Publisher's Synopsis
This volume pays homage to manuscripts and early printed books as material witnesses in the Middle Ages. The essays discuss broad questions relating to the partisan interpretation of texts, but they also illustrate how small details of format, script, and decoration uncover the text, its context, and its reception. Some articles explore scientific methods, examining whether social network analysis can offer an advance over traditional methods of establishing textual connections and using statistics to understand the transmission of ancillary materials. Others present critical editions and contextualize lost genres, providing a first edition of an unedited summary of Ovid's Metamorphoses steeped in the Boccaccian genealogical tradition, exploring mock funeral eulogies for animals, and discussing the variety of texts that pay witness to Ovid's penetration into vernacular literature. A closing brace of essays catalogue collections and reflect on changing trends in the study of manuscripts.
