The Archimedes palimpsest: the definitive edition
Jean Christianidis
Metascience ISSN 0815-0796 Volume 22 Number 1 Metascience (2013) 22:137-142 DOI 10.1007/s11016-012-9682-1
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Author's personal copy Metascience (2013) 22:137–142 DOI 10.1007/s11016-012-9682-1 ESSAY REVIEW
The Archimedes palimpsest: the definitive edition Reviel Netz, William Noel, Natalie Tchernetska and Nigel Wilson (eds): The Archimedes palimpsest, 2 vols. Vol. I: Catalogue and commentary; Vol. II: Images and transcription (The Archimedes Palimpsest Publications series). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011, 344+342pp, £150.00 HB Jean Christianidis Published online: 3 July 2012 Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2012
The Palimpsest Codex of Archimedes—which is better known to historians of mathematics by the name ‘‘Codex C’’ that was given to it by J. L. Heiberg in 1906— was auctioned on Thursday, 29 October 1998, at 2:00 pm at Christie’s in New York. Today the legal owner of the Codex is the collector who purchased it at the auction. Regarding this auction as well as many other related events that took place in the days prior to 29 October 1998, we refer the reader to The Archimedes Codex: How a medieval prayer book is revealing the true genius of antiquity’s greatest scientist by Reviel Netz and William Noel (Da Capo Press 2007), also to the chronicle by Rosalind Mendell that was published in the BSHM Newsletter 39 (Summer 1999). Comparison of the catalogue issued by Christie’s for the auction in 1998 (Sale Catalogue 9058) with the ‘‘Catalogue and Commentary’’ that constitutes one of the two volumes in the present publication shows how strikingly our knowledge of the Codex and its contents has increased in the intervening 12 years. The 1998 catalogue consisted of 35 pages; the present catalogue, together with the Commentary, fills 342 large-format pages. In the 1998 catalogue, the description of the Codex and its contents took up some 15 pages. In the 2011 one, the corresponding material covers 58 pages (pp. 19–77). The history of the Codex in the earlier catalogue required no more than 2 pages. In the new one, it constitutes the second of five parts of the volume and contains three texts that fill 46 pages (pp. 81–127). In 1998 only two texts were claimed for the Codex: the upper text was identified as a prayer book (Euchologion), and one of the palimpsested manuscripts used for it was identified as Archimedes’ famous ‘‘Codex C’’. Thus, these were the texts described by Christie’s catalogue in which it is, however, noted that the J. Christianidis (&) Department of Philosophy and History of Science, University of Athens, University Campus, Ano Ilisia, 157 71 Athens, Greece e-mail:
[email protected] J. Christianidis Centre Alexandre Koyre´, 27, rue Damesme, 4e e´tage, 75013 Paris, France
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‘‘remaining leaves of some folios contained palimpsested material not identified’’ (p. 18). The present catalogue reveals that the Codex was composed entirely of palimpsested leaves drawn from seven different manuscripts: Archimedes’ treatises, speeches by the fourth-century BC orator Hyperides, a Commentary on Aristotle’s Categories, a Menaion for the month of May, some hagiographical texts (Life of St. Pantaleon; Life of St. Callinicus [?]) and two other texts that have not yet been identified, which are described in the Catalogue as Unknown texts Y and Z. Some of these texts have not come down to us in any other source, either directly (from other Greek manuscripts) or indirectly (from medieval Arabic or Latin translations), and have been preserved exclusively in this Codex. Regarding all these texts, including the Euchologion, the new catalogue refers in detail to every type of codicological information one might seek. The reading, identification and study of the other underlying texts in the Palimpsest Codex, apart from those of Archimedes, have brought new information to light since 1998. Fresh, even spectacular evidence has emerged as regards Archimedes himself, the breadth and range of his mathematical investigations and, by extension, the breadth and range of ancient Greek mathematics as a whole. All of which as well as issues related to the conservation of the manuscript and the techniques used to recover the underlying texts are discussed either meticulously or generally in the present work. The second volume of the work under review, with which we will start, bears the title ‘‘Images and Transcriptions’’ and contains the images of all the pages of the manuscript underlying which are the texts by Archimedes and Hyperides and the Commentary on Aristotle’s Categories, as well as the corresponding transcriptions thereof. The images and their transcriptions are printed on facing pages (on the left and right page, respectively), so that the reader can readily consult the image to confirm or dispute a transcription. The images are from the ‘‘Archimedes Palimpsest data set’’ that was created as part of the project to conserve and study the Palimpsest and is available online, with free access at www.archimedespalimpsest.org. (The names of the digital files of all the images used in this publication are contained in the appendix at the end of this volume.) For every page of the manuscript, the data set contains more than one image—digitally processed using various techniques— as well as reproductions of the photographs taken by J. L. Heiberg on his first voyage to Constantinople in 1906. Despite the fact that, in the present publication, the image selected for each folio was the one described as ‘‘most useful’’ by the scholars who worked on the transcriptions, and the photographs are reproduced extremely well, the printed images cannot replace the digital images of the data set, in which the researcher has the unlimited ability to focus and magnify any point whatsoever on a page, even an isolated word or a single letter. This publication is extremely easy to use and supplies any type of relevant information that the reader may desire. In the captions to the photographs of the palimpsested leaves of Archimedes’ texts, there are detailed references to the Heiberg edition in which these texts are published; the technique used in the digital processing of each image is also noted. Regarding the photographs of the Hyperides’ texts and of the Commentary on Aristotle’s Categories, for which there are no other editions to refer to, mention is made solely to the technique used to
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process the image. The header on each page includes the title of the book to which the text in the photograph belongs and a reference to the corresponding folios of the manuscript. It is worth noting that an innovation has been introduced in the present publication: in addition to the standard system for referencing the palimpsested folios based on the foliation—i.e. the numbering of the folios and their orientation (recto/verso)—of the final manuscript, it also gives a second foliation, whereby each textual unit is identified by both the Euchologion foliation and that of the original manuscript. This referencing system is particularly useful, as each individual folio of the palimpsested manuscripts corresponds to a bifolio of the Euchologion. For example, bifolio 110r ? 105v of the Euchologion is the same as folio 27r of the palimpsested original manuscript of Archimedes. The second foliation is simpler than the first and facilitates reading in the order of the folios in the palimpsested original manuscripts. The concordance of the two foliations is provided in an appendix to Volume I. Opposite each photograph is the transcription of the corresponding text accompanied by a rich apparatus. The transcriptions (which are available free online in the Archimedes data set in the directories Supplemental/ArchimedesTranscriptions/, Supplemental/HyperidesTranscriptions/, Supplemental/CommentaryTranscription/) have been done in such a way as to provide all possible information regarding the original layout of the texts and the corresponding diagrams. Thus, Archimedes’ texts have been transcribed in two columns, exactly as they were in the original manuscript, and the speeches of Hyperides and Commentary on the Categories have been transcribed in one column, as they were in the original manuscripts. Likewise, the diagrams in the Archimedes’ texts have been placed in precisely the same position as in the original manuscript and have the same form. The result is that when one reads the transcribed Greek text, one has the sense of reading the manuscript, and indeed with much greater ease, since reading the printed Greek text does not require knowledge of palaeography as does reading the original manuscript. When the text presents an obvious error—which happens frequently, especially in the manuscript of Archimedes—a ‘‘sic’’ in the apparatus notes the mistake. As pointed out in the prologue, ‘‘the main function of the apparatus is to note divergences from Heiberg’s transcription’’. The phrase ‘‘Heiberg’s transcription’’ refers to the text that resulted from the collation of the printed text of Heiberg’s edition with its critical apparatus. The recovery and transcription of the texts is a major achievement and constitutes incontestable evidence not only of the degree of progress in imaging capabilities and methods but also, above all, of the laborious effort and personal satisfaction of the scholars and their colleagues who completed the task. Warmest congratulations and expressions of gratitude are the least we can say to Reviel Netz and Nigel Wilson, who did the transcription of Archimedes’ works; to Colin Austin, Chris Carey, Pat Easterling, Michael Edwards, Zolta´n Farkas, Eric Handley, Judson Herrman, La´szlo´ Horva´th, Gyula Mayer, Tama´s Me´sza´ros, Peter Rhodes and Natalie Tchernetska, who transcribed the speeches of Hyperides; and to Marwan Rashed, David Sedley, Robert Sharples, Natalie Tchernetska and Nigel Wilson, who transcribed the Commentary on Aristotle’s Categories.
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The first volume of the work bears the title ‘‘Catalogue and Commentary’’. It contains the description of the manuscripts and nine articles, organised into five parts. The volume also contains the introduction by William Noel, the appendix referred to above, a list of contributors, bibliography and index. The first part of the volume (‘‘The Manuscripts’’, pp. 17–77), edited by Abigail Quandt and the four editors of the work as a whole, contains the description and codicology (dimensions, quires and collation, foliation, contents and loses to contents, material, ink, script, binding, provenance, date and origin) of the 7 ? 1 manuscripts contained in the Codex, i.e. the seven manuscripts that were recycled, and the manuscript that resulted from the recycling. The second part (‘‘History’’, pp. 79–127) discusses the history of the manuscript from the early thirteenth century, when the palimpsest was created from the recycled seven initial manuscripts, up to the present day. Three articles are published here. In the first (‘‘The Making of the Euchologion’’), Abigail Quandt describes how the prayer book (Euchologion) was made from the recycled initial manuscripts (pp. 81–96). The second article is entitled ‘‘The Strange and Eventful History of the Archimedes Palimpsest’’ and is signed by John Lowden (pp. 97–117). It investigates the history of the palimpsest, citing new data and formulating interesting hypotheses, especially regarding the period that intervened between the previous legal owner of the manuscript, i.e. the Patriarchate of Jerusalem, and its present legal owner, who purchased it at the auction in 1998. During this interval of approximately eight decades, from the 1920s to 1998, the manuscript passed through the hands of at least two other owners, the dealer and collector Salomon Guerson and a French family, who were related by marriage to the Guerson family. Lowden’s article sheds new light on this dark period, during which the manuscript suffered serious damage—some pages were covered with Byzantine-style miniatures and images of the four Evangelists—and discusses Guerson’s role in this vandalism. The dealings of Salomon Guerson—into whose possession other manuscripts owned by the Patriarchate of Jerusalem, in addition to the Palimpsest of Archimedes, also found their way (through the Metochion [Dependency] of the Monastery of the Holy Sepulchre in Constantinople)—are described characteristically in the following excerpt: ‘‘By 1926, Guerson was dealing in illuminated Byzantine manuscripts. By 1931, he was dealing in single-leaf miniatures cut from their parent volume. By 1932 he was ‘improving’ Byzantine miniatures for sale … And at some point he began to forge images …, palimpsesting leaves from manuscripts in his collection’’ (p. 109). Regarding the question of how Guerson acquired the Archimedes Palimpsest, the author’s opinion is as follows: ‘‘There is no reason, I think, to assume that the palimpsest or the other ex-Metochion manuscripts mentioned below were in fact stolen. If the palimpsest had been purchased, the most likely buyer, given the book’s later history, was Salomon Guerson’’ (p. 99). The question is not whether the manuscript was stolen or found its way into Guerson’s possession by purchase. Rather, the intriguing question is whether the purchase was indeed legal. The Patriarchate of Jerusalem argues that the manuscript could only have been sold upon instructions from the Patriarch himself and that such an instruction was never given. The Patriarchate’s claim is confirmed by the fact that, as known today and cited by
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Lowden in his paper, the publisher and collector of mathematical manuscripts G. A. Plimpton—who is known in the history of mathematics from the famous oldbabylonian clay tablet that bears his name (Plimpton 322)—attempted to purchase the manuscript legally on an earlier date in 1908, but the reply he received through I. F. Dodd, professor of art and archaeology at Constantinople Women’s College, a person familiar with the circumstances, was unequivocal: ‘‘As it was owned by the monastery, there would be no hope of selling it at any price’’ (p. 99). Moreover, the possibility that the manuscript was sold by some monk without permission from the Patriarch cannot be ruled out, although it would not have constituted a legal sale. In any event, on the question of the manuscript’s removal from the Metochion, it is worth noting that the information we have from J. L. Heiberg regarding the conditions under which he studied the manuscript in 1906 indicated anything but indifference to issues of security on the part of the monks, at least at that period. This conclusion can be reached from what Erik Petersen reports in his exceptional paper about Heiberg’s two trips to Constantinople (1906 and 1908) to study the manuscript and to prepare a new edition of Archimedes’ Collected Works (‘‘Itinera Archimedea. On Heiberg in Constantinople and Archimedes in Copenhagen’’, pp. 119–127). In particular, in a letter to his friend and colleague A. B. Drachmann, Heiberg wrote about his working conditions at the Metochion that the monks did not allow him to work alone with the manuscript. He was permitted to work for 6 hours per day (including Sunday) (p. 120). Furthermore, the manuscript did not leave the monastery even to be photographed; the photography commissioned by Heiberg in 1906 was done by the Constantinople photographer Guillaume Berggren in situ (p. 122). As part of the project to conserve and study the Palimpsest, Abigail Quandt was responsible for the conservation from the outset. In her paper ‘‘Conserving the Archimedes Palimpsest’’ (pp. 129–171), which is the third part of the volume, she describes in detail the painstaking conservation work that had to be done in order to preserve the manuscript, given its damaged state. The fourth part of the book is entitled ‘‘The Digital Palimpsest’’ (pp. 175–239). Here one can find information about the imaging project of the manuscript, the techniques that were used, and the digital data set. It is worth noting here that from the first moment the palimpsest project was laid down, a fully transparent approach was adopted with respect to the production and end product of the digital counterpart of the physical manuscript. The decision by the owner of the manuscript and the imaging team to allow free access to the digital images, but also to the know-how of their production and processing, is praiseworthy and constitutes an example to be followed for other analogous databases. The articles ‘‘Imaging and Image-Processing Techniques’’ by William A. Christens-Barry, Roger L. Easton Jr., and Keith T. Knox (pp. 175–207), ‘‘Imaging with X-Ray Fluorescence’’ by Uwe Bergamann (pp. 208–221), and ‘‘The Palimpsest Data Set’’ by Doug Emery, Alexander Lee and Michael B. Toth (pp. 222–239) are published in the fourth part of the volume. The fifth and final part of volume I is entitled ‘‘The Texts’’ (pp. 243–320). It contains two articles on the texts in the Archimedes Codex. These two papers present the many new finds that emerged from the reading of the Codex after 1998,
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and endeavour to evaluate the significance of these finds to scholarship. The first article with the title ‘‘The Palimpsest in Context’’ (pp. 243–265) is signed by Natalie Tchernetska and Nigel Wilson. After presenting the state of the art of palimpsest studies in the first part of their article, the authors discuss richly and concisely in the second part the underlying texts of the Codex, assess their scholarly value and, in the final part, attempt to answer the question about the raison d’eˆtre of the Archimedes Palimpsest. It is worth noting that the section about the Commentary on Aristotle’s Categories that is included in this study was written by David Sedley with Marwan Rashed and constitutes the first published discussion of this text. The last text in volume I is a thorough study by Reviel Netz of what is regarded in the literature as the most significant content of the Palimpsest Codex, i.e. the texts of Archimedes. The title of the paper is ‘‘The Place of Codex C in Archimedes Scholarship’’ (pp. 266–319). Netz discusses concisely the significance of the Archimedes texts contained in the Codex in the light of our knowledge of the history of science on the one hand, and in the light of the knowledge of Archimedes’ scientific output provided by other sources, on the other. It then examines in detail the importance of the new finds that resulted from the fresh reading of the Codex in the past 12 years, in order to explain how the new readings made since 1998 add to the knowledge available since Heiberg’s publication of 1910–1915. The article is an exceptionally rich source of miscellaneous information, much of which is published here for the first time. Of interest is, for example, the correction made in the text introducing the Method at the point where, in the Heiberg edition, Archimedes appears to write that ‘‘Eudoxus first discovered (exeureˆken) the proof’’, whereas in the new transcription we read ‘‘Eudoxus first published (exeˆnegke) the proof’’. This simple correction prompted Netz to suggest that ‘‘Archimedes was projecting backwards his own scientific practice onto that of Democritus. Archimedes used to send out results without proofs, challenging his audience to respond by providing their own proofs. Apparently, he imagined Democritus doing the same’’ (p. 297). The deeper essence of Netz’s article is that it proposes a new interpretation of the Method. Netz approaches the Method not solely as a heuristic instrument that is applied to one or another geometric problem, but as a treatise that has its own structure and organisation as well as an implicit progressivity on the basis of which its material is developed and set out. The criterion on which the Method as a written text is based, according to Netz, is its ‘‘suggestivity’’: ‘‘The theme of the Method is the way in which proof-ideas emerge, from one mathematical act to another. And so results and claims are arranged according to this order of suggestivity’’ (p. 309). The idea of approaching a work from the viewpoint of its large-scale organisation as a whole is a very interesting methodological approach, which enriches the research field in the history of mathematics with new questions about the pedagogical function of mathematical texts. The Archimedes Palimpsest is a true publishing masterpiece that will go down as one of the most brilliant pages in the history of Cambridge University Press. The same is true of the texts it contains, which prove the very high standards attained today by scholarship in classical studies and in the history of mathematics, but also the level of progress achieved in the technology of retrieving underlying writings from artefacts. No academic library should be without this book.
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