The Happy Lexigrapher

Dimitrios Papanikolaou (University of Democritus)

Ed. by Sophia Papaioannou, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens
The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 1.7.1.01: Byzantine Writing and culture, 476-1453.
Vol. editors: Vaios Liapis (Open University of Cyprus)

Dates

Born c. 1400
Died c. 1500
Activity c. 1400-c. 1500

Places

Born in Greece
Active in Greece

Activities

Primary

Lexicographer

Resources

N/A's Works

Save to Bookshelf

A medieval-era Greek lexicographer (ca. 1400 AD), whose name remains unknown. His conventional name (the Happy Lexicographer) has been taken from one of his entries: “perigēthēs = happy, like me” (ancient Greek text in Maas 1938: 58).

His activity is very well documented in cod. Cracow, Bibliotheca Jagiellońska inv. nr. 2626 (formerly Berlin, Preussische Staatsbibliothek, cod. Berolinensis graecus quart. 13), folios 1-103. This is a particularly worn manuscript, written in a 14th century North Italian paper by a number of scribes who lived ca. 1400 AD; into the text, the Happy Lexicographer (who probably coordinated the whole process of copying) seems to have added around 700 supplements to an older text of the Greek lexicon entitled Synagoge. [On the Synagoge, a lexicon of the late

Please log in to consult the article in its entirety. If you are a member (student of staff) of a subscribing institution (see List), you should be able to access the LE on campus directly (without the need to log in), and off-campus either via the institutional log in we offer, or via your institution's remote access facilities, or by creating a personal user account with your institutional email address. If you are not a member of a subscribing institution, you will need to purchase a personal subscription. For more information on how to subscribe as an individual user, please see under Individual Subcriptions.

1378 words

Citation: Papanikolaou, Dimitrios. "The Happy Lexigrapher". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 11 November 2020 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=14683, accessed 21 November 2024.]