Damnata verba: censure di Pletone in alcuni codici platonici
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Fabio Pagani
Abstract
This paper explores the historical and palaeographical features linking together three manuscripts of Plato that bear - as previous researchers have shown - marginalia and textual corrections in the hand of the Byzantine humanist George Gemistos Pletho: Marc. Gr. 188 and 189 and Laur. 80, 19. There is, however, one more astonishing peculiarity associating precisely these three manuscripts: at several points there are erasures of passages dealing with ancient theology or with pagan myths and gods.
The first part of this study provides a general analysis of the censored passages, showing that they are part of a coherent project aiming at altering Plato's theology: in the manuscripts in his possession Pletho radically altered Plato's text, sometimes improving it, but sometimes censoring or entirely rewriting it; it is this very distinctive text of Plato that circulated in his school. In the second part, Pletho's acts of censorship as a whole are compared with his philosophical ideas as they can be reconstructed from the surviving portions of his Laws (Nomoi), proving that he tried to remove discrepancies between Plato and himself. In the third part of the essay, the ideological reasons for this censorship are investigated, with a special focus on the relations between Pletho's manuscripts and some miscellaneous codices belonging to his students or circulating in the platonic milieu of Mystra.
The stemma codicum drawn up by Müller (Würzburger Jahrbücher für die Altertumswissenschaft 5: 237–251, 1979) can thus be understood in its deeper cultural meaning, i.e. as an outline enabling us to understand how the philosopher propagated his ideas and to follow where and how they were received.
© Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co. KG, D-10785 Berlin, 2009
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- Tafelanhang
- Nitriti come segni profetici: cavalli fatidici a Bisanzio (XI–XIV sec.)
- Das Concilium Quinisextum (691/692). Neue Erkenntnisse über ein umstrittenes Konzil und seine Teilnehmer
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- The anonymous progymnasmata in John Doxapatres' Homiliae in Aphthonium
- The perception of icons in the late Byzantine world: some evidence in a treasury inventory of Hagia Sophia
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- Philippe Blaudeau, Alexandrie et Constantinople (451–491): de l'histoire à la géo-ecclésiologie
- Anne-Marie Doyen-Higuet, L'Épitomé de la Collection d'hippiatrie grecque
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- Susanne Hausammann, Der andere Weg der Orthodoxen Kirchen im Osten
- F. Iadevaia (a cura di), Anonymi Historia Imperatorum
- David A. King, Astrolabes and Angels, Epigramms and Enigmas
- Tina Lendari (ed.), Ἀφήγησις Λιβίστρου καὶ Pοδάμνης (Livistros and Rodamne). The Vatican Version
- C. Morrisson/J.-C. Cheynet (éds.), Le monde byzantin, I/II
- Alden A. Mosshammer, The Easter Computus and the Origins of the Christian Era
- Szymon Olszaniec, Comites consistoriani w wieku IV
- Gregorios Papagiannes, Ἀκάθιστος Ὕμνος
- Brigitte Pitarakis, Les croix-reliquaires pectorals byzantines en bronze
- Igor Pochoshajew, Die Seele bei Plato, Plotin, Porphyr und Gregor von Nyssa
- Basileios A. Sarres, Ἡ βυζαντινή παραμυθητική ἐπιστολή ἀπó τον Θεóδωρο Στουδίτη ἕως τον Eὐστάθιο Θεσσαλονίκης (9ος–12ος αἰ.)
- Spyros N. Troianos, Oι νεαρές Λέοντος του Σοφού
- Bernd Andreas Vest, Geschichte der Stadt Melitene und der umliegenden Gebiete
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