Overview

The six Latin Comedies of Publius Terentius Afer (‘Terence’), written in the earlier second century BC, were well known in the ancient Roman world and continued to be popular throughout the Middle Ages and into early modern times. They were used as teaching texts in medieval schools, and consequently there are over 600 surviving manuscript witnesses for the plays, about a dozen of which are illustrated. The manuscript edited here, Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS. Auct. F. 2. 13, dating from the late-twelfth century, is one of these illustrated witnesses. Its illustrations, occurring at the beginning of each scene, are based on earlier Carolingian models, which in turn derive from Late Antique illustrations, but the artists responsible for them have recast them for their ‘modern’ (twelfth-century) audience. The manuscript is also textually rich in including scholia, explanatory notes which have a complex textual tradition of their own. Muir and Turner have edited the plays as presented in the Bodleian manuscript, carefully comparing these versions with the earlier Carolingian witnesses and with other contemporary illustrated manuscripts. Turner has edited and translated the scholia, and provides a commentary on them. The texts are linked to a complete set of high-resolution images, which are stylishly presented and allow users to magnify details of the manuscript greatly for closer inspection and to navigate easily and quickly through the plays and their scene-illustrations.

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9781851243280

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Bernard J. Muir is Professor of Medieval Studies at The University of Melbourne; he is best known for his digital facsimile editions of major Anglo-Saxon poetic manuscripts and DVDs focusing on Latin palaeography and the medieval scriptorium. Andrew J. Turner lectures in Classical Studies and has co-edited the hagiographical writings of Eadmer of Canterbury (with Muir), and written articles on Latin classical literature.

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