Apollonius pictus

"This volume adjacently provides the reader with a facsimile and a multifold account of a thousand-year-old manuscript (Budapest, National Széchényi Library, Cod. Lat. 4), the oldest known illustrated copy of the late antique Latin adventure romance “History of Apollonius, King of Tyre” (Historia Apollonii). In addition to the thirty-eight uncoloured pen-and-ink drawings depicting the adventures of the plot in a cartoon-like cinematic narration, the fragmentary Budapest manuscript comprises half of a very early and valuable redaction of the text. In the eleventh and twelfth centuries, the drawings were glossed mostly in Old Saxonian, which gives a unique insight to the early reception of the romance in Germany and the peculiar sense of monastic humour. The contributors investigate the tortuous history of the manuscript to the present, its unique blend of late antique and Ottonian visual language, the successively alternating practices between illustrator and scribe in joint transmission of depictions and the text, and a full account of its glosses. The appendix invites the reader to continue exploring multiple aspects of the manuscript and includes the first full critical transcription of its Latin text."--