Pinakes | Πίνακες

Résumé :

The manuscript Florence, Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana, Plut. 87.12 transmits an «edition» of Aristotle’s Metaphysics which must have been arranged originally on four papyrus rolls, the third of which was half the length of the other ones. The manuscript bears no traces of ancient colometry, and the copyist must have had in front of him a text already equipped with spirits, accents and punctuation. This article takes into consideration the character and variations of his handwriting. We also notice that on f. 485v the transcription of Michael of Ephesus’ commentary on the Aristotelian text ceases. The strategy for the arrangement of the scholia is analyzed: each page, in fact, must contain the relevant scholia, which were arranged in such a way as to mirror the text on the facing page, and the exegesis of each passage began on the same page on which the lemma taken from Aristotle’s text is found. Some hypotheses are formulated here on the method followed to obtain this result, and we further note that the Aristotelian text used by Michael of Ephesus for the lemmas is different from that of the codex, and often agrees with that of mss. E and J. The «edition» of the Metaphysics attested by the Florence manuscript must date from before the fifth century. As for the manuscript itself, Anna Comnena may perhaps have commissioned it Be that as it may, it seems to belong to the same cultural milieu where the manuscripts Milan, Biblioteca Ambrosiana, H 50 sup. and M 46 sup. were produced.