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Two Magnificent Newly-Acquired Facsimiles

Two famous and exquisite manuscript facsimiles are on display at the Center for Hellenic Studies. Both are of texts and images by ancient Greek writers, one a geographer, mathematician, astronomer, music theorist, and philosopher living in the 2nd century CE, Claudius Ptolemaios, and the other a medical doctor, Pedanius Dioscorides living in the 1st century CE. Both were revolutionary for their time and their work were authoritative texts in their… Read more

Curated Articles

Homer as Model for The Ancient Library: Metaphors of Corpus and Cosmos

§1. This essay treats the ancient library not so much as a place or institution but as an idea or concept – a Classical model, conveyed primarily by metaphors of comprehensiveness, completeness, and universality. Hence the words Corpus and Cosmos in my title. The focus is primarily on the Library of Alexandria in Egypt and secondarily on the Library of Pergamon in Asia Minor. I will argue that the Classical… Read more

Curated Articles

The Library of Pergamon as a Classical Model

[[Originally published as Nagy, G. 1998. “The Library of Pergamon as a Classical Model.” In Pergamon: Citadel of the Gods (ed. H. Koester) 185–232. Harvard Theological Studies 46. This online edition (2011) contains slight modifications, which do not affect the content. The original page-breaks are indicated within brackets containing the original page-numbers: for example, “the Library {185|186} at the Mouseion” indicates the break between p. 185 and p. 186.]] This… Read more

Curated Articles

The Idea of the Library as a Classical Model for European Culture

This essay treats the ancient library not so much as a place or institution but as an idea or concept—a Classical model, conveyed primarily by metaphors of comprehensiveness, completeness, and universality. [1] The focus is primarily on the Library of Alexandria in Egypt and secondarily on the Library of Pergamon in Asia Minor. I will argue that the model represented by these libraries is a… Read more