Workshop: The Ecology of the Physiologus
Wann: Di, 04.06.2024, 13:45 Uhr bis Mi, 05.06.2024, 13:00 Uhr
Wo: Warburgstraße 26, 20354 Hamburg
The Ecology of the Physiologus: Texts, Images, Manuscripts
The Physiologus is a strange and polymorphic early Christian work. Originally written in Greek probably in Alexandria, probably in the third century CE, it was translated into all languages of the Christian East and, through several Latin translations, became very popular in Western Europe throughout the Middle Ages. Although of little literary and doubtful theological value, it was widely transmitted and adapted in various cultural contexts. Whereas its original milieu of creation and audience remain mysterious, this relatively short and simple work served different purposes according to the different manuscript settings in which it was integrated and sometimes illustrated: theological collections, encyclopaedic compilations, gatherings of entertaining or exotic works, etc. These different settings changed the ways in which the Physiologus was perceived, as much as did its several rewritings. The purpose of this workshop is to explore how the reception of a given work is influenced by the ecology of the manuscripts in which it is transmitted, and conversely. This exploratory workshop, focusing on the Physiologus as an exceptional case study because of the extraordinary variety of languages, cultures and contexts in which it was transmitted, will develop an innovative approach combining codicological, philological, and art-historical methods to understand the ecology of multiple-text manuscripts.