Western Medieval Manuscripts : Thucydides, History of the Peloponnesian War

Western Medieval Manuscripts

<p style='text-align: justify;'> This 15th-century manuscript is entirely dedicated to <i>Thucydides, <i>History of the Peloponnesian War</i></i>, which recounts the war between Sparta and Athens (431-404 BCE) down to the year 411 BCE. The manuscript is cited in editions of the text as N or Cn. The <i>History</i> is preceded by the brief anonymous life of Thucydides.</p><p style='text-align: justify;'>The manuscript was previously attributed to an unknown scribe named George the Cretan, but this erroneous identification was corrected by Diller, who identified the hand of Andronikos Kallistos (Andronicus Callistus). Kallistos was a Greek émigré and teacher of Greek literature in Bologna, Rome, Florence, Paris and London. After the fall of Constantinople in 1453, Kallistos went to Italy and entered into the circle of Palla Strozzi and Bessarion. He left Tuscany in 1475 and his presence is attested in Milan in 1475-1476, before he left Italy for France and eventually England, where he died in 1476 in London. This copy of Thucydides is linked to a copy of Herodotus now Cambridge, Emmanuel College, MS 30. The two manuscripts were conceived as pair, both for their content (the two major Greek historians) and for their physical characteristics.</p><p style='text-align: justify;'>The manuscript entered into Anthony Askew's collection, and was borrowed by the 18th-century classical scholar Richard Porson, who added the note on <a href='' onclick='store.loadPage(30);return false;'>f. 1v</a> and numbered the books in the upper margin of recto folios. According to Porson, the manuscript would appear to be the <i>Clarendonianus</i> used by Hudson for his 1696 edition of Thucydides.</p>