Subproject 1: The Manuscripts of Josephus Latinus

Copying and Reading as Appropriation

Gerlinde Huber-Rebenich, Judith Mania, Anthony Ellis

This cluster focuses on material philology, looking at the transmission of the Latin translations and adaptions of Josephus. We are exploring manuscript production, circulation, annotation, and censorship to reveal how Josephan manuscripts were used in the medieval world, their cultural significance, and what they can tell us about Christian attitudes towards Judaism and Jewish/Christian history. The project will create an online catalogue (www.legejosephum.ch), describing the extant manuscripts of the Latin Josephus, with particular attention to the traces left by generations of later readers, to provenance, and to the mise-en-page of the original text. The database is searchable and has been structured to provide various types of meta-data. Together we will attempt trace continuities and changes in how Josephus was read and interpreted over some nine centuries between late antiquity and the Renaissance.