Athenaeus has been neglected as an author in his own right for a long time. His mega biblion has been read in abridged rather than in the original form (of which we only possess one mutilated manuscript) from antiquity to modern times and has been considered (wrongly) to be no more than a kind of ancient Reader's Digest. Consequently, Athenaeus was long regarded as a collector rather than an author. This view gradually changed over the course of the twentieth century, and in 2000 the change was marked by the appearance of Athenaeus and His World, a series of papers edited by J. Wilkins and D. Braund. Shortly after that a new edition of the Deipnosophistae was published: Ateneo. I Deipnosofisti. I dotti a banchetto (edited by L. Canfora [2001]). The introductory chapter of this edition, written by J., far exceeded what one might call a preface. It was a groundbreaking study – and the first of its kind – of Athenaeus' context, method and aims. Many of us who consider ourselves members of the Friends-Of-Poikilography movement wished to have it on our desks as a separate monograph, preferably (for many of us) in English (the Italian edition, the first volume of which alone is priced at around €750, not quite being a book to be found on everybody's shelf). It takes time for wishes to come true but now, in 2013, they have, and J.'s study Ateneo, o il Dedalo delle parole has been finally translated into English.

J.'s important study is now obtainable for everyone interested in reading Athenaeus rather than using bits and pieces of the knowledge preserved in his Deipnosophistae. To catch up with what was written on the subject of Athenaeus and the Deipnosophistae after 2001, though, it might be useful to have a look at L. Rodríguez-Noriega Guilléńs bibliography fortunately available on the internet: www.lnoriega.es/Ateneo.html.