Per la storia di una lacuna: documenti inediti a proposito dell’affaire Courier dal carteggio Francesco Del Furia-Sebastiano Ciampi

This essay deals with the unpublished correspondence between Francesco Del Furia and Sebastiano Ciampi concerning the ms. Florence, Biblioteca Laurenziana, Conv. soppr. 627, and the so-called affaire Courier, or affaire de la tache d’encre. In 1807 Paul-Louis Courier rediscovered in the ms. Conv. soppr. 627 a lost section of the Greek novel Daphnis and Chloe by Longus, and in 1809 he copied it, but he dropped some ink on the folium containing this passage. Between 1810 and 1814, the librarian of the Biblioteca Laurenziana Francesco Del Furia and Sebatiano Ciampi wrote each other discussing several variant readings that were covered by the ink spots, and other issues regarding this controversy. In the appendix, I included the edition of eight letters from Del Furia to Ciampi, and four from Ciampi to Del Furia.