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The World on a Fingernail: An Unknown Byzantine Map, Planudes, and Ptolemy

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 January 2016

Filippomaria Pontani
Filippomaria Pontani*
Affiliation:
Università Ca'Foscari, Venezia
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Extract

MS Vat. Gr. 915 (bombyc., ca. 266 × 170 mm, 258 fols.) is a most interesting collection of archaic, classical, and Hellenistic Greek poetry (from Homer and Hesiod to Pindar, from Theocritus and Lycophron down to Moschus and Musaeus) put together during the early Palaeologan Renaissance, more exactly between the last years of the thirteenth century and 1311 (the terminus ante quem is provided by the subscription on fol. 258v). The contents of this codex as well as the textual facies of several of its items have led various scholars, each from a different perspective, to conclude that it was produced in the circle of Maximus Pianudes, the most outstanding Greek scholar of his age (of which he is also in a sense the “eponymous hero”); more on this will be said below in §3.

Type
Research Article
Information
Traditio , Volume 65 , 2010 , pp. 177 - 200
Copyright
Copyright © Fordham University 

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References

1 A lengthy and meticulous description is provided by Schreiner, P., Codices Vaticani Graeci: Codices 867–932 (Vatican City, 1988), 125–36. See already Eleuteri, P., Storia della tradizione manoscritta di Museo (Padua, 1981), 28–29 and 46–48. Some basic information on the manuscript's contents had been provided by Hinck, H., “Beschreibung des Codex Vaticanus 915,” Jahrbücher für classische Philologie 14 (1868): 336–39, and (especially on the Theognidean section) by Studemund, W., De Theognideorum memoria libris manu scriptis servata, Index lectionum in Univ. Litteraria Vratislaviensi per hiemem anni 1889–90 … habendarum (Breslau, 1889).Google Scholar I owe first collations and reproductions of manuscripts C and P to Aude Skalli, and a collation of manuscript B to Francesco Valerio: my warmest thanks to them both for their invaluable help. My thanks also to Gautier Dalché, P. and Koder, J. for comments on a previous draft of this paper.Google Scholar

2 Irigoin, J., Histoire du texte de Pindare (Paris, 1952), 260–61; Gallavotti, C., ed., Theocritus quique feruntur Bucolici Graeci (repr. Rome, 1993), 325–27; Eleuteri, , Storia, 152; Derron, P., ed., in Ps.-Phocylides, Sentences (Paris, 1986), xcv; Tsavari, I., Histoire du texte de la Description de la Terre de Denys le Périégète (Ioannina, 1990), 175; Pontani, F., Sguardi su Ulisse (Rome, 2005), 293–97. See Wilson, N., Scholars of Byzantium (London, 1983 [rev. ed. 1996]), 237.Google Scholar

3 One wonders which specific hand Turyn, A. had in mind when he wrote that Vat. Gr. 915 “shows a Planudean style in its script” ( Dated Greek Manuscripts of the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Centuries in the Libraries of Italy , 2 vols. [Urbana, IL, 1972], 1:33). Young, D. C., “A Codicological Inventory of Theognis Manuscripts,” Scriptorium 7 (1953): 4–7, identified the scribe of fols. 25–34 as the Byzantine scholar Nicephorus Gregoras, but this idea was rightly refuted by Ševčenko, I., “Some Autographs of Nicephorus Gregoras,” Zbornik radova 8 (1964): 435–50 (now in idem, Society and Intellectual Life in Late Byzantium [London, 1981]), at 449 n. 52.Google Scholar

4 Strodel, S., Zur Überlieferung und zum Verständnis der hellenistischen Technopaignien (Frankfurt am Main, 2002), 119–20.Google Scholar

5 Ἐρώτησον ἐν ποί ἡµέρ ϰατεϰλίθη ὁ ἄρρωστος, ϰαὶ ψηφίσας πόσας ἔχει ὁ µήν, πρόσθες ϰαὶ εἴϰοσι περισσὰς ϰαὶ τὸ ὄνομα το ἀρρώστου, ϰαὶ ὁμαδεύσας ὕφειλον ἐπὶ τῶν λ΄, ϰαὶ τὰ ἐπιλειπόµενα [ἐπιλοιπόµενα MS] εἰ µέν εἰσιν ἄνωθεν το σταυρο, ζήσεται, εἰ δὲ ϰάτω τελευτ.Google Scholar

6 See Weinstock, S., ed., Catalogus codicum astrologorum Graecorum 5, 4 (Brussels, 1940), 8, no. 38. Several onomatomantic tables are to be found, e.g., ibid., 11, 2:148–53 (from MS Matr. Gr. 4616).Google Scholar

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8 The scribe's love for Homer is neatly expressed in line 8 by the rare Byzantine adjective νεϰταρώδης and by the hapax legomenon μελιτροποτρόφος, meaning “breeding/training people of sweet character” (μελίτροπος is itself a rare adjective, attested only in Analecta Hymnica Graeca, Canones Decembris [Rome, 1976], canon 17 for 27 Dec., ode 6, 14). The metaphor of eating implied in lines 7–8 already appeared in the first of the three epigrams (see Eleuteri, “Altri manoscritti,” 85). In line 6 the corrector apparently (the traces of ink give uncertain indications on this point) changed ἀρείονας to ἀρείονος; if he did, could perhaps the poet Arion (gen. Ἀρίονος) have been meant? Google Scholar

9 See Schreiner, , Codices , 129, who points to the “ordo foliorum perturbatissimus” in the Homeric section.Google Scholar

10 A very useful overview on the progress made since Oswald Dilke's pioneering work (esp. Greek and Roman Maps [London, 1985]), is provided by Talbert, R., “Greek and Roman Mapping: Twenty-First Century Perspectives,” in Cartography in Antiquity and the Middle Ages: Fresh Perspectives, New Methods , ed. Talbert, R. J. A. and Unger, R. W. (Leiden, 2008), 9–27.Google Scholar

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12 Koder, J., “Sopravvivenza e trasformazione delle concezioni geografiche antiche in età bizantina,” in Geografia storica della Grecia antica , ed. Prontera, F. (Rome, 1991), 46–66. On the early Byzantine age see Kordoses, M. S., “Σϰέψεις για τη σύνθεση μιας ιστορίας της γεωγραφίας στο Βυζάντιο,” Ιστοιϰογεωγαφιϰά 2 (1988): 131–44. That the epitome ascribed to Nicephorus Blemmydes (accompanied in some witnesses by fine T-O maps) is in fact a product of the western Renaissance, has been demonstrated by Diller, A., “Two Greek Forgeries of the Sixteenth Century,” American Journal of Philology 57 (1936): 124–27, and by Brodersen, K., “Die geographischen Schriften des ‘Nikephoros Blemmydes,”’ in Rom und der griechische Osten: Festschrift Hatto H. Schmidt , ed. Schubert, Ch. and Brodersen, K. (Stuttgart, 1995), 43–50.Google Scholar

13 Ed. Lasserre, F., “Étude sur les extraits médiévaux de Strabon,” L'Antiquité Classique 28 (1959): 32–79, which also remains the most complete study of the Byzantine reception of Strabo.Google Scholar

14 Treu, M., in Maximi monachi Planudae Epistulae (Breslau, 1890; repr. Amsterdam, 1960), 256: “ex hoc loco apparet tabulam geographicam habuisse Planudem.” C. N. Constantinides, Higher Education in Byzantium in the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Centuries (Nicosia, 1982), 76, is probably right in believing that this πινάϰιον “had most probably nothing to do with his edition of Ptolemy” (see §3 below) and simply attests to Planudes' interest in geographical matters.Google Scholar

15 On both these letters and on Planudes more will be said in §3 below. On their dating and context see Laiou, A. E., “Some Observations on Alexios Philanthropenos and Maximos Planoudes,” Byzantine and Modern Greek Studies 4 (1978): 89–99, at 92–93 and 96. See also Kugéas, S., “Analekta Planudea,” Byzantinische Zeitschrift 18 (1909):106–46, at 115–18.Google Scholar

16 See Kourouses, S., “γρηγορίο? ἀρχιεπισϰόπου Βουλγαρίας ἐπιστολαὶ μετά τινων βιογραφιϰῶν ἐξαϰριβώσεων,” Ἐπετηὶς Ἑταιείας Βυζαντινῶν σπουδῶν 45 (1981–82): 516–58, esp. 548–52, on the various possibilities for identifying the receiver of the letter, and 556–58 on Gregory's links with Planudes' milieu. Google Scholar

17 It has to be recalled that mappae mundi in all their various typologies, albeit descending from a conspicuous Greco-Latin tradition, are a characteristic product of western Latin cartography, with no equivalent in the Greek East. For an updated overview on Latin mappae mundi see, e.g., Gautier Dalché, P., “Mappae mundi antérieures au XIIIe siècle dans les manuscrits latins de la Bibliothèque Nationale de France,” Scriptorium 52 (1998): 102–62, and especially idem, “L'héritage antique de la cartographie médiévale: les problèmes et les acquis,” in Talbert and Unger, Cartography in Antiquity and the Middle Ages, 29–66. A neat introduction is also found in von den Brincken, A.-D., Kartographische Quellen (Turnhout, 1988), 23–38.Google Scholar

18 Didier Marcotte kindly informs me that he has recently found a similar map in a manuscript in Paris's Bibliothèque Nationale: his essay on this topic, due to appear in the Revue des Études grecques, is eagerly awaited.Google Scholar

19 See, e.g., Stückelberger, A., Bild und Wort (Mainz, 1994), 47–49. On Cosmas see most recently Kominko, M., “New Perspectives on Paradise — the Levels of Reality in Byzantine and Latin Medieval Maps,” in Talbert, and Unger, , Cartography in Antiquity and the Middle Ages, 139–53. On Philip's epigram see Scott, J. M., Geography in Early Judaism and Christianity (Cambridge, 2002). The surrounding Ocean is, of course, the rule in the West too (one need just think of the world maps of Ebstorf, Hereford, and Fra Mauro).Google Scholar

20 See n. 17 above and Woodward, D., “Medieval Mappaemundi,” in Harley, and Woodward, , History of Cartography 1:286–370; Dilke, , Greek and Roman Maps, 178–80; Destombes, M., Mappemondes a.d. 1200–1500 (Amsterdam, 1964).Google Scholar

21 A similar mistake occurs in Peripl. Pont. Eux. 18 (p. 406.18 M.: see Ps.-Scymn., fr. 28 Marcotte), where MS V has Κρυο instead of Κριο. On the name's etymology see the different views held by Ps.-Plut. fluv. 14.4 and by Eust. in Il. 309.1 (in Dion. 87, p. 234. 17–20 M.; in Dion. 157, p. 245.20–27 M.) Google Scholar

22 See Ps.-Scymn. fr. 28 Marcotte, with the editor's n. 28 on p. 146.Google Scholar

23 Whereas the Azov Sea is Europe's limit not only in Greek geographers (e.g., Dionys. Per. 11–16; but see also Procop. Bell. 3.1.4), but also in a certain typology of western mappae mundi (the so-called Y-O type: Dilke, , Greek and Roman Maps , 173; Woodward, , “Medieval Mappaemundi,” 345–47), a special emphasis on Cape Sarych can be found, e.g., in Strabo 2.5.22 (see also 7.4.3), but already since Dion. Per. 153 and 312 down to Peripl. Pont. Eux. 18 (p. 406.16 M.) and to Marcian. epit. Peripl. Menipp. 9 (p. 570.29–31 M.).Google Scholar

24 The evidence is marshaled by Belke, K. in the entry Mesothynia (Ϻεσοθυνία or Ϻεσοθηνία being alternative orthographies of the toponym) of the forthcoming eleventh volume of the Byzantini, Tabula Imperii, Bithynien und Hellespont (Vienna, 2010). I thank the author for sending me a preliminary draft of this article, and Johannes Koder for further material on this topic, which also involves the identification of the Mesothinitai as Homer's Ἁλιζῶνες (see Pachym. 4.27, p. 403. 13 F.), and the localization of the “Optimaton” theme. See in the meantime Failler, A., in Georges Pachymérès: Relations historiques, 3 vols. (Paris, 1984), 1:42 n. 2 (on Pachym. 1.8): “D'une localisation incertaine en Bithynie, la Mésothynie devait s'étendre au nord de Nicée, jusqu'aux approches de Chalcédoine et peut-être même vers le nord du Bosphore” (which Macrides, R., George Akropolites: The History [Oxford, 2007], 122, seems to approve).Google Scholar

25 PL 185:1222; see Janin, R., Constantinople byzantine (Paris, 1964), 16. See also Külzer, A., Ostthrakien, Tabula Imperii Byzantini 12 (Vienna, 2008), 461. Koder, J., Der Lebensraum der Byzantiner (Graz, 1984), 25: “Die Stadt Konstantinopel befindet sich auf einer etwa dreieckigen, hügeligen Halbinsel, die mit ihrer Ostspitze in den Eingang des Bosporus ragt.” Google Scholar

26 For this current denomination see Külzer, , Ostthrakien , 396.Google Scholar

27 See, e.g., Lodovisi, A. and Torresani, S., Storia della cartografia (Bologna, 1996), 39–56; Dalché, Gautier, “L'héritage,” 54–56; and, on Constantinople, Koder, , “Sopravvivenza” (n. 12 above), 52; and Magdalino, P., “Ο οφθαλμός της οιϰουμένης ϰαι ο ομφαλός της γης η Κωνσταντινούπολη οιϰουμενιϰή πρωτεύουσα,” in To Βυζάντιο ωζ οιϰουμένη, ed. Chrysos, E. (Athens, 2005), 107–25, at 108–10.Google Scholar

28 Among the thousands of loci see, e.g., Scyl. Peripl. 1.6; Procop. Bell. 3.1.4; Eust. in Dion. Per., 228–29 Müller (in the excerpts of MS Vat. Gr. 915, at fol. 40r: στῆλαι δὲ Ἡραϰλέος περὶ τὰ γάδειρα); and Dante, , Paradiso 27.82. Posidonius (fr. 246 Ed.-Kidd = Strab. 3.5.5) devoted a long dissertation to the problem of the exact localization of the Pillars with respect to Gadeira.Google Scholar

29 See also Marcotte, D., Géographes grecs , vol. 1 (Paris, 2000), cxl–cxli with n. 235.Google Scholar

30 On the peculiar shape of this sea in Cosmas's map see Kominko, , “New Perspectives” (n. 19 above), 145.Google Scholar

31 This phenomenon is in itself not uncommon: a disproportion (though not so macroscopical) already occurs in the Madaba map, where Jerusalem is represented in a scale of 1:1600, whereas central Judaea is represented by 1:15000 (see Dilke, , “Cartography” [n. 11 above], 265).Google Scholar

32 Εὐρώπη in Byzantium was either an area of eastern Thrace (and by extension the two shores of the Propontis with their immediate hinterland) or a vague geographical expression for the southeastern part of the European continent: on this perception — that often collided or was made to fit in with that of the ancient geographers such as Strabo and Ptolemy — see Koder, J., “Ο όρος Ευρώπη ως έννοια χώρου στη Βυζαντινή ιστοριογραφία,” in Βυζάντιο και Ευρώπη (Delphi) (Athens, 1987), 63–74, esp. 65 (with all previous bibliography). See also Pallas, D. I., “Ευρώπη και Βυζάντιο,” ibid., 10–61, at 14–24; Nicol, D. M., “The Byzantine View of Western Europe,” Greek, Roman and Byzantine Studies 8 (1967): 315–39; and Grattarola, P., “Il concetto di Europa alla fine del mondo antico,” in L'Europa nel mondo antico , ed. Sordi, M. (Milan, 1986), 174–91.Google Scholar

33 In the western tradition, the oldest map of Europe as such dates back to a twelfth-century manuscript of the Floridus by de Saint-Omer, Lambert: see Wintle, M. J., The Image of Europe: Visualizing Europe in Cartography and Iconography throughout the Ages (Cambridge, 2009), 163–91, at 185; Baumgärtner, I. and Kugler, H., eds., Europa im Weltbild des Mittelalters: Kartographische Konzepte (Berlin, 2008); Oschema, K., “Der Europa-Begriff im Hoch- und Spät-Mittelalter,” Jahrbuch für europäische Geschichte 2 (2001): 191–235; den Boer, P. et al., The History of the Idea of Europe, rev. ed. (London, 1995), 29–32; and van den Brincken, A. D., “Europa in der Kartographie des Mittelalters,” Archiv für Kulturgeschichte 55 (1973): 289–304.Google Scholar

34 See Magdalino, , “Ο οφθαλμός,” esp. 107–9, on the lack of a geographical consciousness in Byzantium. Koder, J., “Η γεωγραφική διάσταση της βυζαντινής οικουμένης,” in Chrysos, , To Βυζάντιο ως οικουμένη, 25–45.Google Scholar

35 See Edson, E. and Savage Smith, E., “An Astrologer's Map: A Relic of Late Antiquity,” Imago Mundi 52 (2000): 7–29 (which supersedes Neugebauer, O., “A Greek World Map,” in Le monde grec: Hommages à Claire Préaux , ed. Bingen, J., Cambier, G., and Nachtergael, G. [Brussels, 1978], 312–17; see also Harlfinger, D., Die Wiedergeburt der Antike und die Auffindung Amerikas [Wiesbaden, 1992], 110–11). The scholia are edited by Tihon, A., “Les scholies des Tables Faciles de Ptolémée,” Bulletin de l'Institut historique Belge de Rome 43 (1973): 49–110.Google Scholar

36 See Graux, C. and Martin, A., “Figures tirées d'un manuscrit des Météorologiques d'Aristote,” Revue de philologie 24 (1900): 5–18, at 11–13. Harlfinger, Wiedergeburt, 36 and fig. 27. This map is tripartite and shows geographical features (not always consistent) belonging to all three continents.Google Scholar

37 No help is to be expected from the scholion to Dionysius the Periegete transmitted “außerhalb der Scholienreihe” by MS Vat. Gr. 902 and published in Ludwich, A., Aristarchs Homerische Textkritik , vol. 2 (Leipzig, 1885), 581; it is clearly derivative from Eustathius's commentary.Google Scholar

38 The most thorough examination of this issue remains Young, D., “On Planudes' Edition of Theognis and a Neglected Apograph of the Anthologia Planudea,” La Parola del Passato 10 (1955): 197–214, at 207–14. Idem, ed., Theognis (Leipzig, 1971), viii, denies an immediate Planudean authorship and observes that “ab exemplari satis bono exscriptus festinanter et minus accurate scatet ineptiis.” See also Garzya, A. in Teognide: Elegie (Florence, 1958), 27 and 31–32 (“una via di mezzo fra la corruzione e il risanamento divinatorio”), and, on Hesiod, West, M. L., “The Medieval and Renaissance Manuscripts of Hesiod's Theogony,” Classical Quarterly 14 (1964): 165–185, at 177.Google Scholar

39 Pernigotti, C., ed., Menandri Sententiae (Florence, 2008), 66: “H [scil. Vat. Gr. 915] non presenta nessuna traccia di rapporti particolari con Plan.” Google Scholar

40 Before Planudes' name was made, Studemund, W. wrote that the scribe (he probably meant that of the Theognidean section) “aut suum in usum aut pauperis alicuius hominis docti in usum corpus illud poetarum maxime epicorum et lyricorum videtur conscripsisse” (De Theognideorum [n. 1 above], 8).Google Scholar

41 See Diller, A., “The Oldest Manuscripts of Ptolemaic Maps,” Transactions of the American Philological Association 71 (1940), 62–67 (= idem, Studies in Greek Manuscript Tradition [Amsterdam, 1983], 99–109); Wilson, N., “Miscellanea Palaeographica,” Greek, Roman and Byzantine Studies 22 (1981): 395–404, at 395–96; Dilke, , “Cartography,” 266–68; Constantinides, Higher Education (n. 14 above), 76; Fryde, E. B., The Early Palaeologan Renaissance (Leiden, 2000), 252–57; Marcotte, , Géographes (n. 29 above), ciii–civ; Berggren, J. L. and Jones, A., Ptolemy's Geography: An Annotated Translation of the Theoretical Chapters (Princeton, 2001), 45–47 (who rule out that in antiquity a world map could possibly circulate with the manuscripts of Ptolemy).Google Scholar

42 See Harlfinger, , Wiedergeburt , 64–65, and especially Stückelberger, A., “Planudes und die Geographia des Ptolemaios,” Museum Helveticum 53 (1996): 197–205, who also provides a (not impeccable) edition and translation of the epigram (reprinted now in idem, “Wege der Überlieferung,” in Klaudios Ptolemaios, Handbuch der Geographie, 3 – Ergänzungsband, ed. Stückelberger, A. and Mittenhuber, F. [Basel, 2009], 321–35, at 325–31; more succinctly idem, Bild und Wort [n. 19 above], 62–63, and Ptolemaios, Klaudios, Handbuch der Geographie , ed. Stückelberger, A. and Graßhoff, G., 2 vols. [Basel, 2006], 1:29). Also on this side Gautier Dalché, “L'héritage” (n. 17 above), 29, and idem, La géographie de Ptolémée en Occident (IVe–XVIe siècle) (Turnhout, 2009), 82–84.Google Scholar

43 See Mittenhuber, F., “Text- und Kartenüberlieferung in der Geographie des Klaudios Ptolemaios” (diss., Bern, 2009), esp. 353–66, who also dates to the ninth century the collection of maps carried by Marc. Gr. 516 and to the fourteenth century that carried by Laur. 28.49. A summary of Mittenhuber's arguments can be read in idem, “The Tradition of Texts and Maps in Ptolemy's Geography,” in Ptolemy in Perspective: Use and Criticism of His Work from Antiquity to the Nineteenth Century , ed. Jones, A. (Dordrecht, 2010), 95–119.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

44 The absence of an abstract theory of projection in Hellenistic geometry does not of course prove that Ptolemy could not draw the maps he himself describes in some chapters of his Geography: see Valerio, V., Sui planisferi tolemaici: Alcune questioni interpretative e prospettiche , in Esplorazioni geografiche e immagine del mondo nei secoli XV e XVI (Messina, 1994), 63–82; and idem, “Cognizioni proiettive e prospettiva lineare nell'opera di Tolomeo e nella cultura tardo-ellenistica,” Nuncius: Annali di Storia della Scienza 13 (1998): 265–98.Google Scholar

45 Similar thoughts have dissuaded some scholars from siding with E. Albu's new dating of the Tabula Peutingeriana to the Caroline Age (rather than to Late Antiquity): see Dalché, Gautier, “L'héritage,” 47–50.Google Scholar

46 Apart from the two to be mentioned presently (the only two witnesses consulted by Stückelberger): Ambr. N 289 sup. (fol. 39r), mid-fifteenth century (siglum N); Par. Coisl. 355 (fols. 1–2), early sixteenth century (siglum C); Matr. Gr. 4621 (fol. 129r/v), written by Constantinus Lascaris in 1490 (partial facsimile in Harlfinger, Wiedergeburt, 64; siglum M); Par. suppl. Gr. 1101 (fols. 164–65), mid-fourteenth century (see Astruc, C. and Concasty, M. L., Catalogue des manuscrits grecs 3/3 [Paris, 1960], 231–32; siglum P ).Google Scholar

47 On this MS (siglum A), containing the translation of Ovid's, Metamorphoses and Heroides , see Martini, A. and Bassi, D., Catalogus codicum Graecorum Bibliothecae Ambrosianae, vol. 1 (Milan, 1906), 43–44, and Castiglioni, Al., “Analecta Planudea ad Ovidii Metamorphoses spectantia,” Studi Italiani di Filologia Classica 18 (1910): 189–260 (who believes it to be very close to Planudes' autograph).Google Scholar

48 See Kugéas, , “Analekta” (n. 15 above), 116 and Stückelberger, , “Planudes,” 199–200 (followed by Dalché, Gautier, La géographie, 82–83). On the issue of the maps see above and Constantinides, , Higher Education, 76–77.Google Scholar

49 This manuscript (siglum B) contains primarily texts of a musical and mathematical kind, starting with Ptolemy's Harmonica (and Porphyry's commentaries; also Plutarch's, de musica, Nicomachus of Gerasa, etc.); see Düring, I., Die Harmonielehre des Klaudios Ptolemaios (Göteborg, 1930), xxii–xxiii; Cyrillus, S., Codices Graeci manuscripti Regiae Bibliothecae Borbonicae, vol. 2 (Naples, 1832), 344–47; Mathiesen, T. J., Ancient Greek Music Theory (Munich, 1988), 499–502. It belonged to Ranuccio Farnese and was used by Galilei, Vincenzo; see Pernot, L., “Nouveaux manuscrits grecs farnésiens,” Mélanges de l'École Française de Rome: Moyen Âge, Temps Modernes 93 (1981): 695–711, at 707–8.Google Scholar

50 I cannot agree with Berggren, and Jones, , Ptolemy's Geography, 49: “the poem as a whole, with its frequent allusions to the work involved in the rediscovery, is more likely to mean that he had taken great pains to rediscover the art of map-making set out in the treatise.” This statement seems to me hard to reconcile with what the authors write a few lines below: “The word geographia would mean not the book, but the map, as Ptolemy uses the word”: “map” is not “the art of map-making.” Google Scholar

51 Konstantinos Laskaris added in MS M a title of his own invention. MS C gives no title at all.Google Scholar

52 See Claudii Ptolemaei Geographia , ed. Nobbe, P., 3 vols. (Leipzig, 1843), 1:xxxiii (epigr. VI–IX).Google Scholar

53 They are unknown to Komines, A. D., Tò βνζαντινόν ιερόν επίγραμμα (Athens, 1966), 181–82, who lists three other texts by this author (of special interest is the epitaph edited by Miller, E., in Manuelis Philae Carmina, vol. 2 [Paris, 1857], 372).Google Scholar

54 Kourouses, , “Γρηγορίου“ (n. 16 above), 556–57.Google Scholar

55 Wilson, , “Miscellanea” (n. 41 above), 396 restricts Planudes' claim to the reconstruction of only one map, though he later adds: “But he may in fact have performed this operation in every case.” Mittenhuber, “Text- und Kartenüberlieferung” (n. 43 above) actually shows that the manuscript discovered by Planudes also carried twenty-six regional maps on top of the general one.Google Scholar

56 Kugéas, , “Analekta,” 117 understands the line differently and refers it to Planudes' own re-creation of the map on the basis of Ptolemy's indications: but is this really compatible with the participle φανεΐσα? Google Scholar

57 See also Mittenhuber, , “Text- und Kartenüberlieferung,” 340–42, and Stückelberger, , “Wege” (n. 42 above), 325–31 (both relying on Stückelberger, “Planudes,” for the text and interpretation of the epigram).Google Scholar

58 “Nonnian” parallels to Planudes' versification are collected in the edition of his longest poetical attempt: Maximi Planudis Idyllium , ed. Pontani, F. M. (Padua, 1973). On Nonnus's Byzantine imitators (with virtually no mention of Planudes) see the bibliography compiled by Magnelli, E., “Il ‘nuovo’ epigramma sulle Categorie,” Medioevo greco 4 (2004): 179–98, at 192 n. 58 (esp. de Stefani, C., in Nonno di Panopoli, Parafrasi del Vangelo di San Giovanni: Canto I [Bologna, 2002], 29–30); slightly more skeptical is Gonnelli, F., in Nonno di Panopoli, Le Dionisiache, vol. 2 (canti XIII–XXIV) (Milan, 2005), 20–21.Google Scholar

59 See Turyn, , Dated Greek Manuscripts (n. 3 above), 28–39.Google Scholar

60 A similar image is exploited by Planudes in his epigr. VII Nobbe.Google Scholar

61 Other expressions of this book that may have influenced Planudes' lines are Nonn, . Dion. 41.340: έν πινάκεσσι (line 3); 41.385: δαίδαλα πάντα (line 5); 41.177: μιτρούμενον (of the Ocean, see line 22). On Nonnus's passage, itself reminiscent of the Shield of Achilles in Il. 18, and comparable with the Shield of Dionysus described in Dion. 25.352–412, see the learned commentary by Chuvin, P., in Nonnos de Panopolis, Les Dionysiaques, vol. 15 (Paris, 2006), 167.Google Scholar

62 For a recent reappraisal of this phenomenon see Dalché, Gautier, La géographie (n. 42 above) (and already idem, “Le souvenir de la Géographie de Ptolémée dans le monde latin médiéval [VIe–XIVe siècles],” Euphrosyne 27 [1999]: 79–106).Google Scholar

63 One major difference: lines 20–27 of Planudes' epigram reject the “poetical” image of an Ocean surrounding the earth (see Ptol, . Geog. 7.7.4 and 8.1.4), whereas the map in Vat. Gr. 915 — as we have just seen — espouses it.Google Scholar