Another Heidelberg Palatinus graecus manuscript appears online

Judging from their RSS feed, the university library at Heidelberg are actively digitising their manuscripts.  Another one popped up today, in addition to those that I mentioned last week:

  • Palatinus graecus 40 (14th c.) — Sophocles, Ajax, Electra, Oedipus; Pindar; Dionysius Periegetes; Lycophron; Oppian, Halieutica; Aratus, Phaenomena; Homer, Catalogue of the ships &c; George Cheroboscus, on poetical subjects and forms, plus a page on poetic meters.

A useful  volume!

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19 thoughts on “Another Heidelberg Palatinus graecus manuscript appears online

  1. the Vaticanus Pal. Gr. 173 is likely to be an ancestor of the Plato MS held by the Marciana in Venice (siglum = T). Which I inspected directly three weeks ago.

    I have info that the grand total number of scholars since Martin Schanz in the 1870s is fewer than 100. Is my information solid ? As such things go, yes. Naturally, there is more to this story. Much of it is even true, nevermind it happened in Venice.

    Malcolm Brown, Hull Massachusetts

  2. Thank you for the note on Pal. gr. 173! What does it contain?

    I didn’t quite follow your second comment: the “grand total of scholars” … who did what? (confused)

  3. sorry to’ve omitted the main point: fewer than 100 ‘in situ’ inspections of that treasurehouse of Plato texts at the Marciana — since Martin Schanz wrote up his observations in 1877.

    A pace more satisfying to a RPearse blog might be 100 a month.

  4. Entirely believable. Mss do NOT get consulted.

    One reason for this is the travel necessary, the inconvenience when you get there and the frequently hostile attitude of the staff at these repositories. As mss come online, this will change, and it will be possible to do real work. Indeed it may well be that we are on the threshold of a golden age of manuscript studies.

  5. “the Vaticanus Pal. Gr. 173 is likely to be an ancestor of the Plato MS held by the Marciana in Venice (siglum = T).”

    No! These codices were written around the middle of 10th century, but they represent two distinct branches of Platonic manuscript tradition. Schanz was simply wrong!

  6. I study the manuscript tradition of Plato for about twenty years and I published a critical edition of platonic scholia. 😉

  7. 🙂

    What is the shelfmark of that Venice ms.? And, for the benefit of those of we ignorant souls, who know nothing of the transmission of Plato, can you tell us which is the best introduction to the subject?

    And … what is it, that leads you believe (briefly!) that the two mss. are cousins, rather than descended from one another? What is the key piece of data? (If it can be summarised, for the general reader)?

  8. T = Venetus Marcianus Appendix Classis IV 1 (saec. X me., probably written by the very famous scribe Ephraem)
    P = Vaticanus Palatinus graecus 173 (saec. X me. ca.)

    The bibliography is simply immense and the relation between the two manuscript P and T is now of public domain, and certainly not thanks to me.

    You can find useful informations in these books, for example:
    – Brochmann, C., Die handschriftiche Überlieferung von Platons Symposion, Wiesbaden 1992
    – Carlini, A., Studi sulla tradizione antica e medievale del Fedone, Roma 1976

    And, obviously, in the OCT edition (vol. 1) edited by Nicoll and others

    I found your blog in the hope to find some pictures of cod. P in the web, but I could to thoroughly study this manuscript in 2003 . Unfortunately, I cannot go to Rome now, because of my work! 🙁

  9. Thank you very much indeed. It is hard for non-specialists to get any idea about the transmission of the Greek classics. One day I must write something.

    If you go to Rome, beware of the ice-creams. Mine cost 16 euros!

  10. Mr Cufalo ? In this case I must say your book is really excellent. It was really handful. But about Brockmann’s book, I don’t agree with his views on the relation between B and D.

    If not Mr Cufalo, which is your critical edition ?

  11. @Checktheflow
    Yes, I am the editor of “Scholia Graeca in Platonem”!
    I discuss Brockmann’s thesis on the relationship between D and B at pagg. xlv ff. of my book. His main argument is based on Maas’ “latente Evidenz”, but
    1) it is not clear weather B. has collated all the codex or only part of it;
    2) at least at this stage of the tradition, prevails the Korpus-Überlieferung, so it is very unlikely that in the other dialogues D is brother of B, but not in the Symposium;
    3) is it possible that here we face the so-called exception that proves the rule? 😉

  12. bravo Cufalo !! you published the list of ‘dramatis personae’ in the margin of Venetus T’s fol. 67r [= Marciana’s Gr. IV, 1] Cufalo rightly has this list read thus:

    ΤΑ ΤΟΥ ΔΙΑΛΟΓΟΥ ΠΡΟΣΩΠΑ· ΣΩΚΡΑΤΗΣ· ΘΕΟΔΩΡΟΣ· ΕΛΕΑΤΗΣ ΞΕΝΟΣ·
    ΣΩΚΡΑΤΗΣ ΑΛΛΟΣ:

    Much uncertainty surrounds this character “Younger Socrates”, or “Socrates Alternate” as the text has it here.

    Does Marciana’s Venetus T also contain a decisive solution to the textual crux at Rep. 511 d2 ? Not the solution of Slings, nor of his Anglican opponent Burnyeat. For this ms. signally fails to have a genitive absolute form ὀντῶν . Rather, it has the adverbial form ὀντῶς Have a look at T’s fol. 125r.

    I have an excellent copy of this entire ms. Ask me about it if this interests you. I can show you highly resolved pictures. (malcolm.brown109@yahoo.com).

    Malcolm Brown
    Jeffersonville NY USA 12748

  13. . . .sorry. For the crux at Rep. 511 d2, see Venetus T’s fol. 235r, col I, line 20. That is where the scribe writes his (and the interpolator’s) ὀντῶς.

    M. Brown

  14. Sorry again. I’ve now gone back to re-check the OCT text of Slings. The crucial word in Venetus T is νοητῶς, which editors have commonly taken for νοητῶν . If the Marciana ms. is right, here at fol. 235r, there is no genitive absolute, and also no substantive ‘noEta’/’noEtwn’. Much interpretation needs to be redone, if Venetus T has it right, as quite likely it does have.

    M. Brown

  15. [revision of my posts of earlier today -M. Brown]

    bravo Cufalo !! you published the list of ‘dramatis personae’ in the margin of Venetus T’s fol. 67r [= Marciana’s Gr. IV, 1] .
    Three points:

    1. Cufalo rightly has T’s list of personae for the “Politicus” read:

    ΤΑ ΤΟΥ ΔΙΑΛΟΓΟΥ ΠΡΟΣΩΠΑ• ΣΩΚΡΑΤΗΣ• ΘΕΟΔΩΡΟΣ• ΕΛΕΑΤΗΣ ΞΕΝΟΣ•
    ΣΩΚΡΑΤΗΣ ΑΛΛΟΣ:

    Much uncertainty surrounds this character “Younger Socrates”, or “Socrates Alternate” as the text has it here. He may have been a “blood and bone” individual human. Aristotle in various places seems to say “Yes he was”. And he implies this man was amongst his teachers at the Old Academy.

    2. Does Marciana’s Venetus T also contain a decisive solution to the textual crux at Rep. 511 d2 ? I mean decisive in favor of the published S. Slings notes. This means decisively rejecting the contrary view of Slings’s Anglican challenger Burnyeat. The “T” ms. signally fails to have a genitive absolute form printed in just about all our texts, including the Burnet OCT:
    νοητῶν ὄντων .
    Rather, Venetus T has the adverbial form νοητῶς But this means the offending ‘noEta/noEtwn’ — as substantives — are simply not there in the text. Have a
    look at T’s fol. 235r, its column I, line 20.

    3. I have an excellent copy of this entire ms., 83MB per image. Ask me about it if this interests you. I can show you highly resolved pictures. (malcolm.brown109@yahoo.com).

    Malcolm Brown
    Jeffersonville NY USA 12748

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