Reconstruction vs Documentation: A Survey of Editorial Conundrums and (Ir)reconcilable Positions

The debate about ‘reconstruction’ vs ‘documentation’ has pervaded textual criticism since its very beginning, not only as a general point of contest, but also as a specifc issue in the work of single scholars who have provided different answers to it. After giving a survey of the status quaestionis, mainly from the point of view of the Italian philological school, this paper aims to show that a balance should be sought between the understandable tendency towards the establishment of a given text, and the inevitable and undeniable necessity to take into account variation attesting the innovative thrust of either the copyists or the author him-/herself.