Publications/Oct 20, 2022

Byzantine Commentaries on Ancient Greek Texts, 12th–15th Centuries

Byzantine Commentaries on Ancient Greek Texts, 12th–15th Centuries lead image

Baukje van den Berg, Divna Manolova, and Przemysław Marciniak, eds. Byzantine Commentaries on Ancient Greek Texts, 12th–15th Centuries. Cambridge University Press, 2022.

From Cambridge University Press

This is the first volume to explore the commentaries on ancient texts produced and circulating in Byzantium. It adopts a broad chronological perspective (from the twelfth to the fifteenth century) and examines different types of commentaries on ancient poetry and prose within the context of the study and teaching of grammar, rhetoric, philosophy and science. By discussing the exegetical literature of the Byzantines as embedded in the socio-cultural context of the Komnenian and Palaiologan periods, the book analyses the frameworks and networks of knowledge transfer, patronage and identity building that motivated the Byzantine engagement with the ancient intellectual and literary tradition.