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Interactive edition and interpretation of various works by Stoic and Epicurean philosophers surviving at Herculaneum

Final Report Summary - PHERC (Interactive edition and interpretation of various works by Stoic and Epicurean philosophers surviving at Herculaneum)

The team members received a specific philological and papyrological formation and attended tutorials on Herculanean bibliology and textual ecdotic. Then, they inspected the original manuscripts containing the texts to be edited and reconstructed on mathematical grounds the correct sequence of fragments and the anatomy of the original rolls. They read by microscope both edited and inedited text columns of these papyri and made systematic manual transcriptions of them. They prepared new critical editions, with modern translation, of major groups of columns providing for each of them both a diplomatic and a literary transcription. In this way, both indited and better edited text could be recovered from the ‘ashes of Herculaneum’. These editions were revised by senior scholars and made available as in-progress, open-access digital texts in the Publications page of our website for further improvement. Consolidated versions of them, accompanied by an introduction and a commentary, are now in press or have been accepted/submitted to peer-reviewed scientific journals or book series for printed publication. Besides, three papyrological, bibliological and palaeographical introductions to PHerc. 1020, 1004 and 454 are also now in press. A specific website was launched containing information related to the project and its development (www.pherc.eu).