Greek scripts & manuscripts
More general subjects:
The Materiality of Sound in Chant Manuscripts in the East
The two books of Scriptor Cantor & Notator present an innovative multi-author project dealing with the complex interconnections between learning writing and performing chant in the Middle Ages. A number of different methodological approaches have been employed with the aim of beginning to understand the phenomenon of chant transmission over a large geographical area linking and contrasting modern definitions of East and West. Thus in spite of this wide geographical spread and the consequent variety of rites languages and musical styles involved the common thread of parallels and similarities between various chant repertoires arising from the need to fix oral repertories in a written form and the challenges involved in so doing are what bring this wide variety of repertoires and approaches together. This multi-centric multi-disciplinary approach will encourage scholars working in these areas to consider their work as part of a much larger geographical and historical picture and thus reveal to reader and listener more and far richer patterns of connections and developments than might otherwise have been suspected. The Materiality of Sound in Chant Manuscripts in the East brings together articles on ancient Greek Byzantine Coptic and Armenian music scripts in the East. Together with the collection of essays published in The Materiality of Sound in Chant Manuscripts in the West these books discuss local scribal peculiarities and idiosyncrasies beyond the cultural and geographical contexts of production and uses of their manuscript sources.
I libri di Bessarione
Studi sui manoscritti del Cardinale a Venezia e in Europa
Thirty years after the conclusion of the cataloguing of the manuscripts kept in the Marciana Library (Venice) due to the the progresses of palaeographic codicological and intellectual studies on Byzantium and Italy in the fifteenth century it is possible to reconsider Bessarion’s library its formation its history its organization and also the activity of the Cardinal (and his collaborators) as a copyist and annotator of manuscripts.
The Angela Burdett-Coutts Collection of Greek Manuscripts
Baroness Angela Burdett-Coutts (1814-1906) descendant of a wealthy and well-known family of bankers inherited quite young through a series of unpredictable circumstances the enormous fortune of Thomas Coutts her maternal grand-father. She spent most of her long life in London where she occupied a prominent position in society becoming well-known not only for her splendid life-style and her important literary and political acquaintances as for instance Charles Dickens and Admiral Nelson but also for her active role as a philanthropist. This book explores a little-known side of her life; although she did not know Greek she became the owner of ca. 100 Greek manuscripts mostly theological datable between the tenth and the sixteenth century a part of which she donated to Highgate School. The manuscripts with all the Baroness's possessions were dispersed at auction in 1921 and in 1987 and are now mainly divided between American and European University Libraries. This book has identified for the first time the Baroness's Greek manuscripts located and described them in detail with special attention to their script style and their origin adding to their description one or two plates of each codex.
Età comnena e cultura scritta. Materiali e considerazioni alle origini di una ricerca
In September 2008 the seventh edition of the International Colloquium of Greek Palaeography (Madrid-Salamanca 15-20 September 2008) celebrated the 300th anniversary of the Palaeographia Graeca the pioneer work of the Benedictine Bernard de Montfaucon that established the fundamentals of the discipline. Papers by renowned specialists in the field contributed to the methodology of study and to our knowledge of Greek manuscripts and opened new perspectives for the study of the Greek manuscripts preserved mostly in European libraries taking into account new methodological approaches the possibilities of online resources and the results of ongoing research projects.
The Proceedings published here include contributions by specialists from over ten different countries dealing with palaeographical issues such as ancient capital and lower-case lettering writing and books in the Macedonian Comnenian and Palaeologan periods and Greek scribes and ateliers in the Renaissance (especially in manuscripts from the Iberian Peninsula). Many contributors also take a codicological approach and consider the material aspects of the codex as well as other new research techniques. Finally some papers deal with the book as object and how this relates to its content as well as with the history of texts.
The International Colloquia of Greek Palaeography are organized by the International Committee of Greek Palaeography presided by Prof. Dieter Harlfinger. The seventh edition payed tribute to the memory of the late Jean Irigoin who died in 2006.
Description d’une reliure byzantine: techniques et matériaux
In September 2008 the seventh edition of the International Colloquium of Greek Palaeography (Madrid-Salamanca 15-20 September 2008) celebrated the 300th anniversary of the Palaeographia Graeca the pioneer work of the Benedictine Bernard de Montfaucon that established the fundamentals of the discipline. Papers by renowned specialists in the field contributed to the methodology of study and to our knowledge of Greek manuscripts and opened new perspectives for the study of the Greek manuscripts preserved mostly in European libraries taking into account new methodological approaches the possibilities of online resources and the results of ongoing research projects.
The Proceedings published here include contributions by specialists from over ten different countries dealing with palaeographical issues such as ancient capital and lower-case lettering writing and books in the Macedonian Comnenian and Palaeologan periods and Greek scribes and ateliers in the Renaissance (especially in manuscripts from the Iberian Peninsula). Many contributors also take a codicological approach and consider the material aspects of the codex as well as other new research techniques. Finally some papers deal with the book as object and how this relates to its content as well as with the history of texts.
The International Colloquia of Greek Palaeography are organized by the International Committee of Greek Palaeography presided by Prof. Dieter Harlfinger. The seventh edition payed tribute to the memory of the late Jean Irigoin who died in 2006.
Η ιστορία της παιδείας του 16ου-17ου αιώνα και η παλαιογραφική μέθοδος. Δάσκαλος-μαθητής
Until recently the study of Greek palaeography concentrated as a rule on establishing the characteristics of a particular scriptorium or school of writing. Such aspects as the transfer from teacher to pupil of specific graphic features or the style of handwriting as a whole were examined only in studies of specific book-producing centres and workshops. In 1988 however B. L. Fonkič first drew attention to the fact that the script of the students at the Slavonic-Greek-Latin Academy in Moscow depended directly on the handwriting of their teachers the Greek scholars and founders of the Academy Ioannikios and Sophronios Lichudes especially the last one.
The Slavonic-Greek-Latin Academy is not the only example of pupils copying the distinctive features of their teachers’ scripts. Further study of Greek schools and centres of learning founded by Greek instructors has revealed other similar cases. The handwriting of Ioannikios Lichudes imitates the script of his teacher of Greek language the scholar and preacher Gerasimos Vlachos. Ioannikios Lichudes’s pupils in the Novgorod school imitated his handwriting. In relation to the school of the Lvov Orthodox Stauropegial Brotherhood at which Arsenios of Elasson taught for two years (1586-1588) the application of the palaeographical method provides a unique opportunity to prove the direct participation of Arsenios in the teaching process to trace his work with pupils and also to observe how the handwriting tradition borrowed from Arsenios was preserved over the fifty years following his departure from Lvov.
Thus the application of the palaeographical method is possible not only when studying various scriptoria and schools of writing but also Greek centres of learning. The method opens up new possibilities for studying Greek and Russian education and broadens our ideas of the subject.
Sulla datazione dei codici greci del secolo IX
In this article the author focuses on a group of Greek manuscripts copied at the end of the 8th—beginning of the 9th century during the period of the introduction of a new script the minuscule. In particular the author analyzes the system of diacritics in the early minuscule manuscripts copied in the Stoudios scriptorium and other Constantinopolitan centers and concludes that lack of diacritics or inconsistent use of diacritics is a compelling reason for attributing such codices to the end of the 8th or to the first half of the 9th century.
Copistes, élèves et érudits: la production de manuscrits philosophiques autour de Georges Pachymère
This paper examines manuscripts which—due to their philosophical content their textual structure and their handwriting—can be ascribed to people working for or in the circle of the Constantinopolitan philosopher George Pachymeres (1242-ca. 1315). The paper provides a list of the relevant manuscripts and identifies some of their scribes including George Galesiotes Manuel Gavalas and possibly Constantine Acropolites. This investigation into manuscripts sheds light on the intense philosophical activity in Pachymeres’ milieu and arrives at a better comprehension of its final product: Pachymeres composes his own philosophical commentaries or reworks ancient ones in new codices which are subsequently copied for study by his pupils. An oral discussion of specific problems of interpretation which in some cases has left written traces must have taken place subsequently.
Further Notes on the Bindings and Rebindings of the Manuscripts from the Monastery of St. John Prodromos at Serres (Northern Greece). A Preliminary Study
Building upon the significant progress shown over the last decades in the field of studying Byzantine and Post-Byzantine bindings a new approach is now attempted concerning the conclusions made by the late Linos Politis on the bindings of manuscripts from the Monastery of St. John Prodromos situated near Serres in Northern Greece.
Through a methodologically systematic description of the decorative and structural elements some groups of bindings are formed which when correlated with the rich palaeographical elements of these manuscripts shed new light on the activity of the Monastery’s workshop regarding the copying restoration treatments and rebindings of the old manuscripts.
Some of the aims of this research are to clarify the decorative and structural elements of the bindings produced ex novo for manuscripts copied in the workshop of the Monastery; to identify and characterize the rebindings and their structural and decorative elements which replaced older bindings during the conservation treatments made in the Monastery’s workshop; to determine what the differences are where they exist among the bindings of the first group; and finally to identify the bindings that originated in other places monasteries or known workshops.
The research will be extended to the bindings of all the manuscripts from the Monastery of St. John Prodromos which are kept today in the National Library of Greece in Athens. In the current paper the method of collecting the data and some first conclusions are presented.
La Ciropedia tra Guarino e Vittorino. Note su alcuni codici
In September 2008 the seventh edition of the International Colloquium of Greek Palaeography (Madrid-Salamanca 15-20 September 2008) celebrated the 300th anniversary of the Palaeographia Graeca the pioneer work of the Benedictine Bernard de Montfaucon that established the fundamentals of the discipline. Papers by renowned specialists in the field contributed to the methodology of study and to our knowledge of Greek manuscripts and opened new perspectives for the study of the Greek manuscripts preserved mostly in European libraries taking into account new methodological approaches the possibilities of online resources and the results of ongoing research projects.
The Proceedings published here include contributions by specialists from over ten different countries dealing with palaeographical issues such as ancient capital and lower-case lettering writing and books in the Macedonian Comnenian and Palaeologan periods and Greek scribes and ateliers in the Renaissance (especially in manuscripts from the Iberian Peninsula). Many contributors also take a codicological approach and consider the material aspects of the codex as well as other new research techniques. Finally some papers deal with the book as object and how this relates to its content as well as with the history of texts.
The International Colloquia of Greek Palaeography are organized by the International Committee of Greek Palaeography presided by Prof. Dieter Harlfinger. The seventh edition payed tribute to the memory of the late Jean Irigoin who died in 2006.
Rettifiche di datazione con l’ausilio delle filigrane
In September 2008 the seventh edition of the International Colloquium of Greek Palaeography (Madrid-Salamanca 15-20 September 2008) celebrated the 300th anniversary of the Palaeographia Graeca the pioneer work of the Benedictine Bernard de Montfaucon that established the fundamentals of the discipline. Papers by renowned specialists in the field contributed to the methodology of study and to our knowledge of Greek manuscripts and opened new perspectives for the study of the Greek manuscripts preserved mostly in European libraries taking into account new methodological approaches the possibilities of online resources and the results of ongoing research projects.
The Proceedings published here include contributions by specialists from over ten different countries dealing with palaeographical issues such as ancient capital and lower-case lettering writing and books in the Macedonian Comnenian and Palaeologan periods and Greek scribes and ateliers in the Renaissance (especially in manuscripts from the Iberian Peninsula). Many contributors also take a codicological approach and consider the material aspects of the codex as well as other new research techniques. Finally some papers deal with the book as object and how this relates to its content as well as with the history of texts.
The International Colloquia of Greek Palaeography are organized by the International Committee of Greek Palaeography presided by Prof. Dieter Harlfinger. The seventh edition payed tribute to the memory of the late Jean Irigoin who died in 2006.
Los manuscritos griegos de Salamanca: del humanismo italiano al helenismo español
This contribution traces the formation of the so-called “fondo antiguo” of Salamanca University Library which was bequeathed to this University by El Pinciano. It emphasizes the Italian origin of a number of manuscripts (Ferrara Bologna Roma) as well as the Greek origin of a part of the collection. Secondly it considers the impact of this collection both on 16th century Spanish hellenists (especially El Pinciano’s disciples) and at the end of this very century on the Flemish scholar Andreas Schott. Thirdly it assesses the relevance of the manuscripts of the so-called “fondo colegial” which once belonged to the Colegio de Oviedo in order to further our knowledge of the scriptoria of Andreas Darmarios and Nicholas Choniates. Finally it reveals the historical and textual importance of the small collection of manuscripts from the Colegio de San Bartolomé.
Circolazione e riuso della Biblioteca di Fozio in età bizantina
The structure of Photius’ Library is articulated in chapters each containing notice of one work or in some cases more than one. Its structure can be considered analogous to that of a reference book. Beginning with its earliest stages of transmission the Library seemed apt for re-use that is for extraction of single texts for the individual purposes of its readers. Therefore the history of the transmission of the Library would greatly profit from an inquiry regarding the manuscripts containing excerpts from it. For the most part the manuscripts containing excerpts were produced in the 15th and 16th centuries in Western Europe penned by émigré Greek scholars and scribes. Nevertheless one can attempt to reconstruct the history of its circulation and use during the Byzantine Empire—by Byzantine readers—with the help of only a handful of manuscripts copied up to the middle of the fifteenth century.
This paper explores three cases that highlight different facets of the Library’s transmission. The first case is represented by Marc. gr. 49 which contains an excerpt from chapters 139-140; it shows how Photius’ text—as is typical of reference books—functioned as a repository of bio-bibliographical information reworked in order to create new reference texts. The second instance brings into focus Nicephorus Gregoras; among Byzantine scholars Nicephorus shows the greatest familiarity with Photius’ Library insofar as he not only quoted it in his Letters but also copied either entirely or partially three manuscripts containing excerpts from Photius’ Library. The third case re-considers the palimpsest London British Library Arundel 529 (copied in 1111) which has been supposed to bear traces of Photius’ Library in the scriptio inferior and therefore to be its oldest surviving copy in majuscule. This third case draws attention to a methodological impasse the tricky overlap of texts containing quotations and quoted texts of direct and indirect transmission.
Jean Irigoin et la paléographie grecque
In September 2008 the seventh edition of the International Colloquium of Greek Palaeography (Madrid-Salamanca 15-20 September 2008) celebrated the 300th anniversary of the Palaeographia Graeca the pioneer work of the Benedictine Bernard de Montfaucon that established the fundamentals of the discipline. Papers by renowned specialists in the field contributed to the methodology of study and to our knowledge of Greek manuscripts and opened new perspectives for the study of the Greek manuscripts preserved mostly in European libraries taking into account new methodological approaches the possibilities of online resources and the results of ongoing research projects.
The Proceedings published here include contributions by specialists from over ten different countries dealing with palaeographical issues such as ancient capital and lower-case lettering writing and books in the Macedonian Comnenian and Palaeologan periods and Greek scribes and ateliers in the Renaissance (especially in manuscripts from the Iberian Peninsula). Many contributors also take a codicological approach and consider the material aspects of the codex as well as other new research techniques. Finally some papers deal with the book as object and how this relates to its content as well as with the history of texts.
The International Colloquia of Greek Palaeography are organized by the International Committee of Greek Palaeography presided by Prof. Dieter Harlfinger. The seventh edition payed tribute to the memory of the late Jean Irigoin who died in 2006.
Il codice Milano, Biblioteca Ambrosiana B 75 sup. (gr. 104) e l’evoluzione della scrittura di Giovanni Scutariota
In September 2008 the seventh edition of the International Colloquium of Greek Palaeography (Madrid-Salamanca 15-20 September 2008) celebrated the 300th anniversary of the Palaeographia Graeca the pioneer work of the Benedictine Bernard de Montfaucon that established the fundamentals of the discipline. Papers by renowned specialists in the field contributed to the methodology of study and to our knowledge of Greek manuscripts and opened new perspectives for the study of the Greek manuscripts preserved mostly in European libraries taking into account new methodological approaches the possibilities of online resources and the results of ongoing research projects.
The Proceedings published here include contributions by specialists from over ten different countries dealing with palaeographical issues such as ancient capital and lower-case lettering writing and books in the Macedonian Comnenian and Palaeologan periods and Greek scribes and ateliers in the Renaissance (especially in manuscripts from the Iberian Peninsula). Many contributors also take a codicological approach and consider the material aspects of the codex as well as other new research techniques. Finally some papers deal with the book as object and how this relates to its content as well as with the history of texts.
The International Colloquia of Greek Palaeography are organized by the International Committee of Greek Palaeography presided by Prof. Dieter Harlfinger. The seventh edition payed tribute to the memory of the late Jean Irigoin who died in 2006.
Die griechischen Handschriften der Universitätsbibliothek Leipzig
In September 2008 the seventh edition of the International Colloquium of Greek Palaeography (Madrid-Salamanca 15-20 September 2008) celebrated the 300th anniversary of the Palaeographia Graeca the pioneer work of the Benedictine Bernard de Montfaucon that established the fundamentals of the discipline. Papers by renowned specialists in the field contributed to the methodology of study and to our knowledge of Greek manuscripts and opened new perspectives for the study of the Greek manuscripts preserved mostly in European libraries taking into account new methodological approaches the possibilities of online resources and the results of ongoing research projects.
The Proceedings published here include contributions by specialists from over ten different countries dealing with palaeographical issues such as ancient capital and lower-case lettering writing and books in the Macedonian Comnenian and Palaeologan periods and Greek scribes and ateliers in the Renaissance (especially in manuscripts from the Iberian Peninsula). Many contributors also take a codicological approach and consider the material aspects of the codex as well as other new research techniques. Finally some papers deal with the book as object and how this relates to its content as well as with the history of texts.
The International Colloquia of Greek Palaeography are organized by the International Committee of Greek Palaeography presided by Prof. Dieter Harlfinger. The seventh edition payed tribute to the memory of the late Jean Irigoin who died in 2006.
Νέες ελπίδες για την ταύτιση γραφέων 17.-18. αιώνα
[This work has been accomplished with the contribution of the Computational Intelligence Laboratory Institute of Informatics and Telecommunications National Center for Scientific Research “Demokritos” Greece.]
In this work we present an automatic scribe’s identification system that uses advanced document image processing techniques mainly based on contour-direction distributions and can be efficiently applied to old handwritten documents and manuscripts of the 17th and 18th century. The proposed system helps the user to search among handwritten samples of several scribes and detect similar samples of the same scribe. Experimental results are very promising since more than 95% of the documents were ascribed to the correct scribe.
Juxtaposition / assemblage de textes et histoire de la tradition: le cas du Par. gr. 1711
One of the most important sources of Byzantine historiography Par. gr. 1711 contains the Χρονογραφικὸν σύντομον of the Patriarch Nikephoros the Chronographia of George the Syncellus the chronicle of Theophanes the Confessor and the Life of Alexander by the Pseudo-Callisthenes. This codex is also the unique witness of the so-called Scriptor incertus de Leone Armenio and one of the oldest manuscripts of the Chronicle of Symeon the Logothetes.
Codicological palaeographical and textual analysis of the manuscript demonstrates its composite nature and enables us to reconstruct its complex genesis. In the 11th century an anonymous copyist transcribed from various sources the texts of George the Syncellus the Pseudo-Callisthenes Theophanes the Confessor Symeon the Logothetes and the Scriptor incertus (the last three were probably found all together in a manuscript that had been copied by a grammatikos named Leo). About a century later two anonymous copyists restored the manuscript adding the text of Nikephoros. Between the 12th and 16th centuries various readers and/or owners of the codex wrote historical annotations on a bifolio added at the beginning of the manuscript.
The long evolution of Par. gr. 1711 makes it not only a monument of Byzantine historiography but also a witness of the cultural attitude of Byzantine readers towards History.
Some Observations on 9th-and 10th-Century Greek Illuminated Manuscripts in Russian Collections
In September 2008 the seventh edition of the International Colloquium of Greek Palaeography (Madrid-Salamanca 15-20 September 2008) celebrated the 300th anniversary of the Palaeographia Graeca the pioneer work of the Benedictine Bernard de Montfaucon that established the fundamentals of the discipline. Papers by renowned specialists in the field contributed to the methodology of study and to our knowledge of Greek manuscripts and opened new perspectives for the study of the Greek manuscripts preserved mostly in European libraries taking into account new methodological approaches the possibilities of online resources and the results of ongoing research projects.
The Proceedings published here include contributions by specialists from over ten different countries dealing with palaeographical issues such as ancient capital and lower-case lettering writing and books in the Macedonian Comnenian and Palaeologan periods and Greek scribes and ateliers in the Renaissance (especially in manuscripts from the Iberian Peninsula). Many contributors also take a codicological approach and consider the material aspects of the codex as well as other new research techniques. Finally some papers deal with the book as object and how this relates to its content as well as with the history of texts.
The International Colloquia of Greek Palaeography are organized by the International Committee of Greek Palaeography presided by Prof. Dieter Harlfinger. The seventh edition payed tribute to the memory of the late Jean Irigoin who died in 2006.
Cerchie aristoteliche e letture platoniche (Manoscritti di Platone, Aristotele e commentatori)
In September 2008 the seventh edition of the International Colloquium of Greek Palaeography (Madrid-Salamanca 15-20 September 2008) celebrated the 300th anniversary of the Palaeographia Graeca the pioneer work of the Benedictine Bernard de Montfaucon that established the fundamentals of the discipline. Papers by renowned specialists in the field contributed to the methodology of study and to our knowledge of Greek manuscripts and opened new perspectives for the study of the Greek manuscripts preserved mostly in European libraries taking into account new methodological approaches the possibilities of online resources and the results of ongoing research projects.
The Proceedings published here include contributions by specialists from over ten different countries dealing with palaeographical issues such as ancient capital and lower-case lettering writing and books in the Macedonian Comnenian and Palaeologan periods and Greek scribes and ateliers in the Renaissance (especially in manuscripts from the Iberian Peninsula). Many contributors also take a codicological approach and consider the material aspects of the codex as well as other new research techniques. Finally some papers deal with the book as object and how this relates to its content as well as with the history of texts.
The International Colloquia of Greek Palaeography are organized by the International Committee of Greek Palaeography presided by Prof. Dieter Harlfinger. The seventh edition payed tribute to the memory of the late Jean Irigoin who died in 2006.