Preface

I’ve started this website to share the work that I’ve recently begun with anyone who is interested in reading about it.

I’m translating Euthymius Zigabenus’ Commentary on the Epistles from Medieval Greek into English. This is the first of three parts to the project (there may be a fourth part forming, though).

To read about this project in general, about how I got started, and about the different facets of the project, please see the About page.

How the site is structured

The four main pages of this site are:

• About
• Critical Edition
• Translation
• Nikiforos Kalogeras

These pages serve as the foundation of the entire site. They hold all the main information about what I am doing, why I am doing it, how far along I am, and all of the results/conclusions of a given finished portion of the project.

As the project matures, I will add more information to those pages. At the time of this post, I have already accomplished many of my goals, since I’ve been working every single day on this.

Plans for the blog

This website is primarily a blog, though I value the four pages above more than the blog itself.

I’m thinking of releasing posts periodically to explain the processes that I took to accomplish a specific goal, a history lesson so to speak of how I got to where I am in a given facet of the project. (Some of the paths that led to success were so narrow that I would have missed them if I weren’t so meticulous and obsessive, or just plain lucky.) If a blog post contains a lot of detailed information for a give facet of the project, I will add a link to the post in the appropriate page listed above.

I think I’d also like to post about interesting problems that I face or potential solutions to problems that I think of, both as a means to internalize what knowledge I’ve gained along the way by typing about it and to share what challenges can arise in this kind of work. I am, after all, an amateur, and I appreciate when others share what they know, so I think I’m also obliged to share what I can.

I hope that at least one person who is interested in translation or manuscript studies or tracking down some hard-to-find thing will be able to take away a bit of know-how to help them out along the way. Maybe sharing how to find manuscripts online will open the door for someone to start learning how to decipher them. Maybe my persistence in the daily routine I’ve set for myself will inspire someone to start doing a big task a little piece at a time. Who knows?

I’ve been enjoying every bit of this project since it started. I hope you can enjoy some of it too.

P.S. The header image of this website is the top of Vat. gr. 1501, f. 1r (one of the manuscripts that contain the Commentary on the Epistles; it’s the first page). Just above the top of the image is the following (I had to omit it or else the header image wouldn’t look as good):