Towards a new critical edition of Tzetzes’ 'Allegories of the Iliad' (I): Two Tzetzian versions?

Abstract

Written in between 1143 and 1146 under the commission of Bertha von Sulzbach, soon to be the Empress Eirene, wife of Manuel I Komenos, the Allegories of the Iliad are an over 6.600 political-verse summary, paraphrase, and mostly allegorical explanation of the pagan supernatural elements of Homer’s work. Tzetzes’ Allegories have received little attention, and only in the past years did scholars focused on them. Furthermore, the poem still lacks a up-to-date edition, as it has not been edited since the mid-nineteenth century (Matranga 1850; Boissonade 1851). So-far, I came to a total of 21 valuable uncollated codices, out of the 41 listed by the Pinakes website: six full recensions and 15 partial recensions, in two cases among the scholia to Homer’s Iliad. Meaningful is the fact that the two ancient manuscripts, the Barocci 131, ff. 42-62v (D) and Vindob. phil. gr. 305, ff. 1-145v (E) are among those codices never taken in consideration. The aim of this paper is to present the reasons for which a new edition is needed, by looking at the poem’s several unconsidered manuscript sources and trying to elaborate some previous conclusions on them, namely by exploring the possibility of Tzetzes’ preparation of two versions of his work.