Caronte, Timone. Le prime traduzioni

On February 2, 1397 Manuele Crisolora arrived before the Priors of the Guilds in Florence to assume the position of official public instructor of Greek. The translations of Lucianus Samosatensis' Caronte and Timone published here were produced in the shadow of the school - neither in the school nor for the school - by two students of Crisolora, probably before March 1400. They are occasion for enormous historical and critical interest, making it possible today to better understand the manner and effects of Manuele Crisoloras' teaching methods and initiate a new season for humanistic translations. In addition, they represent the first signs of recovery in Western Latin culture of Lucianus' work, an author who would then have an enormous influence on the literary and philosophical culture of later centuries. Also published here are the glosses in Vaticano Urbinate greco 121, the manuscript in which the translations were transcribed and in which valuable information of the master's reading is preserved, as well as a later abridgement of the version of the Caronte together with an edition of the translation of the Timone published in 1494 by Benedetto Bordon