The Image of Death and the Misplaced Quire: A Tale of two Codices

10 June 2025

Photo: Carolina Lehan/HEPMASITE

The HEPMASITE project would like to invite you to a lecture on Tuesday, 10 June 2025, at 16:15. Margherita Mantovani (University of Bologna) and Yoav Meyrav (University of Hamburg) will talk about “The Image of Death and the Misplaced Quire: A Tale of two Codices.”

Abstract
A classic in the Arabic literary and philosophical tradition, the novel Ḥayy ibn Yaqẓān by Ibn Tufayl (d. 1185) tells the story of an autodidact who discovers the world while living on his own on an island, surrounded only by animals. Throughout centuries, this novel became widely popular also in Hebrew and Latin, intriguing generations of readers. This talk focuses on two sixteenth-century Hebrew manuscripts - one currently in Mantua and the other one in St. Petersburg - which have an intimate and curious connection that was hitherto never noticed. The distinctive elements found in these two manuscripts will allow us to discuss the cultural and historical circumstances in which they were produced, contributing to the understanding of the scribal and artistic practices that shaped an important phase in the transmission of this unique medieval philosophical novel.

Further information
Further organisational information and the registration form can be found on the webpage of the Centre for the Study of Manuscript Cultures (CSMC): link webpage CSMC