Barry Torch:
The Commentaries of Pope Pius II has a notoriously complicated history from its original writing to its original, then modern, publication - a story that really deserves its own blogpost (or article... or book...) But this post isn't going to discuss that entire manuscript history, filled with shenanigans, censorship, dismissal, and discovery. That's for another day. Rather, these are the sources that Katie and I will be using for our read through the Commentaries of Pope Pius II.
GIF: An old printed book with pages flipping from right to left to show snippets of text. Books! Not quite The Commentaries, but most books are good books.
There are two accessible editions of The Commentaries to modern English readers:
1) The I Tatti Renaissance Library Editions, seen here. This edition, part of the I Tatti Renaissance Library, is a Latin/English facing edition, similar to the Loeb series for Greek and Roman classics, but for Renaissance texts and literature. God bless the I Tatti Series! Under the general editorship of Dr. James Hankins (Harvard), Dr. Margaret Meserve at the University of Notre Dame is the current editor and translator of Pope Pius II's work, and she does such an impeccable job. As of 10/5/2020, though, the series only goes up to the end of Book 7 of the Commentaries - they're in progress!
2) Dr. Florence Gragg and Leona Gabel translated, edited, and annotated The Commentaries for the Smith College Studies in History journal series from 1915 to 1957. The WorldCat link is here. Gragg and Gabel's text, presenting the complete Commentaries, may be hard to find, but it was the first translation of the text into English. Because of that, their translation has been picked up on by the Folio Society, and other small publishers, to present smaller editions of Pius' text. The most famous, Memoirs of a Renaissance Pope, can be found in many small bookstores, or online!
Editions of the Commentaries are widely available in other languages, but these are the two that will be used for our particular journey through Pius' most famous work. A post on good studies, biographies, and analyses of Pius II and his world is forthcoming, but as the Renaissance humanists used to preach, we must go ad fontes - to the original sources! So that's what we're doing - feel free to join us!