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German philologist Wilamowitz, a renowned authority on Ancient Classics, thought the possibility the textual trasmission begun at the very heart of Greek Literature. The hypotesis is that it existed a panellenic circulation of written texts while great poets like Sappho and Alceo were still alive.

The great lyrics from Sappho and Alceo didn't remained buried within the boundaries of the thiasos and those of the hetaireia but they spread throught Greece not only orally but in a written form.

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An ultimate dimension

in your eyes

essential

about you and all around you:

the cosmic dimension.

How to

live

death.

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Papyrus CCLXXII

This papyrus dates 1st century and it contains portions of book 3 of Homer's Odyssey. On the margins you can see the scholia, aka glosses that later authors and copists added in the margins of manuscripts to let the reader know grammatical, critical, explanatory comments about the survived text.

The first four books of The Odyssey are known to scholars as "Telemacheia": they narrate the young prince's quest for information about his father as well as his own journey toward manhood. We are in the presence of the very first Bildungsroman.

The portion shown in the picture contains the last verses of the book: Telemachus departs from Pylos where king Nestor had unfortunately little information about his dad Odysseus and leaves to Sparta to king Menelaus and his wife Helen.

"So soon as early Dawn appeared, the rosy-fingered, they yoked the horses and mounted the inlaid car, and drove forth from the gateway and the echoing portico. Then Peisistratus touched the horses with the whip to start them, and nothing loath the pair sped onward. So they came to the wheat-bearing plain, and thereafter pressed on toward their journey's end, so well did their swift horses bear them on. And the sun set and all the ways grew dark."

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The Empress Theodora's Codex (9th century)

This is one of the only two surviving minuscule manuscripts written on purple parchment paper with gold ink. It contains various Gospels from the New Testament and it dates over 12 centuries ago.

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"Milan this day..."

I actually don't remember which day this man handwrote this document, but I remember the day it found its way into my hands.

I remember the crispy spring morning that day had, the familiar route I took on my way to work, the pink reusable cup (a great gift from a friend) filled with coffee in my hand. I remember all too well the archive: the high ceilings and the mohogamy bookcases overflowing with binders. I remember the way the sun entered the room transforming its colours, the trees outside the window providing a sheltering shadow. I remember the documents, piles and piles of them, the smell of dust every time I opened a binder, the sound and weight of the paper under my gloved hand.

I don't know you, dear stranger from Milan, but I know your city, it was my city for a time, and now your handwriting will be forever in my gallery and that day forever in my mind.

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I'm a sucker for a good greek tragedy reference!

Here's some thoughts I laid down reflecting on my life before therapy, before the diagnosis and on my journey to salvation. Antigone's cry "Οὔτοι συνέχθειν, ἀλλὰ συμφιλεῖν ἔφυν" (I was born not to share hate, but to share love) resonates today with me because around love - all kinds of love! - I rebuilt myself.

Questi sono alcuni pensieri che ho buttato giù mentre riflettevo sulla mia vita prima della psicoterapia, prima delle diagnosi e sul mio viaggio verso la salvezza. L'urlo di Antigone risuona oggi per me caro perché proprio attorno all'amore - tutti i tipi di amore! - mi sono ricostruita.

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Here's a lil work I did on Sappho's lyric "Δέδυκε μὲν ἀ σελάννα".

This poem is part of an antology of retellings of great lyrics about the moon, that i call "Plenilunii". The author is Selezna, a fictional character I play in a RPG: a poet with a mission, a rogue with a past she's trying to forget, a bard with a future only to conquer.