Descriptive catalogue of the Greek manuscripts from the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek München (subset: Cod.graec. 348-500)

• Applicant: Dr. Klaus Ceynowa
• Term: from 2016 to 2024
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 316646536

The Bavarian State Library's collections of Greek manuscripts comprises around 650 codices and is thus the second largest in the German-speaking countries. For centuries, the Munich collection has been well known to the international scholarly public and has been intensively studied because of its high quality. Its importance in the cultural history of Germany is acknowledged and well documented in the literature.These holdings have only been described up to Cod.graec. 574 in a five-volume catalogue compiled by Ignaz Hardt in the years 1806 to 1812. In consequence, a new cataloguing enterprise was begun in 1992 and has been carried out continuously since then. Substantial investments were made by the Free State of Bavaria, which established the permanent post of one cataloguer, while the funding for a second post was matched by a grant from the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft. In the course of the project, which will provide the basis for a contextualization of the Munich holdings in the total surviving heritage of Greek manuscripts world-wide, a standard for cataloguing Greek manuscripts was defined which has been universally accepted and continues to be valid up to the present day.The aim of the recataloguing of the Greek manuscripts of the Bavarian State Library is to replace the outdated 19th-century catalogue with descriptions according to the latest state of research. In the current project phase, 33 manuscripts will be catalogued for Volume 7 and roughly the same number of codices will be catalogued for Volume 6 (Volume 6: Codices graeci Monacenses 348–424; Volume 7: Codices graeci Monacenses 425-500). These manuscripts belong to the Greek funds from the city of Augsburg, which is considered the most valuable part of the Munich collection. A comprehensive modern catalogue with correct dating of the manuscripts, and detailed information on writing materials, content and provenance is therefore considered an urgent desideratum.The descriptions will be published, together with the usual registers and an introduction, as the seventh and eighth volume in the series of the catalogues of Greek manuscripts of the Bavarian State Library. In addition, the descriptions will be made accessible online in the database 'Manuscripta mediaevalia' or its successor, the 'Handschriftenportal'.

• DFG Programme: Cataloguing and Digitisation (Scientific Library Services and Information Systems)