Libraries of Mount Athos

The analytical description of manuscript codices preserved in major Greek monasteries has occupied scholars of the National Hellenic Research Foundation since the establishment of the Center for Byzantine Research in 1960, in response to the longstanding international demand for a comprehensive catalogue of all Greek manuscripts worldwide. This work initially concentrated on the Monastery of Patmos. Subsequently, the Center for Neohellenic Research, in the context of its program to record every Greek printed edition from the fifteenth to the nineteenth century, undertook the cataloguing of early printed books held by certain monasteries and by public and private collections, issuing, among other, catalogues of Patmos and several Athonite monasteries. After 2000, research at the Foundation also turned to the manuscripts of Athonite libraries, while interest in Athonite early prints was revived.

These two research directions now converge in the project Libraries of Mount Athos, whose objective is the systematic cataloguing and study of the Athonite collections of manuscripts and early printed books. The project’s activities aim at the publication of new analytical catalogues as well as studies devoted both to specialized palaeographical and codicological topics and to the history of the Athonite libraries.

The principal current undertakings of the project (simultaneously components of the Monastery of Iviron’s broader plan to catalogue all its collections) are:

1. Catalogue of Manuscripts nos. 328-400 of the Holy Monastery of Iviron (Z. Melissakis).
2. Catalogue of the Fifteenth- and Sixteenth-Century Early Printed Books of the Holy Monastery of Iviron (Z. Melissakis).

These are long-term enterprises, as the descriptive methodology employed is the most advanced internationally and requires the exhaustive recording of numerous details for each manuscript and every printed item. The ultimate aim of the project is to contribute to the comprehensive study of the Athonite past, casting light on the history of letters and ideas on the Athonite peninsula, on the diffusion of knowledge during the Byzantine and post-Byzantine periods, and on the history of the Greek book more broadly.