Perché leggere Omero: il Prologo all'Odissea di Manuele Gabala nelle due redazioni autografe

Abstract: Manuel Gabalas (alias Matthew, Archbishop of Ephesus, ca. 1271 - before 1360) authored "short encomiastic introduction" (Πρόλογος διαβραχέων ἐγκωμιαστικός) to Homer's Odyssey, which was often copied along with the Homeric poem and enjoed a certain popularity in the 15th century. At a later stage, Gabalas rewrote this preface, which he adapted in order to use it as a prologue to his (still unpublished) work on the Πλάναι τοῦ Ὀδυσσέως. A new critical edition of the second redaction of the Πρόλογος, based on the autograph copy now preserved in Vienna, is here provided, together with an Italian translation. It is equipped with a critical apparatus recording the textual discrepancies with respect to the first version, also preserved in an autograph copy in a manuscript now in Cesena, and preceeded by a short introduction on Gabalas's interpretation of Odysseus's myth.