TORTELLEX · Giovanni Tortelli's Orthographia and Greek studies in Xvth century Europe
FP7 — People (Marie Curie Actions)
- Duration
- 2015-09-01 → 2018-04-04
- EU contribution
- €309,235
- Participants
- 1
- Scheme
- MC-IEF
Lines connect the coordinator with its partners.
Results in brief
Giovanni Tortelli's Orthographia and Greek studies in Xvth century Europe
The main purpose of the project was to investigate the crucial role played by the return of knowledge of Greek in the transformation of European culture, both through the translation of texts, and through the direct study of the language. Another aim of this research was to collect and organize in one database all the digitalised versions of the first editions of Greek grammars, lexica and school texts available in Europe in the 14th and 15th centuries, between two crucial dates: the start of Chrysoloras’s teaching in Florence (c. 1397) and the end of the activity of Aldo Manuzio and Andrea Asolano in Venice (c. 1529). The Researcher, Dr Paola Tomè made very good progress with these two main objectives. She started on her major book project on Giovanni Tortelli, published one co-edited book plus seven articles/chapters in refereed journals and books (and has another co-edited book plus seven more articles/chapters forthcoming), and organised three major conferences between 2015 and 2017: June 2016: Making and Rethinking Renaissance between Greek and Latin in 15th-century Europe (Corpus Christi College, Oxford) May 2017: Lo studio del greco nell’Europa del XV secolo. Future prospettive di ricerca (University of Venice) June 2017: Greek Studies in 15th-16th century Europe. Future Research Perspectives (Taylor Institution, Oxford) The main results achieved so far correspond to the initial aims, that it is to say the publishing of high-quality research, the establishment of a database (currently with 180 items on it) and a series of outreach activities bringing the project to the wider public: the May 2017 conference in Venice reached a large audience of young students from the main Licei Classici in the Venice area. However, a number of other factors slowed down progress on the project in the latter half of 2017. Project website address: http://greek15century.mml.ox.ac.uk/ In retrospect what Dr Tomè achieved in this short period is most impressive. The success of her website is indicated by the fact that the Bavarian State Library (BSB), one of the largest research libraries in Europe, acknowledged the scholarly importance of the site by adding it to its digital long-term archive. Archival copies will be permanently stored, indexed in the catalogue, and made available for free access. Further long-term preservation measures will be carried out if necessary (as for example format migration into newer formats). As well as archiving the BSB will still refer to the current website via the subject gateway.
Data: CORDIS, © European Union
Project objective
This project aims to study the role of Giovanni Tortelli (1400c.-1466) and of his most important work (the Orthographia) in the promotion and dissemination of the study of Greek in Italy and in Europe in the fifteenth century. Friend of Lorenzo Valla, who dedicated to him the Elegantiae, Tortelli collaborated with Pope Nicholas V in founding the Vatican Library and supervised the search for Greek manuscripts and the work of many translators hired by the pope. His work, still largely unknown, represents a crucial cross-section of the role played in the dissemination of Greek culture at that time, when the knowledge of the Hellenic language in Italy and in Europe was still the preserve of a few. My research will provide the first systematic study of the Greek sources of his Orthographia, a bulky dictionary of Greek words transposed into Latin, an enciclopedic dictionary to be used for reading and commenting on the classics. In the ms. Vat. Lat. 1478, the manuscript revised by Tortelli himself, it consists in more than 3.000 words and in about 380 ff. (760 pages). This work was widely diffused in Europe. My project will set the Orthographia in its context, and show its role in the new wave of interest in the spread of Greek studies in the West Europe during the fifteenth century; I will also compare the data coming from the Orthographia with those coming from the study of a complete course of Greek held in Veneto region in the XV century and now preserved in two manuscripts at the Bodleian Library, Oxford. My project will result also in a database devoted to Greek grammars, lexica and school books available in Europe between 1396 and 1529, whose metadata will be linked with the Perseus project catalogue of Gregory Crane's group.
Original text from CORDIS.
Participants
- THE CHANCELLOR, MASTERS AND SCHOLARS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD · OxfordCoordinatorUnited Kingdom
Links
Data: CORDIS, © European Union