| Publication of Michael Apostoles’ short work Menexenos or On the Trinity, on the basis of two autographic codices – Palatinus graecus 275 and Laurentianus graecus Plut. 10.25. Later copies of the same text are contained in Escorialensis graecus 78 and Vindobonensis 85, which date to the second half of the 16th century. It is a dialogue on monotheism between Menexenos of Kydonia, Diophanes of Gortys and Laonikos of Byzantium, which takes place in Gortys. Laonikos is in all probability an authorial mask. The text focuses on criticism of Islam and Judaism, a common theme in Byzantine literature. The dialogical form was highly popular in the last two centuries of Byzantium and at the onset of the Renaissance. |