Byzantine Commentaries on Ancient Greek Texts, 12th–15th Centuries

Addresses the importance of ancient literature for Byzantine society and explores various ways of recycling and understanding ancient works.

Baukje van den Berg (Edited by), Divna Manolova (Edited by), Przemys?aw Marciniak (Edited by)

9781316514658, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 8 September 2022

360 pages
23.5 x 15.8 x 2.7 cm, 0.71 kg

This is the first volume to explore the commentaries on ancient texts produced and circulating in Byzantium. It adopts a broad chronological perspective (from the twelfth to the fifteenth century) and examines different types of commentaries on ancient poetry and prose within the context of the study and teaching of grammar, rhetoric, philosophy and science. By discussing the exegetical literature of the Byzantines as embedded in the socio-cultural context of the Komnenian and Palaiologan periods, the book analyses the frameworks and networks of knowledge transfer, patronage and identity building that motivated the Byzantine engagement with the ancient intellectual and literary tradition.

Introduction: Byzantine commentaries on ancient Greek texts Baukje van den Berg and Divna Manolova
1. The politics and practices of commentary in Komnenian Byzantium Panagiotis A. Agapitos
2. Forging identities between Heaven and Earth: commentaries on Aristotle and authorial practices in eleventh- and twelfth-century Byzantium Michele Trizio
3. Cultural appropriation and the performance of exegesis in John Tzetzes' scholia on Aristophanes Aglae Pizzone
4. Uncovering the literary sources of John Tzetzes' Theogony Maria Tomadaki
5. Odysseus the schedographer Valeria F. Lovato
6. Eustathios of Thessalonike on comedy and ridicule in Homeric poetry Baukje van den Berg
7. Geography at school: Eustathios of Thessalonike's Parekbolai on Dionysius Periegetes Inmaculada Pérez Martín
8. Painting and polyphony: the Christos Paschon as commentary Margaret Mullett
9. Parodying antiquity for pleasure and learning: the Idyll by Maximos Planoudes Krystina Kubina
10. Teaching poetry in the early Palaiologan school: Manuel Holobolos' and John Pediasimos' commentaries on Theocritus' Syrinx Paula Caballero Sánchez
11. Late Byzantine scholia on the Greek classics: what did they comment on? Manuel Moschopoulos on Sophocles' Electra Andrea M. Cuomo
12. Theodora Raoulaina's autograph codex Vat. gr. 1899 and Aelius Aristides Fevronia Nousia
13. The reception of Eustathios of Thessalonike's Parekbolai in Arsenios Apostolis' and Erasmus' paroemiographic collections Lorenzo M. Ciolfi.

Subject Areas: Medieval history [HBLC1], European history [HBJD], Literary studies: classical, early & medieval [DSBB]