The Early Illustrated Apollonius of Tyre

This volume presents the extraordinary discovery at St Catherine’s Monastery, Sinai of a fragment of an early illustrated codex of the Story of Apollonius, King of Tyre, one of the most enduring works of literature of the past fifteen centuries. On parchment first reused for an Athanasian Creed and, since the ninth century, bound into one of the earliest Arabic Gospels (Sinai, Arabic New Finds 8 and 28), the fragment preserves three layers of textual history. Here, essays by experts in codicology, palaeography, literature, art history, textual editing, and cultural heritage imaging illuminate this Sinai palimpsest, offering new perspectives on the ancient novel and on late antique and early medieval Mediterranean networks of language, religion, patronage, and trade. The essays are accompanied by high-quality images, edited transcriptions, and an appendix that describes all the fragments in the manuscript.

Michelle P. Brown, FSA, is Professor Emerita of Medieval Manuscript Studies at the School of Advanced Study, University of London and is a Visiting Professor at University College London.

Jessica J. Lockhart is a medieval literary historian and Head of Research of the Old Books New Science Lab, University of Toronto.

Contributors: Anna Boreczky, Georgios Boudalis, Michelle P. Brown, Arianna D’Ottone, David Ganz, Juan Pedro Monferrer-Sala, András Németh, Michael Phelps, William Robins, Giulia Rossetto.

Jessica J. Lockhart & Michelle P. Brown
Introduction: A Scrap of Parchment   1

PART 1: THE FRAGMENT: CULTURAL AND SCIENTIFIC CONTEXTS

Michelle P. Brown
Chapter 1: St Catherine’s Monastery, MS Arabic NF 8 and the History of Apollonius of Tyre – A Sojourn in the Sinai?   19

Michael Phelps
Chapter 2: The Sinai Palimpsests Project and the Recovery of Latin Undertexts in Arabic NF 8   47

PART 2: THE FRAGMENT’S LATIN LAYERS

András Németh
Chapter 3: An Illustrated Historia Apollonii under an Early Copy of the Athanasian Creed on a Sinai Fragment   59

–  The Critical Transcription from Chapter 28 of the Historia Apollonii Regis Tyri (f. 18v)   76

–  The Critical Transcription of the Athanasian Creed (f. 18r)   78

William Robins
Chapter 4: The Sinai Apollonius of Tyre and the Material and Literary Evidence for the Circulation of Novels in Late Antiquity   83

Anna Boreczky
Chapter 5: Between Ephesus and Tarsus: The Illustration in the Sinai Apollonius   109

David Ganz
Chapter 6: The Palaeography of the Sinai Apollonius Fragment   139

PART 3: THE ARABIC GOSPEL BOOK

Arianna D’Ottone & Juan Pedro Monferrer-Sala
Chapter 7: St Catherine’s Sinai, MS Arabic NF 8 – The Arabic Gospels Supratext   147

Georgios Boudalis
Chapter 8: Holding the Parts Together: The Codicology of the Sinai Codex Arabic NF 8   173

APPENDIX

Georgios Boudalis & Giulia Rossetto
Colour mapping of Sin. ar. NF 8 + Sin. ar. NF 28   203

Editors and Contributors   255

Indices   259

– Index of Authors   259

– General Index 260