Deadline for submissions is July 15, starting date is flexible, January 1 2025 at the latest.
The fellows will become members of the research team of the GOA (Concerted Research Action) project “Interconnected texts. A graph-based computational approach to Byzantine paratexts as nodes between textual transmission and cultural and linguistic developments” (Faculty of Arts, Department of Literary Studies). The project is based upon the corpus of Byzantine book epigrams available at https://www.dbbe.ugent.be/. It aims to investigate book epigrams as texts at the threshold between the material and the textual, and to explore the possibilities of innovative technologies to pursue multifaceted humanities research. The project brings together linguistic, literary, historical and computational experts.
PhD student
Your job
You conduct research on Byzantine book epigrams and on medieval-Greek book culture in general, resulting in a doctoral thesis. This is your main task.
You contribute to the maintenance and further development of the Database of Byzantine Book Epigrams.
You contribute intellectually to the research team, participate actively in team meetings and share research findings with the other team members.
You take part in the public outreach activities of the section of Greek at Ghent University.
Job profile
You hold a Master’s degree in Classics (with a focus on Greek), Byzantine Studies, or a diploma in the same field, or you will have acquired that diploma before the start of the job (i.e. Autumn 2024 at the latest). You obtained very good grades, with BA and/or MA dissertations of high quality.
You have an excellent knowledge of ancient Greek, and at least good notions of medieval Greek.
You have an interest in literary and/or cultural history, evidenced by your study trajectory (e.g. optional courses, subject of papers and dissertations, etc.).
You communicate fluently in English, both orally and in writing. You have a good command, at least passively, of several other languages important to Byzantine studies.
You like working independently, but you also function excellently in a research team and contribute to a pleasant and stimulating atmosphere.
You conduct research on book epigrams and on medieval-Greek book culture in general, resulting in individual and co-authored publications. This is your main task.
You supervise the maintenance and further development of the Database of Byzantine Book Epigrams, and assist in coordinating the DBBE research team.
You help ensure that the manuscript research finds its way into the public outreach of the section of Greek at Ghent University.
Job profile
You hold a doctoral degree in Classics or Byzantine Studies, with a focus on Greek, or a diploma or certificate in the same field, recognized as equivalent by law or in application of the guidelines of the European Union or a bilateral agreement.
You have an excellent knowledge of classical and Byzantine Greek.
You have experience in working with Greek manuscripts, and in studying them in their cultural-historical context.
You have experience with or a keen interest in digital humanities, in particular with databases.
You have published in leading scientific journals and/or in books with academic publishers.
You communicate fluently in English, both orally and in writing. You have a good command, at least passively, of several other languages important to Byzantine studies.
You like working independently, but you also function excellently in a research team, where you enjoy taking responsibility.
On Thursday 27 June 2024, the Database of Byzantine Book Epigrams project (DBBE) is organising a workshop on Data-driven Approaches to Ancient Languages (DAAL) in Ghent, Belgium. This workshop will follow immediately after the conference “Paratexts in Premodern Writing Cultures”.
Premodern or historically attested languages are invaluable resources of both the study of diachronic linguistics and their contemporary culture. Although these languages might be from various language families or have a different script, researchers face common challenges, among which illegible or lost text (parts), inexistent gold standards and, very important these days, scarcity of data. Luckily, more and more texts become available, but the language of those texts might be so different from their modern pendant — should that modern pendant exist — that it considerably impacts the performance of existing tools. This workshop aims to provide a platform to a broad field of researchers engaged in digital approaches to pre-modern languages.
Submission
Relevant topics for the workshop include, but are not limited to:
Transcription
Transliteration
Unicode
Tokenisation
Morphological analysis & Part-of-Speech Tagging
Syntactic or semantic analysis of textual data
Lemmatisation
Data-driven approaches to ancient languages
Uncertain readings & ambiguity
Language variation (diachronic, synchronic, …)
Data Quality & Data Veracity
Data science approaches for text analysis
Multilingual code-switching
Creation and annotation of digital resources
Machine Learning for Lower-Resourced Languages
Machine learning approaches for text analysis
Evaluation of NLP tools
Editorial choices (word and sentence splitting)
Inclusion of apparatus
Incomplete or damaged texts
We welcome two types of submissions:
Long papers: description of original and unpublished work in any topic area of the workshop. A long paper is limited to 8 pages for content, with unlimited number of pages for references.
Short papers: description of either work in progress or a focussed contribution (point that can be made in a few pages with sufficient level of detail). Short papers can also be in the style of a position paper that surveys and criticizes existing literature. Submissions of this type are limited to 4 pages for content, with unlimited number of pages for references.
The Database of Byzantine Book Epigrams project (DBBE) will organize a conference on “Paratexts in Premodern Writing Cultures”, which will take place in Ghent on 24-25 June 2024.
The study of paratexts has become increasingly crucial to the understanding of premodern book culture. The growing scholarly attention to the historical and cultural significance of the material features of textual supports has led to a keen interest in these texts that according to Genette’s definition are situated on the threshold between the extratextual and the textual. They can be studied as unique vectors of knowledge, as testimonies to a history of reading, and as indications for spiritual, cultural, and economic motivations behind book production and consumption.
Since its inception in 2010, the DBBE project has aimed to collect Byzantine book epigrams (or: metrical paratexts) in an open-access online database, conceived and developed with an interdisciplinary approach. Book epigrams, in the Byzantine Greek tradition, are poems that provide us with more information about the books they are written in. In many of these poems, scribes, patrons, and book owners reveal their presence and feelings, by means of colophons, prayers, and dedicatory epigrams. Book epigrams may also comment on the texts transmitted in the manuscripts and their authors, or on the miniatures that appear in books. In other book epigrams the readers are addressed and involved in an imaginary dialogue with the scribe or with the book itself. The paratextual dimension of book epigrams turns out to be a fascinating aspect that connects book culture with broader historical questions.
With this conference we aim to bring together scholars engaged in the exploration of premodern paratexts transmitted in a variety of languages (such as Arabic, Armenian, Greek, Coptic, Hebrew, Latin, Slavonic, Syriac). It is our aim to discuss the nature of paratextuality in medieval manuscripts, to reveal similarities and peculiarities of paratexts across language borders, and to understand the broader cultural and historical ramifications of paratexts. We are interested both in the textual evidence of medieval paratexts and in their material transmission.
A crucial aspect of the DBBE project has been its commitment to the development of innovative digital tools. In tandem with the thematic conference, we will also organize a workshop (on 26 June 2024) where computational approaches to the study of premodern languages are discussed. This workshop aims to stimulate an exchange of technical knowledge and good practices and to address the challenges of interoperability and sustainability.More information on this workshop (and a call for papers) will follow in due course.
We invite proposals both for 20-minute papers, and for poster pitches (5-10 minutes).
Possible topics may include, but are not limited to, any of the following:
Theoretical elaborations on the concept and definitions of paratext. Genette’s framework includes the concept of paratext as the general term for referring both to peritexts (elements within a book), and epitexts (elements outside of a book). However, Genette’s terminology avowedly applies only to the age of the printed book. When applying the concept of “paratext” to manuscript culture, crucial parameters change which alter its essence. Our corpus of book epigrams, for example, rather corresponds to the definition of “peritext”. Hence, which theoretical and terminological frameworks can we adopt to better understand extratextual elements typical of premodern writing cultures?
New evidence. Which corpora of paratexts are still unexplored and worth being delved into and edited?
Texts and objects. How are paratexts displayed? To which extent can they supersede the appearance of the main text, being more visible and evident on the material support they appear?
Methodological elaborations that can be interesting from an intercultural or cross-language perspective. How is similar content (e.g., personal information on scribes, the physical labor of writing, indications of dating, reference to the length of the main text) expressed in different traditions? Which features of paratexts are common to any premodern writing culture, and which are cultural idiosyncrasies?
Formal features of paratexts. How does the metrical status of paratexts impact their visual or literary status? How is their language different from that of the main text? How can we approach the formulaic nature of many paratexts?
Please submita title and a short abstract (approx. 300 words excluding references) of your paper todbbe@ugent.be (subject “Paratexts – abstract”) no later than 15 November 2023. Abstracts should be attached as a PDF file named with the name of the presenters. Full names of the speakers, contact details and affiliation should be clearlywritten on top of the text. Please indicate whether you want to participate with either a paper or a poster pitch.Accepted speakers will be notified by mid-December.
Please note that we are considering the possibility of publishing selected papers presented at the conference. More information will be provided at a later stage.
We look forward to hearing from you, please reach out at dbbe@ugent.be for any enquiries.
Curious to learn more about Byzantine riddles? 🤓 Today, the anniversary of the publication of Tolkien’s ‘The Hobbit’ is the perfect occasion to dive a bit deeper into this topic.
The metrical riddle quoted in our story is found in the manuscript Athon., Protat. 29, where it was written by a later scribe in the 15th century among a series of praising formulas meant to be chanted at the end of a liturgy in order to wish a monastic community a long life. The many occurrences of riddles in different manuscripts testify to their popularity in the Byzantine world. Teachers, for instance, eagerly used this genre for didactic purposes (in relation to the practice of schedography, a playful way to teach grammar.
Athos, Bibliotheke tou Protatou (Karues) 29 (1251-1310)
📖 I have a horse trotting over a white plain
which bears three men unarmed.
If you do not break the horse’s skull
the horse will no longer be able to trot.
The solution to this riddle is ‘kalamos’ (κάλαμος), ‘reed pen’. The horse represents a pen with which the scribe writes on an empty folio (the white plain). ✍️ Furthermore, the three men are the three fingers used for writing. They are supposed to guide the horse in the right direction, in the same way as the fingers have to make sure the pen writes legible letters. The cruel breaking of the horse’s skull, on verse 3, refers to the practice of sharpening the pen, necessary to guarantee the quality of the writings. So far, our horse-riddle has been discovered in two Byzantine manuscripts, but other versions of the epigram widely circulated in Byzantium. In other languages, variants of the horse-riddle occur as well, such as the famous Veronese Riddle and the Exeter Book Riddles.
As a world-renowned professor of Old English, Tolkien used his expertise as a source of inspiration to his novels. This results in the multitude of riddles which are to be found in ‘The Hobbit’. One of these strikingly resembles our riddle:
“Thirty white horses on a red hill,
First they champ,
Then they stamp,
Then they stand still.”
Is there a link between Tolkien’s riddle and the Byzantine one? Admittedly, probably not in a direct sense, except from the use of the horse metaphor. 🐎 However, both are part of a larger tradition. Riddles, namely, constituted a (prestigious!) literary genre in the Latin and, later, Anglosaxon tradition.
Niketas Choniates (c. 1155-1217) is one of the top Byzantine intellectuals of all times, a bureaucrat and a writer mostly known for his historiographical work. His History sets off at the beginning of the 12th century with the death and succession of Alexios I Komnenos (1118) and finishes with the collapse of the empire initiated by the fall of Constantinople under the Crusaders (1204). In an elegant and archaizing style, he narrates the events of the reigns of Komnenoi and Angeloi. Niketas Choniates engages in criticism and praise of the emperors in degrees that vary with the different versions of the text. The shorter version is more uniform and restrained, whereas the augmented version was revised but left unfinished because of the death of the author. The History was held in high regard by Byzantines, who repeatedly adapted and rewrote the intricate Greek in which it was originally drawn up.[1] In the following, I will present two book epigrams that bear visible traces of the material transmission of the History, and allow us to delve into the stages in which it was composed, edited and rewritten. Significantly, both book epigrams reflect on the meaning of history in at least two senses. First, they consider the passing of time and its consequences of decay and destruction, but they are also about retribution and repair. Second, they indicate how historiography was meaningful for the Byzantines so as to prompt revisions in changing contexts and adjustments to new audiences.
Our first book epigram is found at the end of Vienna, Österreichische Nationalbibliothek (ÖNB), Hist. gr. 53 (Diktyon 70930), a famous manuscript of Niketas Choniates’ History from the beginning of the 14th century that contains a portrait of the author (image 1). On f. 324v, a poem describes the restoration and rebinding of the manuscript by (that is, on behalf of) the bishop of Ainos, a city in Thrace (now Enez in Turkey):
Image 1: Portrait of Niketas Choniates. Vienna, ÖNB, Hist. gr. 53, f. Iv.
The present codex damaged by time
and in danger of suffering destruction, my friend,
so that it would no longer be a book nor be called so,
with a craftsman’s binding art
(5) and the manifold handicraft of the rest of the crafts,
the chief shepherd of Ainos binds it again
and provides it with its former beauty
so that it might be read easily by everyone.
Some elements of this poem are common to other book epigrams. For example, the formula τὴν παροῦσαν πυκτίδα shows many parallels in the DBBE (and the number increases if we consider all the records including variants of ἡ παροῦσα πυκτίς/βίβλος/δέλτος or τὸ παρὸν πυκτίον/βιβλίον/πυξίον). The bishop of Ainos evidently plays the role of the patron, who had the book rebound, so the verb συνδεῖ in verse 6 should be understood as causative, as usual in patron-related book epigrams. The reference to the readers of the book in verse 8 is also found in many reader-related epigrams in DBBE. However, the nature of the work sponsored by the bishop of Ainos, which is described in verses 4-6, is more exceptional in book epigrams. The rebinding of the book does not find many parallels in the DBBE. The tag “Damage of the book”, for example, includes only one relevant parallel, Type 6072 with its Occurrence 23590, in which the process of rebinding is described (verse 12) and the restorer is put on the same level as the patron of the manuscript when the reader is asked to pray for their salvation (verses 19-24).[2]
Another remarkable feature of this epigram is the mention of Ainos in verse 6. A number of verse scholia in this manuscript show striking parallels with the work of Ephraim of Ainos, who composed a verse chronicle in the first quarter of the 14th century rewriting the account of Niketas Choniates and other historians. We knew already that Ephraim of Ainos had used a manuscript from the tradition of the shorter version of Niketas Choniates’ History, to which ÖNB, Hist. gr. 53 belongs.[3] I have argued elsewhere that the verse scholia represent a first approach of Ephraim to his source and that these versified reading-notes were later revised by Ephraim and incorporated in his chronicle.[4] However, the verse scholia are found in other manuscripts from the shorter version, whereas the book epigram that mentions the city of Ainos is exclusive to ÖNB, Hist. gr. 53.
A last remarkable feature of our book epigram can help to explain the situation. The epigram is copied on the verso of a piece of parchment attached to the end of an otherwise paper manuscript (image 2). How did this happen? Why was the epigram not copied on the paper flyleaf (f. 323)? Is this piece of parchment a remnant of the manuscript before the restoration or a remnant of the materials used in the restoration? The material support of our book epigram invites us to think that it could have belonged to another manuscript: the parchment could be a piece of the (now lost) manuscript where the verse scholia were originally copied by Ephraim. When ÖNB, Hist. gr. 53 was copied from this manuscript, the piece of parchment might have been cut out from the exemplar and pasted onto the apographon.
Image 2: Book epigram on a parchment strip. Vienna, ÖNB, Hist. gr. 53, f. 324v.
The second book epigram that I would like to discuss is found on f. 168v of Vatican City, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, Vat. gr. 163 (Diktyon 66794). The poem addresses emperor Andronikos I Komnenos and condemns the assassination of Alexios II Komnenos, the legitimate heir of the throne, which granted Andronikos the empire. The poem is copied in red by the same hand that copied the main text of Niketas Choniates’ History, right after the end of the second (and last) book of Andronikos’ reign and before the beginning of the first book of Isaak II Angelos:[5]
And you suffered the penalty, implacable man,
for having plucked the unripe head of grain,
the sweet child Alexios,
-alas, Andronikos!- the royal offspring,
(5) whom the womb of the earth, queen Xene,
offered like the best fruits to the husbandman
and sower, to king Manuel,
who received glory among kings.
The layout of the book epigram in Vat. gr. 163 continues the disposition in three columns of two other poems of 8 verses each that are part of the text of the History and surround our book epigram (image 3). Niketas Choniates frequently quotes from the so-called oracles of Leo the Wise, a collection of verse prophecies concerning the succession of emperors, wrongly attributed to Leo VI. In the beginning of the following book of the History, a poem from the collection is said to have been used by Isaac II Angelos to praise himself.[6] The poem that precedes our book epigram shares the prophetic tone of the oracles of Leo the Wise, but is actually not included in the preserved collections:[7]
Image 3: Book epigram (mostly not visible because of the quality of the reproduction) at the end of the chapter, preceded and followed by two other poems in three columns. Vatican City, BAV, Vat. gr. 163, f. 168v.
A livid man, arrogant of manner, sullen, grey-haired, a changeful chameleon, having suddenly arisen from a place full of wine, will burst in and mow down the corn; but he, too, will be cut down in time, and will later pay miserable penalties for the evil deeds which, wretched man that he was, he had committed in his life. For he who bears a dagger will not escape the sword.
Niketas Choniates tells us that these 8 verses were contained in booklets that predicted the rise and fall of Andronikos. Our book epigram in Vat. gr. 163 follows this oracle and needs to be understood in this precise context. The book epigram starts with a καὶ and the word δίκας recalls the same word in verse 6 of the oracle. The outrageous “penalties” were narrated in extenso and quite explicitly by Niketas Choniates: Andronikos is deposed, put to prison, publicly humiliated and executed. From verse 2 onwards, the book epigram in Vat. gr. 163 focuses on the first of the “evil deeds” (see verse 7 of the oracle) performed by Andronikos: the murder of Alexios, the son of Manuel I Komnenos and Maria of Antioch, here called Xene (her name after becoming a nun). It also employs the agrarian imagery of the oracle (verses 4-5) and elaborates on the motif of the untimely harvest. The elaboration includes the comparison of Alexios II with the uprooted ear of corn (verses 2-4), of his mother with the sown field (verses 5-6), and of the father with the sower and farmer (verses 6-8).
Image 4: Oracle of Leo the Wise describing an emperor holding a sickle and a rose, from one of the many illustrated manuscripts that preserve the collection. Berlin, Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin – Preußischer Kulturbesitz, Ms. graec. fol. 62, f. 7r (Diktyon 9151, 16th century).
In fact, the metaphor of the reaper appears time and again in Niketas Choniates’ History associated with Andronikos. For example, in Choniates’ assessment of Andronikos’ reign, just before these poems, we find another quotation of the iambic oracles of Leo the Wise (image 4): δρεπανηφόρε, τετράμηνόν σε μένει (“Sickle-bearer, you are due in four months”).[8] This characterization brings to mind another episode of Niketas Choniates’ History : the self-representation of the emperor Andronikos in his future mausoleum at the restored church of the Forty Martyrs. Outside a door of the church, Andronikos had a portrait of himself done in which he was wearing peasant clothes and holding a sickle in his hand. Hanging from the sickle, a young beautiful boy was represented. Notably, the word μειρακίσκον is used there,[9] exactly as in our book epigram (verse 3). Niketas Choniates interprets that Andronikos purposefully wanted to communicate his unlawful deeds, namely that he had killed the heir and usurped the throne.[10] The book epigram in Vat. gr. 163 follows the same interpretation.
Unlike ÖNB, Hist. gr. 53, a manuscript from the shorter version of Niketas Choniates’ History, Vat. gr. 163 is actually the most representative manuscript of the augmented version. In comparison with the shorter version, the augmented version adopts a more personal style and is more generous in critical passages regarding Andronikos, for example. The corrections and additions in the augmented version are by Choniates himself, but also by the first readers of his work from the close circle of Choniates’ acquaintances. The book epigram was most likely copied by a second hand on the circulating draft of the augmented version and later integrated by the copyist of Vat. gr. 163 into the body of the main text in a distinct color. The layers of intervention are thus rendered less visible, in contrast to the book epigram in ÖNB, Hist. gr. 53, in which the stages are clearly distinguished as the poem was copied in a separate parchment strip. Both the book epigram that celebrates the rebinding of the book and the book epigram that elaborates on oracular motifs, however, testify to the processes of writing, revision, and rewriting of Niketas Choniates’ History, either by contemporary literati, or by later authors, as well as its transmission, the copying of the text and restoration of the manuscripts.
Notes
[1] On the versions of the History and its subsequent rewritings, see primarily the introduction to the critical edition by Van Dieten, J.-L. Nicetae Choniatae historia. Berlin and New York, 1975: VII-CXV.
[2] The epigram is discussed in Bianconi, D. Cura et studio: Il restauro del libro a Bisanzio. Alessandria, 2018: 92-93.
[3] Van Dieten, Nicetae Choniatae historia: LXXXIX-XCI.
[4] Bértola, J. “Ephraim of Ainos at work: a cycle of epigrams in the margins of Niketas Choniates”. Byzantinische Zeitschrift 114 (2021): 929-1000.
[5] Van Dieten, Nicetae Choniatae historia: 354.47 (see apparatus; note that in verse 6 the manuscript reads ἄριστα, not ἀρίστω).
[6] Van Dieten, Nicetae Choniatae historia: 355.8-15.
[7] Text: van Dieten, Nicetae Choniatae historia: 353.37-354.44. Translation: Mango, C. “The Legend of Leo the Wise”, Zbornik Radova Vizantološkog Instituta 6 (1960): 63-64 (= Mango, C. Byzantium and its Image. London, 1984: XVI).
[8] Van Dieten, Nicetae Choniatae historia: 351.72.
[9] Van Dieten, Nicetae Choniatae historia: 332.30.
[10] See Karlin-Hayter, P. “Le portrait d’Andronic I Comnène et les Oracula Leonis Sapientis”, Byzantinische Forschungen 12 (1987): 102-116.
Want to read more?
On Niketas Choniates: Simpson, A. Niketas Choniates: A Historiographical Study. Oxford, 2013.
In particular, on the oracles in Niketas Choniates’ History : Magdalino, P. “Prophecy and Divination in the History”, in Simpson, A. and Efthymiadis, S. Niketas Choniates. A Historian and a Writer, 59-74. Geneva, 2011.
Julián Bértola studied classical philology at the University of Buenos Aires and completed his PhD in 2021 as a member of the team behind the Database of Byzantine Book Epigrams. He is now a Postdoctoral fellow (Research Foundation – Flanders) at Ghent University, working on the project “Byzantine scholia on historians and the literature of marginalia: reading and writing practices in the margins of medieval Greek manuscripts”.
The Ghent University Departments of Linguistics, Literary Studies, and History are hiring
2 doctoral researchers for the GOA-project
“Interconnected texts. A graph-based computational approach to Byzantine paratexts as nodes between textual transmission and cultural and linguistic developments”
Description of the research project
The research team of the GOA (Concerted Research Action) project “Interconnected texts” at Ghent University is inviting applications for two PhD fellowships. The project is based upon the corpus of Byzantine book epigrams available at https://www.dbbe.ugent.be/. It aims to investigate book epigrams as texts at the threshold between the material and the textual, with a focus on their formulaic nature, and to explore the possibilities of innovative technologies to pursue multifaceted humanities research. The project brings together linguistic, literary, historical and computational experts.
Description of the research positions
PhD Fellowship 1: Linguistics
The first PhD candidate will be embedded within the work package ‘Linguistics’, the main aim of which is to better understand formulaic phraseology in the DBBE corpus. More specifically, the PhD candidate will study the different types of formulaic patterns that occur in the corpus, create a typology of the deviations of standard patterns that can be found, and situate the use of formulae in its broader literary and socio-cultural context, making a comparison with other Byzantine and/or Ancient Greek corpora. In order to answer these research questions, the PhD candidate will apply insights from linguistic disciplines such as historical sociolinguistics and cognitive linguistics – under the guidance of the main supervisor, Klaas Bentein – and work closely together with other PhD students and team members who are applying digital methods to the corpus and its metadata (natural language processing, graph-based data exploitation and analysis). The research is expected to lead to a PhD thesis, either in the form of a monograph or a collection of single- or co-authored articles and chapters. Next to the PhD thesis, the candidate will be expected to engage in a limited amount of teaching and dissemination activities that are connected to the research.
PhD Fellowship 2: Manuscript culture
This PhD candidate will be engaged in the Work Package ‘Manuscript Culture’. This WP will investigate the multiple connections that book epigrams establish between the material production of texts and their intellectual, spiritual and/or social significance in Byzantine society. Research questions involve various reading strategies that book epigrams propose for specific texts, as well as discourses of community building present in these epigrams. The research is situated at the intersection of Byzantine Studies, Palaeography and Manuscript Studies, and Digital Humanities.
The PhD student will perform research in preparation of a doctoral dissertation on a specific innovative theme within this general framework. The dissertation will be supervised by Floris Bernard (Medieval Greek literature) and Els De Paermentier (Medieval history and manuscript studies). The candidate will make extensive use of the Database of Byzantine Book Epigrams, working closely together with the other members of the research team. The student will regularly exchange intermediary results and help evaluate the computational tools developed within the project. The candidate will disseminate the research results in (partly co-authored) publications, implement the research in (limited) teaching duties, and create public awareness of the Greek manuscript heritage.
Job profile
At the time of appointment, you hold an MA degree (or equivalent) in the field of Classics, History, and/or Byzantine Studies, or in a related discipline;
You have a good knowledge of ancient and/or Byzantine Greek;
You have good oral and written communication skills in scientific English;
You have experience in working with digital resources in the field of Humanities;
You are able to take on responsibilities, work independently but also as part of an interdisciplinary research team;
You are able to develop new research ideas and are not afraid to be critical about your own work;
You are highly motivated, hardworking, flexible, able to face complex issues and you have an appropriate problem-solving attitude;
You have demonstrated skills in working with medieval manuscripts, and you are familiar with the disciplines of paleography and codicology (necessary for PhD2; recommended for PhD1);
You have an interest and acquaintance with corpus linguistics and/or other linguistics disciplines such as historical sociolinguistics and cognitive linguistics (only applies to PhD1).
Conditions of employment
For each of both positions, we offer a full-time, fixed-term appointment for initially 1 year, renewable after positive evaluation up to 4 years. You will work in an exciting multi-disciplinary international research environment, consisting of PhD students, postdocs and professors. Aside from an internationally very competitive monthly salary, you will enjoy all the staff benefits of Ghent University staff.
Both fellowships are expected to start on 1 September 2023 or soon thereafter.
How to apply
To apply, send your full application before 30 April 2023 to Prof. Dr. Klaas Bentein (PhD Fellowship 1) or Prof. Dr. Floris Bernard (PhD Fellowship 2). Your application includes the following documents, which you are required to be sent as pdfs named according to the template FAMILYNAME_FILETYPE:
A motivation letter in English;
A curriculum vitae;
Two recommendation letters, to be sent separately by the referees;
A relevant piece of academic writing (MA thesis, BA thesis, research essay, etc.);
A copy of your Master’s diploma or a statement that indicates the timeline to obtain one.
After an initial screening, interviews will take place (online if needed) in the week of May 15, 2023.
For more information about this vacancy, please contact:
The so-called Menologion (actually a Synaxarion) and the Psalterion written for, and dedicated to, Basil II (976-1025)[1] are certainly among the most famous Byzantine manuscripts handed down to us. Despite being very well-known, they cannot be dated exactly. Moreover, taking into account both the illuminations and the information provided by the introductory book epigrams (especially the Psalterion’s one, more than the Menologion’s one), we see that any attempt at dating these manuscripts could imply an interpretation of them with a specific propagandistic and ideological value. Therefore, the considerations that follow belong to the realm of hypotheses.
As I will try to prove, 979 and 992 are the only two possible dates that can be considered as termini post quos (the former for the Menologion, the latter for the Psalterion).
The following five years and events are particularly meaningful to pinpoint the time frame in which the two manuscripts were produced:
979: Luke the Stylite died;
989: an earthquake struck Constantinople and the provinces of Thracia and Bithynia;
992: Basil II enacted a chrysobull by which he promulgated trade concessions in favour of Venetian merchants;
1014: Byzantines defeated Bulgars at Kleidion;
1018: the triumph over the Bulgars was celebrated at Ochrida.
Image 1: Frontispiece with Basil II in the Psalter of Basil II (beginning of the 11th c.). Venice, BNM, Gr. Z. 17 (=421), fol. IIIrImage 2: P. Grieson, Byzantine Coins (Los Angeles 1982), Plate 50
The first two dates have been generally suggested by scholars as termini post and ante quos of the Menologion: post 979 because Luke the Stylite is mentioned on December 11th, ante 989 because there is no mention of the earthquake. The last two years, instead, are implicitly considered the post quem of the Psalterion: according to a tacito consenso of most scholars, the genuflected men depicted in the famous illumination on f. IIIr are identified as defeated Bulgars (image 1).[2]
Anthony Cutler, however, proposed to date the Psalterion between 1001 and 1005, according to a numismatic analogy: the diadem of the crown, which Christ is laying upon the sovereign’s head in the illumination resembles the one on the observe of a histamenon (i.e. a golden solidus) minted during that four-year period (image 2).[3]
Although there is a certain resemblance between the two crowns, it seems to me hasty to propose such a specific dating. Each coin is a stand-alone product as a handmade artifact, influenced by the individual peculiarity of each mint. Moreover, we should not rule out the possibility that histamena representing different types of diadems may have been lost or irreversibly damaged by the passing of time. For these reasons, there is great uncertainty in defining the shape and the exact type of these coins during their circulation period. Moreover, if we consider other histamena coined during Basil II’s kingdom, we notice that there are no major differences in crown’s representations among different coins.
Antonio Iacobini has pointed out another detail that allows to examine the question of the dating of the two manuscripts more in depth and to hypothesize that the Psalterion might have been written and illuminated later than the Menologion, probably after 992. Iacobini has highlighted that both the clothes and the face of Basil II on the Psalterion’s illumination (image 1) closely resemble the representation of Saint Theodore of Amasea at p. 383 of the Menologion, related to February 8th (image 3).[4] These two miniatures were both produced by the icon painter Pantoleon.[5]
It is meaningful that the emperor is portrayed like the saint himself: Saint Theodore of Amasea was the first patron saint of Venice, and his church used to stand in the very same place where Saint Mark’s Basilica is currently standing (image 4).[6] I argue that through his representation in the miniature of the Psalterion, Basil made a political “marketing stand”, a kind of reverential homage towards an ally. As it is well known, Basil II, with the chrysobull issued in 992, established a strong economical-military relationship with Venice, and under his successors there were productive diplomatic exchanges between the two powers.
Image 3: Saint Theodore of Amasea in the Menologion of Basil II (end of the 10th c.). Vatican City, BAV, Vat. gr. 1613, p. 383.
Image 4: Column of Saint Theodore of Amasea on Saint Mark Square, Venice
As said above, the genuflected men on the illumination (image 1) are usually identified with the defeated Bulgars, but the Marciana illumination is a rather typical imperial representation and totally complies with the Eastern figurative tradition, in which characters are deliberately depicted in different sizes based on their importance. For this reason I tend to consider more plausible Cutler’s theory, according to which the genuflected men are not the Bulgars, but a stereotypical representation of the Anatolian Byzantine aristocracy, fought by the emperor during his rise to power. Therefore, the ἐχθροί, quoted at v. 11 of the ekphrastic book epigram at f. IIv of the Psalterion, should be intended not as hostes but as inimici, i.e. domestic adversaries of the Byzantine state whom the emperor confronted during his first decade of reign (specifically, the protectorate of Basil Lekapenos the “Parakoimomenos” and to the civil war lead by Bardas Skleros and Bardas Phokas).[7]
According to the above-mentioned perspective, I draw the conclusion that the Psalterion was composed twenty-two to twenty-six years prior to the previously hypothesized date (i.e. 1014 and 1018). In light of the elements discussed above, we can cautiously conclude that the Menologion was most probably written after 979 and the Psalterion after 992.
Notes
[1] The Menologion: Città del Vaticano, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, Vat. gr. 1613 (Diktyon 68244). The Psalterion: Venezia, Biblioteca Nazionale Marciana, Marc. Gr. Z 17 coll. 421 (Diktyon 69488).
[2] In this way, the Venice codex was dated to 1020 by H. Hunger, Schreiben und lesen in Byzanz: die byzantinische Buchkultur (Munich 1989), p. 44 and by S. Kotzabassi, Codicology and Palaeography, in V. Tsamakda (ed.), A Companion to Byzantine Illustrated Manuscripts (Boston 2017), p. 32-52: 50.
[3] Cutler exposed his theory in his paper The Psalter of Basil II, id. Imagery and Ideology in Byzantine Art (London 1992), nr. III at p. 23-25, at p. 24: « […] on this histamenon the crowns of both emperors carry bifild pendila […] these rows of pearls divide at the lowest point beside the jaws of Basil and his brother Constantine», a distinction which «is equally visible in the manuscript portrait». For the relevant coins, see the catalogues edited by P. Grieson, Byzantine Coins (Los Angeles 1982), p. 198-199 and Plate 50 (especially, nr. 904) and Catalogue of the Byzantine Coins in the Dumbarton Oaks Collection and in the Witthermore Collection, vol. III.2 (Washington D.C. 19932), p. 607 and Plate 44 (nr. 4a-4d).
[4] A. Iacobini, Il segno del possesso: committenti, destinatari, donatori nei manoscritti bizantini dell’età macedone, in F. Conca – G. Fiaccadori (eds.), Bisanzio nell’età dei Macedoni: forme della produzione letteraria e artistica. VIII Giornata di Studi Bizantini (Milano, 15-16 marzo 2005) (Milano 2007), p. 151-194: 178.
[5] On Pantoleon and the other painters of the Menologion, see A. Zakharova, Los ocho artistas del «Menologio de Basilio II», in F. D’Aiuto (ed.), El «Menologio de Basilio II», Città del Vaticano, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, Vat. gr. 1613. Libro de estudios con ocasión de la edición facsímil (Madrid – Atene – Città del Vaticano 2008), p. 131-195.
[6] Theodore’s memory in Venice is still preserved: if we look at the two columns of Saint Mark Square, overlooking the homonymous Bacino, between Duke’s Palace (on the left) and the Marciana Library (on the right), the right column is topped by Saint Theodore of Amasea («San Tòdaro», in Venetian dialect) who is about to kill a dragon. Viewers may confuse him with Saint George by analogy, because of the homonymous islet on the other side of the Bacino. On the two columns, see G. Tigler, Intorno alle colonne di Piazza San Marco, «AttiVen» 158.1 (1999-2000), p. 1-46; on the ancient church of Theodore, see F. Corner, Notizie storiche delle chiese e monasteri di Venezia e di Torcello tratte dalle chiese veneziane e torcellane (Padua 1758), p. 229-230.
[7] On Basil Lekapenos and the role of imperial servants, see C. M. Mazzucchi, Dagli anni di Basilio parakimomenos (cod. Ambr. B 119 sup.), «Aevum» 52.2 (1978), p. 267-316: 267-276; on Bardas Skleros and Bardas Phokas, see C. Holmes, Basil II and the Governance of Empire (Oxford 2005), p. 240-298.
Want to read more?
D. Bianconi, Libri e letture di corte a Bisanzio da Costantino il Grande all’ascesa di Alessio I Comneno, in Le corti nell’alto medioevo. Atti della Settimana di Studio (Spoleto, 24-29 aprile 2014) (Spoleto 2015), p. 767-816.
F. D’Aiuto (ed.), El ‘Menologio de Basilio II’, Città del Vaticano, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, Vat. gr. 1613. Libro de estudios con ocasión de la edición facsímil, Edición española a cargo de I. Pérez Martín (Città del Vaticano – Atenas – Madrid 2008).
P. Degni, Nuovi codici del copista del cosiddettoMenologio di Basilio II, «MEG» 18 (2018), p. 111-126
S. Der Nersessian, Remarks on the Date of the Menologium and the Psalter Written for Basil II, «Byzantion» 15 (1940-1941), p. 104-125.
A. Rhoby (ed.), Ausgewählte byzantinische Epigramme in illuminierte Handschriften (Vienna 2018).
L. Ricciardi, «Un altro cielo»: l’imperatore Basilio II e le arti, «RivIstArch» 61 (2011), p. 103-145.
I. Ševčenko, Ideology, Letters and Culture in the Byzantine World (London 1982), nr. XI and XII.
About the author
Alberto Longhi (Venezia, 1992) obtained an MA in Classics at the University of Milan and a diploma in Greek Paleography at the Vatican School of Paleography. He is a teacher in Italian high schools and dedicates himself to research in philological and literary contexts as an independent researcher. His research interests focus on 11th-century Byzantine literature and the transmission of the Greek classics in humanistic Florence (especially on Poliziano).
In addition to research and teaching, he has also devoted time to writing poetry, which he self-published in some collections.
Epigrams often include descriptive details about the images and things that they adorn. For example, the epigram in a menologion (Oxford, Bodleian Library, gr. th. f. 1) describes the pearls, silver, and gold that decorated the book’s cover; an epigram in a lectionary (Mount Athos, Mone Megistes Lauras Α 103 [Eustratiades 103]) describes an accompanying miniature of a monk in an act of petition; and an epigram painted on a cross in another menologion (Mount Sinai, Mone tes Hagias Aikaterines, gr. 500) describes itself as the adornment for the book. These epigrams are certainly descriptive, but can we properly call them ekphraseis?
Ekphrasis is the rhetorical art of describing, but it is very different from straightforward description. While the latter is meant to convey the outward details of the subject, the former “opens up” those details with the quality of enargeia, or vividness; dialog, emotion, and sensory evocations help move the audience to clearly visualize the subject in their imagination.[1] As a literary work that could be read, performed, and heard, ekphrasis functions — according to one late antique writer — to “make hearers into spectators” (ἣ δὲ πειρᾶται θεατὰς τοὺς ἀκούοντας ἐργάζεσθαι).[2] In this way, an ekphrasis on a work of art might focus the audience’s vision in two directions: to the physical thing and to the image painted in the mind.[3] The purpose of activating these two modes of vision is explained by Nicholas Mesarites in his ekphrasis of the Church of the Holy Apostles in Constantinople, likely performed on 29 June 1200:
Guided by the inferior [faculty of sight] the mind is capable on the basis of sense data of grasping essential [truths] and of penetrating to the [threshold of the] innermost mysteries, but it is incapable of even glimpsing these, if the [faculty of sight alone] serves as a guide. (…) It is my purpose to build this house [of the Lord] with words as materials and with the mind as architect, so that I and all devotees of the apostles [will have a chance] to see the beauty of your house more distinctly and more clearly, but devoting my mental faculties, which are only human, to the task of construction will have been to no purpose should the Lord [not direct you] to erect the house on my behalf.[4]
Ekphraseis thus help the audience perceive truths that were otherwise imperceivable by the physical sense of sight alone. Creating images and impacting the audience to this degree requires a great many words, a luxury that most epigrams – due to the space limitations of their written surface areas – tend not to have. As Marc Lauxtermann observes, epigrams inscribed on works of art are too short to elaborate on the “emotional depth and narrative width” that is required to develop ekphrastic themes.[5] Manuscripts have more space. Book epigrams thus have the potential to flesh out the imagery and to possess the enargeia required for ekphraseis to work. However, most book epigrams that are directed to paintings in a manuscript tend to be limited to just a few verses and rarely exceed one side of a folio. See, for example, the blog post by Georgi Parpulov.
While epigrams cannot be ekphraseis in the technical sense, they may possess features that allow them to do the work of ekphraseis, albeit in an abridged format. Let’s take a look at the Menologion of the Emperor Basil II (Vatican City, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, Vat. gr. 1613), a sumptuous manuscript, made sometime after 979 and filled with images and short readings on the lives of saints (image 1). An epigram, placed on the very first page of the manuscript, introduces this luxurious work to us (image 2):
Image 1: The Martyrdoms of the Holy Martyrs Eustratios, Auxentios, Eugenios, Mardarios, and Oresteos in the Menologion of Basil II (end of the 10th c.). Vatican City, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, Vat. gr. 1613, p. 241.
Image 2: Epigram in the Menologion of Basil II (end of the 10th c.). Vatican City, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, Vat. gr. 1613, p. XIII
[Verses 1–8] Here now, rightly contemplate, O Beholder, the best work, made of the best deeds, a most beautiful work of God, astounding to the mind, a work that rightly delights all Creation. For above, Himself as God and Lord, having painted, with a circling dance of stars, the heavens — which by his word he stretched out like leather — to illuminate the world by his all-wise forethought.
[Verses 9–21] And below, the one who imitates him by his manner, the ruler of the whole earth, Basil, sun of the purple, the offspring of the purple robes, exceedingly mighty in both victories and words, made this book, truly like another heaven, stretched out from leather, as is natural, bearing beautiful pictures like stars: first that of the God-man Logos himself, then that of his mother who gave birth without seed, of wise prophets, martyrs, apostles, of all righteous, angels, archangels. He gladdens the minds of all the orthodox, and delights in the loveliness of every spectacle.
[Verses 22–28] But for all those he had depicted in colors, may he find all the active helpers, collaborators in his dominion, allies in battles, redeemers from afflictions, healers of sicknesses, but — more so in the judgment before the Lord — passionate mediators and providers of unspeakable glory above and the dominion of God.[6]
Image 3: Frontispiece with Basil II in the Psalter of Basil II (beginning of the 11th c.). Venice, Biblioteca Nazionale Marciana, Gr. Z. 17 (=421), fol. IIIr
The descriptive elements suggest that this epigram accompanied an image of God and the Emperor Basil II, but no such depiction exists in the manuscript. Scholars have suggested the scene could have resembled the frontispiece in a Psalter also made for Basil (Venice, Biblioteca Nazionale Marciana, Gr. Z. 17 [=421]) (image 3). In the Menologion, the verso of this folio and the recto of the next are blank, leaving no traces of a preexisting image.[7] This absence allows us to consider the autonomy of the epigram, and how its ekphrastic features help the reader visualize an image in the mind.
A direct address to the beholder in the first verse is one of these features. A rhetorical topos for many epigrams on works of art, including many book epigrams, such an invocation also had the power to draw the beholder’s attention to the object and to the images conjured in the imagination. It was also a device well attested in Byzantine ekphraseis on works of art. In his ekphrasis on the Christological cycle of mosaics in the Holy Apostles, Mesarites makes repeated invocations to his audience, involving them through imagined dialog and actions. In this way, the audience relives the scenes as they unfold in present time, becoming active participants in, and beholders of, the biblical events. Such active listening, looking, and imagining is also suggested by the Menologion epigram. In the first verse, the beholder is asked to see and contemplate the work in front of them, whether it was a now lost image or the codex as a whole. Either way, this invocation triggers a series of scenes that begin with God’s creation of the heavens and continue with Basil’s making of the manuscript. Straight away, we are invited to behold and take part in the imagery that unfolds before us.
The top-down sequence in which the epigram describes this imagery also suggests a relationship to ekphrasis. According to the instructions given in the Progymnasmata, the textbooks used for teaching rhetoric in Byzantium, this sequence was the ideal structure for ekphraseis of people.[8] The top-down structure instilled order and helped the audience easily perceive the image as it was slowly painted in the mind. But this structure was not simply an organizational method. It also communicated the loci of power within the image. By ordering the description of God in the heavens above and Basil on earth below, the poet was able to convey the ways in which the latter “imitates” the former. Basil is the sun around which the “stars” of saints coalesce in support. Even without a painted image to aid the reader, the top-down organization of the epigram and the cosmological imagery allowed the beholder to visualize the diagrammatic structure of the scene, and comprehend its ideological meaning.
The epigram’s emphasis on the materiality and making of the manuscript is another feature borrowed from ekphraseis. In Homer’s description of the shield of Achilles, the prototypical ekphrasis of ancient literature, the author begins with Hephaestus firing up the bellows and working the different parts of metal. Before we even read about iconographic compositions depicted on the shield, we experience the maker’s physical manipulation and wielding of the raw materials.[9] Likewise, when Paul the Silentiary, in his sixth-century ekphrasis of Hagia Sophia, turns his focus to the marbles, he builds his church with words by describing the masons quarrying stones and fitting them into place:
These [marbles] have been fashioned with cunning skill about the holy building that it may appear bathed all round by the bright light of day. Yet who, even in the thundering strains of Homer, shall sing the marble meadows gathered upon the mighty walls and spreading pavement of the lofty church? Mining [tools of] toothed steel have cut these from the green flanks of Carystus and have cleft the speckled Phrygian stone, sometimes rosy mixed with white, sometimes gleaming with purple and silver flowers.[10]
The working of materials is also present in the Menologion epigram. It says that God created the heavens, “stretched out like leather,” and painted it “with a circling dance of stars,” thereby illuminating the entire world. This active phrasing sets off a cinematic mental image where creation, fashioned from the raw materials, unfolds in the present. Basil imitates God by performing his own act of creation, stretching out the parchment and adorning it with paintings. In so doing, the epigram succinctly conjures in the mind an image of the physical, laborious, and time-consuming process of this book’s creation, from its origins as animal skin to its product as illuminated parchment.
While the epigram in the Menologion of Basil II is not technically an ekphrasis, it does contain certain ekphrastic features that move the listener to envision an image. It performs a number of re-creative acts: God as the creator of heaven and earth, Basil as the maker of the manuscript, and the anonymous poet as a painter of pictures with words. Rather than ask the question of whether or not a painted scene of God and Basil ever accompanied this epigram, we can recognize the text’s authority to operate independently of such an image. The poet is the artist, the words are the brushstrokes, the imagination is the canvas, and the hearers are made into spectators.
Notes
[1] Ruth Webb, Ekphrasis, Imagination and Persuasion in Ancient Rhetorical Theory and Practice (Farnham, 2009), quote on p. 73.
[2] Nicholas, Progymnasmata, 68.11–12, ed. Joseph Felten, Nicolai Progymnasmata (Leipzig, 1913), tr. George A. Kennedy, Progymnasmata: Greek Textbooks of Prose Composition and Rhetoric (Atlanta, 2003), 166.
[3] Liz James, and Ruth Webb, “‘To understand ultimate things and enter secret places’: ekphrasis and art in Byzantium,” Art History 14 (1991): 1–17.
[4] Nicholas Mesarites, Description of the Church of the Holy Apostles, XII.1, 4, ed. Glanville Downey, Transactions of the American Philosophical Society 47 (1957): 900, tr. Michael Angold, Nicholas Mesarites: His Life and Works (in Translation) (Liverpool, 2017), 90.
[5] Marc Lauxtermann, Byzantine Poetry from Pisides to Geometres: Texts and Contexts, vol. 1 (Vienna, 2003), 153.
[6] Ed. Andreas Rhoby, Byzantinische Epigramme in inschriftlicher Überlieferung, vol. 4 (Vienna, 2018), 455–458. Translation based on Ihor Ševčenko, “The Illuminators of the Menologium of Basil II,” Dumbarton Oaks Papers 16 (1962): 245–276, esp. 272–273. The verse divisions presented here correspond to those given in the manuscript by the large incipit letters marking verses 1, 9, and 22.
[7] A facing miniature illustrating a scene described by the epigram has been hypothesized by Ševčenko, “Illuminators,” 271–273; and supported by Antonio Iacobini, “Apéndice: El cuaderno incial del ‘Menologio de Basilio II’,” in El “Menologio de Basilio II”: Città del Vaticano, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, Vat. Gr. 1613: libro de estudios con ocasión de la edición facsímil, eds. Francesco D’Aiuto, and Inmaculada Pérez Martín (Vatican City and Madrid, 2008), 221–223.
[8] Aphthonios, Progymnasmata, 37, ed. Hugo Rabe, Aphthonii Progymnasmata (Leipzig, 1926), tr. Kennedy, Progymnasmata, 117. For an example, see Lynn Jones, and Henry Maguire, “A Description of the Jousts of Manuel I Komnenos,” Byzantine and Modern Greek Studies 26 (2002): 104–148.
[9] Jon Steffen Bruss, “Ecphrasis in fits and starts? Down to 300 BC,” in Archaic and Classical Greek Epigram, eds. Manuel Baumbach, Andrej Petrovic, and Ivana Petrovic (Cambridge, 2010), 385–403, esp. 387.
[10] Ed. Otto Veh, Prokop: Werke, vol. 5, Die Bauten (Munich: Heimeran, 1977), pp. 336–338, lines 614–625, tr. Cyril Mango, The Art of the Byzantine Empire, 312–1453 (Englewood Cliffs, N.J., 1972), 85.
Want to read more?
Facsimile Edition: El “Menologio” de Basilio II Emperador de Bizancio: (Vat. Gr. 1613) (Madrid, 2005).
Wolfram Hörandner, “Zur Beschreibung von Kunstwerken in der byzantinischen Dichtung – am Beispiel des Gedichts auf das Pantokratorkloster in Konstantinopel,” in Die poetische Ekphrasis von Kunstwerken: Eine literarische Tradition der Großdichtung in Antike, Mittelalter und früher Neuzeit, ed. Christine Ratkowitsch (Vienna, 2006), 203–219.
Liz James, “Art and Lies: Text, Image and Imagination in the Medieval World,” in Icon and Word: The Power of Images in Byzantium: Studies Presented to Robin Cormack, eds. Antony Eastmond and Liz James (Aldershot, 2003), 59–72.
Augusta Acconcia Longo, “El Poema Introductorio en Dodecasílabos Bizantinos,” in El “Menologio de Basilio II”: Città del Vaticano, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, Vat. Gr. 1613: libro de estudios con ocasión de la edición facsímil, eds. Francesco D’Aiuto, and Inmaculada Pérez Martín (Vatican City and Madrid, 2008), 77–89.
Henry Maguire, “Truth and Convention in Byzantine Descriptions of Works of Art,” Dumbarton Oaks Papers 28 (1974): 113–140.
Anneliese Paul, “Beobachtungen zu Ἐκφράσεις in Epigrammen auf Objekten: Lassen wir Epigramme sprechen!,” in Die kulturhistorische Bedeutung byzantinischer Epigramme: Akten des internationalen Workshop (Wien, 1.–2. Dezember 2006), eds. Wolfram Hörandner, and Andreas Rhoby (Vienna, 2008), 61–73.
Ilias Taxidis, The Ekphraseis in the Byzantine Literature of the 12th Century (Alessandria, 2021).
About the author
Brad Hostetler (Ph.D. Florida State University, 2016) is Assistant Professor of Art History at Kenyon College. He specializes in the art and material culture of Late Antiquity and Byzantium, with a particular emphasis on portable luxury objects from the ninth through the twelfth centuries. He is currently writing a book that examines the nature and meaning of relics and reliquaries in Byzantium through the lens of inscriptions, including the ways in which inscribed texts mediate and guide the faithful’s engagement with, and understanding of, sacred matter.
Catenae and commentaries on the Pauline Epistles: the case of the Pseudo-Oecumenian catena
Biblical catenae are Byzantine manuscripts comprising a selection of patristic and exegetical material from multiple sources. The biblical text, usually in the middle of the page for the so-called ‘frame’ or ‘marginal’ catenae, is surrounded by the extracts from the commentaries of the early Greek Church Fathers. Alternatively, it can be followed by the exegesis in the format of a ‘full-running text’ (as for the ‘alternating’ or ‘full-page’ catenae). The oldest surviving catena on the Pauline Epistles is attributed to the seventh-century exegete Oecumenius, and is attested in eighty-five manuscripts from the tenth to the sixteenth century, limited to Romans.[1] The Pseudo-Oecumenian catena differs from the other catena traditions for the presence of anonymous, numbered extracts, which constitute the original set of comments, followed by two additional layers of scholia: the so-called Corpus Extravagantium, consisting of extracts from the Greek Church Fathers (mainly Oecumenius, Theodoret of Cyrrhus, Severian of Gabala and John Chrysostom), either preceded by the attributions or recorded anonymously, and the Scholia Photiana, which are excerpts from Photius of Constantinople’s commentary on the Pauline Epistles.[2]
The present contribution offers a first overview of the book epigrams transmitted by the Pseudo-Oecumenian manuscripts, mainly based on the DBBE records, which classify the epigrams as author-, scribe-, reader-, image-, and text-related according to their function and content in the manuscripts. However, these categories quite often overlap, as is the case of the DBBE Type 5659 illustrated below, where Chrysostom, Theodoret and Oecumenius are mentioned as both the readers of the Corpus Paulinum and the authors of their own commentaries.
The author-related epigrams, which correspond to Lauxtermann’s ‘laudatory’ category, can praise the author of the books (Paul, e.g., DBBE Types 3166, 3170 and 3172) or early Greek Church Fathers, such as DBBE Occurrence 24099 in the manuscript Venice, BNM, Gr. Z. 34 (coll. 349) [GA 1924], which mentions Chrysostom, Theodoret and Oecumenius as commentators of the Corpus Paulinum. The same epigram is also attested in two more frame catenae of the eleventh century from Staab’s Erweiterte Typus,[4] namely Paris, BnF, Grec 224 [GA 1934] and Paris, BnF, Coislin 217 [GA 1972], with the aim to introduce the content of the book to the reader (the catena on Paul by Oecumenius). In GA 1934, the epigram is enclosed within the frame of a miniature representing the three Greek Church Fathers, which makes it an image-related epigram as well, while in GA 1972 it is copied alongside three more epigrams on Paul (Type 5188) John Chrysostom (Type 5685) and the content of the Pauline Letters (Type 6478). In Type 5659, Chrysosthom is depicted as the pivotal exegete of the Pauline Epistles, which Theodoret and Oecumenius follow as ‘interpreters’ (διηρμηνευκότες). This is further specified by Figure 2, which illustrates Chrysostom as a teacher on a throne showing the Pauline text to his disciples. In other occurrences, Chrysostom is portrayed alongside the spirit of Paul (Figure 3), who is whispering his words to the Greek Church Father (Type 7096), to legitimate his status of ‘Golden Mouth’.
Image 1: Venice, BNM, Gr. Z. 34 (coll. 349) (GA 1924), f. 5r (detail)[6]
See, they speak as an interpreter – Theodoret together with Oecumenius – the God-inspired words of Paul’s writings, but as soon as the Golden Mouth speaks these are silent, and exactly explained the golden spirit writes alone like a golden stream.[5]
What are you whispering to Chrysostomus, Paul? Doesn’t God’s finger write your words? You breathe secrets into the trumpet of thunder; he will proclaim it across seas and land.
Other laudatory epigrams focus on the power of the eloquence of Paul, adopting a language that recalls the musical imagery (Φόρμιξ, αὐλὸν τοῦ Παρακλήτου, λύραν, ὄργανόν τε τῆς Θεοῦ μουσουργίας [Type 3166]), or describing the apostle as a storm (ζάλη), a threefold wave (τρικυμία) and a hurricane (καταιγίς) (Type 6006). In another occurrence (Type 6005), Paul’s eloquence is associated with war-like images (ὄλεθρος, ὑψιμέδων, ἄλκαρ, μοναρχικός, ὁπλοφόρος), or, conversely, the Christian figures of the young lamb (ἀρήν) and the shepherd (ποιμήν) (Type 3172).[7]
This category of epigrams includes a variety of typologies, comprising invocations to Christ and thanksgiving for the completion of the book (Χριστέ, παράσχου τοῖς ἐμοῖς πόνοις χάριν + Τὸν ἐκ πόθου κτήσαντα τήνδε τὴν βίβλον [Occurrences 30886 + 30885], ἡ χεῖρ ἡ γράψασα σήπεται τάφω [Occurrence 24681]). Alternatively, scribe-related epigrams can also be prayers to the readers, usually introduced by the verbs εὔχεσθε or μνησθήτι, or can be associated with the colophons at the end of the manuscript and provide information about the practices of copying and writing, usually with an emphasis on the fatigue of the scribe (e.g., the ὥσπερ ξένοιType 2148).
Finally, the epigram DBBE Occurrence 23121 (Type 2626) offers an indication of the scribal activity of the copyist of Paris, BnF, Grec 219 (GA 91): on ll. 8-12, the scribe admits to having appended the following tables with the metrical titles of the Acts and the Pauline Epistles to help the reader to easily find the text-passages.
Image 4: Paris, BnF, Gr. 219 (GA 91), f. 3v (detail)
And I have also added this to the work of art, so that one may easily find all the passages he wishes to consult, easily and effortlessly, after he has first devoted himself to what is indicated suitably in the index, like a straight guide.
Only a few epigrams among the Pseudo-Oecumenian catenae are addressed to the reader of the manuscripts, who is either asked to pray for the salvation of the patron or the scribe (Occurrences 30875: Εὔχεσθε τῷ γράψαντι Ἀνδρέᾳ ξένῳ and 30881: Μνήσθητι κἀμοῦ τοῦ ταπεινοῦ γραφέως, both preserved in London, BL, Add. 28816 [GA 203]), or to read the manuscript because of its spiritual value (Type 3167: Τὴν ἐκκάλυψιν τὴν Ἰωάννου δέχου / τοῦ φῶς ἀπαστράψαντος ὡς βροντῆς γόνου).
Text-related epigrams
Most of the epigrams that can be included within this category comprise short metrical headings before each of the Pauline Epistles (Types 4706, 5679, 5681, 4708, 4710, 4712, 4714, 4716, 4718, 4720, 4722, 4724, 4726 and 4728). However, a long metrical hypothesis on Paul (Type 3166), comprising 100 dodecasyllables preceded by the heading Ἡ τῶν ἐπιστολῶν ὑπόθεσις διὰ ἰάμβων, opens the section on the Pauline Epistles in the manuscripts GA 91, 1924, 1934 and 1972. This poem can be divided into three sections: vv. 1–21 underline the musical power of Paul (Παῦλον αὐλὸν τοῦ Παρακλήτου, Πνεύματος τοῦτον λύραν, ὄργανόν τε τῆς Θεοῦ μουσουργίας), vv. 22–66 describe the content of the letters and vv. 67–110 offer a biographical summary of Paul by mentioning contemporary figures , such as Felix, Porcius Festus, Nero, Luke and Aristarchos.
In all these manuscripts, this metrical preface is followed by two author-related epigrams establishing an opposition between Nero and the apostle (Types 3170 and 3172) , which seems to recall a similar episode in the Martyrdom of Paul within the Euthalian Apparatus.[8]
Image 5: Venice, BNM, Gr. Z. 34 (coll. 349) (GA 1924), f. 6r (details)[9]
The mother-murderer and annihilator of the offspring, according to his disposition, ah, servant of Zeus, Nero, the terrible and despicable, the wild cub of a rude lioness, who killed his wife, then the young lamb of Christ, the shepherd, Paul, shepherd of the whole earth, is now food of the dog Kerberos. Instead, Paul revels in the abundance of the life-giving divinity as he sees its threefold light as simple and found rulership in heaven as a battle prize.
The most tyrannical soul of Nero lies dead, defamed, humiliated, bound forever with ineluctable chains, kept down with an eternal whip. Paul instead is alive and speaks every day, openly seeing the God´s face.[10]
It is not a case that in GA 1924, 1934 and 1972 these epigrams are placed immediately after the set of prefaces on the Pauline Epistles comprising the Prologue (BHG 1454), the Peregrination (BHG 1457b) and the Martyrdom of Paul (BHG 1458) and the list of chapters on Romans (Von Soden 43). In addition to the same paratextual material, GA 1924, 1934 and 1972 begin the text of the Catena with a distinctive incipit (Τίνος ἕνεκεν αὐτοῦ τὸ ὄνομα…), rather than the usual Τὸ ἀποῦσι γράφειν αἴτιον τοῦ κεῖσθαι αὐτοῦ τὸ ὄνομα as the rest of the tradition, which offers further evidence in support of the relationship between these three witnesses.[11]
Conclusions and further desiderata: newly discovered epigrams
The case studies illustrated above provide a general description of the various typologies of metrical paratexts in catenae and commentaries on the Pauline Epistles, with a particular focus on the ways the figures of Paul and Chrysostom are portrayed in biblical manuscripts. The examples of DBBE types 3170 and 3172 show that paratexts, both the book epigrams and the full set of alternative paratextual material to the standard one (Prologue + Peregrination and Martyrdom of Paul + Prefaces), can be an important tool to begin investigating the relationship between biblical manuscripts (e.g., GA 1924, 1934 and 1972). In this context, the presence of the same collection of Byzantine texts absent elsewhere (explanation of the Jewish names of the Revelation, lists of patriarchs and emperors among all) can offer further evidence in support of the relationship between Paris, BnF, Coislin 224 (GA 250) and Vienna, ÖNB, Theol. gr. 302, ff. 1-353 (GA 424), which also preserve the same abbreviated version of the Pseudo-Oecumenian Catena.
Furthermore, more epigrams are yet to be discovered. The study of the paratextual material among the manuscripts of the Pseudo-Oecumenian tradition allowed me to identify some short texts which are absent from the DBBE database, even though further considerations on the metrical nature of these texts need to be done before their inclusion in the database. Among these, one scribe-related epigram is recorded by a later hand in the closing flyleaf of Vatican City, BAV, Chis. R VIII 55 (gr. 46) (GA 1951) (κύριε βοήθη [sic!] τὸ σὸ δοῦλο Θεογνόστος) and attributed to an unidentified Theognostos. This overview of book epigrams in the biblical chains was a valuable opportunity to investigate the paratextual characteristics of biblical manuscripts for the first time and to provide preliminary observations on their relevance for establishing relationships between manuscripts on a par with the main text.
Notes
[1] The Pseudo-Oecumenian catena on the Pauline Epistles is indicated by the CPG numbers C165.1–5, which refer to the five stages of the textual tradition, in the Clavis Patrum Graecorum (M. Geerard and J. Noret, eds., Clavis Patrum Graecorum: IV Concilia. Catenae [CCSG, 4] [Turnhout: Brepols, 20182]). A full list of New Testament catenae is provided in G. Parpulov, Catena Manuscripts of the Greek New Testament. A Catalogue (TS 3.25) (Piscataway, NJ: Gorgias Press, 2021).
[2] For this terminology, see K. Staab, Die Pauluskatenen nach den handschritflichen Quellen untersucht (Rome: Pontifical Biblical Institute, 1926), and K. Staab, Pauluskommentare aus der Griechischen Kirche: Aus Katenen Handschriften gesammelt und herausgegeben (Münster: Aschendorff, 1933).
[3] The Euthalian Apparatus is the set of prefatory material including the Prologue on the Pauline Epistles, the Peregrination and the Martyrdom of Paul, the Prefaces on each of the Pauline Epistles and the list of chapter titles. See further, L.C. Willard, A Critical Study of the Euthalian Appratus (ANTF 41) (Berlin, NY: De Gruyter, 2009), and V. Blomkvist, Euthalian Traditions. Text, Translation and Commentary (TU 170) (Berlin, Boston: De Gruyter, 2012).
[4] The ultimate stage of the tradition with the additional scholia from Photius.
[5] Unless otherwise specified, all translations are by the author.
[6] Image courtesy of the Biblioteca Nazionale Marciana (“su concessione del Ministero della Cultura – Biblioteca Nazionale Marciana”, 7/10/2022).
[7] A similar vocabulary related to Paul’s eloquence is also attested in the epigrams preserved in the manuscript Vat. Gr. 363 (see K. Bentein, F. Bernard, K. Demoen and M. de Groote, ‘New Testament Book Epigrams. Some New Evidence from the Eleventh Century’, Byzantinische Zeitschrift, 103.1 [2010], 13–23 [pp. 19–23].
[8] See further K. Demoen, R. Ricceri and M. Tomadaki, Paul in Byzantine Epigrams, in M. Cacouros and J.H. Sautel, eds., Des Cahiers à l’histoire de La Culture à Byzance : Hommage à Paul Canart, Codicologue (1927-2017) (Orientalia Lovaniensia Analecta, 306) (Leuven: Peeters, 2021), pp. 117–134 (p. 123).
[9] Image courtesy of the Biblioteca Nazionale Marciana (“su concessione del Ministero della Cultura – Biblioteca Nazionale Marciana”, 7/10/2022).
[10] Transl. in Demoen, Ricceri and Tomadaki, Paul in Byzantine Epigrams, p. 123.
[11] These manuscripts significantly are also the only witnesses to DBBE Type 5188, “Paul, the initiated into the secret words”, the verse used as the title to this blog post.
Want to read more?
K. Bentein, F. Bernard, K. Demoen and M. de Groote, ‘New Testament Book Epigrams. Some New Evidence from the Eleventh Century’, Byzantinische Zeitschrift, 103.1 (2010), 13–23.
F. Bernard and K. Demoen, ‘Byzantine Book Epigrams’, in W. Hörandner, A. Rhoby, and N. Zagklas, eds., A Companion to Byzantine Poetry (Brill’s Companions to the Byzantine World, 4) (Leiden, Boston: Brill, 2019), pp. 406–429.
K. Demoen, R. Ricceri and M. Tomadaki, Paul in Byzantine Epigrams, in M. Cacouros and J.H. Sautel, eds., Des Cahiers à l’histoire de La Culture à Byzance : Hommage à Paul Canart, Codicologue (1927-2017) (Orientalia Lovaniensia Analecta, 306) (Leuven: Peeters, 2021), pp. 117–134.
H.A.G. Houghton (ed.), Commentaries, Catenae and Biblical Tradition. Papers from the Ninth Birmingham Colloquium on the Textual Criticism of the New Testament: in association with the COMPAUL project (TS 3.13) (Piscataway, NJ: Gorgias Press, 2016).
M.D. Lauxtermann, Byzantine Poetry from Pisides to Geometres. Texts and Context, 1 (Wien: Verlag der österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 2013), pp. 197–212.
G. Parpulov, Catena Manuscripts of the Greek New Testament. A Catalogue (TS 3.25) (Piscataway, NJ: Gorgias Press, 2021.
K. Staab, Die Pauluskatenen nach den handschritflichen Quellen untersucht (Rome: Pontifical Biblical Institute, 1926)
K. Staab, Pauluskommentare aus der Griechischen Kirche: Aus Katenen Handschriften gesammelt und herausgegeben (Münster: Aschendorff, 1933).
Latin book epigrams can be found in numerous Western manuscripts. Just as is the case with Byzantine book epigrams, it seems that there is a lot of variation among Latin book epigrams. Some are short and formulaic, others are more refined literary compositions. Similar subgenres (scribe-, patron-, owner-, author-, reader-, text- and miniature-related) are likely to be identified both in book epigrams written in the Latin West and in the Byzantine East. Of course, a systematic collection of Latin book epigrams could allow scholars to detect generic, linguistic and cultural evolutions within the yet to be explored corpus of Latin book epigrams and compare them to their Byzantine counterparts.
In order to stimulate curiosity towards these fascinating but little-known compositions, I will discuss three examples of Latin book epigrams. The first one is a short formula, which shows that book epigrams are mostly preserved anonymously and that they are often adapted or expanded in different manuscripts. The second example is a prayer for the scribe, the author and the reader of the manuscript. It is a short, but clear example of book epigrams as poems that find their origin in the interplay between the actors in the communicative situation of manuscripts. The third case study is a more sophisticated piece of poetry, an epigram in honour of Saint Ambrose.
A Formulaic Verse
An invaluable tool to investigate the evidence of Latin book epigrams is the monumental collection of colophons by the Benedictines of Le Bouveret (Switzerland). Although this collection is presented as the anonymous collective work of the monks of the monastery of Le Bouveret, it was mostly R. P. G. Beyssac who was responsible for it. From 1965 to 1982, he published six volumes of colophons, both in prose and in verse, which he collected from Western dated manuscripts, from the oldest codices to 16th-century manuscripts. The core of this corpus consists of colophons from libraries in Paris, but Beyssac also retrieved colophons from other libraries and manuscript catalogues from all over the world. Unfortunately, but quite understandably, this series does not give a complete overview of all Latin colophons.
In the sixth volume, which includes colophons that do not mention any personal names, the following formulaic concluding verses appear (‘xpo’ being an abbreviation for ‘Christo’):
Image 1: Bénédictins du Bouveret (1982: 153) Colophons de manuscrits occidentaux des origins au XVIe siècle. Vol. 6. Fribourg (Switzerland).
All metrical colophons of this small collection are written in Leonine verses. This metre is frequently used in medieval Latin poetry and consists of a hexameter with internal rhyme. As is typical for both Latin and Byzantine book epigrams, short formulaic epigrams are often found in expanded versions.[1] Whereas number 20 252 consists of a single verse (Now that the poem is finished, let there be praise and glory to Christ)[2], 20 253 has an extra verse (The book being finished, may the tunic be given back to the teacher).[3]
Image 2: Madrid, San Pedro de Cardeña 11, f. 119v (12th c.)
20 254 is even a bit longer (Now that the poem is finished, let there be praise and glory to Christ. May the renowned Mother of the highest Father protect the scribe three and four times and may the holy flourishing Virgin give him back to Christ. May he see Him in the heights of heavens together with the multitude of the saints). As is typical, the Virgin is asked to intercede for the scribe and to grant him a place in heaven. Note also the paradoxical “summi patris inclita mater”, pointing to Mary being the mother of Christ, who is here referred to as ‘Father’.
Three to be saved
An example of a Latin book epigram that gives an overview of different roles performed by people involved in book production is found in a manuscript preserved in Basel (Univ. A XI 65, a. 1525, f. 117) and is also recorded by the Benedictines of Le Bouveret (1982: 345):
Huius deus pagine libera scriptorem
A gehenni ignibus simul et auctorem,
Sed eternis sedibus iunge et lectorem,
Ut te laudent pariter suum creatorem.
Liberate, God, the scribe of these pages from the fires of hell and also its author, but let also the reader join the eternal seats, in order that they praise You all together, their creator.
The poem is written in Goliardic verse. This is a medieval strophic meter in which a verse consists of thirteen syllables. The verses have a rhythmical, almost trochaic, pattern. Moreover, it is common in Goliardic poetry that each strophe has monorhyme, i.e. the same sound appears at the end of all verses of the same strophe (here –orem).[4] As is the case in the example above, the poet, deliberately, placed the actors who play a role in the communicative situation of book epigrams (in casu scribe, author and reader) at the end of vv. 1-3. Their importance is not only stressed by an identical metrical position but also by the rhyme. The poem culminates in God, the creator of everyone.
A comparable Byzantine example of a prayer that is expressed for the salvation of those involved in the production of manuscripts is type 2225:
The one who has written with his fingers, the owner, and the one who reads cautiously: save the three of them, thrice blessed Trinity.
In these three dodecasyllables, the Trinity is implored to save yet another triad (the scribe, the owner and the reader). The parallel between the Latin and the Byzantine examples is striking and underlines again that book epigrams have similar functions in both literary cultures.
A Book Epigram on Saint Ambrose
Just as there are a lot of Byzantine book epigrams on Eastern Church Fathers, there are several laudations of Western Church Fathers in Latin book epigrams. One of the praised Fathers is Ambrose, bishop of Milan (339-397 AD). In an early printed book, Basel Univ. FJ II 1-3, p. 9, a. 1492, there is an illustrated title page of his works. Below a portrait of the writing bishop, appears a poem in elegiac couplets.
Image 3: Basel Univ. FJ II 1-3, p. 9 (a. 1492)
Quid tibi sancta fides, pater o memorande, rependet, Quam tua collustrant scripta decora nimis?
Per te caesaribus vivendi norma, beate, Praescripta est multis christicolisque bonis.
Plurima certe[5] tuis debet veneranda libellis Religio, infractam quod facis esse fidem.
Haeretici exhorrent merito venerabile nomen. Ambrosii, quorum malleus ipse fuit.
Nec potuere quidem verbum mutare maligni Illius ex scriptis dogmatibusque viri.
What will holy faith, o memorable father, compensate you? For your charming writings very much illuminate your faith. Because of you, o blessed one, a rule of life is prescribed to emperors and to many good Christians. The venerable religion certainly owes a great debt to your books, because you make sure that faith is not broken. Heretics rightly shudder at the venerable name of Ambrose, who himself was a hammer to them. Malicious men were unable to change even a single word of his writings and teachings.
Image 4: Sebastian Brant by Albrecht Dürer (1520)
The poem was composed by Sebastian Brant (1458-1521), who was a German humanist and poet. He is mostly famous for his work Das Narrenschyff (Ship of Fools), but he also composed a series of poems on Church Fathers, such as Augustine and Ambrose, which are included in his Varia Carmina.[6] The poem quoted above is part (vv. 7-16) of a longer poem of 68 verses that appears under the heading ‘In laudem sanctissimi patris Ambrosii’ (In Honor of the Most Holy Father Ambrose).
Probably, these verses by Brant were selected for several reasons. Firstly, they express a clear praise of the spiritual value of Ambrose, a man of excellent faith who gives guidelines not only to good Christians, but also to emperors (probably a reference to his banning of emperor Theodosius from the cathedral of Milan as a punishment for the Massacre of Thessalonica in 390 AD, for which he held the emperor responsible). Also, he is portrayed as an enemy and ‘destroyer’ (‘a hammer’) of heretics. Another reason why these verses where used as a book epigram is that the last elegiac couplet is a claim of a trustworthy edition of the texts of Ambrose. Such claims are of course important when copying manuscripts.Furthermore, the popularity of Brant, as a contemporary poet, was possibly also a reason to select these verses to feature on the front page of Ambrose’s work.
Image 5: Leontorius, Conradus (ed.) 1506 , Ambrose, Opera. Printed by Ioannes Petri de Langendorff, Basel, 29 May 1506.
Interestingly, the very same verses on Ambrose as the ones quoted above also appear on the title page of the printed volume of the works of Ambrose by Ioannes Petri de Langendorff, which was published in Basel, in 1506. The composition of both title pages is quite comparable and an influence from Basel (Univ. FJ II 1-3, a. 1492) seems possible. The fact that the same verses, although originally being part of a longer composition, are copied in other volumes is an indication of the established position of these distichs as a traditional paratext to be appended to early editions of Ambrose’s works.
A Conclusive Plea
From this very limited case study, consisting of only three examples, it is difficult to draw general conclusions on features and diffusion of Latin book epigrams. However, what the examples do indicate is that there is a lot of diversity within this genre, not only regarding length and literary quality, but also regarding meter. The example taken from Brant’s poetry furthermore indicates that book epigrams do not only appear in medieval manuscripts, but also in printed books. Moreover, it seems clear on several points that there are strong similarities between Latin and Byzantine book epigrams. Therefore, it might be a good idea to set up a database of Latin book epigrams next to or, at best, linked to the DBBE. Several Latin book epigrams with a close relation towards Byzantine ones could be linked to one another and similarities and differences between both book cultures could be studied in more detail. Not only would a database of Latin book epigrams be beneficial for the study of Latin book epigrams on their own, it might also inspire the DBBE to take a look beyond the borders of Byzantium.
Notes
[1] See, for example, the Byzantine book epigram inc. Ἡ μὲν χεὶρ ἡ γράψασα σήπεται τάφῳ, which also circulates in various several variants (DBBE Type 1974). [2] All translations are by the author. [3] The cultural, social or religious implications of this phrase are not immediately clear to me. Please feel free to comment below this post or to contact me should you be willing to provide more information on this practice. Besides, the note “vel pellum” below the folio does not seem to be part of the poem. Both the meter and the lay-out indicate that it is not part of the verse. See also f. 1r for similar notes. The note on f. 119v seems to be a scholion providing an alternative reading. The word ‘pellum’ is short for ‘scalpellus’, referring to a knife used by scribes. It is not immediately clear to me how it fits into the context of this folio. [4] I would like to thank Wim Verbaal for his input as for the metrical form of this epigram. [5] The edition of the Varia Carmina itself read ‘nostra’ instead of ‘certe’. The edition of Ioannes Petri de Langendorff, mentioned below, also reads ‘certe’. [6] Notice that there are book epigrams on the front page and at the end of this edition as well.
Want to read more?
Meesters, R. (forthcoming) A Plea for a Database of Latin Book Epigrams: A Case Study of Latin Book Epigrams in the Royal Library of Belgium. Proceedings of the ‘Old Books and New Technologies Conference’ 6th of May 2021. Royal Library of Belgium, Brussels.
Reynhout, L. (2006) Formules latines de colophons. 2 vols. Bibliologia 25. Turnhout.
For a link between Greek, Latin, Syriac and Arabic book epigrams, see McCollum, A. C. (2015) The Rejoicing Sailor and the Rotting Hand: Two Formulas in Syriac and Arabic Colophons. Hugoye: Journal of Syriac Studies 18.1: 67-93.
For many more laudatory Latin book epigrams in honour of the Church Fathers by Sebastian Brant, see his Varia Carmina.
About the author
Renaat Meesters is a former heuristic collaborator of the DBBE. In 2017 he completed his PhD-thesis on the edition of some Byzantine book epigrams on the Ladder of John Klimax.
“I would like to thank Rachele Ricceri for her many good suggestions for improving this text.”
Alberto Longhi (Venezia, 1992) obtained an MA in Classics at the University of Milan and a diploma in Greek Paleography at the Vatican School of Paleography. He is a teacher in Italian high schools and dedicates himself to research in philological and literary contexts as an independent researcher. His research interests focus on 11th-century Byzantine literature and the transmission of the Greek classics in humanistic Florence (especially on Poliziano).
Jacopo Marcon is a doctoral candidate at ITSEE in the University of Birmingham where he is part of the ERC-funded CATENA Project. His doctoral research investigates the manuscript and textual tradition of the Pseudo-Oecumenian catena on Romans, with a particular focus on how the extracts from the patristic sources have been adapted within the context of the catena. He has previously contributed to 
