REVIEW: Francesca Schironi, To Mega Biblion: Book-Ends, End-Titles and Coronides in Papyri with Hexametric Poetry.

Bryn Mawr Classical Review 2011.03.22

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Francesca Schironi, To Mega Biblion: Book-Ends, End-Titles and Coronides in Papyri with Hexametric Poetry. American Studies in Papyrology 48.   Durham, NC:  American Society of Papyrologists, 2010.  Pp. x, 260.  ISBN 9780979975806.  $88.00.   

Reviewed by Gianluca Del Mastro, Università degli Studi di Napoli Federico II (gianluca.delmastro@unina.it)

Francesca Schironi’s is the first work entirely devoted to book-ends and end-titles in ancient manuscripts, in both roll and codex form. The subject of beginning-titles has already been amply addressed by Menico Caroli.1

Part 1 provides an extensive methodological introduction and Part 2 lengthy analysis of the results of the study. Here the reader is given information about signs used at the end of ancient manuscripts, end-titles (and their relationship with beginning-titles, if present), the number of books contained in one roll (in terms of the internal organization of the roll itself), the position of two books within the same volumen, and the layout of book-ends. All of these aspects are examined for rolls as well as codices. This part of the book concludes with a brief survey of detached titles and end-titles in other genres and a final chapter providing a general overview of the results of Schironi’s research.

Etc. at BMCR