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Abstract

Diplomatic transcriptions of medieval texts pose particular challenges for digital annotation: their fragmentary preservation, non-standard orthography, and heterogeneous linguistic features complicate processing and limit the reuse of existing tools. To address these issues, we developed a full annotation pipeline for unedited medieval Greek, including part-of-speech tagging, morphological analysis, and lemmatisation. A manually created gold standard of 10,000 tokens was used to train and benchmark transformer- based language models, resulting in DBBErt, a system optimised for historical Greek. This pipeline not only improves the accuracy of linguistic annotation in low-resource settings, but also provides a foundation for more complex research questions. As a case in point, a semantic textual similarity benchmark was designed to investigate intertextual connections across Byzantine book epigrams, demonstrating how annotated data can enable new perspectives on meaning and reuse. Our work highlights both the potential and the limitations of existing annotation strategies: while transformer models significantly enhance processing quality, traditional embeddings remain competitive in some contexts, and software constraints require careful workarounds. More broadly, we will show how digital annotation fosters collaboration across philology, linguistics, and computational modelling, creating added value for the study of medieval texts and manuscript culture.

Practical information

This round table presentation will be given at Byzantium beyond Byzantium. 25th International Congress of Byzantine Studies, which takes places in Vienna on 24-29 August 2026.

Date & time: Saturday the 29th of August 2026, 08:30

Location: University of Vienna (Universitätsring 1, 1010 Vienna)

Abstract

This paper reassesses how Byzantine poetry was read, arguing that an exclusive focus on oral performance obscures the significance of its material, written contexts. While orality was undeniably an important factor, numerous poems reveal that the physicality of texts and the act of visual reading were equally central to their reception. The paper discusses verse disputes in the margins of manuscripts, invective exchanges on scrolls, and the status of the poem as an object in other written genres. Manuscripts emerge as spaces for intellectual debate and literary production. Acrostics and stichometric games highlight the physicality of poems as objects. Byzantine poems circulated as pamphlets, gifts, pedagogical tools with visual aids, and even devotional items. Thus, poetic objects were given various cultural, intellectual, and spiritual meanings. In sum, the paper proposes to see Byzantine poetic culture as a spectrum of practices: hearing and reciting, but also writing, annotating, seeing, and handling. Each act of poetic communication consisted of an interplay between orality and textuality/materiality (the latter best captured by the German term Schriftlichkeit).

Practical information

This lecture will be given at Byzantium beyond Byzantium. 25th International Congress of Byzantine Studies, which takes places in Vienna on 24-29 August 2026.

Date & time: Tuesday the 25th of August 2026, 15:30

Location: University of Vienna (Universitätsring 1, 1010 Vienna)

Abstract

The DBBE (www.dbbe.ugent.be) was created and developed thanks to three rounds of substantial funding, the third of which ends in 2027. In this paper, we will (1) briefly look back at the basic (and evolving) principles, choices and objectives; (2) describe the current state of the database (the second online version); and (3) look ahead to the near and further future, pointing out some challenges and possible priorities for the remaining period of guaranteed funding. It is not our intention to provide a demonstration of the DBBE, nor to give an introduction to book epigrams / metric paratexts. Rather, we are targeting an audience of occasional or regular users of the database, who are to a greater or lesser extent familiar with the corpus and who can give us critical and constructive feedback and suggestions.

Practical information

This lecture will be given at Byzantium beyond Byzantium. 25th International Congress of Byzantine Studies, which takes places in Vienna on 24-29 August 2026.

Date & time: Thursday the 27th of August 2026, 17:30

Location: University of Vienna (Universitätsring 1, 1010 Vienna)

Abstract

This paper focuses on a group of book epigrams featured in the manuscript Messina, Biblioteca Universitaria, S. Salv. 133 [Diktyon 40794], produced in Southern Italy in 962/963. The paper aims to demonstrate that these poems offer unique insights into the persons and communities involved in the writing and use of the manuscript, as well as into the personal interaction of an Italo-Greek scribe-reader with Byzantine texts. In the 10th century, despite the political instability of the Byzantine presence in Southern Italy (mainly due to Arabic raids), the cultural ties between this peripheric region and Byzantium persisted, as exemplified by the local book production and consumption. This paper aims to contribute to our understanding of this connection through the analysis of metrical paratexts, also known as Byzantine book epigrams. These poems, often located at the thresholds of manuscripts, function as a bridge between the material creation of the codices and the intellectual involvement of its audience. Italo-Greek scribes, patrons, and readers used these poems as tools for self-representation and to express their relationship with the texts they engaged with. A particularly compelling example of this dual role of book epigrams occurs in the codex Messina, S. Salv. 133, which contains works by John Chrysostom. This Italo-Greek manuscript features four metrical paratexts, all located at different folios. Through these poems, the scribe leaves traces of his involvement in the material production of the manuscript, such as his name and the date of completion. Moreover, he expresses his personal connection to John Chrysostom, revealing his motivation for copying and reading this author. I will perform a textual and contextual examination of these poems in order to reconstruct the socio-cultural identity of the scribe and to illustrate how Byzantine texts inspired active and intimate forms of intellectual and spiritual interaction in the Italo-Greek world.

Practical information

This lecture will be given at Byzantium beyond Byzantium. 25th International Congress of Byzantine Studies, which takes places in Vienna on 24-29 August 2026.

Date & time: Thursday the 27th of August 2026, 17:30

Location: University of Vienna (Universitätsring 1, 1010 Vienna)

Abstract

Questo progetto ha come oggetto di ricerca i cosiddetti “book epigrams” bizantini attestati nei manoscritti greci prodotti in Italia meridionale tra il X e il XIII secolo. Data la loro stretta relazione con la dimensione materiale e quella contenutistica dei codici che li tramandano, questi componimenti costituiscono una risorsa significativa per lo studio di pratiche e dinamiche della cultura libraria italogreca.

L’analisi testuale di un gruppo selezionato di epigrammi è integrata dall’esame paleografico e codicologico dei manoscritti in cui essi appaiono. Uno strumento fondamentale per la ricerca è il “Database of Byzantine Book Epigrams”, che raccoglie dati testuali e contestuali di paratesti metrici trasmessi da codici bizantini datati tra il IX e il XV secolo.
Il progetto mira a ricostruire l’identità socioculturale di copisti, committenti e lettori italogreci che si servivano dei “book epigrams” per documentare il loro coinvolgimento nella produzione e nella fruizione dei manoscritti. Inoltre, lo studio di questi paratesti si propone di identificare specificità regionali ed eventuali tracce di interazioni interculturali.

Practical information

This lecture will be given at the Terzo incontro di studio dei dottorandi e dei dottori di ricerca in studi bizantini, which takes places in Rome on th 27th of February 2026.

Date & time: Friday the 27th of February 2026, 11:45

Location: Sapienza Università di Roma

Abstract

This paper aims to explore the function of Byzantine book epigrams as sources of insights into the mentality and identity of persons and communities that shaped Southern Italian book culture between the 10th and 13th centuries.
While Italo-Greek manuscript production was mainly connected to monastic settings, secular clergy and laymen were also involved, albeit less frequently, in the material realization of codices. A glimpse into the motivations and socio-cultural identity of these individuals is offered by Byzantine book epigrams, i.e. metrical paratexts located at the thresholds of manuscripts.

Within these poems, scribes occasionally left traces of their engagement with manuscripts by recording personal details such as names, offices and designations. These occurrences are especially noteworthy because, as recently noted by I. Hutter (2023), anonymity was the standard condition for Italo-Greek scribes, especially in monastic contexts. Therefore, explicit self-identification stands out as a deliberate and meaningful act, potentially reflecting individual aspirations, or an intimate form of intellectual connection between the scribes and the content of the manuscripts they copied.

This paper seeks to demonstrate how metrical paratexts can contribute to a deeper understanding of the profile of Italo-Greek scribes. Drawing on data and metadata stored in the “Database of Byzantine Book Epigrams” (DBBE), I will perform a textual and contextual examination of selected book epigrams featured in Southern Italian manuscripts that are rich in prosopographical information. The goal is to reconstruct the socio-cultural identity of scribes and to shed light on the personal motivations that shaped their self-representation within these poems.

Practical information

This lecture will be given at the “2nd International PROSOPON Workshop“, which takes place in Munich on 10-12 December 2025.

Date & time: Wednesday 10 December 2025, 18:00

Location: University of Munich