In particular, I aim here to create something of an entry-level guide to the scholia of the manuscript. While the last article discusses the 1000-year lifetime of the Venetus A and its impacts on perception of history, in this article I move away from the vague high-level description in favour of delving into the actual pages of the manuscript.

Understanding the plot or characters of The Iliad is not necessary, and indeed the epic poem will be little-discussed in favour of the commentary which surrounds the Iliadic text, which is known as “scholia”. If you haven’t read that previous article, I highly suggest you read it before continuing on here to have a better grasp of what the Venetus A is and what I will describe next.

I described a short history of the creation of the manuscript itself, and how close examination of its pages yields three millennia of secrets, from the very utterance of ‘Homer’ in the mists of time down through the centuries of turmoil to the technology of the present day. I linked the manuscript’s journey through the centres of world power with The Iliad’s indefatigable influence on the histories of the world from the philosopher Aristotle to the Italian Renaissance to the French Revolution. In March of 2023, I published an article called “The tale of a 3,000-year old text” in which I discussed the oldest manuscript in the world which contains a complete text of Homer’s The Iliad : the Venetus A from the 10th century AD.

First edition the iliad