Résumé :
Antonios Byzantios (ca 1680-1711) was a teacher at the Patriarchal Academy
of Constantinople for a relatively short period of time (1705-1711). However,
he decisively influenced the curriculum of the Greek schools in Southeast
Europe through his book Chrestoethia, which is delivered in dozens of eighteenth/
nineteenth century manuscripts and printed editions. Regarding his
life and work, we mainly rely on the publications of the historian Perikles
Zerlentis (1852-1925). In an article of his (1907), Zerlentis pointed out that
he possessed a manuscript, in which were preserved Antonios’ handwritten
notes, letters and patriarchal addresses. This valuable manuscript is no longer
to be found in his book collection, which now belongs to the General Archives
of the Greek State. The main goal of my research is to trace the fate
of this manuscript, which is of key importance for the articulation of the life
and work of Antonios Byzantios. In my article I reconstruct the content of the
latent “Zerlentis codex” based on the information he cites in his article. Furthermore,
I demonstrate that the texts mentioned by him come not from one
but from two codices: one of his own manuscripts, State General Archives,
Zerlentis Collection 1, and another now deposited in the British Library, Add
MS 8234, originating from the library of Phanariot Nikolaos Karatzas (1705-
1787). From Add MS 8234, as proved in my article, Zerlentis drew texts and
testimonies on Antonios and not from some other “proprietary” manuscript
of his. Moreover, the text of Chrestoethia is written by Antonios’ own hand,
as evidenced by comparison with other autograph codices of the same scribe.
