Codex Sinaiticus and Constantine Simonides - St Catherine's manuscripts Catalogue(s) plural

Of course not, at the time Simonides was not in Leipzig, he had not seen the manuscript and the report on the fragments did not say from where they had come.

Actually, at the moment we may only have this information from Luciano Canfora, who sometimes writes with extrapolation, rather than from Enthüllungen über den Simonides or any other source.

Canfora has info on:

Il viaggio di Artemidoro (2011)
https://books.google.com/books?id=slC8ywpEIGQC&pg=PA236



However, note the anachronistic extrapolation, the CFA was not connected to Sinai at that time. The passage may be in those Greek pages in Enthüllungen, maybe.

Also from Canfora in the same spot we have some geographical confirmations:

Before the trip to the West, Simonides had traveled the wide area that goes from Odessa to Alexandria, Egypt through Athos, his favorite destination, and the seat of his memorable stay.

They are not in those Greek pages... which are dated August and September 1853 from London.
 
... he probably tried to mimic loosely the fascimilies published in 1846 for some of his forgeries ? ?. So say the real experts Choat and Wasserman.

What would the CFA give him that was not in Montfaucon and various manusripts available in the cities of his travels?

Do Malcolm or Tommy give any real information?
e.g showing a Simonides production that looks like such a mimic enterprise? If not, nothing there.
 
They are not in those Greek pages... which are dated August and September 1853 from London.

And I agree, from our checking a while back.

In fact, I tried to find the Canfora source, and came up empty. I made the inquiries on a Canfora Facebook forum, and one of his students did some checking.

Remains a puzzle, since he writes with a combination of factual definiteness and extrapolation.
There is no indication that he has other Lycourgas sources.
 
Of course not, at the time Simonides was not in Leipzig, he had not seen the manuscript and the report on the fragments did not say from where they had come.

Actually, at the moment we may only have this information from Luciano Canfora, who sometimes writes with extrapolation, rather than from Enthüllungen über den Simonides or any other source.

Canfora has info on:

Il viaggio di Artemidoro (2011)
https://books.google.com/books?id=slC8ywpEIGQC&pg=PA236



However, note the anachronistic extrapolation, the CFA was not connected to Sinai at that time. The passage may be in those Greek pages in Enthüllungen, maybe.

Also from Canfora in the same spot we have some geographical confirmations:

Before the trip to the West, Simonides had traveled the wide area that goes from Odessa to Alexandria, Egypt through Athos, his favorite destination, and the seat of his memorable stay.

He also mined Curzon's adventures for any scrap of information he could get or use about Egyptian monastery's etc...

Which Simonide's references more than once during the Sinaiticus controversy...

Visits to Monasteries in the Levant by Robert Curzon, first published in1849, was immensely popular among the British...

You can imagine him using that angle ("have you read Curzon?"...) to start conversations with the English socialite's he was introduced to or imposed himself upon, when he was baiting the English scholar's and setting the trap to buy his forgeries...

This is yet another publicly available pe-1860 source of information he could have (and did) use to enhance his Sinaiticus creation myth...
 
Plenty of sources of information (both oral and literary) to make up a plausible draft story, mixed with his long practiced Athos-Benedict etc distortions and lies, coupled with several identity frauds and/or thefts...
All pre-1860...
All public knowledge...

And NOTHING to show the total lack of provenance, history, catalogue or even oral history.

Nothing to demonstrate the Tischendorf 1844 theft, extracting five intact quires and part of a sixth.

Nothing to demonstrate the colour difference of 1844 and 1859. in synch with the report of colouring.

Nothing to demonstrate the bungling Greek of Tischendorf when talking to the native Greeks (Tisch published that later.)

Nothing to indicate that an honest palaeography would know this was a recent manuscript.

Very little to indicate the bogus loan agreement.

Remember, you had to theorize a Simonides network of spies and informants.
 
What would the CFA give him that was not in Montfaucon and various manusripts available in the cities of his travels?

Do Malcolm or Tommy give any real information?
e.g showing a Simonides production that looks like such a mimic enterprise? If not, nothing there.

Thank you... Montfaucon was yet another source of pre-1860 information and paleography that he exploited in his forgeries...
 
And I agree, from our checking a while back.

In fact, I tried to find the Canfora source, and came up empty. I made the inquiries on a Canfora Facebook forum, and one of his students did some checking.

Remains a puzzle, since he writes with a combination of factual definiteness and extrapolation.
There is no indication that he has other Lycourgas sources.

So you read German now? Have you tried translating the entire text in Google Translate...
 
So you read German now...

You need a source to read, and the people working with Canfora indicated the only source he showed was Enthüllungen über den Simonides-Dindorfschen, which afaik does not have the text needed.

And German translates rather well by Google, Abbyy Screenshot Reader does a good job on the OCR, although it depends on the specific font.
 
And I agree, from our checking a while back.

In fact, I tried to find the Canfora source, and came up empty. I made the inquiries on a Canfora Facebook forum, and one of his students did some checking.

Remains a puzzle, since he writes with a combination of factual definiteness and extrapolation.
There is no indication that he has other Lycourgas sources.

And how did Mr Canfora receive your enquiries...after reading your less than cordial public "dupe" labelling?

Friendly?
 
And NOTHING to show the total lack of provenance, history, catalogue or even oral history.

Nothing to demonstrate the Tischendorf 1844 theft, extracting five intact quires and part of a sixth.

Nothing to demonstrate the colour difference of 1844 and 1859. in synch with the report of colouring.

Nothing to demonstrate the bungling Greek of Tischendorf when talking to the native Greeks (Tisch published that later.)

Nothing to indicate that an honest palaeography would know this was a recent manuscript.

Very little to indicate the bogus loan agreement.

Remember, you had to theorize a Simonides network of spies and informants.

Oral history was given by Kallinikos of Sinai...

Try again...
 
And how did Mr Canfora receive your enquiries...

I felt the students help was enough, he seems to have layers of protectia.

Maybe I emailed him once, but he has a large shuffle to get lost in.

And where did I ever criticize Luciano Canfora? I have appreciated his Artemidorus scholarship.

And I also had some good interaction with Richard Janko, who reviewed Canfora, and, if I remember, does not particularly agree with Canfora. Richard Janko told me about his attempts to find out more about Simonides from Russian material.
 
Last edited:
You need a source to read, and the people working with Canfora indicated the only source he showed was Enthüllungen über den Simonides-Dindorfschen, which afaik does not have the text needed.

And German translates rather well by Google, Abbyy Screenshot Reader does a good job on the OCR, although it depends on the specific font.

Didn't answer the question...

Did you translate the entire text?

Perhaps you missed something... wouldn't be the first time.
 
A little jumpy Steven...

Not at all.

The claim was made on this forum, and other spots, that Simonides would not know the uncial script because, it was said, without actual evidence, that no such boxy, square uncials were at Mount Athos. And supposedly they would not have access to resources in other cities.

Everybody in textual circles, like Benedict, were well aware of the Montfaucon palaeography book.

So the claim was false, even if the questionable presumptions were true.
 
Back
Top