Neo-Latin

[Beorn Wulfganger]

Hello, first time posting here.

I've been looking through the various rhetorical handbooks produced in the Renaissance as part of the paper I'm currently writing, but for one reason or another, I've become stuck over the wording of one of the headings of Reinhard Lorich's Latin imitation/translation of Aphthonius's Progymnasmata. Part of the problem could well be the quality of the printing, coming from 1623 it's not the best. It's the heading of an example of an exercise in 'thesis' to counter Aphthonius' example of why it is good to marry.

Primi argumentum tale est; quod non ducenda fit uxor; ubi Thesis contrariis Aphthonii locis tractata, studio exerciti[i]

The phrase that I'm finding tricky is the little tiny one right at the end 'studio exercitii'? I'm assuming it's a sort of dative of purpose (for the pursuit of proficiency?) but I thought it might be best to check.

[thesaurus]

Primi argumentum tale est; quod non ducenda fit uxor; ubi Thesis contrariis Aphthonii locis tractata, studio exerciti[i]

The phrase that I'm finding tricky is the little tiny one right at the end 'studio exercitii'? I'm assuming it's a sort of dative of purpose (for the pursuit of proficiency?) but I thought it might be best to check.

Salve Beorn,

I think there might be some transcription errors here. Do you happen to have a link to a picture of the page, perhaps via Google Books?

I would expect the following:
"Primum argumentum tale est; quod non ducenda sit uxor. ubi Thesis contrariis Aphthonii locis tractata, studio exercitii."
"The first argument is such, that one ought not marry [literally, that a wife is not to be taken/lead]. Where the thesis is discussed with/by the opposed/contrary passages of Aphthonius, for the purpose of practice [in writing/disputing]"

I believe you're right about the dative of purpose for "studio."
In older printing, S resembles our modern F, which accounts for sit/fit. Sit makes sense, because this is a gerundive phrase, and its an indirect statement (using quod), making it subjunctive.

[adrianus]

Hi and welcome, Beorn. Salvete Beorn thesaureque et gratus nobis tuus adventus, Beorn.

I would say this // Hoc propono:

Such is the argument of the first [example de "Thesium Exempla"]: that one shouldn't marry; with the Thesis discussed in respect to contrary passages of Aphthonius, from his study of the practice [of marriage/matrimoni]

or indeed as you say, Beorn, from the context
vel aliter, Beorn, ut dicis, secundum contextum

Post Scriptum
Note that the printings of the period are great. It's the reproductions for Google which can be poor.
Bonae impressiones istius aevi. Humilia saepè exempla pro Google.

[ptolemyauletes]

I was once given a piece of Latin from the early 1800s to translate by a man writing a work on astronomy. It was written by the mathematician Carl Gauss on the orbit of the recently discovered Asteroid Ceres. It was exceedingly difficult to work out, for three main reasons. The first was that Gauss was using very many words which either were non-Classical Latin words (either coined by him or by others in more modern times), or were being used in a manner quie different from Classical usage. Many of these invented words were words for scientific terms that simply did not exist or were not conceived of in Roman times.

The second issue was that I am not an astrophysicist, and I actually needed to learn a great deal about the orbit of Planets and Asteroids to even begin to make sense of what he was saying.

The third issue was that a great part of it dealt with complicated mathematics, that I could not even pretend to understand, nor could the man who had commissioned me to do the work.

Needless to say it was a struggle, but I was told that Iw as the first person to ever translate it into English. This may or may not be true, but it was an experience in any case.

The greatest of all these difficulties was the lack of a dictionary for all the neo Latin words that were used by writers and scientists in the last 500 years or so. Does anyone know of a useful source for such words?

[adrianus]

Undeviceimo saeculo istud de Ainsworth favorabilissimum inter scriptores anglicè loquentes erat. Eo semper utor.
In the 19th-century Ainsworth was very popular among English-speaking writers generally. I use it always.

and also // unâ cum http://facweb.furman.edu/~dmorgan/lexicon/silva.htm