The mobility of Greek manuscripts between East and West

Abstract

No comprehensive survey has yet been devoted to the mobility of Greek manuscripts between East and West, in itself and as a factor of both the cultural shaping of Europe and the constitution of the main modern European libraries. The first part of this paper draws a map of the multiple roads the Greek manuscripts took from the beginning of the 15th century to the 18th century. In its second part, this paper considers an extraordinarily representative case study—the Biblioteca Marciana in Venice. It discusses how, when, and why this vast collection of manuscripts formed, along which directions and through which figures (both individual and institutional) the 1,204 Greek manuscripts came to the library. Together with the external mobility of the manuscripts (the roads leading them to the library), the paper also approaches their internal mobility, that is to say, the borrowing of Greek manuscripts and its consequences, in terms of textual and cultural transmission on the one side, and material holdings on the other.