The Art of the True–False: Konstantinos Simonides and the Making of Philology
Presented By
The Gennadius Library, American School of Classical Studies at Athens
Speaker(s)
Luciano Canfora, University of Bari
Aldo Corcella, University of Basilicata
Massimo Pinto, University of Bari
Stamatis Bussès, University of Thrace
Carmelo Nicolò Benvenuto, University of Basilicata
The Art of the True–False: Konstantinos Simonides and the Making of Philology seeks to re-evaluate one of the most controversial and fascinating figures of nineteenth-century scholarship. Philologist, forger, and self-styled discoverer of lost manuscripts, Konstantinos Simonides (1820–1890) embodied the tensions of his time: between erudition and deceit, Hellenism and modernity, archaeology and imagination.
Through a series of contributions by philologists from Italy and Greece, the symposium will explore Simonides’ ambiguous legacy — from the construction of his European myth to his paradoxical dialogue with the ideals of modern philology — and will address the persistent question of what separates the true from the false in the making of textual history.