Marginalia· 1850s
A secret shorthand in the margins of a 1504 Odyssey
By the Editors · As reported by UChicago News, 5 May 2014
FoundChicago, United States
Tucked inside Odyssey (Venice, 1504) by Homer
A 1504 Venetian printing of Homer’s Odyssey at the University of Chicago Library carried marginal notes in a script nobody could read, one dated April 1854. The library offered a $1,000 prize. Daniele Metilli, an Italian engineer studying digital humanities, working with Giulia Accetta, identified it as a shorthand system devised by Jean Coulon de Thévenot in the eighteenth century. Decoded, the notes turned out to be mostly French translations of words from the Greek text.
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