Il libro nella storia

Abstract

The review provides a detailed overview on the new Italian edition of the 2006 book edited by Anthony Grafton (Princeton University) and Megan Williams (San Francisco State University) originally published by Harvard University Press with the title: Christianity and the Trasformation of the Book. The essay has a circular structure, starting from the cultural and symbolic role played by books in their codex form during the Renaissance, at the very beginning of the epochal transition from manuscripts to press, which however would not question the basic concept of codex as synonym of “book” that had been characteristic of Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages (differently from the current digital revolution, which seems to dissolve any distinction between codex and volumen). Early modern “universal intellectuals” like Giovanni Tritemio and Erasmus of Rotterdam would be unconceivable without a whole written and visual culture of illuminated codices rooted in the late antique Roman and Christian(ized) world. Grafton and Williams’ book focuses on two key figures of that age of deep transformations: the Christian philosopher-theologian Origene of Alexandria (185-254 CE) and the bishop-scholar Eusebius (265-340 CE), separated by almost a century but united by their life, activity, and teaching in the Palestinian town of Caesarea. Comparing their parallel trajectories, the authors highlight how the editorial potentialities disclosed by the late antique codex made the synoptic and tabular structure of both Origene’s Hexapla and Eusebius’ Chronicon possible as a prototype for medieval and modern books.