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The last lecture in the online lecture series Speaking From the Margins. DBBE Online Lectures, Spring 2022 Series will be given by Aglae Pizzone (University of Southern Denmark).

Aglae Pizzone is a byzantinist with a training in classics. In her research she focuses on cultural history and history of the ideas. She is currently associate professor in Medieval Literature at the Danish Institute for Advanced Study, hosted by the University of Southern Denmark. She is interested in autography, self-commentaries in the Greek Middle Ages as well as in the Byzantine commentaries on Hermogenes. She has recently discovered new autograph notes by John Tzetzes in the Voss. Gr. Q1. She is PI in the MSCA Doctoral Network AntCom. From Antiquity to community: rethinking classical heritage through citizens humanities (2023-2027). Recent publications include Self-authorization and Strategies of Autography in John Tzetzes, Greek roman and Byzantine Studies, 60.4 (2020) 652-690; ‘Tzetzes and the prokatastasis: a tale of people, manuscripts, and performances’, in Prodi E. (ed.), ΤΖΕΤΖΙΚΑΙ ΕΡΕΥΝΑΙ. Bologna: Eikasmos, 2022, 49-104; and the volume, co-edited with Douglas Cairns, Martin Hinterberger and Matteo Zaccarini, Emotions through Time: From Greece to Byzantium. Heidelberg: Mohr Siebeck, 2022.

Abstract

Before the composition of the Histories, Tzetzes’ commentary on Aphthonios and Hermogenes in political verse, with its scope and sheer extension, was certainly meant to be the most representative among his mature work. It is therefore no surprise that the Vossianus Gr. Q1, a contemporary, “bespoke” witness of the commentary, is equipped with a series of metrical and prose paratexts providing details on the genesis of this specific copy. They are to be found at fol. 30^r, after the end of the commentary on Aphthonios (6 hexameters), and at fols. 111^v–112^r after the end of the commentary on the four Hermogenian treatises and before the section of the Logismoi preserved by the manuscript (respectively 10 hexameters and 24 dodecasyllables). At fol. 112^r there is also a prose note, detailing the problems encountered by Tzetzes after handing over the requested copy to its commissioners. The longer hexametric poem provides us with information about the commissioner, one Nikephoros who might be the mystikos Nikephoros Serblias mentioned in the letter-collection. It also describes Tzetzes in dialogue with the Muse, whom he persuades to dwell in the “lower regions” of poetry in political verse. The talk will walk the audience through these paratexts, illustrating their function both within the specific textual organization of the Vossianus Gr. Q1 and more broadly against Tzetzes’ poetics.

Practical information

Date & time: Tuesday 14 June 2022, 4:00pm (CET)

No registration required. The lecture is freely accessible via Zoom: https://ugent-be.zoom.us/j/92420884710?pwd=aFprM2FpamdEN0ZKK2c3ZTJSQkZMQT09.

• Meeting ID: 924 2088 4710
• Passcode: r7BFw3Bv

N.B.: A Zoom account is required to join this meeting. Please make sure to be logged in, using your Zoom credentials.

The fourth lecture in the online lecture series Speaking From the Margins. DBBE Online Lectures, Spring 2022 Series will be given by Manolis Patedakis (University of Crete).

Manolis S. Patedakis is Assistant Professor in Byzantine Philology. He completed his undergraduate (B.A.) and first level of postgraduate studies (M.A.) at the Department of Philology, University of Crete; he finished his dissertation for the doctoral degree (D.Phil.) at the University of Oxford in 2004, under the title “Athanasios I Patriarch of Constantinople (1289-1293, 1303-1309): A critical edition with introduction and commentary of selected unpublished works”. Between September 2007 and May 2008, he was Research Fellow at Dumbarton Oaks (Trustees for Harvard University), Washington, D.C. His special interests focus on texts and literature of the Palaeologan period, epigraphy and manuscript culture from medieval and early modern Crete, and Symeon the New Theologian. His publications include editions of Greek literary texts and inscriptions, including of the writings of Patriarch Athanasios I of Constantinople.

Abstract

The collection of poems by Theodore Prodromos known as the Tetrastichs both on the Old and the New Testament preserves certain interesting aspects as regarding the aesthetics and the spirit of his. Simple comments on biblical incidents to a more perplexed criticism addressed to sacred figures, monologues and dialogues –which sometimes become more dramatic– coloured with a sense of humour, or possible sarcastic references to the poet himself, are only a few amongst the attributes that we can mention for this group of poems. As the narration moves from the Old to the New Testament the reader wonders whether the logic slightly changes, and the new spirit of Christian art and art of speech also allows further connections between Prodromos’ poetics and other artistic and cultural means in twelfth century Constantinople and Byzantium.

Practical information

Date & time: Tuesday 17 May 2022, 4:00pm (CET)

No registration required. The lecture is freely accessible via Zoom: https://ugent-be.zoom.us/j/94744052849?pwd=SndUT3NWd3FWZFBWbjNlbUJxSENaQT09.

• Meeting ID: 947 4405 2849
• Passcode: ka88aW3p

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The third lecture in the online lecture series Speaking From the Margins. DBBE Online Lectures, Spring 2022 Series will be given by Luise Marion Frenkel (University of São Paulo).

Luise Marion Frenkel has been assistant professor of classical Greek language and literature at the University of São Paulo since 2013. She holds one PhD in Mathematics from this university and one in Divinity from the University of Cambridge. She has been a visiting fellow of the British School at Rome and of ITSEE (Institute for Textual Scholarship and Electronic Editing) at the University of Birmingham. She has collaborated with a number of research groups, such as ‘Religious Individualisation in Historical Perspective’ in Erfurt, ‘Migration and Mobility in Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages’ in Tübingen and ‘Polyphony of Late Antique Christianity’ in Frankfurt. She has been a visiting scholar at St Edmund’s College, Cambridge. Her interests centre on orality, entextualisation and the transmission and reception of ancient texts. Most of her publications address the historiography of fourth- to seventh-century religious controversies in the Eastern Roman Empire and beyond.

Abstract

Manuscripts of most fourth- and fifth-century Christian leaders, thinkers, rhetors, historians and poets have remarkably empty margins, and DBBE suggests that canonical authors and their works were not a favourite subject for poets. Still, a number of book epigrams, often added by later hands, can be found. Surveying the book epigrams which can be linked to Origen, Eusebios of Caesarea, Athanasius of Alexandria, Cyril of Alexandria and Theodoret of Cyrrhus currently in DBBE, some tentative conclusions will be drawn about the relevance of text-related poems on Byzantine readers and audiences. Then, some occurrences found in Paris. gr 451, Florence Plut. 70, 7 and Basiliensis gr. A III 4 will be discussed, pointing to new avenues for DBBE and all interested in the transmission and Byzantine reception of patristic authors.

Practical information

Date & time: Thursday 21 April 2022, 4:00pm (CET)

No registration required. The lecture is freely accessible via Zoom: https://ugent-be.zoom.us/j/99015767396?pwd=S3dUQWdlNmJudWhNanRiUitNakxKZz09.

• Meeting ID: 990 1576 7396
• Passcode: u88fyAzq

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The second lecture in the online lecture series Speaking From the Margins. DBBE Online Lectures, Spring 2022 Series will be given by Nina Sietis (University of Cassino and Southern Lazio).

Nina Sietis is currently Assistant Professor (Ricercatrice a tempo determinato) at University of Cassino and Southern Lazio, were she contributes to the activities of the project MeMo – Memory of Montecassino (https://www.memo.pyle.it/) and teaches History of the Book. Her research interests lie primarily in Greek palaeography and codicology: she published papers and gave talks concerning different topics over the long course of Greek writing history.

Abstract

Medieval men used to read the manuscripts they came across «la plume à la main» and to leave notes on them. These texts are invaluable evidence for understanding interests and habits of readers during the Middle Ages. The aim of my paper is to show how metrical annotations added by later readers, namely what I call ‘secondary metrical paratexts’, offer an invaluable insight into the reconstruction of the links between different manuscripts and textual traditions. I will firstly focus on a prolific but anonymous reader from the late 11th century and the manuscripts he owned. The last part of my speech will be devoted to some notes added in the margins of manuscripts of the Monastery of St. John Prodromos of Petra in Constantinople.

Practical information

Date & time: Thursday 17 March 2022, 4:00pm (CET)

No registration required. The lecture is freely accessible via Zoom: https://ugent-be.zoom.us/j/97360235794?pwd=YzB6djIzT3FqWDJHb2VNb05BcmZOZz09.

• Meeting ID: 973 6023 5794
• Passcode: t7pA7uEu

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The first lecture in the online lecture series Speaking From the Margins. DBBE Online Lectures, Spring 2022 Series will be given by Brad Hostetler (Kenyon College).

Brad Hostetler is Assistant Professor of Art History at Kenyon College. He specializes in the art and material culture of Late Antiquity and Byzantium, with a particular emphasis on portable luxury objects from the ninth through the twelfth centuries. His research focuses on the relationships between texts and images, including ekphraseis about, and words inscribed on, works of art. He is currently working on a book that examines the nature and meaning of relics and reliquaries in Byzantium through the lens of inscriptions, including the ways in which inscribed texts mediate and guide the faithful’s engagement with, and understanding of, sacred matter. Brad’s work has been supported by grants and fellowships from the Gladys Krieble Delmas Foundation, Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Abstract

The term “ekphrastic epigram” has been used to denote verse inscriptions that describe works of art. But, as has been demonstrated, this term is a misnomer as these poems are not technically ekphraseis. Prose was traditionally the medium of choice for ekphraseis; the need to achieve the vividness of speech was more difficult in verse, given its metrical constraints. Inscribed epigrams therefore presented a double challenge in that they also constrained the writer to a limited number of verses that could be displayed on the object. As Marc Lauxtermann observes, epigrams inscribed on works of art are too short to elaborate on the “emotional depth and narrative width” that is required to develop ekphrastic themes.

While I agree with this assessment, I also suggest that Byzantine epigrams on works of art do exhibit some characteristics of ekphrasis, albeit in a much more abbreviated form. In this paper, I examine these features, and show the ways in which some inscribed epigrams possess rhetorical properties that are similar to those required for literary ekphraseis. Just as Nicholas Mesarites, for example, led the listener/viewer beyond the facts of the images in the Church of the Holy Apostles, and challenged his audiences’ perception of the mosaics through vivid description, so too do the poets of inscribed epigrams open up their descriptions to help the viewer consider their perceptions of objects.

Practical information

Date & time: Thursday 17 February 2022, 4:00pm (CET)

No registration required. The lecture is freely accessible via Zoom: https://ugent-be.zoom.us/j/96375525205?pwd=Q2Y4L2tRQ2VVakEzUXJta1NVVGpudz09.

• Meeting ID: 963 7552 5205
• Passcode: 750inUfB

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The last lecture in the online lecture series Speaking From the Margins. DBBE Online Lectures, Fall 2021 Series will be given by Julián Bértola (Ghent University).

Julián Bértola studied classical literature at the University of Buenos Aires. In 2016, he followed the Byzantine Greek Summer School at Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection and in 2017 he moved to Belgium to do a PhD at Ghent University as part of the Database of Byzantine Book Epigrams (www.dbbe.ugent.be). In 2021, he completed his doctoral dissertation “Using Poetry to Read the Past: Unedited Byzantine Verse Scholia on Historians in the Margins of Medieval Manuscripts”. He is now a Postdoctoral fellow of the Research Foundation – Flanders (FWO) at Ghent University with the project “Byzantine scholia on historians and the literature of marginalia: reading and writing practices in the margins of medieval Greek manuscripts”.

Abstract

In this presentation I will investigate how other book epigrams can contribute to the study of verse scholia, my main research interest. Verse scholia constitute a special type of book epigrams since they comment on particular passages of the main text next to which they are copied. During my work with unedited cycles of verse scholia on historians, the co-occurrence in the manuscripts of a more common type of book epigrams, namely colophons, has proven to be of great help to better understand the context in which the verse scholia were produced.

My first case study is a long poem in hexameters (https://www.dbbe.ugent.be/types/6177), a scribal epigram that dedicates the volume to a patron of high social rank. I will introduce the verse scholia that occur together with this book epigram in two manuscripts of Herodotus from the 15th century. The court circulation of the exemplar from which our manuscripts derive could account for a certain didactic and gnomic tone of the verse scholia. The second case study is a shorter dodecasyllabic epigram at the end of the Vindobonensis Hist. gr. 53, a famous manuscript of Niketas Choniates (https://www.dbbe.ugent.be/types/33795). The colophon attests to the restoration of the manuscript on behalf of the bishop of Ainos. This information supports the evidence from the verse scholia copied in this manuscript that largely reproduce the wording of the chronicle in verse by Ephraim of Ainos. The manuscript and possibly its model may have been in Ainos where Ephraim composed the verse scholia. To conclude, I will present some limit cases: a poem in f. 168v of Vat. gr. 163 (Niketas Choniates) and https://www.dbbe.ugent.be/occurrences/17771 (John Zonaras). These are book epigrams that refer to specific passages, but do not correspond in full to the typology of verse scholia because of their position in the manuscript, their layout and their content.

Practical information

Date & time: Tuesday 14 December 2021, 4:00pm (CET)

No registration required. The lecture is freely accessible via Zoom: https://ugent-be.zoom.us/j/94353659714?pwd=MUthYXBoZmVEa0hIRFUxbEw1SW9LUT09.

• Meeting ID: 943 5365 9714
• Passcode: TJ4ES8gh

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The last lecture in the online lecture series Speaking From the Margins. DBBE Online Lectures, Spring 2021 Series will be given by Georgi Parpulov (University of Birmingham).

Georgi Parpulov studied history at the University of Sofia and art history at the University of Chicago. His doctoral dissertation, subsequently revised as a book (2014), was a general study of Byzantine Psalters. Last month, he published Catena Manuscripts of the Greek New Testament (Piscataway: Gorgias) and Magnificent Icons in Bulgaria (Sofia: Methodius Books). (The word “magnificent” was added by the publisher.) His Middle-Byzantine Evangelist Portraits will be published by De Gruyter this winter or in 2022. He is now working on a History of Byzantine Illustrated Manuscripts.

Abstract

My talk will propose a schematic classification of Greek metrical paratexts that will hopefully be questioned and discussed by other conference participants. First, I distinguish between those metrical paratexts which have a more or less precise (potential or actual) prose equivalent and those which are essentially poetic and thus irreducible to prose. Second, there are metrical paratexts which refer to a book or to its contents and author, and there are Bildepigramme which pertain to images and thus need not necessarily occur in manuscript form. Bildepigramme can be further subdivided into ‘interior’ (i.e. as if spoken by a person whom the image depicts) and ‘exterior’ (as if spoken by the image’s viewer). The above points will be purposely illustrated with examples which have not found a place in Prof. Rhoby’s recent corpus.

Practical information

Date & time: Tuesday 22 June 2021, 4:00pm (UTC+2, CET)

No registration required. The lecture is freely accessible via Zoom: https://ugent-be.zoom.us/j/98225399175?pwd=RStMWCs0R2tkcm9idnRtcjN2Ry9zUT09.

• Meeting ID: 982 2539 9175
• Passcode: 13JwUK8U