International congress of byzantine studies belgrade, 22 27 august 2016

Dariya Rafiyenko
University of Cologne, Cologne, Germany; 
[e-mail]
Excerpta historica iussu Constantini Porphyrogeniti confecta de sententiis: 
Edition and Study of the Concept of an Excerpt Collection 
(10
th
Cent., Constantinople)
The aim of the talk is to present the concept of the digital edition of the excerpt collection De 
sententiis, one of the volumes of the so-called Excerpta Constantiniana. The latter is a large collection 
of excerpts in multiple volumes from the Byzantine time, created on behalf of Constantine VII 
Porphyrogenitus (905–959). Four extant volumes of the Excerpta Constantiniana consist of several 
thousands of excerpts that were adopted from about three dozens of Ancient Greek and Byzantine 
historiographical works.
The collection De sententiis is preserved in the codex unicus — the palimpsested manuscript 
Vaticanus greacus 73 which distinguishes itself through a remarkable mise-en-page: for the purpose 
of navigation through the content, hundreds of marginalia and thousands of pictograms have been 
placed on the margins of the manuscript (see image 1). One section from the De sententiis, to be 
more precise, 24 pages from the original manuscript have been edited exemplary. In the process of 
preparation of the digital edition three main displaying perspectives for the same text were chosen:
(i) a digital reconstruction of the manuscript (see image 1)
(ii) a diplomatic transcription
(iii) a normalized, historical-critical version of the text 
Digital reconstruction (i) is a graphical reconstruction of the lower layer of the palimpsested 
manuscript Vat. gr. 73. In the diplomatic transcription (ii), the text is reproduced as true to the 
original as possible. The design of the original is visualized, especially the layout of the text and 
the navigation elements in it (i.e. marginalia and pictograms). Wherever possible, the original 
orthography is reproduced. The normalized historical-critical version of the text (iii) has the layout 
of a modern edition, the orthography is largely normalized. An option is provided to highlight 
different types of content, such as quotations, places, personal names, people, etc.

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Another goal of the talk is to discuss the advantages of the suggested pluralistic approach 
to the text, and especially the benefits of the diplomatic transcription (ii) for understanding the 
overall concept of the Excerpta Constantiniana. Most prominently, diplomatic transcription allows 
a comprehensive analysis of the marginalia and pictograms which were entirely neglected by the 
previous research. It, furthermore, provides other kinds of data not easily or not at all available in 
the previous editions, for example, the medieval punctuation. By way of examples I will try to show 
that in many cases the original punctuation is crucial for our understanding of the text.
These and some other positive aspects of the pluralistic approach to text edition will be 
highlighted.