- Classics, Hellenistic Literature, History of Classical Scholarship, Textual Criticism, Mycenaean, Greek Philology, and 145 moreLatin Literature, Byzantine Literature, Ancient Greek History, Textual Scholarship, Classical philology, Ancient Greek Philosophy, Ancient Greek Language, Ancient Greek Literature, Callimachus, Ancient Greek Epigraphy, Veneranda Biblioteca Ambrosiana, Epigram (Classics), Greek and Latin Epigram, Byzantine philology, Byzantine History, Patristics and Late Antiquity, Early Christianity, Heraclitus, Italian Literature, Late Antique Archaeology, Ancient Philosophy, Near Eastern Archaeology, Aristotle, Plato, Neoplatonism and late antique philosophy, Ancient Science, Bronze Age Europe (Archaeology), Ancient Theater, Roman Theater, Naevius, Minoan art and archaeology, Livius Andronicus, Ennius, Pacuvius, Bucolic Poetry, Mycenaean era archaeology, Aegean Bronze Age (Bronze Age Archaeology), Ovid, Cicero, Vergil, Horace, Ancient Greek Historiography, Dracontius, Cassiodorus, Seneca, Latin Epic, Greek and Roman Theater, Myth, Tragedy, Classical Tradition, Lucretius, Medieval Studies, Archilochus, Homer, Herodotus, Callimachus' hymns, callimachus, Aetia, Callimachus Scholia Paraliterary Papyri, Hellenistic poetry, Hellenistic Greece, Hellenistic Monarchy, Hellenistic Philosophy, Hellenistic Judaism, Eratóstenes, Patristics, Late Antiquity, History of Classical Philology, History of classical studies, Theatre, New Testament, Greek Patristics, Ancient Rhetoric and Poetics, Early Christian Papyri and Inscriptions, History of Reception of Biblical Texts, Ancient Drama, Poetics, Philosophy, Byzantine Studies, Eugenio Montale, Pindar, Eratosthenes, Aratus, Euphorion, Papyrology, Byzantine Paleography and codicology, Greek Papyrology, Latin Epigraphy, Greek Epigraphy, Greek Tragedy, Greek Epic, Greek Lyric Poetry, Ancient Greek and Roman Theatre, Fragmenta Historicorum Graecorum, Filologia Classica, Ancient Greek Music, Greek (Byzantine) Texts, Greek manuscripts, Greek Epigram, Lessicografia Greca, Dialetti Greci, Late Antique Literature, Manuscripts and Early Printed Books, Manuscript Studies, Greek Palaeography, Iambic Poetry, Istituto Papirologico G. Vitelli, Hellenistic poetry and its context, Ancient Indo-European Languages, Mycenology, Orphism, Derveni Papyrus, Greek Dialects, Classical Reception Studies, Alexandrine Poetry, Posidippus, Gnomologia and Wisdom LIterature, Hellenistic History, Dionysius Thrax, T.S. Eliot, T.s. Eliot the Waste Land, Lexicon Ambrosianum, Greek Lexicography, Septuaginta Text, Parmenides, Septuagint, Carlo Sini, Corinna, Philodemus, Philodemus' On Poems, Latin poetry, History and Classical tradition studies, Latin Language and Literature, Medieval Latin, Ecdotics, Textual Criticism and Editing, Filologia romanza, Filologia Italiana, Romance philology, Philology, Medieval Literature, Michael Choniates, John Mauropous, Presocratics, John Tzetzes, Maximus Planudes, Byzantine Schedography, and Skylitzesedit
- British Academy Postdoctoral Fellow, University of Oxford P.I. of the TORCH Network Poetry in the Medieval World Fe... moreBritish Academy Postdoctoral Fellow, University of Oxford
P.I. of the TORCH Network Poetry in the Medieval World
Fellow at Exeter College, Oxford.
Affiliated Researcher, ERC CoG MELA – The Meaning of Language, Department of Linguistics, Ghent University.edit
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The Μικρομεγάλη Ἰλιάς, the first work written by John Tzetzes, consists of 1.676 hexameters and numerous scholia. It narrates the events of the Trojan war from the conception of Paris to the fall of the city. This paper analyses the poem... more
The Μικρομεγάλη Ἰλιάς, the first work written by John Tzetzes, consists of 1.676 hexameters and numerous scholia. It narrates the events of the Trojan war from the conception of Paris to the fall of the city. This paper analyses the poem and its structure. In his later Exegesis to the Iliad, Tzetzes states that the Μικρομεγάλη Ἰλιάς allows to “learn thoroughly, in every detail” the history of the war. Following this evidence, the macro- and the microstructure of the poem are analysed in order to understand how Tzetzes structured his literary work and to what end. The last paragraph deals with the title Μικρομεγάλη Ἰλιάς.
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This article examines a peculiar form of Byzantine prosodic dodecasyllable, the holospondaic verse, which clashes with metrical norms of the pure iambs (ἴαμβος καθαρός). On the one hand, I propose that Byzantines composed prosodic... more
This article examines a peculiar form of Byzantine prosodic dodecasyllable, the holospondaic verse, which clashes with metrical norms of the pure iambs (ἴαμβος καθαρός). On the one hand, I propose that Byzantines composed prosodic dodecasyllables κατὰ πόδα, i.e. by conceiving the iambic verse as divided in feet and not in metres; this disrupts the dipodic structure of the iambic trimeter, thus enabling – albeit rarely – the possibility of holospondaics. On the other, choices of pattern in quantitative prosody depended on the interpretation of ancient poetry, even in different metres. In the present case, reflections on holospondaic hexameters influence the use of holospondaics within iambic verses. But this may hold true for the composition of any Medieval Greek prosodic poetry.
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The paper deals with a well-known epigram by Antipatros of Sidones on the poetess Erinna. I offer a re-evaluation of its contents and a new translation.
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This paper deals with Poem 80 by John Mauropous, written for the depiction of a heavenly coronation in the Monastery of Sosthenion. In this poem, Mauropous does not reveal the names of the emperors, but he simply calls them δεσπόται.
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A poem by Christopher Mitylenaios praises Lazarus for his silence on what he saw during his stay in the afterworld. This paper frames Christopher’s poem within the various traditions about Lazarus’ ‘second earthly life’ and gives an... more
A poem by Christopher Mitylenaios praises Lazarus for his silence on what he saw during his stay in the afterworld. This paper frames Christopher’s poem within the various traditions about Lazarus’ ‘second earthly life’ and gives an explanation of the praise on the basis of Biblical parallels.
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«Bisanzio e l'Occidente» 3 (2021), 11-18 = Cultura letteraria e artistica tra Bisanzio e l’Occidente, a cura di C. Castelli - M. Della Valle - A. Torno Ginnasi, Ledizioni, Milano 2021, pp. 53-63.
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«Bisanzio e l'Occidente» 3 (2021), 11-18 = Cultura letteraria e artistica tra Bisanzio e l’Occidente, a cura di C. Castelli - M. Della Valle - A. Torno Ginnasi, Ledizioni, Milano 2021, pp. 53-63.
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The Μικρομεγάλη Ἰλιάς, the first work written by John Tzetzes, consists of 1.676 hexameters and numerous scholia. It narrates the events of the Trojan war from the conception of Paris to the fall of the city. This paper analyses the poem... more
The Μικρομεγάλη Ἰλιάς, the first work written by John Tzetzes, consists of 1.676 hexameters and numerous scholia. It narrates the events of the Trojan war from the conception of Paris to the fall of the city. This paper analyses the poem and its structure. In his later Exegesis to the Iliad, Tzetzes states that the Μικρομεγάλη Ἰλιάς allows to “learn thoroughly, in every detail” the history of the war. Following this evidence, the macro- and the microstructure of the poem are analysed in order to understand how Tzetzes structured his literary work and to what end. The last paragraph deals with the title Μικρομεγάλη Ἰλιάς.
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Modern scholars have been trying to interpret the two questions asked by the crows in Callimachus’ fr. 393 Pf. in several different ways. This is partly due to the comment by Sextus Empiricus on the distich. In support of H. Kurzová’s... more
Modern scholars have been trying to interpret the two questions asked by the crows in Callimachus’ fr. 393 Pf. in several different ways. This is partly due to the comment by Sextus Empiricus on the distich. In support of H. Kurzová’s thesis, this article analyses those questions and attempts to demonstrate their function as allusion to the most well-known diodorean dialectic argument called κυριεύων λόγος. Furthermore, the source from which Sextus quoted the callimachean distich will be investigated, alongside an evaluation of his odd comment.
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Is transmitting a poem the same as transmitting any other text, or are poems like flowers, the transport of which could fatally harm their petals and waste their inner life away? When poems travel across the ages, they must be cushioned... more
Is transmitting a poem the same as transmitting any other text, or are poems like flowers, the transport of which could fatally harm their petals and waste their inner life away? When poems travel across the ages, they must be cushioned from the blows of time. This workshop explores how poems were transmitted in the Middle Ages, and, in particular, how they were ‘stored’ inside poetry books.
While nowadays writing a poetic book or compiling an anthology implies a negotiation with established traditions and criteria, the reasons behind this process in the Middle Ages may not be that apparent and still largely lie unexplored. Were they striving to gather world-embracing poetic encyclopaedias, or were they perhaps led by their individual rationales or shared narrative structures? The broader question is what ideas of medieval poetry and poetry books we can glean from these sources, where medieval poetry is transmitted and its life withheld.
We take a comparative approach; each speaker focuses on a literary tradition that flourished around the Medieval Mediterranean. Our invited speakers are Marisa Galvez (Stanford University) for Romance Languages, Niels Gaul (University of Edinburgh) for Greek, Marlé Hammond (SOAS) for Arabic and Adriano Russo (École française de Rome) for Latin.
While nowadays writing a poetic book or compiling an anthology implies a negotiation with established traditions and criteria, the reasons behind this process in the Middle Ages may not be that apparent and still largely lie unexplored. Were they striving to gather world-embracing poetic encyclopaedias, or were they perhaps led by their individual rationales or shared narrative structures? The broader question is what ideas of medieval poetry and poetry books we can glean from these sources, where medieval poetry is transmitted and its life withheld.
We take a comparative approach; each speaker focuses on a literary tradition that flourished around the Medieval Mediterranean. Our invited speakers are Marisa Galvez (Stanford University) for Romance Languages, Niels Gaul (University of Edinburgh) for Greek, Marlé Hammond (SOAS) for Arabic and Adriano Russo (École française de Rome) for Latin.
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Education as Contact: Causes, Strategies, and Effects of New Teaching Methods, 10th-11th Centuries – Ugo Mondini, University of Oxford Love in the Contact Zone – Michael Cooperson, UCLA Power and Legitimacy in Context: John... more
Education as Contact: Causes, Strategies, and Effects of New Teaching Methods, 10th-11th Centuries – Ugo Mondini, University of Oxford
Love in the Contact Zone – Michael Cooperson, UCLA
Power and Legitimacy in Context: John Kantakouzenos’ Rhetoric of Power Addressed to the Pope, the People of Constantinople, and the Mamluk Sultan – Andrea Cuomo, Ghent University
Love in the Contact Zone – Michael Cooperson, UCLA
Power and Legitimacy in Context: John Kantakouzenos’ Rhetoric of Power Addressed to the Pope, the People of Constantinople, and the Mamluk Sultan – Andrea Cuomo, Ghent University
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The workshop explores the role played by schedography in the Byzantine schooling system from the X to the XV century. It also discusses problems pertaining to the editing of schedographical texts, as well as to the collection and... more
The workshop explores the role played by schedography in the Byzantine schooling system from the X to the XV century. It also discusses problems pertaining to the editing of schedographical texts, as well as to the collection and treatment of the metalinguistic data therein contained. Information about the workshop, its programme, and the registration procedure can be found at the following link:
https://www.mela.ugent.be/teaching-and-learning-greek-in-byzantium-1/
https://www.mela.ugent.be/teaching-and-learning-greek-in-byzantium-1/
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In the Metaphrasis of the Psalms, Manuel Philes († after 1332) rewrote 98 biblical Psalms into more than 3,600 political verses. The first complete critical edition of the text will soon be published as the key outcome of an FWF-funded... more
In the Metaphrasis of the Psalms, Manuel Philes († after 1332) rewrote 98 biblical Psalms into more than 3,600 political verses. The first complete critical edition of the text will soon be published as the key outcome of an FWF-funded project at the Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften (Projekt nr. I 3544-G25; P.I.: PD Dr. Andreas Rhoby), to which Anna Gioffreda and I contributed as wissenschaftliche Mitarbeiter between 2018-2021.
My paper discusses two significant questions related to Philes’ Metaphrasis and its role in the history of the Greek Psalter during the Middle Ages. Although the occasion behind the composition of the Metaphrasis is unclear, Philes was commissioned to compose an unquestionably massive work, namely the rewriting of biblical Psalms into a metre and a language closer to contemporary literary practices. To show how Philes, as a Byzantine author, addressed this complex task, I display his metaphrastic procedure in rewriting Ps. 32, 46, and 47; for each of them, two different metaphraseis are preserved, and Philes’ choices in linguistic register, style, and metre can be easily compared. But is it possible to assess which text Philes read? As proven by the couplet of metaphraseis of Ps. 32, 46, and 47, it is hard to evaluate whether a specific feature is a literary choice by Philes or is based on a reading in his Vorlage. Nevertheless, I display some tendencies among these and other metaphraseis in relation to the readings that are attested in the textual transmission of the Greek Psalter.
Second, what was the purpose of Philes’ rewriting? The Greek Psalter played a crucial role in both medieval Greek education and religious life; Byzantines should have known them very well. Still, Philes’ Metaphrasis was commissioned by someone who certainly considered this kind of work needed for some reason. The necessity for rewriting the Psalter into a high-standard yet diachronically closer language and into one of the most used—and performed—medieval Greek metres (i.e., political verse) must be stressed as primary historical evidence. This need was not idiosyncratic to the commissioner or to the specific historical context of Philes’ work. In fact, the Metaphrasis was later copied from Philes’ private charts despite their work-in-progress status; in particular MPs. 103 has an even broader circulation. At the same time, Philes’ Metaphrasis is not an isolated case in the late-Byzantine period. For example, some years later, John Katakalon rewrote three biblical Psalms into political verses within an enkomion to John V Palaiologos. Conversely, in 1402, Manuel II Palaiologos wrote a short text reproducing the language and the style of a biblical Psalm in order to celebrate Timur’s victory against Bayezid at the Battle of Ankara. At the end of the paper, I offer some considerations about the role of Philes’ Metaphrasis in the complex intertwining of change in language and literature; (new) socio-cultural needs; and the late-Byzantine multifaceted use of the Bible to disentangle contemporary events.
My paper discusses two significant questions related to Philes’ Metaphrasis and its role in the history of the Greek Psalter during the Middle Ages. Although the occasion behind the composition of the Metaphrasis is unclear, Philes was commissioned to compose an unquestionably massive work, namely the rewriting of biblical Psalms into a metre and a language closer to contemporary literary practices. To show how Philes, as a Byzantine author, addressed this complex task, I display his metaphrastic procedure in rewriting Ps. 32, 46, and 47; for each of them, two different metaphraseis are preserved, and Philes’ choices in linguistic register, style, and metre can be easily compared. But is it possible to assess which text Philes read? As proven by the couplet of metaphraseis of Ps. 32, 46, and 47, it is hard to evaluate whether a specific feature is a literary choice by Philes or is based on a reading in his Vorlage. Nevertheless, I display some tendencies among these and other metaphraseis in relation to the readings that are attested in the textual transmission of the Greek Psalter.
Second, what was the purpose of Philes’ rewriting? The Greek Psalter played a crucial role in both medieval Greek education and religious life; Byzantines should have known them very well. Still, Philes’ Metaphrasis was commissioned by someone who certainly considered this kind of work needed for some reason. The necessity for rewriting the Psalter into a high-standard yet diachronically closer language and into one of the most used—and performed—medieval Greek metres (i.e., political verse) must be stressed as primary historical evidence. This need was not idiosyncratic to the commissioner or to the specific historical context of Philes’ work. In fact, the Metaphrasis was later copied from Philes’ private charts despite their work-in-progress status; in particular MPs. 103 has an even broader circulation. At the same time, Philes’ Metaphrasis is not an isolated case in the late-Byzantine period. For example, some years later, John Katakalon rewrote three biblical Psalms into political verses within an enkomion to John V Palaiologos. Conversely, in 1402, Manuel II Palaiologos wrote a short text reproducing the language and the style of a biblical Psalm in order to celebrate Timur’s victory against Bayezid at the Battle of Ankara. At the end of the paper, I offer some considerations about the role of Philes’ Metaphrasis in the complex intertwining of change in language and literature; (new) socio-cultural needs; and the late-Byzantine multifaceted use of the Bible to disentangle contemporary events.
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Doctoral Seminar organised by the TORCH Network Poetry in the Medieval World, see: https://torch.ox.ac.uk/event/call-for-papers-doctoral-seminar-projecting-poetry
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See the details in the file attached. Should you need any further information, you can contact me or Chiara Monaco.
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My thesis is a new critical edition with commentary of the ekphrastic poems and the epigrams on works of art by John Mauropous. The thesis is divided into four parts. Part I analyses the life and the literary works by John Mauropous.... more
My thesis is a new critical edition with commentary of the ekphrastic poems and the epigrams on works of art by John Mauropous. The thesis is divided into four parts. Part I analyses the life and the literary works by John Mauropous. After a complete overview of his biography (I §1) and of his literary production (I §2), the third chapter deals with the corpus preserved by ms. Vat. Gr. 676. Most importantly, I explain how Mauropous collected and structured his own poems. Paragraph I §3 explains how Mauropous applies the «discursive mode» of ekphrasis to his versification and how the ekphrastic purpose affects the structure of the collection, too. The differences between ekphrastic poems and epigrams on works of art are highlighted. Part II includes a comprehensive analysis of the textual transmission of Mauropous’ poetical corpus and a new critical text of the ekphrastic poems and the epigrams on works of art by Mauropous. The Greek text is presented with three apparatus and an Italian translation (Part III). Part IV offers a commentary to the edited poems. Each poem has his own paragraph, with a general introduction on the topic as well as a metric-rhythmical analysis and a commentary that focuses on the inner features of the Greek text, line by line. After the bibliography, two appendices follow: an iconographic apparatus to set Mauropous’ texts within the context of middle Byzantine art; the metrical patterns of the edited and quoted poems.