Medieval and Early Modern Greek Manuscripts : Miscellany

Medieval and Early Modern Greek Manuscripts

<p style='text-align: justify;'>This manuscript, copied in the early 16th century, contains a <i>Miscellany</i>, largely of ancient texts and excerpts. These include a selection of Aesop's fables, a large collection of sayings of pagan and Christian authors, the letters of the 2nd-3rd-century CE sophist Flavius Philostratus, a poem by the 2nd-century CE poet Moschus of Syracuse, accompanied by a Latin translation by the Italian humanist Angelo Poliziano (1454-1491), and a poem by the 12th-century Byzantine author Michael Haplucheir. This text, concerning the conventional theme of the woes of the impoverished scholar, is structured in the form of a drama, which is unusual for this period. A later owner, probably in the 17th century, has written a list of books on two blank folios.</p><p style='text-align: justify;'>The predominantly erotic character of the letters of Philostratus provides a thematic link with the poem by Moschus, but there is otherwise no clear uniting theme. Rather than being an original compilation, the manuscript appears to be derived directly from a previously existing miscellany, as indicated by the similarity of its content with a 15th-century manuscript, which appears to share a common source (Vatican, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, MS Pal. gr. 122).</p><p style='text-align: justify;'>Dr Christopher Wright</p>