LA TRANSMISIÓN DEL TEXTO DE PLATÓN: VICISITUDES DE UNA HISTORIA.

The main object of this paper is to examine how Plato's works have been passed down to us. There are some 150 survivor manuscripts copied between the ninth and the fourteenth century. These manuscripts are based on a (disappeared) archetype with variants in two volumes from the sixth century AD. The task of the editor is examined, as he has to trace back the steps of past editions from the hyparchetypes, the archetype, i.e., the last exemplar wherefrom these were copied, the earlier archetypes and, finally, the autograph. The essential issue is to reproduce the vanished autograph in the most exact way. In this context, the importance of the division in tetralogies of Plato's works and the existence of three main families of codices and their respective principal manuscripts are analyzed. It is partially possible to track down this succession of manuscripts, which goes back to the purest ancient tradition and to verify that the findings regarding the integrity of Plato's text, although much of it remains to be investigated, are formally satisfactory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]