Anthology of Planudes


The Anthology of Planudes, is an anthology of Greek epigrams and poems compiled by Maximus Planudes, a Byzantine grammarian and theologian, based on the Anthology of Cephalas. It comprises 2,400 epigrams.
The Anthology of Planudes starts with the text: «Ανθολογία διαφόρων επιγραμμάτων, συντεθειμένων σοφοίς, επί διαφόροις υποθέσεσιν...» and consists of seven books.
It can be found in an autograph copy of Planudes in Biblioteca Marciana in Venice but also in two apographs, one in an incomplete edition and the other in the final edition of the anthology, as well as in several printed editions.
Several printed copies of the Planudean Anthology were made, as it was the only known anthology of Greek epigrams and poems until 1606, when the Palatine Anthology manuscript was found.
The anthology is today part of the corpus of texts known today as the Greek Anthology. The 397 epigrams not found in the Palatine Anthology are usually included in the Greek Anthology as the Appendix Planudea.

Content

Even though the Anthology of Planudes is based in the Anthology of Cephalas, comparison with the Palatine Anthology shows that not only many poems and epigrams were omitted, but also Planudes made several mistakes or "corrections". At the beginning the transcription was done accurately, but after a certain point omissions become more and more as if the author lost his interest or was pressed to finalise the books. As a result, when the much more accurate Palatine Anthology was discovered, the interest of researchers was shifted from the Planudean to the Palatine. The only important element of the Planudean collection are the 388 epigrams not found in the Palatine, which are considered to have been part of the Anthology of Cephalas, but for an unknown reasons were not transcribed in the Palatine Anthology.

Editions and text of Planudean Anthology

The first printed edition of the Anthology of Planudes was printed by Janus Lascaris in 1494 in Florence under the title «Anthologia Graeca». It was also printed later on by Aldus Manutius, Badius Ascensius, P. and J.-M. Nicolini, Jean Brodeau, Henricus Stephanus.
The edition of Bosch was printed between 1795 and 1822 in Utrecht in five volumes with Latin translation by Hugo Grotius entitled «Anthologia Graeca cum versione Latina Hugonis Grotii». Apart from the text of the Planudean Anthology, this edition also had other texts included after the first half of the third book.