Christ's College : Homer

Christ's College

This manuscript, copied between the 1550s and 1560s, is the first of a two-volume set of Greek literary texts with Cambridge, Christ's College, MS Rouse 359. MS Rouse 358 contains the Iliad, the Odyssey, the Batrachomyomachia and hymns by Homer.According to the date appearing at the beginning of sections and a statement at the end of the manuscript, the manuscript was entirely copied by Carolus Stephanus in 1552. He claims to have copied the manuscript for personal study; he may not have completed it until some time after 1552. Little is known about him: he served as librarian of Johann Jakob Fugger (1516-1575), one of the most prolific book collectors of the 16th century, and is known to have catalogued in 1565 the Greek and Greek-Latin manuscripts of Fugger's collection, which later entered the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek in Munich, where Stephanus' autograph catalogue is kept: <a target='_blank' class='externalLink' href='https://daten.digitale-sammlungen.de/~db/0009/bsb00092095/images/'>Munich, BSB, Cbm Cat. 48</a> (see also <a target='_blank' class='externalLink' href='https://daten.digitale-sammlungen.de/~db/0000/bsb00008931/images/'> S. Kellner, A. Spethmann 1996, p. 514</a>). Stephanus also copied a Greek psalter, <a target='_blank' class='externalLink' href='https://digital.blb-karlsruhe.de/blbihd/periodical/pageview/4867'>Karlsruhe, Badische Landesbibliothek, Codex 431</a>.Although MS 358 seems never to have been divided into two volumes, the manuscript is conceived in two sections, called "tomi" by the copyist, who starts new pagination at the beginning of the second tome.The manuscript was presented to Christ's College Library by William Henry Denham Rouse, Fellow of the College from 1888 to 1894, Honorary Fellow from 1933 until his death, and headmaster of the Perse School in Cambridge.Dr Matteo Di Franco