Medieval and Early Modern Greek Manuscripts : Lysistrata

Medieval and Early Modern Greek Manuscripts

<p style='text-align: justify;'>This manuscript, copied in western Europe in the late 17th century, contains the text of Aristophanes's comedy <i>Lysistrata</i>, accompanied on facing pages by the standard ancient scholia commenting on this text and preceded by the usual prefatory hypothesis. Occasional rarer scholia appear in the margins of the text itself (e.g. ff. <a href='' onclick='store.loadPage(11);return false;'>4r</a>, <a href='' onclick='store.loadPage(17);return false;'>7r</a>).</p><p style='text-align: justify;'>The first few folios of the text of <i>Lysistrata</i> and its scholia were copied from a manuscript belonging to the Dutch scholar and book collector Isaac Vossius (1618-1689), which is now Leiden, Bibliotheek der Rijkuniversiteit, Voss. gr. F^o 52. That manuscript contains only a fragment of the text, and from the point where it comes to an end the text here was copied from the edition edited by Sigmund Gelen and published in Basle by Hieronymus Froben in 1547. The point of transition in text and scholia is noted in the margins of <a href='' onclick='store.loadPage(14);return false;'>ff. 5v-6r</a>. In the margins to the standard scholia were noted variant readings appearing in a second manuscript, referred to as the property of one Browne, presumably the English scholar and physician Thomas Browne (1605-1682), who was a friend of Vossius.</p><p style='text-align: justify;'>At the end of the manuscript is a single page of text, again with facing scholia, a fragment of another play by the same author, the <i>Birds</i>, copied from the Froben edition.</p><p style='text-align: justify;'>Dr Christopher Wright</p>