Cataloguing the Greek Manuscripts of the Pontificio Collegio Greco in Rome

• Applicant: Dr. Peter Isépy
• Subject Area: Medieval History ; Greek and Latin Philology
• Term: from 2014 to 2015
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 261626220

The Pontificio Collegio Greco di Sant'Atanasio, founded in the year 1577, is one of the oldest Pontifical Colleges in Rome and bears a particularly rich tradition. In addition to many valuable early printed books, the Greek College owns today a little known collection of 22 Greek manuscripts originating from the 9th/10th until the 18th centuries that contain secular as well as theological texts. The applicant's aim is to investigate and to provide better access to these codices through a cataloguing project on the basis of today's scientific standards by way of a research grant of the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft. The only available catalogue, compiled in 1913, offers merely a general description of the manuscripts, dealing only, and not always fully with the content, while not addressing the issues of codicology, palaeography and provenance. Also the fact that the collection increased since then and the codices were rebounded and restored in the middle of the last century, make an overhaul of the already incomplete catalogue all the more desirable. This project intends to carry out detailed descriptions of the codices according to the current cataloguing patterns used in Classical and Byzantine studies. The emphasis is on the identification of scribal hands from the cultural milieu of the Greek College in the 16th and 17th centuries and on the research of the heretofore unexplored origin and composition of the collection. The descriptions of the manuscripts shall be published in a printed volume as well as on the freely accessible database Manus OnLine. In this way and by digitalising the codices viable scientific foundations for further studies on the collection of the Greek College by the research community could be established.

• DFG Programme: Research Fellowships
• International Connection: Italy
• Hosts: Dr. Giuseppe De Gregorio; Dr. Manuel Nin