Medieval and Early Modern Greek Manuscripts : Demosthenes and other rhetorical and miscellaneous texts

Medieval and Early Modern Greek Manuscripts

<p style='text-align: justify;'>This manuscript is a composite of components produced separately by various copyists at dates ranging from the mid-14th to early 15th century, containing works of <i>Demosthenes and other rhetorical and miscellaneous texts</i>. The bulk of the manuscript is composed of orations by the 4th-century BCE Athenian orator Demosthenes, and there are various prefaces, scholia and excerpts of commentary on his works by authors including the 4th-century CE rhetorician Libanios, as well as other brief texts and excerpts on rhetoric.</p><p style='text-align: justify;'>Besides its rhetorical content, the manuscript contains a wide range of other short texts, including letters, formulae for letters and for legal procedures, primarily regarding divorce, calendrical tables, medical and magical remedies, and religious texts, among them an anathema pronounced against the defeated side in the 14th-century controversy over the meditative practice of Hesychasm and the related theological views of Gregory Palamas.</p><p style='text-align: justify;'>The manuscript retains a binding in the Greek style, which may well be the original one from the time when its various components were first bound together into a single volume.</p><p style='text-align: justify;'>Dr Christopher Wright</p>