Miguel Pselo, Sobre el mapa: un Estrabón oculto

[EN] The scientific texts composed by Michael Psellos (1018-1078), imperial professor of philosophy (ὕπατος τῶν φιλοσόφων) from 1047 onwards, are an exceptional case of popularisation of a knowledge that was available to the Byzantines at their libraries. This textual production has been approached...

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Bibliographic Details
Author: Pérez Martín, Inmaculada
Format: other
Status:Published version
Publication Date:2018
Country:España
Institution:Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas (CSIC)
Repository:DIGITAL.CSIC. Repositorio Institucional del CSIC
OAI Identifier:oai:digital.csic.es:10261/297025
Online Access:http://hdl.handle.net/10261/297025
Access Level:Open access
Description
Summary:[EN] The scientific texts composed by Michael Psellos (1018-1078), imperial professor of philosophy (ὕπατος τῶν φιλοσόφων) from 1047 onwards, are an exceptional case of popularisation of a knowledge that was available to the Byzantines at their libraries. This textual production has been approached by classicists as evidence on Aristotle’s writings among others, while from the perspective of the Byzantine culture it constitutes an important piece of evidence about the interest in explaing the physical environment and the place of the human beings in there by cultivated Byzantines in the 11th century. In the present case, Psellos’ treatise On the map (Περὶ τοῦ γεωγραφικοῦ πίνα κος) was published by Lasserre as a fragmentary testimony of Strabo’s Geogra phy from the MS Par. gr. 1630; in the current contribution, however, we offer a critical edition of the text (tackled as an independent text) that includes the supplementary testimonies of the MSS Barocci 131 and Mutin. α.T.9.3. The author’s method can be noted: Strabo’s reading brought him in contact with the scientific discussion on the map of the inhabited world explained by the geographer in his second book, and Psellos decided to summarize in a sketch or hypotyposis some of the data arising from the cartographical debate. Thus, his choice of excerpta from Strabo is introduced as a description of the oikoumene’s map, to which thereby the attention of Psellos’ pupils and readers was drawn.