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ANA

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Originally appearing in Volume V01, Page 903 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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ANA , a Latin neuter plural termination appropriated to various collections of the observations and criticisms of eminent men, delivered in conversation and recorded by their See also:

friends, or discovered among their papers after their decease. Though the See also:term Ana is of comparatively See also:modern origin, the introduction of this See also:species of See also:composition is not of See also:recent date. It appears, from d'Herbelot's Bibliotheque Orientate, that from the earliest periods the Eastern nations were in the See also:habit of preserving the See also:maxims of their sages. From them the practice passed to the Greeks and See also:Romans. See also:Plato and See also:Xenophon treasured up and recorded the sayings of their See also:master See also:Socrates; and See also:Arrian, in the concluding books of his Enchiridion, now lost, collected the casual observations of See also:Epictetus. The numerous apophthegms scattered in See also:Plutarch, See also:Diogenes Laertius and other writers, show that it was customary in See also:Greece to preserve the colloquially expressed ideas of illustrious men. It appears that See also:Julius See also:Caesar compiled a See also:book of apophthegms, in which he related the bons mots of See also:Cicero; and See also:Quintilian informs us that a freedman of that celebrated wit and orator composed three books of a See also:work entitled De Jocis Ciceronis. We are told by Suetonius that See also:Caius Melissus, originally the slave but afterwards the freedman and librarian of See also:Maecenas, collected the sayings of his master; and Aulus See also:Gellius has filled his Nodes Atticae with anecdotes which he heard from the eminent scholars and critics whose society he frequented in See also:Rome. But though vestiges of Ana may be traced in the classical ages, it is only in modern times that they have come to be regarded as constituting a distinct species of composition, comprising See also:literary anecdotes, See also:critical reflexions, and See also:historical incidents, mingled with the detail of bons mots and ludicrous tales. The term Ana seems to have been applied to such collections as far back as the beginning of the 15th See also:century. See also:Francesco See also:Barbaro, in a See also:letter to See also:Poggio, says that the See also:information and anecdotes which Poggio and Bartolommeo of See also:Montepulciano had picked up during a literary excursion through See also:Germany will be called Ana: " Quemadmodum See also:mala ab Appio e Claudia gente Appiana, et pira a Mallio Malliana cognominata sunt, sic haec literarum quae vestra ope et See also:opera Germania in Italiam deferentur, aliquando et Poggiana et Montepolitiana vocabuntur." Poggio See also:Bracciolini, to whom this letter is addressed, and to whom the See also:world is indebted for the preservation of so manyclassical remains, is the first eminent See also:person of modern times whose jests and opinions have been transmitted to posterity. Poggio was secretary to five successive popes.

During the pontificate of See also:

Martin V., who was chosen in 1417, Poggio and other members of the See also:Roman See also:chancery were in the habit of assembling in a See also:common See also:hall adjoining the Vatican, in See also:order to converse freely on all subjects. Being more studious of wit than of truth, they termed this apartment Buggiale, a word which Poggio himself interprets Mendaciorum Officina. Here Poggio and his friends discussed the See also:news and See also:scandal of the See also:day; communicated entertaining anecdotes; attacked what they did not approve (and they approved of little); and indulged in the utmost See also:latitude of satiric remark, not sparing even the See also:pope and cardinals. The jests and stories which occurred in these unrestrained conversations were collected by Poggio, and formed the See also:chief materials of his Facetiae, first printed, according to de Bure, in 1470. This collection, which forms a See also:principal See also:part of the Poggiana, is chiefly valuable as recording interesting anecdotes of eminent men of the 14th and 15th centuries. It also contains a number of quibbles or jeux de mots, and a still greater number of facetiae, idle and licentious stories. These Facetiae See also:form, upon the whole, the most amusing and interesting part of the Poggiana printed at See also:Amsterdam in 1720; but this collection also comprehends additional anecdotes of Poggio's See also:life, and a few extracts from his graver compositions. Though Poggio was the first person whose remarks and bons mots were collected under the name of Ana, the Scaligerana, which contains the opinions of See also:Joseph See also:Scaliger, was the first worked published under that appellation, and accordingly may be regarded as having led the way to that class of publications. There are two collections of Scaligerana—the Prima and Secunda. The first was compiled by a physician named See also:Francois Vertunien, sieur de Lavau, who attended a See also:family with whom Joseph Scaliger resided. He, in consequence, had frequent opportunities of See also:meeting the celebrated critic, and was in the See also:custom of committing to See also:writing the observations which dropped from him in the course of conversation, to which he occasionally added remarks of his own. This collection, which was chiefly Latin, remained in See also:manuscript many years after the See also:death of the compiler.

It was at length See also:

purchased by M. de Sigogne, who published it in 1669, under the See also:title of Prima Scaligerana, nusquam antehac edita, calling it prima in order to preserve its claim of priority over another Scaligerana, which, though published three years before, had been more recently compiled. This second work, known as Secunda Scaligerana, was collected by two See also:brothers of the name of Vassan, students of the university of See also:Leiden, of which Scaliger was one of the professors. Being particularly recommended to Scaliger, they were received in his See also:house, and enjoyed his conversation. Writing down what they had heard, particularly on historical and critical subjects, they soon made up a large manuscript See also:volume, in which, however, there was neither connexion nor arrangement of any description. After passing through various hands this manuscript came into the See also:possession of M. Daille, who for his own use arranged in alphabetical order the articles which it contained. See also:Isaac See also:Vossius, obtaining the manuscript in See also:loan from M. Daille, transcribed it, and afterwards published it at the See also:Hague, under the title of Scaligerana, sive Excerpta ex Ore Jose phi Scaligeri. This edition was full of inaccuracies and blunders, and a more correct impression was afterwards published by M. Daille, with a See also:preface complaining of the use that Vossius had made of the manuscript, which he declares was never intended for publication, and was not of a nature to be given to the world. Indeed, most literary men in that See also:age conceived that the Scaligerana, particularly the second, detracted considerably from the reputation of the See also:great See also:scholar. Joseph Scaliger, with more extensive erudition, but, as some think, less See also:genius than his See also:father Julius Caesar Scaliger, had inherited his vanity and dogmatical spirit.

Conversing with two See also:

young students, he would probably be but little cautious in the opinions he expressed, as his literary errors could not be detected or exposed. Unfortunately the See also:blind admiration of his pupils led them to regard his opinions as the responses of an See also:oracle, and his most unmerited censures as just condemnations. The Scaligerana, accordingly, contains many falsehoods, with much unworthy See also:personal abuse of the most distinguished characters of the age. In See also:imitation of the Scaligerana, a prodigious number of similar See also:works appeared in See also:France towards the end of the 17th and beginning of the 18th century. At first these collections were confined to what had fallen from eminent men in conversation; but they were afterwards made to embrace fragments found among their papers, and even passages extracted from their works and See also:correspondence. Of those which merely See also:record the conversations of eminent men, the best known and most valuable is the Meuagiana. Gilles See also:Menage was a person of See also:good sense, of various and extensive information and of a most communicative disposition. A collection of his oral opinions was published in 1693, soon after his death; and this collection, which was entitled Menagiana, was afterwards corrected and en!arged by See also:Bernard de la Monnoye, in an edition published by him in 1715. The Perroniana, which exhibits the opinions of See also:Cardinal du See also:Perron, was compiled from his conversation by C. See also:Dupuy, and published by Vossius in 1666, by the same contrivance which put him in possession of the Scaligerana. The Thuana, or observations of the See also:president de See also:Thou, have usually been published along with the Perroniana, but first appeared in 1669. The Valesiana is a collection of the literary opinions of the historiographer Adrien de See also:Valois, published by his son.

M. de Valois was a great student of See also:

history, and the Valesiana accordingly comprehends many valuable historical observations, particularly on the works of du Cange. The Fureteriana (1696) contains the bons mots of See also:Antoine Furetiere, the Academician, the stories which he was in the habit of telling, and a number of anecdotes and remarks found in his papers after his decease. The Chevraeana (1697), so called from Urbain Chevreau, is more scholarly than most works of a similar description, and probably more accurate, as it differs from the Ana proper, of which the works described above are instances, in having been published during the life of the author and revised by himself. Parrhasiana (1690–1701) is the work of See also:Jean le Clerc, a See also:professor of Amsterdam, who bestowed this appellation on his See also:miscellaneous productions with the view of discussing various topics of See also:philosophy and politics with more freedom than he could have employed under his own name. The Huetiana contains the detached thoughts and criticisms of P. D. See also:Huet, See also:bishop of See also:Avranches, which he himself committed to writing when he was far advanced in life. Huet was See also:born in 1630, and in 1712 he was attacked by a malady which impaired his memory, and rendered him incapable of the sustained See also:attention necessary for the completion of a See also:long or laborious work. In this situation he employed himself in putting his detached observations on See also:paper. These were published by the See also:Abbe d'Olivet the See also:year after his death (1722). The Casauboniana presents us with the miscellaneous observations, chiefly philological, of the celebrated Isaac See also:Casaubon. During the course of a long life that eminent commentator was in the daily practice of committing to paper anything remarkable which he heard in conversation with his friends, especially if it See also:bore on the studies in which he was engaged.

He also made annotations from day to day on the works he read, with which he connected his judgments concerning the authors and their writings. This compilation was styled Ephemerides. His Adversaria, and materials amassed for a refutation of the Ecclesiastical See also:

Annals of See also:Baronius, were bequeathed by his son Meric Casaubon to the Bodleian Library at See also:Oxford. These were shown to J. C. See also:Wolf during a visit which he paid to that university; and having been transcribed by him, were published in 1710 under the title of Casauboniana. Besides the above a great many works under the title of Ana appeared in France about the same See also:period. Thus, the opinions and conversation of See also:Charpentier, Colomesius and St Evremond were recorded in the See also:Car penteriana, Colomesiana and St Evre-moniana; and those of Segrais in the Segraisiana,—a collection formed by a person stationed behind the See also:tapestry in a house where Segrais was accustomed to visit, of which See also:Voltaire declared, " que de tons See also:les Ana c'est celui qui merite le plus d'@tre mis au rang See also:des mensonges imprimes, et surtout des mensonges insipides." The Ana, indeed, from the popularity which they now enjoyed, were compiled in such See also:numbers and with so little care that they became almost proverbial for inaccuracy. In 1743 the Abbe d'Olivet spoke indignantly of " See also:ces ana, dont le nombre se multiple impunement tous les jours a la honte de notre siecle." About the See also:middle of the 18th century, too, they were sometimes made the vehicles of revolutionary and heretical opinions. Thus the evil naturally began to cure itself, and by a reaction the See also:French Ana sank in public esteem as much below their See also:intrinsic value as they had formerly been exalted above it. Of the examples See also:England has produced of this species of composition, perhaps the most interesting is the Walpoliana, a transcript of the literary conversation of See also:Horace See also:Walpole, See also:earl of See also:Orford. Most other works which in England have been published under the name of Ana, as Baconiana, Atterburyana, &c., are rather extracts from the writings and correspondence of eminent men than memorials of their conversation.

There are some works which, though they do not See also:

bear the title, belong more strictly to the class of Ana than many of the collections which are known under that appellation. Such are the Melanges d'histoire et de litterature, published under the name of Vigneul Marville, though the work of a See also:Benedictine, d'See also:Argonne; and the Locorum See also:Communism Collectanea, es Lectionibus See also:Philippi Melanchthonis,—a work of considerable reputation on See also:account of its theological learning, and the information it communicates concerning the See also:early See also:state of the Reformed See also:Church. But of those productions which belong to the class, though they do not bear the name, of Ana, the most celebrated are the Colloquia Mensalia of See also:Luther and See also:Selden's Table-Talk. The former, which comprehends the conversation of Luther with his friends and coadjutors in the great work of the See also:Reformation, was first published in 1566. See also:Captain H. See also:Bell, who translated it into See also:English in the See also:time of the See also:Commonwealth, informs us that, an See also:edict having been promulgated commanding the works of Luther to be destroyed, it was for some time supposed that all the copies of the Colloquia Mensalia had been burned; but in 1626, on the See also:foundation of a house being removed, a printed copy was found lying in a deep hole and wrapped up in a See also:linen See also:cloth. The book, translated by Bell, and again by the younger See also:Hazlitt in 1847, was originally collected by Dr Anton Lauterbach (1502-1569) " out of the See also:holy mouth of Luther." It consists chiefly of observations and discussions on See also:idolatry, auricular See also:confession, the See also:mass, See also:excommunication, clerical See also:jurisdiction, See also:general See also:councils, and all the points agitated by the reformed church in those early periods. The Table-Talk of Selden contains a more genuine and undisguised expression of the sentiments of that eminent See also:man than we find in his more studied productions. It was published after his death by See also:Richard Milward, his See also:amanuensis, who affirms that for twenty years he enjoyed the opportunity of daily See also:hearing his discourse, and made it his practice faithfully to commit to writing " the excellent things that usually See also:fell from him." The most remarkable collection of Ana in the English See also:language —and, indeed, in any language—is to be found in a work which does not correspond to the normal type either in name or in form. In his Life of See also:Samuel See also:Johnson, LL.D., See also:Boswell relates that to his remark, a propos of French literature, " Their Ana are good," Johnson replied, " A few of them are good; but we have one book of that See also:kind better than any of them—Selden's Table-Talk." Boswell's own work, however, is incomparably See also:superior to all. J. C.

Wolf has given a history of the Ana in a preliminary discourse to his edition of the Casauboniana, published in 1710. In the Repertoire de See also:

bibliographies speciales, curieuses, et instructives, by Peignot, there is a See also:Notice bibliographique of these collections; but many of the books there enumerated consist of See also:mere extracts from the writings of popular authors.

End of Article: ANA

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