In the wake of the pioneering and still fundamental investigations of Drachmann, Naoumides and Lucà, this Thematic Session focuses on the manuscript tradition and cultural-historical influence of the so-called Lexicon of Cyril ‘beyond Byzantium’ in a spatial sense, taking into consideration the Italo-Greek area. By combining philological, historical, and palaeographical methodologies and data, we aim (a) to establish reasons for and typologies of the extremely rich Italo-Greek manuscript transmission of this lexicon; (b) to investigate both diachronic and synchronic patterns of circulation of the lexicon, which is usually transmitted in manuscripts along with a set of texts of a heterogeneous nature; (c) to elucidate material and content relationships with other lexicographic and scholarly writings in the medieval Southern Italy; (d) to evaluate the use of computational tools for investigating specific manuscript clusters.
The Lexicon of Cyril is transmitted in numerous southern Italian manuscripts, starting from the 10th century and ranging from Sicily to Salento. Many (if not most) of them are multiple-text manuscripts transmitting lexicographical collections: Cyril’s Lexicon is usually the main text, transmitted at the beginning of the manuscripts, and it is followed by a varying…
The unpublished archives of philologist Mark Naoumides (1931–1977), now preserved at the University of Illinois Archives, represent invaluable material as they offer the results of the most in-depth research on Cyril’s Lexicon since the seminal studies of A. B. Drachmann. Based on a first-hand investigation of these materials, we will present Naoumides’ discoveries regarding the…
This paper presents a digital workflow for assisting in the identification and comparison of manuscripts belonging to the Cyrillic lexicon tradition, with particular emphasis on its rich tradition within the Southern Italian Greek-speaking area. The workflow provides a reproducible, data-driven framework for assessing known or possible witnesses of Cyril’s Lexicon, and for evaluating textual affinity…
There is no remedy against contamination – most of the time, it remains hidden. But what if contamination is more a matter of genetics than of cure? And what if certain stages can be traced back? In the manuscript tradition of Cyril’s Lexicon, the stigma of contamination is inevitable, and it involves several manuscripts. The…
The scholia on the homilies of Gregory of Nazianzus – probably of Late Antique Alexandrian origin and only partially edited or studied so far – are chiefly attested in a group of manuscripts produced in tenth-century Southern Italy. Some of these scholia correspond to glosses attested in the version of the Lexicon of Cyril preserved…
The twelfth-century Codex 1 preserved in the Monastery of Saint Gerasimos constitutes a significant witness to the manuscript tradition of Cyril’s Lexicon, and specifically to the so-called v1 recension of the text. It is well established, and already documented in the relevant bibliography, that the manuscript originates from the cultural milieu of Southern Italy, although…