Edition of Garet.
In 1679 appeared, in two volumes folio, the great Rouen edition by François Jean Garet (of the Congregation of S. Maur), which has ever since been the standard edition of the works of Cassiodorus. Garet speaks of collating several MSS. of various ages for the text of this edition, especially mentioning 'Codex S. Audoeni' (deficient for Books [5], [6], and [7] of the 'Variae'), 'et antiquissimae membranae S. Remigii Remensis' (containing only the first four books of the same collection). A codex which once belonged to the jurist Cujacius, and which had been collated with Accurtius' text in 1575 by a certain Claude Grulart, seems to have given Garet some valuable readings by means of Grulart's notes, though the codex itself had disappeared. Garet's edition was re-issued at Venice in 1729, and more recently in Migne's 'Patrologia' (Paris, 1865), of which it forms vols. 69 and 70.
Forthcoming Edition by Meyer.
There can be little doubt, however, that all these editions will be rendered obsolete by the new edition which is expected to appear as a volume of the 'Auctores Antiquissimi' in the Monumenta Germaniae Historica. The editor is Professor Wilhelm Meyer, of Munich. The work has been for some years announced as near completion, but I have not been able to ascertain how soon it may be expected to appear.
Supposed fragment of orations.
Finally, I must not omit to notice the fragments of an oration published by Baudi de Vesme in the Transactions of the Royal Academy of Sciences at Turin (1846). Those fragments, which were found in a palimpsest MS. of the Acts of the Council of Chalcedon, were first published in 1822 by Angelo Mai, who was then disposed to attribute them to Symmachus (the elder), and to assign them to the early part of the fifth century. On reflection, however, he came to the conclusion that they were probably the work of Cassiodorus, and formed part of a panegyric addressed to Theodoric. This theory appears now to meet with general approval. The style is certainly very similar to that of Cassiodorus; but, as will be inferred from the doubt as to their origin, there is little or nothing in these scanty fragments which adds anything to our knowledge of the history of Theodoric.
Life by Garet.
To the literature relating to Cassiodorus the most important contribution till recent times was the life by Garet prefixed to his edition of 1679. I cannot speak of this from a very minute investigation, but it seems to be a creditable performance, the work of one who had carefully studied the 'Variae,' but unfortunately quite misleading as to the whole framework of the life of Cassiodorus, from the confusion which it makes between him and his father, an error which Garet has probably done more than any other author to perpetuate.
Life by St. Marthe.
The life by Garet was paraphrased in French by Denys de Ste. Marthe ('Vie de Cassiodore,' Paris, 1695), whose work has enjoyed a reputation to which it was not entitled on the ground either of originality or accuracy, but which was probably due to the fact that the handy octavo volume written in French was accessible to a wider circle of readers than Garet's unwieldy folio in Latin. A more original performance was that of Count Buat (in the 'Abhandlungen der Kurfürstlichen Bairischen Akademie der Wissenschaften,' Munich, 1763); but this author, though he pointed out the cardinal error of Garet, his confusion between Senator and his father, introduced some further gratuitous entanglements of his own into the family history of the Cassiodori.