Valentin Rose (classicist)

Valentin Rose ( born January 8, 1829 in Berlin, † December 25, 1916 ) was a German librarian and classical philologist. It is mainly through its spending of the Aristotle known fragments (1863, 1870, 1886).

Life

Valentin Rose came from a Brandenburg merchant and academic family who has been resident in the third generation in Berlin. His great-grandfather Valentin Rose the Elder (1736-1771) had founded in 1761 the pharmacy to the White Swan. His father Gustav Rose (1798-1873) was from 1826 Professor of mineralogy at the University of Berlin.

There Valentin Rose studied philology. During his studies, he came to Aristotle 's research, which he devoted much of his life. After receiving his doctorate in 1854 he was hired to January 8, 1855 at the Royal Library in Berlin, where he remained for half a century. From 1884 to 1885 he was acting director of the library. On April 1, 1886, he was appointed head of the manuscript department, which he developed into a leading global institution. On September 30, 1905, he retired.

At the Department of Manuscripts of the Royal Library Rose was charged with cataloging the Latin and Greek manuscripts since 1888. In addition to catalogs, which appeared from 1893 to 1905, Rose published numerous individual finds, including especially the history of medicine and hortologische writings.

Since August 1872 Rose was married to Marie Poggendorff ( born August 12, 1838), the daughter of the physicist Johann Christian Poggendorff.

Collection of Aristotle fragments

Besides his work in the library service is Rose still employed with the philosophy of Aristotle. Already in his doctoral thesis (1854 ) he had examined the arrangement and authenticity of the revealed writings of Aristotle. In the following years, Rose collected the traditional with other ancient writers fragments of Aristotle's writings. He came to the conclusion that none of the alleged fragments actually came from Aristotle. Rather have the lost writings, which they supposedly come from, never existed. According to the more than 700 pages was strong book in which he laid down his research, the title of Aristotle pseudepigraphus (1863 ).

Roses bold thesis met with strong opposition. The significance of his work was nevertheless recognized. He also won the prize essay of the Prussian Academy of Sciences ( 1866), which to supplement their basic Aristotle Complete Edition (edited by Immanuel Bekker ) auslobte a fragment collection. Rose presented the collection completed on July 6, 1867, gave her the title Aristotelis qui ferebantur librorum fragmenta which he pleaded again to his initial thesis. The Academy was initially reluctant to take on the work in their total output, but when a second call for proposals of the task ( 1869) did not return, she gave out 1870 Roses collection under the title chosen by him. The work was published in 1886 separately with the Teubner Verlag.

By the end of his life Rose maintained his thesis firmly - even after the substantial papyrus discoveries since 1891 - and remained isolated in the professional world. Nevertheless presented his fragment collection is a unique research tool, which remained unersetzt until the 20th century. The revisions of Richard Rudolf Walzer ( 1934) and WD Ross ( 1955) based largely on Roses work. A standalone revision for the first time put Olof Gigon ago (1987).

Writings

• De Aristotelis Librorum ordine et auctoritate Commentatio. Reimer, Berlin 1854 digitized.
• Aristotle pseudepigraphus. Teubner, Berlin 1863 ( Repro Graphic Reproduction. Olms, Hildesheim, among others 1971).
• Anecdota Graeca et Graecolatina. Mittheilungen from manuscripts on the history of Greek science. Two booklets. Dümmler, Berlin 1864-1870.
• Aristotelis qui ferebantur librorum fragmentary. Teubner, Leipzig 1886 ( Nachdruck. Teubner, Stuttgart, 1967).