Student Presentations at the CHS Summer Seminar 2012

What's going on here?

Folio 98v of the Venetus A

As Mary Ebbott noted in the last post, teams of undergraduates and faculty members have been hard at work at the CHS this week, creating a diplomatic edition of the text and scholia of book 7 of the Iliad in the Venetus A manuscript. As each team has grappled with the folios of this incredibly complex tenth-century document, they have each begun to explore different problems or items of interest. Today, the students gave preliminary presentations about their work. The topics ranged from the layout of the scholia on particular folios to the means of linking scholia to the text of the poem to the exploration of the implications of particular scholia. The work of each group has resulted not only in work that has never been done before, but work that has never before been possible. Never before have we had the ability to closely compare manuscripts that reside separately in Spain and Italy for example, nor have we ever had the data and the tools to perform the kind of searches and collations and calculations that are now possible.

Each team will continue to both expand and refine their research in the coming months for a variety of audiences, including this blog and various research symposia. This two week seminar has only been the beginning of their research and their participation in the Homer Multitext. So please stay tuned for more about their work. 

As for what's going on in this image, you'll have to wait for the students to tell you more. But it is not as simple as it may seem at first glance. Take a closer look, and see what you think.

Detail from folio 98v of the Venetus A