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Chapter Enrichment of the Medical Vocabulary in the Greek-Speaking Medieval Communities of Southern Italy
Byzantine rule in southern Italy came to an end in the late eleventh cen-
tury. Reggio in Calabria and Bari in Apulia, the last Byzantine strongholds
in the two areas on the Italian peninsula, fell to the Normans in 1060 and
1071, respectively.1 However, Greek culture was preserved in these areas in 156 157
Enrichment of the Medical Vocabulary in the Greek-Speaking Medieval Communities of Southern Italy | Petros Bouras-Vallianatos
earliest surviving Greek manuscript of this work seems to have been com-
missioned by Philip xeros, a Greek physician from Reggio, in the first half
of the twelfth century.6
The anonymous Greek medical lexicon of synonymous words in
Holkham gr. 112 (olim 289) is edited and examined for the first time in this
paper. For readers’ convenience, it is accompanied by a detailed commen-
tary on certain items of interest. The main thesis is that this lexicon attests
a unique enrichment of the medieval Greek medical vocabulary with new
terms, sometimes of Latin or Arabic origin, the product of a south Italian
environment.
The manuscript in question belongs to the Holkham collection of Greek
manuscripts at the Bodleian Library in Oxford and has not hitherto received
significant scholarly attention. 7 The Bodleian purchased Holkham gr. 112
6 The most recent scholarly view on Vaticanus gr. 300, which takes into consideration
all previous studies, is the substantial study by S. Lucà, “I Normanni e la ‘Rinascita’
del sec. xII,” Archivio Storico per la Calabria e la Lucanica 60 (1993): 1–91, esp.
36–63, who has identified four scribes (A–D), most probably working in the Sicilian
city of Messina around 1130/40, a date which also comprises a terminus ante quem
for the completion of the Greek translation. Lucà, “I Normanni,” 50–53 and note
204, argues that one of the four hands (a–d) of the marginal annotations, i.e., hand d,
most probably should be identified with the commissioner of the codex himself, i.e.,
the physician Philip xeros from Reggio, who often addressed his son, Nicholas xeros
(presumably also a physician), in commenting on various points of medical interest.
On the medical activity of members of the xeroi family, see A. M. Ieraci Bio, “La me-
dicina greca dello Stretto (Filippo xeros ed Eufemio Siculo),” in La cultura scientifica
e tecnica nell’Italia meridionale Bizantina, ed. F. Burgarella and A. M. Ieraci Bio
(Soveria Mannelli, 2006), 109–23. For preliminary notes on the relationship between
Vaticanus gr. 300 and other manuscripts, see J. Duffy, Ioannis Alexandrini in Hippo-
cratis Epidemiarum librum VI commentarii fragmenta (Berlin, 1997), 15, notes 1–3.
7 For a brief introduction to the collection, see R. Barbour, “Greek Manuscripts from
Holkham,” Bodleian Library Record 5 (1954): 61–63. The manuscripts have been
briefly described twice: S. de Ricci, A Handlist of Manuscripts in the Library of the
Earl of Leicester at Holkham Hall: Abstracted from the Catalogues of William Ro-
scoe and Frederic Madden (Oxford, 1932), and R. Barbour, “Summary Description
of the Greek Manuscripts from the Library at Holkham Hall,” Bodleian Library
Record 6 (1960): 591–613. The collection is currently being catalogued by Dimi-
trios Skrekas, who pointed out to me some manuscripts of medical interest; see D.
Skrekas, “The Prestige of Manuscripts: From Venetian Crete to Holkham Hall and
Beyond. A Descriptive Online Catalogue of the Greek Manuscripts from Holkham
Hall Now in the Bodleian Library,” in Cataloguing Greek Manuscripts: Past, Pre-
sent, and Future, ed. P. Degni, P. Eleuteri, and M. Maniaci (forthcoming). Conse-
quently, I was also able to consult Holkham gr. 108, which contains the first eight
books of Aetios of Amida’s Tetrabiblos. See Aetii Amideni libri medicinales, ed. A.
Olivieri, 2 vols. (Leipzig and Berlin, 1935–50). This codex is the first volume of a sin-
gle set, and the second volume is actually Wellcome MS.MSL.109, which preserves
the remaining eight books of Aetios’ work, i.e., books 9–16; on MS.MSL.109, see
P. Bouras-Vallianatos, “Greek Manuscripts at the Wellcome Library: A Descriptive
isolation from the rest of the Greek-speaking world for many centuries.
Petros Bouras-Vallianatos - Personal Name
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