Encyclopaedism from antiquity to the Renaissance

Illustrations --
Abbreviations --
Contributors --
Preface --
1 Introduction --
The boundaries of encyclopaedism --
Common ground --
Encyclopaedic variations --
Part I Classical encyclopaedism --
2 Encyclopaedism in the Roman empire --
Encyclopaedism before Rome --
The classical bookworld --
Landmarks of encyclopaedism in the late republic and early empire --
Common features --
Single-subject works --
Miscellanies and exempla --
Late antiquity --
3 Encyclopaedism in the Alexandrian library --
Introduction --
The politics of Alexandrian encyclopaedism --
Callimachus\' Pinakes --
The homeric proto-encyclopaedia --
Lexicography --
Conclusion --
4 Labores pro bono publico --
Introduction: nobis Quiritium solis --
sole authorship of an all-embracing work --
Labores pro bono publico I: ancestral exemplars, imperial imitators --
Labores pro bono publico II: the encyclopaedic mission --
Utilitas vitae: the life-enhancing nature of \'nature, that is, life\' --
Ordering nature: roads through the wilderness --
Molem illam Historiae Naturalis: the encyclopaedist\'s cultural burden --
5 Encyclopaedias of virtue? --
Introduction --
Ancient wisdom collections --
On system --
Comprehensiveness --
Authority --
Conclusion --
6 Plutarch\'s corpus of quaestiones in the tradition of imperial Greek encyclopaedism --
Rethinking the ancient quaestio --
Plutarch\'s quaestiones in context: reading quaestiones-literature in the high empire --
Plutarch\'s quaestiones: content and intellectual outlook --
Selective reading: the Plutarchan quaestiones as reference works? --
Consecutive reading, and its subtexts --
Conclusion --
7 Artemidorus\' Oneirocritica as fragmentary encyclopaedia --
Introduction --
Contemporary criticism of the encyclopaedia --
The infinite requirements of divination --
The Oneirocritica as fragmentary encyclopaedia --
Effects on composition. Artemidorus, ethnic identity and the Second Sophistic --
Conclusions --
8 Encyclopaedias and autocracy --
Introduction --
The library of Tribonian --
Digest, structure and organisation --
Pandectae and education --
Encyclopaedism and power --
Encyclopaedism versus autocracy --
9 Late Latin encyclopaedism --
Introduction --
Roman encyclopaedism and practical knowledge --
New texts, late antiquity --
Toward a new rhetoric of practical knowledge --
Part II Medieval encyclopaedism --
10 Byzantine encyclopaedism of the ninth and tenth centuries --
11 The imperial systematisation of the past in Constantinople --
Introduction --
The innovative methodology of the Constantinian Excerpts --
The production of the Constantinian Excerpts --
Number fifty-three --
Imperial sponsorship and the selection of subjects --
Selection of historiographers --
Conclusions --
12 Ad maiorem Dei gloriam --
Introduction --
Joseph Rhakendytès --
A synopsis of Byzantine learning --
Ad maiorem Dei gloriam --
Conclusion --
13 Shifting horizons --
Debates and definitions --
Isidore of Seville and the amphitheatre of life --
Hrabanus Maurus and mundus moralised --
Honorius Augustodunensis\' Imago mundi: reflections of a post-Carolingian world --
Clerics and laypeople in a Franciscan image of the world --
An encyclopaedia for laity --
Conclusion --
14 Isidore\'s Etymologies --
Introduction --
Etymology: on words and things --
Ordering the world: the structure(s) of the Etymologies --
Order in the curriculum --
Order in the wider world --
Order in the alphabet --
Memory --
Conclusion --
15 Loose giblets --
Ordinatio, compilatio and late medieval encyclopaedism --
Reginald Pecock\'s encyclopaedic community --
16 Why was the fourteenth century a century of Arabic encyclopaedism? --
In search of Arabic encyclopaedism --
Centres of knowledge and power --
The cleric and the clerk --
Conclusion. 17 Opening up a world of knowledge --
Introduction --
Encyclopaedic traditions --
Function and uses --
Tools for the reader in Mamluk encyclopaedias --
Accessibility for a wider audience --
Primary sources --
Part III Renaissance encyclopaedism --
18 Revisiting Renaissance encyclopaedism --
The \'encyclopaedia\' and encyclopaedism in the Renaissance --
Pliny\'s principle: \'no book so bad\' --
The association of \'encyclopaedia\' with encyclopaedism --
19 Philosophy and the Renaissance encyclopaedia --
20 Reading \'Pliny\'s ape\' in the Renaissance --
The Polyhistor from antiquity to Renaissance --
Glossing the Polyhistor --
Editing the Polyhistor --
Conclusion --
21 Shakespeare\'s encyclopaedias --
World orders --
Oral tradition, rhetorical resources --
The performance of knowledge --
22 Big Dig --
English chorography --
Britannia redeemed --
23 Irony and encyclopaedic writing before (and after) the Enlightenment --
Part IV Chinese encyclopaedism: a postscript --
24 The passion to collect, select, and protect --
Introduction --
The Chinese learned world and the origins of leishu --
The first leishu --
Leishu in late imperial China --
The lesser-learned world and leishu --
Leishu and the \'High Qing\' --
Leishu and the passion to collect, select, and protect: the ties that bind --
Note on sources --
Bibliography --
Index.