NEW LIGHT ON ANCIENT RHETORIC

The aim of the present project is to study an anonymous Greek text titled etaßse f t sp p t a sata daf t. It was transcribed by an anonymous compiler in the ms. Firenze, Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana, plut. 58.24, a miscellaneous code dating from the middle-Byzantine era (11th-12th century), and containing mostly rhetorical excerpts. The Metabaseis is a collection of passages extracted from known and unknown rhetorical works, together with examples of rhetorical figures; it resembles a particular kind of text that we might call "collections of examples" but within this "genre" they represent an unicum especially regarding certain aspects, the most obvious of which is the combination of transitiones and tropes, for which it is not yet possible to indicate any parallels. Recently, an important study carried out by Aldo Corcella (2015/16), has shown that some passages of the Metabaseis can to be attributed to the rhetoricians of Gaza, particularly Procopius and Choricius. The other texts remain unidentified even though their style and themes seem to point to the imperial age and to late antiquity. Thus, the Metabaseis prove to be an important witness for the history of the texts produced in the School of Gaza, and a concrete example of how Byzantine writers re-used the classical tradition for their own original creations. Corcella did not however publish the whole text of the Metabaseis, which is still waiting to be fully exploited. The aim of this project is to fill this gap by publishing a hitherto unknown, unique text, and by paying special attention to the cultural context in which it was written. For this purpose, the applicant will conduct a preliminary palaeographic study of the manuscript Laur. 58, 24 in order to date the collection and identify its possible author. In a second step, each passage of the text will be analysed and interpreted individually, looking for thematic and stylistic parallels in classical literature with the intent of explaining its meaning and clarifying its authorship. In the course of this study, the text of the etaßse will also be compared to the rhetorical works of the middle- Byzantine era in order to understand how materials drawn from ancient texts were re-used in composing modern discourses. The result of the project will be published in the form of a monograph, where the critical edition of the text will be accompanied by an English translation and commentary. The edition of the text will be publish both in a paper and in a digital version. The digital version of the Metabaseis will be realized through Transkribus, a web platform created by the IT team at the University of Innsbruck, which offers tools for displaying the original text with an according translation, as well as parallels in classical and Byzantine authors.

The aim of the project was to study and publish a critical edition of the anonymous Greek text titled (Metabaseis hereinafter), wich is transmitted in the ms. Firenze, Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana, plut. 58.24 (11th-12th century). This text is an important witness for the history of Late Antique rhetoric, and for its reception in the Middle- Byzantine era; it includes a collection of passages extracted from well-known rhetorical works, along with unidentified texts that belong to the Late Antiquity and the Byzantine era. In this study, the unknown texts cited in the collection are, for the first time, be attributed as far as possible to specific authors; at the same time, an outline of the cultural context in which the collection was drafted has been provided in order to underline its significance and use as an example of educational literature. The results of this project mainly pertain to Byzantine rhetoric; in fact, the most direct and important outcome is the attribution of a considerable number of fragments belonging to rhetorical works that were lost or transmitted in lacunose form. Furthermore, the present study improves our understanding of how Late Antique rhetoric was used by the rhetoricians and the Christian scholars of the Middle-Byzantine era: in fact, the philological examination of the single passages of the Metabaseis gives direct access to the instruments with which ancient knowledge was transmitted and re-read according to the requirements of new times, the different linguistical uses and the rhetorical theories. In addition, the identification of the literary traditions to which any anecdotes may lead shed light on the cultural context in which the collection was draft. In this context the prominent figures of the Greek mythology and history (specifically the Athenian one), become national heroes and models to be imitated. Their presentation is influenced by the most recent rhetorical models, such as Aristides, who present the Greek-Athenian figures according on a vision of the history in which the chronological order is secondary with respect to the illustration of the values that embody the Athenian people and which also embraces the most recent epoch dominated by the Roman imperialism. Finally, the extensive palaeographic analysis of the Laurentian codex which considered the composite material of the manuscript, the copyists who transcribed the texts (whose hands were wrongly identified and dated at different times) and the works contained in it, has not only enhanced our knowledge on this specific manuscript but also on the wider roles of the Byzantine compilers of anthologies and the ways in which they collected the texts, and thus providing a new singular example of rhetorical-grammatical miscellany.