Greek and Latin Philology

The course aims at providing students with tools fit to evaluate the text of Greek and Latin authors, who came to us by direct or indirect tradition, through manuscripts, papyrus scrolls, epigraphs. Students will learn the method by which they can establish the text closest to the original, and then proceed to detect anomalies with respect to the linguistic use of the age, genre and author, and propose a sound correction.

Knowledge
At the end of the course the student will have achieved a sound knowledge of stemmatic principles that lead to the constitution of the text of Greek and Latin authors (identification in the manuscript tradition of conjunctive and separative errors, errores significativi, that lead to settle the relationship between the manuscripts), of the methods of evaluation and correction of the text given by the archetype, or by codex unicus, papyrus or epigraph, in relation to the indirect tradition. In order to judge and correct the text, the student will have strengthened linguistic, metric, palaeographic and papyrological knowledge.

Skills
In view of preparing a critical edition the student will be able to:
- use the main tools of textual criticism (with particular attention to the processes of the recensio, examinatio and emendatio),
- identify and remove textual corruptions, and build the critical apparatus and the other apparatuses (for references to sources, parallels, imitations, quotations);
- study the history of the text in its most significant moments up to the most recent critical editions.