too, disappeared long ago. An Epitome or abridgment (to about 60%) was made in medieval times, and survives complete: from this it is possible to read the missing sections, though in a disjointed form. The English polymath Sir Thomas Browne noted in his encyclopaedia Pseudodoxia Epidemica: Athenæus, a delectable Author, very various, and justly stiled by Casaubon, Græcorum Plinius. There is extant of his, a famous Piece, under the name of Deipnosophista, or Coena Sapientum, containing the Discourse of many learned men, at a Feast provided by Laurentius. It is a laborious Collection out of many Authors, and some whereof are mentioned no where else. It containeth strange and singular relations, not without some spice or sprinkling of all Learning. The Author was probably a better Grammarian then Philosopher, dealing but hardly with Aristotle and Plato, and betrayeth himself much in his Chapter De Curiositate Aristotelis. In brief, he is an Author of excellent use, and may with discretion be read unto great advantage: and hath therefore well deserved the Comments of Casaubon and Dalecampius. Browne's interest in Athenaeus reflects a revived interest in the Banquet of the Learned amongst scholars following the publication of the Deipnosophistae in 1612 by the Classical scholar Isaac Casaubon. Browne was also the author of a Latin essay on Athenaeus. By the nineteenth century however, the poet James Russell Lowell in 1867 characterized the Deipnosophistae and its author thus: the somewhat greasy heap of a literary rag-and-bone-picker like Athenaeus is turned to gold by time. Modern readers question whether the Deipnosophistae genuinely evokes a literary symposium of learned disquisitions on a range of subjects suitable for such an occasion, or whether it has a satirical edge, rehashing the cultural clichés of the urbane literati of its day. Modern edition(s) The first critical edition in accordance to the principles of classical philology was published by German scholar Georg Kaibel in 1887–1890 in the Bibliotheca Teubneriana; this three-volume set remained the authoritative text for about 120 years and the only complete critical text. Charles Burton Gulick translated the entire text into English for the Loeb Classical Library. In 2001, a team of Italian classical scholars led by Luciano Canfora (then Professor of Classical Philology, now Emeritus, University of Bari) published the first complete Italian translation of the Deipnosophistae, in a luxury edition with extensive introduction and commentary. A digital edition of Kaibel's text, with search tools