POSITIONS

2012 – 2024 Central European University, Budapest, Department of Medieval Studies: Visiting Professor.

2009 – 2012 Central European University, Budapest, Department of Medieval Studies: Senior Research Fellow.

2007 – 2009 Central European University, Budapest, Department of Medieval Studies: Visiting Professor.

2006 – 2007 Collegium Budapest, Institute for Advanced Study: Research Fellow.

2005 Max Planck Institute for the History of Science, Berlin: Invited Visiting Scholar.

2001 – 2004 The Warburg Institute, University of London: Research Assistant.

1999 – 2001 The Warburg Institute, University of London: Frances A. Yates Research Fellow.

1998 –1999 University of Cambridge, Department of History and Philosophy of Science: Research Associate.

TEACHING

Since 2006 regularly London International Palaeography School, University of London, Institute of English Studies. Summer School courses (onsite or online) and Winter and Spring online short courses: Cognitive Elements of Medieval Manuscript Layouts: Designing and Using the Folio Space; Medieval Philosophical and Scientific Manuscripts: From Monastic Copying to University Teaching; Latin Palaeography Book Hands.

Since 2024 regularly The Warburg Institute, University of London. Online short course: Textual Criticism and the Transmission of Texts.

2003 – 2024 Central European University, Budapest, Department of Medieval Studies. Graduate seminars: Medieval Codicology; Latin Palaeography Book Hand (4th-15th c.); Late Ancient and Medieval Science (5th-15th c.); Ancient and Medieval Cosmologies (since 2019/2020); Reading Late Ancient and Medieval Autobiographies (since 2018/2019).

2025 Summer School in Latin and Greek Codicology and Palaeography, Central European University, Budapest, 30 June-4 July 2025.

2020 Online Summer School in Latin and Greek Codicology and Palaeography, Central European University, Budapest, 6-10 July 2020.

2013 Summer School in Medieval Codicology and Palaeography (Latin and Greek), Central European University, Budapest, 15-20 July 2013.

2011 Summer School in Medieval Codicology and Palaeography (Latin and Greek), Central European University, Budapest, 18-23 July 2011.

2008/2009 Budapest University of Technology and Economics (BME), Department of Cognitive Science. Course: Introduction to cognitive science.

1994/1995-1996/1997 University of Cambridge, Faculty of History. Courses for the Medieval History MPhil and first-year PhD students: Medieval Latin palaeography (book hand and document hand).

1993/1994 Central European University, Budapest, Department of Medieval Studies. Course: Medieval Latin semantics.

1992/1993-1993/1994 Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest, Department of Medieval European History. Courses in medieval intellectual history, 12th-century renaissance.

RESEARCH FELLOWSHIPS AND GRANTS

2022 OSUN Small Grant, Central European University: ‘Online Manuscript Studies in the Digital Age’ Project.

2009 – 2013 Senior Research Fellowship, Department of Medieval Studies, Central European University, Budapest (NKTH ERC HU grant, European Research Council, Starting Independent Researcher Grant 2007).

2006/2007 Fellowship, Collegium Budapest, Institute for Advanced Study.

2005 Invited Visiting Scholarship, Max Planck Institute for the History of Science, Berlin. British Academy Neil Ker Memorial Fund Grant, Cambridge.

1999 – 2001 Frances A. Yates Research Fellowship, The Warburg Institute, University of London.

1998 Saxl Fellowship, The Warburg Institute, University of London.

1993 – 1997 Scholarship of the Cambridge Overseas Trust; Overseas Research Scholarship Award (ORS); Le Bas Research Studentship; Jebb Fund Grant; Annual bursary of the Royal Historical Society; Grant of the European Science Foundation; Grant of the British Federation of Women Graduates.

1993 Award of the Fédération Internationale des Instituts d’Études Médiéval.

1992/1993 Research Fellowship of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences (TMB).

1991/1992 Scholarship of the Cambridge Overseas Trust.

ORGANISING ACTIVITIES

2025 Summer School in Latin and Greek Codicology and Palaeography, Summer University of the Central European University, Budapest.

2020 Online Summer School in Latin and Greek Codicology and Palaeography, Summer University of the Central European University, Budapest.

2013 Summer School in Medieval Codicology and Palaeography (Latin and Greek), Summer University of the Central European University, Budapest.

2012 ‘Medieval manuscripts: visual layout and cognitive content in cross-cultural perspective’ two-day international workshop at the Central European University, Budapest, 30-31 March 2012.

2011 Summer School in Medieval Codicology and Palaeography (Latin and Greek), Summer University of the Central European University, Budapest.

2010-2016 Organiser and head of the Specialisation in Medieval Manuscript Studies, Department of Medieval Studies, Central European University, Budapest.

2000/2001 Postgraduate Seminar, The Warburg Institute, University of London.

2000 Co-organiser with Prof. Charles Burnett of the ‘Philosophia: Shifts in the Content and Method Between the Eleventh and Thirteenth Centuries’ workshop, The Warburg Institute, University of London.

ACADEMIC FUNCTIONS AND SERVICE TO THE ACADEMIC COMMUNITY

2021 Member of the CEU Task Force for Online Activities.

2011 Invited peer reviewer for the European Research Council FP7 ‘Ideas’ Specific Program.

2007 – 2011 Consultant for the Liber Floridus Project, University of Ghent (for philosophical and scientific texts).

2005 – 2006 Consultant for the Cambridge Illuminated Manuscript Project, University of Cambridge (for medieval philosophical and scientific manuscripts).

1993 Secretary of the Association of Hungarian Medievalists.

MEMBERSHIP

London Palaeography Teachers’ Group.

Hungarian Society of Ancient Studies.

FOREIGN LANGUAGE PROFICIENCY

Fluent English and French, reading knowledge of Latin, Greek, German, Italian.

PUBLICATIONS IN ENGLISH

Book chapters

‘Digital Manuscript Studies: I and AI’ in Envisioning an Electrifying Future, ed. Kristóf Nyíri, Budapest 2024, pp. 27-30.

(https://www.academia.edu/126278560/Digital_Manuscript_Studies_I_and_AI)

‘iPros and iCons: Minds Meeting Online’ in Online Communication and the New World of Scholarship. Papers Prepared for a Hungarian Academy of Sciences (HAS) online workshop held on 9 October 2020, Budapest 2020, pp. 37-39. (http://www.hunfi.hu/nyiri/HAS_Oct_9/Somfai.pdf)

‘Visual Thinking: A Cognitive Reading of Codex Layouts’ in Visual Learning – A Year After, ed. András Benedek and Kristóf Nyíri, Budapest 2019, pp. 19-27. (https://philpapers.org/archive/NYIPOV-2.pdf)

‘Déjà Vu? Visual Thinking in Medieval Manuscripts and Imaging the Unimaginable’ in Learning and Technology in Historical Perspective, ed. András Benedek and Kristóf Nyíri, Budapest 2019, pp. 79-90.

‘The Liber Floridus in the Encyclopaedic Tradition: Philosophical and Scientific Diagrams in Context’ in Liber Floridus 1121.The World in a Book, ed. Karen De Coene, Martine De Reu, Philippe De Maeyer, Ghent 2011, pp. 75-89. Two-volume bilingual (English and Dutch) edition.

Articles

‘Medieval Manuscript Layouts: A Cognitive Journey through the Page’ in The Vatican Library Review 3 (2024), pp. 1-35.

‘Calcidius’ and ‘Isidore of Seville’ entries in Encyclopedia of Ancient Natural Scientists: The Greek Tradition and Its Many Heirs, ed. Paul T. Keyser & Georgia L. Irby-Massie, Routledge 2008, pp. 203-204, 445.

‘The Brussels gloss: a tenth-century reading of the geometrical and arithmetical passages of Calcidius’s Commentary (ca. 400 AD) to Plato’s Timaeus’ inScientia in margine. Études sur les marginalia dans les manuscrits scientifiques du moyen âge à la renaissance, ed. D. Jacquart, Ch. Burnett, Geneva 2005, pp. 139-169.

‘Calcidius’s Commentary to Plato’s Timaeus and its place in the commentary tradition: the concept of analogia in text and diagrams’ in Philosophy, Science and Exegesis in Greek, Arabic and Latin Commentaries, ed. P. Adamson, H. Baltussen, M. W. F. Stone, in 2 vols, (Supplement to the Bulletin of the Institute Of Classical Studies 83), 1-2, London 2004, vol. 1, pp. 203-220.

‘The nature of daemons: a theological application of the concept of geometrical proportion in Calcidius’ Commentary to Plato’s Timaeus (40d-41a)’ in Ancient approaches to the ‘Timaeus’ (Supplement to the Bulletin of the Institute Of Classical Studies 78), ed. R. Sharples, A. Sheppard, London 2003, pp. 129-142.

‘The Eleventh-Century Shift in the Reception of Plato’s Timaeus and Calcidius’s Commentary’ in the Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 65 (2002), pp. 1-21

‘Hildegard of Bingen: the vision of power and the power of vision’ in Issues in Medieval Philosophy: essays in honor of Richard C. Dales, ed. N. van Deusen, Ottawa 2001, pp. 97-120.

Book review of Vivien Law, Wisdom, Authority and Grammar in the Seventh century. Decoding Virgilius Maro Grammaticus, Cambridge 1995 in Early Medieval Europe 5/1 (1996) pp. 100-101.

PUBLICATIONS IN HUNGARIAN

Book

John of Salisbury, Policraticus. Az udvaroncok hiábavalóságairól és a filozófusok nyomdokairól, Hungarian transl. (of a 250-page selection of John of Salisbury’s Policraticus) with introductory study and notes, Budapest 1999.

Book chapter

‘Szöveglátás és szövegértés: eltűnt lábjegyzetek nyomában’ in Hogyan hivatkozzunk, ed. András Benedek and Kristóf Nyíri, Budapest 2019, pp. 13-16.

Articles

‘Hildegard von Bingen: a vízió hatalma és a hatalom víziója’ in A középkor szeretete, ed. G. Klaniczay, B. Nagy, Budapest 1999, pp. 93-103.

‘A szervanalógia a középkori nyugat-európai gondolkodásban’ (‘The Organic Analogy in the Medieval Western-European Thought’) in ‘Jelbeszéd az életünk’, ed. Á. Kapitány, G. Kapitány, Budapest 1995, pp. 372-383.

‘A 12. századi reneszánsz’ (‘The Twelfth-Century Renaissance’) in Rubicon, 1993/3, pp. 27-29.

‘“Az epikureista”. John of Salisbury Policraticusának etikai interpretációja’ (‘“The Epicurean”: An Ethical Interpretation of John of Salisbury’s Policraticus’) in Mediaevalia, Budapest 1992, pp. 32-52.