Medieval and Early Modern Greek Manuscripts : Greek astrological and divinatory texts

Medieval and Early Modern Greek Manuscripts

<p style='text-align: justify;'> The manuscript contains a rich collection of <i> Greek astrological and divinatory texts</i>. Among them there are various texts of onomancy, divination based on the subject's name, and, mostly, geomancy, the divination based on the interpretation of figures drawn on the basis of a casual number of points made in the earth or sand with a chisel. Various of the texts are still unpublished. The same collection of texts, in the same order, is found in MS <a target='_blank' class='externalLink' href='http://mss.bmlonline.it/Catalogo.aspx?Shelfmark=Plut.86.14'> Firenze, Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana, Plut. 86.14</a>, copied by the Florentine scribe Lorenzo Zanobi Ciatti (D. Speranzi, 'Tra Creta e Firenze. Aristobulo Apostolis, Marco Musuro e il Riccardiano 77', in: <i> Segno e Testo </i> 4 (2006), pp. 191-210,, 204 note 47; see also Rapisarda-Calcagno 2016, pp. 154-155 and note 10) in the 15th century. </p><p style='text-align: justify;'> Among the geomantic texts, MS R.15.36 contains a still unpublished treatise, Ἡ τέχνη τοῦ λαξευτηρίου ('The art of the chisel'; the term has been read as referring to the object used for tracing the geomantic shapes), which is a translation in Greek from Latin, made by Nicholas of Otranto (1219-1235; as a monk he took the name of Nectarius), who became abbot of the well-known Byzantine monastery of Casole, in Southern Italy (on this text see A. Delatte, L. Delatte, 'Un traité byzantin de géomancie', in: <i> Mélanges Franz Cumont (Annuaire de l'Institut de Philologie et d'Histoire Orientales et Slaves 4)</i>, 1936, pp. 575-658, J.M. Hoeck, R.J. Loenertz, <i> Nikolaos-Nektarios von Otranto Abt von Casole. Beiträge zur Geschichte der ost-westlichen Beziehungen unter Innozenz III. und Friedrich II.</i> (Studia Patristica et Byzantina 11), Passau 1965, pp. 69-74, Rapisarda-Calcagno 2016, pp. 167-169, Giannachi 2017, pp. 221-222, with bibliography).</p><p style='text-align: justify;'> The script, and the decoration seem to indicate an origin for this manuscript in the 14th century, in the region of Otranto in Southern Italy, the same <i> milieu</i> where the geomantic text of Nicholas/Nactarius was composed.</p><p style='text-align: justify;'> Dr Erika Elia</p>