Author Description

[Stichoi diaphoro] = Various verses, the work of 11th century Byzantine poet Christophoros Mitylenaios is a collection of originally 2856 verses, divided over 145 poems, handed down in 40 manuscripts. Set in chronological order, they treat a wide range of persons and subjects: emperors and imperial dignitaries, patriarchs and other religious figures such as saints and Church Fathers, family members and friends, edifices, icons, statues and other works of art, scenes taken from the day to day life in Constantinople (circus, religious feasts, traditions), and themes concerning nature along with panegyrics and elegies, riddles and satires. The Various verses collection was first published in 1887 in Rome by Antonio Rocchi. This edition, mainly based on manuscripts G and V, showed, however numerous errors, both in the Greek text and in the accompanying commentary. In 1903 Eduard Kurtz provided a new edition in Leipzig under the title Die Gedichte des Christophoros Mitylenaios based on 25 manuscripts. More poems were discovered later. Marc De Groote provides a new scholarly edition in this volume, basing his research on a total of 40 manuscripts and provides a four-part apparatus of source citations, parallels, manuscript sources and textual variants.