Homer and History in the Venetus A

Casey Dué (University of Houston)

In this paper I will discuss the unique position of the tenth-century Venetus A manuscript of the Iliad (Marciano Gr. Z. 454 [=822]) in the transmission of Homeric poetry and the history of Homeric scholarship, using the high resolution images that were captured by our team in May 2007. The Venetus A contains the oldest complete text of the Iliad and it is the one on which all modern editions are primarily based, but it is invaluable to us for much more than its text of the Iliad. This manuscript contains not only the texts of the poem but also excerpts from the commentaries of the scholars associated with the library of Ptolemaic Alexandria, excerpts which are copied into its margins and between lines of the text. These writings, known as scholia, contain notes on the text that explain points of grammar, usage, the meaning of words, interpretation, and disputes about the authenticity of verses. The material contained in these marginal notes derive from scholarly works that predate the manuscript’s construction by a thousand years or more. And like the ancient papyri, which give us their surprising picture of the fluid state of the Homeric text in the antiquity, the scholia give us an historical window into the evolution of the Iliad and Odyssey.

After placing the creation of the Venetus A within its historical context, I will give a brief account of how it came to be in Venice. Next I will describe the construction of the manuscript and point out the components of a typical page. I will then give an overview of the different bodies of scholia contained in the document, their ultimate sources, and the kinds of commentary they contain. The reminder of my paper will consist of an introduction to the controversy that ensued when the Venetus A was rediscovered by Villoison in 1788 and an assessment of the manuscript’s unique importance for our understanding of the processes by which the Iliad crystallized into the form in which we now have it. This topic will then be taken up in greater detail by the next speaker.