By Irini Solomonidi, Senior Librarian, Gennadius Library, ASCSA
Curated by Gennadius Senior Librarian Irini Solomonidi, the Homer at the Gennadius Library exhibition (October 3–24, 2023) featured a selection of rare editions of Homer from the Gennadius’s collections and brought to life the metamorphoses of the primary Homeric material in time and space. Unique treasures like the first edition of the Iliad and the Odyssey printed in Florence in 1488, and the earliest paraphrase of the Iliad in modern Greek printed in Venice in 1526, were displayed next to English, French, Italian, and Spanish translations showcasing the wide dissemination of the Homeric texts in Europe and North America. Evocative illustrations by John Flaxman further highlighted the importance of Homer’s poetry to artists and collectors.
The exhibition is an attempt to reconstruct a Homeric universe according to the perspective of the collector Joannes Gennadius and presents a small but particularly important part of his collection, arranged according to the classification of his catalog Greek classics, including 6,000 editions of which seven hundred are Homeric.
The thirty-nine exhibits are divided into four sections. Homeric Epics and Typography: Beginnings and Diffusion; Translations and Paraphrases; Homeric Epics: Study, Commentaries and Teaching; Illustrating the Homeric Editions
The “Homer at the Gennadius Library” exhibition is now available online at https://homeratgennadius.gr/en/
Europe's printed and hand-written books in the spotlight 