MECANO is an Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions Doctoral Network (MSCA-DN) that investigates how ancient Greek and Latin texts become and remain canonical. It analyses their citation, translation, study, imitation and compilation across periods, languages and cultures. The project combines qualitative intellectual history and reception studies with digital and computational methods on large text corpora. It develops a new model for studying canonicity and trains historically conscious, digitally skilled Humanities PhD researchers in collaboration with universities and non-academic partners. MECANO also promotes inclusion, critical debate, cultural diversity, mutual understanding, peace and respect for human rights in response to contemporary challenges in education, identity and cultural heritage. The MECANO project is taking place from 2024 to 2028.
I am co-PI in MECANO and I also head the Work Package “Canon Markers and the Transmission of Knowledge across Boundaries”.
I co-supervise two doctoral candidates, Gabriele Torcoletti (HUJI, with Jan Opsomer) and Timo Zarakovitis (KU Leuven, with Pieter d'Hoine).
Gabriele Torcoletti - Pulse and Physiology in Hellenistic Science
Part of the medical canon taught in late antiquity and the middle ages were the Galenic pulse works, which shaped medical theory and practice throughout history. Galen’s own works were greatly informed by the lost canon of Hellenistic pulse treatises and theories, with which Galen engages throughout his works and which he cites and quotes profusely. These fragments, together with fragments in other ancient authors such as Rufus of Ephesus, allow us to uncover and reconstruct the complex and diverse Hellenistic pulse theories.
Timo Zarakovitis - The philosophical canon and the art of (mis)quoting Plato and Aristotle in the Commentaria in Aristotelem Graeca
It is widely assumed that, at least from Iamblichus (mid 3rd–mid 4th century AD) onwards, in the Platonic schools of late antiquity philosophical education was organised around a canon of philosophical texts with works by Aristotle and Plato at the core. It is unclear what role this canon played in actual school practice and what limits it imposed on the circulation and knowledge of non-canonized Platonic and Aristotelian works. This project’s goal is to complement the ancient Platonists’ self-understanding of their philosophical canon with data generated by the study of citations and quotations of Plato and Aristotle in the Greek commentaries on Aristotle (most of which were written by Platonists). The project will combine the statistics of the texts and passages quoted in the largest philosophical corpus extant from antiquity (Commentaria in Aristotelem graeca or CAG) with a qualitative and conceptual analysis of selected passages.