Papers by Helen M A R G A R E T Dixon
in "Essays on Propertian and Ovidian Elegy" ed. T.E. Franklinos and Jennifer Ingleheart, Feb 16, 2024
Here is the first edition and commentary of a fifteenth-century Latin elegiac poem by Pompeo Pazz... more Here is the first edition and commentary of a fifteenth-century Latin elegiac poem by Pompeo Pazzaglia on the Roman Pantheon and a prophecy by its supposed ‘presiding deity’, the goddess Cybele, about the arrival of a second Aeneas who will transform Rome from a Christian city back to a ‘pagan’ one. Exploration of textual detail, historical context and intertextual interpretation, involving a wide range of ancient authors, as well as medieval traditions (e.g. the Mirabilia Vrbis Romae) and contemporary accounts of the physical state of ancient Rome by Biondo Flavio, Poggio and Leon Battista Alberti, leads to larger questions about Christianity and paganism, and attitudes towards a looming Ottoman invasion of Europe. The rough versification of the poem leaves some questions about grammatical construction and interpretation difficult to resolve.
Since Antiquity the reckoning of days, months, years, and whole epochs has always involved degree... more Since Antiquity the reckoning of days, months, years, and whole epochs has always involved degrees of fluidity. Classical poets divided the mythical past into five ages of man, while astronomers developed increasingly accurate observations of the movements of the sun, moon, and stars to mark the seasons, the calendar, and to predict the weather and eclipses. For dating historical events, multiple time-constructions were used, including Olympiads, political and religious office, regnal eras, generational reckoning, and the Julian calendar. Attempts at synchronisation often conspired with political agenda and could lead to conflicting chronologies. With Christianity came new temporal problems, as AD dating began to dominate previous methods of reckoning. In addition, medieval Christians needed certain time calculations for liturgical use, including the date of Easter and the hours of the day in prayer. At the same time, they calculated and recalculated the six ages of the world and developed an elaborate framework for the apocalypse, the end of all time. By the Renaissance, the rediscovery of ancient time-reckoning and the origins (and ends) of ancient civilisations presented fresh challenges: thinkers wrestled with different time-keeping systems as they sought to reconstruct a historical 'origin identity' for a place or a city alongside the practical realities of contemporary Christian life.
Revue d'Histoire des Textes, 2006
The discovery of 10 pages of brief notes in Pomponio Leto’s hand in the Utrecht copy of the 1486 ... more The discovery of 10 pages of brief notes in Pomponio Leto’s hand in the Utrecht copy of the 1486 Verona edition of Lucretius, in which in 1492 two disciples collated a codex Pomponianus and copied a Vita Lucretii, raises questions about the identity of the textual sources used. A previous hypothesis that the Utrecht book may attest a lecture course on Lucretius delivered by Pomponio is found not to be substantiated by the evidence. It is instead suggested that the disciples were simply producing their own ‘edition’ of Lucretius, as they said they were in their colophon, with occasional help and supplementary material from their teacher.
This paper is devoted to the first period of Pomponio's career, from the 1450s to 1468, which is ... more This paper is devoted to the first period of Pomponio's career, from the 1450s to 1468, which is relatively little known. A fresh examination of the subscription in his copy of Lucretius produces new evidence. He is shown to have been seeking patronage from Pius II and/or Ferdinand I of Naples. But at some point after 1459, though he originally came from southern Italy, it became convenient to make himself out to be Roman. The three sources that he used when transcribing Lucretius are examined and there is detailed discussion of the part that may have been played in the textual study of Lucretius by Valla and Pietro Odo da Montopoli, whose annotated copy of Lucretius (Milan, Bibl. Ambrosiana, E 125 sup.) is identified here. Pomponio's knowledge of the 'Roma'/' 'Rhoma' debate is examined. It is argued that what later became known as the Pomponian (or Roman Academy) initially styled itself "humanissimi viri Laurentiani" in homage to Valla.
In the wake of past attempts to identify Pomponio Leto's birthplace in different locations in sou... more In the wake of past attempts to identify Pomponio Leto's birthplace in different locations in southern Italy a fresh review of the evidence is offered, including the lives by the Pomponian disciples Petrus Marsus, Michael Fernus and Marcus Antonius Sabellicus; Giovanni Pontano's and Pietro Ranzano's accounts; records by contemporary diarists; a heading in a manuscript; and sixteenth-century histories. It is suggested that Pomponio's own phrase 'ut Calaber noster Ennius' was intended to give news of Ennius' origins thanks to the rediscovery of Silius' Punica. The sources for Pomponio's origins are then reassessed and a strong case is made for Teggiano in Campania.
Conference Presentations by Helen M A R G A R E T Dixon
Since Antiquity the reckoning of days, months, years, and whole epochs has always involved degree... more Since Antiquity the reckoning of days, months, years, and whole epochs has always involved degrees of fluidity. Classical poets divided the mythical past into five ages of man, while astronomers developed increasingly accurate observations of the movements of the sun, moon, and stars to mark the seasons, the calendar, and to predict the weather and eclipses. For dating historical events, multiple time-constructions were used, including Olympiads, political and religious office, regnal eras, generational reckoning, and the Julian calendar. Attempts at synchronisation often conspired with political agenda and could lead to conflicting chronologies. With Christianity came new temporal problems, as AD dating began to dominate previous methods of reckoning. In addition, medieval Christians needed certain time calculations for liturgical use, including the date of Easter and the hours of the day in prayer. At the same time, they calculated and recalculated the six ages of the world and developed an elaborate framework for the apocalypse, the end of all time. By the Renaissance, the rediscovery of ancient time-reckoning and the origins (and ends) of ancient civilisations presented fresh challenges: thinkers wrestled with different time-keeping systems as they sought to reconstruct a historical 'origin identity' for a place or a city alongside the practical realities of contemporary Christian life.
Questions of chronology in specific historical periods (e.g. ancient Greece, Augustan Rome, medieval England, the Renaissance) have received a lot of attention. This interdisciplinary conference will build on these studies by offering scholars a chance to come together and engage in comparative work. The plenaries and papers will consider problems of chronology and the varied mechanisms for measuring and marking time in the pre-modern world. We seek 20-minute papers that pursue the following lines of inquiry in any period from Antiquity to the Middle Ages and Renaissance
– conflicting chronological systems in historiography, poetry, annals, astronomy, chronicles, homilies, and saints' lives;
– the temporal horizon between myth (or legend) and history in different ways of writing (e.g. historiography, poetry, annals, astronomy, chronicles, homilies, saints' lives);
– questions arising from irregularities, competing chronological systems, record loss, falsification, or problems of interpretation in pre-modern chronology;
– how historical time is defined and mapped out in historiographical and/or literary space(s);
– the regulation or synchronising of time and construction of identity;
– the representation of time in historiographical and/or literary narrative;
Abstracts (max. 250 words) should be submitted by Friday, June 15, 2018 to [email protected]. All contributors and participants will be required to pay a conference fee. If you are an experienced academic willing to act as a chair of session please write to the conference organisers.
The keynote speakers are Stephen Heyworth (University of Oxford), Responses to Caesar's Calendar in Vergil, Ovid, and the inscribed Fasti, and Roy Liuzza (University of Tennessee), Well-tempered instruments – measuring and marking the hours of the day in Early Medieval England.
For more information contact the conference organisers Helen Dixon (UCD School of Classics) and Rebecca Stephenson (UCD School of English Drama Film) at [email protected].
Venue
UCD Humanities Institute Ireland, University College Dublin, Republic of Ireland. Instititúid don Léann Daonna UCD, An Coláiste Ollscoile, Baile Átha Clíath, Poblacht na hÉireann.
Sponsors
The conference is generously supported by the UCD College of Arts and Humanities, the Humanities Institute of Ireland, and the School of Classics.
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Papers by Helen M A R G A R E T Dixon
Conference Presentations by Helen M A R G A R E T Dixon
Questions of chronology in specific historical periods (e.g. ancient Greece, Augustan Rome, medieval England, the Renaissance) have received a lot of attention. This interdisciplinary conference will build on these studies by offering scholars a chance to come together and engage in comparative work. The plenaries and papers will consider problems of chronology and the varied mechanisms for measuring and marking time in the pre-modern world. We seek 20-minute papers that pursue the following lines of inquiry in any period from Antiquity to the Middle Ages and Renaissance
– conflicting chronological systems in historiography, poetry, annals, astronomy, chronicles, homilies, and saints' lives;
– the temporal horizon between myth (or legend) and history in different ways of writing (e.g. historiography, poetry, annals, astronomy, chronicles, homilies, saints' lives);
– questions arising from irregularities, competing chronological systems, record loss, falsification, or problems of interpretation in pre-modern chronology;
– how historical time is defined and mapped out in historiographical and/or literary space(s);
– the regulation or synchronising of time and construction of identity;
– the representation of time in historiographical and/or literary narrative;
Abstracts (max. 250 words) should be submitted by Friday, June 15, 2018 to [email protected]. All contributors and participants will be required to pay a conference fee. If you are an experienced academic willing to act as a chair of session please write to the conference organisers.
The keynote speakers are Stephen Heyworth (University of Oxford), Responses to Caesar's Calendar in Vergil, Ovid, and the inscribed Fasti, and Roy Liuzza (University of Tennessee), Well-tempered instruments – measuring and marking the hours of the day in Early Medieval England.
For more information contact the conference organisers Helen Dixon (UCD School of Classics) and Rebecca Stephenson (UCD School of English Drama Film) at [email protected].
Venue
UCD Humanities Institute Ireland, University College Dublin, Republic of Ireland. Instititúid don Léann Daonna UCD, An Coláiste Ollscoile, Baile Átha Clíath, Poblacht na hÉireann.
Sponsors
The conference is generously supported by the UCD College of Arts and Humanities, the Humanities Institute of Ireland, and the School of Classics.
Questions of chronology in specific historical periods (e.g. ancient Greece, Augustan Rome, medieval England, the Renaissance) have received a lot of attention. This interdisciplinary conference will build on these studies by offering scholars a chance to come together and engage in comparative work. The plenaries and papers will consider problems of chronology and the varied mechanisms for measuring and marking time in the pre-modern world. We seek 20-minute papers that pursue the following lines of inquiry in any period from Antiquity to the Middle Ages and Renaissance
– conflicting chronological systems in historiography, poetry, annals, astronomy, chronicles, homilies, and saints' lives;
– the temporal horizon between myth (or legend) and history in different ways of writing (e.g. historiography, poetry, annals, astronomy, chronicles, homilies, saints' lives);
– questions arising from irregularities, competing chronological systems, record loss, falsification, or problems of interpretation in pre-modern chronology;
– how historical time is defined and mapped out in historiographical and/or literary space(s);
– the regulation or synchronising of time and construction of identity;
– the representation of time in historiographical and/or literary narrative;
Abstracts (max. 250 words) should be submitted by Friday, June 15, 2018 to [email protected]. All contributors and participants will be required to pay a conference fee. If you are an experienced academic willing to act as a chair of session please write to the conference organisers.
The keynote speakers are Stephen Heyworth (University of Oxford), Responses to Caesar's Calendar in Vergil, Ovid, and the inscribed Fasti, and Roy Liuzza (University of Tennessee), Well-tempered instruments – measuring and marking the hours of the day in Early Medieval England.
For more information contact the conference organisers Helen Dixon (UCD School of Classics) and Rebecca Stephenson (UCD School of English Drama Film) at [email protected].
Venue
UCD Humanities Institute Ireland, University College Dublin, Republic of Ireland. Instititúid don Léann Daonna UCD, An Coláiste Ollscoile, Baile Átha Clíath, Poblacht na hÉireann.
Sponsors
The conference is generously supported by the UCD College of Arts and Humanities, the Humanities Institute of Ireland, and the School of Classics.