The Homer Multitext ProjectAt Gustavus

Each week you can find a team of Gustavus classics undergraduates on their laptops in Old Main, working to help publish the first digital edition of the Venetus A, the earliest surviving manuscript of Homer’s Iliad. Welcome to the Homer Multitext project, a multi-institutional research project involving undergraduates across the U.S. and beyond under the auspices of the Center for Hellenic Studies of Harvard University. Gustavus undergraduate participants have given presentations, published findings, and participated in the HMT summer seminar at the Center for Hellenic Studies. The Homer Multitext project, the first of its kind in Homeric studies, seeks to present the textual transmission of the Iliad and Odyssey in a historical framework.

The Venetus A manuscript of the Iliad is a 10th century Byzantine manuscript brought to Italy from Constantinople during the Renaissance and housed in the Biblioteca Nazionale Marciana in Venice. Until it was digitized in 1997, it was accessible only to a handful of paleographers. Now you can view it in high resolution at the Homer Multitext website. Learn more about the project on the About page.