The manuscript contains Lycophron's Alexandra (3rd c. BCE), a poem in iambic trimeters characterized by laboured style and obscure vocabulary, which enjoyed a great success in antiquity and Byzantine times chiefly because of its use in education.
The text is accompanied by a synoptic Latin translation, by the classical scholar Willem Canter (1542-1575), and a summary of the text in poetry (Epitome) with a Latin translation by the same author.
The manuscript has been copied by a non-Greek person. Considering the texts, it was probably copied from a printed edition. Three editions of the 16th-17th c. contain the Greek text of the poem alongside with Canter's translation and Epitome: the edition by Oporinus (Basel 1566), Commelin (Heidelberg 1596) and Paul Estienne (Geneva 1601).
The scribe, probably to be placed in the 17th century, possibly copied the text for study purposes.
Dr Erika Elia
The manuscript consists of 9 quaternions and a final quire of 5 leaves, whose structure is difficult to determine. The quires have been sewn very tightly and there is no numbering.
Modern western full leather binding over couched-laminate boards. Tooled borders on both boards, traces of green in the edges. Rebacked, with gold tooled shelfmark. Earlier leather labels with shelfmark are glued on the right pastedown.
Binding height: 150 mm, width: 101 mm, depth: 21 mm.
Both Greek and Latin texts are written by the same western European hand. As the Latin one, the Greek handwriting is characterised by chiaroscuro effects. The Greek script is a minuscule; vertical and diagonal strokes tend to be rounded or sinuous, some forms are traced rigidly, and in general the ductus is slow. The handwriting can be dated to the 17th century.
The text is written in brown ink.
The scribe also wrote some scholia in the margins.
The leaves are paginated i-iv, 1-152 in the top right hand corner recto and in the top left hand corner verso. The numbers 1-145 are in brown ink, original to the production of the manuscript. The numbers i-iv, 147-152 are later, in pencil, in Arabic numerals; pp. [19], [20], [146], [148] and [150] are not numbered: i-iv + 118 + [19] + [20] + 21-145 + [146] + 147 + [148] + 149 + [150] + 151-152
At p. i the main scribe wrote pen-trials and random annotations: " Die Martis | Key | Pitts 39 | Tucker" (the last word is repeated several times), "S. Conduit", "the foolish", "[JCuno/JPune]"
At p. 1 he writes a brief note about how Helena is said by Lycophron to be τριάνωρ : " Helena a Lycophrone dicitur τριάνωρ quod Theseo Menelao Paridi nupsisset", then there is a reference to Scaliger (who published a translation of the Alexandra), now difficult to read, and a reference to the page of this manuscript, where the passage concerning this definition is to be found (p. 82)
The text was copied probably in the first half of the 17th century by a non-Greek person, probably a scholar, from a printed edition of the 16th-17th century.
Under the 'More' menu you can find metadata about the item, and information about sharing this image.
The manuscript consists of 9 quaternions and a final quire of 5 leaves, whose structure is difficult to determine. The quires have been sewn very tightly and there is no numbering.
Modern western full leather binding over couched-laminate boards. Tooled borders on both boards, traces of green in the edges. Rebacked, with gold tooled shelfmark. Earlier leather labels with shelfmark are glued on the right pastedown.
Binding height: 150 mm, width: 101 mm, depth: 21 mm.
Both Greek and Latin texts are written by the same western European hand. As the Latin one, the Greek handwriting is characterised by chiaroscuro effects. The Greek script is a minuscule; vertical and diagonal strokes tend to be rounded or sinuous, some forms are traced rigidly, and in general the ductus is slow. The handwriting can be dated to the 17th century.
The text is written in brown ink.
The scribe also wrote some scholia in the margins.
The leaves are paginated i-iv, 1-152 in the top right hand corner recto and in the top left hand corner verso. The numbers 1-145 are in brown ink, original to the production of the manuscript. The numbers i-iv, 147-152 are later, in pencil, in Arabic numerals; pp. [19], [20], [146], [148] and [150] are not numbered: i-iv + 118 + [19] + [20] + 21-145 + [146] + 147 + [148] + 149 + [150] + 151-152
At p. i the main scribe wrote pen-trials and random annotations: " Die Martis | Key | Pitts 39 | Tucker" (the last word is repeated several times), "S. Conduit", "the foolish", "[JCuno/JPune]"
At p. 1 he writes a brief note about how Helena is said by Lycophron to be τριάνωρ : " Helena a Lycophrone dicitur τριάνωρ quod Theseo Menelao Paridi nupsisset", then there is a reference to Scaliger (who published a translation of the Alexandra), now difficult to read, and a reference to the page of this manuscript, where the passage concerning this definition is to be found (p. 82)
The text was copied probably in the first half of the 17th century by a non-Greek person, probably a scholar, from a printed edition of the 16th-17th century.