The Art of the True–False: Konstantinos Simonides and the Making of Philology

About the event

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’s 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.

About the speakers

Carmelo Nicolò Benvenuto is postdoctoral researcher in Byzantine Civilization at the University of Basilicata. Among his most recent publications are the monographs Il metodo Simonidis. Filologia del falso-vero e nostalgia di Bisanzio (Bari 2024, with an introductory note by L. Canfora) and the critical edition Nicola of Methone, Refutationes theologicae doctrinae Latinorum (Potenza 2024). 

Stamatis Bouses is Professor of Ancient Greek Philology and Papyrology at Democritus University of Thrace. His research interests include Late Antique prose and rhetoric, lexicography, Greek papyrology, religion (early Christianity), ancient Greek painting, and Digital Humanities. He conducted postdoctoral research at University College London (1999–2002) and the University of Heidelberg (2004), and worked as a researcher at the Institute of Byzantine Studies of the National Hellenic Research Foundation (2004–2008). He has taught in Greece and Italy, joined Democritus University of Thrace in 2009, and has supervised numerous graduate and doctoral theses. He is the author of five books and many articles.

Luciano Canfora is Professor Emeritus at the University of Bari. He is Director of the Department of History and Law at the University of the Republic of San Marino. He has directed the journal "Quaderni di storia" and collaborates with "Corriere della Sera". Among his recent publications are: Lezioni di filologia classica (il Mulino, 2023); Marx e i suoi scolari (Stilo Editrice, 2023); Guerra e schiavi in Grecia e a Roma. Il modo di produzione bellico (Sellerio, 2023); Il fascismo non è mai morto (Dedalo, 2024); Vita di Lucrezio (Sellerio, 2024); Dizionario politico minimo (Fazi, 2024); La grande guerra del Peloponneso (Laterza, 2024); L’invenzione della democrazia (Laterza, 2025); Il testamento di Lenin (Fuoriscena, 2025); Storia del suffragio universale (Paper First, 2025); Senofonte, Elleniche, libro I, introduction, translation, and notes by L. Canfora (Edizioni di Pagina, 2025).

Aldo Corcella (b. 1961) is Professor of Classics at the Università della Basilicata, Italy. A specialist of ancient Greek historiography and rhetoric, he published, i.a., on Herodotus, Thucydides, Theopompus, Diodorus of Sicily; Greek lexicography; the School of Gaza and its fortune; the history of classical scholarship and classical heritage (for a list of publications see https://iris.unibas.it/simple-search?query=corcella).

Massimo Pinto is Full Professor of Greek and Latin Philology at the University of Bari Aldo Moro, Italy, and former Cotsen Traveling Fellow of the ACSA. His research interests focus on the manuscript transmission, the history of text, the biographical tradition and the reception of the Attic Orators, especially Isocrates; the history of classical philology; and the impact of forgers on scholarship. He has published several papers on Constantinos Simonidis, including Constantinos Simonidis in the Gennadius Library (“The New Griffon” 12, 2011).

Programme

The presentations will be in English.