Ioannis Canani de Constantinopolitana obsidione relatio: A Critical Edition, with English Translation, Introduction, and Notes of John Kananos' Account of the Siege of Constantinople in 1422

Description

This volume fills the need for a new critical edition and linguistic study of John Kananos' account of the siege of Constantinople in 1422. New research on the manuscripts has produced a new stemma codicum and shown that the oldest witness of this narrative, Vat. gr. 579 (ff. 355r - 364v), was written in Constantinople and belonged to the prolific scribe Phlamules Kontostephanos, who also provided the copy with a title in which the name of John Kananos is mentioned for the first time. The philological approach adopted here explains contradictions among the manuscripts and Kananos' peculiar vernacularisms and reveals a surprisingly realistic and elaborate Greek. The accompanying English translation, a chapter on the language of Kananos, and a complete thesaurus make this volume a valuable contribution to the study of late Byzantine literature. Contents Works cited in abbreviation 1. Introduction 2. The Manuscript Tradition and Ratio Edendi 2.1 The Manuscripts 2.1.1 Vaticanus graecus 579 fols. 355r – 364v = Vaticanus = V 2.1.2 Neapolitanus III B 26, fols. 1r – 10r = Neapolitanus = N 2.1.3 Vallicellianus ms. Allacci XCI = Vallicellianus = A 2.1.4 Critical editions, translations, and other studies 2.2 Ratio Edendi. The present edition 2.3 Punctuation 2.3.1 Aims of the Byzantine punctuation 2.3.2 Byzantine punctuation marks and their function. The practice of V 2.3.3 The punctuation in the present critical edition 2.4 Apparatus 2.4.1 Apparatus II: The apparatus criticus 2.4.2 Apparatus I: The apparatus fontium seu comparandorum locorum. Intra- and Intertextuality in Kananos 2.5 The language of Kananos: An overview Critical edition and English translation Thesaurus