CEU, 20–21 November 2025
Organizers: Aglae Pizzone, Cosimo Paravano, Baukje van den Berg
Location: Central European University, Quellenstrasse 51, 1100 Vienna
Senate Room (B319)
This hands-on, work-in-progress workshop brings together researchers engaged in projects related to grammatical, rhetorical, and philosophical education and scholarship in Middle Byzantium. Byzantine teachers and scholars produced commentaries on grammatical treatises, rhetorical handbooks, and philosophical texts to make ancient authorities relevant within new cultural, ideological, and intellectual frameworks. Their work reveals much about their scholarly practices, pedagogical aims, and intellectual agenda in educating the Byzantine elite and reflecting on the workings of language and literature. By facilitating the exchange of ideas, problems, and material, the workshop intends to benefit the participants’ individual research projects, which often involve preparing the first critical editions and interpretive studies of key texts in Middle Byzantine hermeneutics.
Thursday 20 November
9.00–9.30 Coffee, welcome, and introduction
Session 1: Stephanos on Aristotle’s Rhetoric
Chair: Aglae Pizzone (University of Southern Denmark)
9.30–10.30 Ugo Valori (University of Milan), ‘Stephanos’ Commentary on Aristotle’s Rhetoric’
Respondent: Dunja Milenkovic (Central European University)
10.30–11.30 Juan Manuel Tabío Hernández (Carlos III University of Madrid), ‘Stephanos’ Commentary on Aristotle’s Rhetoric’
Respondent: Elisabetta Barili (University of Southern Denmark)
11.30–12.00 Coffee break
Session 2: Philosophical Commentary
Chair: John Kee (Harvard University)
12.00–13.00 Dunja Milenkovic (Central European University), ‘Theodore Prodromos’ Commentary on Aristotle’s Posterior Analytics’
Respondent: Tamar Khubulava (University of Vienna)
13.00–14.00 Rogelio Toledo Martin (University of Vienna), ‘Tzetzes’ Verse Metaphrasis on Aristotelian Logic’
Respondent: István Perczel (Central European University)
14.00–15.30 Lunch break
Session 3: John Tzetzes’ On Meters
Chair: Baukje van den Berg (Central European University)
15.30–16.30 Giuseppe Mendicino (University of Milan), ‘John Tzetzes’ On Meters’
Respondent: Francesco Giannachi (University of Salento)
16.30–17.30 Francesco Giannachi (University of Salento), ‘Perspectives on Iohannes Tzetzes’ De metris: From Self-Reader to Other Readers’
Respondent: Krystina Kubina (University of Vienna)
19.00 Participant dinner at Meixners Gastwirtschaft (Buchengasse 64, 1100)
Friday 21 November
Session 4: Hermogenean Commentary, 10th–11th Centuries
Chair: Elisabetta Barili (University of Southern Denmark)
9.30–10.30 Cosimo Paravano (University of Vienna), ‘Trachytes, taxis, and the order of the universe in Ioannes Sikeliotes’
Respondent: Aglae Pizzone (University of Southern Denmark)
10.30–11.30 Nicklas Sindlev Andersen (University of Southern Denmark), ‘Vienna Phil. gr. 130 and Vat. gr. 2228: Attempting Handwritten Text Recognition on Doxapatres’
11.30–12.00 Coffee break
Session 5: Hermogenean Commentary in Middle Byzantium
Chair: Francesco Giannachi (University of Salento)
12.00–13.00 Aglae Pizzone (University of Southern Denmark), ‘Speech Acts and Deliberation in the Byzantine Commentaries on Hermogenes’
Respondent: Cosimo Paravano (University of Vienna)
13.00–14.30 Lunch break
Session 6: John Tzetzes on Ancient Authorities
Chair: Cosimo Paravano (University of Vienna)
15.30-16.30 Elisabetta Barili (University of Southern Denmark), ‘John Tzetzes’ Commentary on Pseudo-Hermogenes’ On Method of Force’
Respondent: Baukje van den Berg (Central European University)
14.30–15.30 Baukje van den Berg (Central European University), ‘John Tzetzes on Ancient Poetry’
Respondent: John Kee (Harvard University)
16.30–17.00 Closing discussion
Image: Leiden, Universiteitsbibliotheek, Vossianus gr. Q1, fol. 81v (Diktyon 38108). Digitized in collaboration with Brill (Codices Vossiani Graeci et Miscellanei Online, Leiden, 2019)
