Protestant, his books were placed on the Index librorum prohibitorum, but nevertheless read and esteemed by Catholics, too. Cicero was his favorite author. His voluminous and significant commentary on De officiis, a result of his teaching Latin, is unique among the interpretations of that work. It does not only contain the usual ingredients of a commentary, but is also discussing the truth of its statements. Wolf employed it both to present and to promote a humanist education in his own time.