ΠΡΟΣΚΛΗΣΗ ΣΕ ΟΜΙΛΙΑ
Την Τετάρτη 11 Νοεμβρίου 2026, στις 10:30, στο πλαίσιο του Προγράμματος Μεταπτυχιακών Σπουδών «Σπουδές στην κλασική, βυζαντινή και νεοελληνική γραμματεία», η Alice Montalto, μεταδιδακτορική ερευνήτρια στο Ινστιτούτο Βυζαντινών και Νεοελληνικών Σπουδών του Πανεπιστημίου της Βιέννης, θα δώσει διαδικτυακή ομιλία με θέμα:
“Byzantine Paradoxa: Between Philosophy and Natural Sciences”
Είστε όλες και όλοι ευπρόσδεκτες/οι!
https://upatras-gr.zoom.us/j/95739872742?pwd=AHMbOQovWs5way4rjYqbTHwyupw4fg.1
Passcode: 661027
Περίληψη: This seminar examines the reception and development of paradoxography in Byzantine culture through both manuscript and literary evidence. It investigates how paradoxa, or accounts of extraordinary natural, geographical, mythical, and medical phenomena, were transmitted, interpreted, and incorporated into a variety of textual contexts. Indeed, in Byzantine literature, paradoxographical material frequently appears not only in independent collections but also in philosophical works, treatises on natural science and geography, and texts concerned with magic, alchemy, and divination. Particular attention will be paid to the vocabulary used to describe marvellous phenomena, the organisation of thematic collections of paradoxa, and the theological concerns that shaped Byzantine engagements with such narratives. The seminar will consider selected case studies from the ninth century to the early Palaiologan period, including the circulation of paradoxographical collections in manuscripts such as Pal. gr. 398; Photios’ reading of collections of marvels testified in the Bibliotheca; Michael Psellos’ philosophical interpretation of natural and medical-magical paradoxa (collected in Philosophica Minora); and John Tzetzes’ use of natural and mythographical material in the Chiliades. It will also address the work of Maximus Planudes and Manuel Moschopoulos in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. By tracing these developments, the seminar highlights the close relationship between paradoxography and the wider Byzantine engagement with ancient learning. It shows that accounts of marvels were not merely marginal or entertaining material, but could serve as objects of scholarly inquiry and as a means of reflecting on the natural world through the lens of ancient philosophy and science, as well as new cultural and religious categories.
Βιογραφικό: Alice Montalto is a postdoctoral researcher at the Institute of Byzantine and Modern Greek Studies at the University of Vienna. In June 2026, she received her PhD in Classical and Byzantine Philology through a cotutelle de thèse between the University of Pisa and the University of Vienna. Her doctoral dissertation examined the palaeographical and textual features of codex Pal. gr. 398, with particular attention to the transmission and reception of the collection of paradoxographical texts preserved in the manuscript and its philosophical background.
