28th
Dal TLS: anche Canfora, su Simonides, "colpisce ancora"...
In sintesi, questa la replica di Canfora, nel corso di uno scambio di lettere sul Times Literary Supplement: Simonidis impara a dipingere dagli allievi di David, quindi avrebbe potuto essere l’autore dei disegni presenti sul Papiro di Artemidoro. E’ comico che l’architetto greco che ne diede conto in un suo articolo di 22 anni fa, ora paia non ricordarlo, trattando tale pretesa come una delle molte imposture del falsario greco: non c’è alcun problema di cronologia e - quanto alle capacità di S. come produttore di falsi - non è certo un architetto il più titolato a giudicare in campo paleografico…
TLS Letters 14/03/08
“Simonides strikes again”
Sir, – Regarding Peter Parsons’s Commentary on Constantine “the Greek” Simonides (February 22): as my family originates from the same island (Symi, near Rhodes) as Simonides, I had the fortune to come across some new material, including his father’s will, when I was writing a short article on his family house, of which some parts are still standing (“The family house of Constantine Simonides” in Selected Specimens of Greek Domestic Architecture of the Ottoman Period, Athens, 1986, pp. 247–54).
Simonides forged his own descendancy, claiming that his ancestors originated through a direct line of eighty-eight generations from Stageira, the city Aristotle came from, and gives lots of other false facts. Apparently, as a young man he tried to poison his parents, and this was the reason he had to leave the island around 1840. He also forged Symi’s past, having composed a totally imaginary history: “Symais, or History of the Apollonias School in Symi … ” (1849), claiming that the author was a certain monk called Meletios, from Chios.
During my term of office as Director of the Gennadius Library in Athens, I had the chance to examine in detail various holdings of the Library referring to Simonides. To my great surprise his forgeries are so evident and so clumsy that I was really mystified as to how it could have been possible for him to fool eminent philologists of the nineteenth century, who should have been familiar with authentic manuscripts.
The drawings from the papyrus of Artemidorus published in the TLS of March 8, 2006, show great skill and artistry. Whoever was the draughtsman, they cannot possibly be attributed to the inartistic hand of Simonides, although one other claim of his was that (even though he was born in 1820 – or 1824) he had been among the students in the atelier of the great French painter Jacques-Louis David (who died in 1825).
HARIS KALLIGAS
Monemvassia 23070, Greece.
*****
TLS Letters 11/04/08
“Simonides”
Sir, – It was with great surprise that I read the letter on Simonides (March 14) from the architect Haris Kalligas. Her assertions strike me as faintly comical. She writes: “one other claim of his was that (even though he was born in 1820 – or 1824) he [Simonides] had been among the students in the atelier of the great French painter Jacques-Louis David (who died in 1825)”. In the 1986 articles about Simonides’s family home (which she cites in her letter), Kalligas herself wrote: “ … he learnt painting from a pupil of the great painter David”. However, I too wrote that Simonides learnt to paint from the pupils of David (Il papiro di Artemidoro, Laterza, 2008, pp. 52, 428–9).
I must, anyway, confess to being greatly impressed by the palaeographic skills which, as an architect, Kalligas demonstrates in her letter.
LUCIANO CANFORA
University of Bari, Bari.
