Philodemus' History of the Academy: Groundwork for a New Innovative Critical Edition

Project Information

AcadHist

Grant agreement ID: 703798

DOI

10.3030/703798

Project closed

EC signature date 14 April 2016

Start date 1 July 2016

End date 30 June 2018

Funded under

• EXCELLENT SCIENCE - Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions

Total cost

€ 168 277,20

EU contribution

€ 168 277,20

Coordinated by

CONSIGLIO NAZIONALE DELLE RICERCHE
Italy

Periodic Reporting for period 1 - AcadHist (Philodemus' History of the Academy: Groundwork for a New Innovative Critical Edition)

Reporting period: 2016-07-01 to 2018-06-30

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

Philodemus’ 'History of the Academy', which is handed down by two Herculaneum papyri (PHerc. 1691/1021 and PHerc. 164), preserve much otherwise lost information about the development of the Platonic Academy, from Plato himself to Antiochus and Aristus of Ascalon. The research of the last two decades has shown that a new innnovative critical edition of it is a strong desideratum and may produce an essentially improved text, with an expected impact on our knowledge of Platonism and Academic philosophy. The main goal of the project was to lay the foundation for precisely this new edition, paving the way for a new method of editing Herculanean texts. This objective has not only fully been achieved, but has essentiallybeen overcome. In fact, a complete new critical edition of the text handed down by PHerc. 1691/1021 and PHerc. 164 has been produced, which is already becoming normative among scholars. The new text has revealed a lot of highly intriguing and substantial information about Academic philosophers, which is of great relevance for historians of ancient philosophy and literature, philologists and papyrologists likewise. Our understanding of the development of the Platonic Academy and its most prominent figures is of outstanding importance for the history of European culture, in whose foundation Greek philosophy, in particular that of Plato, has played a fundamental role. The new critical edition of Philodemus’ 'History of the Academy' prepared by the fellow is now being endowed with extensive introduction and commentary and is going to be submitted to a leading series of Greek texts and commentaries for publication.

The overall objectives of the project were:

1. Bibliological reconstruction of PHerc. 1691/1021 and PHerc. 164.
2. Reading and manual transcription of them.
3. Text reconstruction of the book.
4. Collaborative review in progress of the new critical edition.
5. Publication of partial editions.

Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far

"The fellow worked together with the supervisor on a daily or weekly basis and significantly enhanced his papyrological, palaeographical and philological skills. He inspected the original papyri in the Officina dei Papiri Ercolanesi of the National Library 'Vittorio Emanuele III' of Naples, he established the Greek text and analysed the corresponding results, regularly discussing them with the supervisor. After reconstructing the original anatomy of the roll and replacing some textually misplaced columns as well as clarifying the position of PHerc. 1691 with respect to PHerc. 1021, the reading and the manual transcription of all papyri concerned were perfomed. Here, the first application of mathematical methods to PHerc. 1691/1021 is to be mentioned. Subsequently, the fellow compared his own drawings with the multispectral images and the Oxford as well as the Neapolitan apographs available for these papyri and provided for the first time two different transcripts: a diplomatic one, which papyrological apparatus, and a literary one, accompanied by philological apparatus. Subsequently, these transcripts were checked again against the original papyri and were steadily improved and discussed. Both transcripts as well as the critical apparatuses bear some innovative features. The new edition is both easily readable and covering all traditional scholarly requirements. The critical text newly established by the fellow was uploaded and made available open-access onto the project’s web page, which was developed and is maintained by the Host Institution. Several colleagues could consult it and advance their own textual suggestions. Significant passages of it were published as articles in top-ranking peer-reviewed scientific journals or as chapters in conference proceedings and several others have either been accepted for publication or are now in press. Apart from the International Workshop ""Philodemus’ History of the Academy: Towards a new edition of PHerc. 1691/1021 and 146"", which took place at Amalfi (Salerno) from 13 to 16 September 2017 and was a great success by furtherly contributing to the improvement of the critical text and by widening the fellow’s personal network, Dr. Fleischer participated in several conferences, workshops, seminars and outreach-activities closely related to the project's execution.

Exploitation and dissemination of results:

Public Engagement:

• Participation in the 20th Anniversary Celebration of the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions, Rome, 30 January 2017.
• K. Fleischer, Il programma Marie Sklodowska-Curie per la mobilità europea dei ricercatori, Researchers’ Night, University of Calabria (Cosenza), 29 September 2017.
• Participation in the APRE Info-day on Marie Skłodowska-Curie Individual Fellowships: How to write a successful proposal, Venice, 8 May 2018.

Dissemination:

i) Publications in top-ranking peer-reviewed international journals and conference proceedings.
ii) Presentations at conferences, workshops and seminars.
iii) Open-access digital edition.
iv) International workshop.
v) Final press conference."

Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far)

The fellow’s work on the papyri during the period of the MSCA-IF has increased the Greek text about 20% with respect to the previous edition, a figure much higher than was expected at the project's beginning. This important progress in the restitutio textus was due to 1) a careful inspection of the original papyri and ancient drawings on a daily basis in the Officina dei Papiri Ercolanesi of the National Library 'Vittorio Emanuele III' of Naples; 2) a manual transcription of all the papyri concerned through a new system (‘piece mapping’); 3) the first systematic exploitation of the multispectral images of all papyri concerned; 4) the application of NIR Hyperspectral Imaging to PHerc. 1691/1021 performed during the fellowship through a mobile laboratory made available by the EU Research Infrastructure IPERION CH (INRAIA-2014-2015, Grant Agreement No. 654028); 5) the use of a new editorial system, which was developed by the supervisor and adapted by the fellow; 6) a detailed discussion of the new critical text together with the supervisor and world-leading experts in the field, both remotely and during an ad-hoc international workshop organized by the beneficiary at Amalfi from 13 to 16 September 2017.
Philodemus’ History of the Academy is one of the most important and most famous books of the Herculaneum collection. Its relevance as often unique source for our knowledge of the history of Platonism and the Platonic school makes it one of the most important pieces of Greek philosophical literature and a milestone of European cultural history. The new important results arisen from the MSCA-IF are already exerting a significant impact on the classical scholarly community and may have important consequences even in other fields. Though not yet officially published, the fellow’s new comprehensive edition of this book is actually imposing itself as normative among scholars. The two pioneering experiments performed on PHerc. 1691/1021, which have improved the legibility of the recto and have made visible again the text on the verso 200 years after its first discovery, represents an important step forward in the application of advanced diagnostic techniques to Herculaneum papyri and is destined to find further applications to other papyri and medieval manuscripts, so involving phycisists, chemists and other kinds of scientists in the recovery of ancient lost texts.

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