Accentus, distinctio, apex. L’accentazione grafica tra Grammatici Latini e papiri virgiliani

Accentus, distinctio, apex… intends to offer a functional instrument for the exegesis of some of the unregulated norms of the Grammar of Legibility – to use Malcom Parkes’ lucky expression – and a point of departure for further research. Structured on the double track of ‘texts’ (Virgilian uolumina) and ‘texts about texts’ (Late Antique grammatical treatises), this survey focuses on the value of graphic accentuation signs. These signs are, actually, a way of reading in praxis, besides being graphematic units, in Latin papyrological documents, and they provide a direct expression of the textual performance and ‘material’ effect of grammatical precepts. In fact, there is a common denominator in all the sections de accentibus and de distinctionibus in the Artes: in scholarly and didactic contexts (in particular, in the eastern Empire), accentus and distinctio were not simply oral realities, but also inheritances of Τέχναι γραμματικαί, and they had their completeness in a written dimension. Talking about nota, figura, forma and describing how to mark signs meant giving directions about making accents and distinctiones and looking at them as features belonging to a reality other than the simply ‘spoken’ text. The first part of the volume is an analysis of accentus, distinctio and apex, aiming to illustrate the oral, the written and the ‘material’ dimension. The second part is an attempt to examine the application of the theoretical precepts and linguistic terminology in practice, within the limits of a corpus papyrorum Vergilianarum.