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Abstract

Book epigrams, or metrical paratexts, abound in Byzantine manuscripts. These compositions are the joining link between verse inscriptions, written on any kind of support, and manuscript anthologies, which transmit literary epigrams. Byzantine book epigrams have been collected in an online Database (DBBE, www.dbbe.ugent.be), hosted by Ghent University, with the scope of gathering and making available a large corpus of metrical paratexts dating up to the 15th century.

This paper offers some reflections on the aesthetics of books as presented in book epigrams. In the first part of the lecture I will present some epigrams that clearly refer to the physical or spiritual beauty of the book in which they are inscribed.

Moreover, I will discuss some book epigrams potentially dealing with images in their double function of pieces of poetry and of “objects” themselves. Firstly, metrical captions frequently explain, comment upon and enhance the presence of manuscript miniatures. These captions are often clustered in cycles that appear in one or more manuscripts featuring similar miniatures. Secondly, epigrams can also replace miniatures and perform a peculiar visual function. Book epigrams can be placed where manuscript miniatures might be expected to be found and describe miniatures that are actually not present in the manuscript.

The relationship between text and image in book epigrams is a bidirectional one. This fluid interrelation make metrical paratexts a particularly suitable corpus to investigate how words and images coexist on the manuscript folio.

Practical information

This lecture will be given at the international conference “Versus ad picturas. Text/Image Relationship in Greek, Latin and Arabic poetry between Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages” (University of Strasbourg, 28-30 September 2022). It is part of the session “Culture grecque. Antiquité tardive et littérature byzantine”.

The conference Versus ad picturas, conceived within the framework of the research of the international group GIRPAM on Greek and Latin poetry in Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages and in particular the activities of the Gutenberg Chair 2021 on biblical poetry, aims to contribute to the study of the relationship between the images we now call artistic, painted on walls, fabrics, stained glass or parchments, and the verses that often accompany them materially or ideally, and that are now increasingly recognized as indispensable to their cultural understanding and social location.

Date & time: Thursday 29 September 2022, 10:00 am

Location: the lecture will be broadcast via streaming: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/84177136590?pwd=ZXV1YVBLYUQzM1hBdVNiSmlIS0U1Zz09

• Meeting ID: 841 7713 6590
• Passcode: 754872

More information about this conference and the full programme can be found here.

From 9 to 11 February 2022, Krystina Kubina convenes a conference on “Poetry in Late Byzantium” within the framework of her project at the Department of Byzantine Research (Austrian Academy of Sciences) devoted to the same topic. During these three days, more than 30 scholars from across the world will discuss forms, functions and developments of this important aspect of medieval Greek literature.

The programme can be found here.

The DBBE will be represented by Julián Bértola, who will give a talk entitled “Towards a Reassessment of Ephraim of Ainos”.

Practical information

Date & time: Thursday 10 February 2022, 14:15 CET

Location: Institute for Medieval Research, Division of Byzantine Research (Hollandstrasse 11-13, 1020 Vienna) and/or online via Zoom.
Pre-registration is mandatory for participating online; please contact krystina.kubina@oeaw.ac.at.

The Argentine Committee of Byzantine Studies (CAEBiz) cordially invites you to its Online workshop on Digital Humanities. The meeting will be co-ordinated by José Maksimczuk (Universität Hamburg – CSMC) and Tom Gheldof (KU Leuven) and will take place on Friday, March 4, 2022, 14.00 CET.

Representing DBBE, Colin Swaelens will give a talk entitled “You shall know a verse by the company it keeps. Detecting orthographic and semantic similarity between epigrams”.

Practical information

Date & time: Friday 4 March 2022, 3:45 pm

Location: the workshop will be held via Zoom (no registration is required): https://uni-hamburg.zoom.us/j/66093457970?pwd=N0h3ZjM4VFYzTlFJQWVXVUpUMmxIZz09

• Meeting ID: 660 9345 7970
• Passcode: 23868106

Andreas Rhoby presents the fourth and concluding volume of the project ‘Byzantinische Epigramme’, which will be published soon by the Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften. The volume is dedicated to epigrams accompanying miniatures, and is closely related to the Ghent DBBE project.

Abstract

Byzantium plays a vital role for the transmission of ancient, late antique and Medieval Greek texts. Thousands of manuscripts preserved in libraries and collections are full of texts of ancient tragedians, late antique church fathers and particularly of Biblical texts, which represent the lion’s share of transmitted manuscripts. A considerable number of manuscripts, depending on the setting in which they were copied, are equipped with illuminations or various kinds of ornamentation which increase their value. These often very elaborately and colorfully designed depictions are usually accompanied by texts, which, due to not belonging to the main text of the manuscript, are called paratexts. A considerable number of these paratexts are in verse form. Such texts, called book epigrams, fulfill various functions: they explain the depicted scenes, highlight the relationship between the manuscript’s main text and the illumination, or act themselves as images, as for example when the text of the epigram is written in the shape of a cross or inscribed into an ornamental frame. Many of these texts, considered purely on visual grounds, already resemble inscriptions which are preserved on other kinds of surfaces and objects.
The current volume is structured like the preceding three volumes of the series Byzantine epigrams on objects, which have so far presented inscriptional verses on frescoes and mosaics; icons and portable objects; and on stones. The publication’s focus is on critical editions of the texts, (German) translations of the Greek texts, and commentaries. Besides general chapters on the cultural-historical phenomenon of quasi-inscriptional verses in manuscripts, paleography, language etc., almost all the epigrams treated are also depicted in the volume’s collection of plates in order to facilitate study of the original context of the verses.

Practical information

Date & time: Friday 28 October 2016, 2:30 pm

Location: Blandijn, room 110.046 (Blandijnberg 2, 9000 Gent)

Abstract
In recent years, scholarship has turned its attention to the historical setting, the Sitz im Leben, of Byzantine poetry. In this context, the most prolific poet of the early 14th century, Manuel Philes, was taken into account. However, due to the vast number of texts transmitted under his name (more than 30,000 verses in more than 150 manuscripts!) no attempt has been made to look at the full picture of how his poetry was read. Without aiming at a complete evaluation, I shall offer an overview of the ways of reception. Philes’ poems were read in a variety of different contexts: from private readings of verse letters over performed enkomia to epigrams inscribed on public buildings. The form of reception also altered the way of how Philes was perceived as an author: from self-conscious reflections of an authorial ‘I’ in letters to the total absence of the author in inscriptions. The example of Manuel Philes shows the wide presence of poetry (and literature in general) in Late Byzantine society.

About the speaker
Krystina Kubina is a doctoral candidate at the University of Vienna working on encomiastic poetry of the early Palaiologan period and visiting scholar at the Ghent Database of Byzantine Book Epigrams project.

Practical information

Date & time: Monday 5 December 2016, 2:30 pm

Location: Blandijn, room 100.043 (Blandijnberg 2, 9000 Gent)

Abstract

In the mid-fifteenth century, as Italian book collectors began being exposed to Byzantine codices, the bindings of the latter started being imitated in Florence and Venice. The resulting bindings were often hybrid, since they mixed Western and Byzantine techniques, but also distinctly and deliberately “Greek-looking”; they were called “alla greca” and were sought-after for the messages they conveyed: an association with Greek culture; a refined taste for beautifully-bound books; and the appropriation of the Byzantine legacy.

My paper today looks at some aspects of the production and consumption of “alla greca” bookbindings in early modern Italy, and namely the ethnicity of bookbinders and patrons, bookmaking techniques, and collecting practices, and what they tell us about the intellectual milieux in which the books themselves circulated.​

About the speaker:

Anna Gialdini has a BA and MA in Classics from the University of Milan and a Diploma in Archival Studies from the State Archive of Milan. She has recently submitted her PhD thesis on Greek-style Bookbindings in Renaissance Venice, which constitutes an analysis of these objects from a structural and cultural perspective. Her research, which has been supported by the Gladys Krieble Delmas Foundation, the Fondazione Fedrigoni – Istocarta, and the Bibliographical Society of America, also deals with archival bindings, the social history of bookbinders, cross-cultural contact in the early modern Mediterranean, and the materiality of the book in professional contexts. After a short-term fellowship at the Huntington Library, she is now collaborating with the Public Library and Groeningemuseum in Bruges for an exhibition on Colard Mansion and the printing of incunables in the city.

Practical information

Date & time: Wednesday 16 August 2017

Location: Blandijn, room 120.043 (Blandijnberg 2, 9000 Gent)

The Database of Byzantine Book Epigrams team kindly invites you to a lecture “Byzantine Scribes and their Paratexts” by Georgi Parpulov.

Abstract

The study of paratexts (additions) in medieval Greek manuscripts has made great advances over the past decade. My paper will discuss some of the ways in which such paratexts were selected and transmitted from one manuscript to another.

About the speaker

Georgi Parpulov studied history at the University of Sofia and art history at the University of Chicago. He subsequently did curatorial work at the Walters Art Museum, the J Paul Getty Museum and the British Museum, and taught at the University of Oxford.​

Practical information

Date & time: Monday 14 May 2018, 1:00 pm

Location: Jozef Plateauzaal (Jozef Plateaustraat 22, 9000 Gent)

Participation is free. No need to register. All are welcome!