This website offers a critical edition of the poems of Catullus, a repertory of conjectures on the text, an overview of the ancient quotations from Catullus that have independent source value, and high-quality images of some of the most important manuscripts. It was constructed between 2009 and 2013 in the course of the research project An Online Repertory of Conjectures for Catullus at the Center for Advanced Studies and the Abteilung für Griechische und Lateinische Philologie of the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München. It was conceived and designed, and its contents were assembled by Dániel Kiss, who continues to act as its editor. The technical framework of the site was built by Woodpecker Software, while Stalker Studio were responsible for the graphic design.
Most of the research that has led to the repertory was conducted at the branches of the Universitätsbibliothek of the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München, and at the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek. Further research was done in Munich at the library of Monumenta Germaniae Historica, that of the Thesaurus Linguae Latinae, and that of the Franziskanerkloster St. Anna im Lehel; and at the Staats- und Stadtbibliothek in Augsburg; the Harry Ransom Center in Austin (Texas); the library of the Ibero-Amerikanisches Institut–Preussischer Kulturbesitz, the Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin–Preussischer Kulturbesitz, and the Universitätsbibliothek of the Humboldt-Universität in Berlin; the Koninklijke Bibliotheek–Bibliothèque Royale in Brussels; the Országos Széchényi Könyvtár in Budapest; the Davis Library, the Ullman Library, and the Wilson Library of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, as well as the library of Sara Mack in Chapel Hill (North Carolina); the Biblioteka Jagiellońska in Cracow; the Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana, the Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale, and the Biblioteca Riccardiana in Florence; the British Library in London; the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library in New Haven (Connecticut); the Morgan Library and the New York Public Library in New York; the Bodleian Library in Oxford; the Bibliothèque nationale de France in Paris; the library of the Scuola Normale Superiore in Pisa; the National Library of Russia in St. Petersburg; the Székesfehérvári Püspöki Könyvtár in Székesfehérvár; the Biblioteca Reale and the Biblioteca Nazionale Universitaria in Turin; the Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana in the Vatican; the Biblioteca Nazionale Marciana in Venice; and the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C. Visits to these libraries were made possible by the generous research funding provided by the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München, and by the kind hospitality of Zsófia Ruttkay and Paul ten Hagen in Budapest; Sara Mack in Chapel Hill (North Carolina); Adam F. Jackson and Melissa A. Epstein in New York; Diane Le Grand de Belleroche and Cyril Simon in Paris and Nogent-sur-Marne; Paolo Natali in Pisa; and William McKelvey in Washington, D.C. Those who have helped to track down conjectures or rare books include Giuseppe Gilberto Biondi, David Butterfield, Carlotta Dionisotti, Julia Gaisser, Daniel Hadas, Stephen Harrison, Jeffrey Henderson, Giovanni Maggiali, Michael Reeve, and John Trappes-Lomax.
The editor is especially grateful to James O’Hara, James Rives, Cecil W. Wooten, and their colleagues at the Department of Classics of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, who have enabled him to study the Hale-Ullman Papers at the Department, and to have scans made of the collation or the transcription of 113 manuscripts of Catullus that were made by William Gardner Hale, Euan T. Sage, Berthold L. Ullman, and others around the first decade of the twentieth century.
The Bodleian Library has provided images of Catullus’ codex O, and the Bibliothèque nationale de France of G and T. The copyright © of these images is asserted on behalf of the respective libraries, as of 2013 and 2017.
An image of a fresco fragment that is used in the website has been kindly provided by the Soprintendenza per i Beni Archeologici della Lombardia, thanks to the mediation of Elisabetta Roffia; copyright © by concession of the Ministero per i Beni e le Attività Culturali – Soprintendenza per i beni archeologici della Lombardia, 2013. The fragment was discovered in the Roman villa at Sirmione (Brescia), and is conserved at the Museo Archeologico di Sirmione. It has been dated to the Augustan period. It shows a bare-footed young man holding a book-roll, wearing a toga of a Republican type. He has been identified tentatively with Catullus.
The contents of the website have been developed further during 2015-2017 in the course of the research project "The textual transmission of Catullus" conducted by Dániel Kiss at the Universitat de Barcelona and funded by the Agència per la Gestió d'Ajuts Universitaris i de Recerca (reference: 2014 BP-B 00071). This project has contributed to a better understanding of the manuscripts of Catullus.
The text and the other elements of the website are copyright © Dániel Kiss, 2013, 2017.
