Rewriting as a principal process within the production of Byzantine texts has recently attracted heightened attention of scholars (Signes, Hinterberger, Pérez Martín forthcoming), while rewriting (particularly in the form of intralingual translation) has been recognized as equally important within Greek letters after Byzantium (Kakoulidou-Panou, Karantzola, Tiktopoulou 2023; Karvounis 2025). While the use of the Greek vernacular in literature can be traced back to as early as the 12th century—mainly in poetic works—it gained significant momentum by the 16th century, including prose and expanding across genres and geographical regions (the “first ecolinguistic revolution”, cf. Baggioni 1997). The aim of the proposed joint endeavour is to provide a general overview of the phenomenon by examining vernacular rewritings of Byzantine texts from the 16th and 17th centuries and comparing them with their original Byzantine models. In the framework of this general approach, we intend to investigate hagiographical texts such as the Life of Antony and the Life of Ignatios and their 17th-c. metaphrases by Nikephoros Venetzas (?) and Neophytos Rodinos or the Vision of the Monk Kosmas and the Vision of Theodora and their respective metaphrases as well as legal texts such as the compendium by Matthaios Vlastaris and its vernacular version. In particular we are interested in the rewriting techniques (and how these differ from the techniques applied during the Byzantine period) as well as the motives that led authors to compose these adaptations/metaphrases. From the perspective of the diachrony of the Greek language, special attention will be given to the linguistic features of the variations used in the Byzantine and Post-Byzantine / Early Modern texts.
This paper examines the place of intralingual translations of Byzantine texts within the broader landscape of post-Byzantine Greek prose of the 16th and 17th centuries. While the use of the vernacular had already emerged in earlier centuries, it was in the early modern period that the phenomenon gained remarkable scope, encompassing both poetry and prose…
This paper examines two Byzantine texts belonging to the tradition of visionary literature, both of which attained notable translational and editorial diffusion during the post-Byzantine period. The first work under examination, The Vision of Monk Kosmas (10th c.), preserved in the Synaxarion of Constantinople, was translated into the vernacular by Maximos Margounios and incorporated into…
Among the prose texts composed in vernacular Greek during the 16th and 17th centuries, adaptations of Byzantine originals are considerably numerous. In this paper, we intend to investigate the Life of Antony (4th century) and the Life of Ignatios (early 10th. century) and their 17th-century metaphrases by Nikephoros Venetzas (?) and Neophytos Rodinos, with various…