Periodic Reporting for period 1 - AcadHist (Philodemus' History of the Academy: Groundwork for a New Innovative Critical Edition)
Période du rapport: 2016-07-01 au 2018-06-30
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.
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."
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.