Pinakes | Πίνακες

Résumé :

The chronicle attributed to Leontios Makhairas (c.1360/80 – after 1432) and written in the local Greek dialect constitutes a major landmark in the historiographical production of medieval Cyprus. It recounts the history of Cyprus from the fourth century to 1458, focusing primarily on the Lusignan rule and embodying a fusion of the Byzantine and Latin Eastern historiography. Three manuscripts of the two recensions of the chronicle are well known: the ones in Venice (after 1523), in Oxford (1555) and in Ravenna (c.1600), the latter two preserving a similar shorter version; there also exists an Italian translation of the Ravenna text at the Vatican Library. The discovery of a hitherto unknown mid seventeenth-century manuscript (London, British Library, Harley 1825), containing extracts from the Oxford manuscript, enhances our understanding of the Chronicle’s circulation and sheds light on the links connecting their copyists, owners or translators, as well as on the social and intellectual context that instigated an interest in the text and allowed its circulation and preservation.