The Commentary on Vergil of Servius Grammaticus... and Donatus

In the Saturnalia of Macrobius, set in the early 380's AD, published decades later, there appears a shy young man named Servius, who doesn't say much and is praised by his elders for his learning. 

This Servius is generally thought to be a representation, perhaps fictionalized, perhaps not, of the Servius Grammaticus who decades later authored a commentary on Vergil, which, besides grammar, rhetoric and style, also has much to say about subject matter, and besides its interest in strict relation to Vergil, is also of interest for the readings of many other authors cited.

 Or, more likely, he authored parts of the commentary, and for the rest reproduced passages written by Donatus, the grammarian probably best known today as the pagan tutor of the young Jerome. This combination of his own work and contributions from Donatus published by Servius is known as the short version. Some manuscripts contain only the short version, while others, fewer, contain a longer version. It has been conjectured that the passages added to form the longer version were the work of a learned scholar in Ireland in the 7th or 8th century. The more popular opinion today is that they are the parts of Donatus' commentary which Servius had not already used.

By this thesis, the entirety or at least the greater part  of Donatus' commentary on Vergil, long considered lost, could be reconstructed from the various versions of what traditionally had been known as Servius' commentary.

I am not going to conjecture which parts were authored by whom. What is now called [S], the version published by Servius, and [DS], the version with passages now generally agreed to have been written by Donatus and added by a later 3rd party, are each represented by manuscripts as early as the 9th century.

The makers of what many consider to be the best complete edition, published in 4-volumes by Teubner from 1881-1902, George Thilo and Hermann Hagen, present the thesis of the 7th or 8th century Irish contributor, and put what they take to be his contributions, and what is now generally believed to be the parts of Donatus not included by Servius himself, in italics. 

An edition which was hoped will be a great improvement over Thilo and Hagen is in progress from Harvard. Very slow progress. Or perhaps it is not progressing at all anymore. In 1946 (!) vol II of 5 planned volumes appeared, covering Aeneid, book I-II, and in 1948 (!) E Fraenkel is considered to have established a highly negative opinion of this volume in a very widely-respected review. Vol III, on Aeneid, books III-V, appeared in 1965. Vol V, on Aeneid books IX-XII, appeared in 2018. I have not been able to find any trace of a vol I or a vol IV, and presumably there are now planned more than the original 5 volumes.

I am not aware of any other plans for new editions of Servius. As always, if some of my readers know more than I. I'm very glad to hear from them.