Archival, Diplomatic and Paleographical Research

Research Area featuring infrastructure projects that aim (a) to locate unknown or scarcely known primary archival and literary sources, to bring them to light through analytical cataloguing and publication, and to exploit and study them, and (b) to investigate topics relevant to Diplomatics, Palaeography–Codicology, and the transmission of texts. At the core of this Area’s projects are the Byzantine and post-Byzantine documents, the manuscript codices, and the early printed books preserved in the major monastic centers of Greece, such as Mount Athos and Patmos, and in smaller collections elsewhere, together with the late Byzantine and post-Byzantine documents issued by the Patriarchate of Constantinople.

The Principal research objectives of the Research Area are:

• The reconstitution and classification of archives, and the reconstruction of collections of Greek manuscript codices and early printed books.
• The publication of archival units and analytical catalogues of manuscripts and early printed books, together with the synthetic study of the newly recovered material in historical and philological research.
• Investigation of theoretical issues in Diplomatics and Palaeography–Codicology.
• The study of manuscripts and early printed books in respect to their physical form and the interplay between text and material object.

The identification and study of unknown or scarcely known primary textual written historical sources—both archival and literary—have constituted one of the Institute’s principal research axes since the establishment of the former Center for Byzantine Research and the Center for Neohellenic Research of the National Hellenic Research Foundation in 1959–1960. From the beginning, or in the course of time, the principal fields selected for the development of research have been the Byzantine and post-Byzantine archives and the collections of manuscripts and early printed books in the Athonite monasteries and the Monastery of Saint John the Theologian on Patmos, as well as the documents of the Ecumenical Patriarchate. Today the Institute’s archival, diplomatic, and palaeographical investigations continue as a single, integrated Research Area.