Western Medieval Manuscripts : On the Sublime

Western Medieval Manuscripts

<p style='text-align: justify;'> This Greek manuscript contains a 16th-century copy of the treatise <i><i>On the Sublime</i></i>, a work of literary criticism dating back probably to the 1st century CE. The author is unknown but has conventionally been referred to as Longinus or Pseudo-Longinus. <i>On the Sublime</i> is both a treatise on aesthetics and a work of literary criticism. It is also known for quoting (and thus transmitting) Sappho's fragment 31 (Φαίνεταί μοι). <p style='text-align: justify;'> The codex is an autograph of the Italo-Cretan Hellenist Franciscus Portus (1511-1581; see Mazzucchi 1989, p. 216), who later edited the treatise (<a target='_blank' class='externalLink' href='http://mdz-nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:bvb:12-bsb10170807-7'>Geneva 1569</a>). According to Marc-Antoine Muret (1526-1585), in his commentary on Catullus (<a target='_blank' class='externalLink' href='http://mdz-nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:bvb:12-bsb10170944-4'>1554</a>, ff. 57r-58r), Paulus Manutius (1512-1574) entrusted Portus with preparing the Greek text of <i>On the Sublime</i> for his <a target='_blank' class='externalLink' href='http://mdz-nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:bvb:12-bsb10150848-3'>1555 edition</a>, and the manuscript Kk.6.34 is a witness of his work. In this edition, for instance, Sappho's text presents the corrections handed down from Kk.6.34 and the same colometry arrangement as on <a href='' onclick='store.loadPage(9);return false;'>f. ii recto</a>, due to Portus.</p><p style='text-align: justify;'>As per an hypothesis of Gerard Langbaine (1656-1692), editor of the <a target='_blank' class='externalLink' href='http://mdz-nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:bvb:12-bsb10236635-7'>Oxford 1638 edition</a>, Manutius later asked his student Andreas Dudith (1533-1589) for a Latin translation of the text and delivered him Portus' manuscript.</p><p style='text-align: justify;'> In the margins, Franciscus Portus has added proposals for emendations, introduced by ἴσ(ως) and γρ(ραπτέον), and notes in Italian (see Rhys Roberts 1898, p. 300).</p><p style='text-align: justify;'>Manuscript Kk.6.34 was known as <i>Codex Eliensis</i> (see Rhys Roberts 1898, p. 299), because it was in possession of John Moore (1646-1714), bishop of Ely. Rhys Roberts (1898, p. 301) supposed that the <i>Codex Eliensis</i> may be identical with that Langbaine called <i>Dudithianus</i> after Andreas Dudith, or <i>Junianus</i> after the Royal Librarian Patrick Young (1584-1652) (also known as Patricius Junius), who sent the manuscript to Langbaine. These names are no longer used in modern editions.</p><p style='text-align: justify;'>Manuscript Kk.6.34 is is cited as <i>k</i> in modern editions, a copy of <i>m</i> (Venice, Biblioteca Nazionale Marciana, gr. Z. 522, commisioned by Cardinal Bessarion), in turn, a copy of <i>P</i> (Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, grec 2036), the archetype of the textual tradition.</p></p><p style='text-align: justify;'>Dr Matteo Di Franco</p>