The Twelve Greek Divisions in the Chronicle by St. Antoninus, Archbishop of Florence: New Research Perspectives
The Twelve Greek Divisions in the Chronicle by St. Antoninus, Archbishop of Florence: New Research Perspectives

Summary/Abstract: The paper proposes guidelines for a future edition and study of an excerpt from the third part of the Chronicle by St. Antoninus which was written shortly after the fall of Constantinople under Ottoman rule. I survey the historical and historiographical context of the appearance of the account of the Twelve Greek divisions (tit. XXII, chapter 13) and then provide an archeographical analysis of the extant manuscript copies and some of the early printed editions. I then compare the excerpts about patriarch Photius with earlier parallels from the works by other authors and make some conclusions on the essence of the Twelve Greek Divisions. The present study clarifies that achieving satisfactory results necessitates examining not only sources containing exact textual parallels but also the likely sources of information that Antoninus used and interpreted. Thus, by studying the methodology of composing and compiling, the ideological similarities and the language in the parts already identified as original it is possible to make reliable and accurate conclusions. So far it seems that the Twelve Greek Divisions is original in the form of compiling, interpreting and representing known facts in a new way. However, at places, it appears that some passages have been directly borrowed and patched into the narrative.

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