A G U ID E T O N E O -L A T IN L IT E R A T U R E

Latin was for many centuries the common literary language of

Europe, and Latin literature of immense range, stylistic power and
social and political significance was produced throughout Europe
and beyond from the time of Petrarch (c. 1400) well into the
eighteenth century. This is the first available work devoted specific­
ally to the enormous wealth and variety of neo-Latin literature, and
offers essential background to the understanding of this material, in
twenty-three chapters written by leading scholars - sixteen ofwhich
are devoted to individual forms. Each contributor relates a wide
range of fascinating but now litde-known texts to the handful of
more familiar Latin works of the period, such as Thomas More’s
Utopia, Milton’s Latin poetry and the works of Petrarch and Erasmus.
All Latin is translated throughout the volume.

victo ria MOUL is Senior Lecturer in Latin Language and Litera­

ture at King’s College London. She is a leader in the field of early
modern Latín and English literature, with wide-ranging publica­
tions including articles on neo-Latin elegy, lyric and didactic poetry
and Milton, Jonson, Donne and Cowley, as well as the reception
of Horace, Pindar and Virgil. Her previous publications include
Jonson, Horace, and the Classical Tradition (Cambridge, 1010) and
a translation of George Herbert's complete Latin poetry with intro­
duction and notes, for a new edition of Herbert edited with John
Drury (George Herbert: Complete Poems, 2015). She is working on an
anthology of neo-Latin verse, with commentary, and a major book
on the interaction between neo-Latin and English poetry in Britain,
*550—1700.
 A G U ID E TO
N E O -L A T IN L IT E R A T U R E

EDITED BY
V IC T O R IA M O U L

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UNIVERSITY PRESS
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namrs : Moul, Victoria, 1980- editor.
title : A guide to Neo-Latin literature / [editor,] Victoria Moul.
description : Cambridge, United Kingdom ¡ Cambridge University Press. 1017. |
Includes bibiograph leal references.
identifiers : LCCN 1016 0236 61 [ ISBN 9781107029193 (Hardback)
SUBJBCTS: lc sh : Latin literature, Medieval and modem-Hlstory and criticism.
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For David, Joseph and Felix
 Contents

¡¡lustrations page *
C on trib u tors xi
List of Neo-Latin Authors and Dates xvii
Acknowledgements xxviii

Ihtroducrion I
Victoria Moul

PART I IDEAS AND ASSUMPTIONS 15

I. Conjuring with the Classics: Neo-Latin Poets and Their

Pagan Familiars 17
Yasmin Haskell
1. Neo-Latin Literature and the Vernacular 35
Tom Deneire
3. How the Young Man Should Study Latin Poetry: Neo-Latin
Literature and Early Modern Education 52
Sarah Knigljt
4. Th e Republic o f Letters 66
Françoise Waquet

PART II POETRY AND DRAMA 8l

5- Epigram 83
Robert Cummings
6. Elegy 98
L. B. T, Houghton

vii
 V ili Contents

7- L y ric
Jtdia Haig Gaisser
8. Verse Letters
Gesine Manuwald

Si­ Verse Satire

Sari Kivistö
lo . Pastoral
Estelle Haan
ii. D id a ctic Poetry
Victoria Mold
12 . E p ic
Paul Gwynne

13- D ram a
Nigel Griffin

PART III PROSE

14 . A p p ro a c h in g N e o -L a tin Prose as Literatu re

Terence Tunberg
15 . E p isto lary W ritin g
Jacqueline Glomski
16 . O ra to ry and D eclam atio n
Marc Van der Poel
17. D ia lo gu e
Virginia Cox
18 . Sh o rte r Prose Fictio n
David Marsh
19 . L o n g e r Prose F ictio n
Stefan Tilg
20. Prose Satire
Joel Relihan
21. H isto rio g ra p h y
Felix Mundt
 Contents ix

PART IV WORKING WITH NEO-LATIN LITERATURE 377

22. Using Manuscripts and Early Printed Books 379
C ra ig K o lle n d o rf

23. Editing Neo-Latin Literature 394

Keith Sid w e ll

Bibliography 408
In d e x 474
 Illustrations

H ans Burgkmair th e E ld e r, w o o d c u t from frontispiece of

Figure 17.1
'politiae literariae Angeli Decembrii Mediolanensis oratoris
clarissimi, ad summum pontificem Pium II, libri septem
(Augsburg: H e in ric h Stein e r, 1540). WF 2 «
 Contributors

cox is Professor of Italian Studies at New York University. She

v ir g in ia
is the author of The Renaissance Dialogue (Cambridge, 1992); Women’s
Writing in Italy, 1400—1650 (2008); The Prodigious Muse: Women s Writing
in Counter-Reformation Italy (2011); and A Short History o f the Italian
Renaissance (2015).

r o b er t Cu m m in g s (1942-2015) was a scholar of the English, Scottish,

and European Renaissance whose interests ranged far and wide. In recent
years he co-edited volume n (1550-1660) of The Oxford History o fLiterary
Translation in English, won the BCLA/BCLT (now ‘John Dryden’) Trans­
lation Prize for his English translations of George Herbert’s Latin Poems,
edited Robert Graves’ versions of Apuleius, Suetonius and Lucan, and
served as Review Editor for the journal Translation and Literature. Robert,
sadly, died before he was able to oversee the final stages of editing, and
some details of his chapter were completed by the editor.

tom DENEiRE, Ph.D. (2009), Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, researched

(neo-) Latin epistolography and stylistics at that university, and partici­
pated in an NWO (Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research)
project on bilingual humanist poetry at the Huygens ING Institute (The
Hague). In 2014 he was appointed Curator of the Special Collections of
Antwerp University Library, where he leads cataloguing, exhibition and
digitization projects. He is editor of De Gulden Passer, international journal
for book history.

J u lia Ha ig GAissER is Eugenia Chase G u ild Professor Emeritus in the

H um anities and Research Professor in Latin at Bryn M a w r College. Her
books include Catullus and His Renaissance Readers (1993), Pierio Valeriano

xi
 jjjj List o f Contributors

on the III Fortunes of Learned Men (1999). The Fortunes ofApuie

Golden Ass (2008), and Catullus (20 09). H e r translation o f the fi '* at¡d^
o f Pontano’s Dialogues was published in 2 0 12 ; she is now
volume i i . 'n8 on

JACQUELINE GLOMSKi is Senior Research Fellow in the History D.

ment at K ing’s College London. She is the author o f P a t r ln ^ '
Humanist Literature in the Age o f theJagiellons (2 0 0 7 ), a co-compS
Erika Rummel) o f the Annotated Catalogue o f Early Editions of Eras
the Centre for Reformation and Renaissance Studies (1994), co-edit T ‘’i
A . Steiner-W eber and K. A . E . Enenkel, et al.) o f Acta Conventus ^
Latini Monasteriensis: Proceedings o f the Fifteenth International Q>n
o f Neo-Latin Studies (2015) and (with Isabelle M oreau) o f Seventcft
Century Fiction: Text and Transmission (2 0 16 ), as well as the author of
numerous articles on the neo-Latin literature o f the sixteenth and seven
teenth centuries. She is a fellow o f the Royal H istorical Society and a feUow
o f the Society o f Antiquaries.

N i g e l g r if f in taught at the universities o f M anchester and Oxford. He

now lives in south-west France.

paúl GWYNNE is Professor o f M edieval and Renaissance Studies at The

Am erican University o f Rom e. H e received his P h .D . from the Warburg
Institute, University o f London. Areas o f research focus on late fifteenth-
and early sixteenth-century Italy; the rise and diffusion o f Italian Human­
ism. Th ese interests are reflected in a num ber o f articles and chapters in
books as well as a trilogy o f m onographs w h ich review the production of
neo-Latin poetry in Rom e, 1 4 8 0 - 1 6 0 0 : Poets and Princes: the P a n egfo
Poetry o f Johannes Michael Nagonius (20 13); Patterns o f Patronage in Renos-
sanee Rome. Francesco Speralo: Poet, Prelate, Soldier, Spy (2015) and F ®
cesco Benci and the Rise o f Jesuit Epic (forthcom ing). T h e latter volume w¡
include a complete edition, w ith translation and com m entary of Bend s
epic Quinque Martyres, and discuss Jesu it epic in a global context.

E s t e l l e h a a n is Professor o f English and N e o -L a tin Studies at ^

Q u e e n ’s U niversity o f Belfast. She has authored/edited thirteen
the neo-Latin poetry o f M ilto n , M arvell, G ra y , A dd ison , Vincent 0 ^
and W illiam D illingham , and has edited M ilto n ’s Latin poetry
 List o f Contributors xiii

Complete Works o f John Milton, volume in . She has recently completed an

edition o f M ilton’s Latin letters for The Complete Works o f John Milton,
volume XI, and is currendy working on an authored book entitled Sur­
prised by Syntax: Reading the Latinity o f Paradise Lost.

Yasmin h a sk e ll , FAHA, is Cassamarca Foundation Chair in Latin

Humanism at the University of Western Australia and a Foundation Chief
Investigator in the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for the
Histoiy of Emotions: Europe 1100-1800. She is the author of Loyola's Bees:
Ideology and Industry in Jesuit Latin Didactic Poetry (1003) and Prescribing
Ovid: The Latin Works and Networks o f the EnligJjtened Dr Heerkens (2013), as
well as of many chapters on neo-Latin poetry, the early modem Society of
Jesus, and history of psych iatiy and emotions. Her current interests lie in the
Latin literature of the Suppression of the Society of Jesus.

L. b . T. Ho u g h t o n is Teaching Fellow in Classics at the University of

Reading, Teaching Fellow in Latin at University College London, and
Associate Lecturer in Greek and Latin at Birkbeck College, University of
London. He has edited three collections o f essays: with Maria W yke,
Perceptions o f Horace (Cambridge, 2009); with Gesine M anuwald, Neo-
Latin Poetry in the British Isles (2012); and with Marco Sgarbi, Virgil and
Renaissance Culture (forthcoming). Other publications on neo-Latin litera­
ture include a chapter on Renaissance Latin love elegy in the recent
Cambridge Companion to Latin lave Elegy (2013), and several articles on
the reception o f Virgil’s fourth Eclogue.

Cr a ig KALLENDORF is Professor o f Classics and English at Texas A&M

University. He is the author or editor o f twenty-one books, the most
recent of which is The Protean Virgil, Material Form and the Reception o f
the Classics (2015), and 150 articles, book chapters, and reference book
entries, m any in the area o f Neo-Latin Studies. A recipient o f major grants
from the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Loeb Classical
Library Foundation, he gave the annual lecture for the Bibliographical
Society of America in 2015 and is immediate past president o f the Inter­
national Association for Neo-Latin Studies.

sa ri r iv is t o ,
Ph.D ., is Director o f the Helsinki Collegium for Advanced
Studies, University o f Helsinki. H er recent research publications include
 L ist o f Contributors

The Vices ofLearning: Morality and Knowledge at Early Modern Un

(2014), Medical Analogy in Latin Satire (20 0 9 ) and Kantian A n t i-U ^
Philosophical and Literary Varieties (with Sam i PihJström , f o r t h c o n ^

Sa r a h k n ig h t is Professor o f Renaissance Literature in the Sch

English at the University o f Leicester. Sh e has translated and co-d, *
Leon Battista Alberti’s Momus (20 03) and the accounts o f E l i ^ T ?
visits to O xford for John N ich o ls’ The Progresses and Public Processk ’
Queen Elizabeth I: A New Edition o f the Early Modem Sources (2014),
currendy editing and translating Jo h n M ilto n s Prolusions and editi **
n ___:ll„V »U
Füllte Greville’s i» W
plays. W ith Srpfan Tilir.
ith Stefan T ilg , sh
she has m-nAlr^À
e ha« co-edited -n
The _
Oxford
Handbook of Neo-Latin (2015).

GESiNE MANUWALD is Professor o f Latin at U niversity College London

H er research interests include R om an dram a, R om an epic, Latin oratory
and neo-Latin literature. She has published a num ber o f anides on neo-
Latin poetry and co-edited the volum e Neo-Latin Poetry in the British
Isles (2012).

Da v id m a r s h (Ph.D ., Harvard, 19 78 ), Professor o f Italian at Rutgers, is

the author o f The Quattrocento Dialogue (19 80), Lucian and the bairn
(1998), Studies on Alberti and Petrarch (20 12) and Exile in Italian Writers
(20 13), as well as the translator o f Alberti’s Dinner Pieces (1987), Vico’s Nm
Science (1999), Petrarch’s Invectives (20 0 3), and Renaissance Fables (1004).

v ic t o r ia MOUL is Senior Lecturer in Latin Language and Literature ai

K in g’s College London. She has published w id ely o n Latin poetry, on
classical reception in early m odern En glish literature and on neo-Laun
literature. Significant publications include Jonson, Horace and the Classid
Tradition (Cam bridge, 2010 ) and the Latin poem s for the new edition®
G eorge Herbert, Complete Poems (20 15). Sh e is w o rk in g on a book on f
relationship between English and neo-Latin poetry in Britain in
sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.

f e l ix Mü n d t is Assistant Professor o f Latin at the Humboldt Univo ^

ô f Berlin. H e has published a critical edition o f Beatus Rhenanus ^
Germantcae (2008). A part from his interest in all genres o f ne°"
 L ist o f Contributors XV

literature, his research focuses on ancient lyric and its reception, and on the
representation o f city spaces in Greek and Latin texts o f late antiquity.

m a rc v a n der po el is Professor o f Latin at Radboud University,

Nijmegen. H is area o f expertise lies at the crossroads between Latin
philology and ancient rhetoric and its receptions. H e is working on a
new edition o f Rudolph Agricola’s De inventione dialectica, and is the
current editor o f Rhetorica. A Journal o f the History o f Rhetoric.

JOEL c . RELIHAN is Professor o f Classics at W heaton College in M assai

chusetts, where he also serves as Research Com pliance Officer. H is current
projects are an annotated translation o f ps.-Lucian, The Ass, and a large
literary study, Panopticon: A History ofM enippean Satire.

Ke it h siDWELL is Professor Emeritus o f Latin and G reek at University

College C ork and A d ju n a Professor o f Classics in the Department o f
Classics and Religion, University o f Calgary. H is neo-Latin research inter­
ests are focused on Lucian’s reception in the Renaissance and Irish Latin
poetry. Recent books are The Tipperary Hero: Dermot O ’M earas Ormonius
(i 6i $) with David Edwards (2011) and Poema de Hibernia: A Jacobite Epic
on the WilUamite Wars w ith Pádraig Lenihan (20 17). H e has also contrib­
uted to the Oxford Handbook o f Neo-Latin.

St e f a n t il g is Professor o f Latin at the U niversity o f Freiburg. Previously

he was the first director o f the Lu dw ig Boltzmann Institute for N eo-Latin
Studies in Innsbruck. His main neo-Latin research interests are drama and
fiction. H e is the co-editor (with Sarah Knight) o f the Oxford Handbook o f
Neo-Latin (2015).

Te r e n c e t u n b e r g earned his P h .D . in Classical Philology with a

Medieval Studies com ponent at the University o f T oron to in 1986. H e is
currently a professor o f Classics at the University o f Kentucky. H e has
published m any studies o f neo-Latin prose style and eloquence, as well as
several articles devoted to the question o f imitation in neo-Latin.

f r * n Ç ° i s e w a q u e t , d ireao r o f research at the Centre national de la

ree erche scientifique (Paris), works on learned culture (sixteenth to
 L ist o f Contributors
XVI

twenty-first centuries). H e r main p u blications are: Le Modèle fi.

¡ ’Italie savante. Conscience de soi et perception de l'autre dans U j «
des Lettres, 1660-m o (1989); République des Lettres, with
(19 97); Le latin ou l ’empire d ’un signe, XVTe-XXe siècle (19 98 ); par, s ^
un livre. L oralité et le savoir, XVle-XXe siècles (2 0 0 3 ) ; Les Enfants de K *"*
Généalogie intellectuelle et transmission du savoir, XVIIe~XXle siècles f '
Respublica académica. Rituels universitaires et genres du savoir, X V U ^ '
siècles (20 10) and L'Ordre matériel du savoir. Comment les savants traía
XVJe-XXIe siècles (201s).
 L ist o f N eo -Latin Authors a n d Dates

Authors are listed alphabetically under their vernacular names, except in

cases where they are most commonly referred to by their Latín names.
Alternative names are given in [square brackets]. Cross-references under
separate entries for alternative names are given only in cases where alterna­
tive names are significandy different.

de Acevedo, Pedro Pablo, SJ (152 2-7 3)

Addison, Joseph (16 7 2 -17 19 )
Agrícola, Rudolph (14 4 4-8 4 )
Agrippa, Heinrich Cornelius [o f Nettesheim] (1486-1535)
Alberti, Leon Battista (1404—72)
Alciato, Andrea (1492-1550)
Aldegati, Marcantonio [Marco Aldegati] (fi 14 8 0 -9 0 )
Aldrovandi, Ulysses (1522-16 0 5)
Alegre, Francisco Xavier, sj (1729 -9 8 )
d’Alembert, Jean Le Rond (17 17 -8 3)
Am m onio, Andrea (c. 14 7 8 -1517 )
Andreae, Johann Valentin [Johannes Valentinus Andreae] (1586 -1654)
Andrelini, Publio Fausto (c. 14 6 2-1518 )
Angeriano, Girolamo [Hieronymus Angerinaus] (14 70 -1535)
Anisio, Giano [Giovanni Francesco Anisio, or A nido] (1465—c. 1540)
Annius (Giovanni Nanni o f Viterbo) (r. 14 32 -15 0 2 )
Aretinus, Leonardus - see Bruni
Ariosto, Ludovico (14 74 -1533)
Arsilli, Francesco (14 79 -15 4 0 )
Avancini, Niccolò, s j (1611-86)
Aventinus, Johannes [Johann Georg Turm air, orThurm ayr] (14 77 —1534)
Bacon, Frands (156 1-16 26 )
Balde, Jacob (16 0 4 -6 8 )
Bandello, M atteo (1485-1561)

x v ii
 List o f N éo-Latin Authors a n d D ates
xviii
Barberini, Maffeo [Pope Urban V IH , 1 6 2 3 - 4 4 ] (15 6 8 -16 4 4 )
Barclay, John (1582-16 21)
Barlaeus, Caspar (1584-1648)
von Barth, Caspar (1587-16 58)
Bartholin, Thomas (16 16 -8 0 )
Barzizza, Gasparino (136 0 -14 31)
Basini, Basinio [of Parma] ( 14 2 5 -5 7 )
Baudouin, François [Balduinus] ( 15 2 0 -7 3 )
Bauhuis, Bernard (1575-16 14 )
Bebel, Heinrich (14 72-1518)
Beckher, Daniel [the Elder] (15 9 4 -16 5 5 )
Bembo, Pietro [Bembus] ( 14 7 0 -15 4 7 )
B end, Francesco, s j [Franciscus Bencius] ( 15 4 2 - 9 4 )
Benningh, Jan [or Johan] Bodecher [Benningius] (16 0 6 -4 2 )
Bemegger, Matthias (158 2 -16 4 0 )
Bernoulli, Jacob (16 55-170 5)
Beroaldo, Filippo [the Elder] (14 5 3-15 0 5 )
Betuleius, Sixtus [Sixt or Xystus Birck] ( 15 0 1 -5 4 )
de Bèze, Théodore [Theodorus Beza] ( 15 19 -16 0 5 )
Bidermann, Jakob, sj (15 7 7 -16 3 9 )
Biondo, Flavio [o f Fodi] (139 2 -14 6 3)
Bisse, Thoas (16 75-1731)
Bissei, Johannes, sj [Biseelius] ( 16 0 1-8 2 )
de Blarru, Pierre (1437-15x0)
Boccacdo, Giovanni (1313-75)
Bodin, Jean (1530-96)
Boethius, Hector [Hector Boece, B o yce o r Boise] (146 5—1536)
Bona, Giovanni (16 0 9 -74 )
Bonfini, Antonio (1434-150 3)
Bordini, Giovanni Francesco (c. 1536 —16 0 9 )
Bourbon, Nicolas (1503-1550 )
Boyd, M ark Alexander [M arcus A lexander Bodius] (156 2-16 0 1)
Braccesi, Alessandro (1445—1503)
Bracciolini, Jacopo (14 4 2 -7 8 )
Bracciolini, Poggio [Poggius Florentinus] ( 13 8 0 -14 5 9 )
Brandolini, Aurelio Lippo (c. 1 4 5 4 - ^ 7 )
Brant, Sebastian (1457—ij2 i)
Brecht, Lewin [Brechtus] o f m o f A n tw e rp (c. 15 0 2 -c. 1560)
Bridges, John (1536 -16 18 )
Brinsley, John (bap. 15 66-c. 16 24 )
 L ist o f N eo -La tin Authors a n d Dates xix

Bruni. Leonardo [Leonardus Arecinus] (13 7 0 -14 4 4 )

Bruno, G iordano [Filippo Bruno; Il N olano] ( 15 4 8 -16 0 0 )
Buchanan, G eorge (15 0 6 -8 2 )
Budé, Guillaum e [Guilielm us Budaeus] ( 14 6 7 -1 5 4 0 )
Bugnot, Gabriel (d. 16 73)
Bultelius, Gislenus (15 5 5-16 11)
Burmeister, Johannes (15 7 6 -16 3 8 )
da Calepio, Am brogio [Am brosius Calepinus] (14 5 3-15 11)
Cam den, W illiam (15 5 1-16 2 3)
Campanèlla, To m m aso , o p (15 6 8 -16 3 9 )
Cam pion, Th o m as ( 15 6 7 -16 2 0 )
Canonieri, Pietro Andrea (d. 1639)
Cardano, G erolam o [H ieronym us C ardan us] ( 15 0 1 -7 6 )
Cardulo, Fulvio, SJ ( 15 2 6 -9 1)
Carmeliano, Pietro [Petrus Carm elianus, Peter Carm elian] (c. 1 4 5 1-1 5 2 7 )
Casaubon, Isaac (15 5 9 -16 14 )
Castellanus, Petrus (15 8 2 -16 3 2 )
da Castiglionchio, Lapo (c. 13 16 -8 1)
Castiglione, Baldassare (1478 —1529)
Caussin, Nicolas, sj (15 8 3 -16 51)
Celtis, C on rad (14 5 9 -15 0 8 )
Ceva, Tom m asb, s j ( 16 4 8 -1 7 3 7 )
Chaloner, Th o m as (15 2 1-6 5 )
Cham pion, François, s j ( 1 6 6 6 - 1 7 1 5 )
Chelee, Joh n ( 15 14 -5 7 )
Chytraeus, D avid [Chyträus] ( 15 3 0 -16 0 0 )
Cnapius, Gregorius [Knapski], s j (c. 15 6 4 -16 3 8 )
Codro, U rceo [Antonius C o d ru s U rceus] (14 4 6 —150 0)
Colonna, Francesco, o p (1433/4—1527)
Colucci, Benedetto (c. 14 38 -ç. 1506)
Conti, An to n io [Abbé C o n ti] ( 16 7 7 —17 4 9 )
Conversini, G iovann i (13 4 3 -14 0 8 )
Com arius, Joannes [Janus C om ariu s] (c. 15 0 0 —58)
Corréa, T o m m aso (15 3 6 -9 5 )
Correr, Gregorio ( 14 0 9 -6 4 )
Cortesi, Paolo ( 14 6 5 -15 10 )
Corvinus, Laurentius ( 14 6 5 -1 5 2 7 )
C ow ley, Abraham ( 16 18 -6 7 )
Crashaw, Richard (16 13—49)
Crespin, Jean (c. 1 5 2 0 - 7 2 )
 List o f N eo -La tin A u thors a n d D ates
XX

Crivelli, Lodrisio (c. 1412-65)

da Cruz, Luis, sj [Ludovicus C ru ciu s] ( 1 5 4 2 - 1 6 0 4 )
Cunaeus, Petrus [Peter van der K u n ] ( 15 8 6 - 1 6 3 8 )
Curillus, Marius - see Heerkens, G erard
Curio, Giacom o [Jacobus C urulus] (fl. 1 4 2 3 - 6 7 )
Dacier, Anne Le Fèvre [M adam e D acier] ( 1 6 4 7 - 1 7 2 0 )
van Dale, A ntony (16 38 -170 8 )
Dantyszek, Jan [Ioannes Dantiscus] ( 14 8 5 -1 5 4 8 )
Darcio, Giovanni [o f Venosa] (15 10 -c . 1554)
Dati, Agostino (14 20 -78 )
Dati, Carlo Roberto ( 16 19 -7 6 )
Dati, Leonardo, op (136 0 -14 2 5 )
Decembrio, Angelo ( 14 15 -6 7 )
Denisot, Nicolas (1515-59)
Diedo, Francesco (c. 14 35-8 4 )
Dornau, Caspar [Dom avius] ( 1 5 7 7 - 1 6 3 2 )
van D orp, Erasmus M aarten [D orpius] (c. 1 4 8 5 -1 5 2 5 )
Dousa, Janus [Jan van der Does] ( 1 5 4 5 - 1 6 0 4 )
Draxe, Thom as (d. 1618)
D rum m ond, W illiam (1585-164 9 )
D rury, W illiam , s j (1584-c. 1643)
D u Bellay, Jean (c. 14 9 3-15 6 0 )
D u Bellay, Joachim {c. 15 2 2 -15 6 0 )
Dugonics, András (17 4 0 -18 18 )
D u p u y, Jacques [Monsieur de Saint Sauveu r] (159 1—16 56 )
D u p u y, Pierre [Puteanus, but n o t E ryciu s Puteanus] (1582—1651)
Em ili, Paolo [Paolo Em ilio; Paulus A em iliu s V eron en sis] (c. 1460—1529)
Erasmus, Desiderius (14 6 6 -15 36 )
E rd , Anton W ilhelm (1654—c. 1715)
Estienne, Henri [Henricus Stephanus] ( 14 7 0 —15 2 0 )
Euler, Leonhard (17 0 7 -8 3)
Fabricius, Georg (15 16 -7 1)
Facio, Bartolomeo (c. 14 0 0 -5 7 )
da Feltre, Vittorino (13 7 8 -14 4 8 )
Ferrarius, Johannes Baptista [G io van n i B attista Ferrari] (d. 1502)
ricino, Marsilio (1433—59)
Filelfo, Francesco (139 8 -14 8 1)
Filelfo, Gian M aria [Gian M ario , or G io v a n n i M a r io Filelfo] M " 80'
Luetico, M artino (1430 —90)
Firmianus — see Lisieux
 L ist o f N eo -L a tin Authors a n d Dates XXI

Fisher, P a yn e [F itzp a y n e Fish e r; P agan u s Piscator] ( 1 6 1 6 - 9 3 )

Flaminio, M a rca n to n io ( 1 4 9 8 - 1 5 5 0 )
Fiorio, Francesco (14 2 8 -8 3/4 )
Fracastoro, Girolamo (c. 14 7 8 -15 5 3 )
Franchini, Fran cesco [F ra n c is a is F ra n ch in u s] ( 1 5 0 0 - 5 9 )
Fraunce, Abraham (c. 15 5 8 -16 3 3 )
des Freux, André, s ; [Andreas Frusius] (c. 15 10 -5 6 )
Frischlin, N ic o d e m u s ( i 5 4 7 - 9 ° )
dei Frulovisi, T it io L iv io (fi 14 2 0 -5 0 )
Gager, W illiam (15 5 5 -16 2 2 )
Galvani, Luigi ( i 737~ 9 %)
Garzoni, Giovanni (1419—1505)
Gasrius, Johannes [Johann Gast] ( 15 0 0 -5 2 )
Giannéttasio, N icco lò Partenio, s j ( 1 6 4 8 - 1 7 1 5 )
Giberti, G ian M atteo [Joannes M atthaeus G ibertus] ( 14 9 5 -15 4 3 )
Giovio, Paolo [Paulo Jo v io ; Paulus Jo viu s] (14 8 3 -15 5 2 )
Giraldi, Lilio Gregorio ( 14 7 9 -15 5 2 )
Gnaphaeus, W illem (14 9 3 -15 6 8 )
Gott, Sam uel ( 16 14 -7 1)
de Granada, Luis, op [Louis o f Granada] (15 0 5 -8 8 )
Gray, Th o m as ( 1 7 1 6 - 7 1 )
Gretser, Jakob, s j (15 6 2 -16 2 5 )
Grim ald [or G rim oald], N ich olas (15 19 -6 2 )
Gronovius, Joh ann Friedrich ( 16 8 6 - 1 7 6 2 )
de Groot, W illem ( 15 9 7 -16 6 2 )
Grotius, H u go [H u go de G ro o t; H u ig de G ro o t] ( 15 8 3 -16 4 5 )
Guarino, Battista G u arini ( 13 7 4 -1 4 6 0 )
Guglielm ini, Bernardo [Guilielm inus] ( 16 9 3 -1 7 6 9 )
Guyet, François (15 7 5 -16 5 5 )
Hall, Joseph ( 15 7 4 -16 5 6 )
Harris, W alter (1686—17 6 1)
van Havre, Jan [Johannes Havraeus] ( 15 5 1-16 2 5 )
Heerkens, G erard N icolaas [M arius C urillus] ( 1 7 2 6 - 1 8 0 1 )
Heinsius, Daniel [Daniel Heins] (15 8 0 -16 5 5 )
Herben, George (1593—1633)
Hessus, Helius Eobanus [Eoban Koch] (14 8 8 -15 4 0 )
Holberg, Ludvig ( 16 8 4 -17 5 4 )
de 1 Hôpital, M ich el [M ichael Hospitalius] (c. 1 5 0 4 - 7 3 )
Hortensius, Lambertus (150 0 —74)
de Hossche, Sidron, s j [Sidronius Hosschius] ( 15 9 6 -16 5 3 )
 List o f N eo -L a tin A u th o rs a n d D ates
XXll
Huet, Pierre-D aniel ( 16 3 0 -17 2 1)
H ugo, H erm an, s j (1588-1629 )
Hum e, David [o f Godscroft] ( 15 5 8 -1 6 2 9 )
H um e, Jam es (/Z 1639)
Hussovianus, N icolaus [M ikolaj H u sso w cz y k ; M xkalojus Huso •
Hussoviensis; Ussovius; H u ssow ski] (c. 14 8 ò-c. 1533) ^
von Hutten, Ulrich (14 8 8 -15 2 3)
da Imola, Benvenuto - see R am baldi, B e n v e n u to
Janicki, Klemens [Clem ens Ianicius] ( 1 5 1 6 - 4 3 )
Johnson, C hristopher [f. 15 3 6 -9 7 ]
Johnston, Arthur ( 15 8 7 -16 4 1)
Kepler, Johannes ( 15 7 1-16 3 0 )
Kerckmeister, Johannes (c. 14 5 0 -c . 150 0 )
Kinloch, David (15 5 9 -16 17 )
Koch, Eoban - see Hessus
van der Kun, Peter - see C u n aeu s
Lanckvelt, Joris van Lanckvelt [G e o rg M a c ro p e d iu s] (1487-1558)
Landino, Cristoforo ( 14 2 4 -9 8 )
Lando, Ortensio (15 10 -58 )
Lazzarelli, Lodovico ( 14 4 7 - 1 5 0 0 )
Le Febvre, François A n to in e, s j [Lefebvre] ( 1 6 7 8 - 1 7 3 7 )
Legrand, Antoine (16 2 9 -9 9 )
Leland, Jo h n [Leyland] c. 1 5 0 3 -5 2 )
Leo, Bem adino (fi 15 7 2 -8 5 )
Lessing, Gotthold Ephraim ( 1 7 2 9 - 8 1 )
Lilienthal, Michael (16 8 6 -17 5 0 )
Linnaeus, Carl ( 17 0 7 - 7 8 )
Lippi, Lorenzo (16 0 6 -6 5 )
Lipsius, Justus ( 15 4 7 -16 0 6 )
de Lisieux, Zacharie [Zacharias Lexovien sis; P etru s Firmianus; P'erre
Firmain; Louis Fontaines; A n g e L a m b e n ] ( 1 5 9 6 - 1 6 6 1 )
Lloyd, John (1558-16 0 3)
Locher, Jakob [Philom usus] ( 14 7 1—1528)
Lom bard, Peter (c. 15 5 5 -16 2 5 )
Longolius, Christophorus [C h risto p h e de L o n g u e il] (1488—1522)
Loschi, Antonio (13 6 8 -14 4 1)
Lotichius, Petrus - see Secun dus, Petrus L o tic h iu s

T G ' • e»ter ~ see ^ ecundus, Petrus L o tich iu s

Lovati, Antonio ( 12 4 1-13 0 9 )
Lübben, Eilert [Eilhard L u b in u s] ( 15 6 5 - 16 2 1)
 L ist o f N eo -L a tin Authors a n d D ates xxiii

L y n c h , J o h n [G ra tia n u s L u c iu s] ( c. i 599~t- 16 7 7)
M a crin , Jean Salm on ( 14 9 0 -15 5 7 )
M a cro p e d iu s, G e o r g — see L a n c k v e lt
MafFei, G io van n i Pietro [Petrus M affeius] ( 15 3 3 -16 0 3 )
M a gliab e ch i, Antonio (1633-1714)
Malvezzi, Paracleto C o m e to [Fuscus Paracletus C o m eta n u s D e Malvetiis]
(1408—87)
M am brun , Pierre ( 16 0 1-6 1)
M ancini, D o m en ico [D o m in icu s M an cin u s] (b. before 1434“ à. after

1494)
M anetti, G ian nozzo ( 13 9 6 -1 4 5 9 )
M antuan, Baptista Spagn uoli [Battista M a n to v a n o ; M an tu an u s;
Johannes Baptista Spagnolo] ( 1 4 4 8 -1 5 1 6 )
M archesi, Paolo (fi c. 1 4 6 0 - 7 0 )
Marcilius, T h eo d o ru s [T h éo d o re M arcile; C la u d iu s M usam berti us]
(15 4 8 -16 17 )
M arot, C lém en t ( 14 9 6 -15 4 4 )
Marrasio, G io va n n i ( 14 0 0 / 4 -14 5 2 )
M arnilo, M ich ele ( 14 5 3 -15 0 0 )
M asen, Jaco b , s j [M asen ius; Ioannes Sem anus] ( 1 6 0 6 - 8 1 )
M assieu, G u lielm o (16 6 5—17 2 2 )
M assim i, Pacifico [Pacifico M assim o ; Pacifico d ’A sco li] ( 1 4 1 0 - 1 5 0 6 )
M ay, T h o m a s ( 15 9 4 / 5 -16 5 0 )
M eder, Jo h an n (fi 149 5)
M elanchthon, Philip ( 1 4 9 7 - 1 5 6 0 )
M elenchino, T o m m a so (fi c. 150 0 )
M elville, A n d re w ( 15 4 5 -1 6 2 2 )
M énage, Gilles ( 1 6 1 3 -9 2 )
M encke, Jo h an ñ es Burkh ard ( 16 7 4 —17 3 2 )
M ercier, N ico las [N ico lau s], s j (d. 16 5 7 )
M ilton, Jo h n ( 1 6 0 8 - 7 4 )
M olza, Francesco M a ria (14 8 9 —154 4 )
de M o n taign e, M ich e l (15 3 3 -9 2 )
de M o n taigu , C la u d e H e rvé, s j ( 1 6 8 7 - 1 7 6 2 )
M on tan u s, P etru s ( 1 4 6 7 / 8 -1 5 0 7 )
M oor, R obert ( 15 6 8 -1 6 4 0 )
M orata, O lim p ia F u lv ia (15 2 6 -5 5 )
M ore, T h o m a s ( 14 7 8 -15 3 5 )
M orh o f, D aniel G e o rg ( 15 3 9 -1 6 9 1)
M orisot, C la u d e B arth élem y (159 2 —16 6 1)
 List of Neo-Latin Authors a n d Dates
xxiv
du Moulin, Peter (1601-84)
Mucanzio, Francesco iß - 1573 - 9 °)
Muret Marc-Antoine [Marcus Antonius Muretus] (1526-85)
Musambertius, Claudius - * * Marcila*
Mussato, Albertino (1261-132.9) , .
Nagonius, Johannes Michael [Giovanni M ichele N agon.o] (c. ^
de’ Naldi, Naldo (c. 1432-1513) . . /A ’
Nanni, Giovanni - r « Annius Giovanni N a n m (Annius) fr0m y ^
(1432-1502)
Nannius, Petrus [Nannink or Nannm ckJ (15 0 0 -5 7 )
Naogeorg, Thomas [Kirchmeyer] (1508—63) ^
de’ Nerli, Neri [sometimes given as N ero de’ N erli] (1459-1524)
Nessel, Martin [Martinus Nesselius] ( 16 0 7 -7 3 )
Nife, Agostino (1473-1545)
Nizzolius, Marius (1498-1576)
Nobili, Roberto, SJ (1577-1656)
Nolle, Heinrich (d. 1626)
Nomi, Federigo (1633-1705)
Ocland, Christopher (d. c. 1590)
Olivier, François [Franciscus Olivarius] (14 9 7 -15 6 0 )
O ’Meara, Dermot [Dermod] (fi. c. 16 14 -4 2 )
Opicius, Johannes (fi 1492-3)
Opitz, Martin (1597-1639)
O ’Sullivan-Beare, Philip (b. c. 15 9 0 - d. c. 1634)
Owen, John [Ioannes Owen, Joannes Audoenus] (15 6 4 -16 2 2 )
Paganutio, Marco Antonio (no known dates)
Palingenio, Marcello [Marcellus Palingenius Stellatus] (c. 1500-51)
Pandolfini, Francesco (1470 -1520)
Pandoni, Gianantonio de Porcellio (c. 140 9 -c. 1485)
Pansa, Paolo [Paulus Pansa] (1485—1538)
Papeus, Petrus (fi 1539)
da Parma, Basinio - see Basini, Basinio
de Peiresc, Nicolas-Claude Fabri [Peirescius] (15 8 0 -16 3 7 )
Peut Nicolas (c. 1497-1532)
Petrarca, Francesco [Petrarchus; Petrarch] ( 13 0 4 -7 4 )
Philomusus - see Locher
PhiJp, James (1654/5-c. i7 2 0 )
Piccolommi, Enea Silvio Bartolomeo [Aeneas Silvius Piccolomini; W
Pius II (1458-64)] (I405_64)
Pirckheimer, Willibald (1470 -1530 )
 List o f Neo-Latin Authors a n d Dates XXV

Pius, Ioannes Baptista (c. 147$-c. 1542)

Plante, Franciscus (16 13-9 0 )
Platina, Batrolemeo (14 21-8 1)
Polenton, Sicco (i3 75 I4 4 7 )
de Polignac, M elch io r ( 1 6 6 1 - 1 7 4 2 )
Poliziano, Angelo [Angelus Politianus; Politian] ( 1 4 3 4 - 9 4 )
Pontano, G io va n n i G io vian o ( 1 4 2 9 -1 5 0 3 )
Pontanus, Jacobus, SJ [Jakob Spanmüller] (15 4 2 -16 2 6 )
Prasch, Jo h an n L u d w ig [Johannis L u d o vicu s Praschius] ( 1 6 3 7 - 9 0 )
Prasch, Susanna (16 6 1-a fte r 16 9 1)
Pusculo, U bertino [U b ertino Pusculus] (c. 14 31-8 8 )
Puteanus, E ryciu s ( 1 5 7 4 - 1 6 4 6 )
Puttenham, George (1529-90 )
Quarles, Francis (159 2-16 4 4 )
Quillet, Claude (16 0 2 -6 1)
Rambaldi, Benvenuto [Benvenuto da Imola; Benvenutus Imolensis;
Benvenutus de Ram baldis] (1330 —88)
Rapin, René, sj (16 2 1-8 7 )
Rastic, Dzono [Junije Restie; Junius Restius] (17 55 -18 14 )
Restié, Junije — see Rastic
Restius, Junius - see Rastic
Reuchlin, Johann (14 55-1522)
Reusner, Nicolas (154 5-16 0 2)
Rhenanus, Beams [Beams Bild] (14 8 5 -154 7 )
Rigault, Nicolas [Rigaltius] (15 7 7 -16 5 4 )
Rococciolo, Francesco (c. 14 6 0 /70 -15 28 )
Ronsard, Pierre (1524-85)
Rossi, Gian Vittorio [Giano N icio Eritreo] ( 15 7 7 -16 4 7 )
de Roulers, Adriaen [Adrianus Roulerius] (d. 1597)
Royen, Adrianus van [Patricio T rame] (17 0 4 -7 9 )
Roze, Jean, sj [Joannes Roze] (16 79—1719)
Ruggle, George ( 1 5 7 5 -1 6 2 2 )
Rutgersius, Jan (1589 -16 25)
Sabinus, Angelus [Aggelo Sabino; Angelo Sani de C ure; Aulus Sabinus;
/yigelus Gnaeus Quirinus Sabinus] (fl. c. 1 4 6 0 - 8 0 )
Sabinus, Georgius [Georg Schuler] (150 8 -6 0 )
Salutati, Coluccio ( 1 3 3 1- 1 4 0 6 )
Sambucus, Johannes Pannonicus [János Zsám boky; János Sám boki]
(1531-84)
Sangenesius, Joannes [Jean de Saint-G eniès] (fi 16 54 )
 List ofN eO 'Latin Authors a n d D ates
XXVI

& p " d T ° jo l n n « [Ioannis Sapidi S elasta d k n sia; E uchariUs ^

S a A i^ tt M a ä iM r im [M a n h k a C a sim iro s Sarbievlus. ^

Sarbiewski] (1595-1640) n'»
Sautel, Pierre-Juste (16 13-6 2)
Scaliger, Joseph Justus (154 0 -16 0 9 )
ScaJiger, Julius Caesar (1484-1558)
Schoen, Cornelius (Schoenaeus) ( 1 5 4 1 - 1 6 1 1 )

Scholirius, Petrus (1583—r6 3 5 )

Schöpper, Jacob [the Elder] (d. 1554)
Schonen, Hermann (c. 1 5 0 3 -4 6 )
Sectanus, Quintus [Lodovico Sergardi] ( 1 6 6 0 - 1 7 2 6 )
Secundus, Joannes [Ianus Secundus] (1511—36)
Secundus, Petrus Lotichius [Peter Lotz] ( 1 5 2 8 - 6 0 )
Semanus, Ioannes - see Masen
Sepulveda, Ioannes Ginesius [Ioannis G en esius Sepulveda] (1490-1573)
Seymour, Anne (1538-88)
Seymour, Jane (c. 1541-61)
Seymour, Margaret (b. 1540)
Siber, Adam (1516-84)
Siculus, Lucius Marineus [Luciu M arin eu Slcu lu ] (14 6 0 -1533)
Sigea, Luisa [de Velasco] (15 2 2-6 0 )
Sigonio, Carlo [Carlo Sigone; Carolus Sigon ius] (c. 15 2 4 —84)
Soter, Joannes (fl. 1518-43)
Souciet, Etienne Auguste, s j ( 1 6 7 1 - 1 7 4 4 )
Spagnoli, Battista - see M antuan
Spanmüller, Jacob — see Pontanus
Speroni, Sperone (1500-88)
Spendo, Francesco ( 1 4 6 3 -15 3 1)
Stanihurst, Richard (1547-1618)
Stay, Benedict (1714-18 0 1)
Stefonio, Bernardino, s j (156 0 -16 20 )
Stella, Giulio Cesare (156 4 -16 24 )
Stephanus - see Estienne, Henri
Subimus, Caspar (1526-6 2)
Stockwood, John (d. 1610)

C Ä S t (« >
 L ist o f N eo -L a tin Authors a n d Dates xxvii

Sturmius, Ioannes (15 0 7 -8 9 )

‘Johannes Surius’ , SJ (fi 1 6 1 7 - 2 1 )
Tarillon, François, SJ ( 1 6 6 6 - 1 7 3 5 )
Tasso, T o rq u a to (1544-95)
Tedaldi, Francesco ( c. 14 2 0 -c . 14 9 0 )
de Teive, D io go (c. 15 14 -a fte r 1569)
Tesauro, Em anuele ( 15 9 2 -16 7 5 )
Trante, Patricio - see R oyen, Adrianus van
Traversari, A m brogio (13 8 6 -14 3 9 )
Tribraco, Gaspare (Tribrachus) (14 3 9 -c . 149 3)
Trissino, G ian G io rgio ( 14 7 8 -15 5 0 )
Valla, Lorenzo [Laurentius Valla] ( 1 4 0 7 - 5 7 )
Vaughan, W illiam ( 1 5 7 7 - 1 6 4 1 )
Vegio, M affeo ( 14 0 7 -5 8 )
Velius, Caspar U rsinus (c. 14 9 3 -15 3 9 )
Venegas, M iguel, SJ (1531-a fte r 1589)
Verardus, Carolus [Carlo Verardi da Cesena] (fi 14 9 2)
Verardus, M arcellinus [M arcellino Verardi] (fi 1493)
Vêrgerio, Pier [Pietro] Paolo [the Elder] ( 1 3 7 0 - 1 4 4 4 )
Polydore Vergil (14 7 0 -15 5 5 )
Verino, M ichele ( 14 6 9 -8 7 )
Verino, U go lin o (14 3 8 -15 16 )
Vida, M arco G irolam o (c. 14 8 5 -15 6 6 )
Villedieu, Alexander o f [Alexander D olensis; A lexander der V illa D ei]
(c. 1175-C . 1240)
de Villerias y Roelas, Jo sé A n to n io ( 16 9 5 -17 2 8 )
Vipcrano, G io van n i A n to n io ( 15 3 5 -16 10 )
Vitalis, Janus [G ian o Vitale] (c. 14 8 5 -15 6 0 )
Vives, Ju an Luis ( 14 9 3 -15 4 0 )
Vossius, G erardus Jo an n e s ( 15 7 7 —16 4 9 )
W are, Jam es ( 15 9 4 -16 6 6 )
W atson, T h o m as (1556—92)
W eston, Elizabeth Ja n e [Elisabetha Ioan n a W esto n ia ; A lzb èta Jo h a n a
Vestonie) (15 8 2 -16 12 )
W illes, R ichard (15 4 6 -c . 1579 )
W ilson, T h o m as (152 4 —81)
W ìm pheling, Ja k o b (14 5 0 -15 2 8 )
banchi, Basilio (15 0 1-5 8 )
Zovitius, Jak ó b (b. 1 5 1 2 - d. after 1540)
¿u p pard o , M atteo (c. 1 4 0 0 - 5 7 )
 Acknowledgements

T h is book has been long in che m aking an d has in cu rre d m an y debts. I ^

grateful to all the contributors as well as to M ic h a e l Sh a rp at Cambridge
University Press for their collective patience a n d g o o d h u m o u r over several
years and repeated interruptions o f various kinds. T h a n k s ¿re also due to
the anonymous readers for their com m ents. F o r assistance and advice at
various stages o f the project, I w ould like to th a n k in particular Stefan Tilg,
N igel Griffin, Gesine M anuwald, Fiachra M a c G ó r á in an d Roben Cum­
mings (who, very sadly, died before the b o o k ap p eared ). C la re Parsons was
a friend beyond compare, especially th ro u gh tw o lo n g periods o f serious
illness and seemingly endless hospital visits. A b o v e all, I thank my hus­
band, D avid To d d , for his unstinting love a n d su p p o rt, an d for sharing all
m y pride and pleasure in our little fam ily.

xxviii
 Introduction
V ictoria M o u l

This is an excitin g tim e for th e stu d y o f n eo -L a tin literature, especially in

the A n glo p h o n e w o rld , in w h ic h awareness o f this im m ense, an d
immensely varied, corpus o f w ritin g has been less w ell d evelo ped than
elsewhere in E u ro p e. A series o f n e w p u b licatio n s, o f w h ic h this is ju st one,
promise to open u p the field, b ro ad en in g o u r aw areness o f the sheer
volume o f literature p ro d u ced in the p eriod betw een c. 1 4 0 0 a n d c. 1 7 0 0 ,
and exploring a variety o f critical a n d theoretical approaches. T h is is the
first reference w o rk dedicated specifically to n eo -L a rin literary genres,
which builds o n the sketches offered b y IJse w ijn an d S a c r é s still ind ispens­
able o u d in e.1 Sp ecially co m m issio n ed essays from scholars aro u n d the
world com bine a survey o f a given genre w ith discussion o f representative
examples, dem onstrating in each case th e difficulties an d rew ards o f close
and careful reading o f these texts as Latin , a n d in ten ded to p iq u e interest
and suggest avenues for interpretation and research. In co m b in a tio n w ith
the recendy published B rill’s Encyclopaedia o f the N eo-Latin W orld an d the
Oxford Handbook to N eo-Latin , scholars an d students ve n tu rin g into this
most challenging, en ticin g an d rew ardin g o f literary landscapes w ill
find themselves better eq u ip p ed to m ake sense o f w h a t th ey find than
ever before.2

The firn section o f the second volume o f IJsewijn's Companion to N eo-Latin Studies, prepared in
collaboration with D irk Sacré, has brief discussions o f a wide range o f genres (IJsewijn and Sacré
199*. «-376). This volume in no way claims or aims to displace that work, the enormous range and
concision o f which remain indispensable. T h e scope o f the Companions, however, meant that the
individual gentes were o f necessity brief, with linlc space for comment or analysis
Bey ° n ^ telling example. Moreover, IJsewijn's volumes assume a high level o f Latiniry —
y ° taP ° n5 ^ not translated - and fifteen years o f increasing scholarly activity in the field mean
’ The sha e2U^meh “ scfol brief bibliographies attached to each section have become dated.
? “ lis volume, its focus on literary concerns and its arrangement by genre was chosen in
co„tnWhCOnSUltati0n Wit^ rwo frioud* and colleagues, Sarah Knight and Stefan T ilg (both themselves
ar. f U,0IS *° *bis book), whose complementary and more general work, the O xford Handbook o f
ro-Latm, was recenrlv n„kluk«< k „ l U :. ~
como«, a ' i f " * 1* published by O xford University Press (Knight and T ilg 20ts). The
ous B rills Encyclopaedia o f the N eo-Latin W orld (Ford, fìloemendal and Fan razzi) was

1
 VICTORIA M O U l

1 that is, Latin w ritin g in a b ro ad ly classical. j

Neo-Latin post-classical form s and g e n re s, J '

and in * lmdscape o f Re.n ais!an “ “ d « H y mod ‘

central part ° f tht ‘ anJ in m any places w ell beyon d ,hJt a ""
Europe at least “ n“ 7- widely read and p ro fo u n d ly influential U
Ludvig H o l t ( ‘ Ni el s K lim ’s U n d e » ¿
novel. N to í» " r blisKed only In , 7 4 . . ’ B o th the t « f t

Tra-' rf únn was an i n t i a l element o f ad van ced education,. ^

wnung L Latin was held in high regard n o t o n ly across Europe bm
hteraryw n^g ^ 5 Authors seeking an international reputa,¡0n
^ * l , . e in Latin - s u c c e s s i w orks p u b lish ed in the ven u »*,
wererapidly translated into U tin ¡tut as w o r k to day ate translated i,„
Fnuliah-and Latin publications linked literary cultures across Europe and
encouraged ¡m ención between them .4 M o reo ver, a w id e range ofbni,
literary forms - from epigram to historiography - w ere crucial to the
establishment and maintenance o f both form al and inform al patronage
, nA fcvm.r and were also a common m edium for social, political and
religious comment.
Despite this, neo-Latin literature has rem ained neglected b y scholarship,
and (with very rare exceptions such as T h o m a s M o r e ’s Utopia) unknown
to the general reader: there are still relatively few reliable texts and transla­
tions, even of key works, and where critical assessm ents have been made
the relevant scholarly literature is found in a ve ry w id e range o f European
languages, and often only in hard-to-access m o no grap h s and periodicals.
As a result, any student or scholar w h o is no t already both an expen
Latinist and an experienced reader o f Renaissance vernacular literature in
the relevant region or regions may find the field bafflin gly obscure.

published in 1014. Online resources have also transformed the field and continue to do to.
instance Sutton's Philological Museum of neo-Latin texts and bibiliography (http://www.pHlolop®
t ■ • £ “ . >• ^m in ge r s Neulateinische W ortliste (http://www.neulatein.de) and the Leuven
U rn Bibliography (http://milUnsJtuleuven.be/sph/links.htm). Neo-Latin scholarship

,snr SSsr1* F
“4 TllB in li* See ilio Jo n e , 1980. Pelees 1986-Gato"

' w V0lumf' h>- Swh Knrght. tu t

recently, im p ^ ^ t p ju f8 0“ nC°.'U tin th in g s in America, Africa, Asia and Tjg
» .5 indudtTchaptcrs o l S i ! " ? “ 1* ^ 1006 and HaskeU and RuyS 1 ° ' ° ' ^
A series of telline statistic J***1,1* ^ mer’ca * "< 1 Brazil, North America and Asia. .broud10“1
Wsquet 2001, for instance 1 ^ ° " ^ imP°nance of Latin publications are gathc t<fi*

and Burke 2007a. The inn-m "^ ° f', n scholarship. O n translations into Latin. h cUredh)'
* * ^ e n cvrfm d i y ^ r , 0 literature has been
^ * * * * * * ®<* ^ a rc h projects to focus on a particular f f # * ? *
 Introduction 3

TW is a great loss, an d no t o n ly to literary scholars. L atin language

A literature was the single m ost significant con stitu en t o f secon dary
a on for all Renaissance and early m o dern w riters an d thinkers, from
edUCatca (Petrarch) and Shakespeare to Fran cis B aco n o r G o ttfrie d L eib n iz,
^ r i v m odern science as m u ch as literature is cau gh t u p im agin atively
a n , Latin literary texts.7 W h e n A b ra h am C o w le y set o u t, in 1 6 6 0 , a
W10posal for a college o f natural p h ilo so p h y, dedicated to th e stu d y o f
E g s as well as w o rd s’ , the p relim in ary train in g that he im agines for the
boys in the attached school is still one fou n d ed in L a tin literature, albeit
with an unusual focus up o n those authors w h o treat o f so m e p a n s o f
Nature’.8 A s Keith Sid w ell notes in the final chap ter o f this v o lu m e , N e o -
Latin Studies have in recent years seen an increased interest in w ritin g in
forms and genres - such as technical o r scientific m aterial - b e y o n d those
traditionally considered literary. S u ch m aterial is b e y o n d th e scop e o f this
book; but the centrality o f L atin literary texts to R en aissance a n d early
modern education, and the resulting p ro n o u n ced literary qualities and
stylistic self-consciousness o f all kinds o f w ritin g , m eans th at so m e a p p re­
ciation o f neo-Latin literary form s and expectations is o f great valu e even
for those whose prim ary interest is in intellectual h isto ry o r the d ev e lo p ­
ment o f scientific w riting.
Th e format o f this vo lu m e is designed w ith su ch a w id e range o f
potential readers in m ind, and all L a tin — even in d ividu al w o rd s and
phrases - is translated throughout. T ra n slatio n is easy to criticize, b u t hard
to do well; thoughtful translations, sensitive to style a n d to n e, are perhaps
the single m ost effective tool available to us to dissem in ate n e o -L a tin
literary material. B u t translation alone is not en o u g h : the gen eric e xp ect­
ations and allusive associations created b y , fo r instance, a sixtee n th -ce n tu ry
university play, a seventeenth-century ode, o r R enaissance h isto riograp h y
ln a Tacitean style are distinct from those o f their vern acu lar equivalen ts,
even where a vernacular equivalen t’ m ieh t reasonahlv he c n n n n c e r l rr> e v i c t

usually been trained. A few E n glish poets in the 15 9 0 s d id , for instance,

recognizably classical ‘love elegies’ in E n glish , an d those exp erim en ts

sec Chapter n .
 — -

are ,y regard W 0f c o m p l e n s m u.ry. r ne Percep

Percep.
j.- without
work , ai j the boun
cr beyond botín ,
oduCt readers own
0o ff readers o w n extv>r;.J
exp ert

P”* haVC aU” OSt diSapi* i," d 1» « .

and f r : r . s u l t . . . m for classical reception studies, a now

f” % %le**arid
‘ ih * producnve He. i. * « * * >c|eg,es
? f0 [ ?b yc M " - i,n,U
m a ssim e dn d
dBi !i-
“ '“ ^ “ pon. for ¡“ “ E » ¿ n . out a h o s. o f p a l e i s wich¿
“ condn. o. ^ ^ " p ^ r d u r , TibaU üi and C > i d ” T h e P a ™ r a s of
eroric .leg«* " f * * ¿ ¡ 5 program ".« - ■ » ^ f Prop,,.
modem undergraduate dass ^maúncnt com ponents - an d the relative
dus and Ovid in P ^ T L - j criticism o f such n e o -L a tin material by
paucity of classical y m ^ ^ procedure hard to resist." And
scholars of vernacular “ . t without value: these p o em s are indebted to
of course such a meth « Thom as C a m p io n ’ s first elegy, for

a * * * l* * 5 S Z > » P' « P - - “ d f “ d 0vW '

instance, piles up > ^ 0f passages all derived from the first
Amores 2.1 and 3- „ ß jf read C a m p io n ’s p oem without
P «m s i" * « ' genre o f love elegy - , m u c h larger and

more varied re, o f reus dun rhe e p i c a l U r n , genre - w e n r k n u a n g

much o f us force: Cunpion daimr .0 be the firs, B n u h bard to w m e love
elegy in a sucement duc U indebted to multiple statem en e. o f Roman
puede originality bur which abo enpges direedy w ith the w ealth o f neo-
Latin elegy already in existence by the 1590s by authors fro m Italy, France,
Germany and the Netherlands.
The same is vety often true o f vernacular poetry: it has often been
observed that the charming lyrics which appeared first in A c t 3, scene 7 of

f The be« known cumplo are elegies by Ben Jonson and John Donne, and Christopher Marlowe s
iramladonj of Ovid's first book of A m ia. The link between British Latin and vernacular elegy in
chis period is discussed in Moul 2013.
I have beenguilty ofthis myself, although Moul lot) makes an attempt to discuss British love elegies
in English and Latin alongside one another, and to suggest some links between neo-Latin texts.
u 1^ mcti 10 develop this approach in Moul 2013d.
There has however been a wealth of excellent recent work on neo-Latin love elegy. Pieper 1008,
focused on Undino's Ariiir but offering a superb overview of the genre as a whole, is particularly
i°n. c P00* tintions of applying scholarship on classical Latin love elegy j°
this volume" ^5° ì o , í • Braden 2010 and Houghton 201} as well as Chapter 6 in

d ï^ f * f k° * S mhcri“ ncc o( t*Km “ h“ own U ú n ÎK

) M 12. ror Campion s Latin verse see V ivian 1909.
 In tro d u ctio n 5

, nn’ s Volpone ( 3 . 7 .1 6 5 - 8 3 and 2 3 6 - 9 ) an d w ere then revised and

Ben J ° nso oem s 5 an d 6 in Jo n s o n ’s 1 6 1 6 co lle ctio n The Forest are artful
reprinted ** ¡ R a t i o n s o f C a tu llu s 5 a n d 7 . 1*13 B u t th ey are m u c h m o re
patchwor , ^ atujja n > ¡ n che n e o -L a tin sense: there are co u n tless b r ie f
profoun y p o n ta n o o n w a rd s, w h ic h n u m b e r kisses o r la m e n t th e
Latin lyncs, ^ erotjcized b ird s.14 T h e th e m e is n o t in fa c t less b u t m u c h
death o ¡t appears to d ie m o d e rn reader w h o earn estly n o te s

m0re ral lei w ith C a tu llu s. V o lp o n e s d e p lo y m e n t o f p o e try in th at scen e is

d * P* sincare - in fact, w h e n his a tte m p t at literary se d u ctio n fails, he
^ 7s to rape C e lia in stead .15 T h e lyrics are m e a n t to s o u n d b e a u tifu l,
unoriginal alm o st to th e p o in t o f p astich e.
A n appreciation o f v ern a c u la r a n d n e o -L a tin literary tra d itio n s in a d d -
• to classical literature is e q u a lly im p o r ta n t in th e a p p r e c ia tio n o f e arly
11 odern prose, w h e th e r L a tin o r v e rn a cu la r. T h e e x tra ct fr o m E r a s m u s ’
*Laus Stultitiae (‘ Praise o f F o l l y ) d iscu sse d b y T e r e n c e T u n b e r g in C h a p ­
ter 14, for instance, c o m b in e s sa yin gs fro m E r a s m u s ’ o w n Adagia w it h an
extended paraphrase o f H o r a c e , Satires 1.3 : a ty p ic a l b le n d o f a n c ie n t a n d
more m odern sources, a n d o f p ro se a n d p o e tr y .16 T h e w o r k is a d d re sse d
ro Thom as M o r e , a n d like M o r e ’ s o w n p ro se is m a rk e d b y th e lib e ral use
o f oral features - fables, m o tto e s a n d sa y in g s — as w e ll as a c o m b in a t io n o f
scriptural and classical a u th o ritie s. E a r ly m o d e rn p r in tin g c o n v e n tio n s ,
such as the use o f italics o r m argin al n o tes to m a r k q u o ta tio n o r p a ra ­
phrase, often co n trib u te to th e read er’ s a p p r e c ia tio n o f a w o r k ’ s c o n s titu e n t
elements. N e o -L a t ín p ro se, e sp e cia lly th e g re at w e a lth o f ‘ o c c a s io n a l’
material - su ch as sp eech es, d e d ic a tio n s a n d letters — h as, h o w e v e r , s u ffe re d
even m ore seriou sly th a n p o e try fr o m s c h o la rly n e g le c t. F o r th is re a so n th is
book includes an essay o n n e o -L a tin p ro se sty le ( C h a p t e r 14 ) in a d d it io n to
the chapters o n fictio n , satire, h is to r io g ra p h y , e p is to la r y w r it in g , o r a to r y
and declam ation, a n d d ia lo g u e .
T h e decision to a rra n g e this b o o k b y g e n re , ra th e r th a n a n y o f th e o th e r
possible o rg an izatio n al sc h e m e s, e a c h o f w h i c h h as its o w n a d v a n ta g e s , w a s
a pragm atic o n e : e a rly m o d e rn c ritic s s h o w a c o n s is te n t in te re st in g e n e ric
distinctions a n d d e fin itio n s, a n d readers w h o fin d th e m s e lv e s c o n fr o n t e d
y a sign ificant p iece o f n e o -L a t in w r it in g f o r th e first t im e w il l p r o b a b ly
ea e to assign it a t least p r o v is io n a lly to a g e n e ric c a t e g o r y , b u t are still

11 •915 V" X,: 37r?' M Scc Gaisser '9 9 3 and Chapter 7 in this volume.
than Catullus him self^nToLiTY f neo"Lat“ ?'Canillan poems in this tradition (much more so
16 Sec Chapter ^ * hclPs » suggest the true terms of Volpone’s interest.
 v ict o r ia m o u «-

6 , ,h a text or author fo r w h o m little o r n o sch ei*,

dot » " " V j Tm , T P - o’ L“ '" ' " " ' T k‘ k “ if

caltnrd P“ ““ ' “ “ „ “ J „, scicn.ife maler.al) h,v< bien « ¡ N ,
«1* ------“ f " l.bb concealing .be geea. genee.e diveinp. Mj
literary sty“
This arrangement also w.........

sin& u *ia developed

flexibility that ai sing“
seriously, the generic
often a rather narrow
accurate descriptors
A good «am pie ¡on
poct^ . In the
.._i„ „ „T
J fnV * .rib!ee cT
to ddeessccrib cla
lassssic
T M°«
icaall rteevx«t s - and.
d e fin itio n even o f th o se - are n o t alway,
^ a a u a l,y fin d s in n e o - L a t in writings
djscjnction betw een e p ig ra m , e le g y an d lyric
u d n p o e try , th e se fo rm s are forfy
iü k 0 f M a r t ia l f o r e p ig ra m s , Propertius,

“ !•> and Ho,ace fc. Iy,¡<- A * V .Hough, p,odUœ so .

c Z t o % L Caiullus’ short pom, o»«l»P d of "he,, bounds;
and what about Statius' Silvae or (for the truly broad-minded dass.cst)
the poetry- of Prudentius?’9But when we turn to neo-Latin the divisions
areeven harder to maintain: alarge proportion of neo-Latin epigrams are
written inelegiac couplets, andone also often finds poems in lyric metres
or evenlonger hexameter pieces included in ‘epigram’ collections; elegiac
couplets are also used - for instance by Thomas, Campion - for Latin
versions of English poems we would undoubtedly describe as lyric, The
term silva is frequently used as a title (and a formal category) for
miscellaneous collections, whether of prose or verse.“ Moveover, many
neo-Latin poets experimented with metrical mixing within individual
poems of a kind that is noe found in any classical text: both Abraham

7 The OxfordHandbookofNco-Laun (Knight and Tilg ioi^ coven neo-Latin writing a* a whole, with
le» emphasis on specifically 1iteran- nutter» but including substantial sections on ‘Cultural
Coniexu and
"*» Countries
'-wntnes and Regions'
Kegions as well as 'Language
Language and Genre*.
Genre. The Brill
anil tmydopatnu
(Ford. Bloemendal and Famaai 2014) offers a host of entries on many of these cwra-literarv mod»
« T * P^Mptrong,in its survey of Latin intellectual culrure as a whole.
^ogetasense ’s, readers may comulr the index (with many neo-Latin authors cited in mulopk

Lapn al ran<*om All dir« were paraculariy influentia) toro upon n»-

■ »■ «nee and eady modemÄW . ree Galand and Laigneau-Fontaine 2013.

 Introduction 7
j peter du Moulin, for instance, used a background ‘narrative’
ÇoMeya '¡nset lyrics.11 As work develops, neo-Latin literary
nlCtre "will I Hope, begin to develop categories and distinctions of its
criticism wi ’ hic£ jerious thought about how neo-Latin verse collec-
°wn, ^.collections (rather than individual poems) is a
Sfollar desideratum.
P^The quantity of neo-Latin literary material is enormous, and yet its
1 deed ‘canon’ of most significant authors (insofar as there is one
aC II) remains strikingly small and uncertainly fixed, especially if we
at e beyond Italian Latin verse written before 1550.11 Such uncertainty
^both a challenge and an opportunity: obscurity is less of an obstacle to
IS dv. when everything is relatively obscure. Contributors to this volume
were given no constraints on the authors and texts they wished to discuss
under their generic heading: as a result the range of citations is accord­
ingly broad and, I hope, suggestive for future work in a great variety
of directions.

Reading Neo-Latin Literature: Occasion and Intertext

Two characteristic features of neo-Latin literature present particular prob­

lems for its modern interpretation, literary appreciation and overall ‘read­
ability’: the typically close relationship to social and political occasions, and
the complex interconnections with both classical and contemporary litera­
ture, as well as the Christian tradition.
Modern readers tend to doubt the ‘literary’ credentials of prose or
poetry produced for a specific occasion - such as a wedding, coronation,
or school or university celebration — or as part of a particular social
relationship, such as a request for patronage. (Although certain occasions
or relationships, such as bereavement or courtship, ate typically con­
sidered to be more personal and therefore more amenable to ‘authentic*

C o w ley i£ 6 8 (B o o k s 3 a n d 4 o f th e Plantarum Libri Sex u se ele g ia c c o u p le rs a s th e 'n a rra tiv e ’ m etre),

in Henr d u M o u lin ’s Ecclesiae Gemitui, n a rrativ e h e x a m ete r verses d e sc rib e th e p lig h t o f th e E n g lis h
utch. p erson ified a s a n y m p h , w h o s e o w n s o n g is a n in set ly ric in A lc a ic stan zas (M o u lin 16 4 9 :
» - 4 0 J . I he w o rk w as p u b lish e d a n o n y m o u s ly in 16 4 9 , th o u g h later p o st-R e sto ra rio n e d itio n s o f d u
1 W A " Y * ™ a c k n o w le d Bc t o a u th o rsh ip .
o f ven - “ i10 11 e m e rg ö h y c o m p a rin g th e c h o ic e s m a d e b y su cc e ssiv e e d ito rs
later la r in ° ° ® les ln<* e d ite d texts; fo r th e g re a t m a jo rity o f p ro se g en res a n d fo r m o st
al i ^ A - T T ' j n o t ” e n b a v e th a t sta rtin g p o in t. It w o u ld b e in te re stin g h o w e v e r to c o m p ile
such as t h . 0 15 w o rlts m o s l 0<t e n in c lu d e d in e a rly m o d e m a n th o lo g ie s a n d te x t c o lle c tio n s.
labrum l L mVly ° r F ra n io iS ° u d in 's DiâaKalia (O u d in 17 4 9 ) , a n d Selena poemata
itaiorum (16 84 ; seco n d e d itio n e d ite d b y A le x a n d e r P o p e , 17 4 0 ).
8 VICTORIA M O U L

literary production.) T h is creates p ro b lem s fo r th e appreciation of nt®.

Latin literature, a great deal o f w h ich is ‘ o c c a s io n a l’ to a greater or Its*,
extent: whether composed directly in resp o n se to o r celebration of j
particular person or occasion (such as G e o r g e B u c h a n a n ’ s Epithalamts
on the marriage o f M ary Q ueen o f S co ts to th e F re n c h Dauphin), orle*
straightforwardly public material w h ich is n everth eless framed and p*.
sented in a highly formal and often p o litical fa sh io n - fo r instance by in
dedication to a patron or m onarch.15 F ro m a large co llectio n o f epigrams
for instance, we might extract on ly o n e o r tw o o n th e most apparenti',
‘sincere’ and heartfelt themes - such as the d e a th o f a child - for careful
appreciation. T o become sensitive an d e ffe c tiv e readers o f neo-Latin
literature, we need to be prepared to a p p re c ia te th e artistic qualità
and pleasures o f formal writing, especially th e litera tu re o f public rela­
tionships, and o f highly stylized genres a n d th e ir variations; and in
addition, we should be aware that even w ritin g s o f the most formal or
even official kind may demonstrate sty listic v e rv e , m etaphorical power
and emotive force.
George Herbert’s series o f letters as U n iv e rsity O ra to r on the rather
unpromising subject o f the proposed d rain in g o f th e fen s offer an example
o f a typically ‘occasional’ piece o f form al n e o -L atin prose. The third of
these four letters, addressed to Sir R obert N a u n to n , a form er orator and i
this time the secretary o f sure, begins ab ru p tly:

Quanta hilaritate aspicit Alma Mater filios suos iam emancipatos, conte-
uantes sibi Illos Fontes, à quibus ipsi oiim hauserunt? Quis enim sica sten
et mammas arentes cam nobilis parentis aequo animo ferre posset? neque
sani dubitamus vili, si prae defectu aquae, commeatusque inopia, deserer­
entur collegia, pulcherrimaéque Musarum domus tanquam viduae eifoctar
aut ligna exucca & marcida, alumnis suis orbarentur, quin communes
Reipublicae lachrymae alterum nobis Fluuium effunderent.14

With what joy does my Alma Mater [‘Nurturing M other’) look upon he
sons, newly freed as they are, and preserving for their use those fountains
from which they themselves once drew water? For who could bear with
equanimity the dry breasts and parched teats o f so noble a parent? Indeed
none of us have any doubt that if a shortage o f water and a lack of supply
led co the colleges becoming abandoned, and those most beautiful dwelling?
o f the Muses become like exhausted widows, or, the timber withered and
rotten, like women deprived o f their own nurslings - then certainly die
combined tears o f the Republic would pour forth a second river for us.

*’ For a briefconsideration ofOGcasioiulity in Renaissance vernacular literature, see Moul m io : um ?

14 Epistolae vt in Hutchinson 1941: 46 i- i, the third o f four letters (iv -v n ) on the same topic
 Introduction 9

This extraordinary passage is intensely personified: the university is

described, conventionally enough, as H erbert’s alma mater (literally, a
‘ nurturing m other’), but H erbert presses the im plications o f this m etaphor
to remarkable lengths: the river C a m - w h ose flo w is threatened b y the
planned and n o w cancelled draining - becom es his m other’s breasts,
parched and dry o f m ilk i f the draining goes ahead; the college buildings
are the ‘dwellings o f the M u ses’ , com plete w ith the fountains o f poetic
inspiration, but w hen H erbert im agines them desolate and abandoned he
compares them to viduae - that is, w o m en w h o have lost their husbands.
These w idow s are effoetae, ‘exhausted’ o r ‘depleted’ - th ough the literal
meaning is ‘exhausted b y childbearing’ - and th ey are also described as
wom en deprived o f their alumni, nurslings, foster-children o r pupils. T h e
very timber o f the buildings w o u ld be exucca, ‘w ithered’ , or ‘ parched’, a
word which m etaphorically relates back to the ‘ d ry ’ and ‘ parched’ breasts
o f the dried-up maternal river. In a single paragraph, H erbert and his
fellow scholars and students are im p licid y com pared to nursling infants,
foster-children and husbands; the U niversity (and her river) their m other,
wife and M u se .15
Traces o f these resonant m etaphors are fo u n d in H e rb e rt’s E n glish
poems (the C h u rc h is described as a m o th er in tw o p oem s fro m The
Temple, ‘L e n t’ and ‘Thfe B ritish C h u r c h ’), b u t th ey are m u ch m ore
marked features o f his u n ju sd y neglected L a tin p o etry. T h e insistent
im agery o f flo w in g liq u id - w ater, m ilk, b lo o d an d even in k - d o m in ­
ates H erbert’s fou r collections o f L a tin verse, p articu larly the p o em s o f
devotion ( Passio Discerpta, ‘T h e Passion in P ieces’ ), p o etic inspiration
(for instance the first and last p o em s o f Musae Responsoriae, ‘ T h e
M uses Response ) and the extraordin ary co llectio n co m p o se d in the
im m ediate afterm ath o f the death o f his m o th e r (Memoriae matris
sacrum, A Sacred G if t in M e m o r y o f m y M o t h e r ’).26 T h is form al
etter, com posed and sent in an official c ap a city a n d rooted in a set
o f essentially con ven tio n al tropes an d associations, is nevertheless bo th
stylistically striking and e m o tio n ally p o w e rfu l. M o re o v e r, the
consistency ° f im agery betw een this official note and the w h o le corp us
ot H erbert’s L atin verse dem onstrates the literary sign ifican ce o f

W n r a f o L l u SUggCStS t h e p e r s o n ific a t io n o f Je r u s a le m a s a w i d o w e d a n d d e s p is e d w o m a n at

a n d M o d 2 0 15 fo r t e x t, tra n s la tio n a n d b r i e f c o m m e n t a r y o n H e r b e r t 's c o m p le te

10 VICTORIA M OUL

Larinity. Herben’ s Latin works - speeches, lyrics, epigrams and thank-von

notes alike - share distinctive patterns o f im agery and association thatdc
not appear in the English material. H is Latin style and persona are distino
from his literary character in English, and draw upon separate sources
classical literature o f course, but also continental Latinity.
Yasmin Haskell's essay on neo-Latin literature and its classical ghost)
(Chapter i) tackles the question o f classical intertextualitv, and Ton
Deneire, in Chapter i, considers the com plex relationship between n»
Larin and vernacular writing. I w ould like to con clude this introduction
with a taste o f how surprising, original and m o vin g neo-Latin literature
can be, not only despite but even because o f its close relationship wkh
classical texts.
Pontano’s first eclogue, like" Herbert’s rem arkable letter of thank
begins abruptly and unexpectedly:

MACROM

Et grauida es, Lepidina, et onus graue languida dëfers,

Obbam lactis et haec filmanti fiuta canistro;
Hac, agedum, lùridi paulum requiesce sub umbra,
Declinat sol dum rapidus desaeuit et"aestus.

LEPIDINA

En lactis tibi sinum atque haec simul oscula trado;

Vmbra mihi haec ueteres (memor es) iam suscitat ignes;
0 coniunx mihi care Macron, redde altera, Macron.17

MACRON

You are heavy with child, Lepidina, and heavy coo is the
burden you slowly bear,
A pail of milk and a richly scented basket packed with food;
Gime now, rest for a while in the green shade,
Until the swifi sun is lower in the sky and the heat less raging.
LEPIDINA

Look, I’ll pass you a bowl of milk along with these kisses;
For this shade is reviving my old passions (do you remember?);
0 Macron, my dear husband, kiss me in return. Macron.

Macron and Lepidina are newly married: this tender prologue recount*
their first encounter and courtship, and is itself a fram e for a mythologie^

17 Text foni Pontino ton: ‘Lepidina’, lines 1-7 .

 Introduction ii

epithalamium which forms the bulk o f this very long poem o f over eight
hundred hexameter lines.18 Th ere is nothing like this in classical Latin
pastoral, or indeed in classical Latin poetry at all. Particularly m oving is
the counterpoint between the surprising content (the married lovers, the
pregnant wom an in such a prom inent position in the poem , the sensuality
o f the Latin) and the familiar com ponents (Virgiiian pastoral vocabulary
and allusion; the mythological w edding for which this opening is a frame,
as in Catullus 6 4 ).29
T h e dialogue between M acro n and Lep id in a sounds V irgiiian , and
indeed it is littered w ith rem iniscences o f sensuous and evocative lines
from the Eclogues. T h e third line alone com bin es echoes o f Eclogue 9 .2 0
[viridi in umbra, ‘ in a green shade’) and EcL 7 .1 0 [requiesce sub umbra),
while the phrase rapidus aestus in line four rew orks rapido aestu o f Eel.
1.10. T h e obbam lactis (‘ pail o f m ilk’ ) o f line 2 and lactis . . . sinum o f
line 5 are similar to the sinum lactis w h ich T h y rsis offers Priapus in Eel.
7.33. But the Virgiiian force o f this open in g depends on divergences
from as well as similarities to the Eclogues. M e m o ry , forgetfulness and
loss are w idely recognized to be key them es o f V irgiiian pastoral: the
opening lines o f V irg il’ s collection juxtaposes T ity ru s , at ease beneath
his tree, w ith M eliboeus, forced to leave his land. In the ninth poem ,
M oeris (who has also been evicted from his property) encounters
Lycidas on the road, and th ey exchange half-rem em bered fragm ents o f
song. T h e loss o f M oeris’ land and livelihood is reflected in the loss o f
song: nunc oblita mihi tot carmina (‘ so m an y songs I have n o w forgot­
ten’, 9.53). Pontano’ s poem responds to this aspect o f the Eclogues and
reverses it: M acron and Lepidin a rem em ber the past [memor es, line 6) —
in this case their passionate courtship - and, in rem em bering, rekindle
it. T h e opening lines o f the poem arc them selves ‘ rem em bered’ success­
fully at its end:

MACRON

Suauia sint quaecumque feres, Lepidina, memento.

* The mythological wedding is o f the river god Sibetms and the nvmph Parthenope, who stands for
the dty o f Naples itself. The myth is further developed in the writings o f Pontano's friend and
follower, Sannazaro. William Camden’s D e Connubio Tamae et Isis (‘O n the Marriage o f the
Thames and Isis’) offers a British parallel. For commentary on the poem, see Pontano zou,
Femindez-Morera 1982: 21-3 and Casanova-Robin 2006.
19 Femindez-Morera describes the ‘tactile quality* o f Pontano’s verse and suggests that ’his originality
as a poet, without precedent or following, resides in his pagan treatment o f carnality in conjunction
with a “bourgeois* enjoyment o f the little pleasures o f family and quotidian lift;’ (Femindez-Morera
1982: 23).
 Ii VICTORIA MOIIL

LEPIDINA

Quinedamgeminata illi simul oscula tradam.

MACRON

Sic dices: 'Cape, nympha, bonum, qui me urit, amorem

Obbamlactiset haec fumanti farta canistro [. . ,]’}0
MACRON

Remember, Lepidina, that whatever you bring must be sweet.

¿EPIDINA

I’ll bringhimadouble offering of kisses.

MACRON

You’ll say: ‘Take, nymph, as a sign of the true love which bums me
A pail ofmilkanda richlyscented basket packed with food.’
The effect is quite different from Virgil: whereas the Eclogues constantly
remind us of death, fragmentation and forgetting, P on tano’s poem
emphasizes the efficacy of memory to revive and revisit physical pas­
sion - a conventionally fleeting experience, here rendered surprisingly
durable.
The durability of physical passion is connected in P on tan o to Lepidi-
na’s pregnancy. The wish and hope for offspring is a conventional feature
of epithalamia, and Macron and Lepidina, who are already married and
expecting a child, optimistically foreshadow that prom ise. O n ce again,
Pontano emphasizes this aspea o f his poem b y d ep lo yin g Virgilian
material to quite different effea. The heavily pregnant Lep id in a echoes
the goat in Eclogue i who has just now borne two kids in the thicket of
hazel (14-15). Although'Meliboeus describes these kids as spem gregis (15),
the ’hope of the herd’, he is forced to leave them behind to die, an
emblem of a lost future. Pontano’s poem ends w ith those same twin
goats, not abandoned but instead offered as m arriage gifts and a final
blessing.3'
Pontano’s depiction of the eroticism and lasting intim acy o f marriage
and family life is markedly undassical, but it is quite in accord with his
work more generally: his groundbreaking elegiac collection De Amore
Conjugali (‘On Married Love’) is equally original in its dedication o f an
entire elegiac collection to his wife, and includes (in the latter part of10

10 Lepidina, 'Pompi Septima', 108-u. 111 Lepidina, 'Pompa Septima’, 117-20 .

 Introduction 13
Book 2) his remarkable N aeniae, Latin lullabies for his first son, jn which
the infant longs for the breast in vocabulary carried over from the literature
of e ro tic ism .A lth o u g h strikingly original as poetry, Pontano’s develop­
ment o f this them e responded to a broader contem porary interest in
married life, the laus uxoris (‘praise o f the w ife’) theme reflected in a large
number o f Italian works from the early fifteenth century onw ards.35 In
other words, Ponrano is not just using classical (and here particularly
Vtrgilian) diction to pursue an »»classical subject; he is also responding
to and building upon contem porary literature. T h a t is not to do w n p lay
Pontano’s influence upon later neo-Latin and vernacular poetry: the
sensuality and em otional sophistication o f Pontano’s ‘fam ily poetry lays
the literary foundations for works as diverse as G eo rge H erbert’s p o etry o f
longing for his m other after her death in M em oriae m atris sacrum , G io -
yanni Pascoli’s extraordinary ‘Th allu sa’ , and perhaps even T . S. E lio t’s ‘T o
My W ife’ . T h e belief that neo-Latiñ literature is austerely im personal,
concerned only with public life and even then lim ited to the static recast­
ing o f classical elements, remains o d d ly persistent, despite the w ealth o f
evidence to the contrary.34
In the opening lines o f Pontano’ s first eclogue, Lep id in a is gravida-.
burdened and weighed d ö w n , late in her p regnancy an d h eavy w ith her
child. T h e poem Lepidina is too, like m ost neo-Latin literature, h eavy w ith
the weight o f what it carries: in this case, echoes o f V irg il (and, elsewhere,
Catullus) in particular. B u t as Pom ario is so careful to dem onstrate, the
classical legacy is both heavy and fruitful: this lovely an d surprising p o em is
both profoundly Virgilian and quice unlike an yth in g V irg il w rote. I f w e are
deaf to the allusive texture o f neo -Latin literature then w e are barely
reading it at all; but i f w e are con ten t sim p ly to list parallels w ith o u t
further thought, then w e will be equally d e a f to the beau ty a n d originality
of that substantial proportion o f E u ro p ean literature that w as w ritten
in Latin.1

11 See alio Chapter 6.

9 On stylized marriage speeches and the literature associated with them, see D e Ntchilo 1994.
** In h a . In many instances the most personal material is found in Latin: this is true, for instance, o f
Thomas Mote, as it is o f George Herben, John M ilton and even Thom as Hobbes.
 PART I

Id e a s a n d A ssu m p tio n s
 C H 'A P T E R I

C onju ring w ith the Classics

N eo-Latin Poets a n d Their Pagan Fam iliars

Yasm in H a sk ell

A seeming continuity, a comfortable sense o f shared recognition o f ‘our

authors, can blindside even the most reconstructed modern classicist who
picks up an early modern Latin poem in the style o f Virgil, Horace, O vid
or Lucretius. 1 say Latin poem, because the effect is somehow felt less
keenly when the classical borrowings have been received and transformed
into original vernacular works o f literature. So while O vid is an ubiquitous
influence in Shakespeare we never really sense the ghost o f O vid haunting
Shakespeare as we do, say, the Latin poetry o f fifteenth-century Greek
refugee in Italy, Michele Marnilo (1453-1500 ), or eighteenth-century
Dutch physician and Latin poet, Gerard Nicolaas Heerkens ( 17 16 -18 0 1),
who styled himself, from his teenage years, a reverse cultural exile in his
homeland o f Groningen.1 There is a deceptively simple reason for this
premature familiarity, a familiarity that has induced in some critics almost
a nausea avant de lire. It underlies, I suspect, that perennial and peremp­
tory dismissal o f neo-Latin literature o f almost every period, by classical
and modern philologists alike, for its belatedness, its derivativeness, its
presumed lack o f sincerity or emotion. A s to the last, suffice it to recall Leo
Spitzers verdict in T h e Problem o f Renaissance Latin Poetry’ (1955):

We are able now to grasp the main problem which presented itself to neo-
Latin poets in general: how to give the flavour o f neu> personal emotion to
the traditional Latin vocabulary? It was one thing to attempt to write
philosophical treatises or letters in the style of Cicero, satires in that of
Martial, tragedies in that o f Seneca, and even eclogues in Vltgilian fashion; it
is another to find a Latin medium o f expression for the unique, immediate,
personal emotions, especially the emotions o f love, that most generic feeling
of mankind that, wrongly or rightly, is conceived by us as requiring the most
personal expressions. The words we normally use in our vernaculars in order
to render what has moved us deeply have grown with us during our lives and

1 Sec Haskell 1013.

«7
i8 YASMIN H A S K E L L

have thus acquired close affinity to our feelings: we have been tender,
have been sad; when this happens, something in us says the words 'lende,
and ‘sad’ - and with these words we become still tenderer or sadder,2

The alleged absence o f emotion’ in neo-Latin poetry is a remarkabh

persistent red herring which demands careful filleting elsewhere.1*4for
present purposes, the significance o f Spitzer’ s criticism lies in his assump­
tion that the 'traditional Latin vocabulary’ , that is, the ancient umi
themselves, have become, with time, insipid, bloodless, and past resma
tarion through a fresh infusion o f ‘ feeling’ .
When Thomas Greene adumbrated his notion o f Petrarchan ‘sub­
reading’ as an extension o f the early Italian humanists’ preoccupation
with excavating the material remains o f classical antiquity, identifying j
‘ necromantic’ mode in both the writing and criticism o f that period, ht
touched indirectly on what will be the main theme o f this chapter*
In fret Greene did not make an essential distinction between Larin and
vernacular imitations of the Latin classics, w hether in authorial suatep
or reception effects. But it is im ponant to acknowledge the obvious:
that neo-Latin poets practised a version o f the necromantic an that was
different in kind from that o f their vernacular rivals (or, for that mantr.
their vernacular other selves); an an that was radically combinatorial, 0»
of breaking, binding, and re-animating a pre-existing materia ¡m il
Might the real ‘problem’ with neo-Latin poetry be, then, that the bone
of Roman poetry inhere in it lexically and prosodically, in an unmedi-
ated, precisely material, form?
In her recent edition and study o f M arco Girolam o Vida’s (r. 1485-15ÍÍI
De artepoetica (‘On Poetic A n ’), Agnieszka Paulina Lew quotes one telling
nineteenth-century assessment o f that tour de force o f Renaissais«
imitation:

The great misfortune of Vida, and ours, when we read him, is that ht
doesn’t think. There are only some semblances, shades, echoes of ideas,
which come to him from afar, as halftones, half-erased, and which beernnt
weaker as soon as he wants to give them a visible body, vainly trustinginthe
power of his creative inspiration. He doesn’t possess the feeling of theana

1 Spinn <9S$: 137 (emphasis original).

1 Peter Burke has cautiously endorsed Spitzers view: ‘It has been plausibly argued that neo-lam p»
laced a serious problem when it came to expressing and communicating emotions, because dies
writing in a language which for writer and reader alike was devoid o f the associations of dùldbood
(Burke lyyr: yf), but perhaps underestimates the emotional power (and power games) of theearh
modern classroom.
4 Greene 1982: 92-4.
 N eo-Latin Poets an d Their Pagan Fam iliars 19
nor of the poet. He has possibly not invented a single image, a single
comparison. All he gives us of this sort are dry, colourless sketches of the
ancient figures.’
Le Fèvre-Deumier’s nostrils seem to d etea and curl here at a w hiff o f death
in Vida’s poem. T h e modern Latin poet doesn’t have sufficient puff to
bring his ancient material to life, the ‘semblances, shadows, and echoes o f
ideas that come from afar’ . Vida himself is effeaively a zombie: ‘he does not
think’ . And the crimes that the French Romantic writer imputed to
one humanist Latin poet, C . S. Lewis attributed to the entire movement:
‘They succeeded in killing the medieval Latin: but not in keeping alive the
schoolroom severities o f their restored Augustanism. Before they had ceased
talking o f a rebirth it became evident that they had really built a tomb.’6
It is also C . S. Lewis, o f course, who furnishes us with the metaphor o f
our tide: ‘Th e energy o f neo-Latin poets was wasted on a copying o f the
ancients so close as to approach forgery or conjuring. T h e results often
please, but only as a solved puzzle pleases: we admire the ingenuity with
which ancient parallels are found.’7 I adopt it in this chapter as a sort o f
scrying device through which to review a sample o f neo-Latin writers, from
the fifteenth through nineteenth centuries, in the light o f the ‘problem’ o f
imitation. This is not because other metaphors - e.g. o f apian digestion
and transformation, pregnancy, piracy, culling flowers, or sporting con­
test - were not applied, or applied more regularly, by Renaissance poets
and literary theorists.8 Rather, the semantics o f conjuring seem best to
accommodate a range o f relationships, more or less conscious, more or less
risky, between neo-Latin poet and his or her classical sources, from
simulation, ventriloquism, and other forms o f playful poetic prestige,
through to more spiritually and politically imperilling, almost shamanic,
practices. W hat follows is far from a complete typology o f these relation­
ships, but I hope that it may go some way to proving reports o f the death,
or stillbirth, o f neo-Latin poetry exaggerated.

At the most basic level, literary conjuring is allusion for the sake o f illusion.
This is presumably the sense intended by Lewis when he collocates
‘conjuring’ with ‘ forgery’ , condemning the neo-Latin poets’ sleight o f hand5

5 Le Fèvre-Deumier 1854: »96-7, quoted by Lew 2011: 57. Tmutation mine. Le Fèvie-Deumier ato
criticizes Vida for not citing any modern poets.
* Lewis 1991: u . 7 Ibid.
* The locus classicus is Seneca’s Epistulae Morales 84. See also Pigman 1980.
IO YASMI N H A S K E L L

lather than any serious attempt on their pan to sum m on up spirits. The
conjuror-juggler enters into an implicit pact with her audience, which
expects and wants to be deceived. Paradoxically, the neo-Latin poet qua
magician must, at the same time, reveal her hand: ars est revelare artem...
but not too much. We think o f the bees o f V irgil’s Georgies hovering over
Vida's bijou didactic poem on silkworms, Bombyces, or the epic drollety of
his Scùcchia ludus (‘The Game o f Chess’).9 Philip H ardie appreciates a
passage in the third book of the De artepoetica, where V id a demonstrates
the power of figurative language through the simile o f a traveller who
admires, from a cliff top, the reflections o f trees and meadows on the
surface of a body of water nearby. Hardie suggests that ‘ the same and
different’, also sums up the imitative poetics o f V id a ; ‘ the pleasure kit by
the traveller deceived by the images that appear just beneath the surface is
surely that experienced by Vida’s own reader on recognizing the reflections
of other texts beneath the surface o f this poem’ .10
It is worth taking a closer look at this passage, to try to grasp some of the
elusive classical intertexis reflected in its watery surface:

namdiversa simul ditur e re cernere eadem

multarumsimulacra animo subeumia rerum.
ecuquumione oiimplacidi liquidissima ponti
aequora vicinaspectat de rupe viator,
tantum, illi sublecta oculis est mobilis unda:
illetamensilvas, ¡merque virentia prata
inspiciens miratur, aquae quae purior humor
cuncta refert, captosque eludit imagine visus,
nonaliter vates nunc huc traducere mentes
nunc illuc, animisque legencum apponere gaudet
diversas rerumspecies, dum taedia vitat. (3.58-72)
For it is possible rosee, at the same time, in the same thing, the diverse likenesses
of many things as they enter the mind. As when sometimes a traveller views the
very fluid surface of a calmsea from a nearby cliff - all that is presented to his eyes
is the mobile water, bur he marvels as he observes woods and green fields in
between, all of which tire dearer liquid of the water portrays, deceiving his
enchanted gare with (he image - not otherwise does the poet lead our attention

' Admittedly Vidi, in dit De tn t poetki, does advocate poetic piracy in one notorious puste
(3.1I4-41), boldly displaying hu Vitfilian thefts for all the world to sec. But this is surely a m ft
grase <»01k constructedentirely dong these lines would be pastiche or cento, and Vida’s pitterò)
pneur » dosei to chat which he describo at the artful disguise o f borrowing. On dtis
paugr we Pigman lypo: 107-3.
" Hudtr194:' 4Í
 N eo -L a tin Poets a n d T h eir Pagan Fam iliars 21

now here now there, and enjoys serving up to the minds o f his readers the
different appearances o f things, as he avoids being tedious.

It would seem that thè future bishop o f A lb a is invoking here a decidedly

mw-Christian spirit, that o f Lucretius, im buing the scene with both
painterly and fleetingly philosophical colo u rs." T h e im agery o f perception
and deception, and the very w ord, sim ulacra, transports us to the fourth
book o f De rerum natura. In the small detail o f the 'm obile’ w ater w e sense
Lucretius’ explanation, in his second book, o f the m obility o f the atom ic
world which lies beyond our powers o f sight; he had adduced there the
examples o f a flock o f sheep on a hillside w h ich , from a distance, appears as
a blurred white mass, and o f warriors in the heat o f noisy batde, w h o , from
the mountains, appear as a bright patch at rest on the plain (2.308—32).
As these reminiscences play at the edges o f o ur awareness, are w e no t also
subliminally primed to construct V id a ’s viator as the serene observer/
Epicurean philosopher w h o, at the beginning o f Lucretius’ second book,
observes sailors struggling at sea from the safety o f shore? Y e t V id a ’ s
wayfarer/reader marvels ( m iratur) at appearances, a naïve response to
nature which Lucretius had system atically aim ed to dism ande in his poem .
But perhaps we are being led astray, our ‘enchanted gaze deceived b y the
image'? Are these tricks o f the conjuror or m erely tricks o f the light? It is
dear, ät least, that there is no definitive ‘ solving o f the puzzle* in the
manner assumed by C . S . Lewis. Fo r the m om en t, let us sim p ly grant
that the sort o f w riting V id a is preaching and practising in this passage is
ludic, distracting, its express purpose to avoid being tedious.
Vida is not preaching pastiche, exaedy, although som e neo-Larin poetry
undoubtedly falls into that category. T h e Bodleian m iscellany, ‘ Pam phlets
of M odem Latin Verse’ no. 2 7 , contains the O x fo rd prize poem for 18 9 7 .
Arnold Sandwith W a rd ’s Empedocles. T h e Balliol C ollege alum nus imper­
sonates Em pedocles in a 239-line poem w hich, notw ithstanding its Larin
appearance, spoke to the Philhellenic fashion o f the day.11 W a rd reaches
back through Lucretius to call up the G ree k spirit w h o, perhaps even more
than Epicurus, had haunted the D e rerum natura. T h e O xfo rd poem takes
the form o f a lecture, as it were straight from the philosopher’s m outh, and
as such it also recalls O v id im personating Pythagoras (in the voice o f
Lucretius) in Metamorphoses 15. W a rd clearly had fun im itating the

“ Not for the first time in this poem. Pigman convincingly finds evidence o f Lucretius thefts even
where Vida is hymning Virgil (Pigman 19 9 0 :10 5 -6 ).
11 Ward 1897. See Stray 1998, chapter t. especially r7-*9; Turner 1989.
ïl Y A S MI N H A S K E L L

idiosyncrasies of Lucretius* Latin and using him as a ‘medium’ through

which to give his newly fashionable, de facto Romantic, Greek philosopher
voice. But it is a voice, as it were, under a bell-jar, the Sheldonian theatre,
and one that impresses now as it will have then with its coloratura rather
than its power.
•**

In the early modem period it could be far m ore dangerous to play with
pagan spirits. The metaphor o f conjuring not o n ly captures something of
the spiritual trepidation expressed by the earliest n eo -L a tin writers as they
summoned up the ghosts o f an alien culture,'3 bu t also o f that precarious
balance of authorial control and self-surrender dem an d ed in all non­
trivial acts of poetic theurgy. Lucretius held a lifelong and ultimately
fatal attraction for Italian philosopher G io rd an o B ru n o (II Nolano,
1548-1600), and appears almost to have possessed him in his 1591 Frankfurt
trilogy of Latin didactic poems, especiâlly in the first an d last o f these, ‘On
the Triple Minimum and Measure’ (De triplici m inim o et mermrd), and
‘On the Immense and thé Innumerable, or on the U n iverse and Worlds’
(De immenso et innumerabilibus, seu de universo et m undis) (hereafter De
minimo and De immenso). Here the m odem philosóphér-poet affects a
vatic spontaneity, a 'certain inclination to incorrectness’,11*14 thumbing his
nose at linguistic and literary pedantry as m uch as he does at Catholk
Aristotelian physics.15 But if Bruno’ s diction, orth ograph y (use o f archaic
genitives and infinitives) and metaphors (o f light and dark, gigantomachy,
impossible monsters and phantoms o f the U nderw orld) veritably flaunt
their Lucretian inheritance, an unrepressed scorn for his philosophical
opponents and an apparent indifference to the identity, process,
let alone literary pleasure, o f his reader, is, in fact, the very antithesis of
the genial coaching and cajolery o f the D e rerum natura. It is as if the body
of the neo-Latin text, if not the soul o f the poet, is bein g fought overby
the demons of a cool-headed, didactic Lucretius an d a hot-tempered,
visionary Empedodes.

11 The anxieties felt by sanie of the proto-/pre-humanists who attempted composition o f dasskal-stylt
poetry (however much the ancient poets were deemed to be divinely inspired) are discussed by
Ronald Wm in the contar of Albertino Mussato's late-life religious crias (W in 2003: 159-61). For
similar eoncems in die fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, see NQssel 1999.
“ The phrase is Arturo Graf» (Graf 187*: 114), cited in Mariani 1983: 323. See also Rotendni’s
introduction to the philosophical poems (Bruno 1879-91, voi. i.i-iii: xxxix-xli). These volutas
may be downloaded fioro the Warburg Institute: http://warburg.sas.ac.uk/research/complettd-
raeardi-pfojcas/gw.'dano-bfuno/dovmload-page/.
q See BaiUri-Squarotti i960 and Haskdl 1998b: 127-38.
 N e o -L a tín Poets a n d T h eir Pagan Fa m ilia rs 23

T h e open in g o f De immenso, w h ich com bines elem ents o f the proem s to

Lucretius’ first and third books, as well as E p icu ru s’ flight o f the m ind at i.
72-=9, is em blem atic o f the revelatory self-confidence w ith w hich Bru no
sets forth his o w n p h ilo so p h y o f nature:14
*16

Est mens, quae vegeto inspiravit pectora sensu,

Quamque iuvit volucres humeris ingignere plumas,
Corque ad praescriptam celso rapere ordine metam:
Unde et Fortunam licet et contemnere morterfi;
Arcanaeque patent portae, abruptaeque catenae,
Quas pauci excessere, quibus paucique soluti.
Seda, anni, menses, luces, nuraerosaque proles,
Temporis arma, quibus non durum est aes adamasque,
Immunes voluere sup nos esse furore.
Intrepidus spad um immensum sic findere pennis
Exorior, neque fama facit me impingere in orbes,
Quos falso statuit verus de principio error,
U t sub conficto reprimamur carcere vere,
Tanquam adamanteis dudatur moenibu’ totum.
N am mihi mens melior; nebulas quae dispulit illas,
Fusim, qui reliquos arctat, disjecit O lym pum ,
Quando adeo illius speciem vanescere fcdt,
Undique qua facile occurrit penetrabilis aer.
Quapropter dum tutus iter sic carpo, beata
Conditione satis studio sublimis avito
Reddor D u x, Lex, Lux, Vates, Pater, Author, Itérque:
Adque alios' mundo ex isto dum adsurgo nitentes,
Aethereurri campumque ex omni pane pererro,
Attonitis mirum et distans post terga relinquo.

There is a mind, which Has inspired our breast with lively perception, and which
delights to implant swift wings on our shoulders, transporting a lofty héan to its
predestined goal, whence it cáñ scorn Fortune and Death. A nd the mystic doors
are opened and the chains broken, which few have escaped, from which few are
released. Centuries, years, months, days, and coundess generations, the weapons
of tíme, to which steel and diamond are not hard, have wanted: us to be free from
their folly. Thus, undaunted, I rise up to cleave vast space with ray wings, nor
does rumour make me dash against those spheres which true error has built on
frise premises, that we might in reality be restrained by a fabricated prison, as
though the uhivetse were shut in by walls o f adamant. For I have a better

14 Compare thedpening chapter o f D e m inim o, where Bruno began U t mens (v. i) and proceeded to a
hymn to Nature combining elements o f Lucretius' hymn to Venui with a mystic passion on the part
o f the philo$òpber-poet. and incorporating, or even parodying, the conventions o f Roman elegiac
and Petrarchan love poetry. (Bruno 1879-91: l.iii: i } 2 - j , w . 14-51.)
 24 YASMIN H A S K E L L

understanding which has dispelled those clouds; the permeable air which, pouring
out, shuts all others in, has tom down O lym pus, since wherever it comes ¡m,,
contact with it, easily, from every side, it makes it vanish. Therefore, while I safely
plot my coutse, on high, following my heart’s desire, happy enough in my lot,
I am returned as Leader, Law, Light, Father, Author, and Path: and as 1 rise up
from that world into other gleaming worlds, and wander the ethereal field in J
directions, 1 leave it for behind, a wonder to the wondering.*7 (1-14)

Like Ward, Bruno regresses through the shade o f Lucretius to recover a

haughty and hieratic Empedodean persona - bu t philosophically, unlike
the Victorian Englishman, the Renaissance Italian is speaking for himself.
In this respect his poem differs, too, from so m a n y later Lucretian didactic
poems, written by Catholic priests to celebrate m o d e m scientific advances,
such as Benedia Stay’s (1714-1801) N ew tonian Phibsophiae mentions lèsi
deem (Rome, 1755-92). Bruno is his own Epicuru s, crashing through the
walls of the wodd, slaying the monsters o f superstition like the Hercules/
Epicurus of Lucretius’ filth book. H e is also the rebellious giant, Encela­
dus, buried under Mt Etna (De immenso 4. i), ecstatically liberated from
his imaginai}' burden as he understands that there is n o difference between
sublunar and celestial matter.18 But i f this scenario primarily evokes
Epicurus’ assault on the heavens in D R N i, I suspect that Bruno’s Encela­
dus codes for Empedocles:

Anguipedum generose magis, furibunde, proterve,

Invictoque gigas vultu, sub pondere vasto
Trinacriae: audaci quondam ausus robore coelum
Scindere, nunc pressus resupino pectore ab altis
Collibus, hac triquetra tumulatus mole superbis;
Impie, nempe animi petulantis proemia iactans,
Talibus insultas superum imperterritus irae.

Most noble giant of the snake-footed race, raving, violent, unbroken in appear­
ance under the vast weight of Sicily: you who once dared, with bold force, to
deave the heavens, now on your back, your chest pinned down by high moun­
tains, interred under this three-cornered bulk you are proud; impious, of course,
as you vaunt foe exploits of your impudent spirit, unafraid you mock the anger of
foe gods with these words.1’ (1-7)

r Bruno 1879-91: i t 201-1. In his prose commentar)- to this chapter Brano cites 'Hone
Trismegistus', who called man 'a great wonder’ and capable o f becoming a god (206).
d 'I am pan of the star and of the brilliant lamp which no Etna annihilates, since the earth i
discovered to be wtightiesj throughout its limbs. And so, therefore, liberated and free and dud
1 see none of them moving, the vain artífice o f the circling heavens has receded' (Brano 1879-91:1
ih i).
9 Brano 1879-91: ció i.
 N eo -L a tin Poets a n d T h eir Pagan Fam iliars 25
Enceladus seems to breathe w ith the sam e volcanic spirit as Em pedocles in
Lucretius’ sublime description at D R N i. 7 1 6 - 3 0 , where the sacred man is
revered as a marvel, almost a force o f nature. (N o te the recurrence o f the
adjective triquetra.) B ru n o ’s ow n soteriological pretensions crystallize in
the giant’s refrain: ‘Therefore let the burdens o f Atlas surrender to ours’
{Ergo se nostro submittant pondera Athiantis), w h ich has som ething o f both
the pugilist’s challenge and o f C h rist’s ‘C o m e unto m e, all ye that labour
and are heavy-laden . . . ’ (M atth ew 11: 2 8 -3 0 ) . Bruno identifies w ith thé
geologically sublime once again in the first chapter o f the sixth book, where
he describes a huge m onolith rising out o f the sea, firm ly anchored to the
ocean bed, its ‘lofty peak surveying the watery m ain, standing w ith its solid
bulk against the insane waves, scorning them unafoared as they
threaten . . . the more the deep torments o f the sea surge against it, and
the more, violently the tide rushes in with its sudden force, so m uch the
more pitiably will they be dashed aside, broken b y their o w n weight,
dispersed and dissipated’ ( w . 5—16 ).10 T h e awesom e resistance o f the rock
is compared to that o f the true philosopher (sc. Bruno) w hose opponents
will be swept aw ay like a dust storm o f atom s ( w . 2 2 - 4 ) . T h e m onstrosity
of Enceladus/Empedocles is appropriated b y B ru n o in the sphragis
(authorial signature) to this poem , where he assumes the persona o f gauche
and hyper-sexed Corydon/Polyphem us, unconcerned w ith social or aes­
thetic protocols.11
Notwithstanding his imitation o f Lucretius and o f the Lucretian
Empedocles, however, Bruno never really sounds like anyone but himself.
Some o f the stylistic features o f his Latin verse, for exam ple his penchant
for long periods and avalanches o f asyndeton, are paralleled in his Italian
prose, notably in the m isogynistic harangue in the preface to Sid n ey o f the
De ¿'eroici furori (‘ O n the H eroic Frenzies’).“ T h is is also the w o rk in
which we find the m ost explicit extant statem ent o f B ru n o ’s poetics. In the
first dialogue, C icada scoffs at literary critics w h o d en y the status o f poet to
the greatest o f the ancients (including Lucretius) for not m easuring up to
Aristotelian standards, because ‘ H o m e r was not, in his genre, dependent
on rules, but was the origin o f mies that m ay be o f use to those more
inclined to imitate than invent, and they were collected b y som eone w h o
was not a poet o f any kind, but w h o knew h ow to collect rules o f that one

“ Bruno 1879-91: i.'ii: 167-8. M The passage is discussed in Haskell 1998b: 134-d.
u There is a Lucretian subtext to Bruno’s tirade against the unheroic Petrarchan lover who cultivates
lüs melancholy (Bruno 1865: 4-9). In the fifth dialogue o f the first pan. and the first o f the second,
Bruno quotes directly in Latin from D R N 4 (127-8,140).
2.6 Y A S M IN H A S K E L L

kind, that is, of Homeric poetry, to serve whomsoever might wish l0

become not another poet, but someone like Homer, not of his own
but the ape of somebody else’s.’1} But if Bruno makes love to his owq
Muse (the expression is his), not Homer’s, how does he find what j
unmistakeably his own voice in neo-Latin poems so thoroughly infused
with Lucretius? 1venture it is because - paradoxically for so independent!
thinker - Bruno submits to the spirit of Lucretius in his Latin poetry.
The Epicurean poet irrupts into the De immenso an d minimo in mani
more places than can be discussed here, b u t su ffice it to say not always in
the predictable places, and never in the slavish m a n n e r prescribed by ‘ceni
pedantacci de tempi nostri’ (‘certain rotten p e d a n ts o f our time’) who
police the appropriate use o f febles and m etap h o rs, th e m anner of making
invocations, and criticize poets for not ‘ h a v in g th e ir beginnings of songs
and books in conformity with those o f H o m e r a n d V ir g il’.*4 Bruno was
inspired first and foremost by Lucretius th e freeth in ker, not the poet.
There are, moreover, strong affinities betw een th e Ep icurean cosmology
and the Nolan’s that can sufficiendy a cc o u n t fo r his abiding, if not
escalating engagement with the De rerum natura.2Î A not insignificant
point of difference, however, is the f e a th at B r u n o ’ s infinite and atomic
universe is animate.11*16 W e may well w o n d e r w h y B ru n o never takes
Lucretius to task in the patronizing m an n er reserved fo r Aristotle and his
latter-day disciples, captured in the figure o f th e ‘w retch ed old man'
(miserande senex) apostrophized in De immenso 3. 2 , ‘ tu rn in g the pages of
your fo g y volumes, stooped, bent-over, h u n ch -b a c k e d , crooked, gibbous,
like Adas - as he is oppressed by the w e ig h t o f th e sk y whose sight he
lades - you go fishing with your net in the Stag irite stream for monsters,
for the figments of foolishness’ ( w . 6 - 1 0 ) . 17 A s h e finesses Lucrerai
pessimism about the dedine o f the w orld fo r e xa m p le, he does not take
the opportunity openly to sneer at o r slyly to u n d e rm in e his model as
would and-Lucretian poets o f his ow n d a y a n d after:

Ergo si quae sors destruat unum

E mundis, plureisve simul, vel si lubet omneis,

11 Brano 1865:19 . M Brano 1865:30.

l’ See Monti 1994: d Stivatore 1003. Brano came to identify personally and defiantly with
maligned author of the De rentm natura as his own religio-political troubles intensified.
* De m inim ).) (Bruno 1*79- 9*: *-üi: MJ). Cf. D R N 1.4 8 3-5 0 2 (proving the solidity o f atoms in «(*
of appearances of fluidity).
17 Sautamttubet, nebulosa velumina vertenti Cemuus. incurvus, gibbosus, pandus, AthJantis I Instar, uttstdà
supprms pontiere, am i / Aspetta cartai. Stagn o e flu m in e m onstra. / Phantasiae nasa, exp#**
stultitiarum (Brano 1*79-91: i.i: 321).
 N e o -L a tin Poets a n d T h eir Pagan F a m ilia rs vj

(Quod sane haud rerum patitur sine fine potestas,

Extensusque vigor, sors non eademque locorum,
Q ui ad fatum innumeri nequeunt tractarier unum),
Vita recursabit, naturaque materiei,
H oc ipso instaurata, suo dat cuncta recessu.
Sed non propterea rationis carpo elementa
Impia, Democriti adstipulatus sensibus, atqui haec
Mentem alta agnosco moderantem cuncta paternam.

Therefore if some misfortune should destroy one o f the worlds, or several at once,
or if you Like all - which clearly would not be allowed by the infinite power o f
things, and the extensive life-force, and the same misfortune could not operate in
all places, and innumerable things cannot be dragged to the same fate - life will
return, and the nature o f matter, renewed by this very setback, will bring
everything back. But I do not on this account make use o f the impious elements,
and assent to the opinions o f Democritus, and I recognize a paternal mind
raoderadng all these things, at a deep level.18

Lucretius’ voice is am p lifie d in th e F ran k fu rt p o em s w h erever his o p in io n s

resonate w ith B ru n o ’s, an d w h ere th e y d o n ’t, B ru n o q u ie tly tu rn s th e d ial.
The effect is o f th e m o d ern p o et en h a n c in g rath er th an o v e rrid in g th e
ancient, so th at, w ith th e b en efit o f th e w isd o m o f th e cen tu ries, B ru n o
becomes alm ost an av atar o f L u c re tiu s.19 In d eed , it w o u ld n o t h ave b een
beyond the b ounds o f th e N o lan ’s o w n p h ilo so p h y o f N a tu re to h ave
imagined h im self a literal rein carn atio n o f his favo urite L a tin p o et.3°

** *

But ‘conjuring w ith the classics’ co u ld be a m u c h m o re calcu lated a ctivity:

the strategic m obilization b y m o d ern poets o f an cien t o n es to do their
bidding in Latin verse. A t the tu rn o f the eigh teenth ce n tu ry , M ila n e se
Jesuit m athem atician an d poet, T o m m a s o C e v a ( 1 6 4 8 - 1 7 3 7 ) , co n ju re d and
almost too successfully sto p p ed up th e spirit o f L u cre tiu s in th e L a tin
baroque botde o f his Philosophia novo-antiqua (‘ N e w - O l d P h ilo so p h y ’) o f
1704, an anti-Lucretian didactic p o em o n ancient an d m o dern m aterialism .31

a Bruno 1879-91: i.ii: 116 . C f. e.g. D R N 1.1:5 -2 5 .

>9 In his Oratio valedittoria to the University o f W ittenberg. Bruno traces the unfolding o f the prisca
lapientia down to the Germans: it manifested first among the Egyptians and the Assyrians; then the
Persians; third, the Indian gymnosophists; fourth, the Thracians and Libyans; fifth, the Greeks
under Thales and the other sages, and ‘sixth am ong the Italians under Architas, Gorgias,
Archimedes, Empedocles. Lucretius' (Bruno 1879-91: t.i: 16). T h e latest incarnation, i f you like,
of this ancient wisdom, is the Lucredan poet, ‘Palingenius’, praised at Bruno 1879-9 ^ i.k 17).
10 See Mercad 1961: 98, for testimony by Bruno's fellow prisoners to his belief in interplanetary
transmigration o f souls and his personal recollection o f past lives, including as a swan.
* Ceva 1704.
zS YASMIN H A S K E L L

The subtlety of the Jesuit author’s exploitation o f the De rerum naturi

has been generally underestimated.51 It is true that, o n the surface, Ceva j
poem feels far less Lucrenan than the better-known Anti-Lucretius site à
Deo et notura (‘Anti-Lucretius; or, on G o d and N ature’) o f Cardinal
Melchior de Polignac (Paris, 1747). Unlike W a rd , C e v a does not ventrilo­
quia, nor, like Bruno, does he allow him self to be ‘possessed’ by the spirit
of Lucretius. And while Ceva’s poem is in sue books o f hexameters, treats of
physics, cosmology, epistemology, and human rationality, Lucretius does
not seem to be its leading man. Each book is a ‘dissertatio’ , almost a ‘senno',
and Ceva is a talking, walking poet, by turns preachy and arch.55 The
personality and preoccupations o f the historical priest are palpable in his
self-disclosures (e.g. love o f the peaceful life o f m athem atics (p. 83); bilious
outrage at those who seek, like Lucretius, to underm ine religion (p. 44)) as
well as many references to contemporary cultural and intellectual life
(including the theatre, an, gardens and animal autom ata). A t the same time,
though, we cannot miss the presence o f Horace accom panying Ceva along
the middle path, both in the recurrent appeals to com m on sense and
knowing our limits, and in the very project o f a poem that programmatically
purports to reconcile ancient and modem physics.54 S o while Ceva’s poem,
like Bruno’s, is polemical, it pulses with a literary life o f a quite different
kind - one bom of the hybrid vigour o f two judiciously crossed ancient
models.55
In his third book, Ceva resurrects Lucretius an d Epicuru s in the poetic
flesh, to debate them on hardly equal terms.56 Its proem , as I have argued
elsewhere, is an ingenious and by no means obvious revision o f the proemio
Lucretius's third. The reader has been prepared for the R om an poet’s return1*4

11 Gazimi 199614 4. 1amalso guilty of haring once dismissed the poem as un-Lucrctian, but revised
my opinion in fissiteli 2008.
” Ceva enjoys the metatheaue of die didactic progress o f his reader/pupil, inviting us to rcriw
ounehes with snuff or hot chocolate, and at the end o f the fifth book, effectively to take a todo
bleak, so that the poet can have our fidi attention in the sixth. While Lucretius periodically ahora
Memmius to pay attention, Ceva's manner is more down-to-earth and self-deprecating - he the
compiami about his own flagging powers - and ultimately more Horadan.
14 On the motifof the middle path, see Haskell 2008: 499 and n. 7.
” Thus the most outwardly Lucrttian' book, the third, is also the most satirical, and the presence of
Horace is frit in a perfect storm of parody, fable, dialogue, sarcasm, low humour and invaine
Towards its dose. Ceva apologizes for 'leading his Muse, who set o ff along the shore anfiai, acras
the rocks, by such a long and unproductive path’ (Longo adeo ac iterili Musam deducen a i \
Epatan in ¡ima amu ferm a p ed a tri (Ceva 170 4 :5 1. m y emphasis), a reference to Horace Sa
2.6.17.
* Tbc figure of Epicurus is also encountered in the third book. ‘Gem ini’, o f Palingenius' ledae»
vine. It is an intriguing possibility that Ceva may have been inspired by Palingenius’ semi-didactic,
semi-satirical, and wholly heretical poem to re-animate Epicurus at this point in his.
 N eo-Latin Poets a n d T h eir Pagan Fa m ilia rs 29
from the grave in the closing verses o f the second book, w here C e v a w arns o f
the approach o f night and o f terrifying simulacra?7 In the finale o f the third,
the Jesuit poet engages an obligingly voluble Epicurus, w h o is asked to
account, for starters, for the seem ingly impossible grow th o f a citron o n a
wild fig tree. Epicurus’ eagerness to explain aw ay ‘ m arvels’ an d his tenden­
tious reasoning are rendered delightfully ludicrous, but the rationale he
provides for the horticultural portent has a m ore sinister edge: ‘ju st as a b u bo
comes up, with its black swelling, on those afflicted b y plague, constituted
by I know not what hooked atoms, which lay hold o f the souls an d tear them
out o f the ailing body, just so this citron clings as a swelling to the fig tree,
woven from those atoms which the citron cadavers have sent o u t from their
decaying bowels’ (Ceu tactis lue citm bubo subnascitur atro / Tubere, nescio
queis atomis compostus aduncis, / Quae prensant animas, aegroqtie i corpora
veUunt; / Haud secus hòc cedrinum tuberficulneae adhaesit, / Textum atomis,
quas illa cadavera citrina putri / Emisere alvo, p. 54). T h e im agery o f death
and disease cannot fail to remind the reader o f Lucretius o f th e diatribe o f
Mon at the end o f D RN 3 (and, naturally, o f the plague at the end
o f Book 6). Earlier in his third book, C e v a had com pared the errors o f
Lucretius to a swollen abscess in need o f lancing (p. 4 4 ), and the Ep icurean
had been charged with polluting H elicon with ‘ foul poison, w h en ce yo u th
drinks in the lethal poison everywhere’ (tetro veneno / unde bibit viruspassim
exitiale iuventa, p. 45). Notwithstanding his quintessentially Lucretian
interrogation o f Lucretius to deconstruct the very m ateriality o f the
DRN - it must be constituted out o f the poet’s o w n atom s o f m in d , boring
through readers’ eyes and into their brains - C e v a treats that poisonous text
with extreme caution. H e m ay well have believed in the literal p sych ic
contagiousness o f ideas,38 and certainly in the seductive pow er o f literature
to corrupt the young, the half-learned, and w om en. T h e m anuscript circu ­
lation o f Alessandro M archetti’s vernacular translation o f Lu cretius w as
causing the Catholic C h urch concern, and C e va did not w a n t it to fall into
the wrong hands.39 But his open assault on the personified E p icu ru s and
Lucretius is, probably, a warning shot for the benefit o f Latin ate readers
susceptible to the D RNs m odem , ‘ poetic’ spin-offs, the cosm ologies o f
Descartes and Gassendi, which are represented in the Philosophia novo-
antiqua as flights o f fancy, artworks, the risible im postures o f the charlatan

” Haskell 2008: jo j - 4. ** See my Introduction to Haskell a o u : 1-18.

N Although not placed on the Index o f Prohibited Books until 1718, the D R N was not printed in Italy
between i j i j and 1647. See B e rn a 2008: 181. For its reception by the Jesuits, see Paladini io ti:
177- 90.
 I

30 YASMIN H A S K E L L

60m ‘some foreign country’ who ‘tries to p ut it o ver the m ob that stones
thrown into the air there sometimes change direction, often stop in the
middle of their course, and not uncommonly rise u p spontaneously from
the ground’ (Circitor, ignotae regionis mira recensens, / Imponat vulgo, m
illic iactaperauras/Interdum obliquare vias, consistere saepe/In medio mu,
nonraroassurgerein altum! Sponte ab humo, p, 6 ). T h e virtual juggling trida
of this philosophical conjuror are met with laughter, w e are told, but they
exemplify whatCeva fears most about Lucretius’ poem , that it is a vector for
just such presumptuous ‘creative’ thinking in the reader. It is precisely
bearne he has tasted the sweetness o f De rerum natura that the Jesuit takes
such care to wipe the honey from the cup, teasing and resisting the spirit of
Lucretius not just through the device o f prosopopoeia but also at a moie
pervasive stylistic level.

In the introduction to his Harvard ‘1 T a tù ’ edition o f V id a ’s Latin epic on

the life of Christ, James Gardner writes that: *Vida, like most neo-Latin
poets, and despite his flawless channelling o f the spirit o f Vergi in his
hexameter verse, does not attain to the highest ranks o f poetry. Why this
[sc not attaining to the highest ranks o f poetry] should be true of neo-
Latin poeny in general is, perhaps, something o f a m ystery.’40 G S. Lewis
might have objected that Vida is inferior precisely because o f the attempted
channelling, but it is in any case far from ‘flawless’ , as Gardner himself
makes dear in his discussion of some o f V id a’ s curious similes. We could
never suspect even a reincarnated Virgil o f w riting the Christiad. But what
might it really mean for a Christian neo-Larin poet such as Vida to
‘channel’ the spirit of Virgil?
Vida’s Christiad exemplifies his own injunction and caveat in the Dt
arte poetica to steal and transplant textual cuttings from the ancient
plant - always bearing in mind that the m ost useful grafts will be those
that have fbigotten their former flavours’ (sucos oblita priores).*1 Notwith­
standing its choice Vitgilian diction, epic similes and speeches, Vida’s
Christiadis no Aeneid by scriptural numbers. O n e m ight go so far as to
say that Vida attempts to finget in the Christiad the gentile poet he had
openly revered in the De arte poetica.*1 B u t h o w is it possible for a neo-

* Vida 2009 n i (¡alies mine).

* Hardie orna Vida's win}' grafting in this passage (3.231-4) o f G eorgia 2,59 and 81-2, combinili;
enundiemy injunctioni about literary grafting/ degeneration o f self-seeded stock (Hanfe
*»>■ 49).
* This poem is alio dneussed. from a different angle, in Chapter 11 on didactic poetry.
 N eo -L a tin Poets a n d T h eir Pagan Fa m ilia rs 3*

Latin writer to forget the sources he has drained from yo u th - and, for
that maner, via exactly the sort o f rigorous poetic apprenticeship envis­
aged for him in V id a ’s didactic poem? Philip H ardie observes that ‘ the
internalization o f models [sc. V irgil] to the point o f total flu en cy o f recall
and recombination is at least a precondition for w hat V id a understands
by inspiration’.4* But it is a passage towards the end o f V id a ’s De arte
poetica, well dubbed ‘ surprising’ b y H ardie, that best reveals the peculiar
potential o f neo-Latin verse to surprise its ow n com posers - not always in
a good way.
In advising the neo-Latin poet to review his draft after setting it aside for
a long period, V id a describes a situation all too fam iliar to writers o f
doctoral dissertations, let alone verse!

Tum demum redit, et post longa oblivia per se

incipit hic illic veterem explorare laborem.
ecce autem ante oculos nova se fert undique imago,
longe alia heu facies rerum mutataque ab illis
carmina, quae tantum ante recens confecta placebant.
miratur tacitus, nec se cognoscit in illis
immemor, atque operum piget, ac sese increpat ultro.
Then at last he returns, and after long neglect he begins here and there to review
the ancient labour in its essence. But lo, a new image meets his eyes from every
quarter, and the appearance of things is so greatly changed, and his verses so
different from those which, so long ago, pleased when they were freshly com­
posed! He marvels in silence and does not recognize himself in them, forgetful,
and he is disgusted by his work, and freely chides himself. (3.473-9)

As Hardie observes, ‘ the reader’s recognition o f novelty, otherness, and

change is here examined in the special case o f the identity o f reader and
author’, and the passage nicely illustrates its ow n lesson b y referencing
Aeneas’ vision o f the dead H ecto r in 2 .2 7 0 - 6 (quantus mutatus ab ilio):
‘and how changed are the Virgilian phrases in their new context!’44 B u t
fiar all Vida’s skilful m odulation from georgic to epic m ode and the
unexpectedness and aptness o f the allusion identified here, w e m ust not
lose sight o f the fact that the poet is lam enting a loss o f self, especially in
that poignantly ambiguous phrase: ‘ and he does not recognize h im self in
them, forgetful, and he is disgusted by his w o rk ’ . O n the surface, V id a is
making the rather trite point that the neo-Latin poet (like any other
writer) reviews his w ork and finds it/him self lacking. H e though t it/he

w Hardie 1992:48. Hardie 1992: 50-1.

 YASMI N H A S K E L L
31

was good, but now, on closer inspection, he notices a false quantity, 4

jarring phrase, an inept simile. In the lines that fo llo w , th e poet predict­
ably recommends careful revision. But immemor, a n d in this position, is
freighted with other meanings - Orpheus’ forgetfulness o f Eurydice the
most obvious, with its pre-history in C atullu s 6 4 - an d the phrase
increpat ultro points us back to at least tw o passages in the Aeneidi
On a second reading, then, the object o f the p o et’s ‘forgetfulness’ is the
extent of his debts to his ancient model, som e o f w h ich appear, in
retrospect, to be crass thefts, perhaps even to go against the grain of
the poem he is attempting to polish. G . W . P igm an III has mooted 'that
a large proportion of the repetitions [in n eo -Latin verse] is due to
coinddence and unconscious reminiscence - large en ough , in any event,
to raise doubts about “ imitations” and “ b o rro w in gs’” , adding that
'unconsdous reminiscence may well pose the greatest obstacle to the
smdent of neo-Latin imitation; it could also w o rry the p o et’ . H e reminds
us of Penaras (Petrarch’s) ‘principle o f not repeating the words of his
predecessors without explidtly citing them o r m ak in g som e significant
change [and] is troubled by his unintentional failures to avoid the
footsteps of his predecessors’.46 Vida’s neo-Latin poet ‘ does not recognize
himself because now he sees his model all too clearly. O r perhaps what
he sees is a son of Frankenpoem, cobbled together from the disiecta
membra of dead poets?
To give the neo-Larin poem life, Vida enjoins trim m in g o f excess foliage,
atoning for sins, healing lame verses, eradicating pests, a restless, obsessive,
labour ofagricultural and medical attention to our lan guish in g text: ‘ it is not
enough to deal with it once but the whole w ork should be rolled out every
year, three or four times, and the words eternally ren ew ed w ith changed
colours’ (»er semelattrectare satis: verum omne quotannis / terque quaterque
opusevolvendum, verbaque versis/ aeternum immutaneùt coloribus, 3 .4 9 4 —7).
The process would seem to be interminable, although o u r preceptor does
concede that there must eventually be an end o f it, since life is short. A t some
ever-receding point, which he declines to fix, V id a can exhort us, with no
littlegeorgic irony, to 'stop delaying!’ (rumpe moras), to launch our work and
reap our praise.47 But is this ‘that praise colder than D e ce m b e r, that I have

" Go. 4491. cf. Cat. <4.58, a ), 1)5. 248; Am. 10.2.78 (Tum us rousing his men), 830 (Aeneas chides
the Eouscaiu for not mending to the corpse of the slain Lausus).
* Pipan IWO: 100. Hedies the famous lener to Boccaccio (Fam iliares 22.1) in which Petrarch freo
about not mcognning, sometimes, that phrases he has assimilated from the andern authors are not
original to hurt.
c LA® ®My neo-Latin poco Vida revised his own work even after it had gone to print.
 Neo-Latin Poets and Their Pagan Familiars 33

spoken purely and d e a rly ’ - as T o m m a s o C e v a w o u ld p u t it, in a d ia lo g ic

cpisde addressed to fellow Je su it L a tin p o et, N ic c o lò Parten io G ia n n e ttasio
(1648-1715), on ‘ the L atin language and im itation o f the an cien ts’ - a praise
that comes from ‘ m e artfully sh u fflin g vario us tiles a ro u n d so that th e jo in s
don’t show and they deceive th e eye’ {laus illa decem bri/F rig id io r, qu od sim
pure nitideque locutus. / hoc est tessellas varias sic arte locarim , / ut com m issurae
lateant, & lum inafallantJ?48 In the o p e n in g lines o f th at p o e m C e v a seem s to
give frank voice to V id a ’s repressed anxiety, con fessin g that, w h e n e v e r he is
carried aw ay b y the p oetic oestrus, his m in d b rim m in g w ith ideas, he feels
weighed dow n and shackled b y the o bligatio n to su b je ct his verses to
the ‘sacred but hoary law s’ {sancta, sed hispida iura) o f th e ‘ Sen ato rs
who preside over L a tiu m ’, viz. th e a n cien t p o ets {Patres C onscripti / q u i
Latio praesunt).*9
Ceva offers no definitive resolution here o f the ‘p ro b le m ’ o f n e o -L a tin
imitation o f the R om an poets, w h o se laws ‘ take a w a y as m u c h from the
genius and youth o f Latin songs as th ey add to it o f age an d m aje sty’
[quantum addunt senii m aiestatisque latin is / carm inibus, tantundem a d i­
munt genii atque iuventae).s° I h ope to have sh o w n in this chapter,
however, that som e neo -Latin poem s, in clu d in g C e v a ’ s o w n Philosophia
novo-antiqua, can and do live. B u t their life exists so m e w h e re b etw een
the neo-Latin poet’s rem em bering an d forgettin g h is/h er a n cie n t sources,
and their vigour m ay w ell be inversely pro p o rtio n al to his o r h er c o n ­
scious attempts co channel a single classical a u th o r’s vo ice . T h e a n a lo g y o f
the mosaic floor was used again b y C e v a in th e P h ibsophia novo-antiqua,
when he sarcastically inquired into the geom etrical c o m p o n e n ts o f L u c re ­
tius’ poem and m in d ,51 but, o f course, n e o -L a tin p oets d id create, and
create meaning, b y rearranging pieces o f old p oem s. So m e tim es th e y w ill
have been surprised and delighted b y the n e w p ictures an d ideas th at
emerged from this alm ost d e ro m a n tic art. B u t w e m u st co n ce d e , in
conclusion, that the m etaphor o f ‘ co n ju rin g ’ raises a spectre for literary
critics, o f those uncom pelled forces o r p h an to m s that are alm o st alw ays
(bund at play in even the m ost trivial n eo -L a tin verse. T h e p agan spirits
that linger in the shadows o f n eo -Latin p o etry w ere n o t o n ly cap able o f
possessing or deluding their original n ecrom ancers b u t persist to d a y as a
residue o f intertextual energy that can dazzle a n d c o n fo u n d m o d ern
interpreters.4
1

41 ‘De lingua latina, & de veterum imitatione. Niccolo lannettasio c Soc. Iesu. Epistola', Ceva
1704:160.
49 Ceva 1704:155. ’° Ceva 1 7 0 4 :157. s' Ceva 1704: 46.
34 YASMIN H A S K E L L

FU RTH ER R E A D IN G

This chapter has concentrated on Italian poets. O n C e va see also Leone 2006 and
Colombo 2010. Ford 2013 explores the symbiosis between Latin and French
poetry in Renaissance France and its relationship to classical models. Several
recent studies, following Revard 1997 and Hale 19 9 7 , have usefully highlighted
the neo-Latin dimension to John Milton’s classicizing poetry: Haan 2012a and
2012b, Kilgpur 2012. For a contemporary o f W ard ’s w ho also imitated Lucretius
see Haskell 2009, showing how modern historical forces bubble under and distort
the apparently marmoreal surface o f neo-Latin verse.
 CHAPTER 2

N eo -L a tin Literatu re a n d the V ern acu lar

Tom D en eire

N eo-Latin and Vernacular Cultures

What exactly is the field o f N e o -L a tin Studies? It is a question that has

been asked with grow ing self-critical and m ethodological awareness since
the year 20 0 0 and especially since V a n H a l’s 2 0 0 7 examen de conscience
Accordingly the 2 0 0 9 conference o f the International Association for N e o -
Latin Studies (IA N L S ) featured a panel devoted to the aim s and m ethods
of Neo-Latin Studies, and the definition and dem arcation o f neo-Latin
language and literature.1 D u rin g the discussion follow ing this panel, Jo h n
Considine asked a stim ulating question regarding the very nature o f neo-
Latin culture.5 Is it not the case, he wondered, that neo-Latin culture is
intrinsically ambiguous, in the sense that it can only really exist in relation
to vernacular culture?
Indeed, it appears that the very existence o f neo-Latin culture as the
renowned via media between ancient and m odern civilization is not
an independent cultural phenom enon, but one linked to a vernacular
backdrop that must condition the w a y this neo-Latin culture could be
construed by its practitioners as a second identity.4 T h is explains w h y in
Neo-Latin Studies in particular and in early m odern history in general the

This chapter was written in the context o f the N W O [Netherlands Organisation for Scientific
Research] project Dynamics o f N eo-Latin and the Vernacular. The Role o f Self-Representation, S elf-
Prtsenuuion and Im aging in the F ie ld o f C u ltural Transm ission, E xem plified by the Germ an Reception
o fDutch Poets in a 'B ilin g u a l' Context (2009-1)). For more information see http://dynamics.huygens
.ltnaw.nl/
1 Cf. Van Hal 2007: 549-5 2 for the background to the discussion.
1 Fourteenth International Congress o f the International Association for Neo-Latin Studies (Uppsala,
1-8 August 2009): plenary panel discussion ‘ Neo-Latin: Aims and Methods. Heinz Hofmann, Bo
Lindberg, Toon van Hal'.
* John Considine MA, D.Phii. Oxon, Associate Professor at the University o f Alberta, Faculty o f Arts,
Department o f English and Film Studies.
4 Cf. Burke 1991 (esp. )7-8).

35
J6 T OM D E N E I R E

relationship between neo-Latin and vernacular lan gu a ge an d literature has

always been a key question.5
In the past, this relationship was often interpreted in a rigidly binary
scheme. In this view vernacular literature was m e an t fo r a n d produced by
the common people, while neo-Latin literature w a s an elitist, and often
male, cultural practice, performed and received by intellectuals and
society’s beau monde. Today, this view has been rejected b y all but the
most stereotypical characterizations o f early m odern cu ltu re, and rightly so.
Francesco Petrarca (Petrarch, 130 4 -74 ) for instance, w h o is often seen as
the father of the Renaissance and the hum anist recu p eration o f the classics,
already produced highbrow literature in both L atin a n d Italian. Conversely,
even great Ciceronians such as Carlo Sigonio (c. 1 5 2 4 - 8 4 ) o r Pietro Bembo
(1470-1547) apparently had difficulty expressing th em selves orally in
Latin.6
By contrast, modem research has shown that all perio ds an d segments of
early modem culture had to continuously redefine th eir position within
the cultural matrix of neo-Latin and vem acularity. M o re o v e r, one needs to
stress the complexity and singularity o f the different historical, geograph­
ical, social, practical, religious, philosophical, lingu istic, literary or other
factors that influenced the way in which the d y n a m ic b etw een Latin and
the vernacular played out in specific cases. F o r in stan ce, while Dante
produced, with his Divina Commedia, a learned religious epic in the
vernacular in early fburteenth-century Italy, it to o k un til 16 6 2 for the
Amsterdam playwright Joost van den V ondel to p u b lish the first biblical
epic in Dutch, his Joannes de boetgezant on the life o f J o h n the Baptist.7
Whereas Italy had combined classical and vernacular traditions since the
dawn of humanism,8 it would take regions like th e L o w Countries or
England until the middle o f the sixteenth ce n tu ry to develop a similar
culture of Latin-and-vemacular.9 As a result, w hereas in Italy the vernacu­
lar can be said to achieve at least a theoretical p a rity w ith the classical
languages in the fourteenth and fifteenth century, the rest o f Eu rop e would
have to wait at least another century to witness a sim ilar evolution.
Another well-known case in point is the notion th at th e vernacular was
generally more appreciated in Reformed circles w ith , fo r instance, Luther’s
Bible translation and the Anglican King Jam es B ib le , w h ile the Roman

' For molt information, set Dentire 2014a and Dentire 2014e: 1 - 1 7 and 30 2 -14 .
' Butte 199L- 40 on Sigonio; Erasmus 1906—58: Ep. 2594 on Bembo.
' Pontrrun and Smin-Vddt 2009: 646.
For a goodgeneral chanacrizarion. see McLaughlin 1996.
' Boucchcr 1996:191 and Carroll 1996:246.
 N eo-Latin Literature a n d the Vernacular 37
Catholic curia for the m ost part preferred Latin . U p o n stu d yin g actual
cases, however, one notices the dangers o f overgeneralization.10 L u th er’s
attitude to the vernacular w as a m b ig u o u s." H e m igh t have given a ‘decisive
incentive to the developm en t and use o f the vern acular’ , b u t he still ‘w rote
either in Latin o r G e rm an . . . a cco rd in g to the readers he h ad in m in d ’ .11
Desiderius Erasm us ( 1 4 6 6 - 1 5 3 6 ) , o n the oth er hand, u n d o u b te d ly one o f
humanism’s cham pions o f La tin ity, m ade great efforts to restore the G reek
text o f the N e w T estam e n t accom p an ied w ith his o w n L a tin translation,
but was nevertheless aware o f the benefits o f a vern acular B ib le .13 Sim ilar
objections can be m ade to the supposed pred om in an ce o f L a tin in the
academic sphere: indeed as early as 15 0 1 a G e rm a n h u m an ist appears to
have lectured o n Ju ven al in the vern acular.'4
In this w ay, it appears that rather than interpreting the question o f neo-
Latin and vernacular literature w ith in a strict cultural d ic h o to m y w ith
predetermined historical, social, religious, aesthetical o r o th er values for
Latin or vernacular literature, the m atter is a h igh ly co m p le x exercise o f
cultural poetics, to use Step h en G re e n b la tt’s term in o lo gy, w h ic h needs to
be examined carefully alm ost on a case-b y-case basis.'5 T h e reader o f n eo-
Latin literature not o n ly needs to be aware o f th e ub iq u ito u s presence o f
vernacular culture w h en dealing w ith n eo -L a tin texts, b u t also requires a
suitable fram ework in w h ic h to con sider the full co m p le xity o f th e inter­
action. T o accom m odate this need, this ch ap ter w ill set o u t a geñeral
methodology fo r the interpretation o f n eo -L a tin literature vis-à-vis the
vernacular.

N eo -Latin and Vernacular System s

The m ethodology adopted in this chapter is the so-called ‘system ic’

interpretation o f literature o r ‘ system s theory’ , m ain ly represented in
critical theory b y the p olysystem (o r P S ) th eory o f Itam ar E v e n -Z o h a r ,16
the radical constructivism m odel o f Siegfried S c h m id t'7 a n d th e social

w Cf. Burke 19 9 1:17 : ‘the difference between the Protestant and Catholic positions has been summed
up as ‘ an evolution in opposite directions” , as the reformers came to see the problems in
abandoning Latin, and the Catholics those entailed by retaining it’ (referring to Schmidt
n ««o: t7o).
" See Stolt 1973. “ IJsewijn 1990: t90. ** See François 2008. M Burke 1991: 31-3.
’’ On Greenblan’s notion o f cu ltu ralpoetics, see Greenblatt 19 8 0 :1-9 .
On PS theory, see Even-Zohar 19 9 0 ,20 10 ; T oury 1995; Tötösy de Zepetnek and Sywenky t997; Van
Gorp et al. 1997.
17 See Schmidt 1988 and 1992.
 TOM D E N E IR E
3*
systems theory of Niklas Luhmann.18 F o r o u r p u rp o se s, however, we will
mainly employ Even-Zohar’s PS theory.
Polysystem theory proposes a so-called ‘ d y n a m ic functionalism ’, which
combines structuralist and formalist ideas o f literatu re as a semiotic
system.19 In this view, literature is a system o f sign s rather than a con­
glomerate of disparate elements, and as w ith a n y se m io tic phenomenon
(language, culture, sôcietv), it is the functional relations between different
signs that produce meaning in the literary sy ste m .20 In this w a y , PS theory
defines literature as ‘(t)he network o f relations th a t is hypothesized to
obtain between a number o f activities called “ literary,” an d consequently
these activities themselves observed via that n e tw o rk ’ , k ee p in g in mind that
‘there is no a priori set o f “observables” th at necessarily “ is” pan of this
“system°.,u In this way, Even-Zohar suggests a sy ste m ic structure for
literature as a cultural practice, based on Ja k o b s o n ’s w ell-k n o w n scheme
of communication, which he reformulates w ith th e no tion s institution,
repertoire, producer, consumer, market and p r o d u c t In short, this means
that in the case of Erasmus’ Laus Stultitiae (‘ Praise o f F o lly ), for instance, it
is not the text itself which produces literary m e a n in g according to PS
theory, but the functional relations betw een th e te x t (product) and its
author (producer), readership (consumer), p rin te r (m ark et), its style and
models (repertoire), the canon o f satirical literature (repertoire and insti­
tution), its critics (institution and consum er), etc.
More important for our purposes, how ever, is E v e n -Z o h a r ’s reflection
on the systemicity o f literature, i.e. the system ic qualities o f the network of
relations we observe within the literary system .29 F irst, P S theory begins
from the observation that the literary system is d y n a m ic a n d heteroge­
neous. Hence one should consider it n o t o n ly in p rin cip le, but also in
time, and remain aware that the literary system is a lw a y s a polysystem, ‘a
system of various systems which intersect w ith each other and panlv
overlap, using concurrently different options, y e t fu n ctio n in g as one4
*

4Set Luhmann 1995.

” Structuralist dements ire indebted to De Saussure and Jakobson, and formalist ideas to Tvnianov
(for Even-Zohar 'die true Either o f the systemic approach', Even-Zohar 19 9 0 :19 ) , Eichcnbaum and
Shklowlty. Even-Zohar has also calkd attention to the overlap between his theory and Yuri
Inman's writ (Even-Zohar 1990: l ) and the interesting ties with the work b y Bourdieu (Even-
Zohar »9#>: J»-i. cp. De Geest 1996: 93-4).
“ Even-Zohar 1990; 9. " Even-Zohar 1990: 18.
“ The main difference here between Even-Zohar and Jakobson is that Even-Zohar views these notions
vey broadly so that, for instance, producer covers not only authors, but also literary crida
publishers, agents, etc For more information, see Even-Zohar 1 9 9 0 :1 7 - 4 4 .
This section (blows the outline o f Even-Zohar 1990: 9 - 16 . C f Even-Zohar 1990: 85-94 and low
ao-50.
 N eo -L a tin L iteratu re a n d the V ernacular 39
structured w hole, w h o se m em bers are interdependent’ .24 S u c h a v ie w is
particularly useful w h en con sid erin g a bipartite literary situation such as
that o f neo-Latin and vernacular literature. In E v e n -Z o h a r ’s w ords:

The acuteness o f heterogeneity in culture is perhaps most “ palpable,” as it

were, in such cases as when a certain society is bi- or multilingual (a state
that used to be common in most European communities up to recent
rimes). Within the realm o f literature, for instance, this is manifested in a
situation where a com m unity possesses two (or more) literary systems, two
“literatures," as it were. For students o f literature, to overcome such cases by
confining themselves to only one o f these, ignoring the other, is naturally
more “convenient” than dealing with them both. Actually, this is a
common practice in literary studies; how inadequate the results are cannot
be overstated.25

In this w ay, P S th eory is w ell designed for the interpretation o f cases like
the coexistence o f n eo -Latin a n d vern acular literature. W h ile the appear­
ance o f alternative literatures in different languages m igh t seem am b igu ou s
and confusing to m o d em readers, the P S h ypoth esis dem onstrates that
such a situation is sim p ly a m anifestation o f a general a n d therefore
‘normal’ property o f literature, n am ely its innate heterogeneity. T h is
already hints at a different perspective o n the relationship b etw een neo-
Latin and the vernacular than the aforem en tioned cultural d ich o to m y : one
in which bilingual writers like D an te, Je a n D u B ellay (c. 1493-1560) o r
Martin O pitz (1597-1639) m igh t be the rule rather than the exception. In
this way, w e com e to view the different n eo -Latin a n d vern acular particu­
lates o f the literary system as single pieces that form o n e coh eren t cultural
puzzle through their interrelations. M o re o v e r, this also leads to th e m ore
general understanding that all literary products o f a system , w h eth e r b y
bilingual producers o r not, need to be considered vis-à-vis parallel or
adjacent systems. Fo r exam ple, the vo gu e for epyllia in E n g la n d in the
1590S has traditionally been treated as an E n glish literary p h en o m en o n
because o f the archetypical exam ples from Shakespeare ( Venus and Adonis
and The Rape o f Lucrece). H o w e v e r, in light o f P S th eory, w e n o w
appreciate h o w m uch o u r un derstan ding o f this subgenre is im paired if
we disregard the host o f n eo -L a tin ep yllia w h ich established m an y o f the
conventions o f the gen re.2614

14 Even-Zohar 19 9 0 :11. 15 Even-Zohar 1990: 12-13.

** I dunk Victoria M oul for suggesting this point to me. See also M oul 2013a (online) and (discussing
only John Clapham’s Narcissus and Shakespeare’s Venus a n d Adonis) M aitindalc and Burrow 1992.
40 TOM D EN EIR E

Secondly, PS theory stresses that in light o f th e fu n ctio n al relations

between the individual items o f the literary system su ch heterogeneity
must result in a situation of continuous co m p e titio n , w h ic h Even-Zohar
calls dynamic stratification. Indeed, the p o ly sy ste m usually contains
non-reconcilable items, so that any given system con sists o f a matrix of
rival options. To put matters concretely: w h e n th e D u tch scientist
Simon Stevin tried to replace the canonical G r e e k o r L a tin terminology
in the sixteenth-century Dutch vernacular system b y c o in in g vernacular
neologisms, the same basic systemic process (i.e. d y n a m ic stratification)
was at work as when Lorenzo Valla ( 1 4 0 7 - 5 7 ) tried to classicize the
contemporary Latin lexis and style o f the C in q u e c e n to Italian neo-Latin
system with his Elegantiae latinae linguae (‘ E le ga n ces o f the Latin
Language’ , 1444). Moreover, when viewed in th e c o n te x t o f the larger
polysystem that harbours both neo-Latin an d v ern acu la r systems, we
observe throughout the history o f neo -Latin literature a constant
snuggle for domination between Latin and ve rn acu la r strata in the
literary polysystem. This theory o f dynam ic stratificatio n , Even-Zohar
points out, not only allows one hilly to a ck n o w le d ge the tensions
between strata within systems, but also accou nts fo r th e processes of
change and the results of that change.
Thirdly, PS theory' draws attention to the fact that such dynamic
stratification entails the socioculturally m otivated form ation o f a canon:
'by “canonized" one means those literary norm s and w orks (i.e., both
models and texts) which are accepted as legitimate b y th e dom inant drdes
within a culture and whose conspicuous products are preserved by the
community to become pan o f its historical heritage’ .27 M oreo ver canon-
idty is manifested not so much in individual texts, b u t m o st concretely in
the system’s repertoire, i.e. ‘the aggregate o f laws an d elements (either
single, bound, or total models) that govern the p ro du ctio n o f texts’.1* This
is also applicable to the neo-Latin and vernacular strata. In this way, we can
follow the results of dynamic stratification not o n ly in well-known cases
such as the gradual canonization o f the vernacular B ible after centuries of
reading Hebrew, Greek and mainly Latin Bibles, bu t also in more ‘ mar­
ginal’ cases such as the neo-Latin novel. Indeed, although in the European
literary tradition the modem novel more or less started o u t in the vernacu­
lar, the seventeenth-century neo-Latin novels like Jo h n Barday’s
(1582-16x1) Argenh (1621) attempted to com pete w ith the vernacular pro­
duction for a place in the canon o f the literary system . O f course, their

’’ Even-Zohar 1990:1;. 4 Even-Zohar 1990:17.

 N e o -L a tín Literatu re a n d the Vernacular 41
struggle for literary su prem acy w o u ld eventually prove fruitless, bu t the
Argenis did nevertheless succeed in influencing the further developm ent o f
the vernacular novel, as did classical G re e k and Latin w o rk s such as
Longus’ Daphnis and Chloe o r Petronius’ Satyricon, w h ich had been
invested with renewed cultural auth o rity through the general hum anist
rehabilitation o f classical literature.19
Th e above exam ple dem onstrates a fourth point o f P S theory, nam ely
that these sy stem ic p rin cip le s a n d p ro p e rtie s hold true both for the intra­
relations and for the inter-relations o f the polysystem , since all sem iotic
systems are ‘ isom orphic’ , in E v e n -Z o h a r’ s terms. T h is m eans that the same
relations are observable both w ith in certain literary system s and between
different literary systems. T h is offers us a sim ilar approach to interpret, for
instance, the relations between n eo -Latin and G e rm an seventeenth-
century Baroque literature (intra-system ic), o r those between D u tch neo-
Latin lyric poetry and the G erm an vernacular system (inter-system ic). T h e
result is, however, not o n ly o f m ethodological im portance, it also serves as
a firm reminder o f the extent to w h ich European literary actors - espe­
cially, though not o n ly in Latin — were in conversation w ith each other
right across the continent.
In short, P S theory helps the reader o f n eo-Latin literature in three w ays.
First, it aids our understanding o f neo -Latin literature per se, i.e. the
situation within the n eo-Latin system in principle and in tim e. Secondly,
it connects the neo-Latin repertoire, products, m arket and other system ic
elements with contem porary and rival vernacular ones. A n d thirdly, it
relates these literary polysystem s to other cultural system s, such as the
social system, w hich necessitates that ‘ its hierarchies can o n ly be conceived
o f as intersecting w ith those o f the latter’ , therefore explaining ‘ the h om ­
ologous relations betw een literature and society’.30
Having analyzed these four m ajor elem ents o f P S theory, w e are now
ready to consider E v e n -Z o h a r’s characterization o f the history o f neo-Latin
and vernacular literature:

Clearly, throughout the Middle Ages, Central and Western Europe consti­
tuted one polysystem, where the centre was controlled by literature written
in Latin, while texts in the vernaculars (either written or spoken) were
produced concurrendy as part o f peripheral activities. Following a long
process o f gradual decrease, this system, with its perpetuated canonized
repertoire, finally collapsed in about the middle o f the eighteenth century,
to be replaced by a series o f more or less independent uni-lingual (poly)15

15 IJscwijn and Sacré 1998: 255. 90 Even-Zohar 1990: 23.

 TOM D EN EIRE
4*
systems, whose interdependencies with the other (poly)systems became
mote and more negligible, at least from the point o f view o f both consumer;
and the dominating ideologies. However, it is apparent that in order to be
able not only to describe the general principles o f interference, but also to
explain their nature and causes with certain exactitude, a stratification
hypothesis must be posited. For when the various European nations grad­
ually emerged and created their own cultures - most explicitly vehided by
their new literatures, languages, and official histories — certain center-and-
penphery relations were unavoidably present in the process from the very
stan. Cultures that developed earlier, and which belonged to nations which
influenced, by prestige or direct domination, other nations, were taken as
sources for more recent cultures (including more recendy reconstructed
ones). As a result, there inevitably emerged a discrepancy between the
models transferred... and the original ones, as the latter most likely might
has« been pushed by that rime from the center o f their own system to the
periphery.31

In this way, the polysystem hypothesis is a useful hermeneutical tool for

foe inteipretadon of foe two key characteristics o f neo -Latin and vernacu­
lar literature: their coexistence and complex interference (i.e. the relation­
ship between literatures, whereby a certain literature m a y become a source
of direa or indirea loans for another literature).’ 1

Neo-Larin and Vernacular N orm ativity

This application of PS theory to neo-Latin and vernacular literary systems

demonstrates that the notion o f dynamic functionalism is not an empty
one. Indeed, foe systemic relations are best described in dynam ic terms of
stratification, canonization, interference, etc. U n d erlyin g this dynamism of
any sodocultural system is a general notion o f ‘ norm ativity’ , which has
been identified as a regulatory principle o f the behavior observed in
systems by scholars like Hermans or D e Geest.33 T h e y have conceptualized
this notion using Greimas’ semiotic square to describe the constitutive
normativity that determines much o f the intërnal structure and dynamic
of foe system:3*

" Ewn-Zohir 1990:14.

0 Even-Zolur 1990: 5}. For moie information on interference, see Even-Zohar 1990: 59-72 jnd 79^9
200:59-49.
8 De Gear 1996; De Gear 2009; Hermans 199$ and 1999.
M For Gttrnus' own formulation, see Greimas and Rastier 1968.
 N eo -L a tin Literature a n d the Vernacular 43

OBLIGATION PROHIBITION
(what is presen bed) (what is forbidden)

NON-PROHIBITION N O N -O B LIG A TIO N

(what is not forbidden, (what is not prescribed.
i.e what is tolerated) i.e. what is permitted)

This scheme represents prescribed as opposed to forbidden literary

elements, with the added im plication o f elements that are not forbidden
(that is, tolerated) and not prescribed (that is, perm itted).55 S u ch a sche­
matic representation helps to conceptualize the boundaries and the ever-
occurring changes in those boundaries o f a system ’s norm s. In other words,
it allows us both to define the system ’s constraints and its capacity for
constant diachronic evolution.
Let us take as an exam ple the case o f sixteenth-century neo-Latin
correspondence from the N o rth ern N etherlands and consider the practice
of literary quotation. W h e n reading this literature as a system in w h ich thé
repertoire includes quotation as a poetic option, we observe the follow ing
‘rules’ for that practice. First, the author is obliged to frame the quotations
in a supporting main text, otherwise they do not constitute ‘quotations’ .
This main text m ust be written in Latin, otherwise the w hole literary
product canno't be considered part o f the neó-Latin system. Furtherm ore
there is a clear prohibition: the quotes cannot be in the D u tch vernacu­
lar.’ 6 Apparendy, the D u tch language is not a p a n o f the repertoire o f the
neo-Larin literary system, w hich is clearly dom inant over the vernacular
system in this case. Therefore, it is not perm itted for a neo-Larin author to *

* The diagram is reproduced from Hermans 1996. Greimas distinguishes three relations in the
scheme; the horizontal lines represent the notion ‘contrary’, the diagonal lines ‘contradiction’ and
the vertical lines ‘implication’ .
* With the exception o f technical, terms, which first of all arc not really literary quotations, and
secondly will almost always be accompanied by an apologetic comment from the writer for using the
'vulgar' tongue.
44 TOM D EN EIR E

inscn a quote from, for instance, a D u tch p o em in to h is letter - although

that is not to say that to do so is strictly ‘ im p o ssib le ’ . Sh ou ld it have
happened (although 1 am personally unaware o f an exam p le), it would
certainly have incurred the disapproval o f the c o n te m p o ra ry literary insti-
tution and been rejected as an im perm issible litera ry utterance. The
quotations that can be used, then, fell in to tw o categories. First, those
that are permitted (but not obligatory), w hich g en erally m ean s quotations
in ancient Greek. Indeed, the use o f quotations fro m an cien t authors like
Homer, Hesiod ot Sophocles in this particular litera ry system is a well-
established element of the repertoire. Secondly, th ere are quotations that
axe tolerated (but not forbidden): for instance q u o te s in French or less
often in other esteemed vernacular languages su ch as Italian . Apparently,
the ($ocio-)cultural status o f these languages is great e n o u g h fo r quotations
to be permissible in die neo-Latin repertoire, alth o u g h they have not
attained the sutus of Ancient Greek.
When we consider the same literary practice in seventeenth-century
neo-Latin correspondence from the N o rth ern N e th e rla n d s, we see that
Dutch literary quotations had been slow ly e v o lv in g diagonally in the
semiotic square, from prohibition towards n o n-p roh ib ition. On
z8 November 1644, Willem de G root ( 1 5 9 7 - 1 6 6 2 ) , brother of the
famous jurist Hugo Grotius (1583-1645) w rote th e fo llo w in g passage in
a letter

Res regis Britanniae peiore iam loco sunt quam antea. Vellem esse verum
quod nuper Vond(eli)us cecinit:

Dit huys sal u verduyren,

En Lo(n)den eerst sien treuren sonder muyren,
De vloet met puyn gem it,
Eerghij 'tgesach van Karel kneusen suit?7
The situation of the British king is worse than before. W ould that what
Vondel sang recently were true:

This house will endure

And willsoonersee London weep without walls
Andthewaterfilled with rubble
thanyou will damage Charles'power?9

” Omm mapmdenee, n* 7169 (digital ed ition in h ttp :/ / g r o tiu s .l1u y g c n s .k n a w .n l/ le n e fs / 7 16 9 / ).

Mr tnndjnon: the quote is from VondelV Klagbte over de w etrspannelingen in Groot Mump
{'Compiimidota the m thtionaria in Great B rita in , ¡6 44).
 N eo-Latin Literature an d the Vernacular 45
In the passage de G ro o t uses a D u tch quotation from the w o rk o f the
Amsterdam playw right Jo o st V a n den V o n d e l. N o doub t this is still an
unusual example, but D u tch literary quotations were apparently being
gradually adm itted into the neo -Latin repertoire, especially in the case o f
an author who was rapidly gainin g canonical status in the ever m ore
important vernacular literary system . T h e n u m b er o f bilingual letters,
sometimes with cod e-sw itch in g from Latin to D u tch and vice versi, was
already also on the rise, and the fusion o f Latin and vernacular elements in
epistolography continued to increase in the eighteenth centu ry. O b vio u sly
this change has to do w ith the changed sociocultural status o f the vernacu­
lar language, w hich in turn can be interpreted w ith in H o llan d ’s struggle
for independence from H a b sb u rg Sp a in and the cultural em ancipation o f
mercantile bourgeois society in the w ealth y N o rth ern Provinces. In this
way, this interpretation also connects th e dyn am ics o f the literary system to
that o f other adjacent system s, such as the political and the social.
This case shows h o w useful the notion o f norm ativity and the interpret­
ation o f it in the sem iotic square can be w h en considering both the
synchrony and the diachrony o f the n eo -Latin and vernacular literary
systems. N o t o n ly does it allow us to analyze the practice o f literary
quotation as a part o f the neo-Latin literary repertoire w h ich is bo u n d to
normative rules o f the system , it also makes it possible to interpret the
changes o f that literary system and the interference from concurrent
systems, in this case the vernacular, and the influence o f adjacent systems
such as the political and social. T h e possibilities o f such a herm eneutical
tool are extensive. First, there are m an y sim ilar m odels o f poetic repertoire,
and options within it that can be analyzed in this w a y w h e n dealing with
the relationship o f neo-Latin and vernacular literature. O n e further
example would be that o f ‘ lim inary’ poem s, such as prefatory or con clud­
ing dedicatory or panegyric verse. W h ile the n eo -Latin repertoire- will in
many cases prohibit vernacular lim inary material o f this sort, unless it has
canonical value in the neo -Latin system (like F ren ch lim inary poem s in the
seventeenth-century D u tch literary system ), it alm ost alw ays allows G reek
liminary poetry. T h e vernacular repertoire on the other hand will allow
both Latin or G reek and vernacular lim inary poem s as poetic options,
provided the vernacular in question is the m other tongue. T h is last
example also demonstrates that w e can use these ideas to consider vernacu­
lar literary repertoires and interference from the n eo -Latin system , a
ubiquitous phenom enon w h en contrasting neo-Latin literature w ith the
various vernacular cultures that practice it. Secondly, there is no limit to
the level o f interference w e can consider b y taking norm ativity as a starting
46 TOM D EN EIRE

point. For instance, it is possible not only to co n cep tu alize the influence of
vernacular sayings on Erasmus’ Latin idiom atic exp ressio n s,39 but also to
consider the link between vernacular visual cu ltu re an d the increasingly
popular gente of bilingual or multilingual em blem literature, or consider
quite large issues such as the influence o f the R e fo rm a tio n on the steady
vemacularizadon of the Renaissance literary p o lysystem .

Neo-Latin and V ern acu lar R e p e r to ir e s

Another key element, besides normativity, that has recurred repeatedly in

the above discussion is the notion o f ‘ repertoire’ .40 W h e th e r we art
describing processes and procedures within a system o r interference
between different systems, we often do so b y o b servin g the laws and
elements of literary repertoires. As already indicated, a literary repertoire
is the aggregate of laws and elements that govern the m ak in g and use of a
literary product and 'while some o f these laws and elem ents seem to be
universally valid since the world’s first literatures, clearly a great many laws
and elements are subjected to shifting conditions in different periods and
cultures’.41 These laws and elements can be single o r bo u n d elements, or
complete models in the literary repertoire. A c co rd in g ly , Even -Zo h ar dis­
tinguishes èrte distina levels in the system’s repertoire: o f individual
elements, of syntagms and of models. R oughly stated the first includes
single disparate items, the second any com bination u p to the level of a
sentence, and the third any potential portion o f a w h o le product.4* For our
purposes, this distinction has the interpretive potential to analyze both
synchronically and diachronically the com position o f the literary reper­
toire, and the interference between the neo-Latin an d vernacular system.
On the level of individual elements we can, for instance, note the transfer
of vernacular morphemes into the neo-Latin repertoire in so-called ‘ maca­
ronic’ literature, i.e. texts written in a mixture o f Latin and the vernacular,
usually with vernacular words with Latinized inflexions.43 Sconish
examples indude die macaronic poetry of W illia m Drummond
(1585-1649), who opens a poem with the line Nymphae, quae colitis high-
issim manta Fifoea (‘Nymphs, who dwell upon the highest mountains of
Fife’) and goes on to write Per costam, et scopulis Lobster manifootus in udisI

» Œ Wading wot
* Far moreinferminoli, tee Evtn-Zolur 1990:39-43; 2 0 10 :16 -34 ,7 0 -6 and 175-84. For a prolonged
diunaioa of neo-Utin vs. vernacular repertoire, see Deneire 2014e: 33-58.
* E*tn-Zolui 1990:17-18; see also Even-Zohar 1990: 39. 41 Even-Zohar 1990: 41.
* On »hid», stt IJiewijn and Sacré 1998:136-8.
 Neo-Latin Literature and the Vernacular 47
creepat (‘along the coast and o n w e t rocks the m an y-fo o ted lobster creeps’);
or a liminary poem for G e o rge R u gg le’s ( 1 5 7 5 - 1 6 2 2 ) Ignoram us (‘W e are
unaware’ , 1615), w h ich begins:

Non inter Plaios gallamos et bene gaios,

est alter Bookus deservat qui modo lookos,
o Lector Friendleie, tuos: hunc buye libellum.

Among the gallant and gayest Plays

there is no other Book that deserves so much as one look
by you, o Friendly Reader: buy this booklet.'44

A similar example o f analyzing repertoires at the level o f m orphem es can be

applied to the w ell-k now n Hypnerotom achia P o lip h ili (‘P o lip h ib s Strife o f
Love in a D ream ', 14 9 9 ), generally believed to be authored b y Francesco
Colonna (1433/4—15 2 7 ), and w ritten in a vo cabu lary created from Latin ,
Greek, and the vernaculars from Italy, organized through L atin syntax.45
The case o f m acaronic literature brings us to the level o f syntagm s, since
cases o f code-switching, i.e. the con curren t use o f m ore than o n e language,
are also sometimes called m acaronic. W e have already indicated that this can
appear in letters. A good exam ple o f the phenom enon is the Fren ch and
Latin bilingualism o f Jean D u B ellay’s correspondence, w h ic h results in
sentences o f the sort: ‘J e vous asseure bien que le Pape a prins la chose
comme il debvoit et q u ’ il est m agno et infracto anim o; faciat tantum D eu s
ne isti nobis antevertant.’ (‘ I assure y o u that the Pope has taken the issue as
he should have and that he is o f great and unbroken spirit; G o d o n ly gran t us
that those people do not precede us.’ )46 T h e p henom enon is not restricted
to epistolography, however, but is found in dram a and scientific literature as
well.47 Dram a was apparently particularly susceptible to vernacular influ­
ence, as is evident b y the insertion o f vernacular w ords into Latin plays in
early neo-Latin literature or the later evolution towards bilingual or even
multilingual plays, as in the Polish author G regoriu s C n a p iu s ( c. 15 6 4 -16 3 8 ) .
Finally, this trend extended even to the practice o f w ritin g tw o versions o f a
play, one in Latin and one in the vernacular, as is the case w ith the G erm an
sixteenth-century author Sixtus Betuleius ( 1 5 0 1 - 5 4 ) .48
This brings us to the last level in the repertoire, that o f m odels. T h is is
the most productive for the scholar o f literature, as the notion o f the
‘model’ is a broad one: ‘ (t)here is no need to attem pt classification
according to the level o f the “ m odel,” since (t)here m ay be m odels in4
1

44 Sandys 1831: xxi-xxii. Translation mine. 41 Cf. Trippe 200Ü 1229. 46 Amherdt 2009: 62.
47 See e.g. Crespo and Moskowich 2006. 48 ljsewijn and Sacré 1998: 147-9.
 TOM D E N E I R E

operation for a whole possible te x t. . . yet there m ay also be specific models

for a segment, or portion, o f this whole’ .49 In this w ay, the notion of
models in the literary repertoire is closely associated w ith other traditioml
concepts of literary typology such as style o r genre. In this context, we can
point at intricate examples o f cultural transfer, as w h en Italian vernacula
lyric poetry, most notably Petrarchism, provided m odels for erotic poetrv
in the French neo-Larin literature o f the sixteenth century, which in tun
came to influence French vernacular writing. A s a result, we find in the
writers of the Pléiade, a few decades later, a far-reaching symbiosis of Latir,
and French poetic traditions, significantly w ithin the context o f trying to
raise ‘die seams of a classically inspired, deliberately elitist French poetry, in
rivalry with the best compositions o f Italy’ .50 In a similar vein, in the early
seventeenth century the bilingual D u tch writers Daniel Heinsim
(1580-1655) and Hugo Grotius introduced the classical, Latin model of
Senecan tragedy into their neo-Latin dramas, w h ich in turn influenced the
vernacular dramatic production o f authors like V o n d e l.5' In Vondel’scase
we can even witness this process o f transfer first hand through his transla­
tion of two of Grotius’ plays: both Grotius’ Sophompaneas and Vondel s
Dutch translation of the play appeared in 1635, and nearly thirty yean later
he turned once again to Grotius’ Latín drama, adapting Adamus Exal
(1601) as Adam in ballinpchap (‘Adam in Exile’ , 16 6 4 ).
Another example is the stylistic development o f vernacular prose. Indeed,
the impact of the study of classical Latín on the vernacular prose o f an author
like Thomas More (1478-1535) is quite evident. In his English RichardIII
for instance, classical literature has influenced the diction, rhetoric and even
the book’s philosophical outlook.52 However, w e can also trace stylistic
transfers of larger dimensions. It is clear, for instance, that both classical
(Seneca) and neo-Latin (Marc-Antoine M uret, 1 5 2 6 - 8 2 and Justus Lipsius,
1547-1606) models of an anti-Ciceronian prose style had an important
influence on the development o f national prose styles, shaping such pivotal
and various vernacular authors as Francis Bacon ( 15 6 1- 16 2 6 ) ,” Francisco dc
Quevedo (1580-1645) or René Descanes ( 15 9 6 -16 5 0 ) .54
Such examples of the interference between the neo-Latin and vernacular
systems demonstrate that we tend to pay particular attention to the transfer
of (neo-)Latin models to the vernacular repertoires in the period discussed.
The direction of influence, however, is not always so clear-cut. In the

" E«a-Zobar 1990.41. w Ford 2010b: 94. ” Smits-Vddt 1994; 16.

9 Carroll 1996:251. ” For mote information, see Deneiie 2014c.
14 C£ Burke and Po-Chia Hsia 2007; Even-Zohar 1990: 45-51 and 79-8.
 Neo-Latin Literature and the Vernacular 49

aforementioned case o f anti-Ciceronianism , we can note that the French

writer M ichel de M ontaigne (15 33-9 2 ) also functioned as a model for
vernacular A nti-C iceronian style, which means that this interference
cannot be seen as an Einbahnstraße from neo-Latin to the vernacular.
Similarly, the case o f the Hypnerotomachia Poliphili not only shows lin­
guistic fusion o f classical and vernacular languages, but also o f vernacular,
classical Latin (Plautus, Apuleius) and neo-Latin (Leon Battista Alberti,
14 0 4 -7 2 ) stylistic m odels.55 Furtherm ore, there were also m any translations
made o f medieval and contem porary vernacular literature into Latin in the
early m odem era - a rather .neglected element o f humanist literature, that
was especially im p on an t in the Germ an-speaking world, as a w ay to
popularize books originally written in romance languages.sfi
A final example, also involving translation, o f the interference between
systems on the level o f the model m ay illustrate the level o f complexity
such cultural exchange can reach. T h e case in question is the German
reception o f Heinsius’ Lof-sanck van Jesus Christus (‘H ym n for Christ’)
(16x6). Published as p an o f his Nederduytsche Poemata (‘ D utch Poetry’),
this hymn is p an o f his lyric output in the vernacular, which Heinsius - a
professor o f G reek at Leiden U niversity and a prolific poet in the classical
languages - modeled after classical poetics in order to create (or perpetuate,
following the activities o f authors like Janus D ousa (15 4 5 -16 0 4 ), Jan Van
Hout and P. C . H ooft) a hum anist vernacular poetry in H olland’s national
language.57 H ere w e see an initial situation o f (double) interference:
Heinsius anem ptcd to influence the vernacular system b y introducing
items and models from the Latin repertoire (both classical and neo-Latin),
supplemented b y items and models from the French polysystem as mani­
fested in the Pléiade-poets, like D u Bellay, Pierre Ronsard (1524-85) and
Du Barras, whose bilingual poetry, i.e. Latin and classicizing French,
served as a clear exam ple for people like D ousa and Heinsius.
In this resp e a , Heinsius’ vernacular poetry (together with other models
like Grotius) then had an im pon an t influence on the emerging vernacular
poetry in the Germ an-speaking countries, who mirrored the D utch religious
situation and also tried to use national poeto,' in the context o f building a
Kultum ationß T h e G erm an author M artin O pitz com m itted himself to
this p ro je a and accordingly translated several o f Heinsius’ vernacular
poems, including his aforementioned hym n for C hrist, which was published

” McLaughlin 1996: 138-9. * Burke 2007a; 71.

17 Cf. Bedter-Comarino 1983; Meter 1984; Lefèvre and Schäfer 2008.
* C f. Van Ingen 1981; Jordan 2003.
 TOM D E N E I R E
50

as LobgesangJesu Christi (‘ Hymn for C h rist’ ) in 1 6 2 4 .59 Here we have a

second case of interférence, namely the transfer o f m odels from the Dutch
vernacular repertoire to the emerging G erm an vernacular system; indeed
translation is often observed when a literary system is yo u n g ,60 However,
Heinsius did not only serve as a model for vernacular poetry; his large poetic
output in the classical languages also influenced the G erm an humanist
authors. Indeed, Opitz published many Latin p oem s as well.
So in the context of the continuing canonical status o f Latin poetry in
the German polvsystem, we can understand w h y in 16 35 Martin Nessel
(1607-73) might translate Opitz’ German translation o f Heinsius’ Dutch
Lofsanck vanJesus Christus into Latin under the (convoluted, but pertin­
ent) title Danielis Heinsii Hymnus Jesu Christo, Unico Et Vero Dei Filie,
BelgiceConscriptus,postea Germanice redditus a Martino Opitio Silesia, nunc
LatineaMartinoNesselioMoravo (‘Daniel H einsius’ H y m n for Christ, the
One and True Son of God, written in D u tch , later on translated into
German bv Martin Opitz from Silesia, and n o w into Latin by Martin
Nessel from Moravia’). Here we have arrived at a third case o f interference,
where the German vernacular system interferes w ith the German neo-
Latin system. Yet to understand this last case, it is clear that we need to pur
it within the context of the earlier interference o f the authoritative Dutch
vernacular model, which in cum needs to be interpreted in view of other
authoritative models, i.e. the classical tradition, n eo -Latin models and the
French bilingual system, and to take into account a n u m b er o f fäctors from
adjacent systems to the literary, i.e. ‘nationalistic’ tendencies, religious
factors, political motivadons and so on.

Conclusion

Intheend, itseemsthatwhile there is a dominant movement in the cultural

exchange between the neo-Latin and vernacular systems, which runs from
the neo-Latin axis towards the vernacular, we should be quick to warn
against areducdonist interpretadon of this cultural exchange. Many of the
examples above have shown how neo-Latin and vernacular repertoires
intermingle in quite complex intercultural dynamics and many humanist
writers, for instance Petrarch or Milton, represent a true fusion or syncre­
tismoftheserepertoires.6’ Many authors wrote both in neo-Latin and their

” Cf. Mudi 187HBomemann 1976, <0 Even-Zohar 1990:47-8.

*' On Milton’s 'humanist syncretism’, see e.g. Loewenstein 1996: 17 5 -6 . O n Petrarch's classical/
vernacular tern, see e.g. McLaughlin 1996: 225-8.
 Neo-Latin Literature and the Vernacular 51

native tongue, and sometimes even composed and printed poems in two
versions: one in Larin and one in the vernacular. O n this situation in
seventeenth-century England, Joseph Loewenstein has eloquendy stated:

Taken singly, these poems draw on a variety o f imperfecdy compatible

learned traditions, a tense and gnomic semantic field. But the pairings
exacerbate this lively tension, for the Latin and English versions o f these
poems compete for semantic priority and, by their rivalry, challenge the
very idea o f the poem as singular, stable and univocal. W e have here the
perfect emblems o f the nervously productive interplay between Latinity and
Englishness within mid seventeenth-century literary culture.6*

In the end, we can conclude that the juxtaposition o f neo-Latin and

vernacular literatures in the early modern era produces a similar tensión,
where both literatures com pete for cultural priority, which challenges our
ideas o f the study o f neo-Latin texts as a singular and stable literature. In
this respect, one can o n ly stress the great importance for those reading neo-
Latin literature o f rem aining attentive to the processes o f stratification,
canonization, interference and transfer, both on an intra-systemic and an
inter-systemic level, and extending in the latter case as far as other
literatures or other cultural systems such as politics, society and religion.
Only then can w e hope to achieve an informed reading o f the unique
corpus that is neo-Latin literature.

F U R T H E R R E A D IN G

The body o f work dealing with matters o f neo-Larin and the vernacular is quite
large and can seem overwhelming. An overview o f the different scholarly fields
(linguistic, literary and historical) that deal with the question can be found in
Deneire 2014a and Verbckc 2015. There arc a number o f interesting collections o f
case studies available, discussing neo-Latin and vernacular literature either in one
national context (Taylor and Goroleu 1999 for Spain, Castor and Cave 1984 for
Fiance) or throughout Renaissance Europe (Guthmiiller 1998, Thum 2012,
Bioemenda! 2015). However, these studies tend to be comparative in perspective
without focusing specifically on the issue o f cultural exchange and mobility. For
the latter, one can turn to Deneire 2014e or to more general works in the fields of
translation studies (Hermans 1999 and 2002) or cultural transfer (Burke and Po-
Chia Hsia 2007 and North 2009). As for methodology per se, Even-Zohar 1990
and 2010 (both available online at www.tau.ac.il/--itamarez/) is the best starting
point for polysystem theory. Finally, a good general introduction into the
complex interplay o f neo-Larin and vernacular culture is available in Burke 1991
and Burke 2004 (see also the more historical IJsewijn 1990).

¿2 Loewenstein 1996: 276-7.

 CHAPTER 3

Howthe YoungMan Should Study Latin Poetry

Neo-Latin Literature and Early M odem Education

Sarah K night

‘In the art of poetry there is m uch that is pleasant a n d nourishing for the
mind of a youth, but quite as m uch that is d istu rb in g an d misleading,
unless in the hearing o f it he have proper o v e rsig h t.” T h e G re e k historian,
philosopher and teacher Plutarch (c. 4 6 - c . 1 2 0 ) , o n e o f the first to com­
ment on the relationship between poetry a n d e d u ca tio n , suggests that
studying poetry can destabilize the yo u n g m a n ’ s ch a ra cte r unless carefully
handled and effectively taught. D u ring the R en a issa n ce , Plutarch’s essay
was mainly known by a Latin tide - Quomodo adolescens poetas audire
debeat fHow the Young M an Should Listen to P o e tr y ’ )1 - which fore­
grounds concerns with correct pedagogical m e th o d , th e m oral responsi­
bility of die learner (implied by that m odal eiebeat — ‘sh o u ld ’) and his
developmental stage as an adolescens, a y o u th w h o s e m in d w as still being
formed, and all three concerns were regularly d e b a te d across Europe in the
fifteenth, sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.
Plutarch discusses how the first-century stu d e n t sh o u ld listen to poetry,
but our focus will be on how early m odern stu d en ts w e re taught to read
and write - and imitate, paraphrase, translate, an alyse a n d dissect - poetry
as pan of the education they received, a n d h o w so m e o f the more
imaginative Latinists went on to reflect on th at p ro ce ss in poem s o f their
own. Classroom tutors, educational theorists a n d stu d e n ts w o u ld answer
a loud no’ to the question posed b y D esideritis E r a s m u s (14 6 6 -15 36 ) in
Depueris instituendis (‘O n Educating B o y s’ , c. 15 0 9 ) : ‘shall w e , then, allow
the best years of your life to pass by w ith o u t b e a rin g th e fruits o f a literary’
education?',3 but general agreement that su ch w o r k w a s im p ortan t did not
lead to uniformity of pedagogical arguments. E r a s m u s, th e Italian human­
ists Leon Battista Alberti (14 0 4 -7 2 ), Pier P ao lo V e r g e r io (c. 1370-1444),
Enea Silvio (Aeneas Silvius) Bartolomeo P ic c o lo m in i ( 1 4 0 5 - 6 4 ) and the

' Pluarcb, M enât, 15b. Babbitt 1927:77-9; Hunter and Russell 2 0 11: 3 1-2 .
‘ See Hunter and Russell zou: 1-2 on textual transmission. 3 Erasm us 1985: 343.
 Neo-Latin Literature and Early Modem Education 53
English teacher a n d curate Jo h n Brinsley (bap. 15 66-c. 1624) were among
those eager to clarify h o w yo u th s should study, although their views on the
study o f poetry differ as m u ch as w e m ight expect over three centuries and
across a con tinen t. T h e debate expanded from educational treatises into
poetic representations, a n d although no coherent picture o f Renaissance
education em erges from the p o em s w h ich depict it - understandably,
given the range o f religious denom inations, nationalities, ideologies and
literary agendas - w h a t these poets share is the acquisition o f Latin as a
learned language an d , a p p are n d y, the com pulsion to write about it, from
the perspectives o f both pedagogue and student. T h e act o f writing
prompted these poets to th in k hard about the cachet and flexibility o f
Latin as a literary language com p ared w ith the vernacular, perhaps because
they were in tim ately engaged in m an ipulating a language not their own
into poetic form , a task d e m a n d in g dogged attention to vetbal detail rather
than abstract pedagogical theorizing.
Early m o d e m p o etry a b o u t edu cation takes m an y form s, and this
chapter w ill exam ine several exam ples from across Eu rop e o f h o w Latin
poets represented institutional experience and pedagogy. T h e France-based
humanists N ic o la s B o u rb o n ( 1 5 0 3 - 1 5 5 0 ) an d G e o rg e Buchanan (15 0 6 -8 2 )
write abo ut the tu to r’ s role, w h ile an epigram b y the solicitous hither
Ugolino V e r in o ( 1 4 3 8 -1 5 1 6 ) urges his son to w o rk hard: his pious teenage
son M ich ele ( 1 4 6 9 - 8 7 ) responds b y w ritin g a series o f moral distichs.
T h e G erm an R efo rm a tio n firebrand U lrich vo n H u tten (14 8 8 -15 2 3) rep­
resents a local quarrel o ver H e b re w learning as a R om an trium ph, with
young students p la yin g a central role in this hum anist controversy; the
French jurist N ico la s P etit (c. 1 4 9 7 - 1 5 3 2 ) dram atizes in m ock-heroic vein
violent reactions to o v e rflo w in g sewers betw een Paris colleges; the
Germ an H eliu s E o b a n u s H essu s (E o b a n K o ch , 14 8 8 -1 5 4 0 ) presents him ­
self as a teenage L a tin p ro d ig y; the Polish K lem ens Janicki (15 16 -4 3 )
muses on early epiph an ies an d literary h ero-w orship as a yo u n g reader;
the French M a r c -A n to in e M u re t (15 2 6 -8 5) publishes his Juvenilia
heralded b y paratexts w h ic h exalt his talent; the English Jo h n M ilton
( 16 0 8 -7 4 ) m uses o n in stitu tio n al con texts and parental interventions into
the educational process. S u c h p oem s present m ore elusive perspectives on
academic exp erience than those offered b y institutional statutes and
schoolteachers’ m an u als, b u t i f w e accept that authors choose to emphasize
particular aspects o f ed u ca tio n o v e r others, then that choice becomes
significant and revealing: fiction al o r sem i-fictional accounts, even if not
historically ‘ true’ , still disclose w h a t their authors thought important
to represent.
 SARAH K N I G H T
54

Over half a century ago Walter J. Ong wrote o f ‘the complex social
implications of Latin as a learned language’, and more recently, Joseph
Farrell and Françoise Waquet have written of the interactions between
Latin acquisition, education and social formation.4 Schooling starts earlyin
life, would-be poets often start to write creatively during their education,
andso it is not surprising that these writers dwell on the significance ofsudi
implications and interactions, particularly in relation to the development of
an individual literary voice. At a time when pedagogy was universally
conducted in Latin, that voice often spoke bilingually. For burgeoning
speakers and writers, educational success depended on confidence and
facility in Latin, and as readers, too, Latin was often learned before tht
vernacular. Yet Latin was always mediated because it was learned academ­
ically during the Renaissance it became, as Farrell has argued, ‘the paradig-
marically dead language’.5 Pedagogical systems and institutional contexts
channelledhowthe young man interacted with this academically inculcated
language, compared with how fluendy and reciprocally he might interact
with the vernacular world he inhabited outside his formal schooling.
Exceptionally, Michel de Montaigne (1533-92.) spoke only Latin at
home until he was six (Essais 1.2.6),'6 but most pupils had their lira
encounter with the language at around six or seven.7 Some theorists held
that education should begin even earlier: in De liberorum educationi
(‘On the Education of Boys’), Enea Silvio Piccolomini argues that \f\uisset
igitur ab ipsis cumbulis incipiendum (‘training should begin in the vety
cradle’).8 However early it actually began, Latinity garnered from school-
age onwards generally aimed to separate the boy from the world of
vernacular (often female-centred) domesticity and to propel him into the
world of institutions (education, law, politics), in which a good working
knowledge of Latin was paramount. Some educationalists feared that
domesticity would stunt development: ‘ [w]hat kind of maternal feeling is
it that induces some women to keep their children clinging to their skins
until they are six years old and to treat them as imbeciles?’ asked Erasmus
in Depueris instituendis? This concern stems from boys’ perceived suscep­
tibility to external influences, manifest in Plutarch’s concern that the
adolescens might be diverted from the ‘pleasant and nourishing’ by the
‘disturbing and misleading’,10 but also implies a new worry particular to

4 Ong 1959:107; Farrell m oi; Waquet 2001. ’ Farrell 2 0 0 1:1 2 1 . 6 Montaigne 1957; 128.
7 Baldwin 1944:1, 285-4. " Kallendotf 2002: 28-9.
’ Etiunus 1985: J09: for women learning Latin see Stevenson 2005.
“ Plutarch, Moralia, 15b; Babbitt 1927: 77-9.
 Neo-Latin Literature and Early Modem Education 55
Renaissance pedagogues. In a w o rld w here Latin was not universally used,
despite its do m in an ce in certain contexts, feminized domesticity, poten­
tially pernicious in its o w n right, becom es even more menacing when
understood as vernacular, un -Latinate, and u n -im proving,11 and the edu­
cational institution, personified b y the teacher, becomes all-important for
the form ation o f character a n d m ind.
Som e poem s exem p lify these institutional efforts at character-building,
offering varied ( i f not alw ays scintillating) perspectives from young men
writing as responsible citizens an d obedient subjects. T h is kind o f
educational poetry is occasional, public, intended to commemorate events
important to an institution’s life such as the death o f a monarch, and
therefore reflecting a k ind o f ideological orthodoxy. W h e n Elizabeth
I visited the U niversity o f O x fo rd in 156 6 , for example, students and scholars
packaged their Latin ity for her, delivering speeches throughout her journey
through the city, staging academ ic debates, physically festooning the walls
with polyglot poetry, an d presenting her w ith manuscripts o f multi-authored
panegyric verse, such as that authored b y members o f Magdalen College;
just as, w hen she had visited W in d so r in 1563, E ton schoolboys had similarly
presented their Latin poetry to her.11 B u t institutional feeling could also
manifest itself as aggressive rather than as orthodox and polite. Early
immersion in a highly com petitive, patriarchal and homosocial system might
account for som e poets’ representations o f schooling as a kind o f warfare,
conjuring up thoughts o f W aterlo o and Eton playing-fields, and Lindsay
Anderson’s I f . . . (19 68 ). A n educational experience powered b y conflict
rather than con fo rm ity is evoked through hard-fought academic battles, and
at the sam e tim e the im pulsiveness and energy associated with youth,
personified b y d y n am ic adolescent protagonists, animate the verse.
Som etim es the intention o f institutionally m inded poetry is ideologic­
ally serious: U lrich v o n H u tte n ’s 15 1 7 poem T r iu m p h u s Doctoris Reu-
chlini’ (‘ D r R eu ch lin ’s T r iu m p h ’), a lively defence o f the efforts o f his
mentor, the G e rm a n scholar Jo h a n n R euchlin (14 5 5 -15 2 2 ), to counter local
burnings o f H e b re w texts b y zealous D om in ican s, taps into contemporary
humanist efforts to em phasize that there were not one but three linguae
sacrae (G reek , L a tin a n d H e b re w ). V o n H u tten represents such humanist
idealism as a m ulti-gen erational co n cern , urging H ue, iuvenes, hue ite, senes,
celebrate trium phum (‘ G o , y o u n g m en , go, elders, celebrate the triumph’ ,
40), but in the p o em the iuvenes in particular act as a kind o f army,
carrying o f f th eir spoils as i f in a R o m a n trium ph (3 8 2 -5 ):

U
Wall 1998:1—4.5; Farrell 2001: 52-83. Nichols 2014:1.546-72.
 SARAH K N I G H T
5«
In a packed procession and in their chariot they approached.
Fine theyoung men bore pictures, standards, colossi,
The cowardly weapons of the conquered and the instruments
Picked from the men by stealth.'3

Von Hutten’s triumphal imagery gains p o w e r fro m its authentically

‘Roman’ linguistic medium. His use o f Latin exalts a local academic
wrangle and makes it seem historically m om entous as R e u ch lin the scholar
becomes a victorious general o f his young stu d en t-tro o p s m obilized under
his banner of ecumenical humanism.
Sometimes, though, institutional wrangles are m o re subversively
depicted, deflated by hyberbole which calls atten tion to the relative petti­
ness ofwhat is at stake. In Nicolas Petit’s m o ck -e p ic Barbaromachia (1522)
we again see scholarly battle being joined, this tim e b e tw e e n the students
of two of the most illustrious collèges o f the U n iv e rs ity o f Paris, the
Collège de Montaigu (where Erasmus had stu died) and the Collège
Salme-Barbe (where George Buchanan was to teach ). P etit, rector of the
Law Faculty at Poitiers, chronicles the vio len ce b etw een collegians
prompted by their reactions to the overflowing o f sew ers between their
colleges.1’ The excitability of the students is crucial fo r th e p o em ’s sense of
urgency: the iuumtus (‘group o f young peo ple’) lo o k o n (sig. Miijl
and exalt’ (extollebat) what they see, and th ey o c c u p y a ‘ batde-ground’
(mpm) (sig. Ni"). Although Petit’s militarized collegians recall Von
Huttens student-soldiers deployed for theological p o le m ic, Petit draws
attention to comic incongruity, alluding to L u c a n ’s a n d V ir g il’s accounts
of terrifying bloodshed to make this grotesque an d p u n g e n t skirmish in an
inkbom comer of Paris seem insignificant, o n ly m o ck -h e ro ic in its force.
It is worth considering how poetry was actu a lly ta u g h t. Françoise
Waquet has argued for a ‘universal canon’ o f L a tin p o ets studied in
Renaissance schools, including Terence, V irg il, H o r a c e , and O vid , and
a few neo-Latinists such as Baptista Spagnuoli M a n tu a n (14 4 8 -1516 ).'’
Although we see local variation, the contours o f re a d in g can to some
extent be traced'6 Poetics was not part o f the trivium (gram m ar, logic

■ Biding tftór 3412-47(417): km celebripompa tpoliti eunuque propinquum . / Prim a uehunt imenei
u k k que « npu eclomque I Armaque deuincterum im bellia m m ptaque fitrtim / Instrumenta urns.
Thii [wage aka accepted In Laurens 2004:174.
’■* Pear 15m Chartier. Julia, and Compère 1976:152-3. 15 W aquet 200 1: 33-4.
" Induenda! midies Include (England) Baldwin 2944; Clarke 1959; M ack 2002: 11-4 7 ; (France)
Barnard 1921; Charti«, Julia, and Compère 1976; Lebrnn, Venard, and Quéniart 1981, vol. n;
tltaJy) Blade ioo« Gradier 1989; for pan-European studies, see Grafton and Jardine 1986; Waquet
uni.
 Neo-Latin Literature and Early Modem Education 57
and rhetoric), b u t w as n oneth eless in tim ately co n n ected w ith all o f its
branches, p articu larly rh etoric, sin ce u ltim a te ly all form s o f com p osition
are based on rhetorical d ivisio n s: in ven tio (co m in g u p w ith a subject),
dispositio (organizing the discu ssio n ) an d elocutio (delivering o r articulat­
ing the w ork). E d u ca tio n alists d iffered as to h o w im p o n a n t p o etry was:
all agreed that it w as p leasurable b u t so m e felt it co u ld also be m orally
serious. In D e ingenuis m oribus et liberalibu s adulescentiae studiis lib er
(‘T h e C h aracter an d S tu d ie s B e fittin g a F re e -B o rn Y o u th ’) (w ritten
c. 14 0 2 -3 ) , Pier Paolo V e rg e rio argues th at ‘ p oetics [poetica], even i f it
contributes a great deal to the life an d speech [ad vitam et a d orationem )
o f those w h o stu d y it, nevertheless seem s m o re suited to pleasure
[ad delectationem ] ’ . '7 V e rg e rio associates p o e try w ith the ars m usicae (art
o f music), and figures it as a g e n tle m a n ly leisure pu rsu it rather th an as a
skill to be system atically in cu lcated . O th e rs th o u g h t d iffere n d y: fo llo w in g
Plutarch, in D e Pueris Instituendis E ra sm u s cites vario u s p o etic m odes
(pastoral, com ic, ep ic) as m eans o f c o n v e y in g a m o ral m essage ap pealin gly
to children, and P h ilip S id n e y m ad e a sim ilar claim in his D efense o f
Poesy (c. 15 8 0 ).18 R ea d in g, tran slatin g a n d c o m p o sin g p o e try co u ld stim u­
late pleasure, eloq u en ce o r m o ral fo rm a tio n , o r all three, in th eory.
Practical teaching m anuals, o n the o th er hand, give us som e sense o f
what pupils actually did in the classroom . In Ludus L iterarias: O r, the
Grammar Schoole ( 16 12 ), Jo h n B rin sle y presents a ‘ D iscourse betw een tw o
Schoolemasters’ , Sp o u d eu s a n d P h ilo p o n u s. P h ilo p o n us’ aim is ‘ th at [the
pupils] bee able in m an ner to w rite true L a tin e ’ (‘w ith o u t b o d g in g’ , the
margin sternly notes), ‘and a go o d phrase in prose, before th ey begin to
meddle w ith m ak in g a verse.” 9 T o help th e m ‘ m ake verses’ (p. 19 2 ), pupils
need to ‘haue read som e p o etry first; as at least these books o r thé liké, or
some part o f them , viz. O u id de Tristibus, o r de Ponto, so m e peace o f his
Metamorphosis o r o f V irg il, an d be w ell acq uain ted w ith their Poeticall
phrases’ . Pupils and teachers alike are rem in ded o f p o etry’s relationship
with the trivium : ‘ F o r the m ak in g o f a verse, is n o th in g b u t the tu rn in g o f
words forth o f the G ra m m a ticali order, in to th e R hetoricall, in som e kinde
o f metre; w h ich w ee call verses.’ B o y s sh o u ld be able to learn com position
quickly: ‘ they will be in a g o o d w a y tow ard s the m ak in g a verse, before
they haue learned a n y rules t h e r o f . H a v in g m astered this first technique,
they should then ‘ be m ad e v e ry c u n n in g in the rules o f versifying’ , and
become ‘expert in sca n n in g a verse, an d in p ro u in g euery quantity,
according to their rules, an d so vse to p ractice in their lectures [readings]

■8 Erasmus 198$: 336. ** Brinsley 16 12 :19 2 .

17 Kallendorf 100 2: 52-3.
 j8 SARAH K N I G H T

daily'. Like many Renaissance pedagogues, Brinsley advocates that pupüj

compile ‘common place’ lists o f citations to help them learn Latin, increase
their vocabulary and improve their com positional skills, selecting some
Ovid citations from a 'Flores Poetarum . . . and in euery Com m on pia«
make choise o f Ouids verses, or if you find an y other which be pleasant
and easie' (p. 193), next ‘write downe all the w ords in Latine verbatim, or
Grammatically’, thirdly ‘having iust the same the sam e words, let them trie
which of them can soonest turne them into the order o f a verse’. Pupils
should constandy compare their writing with that o f the original Latin
texr, to see where they ‘haue made the very sam e; o r wherin they missed:
this shall much incourage and assure them ’.
Brinsley’s manual is brisk yet compassionate, seeking what would be
'pleasant and easie’ for the schoolboy am idst the drilling. Unlike earlier
pedagogues writing within the ‘mirror for princes’ tradition, he accepts
that not all o f his pupils will go on to further stu dy and m ay need only the
vernacular in their professional lives, reflecting the fact that between the
fifteenth and seventeenth centuries, school education at least became more
widely available. Brinsley writes in the vernacular w h ile earlier educational
theorists had written mainly in Latin and he targets provincial grammar-
school boy’s rather than aristocratic youths and princes. Yet although
educational opportunities were growing, m an y co m m o n factors can be
found between (for instance) Erasmus’ De Pueris and Brinsley: translating,
parsing, common-placing and canonical readings w ere all central to how
early modem youths were taught to approach poetry.
Far from the ideal schoolmasten w e find in B rin sley and Erasmus is the
tutor-poet who ventriloquizes George B uch an an’s firat elegy, most likely
written when he was teaching at the Collège Sain te-B arbe in the late 1520s.
Its title, ‘ How wretched is the state o f those teaching classical literature in
Paris’ {Quam misera sit conditio docentium literas humaniores Lutetiae),
unambiguously heralds an artful chronicle o f literary w oe, as creativity
yields to pedagogy: ‘farewell barren M uses’ [sterilesque valete Camenae, 1).“
Although ‘we have spent our early years w ith y o u ’ , the effort involved has
made him old before his time (11-14 ):

Ante diem curvos senium grave contrahit anus,

Imminet ante suum mors properata diem:
Ora notat pallor, macies in corpore toto est,
Et tetrico in vultu mortis imago sedet.

1: Ruddinun 1715: joi; alto in Perosa and Sparrow 1979: 512- 13.
 Neo-Latin Literature andEarly Modem Education 59
Before its proper time, heavy age has warped the limbs,
On-rushing death looms before its proper time;
Paleness shows on the face, the body-is withered all over.
The image o f death sits on the hideous countenance.

T o convey the obsessive thought patterns o f the overworked, Buchanan

uses repetition to structure his couplets: this physical deterioration, he tells
us twice, is ante diem , agonizingly and jarringly premature, and death is
not only loom ing ( im m inet) but takes up residence {sedet).
Before our sym pathy gets too acute, however, it becomes clear that the
speaker — as well as m elodram atically lam enting the effects o f ‘overmuch
study’ , in the Jacobean scholar R obert Burton’ s phrase - is also showing o ff
his reading. B uchanan’s elegy is indebted to Juven al’s seventh satire on the
economic difficulties o f the over-educated bu t under-valued, w hen ‘ old
age, eloquent but poverty-stricken, hates itself and its M use’ ( 7 .3 4 -5 ).“ So
the poet paradoxically dam ns poetry whilst dem onstrating h ow much
i poetry he has read, and dem onstrates h o w deeply learning has Been incul­
cated, even as he apparendy chafes under educational strictures.
Other tutor-poets favour a m ore m oralizing tone. N icolas Bourbon’ s
address to his form er pupils, Opusculum pu erile ad pueros de moribus sive
ïïaibaycoyeïov (‘ B oyish M in o r W o r k for B o ys on the Subject o f M orals, or
Paedagogion) (1536) extols the im portance o f a teacher’s influence; invited,
most probably, b y the francophile A n n e Boleyn to teach a class o f aristo­
cratic ten-year-olds at H e n ry V H I ’ s court, B ourb on represents the task as
divinely and parentally appointed rather than as patron-brokered:

Vos Deus ipse mihi, vestrique dedere parentes.

Non ob Grammaticen, Rhetoricen modo,
Verum edam ut mores sub me discatis honestos:
Est mihi commisi cura gerenda gregis.

God himself, and your parents, gave you to me

N o t only for Grammar and Rhecoric,
But so that you could learn virtuous morals under me:
The care o f managing the flock has been given to me.“

For Bourbon, teaching is important not only because it delivers grammat­

ical and rhetorical training required by the trivium , nor just for its moral
dimension {honestos mores), but because of the religious vocational dimen­
sions of the work: ‘God himself has given him the job, and his duty is that

u Bound 1004: 300-1: tune seque suamque / Terpsichoren odit facunda et nuda senectus.
“ Bourbon 1536:15. See also Phillips 1984: 7 1-8 2 (78).
6o SARAH K N I G H T

of a Christ-like lor priest-like) shepherd, his pupils are his ‘ flock’ . Back in
Franceinthe mid-i<¡}os, aiming to re-establish h im se lf in hum anist circles,
Bombons poem can be read as fulfilling several purposes: he assens his
pedagogical seriousness as an ideal Erasmian teacher, demonstrates his
poetic afeminan extended verse lener, and also, m ore subtly, emphasizes
lùs privilegi involvement in the royal court arising fro m bein g entrusted
trié the ‘care’ of a ‘flock’ of distinguished boys.
Bourbon’s PaaLigogion fits within a longer h u m an ist tradition of
addresses to pupils. 'While you are still a b o y, press o n ’ ([d\um puer
a ... inmmfe), urged the Florentine notary and poet U g o lin o Verino in
anepigramto his son Michele, for ‘this time o f life is suitable for all kinds
of study’ (jftnfiu hateaptaest omnibus aetas, 9 - 1 0 ) . 13 V e rin o appeals to Iris
son’s senseof family name (nomen) and reputation (fama, 3), cites the feet
that father and grandfather have been intellectually distinguished (5),
posits that ‘love of praise’ (¡audis amor) should act as a spur, and argues
that adolescence is the time to fill the memory for a lifetim e’s use, that
‘whatever you leam thoroughly in your adolescent years, / N o length of
timewill take away from you (quicquid iuvenilibus annis / perdisces, tollent
tempori nulli tibi, 13-14). As Plutarch had, V erin o stresses that a boy is
mentally susceptible in the ‘adolescent years’ , but here such receptiveness
isrepresentedpositively through his emphasis on h o w the youth ful brain is
quids to assimilate rather than on its propensity to be m isled. T h e paternal
advice was apparently taken to heart: only seventeen w h en he died,
Michele Verino published De puerorum moribus disticha in the year of
his death, having worked on the moral poems for several years. Plutarch,
one imagines, would have applauded the younger V e rin o ’s interweaving of
poetry and moral philosophy as exemplary, and m an y o f his contemporar­
ies depicted this teenager as highly ethical and chaste.14
Fathers and sons frequently appear in poetry ab o u t education. The
elder Verino appeals to dynastic continuity, e x h o n in g M ich e le to preco­
city >0 that the son can take up his place w ith in his father’s and
grandraiher’s academic sphere, but in families w here the son is the first
to enter formal education, schooling often means separation. W h e n poets
Ofuider education's promise of social mobility, generational differences
become particularly meaningful. Klemens Janicki dep icts the encounter
wi'h cbiical literature as so dazzling that any oth er career would be
unthinvahle, conjuring up a father so selflessly supportive o f his clever
son that he becomes instrumental in the son’s ab a n d o n m e n t o f his*

*fWw,:u ú n c e t e ^ andSputo» 1979« M Wilson 1997: 7-8 .

 N eo-Latin Literature a n d E a rly M o d em Education 61

family’s traditional occup atio n : he ‘ did no t w an t m e to live a life o f

punishing toil* ( vivere me durum noluit inter opus, 2 4 ), to turn a ‘ tender
hand’ (tenera manus, 25) to a ‘ lum pen p lo u gh ’ ( informi aratro, 25), so the
boy is sent aw ay to be ed u cated .15
W riting ‘A d patrem ’ ( T o Fath er’ , c. 16 31), M ilto n also shows h ow
education can separate the son from the father’s profession, but implies
that the break needs to be justified. D espite thanking - in an echo o f
Horace - his pater optime (‘best o f fathers’ , 6) for arranging Latin and
Greek schooling tuo sumptu (‘at yo u r expense’ , 7 8 ), the speaker still feels
the need to advise his addressee not to ‘ look d o w n on divine p oetry’ ([»]
ectu ... divinum despice carmen, 17 ) nor ‘con dem n the h o ly M u se s’ (sacras
contemnere Musas, 56 ).26 T h e poem is offered as a gift, education repre­
sented as a blessing, but behind all o f this lies a parental question familiar
from more recent times - ‘but w h at are y o u go in g to do w ith a literature
degree?’ Offered as laudes (‘ praise’) for his father, ‘A d patrem* perhaps
disingenuously offers filial justification w here none was sought: M ilto n
senior, as his son observes, w as h im self a com poser o f m usic ( 5 6 -9 ).
Nonetheless the poem reads as apologia as well as eulogy, and i f there
was no need to offer justification to the father, the speaker still seems eager
to convince the world that the father em bodies o f the fact that other
professional paths (law, m oney-m aking) are secondary to a literary career,
to a Divinum carmen (‘ Sacred P oem ’ , 17 ). W e have seen h o w Bojarbon
represents teaching as divinely appointed; in ‘A d patrem ’ , as in ‘ Elegia
sexta’ (1629), M ilton makes a sim ilar case for poetry, but the speakers ò f
these two iuvenilia carmina (‘youth ful poem s’ , ‘A d patrem ’ , 115) appar-
ently think that alluding to classical deities and authors will bolster
their claims to divine poetry. T h e narrator o f Paradise Lost, in his
intention ‘to soar / A b o v e the A o n ia n m o u n t’ ( 1.14 -1 5 ) , w ould not make
the same argument.
Adolescence can be a tim e o f reckless confidence or o f self-conscious
timidity, with one state som etim es yielding rapidly to the next. M ilto n ’s
early Latin poetry shifts between assurance and defensiveness, as in ‘A d
Patrem’ , and w e see similar variation across other poems. So m e authors
project steady, even vainglorious senses o f their o w n talent: Eoban K och,
for instance, extols his ow n precocity in the poem ‘Eobanus posteritati’
(‘Eoban to Posterity’): the M u se tells him ‘B o y from Hesse, yo u will be
the glory o f the sacred fountain’ (Hesse puer, sacri gloria fontis eris, 98) and
he is universally loved b y readers from the start: ‘ the people approved

11 Tristia vu: ¿wikliriski 1930. li Carey 1998: 155.

 6i SA RAH K N I G H T

his selected poems’ ([c}armina... populus mea lecta probaret) when he w*

only fifteen (clausa ...tria lustra mihi, 9 9 - 1 0 0 ) . 17 H ere, the talented
teenager aims to impress not only parents and teachers, but the popula,
at large, with posteritas already in his sights. O th ers represent themselves*
needing to work harder to get near to che sacred fountain: Klemens Janidd
recounts the need for ‘oaths and prayers to A p o llo ’ ( vota precesque I Photk
59—
40) before the god ‘wished to have insignificant m e in his chorus’ (|jj
oquesuominimum vellet habere choro, 4 2).18 Ja n ick i’ s poem offers a compii-
cared account of the relationship between reading, self-confidence and
classicism: in its description o f how classical poetry studied at the
Lubrarisld collegium in Poznan inspired him to becom e a poet, we see an
echo of Plutarch’s injunction that young m en should get ‘ inspiration as
well as pleasure’ from hearing poetry (Moralia 14e): ‘ I first heard grot
Virgil’s immortal name, and your name, blessed O v id ’ ([t]um printun
nomenmagni immortaleMaronis / Audivi et nomen, Naso beate, tuum, 35-6).
1 heard’, the speaker reiterates, ‘ and I began to worship, and said that - alter
the gods - there is nothing greater on earth than those poets’ CAudivi, eden
incepi dixiquepoetis I Post divos terras maitts habere nihil, 37 -8 ). Reading
here leads to worship, but - returning to the question o f authority and
confidence - such reverence implies inferiority: the classical poet is the
object of devotion, the neo-Latin poet the devotee.
For Janicki, reading Virgil and others causes a near-religipus epiphany.
In other poems, Virgil is depicted as a dau n tin g figure, exemplifying the
educational institution's ability to inculcate learning punitively. If we
return to Buchanan's elegy on teaching in Paris, w e find a ‘fearsome
master’ Ímetuendus... magister, 39) loom ing o ver his pupils, brandishing
two weapons 'against the boys’ {in pueros), a ‘ cruel strap’ (crudeli...
flagello, 41) in his right hand, the ‘ strong w o rk o f V irgil the great'
fmagniforte Maronis opus, 42) in his left. B u ch an an ’s implication is that
Latin reading can be an instrument o f discipline in an aggressive teacher's
hands: the forceful adjectives attached to poet and book ( magnus, fèrtili
amplify the forbidding spectacle o f the lash-w ielding tutor, with his sol­
dierly ‘knapsack’ (mantica, 40) and his ‘long robe’ (longa veste, 39) identify­
ing him with a parade o f authority figures (senators, priests, judges) able to
punish. Given Buchanan’s debt to Juvenal’s seventh satire, an extendel
meditation on the uselessness o f learning and the im possibility o f makings
living through poetry, the elegy cannot be read as a docum entary account
of classroom practice, but it is striking that ‘V irgil the great’ can be figured

'* Kccbijft: j j t a Tmtia vii: CwikJiiuki 1930.

 N eo -L a tin Literature a n d Early M odem Education 6}

as the equivalent o f a ‘strap’ , and although janicki also uses the word
magnus to describe Virgil, in his poem Virgil's greatness rests on his
‘immortal nam e’ rather than the great bulk o f his writing, used by the
'fearsome master’ , b y implication, as an alternative weapon.
Com plicated attitudes towards the classical past emerge when poets
apparently hold tw o m utually contradictory positions simultaneously,
when ancient w riting becomes both a source o f pleasure for readers and
an oppressive w eight for writers seeking originality. That such a contradic­
tion exists is borne out b y what some early modem educationalists say
about poetry causing strain as well as pleasure for students. In O fEducation
(1644), for example, M ilton questions the practice o f (Brinsley-like)
schoolmasters ‘forcing the em pty wits o f children to compose theams,
verses, and O rations, w hich are the acts o f ripest judgement’.19 Milton’s
attitudes towards his education fluctuated, and the dissatisfaction he
articulates in m iddle age when writing O f Education contrasts with his
student Latin works, w hich revel in a young man’s well-trained Latinity,
but his concern about overtaxing children’ s ‘em pty wits’ was a long­
standing pedagogical concern. O ve r tw o centimes earlier, in his treatise
De commodis atque incommodis litterarum (‘O n the Advantages and Disad­
vantages o f Learning’), Leon Battista Alberti dwells on what strenuously
educated boys contend with: ‘ those poor ones, how tired they are, how
weakened b y the draw n-out tedium o f reading, by great nocturnal efforts,
by excessive conscientiousness, overwhelmed by deep mental cares’.30 T w o
o f the ‘cares’ Alberti identifies are the struggle to find one’s own voice and
to negodate the w eight o f the classical past. H e mendons priscis illis divinis
scriptoribus (‘ those earlier divine writers’) to illustrate the early modem
dileftima: ‘that no one in our ow n time, even the most learned o f mën,
could say it better than they did’ .31
Alberti’s theoretical fears played out in composidonäl praedee: one o f the
brightest stars o f the Pléiade, Pierre Ronsard (1524-8 5) writes.of abandoning
Latin, despite h aving been premierement amoureux (‘ in love with it first’). He
states that he prefers ‘ to be better in m y ow n language’ {mieuxestrei En ma
langue) ‘ than being dishonourably last after Rome’ {Que destre sans honneur
à Rome le dernier)?1 Ronsard’s poem exemplifies what Joseph Farrell has
called the 'po verty topos’ , used by classical Latin writers when discussing

1,1 Dorian 1959; )66; see also Knight io n : 156.

10 Carotò 1976: 47: M iseri ilii quam stau exhausti, languidi lange lectionum tedio, magiis viglia , nimia
assiduitate, ac profundis anim i curis obruti.
* Carotò 1976: 39: ut neque eam rem viro hac etate doctissime quam Udem illi melisa dicere.
u Laumonier 1939: x, 304; see also Silver 196 9 :1. ao.
 SARAH R .V IG H T

éá b q p a s as a poor «fanon to Greek,” but the topos was just as relevant

j* aeo-Ladcisa writing about Lim itas and the vernacular. N o t all poe:
• ¿ I i c » t dank agsn o f Milton’s determ ination ‘ to soar / Above tk
À r a a mount, bet Milton stained that confidence in mid-career, young:
y .<ti ítq jesáy s h « the main o f bringing their o w n poetic labour a
- _ c ; c while representing that same past as constrictive and daunting
-seahadowed by die strong work o f Virgil the great’ and his peers.
Jjdg&g br risei; (admittedly often am b ivalen ti self-represemariora
mar. s d r modem Latin pocu were always w ritin g juvenilia: belad,
secondar,, unaccomplished compared w ith ancient Greece 2d
Porre. Sereni neo-Latin poets explicidy printed w o rk under the mie
jsanHu, suds as Théodore de Bèze ( 15 19 - 16 0 5 J (c. 1550) and Matc-
Antoine Mura ^1552); the term both literally describes the poet’s age ad
also implies immaturity, as captured in 'A d Parrem ’ w h en Milton refin
:o bis tumilu carmina ''youthful poems’ ) as lusus (‘games’, iij ).34
A sense of tseo-Latin as ‘juvenile’ com pared w ith classical Latín b
heightened when we see how ffequendy new L atin w riting is praised
in rdation to older works, an obviously flattering comparison which
arguably stifles the newer work by not letting it speak for itself on is
own terms. A poem by one ‘Selvaggi’ w h ich prefixes M ilton’s 1645
Peemaia, for instance, nates that the English p o et is equal co boti
Homer and Virgil (¡arique parem).,s Such a h yp erb olic comparison
confisses our expectations before we even start readin g M ilton’s work,
and the enormous scale o f the analogy could p reclu de an immediato!
response, even raising doubts in the reader’s m in d : h o w could these
poems possibly match both Homer and V irgil? Isn’ t the praise slightly
too lavish to be convincing? Similarly, N icolas D e n iso t’ s (1515-59) poem
at die stan of Muret s juvenilia praises the book no t for originality, but
(os imitative compendiousness:
Vis, Lettor, Tragici sonum cothurni,
Vis. Lector, números Candiónos,
Vis, Lector, numeros Tibullianos,
Vu, Lector, numeros Horatianos?
En libro tibi dat Muretus uno.

Do you wane, Reader, the sound o f the tragic buskin.

Do you want. Reader, Candían metres,
Do you wane, Reader, Tibullan metres,

” h a d r e * at. » Kñ&t 2011: m .

n Máoo lisp «. Sc*GiDfèdl and Com root: u i for an account o f‘Selvaggi'.
 N eo -L a tin L itera tim a n d Early M odem Education 65
D o yo u want, Reader, Horadan metres?
Look: M uret gives yo u these in a single book.36

Just as M ilton ‘equals’ H o m er and Virgil, so Muret ‘gives’ the numéros

' ‘metres; rhythm s’) o f three Latin poets plus the sonum o f the entire tragic
genre. Denisot’s anaphoric question - ‘do you want’ (vis) - and four-time
apostrophe to the Lector (‘Reader’) stretch beyond the panegyric to pull us
in, addressing us directly and m aking us consider which poetic models we do
want to encounter; then, in the final turn, Denisot makes it clear thar we
will not have to choose: all are m id e available through Muret’s imitative
gifts. But what does M u ret give o f his ow n talents? Denisot does not say. W e
might ask whether such extravagant panegyric as we see in the Milton and
Mutet pararnos is solely to be attributed to the generic decorum o f the
dedicatory poem , o r whether there is a more complicated suggestion that
neo-Latin poetry can only be understood and its worth evaluated in relation
to classical Latin poetry. G iven the Renaissance exaltation o f imitatio as one
o f a poet’s necessary skills, it w o uld perhaps be anachronistic to assume that
a neo-Latin writer w ould be more flattered by being called original (in the
post-Roman tic sense) than b y being identified as a good classicist; on the
other hand, judging b y the alternating confidence and timidity we find in
young men’s poetry, the range o f attitudes and particularly the ambivalence
we often see'expressed towards an education in which die reading o f ancient
authors was paramount, we m ight argue for an emerging wish b y many o f
these poets to be regarded as original thinkers as well as serious students.

FU R T H E R READ ING

Tw o influential accounts o f how Larin education and literature changed across

the language's history are Farrell 2001 and W aquet 2001. Grafton and Jardine
1986, Haskell and Hardie 1999, and T o o and Livingstone 200 7 offer important
perspectives on classical and Renaissance education in theory and practice.
Particularly useful edited primary sources for early modem pedagogy are
Kallcndorf 20 0 2 and Erasmus 1985. Three anthologies which all include Latin
poems related to education are Perosa and Sparrow 1979; Mértz, Murphy and
IJsewijn 1989; and Laurens 20 0 4. W orks o f educational history abound, written in
many languages and adopting numerous approaches (from irfstiiutional panegyric
to pedagogical diatribe), but the following studies discuss some o f the countries
covered in this chapter: (England) Baldwin 1944, Fletcher 1956, Mack 2002;
(France) Chartier, Julia, and Com père 19 7 6, Lebrun, Venard and Quéniart
1981; (Italy) Black 20 0 1, Grendler 1989.

* Mura 2009: 34-5.

 CHAPTER 4

The Republic of Letters

Françoise Waquet

From the Renaissance to the Enlightenment, m en o f learning felt that they

formed a community which crossed both political and religious boundar­
ies, and which came to resemble a state in its o w n right: the 'Republicof
Letters’.1 We have here an intellectual phenom enon o f considerable
breadth, which will be tadded in the first instance b y an historical analysis
of the concept itself. This initial exploration will be followed by a study of
the social and spatial dimensions o f the com m u n ity. This will allow us to
situate more accurately the practices o f a w orld w hich possessed an
additional unifying element in the use o f a shared language: latin.

D efinition

The first occurrence o f the expression ‘ R e p u b lic o f Ix ttc rs’ so far dis­
covered dates from 1417: the phrase is fo u n d in a letter b y the Venetian
humanist Francesco Barbaro congratulating P o g g io Bracciolini on hit
discovery of manuscripts and thanking him fo r h is generous communi­
cation: by working for the com m on go od {pro communi utilitate) in this
way. he deserved gratitude from the learned an d w as worthy of the
strongest terms of praise reserved for those w h o ‘ h av e brough t a thousand
aids and adornments to this Republic o f I x t tors’ {qui huic litteram
reipublieae plurima adjumenta atque ornamenta contulerunt).1 HespiMu
litteram i» here a synonym for rhe communis utilitas o f lire learned: wt
recall that the term ret may signify ‘ interest’, 'u t ilit y ' o r 'benefit', while
publicus denotes 'public', 'com m on' and 'b e lo n g in g to all'. Rut to discern
in this expression at this (Luc the sense o f a se lf-c o n ta in e d community of

Srr in fr a n t i Hoti tn¿ W k |u o 199?. I h r I r m e l i l e im u tw n it, h e r e l u m l j i c d ac 'm r i i n f Inunlnf,

ha no r u n I nglfeh «juSdem Pm 1 o w h t r n c y , 'm n i nf le < irn tii|i' 01 'i l i e l e a r n « !' luvr hern »»I
»ihn poMiblr mmdjlinm Jn c lw lr 'u l n i la i » ' j m l ' i n t c l l c u u a k '.
' Ihli im ii turai by f.limiteli! 19S0: 1 )7, n. 1Ä7.

6fi
 The Rfpublic of ¡.eum 67

the learned w o u ld be to go to o far: for that w e must wait until the very end
o f the seventeenth ce n tu ry .
In the m ean tim e, the expression ‘ R epublic o f letters', which began to
gain cu rre n cy in the second third o f the sixteenth century, was employed
mote and m ore both in its L it io form and in various vernacular languages.
Hie term often had a broad and som etim es a rather vague meaning,
indicating m en o f learning, learning itself, or both o f these. Cierre Baylc’s
Nouvelles de ¡a République des Lettres offered reviews ami notifications o f
new w orks, s|>okc about their authors, praised the illustrious dead, and
provided info rm ation on the intellectual w orld in its entirety, beginning
with the chan ges w h ich w ere taking place in the universities. In the preface
to the first v o lu m e (16 8 4 ) he had specified: 'm atters o f this sort belong
naturally in this w o rk as is apparent from the title w hich we have given it’. 1
Although this general m e an in g does not disappear, we find towards the
end o f the seventeenth c e n tu ry a m ore specific m eaning beginning to
emerge, w h ich w a s p ro b ab ly p ro m o ted b y the sense o f a shared interest
in learning an d b y c o m m u n ic a tio n practices already attested in the 14 17
text. In the first d efin itio n s given b y dictionaries of the French language
(Richelet, 16 8 0 : A c a d é m ie française, 16 9 4 ), the Republic o f letters is
presented as un corps ('a b o d y ’), m irro rin g the organizational structure o f
the Ancien Régime so ciety. T h e s e very brief definitions arc supplem ented
by more detailed d e scription s w h ich present the R epublic o f letters as a
state o f its o w n - o n e o f universal extent w h ich gathers a specific |>opula-
tion together beneath the standard o f equality, freedom , truth and reason.
In 17 2 6 , the G e rm a n theologian and polym ath Ch risto p h August
licurnann su m m arized in the fo llo w in g term s a view that was com m on
from then o n : ‘T h e c o m m u n ity o f the learned scattered thoughout the
whole w ofltl m a y , even if it is not properly speaking a republic or a society,
nevertheless be called, b y virtue o f its m any similarities to those entities, a
Republic o f le tt e r s .’ H e co n tin u ed : T h e R epublic of Letters is extremely
similar, as regards its fo rm , to the invisible C h u rch . Since it possesses here
no m o n arch , no civil p o w e r, but a very great liberty, and just as H oly
Scripture reigns alone, in th e sam e w a y reason reigns alone in that
Republic, an d no o n e has the right o f control over others. A n d this liberty
is the soul o f the R e p u b lic o f Letters . . , M Front that point on, the
definitions sh o w little variety; o n e has o n ly to read the description o f the
république littéraire given b y V o ltaire in 17 5 2 : ‘ this great society o f minds,
extending e ve ry w h e re and everyw h ere independent’ .’

1 lljylr 16H4, |iirl*.r (unpagliulcd). * Heununn 1716: ivX. 1 Voltaire loot; 1014.
68 FRANÇOISE W A Q U E T

In many ofio constitutive elements, the R e p u b lic o f Letters stands in

contrast to realities o f the time. It claim ed to b e com posed of equal
titians, as Pierre Bayle wrote in the prefece to the first volume of his
Nouvelles de la ¡(¿publique des Lewer. ‘A ll m en o f learning should set
themselves as brothers, or as coming, each o f th em , from equally good
homes. They should say: “ We are all equal, w e are all kin as children of
Apollo.” This statement o f equality implied b y the w o rd ‘republic’ con­
trasts with the keen sense of hierarchy that characterizes the societies of the
Ancien Regime. In the same way, the R epublic o f Letters claimed to be
open to ail religions: ‘ Religion in the R ep ublic is n o t uniform’, stated
Vigneul-Marville in 1700. In this regard too, the Republic- o f Letters
differs from contemporary states in which religious absolutism had been
instituted; the principle cuius regie) eins religio held sw a y alm ost evetywhere,
and tolerance, for those who practiced it, w as often adopted only by
default. Religious unity had been destroyed w ith the Reformation, and
for more than a cenrury violent conflicts engulfed the w hole o f Europe in
fire and blood: the expression Respublica litteraria et Christiana (The
Christian Republic of Letters’), common from the end o f the sixteenth
centuty, conveyed within the scholarly w orld a desire to pass beyond the
boundaries of religious confession.
The Republic of Letters thus reflects a gap betw een an intellectual ideal
and worldly reality. Even more so, given that m en o f learning did not
always set a good example themselves: in som e cases th ey gave precedence
to national interests and religious affiliations, and som e o f them eschewed
complete quality, or even nurtured an am bition to rule. Moreover, the
Republic of Letters remained always only an idea. T h e attempts made in
the first half of the eighteenth century to establish a societas litterarii
('literary society') of European scale or to establish a ‘ Bureau général de
la République des Lettres’ both failed.7 Th ese failures and inherent contra­
dictions reinforced the somewhat utopian nature o f the Republic of
Letters. It was, and remained, a grand dream , never realized but always
potentially realizable, which conferred upon the intellectual world a force,
a cohesion and a unity previously unknown.*

* Vipinil-MarnJIt 1700:11.6o.
* The Dutch lawyer Hotdrilt Bftnkman bunched the p rojea o f a societas litteraria in 1712 (and thra
again io trat), for the purpose! of providing the learned with the means o f publishing aid
disseminating their works as well as facilitating the exchange o f información by the creation of 1
three-monthly bulletin. The project to establish a ‘Bureau général de la République des Lettre,
»bids was announced in 1747 in die Bibliothèque des ouvrages savants de l ’E urope had a similar aim
 The Republic o f Letters 69

Population
The figurative expression ‘citizens o f the Republic o f Letters’ which is
found in the texts o f the tim e covers a population who described them­
selves variously as the educated, erudite, learned, or men o f letters.* All o f
these terms are related to learning and its most elevated forms. T h e y
indicate, too, a strong awareness o f distinction from a world o f cultivated
amateurs, o f the sem i-leam ed, o f the curious, a distinction which became
stronger as that group becam e m ore numerous, and with the emergence o f
‘popular’ science. A t Paris, this is clear from the regulations issued b y the
Royal Library in 17 2 0 , w h ic h specify that, on the one hand, ‘men o f
learning o f every nation’ cou ld enter the library ‘at any time during the
days and hours w h ich w ill be specified b y the . . . librarian’ and, on the
other, ‘the public . . . draw n there b y a desire to educate themselves’ would
be admitted o n ly ‘o n ce a week, from eleven in the m orning until one in
the afternoon’ .9
T h e R epublic o f Letters is principally a w orld o f authors: those who
have published a great deal an d often m ajor works. Nevertheless, the
Republic included som e people w h o produced few works, or even none,
but who, b y their activity, and b y their assistance o f the learned, contrib­
uted to the advancem ent o f knowledge: men such as N icolas de Peiresc
(1580 -16 37) w h o , via his letters, the loan o f books, manuscripts, antiquities
and curiosities o f every kind, w orked throughout his life to ‘ help the
public’ ;10 H en ry O ld en b u rg ( c. 16 1 5 - 6 7 ) w ho recruited talented men
scattered throughout the w orld to contribute to Philosophical Transactions:,
or Antonio M agliabech i ( 1 6 3 3 - 1 7 1 4 ) w h o, from Florence, disseminated
literary news w hich procured for him a European-w ide correspondence.
A boundary line lon g m arked the distinction between the learned and
craftsmen — in French, the mécaniques. T h is word was still employed with
a pejorative sensé in R jch elet’s D ictionary (1680) where, applied to certain
crafts, it signified ‘ low , crude, and unw orthy o f an honest and liberal
person’ . V ign eu l-M arville, how ever, in his definition o f the Republic
o f Letters, w rote: ‘ the m écaniques o ccu p y their own position within it’.
Th e mécaniques referred to here are men o f learning who themselves
functioned from tim e to tim e as technicians and makers o f machines.

* The expression 'men o f leneis' should not be taken in the la ta and specifically licoaiy sense.
9 Arrest du Com etí d'Estat du Roy concernant la Bibliothèque de Sa Majesté du tt octobre ¡720, Paris, s.
d .,4.
'° This expression is found in a le tta to Pète Morin (quoted by Charles-Dauben 1990: 46-?).
 FRANÇOISE W A Q U E T
70

In Francis Bacon’s New Atlantis (16 2 7 ) statues w e r e e rected to those, such

as Gutcnbeig, who had furthered the a d v a n c e m e n t o f knowledge with
their inventions. More concretely, in the fo llo w in g c e n tu ry the Encyclopi-
dit of D’Alembert and Diderot fully rehabilitated th e mécaniques and then
expertise, as is evident from the Discours prélim inaire, th e authors of some
entries, disappointed by the technical w o rk s a v aila b le at the time, visited
the workshops themselves; there they w ro te d o w n w h a t th e craftsmen told
them, discussed matters with them and th en s u b m itte d their reports to
them. This is a crucial moment at w h ic h th e traditional opposition
between science and technology, betw een a p u r e ly speculative form of
knowledge and one which looks tow ards p ractical ap plication s, was called
into question. Nevertheless, the ancient p re ju d ice s d id not disappear
entirely and the Republic o f Letters rem ained th ro u g h o u t the period undo
consideration a strongly intellectual society.
This society presented itself as egalitarian, a n d th e very term repuUk
encouraged a democratic ideal. All the sam e, so m e talents were considered
superior, and a hierarchy o f talents c o n tin u e d to b e recognized. On
this point, we can return to the description g iv e n b y Heumann, who
distinguished between the primates litterarii, leaders in the world of learn­
ing who were deemed to be o f the first ran k a n d w h o gu id ed the litterm
grex, or literally, the‘ learned herd’ ; or, h a v in g re co u rse to a metaphor from
ancient Rome, the senators and the plebs.
Whether or not this Republic w as tru ly e galitarian , its citizens had a
deep sense that they constituted a separate w o rld , th a t is to say, an dite
No assessment of the numbers involved w a s m a d e . T h e cited figures are
based upon records o f academic positions, su b scrip tio n lists to learned
publications, and university m atriculation registers. E v e n i f the members
of these groups outnumber the learned in th e s t r i a sense, the numbers
are rather low. The Republic o f Letters, sen ato rs a n d p lebs both, would
have been in real terms scarcely num erous. T h is is h a rd ly surprising in an
age when society was largely illiterate, a n d w h e n a c h a sm o f knowledg:
separated the elite from the masses.
This feeling o f being an elite can b e d isc e rn e d in th e concern shown
with limiting access only to those w h o c o u ld p re se n t books they had
written as proof o f their learning or, fo r ta le n te d y o u n g m en, letten of
recommendation: one scholar recom m en ded a n e w e n tra n t to another ont
of his acquaintance, attesting to his qualities, a n d s ta n d in g as a guarantor.8
This elitism emerged less from an o p p o sitio n to th e ‘v u lg a r’ than fioro

= W»qun ioiob. 115-53.

 The Republic ofLetters 7i

a hostility to w a rd s all those false talents w h o claim ed entry to the Republic

o f Letters o n the basis o f b o rro w ed learning, or knowledge without
real substance.
M o ra lizin g w r itin g attack ed pedants and charlatans and, more broadly,
all bad b eh avio r in the intellectual sphere. It was particularly abundant in
the G e rm an w o rld a n d , b y w a y o f a few representative examples, one could
m ention th e D e m achiavellism o litterario o f M ich ael Lilienthal (1713) and
the De charlatanería eruditorum o f Jo h an n es Burkhard M encke (1715).
These n o rm ative w o rk s castigatin g all the evils associated w ith power and
am bition also p ro d u ce d a p ositive im age strongly inspired b y the historia
litteraria o f the B a c o n ia n ap p ro ach : the learned m an w h o rises above all
particular interests in o rd er to con trib u te to a collective project as an
ongoing en d eavo r. W e fin d th e sam e inspiration in biographical writing,
the principles o f w h ic h w e re su m m arized b y M ich ael Lilienthal: writing
the life o f a learned m an w as n o lon ger sim p ly a m atter o f praising him , as
it had been d u rin g the R enaissance, b u t becam e instead an attem pt to
reconstruct an in d ivid u al d estin y in term s o f its contribution to a collective
project - the a d v a n ce m e n t o f learn in g.1*
T h is m odel o f the learned m an , w h ich took shape between the sixteenth
and eighteenth cen tu ries, in clu d e d a m oral elem ent, o r even ä religious
one. Su ch an ideal w a s realized in different w ays at different m om ents in
time, after E ra sm u s c a m e to represent a ‘ scholar-saint’ .13 T h e religious
dim ension received a fresh im p etu s w ith R o b ert B oyle’s The Christian
Virtuoso ( 16 9 0 ) , the su b title o f w h ic h expresses the idea particularly well:
Shew ing that by B ein g A d d icted to Experim ental Philosophy, a M an is Rather
Assisted than Indisposed to be a G ood C hristian. Learn in g was not an agent
o f im p iety a n d a th eism : it served rather the perfection o f the soul. T h is
ideal o f C h ristia n k n o w le d g e w a s w id e ly shared in the R epublic o f Letters,
and it w as o n ly in th e co u rse o f the eighteenth century that a model o f
the secular in tellectual, o f w h ic h C o n d o rc e t w o u ld be the prototype in the
R epublic o f S c ie n c e s, began to em erge.
M o ra liz in g literature also insisted up o n the social qualities which the
learned m an sh o u ld possess, a n d the civility w h ich should rule in the
R epublic o f L etters. M o r e o v e r, agreeable m anners prom oted the com m u­
nication o f k n o w le d g e . D a n ie l G e o r g M o r h o f m ade this argument in his
Polyhistor (v o l. I, 16 8 8 ) w h e re , in the chap ter on intellectual conversation
(I. 14) h e stressed the e xte n t to w h ic h good manners encouraged the
exchange o f k n o w le d g e a n d h o w m u ch rudeness, brusqueness and a

“ WaquCT loioa: 169—81. " Jardine 199}.

 F RANÇOI SE W A Q U E T
¡i

morose manner worked against it. Some learned m en m ark themselves

out. it is true, by rather unsociable behavior, rough m anners, and a gruff
bearing. The dvilization of gpod manners’ had, how ever, its perfect
representatives in the Republic o f Letters: the V e n e tia n A ntonio Conti,
who stayed in Paris at the beginning o f the eighteenth century, discovered
fromhis experience of learned society in the capital that ‘ a scholar can bea
nun of the world’.4
As all the names so far given indicate, the R ep u b lic o f Letters is a
masculine realm. Women had not yet gained adm ission to colleges and
universities, and the education that they received prepared them for
domestic tasks or, in the upper classes, for a fashionable social life. For
these women there was no question o f G reek and Latin . Nevertheless,
there were some women who marked themselves o u t b y their genuine and
profound learning. They should not be confused w ith the female pedants
and prenants (something like 'affected ladies’ ) m o ck ed b y Molière. But
learned female authors, such as Madame D acier ( 1 6 4 7 - 1 7 2 0 ) who pro­
duced several editions ad tuum Delphini, w ere nevertheless exceptional
cases. Moreover, in the seventeenth century and still more so in the
eighteenth, when the advancement o f knowledge w as no longer conducted
entirely in Latin, a female public who were h igh ly cultivated and who
participated in intellectual activity began to em erge, in imitation of the
uthmims who held sway over cultivated society in Paris.
This largely masculine world o f the R ep ublic o f Letters was socially
heterogeneous in terms of the wealth, backgrounds and positions of its
members. We can stress here one particularly strikin g feature: certain
families took root in the Republic, maintaining a position at the summit
ofleaming over several generations, such as the C assin i w h o dominated the
field of astronomy for more than a century. S o m e fathers saw their sons
followin their footsteps, such as the three great philologists o f the Golden
Age in Holland, Vossius, Heinsius and G ro n o v iu s. T h e re are several
examples of scholarly brothers, such as the D u p u y s w h o , in Paris in the
1620s and subsequent years, gathered around them selves o n e o f the most
well-known intellectual circles o f the Republic o f Letters. Future scholar­
ship should «plore the alliances between learned fam ilies. Kinship net­
works, or dynasties, made up an additional structural element in the
Republic of Letten. A further link arose also from the affiliations that
linked a master and his disciples, producing intellectual genealogies,
another type of network at the heart o f the w orld o f learning.

M Cono 175Í: D. 22.

 The Republic o f Letters 73

G eo g rap h y

The Republic o f Letters was keen to define itself as universal: ‘ no republic

is larger ( . . . ] it extends o ver the entire earth’ , remarked Vigneul-M arville
in the text cited above. T h is claim o f w ide extent, equivalent even to
the dimensions o f the w o rld itself, underlines the utopian character o f the
Republic: it stood in sharp contrast to the political m ap o f nation states
that were at that tim e m ore and m ore strongly divided. Universalism o f
this sort encouraged a pow erful cosm opolitanism am on g the learned,
rooted in a fraternity o f learning. Isaac C asau b o n explained this w hen he
wrote in 1595: ‘T h e c o m m u n ity o f those w h o stu dy the same topics links
minds and conciliates an d unites m en w h o d o not k n o w one another
and who live in far rem oved parts o f the w o rld .” 5 T h is kind o f belief was
reinforced b y the very real practices o f com m unication and exchange
(discussed below) practices that w o v e together the m anifold and close
connections between the citizens o f this ideal republic.
The unity in know led ge was underm ined, it is true, b y national alle­
giances. T h u s T h o m a s Sprat, the first historian o f the Royal Society,
stressed the natural advantages o f En glan d as a ‘land o f experimental
knowledge', specifying that nkture itself favored the English b y revealing
her secrets to them above a ll.'6 S im ila r declarations are fou nd throughout
thé period and th ro u gh o u t E u ro p e , reinforced as they were b y a desire
to serve also, and som etim es p rin cip ally, the glo ry o f a prince or a state.17
For all that, th ey did no t at all p reven t the persistence o f a universal and
shared ideal; although freq u en d y belied b y the facts, that ideal was pro­
claimed ceaselessly and retained its frill p ow er between the sixteenth and
eighteenth centuries: it w o u ld b e a m istake to see in such statements
nothing more than an e m p ty rhetoric w ith o u t real significance'.
W hile the R ep u b lic o f Letters set forth a universal ideal, its geographical
extent appeared, in reality, rather m ore lim ited. It w as confined to Europe.
This was the general o p in io n , as is clear from the address to the reader in
the first num ber o f the Journal des savants (16 6 5): ‘Sin ce the aim o f this
journal is to offer info rm atio n ab o u t fresh developm ents in the R epublic o f
Letters, it will consist p rim arily o f a precise catalogue o f the c h ie f books o f
Europe.’ Even so, this E u ro p e w as confined to the western p a n o f the1

11 Casaubon 1709: t, 23.

14 Sprat 16 6 7 :113 -15 . Sprat relies upon, among others, the theory o f climates (see below).
17 An example in France is that o f the Academy o f Sciences, which was as focused upon the glory o f the
monarch as It was upon the advancement o f learning - a dual allegiance which was not always
without contradiction: see Stroup 1990.
 FRANÇOISE W A Q U E T
74

continent. Thus Russia remained at least until th e reign o f Peter the Crea
a virgin ione; in 1711, Leibniz remarked, in a note to th e tsar: ‘ there is, so to
speak, a tabula rasa in Russia in the m an er o f sch olarsh ip *.'8
Even in this limited space confined to the w estern part o f Europe, the
geographical spread of the Republic o f Letters w as scarcely homogenous;
some areas of dense activity (such as France, E n g la n d and Holland) by
alongside regions that were sparsely occupied o r even deserted. One lus
only to think of the lack o f enthusiasm o f D e sc a n e s upon his departure
for Sweden (1649), ‘ to go to five in the land o f bears an d ice’.'9 Moreover,
the densely inhabited zones were not at all u n ifo rm : in England as well as
in France, we find a strong opposition betw een cen ter and periphery: for
instance, in France, between the capital and the provinces.
Moreover, between the Renaissance and the Enlightenm ent, somt
changes affected the shape and the balance o f th e intellectual world. For
various reasons, certain regions which had o n ce been intellectually fertile
gave way to others. Among the most marked exam ples o f this kind, we can
note: the emergence towards the end o f the sixteenth century of the
United Provinces which became, due to the d yn am ism o f their priming
presses, the ‘world’s shop’;10 the decline o f the Germ an-speaking world
during the Thirty Yean’ W ar and the consecutive sh ift towards the East-
towards Vienna, Saxony and Brandenburg; the declin e o f the South in
favour of the North which, in the seventeenth a n d eighteenth centuries,
came at the expense o f Italy. In the course o f th e period, we can also
observe an increasing density o f the intellectual w o rld as marked by the
multiplication of academies throughout E u ro p e , w ith a d e a r increase in
foundations in the second half o f the eighteenth ce n tu ry. In the course of
this same century, a new phenomenon arose: ‘th e em ergence o f American
scholarship’11 and, with it, the entry o f A m e ric a in to the Republic of
Letters. At times, the changes noted b y historians w ere exaggerated by
those who experienced them: thus, in the 16 7 0 s an d the years that followed
Italian men of learning overstated their m arginalization in the new intel­
lectual order: they saw themselves as relegated to ‘ a corner o f the earth’, in
a ‘solitude as far removed from dvilization as ‘ the m ost remote parts of the
New World’.11 I
If certain political, religious and cultural realities (w ithout forgetting
wars) account for the geographical distribution o f learning, a theory
considered scientific at the time served as bo th explanation and

* Lobnk 1969.490. * Baili« 1691:11.57o. *® Berkvens-Stcvelinck et al. 1991.

“ Sitar» 1970. u Waquet 1989:358^9.
 The Republic ofLetten 75
confirmation o f the trend: nam ely, the theory o f climates.23 T h is theory,
which was based upon certain specific physiological ideal, established a
causal con nection between the character and particular gifts o f the inhabit­
ants o f a given place an d the latitude o f the region and the air they
breathed. A lth o u g h geographical determ inism o f this so n was not always
accepted, and although historical variations raised doubts, nevertheless the
theory o f clim ates retained considerable popularity up to and including
the eighteenth cen tu ry. In a m ore o r less explicit fashion, it undedies the
judgments about the particular capabilities o f the inhabitants o f Europe to
contribute equally to the advancem ent o f knowledge. T h u s Pierre-Daniel
Huet, ar the tim e o f his vo yage to Sw eden (16 5 2 -3 ), showed little surprise
at ‘the superstition and the credulity’ o f a native o f that country: ‘it is a
rather co m m o n failing’, he rem arked in his account, ‘o f people who, being
bom beneath a co ld sky, an d feeling the benign influence o f the sun less
than w e do, are slow er in the operations o f the spirit and less capable o f
distinguishing truth from error’ .24

C om m unication: Varied Practice, One Language

The Republic o f Letters is an intellectual com m unity; its purpose lies in the
communication o f learning and it furthers that communication at every
opportunity. T h e terms communicate and communication are used frequendy,
and the adjective communicative is one o f the finest compliments for a
learned person. C o m m uni cation is an ideal based on a fraternal solidarity
in the pursuit o f knowledge, uniting scholars above personal, political and
religious divisions. F o r that reason, the good citizen o f the Republic o f
Letters had to dem onstrate his good will, generosity, obliging nature, agree­
able manners, com pliancy and consideration: qualides which center upon
the fundamental nouon o f humanitas. T h is ideal, which had been set forth
clearly in the âge o f H u m an ism , received a fresh impetus with the develop­
ment o f Baconian science, w hich entailed the collaboradon o f talents.25
T h e establishm ent, m aintenance and encouragem ent o f cofnmunication
was not m erely an ideal; it w as also a necessity. In the intellectual world o f
the sixteenth to éighteènth centuries, resources were scattered and often
difficult to access, and tools for accessing them, such as catalogues or
bibliographies, w ere rare or non-existent. A s the printing presses produced
an ever-increasing mass o f books, how could one find out what had been
published in an y given place? T h e learned still wished to be informed o f all

** Pinna 1988. 14 Huet 185): 61. 11 Dibon 1990; Bots and Waquet 1994.
 FRANÇOISE W A Q U E T
76
the kinds of activity that were taking place in th e intellectual realm: not
only imminent publications or projects in progress, b u t also news about
individuals and institutions - not to mention the gossip that circulated
within the intellectual sphere.
From the second half of the seventeenth century, scholars were able to
rely on journals, and these were widely read. T h e Journal des savants, the
first to be published, in 1665, was followed b y m an y others in England,
Italy, the United Provinces and the G erm an-speaking world. Th e success
of these many publications should not how ever be overstated, at least
during their first decades: many journals had a difficult and often brief
life, with ¡regular publication, or even interruptions. Moreover, they
gave only a selective survey' o f information, esp ecially for foreign publi­
cations, reviews of which appeared after lo n g delays. Finally, these
journals were often considered to be intended n o t so m uch for ‘the
learned’ and ‘professional scholars’ , as for ‘ m en o f th e w orld’ , in other
words a cultivated public, as Bayle remarked in the advertisement for
the second volume of his Nouvelles de la République des Lettres. In 6a,
dien as now, men of learning wanted a source o f up -to -d ate information
that was swift, pertinent, responsive to their needs and requirements,
and offered more specific information such as th e location o f a manu­
script or remarks on a book, an experience, or a p erso n .*6 T h e y therefore
continued to seek information in the traditional fo rm s: b y correspond­
ence and oral communication.
Letters could communicate more news, adapt that news to the recipient
and, more importantly, convey information m ore quickly. If, in the
middle years of the seventeenth century, a letter sent b y post took seven
to ten days to reach Paris from La H aye, that is to travel less than
500 kilometres, this ‘slowness’ was insignificant b y com parison with that
of journals which travelled at the speed o f a parcel an d , in addition, had to
take account of all the delays involved in collecting and processing of
information, and finally o f publication.
Networks of correspondence developed that breached political and
religious boundaries, often gathering a large n u m b e r o f correspondents
around a single person. Since the conveyance o f letters was cosdy, only
those learned men who had postage facilities at their disposal and financial
resources of their own or were able to benefit from the resources put at
their disposal by a prince could establish and m aintain ve ry large network
of correspondence - such as Leibniz, for exam ple, w h o p u t his service to

* Pñfc V“ Wnot: Wtquet 2010a: 155-68 (‘PAiodiques/Comspondances*).

 The R epu blic o f Letters Tl

the Duke o f B ru nsw ick to good use. So m e m en o f learning, by virtue o f

their position or their wealth, took on the role o f important intermediaries,
passing on inform ation w h ich they had received:27 an example o f this is
Magliabechi, the librarian o f the G ra n d D u ke o f T u scan y from 16 7 3 to
1714, whose letters am ou nt to true bibliographical bulletins responding to
the particular interests o f his num erous correspondents. Epistolary com­
munication in the R epublic o f Letters went far beyond the binary rela­
tionship o f sender and recipient. Letters were read in intellectual circles
and academies, and the conversations which ensued fostered further
letters in return.
These conversations em phasize one aspect o f the oral dimension o f
intellectual exchange du ring this period, w hich could be formal as in these
meetings, or inform al as in the encounters which arose naturally in a
library or bookshop. T h ese were means o f being informed, by personal
discussion, about every m atter in w h ich the Republic o f Letters was
involved. W e ’ll give ju st one exam ple. ‘Yesterday,’ wrote Bude to Erasmus
on 5 February 15 17, ‘ I was struck by a sudden w him . . . to spend several
hours, during the afternoon, in the bookshops. A t Jehan Petit’s, a well
known bookseller, I m et G u illau m e Petit w h o is, I think, a relative o f his.’
Having recalled that G u illau m e Petit was his ‘d o se friend’ and that
he fulfilled the lofty function o f confessor to the king, he continued:
‘he informed m e that the d a y before yesterday, I believe, a discussion
had taken place in the presence o f the king o n the subject o f the men o f
letters’ , in the course o f w h ich the k ing had m entioned Erasmus and stated
his intention o f fou ndin g ‘ a sort o f sem inary for men o f learning’ . Som e
further details were given accom panied b y the com m ent: ‘ [1] sim ply repeat
conscientiously w h a t I heard.’28 In fact, all these resources - oral, written
and printed - were draw n upon to transmit ‘ literary news’, as learned
information w as then called.
Com m unication in the R ep ublic o f Letters was founded upon reci­
procity, and the system depended upon w hat each individual could offer -
certain people being o f course in a stronger position than others. M ultiple
obstacles had to be negotiated: distance, political and religious con d ias,
but also quarrels and polem ics w h ich , from tim e to time, divided the
intelleaual w orld into rival factions. B ut com m unication was furthered by
the friendships w h ich linked small com m unities closely together, and

v Berkvens-Stevelinck, Bots and Hassler 2005.

* Translation based upon that o f Garandcrie 1967: 97-8. On orality in the intellectual world o f the
period, see Waquet 2003.
 FRANÇOISE W A Q U E T
7»
which established some learned men as particularly im portant respondenti,
even in the process of checking w ork before it w as published.19
For a long period, Latin was the language used for the communication
of knowledge in the Republic o f Letters.30 A s late as 17 6 5, it was s i
described in that most modem o f works, the Encyclopédie, as ‘ the common
language of all the learned men o f Europe’ , and ju d ge d ‘ absolutely essential
[...] for philosophy and theology' as m uch as for law and medicine’.’1 In
the seventeenth century and still in the first h a lf o f the eighteenth century,
the proportion of Latin publications in these fields rem ains notable even if
it declines as time goes by. Thirty-one percent o f w o rk s analyzed in the
BMoètque raisonnée des outrages des savants de l'Europe between 1718 and
1740 are in Latin. Several major works o f science w ere still written in the
Latin in the eighteenth century, such as the Ars conjectandi of Jacob
Bernoulli 1, che Mechanica (1736) Introductio in analysin infini­
and the
torum (1748) of Leonhard Euler, the Systema naturae (1735) o f Linnaeus,
and the De imbus electricitatis in motu musculari (17 9 1) o f Galvani.
Learned periodicals also appeared in Latin: som e z o percent of them in
the period 1665-1747; in the second h alf o f the eighteenth century, we find
fourteen new journal tides published in Latin betw een 17 5 1 and 1760, and
a further thirteen between 1771 and 17 8 0 in the Germ an-speaking world
alone. Moreover, works originally published in the vernacular were trans­
lated into Latin. These translations, which w ere num erous in the seven­
teenth century and the first half o f the fo llo w in g century, feature
prominently in every type o f learned publication, beginning with the
periodicals and their two most important tides, the Journal des savant
and Philosophical Transactions.31 In the first h a lf o f th e eighteenth century
works of archaeology, zoology, botany and a n a to m y were published in a
bilingual format, setting a Latin text alongside a vernacular one. All the
gives the lie to the cursory belief that tends to associate modern forms of
knowledge with the vernacular languages. A m o n g th e titles cited above,
the work of Linnaeus reminds us that botan y w as established as a modem
science in Latin.
Thus Latin remained the common language of the learned until a late
date. Learned men wrote largely in Latin throughout the period considered
here, and they did so, one might say, quite naturally. On the one hand,
they had been educated in Latín: teaching in the universities was

” Damon and Taquet zoro.

r ‘ On the role of latin in the intellectual world, see Waquet 2001, chapters }, ;.t, 6 and 10.2.

" Diderot and d'Alembert 1765:265. ” Burke 2007a.

 The R epu blic o f Letters 79
conducted in Latin until the end o f the eighteenth century, with the
exception o f new o r technical subjects. O n the other hand, the bulk o f
their reading consisted o f works in Latin. Finally, the influence o f major
works published in Latin played a role: the new concepts conveyed in these
works could not always be easily translated, but were perfectly intelligible
for the learned men w h o needed to em ploy them. T h at is not to say that
writing in Latin has always been easy; some o f the learned lamented - and
increasingly so as tim e w ent on - the puzzling use o f a dead language. All
the same, this did not prevent them from using Latin, and - in certain
cases - from dem onstrating a fine facility in it, as is evident in occasional
writings o f the period, such as the poems dedicated to an author which
were printed in the prefatory material to his w ork.53
The Latin em ployed in the R epublic o f Letters was not o f an entirely
Ciceronian purity. It w as influenced b y the national languages both in its
written and oral forms. In the second half o f the seventeenth century,
Menage com m ented on this in a lucid manner; with some few exceptions,
authors were ‘ full o f gallicisms, teutonisms, anglicisms and idioms from all
the rest o f Europe’ .34 M oreover, university writing developed a Latin
jargon consisting o f fashionable words, which, if they existed at all in
antiquity, were used rarely o r w ith a different meaning.35 T h e language o f
instruction was no better. C asaub o n described as ‘barbaric’ the Latin that
he heard at the Sorbonn e.36 U nderstanding was often hindered b y a lack o f
uniformity in pronunciation, w h ich was colored b y national or local
accents; pronunciation was also affected b y fashions and mannerisms: in
the Lo w Countries, people im itated the pronunciation o f Justus Lipsius by
saying zed (for sed)?7
Phenomena o f this sort, w h ich tended to weaken the force o f Latin,
were largely counterbalanced b y certain incomparable strengths. O n the
one hand, all the vernacular languages were not considered suitable for
expounding learning: G erm an acquired the status o f a literary language
only late, in the eighteenth century, and Swedish was not considered a
language o f culture at a n y point du ring the period considered here. O n the
other hand, the rise o f the vernacular languages worked to the benefit
o f Latin. T h e linguistic fragm entation that resulted reinforced the role
o f Latin as a shared language o f com m unication at a time when the

” Van Dam 2009: 118-22 (on poems written for publication in prefatory material).
M Ménage 1729: I, 308.
” Helander 2004: 94 -7. 99. in . 1 1 7 - 1 8 ,1 1 1 - 2 , 12 7 ,1 3 2 ,1 4 2 - 3 . 158 -9 .16 2-3,16 6 -7 . >70.171.172.
16 Ménage 1729: in, 33-4. 17 Scaliger 174 0 :11. 380.
8o FRANÇOISE WAQUET

knowledge of foreign languages w as lim ited . L a t in translation s o f works

published initially in the vernacular w e re o fte n e x p lic itly justified by a
concern for a greater diffusion to learned m en o f o th e r countries. The
problem that had already been perceived in th e se v e n te e n th century only
grew more pressing. D ’Alem bert, w h o , in th e Discours préliminaire ¿e
l'Encyclopédie, approved the practice o f w r itin g in o n e ’ s o w n language,
noted the disadvantages which follow ed: th e le a rn in g o f ‘seven or eight
different languages’ and, along w ith that, th e loss o f p re cio u s time for out
scholarship. Hence his wish that L atin sh o u ld o n c e m o re become, for
works o f philosophy, the ‘ universal c o n v e n tio n a l la n g u a g e ’ . Though he
added, pessimistically: ‘ it’s poindess to h o p e fo r th a t’ . 3

FU R TH ER R E A D IN G

In addition to the references in footnotes, im ponant discussions o f the topic can

be found in Fumaroli 2005, Goldgar 1995, Shapin 19 9 4 and Shelford 1007.*

* d'Aletnbor 1984:113-14.
 PART II

Poetry and D ram a

 CHAPTER 5

Epigram
R obert Cummings

They come in as m any verse forms as there are verse forms; they are
composed in as m any languages o r kinds o f language, with as much variety
ofappearance, form, shape, address, as there is variety o f appearance, form,
shape, address, in whatsoever language o r nation or people or race’ , says
Julius Caesar Scaliger in his hugely influential account o f epigram.1 The
epigram is tied to the world o f things and people, places and events. It is
uncontainable by generalization. Epigram s are as random as the world is.
‘My book is a world’ says Jo h n O w e n (Ep. 1.3: Hie liber est mundus),2 while
I«sing defies anyone to read him w ithout growing dizzy.9 But the literary
epigram never quite loses touch w ith some wider understanding o f
inscription’, as a text physically written on Something (a monument, a
wall, a map, a work o f an ), and acquiring force from its placement. A t the
same time, as this chapter is at pains to insist, it is a condition o f the
development o f the literary epigram that the something on which it is
written might no longer be physically there: and satirical or amatory
epigrams, addressed to objects o f contem pt or desire, can rarely have been
literally inscriptional.4

Em blem s and Epitaphs

Two kinds o f epigram retain a close association with inscription: icones

(or ‘emblems’), and epitaphs. F o r the first kind the epigrams on artworks
in Book 4 o f the Planudean Anthology (Book 16 in the Palatine and modem

Robot Cummings, very sadly. died before publication. At his death, his chapter was complete, but he
badbeen unable to respond to final comments from readers. The editor has accordingly made some
bui ansio« and minor additions for clarity.
Scaliger 1994-1003: in, 10 6 (Lib. 9, capa 2}). The numbering in Scaliga 1561 is JJ2É .
1 All references are to Owen 1999. ’ Leming 1825:176.
4 Though Giacomo Marzocchi collected both ancient Roman inscriptions and modem Roman
nririfflf geyteptiU i

«3
 ROBERT C U M M IN G S

editions of the Greek Anthology), are the c h ie f precedent. Rarely descrip,

tive, such epigrams mark their distance from their declared subject by
intimating something extraordinary unexpectedly related to it, clearest in
the mode launched by Alciato’s m uch-reprinted Emblemata (first in 1531),
Aidato explained his ‘emblems’ in terms o f a collaborative pairing of
epigram and pictorial ‘invention’ , the latter su p p ly in g w hat Martial calls
a lemma, the topic set for composition ( 11.4 2 ).5 M o s t o f Alciato’s inven­
tions are at second or third hand from a n y real art-w ork, and many arc
borrowed from the Greek Anthology, but the im ages that characterize
printed emblem books generally represent art-w orks that might appropri­
ately support inscriptions. Johannes Sam bu cu s’ Emblemata (1564) derive
from more exacdy archaeological preoccupations than Alciato professed;
Sambucus acknowledges his debt to the reverses o f coins and engraved
jewels as well as to literary descriptions.6 Scriptural texts supply the
lemmata for the Jesuit Herman H u go ’s ( 15 8 8 -16 2 9 ) Pia Desideria (1624)
but it is the pictorial inventions resulting from collaboration with his
engraver that stimulate the epigrams: M ario Praz notes that the plates
were sometimes published with blank pages for readers to record their own
meditations, which is in effe« what Francis Q uarles does in his English
and Protestant versions from H ugo.7 T h e leones in B èze’s Juvenilia (1548)
oiler meditations on exemplary moments from h istory o r quasi-history:
Otto dying, Brutus dying, Lucretia dying, D id o d yin g; one, on Jupiter
confronted by Phidias’ stame o f him, plays w ith the conventions o f more
formal eephrasis.8 Buchanan’s leones, grouped together in Book 2 of his
epigrams, juxtapose celebrations o f sem i-m ythologized historical figures
with the frankly mythical, some o f these designed o riginally for the walls of
the headquarters of the Marshal Brissac in T u rin .9 T h e historical indude
the humanist Valla, whose slaughter o f solecisms m akes him - according to
Buchanan - a great monster-killer; the m ythical include H elen, whose face
launched a thousand ships and who w ould have been happier had she been
less lovely.10
Book 3 of the Planudean Anthology (B o o k 7 in m odern editions of the
Greek Anthology) is taken up with epitaphs, still the m ost readily identifi­
able inscriptional epigrams and which, like ‘ icons’ , are frequently segre­
gated in collections o f epigrams. Death is a rich to p ic for poetry, and the
preface to Canonieri’s 1613 anthology, Flores illustrium epitaphiorum, for

' Set Cummings *007. * Sambucus 1564:6. 7 Praz 1964:143 n. v , Quarles 1635.
* Bfae2001: 1Î0-107, icons 13 ,11,11,2 ,16 .
“ Buchanan 1723:11,430: u, 429.
9 McFarlanc 1981: 177.
 E p ig ra m 85

instance, announces that the collection is m ade with an eye on poetic

quality at least as m u ch as historical interest.“ Indeed, the first printed
modern epigrams were in a fu n erary collection for Alessandro Cinuzzi, a
page in the household o f G iro la m o R ia rio .'2 In proposing the poet W yatt
as a more proper subject for poetical g r ie f than Lesbia’s sparrow John
Lcland situates h im self as a rival to C a tu llu s .'3 Already, when a sepulchre
for Dante was proposed, B o cca ccio tells us that every one am ong the poets
of the Romagna com p eted per mostrare la sua sofficienzia (‘ to show what
they could do’) b y co n trib u tin g verses for it.'4 T h e Seym our sisters’
Hecatodistichon for M argu erite o f N a v a rre , m ore especially in its second
edition (1551), is overw h elm ed b y co m p lim en tary paratexts: the focus turns
from the dead heroine o f F re n ch letters to the precocious achievement o f
the new heroines o f A n g lo -L a tin letters.*3
Commemorative vo lu m es, c o m m o n ly university collections, are con­
sistently occasions for d isp lay o f this k ind. T h o m a s W ilson ’s ow n major
contribution to the fun erary v o lu m e for his prom ising young C am bridge
pupils the brothers H e n ry a n d C h arle s B randon com es in an appendix
given over to other unrelated fam o u s m en and w o m e n .'6 T h e Cam bridge
collection for M artin B u c e r prep ared b y Jo h n C h e k e earlier in the same
year, pietatis ac litterarum nomine (‘ in his m em ory, and for the advance­
ment o f good literature’), is h eaded b y epigram s by the Brandon brothers,
testimonies o f their precocious literary excellence.'7 T h e first o f the three
university collections for S ir P h ilip S id n e y , from C am bridge, opened with
an English sonnet b y K in g Ja m e s o f S c o d a n d and a sequence o f competing
Latin translations b y h im self an d m em bers o f his cou rt.'8
Puttenham com plains o f the ign orant confusion o f epitaph and the
fashion for ‘ long and tedious discourses’ h u n g up in churches over the
tombs o f great m en, too lo n g to be read w hile passing b y .'9 Printed
collections, unconstrained b y lim itations o f space o r b y the preferences
of readers in a hurry m a y co n ta in lo n g elegies and full-blown pastorals.
John Lloyd’s N e w C o lle g e Peplus for S id n e y invokes a com parison with the
so-called Peplus o f A ristotle, a sequen ce o f epitaphs for the Homeric
heroes, some already translated b y A u so n iu s as the Epitaphia Heroum.30
Lloyd evidendy had n o q u alm s a b o u t co m p ro m isin g the reality o f grief for

“ Cucinieri iSij: *4’ . 11 Cinuzzi 1474. '* Leland 2007: (‘Communis dolor').
14 Hie story is cited in Burckhardt 1990:174. *’ Seymour 2000. '* Wilson 1551.
17 Cheke 1550: b2r¡ u r' \ '* Neville 1587: k i'- la ’ . ” Puttenham Z007: 144; t.28.
“ Lloyd «87: A z\ The Greek is edited by W illem Canter with his own translations as Aristotelis
Stagiritae Peplifragmentum (Basle, 1566). Stephanus introduces them (497-502) into his edition of
the Anthology (Geneva. t$66).
86 ROBERT C U M M I N G S

Sidney. The two books o f Pontano’s Tumuli m ix real epitaphs from the
Capella Pontano in Naples, such as the poem o n his daughter Lucia
(De Tumulis i.i) or those on his son Lucio Francesco (2.26, 27) with
epitaph imaginary or only very improbably genuine: at their best playing
precisely with the want o f a designating inscription, as those on children
dead too early to be given a name (2.43, 54 ).11 Sannazaro’s epigrams
indude an epitaph on Hannibal (Ep. 1.27) constructed only for the sake
of a pun.
Objecting to the prevalent affectation o f paganism in epitaphs, Dr
Johnson applauds ‘the Pope who defaced the statues o f the deities at the
tomb of Sannazarius’ - apparently by relabelling A p o llo and Minerva as
David and Judith.u An epitaph on Sannazaro attributed to Bembo asks its
readers why they wait to die: ‘the shade o f immortal V irgil watches you and
grants you a place next to him’ (aeterni te suscipit umbra Maronis | et tibi
vivinum donat habere locum).1* In a frankly pagan celebration o f Sidney,
Campion asks for news to be carried to Venus that she m a y mourn the poet
of her Loves: mundate | Funestum Veneri exitum Philippi, | Vatem defleatta
suorumAmorum (Ep. 2.11). Even Buchanan, in lines that Bradner singles
out for their ‘classical flavor and polished com pactness’ , hopes that Andre
de Gouvea’s endeavours on behalf o f the muses will be rewarded and no
brighter shade inhabit the groves o f Elysium .14 E ven when they avoid
paganism, literary epitaphs entertain other distractions': C am pion’s iambics
on the death of Essex’s brother (Ep. 2.9) is concerned chiefly with the
malign effects of gunpowder.15 It is the distraction from the obvious that
makes the point. George Herbert’s sequence on his m other includes one
epitaphiumstranded among complicated private articulations o f grief, and
here even Herben is distracted by chilly antitheses: Sic excelsa humilisqut
simul ¡oca dissita jumát, | Quicquid habet tellus, quicquid et astra, fluens
(Thus at once lowly and exalted, she brought together regions remote,
enjoying whatever earth offers or whatever heaven’).16

Antithesis and W it

This focus upon antithesis is conventionally w h at makes an epigram, at

least the kind of epigram that Scaliger values: the L atin epigram as written
by Maniai. The epigram, in this tradition, plays with unlikely

“ Pontino 1977:1 . 140-73. “ Johnson 2000: 99. ** Bembo 2005: 189 (Appendix B: S).
“ Buduiun 1725: n, 3S1; Bradner 1940:138. *’ Vivian 1909: 272.
Hutthimon 1972:419 {Memoriae matris sacrum 13).
 E p ig ra m 87

conjunctions, the yo k in g together o f heterogeneous ideas’ , typically played

across the ready-made doubleness o f the elegiac couplet. W h e n the epi­
gram leaves its place beneath the statue o r painting, or upon the tombstone
that it identifies and arrives o n the page w ith o u t a context, then a compen­
satory complication becom es m ore o r less obligatory. ‘Th ere is a class o f
epigrams’ , says Scaliger ‘w h ich are com posite, and w hich infer from the
stated theme som ething else.’ 17 It is the m ovem ent to something else,
beyond mere identification, that offers the surprise typical o f epigram and
that allows Scaliger to argue that w h ile brevity is characteristic o f the
epigram, what he calls argutia (‘w it’ , ‘ p o in t’) is its soul or essence.18 T h e
movement is rather like that o f the jo k e, w h ich is one reason w h y satirical
epigrams are often regarded as typical, an d w h y Scaliger, w h o though he
has no great interest in epigram s w ith a satirical bias, proposes the meta­
phors of gall, vinegar and salt - all tastes that m igh t am bush the tongue.29
The word argutia is usually translated as ‘ p oint’ either because it designates
sharpness or, more likely, because it designates w h at is reckoned to bring
an argument to a conclusion. Scaliger writes o f the ideal epigram that it is
sibi instans (‘pressing on itse lf), as i f the energy it generated were held to a
recognizable if not quite anticipatable end.30
When the younger P lin y (Epistolae 7 .9 .9 ) describes epigram as acutum et
krtve (‘short and sharp’ ) he m eans o n ly that for cultivated gendemen it
represents a suitable diversion from real business. T h e Jesuit Jacob Masen
invokes Pliny as an auth ority for the necessary arguta brevitas o f the
epigram, but he offers the b lu n tly unrelaxed figure o f oxym oron as its
type.3' Scaliger’s notion o f w itty inference from a stated theme is more
delicate: he means in effect a com parison o f one thing with another; and
he specifies that the com parison should be ‘greater or lesser, or similar or
different, or quite opposite’ (aut maius aut minus aut aequale aut diversum
nut contrarium).31 T h e term s are slippery, but they are derived from
Aristotle (Rhetoric 3 .10 .7 ) and accord in gly subm it to academ ic elaboration
insucceeding specialist vo lu m es o n the epigram . T h e se begin w ith an essay
by the professor o f rhetoric T o m m a s o C o rréa (156 9), w h o makes the

r Scaliger 1994-2003: m, 204 (Db. 3, cap. 126).

The singular argutia seems to be a neologism; by argutiae are understood instances o f brilliance, and
they seem to be associated with acumen: Cicero credits the orator Hyperides with argutiae and
mmun (Orator 31, no).
* Scaliger 1994-2003: in, 212 (Db. 3, cap. 125 Appendix).
“ Scaliger 1994-2003: m, 204 (Db. 3, cap. 125).
At least in the later editions: see Masen 17 m 12. In the 1649 edition he does not mention Pliny.
0 Scaliger 1994-2003: m. 204 (Db. 3, cap. 125).
 ROBERT C U M M I N G S

epigram the vehicle o f self-conscious stylishness. A n u m b er o f the succeed­

ing accounts, however, are clearly designed for school use, and they are
often by Jesuits.” Their bias is to the pointed epigram , partly because it is a
distinctively Latin form in a culture that was m ore L atin than Greek. The
elaboration is at its most baroque in Em anuele T e sa u ro ’s Aristotelian
Cannocchiale or ‘perspective glass’, which devotes alm ost twenty pages
(551-68) to explicating the witty possibilities o f the conjunction of bees
and amber (as exhibited in Martial 4.32).**
The Jesuit schoolmaster Nicolas M ercier supplies a whole anthology
classified by such means o f securing ‘ point’ .M Sann azaro’s ‘ golden’ epigram
(Ep. 1,35) plays the lesser and earthly R o m e against the greater Venice,
built by gods; John Owen compares like w ith like, m an and earth, both
swollen with pride (Ep. 6.74), Jakob Biderm ann (Ep. 3.94 ) marks the
unlikeness of Baldwin I's war against Islam and the failure o f modern
divided Germany to follow his example; C asim ir Sarbiew ski (Ep. 63) finds
likeness in a wax portrait o f Nero along w ith unlikeness to the iron
character of the reality. Such awkward com parisons m ay be sharpened
into verbal paradox: Bèze’s argument (Ep. 61) that François I is truly a
victor because in refusing war he conquered h im se lf is contrived ‘from
a paradox’, says Mercier (238); O wen’s naked L o v e (Ep. 2.88) that freezes
least when most undressed is (because there is a p lay on the literal and
metaphorical senses of algeo) constructed from ‘a paradox and the ambi­
guity of a word’ (353); and his argument that p overty is preferable to riches
(3.54) because the poor have hope and the rich have o n ly fear is made
'from a paradox and by means o f antithesis’ . M e rcie r reserves a section of
his examples for the sacred epigram: the M agdalen o f Pierre Alois (Ep. 47)
supplies a more miraculous paradox than de B èze’s C a to , for when she
weeps on Christ’s feet it is as if the course o f things w ere reversed and the
earth rained on heaven (376).

Virtuoso Variation and D isplay

The selections from the Greek Anthology b y Jo a n n e s Sorer (1525) and

Joannes Cornarius (1529) were introductions to G re e k epigram (with a
bias to the son of Greek epigram that m ight be best suited to Latin taste);
but they were also treated as storehouses o f c o m p e tin g versions o f Greek

” Hutton t$jj: ¿5-72 describa a (election of these. 34 Tesauro 2000: $51-68.

” The cumpla that fellow am all (rom Mercier 1653.
 E p ig ra m 89

models.*4
*6 Already in the 15 6 0 s at W in c h e ste r C h arles Joh nson is promot­
ing epigram above o th er form s, w ith M a rtia l as a m o del.57 F o r the Jesuits
there was no better w a y in w h ic h to exp erim en t w ith m any possible
variations on a single th em e (phrasim eandem modis pluribus variare)?
Stephanus’ Epigrammata Graeca ( 1 5 7 0 ) , also an introduction to Greek
verse, made for the delight o f ‘y o u n g p eo p le w ith an appetite for poetry’
(iuvtnes poetices studiosos) co m e s e q u ip p e d w ith glosses in prose; but it
also indudes 10 4 versions o f th e final co u p le t o f an epigram b y Agathias
(Greek Anthology 6 .7 6 ) .39 T h e K e n tish sch oolm aster Jo h n Stockwood,
whose Progymnasmata scholasticum ( 15 9 7 ) rew orks Stephanus’ selection,
supplies a gram m atical analysis as w ell as a literal translation. Like
Stephanus, Stockw ood includes varian t L a tin translations o f the Greek,
but‘provoked b y his exam p le’ , h e sup p lies 4 5 0 L atin versions o f a couplet
by Macedonius the C o n su l (Greek Anthology 5. 2 2 4 ) .40
The taste for virtuoso exh ib itio n to o k a less likely turn. Jean Crespina
inclusion o f figure poem s - that is, epigram s in the shape o f their subject,
such as wings, an axe o r a pipe — in his m uch -reprin ted anthology o f early
Greek poetry launched a v o g u e for th e h igh ly contrived structuring o f
poems, whether visually o r verb ally.41 T r ic k s o f this sort - including very
popular motifs such as acrostics, anagram s, chronogram s, palindromic
poems and so on - are treated briefly b y Scaliger an d m ost o f the specialist
writers on epigram; they are discussed extensively b y Alsted w h o lists some
sixty techniques.41 A talent for w o rd p la y o f this kind could evidendy
secure a reputation: R ich ard W ille s, an O ld W ykeh am ist and lapsed
Jesuit, returned from Perugia to Protestant E n glan d to dedicate his efforts
to William Cecil as testim on y o f his m erits.45 B u t Ben Jonson would
happily bum all hgpgriphs, palindromes, anagrams, eteostichs, o r ‘those finer
flams’ of pattern poem s, ‘ acrostics, and telestichs' (Underwood 4 3 .3 4 -9 ).
Other forms o f w o rd p la y are less sp ectacular. O w e n writes that
the anagrammatic relatio n sh ip b e tw e e n the L a tin w ords iv s and v is

4 Sow 1525 reprinted 1528, 1544. An account o f Epigram m ata gratta . . . collecta, ed. Joannes Soter
(Cologne, 1525,1528 and Freiburg, 1544) and the Selecta epigrammata pa tea , ed. Joannes Comarius
(Bard, 1529) is given in Hutton 1935: 273-86.
J Baldwin 1944:1, 323; and see Hudson 19 4 7 :15 0 -4 .
Domemchi 1606:115. The final version o f the Ratio studiorum was first published in 1599.
* Stephanus 1570: ‘ V : 284-96. 40 Stockwood 1597: 413-39.
Crespin 1569 includes Simias’ 'Axe', ‘W ings’ and ‘ Egg’, and Theocritus’ ‘Pipe’.
" Scaliger 1994-2003:1. 554-6°. 584-91 (Lib. 2, caps. 25, 30); Alsted 16 30 :11,5 4 9 -6 7; 10.4.5. Higgins
1987 gives the fullest modem account. Bin ns 1990: 46-59 discusses the fashion for these devices in
Anglo-Latin verse.
Tilla 1573; and cp. Montaigne 2003: 348; 1.54 and Hobbes in Spingam 19 0 8 :11, 57.
90 ROBERT C U M M IN G S

properly reflects the adverse relation o f law and force (Ep. 2,133)
He creates a nice crescendo with Scip io ’s p ro m ise heart and soul to die
for his country (Corde animoque pio Scipio suscipio, Ep. 7.79); Bernard
Bauhuis, by contrast, creates a dim inuendo w ith friendship manifested
‘in love, in manner, in speech, and action’ (cemitur amicus amore, more,
ore et re).44 Nicolas Reusner builds a w hole vo lu m e out o f such unpicking
of words.4' Nicole complains o f O w e n ’ s frivolas argutias on the grounds
that such puns are so peculiar to a particular language that they are
untranslatable.46 Owen’s virtuoso Ep. 6 .12 m anages a fivefold anagram
oi certa, recta, arcet, creta, caret. Recta fides certa est, arcet mala schismati.
Non est, | Sicut creta, fides fictilis. Arte caret (o n ly pointlessly translatable
as 'An upright faith is sure, it shuns w ick ed divisions, it is not like
clay, a faith to be moulded. It is free o f d ecep tio n ’) is equally tied
to the Latin; but it may excite adm iration. A n a gra m s are an almost
obligatory feature o f epigram collections, for th ey are one o f the readier
ways of generating complications in given lemmata. A m o n g many ana­
grams, Owen (Ep. 2.119) plays with rom a and m o ra , drawing out an
untranslatable lesson about Rom e’s luck in H a n n ib a l’s delay. Herbert,
in a six-line epigram that provoked a rep ly fro m U rban VIII, has a
sevenfold example.47 Whole collections o f su ch anagram matic epigrams
were produced.4*
Virtuosity aside, academic epigrams are m arked b y recourse to a reper­
tory of academic conceits. O wen jokes that the infinitive and optative
moods are close because there is no end o f w is h in g (Ep. 1.29), or that
old men should avoid marriage because cornu (‘ horn*, here the cuck­
old’s) is indeclinable (Ep. 5.108). So m e are literary: a th ie f climbing the
gallows aims for the sky and makes for the stars q u o tin g Sic, inejuit,
petitur coelum, sic itur ad astra (‘ In this w a y , he says, h e aim s for the sky,
in this way he makes for the stars’ , c o m b in in g O v id , Fasti 1.307 and
Virgil, Aeneid 9.641). Into his epigram on the sick c u re d by the shadow
of St Peter, Richard Crashaw (Epigrammata sacra n o . 2 9 6 ) introduces
the sic, sic iuvat ire sub umbras (‘thus, thus w ith pleasure to join the
shades below’) o f Dido on the verge o f su icid e (Aeneid 4 .6 6 0 ); when a
hostile crowd prepares to stone Jesus in th e T e m p le , he recognizes the
antiqui... vestiga patris ‘the old traces o f th eir fa th e r’ , that is of Satan

44 Bauhuis 1620: 6i. 41 Reusner 1602a. 46 Nicole 19 9 6 :116.

47 Bwhuii 1620:62, 28; Hutchinson 1941: 416.
* Davison 1603; Choke 1613; Pyne 1626 offers a collection for Charles and associated royals. Reusner
1602h reprints Guillaume Leblanc's De ratione anagrammatísmi (1586).
 E p ig ra m 91
(no. 194), but he b o rro w s th e v o c a b u la ry o f D id o sm itten with illicit
love: agiosco veteris vestigia flam m ae (‘ I recognize the traces o f an
ancient passion,’ Aeneid 4 .2 2 ) . A lth o u g h o ften m erely clever, the effect
is sometimes beau tifu l: w h e n th e tree w ith ers at C h rist’s com m and it
proiests it can e n jo y n o n o b le r A u t u m n , Non possum Autumno nobiliore
fruì (no. 236), a line th a t e ch o e s M a r tia l’s h u n tin g d o g in the arena
that could not have d ie d a n o b le r d eath , Non potui fato nobiliore
mori (11.69).

T h e C h ristian Epigram

Already in Beatus R h en an u s’ preface to T h o m a s M o re’s Epigrammata

(1518), the Italian ach ievem ent o f P o n ta n o an d M arn ilo is disparaged, and
the peculiarly English ach ievem en t o f M o r e is celebrated for its cultivation
of point and piety together.49 T h e G re e k anthologies prepared b y Soter and
Comarius are challenged b y th e L a tin anthologies prepared b y Johannes
Gasdus and Adam Sib er.5° Jo a n n e s Se cu n d u s says he w rote as he did so that
schoolmasters w o u ld not get th eir hands o n him (Ep . 1.58). But in the
preface to his Epigrammata Ja k o b B id e rm a n n disparages Theodore de Bèze
for polluting Parnassus w ith his p ro fan e epigram s and writes gratefully to
his old teacher M atthaeus R ad er (3.36 ), w h o m D o n n e called the ‘gelder’ o f
Martial.5' Crashaw in a p refato ry p oem to his Epigammata sacra says
goodbye to Catullus and M artial b o th .52 T h is m ove aw ay from the profane
world closes down the v ariety o f th e epigram as traditionally conceived. Th e
Lutheran Johannes B urm eister’s sacred parodies o f M artial are set with the
originals enface, placing the varieties o f R o m a n sexuality beside the singlë-
mindedncss o f O ld T estam en t violen ce, and the ordinary range o f Roman
experience beside colourless p iety. H is preface acknowledges the frivolity,
profanity and obscenity o f M artia l bu t claim s to drow n the profanity in his
piety [profanitatem . . . pietate absorbeo)N Lu p ercu s’ fast-growing hair that
defeats his barber’s efforts to shave h im (7.8 3) is thus drow ned b y a memory
of the sower whose fields are o verrun b y tares (M a tth ew 13.26 ).
The books o f the C h ristia n epigram m atists com e across as agglomer­
ations o f verses o n a lim ited set o f topics, for exam ple the liturgical
calendar (as in the Je su it P ierre-Ju ste S a u tel’s Annus sacer poeticus), the

More 1984: 7 1-4 . 50 Gastius 1539; Siber 1564.

r Maniai 1.35 asked for his poems to be spared castration; Donne’s Epigram ‘Raderus* charges
Matthaeus Raderus with ‘gelding’ the epigrams in his 1599 edition.
B Crashaw 1970: 643 (Lectori 51-2). 53 Burmeisrer 16 12 :1, A3”.
9» ROBERT C U M M I N G S

Virgin Mary (as in Sautcl’s Divae Magdalenae ignes) o r the Passion (as in an
appendix to the Protestant Adam Siber’s Enchiridion pietatis puerilis)*
This is not to devalue the achievement. H erbert finds his voice in the
Passio discerpta (composed in the early 16 20s), typ ically intense but typic­
ally understated and, as Kelliher suggests, perhaps designed for private
devotional ends.” Crashaw’s Epigrammata sacra, th ough they are written
in fulfilment o f his academic obligations, are som etim es rated as the best
Latin epigrams written by an Englishman.*6 T h e y develop their paradox­
ical contrivances from a habit o f contradictoriness that begins in Christ
himself. Crashaw turns upside down the Pharisees’ com plain t that Christ
eats with sinners (Luke 15.2): ‘O Christ is no t their guest but their very
food’ ( 0 non conviva est Christus, at ipse cibus) and the baptismal water of
the Jordan (John 1.31) rejoices ‘ H appy, w hile it washes him , itself to be
washed’ (Felix! dum lavat hunc, ipsa lavatur aqua)}7

Canillan Simplicity and the Ease o f Com position

The taste for point and paradox was not universal. M on taign e prefers 'the
incomparable even smoothness and the sustained sweetness and flourish­
ing beauty of the epigrams o f Catullus, above the sharp goads with which
Martial enlivens the tails o f his’.5® Colletet too asserts that w it should reside
not just in the tail, but in the whole extent o f the p o e m , ‘ its nerves and its
life-blood’.w Catullus sang o f veneres meras (‘ un diluted love affairs’), says
Thomas Campion (Ep. 2.27), whereas M artial w ro te ab o u t everything and
anything at all; and he adds, perhaps exploiting the dangerous ambiguity of
hie and iilc ‘this latter seems great to m any, b u t the form er impresses the
truly cultivated’ (Multis magnus hic est, bene ille cultis). N ico le praises ‘the
certain simple elegance, the tender and refined gaiety’ (simplex quaedam
mundities, ac mollis subtilisque festiuitas) o f the epigram s from Catullus
induded in the Delectus, but he also thinks that C a tu llu s’ casualness is as
dangerous as Martial’s devemess and disparages those o f his imitators who,
‘wrapping their nonsense in hendecasyllables’, seem ‘w onderfully gay and
exquisite only to themselves’.60 Bourbon tells the reader to take his Nugae
for mete ‘trifles’ and not for treasures (no. 529 ); b u t O w e n , writing in a
culture less at ease with itself, has no problem w ith rating them low: ‘Thou
trifles thought« not, what thou so didst call: | I call th em not, but think

M Sautcl lisi. 11 Kdliher 1974; 35. 1/6 Austin Warren, quoted in Larsen 1974: 93.
r Gasiuw 1970! not m , m . •* Montaigne 1003: 4 6 1; z.10 (‘O n Books’).
” Cota*» 1965:78. 60 Nicole 1996: m .
 E p ig ra m 93

them trifles all’ (Ep. 1.4 2 : Quas tu dixisti ñugas, non esseputasti. \ Non dico
nugis esse, sed esseputo).61
Against the tradition that parades cleverness, a m ainly earlier and mainly
Italian or Italianate gro u p cultivates g e n d e m a n ly indifference to any labour
of composition. Poliziano reflects ex tempore o n Lorenzo de M ed ici’s oak
crown; Bourbon re fle a s ex tempore o n th e death o f kings as he watches the
king drink.61 T h e later poets m ake m o re anxious professions o f careless­
ness. Stradling invites his frien ds to âccep t the incultum . . . libellum
(unpolished pam phlet’) h e sends th e m , an d says he welcomes their
corrections.63 O w en , w ritin g to S a m u e l D a n iel, am o n g the most fastidious
of vernacular poets, pretends it is no w o n d e r i f his verses are no good:
‘1never bite m y nails as I co m p o se , I n ever scratch m y head’ (Si bona non
jiicio, quid mirum, epigrammata? Nunquam \ Versificans ungues rodo,
ctfrutve scabo, Ep. 2 .1 7 2 ) . S o m e tim e s the affectation is misplaced: M ore
asks a poet w hy he bothers to sa y th at his verses are extempore ‘since his
book says as m uch’ (Nam liber hoc loquitur)6*
If the poet is sure o f his au d ien ce, affectations o f effordessness are
compatible with refined a m b itio n s for p oetic reputation. M arnilo addresses
Sannazaro and Pontano a lo n g w ith the c o u n ly elite o f N aples as being o f
one soul with him ’ (Ep. 1.5 4 : unanimi mei sodales), Bèze addresses his
friends (Buchanan an d M a c rin a m o n g th em ) as 'elegant in the last degree’
(£p. 63: perlepidi mei sodales) a n d in th e preface to the 156 9 printing o f
his poems records the applause o f his fello w poets for his epigram on the
binh of the dauphin F ran ço is.65 T h e relaxed C a m p io n sends his book,
with whatever absurdities (ineptiae) b u rd e n it, to the M ych elb u m e broth­
ers who will see it safely to in te m a d o n a l approval on the R hine or Seine or
Tiber (Ep. 2.3). So m e a sso ciad o n s are less secure. O w e n ’s addresses and
dedications suggest a n etw o rk o f aristocrats an d literary professionals, with
himself cast as dependent a n d im p overish ed . Stradling’s Epigrammata
advertises his co n n e a io n s w ith an in d ex o f his addressees. Elizabeth Jane
Weston represents h erself as p e rm a n e n d y in search o f patronage and
protection; Stradling, in an o d d ly b a ck -h a n d e d eulogy, pities her plight
l£p. 1.106).66

* Bourbon 1008: no. $29. 61 Poliziano 18 6 7 :117 . Bourbon 2008: no. 484.
41 Stalling 1607: 85. 6a M ore 1984: no. 240.
* The poem in question is Ep. 47, the preface is quoted in Bèze 2001: }86.
Weston 2000: xxi lists some o f the relevant poems.
 ROBERT C U M M I N G S
94

Patrons, Friends and Lovers

Friendships or other associations more rem ote are consolidated with gifts.
Sometimes these are real gilts: Sannazaro (1.8) sends K in g Federico of
Aragon a beautiful epigram along with w in ter grapes, a horticultural
mirade. In the final epigram o f his i j i 8 collection Erasmus presents
Wilhem Nesen with his pen, once Reuchlin’s, and has it speak of itself
as a pledge of friendship to be preserved forever (‘ lest I, by whom posterity
will know so many names never to be erased, should die unknown’, Ne
peream obscurus, per quem tot nomina noscet Posteritas, longo nunquam
abolenda die).67 Most commonly (as in M artial 13.3) the precious gift is
the poem itself. Jean Du Bellay’s Xenia delivers to the political and literary
elite of France nothing more than jokes on their nam es.68 Marc-Antoine
Muret sends poems to Janus Vermelianus, saying he calls them ‘treasures
and riches’, but knowing they are not; in another p o em he wonders what
to send Michael Lochiamus and rehearses w h at he cannot offer - ‘not
predous loads of gold, not statuary sm oothed b y an expert hand’ - before
confessing he has nothing at all to send apart from the poem.69 George
Buchanan sends Mildred Cecil gifts o f verse w orth m ore than perfume or
gold and immune from thieves: from her he hopes verses in return; from
Queen Mary Stuart he hopes for gold in return fo r his verses.70 Some are
turned satirically: Campion (Ep. 1.180) gives E d w ard M ychelburne advice
on stocking up with wood against the w inter cold, and keeping his sexual
appetites in check. Secundus wishes his friend a mistress who will not ask
for money.71
It suited Bèze to say that his Juvenilia seemed to him too lightweight to
carry a dedication and he represents him self as a clow n, ridiculus parumque
doctus (‘ludicrous and unlearned’, Ep. 2). (It w as to be a gift to his enemies
that the patriarch of Geneva should have written poem s on Candida’s hair
(Ep. 95) or her foot (Ep. 73).) Pontano addresses his M u se in a vocabulary
soaked in Catullus and calls on hendecasyllables to com e crowding on him
with all their quips and cranks and wanton wiles; asking himself how to
repay Muruilus for a gift o f cheese, he thinks he’ ll beg his Septimilla to
give him Centum basiola et catulliana, j Centum suaviola atque lesbiana
(‘A hundred little Catullan kisses, a hundred sweet little kisses like those of
Lesbia').” It is to Catullus that the m odern am atory epigram owes its8
7

87 Erasmus 1953: no. 61. 6f Du Bellay 1985: 64-103. 69 Muret 2 0 0 9 :12 4 -6 (nos. 104-5).
™ Buchanan 1713:11,436.434. 71 Secundus i8li: ri, 191-3.
‘ Pontano 1977: u. HendtcayUabi r.t. 19.
 E p ig ra m 95

lightness o f touch. M a rn ilo is the lo ve-p o et o f N eaera before anything else.

But Neaera is personally un identifiable, an d m ore im portandy takes her
name from Virgil or H o race, the p ro p e rty o f an im aginary to be shàred
with Sannazaro, Secu n d u s a n d B u ch an an . F o r M artillo, C arol Kidwell lists
mote than a dozen mistresses w ith gen eric nam es.75 Sometimes these
poetical (often Greek) nam es speak their sense Et petra es mea lux, et vere
Pitra vocaris (M arnilo Ep. 2 .2 5 : ‘Y o u are stone, m y light, and truly are you
called so’); or as when C a m p io n ( Ep . 1.1 7 9 ) asks Stella i f she wants a place
in his lines or if it suffices for her to shine am o n g the lesser stars o f the
night sky. Sometimes it co m es w ith the freight o f classical use: M artial’s
Gellia is endlessly recycled in satirical epigram s. T h e easy sexual frankness
has a flip side: the culture o f m ale sodalities encourages a casual obscenity
endemic in the epigram , usually associated w ith Catullus, possibly because
Martial was more easily ‘geld ed ’ . M o d e rn Latin poets, hiding behind the
obscurity o f a learned language a n d addressing themselves to the prejudices
of their peers, were allow ed great licence. W o m e n are com m only abused
for growing old or u sin g m ak e-u p o r bein g unfaithful. M cFarlane accuses
Buchanan o f ‘corrosive’ m iso g y n y .71*74 O ld e r m en are cast as avaricious
lawyers or murderous p h ysicians, an d th ey too are victim s o f obscene
abuse: Sannazaro’ s epigram o n th e d runk en U fen s (Ep. 2.20 ) would have
been unthinkable in a n y early m o d e m vernacular.75

Vernacular P o e try and the Latin Epigram

When Rabelais in chapter 2 4 o f Gargantua describes h o w the picnicking

Gargantua and Ponocrates co m p o se d L a tin epigram s and then translated
them into French rondeaux et ballades (‘ roundelays and songs for dancing’
says Urquhart’s version) his jo k e depend s on o u r sense that diverse modes
have collided.76 I f the catego ry o f ep igram is relaxed to include proverbs,
riddles or moral axiom s, then a case can be m ade for a long and healthy
traffic between vernacular and m o d e rn La tin . A n d there are cases o f
convergence.77 T h e ‘parallelism o r d u p lex structure’ o f the Petrarchan
sonnet and the Petrarchist cultivatio n o f paradox both recom mended the
sonnet to the Latin ep igram m atist.78 So n n ets from the Canzoniere are
translated into Latin b y B o u rb o n , an d into English b y W atson.79 T h e

71 Kidwell 1989: 67. 74 McFarlane 19 8 1:155 . 71 Ford 2010a.

* Gistgmuua ch. 14 (tr. Urquhart). 77 M ost strikingly In France: see Ford 1993, Ford aorob.
71Prince 1934: 91; and see Colleter 19 6 3 :19 0
* Bourbon (1008; no. 504) translates Petrarch's Canzoniere 134 ('Pace non trovo’): so, precisely to
illustrate the witty use o f contraries, does Tesauro (1670: 456). Thomas Watson translates
96 ROBERT C U M M I N G S

two hundred amaron' epigrams o f G irolam o A n g e ria n o ’s Erotopaegnion

(1520) are inspired in their details by Catullus and th e elegists, bu t its larger
ambitions are owing to Petrarch; and for this reason Angeriano is
reabsorbed into both French (Michel d ’A m b o ise) a n d English (Giles
Fletcher) vernaculars. Secundus too, h aving h im se lf subm ined to
vernacular influence, enjoys similar influence.80
But on any tighter definition, the association is problem atic. Colletet
works hard to reject the pretended identity o f the so n n et an d the epigram
(though on the spurious grounds that the sonnet is w eigh tier).81 Even in
the midst of a programmatic reinvention o f Fren ch o r E n glish poetry, the
epigram resists easy accommodation. V ernacular translations o f classical
epigrams are sometimes called epigrams like M a ro t’s ( 15 4 7 ) , o r sometimes
not, like those in Tottel’s Miscellany (1557); in either case, the aggressive
domestication only exposes the distance between the traditions informing
original and translation. It remains surprising to fin d tw o o f Thomas
More s epigrams translated t cantione Anglicana (‘ from an English song’).81
Or that Giovanni Marquale translates A lciato into m adrigals.83 It is
shocking that Buchanan’s epigram on a bum pkin end ed u p as a catch set
by Purcell.84 Crashaw’s versions o f his ow n Latin Epigrammata sacra
reinvent for English poetry a mode hitherto peculiar to the Latín. Jonson
endeavoured to do the same for the secular epigram , and H errick ’s Hesper­
ides is also indebted to the Latin epigram tradition.85
The Latin epigramwas not ever quite salonfähig. It was too obscene, or it
was too devcr. Its wit was too often false, or what Addison called ‘mixed’,
basedon anagrams, chronograms, lipograms, acrostics, puns and quibbles,
charges often taken to be levelled at ‘metaphysical’ poetry, but which make
littlesenseoutside the world of early modem Latin, or (he says) Maniai: ‘we
find none of this mixed wit in Virgil, Lucretius, or Catullus; very little in
Horace, but a great deal of it in Ovid, and scarce anything else in Martial’.86
Thesevices are only the accidental consequence of an endeavour to be true
tothepotential of the Latin language, whose perceived virtues the epigram
exploits. OrJohnson is more than once recorded as objecting to epitaphs in
English: ‘he would never consent to disgrace the walls of Westminster
Abbey with an English inscription’ since only an ‘ancient and permanent

Catm int 164 COr die 1 dcO, and 364 (Tennemi Am or‘) in his strenuously eccentric
HAnmpothu (1381).
Co m 19)14 Ford 1993. ** Colletet 1965:115-6, with notes at 128. 81 M ore 1984: nos 81-2.
*’ Albata 1351, though he mote commonly uses the strambotto.
14 Buchanan m3:0.413; it was tnnslated in D ’Urfey 1690:186. 85 Braden 1978; Coito 1988.
* Addison and Steele 1963: t. add, Letter da, it May 1711.
 E pigram 97

language' was fit for epitaphs.87 P erm an en ce is not a consequence o f

antiquity. John Sparrow , e ch o in g T e sa u ro o n the dense and ‘ lapidary’
character o f Tacitus’ prose (‘eve ry w o r d requires its o w n com m entary’),
gives a better reason: that L a tin is a con cise language that dispenses with
troublesome prepositions and articles an d particles; that its flexible w ord-
cinfct, and its fieedom in the use o f participial phrases, m ake it easier to
contrive verbal mosaics and an effect o f extraordin ary com pactness.88 T h is
is as good an account as a n y o f w h a t the Latin epigram aspires to.
Considering the virtues o f the L a tin language against those o f Greek,
Quintilian (Institutes 1 2 .1 0 .3 6 - 9 ) ack n o w led ges that Latin falls short o f
Greek in grace and delicacy, but, he says, ‘ let us be stronger; w e are worsted
insubtlety; let us prevail b y w e ig h t, an d i f th e y have greater precision, let us
outdo them in fullness o f expression’ .

FU R TH ER R EA D IN G

Rilevane bibliographies are in IJsewijn and Sacré 1998: in —31. M oney 201s
complements this essay. W right 16 37 is the most accessible o f early dedicated
collections of neo-Latin epigrams. Schnur 1982 is a good but slight modem
anthology with German prose translations. D odd 1870 includes the most
generous selection o f epigrams available in English. D ana Sutton’s Philological
Milium (www.philologicai.bham.ac.uk/) includes Latin epigrams by English
poca, often from scattered printed and manuscript sources. T h e pages on the
¿¡fusion of the epigram in Burckhardt i8 6 0 are classic. Laurens 1989 (in French)
gives the richest history o f the genre, and thè Rillest general account o f its revival
in the Renaissance. O n the Latin transformations o f the Greek epigram in
Renaissance Italy and France (and more) H utton 1935 and Hutton 1946 are
unsurpassable. The account in H udson 19 4 7 is witty as well as informative.
Binns 1990 (chapters 4, 5 and 10) is particularly helpful on the uses and
manners of epigram. T h e heritage o f M artial is discussed in Hausman 1980,
Suflivin 1991, Fitzgerald 2 0 0 7, Livingstone and N isbet 2010 . Gaisser 1993 has
dielast word on the Renaissance reception o f Catullus. O n the importance o f
Jesuit poetics see Raspa 1983. T w o recent collections o f essays, D e Beer et al. 2009
(in English and Italian) and C ardini and C op p in i 20 0 9 (in Italian) are worth
mention. De Beer, Enenlcel and Rijser includes specialized case studies and essays
«1 tpigram theory, obscenity, ‘ point’ . Cardini and Coppini includes specialized
o» studies and essays on the inform ing traditions derived from the Greek
Anthology, Martial and Catullus.

Bwwll 1964: in, 38 and 273, n. 24s. ** Sparrow 1969:139; Tesauro 2000: 598-9.
 CHAPTER 6

Elegy

L B. T. Houghton

In its classical incarnation, the genre o f elegy w as defined less by its

characteristic mood or occasion than b y its m etrical form , the elegiac
couplet - and the same is true o f its neo-Latin co u n terp art.1 T h a t is not
to say that mournful meditations o f the kind n o w fam iliar to readers of
vernacular ‘elegy’ do not appear among the corp u s o f either ancient or
later Latin elegiac poetry: as Propertius {3.18) had lam ented the untimely
death of Augustus’ nephew Marcellus, and O v id {Amores 3.9) had marked
the passing of his elegiac predecessor Tibullus, so C risto fo ro Landino, in
poem 3.18 of his Xandra, mourns the yo un g C o sim o d e ’ M edici, grand­
son of the Florentine pater patriae,* w hile U g o lin o V e rin o and Paolo
Pansa commemorate their poetic colleagues Fran cesco Filelfo and Fran­
cesco Maria Molza respectively.3 Giovanni G io v ia n o P on tan o devoted an
entire two-book collection, his De tumults, to b rie f elegies on notable
individuals and family members, following the m odel o f Ausonius’
Parentalia.* Such was the attention accorded in education across Europe
to the composition o f what were known in the classroom s o f England as

' CL cgierially Luck 1969:27. On the development of'elegy' in the vernacular, along rather different
tino, set e.g Beisner 1941; ScoOen 1967; Clark 1975; Sacks 1987; Kay 1990; Comboni and Di Ricco
too) lod essays in Weisman loto.
' Inthethird book of die Xmdra. Landino also commemorates his b r o t h e r ^ ) and ho old teacher Carlo
Maonpptm(j.7), while in his Camma varia (poems 1,2 and 9) he eulogizes three more figures: for ten
and tneahtkm sec Chadidd 2008. For further examples o f neo-Latin funeral elegy, see especially the
outpouring of venes on the death of the Florentine beauty Albina degli Albizzi (see Perosa rooa
1Í9-94J, includingelegies by Poliziano {Eltgiar 7: Perosa and Sparrow 1979: 126-32) and Naldo de’ Naidi
(Ojiar L19 JuUsz 1994: 14-6), and epigrams by Alessandro Bracasi (Epigram m ata 16 -29 Peto» 194;
106-11). See abo Ludwig 2001 on the tpietdia of Petrus Lotichius Secundus.
' Verino, Epigrammata $40: Bausi 1998: 461-6 (also Amaldi, Gualdo Rosa and Monti Sabia 1964:
874-7): Pama, Dr Sitine obttu daga: Sciassi 1747:261-6, with Houghton 2013: 303.
* For Fonano 1er Pontino 1948:189-138 (filli text) and selections in Arnaldi, Gualdo Rosa and Monti
Sabia 1964:328-87. The fifth book of Verino s Epigrammata is likewise given over to funerary pieces
(Bawl 1998: 427-83), while Joachim Du Bellay’s Parmata o f 1958 also contains a series o f Tumuli,
along with his Eltgitt. Amara and epigrams (for analysis see Tucker 2009). Helius Eoban us Hessus
competed a book of E p ia i*, see Vredevcld 1990:103-81; GräJSer 1994.

98
 Elegy 99

|ongs and shorts’ ,5 h o w ever, th at th e ran ge o f subjects considered appro­

priate for treatment in elegiac m etre w a s n o th in g short o f vast. N o b rief
jurvey can do justice to the b read th , th e v a riety an d the sheer q u an tity o f
neo-Latin literature co m p o se d in elegiac cou p lets; as Jo h n M ilto n
observed in his Elegia sexta, fick le e le g y is th e d a rlin g o f m an y gods,
md she invites anyone to her rh y th m s {Namque Elegia levis multorum
¡tri deorum est, \ Et vocat ad numeros quemlibet illa suos, 4 9 - 5 0 ) . 6 T h e
pages that follow can offer little m o re th an a fleeting im pression o f the
many-sided elegiac p ro d u ctio n o f th e R en aissan ce an d subsequent cen­
turies, much o f which has passed in to o b liv io n o r has o n ly recen d y begun
to receive detailed scholarly a tten tio n .

Love, L o ss and L o n g in g

Julius Caesar Scaliger, in the sections d ed icated to elegy in his Poetices libri
¡épient (published p osthum ously in 15 6 1) , recognizes the adaptable charac­
terof foe elegiac couplet, despite his p rim a ry con cen tratio n o n the amatory
associations o f the genre: after o u tlin in g at length the various stock
situations of love poetry through w h ic h an elegiac collection should m ove,
Scaliger concludes Epicedia quoque et epitaphia et epistolae hoc genere
poematis recte conficiuntur (‘ E u lo gies to o , a n d epitaphs and letters, are
properly executed in this k in d o f p o e m ’) .7 L ite ra ry theorists o f the early
modem period tended to follo w H o ra c e ’ s fam o us definition {Ars poetica
75-í) of the original functions o f elegy as first querimonia (‘ com plaint’ ,
lamentation’) and then ack n o w led ge m e n t o f a v o w fulfilled, although the
interpretations they placed o n the R o m a n p o et’ s form ulation differed.8 In
his variation on O vid ’s en co u n ter w ith the personifications o f E le gy - her
wo feet of unequal length - a n d T r a g e d y in Amores 3 .1, the D u tch m an
Joannes (or Janus) Secun dus represented in his dream -visio n tw o separate
manifestations o f the elegiac gen re, reflectin g th e tw o fo ld division o f
funereal and erotic elegy {Ekgiae 3 .7 .3 —6 ) :9

Altera, lugubrem praetendens moesta cupressum,

Sculpebat memores in cava busta notas;

J Urite 1959:56.139. * Tew in Revard 1009b: 180.

Tlewhoie passage is quoted in translation b y Parker 2 0 12 :4 7 6 ; for the text see Deitz and Vogt-Spira
, *994-2011:3.202, and on elegy see also 1.4 14 -16 . All translations in this chapter are m y own.
$« Ludwig 1976:171-7, esp. 175-7.
hw tat, translation and comment see Endres 198t: 189-95; A cre has been some discussion o f the
dotty of alteri at 3.7.3, but it seems fairly d ear that this figure should be taken as the embodiment
"Mother facet o f the elegiac genre (see Endres 1981: 194).
100 L. B. T . H O U G H T O N

Altera fragrabat myrti genialis odore:

Sanaa Venus, quanto clauda decore fuit!

The one, sadly holding before her the mournful cypress, was carving commemora­
ti« marb on hollow tombs; the other was fragrant with the scent of genial
mvttic - holy Venus, how pretty she was with her limp!

Despite her split personality, however, neo-Latin E le g y retained to a large

aient the erotic proclivities bestowed on her ancient ancestor b y the classical
elegists Propertius, Tibullus and O vid: the o p ening poem o f the second
Flametta declares baldly lurgia blanditiae lam-
book of Ugolino Verino’s
maquepncesque minaeque, | Est elegiproprium carminis istud opus (Tnsults,
enticements, tears, entreaties and threats - that’s the proper business of
elegiac poetry', Flametta z.i.}9-4o).10 T h e earliest series o f Renaissance love
eleges, although their focus was by no means exclusively erotic, set the
pattern for a revival o f the classical template o f collections o f pieces in elegiac
metre addressed to a unique, eponymous love object: so G io van n i Marrasio’s
Angtlinentmcelebrates the attractions o f his beloved A n g e la Piccolomini,11
while the Cimbia o f Enea Silvio Piccolomini, later P op e P ius II, appropriates
the name of Propertius’ literary sweetheart, which the poet self-consciously
places at the beginning o f his collection in em ulation o f his andern
exemplar.12 This tradition was maintained in the follow ing decades o f the
fifteenth century by Marcantonio Aldegari’s Cynthia, L a n d in o ’s Xandra and
Verino’s Flametta, n and although later volumes tend to sport more generic
tides (generally Elegiae or Amores, or some other indication o f the erode
conrem of the work, such as Tito Vespasiano Strozzi’s Eroticon libri and
Girolamo Angeriano’s Erotopaegnion),14 the themes an d emphases exhibited
by such collections remain largely constant, n o t to say inert. In general, the
conception of love on display in these works reflects the all-consuming,
uncontrollable passion embraced and deplored b y the classical elegists, with
its ignominious debasement o f the freeborn lover to a state o f abjea
servitude to his mistress’s every whim. A n y reader o f Propertius will instandy
recognize both the language and the sentiments o f the follow ing lines, which*

* Menaagfci 1940: So; ne also FLtmeua l 1.3-4 (Und., 20).

n Ten is Roa 197& be analysis set Pieper 2008: 7 8-83,122-31 and Bisanti 1997.
‘ For the tat see Van Hedc 1994. Discussions include Pieper 2008: 83-90; Albanese 1999; Chariet
I9T: Gdmd-Hjllyn 1993; Papardli 1987 and 1964; Baca 1971-2.
" For Aldepfi 1 elegia, see Bonari 1980: 21-71, 85-143; for Verino’s Flam etta, Mcncaraglia 1940
(selections in Arnaldi. Gualdo Rosa and Monti Sabia 1964: 844-45).
14 See Deila Guardia 1916 (Scotìi) and Wilson 1995 (Angeriano); some collections, such as Fausto
Aadrdui's Amtm òse Livia (see Toumoy-Thoen 1982), combine both types o f nomenclature.
 E le® IOI

jjj ¡n many respects typical of the amatory Strain of Renaissance elegy

¡indino, Xandra 1.3.33-40):
Tunc tua me primum certissima, Xandra, sagitta
fixit et in pectus duxit amoris iter,
tunc primum insolitos mens nostra experta furores
coepit venturis tristior esse malis,
tunc mea libertas miserum me prima refugit
et coepi duro subdere colla iugo,
tunc primum sensi quae insania verset amantes,
sub specie mellis quanta venena latent.
Theofirstyourmost unerring arrow, Xandra, transfixed me and made a way for love
¡« o mybreast; then first my mind, having felt the unaccustomed frenzy, began to be
ghom ier at the evils to come; then my first freedom fled from me in my wretched­
ness,andI beganto submit my neck to the harsh yoke; then first 1felt what madness
whirlslovers round, how many poisons lurk beneath the outward show of honey.

But as the classical love elegy could accommodate both the tormented
infatuation of a Propertius and the cheerful libertinism of an Ovid, so its
nto-Larinincarnation allows ample scope for a variety of different forms of
and attitudes towards love. The promiscuous end of the spectrum is
perhaps best seen in Ludovico Ariosto’s De diversis amoribus., probably
thedosest neo-Latin literature gets to Mambo No. y (lines i-6):lî
Est mea nunc Glycere, mea nunc est cura Lycoris,
Lyda modo meus est, est modo Phyllis amor.
Primas Glaura feces renovat, movet Hybla recentes,
Mox cessura igni Glaura vel Hybla novo.
Nec mihi diverso nec eodem tempore saepe
Centum vesano sunt in amore satis.
NowGlycere is my darling, now it’s Lycoris, just now Lyda’s my love, just now
«Phyllis. Glaura rekindles my first flame, Hybla sets off a fresh one - but Glaura
orHyblawill soon give way to a new passion. Neither at different times nor often
a thesame time are a hundred enough for me, crazy as I am, in love [or ‘for me
» aazylove’).

Norneedsuch antics be confined to heterosexual liaisons: Pacifico Massimi’s

Heaueleffm, an assortment of one hundred elegies (as its name suggests)
diidj survives in two different redactions, the first published in Florence in
489, gaineda degree of notoriety for its openly pederastie content, prompting

b*the ton see Segrc 1954; 88—95; for discussion o f the poem, see Newman 1986: 302-5 and 1979. In
fr i , Ariosto is trumping Ovid’s centum turn causae cu r ego semper amem (‘there are a hundred
c* ,a why I should always be loving’, Am ares JL4.r0).
102 L. B. T . H O U G H T O N

from Lilio Gregorio Giraldi the grudging assessment Pacificus Asculanm

potuisset in aliquopoetarum numero haberi, nisifoedis amoribus venus inqui­
nassemfuitin elegia nequeinfans neque elinguis (‘ Pacifico o f Ascoli could have
beenheld in some reckoning among poets, had he no t befouled his verses with
revolting loves; in elegy he was neither lacking in speech nor uneloquent’, Dt
poetis nostrorumtemporum i.8o).'6 A t the other extreme o f fifteenth-century
decorum lay the respectability o f happily married life, and this too came to be
considered a fit subject for the traditionally frivolous medium o f elegy,
principally in Pontano’s three-book collection De amore coniugali - a poetic
contribution to what Anthony D ’Elia has called ‘the Renaissance o f marriage
in fifteenth-century Italy (Cesare Borgia’s court poet, Francesco Spendo, also
wrote elegies on the same subject: Giraldi, De poetis 1.14s).17 Here the
domestication of the previously wanton genre is programmatically announced
in the bridal attire with which the figure o f Elegy is n o w to be decked ou
in addition to her Ovidian attributes o f myrtle and elaborate coiffure
(¿V amore coniugali r.r.1-4; the anlde-length stola o f the Roman matron
proclaimed her married status):'8

Huc ades et nitidum myrto compesce capillum,

huc ades ornaris, o Elegia, comis
inque novam venias cultu praedivite formam,
laxa fluat niveos vestis ad usque pedes.

Be present here and restrain your gleaming locks with myrtle; be present here,
Elegy, with hair adorned, and may you enter into a new shape with sumptuous
adornment, may a loose garment flow all the way down to your snow-white feet

Finally, it should be noted that although Secundus explicidy claims to

be conjuring the spirit o f Propertius (Elegiae z .i) ,'9 the love elegy of the
Renaissance and beyond was by no means an attem pt sim ply to resurrect
and replicate the well-worn topoi o f Rom an rom ance. Th ere were new
elements too, chief among them the model o f the vernacular love poetry of
Francesco Petrarca (Petrarch), whose influence can be fielt strongly in the14

14 Quoqqoo 60m Giraldi in Gram 20m 51. For the text o f Massimi (or Massimo) see Desjardins
19S6 «xi Desjardins Diudt 2008. and for discussion sec e.g. Desjardins 1979; G aland (990; Ladró
>W9
* DTIa 2004. Full ten of Poníanos D t amore coniugali in Roman 2014; also Pontano 1948:125-8$,
and sdecoona in Arnaldi. Gualdo Rosa and Monti Sabia 1964: 448-527. For comment see eg.
Mone Sabia 1499; Wilkins 1974: 168 calls it ‘ [t]he best o f all his poetry', while Rand 1925:
154 nandù dui 'Ovid might be mystified at such a tide, but would admire the contents; fot dûs
proper pon has mote sensuous charm and passion than any o f the Roman poets o f love, with the
angle ocepoon of Carolim.' On Spettilo, see G Wynne 2015.
* Rotola 20S4; 2. n For the text see Murgatroyd 2000: 57-9.
 Elegy IO}

elcpac compositions o f his Flo ren tin e im itators in particular.10 A s Petrarch

himself had drawn on the resources o f erotic im agery and metaphor he
(bund in classical love elegy, so the Italian poet’s ow n characteristic
conceits and paradoxes w ere eagerly assim ilated into the thematic reper­
toire of later Latin elcgists; in th e L a tin elegy o f the Q uattrocento, the
Petrarchan antitheses o f sweet and bitter (see e.g. N a id i, Elegiae 1.18) and o f
hit and ice (e.g. Landino, Xandra i . 5 . 4 1 - 2 ) are as inescapable as the Roman
debits’ servitium amoris. A striking exam ple o f the permeation o f Pet­
rarchan material into neo-Latin love elegy can be seen in Landino, Xandra
1.14, a cosmetically classicized paraphrase-translation o f Petrarch’s Rerum
wlgerim fragmenta 132 ; an d L a n d in o ’s successors likewise borrowed,
adapted and translated from Petrarch in their elegiac productions.11
Once influential contem porary figures such as Land ino had revived and
reinvigorated the genre, m oreover, th eir o w n w orks cam e to be a source o f
inspiration and exploitation for n ew practitioners in turn: the Florentine
(legists Naldo de’ N aid i, U g o lin o V e r in o and Alessandro Braccesi, for
instance, all mined the Xandra as w ell as the classical sources in formulat­
ing their composite brand o f elegy (in Flametta 1.5, indeed, V erin o main­
tains that Xandra has surpassed C y n th ia an d N em esis - i.e. the elegies
ofPropertius and Tib ullu s - b u t that F lam etta w ill n o w be the glory o f the
Etruscan race).11

Politics, Pontiffs and Pomegranates

It was not just mistresses, real o r im aginary, w h ose finer points could
bt broadcast via the m ediu m o f elegy. C o m p lim e n ts - often nò less
extravagant - could also be paid to actual o r potential patrons, whose
favours were solicited every b it as assiduously as those o f the capricious
fuel'lot with whom they som etim es had to jostle for space within the
confines of the elegiac collection .15 O n c e th ey h ad rung the changes on

“ Sec specially Fantini 1996; Coppini 2006; Houghton 2013: 296-8.

* See de' Naidi, Elegiae 1.9, 15. 20; Braccai, A m o ru m lib e llu s u (with note below). Landino also
aduda a foray imo Petrarchan sestina among his elegiac collection {X a n d ra 1.7). There is another
Loin lenioa of R V F 132 (and otheis), this time in hexameters, in Thomas Watson’s Hekoompothia
filiti).
Sk Parker 2012:478-9; also Perosa 1941: 52. For the text o f Naldi’s E le g ia e , see Juhász 1934, and for
Bacon’s two tibeUi, sec Perosa 1943.
, The point is tellingly made by the opening couplet o f an epigram by Poliziano on the elegies of
S'ddode' Naidi: D u m c e le b ra t M e d ic e m N a ld u s , d u m la u d a t a m ic a m , \ E t p a r ite r g em in o ra p tu s a m o re
t t r it ... (While Naldo celebrates M edici, while he praises his mistress, and carried away equally by
to "to loves makes poetry. . . ', E p ig ra m m a ta L a tin a 24.1-2: see Poliziano 1867:122).
104 L. B . T . H O U G H T O N

the standard episodes o f the literary love affair, w h e th e r from exhaustion of

interest in the erotic moti ft inherited from th eir predecessors or (perhaps
more likely) as part o f a consciously staged w ith d ra w a l from amatory
themes in emulation o f what they believed th e y fo u n d in the later books
of Propertius,1'* the elegists regularly tu rn ed th e ir atten tion to the contem­
porary political scene. In the case o f the F lo re n tin e poets just mentioned,
the natural focus for such adulation w a s th e c ity ’ s ruling dynasty, the
Medici: so, in the third book o f L a n d in o ’s co lle ctio n , th e praises ofXandn
are replaced with commendation o f C o s im o an d his so n Piero,*5 while the
equivalent book o f de’ N a ld i’s elegies, fo llo w in g o ccasio n al earlier accol­
ades addressed to members o f the M e d ic i a n d th e E ste families in the
second book (Elegiae 2.39, 4 2, 4 3 - th e last in hexam eters), consists
entirely of homage to and laments for th e sc io n s o f Florence’s leading
house. Elsewhere, although the classic v e h icle fo r immortalizing the
exploits o f a ruler remained the m artial h e x a m e te r e p ic (see Chapter n
in this volume), the current o f elegiac e n c o m iu m m ain tain ed an equally
relentless course: Italian humanists resident at th e E n g lish court, among
them Johannes Opicius, Pietro C a rm e lia n o a n d A n d re a Ammonio,
extolled successive T u d o r m onarchs in c o n g ra tu la to ry couplets on every
suitable occasion;*6 Helius Eoban us H e ssu s su p p lie d an acclamation of
Charles V on behalf o f the city o f N u r e m b e r g o n th e em p ero r’s entry into
Germany in 1530;27 and in 1598 th e fifte e n -y e a r-o ld D u tch prodigy
Hugo Grotius, later the pre-em inent ju rist o f h is age, addressed a long
elegy to the young Prince o f C o n d é , soon to b e c o m e h e ir presumptive to
the throne o f France.*8 O th er co n te m p o ra ry e v e n ts w e re treated in a less
celebratory vein, in keeping w ith the so rro w fu l a sso ciatio n s o f the elegiac
genre: Francesco Franchini, for exam ple, n arrates his experience of the
wreck of the emperor’s fleet o ff the co a st o f A fr ic a in 1 5 4 1 ,*9 while the
precocious Pole Klemens Janicki (C le m e n s Ia n iciu s), w h o despite his
early death at the age o f tw enty-seven p ro d u ce d a substantial corpus of
elegiac verse, laments the sufferings o f H u n g a r y a n d R u ssia in the wake of
Turkish depredations.30

u Fot di» ispea of Landino's elegiac collection, see Pieper 2008: 265-72.
" See Landino, J W « 3.1,3.3.91-142,3.7.163-8,3.15, 3.17.135-58. 3.19 (also 3.16, in hexameters).
- See Cadaon 1987a, 1987b, 1993: 37-59 (Carmeliano) and 2002 (O pidus); Pizzi 1958, Wyatt 2005:
59—61 (Ammonio); also Rnndle 1995.
,r For the text sec Vredevekl 1990: 76-89. ** See Rabbie 1992; 482-92.
** Text in Perosa and Sparrow 1979: 269-73.
10 Pen*» *nd Sparrow 1979:543-6; for Janicki and his Latin poetry sec Krókowski 1966 and Segel
1989: 227-49.
 105

As a major source o f p a tro n a ge fo r asp iring poets and artists, and an

institution with claim s to tem p o ral p o w e r no less strenuously prosecuted
than those o f other co n ten d ers fo r political hegem ony in Europe, the
papacy acted as an o b v io u s m ag n e t for h op efu l, strategic or committed
panegyrists. W e have lau d ato ry elegies directed tow ards Pius II - himself,
as already noted, a form er elegiac p o et - b y Lodrisio C rivelli o f M ilan, who
hails the return o f the G o ld e n A g e in the pontificate o f the Sienese
humanist (Aurea te redeunt, P ie, p rin cip e saecula nobis. \ Aureus, en, ■terras
Kduce partus habet, ‘T h e G o ld e n A g e is returning to us, Pius, under your
principate; see, u n der y o u r leadership golden offspring possesses the
earth’: poem 4 , lines 1 - 2 ) , a n d b y N a ld o d e ’ N a id i (Elegiae 2 .}).31 Julius
II received elegiac tributes fro m P ietro B e m b o and Pacifico Massimi,
similarly declaring the rebirth o f p rim itive felicity under the heraldic oak
of the Della Rovere;31 a n d G io v a n n i F ran cesco B o rdin i, an important early
member o f the O ra to ria n m o v e m e n t w h o w as later prom oted to the
archbishopric o f A v ig n o n , a p p la u d s th e extensive building projects o f
Sixtus V in his collection o f elegies, ep igram s and engravings De rebus
praedare gestis a Sisto V. Pon. M a x., b e g in n in g M agna facis, maiora dies
mliris in omneis. \ D et tantum C hristus tem pora longa tib i (‘ Y o u are doing
great things, and y o u are p la n n in g greater things every day. M a y Christ
only grant you lon g tim es [i.e. a lo n g life]’ , lines 1 - 2 ) . 33
Further departures fro m th e co n ve n tio n a l am atory and funereal trajec­
tories o f elegy as defin ed b y c o n te m p o ra ry literary taxon om y exhibit the
most miscellaneous array o f su b je cts. T h e diffusio n o f neo-Latin literature
benefited considerably fro m th e in tro d u ctio n o f the prin ting press, which
provided material for at least tw o elegiac endeavours; the printer, editor
and lexicographer H en ri E stie n n e (H e n ric u s Stephanus) published in
1569 an Artis typographicae querim onia (‘C o m p la in t o f the art of
priming’), in w hich the p erso n ified art lam ents the disrepute into which
she is being brought b y illiterate prin ters, w h ile Sebastian Brant, at an
eadier stage in the d e v e lo p m e n t o f th e press, offered a more jubilant
salute to the service ren dered b y G u te n b e rg ’ s discovery in spreading
learning and culture a m o n g his c o u n tr y m e n .34 Seem in gly no constituent
of the natural w orld, m o re o v e r, w h e th e r w ild o r dom esticated, animate or
inanimate, was im m u n e fro m th e atten tions o f neo-Latin elegists:

’ Smith 1962; Juhász 1934: 28-31.

" Bembo, De J u lii pontificatu (Pecoraro 19 59 :16 5-6 ); M assim i, HecateUpum B 5.5, 5.7,5.8,5.9,5.10,
6.1.6.3,6.4, 6.7, 8.4, 8.7. 9-8,10.5.
" Bordini 1588, quotation from p. 3; see also M andel 1988: 48-9.
MStephanus 1569; teat o f Brant in Perosa and Sparrow 1979: 409-ti.
io6 L . B. T . H O U G H T O N

Alessandro Bracasi deplores the loss o f his stolen cat (B ra ca si, Lib. Sec.
Epist. io); Nicolaus Hussovianus com posed for P ope Leo X an elegi*
poem o f over a thousand lines on the physique an d ferocity o f the bison,
and the methods o f hunting that anim al (Carmen de statura, feritati ac
venatione bisontis, 1523); Francesco M aria M o lz a sends a commendatory
note to aaom pany a gift o f hen’s eggs {Elegiae 2 .10 ); and Iacopo
Sannazaro rounds o ff his second book o f elegies w ith a paean to pom­
egranates (also Elegiae 2.io ).3S T h e appearance o f mala punica in this
context is rendered less incongruous than it m igh t seem by Sannazaro»
presentation o f the pomegranates as an accou trem en t o f the peaceful,
convivial, erotic world tradidonally associated w ith the classical genre of
elegy' (Elegiae 2.10.23-30):

Nec nostrae populos armant in proelia gemmae,

nec suadent magnos clam violare deos.
Sed semper placidis visunt convivia mensis:
stant ubi iucundo pocula plena mero.
Illic nos tenerae vir porrigit ipse puellae,
porrigit et cupido fida puella viro.
Pacis opus sumus, et pacati munus amoris,
quod capit a Satyro Nais amata suo.

And our jewels don’t arm nations for battles, nor do they induce people to do
violence to cbe great gods in secret; but they’re always attending parties when the
tables are peaceful, where the goblets stand filled with pleasing wine. There the
man himself offers us to his tender gid, and the faithful girl offen us to her eager
man. We are the wotk o f peace, and the gift o f p eaafu l love, the gift that the
beloved Naiad receives from her Satyr.

Art, Architecture and Archangels

Despite this eclecticism, a num ber o f recurring subjects favoured by neo-

Latin elegists mayr nonetheless be distinguished, in addition to those
already identified. As Propertius had devoted an elegy (2.12) to elucidating
the iconography o f Cupid, and Petrarch had praised Sim one Martini’s
celestial ponrait o f Laura {Rerum vulgarium fragmenta, 7 7 - 8 ) , so the elegists
o f the Renaissance enthusiastically celebrate the accom plishm ent of con­
temporary artists, or pay tribute to their m astery in polished epitaphs,
exalting some latter-day Phidias o r Apelles to the level o f (or even above)

” Braccai: Pensa 1943: Í3-4; Nicolaus Hussovianus, C a rm en ete b is o n te . Krakowski 1959 (ocupo ia
Pensa and Sparrow 1979: 333-7, and Laurens and Balavoinc 19 7 5 :1.8 1-9 ; for discussion see Segd
60); Moka: Scorsone and Sodano 1999: 59-60; Sannazaro: Punum 1009: Z26-9.
1989; 138—
 Elegy 107

hi$ ancient precursors.36 O n occasion , art and text could work together
more closely in the service o f eru ditio n : five extant manuscripts preserve
the text o f Ludovico Lazzarelli’s late fifteenth-century D e gentilium deorum
imaginibus, a tw o -b oo k co m p e n d iu m o f Latin elegies desedbing images o f
the classical deities a cco m p a n ie d b y illustrations after engravings attributed
to Mantegna.37 Lik ew ise discussions ò f architecture, and accounts o f cities,
historic monuments an d landscapes, co u ld all be couched in the form o f
elegiac verse. Julius C aesa r S c a lig e r i series o f Urbes covers a disparate
assortment o f locations, w h ile C a sp a r Barlaeus praised the cities o f Holland,
and Arthur Jo h n ston and his earlier kinsm an Jo h n both wrote
Encomia urbium on Sco ttish to w n s.3® T h e Elogia o f Janus Vitalis include
tableaux o f Rom e an cien t an d m o d e rn ;39 an d poetic records o f impressions
of places visited and sites observed becam e popular am ong the learned
travellers o f the sixteenth cen tu ry.40 W istfu l, m oralizing o r antiquarian
reflections on the ruins o f an cien t civilisations, particularly those of- the
Eternal C ity herself, cam e to o c c u p y a regular place am ong the repertoire o f
neo-Latin poets, and fo r su ch m e la n ch o ly diversions the elegy provided the
obvious literary m ode (see e.g. D u B ellay, Poemata 1.2 .115 -16 : Nunc iuvat
exesas passim spectare colum nas, \ E t passim veterum templa sepulta deum,
‘Now it is pleasing to look u p o n co lu m n s eaten aw ay on all sides, and on all
sides the buried tem ples o f th e o ld gods’).41 B u t the metre could be
harnessed to chronicle the glories o f th e present as well as the faded
splendour o f the past, a n d in particular to prom ote the achievements o f
modem authors: O v id ’s catalo gu e o f con tem porary poets in Epistulae
ex Ponto 4 .16 m ay have served as an archetype for Francesco Arsilli’s

* For examples see Perosa and Sparrow 1979: 52-3 (T . V . Strozzi on Pisancllo), 182 (Ariosto on
Raphael), 202 (Castiglione on Raphael), 323-5 (Janus Pannonius on Mantegna). For the comparison
with the ancients, see especially Verino, F ia m m a 2.8.5—6 and 2.45.101-6 (Mencaragiia 1940:66,95;
Amaldi. Gualdo Rosa and M onti Sabia 1964.- 862-3), E p ig ra m m a ta 3.23 (Amaldi, Gualdo Rosa and
•Monti Sabia 1964: 872-5; Perosa and Sparrow 1979: 9 1-2 ; Bausi 1998: 324-8). On the Renaissance
phenomenon o f poetry on painting, see generally Freedman 201t: 208-13.
p See O'Neal 1997. Lazzarelli's other works include the F a s ti C h ris tia n a * re lig io n is , a Christian
counterpart to Ovid’s elegiac almanac: see especially Fritscn 2000, Miller 2003 and text in
BenoUni 1991.
* Saliger 1546: 374-422; Barlaeus 1630; Geddes 1895: 255-87. On E n c o m ia u rb iu m in general, see
Hammer 1937 and Slits 1990 (cited by D e Beer 2014: 397), and on the Johnstons, see especially
Ctzwferd 2006: 86-103 and 2 0 0 7 :18 6 -9 ; Manuwald 2010; Vine 2011.
* Sec Tucker 1985 and 2006; Sm ith 1977 and 1989.
* For examples see Perosa and Sparrow 1979: 446-9 (Georgius Sabinus), 486-8 (Joannes Swundus;
fix discussion see Coppel 2004).
9 Fetosa and Sparrow 1979; 394-7 at 396; for discussion see Tucker 2006, esp. 101-8, and McGowan
2000c 187-94. Other examples include Landino. X a n d ra 2.30 (see Charlet 2000) and Sannazaro,
E ltp a e 2.9. On the poetry o f ruins, see generally Cooper 1989.
 io8 L. B. T . H O U G H T O N

De poetis urbanis, which celebrates the flow ering o f literature under Leo X
and for John Leland’s enumeration o f recent an d practising Latin poets,
among whom pride o f place is given to Pom ario.41
Not least among the uses o f neo-Latin elegy w as its appropriation for the
purposes of religion, even where this m ight appear to sit rather uneasily
with the erotic subject matter traditionally p u rveyed b y this medium: in
the pages o f Francesco Maria M olza, an elegy o n the pregnant Lycoris
(Elegiae 3.4) is immediately followed b y a piece on the archangel Michael
(Elegiae 3.3), while at the very end o f M o lz a ’s collection o f elegies, a
complaint Ad Iuliam puellam formosissimam (‘T o Ju lia, a V ery Beautiful
Girl’, Elegiae 4.5) precedes the con cludin g contem plation De Christo
crucifixo (‘On Christ Crucified’ , Elegiae 4 .6 ) .4} S o little tainted, apparently,
was the elegiac genre by the scandalous escapades o f its classical past, that
the elegy could even be pressed into service as a vehicle for communicating
the truths o f scripture. In the popular genre o f psalm paraphrase, the
elegiac couplet reached the height o f its celebrity early, with Eobanus
Hessus’ translation o f the complete Psalter into elegiacs (Psalterium uni­
versum carmine elegiaco redditum , 1537), although in the following century
Arthur Johnston also used the metre for all b u t o n e o f his versions.44
In George Buchanan’s influential rendering o f the psalms (first printed
1565/6), the elegy had to content itself w ith ju st three entries (Psalms 88,
114 and 137),45 while Maffeo Barberini, the future Pope Urban VID,
induded four elegiac items (Psalms 50, 7 6 , 13 6 , 1 4 7 ) am o n g his selection
of psalm and other biblical paraphrases in a variety o f different metres.46 In
some cases, the choice o f metre is clearly dictated b y the tone of the
origina] psalm: hence, most appropriately, both B uch an an and Barberini
employ the doleful distich for the fam ous ‘waters o f B ab ylon ’, Psalm 137
(136 in Barberini).*

** Anili, D e fid is u rta m i (Francolini 1837: 6-49; see also IJsewijn 1997b: 344-64, and discussion is
PcrrindJi 1999): Leland. D t qu ib u sd a m n o s tri s a e c u li p o e tis (Perosa and Sparrow 1979: 301-4). See
abo Vedno, F la m ea n 1 4 3 (Mencaraglia 1940: 92-7).
4’ Scottone and Sodano 1999:70-3, 73-4 ,10 6 -9 ,10 9 -12.
44 Sec Fuchs ÍOOÍ (Eobanus Hessus); Johnston 1637 (on the latter, see also Green ioti). Eohuuu
Hessus was abo the author of three books o f H e ro id e s C h ris tia n a e , elegiac epistles from heroines of
the Christian tradition modelled on Ovid's mythological H e ro id e s (see Chapter 8 in this volui«,
and on the vogue fo r neo-Latin Christianizing H e ro id e s see Eickmeyer 2012). On Latin psalm
paraphrases, see generally Gaertner 1936.
41 For ten. translation and commentary, see Green 20u; on Buchanan's elegiac psalms, see also Wall
1977, cogently enriched by Green 2011: 79-80.
44 Barberini 1640:19-3«. 37-9. 39- 41.13 1-4 . On Barberini’s poetry, see especially Rietbergen 100«:
95- 142.
 fy ff Ì 09

Nor was it just the psalm s that were accorded elegiac treatment. Here,
for instance, is the creation o f m an , from the opening elegy o f Pontano’s
Dt laudibus divinis ( 1 .6 3 - 7 4 ) :47

Et ¡am quadrupedes fetus, obnoxia morti

corpora, plumosos edideratque greges,
tum Deus humanos effingere molliter artus
membraque de tenui ducere coepit humo.
Cunctaque formatât studio perfecta magistro
quaeque artem referant artificemque suum;
mox auram aetherio de fomite fundit in illum:
‘Vive,’ ait ‘et proprio membra labore fove.’
Arcanae mox partem animae de mente profunda
libat et erecti spirat in ora viri:
‘Dux’ ait ‘haec hominum generi sit et ipsa magistra,
et sua constituant hac duce seque regant.’

And now he had produced the four-footed offspring, bodies subject to death,
and the feathered flocks; then G o d began to mould gently human limbs, and
to fashion body parts from the insubstantial earth. And he had shaped
everything, finished o ff with masterful attention, to tell o f the art and its artist.
Then he infuses breath into the body from the heavenly kindling: ‘ Live,’ he
ays, ‘and sustain your limbs by your own labour.’ Then he pours out a
portion of concealed soul from his fathomless mind, and breathes into the
mouth of the upright man: 'L e t this’ , he says, ‘ be the guide and master for the
human race, and by its guidance lec them manage their affairs and keep
themselves in order.’

The exploitation o f elegy for religious ends burgeoned during the

Counter Reformation an d in to the seventeenth century, as witnessed in
the works o f the prolific F lem ish Je su it Sid ro n D e Hossche (Sidronius
Hosschius).4* First p ublish ed togeth er in 16 5 6 , so successful were De
Hossche’s devotional elegies a m o n g the C a th o lic faithful o f Europe that
1 number o f his poem s appeared in a free Fren ch translation b y Lancelot
Deslandes in 17 5 6 , and in a C astilia n version b y an anonym ous ‘ religioso
observante’ just under fo rty years later.49 D e H ossch e w as well aware o f the
historical associations o f his ch o sen literary form , and w ent out o f his way
to emphasize the distance b e tw ee n th e elegy as practised b y him self and the*

** For the ten, se e Pontano 19 4 8 :1 6 } ; Arnaldi, Gualdo Rosa and Monti Sabia 1964:590-2. On neo-
Larin vene translations o f biblical tenets (often in elegiac metre), see generally Grant 1959.
4 On De Hossche. see especially Merta, M urphy and IJsewijn 1989: 85-92; Thill and Bandericr 1999;
91-9; Saa i 1996; IJsewijn 1997a. For Jacob Vande W alle's hendecasyllables in praise of De
Hostche s elegies, see M era, M urphy and IJsewijn 1989: 94-5.
* Dalandes 175s; (Anon.] 1795.
no L. B . T . H O U G H T O N

genre’s dissolute past. W hen Elegy herSelf is brough t on to the scene, the
comparison with the Ovidian model in Amores 3.1 is immediately fore,
grounded by her appearance in the open in g poem o f the Jesuit’s third
book, which begins like its classical cou n terp an w ith the description of a
numinous poedc grove introduced b y the w o rd s stat vetusf0 but although
Elegy still proceeds ‘with unequal step’ (inaequali. . . passu), her face now
wears the blush o f modesty, her brow carries the myrtle garland unwiH-
ingly, and her hair is more fragrant than she w o u ld w ish (Elegiae 3.1.19-14).
Her regret for the abuses wrought on her in the past is expressed in her
repudiation o f the erotic concerns o f classical Latin elegy, as embodied by
the nefarious mistresses o f Propertius, O v id , T ib u llu s and the pseudo-
Tibullan Lygdamus (Elegiae 3.1.45—52.):51

Eheu, quam magno mihi Cynthia saepe rubori est!

Vt laedat, per me Cynthia forma potens.
Nec minus hac M ax, et adhuc versuta Corinna,
Nec tantum domini prima mina sui:
Deliaque, et Nemesis, mihique invidiosa Neaera,
Pluraque criminibus nomina clara suis.
Ars quoque, quae vatem male me feliciter usum
Perdidit, heu! plures perdidit illud opus.

Ah, what a great embarrassment Cynthia often is to me! Cynthia, a sovereign

beauty through my agency in order to cause harm. A nd no less deceitful dun
her, and still crafty, is Corinna, the principal min not just o f her own master,
and there’s Delia and Nemesis, and Neaera hateful to me, and many mote
names famous for their transgressions; also the Ars, which disastrously ruined (be
poet who made such happy use o f me — alas, that work has brought many in
perdition.

What kind o f material, then, w ould D e H o ssch e ’s n ew ly chastened Elegy

regard as a suitable expression o f her resolutely w holesom e character? The
poet’s first elegiac collection, Cursus humanae vitae, offers a series of moral­
izing reflections on the voyage o f life, w ith the parallel established in the
opening lines, again in Ovidian fashion, b y the repeated gnomic statement
of the proposition at the start and end o f the couplet, and a call for credence
from the imagined audience: Vita mare est: resplena metu, résplena tumult»\
Vtraque. Mortales credite, Vita mare est (‘Life is a Sea: each is a thing frill of
fear, a thing frill o f turmoil. Believe m e, m ortals: life is a sea’, Cum

*° Dc Hosscbe 1656: » 8j.

De Hoodie iSjé: 8+; Cynthia forma potem (‘Cynthia, a sovereign beauty’, 46) quotes Properas
2.5.28.
 EUgy I ll

binmae vitae 1 . 1 - 2 ; cf. O v id , Amores I -9 .I - 2 ) .52 Even further removed, it

would appear, from the usual preoccupations o f the classical elegists and
their lovelorn followers is the cycle o f elegies on the crucifixion, Christus
patens, which begins p ro vo catively w ith the injunction Discite quid sit
Amor, ‘ Learn what L o ve is’ (1.1) — that is, w h at Love really is, as manifested
in the passion o f C h rist, rather than in the disreputable passions o f De
Hossche’s elegiac predecessors.53 L o o k in g back at the ancient representatives
ofthe tradition, it m ay seem astonishing h o w far elegy has travelled since the
days of Cynthia, D elia and C o rin n a - yet w hat could be more elegiac than
the final complaint o f C h rist o n the cross, lam enting his abandonment by
the one dearest to him (Christuspatiens 1 2 .3 7 - 4 0 ) ? 54
Attollit tamen exsangues ad sidera vultus,
Vtque potest, oculis quaerit, et ore patrem.
Singultumque trahens imo de pectore: Mene
Destituis, clamat, tu quoque care pater?

He raises his pallid face to the stars, however, and so fiar as he can, he seeb his
father with his eyes and his speech. A n d drawing a sob frbm the depths of his
bean, be cries: Are you too forsaking me, dear father?

The flexibility o f the elegiac cou plet earned the genre o f elegy an almost
unparalleled diffusion; it w as practised wherever the composition o f Latin
verse formed p an o f the educational curriculum , b y the reluctant school­
boy no less than b y future o ccu p a n ts o f the throne o f St Peter. T h e result
was a body o f literature o f extraordin ary volum e and variety, and for as
longas neo-Latin poetry retained its place in the literate culture o f Europe
and beyond, the genre’s p o p u larity w as never dim inished by fluctuations
in fashion.55 T h e elegy w a s cultivated b y som e o f the most distinguished
authors o f the age, b y poets o f th e stature o f Pontanö, Ariosto, Poliziano,
Sannazaro, Buchanan, Secu n d u s, D u B ellay and M ilton ; it could be used
tochannel everyone from the d ead C ic e ro to Catherine o f Aragon, from St
Pner and the M agdalene to item s o f exotic fruit.56 Jacob Burckhardt’s
judgments on the overall character o f the Renaissance are now generally*

* De Hossche i6 ?6 :1.
11 Especially, perhaps, o f Pontino, whose elegy on the cicada ends with the assertion cicadae \ sorsfdix o
m disauquid sit amor Çùîc lot o f the cicada is happy, ah. now learn what love is', Eridanus 1.15.15-16).
” De Hoisdie 1656: 51.
* For nineteenth- and twentieth-century Latin elegy, see IJsewijn and Sacri 1998: 85-4.
Cranx Eobanus Hessus, D e tumultibus horum temporum querela 6 (Vrcdcveld 1990:56-65); Catherine
ofAngón: Moka. Elegiae 2.8 (Scorsone and Sodano 1999: 50-7; abo Perosa and Sparrow 1979:261-4);
St Pean De Hossche, Lacrymae S . P etri (De Hossche 1656: 51-79); Mary Magdalene: Barberini,
Poemau161 (Barberini 1640: 285-7); finit; Sannazaro, Elegiae 2.10 (see above).
IU L. B, T . H O U G H T O N

viewed with scepticism;’ 7 but there m ay perhaps be something in hb

verdict that ‘it was in lyric, and more particularly in elegiac, poetry that
the poet-scholar a m e nearest to antiquity’ , and that ‘ [a]s the humanists
dealt most freely o f all with the text o f the R o m an elegiac poets, so they felt
themselves most at home in imitating them 1.’ 8

FU R T H E R R E A D IN G

Although not all o f the texts are readily available in modern editions and
translations, the student o f neo-Latin elegy is now much better served than in
previous years. Introductions to the genre as a whole can be found in IJsewijn
and Sacré 1990-8: 2.80-5, de Beer 2014 and Moul 2015: 4 5 -7 : the erotic side is
surveyed by Parker 2012 and Braden 2010, complemented by Houghton 2013.
Also valuable for general orientation are Fantazzi 1996 and Ludwig 1976. There ait
imponant collections o f essays in Chappuis Sandoz 2011, Cardini and Coppioi
2009 and Catanzaro and Santucci 1999; collections on individual authors indude
Auhagen and Schäfer 2001 (on Lotichius), Baier 2003 (on Pontano), Schäfer
2004b (on Secundus), and Kofler and Novokhatko forthcoming (on Landino),
all in the NeoLatina series. The most significant recent monograph is Pieper 200Í,
which ranges considerably beyond its immediate subject (Landino’s Xandra). New
texts with translations have appeared in the I Tatti Renaissance Library, published
by Harvard University Press (see for instance Chatfleld 2008 and Putnam 2009),
and in editions from other presses (e.g. Murgatroyd 2000), although mort
remains to be done. The anthologies': o f Arnaldi et al. 1964, Laurens and
Balavoine 1975, Perosa and Sparrow 1979, Nichols 1979 and McFarlane
1980 remain useful in offering a flavour o f the range o f material encompassed
by neo-Latin elegiac poetry.

p On Burckhardi’s assessment o f neo-Latin literature in particular, see especially Cderaa 2004:1-2.

U - l) .
51 Burckhardt (990:172-3.
 CHAPTER 7

L y ric

J u lia H aig Gaisser

Renaissance Latin lyric is a capacious and varied genre that resists precise
definition, refusing to be lim ited b y length, subject, or meter. It includes
long poems and short, o n subjects from love to death, politics to religion,
and everything in betw een. It is usually written in lyric meters, but
occasionally slips over into elegiacs.1 Its poets are eclectic and flexible,
drawing on ancient poets b u t also o n each other, m oving from one mode
to another (often w ith in the sam e collection), sometimes writing in
dialogue with vernacular poetry, and som etim es com posing in both Latin
and the vernacular. T h e poets w ere highly mobile physically as well as
intellectually, m oving from c ity to city and country to country, absorbing
and dispensing influence across national borders.
Their genre, like so m u ch else in the Renaissance, begins with Francesco
Petrarca (Petrarch).1 In the years betw een around 1345 and 1370 Petrarch
composed a series o f letters to ancient authors, one o f which (Rerum
[miliarium 24.10) is addressed to H orace.3 T h e letter is in quantitative
vene, and the choice o f m eter is significant: the first asclepiad, with which
Horace began and ended his three books o f Odes. It begins:

Regem, te, lyrici carminis Italus

orbis quem memorat plectraque Lesbia
nerviis cui tribuit M usa sonantibus

te nunc dulce sequi (Fam . 24.10.1-7)

' lytic meten include those used in Horace's Odes (e.g., asckpiadcans, «leaks, aithilochcans,
upphics), but also the phataeccan hendecasyllables of Catullus. But neo-Latin poets also composed
lyticpoetry in elegiacs, one o f the best examples being Joannes Secundus, whose lyric Asna include
meal poems in elegiac couplets. See abo Ijsewijn and Sacré 199g: 79-99.
* For medieval poems in quantitative lyric meters in imitation o f Horace, see Friis-Jensen 1007:
¡9HOO with earlier bibliography. Between around u o o and the mid fourteenth century such
imitiriom seem to have been rare (Friis-Jensen, 199).
1 Ludwig 1992a: 905-25 (with a foil text on 359—63); Houghton 2009: 161-72. For translation see
Pnnich 1985:336-9.

H3
 J ULI A HAI G G A I S S E R
114

O you, whom the Italian world celebrates

as king of lyric song, and on whom the Muse
bestowed the Lesbian lyre with sounding strings,

it is sweet to follow you now.

In the next 131 lines Petrarch enumerates favorite H o rad an themes, touch,
ing on dozens o f poems and constantly ech o in g, bu t never parroting
Horadan language. T h e list is punctuated w ith references to Petrarch’s
desire to follow Horace - over land and sea, n o rth and south, east and
west, to the very ends o f the earth.4
As early as it is, Petrarch’s lyric tribute to H o ra c e already has two features
that would be characterisric o f m uch R enaissance neo-Latin lyric First,
Petrarch claims a place in the great tradition o f L a tin poetry. He wants»
follow Horace through the Odes not just as a reader, b u t as an imitator. Asht
says in lines 115 -6 : ‘when I saw [you], m y w a n d e rin g mind conceived]
noble envy {invidiam. . . nobilem)' - an urge to im itate and rival his andtnt
predecessor.5 Second, his poem has close links w ith vernacular poetry. Many
o f his Horadan echoes evoke themes that he h ad borrow ed from the Ola
and used in his Italian lyrics, the Canzoniere.6 In celebrating Horace, then,
Petrarch is also celebrating himself. U sin g the lyric m eter o f Horace’s most
famous programmatic odes, he has written a tribute to Horace that com­
memorates his own achievement in both Italian an d Latin lyric.
But Petrarch’s lyric had no im m ediate successors, for the idea of writing
quantitative Latin lyric poetry did not take h o ld until around 1450 or so. His
lener to Horace is the forerunner, not the im petus o r inspiration of the mass
o f neo-Latin lyric poetry that w ould be w ritten all over Europe in the
fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. T h is lyric to o k m an y forms. In what
follows we will consider only three, looking closely at a few poems of each
type: erotic poetry in the style o f C atullu s, odes o n th e seasons, and hymns.

Canillan Poetry

Renaissance Canillan poetry straddles the b o u n d a ry between epigram and

lyric, tilting sometimes in one direction, som etim es in the other. It is the

4 bee dun tu modulans mecupidum preis / d u c. . .d u c . . . d u c. . . duc ('while you go ahead playing the*
songs, lead me in my eagerness... lead. . . lead. . . lead’, 41-53): Ibo p a ri im petu (‘I will go, mitching
your step. $7): quo te cunque moves, quicquid agis, iu vat (‘wherever you go, whatever you do. it Is
pleasing', 66); k .. . I sequen (‘following you’, 117 -9 ); insequor Cl follow’, 136).
* For the interpretation of invidiam . . . nobilem , see Ludwig 1992a: 321 n. 47.
* Frih-Jensen 10 0 7: 199-JOO; McGann 2007: 307-10 ; Houghton 2009; 164-72.
 Lyric 115
creation o f the great N ea p o lita n poet G iovanni Gioviano Pontano
(1419—1503), w h o m ade it a recognizable and popular genre and set it on
the course it w ould follow fo r the next tw o hundred and fifty years.7
Pontano arrived in N a p le s in 14 4 8 as a very young man and found a
mentor and friend in A n to n io Beccadelli (Panormita), author o f the
scandalousHermaphroditus, a collection o f largely obscene poems modeled
on Martial and the Priapeia. H e also gained access to a manuscript of
Catullus. T h e com bination o f P an orm ita and M arnai on the one hand and
Catullus on the other w as decisive. W ith in a year Pontano had written his
first collection o f C a n illa n poetry: Pruritus (‘Titillations’). T w o more
followed: Parthenopeus sive Amores (14 5 7) and Hendecasyllabi sive Baiae
(completed around 15 0 0 ). T h e collections differ in subject and tone.
Pruritus is largely obscene in the m anner o f Panormita; Parthenopeus
embarks on a more sophisticated program and mixes Canillan poems with
elegies and odes; the Hendecasyllabi, poem s o f Pontano’s old age, are
sensual but also elegiac in tone. D esp ite their differences, however, the
collecdons share som e distinctive features that w ould be characteristic o f
Pontano’s new genre.
Several o f these features are exem plified in Parthenopeus 1.28, a program­
matic poem in hendecasyllables addressed to Pontano’s friend Lorenzo
Bonincontri, dedicatee o f the first b o o k o f Parthenopeus.8
Uxoris nitidae beate coniunx,
cunctis coniugibus beatiorque,
quid sends, age, de meo libello
nobis dissere. N um quid a Catullo
quemquam videris esse nequiorem,
aut qui plus habeat procacitatis,
non dico tamen elegandorem?
Sed cene meus hic libellus unum
doctum post sequitur suum Catullum
et Calvum veteremque disciplinam.
Non multo minor est novis poetis.
Saltat versiculis canens minuds
hoc, quod non sonuere mille ab annis
musarum citharae aut Lyaei puellae. (Parthenopeus 1.28.1-14)

O happy husband o f a radiant wife,

And happier than all husbands,
Tell us, please, what you think o f
M y little book. Surely you w on’t have seen

Udwg 1989b; Gaisser 1993; 220-8. 1 Pontano 1948: 9;.

né JULIA HAIG G A IS S E R

Anyone naughtier since Catullus,

Or who has more wantonness -
To say nothing o f being more elegant?
But surely this little book o f mine
Is second to its learned Catullus alone
And Calvus and the ancient discipline.
It is not much (ess than the new poets.
It dances, singing in tiny verses this strain
that the Muses’ lyres and the girls o f Bacchus
have not sounded for a thousand years.

‘0 happy husband o f a radiant w ife ’ . T h is first line brings us into a

different world (rom that o f Catullus. B o n in co n tri is a real husband, and
his ‘radiant wife’ is his real wife, C aecilia, w h o m P o n tan o calls ‘Cicella’ in
line 24, and whose bare-breasted erotic p lay w ith B o n in co n tri he describes
in the dedication poem o f Parthenopeus 1 ( Parth. 1 . 1 .1 6 - 2 6 ) . B y celebrating
the sensual conjugal love o f Bonincontri an d C a e c ilia in his opening and
closing poems, Pontano sets a new course for C a n illa n poetry.9 Not all of
his lovers «ill be married, but their beh avior is alm ost always presented
as highly sensual - far more sensual than a n y th in g in Catullus. Also
characteristic o f Pontano is his insistence o n a p o sitio n in the Latin poetic
tradition - here as the first successor o f C a tu llu s, so u n d in g ‘ in tiny verses a
strain not sounded for a thousand years’ . T h e ‘ tin y verses’ are hendeca-
syllables, the signature meter o f his m odel and o f all subsequent Canillan
poetry. Pontano’s hendecasyilables are like C a tu llu s ’ bu t m ore so, for they
exaggerate Catullus’ use o f assonance, repetition an d dim inutives, and they
delight in using long comparatives and o th er five- a n d six-syllable words at
the end of a line.10
Absent from this poem but present in m a n y oth ers is a theme that
would become an essential marker o f C a n illa n p o e try : a preoccupation
with Catullus’ kiss poems, 5 and 7 . U su a lly P o n ta n o ju st describes or
counts kisses." But in one fam ous and in flu e n tial poem he follows
Martial u .6 in combining C an illan kisses w ith th e sp a rro w o f Cat. 2-}
to produce an obscene reading o f the sp a rro w .“ In Parthenopeus 1.5
(originally in Pruritus), he refuses to give his s n o w -w h ite dove {nivem
meam columbam, 1.5.x) to boys, ‘ terrible catam ites’ (mali cinaedi, 1.54),*

* Parti. L2Í was originally the last poem in Parth. 1. Pontano’s editor, Pietro Stunmonte. followed it
with several others, obscuring Pontano’s arrangement. See Ludw ig 1989b: 173 n. 47.
“ E g. betaerque (a); nequiorem (j); procadtatis (6): tlegantim tm (7). For another striking example of
the Pontanan herdecasyllabic, see Parth. t.u and the discussion in Gaisser 10 0 9 :18 1.
Eg. Parth. t o , IJ4,1.15 , 1.24,1.26. u Ludwig 1989b: 175—6 . Gaisser 1993: 233—54.
 Lyric U7

R o w in g it instead o n h is g irl, w h o w ill em b race and kiss it.'3 T h e dove

will play in her lap:

ut, cum te roseo ore suaviatur

rostrum purpureis premens labellis,
mellitam rapias iocosa linguam,
et tot basia totque basiabis,
donec nectarei fluant liquores. {Parthenopeia 1.5.17-31)

so that when she kisses you with rosy mouth

pressing your beak with purple lips,
you might snatch her honeyed tongue in play
and give so m any kisses and kisses again
until the streams o f nectar flow.

With this recasting o f M a r tia l’ s interpretation o f Catullus’ sparrow,

Pontano anticipated A n g e lo P olizian o, w h o w as to make the same point
in his Miscellanea (1.6) fo rty years later. Posterity has given Poliziano all the
credit, but the R enaissance p o ets k n e w better, endlessly playing with,
expanding, and som etim es criticizin g b o th P on tano’s kiss poems and his
obscene sparrow o r dove in C a n illa n p o em s all over Europe.
A second im portant feature o f P o n ta n o ’s C a n illa n poetry is the Canillan
program derived from C a t . 1 6 , th e insistence that to please its readers light
poetry must arouse th em .14

qui [versiculi] tum denique habent salem ac leporem,

si sunt molliculi ac parum pudici,
et quod pruriat incitare possunt,
non dico pueris, sed his pilosis
qui duros nequeunt movere lumbos. (Cat. 16.7-n)

[Verses] only have w it and charm

if they are a little soft and not quite modest,
and can stir up sexual excitement—
I don’t mean for boys, but for these hairy old men
unable to move their stiffenéd loins.

This idea appears in each o f P o n ta n o ’s C a n illa n collections - in the

significantly nam ed Pruritus, in Parthenopeiis, w here boys and old men
alike are to learn playful verses ( Parth. 1 .1 .1 3 - 1 5 ) , an d in the Hendecasyllabi,
which promise to arouse a n d please o ld m en . L ater C an illan poets would
also invoke C at. 16, b u t preferred to call o n the lines in which he

Poouno 19 4 8 :7 0 -1. G rä se r 1993: 220-8.

ii8 JULIA HAIG G A IS SE R

distinguished between the character o f the poet and that o f his poetry: ‘For
it is right for the true poet to be chaste him self, / bu t not necessary for his
verses to be so’ (16.5-6).
Pontano’s Canillan poetry was both im itated a n d debated in Italy -
especially by his friends and protégés Ja c o p o Sannazaro and Michele
Marnilo and by the serious Carm elite m o n k , Jo h an n es Baptista Spagnolo,
known as Mantuan.15 Sannazaro w rote kiss p oem s in the Pontanan
manner. Marnilo tried to revise the C an illa n p rogram , counting sighs
rather than kisses and insisting that he w o u ld w rite o n ly chaste love poetry,
Mantuan rejected the whole enterprise. B o th M arn ilo and Mantuan
specifically rejected the poet’s excuse from C a t . 1 6 . 5 - 6 . 16
In the sixteenth century Canillan poetry m oved to France, introduced and
naturalized there principally by Jean Salm on M acrin (14 9 0 -15 5 7 ).17 In collec­
tions published in 15 2 8 ,1530 and 1531 M acrin approvingly cited the poet's
excuse from C a t 16 in his own hendecasyllables and w rote sensual love poetry
to his wife, Gelonis, demanding and celebrating kisses.'8 Macrin’s poetry
influenced other French poets, w ho wrote C an illan p oetry in both Latin and
French.'9 But he also seems to have influenced the young Dutch poet,
Joannes Secundus (1511-36), whose collection, Basia (‘ Kisses’, c. 1534-6),
turned out to be the most important Canillan poetry o f the Renaissance.10
Secundus’ work is a cycle o f nineteen poem s o r ‘ kisses’ {Bastò) on the
subject of the kisses o f his girl Neaera - kisses cou n ted , classified, demanded,
rejected and sensuously described throughout the cycle .1' T h e Basia, erotic
and metapoetic at the same time, draw o n C atu llu s, M aniai and the
Priapeia, as well as on the Renaissance C an illa n poets in N aples and Macrin
in France; but they are also steeped in H o race’s Odes and Epodes. Their
meter is richly varied, including not o n ly hendecasyllables and elegiacs, but
pythiambics, anacreontics, asclepiads, glyconics and aeolics.
A favorite theme is the relationship between kisses and death (both actual
death and the ‘litde death’ o f extreme sexual pleasure). T h e underlying idea

” Glisser 199): ms - 8; Laniers 2009. The most relevant poems are Sannazaro Ep. 1.6; Marnilo Ep. tit
and ).)l; Mantuan: Cantra porno impudice scribentes airm en.
* Manilio: et quae nonfacimus Meerefacta pudet (‘and I am ashamed to speak o f things 1 do not do',
Ep. 1.62.22). Mannum vita decet sacros et pagina casta poetas (‘a chaste life and a düste page befit!
holy poets', Contra poetas, 19).
17 McFariane 1959-1960, esp. 1959: <7-84; Ford 1993.
'* He recast Cat 16.5-8 In a program poem printed in 1528: 1.9 -14 ; see Gaisser 1993: 129. Canillan
poems by Macrin arc quoted by Morrison 1955: 381-3; McFarlane 1959: 75, 79-81 and Ford 199p
1J9-22.
” Fold 1993:126-30, “ Ford 1993.
" Secundus 1969: K7r-Mlr; text and translation in Nichols 1979: 486-515. The cyde is analyzed by
Schoolfield 1980:101-17; Price 1996:55-73; Schäfer 2004b.
 L y ric 119

is that o f the soul kiss - that the lovers as they kiss exchange the spirit or
breath o f life.12 Su ch kisses can m ake them immortal, bring them to the
brink o f death, o r m ove th em in turn between life and death.
In Basium i Secun dus w ishes that he and N eaera could be entwined as
closely as the vine a n d elm , e m b ra cin g in an eternal kiss {perenne basium,
2.8). Then they w o u ld be jo in ed in death, carried in a single boat ‘to the
pale house o f D is’ (adpallidam D itis domum, 2.14 ), imagined as an Elysium
for lovers. T h e essential intertext is H o race, Epode 15, also in pythiambics
and addressed to a N eaera. H o ra c e ’ s N eaera swore an oath o f eternal
mtuus amor, clin ging ‘ m o re tig h d y than a lofty oak is gripped by ivy’
[artius atque hedera procera adstringitur ilex, Epod. 15.5). B ut her oath was
taise. The intertext colors o u r visio n o f Secu n d u s’ Neaera from the outset:
perhaps she will be unfaithful too. In Basium 4 the kisses are even more
powerful than in Basium 2, for n o w th e y are not just the breath o f life but
the food o f im m ortality ( nectar, 4 .1) , bringing the lover not to Elysium
but to Olympus itself ( 4 .8 - 1 0 ) .
Basium 16 is a H o rad an ode b len d in g C an illan and Horadan themes.25
The meter is the fourth a sd ep ia d . It too opens w ith a request for kisses:

Latonae niveo sidere blandior,

Et stella Veneris pulchrior aurea,
Da mi basia centum,
Da tot basia, quot dedit
Vati muidvolo Lesbia, quot tulit. (Basium 16.1-5)

You, more alluring than Latona’s snow-white moon

And more beautiful than the golden star o f Venus,
Give me a hundred kisses,
Give as many kisses as Lesbia gave
To the poet who wanted many, give as many as she got.

The kissing lovers will be like am o ro u s doves in springtime, and they will
alternately swoon and revive each o th er w ith anim ating kisses (16 .21-40 ).
But, as in Horace, sprin g is fo llo w ed b y o ld age and death; the poem closes
with a carpe diem m o tif ( 1 6 .4 1 - 4 ) .
Secundus, short-lived as he w a s (he died at 2 5), claim ed immortality
for his poetry. A t the en d o f Basium 1, he says that he will sing the
praises o f the kisses ‘ as lo n g as . . . L o v e speaks the soft words o f the
Romans’ (dum . . . / mollia Romulidum verba hquetur Amor, 1.24, 26).

“ Perdía 1969:158-143. Before Secundus the soul kiss appears in (among others) Sannazaro, Ep. 1.6;
Muullo, Ep. 2.4; Macrin, Carm inum lib er secundus il.
Gai«« 1993: 250-4.
no JULIA HAIG C A IS S E R

latin poets all over Europe fulfilled his p re d ictio n , b u t the influence of
the Basia extended to vernacular poets as w e ll, e sp ecially in France.14 To
cite a single example, the great Fren ch p o et P ierre Ronsard (1514-85)
closely imitated several o f the Basia in his o w n p o em s - perhaps most
notably in Chanson h i (1578), w h ich virtually translates Basium 2: Plu¡
cstnit que la vigne à l ’ormeau se marie (‘ M o r e tigh tly than the vine
enclasps the elm’).*5

Odes on the Seasons

In the hundred years or so after Petrarch’s verse letter to Horace, only a

handful of Renaissance poets w rote in lyric m eters. Cristoforo Landino
(1424-98) had finished several poems in sapph ics b y 14 4 3 .16 Pontano’s
Parthenopeus Book 1 (completed aroun d 14 5 7 ) includes sapphics and
asdepiads.17 In 1455 or 1456 Francesco Filelfo ( 13 9 8 -1 4 8 1) completed a
collection o f fifty odes using all o f H o race’s m eters.*8 B u t neither Landino
nor Pontano seems to have continued w ith lyric in the 14 6 0 s and 1470s,
and Filelfo’s very long, largely autobiographical odes did not inspire
imitation. In the 1480s, however, odes began to co m e into their own,
and soon they were being written everyw here in E u ro p e .
Horace was always the principal ancient m odel. Poets also looked to
Pindar, particularly in France, but their P in daric conceptions were often
colored by their reading o f Horace.*9 R enaissance L a tin odes are both like
and unlike their ancient models. T h e y frequen tly use the sam e themes, but
like to play with them differently, using a classical intertext as an element
contributing to the meaning o f their o w n w o rk . T h e y are often tied very
closely to the poet’s life, relating details o f his travels, finances, illnesses and
family. Most important, they re fle a a different w o rld from that o f their
ancient counterparts - different in custom s, institutions, politics and above
all religion.
Horace’s famous spring poems (Carm. 1 .4 an d 4 .7 ) were favorites with
the Renaissance poets. In both odes H o race associates sprin g with life and
youth, which will irrevocably m ove tow ard the w in te r o f old age and death.

14 Price 1996: îi-6 ; Elinger 1899.

” Romani 1938:1, 294-6. Chanson ra is (rom the first book o f Ronsard’s Sonnets pour Héibu (1578).
For other eumples tee Chamard 1946.
14 Xtndra u z , 15, 27,30. For the dare, sec Ludwig 1989b: 17 0 -1.
17 Sapphics: Parthenopeus 1.7 ,12. Asdepiads: Parthenopeus 1.29. Parthenopeus 1 was completed in 1457.
Ludwig 1989b: 177. But Parth. 1.29 can be dated around 1449; Ludwig 1989b: r73 n. 47.
* Filelfo 2009: xiii. ** Revard 2009a: 15.
 L y ric I 2I

The seasons com e aro un d again, as he says in Carni. 4 .7 , but our life is
linear and our death final. T h e m essage is the fam iliar carpe diem. These
ideas were old even in H o r a c e ’s tim e (com pare Catullus 5 .4 -6 ), but they
are also true and p o ign an t, a n d th e y provided the Renaissance p e t s , as
they had Catullus and H o ra c e before th em , w ith a flexible framework for
important poems.
In the 1480s M ich e le M a r n ilo ( 1 4 5 3 - 1 5 0 0 ) addressed a spring poem
[Ep. 1.63, in sapphics) to his fe llo w G re e k exile, M anilius Rhallus,
calling his attention to th e h a p p y celeb ratio n o f M a y D ay.30 Flowers
decorate the houses, flo u rish in g y o u n g m en m ingle w ith girls crowned
with garlands, old an d y o u n g alike g lo w w ith happiness ( omnis aetas /
huta renidet, 7 - 8 ) . C u p id is e v e ry w h e re , lin k in g the yo un g people in
dances, making the girls b e a u tifu l, lig h tin g the fires o f love. N o w comes
the carpe diem ( 2 1 - 3 2 ) , b u t w it h o u t th e usual rem inder o f death. Rhallus
is not bidden to loo k a h ead to a d a rk futu re, bu t rather urged to enjoy
this day.

Mitte vaesanos, bone Rhalle, questus:

lam sat indultum patriae ruinae est.
Nunc vocat lusus
[...]
Quid dies omnis miseri querendo
Perdimus dati breve tempus aevi? (E p . 1.63.21-3, 25-6)

Put aside frenzied laments, gpod Rhallus.

Enough tears have been shed for the ruin o f our homeland.
Now play calls us
[...]
Why miserable all our days do we waste
In regret the short time o f life given us?

After an Horadan call fo r w in e a n d th e banishing o f grief the ode ends:

Totanimirum Genio mihique ¡ Fulserit haec lux! ('Su rely for m y Genius and
me / this whole day w ill h ave sh o n e b righ t!’, 3 1 - 2 ) .
This poem, very different fro m H o race in several ways, still uses his
basic structure: a jo yo u s e v o ca tio n o f sp rin g, followed b y a sharp turn to
serious reflection. M a ru llo ’s fo cu s is n o t o n a season, but on a single day,
May day (Matas . . . Kalendas, 5; haec lux, 32 ), seen as a brief respite from
continuing sorrow (cf. dies omnis, 2 5).

° Mirullo 1931:28-9; Arnaldi, Gualdo Rosa and M onti Sabia 1964: 9 52-;. Translated in Nichols 1979:
W&-31: Marnilo 2012: 50-3; Kidwell 1989: 9 1-2 . Briefly discussed in Nichols 1997:163; McGinn
*99j: 332-4. Rhallus is also the addressee o f E p. 3.47.
m JULIA HAIG G A I S S E R

Angelo Poliziano (1454-9 4) addressed Ode 6 to his students at the

beginning of a course o f lectures in 14 8 7 .31 T h e m eter is th e third asdep¡a¿

lam cornu gravidus praecipitem parat

Afflatus subitis frigoribus fugam
Autumnus pater, et deciduas sinu
Frondes excipit arborum. (O d e 6.1-4)
Now weigbed down by bis cornucopia,
Father Autumn prepares his headlong flight.
Buffeted by sudden cold; and he gathers up
Fallen leaves o f the trees in the fold o f his garment.

The farmers, half-sober, celebrate autum n and th e e n d o f their labors with

rustic revels (5-8), but the turning o f the year calls th e students and their
teacher back ‘under the yoke o f the M u ses’ (sub tugo Musarum, 9-10) to
‘seize the fleeting day’ (carpamus volucrem diem, 12 ) in study.
In the next stanza the poet leads his students to Parnassus.

I mecum, docilis turba, biverticis

Parnasi rapidis per iuga passibus,
Expers quo senii nos vocat et rogi
Consors gloria coelicum. (O d e 6.13-16)
Go with me, docile throng, on swift foot
Through the ridges o f twin-peaked Parnassus,
Where glory calls us, who is immune to old age and death,
Sharing the lot o f the gods.

The language here is ecstatic, almost B acch ic; w o rd s like turba (‘throng’
and rapidis . . . passibus (‘swift steps’) suggest m ad revels, and the rare
biverticis (twin-peaked) adds an exotic note.32 B u t the m ountain is Parnas­
sus, not Cithaeron, and it is not B acchus w h o calls b u t rather glory itself.
Ode 6 is playful and serious at the sam e tim e. It includes the familiar
Horadan elements: the seasons, the revolving year, carpe diem, old age and
death; but Poliziano replaces spring w ith au tu m n , m akes w itty play with
carpe diem (seize the shortening day - for study) a n d displaces old age and
death with a call to pursue the im m ortality o f literary glory. T h e poem is a
perfect captatio benevolentiae for his lectures, an d H o race was familiar
enough by now that Poliziano could cou n t o n his students to appreciate

* Polmano 1867: j í j - í ; Arnaldi. Gualdo Rosa and M onti Sabia 19 6 4 :10 4 8 -9 . Translated in Niduli
1979:176-7.
** Bhmex occurs onb ben and in Statius’ T h ebaidi.6 2Í (also in the collocation b iverticis. . . / Pentá,
61* *-»>.
 L y ric 12 3

it. He could also cou n t o n th em to notice th at he has touched on a central

tenet of his poetics in the last tw o stanzas ( 1 3 - 2 0 ) : that poetry requires both
divinely inspired poetic frenzy {furor poeticus) and laborious effort.53
Conrad Celtis (14 5 9 -13 0 8 ), ju stly called the ‘G erm an Horace’, was restless
ind peripatetic, studying and teach in g in universities all over Germany,
[riding to Italy, teaching in P o lan d an d finally occupying a chair at the
University o f Vienna.34 A m o n g his favorite them es were his ow n place in the
poetic tradition and the m o vem en t o f intellectual accomplishment from
Greece to Rome to G erm an y. In his m ost fam ous poem , the ‘Apollo ode’
4.5), Celtis calls A p o llo to leave Italy fo r G e rm an y as he had once left
Greece for Rome.35 In Epode 1 2 (‘T o the G e rm an Poets’) he aspires to be
recognized as the G erm an successor o f H o race: Inter Germanos mea, sic rogo,
emina durent, / ut Italis Horatius subfin ib ili6 (‘A m o n g the Germ ans, I pray,
may my songs be as lasting / as H o race in the Italian lands’ , Epode 12 .17 -18 ).
Celtis modeled the structure o f his collections o n Horace: four books o f Odes,
i bookof seventeen Epodes and a Carmen Saeculare. B u t he also used m any o f
Horace’s themes and individual p o em s, including Carni. 1.4 and 4 .7.
In the 1490S, still in his forties, he co m p o sed a w in ter poem , ‘O n the
Threshold o f His O ld A g e ’ {A d senectutem suam, Ode 4.1), which draws on
both of Horace’s spring p o e m s.37 T h e ode concerns the poet himself, for
unlike poems we have seen b y H o ra c e , M a rn ilo and Poliziano, it lacks an
ddressee.

Iam mihi tristis hiems Boreasque rigentibus procellis

incana menta sparserant pruinis,
et modo testa mihi glabrescit perditis capillis,
squalent ut arbores comis solutis,
quas Capricornus atrox et Aquarius algido rigore
denudat et suo spoliat decore. (Ode 4 .1 .1 —6)

Already gloomy winter and Boreas with freezing storms

had sprinkled m y hoary chin with frost,
and now m y pate grows bald from loss o f hair,
as trees stand desolate, leaves fallen,
when savage Capricorn and Aquarius with frigid cold
denude and despoil them o f their beauty.

h t fom portion see Coppini 1998. Poliziano expressed the concept, drawn from Plato’s Ion by way
ofLandino and Reino, in N utricia, completed in October i486, a year before Ode vi. See especially
Nuncio if-) ) , 139-45.188-98.
’ Spin 1957; Nichols 1979: 693-5; Schäfer 19 7 6 :1- 3 8 . » Celtis i o n : 302-5.
Cdm 10m 340-3; translated in N ichols 1979: 4 6 0 -1.
Cdm M il; 190-1. Text and discussion in Schäfer 1976: 3 1 - 1 .
124 JULIA HAIG G A IS S E R

Celtis evokes Horace far more closely than Marnilo and Poliziano had done
His meter is the third archilochean, used by Horace only in Cam. 1.4; and
his first line neady recalls Horace’s Solvitur acris hiems grata vice veris et
Favoni (‘harshwinter loosens its grip with the welcome succession ofspring
and Favonius’, Cam. 1.4.1). Celds’ tristis hiems echoes Horace’s acrishiems
in the same position in the line; his Boreas picks up and reverses Horace’s
Favonius (Zephyr, the west wind); the phrase rigentibus procellis (‘freezing
storms’) suggests the tight grip of winter, which was melted and relaxedin
Horace. But the winter in Celtis is internal - the winter of his own life,
manifested in the physical changes in his body; his beard sprinkled with
frost, his headbereft ofhair. Celtis has reached the last of his seasons, andwe
are not surprised to find no carpe diem: his time is already spent.
Nature’s seasons, by contrast, com e round again (7 -10 ) . Spring’s
warmth restores the leaves; Venus ensures that earth will be filled with
‘reborn progeny’ [prole... renata. 10). T h e springtim e renewal prepares us
for the familiar opposition between cyclical nature an d finite human life,
the theme o f Horace Cam. 4 .7 .13 - 1 6 . H e re is C e ld s:

Ast ubi pigra semel nostris venit artubus senectus

et mors supremo nos locat feretro,
imperiosa trahit Proserpina sub suum cubile,
quod ferreis cum vectibus seravit. (O de 4 .1 .1 1- 1 4 )
But when slow old age comes on our limbs
and death places us on the funeral bier,
imperious Proserpina drags us down to her chamber,
which she has bolted shut with iron bars.

The lines also evoke Cam. 1.4, for C eld s’ ‘ bolted cham ber o f Proserpina’
(13-14), like Horace’s ‘meagre house o f Pluto’ [domus exilis Plutonia, Cam.
1.4.17), describes our final destination in the underw orld. In Horace the
destination suggests the constraint and insubstantiality o f death in contrast
with the expansive pleasures o f spring and life. C e ltis contrasts the sterile
bedchamber of Proserpina with Venus and the regenerative powers of
spring. The poem ends with a counterpart to the idea in Horace Cam
4.7 that no one, regardless o f character or pow erful friends, can come back 1
from death. Celtis, characteristically, replaces H o ra c e ’s classical examples
(Torquatus, Hippolytus and Pirithoos) w ith representatives o f the four
regions o f Germany. N o one will awake from the sleep o f death, he says: sit
quamvis Rheni dominus vel Vistulae colonus, / Istri vel Arctoi sinus tyrannus
(‘although he be a lord on the Rhine or a setder on the V istula, / O r a ruler )
on the Danube or on the North Sea’, Ode 4 .1 .1 7 - 1 8 ) .
 Lyric 12 5

George Buchanan ( 15 0 6 -8 2 ) w as b o m in Scotland and educated in France;

I* lived and worked in both countries, first teaching in French universities and
liter serving the Stuarts at the Scottish court.3® H e also spent several years
i teaching in Portugal, where his anti-clerical views gpt him arrested and briefly
imprisoned by the Inquisition. H e later converted to Protestantism. Buchanan
vvrote poetry in many styles, from satiric to epithalamial, erotic to religious;
but he is perhaps best known for his paraphrases o f the psalms (largely written
during his Portuguese im prisonm ent).39 In the 1550s he composed a spring
poem in alcaic strophes, Calendae Maiae (Miscellaneorum über ri).'’0
Its opening could alm ost be that o f a n y spring poem - except for the
appearance o f sacer (‘sacred’) tw ice in the first line.

Salvete sacris deliciis sacrae

Maiae Calendae, laetitiae et mero
ludisque dicatae iocisque
et teneris Charitum choreis. (Mise. 11.1-4)

Hail M ay D ay, sacred to sacred delights

and devoted to happiness and wine
and to games and jests
and to the Graces’ delicate dances.

As usual, spring’s beauty com es b a c k in an eternal cycle (perpetua vice, 6)

and the bloom o f youth hastens to old age (5 -8 ). B u t now the poem turns,
for Buchanan’s theme is n o t carpe diem o r old age and death, but the
qualities of spring itself. T h e w a rm th and breezes o f this spring - this single
May Day - are like those o f an o th er tim e and place: the unbroken spring
ofthe Golden Age w h en the w o rld w as new . T h ere is ‘ such a steady course
through all the years’ (talis per omnes continuus tenor / annos, 13 -14 ); ‘ the
endless warmth o f a favoring breeze lies o n on the Isles o f the Blessed’ (talis
batís incubat insulis / felicis aurae perpetuus tepor, 1 7 - 1 8 ) ; ‘such a breath
whispers with a soft m u rm u r th ro u gh th e grove o f the silent dead’ (talis
dentumper tacitum nemus / levi susurrat murmure spiritus, 2 1- 2 ) . Perhaps
these features will even have cou nterparts in the future (2 5 -8 ). T h e ode
ends by circling back to the salutation o f M a y D a y , ‘ glory o f a fleeting age’
(fugacisgloria saeculi, 2 9 ), a b r ie f rem in der o f m ore enduring, and eternal,
things: et specimen venientis aevi (‘ an d token o f the age to com e’ , Mise.
11.32).

‘ foni 1982:1-0. M Green zo n . See also Green 2000, 2009a, 2009b.

f(* ion and translation, see Ford 1982: 152 -3; Nichols 1979: 482-5. For the date, sec McFarlane
'»>1:114,
Ii6 J ULI A HAI G G A I S S E R

Hym ns

Renaissance Latin hymns are diverse. T h e y o fte n celebrate pagan gods

and powers o f nature as well as C h ris t a n d th e sain ts; sometimes (but
not always) their pagan themes have C h ris tia n overton es. They ait
written in every lyric meter, but also in h e xa m e te rs a n d elegiacs. They
are most diverse, however, in their m o d els, fo r th e ir available source
include not only the Bible and classical a n d R en aissan ce Latin poetry,
but also Greek poetry (particularly P in d a r an d the Hymns of
Callimachus), Orphic hym ns, early C h ris tia n p o e try and the ideas of
Neo-Platonism. Som e poets prefer sim p le p ie ty to intertextual compli­
cation, while others draw freely fro m d isp a ra te sources, producing
hymns that are rich and deeply layered, b u t so m e tim e s difficult to
interpret.
Michele Marnilo is such a poet. In 1 4 9 7 h e p u b lish e d Hymni natur-
ales, four b o o b o f hymns addressed to a n c ie n t g o d s, to parts of foe
universe like the sky and the sea and to e te rn ity itself. A m o n g the most
interesting is the hymn to B acch u s {Hymn i . 6 ) . 41 T h e poem is in
galliambics, a rushing, furious rh yth m w e ll su ite d to the orgiastic
worship of Bacchus. It is the m eter o f C a t . 63, in w h ich Catullus
described the religious frenzy o f C y b e le ’s d e v o te e A ttis; and Marnilo
was the first Renaissance poet to use it.41 M a r n ilo uses C atullu s' meter
for atmosphere, and he draws on H o ra c e Carm. 2 .1 9 a n d 3.25 to evoke
the Bacchic enthusiasm o f the poet, a n d o n O v i d {Met. 4 ) for Bacchus’
punishment o f his enemies. H e also uses e xp ressio n s fro m Callimachus’
Hymn to Demeter and the language o f several O r p h ic hymns, and
alludes to the thought o f the F lo re n tin e N e o -P la to n is t Marsilio
Ficino.4*
There is much disagreement about th e in terp retatio n o f this rich inter-
textual brew.44 But for now, let us fo llo w th e p o e m itself. It opens with a
cry to the Muses:

Agedum, canite patrem, Thespiades, mihi Brom ium ,

subolem igneam Iovis, quem peperit bona Semele
pueram coma praesignem et radiantibus oculis. (Hymn 1.6.1-})

* Mirtillo 1951: n$-i6. Tea with English translation in M anilio i o n : 1 1 1 - 1 7 ; commentino bf

Coppini 1995 and Chômant 199;.
41 He would not be the last. See Campbell 1960.
u Coppini 199$: 191. For the imponance o f Fidno see Ludw ig 19 9 1b : 54-9. For a detailed list of
bonowii^s, see Ford 198;: 482 n. 16.
44 Pot * summary o f views see Coppini 199$: 19t.
 L y ric 127
Come, hymn father Brom ius for me, Thespian Muses,
the fiery child o f Jupiter w h o m good Semele bore,
the boy conspicuous for his hair and his glowing eyes.

At once the poet is g rip p ed b y B a c c h ic m adness, his heart shaken by the

god (4-5). ‘ G ive m e cy m b a ls a n d h o rn s!’ he cries, and goes on to picture
himself at the head o f a train o f B a c c h ic devotees. T h e verbs are all
subjunctive: ‘ let sn ak y rib b o n s b in d ( cingant) m y hair ( 7 ) ’ ; ‘ let a thousand
Maenads howl ( ululent, to )1; ‘ let m e lead the w a y {praecedam, 15)’ . T h is last
idea leads up to the tu rn in g p o in t o f the p o e m , w h ere it is revealed that the
acred initiation required fo r th e B a c c h ic m ysteries is a poetic initiation, in
the Castalian spring sacred to A p o llo a n d th e M u se s (sacra Castalìdos vada
limit, 'the sacred w aters o f th e d e a r C astalia n spring’ , Hymn 1.6.18).
Initiation into the m ysteries o f p o e try , th en , is necessary before one can
see the god.45
The poet achieves this in itia tio n , fo r already he can hear and see the
Bacchic rites. T h e w ish o f th e first sectio n ( 1 - 1 8 ) has becom e a reality, as
the indicative verbs attest: the g ro u n d resou nds ( reboant, 19) «under the feet
of the Maenads; a clo u d o f d u st h ides th e m id d a y sun {negat medium ...
dim, 20): the beasts flee {fùgiunt, 2 2 ) ; b ird s d ro p from the sky {regio
volitati nec sustinet aetheria suas, 2 3).
Only now - in the foil flu sh o f B a c c h ic enthusiasm - does the poet
begin his hym n.46 H e b eg in s b y in v o k in g th e g o d b y all his titles (2 4 -9 )
and moves into an a cco u n t o f his a cco m p lish m e n ts. T h e account falls into
two sections. T h e first ( 3 0 - 8 ) details B a c c h u s’ p un ish m en ts o f his enemies.
The second ( 3 9 -5 7 ) , w ritte n in th e Du S til o f an cien t h ym n s, describes his
power over nature and his in v e n tio n o f civilizatio n .47 T h e passage opens:
Tu, mete, flectis amnes truculentaque maria (‘Y o u , h o ly one, divert rivers
and savage seas', Hymn 1 .6 .3 9 ) . h e n d s w ith a grande finale, a dozen
ft’s laten

Per te remota coeli procul ardua colimus,

nimio diffusi praecordia nectare gravia,
tu das deorum sanctis accumbere dapibus. (Hymn 1.6.55-7)

Through you w e inhabit the for removed heights o f heaven,

Our heavy' hearts made light b y a great wealth o f nectar.
You allow us to recline at the holy feasts o f the gods.

Coppini 1995: ad loc.

Cf Chômant 1995: 70: ‘Com m ence ict une sorte d ’hym ne dans l’hymne’.
For the Du Stil, or repeated second-person address, as characteristic o f andern hymns, see Norden
W HJ-«- — ------------------------------------------------------- — -------------
128 JULIA HAIG G A IS S E R

The hymn concludes (58 -6 0 ) w ith a salutation {Salve, benigne lychnita,

deum etpater hominum, ‘ Hail benignant source o f life, father o f gods and
men’, 58) and a prayer that the god m a y favor his w o rsh ipers.48
W e still do not know exactly w h a t B a c c h u s represents. But in his
worship the poet finds ecstatic co n n ectio n w ith a go d who grams
immortality (nectar is che food o f the gods) an d tran sp orts his worshipers
to divine feasts in heaven. M arnilo leaves his readers to d raw their own
conclusions.
Marcantonio Flaminio (14 9 8 -15 5 0 ) is eq u ally reticen t in his ‘Hymn to
Aurora’ (in sapphics, printed in 15 2 9 ).49 A s a y o u n g m an Flaminio emu­
lated Marnilo (even writing his ow n h ym n to B acch u s in galliambics) and
produced Canillan poetry and secular odes; bu t a ro u n d 15 30 he turned to
Christian themes. His later w ork includes devo tio n al poetry and para­
phrases of the psalms.50 T h e h ym n begins:

Ecce ab extremo veniens Eoo

roscidas Aurora refert quadrigas
et sinu lucem roseo nitentem
candida portat. (H ym nus in A u ro ra m , 1 - 4 )

Look! coming from the distant East

Aurora brings back her dewy chariot,
and on her rosy bosom, radiant, she bears
the shining light.

Dawn banishes darkness and bad dreams, and the p o et hails her (bona diva
salve, 10), wishing that the breeze m ight bring her his praise and prayers
(17-20). Dawn keeps us from lying ‘buried in eternal nigh t’ (aetema ...
sepulti / nocte, 29-30 ) and calls eager m en to the tasks o f the day. Only
the lover is reluctant, blaming daw n fo r tearing h im from his mistress’
embrace (41-4) - a brief nod to the aubade that Flam in io uses to
contrast with the expression o f his o w n d evo tio n to the light in the filial
stanza: ipse amet noctis latebras dolosae, / me iuvet semper bona lux (‘ Let him
love the hiding places o f treacherous n ig h t; / m ay the good light
always please me’, 4 5-6 ).
Flaminio’s hymn allows but does not d em an d a C hristian reading.
There can be no doubt, however, about the C h ristia n m essage o f a poem
also on night and light published in 15 3 7 b y his near contem porary Jean4
1

41 For vene $8 1 tuve used Fantazzi's translation (Marnilo 201z; 217).

" Text in Perosa and Sparrow 1979: 279-81; text and translation in Nichols 1979: 418-21; Maddison
1965:57—
9-
For Flaminio's biograph)’, see Nichols 1979; 691-2; Maddison 1965.
 Ly ™ n9

Salmon Macrin (14 9 0 —15 5 7 ). T h e h ym n , A d Dominum Christum ante

0Wm ( T o Christ o u r L o rd before sleep’), opens by invoking Christ as
bringer o f light.5* (T h e m eter is alcaic strophe.)

Spes C h r i s t e mundi luxquc fidelium,

Titane fulgens purius igneo,
Qui clarus emergens ab Indo
Flectit equos pelago aurifraenes,

Caliginosas tu tenebras tui

Splendore vultus laetifico fugas
Noctemquc peccati profundam
Discutis atque animos serenas. (Hymn 1.31.1-8)

Christ, hope o f the world and light o f the faithful,

Shining more brightly than the fiery Titan [Sun]
Who emerges gleaming from the Indian Ocean
And turns his horses with golden reins to the sea,

You put to flight the dark shadows

With the joyful radiance o f your countenance
And dispel the deep night of sin
And lighten our hearts.

The poet beseeches C h r is t’ s p ro te ctio n d u rin g the night against the

harmful clouds and h idden assaults o f dem o n s (daemonum . . . / . . .
noxia nubila, / caecosque insultos, 9 - 1 1) an d asks that the body might
rise rested by sleep for the m o rn in g ’ s duties ( 9 - 2 0 ) . H e closes with the
prayer that even in sleep th e sp irit m igh t keep w atch for Christ’s
coming - which the p o e m ’ s im a gery has prepared us to associate with
the brilliance o f his light.

A fterw ord

This short article has o m itted far m ore o f the rich range and variety of
Renaissance lyric than it has in clu d ed . N o th in g has been said o f laments,
praise of great men, poem s o f frien dsh ip o r about politics and war, psalm
paraphrases, statements o f poetics o r P indaric odes. T h e brief sampling
offered here is intended sim p ly as an invitation to explore this vast and
largely uncharted con tinen t o f poetry.

Tat and French translation in M acrin ao io : 364-5. For parallels with Prudentius. G uhm m non 1,
1 and 6, see Guillct-Labunhc in M acrin 10 10 : 438-9.
130 JULIA HAIG G A IS S E R

FU R TH ER R E A D IN G

Renaissance lyrics are included in several anthologies, notably Nichols 1979,

Perosa and Sparrow 1979 and Laurens 1975. Arnaldi et al. 1964, is excellent for
fiftecnth-centuiy Latin poets in Italy, it includes introductory essays, Italian
translations and brief commentary. For the origins o f Canillan poetry Ludwig
1989b and Gaisscr 1993. For texts o f Pontano’s Parthenopeiis and Hendecasyllabi,
see Pontano 1948. For Hendecasyllabi alone: Pontano 2006, with translation. Fot
the stylistic aspects of Pontano’s hendecasyllables, see Ludwig 1989: 175 and
Schmidt 2003. There is an extensive discussion o f Pontano and Catullus in
Gaisser 1993; see also the articles in Baier 2003. For Canillan poetry in Frana
the following are essential: Morrison 1955, 1936, 1963; McFarlane 1959-60; Ford
1993. Macrin’s odes have been edited by G . Soubcille: Macrin 1998. Schoolfidd
1980 and Price 1996 both provide excellent short introductions to Joanna
Secundus; Ellinger 1899 includes many Latin imitations o f the Basia. Ginsberg
1986 discusses some interactions between Larin and French Canillan poetry.
For odes Maddison i960, though dated, still has some useful information. Revaid
2001 and 2009a discusses Pindaric odes. Both scholars treat vernacular as well as
Latin poetiy. For editions and translations o f Landino, see Landino 1939 and (with
translation) Landino 2008. Maier 1966 discusses Poliziano as poet and philologist
Coppini 1998 is excellent on Poliziano’s poetry; there are other important papers
in the same volume. Schafer 1976 is an essential starting point for Conrad Celtis
and other German Horadan poets. Celds 2012, ed. Schäfer, is a modern edition
with German translation. Essays on Celtis’ various works are collected io
Auhagen, Lefèvre and Schafer 2000. For Buchanan’s Psalm paraphrases, see
Green 2000,2009a, 2009b; for text, translation and commentary, see Green 20n.
There is a large bibliography on Marullo’s Hymni naturales. T h e commentaries of
Coppini 1995 and Chômant 1995 include translations, commentary and
bibliography. For Macrin, see two recent editions, both with translation and
commentary: Macrin 1998 for the odes, and Macrin 2010 for the hymns of 1537.
 C H A PT ER 8

Verse Letters
G esine M a n u w a ld

Introduction

In everyday life letters have a m ain ly practical function as written messages

from one person (or group o f people) to another, set down in a tangible
medium, physically con veyed from sender(s) to recipient(s), who are
separated from each other, and o v e rd y addressed from sender(s) to redpi-
entfs) by conventional form ulae o f salutations at the beginning and the
end.1 Already in antiquity letters were identified as a convenient and
venatile framework that co u ld be exploited beybnd simple communi*
ration with an addressee: this gave rise to the publication o f letters, either
individually or as collections, w h en th ey becom e directed towards a
secondary audience besides the ostensible prim ary addressed and lose the
characteristics o f their physical appearance. T h e ‘lener’ thus develops into a
literary genre; it stays con n ected to its original form and role in that
characteristic features, such as typical form ulae and topics, are maintained
or adapted playfully. T h e letter m oves a further step away from its most
straightforward use w h en it is w ritten in verse and/or engages with ficti­
tious addressees.
The writing o f letters, both ‘ real’ and m ore literary ones, has continued
from the Greek and R o m a n classical periods through late antiquity and
the Middle Ages, w h en there w as a flourishing culture demonstrated
by numerous works called Ars dictaminis,1 into ¿arly modern times and

' Onthe genre o f ‘letter’, with reference to antiquity, see e.g. Sykutris 1931; Thtaede 1970; Reed 1997;
Tapp 2003: 3-34; Edwards 2003; Gibson and Morrison 2007; Ebbeler 2010. On the problems of
Wiring 'genre' sec c.g. Depew and O bbink 2000. N o meaningful distinction between the terms
i ‘W u d ‘epistle' is intended here.
Tût in overview o f the characteristics and the evolution o f such works see Rockinger 1863; Camargo
(with bibliography) : for an overview o f texts (with bibliography and some discussion) see
^ontbtock, Klaes and Lütten 1992; on the evolution from the an dictaminis to humanist lener-
Wli® g see Henderson 1983b; on neo-Latin letter-writing manuals see De Landtshecr 2014c; on
^to-writing manuals sec Poster and M itchell 2007; Chattier, Boureu and Dauphin 1997; Button
¡007.

13«
132 GESINE M A N U W A LD

beyond. After Francesco Petrarca (Petrarch , 1 3 0 4 - 7 4 ) discovered Cicero j

Epistulae ad Attimm (‘ Letters to A ttic u s’ ) in 13 4 5 (cf. Petr. Fam. 242-4)
and Coluccio Salutati (13 3 1-14 0 6 ) fo u n d th e Epistulae ad familiam
(‘Epistles to Friends’) in 1392, the c o m p o sitio n a n d collection o f letten
received a new impetus. These findings p ro m p te d Petrarch ’s own Fami­
liarum rerum libri (‘ Books o f Fam iliar M a tte rs’ , tw e n ty -fo u r books of letten
in prose), though Petrarch also p ro d u ced six ty -fiv e letters in verse (in three
books). What had an impact on writers o f n e o -L a tin epistles were primar­
ily collections o f literary letters, such as th ose o f C ic e r o , Seneca and Pliny
the Younger in prose and o f H orace and O v i d as w ell as the late-antique
writers Claudian, Ausonius and Paulinus N o la n u s in verse.’ T h e recourse
to such precedents means that m ost su rv iv in g e arly m odern letters are
literary lenen, shaped according to classical literary m o dels and rhetorical
theory. Neo-Latin (verse) episdes therefore seem to h ave developed out of
a need for communication alongside th e in flu en tial paradigm o f models
from classical antiquity, particularly L a tin o n es, sin ce there are no
examples o f Greek collections o f verse letters.
As a result there are a vast n u m b er o f p u b lish e d letters from the early
modem period, both in Latin and in the E u ro p e a n vernaculars.4 Since the
majority are in prose (see C h apter 15), m o d e rn an th o lo gies tend to focus
on prose letters, letten in the vernacular o r b o t h .5 T h e subgenre o f neo-
Latin metrical or verse episdes has attracted less atten tio n . IJsewijn and
Sacré, who provide a brief overview, state: ‘T o th e best o f o ur knowledge
no comprehensive study o f the n eo -Latin m etrical ep isd es exists except for
the subgenre o f the so-called heroica! letters (Heroides), an off-spring of
Ovid’s letters purponedly sent b y fam o us m y th ic a l w o m e n and men to
their absent or unfaithful lovers.’
In view o f the difficulties involved, this b r ie f ch ap ter does not set out to
remedy the situation entirely and to provide a com p reh en sive survey o f early
modem verse episdes in Latin.7 Instead, it seeks to present an overview of

’ For the distinction see e.g Ebbelcr 2010:464.

4 F a i brief summary see Papy 2015; for an overview (with catalogue) see G o u g h 1976. On the
different kinds of writing letters and writing about them in the Renaissance see Guilfen 19SS: 7 14
For ‘Some Sources for Early Modem Letters' see http://warburg.sas.ac.uk/research/complettd-
rcsearch-piojeca/scaliger/souices-eariy-modem-lctters/.
’ L g Clements and Levant 1976; Blok 198$.
‘ Ijscwiin and Saat 1998:77. Similar comments are found in H am id 1981: 288; Guilldn 1986:70 and
Williamson w o k 77 and 79. For a brief overview o f poetic epistles see now Poner 2014a; of elegia:
letters see De Beer 2014:390-2.
’ On various aspects of vene epistles in the early m odem period (in the vernaculars) see e.g. Mooch
I974J Williamson loot; Ovaron 2007.
 Verse Letters 13 3

themain types of neo-Latin verse epistles (in so far as these can be distin­
guished), along with the dassical basis from which they have developed, and
showtheir characteristics by a selection of instructive examples.

A T entative D escrip tio n o f the Genre

One reason for the lack o f a c o m p re h e n siv e stu d y m ay be the generic

complexity o f the letter a n d o f th e verse epistle in particular. Th is
question is not a recent p ro b lem : d iscu ssio n a b o u t generic issues goes back
it least to 17 14 , w h en A m b r o s e P h ilip s ( 1 6 7 4 - 1 7 4 9 ) offered what he
claimed to be the first p rin te d d iscu ssio n in E n glish o f the epistle as a
literary form: in that y ea r P h ilip s p u b lish ed an article in the Spectator
(voL 15, no. 618 (W e d n e sd ay , 1 0 N o v e m b e r 1 7 1 4 ) , p . 2 2 2 ) on w hat he called
'the epistolary w a y o f w r itin g in verse’ . P h ilip s distinguished between verse
epistles in the O vid ia n a n d H o r a tia n m o u ld s, and the differences in
outlook and meter (h exam eter / elegiac distich) o f these two ancient
collections are reflected in th e n e o -L a tin genre. A t the same time there is
no fixed context for n e o -L a tin verse ep isd es: th e y can appear as individual
pieces, as small groups in c o lle ctio n s o f m iscellan eous poetry, as books o f
epistles,9 as dedicatory o r in tro d u c to r y p ieces o r as elements in epistolary
narratives. Th u s, in early m o d e m literature, as in antiquity, distinctions
between metrical episdes a n d o th e r sh o rt narrative poetry, especially elegy
(due to Ovid’s exam ple) a n d satire (d u e to H o race ’ s exam ple), are not
always dear-cut.10 V erse epistles m a in ta in th e idea o f com m unication to a
distant addressee and o f b e in g p ieces o f w ritin g , th o u gh all the key features
of letters, such as typical g re e tin g a n d c lo sin g form ulae o r com m o n topics,
do not appear in every case o r m a y b e e m p lo y e d in allusive form.

Verse E p isd e s an d O th e r L iterary Genres

Coluccio Salutati, one o f the earliest neo-Larin letter writers, mainly

produced letters in prose," but in one episde (1.2 ; 25 January 1361?),
addressed to Tancredi de’ Vergiolesi, verse and prose are mixed:

Optat amicus avens, statum quia nescit amici,

C a tio r esse: precor m ichi quod tua pagina monstret

On die problems o f defining ‘verse epistle’ see also G uillén 1986; Williamson 2 0 0 1:7 6 -8 0 : Overton
«007:1—ji. For a brief overview o f typical epistolary features see Trapp lo o j: ^4-42.
On die genre o f the episde book in ancient Rom e sec W ulfram 2008.
Seeaio chapters 16 and 9. ** Latin text in N ovati 1891.
 GE SI NE M A N U W A L D

Qualis in urbe manes; modus inde feratur amanti,

Kare comes; qualem tibi dat fortuna salutem.
Sanus ego, dum sanus ades: tibi sorte benigna
Is foveat qui corda dedit connecte« nodo
Equali, et fociem nostram tíbi sepe ministret
Atque videre tuum, quem fers, puto, pectore, fratrem.

Ista momento pertingere licuit vestre prudentie. parcite, queso, nidi: hg

sumite leta manu, sique post aliquid aviditas rescribentis poscat, secuit
precipite: vestris nempe iussibus obsequar.

A friend longs keenly for information, since he does not know the situation ofhis
friend: I pray for a note from you to show me how you are, while you stay onin
town; my state shall then depend, loving you as I do, dear companion, on what
well-being fortune grams to you. I am healthy, as long as you are here and healthy
he who has allowed hearts to be bound with equal knots should favour you with
good fortune and often arrange for you to see m y face and your brother, whom
you, I believe, carty in your heart.

[back ro prose] Just for a moment, it was possible for your good sense to
couch these verses. Pardon, I pray, an uneducated person: accept these with
a happy hand, and if the eagerness o f the reviser asks for any changes,
instruct me fearlessly: I will obviously obey your orders.

The verse section seems to be presented as an experim ent in which the

writer demonstrates with feigned m odesty his a b ility to frame conventional
tropes of letters, such as enquiring after th e corresp onden t’s health, the
issue o f friendship or the replacement o f face -to -face conversation, in vase,
while also suggesting that the addressee is m o re e x p e n in this genre.
With a letter entirely written in verse, d istin ctio n s between poetic
genres may become blurred. In n e o -L a tin literatu re the fluid status of
such letters can be observed in the w o r k o f th e humanist courtier
Caspar Ursinus Velius (c. 1 4 9 3 - 1 5 3 9 ) , b o rn in w h a t is now Poland
His Pomatum libri quinque (152 2) in clu d e a sin gle book o f verse
epistles, which includes poems in h exam eters (after Horace) and in
elegiac couplets (after O vid ).12 F u rth e r v a ria tio n s can also be observed:
some pieces are entided sim ply epistola, w h ile several have more spedfic
descriptions, such as ‘satiric episde’ , ‘ elegiac ep istle ’ , ‘ advisory epistle’,
‘birthday piece’. Clearly, genres like ep istle a n d satire or epistle and
elegy have been combined, p resu m ab ly again o n the authority of the
works by Horace and O vid.

n Laón ten in Velim i j í í .

 Verse Letters 135

At the same tim e these h yb rid letters display obvious epistolary Features.
The ‘elegiac episde’ to his bro th er Balthasar, for instance, begins and ends
as follows:

Vnde cibi ueniat si quaeris epistola, hâter

N e dubites, fratris nomine scire potes.
Principio absentem cupio saluere, bonusque
Iuppiter optatis annuat oro tuis.
Quod nisi sors fuerat nobis contraria, coràm
Plurima quae cogor scribere, dicta forent.
[■ ••I
Caetera quae nunc non locus est perscribere, missa
Perferet Hesperio littera ab orbe tibi.
Et properata suum nunc sumat epistola finem
Viue memor nostri hater, et usque uale.

Ifyou are wondering from where this letter reaches you, brother, you should not
be in any doubt - you can tell by the term ‘brother’. I wish fitst to greet you
although you are absent, and I beg that good Jupiter is favourable to your wishes.
If fortune had not been against us, very m any things, which I am now forced to
«rite, would have been spoken face to foce [ . . . ] A letter sent horn the country of
Hesperia will bring you the rest o f the news, about which I have no space to write
now. And quickly this letter shall now take its end. Live mindful o f me, brother,
and continue to fare well.

There is nothing particularly elegiac in the open in g and d o sin g sections;

instead there is som e p la y w ith th e usual greeting form ulae o f letters,
supplemented by w ell-w ish es fo r th e addressee and the standard conceit
that a letter replaces oral con versatio n betw een the two interlocutors
because they are separated in p lace. In the b o d y o f the lener the poet talks
about his current situ ation a n d his life, thereby inserting elements o f
Odd’s exile poetry in d u d in g his ‘ au to b iograp h ical’ poem (O v. Tr. 4.10).
So the piece is a m ixture, as th e title im plies, but w ith the lener form
being dominant.
A different m eans o f castin g a p o em as a letter appears in a work
(MS. Brit- M us. A d d . 19 9 0 6 , fol. 7 5 ) b y the early hum anist A ntonio Lovati
(U4I-I309):13 in a h exam etric p o e m the persona talks to an interlocutor
about the literary q uestion o f w h e th e r o n e sh ould write poetry in Latin or
rather in the style o f F re n ch Chansons de geste. T h e form o f the debate is
reminiscent o f H o race’s literary satires (especially H o r. Sat. 2.1), but the
poem is followed b y an elegiac c o u p le t to a n am ed addressee: ‘ O u r little
note sends greetings to y o u , B ellin u s; as y o u like, regard this [poem] too as

' bon text, German commentary and interpretation in Ludwig 1987.

 136 GESINE M ANUW ALD

ended or completed."4 These tw o lines, w h ic h in c lu d e the term canuta

(‘little note) and a conventional greetin g, tu rn th e preced in g poem into a
verse epistle addressed to Bellino B isso lo , a c o n te m p o ra ry doctor gramma­
ticae and magister from M ilan, w h o w ro te p o e try h im self. T h is character,
however, only becomes apparent su b se q u e n tly b y m ean s o f a couplet that
is separated from the actual argum ent.

Letters on Ethical an d L it e r a r y T o p i c s ( a f t e r H o r a c e ’s J Epistles)

Whereas there are Greek and R om an letters in prose, used as a medium to
discuss philosophical and/or literary topics (su ch as those o f Epicurus and
Seneca), Horace’s epistles provide a m odel fo r treating ethical and literary
subjects in hexameter. Horace’s influence is o b v io u s in Epistolarum seu
sermonum libri sex (‘ Six Books o f Epistles o r Sa tire s’ , Paris 1585) by Michel
de l’Hôpital (Michael Hospitalius, c. 1 5 0 4 - 7 3 ) , C h an cello r o f France
under François II: the dde refers to b o th H o r a d a n hexam etric collections,
the Epistolae (‘Letters’) and the Sermones (‘Satires’ ).15 T h e poems take up
Horatian topics: for instance, the first letter o f th e th ird book, addressed to
François Olivier (Francisais O livarius, 1 4 9 7 - 1 5 6 0 ) , C h an cello r o f France
(A d F r a n c is c v m O l iv a r iv m , Francia Cancellarium), comments on the
frequency o f their meetings and corresp o n den ce; it then launches into
a consideration o f the charaaers o f true friends an d the mutability of
public opinion.
This is followed by O livier’s an sw er in prose ( Francisa Olivarii ai
superiorem epistolam responsio, ‘François O liv ie r’s R e p ly to the Preceding
Letter’), in which he highlights H o ratian a n d ph ilo so p h ical elements:

Ianus Morellus tuam nobis epistolam reddidit, versibus conscriptam

plani tuis, sed in queis teipsum quotidie superas. Candor, polities, lepos,
minimum sunt in illis. A t vero seria eruditio, sententiæ crebra ac graues,
mira vbique sanitas sensuum, & per totum poema (velut sanguis per
universum corpus) diffusa laeta quaedam gratia, ac iucunditas, me non
minus capiunt, non secus afficiunt, quàm Venusini tui doctissime epistola:
cui, haud scio, an sis olim apud posteros cessurus, v t interim taceam, quòd
totam tuam epistolam temperat optima artifex, Philosophia Christiana.

Ianus Morellus [i.e. Jean de Morel, 15 11-8 1, poet and sponsor o f a circle of
poets] has brought me your letter, which you have written clearly in verse, a14

14 Canuta nostra tibi m ittit, Belline, saiu ta; | U t übet, hec etiam clausa v e l acta putes.
” Lami ta t in Hospitalius 1585; modern edition o f Latin text in Dufôy 182$ (vol. ni); French
translation in Bandy de Nalidie 1857; for overviews o f the poet’s life see Ánchel 1957; Kim 1997.
 Verse Letters 137

mode in which you surpass yourself every day. Clarity, polish and charm are
at any rate all there. But serious learning, frequent and forceful expressions,
an admirable good sense at every turn, and a kind o f happy grace and
charm - which is diffused throughout the poem (like blood through every
part of the body) - these aspects o f the poem win me over and touch me no
less than the learned letters o f your Venusian [i.e. Horace]. I am not even
sure whether or not you shall have to yield to him at some point among
future readers. And that’s not to mention, for now, that the best artist of
all, Christian philosophy, shapes your entire letter.

Apart from the fact that the w rite r uses bo th ‘ p oem ’ and ‘letter’ to refer to
the piece, he com pares its effect a n d style to the episdes o f Horace, while
he describes it as ‘ C h ristia n p h ilo so p h y ’ , thereby indicating that the
Horadan tradition is fo llo w ed , b u t th at the view s expressed correspond
to a contemporary ethical fra m ew o rk .
A looser connection to H o ra c e is fo u n d in the w ork o f the D utch poet
Joannes Secundus ( 1 5 1 1 - 3 6 ) : in ad d itio n to letters in prose, he produced
a scries o f verse letters to fa m ily an d friends {Epistolarum lib ri duo,
‘Two Books o f Letters’ , c. 1 5 2 9 - 3 4 ) , in w h ich he discusses issues o f
literature, an and personal relationsh ips. W it h their spread o f addressees
and subjects as well as their co m m e n ts o n literary issues and the absence o f
a unifying situation, these letters are rem iniscent o f H orace rather than of
Ovid, although they in clu d e features taken from O vid , such as the elegiac
metre for some o f them an d th e n o tio n o f a great distance between sender
and addressee.
In one o f those letters ( 1.7 ) S e c u n d u s, w h o , uniquely, was both a poet
and a sculptor, reflects u p o n his status as an artist, recalling Horace’ s
discussions o f his o w n p o e try (H o r . Epist. i.r, 1.19 ; 1.2 0 ; 2.1), but also
Ovid’s play with an im age o f h im se lf in his epistles from exile (O v . Tr. 1.7).
Secundus com bines this w ith reflections o n his love for ‘Julia’ in the
manner of O vid ’s love p o etry. In this episde, addressed to Ja n Dantyszek
(Joannes Dantiscus, 1 4 8 5 - 1 5 4 8 ) , p o e t, letter-w riter, bishop and diplomat,
Secundus defines h im se lf as a caelator poeta, an ‘ engraver poet’ (9; cf. EL
3.2.5: sculptore poeta).16
This piece, w h ich is d e fin e d as a n epistola (‘epistle’) b y its place in a
collection o f verse ep isdes, bears h a rd ly a n y further signs defining it as
a letter there are n o n e o f th e stan d ard o p en in g o r closing formulae
(or poetic variations th ereo f), no sense o f a physical distance between
sender and addressee a n d n o m e n tio n o f previous com m unications, the

Latín ren and French em ulation with notes in G uillot 2007.

 138 CESINE M ANUW ALD

health of one of the participants or other c o m m o n epistolary themes. Ai

the same time, in addition to its formal assignm en t, this piece qualifies as a
letter since, although it includes personal reflections, it is addressed to the
correspondent throughout, and there is a sense that it is meant to commu­
nicate the poet’s answer to a request: D an tiscu s has asked for an image
created by Secundus, presumably o f C h arles V (cf. El. 3.2), and Secundus
is loath to let it go. He uses this situation as an excuse to create a contrast
between Dantiscus, the great poet and p atron, and the young, inexperi­
enced and unaccomplished Secundus, w h o w o u ld rather make portraits of
ordinary people, and he thus provides a k ind o f artistic variant of the
Augustan recusatio to p s . Yet the poet ends w ith a reference to his beloved
Julia, who will be immortalized by a portrait sculpted b y the lover poet and
in his poetry (1.7.45-8). This suggests, that, alth ou gh the poet’s wish for
immortalizing the beloved is a stock classical m o tif (cf. e.g. Prop. 3.2; Ov.
Am. 1.3), Secundus, despite his protestations, is confident o f his artistic
abilities, at least in the area o f the art o f love.

Letters from Exile (after Ovid’s Tristia and Epistulae ex Ponto)

A clearly defined epistolary situation is that o f absence from one’s home
country, due to exile or p litica l upheaval; in Latin poetry this topk is
particularly associated with O vid ’s letters from exile at Tomis. Marco
Girolamo Vida (c. 1485-15 65 ) did not produce an entire book o f verse letters,
but his poetry indudes two episdes. O n e o f those (first published in the 1527
edition) is addressed to Gian M atteo G iberti (Joannes Matthæus Gibemis,
1495-1543), who is also the recipient o f other pieces in the collection.'7 Here
Vida reverses the usual scenario o f a poet w h o writes home from exile:
instead, it is claimed that the addressee has been taken aw ay from the sender
to distant shores. The writer describes the distance between the two of them
and the inhospitable nature o f the other country, but also envisages how
things would be different if he could have accom panied the addressee and
spurs him on to go and defend his country. H en ce, in addition to the tropes
adopted from Ovid’s exile p e t t y , there are influences o f Virgil’s Amid,
notably in the chosen metre o f the hexam eter and the reworking o f well-
known motifs o f dose companionship and sep aratio n .'8 Besides this, there
are aspects of a propemptikon (e.g. H o r. Carni. 1.3) and elements of love

n On the publication histoiy see Di Cesare 1974: 231. Latin text in Vida 1732.
1 Cf. eg. 9: Achates / Ascanius at Vìrg. Aen. 1.188; 2.723-4; 14: D ido at Virg. Aen. 4.381; 38-9: Juno #
Virg. An. M2- i8.
 Verse Letters i ?9
elegy when the writer considers their separation and his loneliness, the
harsh conditions for the person abroad, the need to console his love and
the possibility o f d eath .'9 W h ile th e O vid ia n letter from exile is the main
model, the writer creates a novel form o f the ‘ exile letter’ on the basis o f a
wide range o f rem iniscences o f classical Latin poetry.“

letters on Autobiography / to Posterity (after Ovid, Tristia 4.10)

A particular variant o f letters inspired b y O v id ’s exile poetry are those
based on the sphragu o f the T ristia, the final ‘signature’ poem o f the
collection, where O v id p rovides a review o f his life in poedc form
(Ov. Tr. 4.10).” T h e G e rm a n p o et H eliu s Eobanus Hessus (1488-1540)
ends the single book o f the first edition o f his Heroidum Christianarum
Epistolae (‘Letters o f C h ristia n H ero in es’ , published in 1514) with the
letter Eobanus Posteritati (‘ Eo b an us to Posterity’).“ Th is final letter (14)
and the first letter (.Em m anuel M ariae, ‘ Em m anuel to M aria’), which frame
the book, are the only letters w ritten b y m en (see below). T h e opening
letter, despite its male author, has a justified presence, since it triggers the
second letter {M aria Em m am uli, ‘ M aria to Em m anuel’), in the style o f the
paired letters at the end o f O v id ’s Heroides. T h e concluding letter, however,
does not really fit the context, even though Eobanus turns his fictive
addressee Posterity into a ‘ goddess’ ( 2 4 .1-2 ) . B ut in this way Eobanus,
who has been called the ‘G e rm an O v id ’ , manages to combine two types
of Ovidian letter, he imitates O v id ’s collection o f Heroides, while giving it a"
Christian fiamework, and ends the bo o k w ith a personal statement in the
style of Ovid’s Tristia.
The poet sets this last letter apart as a dedicatory letter (2 4 .12 1-6 ):

Tempore iam Caesar quo Maximus Aemilianus

In Venetos duri fulmina Martis ágit,
Scribimus illustres heroidas ecce puellas.
Has tibi praecipue dedico, Posteritas.

" CL tg. 12, fl; beloved with another man at Prop. 1.8; 48-544 envisaged death o f lover/beloved at
Prop, u j ; Tib. t.j; Ov. Tr. 3.3.
" Similar principles are at work in M ilton's elegy to Charles Diodati ( £ 1 1). 11 Sec IJsewijn 1973.
a The first edition was published in 1514; a revised version in three books came out in 1539. Larin text
of the entire first edition with English translation and notes in Vredeveld 2008; Latin text o f the
second edition with German translation in Vredeveld 1990; Latin text o f Eobanus Posteritati with
German translation and some notes in Schnur 1966: 2 10 -19 and Kühlmann, Seidel and Wiegand
1997:328-38, 1140—5. For the text o f Eobanus' works see also www.um-mannheim.de/mateo/
camena/AUTBIO/hessus.html
 140 CESINE M A N U W A LD

Accipe, diva senex, gremio tua picora amico,

Si potes, atque piae nomina matris habe.
Now, even as Emperor Maximus Aemilianus [i.e. Maximilian I, 1459-1519] ¡j
hurlingthe thunderbolts of pitiless Mars against the Venetians [i.e. as a member
of the League of Cambrai], I am writing these heroic letters [‘Heroides’] (rom
famous girls. I dedicate them especially to you, Posterity. Take these childrenof
yours, divine old lady. Hold them lovingly on your lap, if you can, and be an
affectionate mother to them.
[trans. H. Vredeveld, slightly adapted]
The writer is aware o f this letter’ s special p o sitio n ( 2 4 .3 7 - 4 6 ) :

Ultima tu nostras heroidas inter haberis,

Ultima nam cunctis rebus adesse soles.
Attamen, ut noris, primam te semper amavi,
0 animae cene cura secunda meae!
[••■I
Prima tamen cessit magnis reverentia divis.
Quem magis aeterna fama salute trahat?
Among my heroines [‘my Heroides’] you are the last, for you are used to beingthe
last inall tilings. Nevertheless, just so you know, I always loved you first - 0 you,
definitely the second valued object of my soul! [...] My first reverence, however,
was reserved for almighty God. Who would be drawn more by feme than by
eternal salvation?
[trans. H. Vredeveld, adapted]

In this way Eobanus tackles the problem o f a d d in g an invocation to a

‘pagan goddess’ to a collection o f C h ristian ep isd e s: b y givin g her second
place, while insisting that he has adored h er all his life. W it h the address to
Posterity the poet expresses his desire to su rv iv e a n d be read in future,
thereby taking up a conceit that ancient R o m a n p oets have expressed
since Ennius in the Republican period (e.g. E n n . Var. 1 7 - 1 8 V .1; Ov.
Trist. 4.10.121-2; Hor. Carni. 3.30).
Indeed, the poet manages to incorporate a n u m b e r o f motifs in this
poem: an overview o f his life and his early v o c a tio n to poetry; feigned
modesty, an expectation o f more and better literary w o rk s in future as well
as future feme; an association w ith V ir g il; a h y m n to a goddess; the
relationship between poet and politician; th e p o sitio n o f a person coming
from a humble background and different typ es o f lo ve affairs. Th us, while
the precedent o f Ovid, transferred to a C h ristia n co n te x t, is the main
model, the integration o f other themes sh o w s th e flexib ility o f the letter
form.
 V ene Letters 141

Letters b y F a m o u s W o m e n (a fte r O v id ’ s Heroides)

Eobinus’ Heroidum Christianarum epistolae indicate b y their title that

they are to be seen in the tradition o f O v id ’ s Heroides,13 but also that
the motif of female letter w riters has been transferred to a Christian
context (sec above). A fte r the o p e n in g letter from ‘ Em m anuel’ to
‘Maria and her answer, the collection features a series o f letters by
«omen who are m entioned in the B ible o r are recognized as saints. In
substance it thus cakes up can on ical m aterial and Christian legends,
promoting a different k ind o f love, w h ile it continues O vid ’s allusive
writing style in sophisticated L a tin p o e try .14
In the first letter ‘Em m anuel’ , i.e. ‘G o d ’ o r Jesus Christ (see Matthew
L23), writes to M ary to announce his o w n birth, and when she receives the
letter from an angel she learns o f the late that is in store for her.15 In wording
this letter is full o f reminiscences o f classical pagan, late-antique Christian,
biblical and early m odem texts. In content it is an informed vision o f the
future, comparable to parts o f C atu llu s’ Carmen 6 4 and particularly to
Virgil's Eclogue 4. T h e letter is a conceit that allows the poet to create a
situation where ‘G o d ’ can talk about his o w n role and that o f his mother
before his own birth. T h e epistolary form is emphasized at the beginning
andend of the poem: the piece is defined as littera (i.z) and epistola (1.7);
Aere is a reference to handw riting (1.7 : notae non . . . dextrae) and to the
deliveryof the letter (1.3 -6 ); it ends w ith the usual closing formula, expliddy
highlighted (1.20 7-8 ):16 ‘A n d n o w , so m y brief letter m ay dose with the
aistomaiy word, receive the w ish that y o u yourself fulfil for all humanity:
Farewell’ While in structure, w o rd in g and style the text is entirely classical,
Aere are suggestions that C h ristian ity will overcome pagan Rome
(L169-Z02) and Christian divinity will be m ore open and honest (1.149-52).
Employing the O vidian structure o f a paired letter and its reply, the
poet expresses M ary’s o w n reaction to the A nn un ciatio n in the following
poem. Although this is again a con ceit, he still preserves the epistolary
fiction when he has M a ry say ( 2 .3 - 8 ) : *

* feria overview o f the genre sec D om e 1968; W hite 2014; for examples in Germany see Thill 1003;
fotcumples in France see Dalla Valle 100 3; for a discussion o f Renaissance and modem approaches
toOvid's H ernia see Wiseman 2008.
k Ot Eobunu both continuing and updating Ovidian practices, combining them with theological
bditfiofhistiroc. see Suerbaum 2008.
la the lecorvd edition o f the work (see n. 22 above) ‘Emmanuel' has been changed to ‘God the
a Father' {Her. Cbr. i.t) with the necessary adjustments (see Vredcvcld 2008:159 n. 1).
im , htvit ut udito daudatur epistola verbo, | A ccipe quod p ra a m om nibus ipsa ‘vale’. Text and
fcabtiom (with some minor alterations) b o m Vredcvcld 2008.
142 GESINE M A N U W A LD

Linera quod sparsis non convenit ista lituris,

Hoc breve mortalis dextera foecit opus,
Dextera, quae calamum vix nunc teneat aegra labantem.
Heu, miserae quanti ponderis instat onus!
Ausa humilis magno rescribere virgo Tonanti,
Quam ferat, aggredior, mens mea, maius opus.

If this letter, covered with erasures, is not appropriate, it is because this brief pi«*
was wrinen by a mortal hand, a hand so shaky that it is barely able now to hold
the faltering pen. Alas, what an immense burden weighs upon me, poor soul!
A humble virgin, I have presumed to reply to the m ighty Thunderer and am
undertaking a task too great for my mind to bear.

That a letter is written in a state o f strong em otion (e.g. amid tears) is an

element in classical love letters (e.g. O v . Her. 3 .3 - 4 ; 4 .175—6; 7.183-6;
15.97-8), which is here transferred to the aw e that the hum an Mary feels at
being told that she will be the mother o f ‘ G o d ’. W h e n ‘G o d ’ is addressed^
Torum, a cult title o f Jupiter in Roman religion is transferred to a Christian
context, so as to illustrate the power o f the C hristian G o d b y analogy.17
The difference between human and divine is taken up at the end of the
poem, where the motifs o f delivery, o f in fo rm in g th e addressee and of
the standard closing formula are used, adapted to the unusual situadon
(2.113-20):

Finge loqui coramque rudes offerre tabellas;

Mortalem non est posse docere Deum.
Clause sub hac lutea nostrae testudine camis,
Littera praesenti traditur ista tibi.
Attamen aedidimus scriptas utcunque lituras.
Non erat in parva virgine grande sophos.
Non precor ut valeas, per quem valet omne quod usquam est.
Illud idem verum possit ur esse, fave.

Imagine talking to God and presenting him with a simple letter; to tell the Deity
something new is beyond the power o f us mortals. Enclosed as you are beneath
the clayey shelter of my flesh, this letter is given to you as someone present. Yet,
I have just managed to write erasures. There is no great wisdom in a little virgin.
I do not pray that you ‘fere well’, you, through whom everything in the world
feres well. So that this may indeed come true, be gracious.

Obviously this letter can never be delivered, b u t this is the case with
many classical pagan poetic letters too. W hat is im p on an t is the

" See also Her. O n. 1457: Virgo estparitura Tonantem, 'A virgin shall bear the Thunderer' in a idling
variation of Isaiah 7J4, where it is ‘a son' (see H er. C br. 2.37).
 Verse Letters H3

opportunity for poetic expression created by using a letter in such a

context- In this way the poet manages to give a novel twist to the well-
known story of the Annunciation and the familiar form of letters to and
ftomheroines.1®
Inspired by the form at fo u n d in O v id , E o b a n u s has created an original
collection. N eo-Latin literature, h o w e ve r, also encom passes more direct
raclions to O vid’s Heroides, in the fo rm o f im m ediate answers to poems in
Ovid’s collection.19 T h e earliest extan t pieces are three letters b y a poet
called Sabinus (Auli Sabini, poetae, epistolae tres ad Ovidianas epistolas
mfomoriae, ‘Three Letters b y th e P oet A u lu s Sabinus in answer to
Ovidian Letters’), answers to Heroides 1, 2 and 5 (first printed in 14 7 7).*°
There is a long-standing d iscu ssio n o n w h e th e r these letters are by an
indent poet Sabinus m en tio n ed b y O v id ( O v . Am. 2 .1 8 .2 7 - 3 4 ; Pont.
416.13-16) or by a H u m a n ist w rite r o f th e sam e nam e.51 Both ‘Sabini’
stemto have composed answ ers to O v i d ’s Heroides, but it now seems more
likely that the extant ones b e lo n g to th e early m odern Sabinus.51
The Sabinus letters w ere lo n g considered ancient and therefore regarded as
models of similar status to O v id ’s o w n poem s. A s a result, although O vid’s
Umida were popular and there w e re a n u m b er o f attempts at composing
answers, people avoided those that already h ad ‘ancient’ replies. T h e Scottish-
'00m poet Mark Alexander B o y d (M a rcu s Alexander Bodius, 156 2-16 0 1),
however, was unhappy w ith th e ir q u a lity and therefore produced his own
replies to all single letters in Heroides, w h ic h turns his w o rk into the only
complete collection o f rep ly epistles in L a tin (15 9 0 ).55 Shortly afterwards
(1592), Boyd produced an o th e r w o r k inspired m ore loosely b y Ö vid ’s
Hmides, consisting o f a series o f letters b y G re e k heroines, goddesses
andRoman heroines and im perial w o m e n , w h o d o not appear in O vid, as

‘ Unes 6am Heaven constituted a popular genre from late antiquity throughout the Middle Ages
ud intotheearly modem period, though these seem to have been more concerned with theological
(bonnes (see Schnell 1983). Besides the classical precedent, these traditions may have influenced
Eobimts (on Eobanus and medieval traditions see Suerbaum 1008). A later example is François
Habest*Efutn de Dieu U Père à la vierge M arie (Paris 1551) included in the collection Les Epistres
Hmda (sec Dörrie 19 6 8 : 384; Vrcdeveld 2008:159 n. 1).
' Foranoverview o f‘reply poems’ in reaction to Ovid In the late sixteenth century see Lyne 1004.
” Lain ten in Sabinus 1583; modem edition o f Latin text with German translation in Häuptli 1996:
tf-41.
Also called Angelus Sabinus, Angelus de Curibus Sabinis, Angelus Sabinus de Curibus, Angelus
Gneis Quirinus Sabinus, Angelo Sani di Cure.
for an overview of the evidence and a discussion o f the date see Gcise 2001 (who argues for the
oont lenento be by the Humanist; contrast Häuptli 1996: 359-9. who regards them as ancient); on
Minus’ lenen see White 10 0 9 :19 1-9 .
$«e.g, Dörrie 1968; 104-5. 108.
 144 GESINE M ANU W ALD

well as a complementary letter from Pyramus to Thisbe.34 The feet that he

was effectively in exile in France at the time of composition may have
contributed to Boyd’s interest in Ovid.

Prefatory Letters

Most collections o f letters prepared for publication b y th eir authors open

with an initial letter that is both an epistolary piece like all oth er items, but
also fulfils the function o f an introductory, p refato ry a n d /o r dedicatory
j poem by setting out the rationale or background to th e b o o k or addressing
a recipient to whom not only this single letter, b u t th e entire collection is
addressed (c.g. Hor. Episu i.i; Plin. Ep. i . i ).
An instructive example o f this practice can be fo u n d in Francesco
Penara (Petrarch, 130 4 -74 ), w ho was so im p o n a n t in introducing the
humanist tradition o f letter-writing. Petrarch’ s co llectio n o f metrical
episdes, published towards the end o f his life, o p en s w ith a dedicatory
letter (i .i ) to his friend Barbato da Su lm o n a (c. 1 3 0 0 - 6 3 ) . ” T h is letter is
not separated from the rest o f the w ork, as it w o u ld b e i f it introduced a
work in a diffèrent genre; it fulfils the in tro d u cto ry fu n ctio n b y being the
first in the series. Although this is an entirely literary le n e r, not destined to
reach its addressee on its own, it takes up c o m m o n epistolary topics, such
as the distance between sender and addressee an d th e n o tio n that, there­
fore, familiar conversation, normally con veyed fece to fece, is entrusted to
writing (1.1.1-5, 25-8). A t the same tim e it is a p ro gram m a tic poem, in
which the author comments on the style an d c o n te n t o f the further texts
that the addressee will read: they are products o f h is y o u th , low poetry,
somewhat unrefined and dealing w ith his ro m a n tic relationships
(1.1.32-44). He adds that he is now m uch older a n d ch an ged (1.1.45-50)
and that he sends this material because the addressee has asked for it
(1.1.29-31). These are common elements o f feigned m o d e sty , w h ich help to
create a certain expectation in the reader o f th e collection .
An introduction or dedication in the form of a letter can be prefaced toa
literary work of any genre. In ancient Rome prose letters introduce books
within the poetry' collections of Martial and Statius as well as the eighth
book of the Gallic Wars written by Aulus Hirtius. In the early modem

H A single letter without Ovidian precedent, from Thisbc to Pyramus, also appeared in the first
collection. On Boyd’s lenen inspired by Ovid’s tim id e s sec Paleit 1008; White 2009:107-15. Latin
text in Boyd 1590 and 1592; modem edition of the Latin text o f some o f the 1592 letters with German
translation and commentary in Ritter 2010.
* Latin text in Petrarch 1831.
 Verse Letters H5

period, for instance, th e E n g lis h m a n T h o m a s W a ts o n ( 15 5 6 -9 2 ) dedicated

girili translation o f S o p h o c le s ’ Antigone (L o n d o n 158 1) to Philip H ow ard,
£arl of Arundel ( 1 5 5 7 - 9 5 ) , w ith a L a tin p o é m .36 T h e title {Nobilissimo
proceri, Claroque Multis nominibus, P h il ip p o H owardo Comiti
¿nuulelbt, T homas Wa tso n v s solidam fielicitatem precatur, ‘Th o m as
Watson wishes the forem ost n o b le m à n a n d k n o w n b y m a n y nam es, Philip
Howard, Earl o f A ru n d e l, so u n d h a p p in e ss’) im itates the structure o f
opening greetings o f classical letters. T h e p o e t th e n starts the poem proper
(iv addressing the recip ient in w o r d in g rem in isce n t o f H o ra c e ’s first ode,
joes on to talk about his o w n p o e tic abilities a n d finishes b y entm sting his
*ork to the addressee a n d a d d in g a c lo s in g fo rm u la o f salutation:

Hæc, et plura tuis plane praefiget ocellis

Antigone, studio docta docere meo.
Uiue, vale Generose C o m es: quot saecula ceruus
Uiuit, tot foelix saecula viue: vale.

This and more will be brought clearly before your eyes b y Antigone, taught to
ach by my endeavours. Live lon g and forewell, generous Earl: as many centuries
idle stag lives, may you live happily for as m any centuries: forewell.

Such classically inspired o p e n in g s c a n also b ë fo u n d in e xp licid y Christian

tots. The translation o f the N e w T e s t a m e n t b y Jo h n B rid ges (15 3 6 -16 18 ) ,
bishop of Oxford, w h ic h also s h o w s its d e b t to classical a n tiq u ity b y its
hexametric form, o p en s w ith a series o f p o e m s (addressed to various
recipients) that have characteristics o f letters, th o u g h also o f h ym ns and
prayers:37 this prefatory series s ta n s w it h a p rayer {Precatio) to Deus
Optimus Maximus an d th e H o l y T r in it y , is fo llo w e d b y a salutation to
KingJames I and co n clu d es w it h a n address to th e reader. T h e poerñ to the
lang is in large parts a praise o f h im , b u t it b egin s a n d ends w ith greeting
brraulae (Salutem, ‘ G r e e tin g s’ / Vive Iacobe, ‘ H a il, Ja m e s ’ ) an d thus could
be regarded as a letter in its o u tw a r d sh ap e. T h e prefoce addresses the
reader only in the h ead in g, n o t in th e b o d y o f th e p o em {Ad Pium &
famium Lectorem, ‘T o th e K in d a n d B e n e v o le n t R eader’ ), an d has few
epistolary features; rather it is a sta te m e n t o f th e n o v e lty o f the enterprise,
with obvious allusions to n o n -e p is t o la ty classical texts {In nova fert
M im . . . ‘T h e m in d carries to n e w . . . ’ ; c f. O v . Met. 1.1). T h is series

La« tat in Watson 1581; also available at: www.philological.bham.ac.uk/watson/anrigonc/actilat

■bfflWxiwt
Eogtish translation by Sutton (2010/2011) at: www.philological.bham.ac.uk/watson/antigone/
_ Wrag-htmlabtoel
l® » text in Bridges 1604.
146 CESINE M ANU W ALD

demonstrates die range o f options chat in tro d u cto ry poem s to a specific

addressee, based on the letter form, can take a n d sh o w s again the fusion
o f (classical) literary, Christian and political elem ents, here in the contea
of prefatory material.'8

C o n c lu s io n

Even the few examples presented dem onstrate that writers o f neo-Larin
verse epistles covered the entire spectrum o f types o f verse letters intro­
duced by classical poets and developed their o w n pieces against the
background o f these predecessors. W h ile in general ‘ [l]ettei5 - whether
prose or metric, overtly fictional o r apparently historical - should be
understood, first and foremost, as self-conscious textual constructions’,B
this is particulari)’ true for Hum anist letters in L a tin , since they were
written in full awareness o f the ancient m odels an d o f the generic discus-
son surrounding them and, though con ceived as private letten for an
individual addressee, are primarily intended as literature destined for
publication. Writers o f neo-Latin verse episdes m a y respond directly to
classical Latin texts (as in the case o f answers, im itations o r supplements
to Ovid’s Heroides), allude to them in their titles (as in the case o f Horace
or some of Ovid’s works), rely on contrastive im itation (when a classical
motif, such as lenen by heroines, is transferred to a Christian context) or
establish a more indirea connection b y the use o f shared themes and ideas;
the)’ may even mix different types o f letters w ith in a single collection or
insen verse episdes among other pieces. Freer responses to classical prece­
dents, and creative use o f elemenn provided b y them in novel contexts,
often seem to emerge from initial closer adherence to m odels. T h e epistol­
ary genre has always been o f a flexible nature: th e com positions in the early
modem period display a variety that indicates the H um anists’ creative
interest in this genre and the aim to explore its frill potential.

FU R T H E R R E A D IN G

Apart horn the brief remarks in IJsewijn and Sacré 1998 and the short entiy in
Brill's Encyclopaedia oftheNeo-Latin World (Poner 2014a), there is no overview of
the genre of the early modem verse episde in Latin. D om e 1968 (in German)
presents the material for che subgenre o f the heroic lener (for its reception in*

* lathis contar generic boundaries are especially fluid (cf. dedicatory epigrams), and the peittprioo
a fa poem's generic status may be influenced by the layout o f an early modem edition.
* Ebbder 2010:465.
 Verse Letters H7

atwicfHcennuy France and some telling case studies see White *

diwur of early modern letter-writing in Latin, the best places to_son
Irtttr collections for which m odem editions (and translations) cost (Secundus.
Cuäloc loor. Eobanus Hcssus: Vtedeveld 2004/2008; Boyd: Ritter 2010 (in
Gtniian)). Works on 'letters’ in general, with an emphasis on anoquny,
prande the necessary background on the characteristics o f die genre (e^.
193> (in Germ an); Thraede 19 7 0 (in German); R e e d ¡ 997; Trapp
200* Edwards 2005; Gibson and M orrison 2 0 0 7 ; Ebbeler 2010. O n the book
at modes as a particular poetic form see W ulfram 2008 (in German). Studies on
«¿modera letters in the vernacular and letter-writing in this period ^ helpiul
fcr an understanding o f aspects o f the form and for insights into its role in earty
adera society (see e.g. Guillén 19 86 ; O verton 20 0 7: «- 3». gpnenc issues;
TtUomson 2001; Overton 2 0 0 7 , on English letters; Motsch 19 74 (“ » German),
00 German letters). Besides actual letter-writing, there « t h e o w a l works on
inters and practical manuals (on those see esp. Poster and Mitchell 2007; a to
durât, Boureau and D auphin 19 9 7)- F ° r § collection o f Some Sources for
Eatif Modem Letters’ see http://warburg.sas.ac.uk/research/comideted-researd»-
-Kjjects/sciliger/souitxs-carly-modern-leaersy.
 CHAPTER 9

Verse Satire
Sari K ivisto

W riting Satire

One of the distinctive features o f Rom an verse satire is a meta-poetical

commentary on the poet’s reasons for w ritin g satire. In his programmatic
satires 1.4 and 2.1, Horace defends the castigating function o f his work and
justifies it against accusations o f malice. H e stresses that the ethical utility
of his humorous verse is far removed from real m alevolence, and traces the
origins of the genre to the Greek com edians and the early Latin author
Lucilius.1 Thereafter, it became customary for collections o f verse satire to
begin with a defence o f the genre, based on both m oral utility and literary
precedent. Satire was a difficult genre to accept, especially in religious
circles, since it described vices, had frequent recourse to verbal harshness
and expressed strong negative feelings o f indignation on the part of the
poet. Obscene and abusive passages, and subjects not usually considered
suitable for poetry, were justified by the poet’s claim to censure vice.
Accordingly, neo-Latin satirists usually provided m oral justifications for
their poetty and praised its great benefits to h um an ity. T h e Dutch histor­
ian Lambertus Hortensius (150 0 -74 ), w h o studied literary and educational
issues in his Satyrae vm (1552), claimed that unjust deeds filled his stomach
with black bile and forced him to take up his p en .1 T h e German play­
wright and theologian Thomas N aogeorg ( 15 0 8 -6 3 ), in his Satyrarum libri
quinque (‘Five Boob o f Satires’, 1555), defended the didactic-moralistic
usefulness of satirical criticism even in matters pertaining to religion. In his
dedicatory episde to the margrave o f Brandenburg, G eorg Friedrich,
Naogeorg declared himself the first Germ an satirist to follow the example
o f his Roman predecessors and the Italian n eo-Latin satirist Francesco
Filelfb, although he disdained their obscenity.3 N ao g eo rg claimed that no

’ Hor. S il. M J- i i , 78-103,134-5; 2.1.14-59. * Hortensius 1551: C 2 (Sat. d).

1 Naogeorg >555: 4- Neo-Latin hexameter satires were first written in fifteenth-century Italy and then in
almost all European countries. In addition to Filelfb’s exceptionally large corpus o f satires odi»

148
 Verse Satire 149

one should take offence at his verses, since they included no personal
«tacks, but rather censured vicio u s action in general. H is purpose was to
praise true piety b y ridicu lin g m en w h o declined to follow Christ.
He argued that if his intention to strengthen faith was disrespëctful and
ifhis poems were considered m alicious, then:

Hieronymus, Cyprianus, Chrysostomus atque alii ecclesiastici scriptores,

immo etiam omnes prophetae et apostolae, Christusque ipse maledicus
existimetur. Quoties enim prophetae invehuntur in idolorum cultores, in
impios sacerdotes et prophetas, in tyrannicos avarosque principum mores,
in cortupta perversae) ue vulgi studia, vitiaque multitudinis vel privatorum?
[...] Non esc hoc maledicentia, nec conviciandi vel libido vel morbus: sed
admonitio, sed correctio, zelusque pro domo regnoque Dei.4

Jerome, Cyprian, Chrysostom and other religious authors, all prophets,

apostles and Christ himself should be considered equally abusive. Didn’t
the prophets often attack the worshippers o f false idols, impious priests and
prophets, tyrannical and greedy princes, corrupted and perverse activities of
die crowd, vices o f the multitude or o f individuals? [ . .. ] This activity
should not be considered as slander or a sick desire to abuse, but as
exhortation and correction and zeal to protect G od’s temple and reign.

Naogeorg claimed that, am idst the u b iq u ity o f crimes, his poetic condem­
nation of vices was a necessary and honest activity, even an act o f charity.
The religious convulsions o f the R eform ation produced conditions
particularly conducive to satire and anti-clerical hum our, especially in
sixteenth-century G erm an y. C ath o lics and Protestants attacked each other
with increasing ferocity, and the reform ers shared the satirical conception
tithe fundamentally sinful nature o f h um an beings. O n e o f Naogeorg’s
longer satires (5.1) envisaged the beauties o f Paradise and universal peace,
whichwere lost when the serpent sedu ced E ve. N aogeorg’ s work is marked
by a focus upon repen tance/ B u t his satire was also strongly Protestant in
its flavour - in 1559 he published a satire o f ecclesiastical censorship and
todefence o f alleged heretics,6 a n d in his anti-papist Réformation plays,
which are better known than his satires, he depicted the pope as an
Antichrist.7 His vitriol w as also directed at Luther, however, who was

imponant early Ita lia n w rite rs o f s a t ir e w e r e G r e g o r i o C o r r e r , G a s p a r e T r ib r a c o (T rib ra c h io ),

Urtino Lippi and T it o V e s p a s ia n o S t r o z z i.
' N'wgcorg 1555:6-y. Translations from Latin are by the author unless otherwise indicated.
' CÍ Roioff 200}: 390. 6 Naogeorg 1559.
Niogtorgwrote six plays in Latin. His most famous play is Tragoedia nova Pammachius (Wittenberg,
!)}!), which depicts an evil pope, who is also one o f the characters in Incendia seu Pyrgopolinices
(Wittenberg, 154t); see Roioff 2003; Watanabe-O’Kelly 1997:102.
150 SARI R I V I S T O

the object o f two virulent poems in his fifth bo o k o f satires (5.3 and 5.5),
in these, Luther and his circle in W itten berg are identified as a new pope
and a second Rome, sinfully believing them selves to be infallible in their
interpretation o f G o d’s word.
Later neo-Latin satirists also claimed their w ritin g was founded on an
impulse to virtue. Gerard Nicolaas H eerkens ( 1 7 2 6 - 1 8 0 1 ) , for instance,
who published his satires under the Latinized form o f his name, Marius
Curillus, was a Groningen-based physician and poet whose seven verse ¡
satires (Satyrae, 1758) attacked his fellow citizens and contemporary poets; 1
yet the primary focus was, in the m anner o f H o ra c e ’ s and Juvenal’s first
satires, on his personal motives for w riting, an d his feelings o f despair and
impotence.8 One purpose o f his moral instru ction w as to prevent his
presumably untalented fellow writers from creatin g poetry. H is first satire
evokes Juvenal’s opening lines, asking w h eth er ‘ I will alw ays have to seem
insane and unable to reject the siren-call o f th e M u se s and the compul­
sion to write poetry?’ (Semper ego insanus videar, numquamne poetis / me 1
potero eximere, et sirenes spernere Musasi).9 H eerken s ridiculed his own ,
efforts at writing, and ironically denounced his vain hopes o f being
crowned ‘the second Horace’ or regarded the equal o f Alexander Pope '
or Nicolas Boileau. In his sixth satire H eerkens said that he would rather
die unknown than acquire a great name th ro u gh hostility and invective.
For Heerkens, moderate jesting (the A risto telian virtue o f eutrapelia)
was suited to castigating human vices, w h ile a p o et should avoid excessive
joking and low buffoonery, w h ich fiercely attack everyone without
discrimination.10
Many neo-Latin satirists refrained entirely from personal attack and
asserted that all persons mentioned in their satires w ere purely fictitious."
At the other extreme were the poets w h o developed an unusually severe
style, unafraid to name names: the fiery G e rm a n satirist Nicodemus
Frischlin (1547—90) wrote in 1 5 6 7 - 8 eight relentless satires against a
Catholic conven, Jacob Rabus; and the fourteen satires o f the Italian
satirist Quintus Sectanus (Lodovico Sergard i, 16 6 0 -172 6 ) were

1 Hatkens 1758.
* Heerkens 1758: u - i. The lino reverse Juvenil, who begins by asking whether he must always listen
(to ochen bad poetry) and never speak himself (Juvenal 5 . i.i-d).
• Cf. Horace's salirei 14.81-103 and M0.7, in which he expressed very similar views.
n For example, Federigo Nomi's (1703) use of traditional comical names, such as Cuicui»,
emphiszcd the alleged impersonality and harmlessness o f his writing. The word "gurgulio* was
used in Pendus' satires (4.38) to refer to Alcibiades’ private parts. Many o f the persons mentioned in
Horan’s first three satires were also probably entirely fictitious.
 Verse Sa tire 151

unconstrained verbal assaults again st a specific literary foe, the jurist Gian
Vincenzo Gravina from N a p le s .11 In his ninth satire and its figurative
{musculation Sergardi d ream s o f rem o v in g G ra vin a ’! testicles and
¡magines how an u g ly h ern ia is slo w ly bu t surely devouring his body
and finally causing his d eath :

Foeda tibi nimium ruptis tumet Ernia fibris

irtaque pendentes lam bunt crura Enterocelae
ut scrotum nequeat centum tibi fascia vittis
dngere, ni doctos transmittat Nursia cultros
vulnere qui medico vellant ab origine morbum.
Sed quota pars hominis Calabro restaret ademptis
Testiculis?0

Anugly hernia swells in your ruptured groin and hangs down, caressing your baity
kgs, so that a truss with a hundred bindings can't encompass your scrotum unless
Nuisia dispatches its trained surgeons to tear out the malady from its source by
1 healing wound. But how much o f a man remains for a Calabrian with his
testicles removed?14

Bad Poets and Ignorance

In his seminal article on n e o -L a tin satire, Jo s e f IJsewijn claimed that, in

addition to general m oralizing, the n e o -L a tin verse satirists were particu­
larly interested in literary, religious a n d m edical themes.*5 W e have already
seen an example o f the first p reo ccu p atio n in the w o rk o f Heerkens; the
alleged distinction between go o d an d bad poets was fiequendy evoked in
die early sixteenth-century h u m a n ist p olem ics and earlier b y Gregorio
Correr and other fifteen th -cen tu ry Italian poets.*6 T h e D utchm an Petrus
Montanus’ ( 14 6 7 / 8 -15 0 7 ) satire ‘ D e poetis’ , for instance, distinguishes
between divine poets an d m ere verse-m akers.*7 A cco rd in g to Montanus,
composing true poetry w as a task requ iring divine inspiration: abandoning
worldly concerns, the p o et w as captivated at night b y visions o f N eptune’ s
trident and Pallas’ shield. T h e true p o et w a s h um ble and peaceful, whereas
bad poets flattered princes an d w e re adored b y the cro w d , though without
merit.'* Montanus drew h eavily o n classical an d C h ristian writers, and, in

“ FosìUm 1607. Sectanus 1698; Sergardi 1994. " Scctanus 1698: 68.
" Scgudi 1994:77 (trans. Ronald E . Pepin). ” IJsewijn 1976:44. “ See Ramos toon 181-4.
® Montanus 1)29. Montanus wrote twelve verse sanies that appeared in different editions between
1501 and 1515; I have consulted the Strasbourg edition o f 1529 with four satires.
Montanas 1529. S a t . t.
152 SARI R I V I S T O

the manner of his admired Italian Renaissance hum anist Marsilio Ficino,
was fascinated by reconciling Platonism w ith C h ristian ity.19
In his first satire Thomas Naogeorg also com plained that the world was
full of scribblers who were obsessed by a desire to w rite enormous boob
with no concern beyond that o f personal advancem ent. In the manner of
Juvenal’s programmatic first satire, N aogeorg asked w h y he should remain
merely a listener amidst such fervent industry, w hen everyone from
women to artisans wanted to publish som ething ( i . i ). H e scorned poets
who soothed their patrons’ ears ( ingratorum mulcemus versibus aures)10 and
flanered princes and papists in pursuit o f fam e and privileges: Impía tu
laudarepotes, verumque lucroso / dissimulare metu (‘ yo u can praise impious
deeds, and conceal the truth because you are w o rryin g about money’).11
He ridiculed the obscure style with which the poets tricked their unlearned
audience and concealed their lack o f talent and w isdom . Praising clarity of
diction, Naogeorg advised that poems should be ‘ clearer than the water in
the fountain, the Venetian glass, pure crystal o r the fire o f electricity’
{fontana clarior unda, / vitro lucidior Veneto, et tenui cristallo / purior, electro
quoque pellucentior omni).11 O nly mad poets w rote so obscurely that no
one understood them or needed an oracle to solve their riddles.13 The
critique of contemporary patronage is strongly indebted to Juvenal (¿spe­
cially satire 7), but unlike Juvenal, N aogeorg com plained in particular
about the poetry o f invective and personal attack: his saure 3.2, for
instance, denounces the malevolent poetic ten dency to find fault in
everyone and to disseminate rumours purely to dem onstrate a talent for
invective. To mock such groundless self-confidence and everyday nastiness
Naogeorg described how a backbiting professor o f law had the ridiculous
habit of adding the word omnino to every sentence.14 In Naogeorg’s view
learned men regarded themselves as infallible and ‘w iser than Solomon, as
if they were bom from the brains o f Zeus, like A th en e’ (Solus nempe sapis,
Salomoneperitior ipso, / Et Iovis excisus seu docta Minerva cerebro).1'
Caspar von Bardi (1587-1658) was another G erm an poet whose Satirarum
liber unus (1612) made a ferocious assault upon pom pous verse-makers and
their groundless feme.16 Barth’s versatile, strongly mannerist satires lashed
out at his contemporary poets as vile bubbles, mere ghosts and skins lacking

” Sec Toumoy 1998:88.

” Naogeorg 2.1; 1555:60. For die importance o f can in Persius and Latin verse satire, see Rivisto 2009:
I » (with firnher references).
*' Naogeorg 2.1; 1555:58. “ Naogeorg 2.t; 1555: 60.
*’ For obscurity, see Rivisto 2002: 78-109. M Naogeorg 3.2: tj$j: tío.
" Naogeorg 4.5; 1555: <73- “ Barth 1612.
 Verse Satire 153
[ilood and moisture. T h e ir m in d s w ere full o f lead, and in the place o f a
htatt they had a m ushroom {Plumbea mens istis, pro corde in pectore
fapit).*7 Their itchy bodies w ere full o f pus that reflected their mental
confusion, and when touched, their sick lim bs released the virus into the
»«Id (Tangere si poscas, tot pus virusque cavernis / exsilit).1* Barth mocked
poeticapes who imitated m an ly gestures and, dressed in the cothurnus, took
iftw trembling steps w ith their b o w ed legs ( Cruribus incurvis rectos implere
(dumos, / bestia decipitur).19 B arth end ed his colourful satires (1.5) with
«exhortation to surgeons to fear o u t the m alady from the sick generation
andbum their flesh w ith Are.
In their ethical pessim ism the satirists usually saw the contemporary
»•odd as the worst o f times. E ile rt L iib b e n (Eilh ard Lubinus, 15 6 5 -16 2 1), a
cartographer and professor o f poetics and theology at Rostock w ho yearned
fora lost golden age, referred to his o w n deplorable era as the age o f filth,
mud and monsters. Liib ben delivered three verse declamations at Rostock
between the years 16 0 2 a n d 16 18 ; these w ere published as Declamationes
ntfñcae tres in 1618 (‘T h re e Satirical D e c la m a tio n s).50 Liibben’s specific
targets in his first satire w ere th e ign orant learned, w h o never lived as they
taught, and he depicted the sins o f academ ics w h o cared only for their
personal obsessions, w ith n o real self-know ledge:

Quid te scire iuvat tot canta scientiae et artis,

Si nihil in melius tot rerum proficis usu?
g r a m m a t i c i errores memorant patientis Ulyssis,
Atque ipsi in vita et factis rationis aberrant
A regione procul [ . .. ]
Quid te porro iuvat geometram illa ane profunda
Metiri terras et agros, cum dividere aeque
Non possis cum fiatre tuo, atque nepote propinquo.51

What’s the use o f learning so many sciences and arts

if all that knowledge does not improve your character?
The grammarians calculate patient Ulysses’ errors,
but stray in their own lives and deeds farther and farther
from the land o f reason [ . . . ]
What’s the use o f you, a surveyor, knowing how to skilfully
measure lands and fields, when you fidi to divide them justly
with your brother and his descendants?

» y jb L1.198. 11 Birth 1 x 1 7 2 - 3 . 19 Barth 1.3 .16 -7 .

Inw 1618. Liibben was also known for his editions o f the three Roman verse satirists; in (act,
• ,wo-Latin satirists edited Roman verse satire.
1618; A 8 -¥ (Sat. t).
 1

154 SARI KIVISTÖ

Lübben was highly sceptical o f the future o f the academ y. In his view school
education was in the grip o f barbarism - a popular satirical and anti-scholastic
topic in German humanism. In the second satire, directed against 'academic
pests’, the ruinous state o f the university was illustrated with an image of a
glorious, but collapsing building.31 Relying on the tradition o f German
university satire, Liibben disapproved o f students w h o in their groundless
self-confidence failed to learn anything, while at the same time he censured
severe schoolmasters and pedantic pedagogues w h o taught with stria rules
and, armed with cruel whips, were more formidable than ancient tyrants or
executioneis and made pupils tremble with fear. Liibben adopted expressions
from Roman satire, including pathological ulcers and putrid filth swelling
inside the body, to describe human corruption, and in the manner o f Persius
he pulled old biases out o f his patient’s lungs.33 B u t unlike his classical
predecessors who deplored human ignorance in general, Liibben and many
of his contemporaries concentrated on the ignorance o f the schoolmen.

Philosophical Satire

Renaissance poetics and humanist com m entaries on R om an satire recog­

nized the dose connection between moral ph ilosoph y and satirical writing.
Isaac Casaubon (1559-1614) argued in his co m m en tary on Persius (1605)
that Roman satire consisted o f two main principles: moral doctrine and
wit.34 Satire differed from other poetry in using h u m o u r to condemn vices
and recommend virtues. Satire not only set out to heal the moral and
emotional life o f the patient by attacking his appetites and passions,
but also to cure his intellea o f ignorance and foolishness. It aimed at an
overall perfeaion o f the soul. Urceo C o d ro (A ntonius Codrus Urceus,
1446-1500), professor o f grammar and eloquence at Bologna, used his
second satire, for instance, to attack ignorance, bu t also explained in detail
the physical constituents o f vices and their basis in the bodily fluids.35
Alongside the classical Latin satirists, H orace, Juven al and Persius, many
neo-Latin authors o f satire associated their w o rk w ith Cynicism or
Stoicism, and especially with Seneca. Petrus Scholirius from Antwerp
(1583-1635), whose satires, Sermonum familiarium libri tres (‘Three Bools
of Familiar Sermons’), first appeared in the 16 2 0 s and then in Albert Le
Roy’s detailed edition o f 1683, devoted his third bo o k to the defence of1

11 Lubmus 1618: C4' (Sal. i). n Lubimu 1618: C f (Sat. 1); cf. Pere. 5.9z.
M Casaubon 1605b: ai) (doctrina moralis, urbanitas et sala), Casaubon also composed an influential
treatise on Greek satirical poetry and Roman satire (Casaubon 1605).
” Uroeus 1506: Lvm'-ux’ .
 Verse Satire 155
Diogenes and his th in kin g.56 N a o g e o tg ’s satires appeared together with his
Larin translation o f Plutarch's essay o n tranquillity o f m ind and his edidon o f
Senecas De tranquillitate animi, thereby stressing the parallels between satir­
ical and philosophical instruction.57 T h e three satires o f the Ghent humanist
Janvan Havre (Johannes H avraeus, 15 5 1-1 6 2 5 ) , entided-d/x virtutis sive de vera
¡mimi tranquillitate (‘T h e Fortress o f V irtu e o r on the T ru e Tranquillity o f
Mind,’ t6z7), also adopt a Sto ic position.38 In his first satire, directed at human
desires and especially at the desire for m oney, H avre noted that men were
hardly ever satisfied w ith their lot. Sin ce am bition was the enem y o f peaceful
living, Havre claimed that it w as better to decline the pursuit o f fame, honours
or riches, which were far less valuable than virtue and a peaceful mind.
In a moralizing version o f th e priam el at the start o f H orace’s first book
of satires, Havre describes the sins characteristic o f different professions.
Soldiers play with death, slau gh terin g inn o cen t people, and merchants sail
overdistant seas feeing th ousands o f dangers, lured on b y the false glitter o f
gold. True freedom and co n te n tm e n t are fo u n d in self-sufficiency.

Ecquid habent Reges, nisi solum tegmen & escam?

Haec quoque pauper habet, qui si nihil ambiat ultra,
Atque humili lare tranquille et bene vivere curet.
Quisnam adeo ignarus, qui non hunc èsse beatum,
Et mage felicem ducat, quam sceptra tenentes,
Qui magna ut teneant, semper maiora requirunt?
Divitias multi affectant, paucique fruuntur.
Multis dat fortuna nimis, numquam satis ulli.
Servitium hic splendet, ubi splendet magna potestas.
Quis Cynicum testa clausum non praeferat illi,
Qui satur haud uno plures sibi postulat orbes?59

What do kings own except a roof over their heads and some food?
But these things the poor man also possesses, who wishes for nothing,
but to live peacefully and well in his humble cottage.
Who would be as ignorant as to deny that the poor man is happy
and indeed happier than those holding the reins o f power,
since however much wealth they possess, they will always desire more.
Most men strive for riches, but only few enjoy them.
Fortune grants too much to many, but to no one ever enough.
Where great power reigns, there reigns servility too.
Who would not regard the C y n ic living in his tub
more fortunate than the man who, dissatisfied with one world,
requests more?

a l in i» 1683. n Nao geo rg 1555. ** Havraeus 16 17 . ” Havraeus 1 6 1 7 :1 4 (Ser. 1).

I
Iî6 SARI R I V I S T O

Havre’s second satire also focused o n the v a lu e o f v irtu e as the most

precious property that m en cou ld have, b u t in th is p o e m he extends his
vision o f freedom and self-sufficiency to in c lu d e th e p o e t’s freedom of
speech: ‘N o anger or feces sneering w ith m e n a c in g co n tem p t can deter
me from speaking the truth and p ro te ctin g ju s tic e ’ (Afon ¡rae, torvi
vultus, fastusque minaces, / Impedient me vera loqui, iustumque tuen).*0
The third satire, against violence an d an ger, fo rg e s a stro ngly Christian
message from many elements inherited fro m th e R o m a n satirists and
historians.
Petrus Montanus’ satire ‘ D e p rin cip ib u s’ (‘ O n p rin ces’ ) also censured
violence and the cruelty o f political leaders, c itin g th e savagery o f Herod,
Alexander the Great, the Langobards, w e a lth y A sia n kings and even
Christian bishops.-41 The Langobards, he c laim s, h ad rulers who called
upon their wives to drink w ine ou t o f th eir fath ers’ skulls. Montanus
warned that bad rulers often feced a terrible en d : i f th ey did not spend the
rest o f their days in prison, their lives en d ed in su ic id e o r poisoning. The
purpose o f these tragic atrocities w as to teach p rin c es to k n ow themselves,
to recognize the corrupting im pact o f p o w e r a n d to encourage them
towards humanity and Christian m odesty. T h e k in gs o f the golden age
were known for their ‘love, m oderation an d in d u stry ’ {amor, modus atque
industrial*

Medical Satires
The association o f satirical writing w ith m oral th e rap y w as a commonplace
evoked, for example, by the Jesuit satirist Ja c o b B alde (16 0 4 -6 8 ) in his
large satirical oeuvre.-43 In his Medicinae gloria per satyras XX11 ( T h e Glory
of Medicine in Tw enty-Tw o Satires’ , 16 5 1), B alde com pared his fearless
verses to medicine ‘which abolishes diseases o f the b o d y b y using bitter but
efficient drinks and seasons them with sw eet juices so that they would not
be rejected. Satire penetrates the m ind and, b y rem o vin g vices, endeavours
to restore the temperance o f manners’ (Ista corporum morbos tollit, potio­
nibus quidem amaris, sed efficacibus; et, ne respuantur, dulci liquore correctis.
Satyra animos intrat, ejectisque vitiis morum temperiem quaerit inducere.)*
In the first poem o f his Medicinae gloria B alde proposed that even if he
could not heal like Persius, he would still w rite like M a th o , composing4
0

40 Hxvneus ifa fi $o (S». 2). 41 Montanus 1529, Sat. 3. 41 Montanus 1529, Sat. 3.
49 See Kiviito 2009* 44 Balde 1990: 369 f Ad candidum lectorem*)*
 Verse Satire 157

^mentations at people’s graves. In the use o f satire as moral therapy Balde

»as following the exam ple o f H o r a c e w h o offered sweet biscuits to patients
and spiced his bitter p o tio n w ith h o n ey: the playfulness o f his verse
functioned as an antidote to p a in .45
Balde wrote satires ab o u t m a n y diseases affecting corrupt humankind.
Gout was the subject o f several satirical texts in the early modern period,
because it was thought to result fro m self-in d u lgen t and luxurious living
(cf. Juv. 13.96). In his Solatium podagricorum seu lusus satyricus (‘C onsola­
tion for Gout Patients o r a Sa tirica l Je s t ', 16 6 1) , Balde mentioned that
gout was a painful disease th at dressed itse lf in jew els and refused to eat
onions and other rustic fo o d .46 H o w e v e r , he praised the disorder as a
mute to virtue, since the su ffe rin g m an had the o p portun ity to disdain
his body and aspire to h eaven . B a ld e represented C h ristian neo-Stoicism ,
»bich had become a p ro m in e n t m o d e o f th in k in g in the Baroque period,
but he always preserved his ch a racteristic iro n y in his discussions o f the
good life.47
Balde often positioned his p o e m s in the satirical subgenre o f the mock
encomium. O ne o f his paradoxical praises focused on obesity, a quality o f
the gpds, which he praised in his Antagathyrsus sive apologa pinguium
(‘Antagathyrsus or an A p o lo g y fo r F a t P eople’ , 16 58). H ere he praises
fatness as a mark o f the go lden age w h e n all m en were nicely corpulent and
there was not a single thin o r su fferin g person o n earth. Balde attributed to
lit people the virtues o f friendliness, reliability and upright character,
citing Horace’s own ironic self-d escriptio n as a p lu m p pig from Epicurus’
herd (£/>. 1.4.16). Sim ilarly, in his Vultuosae torvitatis encomium (‘ In Praise
ofthe Ugliness o f Faces ’, 16 5 8) B ald e discussed the great benefits o f looking
severe and even ugly.49 T h e u g ly ph ysical form s o f the fam ous ancient
philosophers bespoke their w isd o m a n d revealed that they despised their
bodies and were com p letely devo ted to virtue. Balde’s large œuvre also
contained a satire o n the m isuse o f to b acco ( Contra abusum tabaci, ‘Against
the Abuse o f T o b a cco ’ , 1 6 5 7 ) , n o ticin g that smokers sm'elled worse than
the belches o f onion-eating w o rk ers, sëven graves o r a herd o f a hundred
goats.50 (Ironically, B alde h im se lf w as k n o w n to be addicted to smoking.)
Balde derided the incompetence of simiae medicorum (‘medical apes’),
Jewish poisoners and female quacks, who mixed medicines with stoats’*

* W e 1990; 37} (Sat. 1): Illiu s a m p lo , q u i aegrotis crustula blanda / Offert, et suctos apianis condit
suant: / Nos melimella unopariterque absinthia Libro / M iscuim us. . .C f. Hor. Sat. 1.1.25 and 2.4.24.
* Bilde 1990: 63, 65. 47 Schäfer 1976: 219-18. 41 Balde 1990: 299-366. 49 Balde 166a.
" Bilde 199a 438-68.
IS« SARI R I V I S T O

brains and foxes’ spleens. Inept physicians were popular figures o f fon in
Renaissance satires, epigrams and facetiae collections thát condemned the
incompetence of quacks or laughed at the scatological techniques used in
therapy. Doctor stereotypes were suspected o f a m yriad o f abuses and
moral failings, including poisoning, adultery, m oney-m aking and violence.
Petrus Montanus’ satire ‘ De medicis’ , b y contrast, presented an exemplair
physician Antonius, who was thoroughly acquainted with all medical
plants, unguents, plasters, pills, scented bo d y powders and cataplasms,
and punctiliously calculated the right doses o f m edicine according to the
climate in which the disease occurred.51 Antonius was not only a skilful
physician, but also ‘good, wise and faithful to his friends’ ( Vir bonus a
prudens, certis quoquefidus amicis)?* thus resembling the ideal doctor and
loyal friend described by Horace in his satires (2 .3.14 7 ) and Seneca in his
De beneficiis (6.16.4-5), who took personal care o f his patient in the name
of humanity. Antonius’ ideal figure was then contrasted with bad phys­
icians, who put patients to death for m oney and whose murderous skills
developed over a lifetime.
Bad doctors and their violent methods were similarly condemned by the
Italian satirist and presbyter Federigo N om i (16 3 3 -17 0 5 ), whose Liber satj/r-
arvm (The Book o f Satires’, 1703) contained, like Juvenal’s oeuvre, sixteen
satires.55 Influenced by the tradition, N o m i com pared his verses to strong
medicines. His sixth satire focused on sadistic quacks, ‘w h o were more suited
to disturbing the dead than healing the living’ .54 N o m i borrowed several
doctors’ names, such as Diaulus and Sym m achus, from Aristophanes and
Martial’s epigrams. Martial’s Diaulus (1.30, 4 7), for instance, was a former
physician whose professional methods had hardly changed in his new career
as an undertaker. Nomi envisaged how doctors w h o specialized in bloodlet­
ting left their patients bleeding to death as highwaymen left their victims on
the side of the road. Rich padents were forced to swallow their own gems
and jewels, which were prescribed to relieve their condition, but which the
greedy doctor then collected from the patients’ cham ber pots, thus becom­
ing rich through heaps of excrement. Kidney stone patients had to undergo a
painful treatment conducted by a surgeon called Phaedrus:

Vesica ex ipsa lapides convellere Phaedrus,

Spondee posse manu, sed quamquam prospera sit sors
Interdum, certe est ars haec laniena virorum;
Forcipe enim primo non carpitur orbita nisu,

" M ontanus 1519, Set. 1. n M o n ta n u s 1 5 1 9 , Sai. 1. 13 N o m i 17 0 3 .

M N o m i 17 0 3 :7 7 (Sei. fi).
 Verse Satire
159

Fragmina vel desunt, remanet vel crustula circum,

Et dolor augetur.55

Phaedrus promised to remove the kidney stones

by hand. Even if fortune is sometimes favourable,
this is surely a butcher’s art.
The first attempt with forceps was unsuccessful;
some chips o f the stone remained in the bladder,
and the pain was getting more severe.

Inan unusual version o f the m edical m otif, the Italian Bernardo Guglielmini
(1693-1769) offers in his Sermonum libri tres (‘Th ree Books o f Sermons’ ,
Rome, 1742) an exceptionally realistic accou nt o f his own sickness. Gugliel-
mini’s twenty-four didactic satires were addressed to Pope B enedia X I V and
give young men lessons in the different duties o f school life, royal courts,
war and marriage. T h e verses cautioned boys about ambition, pretence,
excessive philosophical studies, beautiful b u t fraudulent wom en and other
potential moral dangers. In satire 3 .7 , however, he complained o f his injured
thigh, which was first painfully operated o n b y doctors who created a three-
finger-wide wound, until his friend, D o a o r Ja co b T o yon, saved his life.
Guglielmini’s style here is d o cum en tary in its technically detailed account o f
the turning point o f the illness and its sym ptom s. T h e patients slow
recovery and his first lim ping steps around the sickbed after a long period
ofweakness are almost touching. T h e poet concluded that if sick men were
wise, as ancient philosophers argued, then he preferred to remain ignorant
rather than cough with Seneca an d ache with Plato.

M o n ey and Virtuous Poverty

Satirical arguments stressed that virtue should be valued above riches and
other favours o f fortune, and the w ise m an should not allow worldly
success to disturb his freedom and tranquillity. T h is satirical and philo­
sophical topos was eagerly adopted b y Lutheran satirists: for them, the
unhealthy greed for gain threatened the purity o f the soul. Eilert Liibben
argued in his first satire that w h ile n e g le a in g the example o f Christ men
had ‘pious feelings o n ly tow ards w ealth and honours’ (nisi opes et honores
incutiant pietatem)}6 Law yers, for instance, created conflicts instead o f
resolving them, and ju dged accord in g to the paym ent received, rather than
truth. The world was un just an d nQ punishm ent was severe enough to
match the current crimes:

" Nomi 1703: 84 (Sat. 6). ** Lubinus 1618: A4* (Sat. 1).
i6o SARI R I V I S T O

Quae rota, quae furiae, quod saxum sufficit illis,

Qui solem exstinguunt nil dignum luce gerentes?57

Where to find such wheels o f torture, furies or a rock o f Prometheus that would
sufficiendy punish wrongdoers who quench the sun and whose activities shun
che daylight?

The rich ‘took pleasure in the sweat and b lood o f farm workers, devouring
their living bones and sucking the m arrows’ ;58 the p o o r w ere forced to live
a life that was worse than that o f dôgs. R ich m en , b u sy pilin g up money,
had forgotten the shared origin o f all hum ans in nature and in Adam, and
were heedless of the vanity o f human effort:

Non satis est nummos et opes cumulare superbas,

Non satis immensam molem aedificare domorum,
Quae nubi, atque ipsi minitentur acumine caelo.
Tot villas et agros, quantum nec milvus oberret.
Vitae summa brevis, vah! quam cito praeterit huius!59

(Greedy men) are not content to accumulate money or proud wealth;

they are not content to build an immense block o f houses
that rises to the clouds and threatens the sky or to own
so many villas and fields that not even a hawk could cross them.
Yet life is so short, oh! How quickly all will perish!

Many contemporary religious crides contrasted m agnificent woridly

monuments with the endurance o f true glory, w h ich had no need of
gigantic, marble memorials. Havre questioned th e value o f riches and
palaces covered in gold and marble, since su ch m onum ents collapsed
and perished in time, whereas the value o f virtu e rem ained eternal. In
the manner o f Roman moralists N aogeorg also den ou n ced the wealthy
man who builds impressive private palaces w ith extensive gardens and
birdhouses to satisfy his private pleasures, b u t n ever gives money to the
poor. In their blindness the rich ‘never raise their eyes to the heaven and
the stars’.6' Guglielmini, for his part, counselled that, instead o f serving
their private whims, wealthy men should support th e p u b lic arts, architec­
ture and sculpture, invoking the exam ple o f P ope C le m e n t X II , a generous
patron o f artists and the great restorer o f R o m e.61
In Roman verse satire virtue was based o n sim ple livin g in the country­
side, considered the 'virtuous m ilieu’ o f th e R o m an past. Horace in17

17 Lubinus 1618: As’ (Su. 1). 111 Lubinus 1618: A6 (Sii. 1). ** Lubinus 1618: A7’ (Sii 1).
* ° Havraeu» 16 1T 48 (Sir. 3). “ Naogeorg 4.3; 1555:168.
“ Guglielmini 1741, S& 1.8. On the criticism of (poetic) monuments in neo-Latin literature, tec
KnristdaoM-
 Verse Satire i6i

particular praised the virtues o f plain livin g and the wise peasant Ofellus in
his satire i.i. Likewise, n eo -L a tin w riters sang the praises o f poverty and
mral life and, like H orace, identified w ith sim ple peasants innocent o f the
corruption o f the city. In his third satire Federigo N o m i called himself, his
father and his whole ancestry ‘ p o o r fellow s’ , w h o had been nourished by
mertvinue and love.65 H is fou rth dram atic satire dealt w ith an inordinate
dente for profit, and his thirteenth defended the ideal o f the Horadan
riiw parvo (Sat. 2.2.1), the c ap a city to live content with little. Nom i
revived the juvenalian them e o f fleein g the corrupted city (Quid Romae
¿kWti.^What can I do at R o m e ?’ ),64 overrun b y flatterers w ho knew how
toadvance their positions b y lying. T h e same emphasis on frugal living is
discerned in N o m i’s fifteenth satire, w h ich , indebted again to classical
models (such as H orace’s satires 2.2 and 2.8, and Juvenal’s satire 5),
censured luxurious meals an d exotic ingredients im ported from abroad;
henoted disapprovingly that no o n e appreciated a sim ple portion o f meat
that looked like m eat unless it w as served in som e imaginative and
unidentifiable form. N o m i’s m ost bitter objurgations in satires five and
fourteen were directed against co rru p t law courts, where justice depended
on wealth. Nom i’s ninth, dram atic satire on traitors and simulators, who
concealed their true nature, ju st as prostitutes smeared their ugly faces with
cosmetics, was dedicated to his friend G . W . Leibniz. N o m i addressed all
his satires to the intellectual elite o f his age, thereby emphasizing that his
poetry reflected the tastes o f the Eu ro p ean intelligentsia. O n e o f the most
interesting pieces in N o m i’s satires is the tenth poem , which sketched the
honors of w ar trenches flooded w ith blood, bom bs destroying whole
towns and the reckless waste o f y o u n g soldiers’ lives.
The moral excellence o f the cou n tryside w as also conveyed as a counter-
otample to the wicked urban life b y Petrus Scholirius.65 H is satire 1.4 was
devoted to a longing for the quiet and peacefid life in his remote farm­
house, faraway from the treacherous inhabitants o f the city. T h e Croatian
Horace’, Dzono Rastic (Ju n ije Restie; Ju n iu s Restius, 17 5 5 -18 14 ), who
wrote twenty-five satires (in Carmina, 18 16 ), offered a more realistic image
of farm conditions.66 In his seventh satire he playfully wondered why,
despite his vast reading o f agricultural literature, the cabbages and turnips,
which in the ancient tradition sto o d for m oral purity, failed to grow, and
why his long-anticipated life o f virtuous farm ing was turning into a
nightmare. This acknow ledgem ent o f the capriciousness o f agricultural life
with uncertain harvests and bad w eather ironized the earlier satirical

Nomi 1703; ji (Sat. 3). Juv. 3.41. *’ Scholirius 168). “ Restius 1816:1-170.
l6z SARI R IV IS T O

idealization o f the rustic past, and functions, in fact, as a satirical comment

upon a trope o f satire itself.

Conclusion

Much neo-Latin satire is traditional in its them es an d com plaints, inherit­

ing from the classical and medieval Latin satirists a preoccupation with
greed, luxury and the corruption o f pow er, as w ell as a m arked interest in
the poetics o f satire and satirical freedom . P h ilosop h ical attitudes rooted in
classical material were combined w ith C h ristian ity, both thematically and
in allusive blends o f classical and Biblical m aterial; and w hile no themes
may be said to be entirely new, the religious uph eavals o f die Reformation
and Counter-Reformation prom pted particularly large quantities o f satiric
verse, and the social prominence o f doctors and lawyers made them,
alongside prominent clergymen, particular targets fo r satirical attack.

FU R T H E R R E A D IN G

A good overview of the history of neo-Latin satire is Ramos 20 0 2:157-229 ; shorter

summaries are offered by IJsewijn 1976 and IJsewijn and Sacré 1998: 67-7); most
recendy, see Marsh 2014b and De Smet 2015. Cían 1923 remains useful for both
medieval and humanist satire. The history o f neo-Latin satire in the Netherlands
has been traced by Toumoy 1998. Medical satires are discussed by Kivistö 2009.
Balde’s satires have been treated by Gassen 1976, Schäfer 1976, Stroh 2004 and
several contributors in the collections o f essays edited by Valentin 1986
and Freyburger and Lefèvre 2005; see also Kivistö 2014. Articles on individual
satirists include Roloff 2003 (on Naogeorg), Citroni. Marchetti 1976 (on
Nomi and Sergardi) and Pepin 1994 (English translation and introduction to
Sergardis satires).
 CHAPTER IO

Pastoral
E stelle H aan

Epitaphium Damonis, Jo h n M ilto n ’s neo-Latin pastoral lament on the

premature death o f his close friend, Charles Diodati,1 assumes an appro­
priate place as the culm inatory piece o f the Poemata in the bipartite Poems
ofMr John Milton, Both English and Latin (1645).* Its positioning is
significant in view o f the p oem ’s clim actic articulation o f a metamorphosis
that is both generic and linguistic. T h u s the envisaged apotheosis o f thè
deceased Damon (D iodati) is m irrored intratextually by the speaker’s
enunciation o f his literary plans for an epic,* b y the predicted transform­
ation of the pastoral pipe, the fistula, and b y the anticipation o f a Miltonic
code selection (vernacular over Latin ).4 C om posed in 1639 upon Milton’s
return to England after his Italian journey, the Epitaphium takes its
place alongside pastoral epicedia o f friends and poets. This tradition
finds its origins in the G reek poetry o f Theocritus, Bion and Moschus,5
and, not least, in V irgil’s im aginative reinvention whereby the pastoral
elegy became a polyvocal exploration o f contrasting perspectives on death.
Thus, in Eclogue 5, M op su s’ m ournful dirge on the exstinctum . . . Daphnin
(deceased Daphnis’, 20 ) is both countered and counterbalanced by
Menalcas’ very different vision o f the lamented subject: now candidus . . .
Daphnis (‘radiant D aphnis’ , 5 6 - 7 ) marvels at the threshold o f Olympus,
and beholds clouds and stars beneath his feet.6 Death yields to apotheosis
and to a celestial landscape that ultim ately transcends pastoral rusticity.

' OnCharles Diodati, sec Dorian 1950: 97-181, and The O xford D ictionary o fN ational Biography s.v.
1 On the 1645 volume, see among others Martz 1980: 31-59; Hale 1991; Moseley 1991; Revani 1997;
Haan u ri: 141-59.
1 Ep. Dem. 1(2-8. 4 E p. D am . 168-78.
I See among others Lamben 1976; Halperin 1983; Alpers 1996; Hubbard 1998; Paschalis 2007.
As noted by Coleman 1977: 166, Virgil's 'emphatic separation' o f candidat and Daphnit (56-7)
‘underlines the contrast with aatinctu m . . . D aphnin (21)’. On the apotheosis o f Daphnis, see among
othas Hardie 1998: 21-2; Hubbard 1998: 97-9; Anagnostou-Laoutidcs 2005:209-19; Karakasis 2011:
1&-81.

163
164 E S T EL LE HAAN

For Christian neo-Latin poets o f the Renaissance an d beyond, Virgilian

polyvocalism afforded the possibility for creative experim entation. On the
one hand, the grief and solitude o f the m ourner, his wanderings among
lonely mountains and his sense o f contem plative isolation gave birth to
what Piepho has aptly described as ‘ an erem etically based pastoral world’.7
On the other hand, Virgilian apotheosis becam e equatable w ith a Christian
vision o f a celestial afterlife that fused pastoral and biblical imagery. In
Renaissance Italy poets turned to neo-Latin pastoral as a means o f both
lamenting and celebrating deceased relatives, friends, poets and princes:
Francesco Petrarcas (Petrarch, 1 3 0 4 - 7 4 ) lam ent in Eclogue z on the death
of his patron, King Robert o f N aples; P on tan o ’s Melisaeus (on his wife);
Anisio’s Melisaeus (on Pontano); Castiglione’s Alcon (on M atteo Falcone);
Basilio Zanchi’s Damon (on Castiglione), to n am e b u t a few .8 Giovanni
Boccaccio invigorated the celestial landscape b y presenting it as mirroring,
yet surpassing, a pastoral world: the silva, ‘w o o d ’ , becam e an idealized locus
amoenus situated in Heaven itself; pastoral lam bs becam e the Lamb of
God; pastoral shepherds were reconfigured as an angelic crew, and the
shepherd’s song was ultimately transform ed into a heavenly hymn.9 In
many respects this was facilitated b y m edieval interpretations o f Virgil’s
Eclogues, especially the ‘ Messianic’ Eclogue 4 , w h e re b y the predicted birth
o f a child and the associated restoration o f the go lden age were read in
essentially Christian terms.10 In Renaissance E n g la n d too the experimental
reinterpretation o f the genre came to m anifest itse lf in a num ber o f ways.
Mantuan’s Adulescentia, itself central to the curricu lu m o f English schools,
epitomized how pastoral could operate on levels that w e n t far beyond the
pedagogical. A model o f Latinity understandable to m ost Renaissance
schoolboys could also function as a m oral an d religious to o l.'1 O n a more
sophisticated level neo-Latin pastoral epicedia cou ld serve to mourn and
commemorate recendy deceased poets and friends. T h e death o f Sir Philip
Sidney inspired neo-Latin pastoral laments b y T h o m a s W a tso n and William
Gager, among others,“ while the passing o f S ir Fran cis W alsingham was

7
Piepho 2006: 60.
I On Anilio’s Melisaeus, see Vecce 1998; on Castiglione’s A lcon, see Harrison 193;: on Zanchis
D am n, see Ryan 1981.
4 See Boccaccio, Bucolicum Carmen 14 (O lym pia), especially 170 -9 6 ; 200-26. As noted by Minnis
2016:177, Boccaccio seems to push the conventions o f Latin pastoral ‘to breaking point’. He does
so. however, with skilful creativity. See among others Finlayson 1983; Carlson 1987c; Chiecchi 1995;
Lumrrnu 2013.
to
See among others Mayor, Conway and Fowler 1907; Benko 1980; Clausen 1990; Van Sickle 1991;
Kallendotf 2015:49-58. See also Marsh 2014a: 430.
II
See Piepho 1993,1994, 2001; Haan 1998b. 11 See Baker-Smith 1986.
 P asto ra l 165

thesubject of Th o m as W a ts o n ’s Meliboeus. It is a tradition that is perhaps

most capably represented b y M ilt o n ’s Epitaphium itself.
The Epitaphiums im aginative reinvention o f Theocritean and Virgilian
pastoral has been illustrated b y C a m p b e ll, Knedlik, Hardie and M oul.15
Likewise, the poem has been analysed b y H ale in terms o f M ilton’s
language-choice, and b y H a a n in relation to his bilingual and bicultural
self-fashioning.14 B u t substantial discussion o f its situation within an
Iulianate neo-Latin pastoral tradition is notably lacking.15 Th is chapter
uses Milton's poem, and its intertextual dialogue w ith Petrarch’s Bucolicum
Qmm in particular, to explore som e key them es o f the genre as a whole:
die alluring attractions o f landscape versus the perennial püght o f individ­
ual solitude; pastoral displacem ênt an d the am bivalent status o f subsequent
wanderings; transgressions across an d beyon d the pastoral limen (threshold),
the shattering o f pastoral landscape; pastoral m em ory and commemoration;
apotheosis and the afterlife. It argues that at the heart o f the Epitaphium -
andof the poem’s engagem ent w ith the genre o f neo-Latin pastoral - lies a
Petrarchan self-fashioning, w h ich is achieved b y a sustained engagement
with Petrarchan eremitic pastoral (and its explication), and b y Milton’s
subde, though hitherto u n n o tice d , developm en t o f monastic themes con­
tained therein.

Pastoral Peregrinations and the W andering Scholar

Ina letter to the Florentine academ ician Benedetto Buonm attei (Florence,
31 August/ro September 16 38 ) M ilt o n announces that his literary interests,
hr from being confined to the classics, include illum Dantem et Petrarcham
¡bosque vestros complusculos (‘ th at D a n te o f yours and Petrarch, and several
others as well’) .'6 Prior to his Italian jo u rn ey he had undertaken a vast

’’ Campbell 19841 Knedlik 1984; Hardie 10 0 7 ; M oul 2006.

“ Hile 1997; 57-61; Haan i o n : 132-9.
1 Haniwn 1935 and Ryan 1981 suggest, in a rather limited way, links with Castiglione's A lc o n , and
Zinchi'] D a m o n respectively, while Revard 2012 examines, only in general terms, the poems
potential engagement with neo-Latin poetry. Studies o f the poetic influence o f one neo-Latin
wotk upon others are in general severely lacking. T h e strong Italian history o f the genre is
particularly significant given Diodati’s Anglo-ltalian heritage (see Dorian 1950: 3-22), mentioned
in the headnote to the poem, and the fact that M ilton was travelling through Italy at the time of
Diodan's death (see E p . D a m . 113-23).
* E p is t o liif a m ilia r e s 8, printed in M ilton 1674: 23. A ll quotations from Milton’s letters are from this
edition. I have modernized spelling and punctuation. All translations o f Latin, both here and
elsewhere, are mine. On Buonmattei, see Cinquemani 1998. O n Milton’s Latin lener to
Buonmattei, sec Haan 2 0 12 :10 4 -18 .
 l6¿ ESTELLE HAAN

reading programme in Italian literature an d h is to ry .'7 T h is w as doubdessly

intensified by his sojourns in Floren ce, R o m e , a n d N ap les, where he
attended academies, visited libraries, in sp e cted m an u scrip ts, purchased
books, and was the recipient o f literary gifts o f recen t publications by his
Italian academic hosts.'8 L au n an d Italian trib u tes c o m p o se d in his honour
present him as a quasi-Petrarchan poet laureate, w h o is first and foremost a
wandering scholar, immersed in read in g a n d in e ru d ite investigation.'9
Wandering, on both a literary and m etaph orical level, possessed a
multiplicity o f meanings for the Latin pastoral poet. In V irgil’s Eclogues,
for example, it can signal an aspiration to o b tain a m eans o f security or
salvation that lay beyond the confines o f th e pastoral w o rld ,“ or it might
indicate various types o f displacem ent an d con sequ en tial disorder.“ This
multiplicity is itself replicated and reinterpreted b y neo-Latin pastoral
poets. Thus for Petrarch the shepherd ro a m in g in solitude comes to
symbolize both the wandering scholar and a quasi-m on astic quest for
self-fulfilment. For Boccaccio ‘ the w anderer b e co m e s a dead man’,“ the
ghosdy Lycidas, describing, in Bucolicum Carmen io , the darkness o f a very
anti-pastoral Orcus, to which he has been d riv e n .13 F o r Mantuan the
wanderer is the object o f censure b y th e V ir g in M a r y herself, rebuked
for his peregrinations (Eel. 7 .9 3 —4 ), an d c o n d u c te d to a new pastoral
landscape, which looks towards the Ju d a e o -C h ristia n tradition that placed
the earthly paradise on a high m ountain .14 A n d in Sann azaro’ s transform­
ation o f pastoral landscape into a N e a p o lita n seascape, the wandering
shepherd becomes the fisherman, w h o se g r ie f causes h im to traverse the
waters o f the deep (Pise. 1 .7 2 - 3 ) , o r w h o se co n tem p la tio n o f foreign travel

p In a Inter to Charles Diodati (23 November 1637: on the dating, see Campbell 1997:57-8) he
proclaims: Italorum in obscura re diu versati sumus (‘I have for a long time been busying myselfin the
obscure affairs of the Italians', Epistolae fam iliares y , in M ilton 1674: 20).
* See Haan 1998a: passim; Di Cesare 1991: passim .
* Petardi was crowned poet laureate in Rome in 1341. For G iovanni Salzilli o f Rome Milton merits
coronation with a triple laurel o f poetry (that is, in Latin, Greek and Tuscan). Likewise the
Florentine Antonio Franarli vows to weave a crown o f stats (‘d i stelle intreccierò corona’, 2) in
his honour. Milton would prefix these (along with encomia by three other Italian academicians) 10
the 1645 Poemata. A Latin prose encomium by the Florentine Carlo Dati depicts Milton as a nom
Ulysses Ta modem Ulysses'), undertaking a metaphorical itinerary into scholarship itself. All
quotations are from Lewalski and Haan 20t4- Spelling and punctuation have been modernized.
“ Thus Tityrus in E d t.19-25 describes his visiting Rom e, and sings the praises o f that dty.
u See in particular E el 6: animals roaming the mountains (40), the wandering Pasiphae (52), the trads
o f the wandering bull (58), on which see among others Elder 19 6 1 :1 18 - 1 9 ; Leach 1974: 28-9; Segal
1981: 321.
“ Hubbard 1998: 2)8. 0 See Boccacdo, Bue. C a m . to. 7 6 -10 4 .
14 See Gianotti 1966:44-5; Duncan 1972: 79-80; Piepho 2006: 6 0 -4 .
 P a sto ra l 167

to the most extreme regions is m e t w ith a stark self-awareness: his sick

mind will follow him w h ere ver he roam s (Pise. 1.6 1-7 0 ).25
But it is perhaps in P etrarch ’s Bucolicum Carmen that the potential
dichotomy between w a n d e rin g a n d pastoral security is most vividly
conveyed. Here the allurem ents o f th e w o rld o f letters are set against the
junctions o f the pastoral lan d scap e, itse lf n o w equated w ith a monastic
lift.*6 Petrarch m oreover ju xta p o se s pastoral solitude and self-scrutiny in a
nunner describable as A u g u stin ia n , w h ile also striking a contrast between
the monastic and p o etic callin gs.17 T h e conceptual fram ework o f the
collection is thus ‘ firm ly ro o ted in a m edieval w o rldview ’,18 its method­
ology both Augustinian a n d m o n a stic. N o n eth eless the opening Eclogue
seems to call that w o rld v ie w into q u estion . T h e poem reconfigures in
allegorical terms a dialogue b e tw e en Petrarch (Silvius) and his brother
Gherardo (M onicus), w h o se m o n a stic w ith d raw al (in 1343) to an antrum
(the Charterhouse o f M o n trie u x ) ‘ heigh tened Petrarch’s internal tensions
and initiated a decade o f serious in n er debate about his ow n vocation’.19
As Carrai notes, ‘ the th em e o f m o n a sticism that dom inates the first eclogue
sets the tone for the rest o f th e v o lu m e ’ .50 T h e p o em ’ s allegory is meticu­
lously unravelled b y P etrarch in a L a tin letter to his brother (Ep. Fam. 1 0 . 4
[r. 1346]), a fraternal a n d essentially sch olarly ‘key’ , w h ich not only
emulates medieval exp lication s o f V ir g il’s pastoral allegory (by, for
cumple, Fulgentius a n d Silvestris), b u t also anticipates the rich tradition
of humanistic co m m en tary th at w o u ld c o m e to characterize the complex
literary reception o f his o w n Bucolicum Carmen (m ost notably represented
by Benvenuto R am b ald i o f Im o la ).51 P etrarch ’s p oem inverts the contrast
in Virgil, Eclogue 1 b etw ee n T it y r u s , a w an d erin g shepherd, and the
sedentary M eliboeus seclu d e d in pastoral otium?2 F o r n o w it is M on i-
cus/Tityrus/Gherardo w h o has fo u n d co n te n tm e n t in the tacit security
afforded by his m o n astic callin g, a n d w h o extends an invitation to the
wandering (yet w o n d erin g ) Silviu s/M elib o eu s/P etrarch to cross the

■' For neo-Latin pastoral in a piscatorial setting, see also the Scottish poet John Leech, one o f whose
fy llit is piscatorial, and Phineas Fletcher, Eclogue 3. See Piepho 1984; Smith 200 1; Haan 201$: 433.
' Set Berjjn 1974: xii.
17 See Zak 2010: 22 and Constable 1980. O n Petrarch's humanism and monastic spirituality see
Maretta 1993:102-28.
11 Cimi :009t 169. 19 W itt 2000: 2 jt. 10 Carrai 200 9 :16 9 .
Contrat Milton's Latin letter to C arlo D ati (E p. Fam . to, 30), which simply alludes to (without
erpliadng) the E pitaph iu m s allegorical representation o f Italian academic life. For medieval
explications o f Virgil as allegory, see BasweU 1995; W ilson-Okamura 2010; Skoie and Velizquez
200Í, On humanist commentary on Petrarch himself, see Avena 1906; Kennedy 2002.
“ See Lord 1982.
 i68 ESTELLE HAAN

threshold {.limen) o f conversion.33 B u t to no avail: fo r S ilviu s’ vocation « a

quest for literaryfama, which has led to the p ereg rin atio n s that characterize
his exile. Patterson observes the poem ’s ‘rew ritin g o f V ir g il’s first eclogue in
terms o f a choice between secular and spiritu al w ritin g ’ .34 Th is reaches
a climax in Silvius’ articulation o f his literary p lan s, n am ely the compos-
ition of an epic. The traditional aemulatio betw een co m p etin g shepherds
becomes a contest between a hum anistic vita activa an d the ascesis of
monastic contemplation.
Petrarch’s first Eclogue and the associated L a tin letter assume a hith­
erto unnoticed place within the rich intertextual tapestry o f M ilton’s neo-
Latin pastoral. Importandy, Petrarch h igh ligh ts no t o n ly the literary
wanderings o f Silvius {pererro (3), T w a n d e r a b o u t’ ; per deserta vagari
(9), ‘to roam through the wilderness’), but also th eir m otivation.35 Thus,
in response to Monicus’ question: quis te stimulus, que cura perurget
(‘what is the spur, what is the zeal that drives y o u o n ?’ , i n ) , he empha­
sizes ‘love o f the Muse’ {amor Muse, 112) as his d riv in g force.36 Pérégrin­
ation, the poet’s love o f the M use, and con sequ en tial dislocation are
inextricably interconnected. T h yrsis/M ilto n explicates the motivation for
his travels in similar terms: pastorem scilicet illum / dulcis amor Musae
Thusca retinebat in urbe (‘ indeed love o f the sw eet M u s e detained that
shepherd in a Tuscan city’, Ep. Dam. 1 2 - 1 3 ) . A n d for Petrarch and
Milton alike, wanderings, both literary and literal, serve to highlight
the exilic status o f the humanist scholar. P etrarch points out that the
deserta in which Silvius wanders sym bolize literary stu d y , and emphasizes
the contrast between Silvius’ vagus error (‘lab yrin th in e wandering’), and
Monicus’ certa sedes (‘fixed abode’).37 M ilt o n ’s T h y r s is , an isolated
mourner traversing solitary regions (8; 58), offers D a m o n (28-9) the
spes sepulchri (‘ hope o f a to m b ’) p ro n o u n ce d by Silvius,
fulfilment o f that
He too contrasts such certainties (haec tibi certa manent (‘ these [honours]
remain fixed for you’, 3 6 ) with his o w n un certain fu tu re: at mihi quid
tandemfiet modof (‘ but what, I ask, is to b eco m e o f m è ? \ 3 7 ). And later

n The cloister as pastoni enclosure was a well-established m otif in patristic sources. See Mazzoni
1993:15*.
H Pattenon 1987:47. *’ All quotations are from Bergin 1974.
* This is glossed in Petrarch’s lener as: cui respondet Silvius erroris causam esse amorem, et amorem met,
non alium (‘to whom Silvius replies that the reason fer his wandering is love, and love o f the Muse,
not of another'). All quotations from Petrarch’s Latin letters are from Rossi 1933-42.
r tibi enim iam certa sedes toque certior 'spes sepulcri'; m ichi autem adhuc vagus error et incerta omnia
f fer you already possess a fixed abode and a “hope o f a tomb” that is all the more assured on that
account; but for me there is sdii labyrinthine wandering and all types o f uncertainty’).
 P asto ral 169

lie asb: heu quis me ignotas traxit vagus error in oras (‘alas, what labyrin­
thine wandering drew m e to travel to u n k n o w n shores’ , 113).
Despite that sense o f d islo ca tio n , b o th S ilv iu s and Th yrsis convey the
benefits that accrue from literary vagaries, and in both instances the
pastoral landscape becom es an allego ry o f literary perform ance.’ 8 Silvius
has been travelling a m o n g fontes . . . sonantes (‘babbling springs’ , 10)
dossed as litterati et eloquentes homines (‘ erudite and eloquent men’),
and boasts that his sin g in g w a s a p p la u d e d b y a spring: ib i fons michi sepe
anenti / Plaudit (‘ there, as I fre q u e n tly sang, the spring applauded me’ ,
54-5) glossed as studiosorum chorus (‘ the b a n d o f scholars’). Thyrsis too
has assumed a not in sign ifican t p lace b y a river, the A rn o (12 9 -3 0 ). And
his attempted song (133) has lik e w ise m et w ith the applause o f literati.39
That applause, allegorized here as baskets, b o w ls and pastoral pipes
(135),30 constitutes in effect th o se ‘ w ritte n en co m iu m s’ , the testimonia
gifted to him by Italian a ca d em ician s, a n d later prefixed to the 1645
Pomata. In a headnote M ilt o n , p ro ffe rin g perhaps an authorial ‘key’ to
the allegory, glosses these o b je cts as the praise proclaim ed b y praeclaro
ingenio viri (‘ men o f o u tsta n d in g gen iu s’). B askets, o r the weaving o f
baskets as allegories fo r th e c o m p o sitio n o f p o etry, derives ultimately
fromVirgil (Eel. 1 0 . 7 0 - 1 ) , a n d is a c o m m o n feature o f neo-Latin pastoral,
found in such diverse pred ecessors o f M ilt o n as M an tu a n (Eel. 1.22) and
the Englishman T h o m a s W a ts o n (Amyntae Querula 4 .30 ).
Petrarch’s amor M use is a v o ca tio n a l c o m m itm e n t to complete an
epic (the Africa) already te n ta tiv e ly b e g u n (pavitans . . . cepi / Texere:
lentabo ingenium (‘ in a state o f fear . . . I began to weave [m y song]:
1will put my talent to the test’ , 1 2 1 - 2 ) o n S c ip io A frican u s the Elder.41
In Thynis’ case, h o w e v e r, te n ta tiv ity ( tentare , 133) is associated with
past, not future, literary p e rfo rm a n ce , a n d u ltim a te ly yields to a confi­
dent pronouncement o f a p ro je cte d e p ic envisaged as transcending
pastoral itself. T h e b u rstin g o f th e n e o -L a tin pastoral fistula (‘ pipe’ ,
156), unable to bear the graves . . . sonos (‘ deep tones’ , 159) o f epic, is*

* For nco-Urifl panoral as an allegory o f literary performance, see Marsh 2014a: 426.
' Míion alludes here to his performance o f neo-Latin verse in a Florentine Academy. For a hill
dimion see Haan 1998a: 10 -28 ; Haan 2012: 95-104.
* Onbaskets, and basket-weaving as a pastoral allegory o f verse-eomposition, see Virgil, E e l, 10.70-1,
onwhichsee among others Rosenberg 19 8 1:19 ; Hubbard 1998:158-9; Karakasis 2011:506-7. Cf. also
Mantuan, E d 1.22; Watson, A m y n ta e q u e r u la 4.30.
* C£ Petrarch. E p ú to la e m e tric a e 2.16 .20 -2 (in Petrarch 1829-54). In fact, Petrarch did not complete
theproject. His ‘trajectory from epic to eclogues' reverses that o f Virgil. See Kennedy 2002:149.
 17O ESTELLE HAAN

mirrored in the epicist himself, w h o , w h ile p erh ap s appearing turgidulus

('rather high-flown’ , 16 0 ), boldly a n n o u n ce s h is literary project: an
Arthuriad (162-8). A nd this is a fistula th a t m u st (an d will) cross the
limina o f language itself patriis mutata camoenis (‘ transform ed by native
muses’ , 170).41*

Pastoral and M onastic L im in ality

Although Thyrsis, like Silvius, does n o t cro ss th a t m onastic limen, the

Epitaphium (like Petrarch’ s Bucolicum Carmen) seem s to do so on
several occasions. Th is is achieved in a n u m b e r o f w a ys, not least by
wordplay on Diodati’s divinum nomen (‘d iv in e n a m e ’ , 2 10 ).45*47 In the
closing lines o f the Epitaphium the ‘d iv in e n a m e ’ (2 10 ) is one by which
the ‘heaven-dwellers’ (211) w ill k n o w D a m o n . In all o f this, Diodati, it
might be argued, is equatable w ith a certain Sanctus Deodatus (bom c.
590, Bishop o f Nevers and A b b o t o f S t Jo in tu re s ), details o f whose life
are preserved in a Vita com posed a ro u n d th e n in th o r tenth century by
a monk o f St Dié, and augm ented in th e e le v e n th ce n tu ry b y a certain
Valcandus, Abbot o f M ayen ne.44 M ilto n ’ s p o ssib le recourse to a hagjo-
graphical tradition is hardly in co n gruo us in a p o e m w h ic h he arranged
to have separately printed to send to his C a t h o lic erstwhile fellow-
academicians in Italy,45 one whose clim ax is facilitated b y its ecphrastic
allegory (181-97) o f books gifted to M ilt o n b y th e staun ch ly Catholic
Manso,4Ä who had jokingly con jectured th at, w e re it no t for his reli­
gion, Milton the Protestant Anglos co u ld be a C a t h o lic Angelus.*7 In the
Epitaphium perhaps he can. In this respect th e p o e m functions as an
important case study o f the im aginative fu sio n o f th e pastoral and the
monastic facilitated by Petrarchan p reced en t. M o r e o v e r, as suggested
below, Miltonic inventiveness results in w h a t m ig h t be described as a
neo-Latin pastoral hagiography.

41 See Haan 2012:135—9; Fhde 199T- s6 -6 i.

44 The etymological signification o f the name D iodati had been highlighted in a neo-Latin epigram
U¿5) by John Owen addressed to Charles' father, Theodore Diodari. See Martyn 1978: ii, 83
44 See Vila Sancii Deodati Volcondi M ediant in Patrologia Latin a (M igne 1841—55): 151: 605—34.
hereafter abbreviated to P L For a fuller discussion o f M ilton’s appropriation o f the Vita and of
his potentially Catholic self-fashioning in the Latin poetry associated with his Italian journey, sec
Haan 2017.
44 See Bradner 1932; Fletcher 1962; Haan 2012: 55-6.
44 On the identification o f the pocula ... bina (181-3) as M an so s Poesie Nem iche (1635) and ErocÆt
(1628) respectively, see De Filippis 1936.
47 See Haan 1998a: 130-6; Haan 2017.
 Pastoral 171

The Vita presents D e o d a tu s as ‘ pro ceedin g from virtue to vinue’

[it virtute in virtutem . . . eundo),** a h o ly m an , w hose appointment as
Bishop o f Nevers is a d ivin e rew ard fo r his ‘ givin g o f him self to G o d ’ in
(a Deo [cui se dederat] iuxta
accordance with the sign ification o f his nam e
nominis sui exemplar donatus est pontificia Nivemis, ‘b y G o d [to w hom he
had given himself] in acco rd a n ce w ith th e m o d el afforded b y his ow n name
he was presented w ith th e b ish o p ric o f N e v e rs’ ).49 T h a t progression
(tom virtue to virtue is iron ically in verted in the anguished question posed
in Epitaphium 2 1 - 2 as to w h e re D a m o n ’ s/D io d a ti’s ‘virtue will go’ .50
Deodatus' founding o f the m o n a ste ry o f Jo in tu res was the consequence
ofhis resolve to live a life o f so litude. It is here that he befriended the monk
Hidulphus, Both w ere n eigh b o u rs in the desert (in eremo [ut optaverant]
liciiti facti (‘in the desert th e y h ad b e co m e neighbours [as they had
wished]’), and w o u ld visit each o th er’s m onasteries,51 staying awake
throughout the night in deep co n ve rsa tio n .52 C on versation is central to
Epitaphium, a friendship
the Milton/Diodati frien dsh ip as d e p icted in the
(eiusdem viciniae pastores, ‘ shepherds o f the same
contracted by neighbours
neighbourhood’; Argumentum). N o w , h o w ever, T h y rsis can only wonder
who will teach him to begu ile th e n ig h t’s length (4 6 ) w ith sweet conversa­
tion (47). And his con sequ ential so litu d e (58) an d traversal o f lonely places
(8; 58) seem quasi-erem itic in essence. E ven tu a lly, in his latter years
Deodatus left his a b b e y at S t Jo in tu re s a n d retired to another monastery,
«here he became m o rtally ill. T h e Vita describes h o w H idulphus was
warned in a divine vision to h asten to his frien d’s bedside, to confer on him
the last rites, to close his eyes in d eath , a n d to see to his funeral.53 Thyrsis,
by contrast, far from receivin g a d iv in e d ream -visio n , has been indulging in
idle daydreams about the p astoral activities o f his already deceased friend
(143-6). Hidulphus fo u n d D e o d a tu s adhuc vivum (‘ still alive’), w h o in turn

* PL ifu 611. 49 PL i j i : 6 tz.

“ tunc tint rum ine v irtu / ib it, et obscuris num ero sociabitu r um bris* (‘is this how your vinue will pass
m y without a name and be united to the com pany o f the unknown shades?', 21-2). Cf. nom quo
tu tendido virtus! Cfor to where w ould you r innocent virtue go?', 200).
' PL 151; ¿2+
8 PL ist: 624: quibus. . . m axim a iu cu n ditas esses sim u l sem per conversari . . . e t [noettm ] insomnes totam
in senetis colloquiis ct d ivin is lau dibu s solebam expendere (‘whose greatest delight it was to be forever
engaged in conversation . . . and they were accustomed to spend the whole night without sleep in
holy conversations and divine praises’).
1 Sec PL 151: 627, especially: os et oculos, m anus es p e d a eiu s rite cam pem ent, fim u s eius, debita
m eretim e procuratum , deduceret, atque in sepulcro cautissim e collocara (‘that he should duly tend
tohis hoe and eyes, his hands and his feet, arrange and conduct his fonerai with due veneration, and
place him with the greatest care in a tomb*).
 172 E ST EL LE HAAN

rejoiced in God for revealing his im m inent death to his friend, and
deigning that he should see to his lim erai.54 W h ile H id ulph u s was present
at Deodatus’ bedside to bid his final forewell, to h old his hand, to close his
eyes in death, and to beg him to rem em ber h im , T h y rsis was significantly
absent, thereby foiling on precisely all lo u r cou n ts:

Ah cette extremum licuisset tangere dextram,

et bene compositos placide morientis ocellos,
et dixisse, ‘Vale! nostri memor ibis ad astra’ .
(121-3)
Ah, at least if I could have been permitted to touch your right hand for the last
time and gently dose your eyes as you peacefully died, and could have said
'farewell: remember me as p u journey to the stars’.

Here Milton artfully blends details from the Vita w ith elements o f neo-Latin
pastoral elegy, perhaps especially C asdglione’s Alcon 8 3 - 6 , in which ledas
grieves at the anger o f the gods which dragged him aw ay from Mantua,
thereby preventing him from ‘dosing’ the ‘d y in g eyes’ o f his friend, arid
from catching his last breath in a kiss.55
The Vita also records D eodarus’ final request that Hidulphus look
after his flock.56 This he w ould indeed fulfil, p u b lic ly praying over his
dear friend’s body as it was com m itted to th e e a rth .57 B u t Thyrsis can
only profess his neglect o f his oves (6 6 —7 ) fo rcefu lly signalled in the
poem’s pulsating refrain: ite domum impasti, domino iam non vacat, apti
(‘Go home unfed, lambs, your m aster has n o tim e fo r y o u now’). The
stark necdum aderat Tbyrsis (‘and T h y rsis w as n o t y e t present’ , 12) is the
antithesis o f Hidulphus’ privileged presence. U n a b le to see to the burial
(EcL 1. 1 9 - 2 5 ) , has been
o f his friend, Milton, like the V irgilian T ity ru s
visiting Rome. His poignant question Ecquid erat tanti Romam vidisse
sepultam' (W as it worth so m uch to h ave seen bu ried Rome?’, Ep.
Dam. u j) echoes Meliboeus’ question p o sed to T it y r u s at Eel. 1.26: B
quae tantajuit Romam tibi causa videndi? (‘A n d w h a t w a s the reason so
great for your seeing Rome?’), o n ly to a d d th e pejorative sepultam
(‘buried’), and to apply the w hole to his o w n self-scru tin y. His sight­
seeing has taken place am ong the ruins o f a now ' buried d ty, an
antiquated metropolitan substitute for the h u m a n burial which he
missed.

M PLip ; in. " See Harrison 193$: 481-2. PL i j c 6 17 . n PL i$i: 628.

** Cf. Castiglione. A im 123, in whkh Iolas describes the beauties o f Rom e as ¿n tiqu a s. . . ru m
f andan rains’).
 P astoral
m

Silva Fractal Shattered Pastoral

For Thyrcis/Milton a p ro fo u n d sense o f loss an d solitude seems to prevail.

This is symbolized b y the silva . . .fracta (‘shattered w ood') to which he has
«turned, a wood to m apart b y a tw iligh t storm intensified b y tain and a
howling East w ind:

Hie serum expecto, supra caput imber et Eurus

Triste sonant, fractaeque agitata crepuscula silvae.
(6o-r)

Here I await evening; overhead is the grim sound o f showers and the East wind,
ad the disturbed twilight o f a shattered wood.

Once again, this a s p e a o f M ilt o n ’ s p o e m responds to and Summarizes not

only the Virgilian, bu t also the n e o -L a tin , pastoral tradition. T h e potential
destruction o f pastoral lan dscape features p to m iA en d v in Virgil’s Eclogues.
.Among the m any causes are co n ta gio n (Ed. 1 .4 9 - 5 0 ) , dispossession by
1 foreign invader (EcL 1 . 7 0 - 2 ; 9 .2 -4 ) , w eeds (EcL 5 .3 6 -9 ) and drought.w
Fot the neô-Ladn pastoral p o et th e shattered landscape cam e to symbolize
1 myriad o f con tem porary (o r near contem porary) disorders: a d ry
{Naples) (alien to a foreign co n q u e ro r, as in B o cc a c d o , Bucolicum Carmen
5: Silvi cadens ( T h e F a llin g Forest* *) 60 o r the devastating effects o f a
.demie eruption, as in San n azaro , Piscatoria- 4 .61 F o r Petrarch, as for
Milton, it epitomizes an absen t, d estro yed w o rld to w hich the wandering
scholar returns. In both instan ces, su ccu m b in g to the allurements o f
scholarship comes not w ith o u t c o s e Petrarch’ s m etaphorical journey into
ostentatious erudition, his literary' peregrinations am on g unknown shores,
occur to the detriment o f a forsaken laurel tree, broken and uprooted by a
storm- its leaves scattered in a silva n o w shattered. M ore specifically, the
aha broken by the E u ru s is central to Petrarch’s tenth Bucolicum Carmen,
ix Laurea Occidens. H ere Petrarch as Silvanus describes to Socrates (Ludwig­
en Kempen) his dislocation fro m Florence,61 and his quasi-Odyssean

* Set Ed. 7.57-8.

** SeeBoccaccio, Bocviscum Carmen 5. 77-U9, especially Deiofse fen u s. pande cecidere cupnssus
ftbeodetrees have collapsed, the mighty cypresses have fallen*. 78) and Stive deem nostrum perm
^ fòt wood. our source of glory, has perished’, 07).
SeeSeminio, Pise. 4.77-8: out ut terrifia sonitus ignemque Vesevi / « deoittespossimdefierem «fis
for howbe [Proteus] wept over the sounds and the fire of terrifying Vesuvius, and towns King
¿sobs in every region*). On Sannazaro and the pastoral traditioo. see Kennedy 198): Hubbaid
a * 07'
m a oessUnu t i A m o f transponed from the Tuscan A m o’ , 14). All quotations are horn MarteBotn
 174 ESTEL LE HAAN

wandering? among some one hundred and tw en ty ancient writers:6’ his

journey to Latium (44), his crossing o f the limina Romae (‘ thresholds of
Rome’, m ) , and his itinerary amid an Etrurian landscape (327). Silvanus’
renunciation o f all temporal concerns results in a ‘state o f suspended
ambivalence’,64 which, however, enhances his poetic potential for self-
reflection. But once again this com es at a cost: he has had to abandon a
laurel tree, to which he had become devoted. A s the poem nears its
condusion he describes how during an absence m otivated by a desire to
behold ‘andern woods’ (forte aberam, silvasque ieram spectare vetustas (‘by
chance 1 was absent, and had gone to look at ancient w o o ds’, 380) his laurel
was uprooted by the plague-bearing East and So u th winds, its branches
destroyed, its foliage dissipated.

pestifer hinc eurus, hinc hum idus irruit auster;

ac, stratis late arboribus, mea gaudia laurum
extirpant ftanguntque truces, terreque cavernis
brachia ramorum, frondesque tulere comantes.
(381-4)
On one side the plague-bearing East wind; on the other, the humid South wind
unleashes its attack, and laying low trees all about, they uproot the laurel, my joy,
and fiercely smash it, and they bury the branches and leafy foliage in the caverns
of the earth.

Silvanus/Petrarch as an exiled M eliboeus has h ad to p ay a price fiar his

literary and archaeological antiquarianism.65 T h e laurel tree punningly yet
poignantly symbolizes Laura, whose death fro m p lagu e in A pril 1348 (here
allegorized as a storm and more specifically as the E u ru s and Auster) had
occurred while Petrarch was travelling th ro u gh Italy.66 If, as Gordon
Campbell suggests, Diodati died as a con sequence o f plague (his family
buried three o f its members in m id -16 38 ),67 the potentially Petrarchan
subtext o f the Epitaphium m ay assume additional significance.6® Has not*

** Bogin 1974: xii and Patterson 1987: 49. ®4 Kennedy 20 0 2:15 0 .

* Patterson 1987:43 (on Petrarch's notes in his manuscript o f Virgil) notes the ‘crucial translatio to his
own circumstances of the opening lines o f Virgil's first eclogue'.
“ Cf. also Petrarch, Bucolicum Com en a , a lament ibr Laura (as Galatea). The allegory of plagueas
stormpervades Petrarch, Bucolicum Carm en 9. Cf. also E p. M et. 1.14.20-2. On the role of the laud
in Petrarch's self-fashioning in his Italian poetry, see Gensini 1980; Freccero 1986. On the
symbolism of the uprooting of a tree, cf. Sannazaro, A rcadia 12, in which the destruction of an |
orange tree and the subsequent scattering of its leaves and fruit are symbolic of the fate of the house
of Aragon. I
47 Oxford Dictionary o fN ational Biography s.v. Diodati, Charles. I
61 in England stark precedent for the incorporation of human plague into neo-Latin pastoral was ^
afforded by William Hawkins' Pesttfugium (1630).
 P a sto ra l I75
Milton too lost his Laura?69 It is iron ic too that G herardo’s survival from
the plague and his spiritual resilience in the face o f such a calamity were
explicitly praised b y P etrarch in Ep. Fam. 16 .2 . W h e n warned b y his
superior that if he rem ained in h is m o n astery he m igh t lack a sepulchrum,
Gherardo responded that th at w a s th e last o f his worries. Petrarch lauds his
brother as one am on g h o ly m e n w h o se bona valetudo animi (‘ sound mental
health’) has served to p ro tect his valetudo corporis (‘bodily health’). N o t so
lor Laura or indeed fo r C h a rle s D io d a ti.

Tuscus tu quoque*. C o m m e m o r a t i o n a n d P a sto ra l C ry p to g r a m

Silvanus' literary itinerary a n d its tragic afterm ath lead to a heightened

sense of dislocation (H ei m ichi! Quo nunc fessus eam? (‘W o e is me! W here
amI now to go, exhausted as I a m ?’ , 38 5)) as he w onders where will he now
find a locus amoenus in w h ic h to sin g n e w poetry (385—6). O f particular
note is his ensuing co m m e n t: Illic notus eram; quo nunc vagus orbe requirar?
(There I was know n; n o w , as I w a n d e r, in w h a t part o f the world will I be
needed?’, 387), follow ed b y th e iro n ic question posed to Socrates: An
ignotasfugies moriturus in oras? (‘o r w ill y o u flee to unknow n shores only
to die?’, 392). T h e Epitaphium is likew ise con cerned w ith things known
and unknown, nam ed a n d u n n a m e d . T h u s the sine nomine virtus (‘ name­
lessvirtue’, 21) o f a D io d a ti in itia lly en visaged as bereft o f celestial reward is
countered by the a cclaim ed nomina (‘ nam es’ ) o f M ilto n (and perhaps
Diodati too) that the Flo re n tin e C a r lo D a ri and A n to n io Francini have
taught their beech trees (13 6 ) .70 A s i f in response to Silvanus’ question,
Thyisis/Milton has indeed travelled to u n k n o w n shores {ignotas . . . i n oras,
113); his proposed recourse to th e vern acu lar henceforth m ay perhaps
render him ignotus (‘ u n k n o w n ’ , 17 3 ) a n d inglorius (‘w ith o u t glory’, 174)
as though plunged in to a lin gu istic o b sc u rity m atch in g the obscurae . . .
umbrae (‘unknown sh ades’ , 2 2 ) in to w h ic h D a m o n is initially imagined
to descend.*

** For a useful, albeit exaggerated, reading o f the potential homoeroticism o f the Milton/Diodati
tdanonship, see Shawcross 19 7 ;. D iodati, addressee o f his fourth and quintessential^ Petrarchan
Italian sonnet, may be more dosely linked to M ilton’s Italian sonnet sequence than previously
thought. Shaw and Giam ani 1970: 373 describe M ilton’s ’mastery o f the language’ as ‘amazing’. On
the Italian sonnets see Sm art 19 2 1; Baldi 1966; Shawcross 1967. Campbell and Corns 2008: 49 note
that Diodati was pan o f London's small Protestant Italian community in Chcapside. It is not
Impossible that M ilton’s Italian sonnet sequence and his increased profidency in the Italian
v language are linked to that com m unity and to Diodati in particular.
" Sie Haan 2 0 12 :10 3 ,13 2 -4 .
176 ESTELLE HAAN

Petrarch as Silvanus encounters a series o f n o w lost authors. As

Godman notes, ‘his theme is forgetfulness’ .71* T h e y are forgotten because
their work has not survived. T h e theme o f the forgotten song is perhaps
most notably represented by Virgil’s ninth Eclogue: in M oeris’ admission:
numeros memini, si verba tenerem (‘ I rem em ber the rhythm s; if only 1 had
hold of the words’, 45), and especially in his later confession: nunc oblita
mihi tot carmina (‘now I have forgotten so m an y songs’, 53).71 The whole
results in a pastoral exchange which constitutes, in the words o f Breed
‘deracinated fragments. Incompleteness is everyw here.’73 Incompleteness
is also the case in Silvanus’ list o f forgotten authors. Som e are named;
others are alluded to only enigmatically via a cryptogram m atic method­
ology which inspired both Poliziano’s criticism (in the Nutricia) and
Boccaccio’s imitation.74 As Patterson notes, ‘th e reader [is] required to
make informed guesses about what else [is] being said’ .75 A similar point
could be made about the Epitaphium, w h ich nam es D ati, Francini (137)
and Manso (181-2) while also incorporating possible allusions to uniden­
tifiable Italian literati and/or academicians (hie Charts atque Lepos (‘hete
were Grace and Charm’, 127); Lycidae certantem . . . Menalcam (‘Menalcas
competing with Lycidas’ , 132), and potential cryptogram s among those
‘few emblematic little verses’ (in all likelihood lines 12 5 -3 8 ) mentioned
but not explained by Milton in his Latin letter to D a ti.76
Promises of memorialization are a traditional pastoral means o f ensur­
ing that the deceased will not be ignotus. T h e them e finds classical
precedent in Virgil, Eel. 5.65-80: M enalcas’ pledge to honour the dead
Daphnis. Castiglione’s Alcon provides an interesting neo-Latin parallel,
although there are important differences between that poem and Milton’s
Epitaphium. In the Alcon the speaker’s promise to build a monument for
his deceased poet and friend occurs at the end o f the poem (139-54) u
the ultimate consolation for his grief. In M ilto n , how ever, this becomes
the very first attempt at consolatio, one w h ich in itself proves ineffectual,
and which will in turn be both echoed in, and displaced by, the subse­
quent progression o f the poem to its ecstatic culm ination in resurrection

71 Godman 1998; 73. 71 On forgotten pastoral songs, see Hardy 1990! Breed 200 6:1-14.
71 Breed 2006:18.
'* Gram 19651: 86 describes Petrarch's Bucolicum Carm en as ‘mystifyingly allegorical and cryptic
pastorals of symbolism'. See also Marsh 2014a: 428. O n the N u tricia sec Godman 1998: 72-4; on
Boccacio sec Grant 1965a: 86-110.
’ Patterson 1987:44.
On the use of Greek shepherd names 'as m ask for contemporary figures’, see Marsh 2014a: 427.
 Pastoral 177

modis. Here, as elsew here M ilto n ’s p o em w orks b y absorbing and outdo­

ing not only Virgil, b u t also h is o w n n eo -L atin pastoral precursors. The
important pastoral p ro m ise m ad e b y M ilto n as T hyrsis (28-34) is thus
essentially proleptic: D am on w ill n o t m o u ld er un w ep t; rather, his honour
svili endure and flourish am o n g sh ep h erd s. H e w ill assum e an appropriate
pbee among the Italian lite rati w h o w ill n o t be forgotten (vestri nunquam
bm'misse pigebit / pastores Tusci (‘I sh all never grow tired o f your
memoiy, Tuscan shepherds’, 125-6) sin ce Tuscus tu quoque Damon
(you too Damon w ere T u sc a n ’, 127). T h e phraseology anticipates his
linai abode among the h eaven -d w ellers: tu quoque in his certe es (‘you too
ate certainly among these’, 199), a celestial shepherd laureate, his head
girlanded with a sh in in g cro w n (215-16). Identifiable am ong Petrarch’s
long catalogue of lost au th o rs is a certain T u scu s, poet an d contemporary
of Ovid, periphrastically d escrib ed as P h illid a q u i querulam [canit] (‘who
¡sings] of the lam enting P h y llis’, 2 6 4 ). T h e allusio n is to O vid, Ex Pont.
4.16.20: quique sua nomen P h yllida Tuscus h a b etP H o llis glosses nomen...
hiiet in two senses: ‘has w o n g lo ry ’; ‘h as taken his pseudonym ’, adding
that Tuscus ‘was pro b ab ly th e p o et’s real n am e’.7® T h e context is the
posthumous com m em oration o f O v id h im se lf b y th e power o ffam a and
of memory.79 W o rth y o f co m p ariso n is P oliziano, Silvae 4.535—7, in
which he refers to those co n tem p o raries o f O vid m em orialized by him
in the Ex Ponto', nequa laboranti incum bant oblivia fam ae (‘so that
oblivion should not oppress th e ir stru g g lin g fam e’, 536). In the same
«ap, the Epitaphium attem p ts to co m m em o rate a T uscus and his writings
as if in defiant response to th a t p o ig n an t questio n : tua sic sine nonane
ivtusi ibit, et obscuris numero sociabitur um bris? (‘ is this how your virtue
will pass away w itho ut a n am e an d b e u n ited to the com pany o f the
unknown shades?’, 21-2).
Karen Edwards has co n v in cin g ly arg u e d th a t th e M ilton/D iodari firiend-
ihip may have been ‘resu rrected ’ m an y years later in the Raphael as
phoenix simile in Paradise Lost 5 .2 7 0 -8 7 an d in th e en suin g conversation
I between Raphael and A d am .80' T h e Epitaphium m ay work in a not
dissimilar way. As ‘the last o f th e ep istles to D io d ati’8' this poetic epistola
fmilkris responds to a n d u ltim a te ly enshrines the ‘exuberant

’ SwMmdlore 1968:74. 71 Hollis 1007: 428.

' Q E f , torn. 4.16.3-4. See in general Hardie 2012a.
* ClE f. D m 187-9 and Edwards 2004:129.
Voodhouse 1951: 265. On the Milton/Diodati correspondence and their associated ‘textual
adauge', tee Brown 2013.
178 ESTELLE HAAN

pastoralism’81 of Diodati’s two extant G reek letters to Milton.®3 There he

repeatedly invites his addressee to partake in a locus amoenus. That Dio-
datean invitation returns to haunt T h yrsis in a rath er macabre way. Fot
now it is a neo-Latin pastoral voice from b eyo n d the grave, echoed by
Tityrus, Alphesiboeus, Aegon, Am yntas, w h o in d iv id u ally call (vocat, 69)
him to hazel trees, ashes, willows, and stream s respectively (69-70), while
collectively they oiler a quasi-Virgilian response (7 1 -2 , com pare Virgil, Ed
10.42-}) to Diodati's quasi-Theocritean Greek.®4 A n d, as if to confirm the
living Diodati’s express fears, ista canunt surdo (‘th ey are singing those
songs to the deaf, 73).®5 Both letters contain in vitatio n s to laughter.86 But
in the Epitaphium, risus (‘laughter’, 55) is b ut a m em o ry, an d it belongs not
to Milton but to Diodati him self (55-6). M o reo ver the Diodatean rebuke
that Milton should rejoice in his youthfulness is now voiced by pastoral
nymphs (83-6). Thyrsis highlights D am on’s ‘C ecro p ian w it’ (Cecropiosque
sales, 56) and ‘elegant charms’ (cultosque lepores, 56). T h e juxtaposition may
evoke Martial, Epig. 3.20.9: lepore tinctos Attico sales (‘w it tinged with Attic
charm’) and 4.23.6: Cecropio. . . lepore (‘C ecropian ch arm ’), both of which
occur in the context of a discussion o f the G reek ep igram . T he Miltonk
phrase may thus acknowledge not just D io dati’s A ttic, b u t also his epi­
grammatic wit, demonstrated perhaps in th e letters’ concluding epigram­
matic rum, and their recourse to proverbial u tteran ces an d wordplay. The
final word of the Epitaphium (thyrso) plays u p o n T h yrsis, the first word of
the poem's Argumentum. In a quasi-ep igram m atic tu rn a transformed
Thyrsis, punningly equated w ith the thúrsus, th e w an d o f the revelling
Bacchantes,®7 takes his place alongside D am on am id the festa . . . Orgia
(‘festive orgies’, 219) of Heaven itself.
On earth another transformation has already been effected. Although these
remarks have focused on M ilton’s synthesis o f th e Italian neo-Latin pastoral
tradition, it is worth noting that he responds also to English neo-Latinity.
As plans for an epic are enunciated, the pastoral landscape is infiltrated by an
Anglicized antiquarianism, and by topographical item ization reminiscent of
William Camden’s Britannia (1586; translation b y P hilem on Holland 1610;

Campbell 1984; 165.

1 See French 196«: 98-9; 104-5. The manuscripts are preserved in the British Library at BM Add
MS. $016’ , £ ; and 71.
** The proper names are all found in Virgil. Aegon and Amyntas also appear in Theocritus.
K Contrast Vug. E d . taí: non a a ttm ti n in th fit is not to the deaf that we sing’).
French ipéí: 99 and 105. 11 On the possible pun in Virgil, see Coleman 1977; 10 7 (on E d 7j ).
 P a sto ra l
'79
jéjy). Hence Rutupinaper aequora ( o v e r the Rutupian seas’ , 162);88 Am orim
grimummb lege colonos (‘A rm o rica n settlers under British law’ , 165),89 Usa,
(Ouse’, 175);90 potor A lam i (‘ he w h o drinks from the Alne’ , 175)91 and
%¡numi (‘Tamar’ , I78 ).9* B u t T h y rsis professes a contented acknowledge­
ment of the geographical lim itations o f his readership. Diodati’s only pub­
lished poem (in Latin) appeared in an O xfo rd collecdon o f epicedia on
Camden's death, the Camdeni Insignia (16 24 ). H ere he extols the deceased
for illuminating his native land, p ro m isin g him eternal fame dumqtte erit
/ ab omnibus divisa terris (‘fo r as lo n g as England is separated from all
bids', 18-19),93 itself a rew orking o f the V irgilian etpenitus toto divisos ab orbe
griWMSfand the Britons utterly divid ed from the whole world’ , Eel. 1.6 6 ).
Indeeda recurring leitm otif o f that vo lu m e is praise o f C am d en ’s contentment
witha seemingly insular and essentially British subject. M ilton ’s topograph­
ical antiquarianism, his projected Arthuriad, his acknowledgement o f geo­
graphical insularity are all aligned w ith his o w n poetic Britannia - a British
rheme (Brittonicum, 17 1) to b e so u n d ed o n a transformed fistula. As his
Syhwvm liber reaches its en d M ilto n , like Petrarch’s Silvius and Silvanus,
aspires to undertake an epic itinerary. In so d o in g he m ust m ove beyond the
neo-Latin pastoral silva ‘ to fresh W o o d s an d Pastures new ’ (Lycidas, 193).94

F U R T H E R R E A D IN G

Fora broad introduction to neo-Latin pastoral, see the six articles by Grant 1955,
1956.1957a, 1957b, 1961a, 1961b and his book-length descriptive survey o f the
spire 1965; see also McFarlane 19 6 7 ; Marsh 2014a; Haan 2015 and (on neo-Latin
theoi)' of the pastoral) Nichols 1969. (O n pastoral theory in general, see Empson
1995; Congleton 1952; Cooper 19 77). Ford and Taylor 2006 contains a very useful
collection of essays on neo-Latin pastoral. See also Paschalis 2007 for some
edlent chapters on the reception o f Theocritus and Virgil in neo-Latin
ISannazaro; Milton) and vernacular poetry. M ore generally, on classical pastoral
and its European reception see, among others, Poggioli 1975; Lambert 1976;
Halperin 1983; Patterson 1987; Chaudhuri 1989; Alpers 1996; Hubbard 1998;
Skoie and Velázquez 2006 and W ilson-O kam ura 2010.

" h u fu e was identified by Camden with Richborough in Kent. C f. Camden 1610: 340-1.
Cunden tito: iti (in a section headed 'Britons o f Armorica'), quotes at length from William o f
Malmcsbuiy's testimony that Constantine (bunded a colony o f veteran British solders on the west
coat of Gaul.
* Cf. Camden 1610; 367: 'Isis, commonly called O use’ .
' Cunden 1610: J59, 813, notes that A taunus is the Latin name o f both the Alne in Northumbetiand
ud the Avon in Hampshire.
' Cunden tito: 196, discusses the T am ar (a river that flows between Cornwall and Devon).
1 Townley 1614: ¿4 '.
For the motif o f the transcendence o f pastoral in the neo-Latin eclogue, see Chaudhuri 1006.
 V

CHAPTER I I

Didactic Poetry
Victoria M oul

Renaissance poets, readers and critics took the didactic q u ality o f all litera­
ture seriously, in a way that even the most enthusiastic m odem reader is
likely to find alien. Almost every' discussion o f the purpose o f literature from
this period incorporates a version o f the H oratiän tag encouraging the
would-be poet to blend ‘what is useful and w h at is sw eet, both delighting
and instructing the reader’ (Ars poetica, 343-4; see also 333-4). This ubiqui­
tous trope of combined ‘profit and pleasure' is intensified b y the educational
associations of Latin verse: Latin poetry was central to Renaissance education
and readers and writers o f neo-Latin took the p articular educational import­
ance and potential of Latin poetry for granted.1 So strong is the association
between education and the inculcation o f Latin style chat Abraham Cowley
(1618— 67), worrying about the lack o f (what w e w o uld call) scientific content
in die schools of his day, imagined a curriculum based on Latin texts which
combined scientific authority with stylistic excellence.2
Cowley’s own magnum opus, Plantarum lib ri sex (‘T h e Six Books of
Plants’) is precisely a combination o f Latin poetic forms and scientific
seriousness. An extraordinarily varied work, its range o f ‘instruction’ com­
prises almost the filli range o f possible Latin verse forms (epigram, elegy,
odes and two books of increasingly epic hexam eter), political and historical
interpretation (induding a prophecy o f the decline o f Europe and rise of
America), considerable botanical detail and several scientific debates, indud­
ing on the legitimacy of abortion and tbe m ystery o f fem ale menstruation.3
Cowley’s poem is a serious attempt to convey the interest an d imponan ce of
natural history and medicine; it is also a serious attem p t to set out a
classically derived poetics of those subjects. T his rem arkable an d rewarding

1 On the tole oflain poetry io Renaissance education, sec Chapter } in this volume, and Mick 1014.
1 Cowfcjr i66t *5-6.
" On Cowfey't Latin see Bodner 1540:118-12; Hirntun i9 6 0:217-9 6; Ludwig 1989a; Hofmann 1994;
Monica! 1005 and iato; Moul 10a. 2012 and 2013.

180
 Didactic Poetry i8i

t<(k is'didactic in the fullest possible early m odem sense: that is, in a much
Jtr-ranging, more socially, politically and poetically central w ay than is
Bailly meant by the som etim es deadening phrase ‘ Latin didactic poetiy’.
Oisidsts use the term ‘ Latin didactic’ to describe, principally, Lucretius’
ry nrum natum (‘O n the N a tu re o f T h in g s’ ) on Epicurean philosophy,
dieGorgia o f Virgil (ostensibly o n farm ing, including the care and cultiva­
ron of crops, trees, livestock an d bees), the Astronomica (‘Astronomical
Matters') of Manilius and, as an ironic take upon the form, O vid’s An
&tmi (The Art o f Love’ ), Remedia amoris (‘ C ures for Love’) and Med-
faciei femineae ( T h e Facial C osm etics o f W o m e n 1). Horace’s An
xait (The Art o f Poetry’) is som etim es included.4 T h e use o f ‘didactic
j«or’ as a specific generic term is how ever contentious: there is very little
dnowiedgement in either ancient o r early m odem criticism o f didactic as a
jsutofits own, rather than a form o f epic, and a marked division in current
¿Bid scholarship between those w h o endorse and those w ho reject the
[««Ier term ‘didactic epic’ .5 M o reo ver, a considerable number o f major
tos usually excluded from consideration as ‘didactic’ have often been read
mdought as storehouses o f inform ation o r as moral or political guidance -
comples range from Callim achus’ Aetia to O v id ’s Metamorphoses and Fasti,
mdeven Virgil’s Aeneid, w h ich becam e, like several o f the poems discussed
inthis chapter, a school text w ith in a few years “o f its publication.6
Many of these works - includin g the poem s o f Lucretius, Manilius,
Grattius and Nemesianus — w ere rediscovered b y prom inent early human­
st scholars and poets, and the range o f potential didactic models was
anther extended, for Renaissance readers, b y the inclusion in the canon o f
shorter or fragmentary didactic poem s ascribed to Virgil (Aetna, on
volcanoes) and O vid (Halieutica, o n fishing).7 Enthused b y the emergence

' Tersit» often discussed indude the two fragmentary Cynegetica (‘On Hunting") by Grattius and
Nesotsuis and the tenth book o f Columella's D e re natica ('On Country Matters’),
forarne 1997; 129: 'ancient critics seem to treat didactic not as a genre, but as a particular mode of
prOácusuons ofancient evidence can be found in Effe 19 7 7 :19 -2 2 ; Gale 1994:100-6; Volk 2002:
¡4-S». Fotthe use (and usefulness) o f the term ‘didactic epic’ see also Gale 1994:99-128; Gale 2004.
Gde ¡00; ind Toohey 1996. For the G eorgia and epic, see Farrell 1991: 207-72. Among early
modemarria, neither Scaligcr 1991 nor Ponían us 1994, for instance, include ‘didactic’ as a generic
caepry in both cases the poems now described as didactic are divided among various sub-categories
ofepic We do find Larin terms for ‘didactic’ verse in the eighteenth cencurv, most noticeably in
ta p ó Oudin's collection Poem ata didascalica (Oudin 1749).
Hain 2007 and 2012 reads Callimachus* A etia within the fíame o f didactic poetry. For didactic
¿meso in the M étamorphosa see Hardie 1988 and 1999 and Wheeler 1999; for the Fasti Miller 1992
radGee 1998; for the A eneid Hardie 1986.
hetóu and Manilius were rediscovered by Poggio in 1417; Grattius and Nemesianus by Sannazaro
* de very beginning o f the sixteenth century.
i 8î VICTORIA MOUL

of a substantial classical canon o f in structio n al p o etry, Renaissance poets,

first in Italy and then throughout E urope, b egan experim enting with
subjects as diverse - in the first century o f h u m an ism alo n e - as education
(perhaps the earliest neo-Latin didactic w o rk, G rego rio C orrer’s brief De
educandis et erudiendis liberis, from aro un d 14 3 0 ), astronom y (Basinio
Basini, Astronomicon libri n (1455)) and silk w o rm s (Lodovico Lazzarrelli,
Opusculum de Bombyce, around 1495). Several poets produced multiple
didactic poems - including Fracastoro’s Syphilis (on th e venereal disease
named after the poem) and Alcon (on th e care o f h o u n d s), or Pontano’s
three works Urania, Meteorum liber 1 and D e hortis Hesperidum libri it -
and the tradition enjoyed a late, and now w ell-d o cu m en ted resurgence in
popularity among Jesuit poets o f th e seven teen th and eighteenth
centuries.8
The relatively small body o f w ork on n eo -L atin d id actic has tended
to focus on either the earliest period o f Italian h u m an ism , or on the
flowering of neo-Latin didactic in the later sev en teen th and eighteenth
centuries.9 One or two scholars have stressed th e im p o rtan ce of a broad
understanding of the didactic category - IJsew ijn for instance is unusual
in discussing versified history in his ch ap ter, an d for n o tin g the signifi­
cance of neo-Latin didactic poems w h ich th em selves becam e 'classics’ of
the classroom over many generations.10 T h is b ro ad er v iew has not been
much followed up by subsequent sch o larsh ip , b u t it is important in
particular for approaching texts from th e sixteen th an d seventeenth
centuries, and from outside th e Jesu it trad itio n . A cco rd in gly, this chap­
ter discusses an intentionally w ide range o f texts, an d draws several
examples from a region (England an d Sco tlan d ) th a t has been particu­
larly neglected in accounts o f neo-L atin verse. T h e chapter is not
intended as a comprehensive overview o f n eo -L atin didactic poetry.
Texts have been selected w ith the hope o f b ro ad en in g o u r feel for the
didactic possibilities o f Latin p oetry o f th is p erio d , an d in m y discus­
sion, I suggest some avenues for future exp lo ratio n both o f the varied
ways in which neo-Latin poets responded to th e classical texts we
usually describe as didactic and o f the c e n tra lity o f th e didactic ideal
to serious neo-Latin poetry as a w hole.

' Haskell ¡00) above all, which identifies around a;o Latin didactic poems by Jesuits; but see also
Haskell 1998a, 2008,2010, 2019a and Haskell and Hasdie 1999.
* On early Italian examples, see Roellenbleck 1975. Ludwig 1989a offers an influential schema for eight
types of neo-Latin didactic, though the bulk o f the article is devoted to those most imitative of the
G nrpa (his second category). For later, and especially Jesuit examples, see footnote 8.
w IJsewijn and Sacri 1998:39-40.
 D idactic Poetry 183

V arieties o f D id a ctic

There is a particular kind o f aesth etic pleasure to w orks that com bine
abstruse, strange or c o m p e llin g factu al detail w ith a familiar literary or
emotional framework o r narrative: p o p u la r nature documentaries or
works of natural history, for instan ce, ten d to w o rk in ju st this w ay -
wt expect to find new a n d su rp risin g scientific detail, and (in film)
extraordinary images, b u t the stru ctu re an d narrative shape o f these
works is usually h igh ly co n ven tio n a l - fo llo w in g the passages o f the
seasons or a single life-cycle - an d often dependent upon powerful
personification. V e ry few m o d ern readers have the kind o f intimate
familiarity with the L atin p o e try o f V irg il o r Lu cretius that w o u ld allow
diem to appreciate the in terp lay in m u c h n eo -L a tin p oetry between the
aesthetically and em otionally fam iliar (such as them es, set-pieces, similes
and even individual phrases b o rro w e d from classical authors) and the
strikingly strange, technical o r sim p ly m o d ern (w hether the manufacture
of gunpowder, the care o f silk w o rm s o r con tem porary history and
politics). On the con trary, fo r m o st m o dern readers, even classicists,
poetty which functions in this w a y offers a rébarbative com bination o f
i t difficult and the obscure. B u t th e patterns o f Renaissance education,
with intense and detailed stu d y o f a fairly sm all canon o f Latin literature
over many years, created precisely the con ditions for this kind o f
aesthetic effect.11
Echoes o f V irgil’s Georgies are th e m o st freq uen tly em ployed short­
hand for didactic co n ten t a n d in te n t in a g iv en n eo -L a tin poem . T h e four
lines of indirect q uestion s w ith w h ic h th e first b o o k o f the Georges
begins - each o f w h ich c o rre sp o n d to a to p ic in the poem - is a
particularly recognizable a n d w id e ly im itated passage, used to establish
just this kind o f c o u n te rp o in t b e tw e e n h ig h ly fam iliar source text arid
novel content. In O u d in ’s 1 7 4 9 a n th o lo g y o f (m o stly Jesuit) Latin
didactic, poems on g u n p o w d e r, coffee, g o ld -m in in g , earthquakes,
letter-writing, flowers, s ilk -w o rm s, birds, fish -p o n d s and com ets all begin
with versions o f this m o tif.11 T h e o p e n in g o f C la u d e Q u ille t’s Callipaedia
fOn Beautiful C h ild re n ’ , 16 5 5 ) , a p o e m o n th e appropriate choice o f

" Asumving schoolboy's notebook indicates that one mid-sixteenth-century English school spent a
Sill year on the G eorgia (Baldwin 1944: t, 3 17 - 3 1) .
‘ Fançois Tarillon, sj, P u lvis pyriu s carm en', Gulielm o Massieu, Caffaeum carm en; François Antoine
U Fcbvre, SJ, Aurum carm en and Terrae-m otus carm en; Hervaeo de Montaigu, sj, Ratio
tmtcribenáae epistolae, Patricio Trance, d m , D e conubiis floru m ¡ Vida. Bombycum , Joanne Roze, sj,
Carmenaviarium', François Cham pion, sj, Stagna; Etienne Auguste Soucict, sj, Com etae carmen. On
Oudin ¡n general, see Haskell 1003: 119 -2 1.
184 VICTORIA MOUL

wife, time of conception and moral attitude in order to procure beautiful

and successful children, is a good example of the possibilities.1’ Compare
Virgil’s opening:

Quid faciat laetas segetes, quo sidere terram

vertere, Maecenas, ulmisque adiungere vitis
conveniat, quae cura boum, qui cultus habendo
sit pecori, apibus quanta experientia parcis,
hinc canere incipiam.

What makes the corn crops glad, under which star

To turn the soil, Maecenas, and wed your vines
To elms, the care of cattle, keeping of flocks,
All the experience thrifty bees require -
Such are the themes of my song.1'*

With the Callipaedur.

Quid faciat laetos thalamos; quo semine felix

Exsurgat proles, & amoeni gratia vultûs;
Sidera quae lepidas fundant per membra figuras;
Et quae vis animae Geniali praesit Amori:
Quae decora eximiam pulchro sub corpore mentem
Commendent, dansque; Hominem virtutibus ornent,
Hic canere aggredior.
What makes for happy marriage-beds; by what seed
Arise healthy offspring and rhe blessing of a pleasant appearance;
What stars pour a charming shape over [a child's] limbs;
And what force of spirit presides over married Love:
What kinds of outward beauty bespeak
An outstanding mind within the beautiful body,
And adorn a man of renowned virtue,
- Here I set out to sing of these matters.1’

Quillet’s work belongs to a scam of neo-Latin poems concerned with

medical matters: authors exploring the new sciences of medicine, and
panicularly human fertility, found it hard to resist either the poetic
resonance of the available classical models, or the memorable effects of
reapplying Virgil's evocatively anthropomorphic descriptions of
passionate livestock to human reproduction.16 This witty reworking

" There U a fine ditcuulon of (his Intriguing poem by Philip Ford (Ford 1999). See alto VUsac 1861:
7M0.
M Translation Wilkinson 1981. 11 Quillet 1655: 1,1-7.
* On medical didactic vene In general, tee Haskell 2014b.
 D id a ctic Poetry i8f

af ilie opening o f th e G eorgies r e p la c e s V ir g il’s segetes ('c ro p s’) w ith

ikkmot (’b e d -c h a m b e rs’, a n d b y a s s o c ia tio n th e sex u al side o f
marriage).17 O th e r e c h o e s in c lu d e th e o p e n in g o f M a n iliu s ’
ktmomica, b ecau se th e t im in g o f c o n c e p tio n in re la tio n to the
ajirological signs is c o n s id e r e d c r u c ia l b y Q u ille t , as b y m a n y early
modern authorities.
Lucretius offered a m o d e l fo r b o th m o re te c h n ic a l a n d m o re conrro-
rtrsial material (in r e lig io u s a n d p h ilo s o p h ic a l te rm s) th a n is found in
Virgil.'* Q uillet h im s e lf c o m b in e s L u c r e tia n a n d V ir g ilia n e le m e n ts, b u t
favid Kinloch (»559—1617), a S c o ttis h -F r e n c h p red ec esso r o f Q u ille t,
who has attracted a lm o st n o a t t e n t io n a t a ll, p u ts L u c re tiu s, V irg il an d
even Horace to even m o re e x p lic it u se in h is D e hom inis procreatione,
Matóme, ac m orbis in tern is ( ‘O n H u m a n P ro c re a tio n , A n a to m y and
Internal Diseases') o f 1596. K in lo c h to o b e g in s w ith a scries o f in d irect
questions sketchin g th e te rm s o f h is w o r k ; b u t th e re la tio n sh ip w ith
Virgil is more rem o te. T h e b o ld c o n f r o n ta t io n o f b o th sex a n d death is
blunter than a n y th in g w e f in d in th e G eorgies, a n d in ste a d dep en ds
heavily upon L u cretiu s:

Vndc hom ini p rim u m g en italia sem ina vitae;

Quantum vivida vis, qu am sp iritus insitus illis
Mira gerat, p in git p uerum d u m m atris in alvo,
D cpictumque effert dias in lu m in is oras:
[ ...]
Hinc canere in cip iam ; q u an d o spe laudis Apollo
Acri percussit ju v en ilia pectora thyrso.
H
Qui caeli terraeque potens m oliris habenas,
Alme parens, d u b iis an im u m m ih i suggere rebus."’

h®®where first [arose] the reproductive seeds o f hum an life; how greatly the life
how the spirit sowed in th em brings forth w onders, forms a child w hile in
pothers womb, and once form ed ushers h im o u t to the holy shores o f light:
" I On these matters l shall b egin to sin g; since, in hope o f praise, Apollo struck

* awordol Greek origin, often has an erotic connotation in latin.

fidili diiWussloni of the reception of Lucremus In neo-latin didactic can he found In Goddard uni;
Huktil
‘997, 1998a and »008: Pantin 1990; Gee 1008. On the Renaissance reception of lucretius
- u?*^a"eraity,
’ see for example longo
agi' 1009; Reeve 1007: Prosperi »007 ant
r . " t6j7¡ j, K
"•>/; b inloch'tt work
wniocn word wa
was reprinted In volume n of Johnstons PthoM Aaraanuw
Quotations and page referent«, are to the DPS rather than the tv?6 edition, as image»
OK are cullv found online. I have (bund no commentare upon this poem, aside ftum a
la Bradnct 1940:116-7. The phrase dim in lumina una reçut» twice in the dramatic
of the violence and danger of childbirth (Johnston IM 7:18 and 19).
 i86 VICTO RIA M O UL

my youthful breast with his harsh thyrsus [ . . . ] You who, in your power, wield
the reins of the heaven and the earth, Nurturing parent, supply my mind with
these themes of doubtful issue.

Multiple phrases here are derived from the o p en in g an d closing sections of

the first book o f Lucretius’ De Rerum N atura, in c lu d in g the phrase vivida
vis (vivida vis animi, D RN 1.73, d escrib in g th e in tellectual heroism of
Epicurus); dias in luminis oras (D R N 1.22, th e o p en in g prayer to Venus),
Aime parens (Alma Venus, D RN 1.2) an d spe laudis A pollo / Acri perm it
juvenilia pectora thyrso (compare D R N 1.922-5, sed acri / percussit thym
laudis spes magna meum cor ¡ et sim ul incussit suavem m i in pectus amorem I
Musarum (‘But high hope o f fame has stru ck m y h eart w ith its sharp goad
and in so doing has implanted in m y breast th e sw eet love o f the Muses’).
The phrase Qui caeli terraeque potens m oliris habenas (‘You who, in your
power, wield the reins o f the heaven an d th e earth ’) resembles both
Lucretius’ opening prayer to V enus (quae m are. . . quae terras /concelebras,
you who fill [with life] the sea an d th e earth ’, D R N 1.3-4) and the
conclusion of that prayer (D RN 1.21, q u ae. . . rerum naturam sola gubernas,
‘you who alone govern the nature o f th in g s’). In fact Kinloch’s poem
abounds with terms and phrases culled from L u cretiu s, such as semina,
corpora, ab origine prim a, imprimis, prim ordia vitae, species. U nlike Virgil -
but in direct imitation o f Lucretius — K inloch repeats key words and
phrases insistendy as the force o f th eir tech n ical m e an in g and significance
to the argument emerges over tim e.
Kinloch’s mode o f im itation often feels lik e a forceful claim ing of rival
models by Lucretian diction and a L ucretian p ersp ectiv e.10 In a memorable
passage on the reproductive drive, K inloch sets L u cretiu s and, interest­
ingly, Horace against one another:

Sed quia praecipiti pereunt mortalia fato;

Idcirco sobolis generandae innata libido
Casuras rerum species à morte redemit.11

But because all that is mortal perishes, subject to a swift death;

For that reason the inborn drive to produce offspring
Has redeemed from death the beauty [or appearance] of things,
even as they are about to die.

u Horace'» An ptttica has not often been discussed by classicists as an example o f Latin didactic,
although it is haid to think o f a more plainly didactic poem; recent exceptions include Reinhardt
aoi] and Hardie iota.
“ Johnston 1637; 6.
 D id a c tic P oetry 187

^ongsidc the Lucretian v o c a b u la ry ( rerum species), several elements here

recall a very famous passage fro m the Ars poetica, on the shortness o f
human life and the associated co n sta n t flu x even o f language:

Debemur morti nos nostraque [ . . . ]

M ortalia facta peribunt:
Nedum sermonum stet honos, & gratia vivax.
Multa renasccntur, quae iam cecidere, cadentque,
Quae nunc sunt in honore, vocabula, si volet usus
(A n p o e tic a , 6 3; 6 7 - 7 0 ) .

We owe to death ourselves and all that’s ours [ . . . ] Mortal deeds shall perish; and
(he glory and living grace o f speech shall no longer endure. M any words which
havenow lallen away will be reborn, and m any which are now held in high esteem
shall fall away, if common usage desires it.“

Kinloch’s pereunt mortalia (‘ m o rtal th in gs perish’) echoes H orace’s morta­

lsfactaperibunt (‘ m ortal deeds shall perish’), and K in lo ch ’s idea that the
innata libido (‘inborn lust’) can red eem , o r b u y b ack from death {a morte
rdemit) the casuras rerum species (‘ appearan ce o r beauty o f things even as
they fade’) responds to th e m e ta p h o r o f H o ra c e ’s debemur morti nos
nostraque (‘we ow e to death ourselves a n d all th at’s ours’) as well as the
pervasive Horadan idea that h u m a n pleasure and beauty is fleeting.
This is vivid and m em orab le L a tín verse, anim ated b y a real sense o f
scientific optimism and excitem en t. L ik e Lu cretiu s - and in Lucretian
terms - Kinloch sets o u t a reasoned resistance to the vagaries o f hum an
experience; though like L u cre tiu s, to o , his stro n g claim that reason is a
greater comfort to su fferin g th an art is (perhaps ironically) delivered
in markedly am bitious verse.13 H o r a c e ’s Ars poetica is, oddly, usually
excluded from m odern discussions o f classical L atin didactic verse; but
its didactic force (and c o n te m p o ra ry fam iliarity) is well attested b y
Kinloch’s allusion here.
British Latin literature o f th is p erio d also includes examples o f
that subset o f n eo -Latin p o e try d e vo te d specifically to astronom y and
astrology, and m odelled p rim a rily u p o n A ratu s an d M an iliu s.14 G eorge
Buchanan’s Sphaera (158 6 ) has attracted critical attention in recent years,
and it is itself particularly in d eb te d to the Urania o f G io va n n i Pontano 1

11 Kinloch is not unusual in being struck by this beautiful passage o f Horace. For a discussion o f Ben
Jooson s version o f these lines, see M oul 2 0 10 :18 8 -9 2 .
11 Kinloch's literary ambition is plain in the opening o f the poem, which claims that medicine - and
by implication, medically informed poetry - can be mote efficacious than the song o f Orpheus
himself
1:105.
i88 VICTORIA MOUL

(1429-1503).15 We see the influence o f this k in d o f poetry reflected in a

range of popular works: Marcello Palingenio’s Zodiacus Vitae (‘The Zodiac
of Life’, 1536) appeared in a remarkable ten E nglish printed editions in the
sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, suggesting that it m ay have been used
frequently as a school text.16 Somewhere on th e boundaries o f didactidsm
lies a sequence of poems, the D e sphaerarum ordine tractatiunculam
CA Short Treatise on the Arrangement o f th e P lanets’) by the Welsh poet
William Vaughan (1577-1641), the phrasing o f w h ich recalls Buchanan's
much more substantial work.17 Finally, Robert M o o r’s (1568-1640) Dia­
rium historkopoeticum (‘Historico-Poetic D iary’) o f 1595 is an example of
astrological lore linked to historical and political events, with marked
allusions from the opening lines (w hich are addressed to Janus) to Ovid’s
Fasti as well as to Manilius.1* T his very substan tial w ork, with a book
devoted to each month of the year, links the constellations o f each calendar
month with a series o f key historical events, from those o f ancient and
biblical history to the recent and even contem porary, such as the battle of
Bosworth Field (1485) and the deaths o f S ir T h o m as M ore (1535) and
Sir Francis Walsingham (1590),
Even in the British sixteenth and seventeenth centuries - usually far from
prominent in any account of neo-Latin didactic verse19 - w e find many
works with explicit instructional content, m akin g varied use o f a wide range
of diction, style, tone and emphasis suggested b y the classical (and earlier
neo-Latin) didactic models. In the second h alf o f this chapter, I would like
to extend this discussion to consider both the general association between
Latin poetry and education; and, more specifically, the ways in which the

" On Buchanan's Sfhetra, tee Gee 1009; Haskell 1998a: Pantin 1995; Naiden 1952. On Poníanos
Unnit, sec Goddard 1991; Gee 1008: Haskell 1998a.
“ See Chômant 1996: Haskell 1998b (in Atherton); Binns l o o r 187-8; Binns 1990:114-16. QKwija
1990: 61 calls if ‘ooe of the most widely read books o f the sixteenth century’ . Over sixty editions
appealed between the sixteenth and eighteenth centuries, mostly in Protestant countries, as the
poem was proscribed by the Catholic Church. Binns also remarks on the evidence o f Shakespeare's
leading of both Mantuan and Palingenius, presumably at school.
>T Vaughan 1598. Like Quillet. Vaughan is interested in the links between astrology and human
reproduction.
J Moor 159$. Regular marginal annotations direct the reader most frequently to Ovid’s Fasti and
Mnmtrfhose, Manilius’ Astronomica and Hyginus' D e Astronomia; lö s often to the (till range of
Roman historians, plus Arams, Cicero. Virgil and Horace. I have not found any scholarly <Wmdni>
of this work, though 1 am grateful to Hugh Adlington for informing me that John Donne owned
a copy.
11 Although I note that in a very recent chapter Estelle Haan comments that ’Neo-Latin didactic
poetry seems to function as a literary and linear generic continuum through the three centures of
British neo-Latin under discussion [r. tjoo-tSoo]’ (Haan 2015:497). Haan’s chapter includes brief
remada on works by George Buchanan, John Milton, Thomas Bisse, Joseph Addison and
Thomas Gray.
 D id a ctic P oetry 189

ijidicric force of classical Latin poetry (in this instance, and perhaps espe­
cially, of Virgil’s Georges) might be evoked to highlight the educative
seriousness of many types of neo-Latin poems, often for removed, in their
entrili effect, from any of the classical didactic models.

Didactic P o etry and Poetic Education

The De arte poetica o f M a r c o G iro la m o V id a (1517; 1527), ranked by

Scaliger alongside H o race’s Ars poetica, is one o f the most influential
cumples of neo-Latin didactic; it is m oreover a striking instance o f
didactic verse in w hich edu cation is itself thematized. T h e whole work -
but especially the m ovin g first b o o k - is concerned not only with how to
witt poetry (by w hich he m eans ep ic poetry, in the broad sense discussed
above) but how to inculcate the love o f poetry and h o w to teach the
»Tiringof it. All three books o f the De artepoetica are profoundly Virgiliani
Virgil is held up as the first an d best m odel fo r all Latin poetry, the great
majority o f the cited exam ples are from V irg il, and as Philip Hardie has
shown, many o f the m ost m em orab le m om ents and images are careful
combinations o fV irg ilia n passages.30
The first book depends on the Georges in particular, returning again and
againtocomparisons between the young student of poetry and the plants or
livestock for which the farmer cares. The result is often humorous and
affectionate. Here Vida notes that a passion for literature, once instilled, is
anenduringdistraction for a young man who tries to setde down to business
otaprofession. If ever he is reminded of his old love for literature {libido
neu- the ‘familiar lust’), chaos and youthful rebellion quickly ensue:
Exsultant animis cupidi, pugnantque parentum
Imperiis: nequit ardentes vis ulla morari.
Sic assuetus equus iam duris ora lupatis,
Fone procul notis si armenta aspexit in arvis,
Huc veterum fèrri cupit haud oblitus amorum,
Atque hic atque illic haeret, frenisque repugnat:
Quove magis stimulis instas, hoc acrius ille
Perfurit, it tandem multo vix verbere victus
Coeptum iter, ipsa tamen respectans crebra moratur
Pascua, & hinnitu late loca complet acuto.*

* On Vidas De arte poetica see Williams 1976 (which prints the text o f both the 1517 and 1517
edfaions) and Hardie 199a. Porter 2014 discusses Vida, Scaliger and Pontanus (although very briefly).
On Vida's influence upon Scaliger, see Rolfcs 2001. Yasmin Haskell also discusses this poem in
Chapter 1 of this volume.
190 VICTORIA MOUL

In their eagerness their spirits swell up, and they rebel against their parents’
commands; ardent as they are, no force can stay them. In the same way, if a
steed, though already broken to the painful bit in his mouth, chances to catcha
distant glimpse of his herd in the fields of home, he yearns to be led there,
rememberingkeenly [former] loves, and he balks, first here, then there, and fights
against the reins. The more you press on the spurs, the more violently he rages.
Finally only just curbed by repeated blow of the quirt, he resumes the course he
began, thoughstill he pauses to look back on those crowded pastures, and fillsthe
fields far andwide with his shrill whinny. (i.296-305)j*
The schooling o f boys is often described in violent o r near-violent terms of
discipline and constraint; but here the young man remembers the literary
pleasures of his schooldays as idyllic and experiences his professional career,
instead, as brutalizing discipline. Vida toys with our expectation that love is
the chief source of distraction for a young man. T h e erotics o f the simile are
discreet - the young horse catches a glimpse o f his old armenta in arvis (‘herds
in the fields’, compare the young foal, pullus in arvis, at G. 3.75), which could
imply simply his childhood family and friends - but the suggestion of sexual
interest is enhanced by a conversation with two passages o f Georgies 3.
Vida’s horse is already ‘accustomed to the painful b it in his mouth’, but
the phrase assuetus ... duris ora lupatis echoes V irg il, Georgies 3.207-8:
prensiejue negabunt / verbera lenta pati et duris parere lupatis (‘once aught,
they refuse to tolerate the tough lash or to o b ey the rough bit’): that is,
Vida describes the successfully broken horse w ith a phrase designed to
remind us of Virgjl’s description o f resistance to that process. A t that point
in Georgia 3 Virgil sets out what might endanger the effective training of
the promising young horse - either too m uch rich food before they are
fully broken, or, the greatest threat o f all, (209fr.) sexual desire. For Vida’s
young lawyer or businessman, the reading and w ritin g o f poetry, the lure
of the Muses, stands in for both those tem ptations.
Finally, the last line o f Vida’s simile, in w h ich the reluctant young horse
is forced to tear himself away from the sight o f his old pastures, and
whinnies shrilly in pain as he does so (et hinnitu late loca complet acuto),
is lifted in pan from Virgil’s memorable com parison o f a handsome horse
to Saturn ar the moment when, caught in adultery w ith Philyra by his wife,
he transforms himself into a stallion and gallops aw ay: et altum / Pelion
hinnitujugens implevit acuto (G. 3 .9 3 -4 ) .31 T h is suggests again that the

MText and translation from Williams 1976. Text cited is that o f 1517.
11 Claude Quillet was also inspired by this vignette. The longest mythological digression in his poem
concerns Philyra, her rape by Saturn and the subsequent birth o f the centaur Chiron (on this
episode set Ford 1999:114-7).
 D id a ctic P oetry 191

young man’s passion for literature is o f an erotic intensity. For most

leaders, the long description o f the d o m in atin g pow er o f sexual love over
ill creatures is the m ost m em orab le elem ent o f Georgies 3; V ida’s poem
utilités our memory o f those passages to stress that in this case it is not lust
that threatens the yo u n g m an, b u t love o f poetry itself - nòt behaving like
Virgil's horse, but instead the th o u gh t o f V irg il’s actual lines.
Andrew Wallace’s recent w o rk has dem onstrated the extent to which
Virgil's Georgies was read, in the Renaissance, not only as a canonical
school text, or an exam ple o f d id actic poetry in a practical sense, but as a
workitself about the p ow er o f p o etry and poetry’s didactic force.33 Wallace
does not discuss V id a ’s De arte poetica, b u t the intense Virgilianism o f
Vida’s poem, and in particular its reliance o n the Georgies, only strengthens
his case. Appropriately en o u gh , the De arte poetica had itself become a
popular school text, alongside the Georgies, w ith in years o f V id a ’s death.34
The educational afterlife o f V id a ’ s De arte poetica is not unusual among
neo-Latin poetry.35 Poliziano’s Silvae - explicitly com posed within and for
an educational context, as introdu ction s to lectures on Latin literature -
were widely studied in E u ro p ean schools in the sixteenth century.36
Palingenio’s Zodiacus vitae (‘T h e Z o d ia c o f Life’ , 1536) was particularly
popular in Protestant countries (in clu d in g En glan d). English schoolboys
were also reading M a n cin i’s Quatuor de virtutibus (‘ Poem o f the Four
Virtues’, first printed 14 8 4 ), an exp licitly didactic w o rk in intentionally
accessible Latin elegiacs, intended to su p p ly m orally im proving material
for students at a fairly early stage in their study o f Latin .37 Contem porary
neo-Latin works continued to be ad d ed to the school curriculum through­
out the early modern period: the 15 8 2 edition o f C hristopher O cland’s
ambitious Praelia Anglorum (‘T h e Battles o f the En glish’) prints an order
signed by members o f the P rivy C o u n c il and Ecclesiastical H igh C om m is­
sioninstructing that the poem is to be read in schools throughout the land;
in1652 the Council o f State suggested that Payne Fisher’s Latin hexameter
accounts o f Crom w ell’s successful cam p aigns should be read in schools.3®
Some works were aim ed at professionals rather than school or university
students: David K inloch justifies th e explicitness o f his material on*

* Wallace 2010: e.g. at 124.

" Dainvillc 1978: (73 notes that it was an established Jesuit classroom text by 1575.
" On neo-Latin in Renaissance schools in general, see M ack 2014.
* Coroidi 1999 discusses this phenomenon, and looks in detail at two o f the many surviving
commentaries on Poliziano’s poems.
r See Baldwin 1944: 297, 304, 310 and Binns 1990: 116.
* Fot details see Norbrook 1999: 237. O n Fisher, See M oul 2016.
 192 VICTORIA MOUL

conception, pregnancy and the multiple causes o f infertility in De hominis

procreatione (‘On Human Procreation’ , 159 6) b y explaining that the work
is aimed a doctors, who would be professionally embarrassed if they were
unable to explain and advise upon these matters. N early a hundred yean
later, readers who consulted Bartholin’s prose treatise De medicis poetis (‘On
Doctor-Poets’, 1669) would find themselves directed to Kinloch among a
host of other poets apparendy o f use to the m edical professional.59

Three Variations on V irgil's W ar-H o rse

Generations of critics have commented upon the pronounced (and

sometimes disturbing) personification o f both plants and animals in the
Georgier, when we think o f Virgil’s poem, the cast o f memorable ‘characters’
is likely to include the love-sick and plague-ridden creatures o f Book j, the
bees of Book 4 and perhaps even the young vine w h o shudders at the
pruning knife (2.369) alongside the more conventionally political or mytho­
logical highlights. Neo-Larin poets adapt and respond to these memorable
passages of personificatoty instruction according to the terms o f their own
didacticism - we have already seen one example o f this in V id a ’s humorous
comparison of a young man distracted b y his old love o f literature to a
broken horse who still longs for his pastures. In the final section o f this
chapter I look at three more poets w h o , w ritin g in different contexts and
to quite different effects, deployed the h a rd -to -fo rget force o f Virgil’s
personification for their own didactic purposes.
In 1579 appeared the De república Anglorum instauranda libri decem
(‘Ten Books on the Foundation o f the En glish State’) by Thomas
Chaloner, a work dating from the early 156 0s, w h en C h alo n e r was ambas­
sador in Spain. This very substantial w o rk is described b y James Binns
both as a didactic poem and an ‘allegorical epic’ .40 A lth o u gh it has very
little of the narrative coherence we m ight e x p e a from a traditional epic, its
didactic intention is plain - Books 4, 5 and 6 are devoted, respeaively, to
the development o f a strong agricultural policy; the im portance o f military
training for young men; and the breeding o f horses and other preparations
for war. Other books praise the clergy (B ook 1), discuss education (Book 2),
condemn money-lending (Book 3) and other sins (B o o k 8). Book 9 is
concerned with the education o f wom en, and B o o k 10 w ith the law, before
addressing the monarch directly.*

** Banbolin 1669.
*° ChaJoner wis English ambassador to Spain from 1561 to 1564 and died in London in i;6 j. De
npeM aw ts published posthumously. See Binns 1990: 26-30 and (very briefly) IJsewijn and Sacri
1998:30. To my knowledge there has been no longer study o f Chaloner's work.
 D id a ctic Poetry 193
Chaloner’s discussion o f horsebreeding is m u ch longer than the corres­
ponding passages from V irg il, b u t is recognizably derived from them. In
dûs sequence he com bines m an y features from Georgies 3 - including the
«piration o f the mares and the threat o f the gadfly - w ith some details in
the choice o f meadow bo rro w ed from Georgies 4 (on the perfect site for
j bee-hive):

Tu vero, hoc vitii propria sarcire medela

Si cupis, amotis maribus lectissima equarum
Agmina dumosis depascere saltibus herbam
Institues tacito gaudentia saepè recessu,
Fons ubi vicinus scatebrosis bulliat vndis,
Plurimáque optatas stirps quercea porrigat umbras,
Solis ab aestiui radiis, stimulóque proterui,
Qui nocet armentis longé infestissimus, oestri.
Hinc illis sub vere nouo manifesta libido,
Et dulcis furor inguinibus proludet hiulcis,
Vt saturae iacténtque iubas, largóque mentis
Hinnitu cieant gratissima vota mariti:
Qui tandem eductus stabulo, et securus amorum
Regnator vacuo in campo, genitalia matri
Admissus decimae generoso semine solus
Impleat: vltcriùs Venerem cohibeto salacis.
Ne vigor ob nimium genitalis langueat vsum.41

And as for you, if you wish to repair this lack

With the proper remedy, remove the males and set a choice
Band of mares to crop the grass in thorny meadows,
Rejoicing often in their silent separation,
Where a nearby stream bubbles in gushing streams,
And many an oak trunk offers longed-for shade
From the rays o f the sweltering sun, and the sting o f the bold
Gadfly, by far the greatest nuisance to pester beasts in the field.
Then when, at the beginning o f spring, the sexual drive first shows
itself in them,
And a sweet fury begins to play in the furrows o f their private parts,
So that in satisfaction they toss their manes, and rouse with
their repeated
Whinnying their husband's most welcome desire, as he rushes
upon them:
For he has now at last been brought out o f the stable, and secure
in his love
Lord in the empty plain, is allowed entry to the mother’s genitals
To fill, all by himself, the tenth mother with his fertile seed.

Colono 1579:127. No line numbers.

 VICTORIA MOUL
194

But keep the lustful beast from any further sexual pleasure,
Lest his reproductive strength should lessen from too much use.

One difficulty o f writing about poetry o f this s o n is that, as an excerpt, this

passage of Chaloner reads like a good deal o f n e o -L a tin Virgilian verse.
There is skill in redeploying familiar passages o f th e Georgies in this way,
and for the well-read reader there is a k in d o f pleasure in it, too: these
are comfortingly familiar horses, flirting e n jo y a b ly w ith the most risqué
(and probably most memorable) parts o f V ir g il's p o em . B ut as a whole
book of poetry, rather than just a few lines, w h a t is compelling about
Chaloner s voice lies largely in how « «V irgilia n a m essage he uses Virgil to
convey. Whereas Virgil allows, in his description, fo r horses bred either for
barde or for racing, Chaloner’s version focuses solely upon horses bred for
war, and he adds to V ugil’s description o f ideal eq uin e physiology (a broad
chest, flowing mane and so on) elements o f com m ercial realism and
interest in the technicalities o f governm ent quite alien to the Georges,
He proposes, for instance, that landowners in possession o f good pasture
who never make use o f it for breeding horses should be fined and
publically shamed for a failure to contribute to their country; whereas
the most successful breeders should be rew arded w ith p u b lic honours. This
polemical point is made memorable precisely because it is so unlike
anything we find in the Georgier, the general intense dependence upon
Virgil for the description o f the landscape, livestock an d husbandry acts as
a kind o f foil to set o ff Chaloner’s hard-headed suggestions for the
successful management o f resources.
In Rustieus, a verse treatise on H esiod and V irg il’s Georgia dating from
1483, and one o f his four Silvae, com posed as prefatory poetry to his lectures
on classical literature, Poliziano also offers a version o f V irgil's ideal horse:

Gii pulchro micat acre caput luduntque decorae

fronte comae, vibrant aures, atque orbe nigranti
praegrandes exstant oculi; tum spiritus amplis
naribus it fervens, stat cervix ardua [ . . . ]
Crescunt spissa toris lateque animosa patescunt
pectora consurguntque humeri et iam sessile tergum est,
spinaque depressos gemino subit ordine lumbos
et castigatum cohibent crassa ilia ventrem;
fundunt se laetae dunes suberispaque densis
cauda riget saetis et luxuriantia crebrae
velant colla iubae ac dextra cervice vagantur.
Tum tereti substricta genu mollissima flectit
crura ferox, celsum ingrediens ffemituqe superbit;
 Didactic Poetry ^

grande sonat tornata cavo brevis ungula cornu,

ingenti referens Corybantia cymbala pulsu.
(.Rusticus, 266-9; 172-82)

Hisfierce head flickers, his elegant mane plays upon his forehead, his ears quiver, and
bnhuge eyes stand out in their black sockets; then a fiery breath issues from his large
[»suils; he holds his neck high [ . . . ] H is vigorous chest grows strong with thickset
musics and opens out broadly; his shoulders develop; his back is ready for a rider, a
double ridge runs along his loins and his stout flanks support his firm stomach. His
deckhaunches broaden out, and his slightly wavy tail is stiff with dense brisdes, and
his thick mane veils his sturdy neck and flutters over his right shoulder; then,
drawing in his rounded knee, he bends his supple legs high-spiritedly, and rearing
upas he advances, he neighs proudly; the concave hom o f his short, rounded hoof
creates a loud sound, recalling Corybantie cymbals as it beats the ground.41

Multiple elements here are eith er b o rro w e d directly from V irgil or closely
related to Virgilian descriptions - co m p a re for instance densa iuba ( ‘dense
mane, G. 3.86) w ith P olizian o crebrae . . . iubae and densis . . . saetis)’,
itplex agitur per lumbos spina (‘ a d o u b le ridge runs dow ns his back’ ,
6.5.87) and Poliziano spinaque depressos gemino subit ordine lumbos; Virgil
milk crura reponit (‘ he low ers his legs g e n d y ’ , G. 3 .7 6 ) and Poliziano tenti
substricta genu mollissima flectit / crura ferox ; V irg il et solido graviter sonat
ungula cornu (‘his h o o f resounds lo u d ly w ith its solid horn’ , G. 3.88)
and Poliziano grande sonat tomata cavo brevis ungula cornu. A ll the key
descripdons - o f head, neck, nostrils, b ack , b o d y, buttock, hoof, mane
andgait - are com m on to b o th (an d ind eed also to C h alo n er, w h o includes
a very similar description), alth o u gh Poliziano tends to expand on
Virgil’s details.
But this version o f V ir g il's h orse is, like C h a lo n e r’s, also significandy
selective, though to alm o st o p p o site effect. Poliziano’s resonant vignette
has removed from its V irgilian m odel all h in t o f w ar, and indeed the poem
continues: 0 dukespastoris opes! (‘ O th e sw eet riches o f the shepherd!’ , 283).
This is a pastoralized version o f geo rgic accom p lish m en t, and the horse’s
strength and beauty is an e n d in itself. T h is sm all-scale exam ple is repre­
sentative o f the w ork as a w h o le , w h ic h for all its flu ency, force and close
recasting o f Virgil, system atically suppresses all the explicidy political
elements o f the Georgies as w e ll as the darker elem ents o f the poem : this
isa countryside w ith o u t sign ifican t p lagu e, storm o r fire. W h a t appears at
first sight a subtle and perh ap s in sign ifican t detail - that Poliziano’s horse,
for all its Virgilian detail, is n o t a w a r-h o rse - in fact reveals a sustained

Ten and translation 60m Fintarti 2004.

I9Í VICTORIA MOUL

interpretive agenda to Poliziano’s project. T h e Georgies as read through

Poliziano are safer and sunnier than they seem w ith o u t him .
Chaloner places a Virgilian vignette o f eq u in e b eau ty an d sexual passion
within a book-long treatment o f the m artial an d econom ic importance of
horse-breeding - an endeavour w hich is cen tral to his vision of English
wealth and success - whereas Poliziano’s en d u rin gly influential interpret­
ation of Virgil elides the suggestion o f w ar en tirely. A final work, however,
uses the same passage of the Georgia to steer a to u ch in g m iddle ground
The Lusus poetici ('Poetic Entertainments’, 1605) o f the Scottish poet
David Hume is divided into three books. T h e inscription on the tide page
of the volume is taken from the Georgia, b u t th e books are described as
‘elegies’, ‘epigrams’ and ‘psalms and other poem s’. T h e latter includes,
however, a long hexameter poem Aselcanus (pages 8 6 -1 0 4 >n the volume,
575 lines).41*45 The poem is dedicated to the theologian Andrew Melville,
whom the poet addresses as his father, lin k in g M elv ille’s tenderness
towards Hume with both parental and divin e love.
The expansive and circular style o f H um e’s poem is difficult to sum­
marize, but its central movement expounds the pleasures an d satisfactions
of a simple and virtuous life, emphasizes G od’s love for his people (as a
father or grandfather for his children), an d urges in particular the import­
ance of self-control in resisting both passionate u rgen cy (even in religjous
matters) and cowardice or laziness. At the centre o f the poem is a long
simile illustrating this ideal o f self-control:

Qualis ubi longum Maras meditatus amorem

Acer equus: iamque arma auder, iam proelia poscit,
Vulneráque, strepirúsque virum, fremimsque tubarum
Hausit ovans; iras acuit, gfiscitque periclis
Invictum pectus bellis; et conscia virtus:
Continuo in medios ruat imperterritus hostes;
Sed fraeno facilis iussus, expectat; et acres
Interea glomerat gressus; Iongeque phalangas
Circumsultat, adhuc sessori et mitis habenis.
Verum ubi fraena iubis laxa, et calcaria longo
Accepit lateri, Dominóque volentia sensit:
Fertur in adversos: perque horrida tela, per enses

41 Hune i6o$. Dam Sutton's neo-Latin library offen a (repunctuated) text and translation, as wdl as
an ¡nnoducuty essay to the volume as a whole (http://www.philologicaLbhain.ac.uk/huinet/).
There ate some brief remarks on Hume’s Latin poetry in Bradner 1940: 16 1-2 and 183-4. 1 ha«
not found any scholarly comment on Aselcanus in particular, although Hume’s prose works haw
anraewd some recent attention (for which see Sutton’s introduction).
 Didactic Poetry xçy

Fulmineos; certámque vomentia fulgura mortem:

Inque oculos quacunque pavor se vibrat, et aures,
Degeneres animos, et corda ignava refellit.
Quod si nulla vocant arma; aut inflectere gyros
Vaenarive capras, lusu oblectatus inani
Contentus, Domino pacatum inglorius aeuum
Transigit, imbellesque animum demittit ad usus.44

Ai akn a spirited horse who has long yearned for war now at last braves arms,
« b batde and joyously drinks in wounds, the shouts o f men and the blare of
bugles; he rouses his anger, and his breast - unconquered in the perils o f batde -
indis along with its trusty companion, courage; so he would like to rush fearlessly
t once into the midst o f the enemy, and yet, readily obedient to the rein, he
«¡»and meanwhile slows his fierce pace, and prances back and forth around the
hade lines, sail mildly obediem to his rider, and his reins. But when he feels
de teins slacken on his mane and the spurs all along his side, and realizes what his
Master wants, he charges at the enemy through bristling weapons, flashing
rwords, and flashing blasts o f certain death: and whatever fear brandishes itself
beferehis eyes and ears, he rejects all weakness o f spirit, all cowardice o f heart. But
i no weapons summon him - then he is content to wheel in circles, or chase
goats, amusing himself in poindess sport, and passes a peaceful life without glory
«ii his Master, and lowers his aspirations to unwarlike ends.

This is a vision o f V irgil's ideal horse in its m aturity, initially selected for
his excited response to the sounds o f battle (as in V irgil, G. 3 .8 3-4 ), this
horsemains that enthusiasm , b u t is also perfectly controlled and obeys his
susta unquestioningly (in fact, w ith o u t even the reluctance o f the horse at
G 3.108, echoed so effectively b y V id a ). T h e follow ing passage makes clear
that the good Christian, like this version o f V irgil’s horse, must learn to
accept what he can and can not achieve, and in w h ich realms he is destined
B operate - even i f those turn o u t not to be as glamorous or active as he
hadhoped. M ovingly, sim ilar language recurs w hen H u m e finally reveals
the significance o f the p o em ’s title and turns, at line 428 , to address his
baby son, Aseclanus. H e tells h im that he m ust focus above all on virtue
ad self-control:

Alii quassata minis

Moenia Marte domant; tractasque in funera gentes:
Et dextram innocuo foedati sanguine turgent:
Tu vastos animos; et fervida corda; rebelles
Debellaque Deo motus: giroque coacta
Exerce imperiis victor.

«I
lino 14J-61. Hume 1605: 93-4. Translation mine.
 V IC TO RIA M O U L
198
Uc other men subdue walls shaken by b attle, an d b rin g n atio n s to their destrue-
tion; let them swell with pride, their hands stained w ith in n o cen t blood. You must
conquer high spirits, an ardent heart, an d passions th at rebel against God, and,
haring driven them in a circle, train them to yo u r co m m an d like a victor.4’

Both the structure o f this passage a n d th e w o r d d eb ella recall Anchises’

instructions to his son, A eneas, w h e n t h e y m e e t in th e U nderw orld in
Aeneid 6.847-53. But the lan g u age h ere - a n d e s p e c ia lly th e final lines, in
which the rebellious heart a n d so u l a re s u b je c t to t r a in in g , a n d forced into
a circular manoeuvre (gyroque coacta, c o m p a re in flectere gyros a t 158) - links
the young man Aselcanus w ill b e c o m e w it h th e V ir g ilia n horse o f the
centre of the poem.46 Ju st as th a t c e n tra l s im ile w a s fo llo w e d b y Humes
expression o f acceptance o f w h a tev er ro le in life G o d in te n d s for him , soin
his final address to his son he c a re fu lly d e n ie s a n y a u t h o r it y to predict or
demand the kind o f life A se d an u s s h o u ld le a d . In a to u c h in g ly positive
version of a priamel, H u m e im a g in e s m a n y a lte r n a tiv e s fo r his child -
whether a public life o f politics, w a rfa re o r la w ; o r a q u ie t p riv a te life with a
family, or even as a poet - an d en d o rses th e m a ll, a s lo n g a s h is son remains
strong in his faith.
This unusual poem m ed itates m o v in g ly u p o n h o w b e s t to reconcile
natural enthusiasm w ith p ie ty a n d a c c e p ta n c e , r e la t in g th e moral and
religious content to the au th o r’s o w n life , a n d p a r t ic u la r ly th é satisfac­
tions of a late m arriage a n d th e lo n g - w is h e d - fo r a r r iv a l o f a first son.
W ith consistent direct in stru ctio n a n d a s p e c if ic a d d r e s s e e , it is a didactic
poem by any measure; an d a lth o u g h fax r e m o v e d fro m classical Latin
didactic poetry in m an y w a ys - d ic tio n , to n e a n d v e rsific a tio n are all
quite unlike the m ain classical m o d e ls — H u m e n e v e r th e le s s echoes and
responds to the didactic sh ap e (a n d e d u c a t io n a l a s s o c ia tio n s ) o f Virgil's
poem by placing a reco gn izab ly g e o r g ic h o r s e a t t h e h e a r t o f his verse
essay on human m atu rity. H u m e ’s v e r s io n o f V ir g il’s h o rse neither
suppresses the reality o f w a r, n o r m a k e s it t h e h o r s e ’s o n ly purpose,
but instead accepts the ex isten ce o f b o th w a r a n d p e a c e , soldiers and
poets, to any filli vision o f h u m a n f lo u r is h in g . W h e r e a s V id a ’s young
lawyer or statesman, for w h o m lite r a tu r e is a p o t e n t d istra c tio n from
worldly affairs, still rem em b ers a n d y e a r n s f o r t h e p le a s u re s o f Latin
poetry, H ume’s vision o f fu ll m a t u r it y h a s a b s o r b e d a n d transformed
the Virgil o f his youth.

41 Hum« 160$: io«.

The Latin word ¿pm , circle’, is used especially o f the m an o eu vres o f a ho rse in L atin . See Virgil, G. 1
J.115 and 19L
 Didactic Poetry 199

F U R T H E R R E A D IN G
Foroverview and discussion o f the genre see Hofmann 1988b; IJsewijn and Sacré
1998:24-45 and Haskell 2014a. O n the earlier texts and Italian material in general,
« Roellenbleck 1975; on the im itation o f V irgil’s Georgies see Ludwig 1988. See
Haskell 2003 and 2010 for Jesuit didactic poetry; Haskell 2013 on an Ovidian
didactic poet; Haskell 1998a, Pantin 1999 and Gee 2008 on astronomical poetry;
Haskell 2014b on medical didactic. Useful collections of essays include Haskell
aid Hardie 1999; Harder et al. 2007; and Ruys 2008.
 C H A P T E R 12

Epic
Paul Gtvynne

Unlike rhetoric, no antique treatise on e p ic su rvives. Although the

Aristotelian tradition stipulated the sam e u n ity o f tim e a n d place as tragedy
and Horace defined epic as ‘th e deeds o f k in g s a n d generals and the
sorrows of war’ (Arspoetica, 73), no form al th e o ry o f ep ic w as disseminated
until the sixteenth century.1 V irgil rem ain ed th e p aradigm although
Lucretius’ De rerum natura and O v id ’s M etam orphoses h ad already strayed
beyond the theme o f ‘arms an d the m an ’. F or th e p urp o ses o f this essay,
however, epic’ will be lim ited to n arrative poetry' o n th e deeds o f heroes,
consisting of multiple books an d w ritte n in h ex am eter, between the
twelfth and eighteenth centuries.
Whilst we now speak o f neo-Latin ep ic b ecause J aco b B urckh ardt claimed
the genre had been reinvented b y Francesco P etrarca (P etrarch ), epic did not
in fact die with the fall o f the w estern em p ire. It co n tin u ed to prosper
vicariously through panegyric, th an ks to its e a rly recep tio n as a mode of
encomium.1*Fourth-century critics retro sp ectively in terp reted the Aeneidis
an epic in praise of Augustus, and poets n o w ac ted u p o n th is interpretation.’
Indeed, Qaudian (c: 3 70-404 c e ) , co u rt p o et to H o n o riu s (emperor
393-423), was so successful at ac co m m o d atin g p a n e g y ric in to the epic
tradition that his verses were p ub licly p ro claim ed a syn th esis o f ‘Virgilian
discretion and Homeric invention’/ A rich an d u n b ro k en tradition of
panegyric-epic consequendv thrived th ro u g h o u t th e M id d le Ages, adding
biblical and Christian motifs to the classical re p erto ire.’ Poets now- myth­
ologized contemporary events in ep ic term s.6 In M e ro v in g ia n G aul bishop
Venandus Fortunatus (c. 330-600/609) co m p o sed p a n e g y ric verse replete

1 Fat some idas oa 1s t antique theory sec Koster 1970; H ofm ann 1988a.
‘ For epic and epidemic see Hardison 1961: 40-8; Vickers 198); G w ynne i o n .
1 Kilkndotf 1989. 4*Cameron 1970: 404.
’ Kantorowia 1946- A separate tradition o f religious panegyric o f saints also evolved: O ’Malley 1979:
}6-7Ä. Ebenhauer 1978.
* Chin 1959.
 Epic 201

epic motifs: w h ile a t th e B y z a n tin e c o u rt h is contem porary, Flavius

(jpoonius Corippas, com posed an ep ic in eigh t books on Justinian’s cam­
pions ¿gainst the Berber tribes o f N o rth A frica; and a four-book panegyrical
(fie on the em peror Ju stin II (5 6 5 -7 8 )/ D u rin g th e later M id d le Ages the
»vtalkd ‘historical ep ic’ flo u rish ed . T h e se lo n g L atin poem s w ere based
apon historical events an d w ritte n b y p o ets w h o lived close to the period
¡¿o' were describing. K arolus R ex et Leo Papa (early n in th century', some-
nni<sascribed to E inhard) d e a lt w ith C h a rle m a g n e ’s relationship w ith Pope
[colli. In the tenth c e n tu ry an a n o n y m o u s Italian poet, takin g verses from
\irpl. Juvenal and S tatiu s, ce le b ra te d th e em p ero r B erengar (crow ned 915)
n four boob as th o u gh h e w e re a h ero o f a n tiq u ity .8 In the thirteenth
century Gilles o f Paris (1200) p resen ted h is Carolinus on C harlem agne to
prince Louis o f France, w h ile W illia m th e B reto n com posed his long epic
thf Philippeis {c. 1225) in p raise o f P h ilip A u g u stu s.9
Nonetheless, since B u rc k h a rd t it h as been trad itio n al both to see
discontinuity' in epic w ritin g a n d also to d a te its revival to Petrarch’s Africa
i;p-43).'0 This is d o u b ly p ro b le m a tic : a lth o u g h Petrarch m aintained the
traditional decorum b y re tu r n in g to a classical su b ject, his A frica is only
mother episode in th e tra d itio n o f ‘p an e g y ric a l ep ic’, one again derived
ton an epideictic read in g o f V irg il; seco n d ly, it is th e Alexandreis o f
Wter of Châtillon (r. 1135-0 1189), te n books on A lexander the Great
»Titten nearly two cen tu ries e a rlie r, th a t m o st n o urish ed the early m odem
vogue tor classicizing ep ic.

The Alexandreis an d the Africa

Thed/mu was fam ous b u t w ith o u t sig n ific a n t fo llo w in g ." T h e Alexandreis
instead became so stap le a tex t in th e sch o o ls th a t it even challenged the
primacy of classical poets as th e o b je c t o f g ra m m atic al stu d y .11 W h ile more
dan two hundred m an u scrip ts o f th e A lexandreis survive, m an y w ith
oopious glosses, there are o n ly tw e n ty -th re e o f th e A frica, m an y fragm entan7.
Moreover, the editio princeps o f th e A lexandreis (R o uen , 1487) appeared
hinten years before th e A frica (V en ice, 1501) an d it continued in print
until the eighteenth cen tu ry.

Gauge 199» Cameron 1976. 8 Raby 19 9 4 :1, 279-89. * Raby 1994; u. 94).
äwüurdt 1960:194; Warner 2008:1-19 . Modem editor, have begun to look beyond Petrarch: for
tufflffc, Haye 2009: ao-23.
&hob notes that Petrarch was honoured m ore as ‘a pioneer than as a model'. Nichols 1979:26. See
¿0 Ftn 19Î4.
' CoBcer1978: » .
202 PAUL GWYNNE

Walter of Châtillon’s poem recounts the cam p aign s o f Alexander the

Great (356-23 b c e ), from Persia to India, an d u p to his death. He discards
the fantasy that had pervaded the Alexander R om ances for the facts in the
fitst-centuty Vita Alexandri by C urtius R ufiis, an d draw s stylistically not
only upon Virgil but also Lucan, O vid, an d C la u d ia n , ensuring that they
would remain the touchstones o f all future ep ic p o etry.13 In his quest for
authenticity, Walter even goes so far as to im itate th e critical apparatus that
had accumulated around ancient texts, for each book begins with an exposi­
tory headnore that summarizes and interprets its contents. All the epic
themes are treated: dynasty, destiny, w ar and travel. N onetheless. Walter’s
characterization of Alexander offers a critique o f classical heroism and hence
the core of inherited epic. This becomes clear w h en Alexander relentlessly
pursues Darius from the battlefield o f A r bala (,Alexandreis 5.307-10) in the
vain hope of killing the king in single com bat an d thereby achieving the
aristeia (‘deeds of excellence’) o f the classical heroes. For W alter, Alexander’s
determination reveals a flaw in character, an d the verse sum m ary to Book 1
remarks that Alexander’s pursuit o f boundless em p ire an d glory is a product
of hubris: Elatusque animo sub sole iacentia regna Ham sib iparta putat (‘Soul-
proud, he thinks the realms o f all the w orld are h is’; italics mine. Capitula
primi libri, 7-8), a line that recalls the second tem p tatio n o f Christ. While
Jesus replies ‘Get thee behind me Satan ', A lexander relentlessly pursues
world domination, a tragic flaw that w ill even tually cause his death.14
Nature, wary that she will succum b to A lexander’s am bitions for world
empire, warns Leviathan, identified as Satan, th at A lexander will conquer
the Underwodd as well (10.82-108). Leviathan, fearful that Alexander is
the hero foretold to trample the gates o f H ell (com pare Pluto’s anxiety in
Star. Theb. 8.21-83), suborns Alexander’s alien ated lieuten ants into plot­
ting against his life. This narrative device n o t o n ly allow s the Alexandreis to
conclude with Alexander’s death (at the very p o in t w hen the fantastic
voyages recounted in medieval legend begin ), b u t also to contrast this
pagan hero yet again with Christ. Alexander’s sp irit exivit in auras (‘flies to
heaven's air’, 10.427), but not to Heaven. T h e m oral is that dum fallax
gloria rerum / Mortales oculos vanis circum volat alis, (‘around our mortal
eyes deceitful glory / o f action flies on w ings o f v an ity’, 10.437-38). In
other words, while Alexander fulfils all the criteria for a classical hero, his

’’ Rainier Carsughi (1647-1709). lecturer at the Jesuit Collegio Romano, advised his students to resin
the temptations of Lucan. Statius and Claudian in favour o f Virgil (see Haskell 2010; 203), testifying
to their lasting influence.
14 Coûter 197g; translation Townsend 2007.
 <tc 203

(notai failings also make h im an exemplum vanitatis (i.e. o f vainglory).

Indeed. Walter’s contem porary H e n ry o f Avranches (d. 12 6 0 ), w ho com­
posed a fourteen-book epic o n the life o f Saint Francis, claimed that his
pacifist hero was greater than W a lte r’s m ilitary One, for he not only
conquered the world bu t also overcam e his o w n passions/5
Petrarch faced similar problem s, and failed to resolve them, in his Africa,
inunfinished epic, based on L iv y , that heroizes Scipio Afncanus’ role in the
Second Punic W a r ( 2 1 8 -2 0 1 b c e ). Perhaps co n trivin g him as an antidote to
Walter’s Alexander, Petrarch presents Scip io as a pagan paragon o f virtue
not inconsistent with C h ristian values. T h is is particularly evident in Book
[Vwhere Scipio’s lieutenant Lelius lists the general’s physical prowess and
moral excellence (Africa, 4 .4 6 - 5 5 ) . T h e verse translation b y Bergin and
Wilson is more than faithful to the hyperbole o f the original:

Nulli umquam Natura viro cam larga fuisse

Creditur. Ethereo corpus splendore nitescit;
Imperiosa ducem frons arguit, aspera blandum,
Unde simul vibrant unum duo lumina fulmen,
Quod nullus sufferre queat. Com a densa per armos
Protinus ad solem ventis ferientibus aurum
Explicat impexum, quoniam cassisque sudorque
Et labor assiduus prohibent animusque modesto
Contentus cultumque timens transisse virilem.
Celsior est aliis.
{Africa, 4. 46-55)

Never, ’ tis said, to any man before

has nature shown such bounty. From him flows
a rare ethereal aura, and his brow,
whence two yoked flashes hurl a single bolt
that no man may sustain, makes manifest
in tranquil majesty the worthy chief.
Over his shoulders his luxuriant locks
expose their gold to sun and w in d - dishevelled:
for burden o f the helm and sweat o f toil
assiduous and constant, and a mind
content with simple things, make him eschew
refinements unbecoming to a man.
Tall above other men he stands.'6

This discriptio pulchritudinis ( a catalogue o f beauty’), once reserved only

for women, is here rem ade in to an hom oerotic blazon and becomes the

1 Avranche 1916; IJI-15. 16 Bergin and Wilson 1977: 70-1.

104 PAUL GWYNNE

prelude to a pious inventory of Scipio’s m oral q u alities. For modem critics,

the perfection of Scipio’s healthy m ind an d h ealth y body is only one
reason why the Africa is ultim ately so un rew ardin g. T h e central hero is
merely a cipher, ‘too perfect a synthesis o f R om an w arrio r and Christian
saint to be credible’.17
While some episodes, such as the doom ed tryst o f Massinissa and
Sophonisba, mirror the passionate intensity o f D ido an d Aeneas or Paolo
and Francesca, overall the pagan form and C hristian purpose never really
cohere. The nadir of this conflict is when Ju p iter foresees the future and
absurdly predicts his own reincarnation as C hrist b o m o f the Virgin (Africa,
7.710-24). The incompatibility o f the traditional cast o f deities with the
singularity of the Christian God is a fault line that runs through most neo-
Latin epic, but it ruptures the unity o f Petrarch’s project. Indeed, the Africa
proved too much for its author. Even though Petrarch successfully canvassed
King Roben of Sicily to endorse his laureation in Rom e (1341) with the
promise of its imminent publication, he eventually abandoned the work.
Petrarch may have predicted a poetic trium ph to com pare with Scipio’s
victory over Hannibal, but as the years rolled b y o n ly selected passages
were ever circulated, and then only to friends.18 T h e reception of even
these fragments was for from enthusiastic.19 Indeed, no poet after Petrarch
would choose a figure from Roman history as th e ir hero. Instead patriot­
ism, national or local loyalties (real or ideal), an d the search for a patron
would dictate the choice of subject m atter.

EncomiasticEpicintheFifteenthCentury
The fifteenth century was a dynam ic period for ep ic. It began with
Homer’s translation into Latin, an d ended w ith p rin ted editions of the
Iliad and Odyssey in the original G reek.“ T h e discovery o f manuscripts of
Lucretius and Silius Italicus (1417) m ade th eir w orks accessible for the first
time in 1500 years and augmented the canon. I f th at w ere not enough,
poets also set about filling the lacunae in the literary rem nants. In 1428,

17 Mann 1984:51. In the final book, however, Petrarch has Homer predia to Ennius, no less, the
advent of the supreme epic poet - that is, Petrarch himself (Africa 9,219-36).
* The atibo princeps was first published in Petrarch’s Opera tanna at Venice in 1501; see Bernardo
1961:17 5-6.
* In Leonardo Bruni's dialogues on contemporary culture (c. 1402-3) Niccolò Niccoli launches an
acerbic attack on Petrarch's poem: ‘Nothing was ever announced with such a fanfare as Petrarch
heralded hi%Africa. .. But then what? Such a fanfare brought forth only a derisory squeak!' Dialog
ad Farm Patibm Histrum, 14S, in Bruni 1994.
“ See Wilson 1992.
 E p ic 205

\|atft° supplemented V irg il w ith a thirteenth book o f his own

^position (editio princeps, V e n ice 14 7 1) - w hich now culminated with
^ apotheosis o f Aeneas - and the challenge continued to be accepted
ujtil Thomas M ay virtually doubled the length o f Lucan’s incomplete
0 m Civile (1640).“ T h ese ‘com plete’ texts com posed the most import­
ât Continental editions for nearly tw o hundred years, and the continu­
ations were hardly distinguished from the originals. Concurrendy, classical
(pic became the subject o f hum anist lectures and the texts received
philological commentaries that were just as influential in their own right.“
Neo-Latin epic flourished as never before. L o n g hexameter poems that cast
contemporary potentates as classical heroes looked back to Lucan’s claim
lJut the poets could bestow im m ortality on their subjects, in life and
beyond (9.980-1). A s a result, in the w ords o f Jo h n Addington Symonds:

Our ears are deafened with eulogies o f petty patrons transformed into
Maecenases, of carpet knights compared with Leonidas, o f tyrants made
equal with Augustus, o f generals who never looked on bloodshed tricked
out as Hannibals or Scipios.25

To pick just four examples from the vast catalogue attesting to the
explosion in popularity o f such encom iastic epic am ong the condot-
«riand signorie o f Renaissance Italy w e m ay cite: the Sphortias (an unfin­
ishedepic in ten books on the deeds o f Francesco Sforza, Duke o f Milan)
by Francesco Filelfo ( 13 9 8 -14 8 1); the Feltria (nine books ort the deeds o f
Federigo da Montefeltro, D u k e o f U rb in o ) b y Gianantonio de Porcellio
Pandoni (c. 1409-c. 1485); the Hesperis (thirteen books on Sigismondo
Malaiesta’s two campaigns against N aples in 1448 and 1453) by Basinio
Basini (1425-57); and the Borsias (ten books o n Borso D ’ Este, Duke o f
Ferma) by Tito Vespasiano Strozzi ( 14 2 4 -15 0 5 ). T h e reception o f these
works, however, was not alw ays as the poets had hoped.24 Following
Petrarch’s example, Filelfo used the potential o f his epic to promote his
career at the Sforza court, but disappointed b y Sforza indifference sent
selected books to other patrons. A fte r the sudden death o f Borso d’ Este,
Strozzi refashioned his Borsias into a general celebration o f the D ’Este
family. In the latter case, this accident o f fortune initiated a new trend in
dynastic epic that was fulfilled in the vernacular epic compositions o f
Boiardo and Ariosto.

* Bodncr1940: 71-2; Kallendorf 2014b, in Ford, Bloemcndal and Fancazzi, 1118-9.

for cumple, Calderini 20Ù, *’ Symonds 1875:11, 375. M Gwynne and Shirg 2015.
206 PAUL G W YN N E

Nor was the new encomiastic epic co n fin ed to Italy. In the 1440s, for
example, Tito Livio dei Fmlovisi com posed th e H um froidos in honour of
Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester. A t the en d o f th e century Johann«
Michael Nagonius, an itinerant poet in th e service o f th e Borgia papacy,
travelled from Buda to London p resen tin g d elu x e manuscripts to tht
crowned heads of Europe that heroized each ded icatee, though always
with the covert intention o f m aking them agen ts o f papal foreign policy,1'
It is hardly surprising that dem and for such ep ic flattery swelled amongst
the ruling elites of Europe and that the taste w o u ld endure into tht
eighteenth century. Over eighty epics w ere p ro duced d u rin g the sixteenth
and seventeenth centuries in France alo n e.26
It is surprising that the epic en co m ia o f such renow ned rivals and
patrons of the ans as Federigo da M ontefeltro an d Sigism ondo Malatesta
remain unpublished. The portrait that Federigo co m m issio n ed from Pedro
Berruguete for his exquisite studiolo shows h im clad in arm o ur but reading
a hefty tome, like Porcellio’s Feltria, w hich begins:

Magnanimum fidumque Ducem pia signa gerentem,

Qui Soram et Marsos domuit gentemque Sabellam,
Quique Sigismundi superatis agmine turmis,
Flamineasque arces, Picenaque regna subegit,
Ordiar.

I will describe the noble and loyal general who carries the insignia of the Church:
he tamed Sora, the Marsii and the Savelli and, when Sigismondo’s forces had
been routed by his army, conquered the Flaminian citadels and the strongholds
around Piceno.17

To choose ordiar as the first m ain verb is te llin g . It w as the word first
uttered in Silius Italicus’ Punica and im p lies th at th e territorial squabbles
between the Montëfeltro and M alatesta are o n a p ar w ith the life-or-death
struggle between Rome and Carthage. T h e rest o f th e poem is a litany of
combat and carnage, that passes over th e fact th at it w as th is ‘new Caesar’
who blew an Augustan triumphal arch to sm ith ereen s at the siege of Fano.
Shorter epics might concentrate on ju st o n e cam p aign , making the
besieged city as much the locus o f epic as T ro y h ad been for Homer and
as unified a stage for action as Aristode h ad w ish ed .2* T h e Volaterrais, a

” Gwynnc zoil u Braun 1007.

" Porcellio. Ftlirit, BAV, Urb. Ut. 573, fol. ib', Bk i, 1-4 ; translation mine.
** For aample, Futáis Paracletus G l metanus De Malvetiis (1408-87), Tarentina (1460-$) four books
ou the Barons' wan Piene de Blarru (1437-1510), N anceid (printed posthumously in 1518), centra
upon thevictoiy of Reni, Duke o f Lorraine over Charles, Duke o f Burgundy, at the siege of Nancy
 Epic 207

ibur-book epic b y N ald o d e ’ N a id i (c. 1432—1513) on the w ar between

Florence and V olterra (1472) o p en s w ith a p an egyric on the golden age in
Florence under M ed ici ru le, c o n tra stin g it w ith the internal dissents of
Volterra, the subject o f th e p o em :

Est urbs, Etruscis quae pulchrior exstat in oris,

Sullanus primae cui m iles originis auctor
quamque tenent orti Romano a sanguine Patres,
ex re nomen habet: nam cum modo floreat illa,
felix prole virum atque opibus ditata supremis,
omnibus est proprio Florentia nom ine dicta.19
(Naidi, Voiaterrais, 1.15-20)

Theie isa rather beautiful city that stands in the Tuscan region, which claims the
soldier Sulla as the founder o f its first origins and over which senators bom from
Somanstock hold sway. It derives its nam e from its prosperity; for since that city,
happy in its race of men and enriched w ith extraordinary wealth, may only
fiourisb, it is named by everyone Florence.

This kus urbis is actu ally a p retext fo r th e p o et to absolve Florence from

any guilt in the en su in g w a r a n d ev en tu al sack o f V olterra (related in
Book h i ), and instead a ttrib u te th is so rd id in cid en t to the goddess Envy’s
ire at the prosperity o f F lo ren ce.
The work concludes (B o o k iv ) w ith a b rie f account o f Federigo’s
triumphant return to F lo ren ce b efo re lau n ch in g in to an interm inable,
reported oration (4 2 -4 4 6 ) re m in d in g us o f th e condottieres accomplish­
ments in both war and p eace. A lth o u g h th is p o em w as w ritten in the hope
offurther patronage, F ederigo ig n o re d N a ld i’s pleas for support. H e did,
however, have the Volterrais, to g e th e r w ith P o rcellio ’s Feltria and other
works celebrating him , co p ied for h is m ag n ific en t lib rary.

N eo-Latin E pic W arfare

While condottieri like F ed erigo asp ire d to b eco m e a latter-day Achilles or

Caesar, the poets had to stru g g le w ith th e realities o f m odern warfare. So
powerful was the im p act o f a rtille ry a n d firearm s th at the old gods quickly
seemed impotent w ith o u t th e m . E v en tu ally w e w ill even be confronted in
a later epic, Charles G arn ier’s v e rn a c u la r H enriade (1593-4) on H enry IV
of France, with the cu rio u s sp ec tacle o f M a rs strid in g across th e battlefield

|o>477; the twelve-book M utineis by Francesco Rococdolo (r. 1460/70-1528) celebrates the defence
* Modenese against papal, French and Imperial incursions; see Gwynne 2016b.
All quotations are from Grant 1974.
zo8 PAUL GWYNNE

anned with a pistol. More im portantly, th e pervasive presence of long,

range weapons made the heroic ethos o f th e aristeia (in which heroes
demonstrate their prowess iñ single-handed co m b at) increasingly irrele­
vant, and eventually impossible. T ty as th ey m igh t, it w as a task to blend
gunsmokeand firearms into epic. T he soldier-poet Francesco Spendo, who
left an epic account of his service w ith C esare B orgia, ranted against the
cowardice of snipers: ‘Alas! the tim id an d co w ard ly lay low brave hearts |
and with an anonymous shot from a distance th ey send renowned warriors
to the shades below.’50
The distinction between fighting at close quarters (cominus) or at a
distance {minus) is a feature o f neo-Latin ep ic th at w as absent in its
classical forebears. Paris had earned eternal o p p ro b rium for killing Achilles
at a distance when Apollo guided his arrow (O v. M et. 12.580-611), and in
neo-Latin epic those who cheat, those w ho ign o re th e chivalric code, use
guns. Gunpowder was satanic. It stole G od’s th un der, and Ariosto,
Spenser and Milton have the Devil invent gu n p o w d er and devise artil­
lery.5' In the 1520s Marco Girolamo V ida’s C bristiad tellin g ly compares the
firing of a cannonball with the explosive response o f the demonically
inspired Sanhedrin to Nicodemus’ defence o f C h rist:

Qualiter aere cavo, dum sulfura pascitur atra,

indusus magis atque magis furit acrior ignis
moliturque fugam, nec se capit intus anhelans,
nulla sed angustis foribus via, nec potis extra
rumpere, materiam donec comprenderit omnem;
tum piceo disdusa volat glans ferrea fumo.
Fit crepitus: credas rupto ruere aethere coelom.
Iamque ilia et turres procul ecce stravit et arces;
corpora et arma ¡acent late et via facta per hostes.
Haud illi secus accensi meliora momentum
excludunt adytis atque extra moenia trudunt.
( Christiad , 2, 203-15)

As when poisonous sulphur consumes itself within the chamber of a bronze

cannon, the confined fire rages with ever-greater force. Hissing and seeking to
break out, it can no longer contain itself, yet it has no avenue o f escape through
the narrow channels of the bore, no means of freeing itself, until all the maner is
consumed. Then amid pitchy smoke, the iron bullet discharges and takes wing
with a thunderous sound. You would think that the sky had split open and the

10 BAV, Vat lac 5205. fot 23'. Translation mine see Gwynne 1015: 2, 33. Speralo is here voicing a
complaint that would soon become commonplace.
11 Oriendo Furioso, 9.91; Feerie Queme, 1.7.13; Paradise Loss, 6.469-608.
 Epic 209

bfivtns were falling! And behold, the cannonball has laid waste to distant towers
tnd fortifications, bodies and weapons lie scattered everywhere, and a path has
beencut through the enemy camp! Even so were the elders in Jerusalem incensed
jgainst Nicodcmus, though he gave them wise counsel. And so they expelled him
tramthe temple and harried him beyond the walls of the city.’1

The intrusion o f gun p o w d er w arfare in to ep ic w as not o n ly a thematic

chillenge. The m echanics o f g u n fire clea rly taxed poets’ linguistic skills
too. In i strained circum lo cutio n S p e n d o refers to bullets as plum bique a
xl/thure pandes contortae (lit. ‘acorns o f lead w h irled violendy by sul-
phur').5’ Some poets scoured th e treatises o f V itruvius and Vegetius for
technical terms w hich co u ld be ad o p ted or, m ore often, invested with
fresh meanings; others sim p ly L atin ized co n tem p o rary words, jarring
humanist sensibilities. C o m p are, for exam p le, th e bitter debate surround­
ing the use of the n eo lo gism bom bardus over the classical term

Neo-LatinEpicandthe Fall of Constantinople

The fell of C onstantinople in M a y 14S3 sen t shock waves across the
Mediterranean. In the postscript to h is four-book epic Contantinopoleos
(r, 1455-64) Ubertino P usculo c laim e d th at he w itnessed the siege.” His
poemcondudes w ith a d ram atic descrip tio n o f the c ity ’s fall;

Femineis resonant ululatibus om nia tecta,

Diripiunt domos T eucri, sacrataque templa,
Thesauros rapiunt veteres; puerique puellae
Et matres, pulchraeque nurus in castra trahuntur.
(Pusculo, Constantinopoleos, 4.1056-9)
Emjr building echoes with the screams o f women, the Trojans (i.e., the
Turks) sack the homes and holy churches and carry off the ancient treasures;
bipsand girls, wives and beautiful yo u n g wom en are dragged off to the enemy

’ Vidi 2009:74-5.
UV, Vit Ul ;8 u , fol. lì* . Girolamo Fracastoro’s description o f the workings o f an arquebus,
P f « a pinot shoot by Columbus’ men on the island o f Hispaniola, is even more convoluted
k 5.160-69). Eatough 1984: 94-5.
Vdi 1981:157-60; in response, at the beginning o f his Decades Biondo Flavio justified his use of
Mlogwni (such as ‘ bombardus' for 'canon*) arguing thaï ancient terminology often proved
, “usuate fer modem developments in warfare.
MQmumtim studiis urbs dulcis habebat, / Cum cecidit bello: barbara praeda fia . (I was studying in
<Cooreanciaes delightful city when It fell in war, I was savage booty), Pusculo 1857: 83.
i8s7:8a.
ZIO PAUL G W YN N E

As the T uiks pushed North and W est in search o f fu rth er conquests, the all
for a crusade echoed across Europe. N ot su rp risin g ly, this summons imme­
diately appears in epic. The four-book Am yris (1471-6) by Gian Maria
Filelfo documents the Turkish advance an d cu lm in ates w ith an appeal to
Duke Galeazzo Maria Sforza o f M ilan to lead a crusade o f united Christian
princes against Mehmed II.57 T h e AHfonseis (a ten -b o o k epic on Alfonso
V ‘the Magnanimous’) by M atteo Z uppardo (c. 1400-57) is similarly
themed around the promotion o f a crusade, an d features John Hunyadi’s
spirited defence of Belgrade (July 1455, B ook iv ; J u ly 1456, Book ix).*
Unlike other epics which were w ritten w ith th e benefit o f hindsight and
from historical records (such as N aldi’s Volatarais) Z uppardo’s poem was
composed as events unfolded and news from A lb an ia reached the Neapol­
itan court. This accounts for the curious, ep iso dic nature o f the poem,
which began as an occasional piece celebrating bo th A lfonso’s plans to lead a
crusade and also the dynastic m arriage betw een th e houses o f Sforza and
Aragon (Books 1-111). Into this narrative the poet has w oven an account of
the contemporary Neapolitan-G enovese conflict (B ooks v i - v i i i ) andan
excursus upon Achilles’ retreat to the island o f Skyros (B ook v ). The latter is
intended both to complete Statius’ unfinished AchiU eid an d also suggest that
the Neapolitans are heirs to the G reeks w h o h ad conquered the Trojans
(because their descendants are here again id en tified as T u rks).
Zuppardo’s Alfonseis pitches the conflict betw een th e tw o armies at the
walls of Belgrade as an apocalyptic struggle betw een G ood and E vil While
the Turks forlornly call upon a M o h am m ed th a t Z uppardo tells us is
chained in Hell {Alfimseis, 9.94-103), Jo h n H u n y a d i’s rousing speech to
the Christian troops reaches fever pitch in Jo h n o f C apestrano’s vision of
Christ leading the heavenly squadrons:
Spero equidem, non frisa fides, non gloria fellit,
maxima cum nostra veniet victoria laude.
Ipse Capistran us Christum vidisse fetetur
etherea regione emeem et vexilla gerentem
pluraque, que hortantur letas ad bella cohortes
currere et infestas ades consurgere in hostes.
(Zu ppardo, A ifim seis, 9 .19 1- 9 6 )

I indeed hope, neither frise frith nor gloiy deceives, the greatest victory will come
with our praise. Capestrano himself says that he has seen Christ carrying the cross
and many standards in the heavens, which encourage the happy cohorts to race
into battle and the hostile batdelines to rise up against the enemy.39

fiidfb 1978- ** Zuppardo 1990. * Translation mine.

 E p ic 211

Hus vision is echoed at the victorious conclusion o f the batde when Hunya-
jji'sattempt to enter into single c o m b a t w ith the Turkish leader is curtailed by
¡Hangel (9.333—47). A lth o u gh H u n y a d i is denied his aristeia, the angel
„«diets a sequel in which A lfo n so V w ill instead have this satisfaction. While
lath the Alfrnseis and the victo ry it celebrates were short-lived successes, by
«tsenting a contemporary ruler in the guise o f a crusading knight, invested
„¡th all the paraphernalia o f epic, this p o em looks forward to the poetry that
be written to celebrate the naval victo ry at Lepanto (1571).
the Alfonseis also offered a solution to one o f the core quandaries o f
neo-Latin epic, the co n tin u in g C h ristia n disquiet over the true motivations
tot military heroism. A s the secular e p ic trem ored and buckled under a hail
of bullets, the pagan apparatus o f e p ic w as gradually Christianized and,
almost inevitably, centred a ro u n d a crusadin g m otif. T h u s, the fifteen-
book Caritas o f U go lin o V e r in o ( 1 4 3 8 - 1 5 1 0 ) resuscitated the heroic ethos
only by taking as its them e C h a rle m a g n e ’ s conquests from the H o ly Land
to Italy. Charlemagne is ‘w ith o u t rival in deed o r religion’ and Verino’s
preface tells us: T h i s w o rk is m an ifold , distinguished as m uch b y its poetic
tropes as it is ornam ented w ith the m ysteries o f the Christian faith.’40
Verino’s Caritas was w ritten o ver a lon g period, and redraughted in
1493 with a dedication to C h arles V I I I o f France, with the intention ò f
presenting it to the lon g as he passed d o w n the Italian peninsula to invade
Naples. Charles had justified his invasion o f the Italian peninsula b y claiming
that his plans for the conquest o f the K in g d o m o f Naples were only the first
step in a crusade aimed at w resting the M editerranean from the Turks and
recapturing the H o ly Land . A t a m o m en t in European history when actual
crusade was merely a fantasy, the spurious idea that Charlem agne had once
conquered the H o ly Lan d w as a p rovocation. A s the dedication spells out, the
Caritasmeant to inspire C h arles V I I I to em ulate his ancestor and namesake.
As in Chatillon’s Alexandreis, a series o f verse sum m aries explain the
contents o f each book. V e rin o too includes every epic trope he can muster,
lie begins in medias rer, there are banquets, journeys, storms at sea, great
battles, and councils o f w a r. T h e o n ly real innovation is that the katabasis
(voyage to the U nderw orld) n o w im itates D a n te ’ s Divine Comedy. Charle­
magne not only travels th ro u gh th e U n d e rw o rld (B o o k v i ) , but continues
on to Purgatory (B oo k v n ) , an d eventually Paradise (B o o k v m ) , where
the Virgin M ary, ech o in g A n c h ise s’ w o rd s to Aeneas {Aen. 6 .851-53),
affirms Charlemagne’s d estin y in th e presence o f the A lm igh ty: *

* Vaino199;. Translation mine. The C aritas has recently begun to attract attention, see Thum 2002
nd rdotnoa in Gwynne, Hodges and Vroom 2014.
212 PAUL G W YN N E

Ne timeas auctore Deo discrimen adire,

Quodcunque occurrit; sevosque abolere tyrannos
Ars erit ista tibi; et iustis des libera iura;
Maumettique luem et virus quodcunque nefandum
Evelles, Quisto ut soli tribuantur honores.
(V erino, C a rlia s, 8 .6 7 4 -7 8 )

Fear not entering barde with God as your guide, wherever that may be; you will
make an art of destroying savage tyrants; you shall give free laws to the just; you
shall expunge every plague and abominable stench o f Mohammed, so that all
honour will be rendered to Christ alone.
The Virgin endorses Charlemagne’s victories an d encourages him with pre­
dictions of future greatness while the angels ap p laud. H er prediction of course
applies as much to Charles VIII, an d th e V irg in ’s w ords are therefore a
summons to crusade. This convenient device n o t o n ly allow s the poet to lay
any responsibility for the ensuing w ar an d slaugh ter on th e A lm ighty Himself,
but it also absolves Charlemagne from an y charge o f vain glo ry by suggesting
that his accomplishment resides in com plete subm ission to G od’s will and the
exercise of Christian duty. Actual com bat is no t so m eth in g th at the hero seeks
for its own sake. The result, however, is an unsuccessful compromise. The
Christian motifs are tired and hang aw kw ardly from th e ep ic framework. The
battle scenes, like the fights in the chansons de geste upon w h ich they are based,
are repetitive and dull, unrelieved bouts o f ‘w allo p in g an d carving’, to borrow
Graham Hough’s memorable phrase.41

Italian Epic o f the Sixteenth C en tu ry

In Italy, the crisis of secular epic coincided w ith th e electio n o f Giovanni

de’ Medici as Pope Leo X (1513-21). Poets greeted h is reign as a new
Golden Age. The new pope in return d em an d ed a b ib lical epic written
in elegant humanistic Latin that could rival th e p agan prototypes and
eclipse the rough Latin o f the first C h risd an poets.41 A lth o u gh Leo did not
live to see their completion he encouraged th e tw o m o st fam ous poems in
this genre, the De Partu Virginis b y Iacopo San n azaro (1458-1530) and the
Chnstiadby Marco Girolamo V ida (1485-1566).
Sannazaro’s poem treats the m ystery o f the V irg in B irth . T h e historical
progression from Annunciation (Book 1), th ro u gh V isitatio n (Book 11), to
Journey to Bethlehem (Book in ) is p aralleled b y a su b p lo t revealed in
prophetic unetances (by King D avid in B ook 1; b y P roteus in Book n and

* Hough 196t * Green 2006: 351-72.

 E p ic 213

¿c River Jordan in B o o k i l l ) n arratin g the life o f C hrist: preaching to

the elders, the Passion and triu m p h in B o o k i; birth in B ook ir, baptism
ind miracles in Book i l l . T h is p o e m has sharply divided opinion. Critics
from Erasmus to Sym o n d s fo u n d the classical language inappropriate to
the Christian subject, w hereas tw o m o dern editors praise the Virgilian
hexameters as ‘m arvellously beau tifu l’ / 3 Y e t this is a curiously static poem,
i series of tableaux and speeches co m p o sed m ore for contemplation and
devotion than any narrative im p etu s.44 T h e overall effect is more o f
pastoral tranquillity than epic gran deur. A s T h o m a s G reene has said, it is
i pageant rather than a d ram a’ .45
The Christiad o f M a r c o G ir o la m o V id a is quite different. Although
both poems take the In ca rn a tio n as th eir central them e, the Christiad
expands, through predictions a n d flash backs, to encom pass the whole o f
time from the C reation a n d F all to the L a st Ju d ge m en t. T h e portrayal
of the Virgin at the C r u c ifix io n reveals Sa n n aza ro ’s and V id a ’s differing
approaches to their su b ject m atter.
The description o f V irg in at th e C ru c ifix ió n in the N e w Testament is
virtually telegraphic in its b revity: ‘ N o w there stood b y the cross o f Jesus
his mother, and his m oth er’s sister, M a r y the w ife o f Cleophas, and M aiy
Magdalene’ (John 19 :25). B y con trast Sannazaro elaborates the scene at
some length:

At mater, non iam mater sed flentis et orbae

infelix simulacrum, aegra ac sine viribus umbra,
ance crucem demissa genas, effusa capillum,
stat lacrimans tristique irrorat pectora fletu.
Ac si iam comperta mihi licet ore profari
omnia, defessi spectans morienda nati
lumina, crudeles terras, crudelia dicit
sidera, crudelem se se, quod talia cernat
vulnera, saepe vocat.
(Sannazaro, De partu Virginii, 1.333-41)

Bui his mother, no longer mother but wretched spectre, weeping and bereft, a
licktned, feeble shadow, stands in tears before the cross. Her face is lowered, her
hairoutspread. She dampens her breast with a flood o f sadness. And, if I can now
give voice to ail that I have discovered, as she gazes at the dying eyes o f her

* Poo« and Sparrow 19 7 9 :14 1.

“ Hegolden age o f pastoral is made eternal through the birth o f Christ; for the rifacim ento o f Virgil's
kkjW 'messianic eclogue’ to accommodate the angels’ hymn above the nativity, see Sannazaro
t a»* 370-75.
Gnene 1973:158. See also Kennedy 1983; 180-224.
 2 14 PAUL GWYNNE

exhausted son, she calls the earth cruel, the stars cruel. O ver and over she callj
herself cruel because she bears witness to w ounds such as these.'*6
Sannazaro’s phraseology combines reference to the hymn Stabat Mato
with echoes of Virgil’s Eclogues (5.23; 8.48 -50 ). Sannazaro inserts the
diacope at mater, iam non mater w ith in an antithesis in the same line
(at mater . . . e t orbae). The result is an elegance and balance that is
somewhat at odds with the brutality o f the C rucifixion.47 This matto
pervades the passage, for example in the use o f annominatio (repeating a
word but varying its inflection every tim e) - crudeles, crudelia, crudelem -
that may imitate the Virgin’s hiccupping sobs. B ut such flourishes elicit
literary appreciation rather than an y real pathos.
Vida’s presentation o f the same scene is far m ore direct:
Ut vero informi mulctacum funere natum
affixumque trabi media iam in morte teneri
aspexit coram infelix, ut vidit ahena
cuspide traiectas palmas palmasque pedesque,
vulnificisque genas fbedataque tempora sertis,
squalentem ut barbam, turpatum ut sanguine crinem,
deiectosques oculos dura iam in morte natantes,
inque humerum lapsos vultus morienriaque ora,
Alpino stetit ut cautes in vertice surgens,
quam neque concutiunt venti néque saeva trisulco
fulmine vis coeli, assiduus neque diluit imber -
hispida, cana gelu longoque immobilis aevo.
(Vida, Cbristiad, 5.815-26)
But when the poor woman saw her son face to fece, punished with shameful death
and nailed to the cross half dead, when she saw his hands and feet pierced by
brazen nails and his cheeks and his temples bloodied by thorns, his beard filthy
and his hair rank with gore, when she saw his dçwncast eyes already swooning in
cruel death and his dying fece slumped onto his shoulder, she stood like a cliffon
an Alpine mountain top - craggy, white with frost, immutable through long
ages - which neither the winds nor the blast of the three-pronged lightning can
shake, nor the driving rain.4*
The planctus M ariae lies generally behind both descriptions. What is more
telling is the authors’ choice o f V irgilian genres as their model. Sannazaro

■** Sannazaro 2009: 24-5.

47 Variant readings to dir text demonstrate that Sannazaro deliberately suppressed the violence of
Christ's suffering to concentrate instead upon the lamentation o f Mary at the foot o f the crass, see
Fontani 1997: 231-48.
*“ Vida 2009:304-7.
 Epic îi5

looks to V irgil’s Eclogues, V id a the Aeneid. Sannazaro’s figures are docile

echoes o f pastoral song, V id a seeks out the most shocking imagery of epic.
Thus, when V id a evokes the gory cadaver of Hector as he appears in a
dream to Aeneas (Aen. 2 .2 7 4 -7 9 ), he ignores the example of Homer, who
had Apollo preserve H e c to rs b o dy incorrupt until Priam could redeem it
for honourable b u rial, in favour o f V irgil, where Hector’s ghost still bears
all the grisly scars o f his d uel w ith Achilles. This choice allows Vida to
contrast the grim spectacle o f tortured flesh with the splendour of Christ’s
resurrected body.

Neo-Latin E p i c T h e Battle o f Lepanto and Beyond

By the time that these tw o poem s were eventually presented to Pope

Clement VII C h risten d o m w as fractured b y the Reformation. In a Europe
divided, however successful V id a’s reformation of classical epic in Chris­
tian terms it could no lo n ger claim a unified audience or speak in universal
terms. The sub ject th at proved an exception was the Battle of Lepanto
(1571), the last great naval encounter powered by oars. Vanquishing the
common enem y, th e T u r k th at m enaced all Europe, once more provided
an opportunity to celeb rate ‘arm s an d the man’.49
The Bellum Tureum (p ub lish ed 1573) by Bernardino Leo recounts the
batde in two books (1683 h exam eters).50 Book 1 begins with the Turkish
incursions in the eastern .M editerranean and culminates in a lengthy
catalogue o f the allied C ath o lic fleet o f Venetian, Spanish and Papal vessels
and their respective cap tain s (1.441-839). T his is obviously modelled upon
the description o f th e A ch aiarf arm ada in Homer (Iliad 2.484-760) and
again equates the T u rk s w ith the Trojans. Between these episodes an
interesting digression presents à debate on the true faith between a
Muslim, a Jew an d a C h ristian at the court o f Selim II in Constantinople
(U.268—335); n atu rally, th e so lid faith o f the Catholic priest in this ‘great
trial of religious faith ’ (magna sacerdotum fe d ii contentio, 1.270) wins out, to
foreshadow the C h ristian v icto ry in Book 11. The description of the battle
itself (2.253-463) is su rp risin g ly matter-of-fact and devoid o f epic excess
(cf. Luc. 3.509-762). O d d ly , A ctiu m is m entioned only for its geographical
proximity (4 7 8 -8 0 ) n o t h isto rical precedent. Instead praise is heaped upon

Wright 1009. For a selection o f twenty-two Latin poems in a variety o f metres see Wright, Speso:
and Lemons 10 14. T his anthojogy does not include die Bellum Turnan.
Baisi 2008.
 216 PAUL GWYNNE

those who fought, those who fell, and those w h o survived to triumph.
An apostrophe to the fallen gives the general flavour:

Felices animae, quibus est Fortuna peracta

Proque fide Christi posuistis corpora letho.
Gratulor et vivis, quod post certamina parto
Victores redeant Capitolia ad alta triumpho.
Gratulor et rabis, nullum maris aequor arandum
Quod maneat, sed parta quies in secula cuncta:
Praecipue quibus ad tam sancti vota parentis
Contigit in Coelum recto iam tramite tolli,
Non alia ex aliis moriendo in fota vorari.
(Leo, Bellum Tureum , 2.686-94)''
Happy Spirits, whose fortune is complete and who gave their life for their faith in
Christ. I also congratulate the living that return victorious to the lofty Capitol
from this strugge. And I congratulate you because there remains no sea to plough,
but eternal rest; and especially those whose destiny is to be raised directly to
heaven by the prayers of the Holy Father and not to be devoured in death, one
after the other.

The success at Lepanto instigated a revival o f h ero ic epic, as there was

finally a Christian victory to celebrate. B ut m artial poetry also redis­
covered its purpose in the religious wars th at d iv id ed Europe. As both
Protestant and Catholic scholars prom oted an ep ic th eo ry concomitant
with their religious views, heroic poetry flo urish ed. T o p ick some lesser-
known examples: Dermot O ’M eara’s five-book Orm onius celebrates the
military career of Thomas Butler, 10th Earl o f O rm o n d an d his unwaver­
ing loyalty to the English crown;51 the G u n p o w d er Plot against james
I prompted a spate o f anti-C atholic ‘gu n p o w d er epics’ (including
200 hexameters by seventeen-year-old Jo h n M ilto n );53 while James
Philp’s unfinished Grameid chronicles th e Jaco b ite risin g o f 1689 led by
John Graham, first Viscount D undee.54 H u g u e n o t-C a th o lic rivalry in
France elicited from Pierre M am brun th e tw elve-b o o k Constantinus sive
idolatria debellata (1658) w hich, as the su b title suggests, took the over­
throw of idolatry as its sacred cause;55 in n o rth ern Europe Gustaras
Adolphus became the subject o f four co n tem p o rary epics;5* and
Protestant-Catholic rivalry was also transposed to B razil as the Dutch

p Bam » 0 8 :173-74 ** Edwards and Sidwell 2012.

” For the gunpowder epics see Fletcher 1996; Haan 1992. 54 Houghton 2012.
” Masked 1973. * Hdander 2004
 E p ic 217
challenge to Spanish h e g e m o n y in S o u th A m erica was celebrated in
Frandscus Plante’s tw elve-b o o k Mauritius ( 16 4 7 ) .57

Jesuit Epic
jesuir poets seized upon the m ilitary virtues (courage, faithfulness,
obedience, endurance) in S t Ign atiu s’ Spiritual Exercises to formulate a
new heroism for the Ecclesia militans. - W ritin g for Jesuit seminarians
about Jesuit heroes, epics proliferated, published in pocket-sized octavo
volumes often with indices for easy reference. Jesu it missions to the East
ifforded ample o p portun ity to h igh ligh t heroic áets o f courage. One
sample, from m any, m ust suffice. Quinque Martyres e Societate Iesu in
Indù libri sex (Venice: M u sch iu s, 15 9 1) by Francesco Benci, sj
1542—94), is an elegant and dram atic account o f the first Jesuit embassy,
ltd by Rodolfo Acquaviva (15 5 0 -8 3 ) to the court o f the M ughal Emperor
lulâhid-Dïn M uham m ad A k b a r ( 1 5 4 2 - 1 6 0 5 ) .” T h e poem describes the
íbundañon o f a new m ission at C u n c o lim in Salcete in summer 1583.
The premonitions o f m artyrdo m , revealed to Rodolfo Acquaviva in a
prophetic dream in the o p en in g bo o k, are realized in B ook v when the
local population attacks an d destroys their w ork. Aeneas’ divinely
ordained journey to found R o m e provides the obvious point o f reference
rod the poem is echoed at key points throughout the narrative. The
death of two catechumens, fo r exam ple, recalls the fate o f Nisus and
Euryalus {Aen. 9 .1 7 6 -4 4 9 ) :

do m nicvs AiPHONSVM confosso ut corpore vidit

Exhalantem animam, turbatus imagine mortis,
Incertus quid agat, fogiar ne, petat ne periclum,
Constitit exanimis, telumque instare tremiscir.
Tum faciem propior mortem ferrumque timenti,
Tentât nequicquam celeres extendere gressus,
Sed dolor, et gelida prohibet formidine sanguis.
Huc periture veni, cursuque et voce secutus
Miles ait, comitem ne desere: dicere velrsus
Vos soliti, alternis, i unctis aut vocibus ambo,
Ite ambo, laudesque d eo persolvite vestro.
Dixerat, et tenerum latus inter et ilia ferrum
Condit, et a jlph o n si rapiens ad flebile corpus,
Alterum in alterius proiectum funere voluit.

r
^ * « 979. * Gwynnc io i6 a. 19 Benci 1591.
 2X8 PAUL GWYNNE

Ille manus tendit, dulcem complexus amicum;

Et visus sensisse alter, blandeque recepit.
(B en d, Q u inqu e M artyres, s. 9 8 1-9 6 )60

Doronico, as he sees Alfonso with a fetal wound and breathing his last, disturbed
by the sight of his death, is uncertain what to do, to run away or fece the danger,
he stood motionless, and trembles as first the weapon, then the fece press doser
upon him, terrified of the death and the sword. In vain he tries quiddy to run
away, but grief and cold fear prevent him. ‘Come here and die’, the warrior says,
who pursued him in steps and words, 'don’t desert your friend. You two, who art
always reciting your prayers, one after the other, or with joined voices, go ,
together, sing your praises to your god’. He spoke and sinks his sword between 1
his tender flanks and groin, and dragging his body to Alfonso’s pitiable corpse, he ^
rolled them across each other in death. Doronico stretches out his hands and |
embraced his dear friend who seems to have felt his presence and sweetly
acknowledges him. i
i
Horrific detail, pathos and suspense com bine as each missionary’ meets his 1
gruesome end. The aristeia o f these Jesu it heroes is the resolution with
which they’ fece their enemy. Book v i is en tirely devoted to their triumph­
ant reception by Christ, the V irgin M ary’ an d S t Ignatius' among the
blessed. As Yasmin Haskell has observed, ‘Jesu it neo-Latin epic demands
a level of reader participation unparalleled in its prim ary' literary' modd
(Virgil). The lives o f the heroes portrayed in these poem s are quite literally
exemplary.’61 The didactic nature o f p an egyric serves to inspire the Jesuit
novitiate to achieve equal acts o f heroism .

Discovery and Conquest in the N e w W orld

Other themes also proliferated. T h e Odyssey, th e stories o f the Argo, and

Virgil's Aentid had consecrated travel as an ep ic them e, and from the
sixteenth to eighteenth centuries heroic narratives o f colonial enterprise,
dosely modelled on these epics o f voyage, also began to appear. A number
of poems were written to com m em orate C o lu m b u s’ expeditions to
the West Indies.61 One of the most popular w as G iulio Cesare Stella’s
unfinished Colsanbeid, the English p rin tin g o f w h ich w as dedicated to Sir
Walter Raleigh, then preoccupied w ith plans to colonize V irginia. Syphilis,
a three-book epic by Girolamo Fracastoro (c. L478-X553) compares Colum­
bus’ Atlantic crossing with Aeneas’ m ission to reach Italy. 3 As the tide
suggests, most of the poem is actually concerned w ith the origins of the*

** Btnd 1J9B171-); Society of Jesus 1654 u , 749. 61 Haskell lo to : 206. *J Hofmann 1994
* Eatougb 19*4- 9»-3-
 E p ic 2 19

,^flirtai disease and its possible cures. N o w more influenced by Lucrerian

Jtomism than Virgilian epic, Fracastoro theorized that the contagion was
horn of seminaria (‘seeds o f disease’ ) to explain its rapid transmission.
Given the repugnant subject matter, Fracastoro adduced the charming
myth of the shepherd Syp h ilus w h o is inflicted with the disease by the
vengeful gods o f the classical pantheon. T h a t this work gave syphilis
its modem name is all the m ore testament to the poem’s reception
and diffusion.
The new generation o f travel epic dealt not only with voyages of
discovery, but also chronicled and lauded missions o f conquest and con-
version. The perennial clash betw een Christian and T u rk was now trans­
posed to the Americas w here the native populations replaced the Muslims
as impious adversary. C on versely, as A n d re w Laird has observed, the
ûsdnation with G reek an d R o m an antiquity even prompted the conquis­
tado« to re-enact scenarios from ancient history books: Cortés, for
cumple, notoriously likened h im self to Alexander the Great, Julius Caesar
and other figures.’ *4
As the colonies became established, indigenous poets too began to celebrate
their homelands, customs and religion in epic terms. Guadalupe by José
Antonio de Villerías y Roelas (16 9 5 -17 2 8 ) is an epic in four b o o b on the
special destiny o f N e w Spain as dom inion o f the Virgin M ary, and manages to
inooiporate Nahuad words into the Latin hexameter. As Laird has observed,
the Guadalupe is a trium ph o f patriotic syncretism: Cortés is praised at the
same time as the courage o f his indigenous adversaries is affirmed.’61
Like Columbus, C ortés continued to be the subject o f epic poetry.
Francisco Xavier Alegre’s Alexandriad (Forti, 17 7 3 ), a four-book epic on the
capture of Tyre by Alexander the G reat, is perhaps a historical allegory o f
Cones’ own seizure o f T en o ch tid án . Even at this late date, W alter o f
Chitillon still cast his lon g sh ad o w over neo-Latin epic. O n e episode in the
Alexandriad recalls a passage o f the Alexandreis, a dream-vision in which
a Rabbi tells Alexander to sack not Jerusalem but T yre {Alexandreis,
1511-45); in Alegre, the sam e R abbi appears to Alexander and briefc him
on how to ensure the siege’s success.6
With Alegre w e have com e full circle. In an ‘Apologetic Essay’ that
precedes the epic he situates his Alexandriad within the entire tradition o f
humanist epic poetry to date:

* Laird 2006: 9. 41 Laird 200 6 : u .

* The incident is borrowed from Josephus, A ], 11.8.5, and repeated in Petrus Comestor. P a i Lat.
198.1496.
 220 PAUL GWYNNE

We certainly admit that there is an excessive, or to be honest, childlike

dependence on Virgil throughout this little work. W ho though would not
see the same in all those who have, with some distinction, written since the
thirteenth century? For Francesco Petrarch’s Africa, Pontano’s Hespérida,
Dardo’s Hunting Dogs, Fracastoro’s Syphilis, Vida’s poem on the death of
Christ, lacopo Sannazaro’s Virgin Birth, Rapin’s Gardens and very many
works by other writers smack of Virgil on every side. So? Is it not the case
that Virgil himself, for all that he is, has, as Lilio Giraldi said, emerged from
imitation of the best?67

FU R T H E R R E A D IN G
There is no book-length history of neo-Latin epic: though Kallendorf 2014a (on
epic) and Schalfenrath 2015 (on narrative poetry), in addition to this chapter, offer
starting points. Few poems are available in modern critical editions. Many
fifteenth-century epics remain only in manuscript, often in the original deluxe
presentation volumes. IJsewijn and Sacré 1998 offer a general review of hexameter
poetry; while Hofinann 2001 surveys the epic tradition from the fifteenth to the
eighteenth centuries; Hofmann 1994 details five poems on Columbus’ voyages.
Lippincott 1989 discusses Basini's Hesperis, Filelfo’s Sfbrziad and Strozzi’s Borsiad
in a review of fifteenth-century Italian court culture. For a new edition of the
Sfirziad see De Keyser 2016. A handlist of over eighty neo-Latin epics composed
in France or on French themes in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries can be
found in Braun 2007. A list of Biblical epic, Latin and vernacular, can be found in
Kirconnell 1973; see also Sayce 1955; Grant 1959; Lewalski 1966. Twenty-two
poems on the Batde of Lepanto are now available with an English translation in
the I Tatti Renaissance Library (Wright, Spence and Lemons 2014). A selection of
Jesuit epic can be found in Society of Jesus 1654. Laird 2006 reviews the epic
tradition in the New World.*

** Laird 1006:29. Those poems not mentioned above arc. Giovanni Gioviano Pontano (1429-1503),
De hortis Hesperidum, two books on arboriculture; Giovanni D ardo da Venosa, Canes (1543), how
to select homing dogs; René Rapin sj, Hortorum lib ri nr (Paris, 1665) on gardening. De poetis
nostrorum temporum (Florence 1551) by Lilio Gregorio Giraldi ^479-1552) mentions Virgil’s debt to
earlier authors. On the overlap between epic and didactic see Victoria Moul, Chapter u in this
volume.
 C H A P T E R 13

D ra m a

N ig e l G r iffin

There is ample evidence from the C h ristian M iddle Ages o f entertain­

ments involving text, action, character and music. Docum ents mention
loots, most often in laws and cou rt reports. Y et it is only towards the
close of the sixteenth centu ry that theatre emerges as a dynamic central
¡tature of local and national cultural life. T h e plays performed in the
spices adapted and later designed for the purpose drew on m any sources,
»fleeting contemporary con cerns, perennial and passing, and appealing
to audiences both learned a n d illiterate. A m o n g the threads woven
together by authors such as W illia m Shakespeare in Elizabethan England
and Lope de V ega in the Sp a in o f Philip II are several that were
centuries old.
Three such threads can be iden tified. E a c h w o u ld be worked with the
others to produce the tapestry. T h e least significant o f the three is
Italian in origin and grew o u t o f the L atin hum anistic com edy (below),
though it was m uch colo u red b y p o p u lar elem ents. Its influence is felt
strongly in France. Lik e th eir cou nterp arts elsewhere in Europe, actors
played at town festivals an d fairs, b u t cou rt bookings and aristocratic
patronage provided a w e lco m e elem en t o f sustainability and protection
hr itinerant acting co m p an ies an d encouraged them to develop a
repertoire o f more am b itious fu ll-len gth plays alongside the customary
ephemera and shorter pieces staged for the general public. A n actor’s life
remained a precarious o n e, as w as that o f the fledgling acting troupes
elsewhere in Europe, b u t the c o m ic style th ey developed, the commedia
M'arte, with its stock typ es d ra w n from folklore and traditions o f
downing, would, w h e n e x p o n e d to the rest o f Eu rop e, prove decisive
in the development o f E u ro p e a n c o m e d y an d opera. In London, Paris,
Vienna and M ad rid ro yal p atro n age also played its p an . T h o u g h its
plots, characters and attitudes w ere rooted in R om an com edy, the
commedia dell'arte and its d escen dan ts seldom included material in

2 ZI
222 NIGEL GRIFFIN

Latin save by way o f traditional m ockery o f set figures, such as rickety

and pedantic Latin masters and m usic tutors.1

Early Biblical D ram a

However, the other two sources that fed into m ainstream vernacular drama
in Europe did inspire plays, for both recitation and performance, that were
in whole or pan in Latin, the international language o f the ruling elites
both ecclesiastical and secular. T h e first, going back to at least the tenth
century, originated inside the Church. C ou rtesy o f the troping of key
elements of the Easter liturgy, the biblical story w as transformed into shon
dialogues in Latin initially sung, as at S t G allen , as antiphons between
priest and choir and then over time expanded to make them accessible and
memorable to a new public unversed in Latin. Episodes selected included
the betrayal o f Christ (first by Judas and then b y Sim o n Peter), Pontius
Pilate, the empty tomb, and, by the thirteenth century, the appearance of
the risen Christ first to M ary and subsequently to the disciples on the road
to Emmaus. The earliest known trope on the question asked o f the three
Marys at the beginning o f the Introit to the M ass for Easter Quern
quaeritis? (‘Whom do you seek?) - a scene som etim es known as the
Visitatio sepukhri (T h e Visit to the T o m b ’) - com es from Limoges in
Central France and can be ascribed to the 920 s. Ethelw old, Bishop of
Winchester, gives an account in his Regularis concordia o f a similar devel­
opment in his own diocese around 9 7 0 , citing the Benedictine houses of
Fleury (St-Benoît-sur-Loire) and G h en t (D u n stan ’s Flanders refuge at
Blandijnberg) as furnishing the m odel.* W e n o w have evidence o f more
than four hundred Easter celebrations before 13 0 0 involving embryonic
dramatization, almost all o f them in Latin .3 M a n y o f those same key
episodes were depicted in painting and sculpture o f the period.
Similar processes, often more folkloric in character, evolved at a slightly
later date around the celebration o f the Christm as cycle, where subject
matter and representation were less problem atic: the flight into Egypt, the
manger, the shepherds (Officium pastorum), the W ise M e n , King Herod,
and the Slaughter o f the Innocents. W h a t began as a simple antiphon
structure grew in most local traditions into som ething more resembling
drama and involving not just text and song, but costum e and character, as
witness, for example, the nam ing o f the three W ise M e n and the

' Set Shapiro 1005 and Andrews and Mamczarz 1998.

1 Though the so-called 'Fleury playbook’ may be from Blois; see Corbin 1953. 1 Kobe 1996; it-O-
 D ram a 223

development o f an individual personality for each. Examples survive from

Castile, Catalonia, France and the G erm an-speaking lands o f Central
Europe.4 Several early liturgical plays m ake reference to permanent sepul­
chres constructed at the W este rn end o f churches and functioning as mini­
stages for Christmas m anger sequences and Easter scenes involving the
empty tomb. Sim ilar if ephem eral elem ents o f modern Christmas worship
(manger, crib, shepherds, tableaux) are the distant heirs to that innovation.
By employing choir to develop dialogue and sung response, such ‘enact­
ments' came to perform a function sim ilar to the sculpture and wall
panting characterized b y Sir Brian Y o u n g as the ‘villeins’ Bible’.5
The consequent increase in the duration o f religious celebrations
afforded scope for characterization, w h ile processional movement, both
within church and across a parish, cam e to play an increasing part in such
enactments. A generic exam ple w o u ld be W ise M e n from the East taking
one route to Bethlehem via the palace o f H ero d the Great (located in the
pulpit?) and then leaving the m an ger b y another (perhaps the south door?)
tospread the good news and avoid divulgin g to the king the whereabouts
ofthe infant Jesus. T h e parallel developm en t o f miracle and mystery plays
ona lar grander scale, retelling local legend in addition to biblical narrative,
drew upon this example, transferring the action aw ay from Church prem­
ises and into the large p u b lic spaces o f tow ns and cities, particularly
in northern Europe. T h e Officium pastorum, to take just one example,
developed into the shepherds’ plays in the English miracle cycles. (The
morality plays o f the later M id d le A ge s are direct descendants but enjoyed
little vogue in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.) Such ‘serious’
entertainments, serving to create o r reinforce the social identity o f a parish,
apfession or an entire to w n , w ere often played in a m ix o f Latin and the
vernacular - albeit that the latter cam e to predom inate, as outreach became
more important than scrupulous observance o f textual nicety.6 In cathedral
schools and at the Imperial C o u r t, m eanw hile, the Latin repertoire grew to
embrace treatments o f other biblical stories, R ebecca and Daniel promin­
ent among them.7

T h e R evival o f Rom an D ram a

The final thread, and for o u r purposes the m ost im portant o f the three, is
the revival in the R enaissance sch oo lro o m and university aula o f the Latin

4Yonge 19S7Í Donovan 1958; Shergold 19 6 7 :1-2 5 . * Young 1990.

' Rwton 1968; Rose 19 6 1:178-9 9 . 7 Axton 1974: 77-99.
 2Z4 NIGEL GRIFFIN

plays of Plautus and Terence. Roman dram a, and T e re n ce in particular,

had featured on the school curriculum from the earliest am es, as witness
the large number o f surviving texts and com m entaries in manuscript and
incunable editions, although, in the early years, Sen eca had been the focus
of most attention, with scholars in thirteenth-century Padua editing his
tragedies and others in the following century, both there and in Oxford,
writing commentaries on them. T w e lfth - and thirteenth-century Goliards,
most of them unemployed university-trained clerics, made wide and
often scurrilous use in their performances n o t o n ly o f O v id , Martial, and
Catullus, but also o f the drama texts they h ad read as students. There was
little dear appreciation o f the difference between closet dram a and public
performance, nor any indication o f T eren ce’s b ein g staged, rather than
read, in the Middle Ages. Italian Renaissance cou rts, however, did host
performances and imitations o f these R o m a n m odels, sometimes with
inddental music.
The earliest new Renaissance Latin play to survive is the Ecerinis of
the poet and historian Albertino M ussato ( 1 2 6 1 - 1 3 2 9 ) . T h o u g h it takes as
its subject matter thirteenth-century N o rth Italian h istory and eschews the
mythological dements we find in Seneca, it is closely m odelled on him,
structurally and stylistically. M ussato’s im m ediate successors Antonio
Loschi (1368-1441), Leonardo Dari (14 0 7 -7 2 ) an d Gregorio Correr
(1409-64) each depicted historical incidents not treated b y Seneca but
produced plays that dosely imitated his m an ner an d style.8 A fter 1530, the
vogue for plays on more recent history seems to h ave receded until
the eady seventeenth century, exceptions being D io g o de T eive’s 1553/4
Coimbra piece on the reign o f Jo h n III o f Portugal (published 1558k9
Thomas Legge’s 1578 Cambridge Richardus tertius, an d tw o dramas staged
at the English college in Douai: W illiam D r u r y ’s A luredus (1618?) and
Adriaen de Roulers’ (Roulerius’) Stuarta tragoedia (159 3) on the execution
of Mary Queen o f Scots six years earlier at F o th erin gay.10
New tragedies not on recent history con tinued to be written in Latin
even though several were influenced b y G re e k m odels, m ost notably
the influential Sofonisba o f Gian G iorgio T rissin o ( 14 7 8 -15 5 0 ) : written
1514, printed 1524; and two plays, Jephthes an d Baptistes, from the pen
of Montaigne’s sometime tutor, the Scot G e o rge B u ch an an (1506-82).

1 Grand 1 0 a ’ Friches 1964:101-8.

H Bradner provides an account o f a small number o f later, seventeenth-century pieces that also treat of
contemporary historical events, among them Gustavus Adolphus' 1620s Poland campaign and the
fill of Wallenstein in 16)7 (Bradner 1957a).
 D ram a 225

Hough first printed in 15 5 4 and 1 5 7 7 respectively, these humanistic

tithes in harnessing classical structures and Aristotelian principles ‘to
promote new currents o f religion and edu catio n ’ were probably written in
[hellosor 1540s, w h en the au th o r tau gh t at the G u yen n e in Bordeaux.“
It was not until the 1390s that R o m a n c o m e d y had resurfaced, and when
jt did, in the Paulus o f P ier Paolo V e rgerio the Elder (137 0 -14 4 4 /5 ),
it emerged complete w ith scenes o f student drinking, w enching and
oplohation by servants, a settin g fam iliar to readers o f Celestina (1499)
and her brood.12 T h e claim w a s m ad e at the tim e that such pieces and
those that followed - the D e fa lso hypocrito (‘ O n the False H ypocrite’) o f
Mercurio Ramio o f Vercelli ( 1 4 0 0 - 6 9 ) , the Chrysis o f the future Pope Pius
H(Enea Silvio Piccolom ini, 14 0 5 —6 4 ) , a n d the piece adjudged b y Bradner
the best o f these cynical co m ed ies’, Philogenia et Epiphenus b y Ugolino
Pisano (r. 14 0 5-f. 14 4 5) - h a d a serious m oral lesson to im part.13 Yet the
¡aigtb of the tavern and brothel scenes an d the evident glee w ith which
they are written make such cla im s difficu lt to sustain and the plays read
more like student satires o n u n iversity life than texts written b y their
teachers for moral edificadon o r p u b lic display. T h e re is, indeed, a whole
tradition of plays in L a d n , so m etim es k n o w n as the Italian humanistic
romedy, written by students an d recited o r perform ed to mark the begin­
ningor end o f the academ ic y e a r.14
The first recorded m odern p erfo rm an ce o f a Plautus play comes from
Some (Asinaria at the Q u irin ale , 14 8 0 , the same venue seëing Aulularia
four yean later), while the p erfo rm an ce, before an audience o f over ten
thousand, as part o f the an n u al Ferrara carnival festivities, o f Plautus’
Mimtckmi in the Palazzo del C o r te o n 25 Ja n u a ry i4 8 6 , in a version
perhaps made by D u k e E rco le I him self, m a y have been the first presenta-
ñonof a Roman com edy in translation anyw h ere in Europe. T h a t same
play was staged on at least seven furth er occasions in Italy before the
ifteenth century was o u t (the 14 8 8 F lo ren ce presentation being in Latin,
¡s was the Hampton C o u r t P alace p erform ance o f 152 6 arranged by
Cardinal Wolsey and attended in sh ep h erd’s costum e b y an uninvited
Henry VIII). All th irty-tw o k n o w n stagin gs o f Plautus (27 ) and Terence (5)
prior to 1500 took place in Ita ly , a n d th e o n ly R om an dram a played
aywhere else was a single p erfo rm a n ce (i4 8 6 ) o f an unidentified Seneca
playat the University o f Leip zig. Ita ly co n tin u e d after 15 0 0 to see frequent

Ondating and on Montaigne’s taking a part in Jeph th es, see McFariane 1981: 9 3-6 ,19 0 -4 .
toja toot 47-55. ” Bradner 1957a; 3}.
Tea ample texts ate printed in Pandolfi and Arcese 1965; study by Stäubte 1968.
t i6 NIGEL GRIFFIN

performances of Roman comedies in both L atin an d in vernacular adapta­

tion (at Ferrara, Mantua, Venice and in the C am p id o glio in Rome and the
Vatican) but by then it was not alone. Pieces b y P lautus and Terence wen
staged in studia at Augsburg (1500), V ienna, W ro claw , an d M etz (all 1501),
Zwickau (1518), Leuven (1530), Prague (1535) an d C oim bra (1554); by
Cambridge colleges (Queens’, T rin ity College, T rin ity H all, King’s Hall:
1510, 1516 ,1522, etc); by pupils at St Paul’s School in London (1519,1528);
and at Cardinal’s College Ipswich (1525).
The first imitations o f classical comedy w ould appear to be the Stylpho of
Jakob Wimpheling (1450-1528), played at H eidelberg in 1470 and still being
staged thirty-five years later, and Codrus, a 1485 w ork by Johannes Kerckmei-
ster (c. 1450-e. 1500), a Münster schoolmaster. Both poke fun at students and
teachers incompetent in grammar. A play based on A ulularia and written by
the Leuven philosopher and friend o f Erasmus M aarten van Dorp (Dorpius,
c. 1485-1525) was given as early as 1508-9 at Lille in the Pas-de-Calais, where he
was then a student, while another Leuven-trained teacher, Jean Sturm
(1507-89), induded the study and performance o f Rom an comedy as part
of his recipe for mainstream education and arranged fbr a permanent stage to
be erected for this purpose in his Strasbourg studium . Sturm ’s version of
Phormio was played there in 1565. The M unich R athaus saw several such
stagings in the second half of the sixteenth century, as d id towns as far apart as
Regensburg, Königsberg, Bergen, Copenhagen an d Basel. Westminster
School in London entered the lists in the 1540s; G ray’s Inn in London and
Menon College Oxford, in the 1560s.15
Though there was also a separate strand associated w ith court life and
ceremonial occasions, most o f these perform ances w ere at schools and
universities.14 The expansion of secondary' an d higher education in the
latter decades of the sixteenth century increased exp o n en tially the number
of those familiar, dirm ly and indirectly, w ith classical L atin drama. That
expansion in higher education coincided w ith th e gro w in g split in Christ­
endom between Rome and much o f Europe, an d was in part fuelled by it
Latin school plays became an arena o f sectarian propaganda as well as
religious debate and instruction. T hey also proved an effective way of
advertising the virtues of a particular studium an d its p up ils, and a powerful
tool for harnessing the energies o f the yo u n g an d rehearsing them in the
public speaking that was such a central feature o f p u b lic and priestly life.

'' APGRD (hnp'V/wwwjpgnl.oxac.uk/) Oxford Archive o f Performances o f Greek and Roman

Drama.
14 For court performances, see Knight 1983:117-40.
 Drama 227

The Christianizing o f Rom an Com edy

Tie popularity o f Rom an co m e d y in both C ath o lic southern Europe and

the growing Protestant cells to the north triggered various attempts to
produce bowdlerized and m ore specifically Christianized versions o f them,
customarily but not always in Latin . A s w ith the dramatization o f elements
of Church ritual, the reading and staging o f Rom an com edy had its
opponents, who believed the subject m atter and treatment too vulgar for
ui aristocratic and clerical readership.17 Education , they argued, involved
oot just Latin-language training (and Plautus they adjudged too archaic for
dut purpose) but also schooling in go o d conduct. B y the beginning o f
die seventeenth century, som e even opposed the reading and staging o f
iny literature making p rom inent use o f classical m ythology. Despite the
Terenrian feel o f the Filiu s prodigus [‘ Prodigal S o n ’] (1593) o f the Sicilian
Giovanni Antonio V ip eran o ( 1 5 3 5 - 1 6 1 0 ) , w ith its reduced cast, one-day
aedon, and cat’s cradle o f potential am orous relationships, niost teachers
shied away from close im itation o f R o m an com edy plots. Prominent
unong those who early opted to w ip e the slate clean b y w ridng new
dramas with a clear C hristian m essage w h ile retaining as m uch as they
might of the Terenrian style, w ere W ille m Gnaphaeus (1493-1568),
aschoolmaster in T h e H a gu e w h ose Acolastus, the first neo-Latin play to
recount the parable o f the Prodigal S o n , was played across Europe and
wnt through thirty-two editions in the sixteenth century alone, and
Georg Macropedius (born Jo ris van Lan ckvelt in Brabant, 14 8 7-1558 ), a
Utrecht headmaster w h o produ ced a dozen such plays for school use, most
butnot all o f them based on biblical stories. (It has been suggested that his
Ánima may have influenced Shakespeare’s conception o f The Taming o f
át Shrew.) Macropedius’ plays, w h ich also include a Prodigal Son treat­
ment (Asotus 1537) were perform ed in several European countries and,
indeed, both then and later there w as m uch m ore international traffic in
play texts than has perhaps been generally recognized.18
Others penned dramas in the 1530 s and 154 0 s on biblical subjects,
among them Sixt Birck (Sixtus Betulius, 15 0 1 - 5 4 : Susanna 1532, Judith
lift etc.), Jacob Schopper the Elder (d. 1554: Johannes decollatus vel
ktmchelistes (‘John Beheaded, or Ectrachelistes’) 154 6 ), the English poet
and imitator of Surrey Nicholas Grimald or Grimoald (1519 -6 2 :

" Diùno 1936; Valentín 199 0:19-48.

On European productions o f Macropedius, see Blocmcnda! 1009. On international exchanges o f
flap more generally, see Griffin 1980, 2006.
 228 NIGEL G R IFFIN

Archiprophtta siveJohannes Baptista (T h e A rch p ro p h et, o r Jo h n the Bap­

tist’) Oxford? 1547), and Buchanan. M cF arlane suggests th at pieces in the
Terentian idiom specifically tailored to a R efo rm ist agen da enjoyed a
vogue in Strasbourg and Cologne around th e y e ar 1540: Pammachius
(1539) and Mercator (1540) by Thomas K irchm eyer (N aogeorgus), Petrus
Papeus’ Comoedia de Samaritano evangelico (‘C o m e d y on the N ew Testa­
ment Samaritan’, 1539), the Anabion sive Lazarus redivivus (‘Anabion, or
the Raising of Lazarus’, 1540) o f Joannes Sap id u s, as w ell as Gnaphaeus’
Acolastus and the Ovis perdita (‘T he Lost Sh eep ’) o f Jak o b Zovitius (also
1540).19 The 1570S and 1580s saw an asto n ish in g v a rie ty o f Latin dramas
from the pen of the polymath N icodem us F risch lin (1547-90: Opera
scenica 1604), created laureate to M axim ilian II in 1575 an d C o u n t Palatine
in 1577, but subsequendy disgraced. T h e b est-kn o w n collection o f Chris­
tian plays written in imitation o f the style o f T eren ce rem ains, however,
that of the Haarlem schoolmaster C ornelis Shoen (Scho naeus, 1541-1611)
customarily known collectively as the Terentius christianus. M any of
the biblical episodes he selected for his plays proved p opular with later
neo-Latin dramatists both Protestant an d C ath o lic: S au l, T o b it, Susanna,
Daniel and so on.10
As the century wore on, voices in Puritan E ngland an d also on mainland
Europe were raised not only against the sub ject m atter o f Rom an comedy
and the persistent use of classical m ythology b u t rath er again st all forms of
drama. The rocky beginnings o f the com m ercial th eatre in both London
and Madrid cannot entirely be ascribed to p o litical an d financial factors.14
Well before the 1590s, amateurs o f the p layho use w ere alread y under attack
from religious extremists, both Protestant an d C ath o lic , w ho saw the
theatre as the handmaiden o f the devil an d a d isq u ie tin g exam ple to the
general citizenry. One who found h im self h av in g to figh t his comer was
William Gager of Christ Church O xford w h o , lik e S ir Philip Sidney,
compiled pamphlets defending the theatre. H e also w ro te tw o lengthy
and inordinately busy plays based on G reek tales, Meleager and Ulysses
redux ('The Return of Ulysses’), both 159z.*2 Sch o o lm asters found them­
selves faced by a dilemma. Roman com edy w as n o t m o rally unimpeachable
and yet the parents of their schoolboy charges in sisted th at an yo n e who did
not know the Roman comedians could n o t style h im se lf a scholar. Some,
instead of rewriting from scratch and attem p tin g a ‘C h ristian ized ’ Latin
repertoire, tackled the far thornier task o f b o w d lerizatio n . M ost notable

“ McFadant 198c 194-5. ” Bbcmcnda] and Ford 2008. " Shapiro 2005; Shergold 1967.
“ Sc* Burn» 1970.
 Drama 229

jmong these are A n d ré des F re u x (Fru siu s, c. 15 1 0 - 5 6 ) , the epigrammatist

jpd translator im o Latin ô f th e first versio n o f Ignatius Loyola’s Spiritual
¿anises who produced an exp u rgated version o f M artial for schoolroom
„sc (1558) and another o f P lau tu s, a n d his fellow Jesu it, Fulvio Cardillo
(1516-91), who produced in the early 15 5 0 s his o w n Terentius purgatus,
unpublished.13
Despite early perform ances o f L a tin dram as a t Ferrara, Florence and
.Iscwhere, the fashion fo r c o m e d y seem s after 1 5 0 0 in Italy to play out
increasingly in the vern acu lar, w h ile th e o ccasion al n e w Latin tragedies
stiged at the threshold o f th e e arly m o d ern period include Carolus
\erardus’ Historia Baetica o f 1 4 9 2 , trea tin g the co n qu ëst o f Granada,
which is, according to B ra d n e r, ‘cjo se r to th e m edieval m ystery p lay in its
method than to classical d ra m a ’ a n d M a rce llin u s V erard u s’ Fem andus
¡emtus (‘Ferdinand D e liv e re d ’ , 1 4 9 3 ) .24 A fte r 15 0 5 there was seem ingly
title new Ladn n on-religious c o m e d y in Ita ly un til the 156 0 s, although
later in the century there w a s fo r a w h ile a v o g u e at C am b rid ge for
latinizing as well as im ita tin g recen t Italian c o m ic w o rk s, exam ples being
Abraham Fraunce’ s H ym enaeus ( 15 7 9 ) based o n a sto ry from G io van n i
Boccaccio’s Decameron, a n d th e sam e a u th o r’s V ictoria (1582), a Latin
version of Pasquaglio’s II fe d e le w ith its ‘c y n ic a lly im m oral plot and
singularly repellent characters’ .15 In G e r m a n y , m ean w h ile, the earliest
Larin plays - the Tragoedia d e Turcis et Soldano (‘ T r a g e d y o f the T u rk s
and the Sultan’ , 14 9 5) o f M a x im ilia n I ’s poeta laureatus Ja k o b Loch er
(Philomusus, 14 7 1-1 5 2 8 ) a n d th e Tragicom oedia de lherosolom itana profec­
tioni (1501) o f Johannes v o n K itsc h e r (d . 15 2 1) - b o th o w e a clear debt to
Verardus, while H erm an n S c h o tte n ’s p ieces o f th e late 15 2 0 s already flirt
with issues raised b y the R e fo r m a tio n .

Neo-Latin D ra m a and the So ciety o f Jesus

Bysome measure the greatest factory of neo-Latin drama from the mid­
sixteenth century onward was the Society of Jesus, founded by Ignatius
luyóla in 1540 and from the mid 1550 s the leading teaching order in the
Catholicworid. Fifty years ago, when Bradner was compiling his checklist of
latin Renaissance drama, it was popularly supposed that, the occasional
printedplay text apart, little had survived of what was seen as a predominandy
ephemeral if influential form o f school exercise. The picture is now markedly
different.Jesuit drama is one of the most active areas of neo-Latin research and

On(hoc authors see Griffin 1995a. 14 Bradner 1957a: 35. Bradner 1957a: 49.
 230 N IG EL G R IFFIN

some five thousand manuscript texts have so far com e tô light, a number that
is still increasing. Many are partly or w holly in the vernacular but those
predominandy or entirely in Latin still constitute the greatest body o f neo-
Latin dramatic material from the early m odem period (researchers should
beware that a Latin play tide mentioned in official despatches to Rome does
not necessarily mean that the play itself was in Latin). Bradner’s conclusion
emerging from his survey o f printed play texts, that the ‘ three most consider­
able Jesuit dramatists’ were the Lisbon-born Lu ís da C ru z (Cnidus,
1542-1604), ‘Johannes Surius’ (?) and Nicolas Caussin (158 3-16 51), is no longer
sustainable, and scholars have turned their attention to others, many o f whose
plays have only necendy appeared in prine Pedro Pablo de Acevedo (1522-73),
Miguel Venegas (1531—after 1589), Bernardino Stefbnio (156 0 -16 2 0 ), Jakob
Greiser (1562-1625), Jakob Bidermann ( 15 7 7 -16 3 9 ) and others.17
O f the more than three thousand secondary w o rk s w holly or partly
devoted to Jesuit drama, over one-third have appeared since the 1960s.
Much of the work on printed primary sources has n o w been surveyed in
some detail,19 and there is a better appreciation o f the w ide gu lf between
the rules laid down at the Society’s Rom an headquarters (limiting the
frequency of such junkets, insisting that they be w h o lly in Latin, and
attempting to legislate on which members o f the general public might or
might not attend performances) and a practice that w as more often than
not dictated by local factors, economic and political, beyon d the control of
college authorities.*0 In its early days at least, the So ciety was financially
stretched by a programme o f explosive expansion and consequently vul­
nerable to the whim o f its local patrons and paym asters. W h ile many a
school play, both Protestant and Catholic, was in essence a private per­
formance staged for the benefit and pleasure o f the b o ys themselves and
their parents (and the often huge cast list bears witness, as in a modem
primary school, to the pressure to ensure that as m an y o f the pupils were
involved as possible), Jesuit plays, particularly in to w n s and cities where
religious conflict was alive and well, were highly p u b lic occasions, attended
by the great and good and involving m uch p o m p and ceremony (and
frequently great expense). Evidence com es in a not atypical complaint sent
to Rome in 1568 from a member o f staff at the Plasencia college in south­
west Spain:

* On dm see Valentin 1990:65-74 and Griffin 197s: 409-10.

" See Momo Asenjo 199$, 2002; Picón Garda et al. 1997; Fumaroli 19 7 ;; Valentin 200t.
rt Griffin 1976 and subsequent publications; Wimmer 1983; Valentin 1985-4. ** Griffin 1995b.
* Griffin 1984
 Drama 131

I write to tell you that such festivities do more harm than good . . . Plays are
taken so seriously that 300 or 4 0 0 ducats are spent on costumes and
decor. . . The students taking part lose respe« for the teachers, while the
sanctuaiy o f our house is violated by a stream of outsiders . . . W e are
pushed and pulled this way and that for a month beforehand and a week
after the event. . . W e have to beg people in the confessional and around
the town to lend us costumes, headdresses, and jewellery . . . and they
murmur about our involvement in such things . . . The teachers are both
angry and ashamed that boys say that if they do not have such and such a
costume they will refuse to go on stage . . . A nd the leading lights in the city
(and others) pester us to reserve seats for them and even their wives.51

Despite such misgivings, the taste for grand display ruled supreme.
Our knowledge of Jesuit drama in more distant pans of the world which
«re nominally Catholic and under European dominion (South and
Central America, southern India, the Far East) is comprehensive, even
though plays and dialogues were there customarily staged in a European
vernacular.51 The overall picture for Europe is, however, still patchy, with
much more now known about Jesuit theatre in German-speaking lands
¿an anywhere else, thanks largely to the industry and scholarship of one
man: the leading expert in the field, Jean-Marie Valentin of the University
ofParis. His two-volume Répertoire, in particular, provides a model others
would do well to emulate.33 In one respect, those working on German-
speaking lands have an advantage over their colleagues surveying other
pans of Europe, as play summaries were customarily printed in Central
andEastern Europe for distribution to selected members of the audience.
Iliac is a massive multi-volume edition of these assembled by Szarota and
also a smaller compilation from France.34 These Valentin has trawled,
alongside the college histories, still largely unpublished, commissioned at
it dose of the sixteenth century by Jesuit headquarters in Rome.35 The
histories, compiled on the basis of the quarterly and annual reports
submitted to Rome and for the most part still in manuscript, have been
consulted by historians interested in other aspeas of the Society (most
notably by Delattre for his monumental account of Jesuit buildings and
architecture in France) but, beyond the German-speaking lands and
Hungary, no such systematic work has been done for drama. The momen­
tumValentin generated almost single-handedly has, however, inspired

* Pod*© Rodriguez to Francisco Borja, 30 Ju n e 1568 (Rome: Archivum Historicum Sodetaris Iesu,
% • lot, iSj1); original in Griffin 1984: 2 5-7.
Ste Trenti Rocamora 1947; M artins 197$. M Valentin 1983-4.
Sarota 1979-87; Desgraves 1986. ” O n the histories, see Valentin 1989-4: x v ii-rá .
 232 NIGEL G R IF F IN

others to go some way towards follow ing h is exam p le for a range of

European countries.36 The picture for France is perhaps the least satisfac­
tory of all the main European countries, possib ly b ecause o f the existence
there of a strong and much-trawled contem porary v ern acu lar drama trad­
ition and the vogue for court plays in French.
There is a growing sense that w e sh o uld b e slo w to assum e, in the
absence of any hard evidence, that the presence to d a y o f a manuscript in
a particular library or a particular city affords a reliab le indication of
provenance or authorship.37 As tim e goes on, fu rth er international links
will appear and these may well change o u r p ercep tio n o f national dra­
matic difference. M eanwhile, we m ight close th is rap id survey by citing
the example of two play's staged an d restaged for local an d sectarian
purposes. Euripus, sive de inanitate omnium rerum ( ‘E uripus, or the
Emptiness of Everything’) was written in 1548 b y L ew in Brecht (Brecháis)
OFM of Antwerp (ijoz/ji-iyöo?) for perform ance at th e C ollege De Walk
in Leuven and first printed there in 1549; a G erm an version of
1582 made by the Vicar of Augsburg C athedral C leo p h as Distelm ayr was
printed that same year in D illingen.3* T h e p la y ’s clear w arning, already
hinted at in the tide, o f the dangers o f heresy th at lie in w ait for all men,
and its emphasis on the visualization o f th e vario us stages in a man’s
spiritual development, seemed to m an y o f those ch arged w ith the moral
education of the young similar in inspiration an d m eth o d to S t Ignatius’
Spiritual Exercises, using spectacle and im agin atio n to p u t flesh on the
bones of received wisdom. M iguel V enegas (1531-after 1589), a Spanish
Jesuit initially posted to Portugal but who to ured m u ch o f C entral Europe
in the 1550S and 1560s, producing occasional p o etry an d ad ap tin g his own
plays and those of others to suit local requirem ents, fo u n d h im self involved
in several productions of the Brecht piece.39 V en egas’ ow n plays were
staged in Portugal, France, G ermany, Italy an d S p ain , an d are in several
cases found today bound in w ith copies o f Euripus.*0 Je su it performances
of Euripus are now attested at V ienna an d C o lo gn e (b o th 1555), Prague
(1557, 1560, IS69), Ingolstadt (1559)» M u n ich (1560), Innsbruck (1563),

* Germany: Wimmer 1983 and Rädle 1979; Low Countries: Parente 1987 and Proot 2008; Spain:
Alonso Ajenjo 1995 and. following fains, Mendndez Peliez 1995 and Picón G arda 1997; Portugal:
Freches 1964 and then Ramalho 1969 and his pupils: Italy: Filippi 2001; Greater Poland: Okoii 1970;
Greater Hungary: Pinrir 1991 and Demeter 2000.
p See Grifan 200S. * Ten in Rädle 1979: study by Valentin 1990.
” On Venegas in general see Griffin 1984, 100 6 , and Alonso Asenjo 2002; on his involvement in
productions of Brecht see Valentin 1972.
* Griffin 1971-2.
 Drama *33

fiiff (1565)» Dillingen a n d C ó r d o b a (bo th 15 6 6 ), C o m o (1568), Avignon

and Lyon (1576 ). T h r e e furth er perform ances have been mooted,
(hough the evidence is less co m p e llin g: at O lo m o u c (Olm iitz) in 1574,
gjjniewo (Braunsberg) in 158 5 a n d G r a z (159 2 ); there m ay well have
beenothers.
plays by Venegas’ prize p u p il, the C ru c iu s alluded to earlier b y Bradner
ad the only Iberian-based sixte e n th -cen tu ry Jesu it to have his collected
pkys printed in the early m o d ern p erio d - b y H o race Cardon in Lyon,
¿gyear after the author’s death - w ere earlier perform ed from manuscript
(opies elsewhere in C a th o lic E u ro p e . T h e m ost striking instance o f
ai ^pration for local p urpo ses is the stagin g in C o lo g n e early in the
seventeenth century o f his Sedeñas.*1 O rig in a lly given in O cto b er 15 7 0 at
èe Coimbra college in the p resen ce o f the 16-year-o ld King. Sebastian,
«ho eight years later w as to perish a lo n g w ith the flow er o f the Portuguese
nobilitv at the batde o f K sa r e l-K é b ir, it was n o w accorded a fresh
prologue and a nu m ber o f textual changes that addressed specific local
issues.41 M any o f those w h o w a tch e d it w o u ld have recalled only too
vividly the events o f the so -called W a r o f C o lo g n e (158 3-8 8 ) that saw
¿¡affected and unpaid Sp a n ish tro op s from the N etheriands drafted in to
sack and loot the to w n s a n d villages su p p o rtin g Lutheran factions in the
region. With its em phasis on th e tw in them es o f rebellion and punish­
ment and its on-stage execu tion s o f rebels, it delivered an uncom prom ­
ising reminder to a n y in d e p e n d e n d y m in d ed citizens o f C ologne still
attracted by the prospect o f an a n ti-H a b sb u rg alliance that those who
flirt with rebellion against an absen t (H ab sb u rg) m onarch and conspire
with the pro-Palatinate cabal again st th e true religion represented b y the
Basarían Elector will suffer th e full A esch yle a n horror o f the fate that
befalls the central character o f the p la y, Sedecias, and his entourage. Th eir
palaces and cities w ill b e sack ed a n d razed to the ground, as m uch o f
Cologne had been in the 158 0 s, an d as Jerusalem was in the sixth century
>CE when the Babylonian hordes descended upon it; they themselves will
besummarily executed as w e re th e a n ti-Y ah w ist counsellors w h o ignored
die warnings o f H ierem ias; a n d all that th ey h old déar will be destroyed
before their very eyes. T h e y ' w ill be left a m id the ruins o f their cause and
their dty, as is Sedecias in the p la y, ran tin g an d raving in a blind fury while
the victorious m onarch an d his loyal h ënch m en jeer at their fall and their
impotence. N o t all L a tin sch o o l plays, then, were dull and wooden
exercises in hum drum m oralizing.

* Guz (Cnidus) 1605:445-6)4- ** Griffin 1980.

134 N IG E L G R IF F IN

Valentin’s Répertoire chronicles the d o m in an ce in C en tral and Eastern

Europe of Jesuit drama, Latin an d vern acular, rig h t th ro ugh to the dissol-
ution of the Society in the 1770s. W o rk o n th is later period is also
gathering pace. Particularly helpfol p u b licatio n s in clu d e recent work on
Austria by Stefan T ilg and the sp len d id ly illu strated account of the so-
called Sopran collection o f stage designs b y K napp an d K ilián.45

FURTHER READING
Additional studies on neo-Latin drama in the Spanish-speaking world are available
through the website TeatrEsco: Antiguo teatro escolar hispánico. hosted by the
University of Valencia (pamaseo.uv.es/teatresco.htm); see in particular the
contributions of Julio Alonso Asenjo. The databases compiled by the team at
the Ludwig Bolomann Institute for Neo-Latin Studies (http://neolatin.lbR.ac.at/
research/ntodatin-tools) are valuable and growing. There are also helpful recent
essays in: Meier. Meyer and Spanily 2004; Pinto 2006; Piéjus 2007; Glei and
Seidel 2008; Meier, Ramakers and Beyer 2008; M eier and Kemper 2011;
Bloemendal and Norland 2013; and Ford and T aylor 2013.41

41 Tüg loor; Knapp and Kiliin 1999.

PART III

Prose
 C H A P T fc K 1 4

Approaching Neo-Latin Prose as Literature

Terence Tunberg

Our idea* about aeathetics, w h ich »till owe m uch to notion» popularized in
•hat hñforiaiu call the age o f R om anticism , have perhapt not prepared u*
nA to undentand and ap p reciate th e learned artifice o f neo-Latin prote.
One of the mott fundam ental ele m e n u o f d m artífice ia imitation. The
pammariaiu and rhetorician» w ho propagated the new humanist curricu­
lumknown as the studia hum anitatis (‘H um anistic Studies’) in Italy during
ie bier fourteenth an d early fifteenth centuries, taking their lead from
Francesco Petrarca (P etrarch, 1 3 04 -74 ), developed a distinctive type of Latin
pote which much m ore o b vio u sly resem bles the prose o f ancient Roman
authors than do the L atin w ritin g s o f other late medieval authors who were
replaced from the cu ltu re o f th e h u m an ists.' T his new prose resulted from
the widespread practice o f system atic an d studied im itation of the language
ofthe ancients, especially th at o f th e pagan Roman prose authors*
But among the h um an ists there were several distinedy different
approaches to im itatio n . A go o d startin g point for understanding at least
two of the hum anistic schools o f th o ugh t about stylistic imitation may be
found in a famous ep isto lary deb ate betw een Paolo Cortesi (1465-1510) and
Angelo Poliziano (1454-94) co n cern in g the m ost viable approach to writing
good Latin.’ Poliziano, b o rro w in g Seneca’s im age o f a bee collecting honey

Medieval imitation icerat more often than not to have been tenriaed to the tiraple borrowing
bfttuly from scripture) o f word*, phrases or passages, and rarefy, i f ever, to have invoked the
a mpíete absorption, reapplication, and adaptation o f the vocabulary, idioms and typical sentence
miaute of a specific author to a new context. O n medieval Latin imitation, especially in the twelfth
itmury, tee die excellent study by Martin 198a.
‘ Tit thoroughness o f humanist imitation is well explained and illustrated by Moss too). In addition
o ptpn authors, some Church Fathers, such as Lactantius and Jerome, were objects o f imitation,
ad a fin» neo-Latin works, such as the orations o f Longolius or Muret, or the colloquia of Vives and
humus were themselves considered worthy o f imitation. O n the 'transitional' features, retaining
tome medieval syntactical elements, in Petrarch and other early humanità see; Bausi 1996; Ritto
■ JO. 199^-) and to o t: 2 9 -7 ); Tunberg 1991, 2004.
Thiscorrespondence was primed many times in the Renaissance and early modem era. Foramodem
«ilio» see DdlaNeva 2007.

*37
 238 TERENCE TU NBERG

ftom many different flowers,4 argued th a t th e b est sty le for his contempor­
aries must be eclectic: the neo-L atin w rite r s h o u ld co m b in e diction derived
from a range o f an dern authors to create a te x tu re th a t w ould be entirdy
composed o f andern Rom an L a d n ity as far as its e lem en ts were concerned,
but would also be new from the p ersp ective o f th e w h o le creation and the
combination o f those elem ents. T h e eclectics, th erefo re, proposed a range
o f models, namely the auctores probati [‘ap p ro v ed au th o rs’] and did not
attribute primary authority to an y sin gle a u th o r.5

Poliziano, Valla, Erasm us and Eclectic Style

A major factor in the w ide dissem ination o f th e e d e c tic point o f view was the
immense popularity o f a book w ritten b y Lorenzo V alla (1407-57), which was
en tided Elegantiarum linguae Latinae libri sex (‘Six Books about Accurate,
Correct Usage in Larin1). T h e Elegantiae (w h ich is th e com m only used short
form of the w orks ride) m ight fairly be described as an encyclopedia of Larin
prose usage. It became a standard reference w o rk for w riters o f Latin prose
throughout the humanist age and the early m o d em p erio d.6 In Valla’s Elegan­
tiae primary authority as far as language is concerned is given to the Roman
prose authors whose literary' careers fell in the p erio d o f approximately two
centuries bounded by the lifetimes o f C icero an d Q u in tilia n . From the wotksof
these authors come Valla’s copious exam ples o f c o r r e a usage for Larin prose.7
But no e d e a ic neo-Latin prose au th o r h ad m o re in flu en ce on European
letters than Desiderius Erasmus (1466-1536). A lth o u g h he was an accom­
plished composer o f verse, E rasm us ach ieved sp ecial distin ctio n in prose:
his letters, declamations (especially Laus stultitiae (‘P raise o f Folly’) and
Querela pads (‘C om plaint o f Peace’)), treatises o n m oral philosophy,
eloquence and educational th eo ry, an d even so m e o f h is theological worb
have won admirers through the cen tu ries n o t m e re ly for th e ir content, but
also for their style. In his fam ous an d satiric Ciceronianus, a dialogue
devoted (in large p an ) to the q u estio n o f lite ra ry im itatio n , Erasmus
persuasively argued that eclecticism w as th e m o st p ractical approach for

4 Sen. Eput. 84.1-10.

’ Eclecticism was indeed highly congenial to the habits o f learned readers in the Renaissance, who «eie
trained to note striking or beaudJU phrases in ‘commonplace books', see Moss 1996.
4 The circulation o f the EUgam iae both in manuscript and in prim has been the object of several
studies. See IJscwijn and Toumoy 1969 and 1971: Regoliosi 1993. In some editions the Eltgam úrv»
equipped with notes and indices. It was also abridged, and imitated by others, such as the mudi
shorter Elegantulae o f Agostino Dari (1420-78).
7 For an excellent treatment o f Valla’s choice o f models, see Casacci 1926.
 A p p ro a ch in g N e o -L a tin Prose as Literature z&

«ñiers o f n co-L ad n , a n d E ra s m u s ’ o w n literary ou tpu t accords well with

his theoretical view s a b o u t sty le a n d im itation.
Before we con sid er th e eclecticism o f E rasm u s' ow n prose style ,9 it will
be worthwhile to ap p reciate th e fact that Erasm us, perhaps even to a
greater degree than V a lla h a d d o n e a cen tu ry earlier, contributed an
(dcctk flavor to the e n tire tra d itio n o f n eo-L atin prose writing. H e did
» partly by p u b lish in g treatises d esig n e d to b e aids for com position, such
is Periphrasis in Vallar Elegantias (‘ Paraph rase o f V alla’s Elegantiae"), an
epitome o f V alla’s w o rk , a n d De duplici copia uerborum ac rerum (‘O n the
Twofold Abundance o f W o rd s a n d Subjects')» a system atically arranged
thesaurus o f phrases relatin g to m a n y d ifferen t topics. B u t Erasmus’ special
legacy to future n e o -L atin elo q u e n c e w as his Adagia, an immense collec­
tion o f memorable exp ressio n s a n d p roverb s derived from the entire range
of ancient Latin literatu re (in c lu d in g m a n y sayings excerpted from Greek
authors), each o f w h ic h E ra sm u s elu cid ated w ith his ow n commentary .10
This work, w hich E ra sm u s ex p a n d ed an d republished several times in his
career, was probably th e m o st w id e ly distrib uted thesaurus o f proverbial
wisdom published in th e e n tire R en aissan ce and early-m odern period.
Countless writers rep eated , a d a p te d an d co m m itted to m em ory phrases
horn the Adagia, an d its in flu e n c e u p o n eclectic expression was enormous.
In feet, Erasm us, like m a n y h u m an ists, w rote in several different styles,
induding sim ple c o m m e n ta ry o r exp o sitio n , a polished conversational
style represented in h is Colloquia familiaria (‘ D ialogues in the Familiar
Styfe*) and a rhetorically e lab o rate fo rm o f address m anifest in some o f his
prefatory epistles. B u t E ra sm u s’ skill in Larin prose (and his eclecticism) is
perhaps best observed in h is d eclam a to ry style, w h ich he chose as the
medium for his m ost b itin g satires, an d m ost serious observations on social
and moral problem s. L e t us co n sid e r this exam ple from the Laus stultitiae.11
The speaker is F o lly h erself, a n allegorical figure:

Sed quid si doceo me huius quoque tanti boni et puppim esse et provami'1I
Docebo autem non crocodilitis aut soritis, ceratinis aut aliis id genus
dialecticorum argutiis, sed pingui, quod aiunt, Minerva,J rem digito

1 On the C k m m ia n u s in the context o f Erasmus’ eclecticism, see Tunberg zou.

I For « general consideration o f Erasmus' prose language (together with a large bibliography), see
Tunberg 1004.
* The Eraimian commentaries added to each a d a g iu m vary greatly in length. Some o f them, such as
Erasmus' essay on the phrase D u lc e b e llu m in e x p e r t is ["War is sweet to those who haven’t tried it),
circulated as separate treatises.
' Erasmus 1979: 9a, lines 382-^16. 11 ‘ Prora et puppis', A ia g . 8; L B n, 28E.
II Crasa Minerai: pingui M inerai: crassiore M usa', A d a g .. 37; L B n, 42A.
 TERENCE TUNBERG
24°
propemodum ostendam. Age, conniuere, M labi, caecutire, hallucinari in
amicorum vitiis, quaedam etiam insignia vitia pro virtutibus amare mirari-
que, annon stultitiae videtur affine? Quid cum alius exosculatur naeuum in
amica, alium delectat polypus Agnae,” cum filium strabonem apellat perum
pater,'6 quid, inquam, hoc est nisi mera stulticia? Clament terque quaterque
srulticiam esse: atqui haec una stulticia et iungit, ¡unctos et seruat amitos?
Oe mortalibus loquor, quorum nemo sine vitiis nascitur, optimus ille est
qui minimis vrgetur.'8 cum interim inter sapientes istos deos aut omnino
non coalescit amicitia aut tetrica quaedam et insuauis intercedit, nec ea nisi
cum paucissimis (nam dim nullis dicere religio est) propterea quod maxima
pars hominum desipit, imo nullus est, qui non multis modis deliret, et non
nisi inter similes'9 cohaeret necessitudo.

But what if I argue that I am the 'stern and the prow’ (i.e. beginning and
end) of such a great boon? But I'll show this not though crocodilitis or soritis
or ceratinis (these are names o f types o f arguments emplôyed by dialect­
icians) or other logicians’ hair-splittings o f this sort, but racher I shall point
it ouc virtually with my own finger < a n d > with ‘dull Minerva' (i.e. plain,
simple language), as they say. Come now, to wink at < a fault>, to make a
mistaken judgment, to turn a bind eye, to indulge in delusion in the case of
friends’ faults, to love and admire even some remarkable faults in the place
of virtues - doesn’t this seem akin to folly? W hat < is to be said>, when one
fondly kisses the wan in his girlfriend, when another is delighted with
Agna's polyp, when a father calls his squinting son ‘fluttery-eyed’ - what is
this, I insist, except pure folly? Let people shout thrice, four times this is
‘Folly!’ - but this folly alone brings friends together, and preserves their
friendship when they have been brought together. I’m speaking about
mortal men: none of them is bom without faults: the best is the one who
is impaired by the fewest faules - while on the other hand among those god­
like wise men either no friendship arises at all, or <there arises among
them> a son o f severe and forbidding type o f friendship, and that too only
with a very few people (I scarcely dare say with no people!), because the
great majority of people are foolish; 1 should rather say there is no one
who is not in many respects besotted! And fellowship only develops among
like-minded people.

M 'Conniuere'. Adtg., 750: LB 11, J17C.

11 H ot. Stm . 1. ). 40 (turpia deripiunt coetum vitio aut etiam ipsa haec / delectant, velati Btlhmum
polypus H tjn a t. .
“ U nd. 44-S tsiqued sit vitium eum fastidire. Strabonem / appellat paetum pater . , .) .
n Ib id , S4 (haec res ei iungis tunaos et servat amicos . . . ). Erasmus' words here dearly echo thr
Horadan vene, but the tame thought it alto explained and illustrated in Adag., 1853 CObtequium
amicM, ventat odium pant'. LB u, 67jA).
Ib id , £8-9 (nom vmis nemo one nascitur, optimus ille a t, / q u i m inim is urgetur . .
* 'Simii* gaudet «mili. 4t Semper umilcm ducit Deut ad similem’ , A dag., t u & tau LB n, 79E-80B.
 A p p ro a ch in g N eo -L a tin Prose as Literature 141

This passage like so m an y others in Erasmus’ works, and especially in his

declamations, aboun ds w ith adagia (indicated above with italic letters).“
We should also note h o w m an y Erasmian sentences echo Horadan verses
(whose works he is said to have learned by heart) - though Erasmus,
of course, is w ritin g in prose.1 ' Erasm us draws on the entire ancient
patrimony o f Latin for his vocabulary and he is noticeably fond of
non-Ciceronian w o rd s and phrases. In the passage quoted above, for
example, w e note id genus m ean in g eius generis. This adverbial accusative -
constantly used b y Erasm u s and quite a few other humanists - is an
archaism, which appears now here in C icero except for two instances in
his correspondence (and o n e o f these instances occurs in a letter written to
Cicero, not b y h im ): it appears once in the Historia naturalis (‘ Natural
History’) o f Plinius (‘ the elder’ ), once in Suetonius, and then comes into
fashion with the arch aizing authors o f the later second century CE, namely
Gellius, Apuleius and F ro n to . A few other words in this passage o f Laus
stultitiae re fle a E rasm u s’ eclectic taste: caecutio is found twice in the
remnants o f V a rro ’s Satires, otherw ise it occurs in Apuleius, in late Latin
and in Christian authors; coatesco is not rare in Sallust and Livy, but b
non-Ciceronian; taetricus is read in L iv y , the poets, and in Silver Larin, and
is also non-C iceronian.
At one or tw o p o in ts in o u r excerpt from Laus stultitiae we notice
elements o f w h at m igh t be described as rhetorical parataxb. This mode
of expression, w h ich ce rta in ly enhances the immediacy, and vividness of
Folly's diatribe, is pervasive in E rasm u s’ declamations: it may indeed be
considered one o f the h allm arks o f his declam atory style. Such parataxb b
created b y the use o f d ire ct address in the second person, rhetorical
questions, im peratives, h o rtato ry verbs and juxtaposition o f antithetical
thoughts as equivalen ts to sub o rdin atio n .“ These rhetorical devices are
explicit, while the su b o rd in a tin g c o n ju n a io n s are implicit. For a dearer
example o f this m o d e o f address, w e m ay consider the following passage
from Erasmus’ Querela pacis,1* anoth er dedam arion delivered by an alle­
gorical female figure, in th is case Peace instead o f Folly.

a Erasmus manifests a special predilection for striking and memorable phrases in general. This
propensity leads him to produce sentences which occasionally resemble the pointed phrases of
Seneca.
1 On the wide range o f authors considered by Erasmus to be authoritative, see Chômant 1981: L
m-v*-
0 A ttmikr kind o f discourse is quite often apparent in Seneca's philosophical essays and letters, and it
oen appears occasionally in C icero's orations, when Cicero wishes to exche (he emotions of ho
beaten, or highlight the irony o f a situation.
M Erasmus (977: 96, lines 842-50.
 24i TERENCE TU N BERG

Romafariosa quondam illa bellatrix tamen Iani sui templum aliquoties vidit
clausum.M Et qui conuemt apud vos nullas esse bellandiferias? Quonam on
praedicabitis eis Christum pacis autorem ipsi perpetuis dissidiis inter tos
tumultuantes? lam quos, putatis, animos addit Tureis vestra discordia? Nihii
enimfacilius quam vincere dissidento. Vultis illis esseformidabiles? Concordes
estote. Cur vitro vobis et praoentis vitae iueunditatem inuidetis et a fatum
felicitate vultis excidere? Multis malis per se obnoxia est vita mortalium,
magnam molestiae partem adimet concordia, dum mutuis officiis alius alium
aut consolatur aut iuuat...
That state o f Rome, even though she was raging and warlike in times of old,
nevêrthless several times saw the temple o f her Janus dosed. And how is it
appropriate that among you <Chrisrian Europeans> there is no respite
from warfare? With what effrontery do you proclaim to them (i.e. other
peoples) Christ the initiator o f peace, though you yourselves due to con­
stant dissensions are battling among yourselves? D o you have any idea bow
much your discord increases the boldness o f the Turks? For nothing b
easier than conquering people at odds with each other. Do you wish to be
fearsome to them (i.e. the Turks)? G et along with each other! Why do you
o f your own accord both begrudge yourselves a favorable condition of lile in
the present, and set out to disqualify yourselves from future happiness? The
life o f mortal men is in itself subject to many evils: but concord, in die
process of which people through mutual good services either console ot
help each other, will remove a large pan o f the adversity . . .

The texture o f most o f this passage might be explained as follows:

Roma fariosa quondam illa bellatrix tamen Iani sui templum aliquoties
vidit clausum. Et qui conuenit apud vos nullas esse bellandiferias? Here the
force is equivalent to a conditional sentence - si Roma fañosa ...illa
bellatrix... ¡ani sui templum aliquoties vidit clausum, Q ui conuenit apudvos
nullas esse bellandiferias?
Quonam orepraedicabitis eis Christum parís autorem ipsiperpetuis dissidiis
inter vos tumultuantes? This is actually a concessive sentence - Quonam
ore praedicabitis eis Christum pacis autorem, q u a m v i s / c u m ipsi perpends
dissidiis inter vos t u m u l t u e m i n i ?
lam quosputatis animos addit Tureis vestra discordia? N ihil enimfacilius
quam vincere dissidentes. Here is the equivalent o f a causal sentence - lam
quos, putatis, animos addit Tureis vestra discordia, CUM n ihil. . . SITfacilius*

** The giro o f dic temple of Janus, a mated in the Roman (brum, were closed when the Roman
people was nowhere at war. In all the centuries horn the legendary founding o f the dry (75) s a l to
die battle of Acrium (ji ses) the gate o f the temple o f Janus were said to have been closed only
three timet.
 Approaching Neo-Latin Prose as Literature 143

quam vincere dissidentes. (N o te also che paratactical use of putatis as a

parenthetical verb.)
Vultis illis esseformidabiles? Concordes estote. Here is another conditional
sentence - Si vultis illis esseformidabiles, concorda atóte.
Multis malis per se obnoxia a t vita mortalium, magnam molestiaepartem
adimet concordia, dum mutuis officiis alitu alium aut consolatur aut iuuat.
This is implicitly a concessive sentence - q u a m q u a m multis malis per se
obnoxia at vita mortalium, magnam t a m e n molariae partem adimet con­
cordia, dum mutuis officiis alius alium aut consolatur aut iuuat.
Erasmus, therefore, adopts elements o f style (including structure,
phrases and vocabulary) from m any different sources and he combines
them into a rich texture o f expression which is quite distinctive and very
much his ow n. A lth o u gh w e sometimes find elliptical sentences in Eras­
mus' letters and com m entaries, his style is not distinguished by brevity.
Indeed, in m any o f his works, including the declamationes, he is often
inclined to copiousness. B u t the endless variety o f his constructions, his
immense vocabulary, his fondness for diminutives, create a lively and fluid
discourse, ‘w hich often seems to involve the reader in conversation.
It is clear that eclecticism , as exemplified by Poliziano's comparison (by
way o f Seneca) o f the com poser o f neo-Latin with the bee making honey,
continued to be a viable approach to writing neo-Latin prose long after
the time o f Erasm us. Indeed it has undoubtedly persisted as long as neo-
Larin itself. A t present, how ever, our ability to demonstrate the Nachleben
of Erasmian eclecticism is som ewhat limited because of: die paucity òf
scholarly studies w h ich n o t m erely survey the precepts of-grammarians,
rhetoricians or other theorists, but also offer an analysis, conducted from
a philological and stylistic perspective, o f the actual Latinity of--works
written in the later sixteenth, seventeenth and eighteenth centuries (and
even beyond).25

M uret, Bembo and Ciceronianism

Bui not all neo-Larin writers were eclectics - many considered themselves
10 be G ceronians. T h e ir point o f view was well represented by Paolo*

* A valuable step in this direction may be found in die work by Benner and Tenpuöm 1977. Their
erplontory study o f Latin texts produced in Sweden in the seventeenth and early eighteenth
centuries suggests that an eclecticism which favored a range of auctora piotati for ¡mitanoo.
similar to the range o f authors proposed by Valla in his Eiepomae (with a few Christian authors
added), was perhaps the prevailing stylistic approach adopted by Nordic writers of neo-Lam in dut
period.
 244 TERENCE TU NBERG

Cortesi in his famous correspondence w ith P olizian o. Cortesi not only

rejected the eclecticism defended b y P oliziano, he argued that sin«
antiquity there had been more or less universal agreem ent that Cicero
was the supreme masrer o f Latin eloquence: C o rte si’s contemporaries,
therefore, who sought to express them selves in L atin , should imitate the
language o f the best author, nam ely C ic e ro .26
Since the early Renaissance, Cicero had been proposed by many,
including such famous humanists as Leonardo B run i (Leonardus Aretinus,
1370-1444) and Poggio Bracciolini (Poggius F lorentinus, 1380-1439), as the
primary model for Latin prose.27 T h is ido lizatio n o f Cicero the orator
accorded very* well with the intellectual en viro n m en t o f the Italian city-
states in the early Renaissance, in w hich C icero w as upheld as a supreme
ancient model o f the man o f affairs, w ho co m b in ed knowledge gained
from letters and philosophy with civic eloquence an d political experience.1*
But a primary factor in the rise o f C iceronianism in the Renaissance was
that Roman authors o f the first two centuries c e , esp ecially Quintilian and
Tacitus, looked back on the age o f C icero as th e high point of Latin
eloquence and, with remarkable u n an im ity, considered Cicero to have
been the greatest orator in Latin. M u ch m ore atten tio n was given by the
humanists than by their medieval predecessors to these post-Augustan
Roman works (some of which indeed had h ard ly circu lated in the Middle
Ages). It was from such works that the h um an ists gain ed not only their
understanding of the history o f ancient L atin literatu re but also their
judgments about its greatest authors.
Ciceronianism gained many adherents in fifteenth cen tury Italy. One of
its greatest exponents, Pietro Bembo (B em bus, 1470-1547), an influential
author in both Italian and Latin, w on a position as L atin w riter in the curia
of Pope Leo X. From that tim e on, the C icero n ian style became the
accepted idiom for papal letters. Bem bo, an d those w ho followed him,
such as the famous Belgian orator C hristophorus L ongolius (1488-1522),
cultivated a prose style which was m ore o r less p attern ed on the periodic
style of many of Cicero’s speeches and w as d istin ctiv e for its vocabulaiy
derived as exclusively as possible from th e w orks o f C icero.29 These14

14 DdlaNeva Î007: 8-to.

17 Perhaps the bot account of the earlier phases o f the Ciceronian debate is still the one by Sabbadini
1885-
** See Baton 1966.
*’ Longolius migrated to Inly and won such fame for his Ciceronian Latin that he was admired as an
orator even by Italians (who, in this period, still tended to regard the transalpini as their inferiors in
eloquence). Longolius is widely considered to have been the inspiration for Etasmus' absurd
 Approaching Neo-Latin Prose as Literature 245

enthusiasts for C iceron ian eloq u en ce developed handbooks o f Ciceronian

^ords and phrases as aids fo r co m p o sitio n , such as the often reprinted and
fjpanded Cicero lexicon origin ally com posed by M arius Nizzolius
(I498-I576).,° Latin lexico g ra p h y a n d the textual cridcism o f Roman
authors were still in their in fa n cy in the early sixteenth century, and quite
, few words were then th o u g h t to be C ice ro n ian w hich have since disap­
peared from the cridcal edition s o f C ic e r o ’s works. So w e should judge the
vocabulaty o f early sixteen th -cen tu ry C iceron ian s w ith caution (and
inspect an old edidon o f N iz z o liu s’ lexicon w hen doubt arises). Som e o f
diese Ciceronians, h o w ever, h a b itu ally w ro te periodic sentences replete
with Ciceronian phrases and w o rd s, w h ic h d o indeed call to m ind Cicero’s
speeches,51 and this w as true o f L o n g o liu s in particular, even i f he did not
always perfectly im itate C ic e ro n ia n syntax.
We should keep in m in d to o th at even C o rtesi, whose position on the
choice of Cicero as the exclu sive m odel for Latin eloquence was quite
uncompromising, ack n o w led ged that C icero n ian imitation should not
merely involve recreating a stylistic c o p y o f C ic e ro ’s language.31 Moreover,
bydie middle and later sixteenth c e n tu ry m an y Ciceronians were taking a
less rigid approach to im itation o f their favorite author than some o f their
predecessors had done. T h is m o re flexible attitu d e to Ciceronianism was
adopted by teachers n o t o n ly in Ita ly , b u t especially north o f the Alps,
where it was advocated b y le a d in g G e r m a n hum anists, such as Philip
Melanchthon ( 1 4 9 7 - 1 5 6 0 ) a n d Io a n n e s S tu rm iu s ( 1 5 0 7 - 8 9 ) . Th ese m od­
erate Ciceronians favo red C ic e r o as the p rim ary m odel for neo-Latin
prose, but not the exclu sive o n e. A fte r all, argu ed Ju liu s Caesar Scaliger
(1484-1558) in his defen ce o f C ic e r o n ia n is m against Erasm us, Cicero had
never restricted h im se lf to a sin g le m o d el as far as vocabulary was
concerned.33 Indeed C ic e r o h a d n o t w ritte n ab o u t technical subjects,
such as agriculture a n d a rc h ite c tu re : so it w a s especially in the case o f

famul charade! Nosoponus, who defends the Ciceronian position in Erasmus’ dialogue
G u m iim . For a detailed study of Longolius’ Latinity, with references to the usage of Bembo
anisóme other Ciceronians, sec Tunberg 1997.
‘ Thetendency of extreme Ciceronians to rely on such word lists is ridiculed by Erasmus, and even by
tomelater Ciceronians, such as Marc-Antoine Muret: see Tunberg 1997: 49-51.
‘ Batwcshouldalso keep in mind that the style of Cicero's letters and philosophical dialogues can be
quitedifferent from the orations, and that Cicero's style, so far from being uniformly ample and
periodic, is actually quite varied. For an important study which emphasises the many different facets
ofCiceros style, see von Albrecht 2003.
’¡mien mio, mi Politione, non ut sim iam hom inis, sed ut filiu m parentis. (’I want <the writer> to
rocablc <the mastcr>, not like an ape resembles a man, but like a son resembles a parent.')"See
_ OetaNeva1007: 8.
faliger 1999:117.
 246 TERENCE TUN BERG

vocabulary that Ciceronians cam e to accep t th e v alid ity o f a variety of

models to supplement Cicero, w ho w o u ld , o f course, constantly remain
the principal paradigm.34
A very important proponent o f m oderate C icero n ian ism was Marc-
Antoine Muret (1526-82), a French h um an ist w h o spent much of his later
life in Rome, where he was em ployed both as a professor o f eloquence and
as a public orator.35 The beauty o f M u re n is’ pellucid and impeccably
structured Latin has won adm iration through th e centuries from his own
time to the present. W hile the syntax o f M u re n is’ prose adheres extremely
dosely to the classical norms o f C icero an d C aesar, M uret us was quite
willing, under che appropriate circum stances, to em p lo y non-Ciccronian
vocabulary and even the occasional phrase from post-classical or Christian
sources: but he typically did so w ith discretion an d discernment.*4 The
following passage comes from M uren is’ Pro Francisco II. Galliarum rtged
Phm IV. pont. max. oratio v habita Romae postridie kaL Mai. Anno m d lx
(‘Fifth Oration on Behalf o f Francis II, K ing o f France to Pius IV,
Supreme Pontiff, Delivered at Rom e on th e D ay after the Kalends of
May in the Year 1560’), one o f several orations b y M u ret which might be
classified as diplomatic rather than academ ic.37
Nam si divinae litterae a quolibet Episcopo tantam integritatem ac virtutis
perfectionem exigi volunt, nullus ut in omni eius vita reprehensioni patea
locus, neque gravitatem eius muneris digne a quoquam sustineri posse
tradunt, nisi quem pietas, prudentia, iustitia, uno verbo virtus suis omnibus
numeris absoluta commendet, quid in eo qui omni tempore cum summo
imperio tractare gubernacula Ecclesiae debeat, cuius vita ceteris omnibus
pro exemplo, voluntas pro lege, vox pro oraculo fututa sit, quanto haec
omnia requiri maiora et divinitati propiora censemus? Itaque, ut alia, sic hoc
quoque sanae ac sapienter institutum est a maioribus, ut, quoties de
summo Pontifia in demortui locum eligendo ageretur, interea, dum ea
de re amplissimus Cardinalium ordo deliberaret, nullus intermitteretur dies,
quo non omnes a privarim et publice precarentur a Deo, ut eum ipse gregi
suo praeficeret, quem dignissimum, quem ad publicam concordiam et
tranquillitatem aut constituendam aut conservandam aptissimum, quem
denique, quantum humana conditio fert, sui sim illim um iudicanet. Quodsi*

** According to MeUnchthon, Pliny's N aturalH istory is ‘a treasure trove o f Latin, because, if Pliny h*l
not left us so many wolds for dungs, wc would not be able to speak in Latin about many esentai
aspects o f our society'. See Bteochncider 1844:186-7.
” On Murets literary career, see now Giros tota.
* On the language and style o f Mulct’s prose, see Tunberg 2001. For a thoughtful assessment of
Mulct's Gceronianism and classicism, see Fumaroli 1980.
r Frotscher 18)4: 1, 149. Many o f Murct's orations deal with literary or philosophical topics and
pertain to the academic rather than diplomatic environment.
 A pproaching N e o -L a tin Prose as Literature 247

eiusmodi Pontificem ulla unquam tempora desiderarunt, nostrorum certe is

status est, ut nunquam magis ex istius Sedis auctoritate universi orbis salus
pependisse videatur. N on enim Petri navis, ut solebat, placido mari, secun­
dis conspirantium ventorum flatibus impulsa fertur. Horribiles eam procel­
lae et turbinum vis, vel exercitatissimis metuenda rectoribus, agitat, ut,
quanquam a naufragio quidem nullum periculum est, non mediocris tamen
animos teneat metus, ne tam saeva tempestas multos mortales, novarum
opinionum fluctibus involutos, in ea brevia praecipites abripiat, unde postea
nec enatare ipsi nec evadere atque emergere alieno auxilio possint.

For if the <opinion o f > sacred letters is in favor o f such blamelessness and
perfection o f virtue being required from any bishop, that no place in his
emite life be open for rebuke, and < sacred literature> teaches that the
weight of that office cannot be worthily undertaken by anyone, unless he b
distinguished by holiness, good judgment, justice and, in a word, virate
complete in all its parts, what < shall we sa v > o f him who must at all times
manage the helm o f the Church with highest authority, whose life shall
stand for all others as an example, his will as law, hb words as prophetic -
on how much higher a level do we judge that all these qualities are needed
<in him > and more nearly approaching divine status? And so, just as they
did in other respects, so abo our forefathers piously and wisely brought it
about that, whenever the business o f electing a supreme pontiff to take the
place o f one just deceased was in process, while the illustrious college of
cardinals was deliberating on the issue; that everyone both privarci)’ and in
public would let no day go by without praying to God to place the person at
the head o f H b flock, whom H e judged to be most worthy, most suitable
for establishing or preserving general concord and peace, and indeed most
like to H im self- in so far as b possible in a human being. But if any age has
ever required such a p ontiff the conditions o f our times are certainly such,
that the salvation o f the world seems never to have depended more on the
authority o f that Holy Sec. For the vessel o f St Peter (i.e. the whole Roman
Church) b not, as it used to be, travelling on a calm sea. propelled by
favourable gusts o f winds blowing together. It b being tossed by terrible
tempests and the force o f whirlwinds, which even the most seasoned
captains must fear, so that, although there b no clanger o f total destruction,
the hearts < o f those loyal to the Church> tear to no small extent, that
many people, caught by waves o f seditious ideas, may be hurled headlong
by such a savage storm into those reefs from which they can neither
afterwards swim away by themselves, nor escape and flee with outside help.

The reader will not o n ly ad m ire the general G cero n tan quality o f this
passage but also its carefully balanced sym m etry. Am plification, parallel
and correlative con stru ction , o ften reinforced b y congruence o f sound, is
judiciously em ployed to serve em ph asis o r to highlight central concepts.
We should note vita . . . pro exemplo, voluntas pro lege, vox pro ontcuU. . .
 Z48 TERENCE TU N BERG

We observe that sancte ac sapienter are effectively p laced early in the long
period which begins with Itaque an d ends w ith iudicaret, and we notice
how, as a climax to the same period, the an a p h o ra in three successive
clauses quern . . . quern . . . quern denique . . . em p h asizes eum (the right
choice for supreme pontiff) placed earlier an d righ t after the ut which
begins the climax. Moreover, sym m etrical pairs o f p arallel words (com­
bined here too with congruence o f so un d) are co n stan d y employed to
amplify both the meaning and the h arm o n y o f clauses an d sentences: for
example etprivatim et publice, or aut constituendam aut conservandam, or
nec enatare... nec evadere.
When speaking of the governance o f th e un iversal Roman Church,
Muret refers to summo imperio in a w ay w h ich w ill easily call to mind
Cicero speaking of the Roman republic, ye t M u re tu s refrains from the
constant use of pagan terminology to express C h ristian institutions, a habit
which is pervasive in the works o f earlier C icero n ian s such as Longoliusor
Bembo, and which is lampooned b y E rasm us in his Ciceronianus* So
Muret writes gubernacula Ecclesiae rather th an gubernacula rei publicae
christianae, and amplissimus cardinalium ordo rath er than patres conscripti.
In so doing Muret shows h im self in accord w ith th e Erasmian (and
Ciceronian) notion of decorum, n am ely th at w o rd choice should reflea
and be appropriate to the intended co n text.39
When Muret speaks m etaphorically, h e docs so w ith care, and in a way
that seems to be consistent w ith the sen sib ility o f C icero , although he
never confines himself in a strict sense to o n ly those transferred expressions
which are found in Cicero. T h e use o f navis for res pu blica o r civitas is of
course not foreign to Cicero, and M u re t’5 p h rase P etri navis (not new with
Muret) to refer to the universal R om an C h u rch accords w ell with Cicero­
nian expression. The image o f the ship o f s u t e (o r u n iversal Church) being
borne on a tranquil sea by conspirantium ventorum fla tib u s fits the meta­
phor beautifully and appropriately, though in fact the verb conspirat
applied to the action of winds is o n ly attested in post-C icero n ian authors.
The noun fluctus is also sometimes em p lo yed b y C ic e ro w ith a transferred
meaning to refer to war, disease, civil disturb an ces a n d th e like, so Muret's
use of the word to refer to the m inds o f m en d istu rb ed an d engulfed by
new doctrines accords with C icero n ian usage, even i f it m ay be a slight
extension of it 40

* Tuaberg 1*77; 44.

* Thu li one >Adie ceno*] «piment» in Etvmut’ Cieeronianw, tee Tunberg ion.
* In edur topas «ko Minet it not tuia Ciceronian. For further detail tee Tunberg im i
 A pproach ing N e o -L a tin Prose as Literature 249
Finally we note th at four o f th e five com plete sentences in this passage
cll)j with m etrical (i.e. q u a n tita tiv e ) clau su lae (i.e. sentence endings),
chicli arc am ong those favored b y C icero in his orations:

prvpiòrd cènsimûs (crede and trochee)

i¡miliimum iüdtcârët (double trochee)
pzptndissé tÀdëàtür (resolved crede and trochee: the famous esse videatur)
impùisdß m ir (double trochee)

Although our passage from th e Orationes o f M u ret is too sm all to con­

stitute a statistically sig n ific a n t sa m p le , o u r im pression th at M uret had
some understanding o f C ic e ro n ia n p ro se rh yth m an d d elib erately sought
to apply it in his ow n co m p o sitio n s is su p p o rted b y th e results o f recent
research.41
The use o f q u an d tad v e p ro se rh y th m b y h um an ist Latin authors,
however, is som ething w h ich w ill req u ire m uch m ore investigaro n, and
from future studies d irected a t th is p h en o m en o n w e m igh t learn quite a bit
about the developm ent o f h u m a n ism . B y th e later M iddle Ages (i.e. after
about 1150) a kin d o f prose rh y th m co m m o n ly called cursus, which con­
tista! of a series o f sim p le an d w ell-d efin ed rhythm s for the ends of
sentences and clauses, w as re g u la rly em p lo yed in certain types o f prose,
especially in letters an d m an ifesto s p ro d u ced b y th e papal curia and other
chanceries, both ecclesiastical a n d secu lar. T h is m edieval cursus, which
actually had its o rigin s in th e elev ated prose styles o f late antiquity, was
based upon the accent o f w o rd s, an d n o t on the q uan tities o f syllables.'*1
But in the fifteenth c e n tu ry , an d c o n c o m itan t w ith the rise o f hum anism ,
it became typical for h u m an ists to b e em p lo yed as official letter-w riters for
kings, dty-states, nobles a n d p relates, an d in th e papal court itself. These
humanist chancellors an d secretaries ten d ed , it seem s, to avoid the m edi­
eval accentual cursus.4* M o re o v er, as th e p h ilo lo gical science o f the hum an-
M» developed, gram m arian s g ra d u a lly in creased th e ir understanding o f the
¿ a that Cicero (an d o th er R o m an o rators active before the end o f the

* fw MohuMivr study, devoted to both the orazione} and epizattae at Muret, in which carefully
dem Matètica) teats Have been applied, ice Kraue 2009. Krauet theta infiade« a tunry c i mene
ekM úp, and an extentrve bibliographical index of other recent tntdiet devoted 10 prue tbythm
hhutMittic Latin.
* 0# dx development of die medieval eunut, tee janaon 1975. jamón aA » «macai anaiym of (he
yaau of many authori For a d u ra« « « « n flt t r r medieval [m uir#, » i A iH u m tiie m m fln . «
T«dwg »9?f •
* Oartapiewion dut the accentual eunui gradually became leaf pervatrve in public letten wooes
fa» du mid fifteenth century onward ia aupported by ai lem one «rigirai ttudy. tee lindhnbi
Nmnhcktt. ihi» development wa» obviouily not aiwayt conautent - on toco ofthe medimi
»em in the proie of Leonardo Bruni, for example, tec Vertier ioti: 60-7).
 250 TERENCE TUNBERG

second century c e ) had em ployed a prose rh yth m based on quantitatif'

metres.** How commonly therefore, w e m igh t ask. d id humanistic authon
of Latin prose not merely avoid m edieval accen tual rhythm , but actual^
attempt in their own works, and especially in orations, to compote
sentences which ended in quantitative cadences sim ilar to those favored
by Cicero? We will need m any more studies gro un ded in well-accepted
statistical methodologies in order to gain even a tentative notion as to how
widespread this practice m ight have been.
Let us return to M uret and m oderate C iccro n ian ism . As we hate
mentioned above, M uret’s style was greatly esteem ed for centuries, and
this was probably the prim ary reason w h y his letters and speeches were so
often reprinted. Among his adm irers w ere p ro m in en t figures in the earty
history of the Jesuit order, such as the rh eto rician Famiano Strada.**
We should note the fact, for exam p le, th a t Jacobus Pontanui
(1542-1626), a Jesuit teacher born in B o h em ia, w hose school dialoguer
entitled Progymnasmata latinitatis (E xercises in L a tin ity ’) were printed in
many parts o f Europe, repeats M u ret’s ju stificatio n o f moderate Cica-
onianism almost word for w ord.46 Indeed, it w o u ld n o t be much of an
exaggeration to say that m oderate C icero n ian ism becam e the official
stylistic teaching o f the Jesuit order, i f w e accep t the statements of the
Ratio studiorum as authoritative.47 A testim o n y to th e w id e acceptance of
moderate Ciceronianism in early m odern E urope is the fact that the
norms endorsed in most modern basic textbooks o f L atin prose compos­
ition are still more or less C iceronian.

LipsiusandAnti-Ciceronianism
Nevertheless, neo-Latin authors who seem to have deliberately eschewed
Ciceronianism and classicism were not lackin g both in the Renaissance and
in the early modem era. M any o f these w ere n o t m erely eclectics: they made a
point of seeking rare or archaic words from early L atin authors such as Plautus

** By the Kcond half of the sixteenth century, at least, some grammarians were able to describe the fill
range of Cicero's clausulae with reasonable accuracy, as does Strcbacus 158a.
* For Mutet's influence on his contemporaries and especially on Jesuit rhetoricians see IJsewijn 1#$.
Froocher, in the prefatory material to his edition o f Muret's O pera, offers an ample collection of
testimonia, which reflect the enduring esteem for Muret as a stylist. See Froocher 18)4.
44 For 1 comparison of the statements o f Muiet and Pomario pertaining to style and imitation, let
Tunberg 20«; 275*4.
47 The Ratio nudiorum offen this precept; 'although the most approved historians and poco are drawn
upon <for appropriate wofds/phrases>, writing style must for the most part be taken from Cicero
alone’. Sec Lukács 1986; 424.
 Approaching N eo-Latin Prote at Literature z ji

orfrom archaizing authors o f the second century ce , like Apuleiu».4* They

abo admired Lucretius, w h o , although he had been a contemporary of
Cicero, had cultivated a style and diction reminiscent o f much earlier Latin.
Two pioneers o f this ‘a m i-C ic e ro n ia n ’ neo-Latin prose were Filippo Bero-
ddo the Elder ( 14 5 3 -15 0 5 ) , w h o w as the author o f an important commentary
on Apuleius, and Ioannes Baptista Pius (c. 14 7 5 -c . 154z), who turned not
only to archaic o r archaizing writers as a source for striking words and
phrases, but also to early m edieval authors such as Sidonius Apollinaris.
Prominent am ong the neo-Latin authors whose style might (from the
perspective o f Ciceronians and m an y eclectics) be regarded as ‘anti-dassicaT
wm the Belgian philosopher, historian and philologist Justus Lipsius
(1547-1606), who, like Erasm us decades earlier, o r like M uret slightly earlier,
hadepistolary contacts with litterati all over Europe. Lipsius’ brevitas and love
íot highly elliptical form s o f expression becam e famous.49 O n e may gain a
preliminary impression o f Lipsius’ elliptical diction (which is one o f several
bdbtts of expression con tributing to brevitas) from the following passage.40

Adi ungis de veteri tuo in me affectu. Scio et ab ilio audivi, qui umunqtse
nostrum amai . . . Is mihi de te aliquid, et literas edam a te ostendit, in
quibus amor in nos descriptus. Si ramarne habuisti, nunc magis cum sum
ubi boni” me esse voluerint; urinam ipse bonus. Rogas me distincte aliquid
de Sibillis. N unc aegre possum, cum abeunt isti vestri . . . quibus has dare
destinabam. Tam en praeter ea quae citas, arbitror te Onufrium vidisse in
libello singulari de Sibillis.41

From the context o f the le n e r the reader can more o r less supply what
Lipsius implies, but has n o t exp licitly expressed. I f we were to rewrite this
passage with a fuller and m o re con ventional m ode o f expression, it might
read as follows.

Adiungis < quaedam > de veteri tuo in me affectu, < quern > scio et ab illo
audivi, qui utrumque nostrum amar . . . Is mihi de te aliquid <d ixit> , et
literas etiam a te < m issa s> ostendit, in quibus amor in nos <est>
descriptus, < q u e m > si iamtunc habuisti, nunc magis <habebis> cum

* For an excellent treatment o f the rise o f archaizing neo-Latin see D ’Amico 1984.
" Sa Dencirc t o il for a thorough analysis o f Lipsius' style.
The pauage comes from a letter o f Lipsius to Heribert Roiweyden dated 18 April 159}, which has
been edited by De Landtshccr 1994: 163. I owe thanks to D r De Landoheer for answering (in
correspondence) my questions about the circumstances which occasioned this letter and about the
reception o f Lipsius' style.
° la dii» context boni refora to Roman Catholics.
0 Lipsius here refera to a work about die Sibyls originally published a fow decades earlier. See the note
on this passage in De Landtsheer 19 9 4:16 3.
 iV TERENCE T U N B E R G

sum ubi boni me esse voluerint, <qui> utinam ipse <sim > bonus. Rogai
me distincte aliquid de Sibillis. Nunc aegre possum <respondere>, cum
abeunt isti vestri. . . quibus has <litteras> dare destinabam. Tamen praeter
ea quae citas. ...
You add some words about your long-standing affection for me. I'm aware
of it and I've heard about it from the one who esteems each of u s . . . He
told me something about you and he also showed me a letter you sent, in
which your fondness of me was expressed. If you already had this fondness
for me then, now you'll have more of it (i.c. more occasion for it) while
I am where the right-thinking people want me to be - and I hope I myself
may be numbered among the right-thinking people. You ask me something
specifically about the Sibyls. I can scarcely reply now, when your fellows are
leaving. . . to whom I was planning to give this letter. However in addition
to the things you mention [ ...]

The last clause (arbitror te Onufrium vidisse in libello singulari de Sibillis) is

so compressed as to diston normal Latin co n stru ctio n . Its meaning might
be represented thus: arbitror te vidisse ea quae O nufrius in libello singulari à
Sibillis scripsit (‘I think you have seen w hat O n u friu s w ro te in his remark­
able little book about the Sibyls’).
Ellipsis, as exemplified in the excerpt above, is o f course merely one
feature of the Lipsian style. D istinctive also in his expression are a tendency
to avoid parallel construction (som etim es called inconcinnitas), different
types of wordplay, a proclivity for w ords w h ich are rare or archaic in
Roman literature, and, on occasion, a sen ten ce stru ctu re w h ich sometimes
strains the conventions o f Latin syntax. P lau tu s, T a c itu s an d Seneca have
been named as authors who inspired L ipsius’ sty le : b u t the actual texture of
Lipsius* language is unique and sui g en eris? A n ad eq u ate appreciation
of its complexity could only be gained b y co n sid erin g a m uch wider range
of examples than we can supply here.

General Observations
As we might expea, a large am ount o f n eo -L atin p ro se falls somewhere in
between the major stylistic tendencies w e have o u tlin e d above. Historians,
for example, were usually sem i-eclectic w ith a b ias to w ard s C aesar or Livy,
although a few preferred to im itate Sallust o r T a c itu s, an d even Florus.54

" Critical views on Lipsius' style and earlier attempts to analyze it arc outlined by Dcncire zou.
14 See, for example, the detailed syntactical and stylistic study o f Sepulveda's D e orbe novo ('O n the
Neu World) by Rivero Garda 1993. On the different andern models for neo-Latin history writing
see (Jscwijn and Sacré 1998:180.
 Approaching N eo-Latin Prose as Literature 253

Certain habits, m oreover, especially pertaining to vocabulary, appear

D have been quite generalized a m o n g a w id e range o f neo-Latin prose
authors belonging to a variety o f stylistic schools. M a n y o f these authors
liked to use the term inology o f the pagan political and religious world to
denote Christian concepts o r institutions. In the orations o f Longolius, for
cumple, we find the phrase sacris liquoribus delibutos (‘anointed with
acred waters’) as a substitute for baptizatos (‘ baptized’ ) and duodecim illis
Ömsti legatis (‘ the tw elve am bassadors o f C h rist’ ) instead o f apostolis
fée apostles’), to m ention ju st tw o o f m an y similar appropriations o f
ancient Roman political an d religious phrases.” B u t we should not think
this habit was entirely restricted to C icero n ian neo-Latin writers. Phrases
like Deus optimus maximus (‘ G o d greatest and best’ ) m odeled on luppiter
tptimus maximus are c o m m o n th ro u gh o u t n eo -Latin .56 Even Erasmus,
although he ridicules the p agan izin g term inology o f the Ciceronians in
Ciceronianus, nevertheless som etim es em ploys such phrases as
hisdialogue
ímilitati dicatarum
virginum choro (‘ b a n d o f virgins devoted to celibacy’)
which means approxim ately th e sam e as ordini monacharum (‘ order o f
nuns’).57 But, while Lo n g o liu s (w h o se practice represents that o f extreme
Ciceronians) appears q u ite reluctant to use th e vocabulary o f Christian
Latin at all - even in a C h ristia n con text, Erasm u s freely uses the vocabu­
lary of Christian Latin in terch an geably w ith paganizing phrases. T h e use o f
both kinds o f diction con trib utes, o f course, to variety o f expression and
represents copia verborum, an d w e m a y con jecture that paganizing phrases
are sometimes deployed b y E rasm u s to add rhetorical colour to certain
passages. In any case, E rasm u s’ p ractice in this regard is shared b y a great
many other writers o f n e o -L a tin prose. S o , fo r exam ple, in the writings o f
the Jesuit historian G io v a n n i P ietro M a ffe i (Petrus M affeius, 15 33-16 0 3)
baptized people are som etim es designated b y phrases such as coelesti lavacro
apiati (‘ purified b y the h eaven ly b ath ’), and som etim es sim ply baptizan.**
In feet quite a few m edieval L a tin w o rd s con tin u ed in use am ong neo-
Latin writers, especially w h e n it w as necessary to discuss academ ic or
military affairs, for w h ic h m u c h o f the requisite Latin vocabulary had
evolved (sometimes from v ern acu lar sources) d u rin g the medieval period.59
Neo-Latin authors c o m m o n ly call atten tion to post-antique words or
«pressions by addin g e xp la n a to ry phrases, such as quod vulgo dicitur ...

" for 1 lin of these expressions, which includes the ones cited above and their sources, see Tunberg
m
* Hdtnder 2004:76.
v Io fam iu m m am monii (Praise o f marriage], Erasmus 1975: )86. line 16. * Maffcius 1751; 6,9.
" For Erasmus’ use o f medieval Latin academic vocabulary, Tunberg 2 0 0 4 :16 5 -6 .
254 TERENCE TU NB ER G

(‘which is commonly c a l l e d T h e same son o f explanator)’ phrase may

also denote a word directly quoted from a vernacular language, or a
vernacular phrase translated by the author into L atin .*5 It is worth noting
also that many neo-Latin authors make a point o f transm itting important
terminology from foreign languages, especially those o f American or
Asiatic cultures.6' Neologisms also, o f course, are not lacking in neo-
Latin, especially in scientific works. Such words are typically formed either
from Latin roots, or (following classical and Ciceronian precedent) from
ancient Greek.61
W e conclude, therefore, by observing th at neo-Latin prose (and neo-
Latin in general) is the continuation o f a tradition o f expression in Latin
extending without a break from an tiquity itself, a tradition which had
persisted long after the language had ceased to be the vernacular speech of
any race or group of people. Conti mûries w ith the preceding medieval
phase of Larinity are sometimes apparent in neo-Latin prose, most notably
in vocabulary. But the rise of neo-Latin also represents, in large part, a
turning away from medieval trends and a reaffirmation of the classical
Roman sources o f Larinity. Yet this very reaffirmation was the source of a
creative tension within neo-Latin, most especially w ith respect to the
evolution of different approaches to im itation. Neo-Latin is a complex,
multicultural and interdisciplinary phenom enon. Its firm roots in its
ancient heritage and its linguistic stability, w hich was maintained while
it was constandy being adapted to new circum stances, are to be counted
among its special qualities.

FURTHER READ ING

On Latin prose style in general, see Von Albrecht 2003. Norden 1898 and Von
Nägekbach 1905. On neo-Larin prose style see D’Amico 1984, Tunberg 1014.
For information on rhe language of the earliest humanists see Rizzo 2002. For
Ciceronianism see DellaNeva 2007, Tunberg 1997 and Sabbadini 1885. For the
style of Lipsius and its influence see Dcneire 2012. A fundamental starting point
for the study of neo-Latin vocabulary is offered by Helander 2004. For prose
rhythm in the late Middle Ages and early humanistic era see Lindholm 1963.

40 The meaning and use of such phrases as quod m igo dicitu r is discussed by Tourooy and Tunbag
1996:161-4.
41 For example, the Spanish historian and theologian loannes Ginesius Sepulveda (1490-1^)), when
describing the habits o f the Caribes in his ZV orbe nono, mentions their boats carved out of single
me trunks, and adds 'coneae'patrio vocabula nom inantur (‘<Thesc boats> ane called ‘canoes' in the
native language < o f the people>). Ramírez de Verger 1993: jt.
For some good examples of Greek and Latin neologisms, see IJscwijn and Sacri 1998:388-90. Muir
more are found in die lexicon o f neo-Larin prose by Hoven 2006.
 C H A P T E R 15

Epistolary Writing
: Ja cqu elin e Glomski

Introduction
During the R en aissan ce, the grow ing legal and political systems that
accompanied the rise o f th e city republics and the gestation of early-
modern states cam e to require a m ultiplicity o f new forms of corres­
pondence and d o cu m en tatio n . Influenced by their exposure to the
humanist ed ucatio n al p rogram m e, chancellors o f the courts of princes
and secretaries in the offices o f c ity governments put classical literature
to the service o f th e s u t e an d im proved the script, vocabulary and style
of official letters an d d o cum en ts that had previously been bound to the
traditions o f the m edieval ars dictam inis.1 Although their state letters are
valuable docum ents for the political thought o f the time, their non-
utilitarian (i.e. n o n -b usin ess) correspondence reflected their daily lives
and their opinions on a w id e variety o f topics; for reconstructing their
thought, these letters arc no less im ponant than any of their other
writings. T he elegan t style in w hich these non-utilitarian letters were
written, however, qu alifies them as literature. Indeed, the humanists
considered their correspondence to be literature, for they collected their
own letters an d those o f o thers, and edited them for publication. They
composed letters th ey h ad no inten tion o f sending, to augment or even
form a collection.1 A lth o u gh from the mid sixteenth century the ver­
nacular came to be used w id ely in correspondence, Larin continued to
be used into the seven teen th century by humanists g f international
suture and gen erally in in tern atio n al settings.3

The author wishes to thank Elizabeth McCutcheon and Jan Papy for their advice during the
preparation o f this chapter.
' Krbtcllcr 1988: i l) —4; Kristeller 1990: 8-9; Boutcher 2001; 1)9-42: Henderson 2002: 29.
* KristtUer 1988: 124; Henderson 1993:143. 155- 6 : Burton 2007; 89.
' Clough 1976= 53—Ai Nellen 1993: 88—9; Waquet 1993: toi.

155
256 JACQUELINE. G L O M S K I

Francesco Petrarca (Petrarch, 1304-74) w as th e first to apply classical

models to the art o f non-utilitarian letter-w riting.'* In the prefatory letter to
his Renm fam iliarium lib ri (‘Letters on F am iliar M atters’) (January 1350)
he outlined his scheme for the ‘personal’ letter based on classical prece­
dents: a familiar and spontaneous text, a co n n ectio n between family
members and friends, a w ritten su b stitu te for o ral com m unication com­
posed in a seemingly careless style.45 B ut P etrarch also stressed the flexibility
of this type o f letter, which he saw as a m atter o f d eco ru m : letters could be
addressed to individuals o f various ran ks, th e ir su b ject matter could
encompass either public or private affairs o f in terest to the addressee,
and they could reflect the distin ct states o f m in d o f th e sender.6
In general, the letter was seen as the reflectio n o f th e soul because it was
to be written in a plain, character-revealing sty le an d because it substituted
for the presence o f an absent friend.7* 'F lic n o tio n o f friendship was
intimately connected to the art o f letter-w ritin g , an d Renaissance writers
thereby revived a notion that had been im p o rtan t in an tiq u ity, but that
had weakened in the M iddle Ages. H o w ever, th e fo un datio n o f letters in
friendship was merely abstract; the p ractical, rh eto rical character o f letter-
writing, as Petrarch had em phasized, d em an d ed a d eco rum whereby style
was adjusted to suit the addressee." So, h u m an ist w riters cam e to use the
term fam iliaris for almost any kin d o f n o n -u tilitaria n letter-w ritin g and did
not distinguish sharply between w h at w e w o u ld n o w co n sider private and
public correspondence. In fact, in the R en aissan ce, th e notions o f ‘public
and ‘private’ were inseparable so th at alth o u g h th e private (i.e. non­
utilitarian) letters o f the hum anists co u ld address n ea rly an y type o f subject
matter, they did not contain personal confessio n o r self-analysis. Their
private letters seem to us to have a p u b lic n atu re .9
In the late fifteenth cen tury, h u m an ists b egan to follow Petrarch's
example in collecting and p u b lish in g th e ir o w n letters, w hich they were
able to do en masse w ith the d ev elo p m en t o f p rin tin g.10 In his

4 Por detalla on the recovery o f the letten o f G cero and Pliny the Younger, and the rhetorical workt of
Cicero and Quintilian, ice Reynold» 198): 3 1 6 - 1 1; M onfaiani 1988 :178; Reynold» and Wilton 1991:
'M -9
* For the text of this letter and note», tee Petrarch 10 0 1- 0 5 : 1.17—J 5 . 14 1-5 1. T h e Engllih translation It
(bund in Petrarch 1975:1-14.
* R erm ftm lilariim 1.1.18 -9 ,11 (Petrarch 1 0 0 1 - 0 5 :1 .1 7 ,1 9 - ) !) . See Martin BaAot 1005:169-7).
r Hcndeiaon 199): 153-4.
1 Krlstdler 1988:114; Henderaon to o l: iz ; Martin BaAoa 10 0 5: 49 9 -50 1.
y Henderaon 1993:146-9,158; Henderaon 1 0 0 1 : 1 9 .
10 Although perhaps more directly Influential were the primings at Venice o f the letter collections of
Leonardo Bruni (1471) and Francesco Fllclfo (before 6 O ct 1475). See Clough 1976 :59 -41 and late.
bl.uk.
 Epistolary W riting %yj

introduction to hi* Rerum fam iliariu m lib ri, Petrarch had described the
process of revising hi* letter* for the co llectio n .11 He had noted how he had
eliminated repeated expression*, cu t o u t passage* that he thought would be
boring to a reader, b u t left pieces o f personal news and gossip where he
considered them en jo yab le. T h ese remarles reveal that, from the beginning,
the compilation and p u b licatio n o f a collection o f one's letters was an
exercise in self-fashioning. T h e exam p le o f D esiderim Erasmus, who
significantly revised his letter to Francis C ranevelt o f December rjzo for
publication in A ugust 151t - not o n ly through stylistic changes but
through the addition o f a w h o le range o f patristic references in order to
demonstrate his au th o rity in hi* conflict w ith the theologians of Louvain -
and so changed a letter to a frien d into a printed apologia, illustrates to
what extent a w riter w o u ld transform an original, sent letter into one for
publication.11 F urther, h u m an ist auth o rs co uld rearrange letters chrono­
logically or select o n ly a few . In o rder to com plete his self-portrait, the
letter writer m ight even in clu d e letters th at he had written but had never
sent (and had probably never h ad an y inten tion o f sending) or letters
addressed to fictitious or historical persons.'1 T h e author o f a letter collection
was careful to form an im age o f h im self that he wished current readers and
posterity to see. T h e 'm irro r o f the soul’ was mote a matter o f self­
presentation than self-revelation; it w as, in a certain sense, 'a fictionalization
of one's own personality'.1*
Sudi letter collections, as w ell as letter collections o f the ancients,1’ were
used, too, as instructional m o dels, com plem ented by handbooks on epis-
tolography. T he first h andboo k* to be inspired by the recovery o f classical
letter forms were com posed in th e second h alf o f the fifteenth century;
these were m ainly co m p en d ia o f phrases, m otifs and to p ia , linked to the
teaching of gram m ar, an d offered as exam p les o f good style. Letter-writing
was also discussed in th e co n tex t o f rhetoric, that is, in relation to the
traditional division* o f the o ratio n (salutatio, exordium/captatio benevolen­
tiae, narratio, petitio, conclusio) (‘g reetin g, inrroduction/winning of good
will, statement o f facts, req u est, co n clu sio n '), w hich reflected the notion
that the purpose o f th e letter w as persuasion.,a T h e blurred boundary

" R m m fa m ilia riu m u . ) i (Petrarch lo o x - o j: 1.19 ).

" Ijicwijn ami Sacré 199!; 118-19.
'' tJougli 1976: jji IJacwiJn ami Sacré 199X1 11H; Hciidcrioii 10 0 1: iH. Sec alia (iualdo Kota 19I0-81
W(1 IjKwljn 1985.
'' Mtndmort 199}; 1551 Henderum lo o t : « - 4 ,
11 For dctailt on the early priming o f letter collectioni oí' the ctaiiical author», ice Clough 1976: 47-4,
a M'11'
$N alio Chaptrr 16, 'Oratory and Declamation'.
 258 JACQUELINE GLO M SKI

between orario and epistola was inherited from m ed ieval tim es; therefore, in
some respects, the letter-w riting m an uals o f th e late fifteenth and early
sixteenth centuries continued the trad itio n o f th e an dictaminis, even
though these texts sprang from dissatisfaction w ith m edieval teaching.17
The handbooks written b y the renow ned sch o lars Erasmus, Vives and
Lipsius sketched out the co n tin uin g ten sio n b etw een support for the
familiar or for the rhetorical len er. T h e d o m in a n t epistolary treatise of
the sixteenth century', Opus de conscribendis epistolis (‘O n the Writing of
Leners’) (1512) of Desiderius Erasmus (1466-1536), accepted the episde as
distina from the oration and argued th at th e stru ctu re o f a letter need not
correspond to the fixed elem ents o f an o ratio n .18 Indeed, Erasmus’ treatise
admitted the importance o f the fam iliar le n e r an d up h eld the stylistic
multiplicity of the genre, defining the len er, lik e P etrarch , not by its form
or style but by its audience.19*N evertheless, E rasm us considered the letter
an exercise in persuasion and appealed to rh eto rical form ulae as a guide for
understanding it. Juan Luis Vives, in his De conscribendis epistolis (‘On the
Writing o f Letters’) (1S34), likew ise em p h asized th e diversity o f the epis­
tolary form, its distinction from oratory, an d th e accom m odation of style
to the su b jea and addressee.10 H is o p p o sitio n to th e rhetorical concept
of the le n a was, however, m ore robust: d ra w in g o n classical definitions,
he insisted on the distinction betw een th e le n e r an d other genres; he
cited the division made b y C icero betw een th e fam iliar len er and the
serious letter, and he made a plea for a n atu ral, less oratorical style.21*Justus
Lipsius followed in Vives’ w ake in h is Epistolica institutio (‘Principles of
L ena-W riting’) (1591),21 no t ju st b y d iffe re n tia tin g th e len er from the
oration and separating it from rh eto rical classificatio n s, but also by
demanding a simple style, in sistin g on lib e ra tio n from strict imitation,
and by advocating an introspective form o f co rresp o n d en ce based on the
writing of Seneca.23
Since these handbooks discussed th e ap p ro p riate sty le for the letter and
appropriate models for im itatio n , th e y h ad to co n sid er w hether or not
Gcero should serve as the sole m odel for im ita tio n in prose writing, a

17 Henderson 198)1:3)7; Henderson 1993:150; Martin Baños 2005: 236, 260-3; Burton 2007; 89-91.
11 For the Latin text established by Jean-Claude Margolin, sec Erasmus 1971. The English translation
by Charles Fantazzi is printed in Erasmus 1983. For details on the influence of Erasmus’ treatise, tee
Henderson 2007.
* Henderson 1993:130; Henderson 2002: 33; Martin Baños 2003: 3)3-42. 343-7.
“ For the Latin text and English translation by Charles Fantazzi. sec Vives 1989.
“ Fancazi in Vives 1989; 14-13; Fantazzi 2002: 49-30, 94; Martín Baños 2003: 361. 413-16.
“ For the Latin ten and English translation by R.V. Young and M .T. Hester, see Lipsius 1996.
*’ Young and Hester in Lipsius 193*6: xxii, xxix-xliv; Henderson 2002: 37; Martin Baños 2003: ++H-
 Epistolary W riting
259

ojntfovcrsy that had erupted in the 14 8 0 s in a correspondence between

Paolo Cortesi and A n g elo Poliziano and that had simmered through the
sixteenth century. Erasm u s con fro n ted the question in his Opus de con-
scribendis epistolis, w h ich criticized extrem e classicism and presented an
array of classical, patristic an d contem porary models, whereas Vives, in his
De conscribendis epistolis, recom m en ded Seneca as an equal model to
Gcero. Upsius put an end to the debate in his Epistolica institutio, which
oiled for a writer to free h im self from the limitations o f an excessively rigid
imitation and advocated the search for a personal style through an eclectic
imitation o f the ancients.14

Literary Letters

The main issues discussed in the Renaissance handbooks o f epistolography

feature significantly in the non-utilitarian letters o f neo-Latin writers. The
defining trait o f the n eo -Latin literary letter was that o f latinitas, a concern
for purity and correctness in the w ritin g o f Latin, which was to be
accompanied b y claritas, brevitas, suavitas and decorum.” Latinitas relates
directly to imitation, especially the question o f the stria imitation o f
Gcero. The tension betw een the fam iliar and rhetorical letter was resolved
with a growing em phasis o n the appearance o f spontaneity, as after 1575 the
Etasmian rhetoricizing ten d en cy began to subside, and the familiar, brief
composition as represented b y U p s iu s an d his generation gained favour.16
Finally, the m o tif o f the letter as ‘ the m irror o f the soul’ , a topos which
neo-Utin experts on ep istolograph y inherited from classical authorities
(especially Demetrius, On Style),*7 w as also associated with a preference
for a plain style.
Petrarch’s ideal o f the fam iliar letter - one that would make absent
friends present - is exem plified in Ep. Fam. 13.8, written in the summer o f
1352, while Petrarch w as livin g near A v ig n o n , and addressed to his friend
Francesco Nelli, the p rior o f th e ch u rch o f the H o ly Aposdes at Florence.
In it, Petrarch relates in exquisite, poetic images his daily activities at his
summer residence in the V a u clu se. T h e letter is written in a simple style:
most of the sentences are short an d use a plain vocabulary, and the overall

M Henderson 19831:332: Fantazzi 2002: 49; Henderson 2002: 32-8; Martin Baños 2005:444-3. Fora
summary o f the Ciceronian controversy, see DellaNeva and Duvick 2007: vit-xnix.
* Maído Baña» 2003: 361-76. 1Ä Martin Baños 2003: 614-13.
17 For further information on Demetrius and his treatise, sec Kennedy 1994: 88-90.
* For the ta t of the letter and notes, sec Petrarch 2002-03:4.177-83,443-43. The English translation
it found in Petrarch 1982: 204-6.
26o JACQUELINE G LO M SK I

text is brief. After an opening statement o f his ren o uncem ent o f the wealth
and extravagance o f city life for the sim p licity o f the countryside, Petrarch
races from topic to topic. H e presents, first, a portrait o f his caretaker's
wife, her fece parched and sunburnt like a L ib y a n o r Ethiopian desert
(faciem, quam si videas, solitudinem ìybicam aut ethiopicam putes te vielen,
aridam penitus et vere solis ab ardoribus adustam faciem) (Ep. Fam. 13.8.3);
then a description o f the sounds o f the an im als aroun d him; then a
summary o f his simple diet, consisting m ain ly o f grapes, figs, nuts and
almonds, and a mention o f his peasant-like clo th in g; and, finally, a shon
tour o f his gardens. His conversational style is reinforced b y the use of
verbs for speaking (instead o f w riting) sprinkled throughout his text:
si loqui iubes (‘ if you wish me to speak’), [Q Juid de auribus dicam? (‘What
shall I say about m y ears?’), Quid de vestibus, quid de calceis ¡aquari
(‘What shall I say about m y clothing and m y footw ear?’), Quid de habita■
culo dixerim? (‘W hat shall I say about m y d w ellin g?’), . . . et si femineam
levitatemfateri oportet. . . (‘and, to confess m y u n m a n ly fickleness’). He
opens and closes his letter with direct address to his friend (si loqui iubes,
quid vis?) (‘if you wish me to speak’ , ‘W h a t do y o u w ish , then?’), and at the
centre o f his lener he says that he has no o n e to converse with except
himself. Petrarch maintains the air o f con versation b y punctuating his
lener with questions (as indicated above) chat give the impression o f him
thinking aloud, while they propel him from to p ic to topic.
Underlying this apparent im provisation is a sophisticated, highly crafted
text, centred on the images appealing to the senses, laced with classical
motifs and poetic imagery, and bo u n d together b y a series o f contrasts.
Petrarch appeals to the reader’s senses w h e n h e refers to the pans of his
body - his eyes, ears, tongue and palate - as his enem ies and his reasons for
wanting to withdraw from the city to the cou n try. D w e llin g first on sight,
then on hearing, speech and taste, before returning to his eyes, he claims
that he has freed himself from the chains o f th e material things he used to
crave and closed the eyes that he form erly w an ted to please with these
things (Soluta sunt quibus ligabar vincula, clausique quibus placere cupiebam
oculi) (Ep. Fam. 13.8.11). T h e paradox is, o f course, that deprivation
equals freedom.
Petrarch animates his letter w ith classical colo u rin g, b u t in keeping with
the femiliar, conversational tone, n o th in g here is obscure or recherché.
In his comparison o f Avignon and the V auclu se, he em ploys characteristic
motifs, mainly o f Virgilian origin, to depict courtly luxu ry and extravagance
(aurum, gemmae, ebur, purpura) and harsh b u t beautiful rusticity, espe­
cially in the heat o f the summer (,ardentissima sol, cicadae, Cancer, Leo). He
 Epistolary W riting 261

refers to his whole estate as a sort o f M o u n t Helicon, sacred to the Muses.

H« draws on Livy and Sen eca for his mention o f figures from Roman
history (Lucretia, V irgin ia, T a rq u in iu s, A ppius, Claranus). Images o f
modesty and frugality and o f abstinence and continence are bolstered by
theappearance o f C a to and Fabriciu s, and an allusion to Juvenal reinforces
thedescription o f the roughness o f his cou ntry diet.19 Senecan themes of
withdrawal from the w orld, the avoidance o f luxury and excess, the quiet
lifeof the scholar and the cultivation o f a few intimate friends are central to
Petrarch's text.
Finally, Petrarch c o n stru a s his letter around a series o f antitheses, with
which he opposes life at the cou rt in A vign on to life in the countryside.
His description o f his caretaker’s w ife, her face as dark as her soul is white
{yumfustafitcies tam candidus est animus) (Ep. Farn. 13.8.4), implies the
opposite at Avignon, w h ich sparkles on the outside with its gems and
wry, but which is dark and corrupt w ithin. H e contrasts the sweetness o f
song, pipe and lyre o f the cou rt w ith the bellowing o f oxen, bleating of
sheep, songs o f birds and m u rm u rin g o f water in the countryside. At his
country estate, he contrasts his tw o gardens, one - shady, but at the edge o f
1 wilderness - is sacred to A p o llo , the other - in a beautiful situation, mote
civilized - to Bacchus.’ 0 In con clusion, he proclaims that his summer
home would be perfect if o n ly it were closer to Italy (fP]ossem forsan hie
mmnisi veltamprocul Italia vel tam prope essetAvinio) (Fam. 13.8.16); that
his love of Italy delights and tem pts him , while his hatred o f Avignon
sdngs and revolts him . H is soul is m ade miserable both by what he desires
and what he fears; he wishes o n ly to be w ith N elli and his few surviving
friends (¡NJichil est quod cupiam
nisi te cum amicis qui rari superant, nich 'd
ettjuod metuam nisi reditum ad urbes) (Ep. Fam. 13.8.16).

Literary Style and Rhetorical Structure: Two Examples

from Erasm us and Muret

Petrarch's stress on the letter as a conversation with an absent friend was

actually at odds with the con cep t o f the letter influenced by the rhetorical
tradition, a strand o f letter-w riting that was popularized by Erasmus.’ 1 In

" Ita lia of there figures ('Cato' most likely referring to both the elder and younger Cato) are found
in the «mùngi o f Valerius Maximus. When describing the coarseness o f the rural diet, he states that
he prefers this sort o f food to delicacies, which Juvenal {Sut. n.io6-8) claims can only he tolerated
forfive days anyway (Petrarch 1002-05: 4.444).
* A reference, as Ugo Dotti notes, to the rwo summits o f Mount Parnassus (Petrarch 1004:445).
' Henderson 199): 154: Henderson 1001: J l .
 l6 l JACQUELINE GLO M SK l

practice, though, as Erasmus’ ow n w riting sh ow s, neo-Latin writers man­

aged to construct non-utilitarian letters around a petitio and still fill them
with an air o f familiarity. A thank-you letter from Erasm us to his patron
Anton Fugger and a request for inform ation from M arc-A n toine Muretto
the medical doctor Giacom o C anani illustrate h o w a rhetoricized epistle
could be personalized and given a veneer o f spontaneity, while displaying
an impressive classical erudition and a thorough com m an d o f Ciceronian
Larin. Careful self-fashioning makes these letters prim e examples both of
the intertwining o f the notions ‘ public’ and ‘ private’ in epistolary writing
of the time and o f the literary values o f n eo -Latin letters: both of these
lenen were published during the authors’ lifetimes.
Erasmus’ letter o f 7 Ju ly 1529 to the bank ing m agnate A nton Fugger has
a double aim: to persuade Fugger to accept Erasm u s’ thanks for Fugger's
gift o f a gold cup and also to accept his refusal o f Fugger's offer of a
residence in Augsburg.*1 Although Erasm us personalizes the letter with
some details o f his own life, this is a learned com position based on a
rhetorical structure, where colour and interest are supplied by the use of
aphorisms, commonplaces and exempla. E rasm u s’ flo w in g style, his expert
handling o f transitions and smooth integration o f aphorism s and classical
references into his text give the letter a natural and sincere quality, which
expresses Erasmus’ esteem for Fugger's friendship.
Even though in his handbook on letter-w riting Erasm us rejected the
traditional division o f a letter into five sections,33 in this letter to Fugger
five sections can be identified that loosely correspond to these traditional
parts. After a simple salutation {salutatio), Erasm u s begins his exordium
with general remarks on the nature o f friendship — that good friends are
not always found where one expects — w h ich leads h im into sketching out
the nature o f their friendship and taking up the praises o f Fugger. To
ensure the sincerity o f his laudatio, Erasm us includes a few personal details:
Fugger's acquisition o f his fortune through industriousness (not illicit
means) and his concern for the education o f children. From this Erasmus
proceeds to give his reason for w ritin g {causa/intentio) — he is responding
to a letter he has received from Fugger — w h ich begins his narratio (the
statement o f the frets, here a sum m ary o f their correspondence). Then, at
the centre o f the text, Erasmus presents his m ain argum ent, his request
(petitio) that Fugger should accept his sincere thanks for the gold cup that

v The ten with notes is Alien, Ep. 2192 (Erasmus 1906-58: 8.223-6}. It was first primed in the Opa
(piitolttnm (Basel, 1529), 970.
* Erasmus 1971:301.
 Epistolary W riting z6j

he has sent along as a gift w ith his letter. Again, sincerity is confirmed
through personal detail: the cup will represent Fugger’s friendship and
affection, for even w ater drunk from this cup will taste like honey-wine
(fir tamamico poculo quid ni vel aqua mulsum sa p ia t{Ep. 219 2.6 1-2); and
when drinking from Fugger’s cu p , even if he is not drinking wine (for
health reasons), the taste will be m ore pleasurable because he will be tasting
Fugger’s affection (amorem) (Ep. 2 1 9 2 .7 1 - 2 ) . A fter stating that he does not
bow how he will ever reciprocate Fugger’s kindness to him, he moves to
his second request, to ask Fugger to accept his refusal (again) o f his
invitation for him to com e an d live in Augsburg. Erasmus aims to convince
him that it is his health that prevents him from making a long journey and
not a matter o f the am ount o f remuneration offered or the status o f the
person making the offer; he w o u ld m uch prefer a sincere friend to all the
treasures o f the kings ( Ego candidum amicum omnibus regum gazis ante-
posuerim) (Ep. 2 19 2 .8 9 -9 0 ) . Erasm us concludes (conclusio) his letter by
responding to Fugger’s new s o f the religious situadon at Augsburg, con­
gratulating him that the c ity is m anaging to maintain stability in uncertain
times. He wishes Fugger go o d health and expresses his appreciadon o f and
commitment to their friendship.
Erasmus’ letter seem s spontaneous and intimate, in spite o f its rhet­
orical structure and its eru dition . Erasm us writes in an elegant but
relaxed style, varying the length and construction o f his sentences so that
one sentence flows sm o o th ly into the next.*4 Although his grammar can
be complex, nowhere does his prose get bogged down in a complicated
chain o f clauses. H is vo ca b u la ry is standard; for sophistication he
indudes a Greek phrase o r tw o . Erasm u s animates his letter with exempla
bra ancient history o r classical m yth o lo gy, as when he contrasts Fug­
ger’s good use o f m o n ey h o n estly earned to the elder Vespasian’s good
use of ill-earned m o n ey o r w h en he com pares the state o f imperial
finances to the leaky w ater-jars o f the D anaids. H e expertly uses quota­
tions from ancient literature - bo th classical and biblical - to enhance his
meaning, as in his in tro d u ctio n w h ere he refers to the Iliad (24 .527-8)
and to Ecclesiasticus (6 .15 ) (the form er stating that human life is a
mixture o f happiness an d sadness; the latter that a faithful friend has

MEramus does not recommend in D r conscribendis epistolis any particular style for letter-writing
(because the letter is a heterogeneous genre) but he believes that letters should be written in a clear,
eltpm language, without affectation (Erasmus 1971: in . 116 -7 ). Tunberg 1004: 161 describes
Erasmus' style as being ‘remarkable for a fluidity that stems from an immense variety o f construction
md vocabulary’.
264 JACQUELINE G LO M SK I

no price).” And he injects h um our into his text, referring to his own
‘Adages’ when mentioning how he has given u p h orseback riding, saying
that he has gone not from horses to d onk eys, b u t fro m horses to his own
two feet (non ab equis ad asinos, vs habet prouerbium, sed in pedes deiectus)
(Ep. 2192.66-7).
In the autumn o f 1562 the French classical scholar M arc-A n to in e Muret
(Murenis),57 then in the em ploym ent o f C ard in a l Ipp o lito d ’Este, wrote
four letters to Giacomo Canani, a m edical d o cto r o f Ferrara, with whom
he had become friendly. T h e letters were w ritten from Fiance, where
Muret was travelling as part o f the cardinal’s larger entourage during his
mission as papal legate at the outbreak o f the W a rs o f Religion. Muret s
lener o f 6 October is another particularly interesting exam ple o f a persua­
sive lener based around a petition.3* M u re t w as k n o w n for his oratorical
abilities; indeed, he was carrying out the role o f an orator as pan of
Cardinal Ippolito’s embassy to France, and, u n qu estionably, his letter to
Canani uses rhetorical strategy.
As with Erasmus’ lener, a reliance o n the five traditional parts can be
detected. After a simple salutatio,
exordium an n o un ces, in a striking
the
manner, Muret's recovery from an illness: Convalui. Hoc me gratius aut
optatius tibi epistolae principium reperire nullum posse, certe scio have (‘I
recovered. That I could find no beginning fo r m y letter to you that was
more pleasing or desired than this, I k n o w for certain’) (Epist. 2 6 .1-2 ). This
introduction goes on to detail the nature o f M u r e t’s fever (Febris fiat
tertiana duplex, qualem tu a me tertio abhinc anno Ferrariae depulisti...
Itaque octavo me die, postquam corripuerat, reliquit (‘T h e fever was a double
tertian, the sort o f which you drove from m e at Ferrara three years ago ...
And so on the eighth day after it had seized m e, it left’) {Epist. 2 6 .2 -5), and
continues with an acknowledgement to M u re t’s d o cto r and other col­
leagues for their care. T h e narratio follows, in w h ic h M u re t considers
whether the cardinal will return to Italy in the m iddle o f winter or wait
Quanquam enim tuae litterae certa prope et explorata nunciam:
until spring:
non desunt tamen hic, qui sponsione certare parati sint, nos in Gallia
hybematuros (‘Although, indeed, yo u r letter an n o u n ces almost certain

” Erasmus 1906-58: vm, 223. Erasmus’ predilection far maxims and exem pta are characteristic of his
writing (Tunberg 10 0 4 :160-1). The handbook o f the late-antique pseudo-Libanius recommended
the use of historical exempta and proverbs to bring charm to letten (Reed 19 9 7:177).
* ‘Ab equis ad asinos', Adagia 1.7.29, to denote that someone has left an honourable undertaking fix
something less reputable See Erasmus 1906-58: vm , 224 and Erasmus 1989: 83.
v Fora biography of this neglected neo-Latin writer, see Dejob 1970.
* For the ta t with notes, see Muret 1834: 61-2.
 E pistolary W ritin g 265

md confirmed things, there are yet those here w h o are prepared to wager
that we will spend the w in ter in F ran ce’ ) (Epist. 2 6 .1 9 - 2 1 ) . M u ret’s petitio is
j request for C anani to send h im a n y new s he has regarding their departure
jot Italy, he w ould like to k n o w so that he can make preparations: . . .
Astern obtestorque te per amicitiam nostram, ut expiscere, si potes, aliquid
ata, idque ad me scribas quam poteris certissime. Permagni mea interest, scire
tàifuturum sit, propterea quod consilium mihi ad rationem itineris dirigen-
bon a t I beg and im p lo re y o u , b y o u r friendship, to find out, if
tou can, something certain an d to w rite it to m e as m ost precisely as you
can. It is o f very great im p ortan ce to m e to k n o w what the future is because
1 must draw up a plan for th e reck o n in g o f the journey . . .*) (Epist. 26.
ay6). If the inform ation is to be kept secret, he promises that he will
meal it to no one. M u re t ends v e ry briefly: he wishes C anani well and
communiâtes greetings from h im se lf and his entourage.
Murets letter, an exam ple o f brevitas and claritas, creates an air o f
friendship and intim acy in order to persuade C an an i to fulfil his request.
Muret’s opening, relating his illness an d treatment, serves to dispose
Canani to him, both b y aro u sin g his sym p ath y and b y mentioning that
Canani cured him o f a sim ilar illness three years before (Febrisfiât tertiana
èqla, qualem tu a me tertio abhinc anno Ferrariae depulisti, Epist. 2 6 .2 -3 ).
Muret further solicits C a n a n i’s em otions b y calling attention to the quality
ofcare he has received from his d o c to r A n gelu s Iustinianus and the others
surrounding him; this o n ce again links C a n a n i to him and adds an aura o f
comradeship because C a n a n i k n e w m ost o f the men mentioned. Like
Erasmus, Muret begins his narratio w ith his reason for writing (causa/
aientio): now that he is w ell, he desires a return to Italy. W ith in the
wmtio Muret includes co m p lim en ts o f his em ployer, the cardinal; this is
as much as a matter o f sh o w in g respect for his boss as it is o f calling
attention to his association, like that o f C an an i, w ith this eminent man.
Muret then makes his petition clean o f everyone in his group, he is the one
who desires most to go back to Italy im m ediately; so could C anani give
him any information he can fin d o u t so that he can make his plans. Hère
he appeals dircedy to their friendship: obsecro obtestorque te per amicitiam
mram (Epist. 26.43). M u re t’s co n clu d in g remark, that he will keep the
information hushed i f necessary, seeks to gain C an an i's confidence, and
reinforces, through the im age o f secrecy, M u re t’s expression o f intimacy.
Muret reinforces these strategies w ith his Latin style, w hich has such
oratorical qualities that the letter dem ands to be read aloud. Adm ittedly,
the grammar o f this letter is difficult, w ith M u ret favouring the use o f
participles, gerunds an d c o m p o u n d verb form s; exploiting constructions
 l 66 JACQUELINE GLO M SKI

involving the oblique cases (genitive o f value, double dative, ablative

of manner, ablative of means, etc.); and relyin g on indirect statement.
Muret’s sentences are mosdy complex, periodic structures, of the type
traditionally perceived as Ciceronian.39 N evertheless, M uret entertains h«
reader/listener with a variety o f flourishes such as alliteration and climactic
series, even in the same sentence: Omnino et ipsius et omnium qui hic sum,
sedpraecipue ipsius et Petri Normesini mirificum quendam expertus summ
me amorem, miram in curanda valetudine mea soUicitttdinetn, sedulita­
tem, assiduitatem (Epist. 26.8-11).40 M u ret sim plifies his constructions
when opening or closing an idea and so uses lin gu istic form to emphasize
his meaning. For example, he im m ediately captures the attention of the
reader by starting his letter with a sentence o f one w ord, Convalui (‘1 have
recovered1) and then ends his exordium with M ihi credere, tanti erat aegrotari
f Believe me, it was worth being ill’) (Epist. 26.17) fabricating a neat linguis-
tic/scmantic package- The next section, on the question o f the date of the
return to Italy, he opens also with a short sentence, Nunc confirmatus avide
exspecto, quid vos istinc scribatis de nostro in Italiam reditu ('Now
strengthened, I eagerly await what you were w ritin g from where you are
about our return to Italy'), and brings it to an abrupt close: Quare si aliud
nihilobstiterit, ibimus, velsi caelum ruat ('W herefore, if nothing else stands in
the way, we shall go, even if the sky falls d o w n ’) (Epist. 26.17-18; 31-2).
Erasmus’ and M urets letters contain significant elements of self-
fashioning both demonstrate how neo-Latin w riters thought o f letters as
artistic works, in which die author constructs an im age o f himself for his
contemporaries and posterity, and how the m odern distinction o f‘private’ or
‘public’ was immaterial.4' W hen Erasmus declines Fugger’s invitation to take
up residence in Augsburg, he states that w hat he previously wrote to Fugger -
that he had declined very attractive offers 6 0 m various princes - was written
to convince Fugger that his health would not p erm it him to travel and notto
compare Fugger, in rank or generosity, w ith his other patrons. His self-
aggrandizement loses its subdety as he goes into som e detail o f the generosity
of the emperor and King Ferdinand towards h im . H e notes as well the failure
of the emperor to pay the pension promised him . T hese frank remarks about
the emperor’s finances were, evidendy, not inten ded forever to be for Fugger’s
eyes only. Likewise, Muret, when recounting the story o f his recovery from

w For comments on Murct’s ‘moderate Gceronianism, see Tunberg 1997: 48-50.

40 Effects of this sott are difficult or impossible to reproduce in translation; bold type is used in this
extract to direct attention to some key structural and alliterative elements.
41 Henderson 1993; 155-6.158; Henderson 2002: 29-30.
 Epistolary W riting 267

thefever, details not only the care he was given but by whom. T h e naming of
these individuals - Petrus Norm esinus, Bartholomaeus Ferrus, Hieronymus
Uppomannus and Abbas Rosset tus - takes on a vivid hue o f self-
aggrandizement as soon as the letter is published, with Mutet now broadcast­
inghis connections to an audience wider than C an ani alone. T h e same can be
stidofMuret’s mention o f Cardinal Ippolito and his praises o f him. Further­
more, the feet that M uret, in his 1580 edition o f his correspondence, placed
thisletter to Canani as the first o f the four that he wrote to the doctor, when it
actually occurred chronologically as the second, demonstrates how Muret
used his letters to fashion his autobiography: M uret presumably rearranged
theletters to introduce the figure o f C an an i and clarify his relationship tç him
beforeproceeding to describe the events o f the war taking place around him.41

Lipsius a n d th e L e tte r as th e ‘ M ir r o r o f the Soul’

The motif o f the letter as a m irror o f the soul, as promoted by Justus Lipsius
in his Epistolica institutio 43 placed emphasis on the character o f the writer
and was actually a form o f self-presentadon, or even self-fashioning.44 This
topos, linked to com posing a text that w ould make absent friends present,
is also connected to w ritin g in a plain style and giving the impression o f
spontaneity.45 Lipsius’ goal was that the pupil should attain a personal,
idiomatic style and should develop his identity as a writer. Lipsius viewed
the letter as the genre o f w ritin g that perfectly reflected the character or
talent of the writer, and in his o w n correspondence, the ‘self became an
important topic.46 M oreover, Lipsius advocated a conversational style
in letter-writing, one that abandoned the high style o f public oratory; he
claimed that epistolary style should be marked by brevity and simplicity,
but also by elegance and decorum .47
In his letter o f 2 0 N o vem b er 16 0 0 to Erycius Puteanus (1574 -16 4 6 ), in
which he congratulates Puteanus on his appointment to the chair o f elo­
quence at the Schola Palatina in M ilan, Lipsius reconciles the two appafently
opposing concepts o f brevitas and suavitas to produce a text full o f clarity and
coherence, but also o f sophistication and elegance.4* Lipsius begins his letter

“ IJscwjjn lySj: 186. IJsewijn (187) sees M uret‘s collected correspondence as ‘the revenge o f an old
man, who publishes the proof o f his successful career in the very town from whence he was
ignominiousiy o iled in his youth'.
" Manta Baños 1005: 583. M Henderson 2002: 23. ■*’ Henderson 1993:154.
* Henderson 2002: 37; M anin Baños 200$: 443. Lipsius 1996: 22-3.
* On Puteanus, see Sacri 2000. Puteanus had studied with Lipsius at the Collegium Trilingue in
Louvain and then went to Milan in 1397 with tenets o f recommendation from Lipsius, in search of
 268 JACQUELINE GLO M SKI

wich his congratulations to Puteanus, but he then am plifies this topic so that
the letter turns into a reflection on the ephem erality o f life. In his praise of
Puteanus, Lipsius encourages him to take advantage o f the present opportun­
ity and o f his youth to develop his career, but to remai n m odest and keep away
from vainglory. He refers to their com m on friend G ia n -V ice n z o Pinelli who,
sadly, is dose to death. Then, at the very centre o f the letter, Lipsius compares
life to the stage, saying how when the actor has finished his scenes, he takes off
his mask and costume, and gladly goes h o m e; so o u r soul goes from this
temporary theatre to its heavenly h om e (Ut in scaena partes qui peregit,
personam vestemque ponit et libens domum abit, sic noster hic animus a
temporariotheatro in aetheream illam sedem) (Ep. 2 8 9 7 . 1 0 - 1 2 ) . Lipsius then
discusses his own health: he m entions that he has had a serious bout of
bronchitis, from which he has on ly partially recovered. H e finishes offby
saying that he is looking forward to seeing the e d itio n o f Puteanus’ letters
and that the edition o f his own letters, those to Italians an d Spaniards, will
be out soon. Lipsius closes by asking Puteanu s to greet G iam battista Sacco
as well as their other friends in M ilan , Fredericus Q u in c tiu s and Ludovicus
Septali us.
Clearly, Lipsius does not base his letter o n a petition and the five
traditional parts o f the letter are not involved here; rather, Lipsius dwells
on himself. The letter moves from a laudatio o f Puteanus and Lipsius’
recommendations for him to Lipsius’ reflections o n life, w ith the transition
made through a maxim and an allusion to th e classics (te attolle semper ab
humo, ut absis a fumo (‘raise yourself u p alw ays fro m the ground so that
you may be far from smoke [i.e. vain glo ry]’); [s)icut ille ab igne oculos...
inumbrat (‘just as that one shades his eyes from fire’ ), Ep. z 8 9 7 .7 -8 ) .49 The
lener is compacdy organized, with a concrete o p e n in g (laudatio), a central
focus (contemplation o f the brevity o f life), a n d an end ing containing
Lipsius’ personal news (his illness, the p ub lication o f his correspondence).
Brevitas is accomplished through concision — b y n o t resting at length on
any one topic - and through the succinctness o f his sentences: Lipsius avoids
periodic structures and any drawn-out ornate phrases.90 A cultured style is

work. Afta Lipsius' death in t6o6, Puteanus would return to Louvain and take over as his successa.
This letta was first primed in I m i L ip s i e p is to la ru m s e le c ta ru m c e n tu r ia s e c u n d a a d B elg a s (Antwerp,
1605). For the ta t with notes, see Lipsius 2000.
^ As Jan Papy notes (Lipsius 2000: 29s), Lipsius’ maxim is explained by Erasmus' comments at
A d a g ia 4.8.8} CFumusI; and his allusion is to the incident o f Democritus going blind by gazing at
the sun, as found in Cicero. T u se. 5.39.114; Cicero, F in ., 5.87; GelL, 10 .17 . Por Lipsius' remarks on
the use of proverbs, etc in the in s t itu tio , see Lipsius 1996: 32-3.
,0 Lipsius' style is described in detail by Tunberg 1999.
 E p isto la ry W ritin g 269

thieved through conceptista figures that keep the text lively and interesting.
The fitst sentence begins w ith repetition (Laetum mihi, laetum te ...) and
then moves on to m arked alliteration: laetum mihi, laetum te muneri huic
publicoadmotum, in quo exseri atque exerceri ingenium et industria tua possint
(1 am delighted that y o u h ave been p ro m o ted to this public office, in which
your industry and intelligence m a y be fully exercised and demonstrated’).
Heeven exploits the rh yth m an d rh y m e o f paronom asia (nisi ea nixae, nisi ea
none, te attolle semper ab humo, ut absis a fiim o). T h e key to Lipsius’
combination o f brevitas w ith venustas is a sim ple m atter o f decorum , ‘when
(vetything is aptly and ap pro priately w ritten ’ .5'

Dedicatory Letters an d Letters o f Recom m endation

In spite o f Petrarch’s pleas in th e fou rteen th cen tu ry for a familiar letter

based on the corresp o n d en ce o f C ic e r o , P lin y and Seneca, letter-writing
nevertheless cam e to b e regarded as fo rm u laic and b y the end o f the
fifteenth century it w as b e in g ta u g h t as an a n o f persuasion.51 T h e
humanists’ enthusiasm fo r classical rh etoric w o rk ed against the wholesale
adoption o f the epistola fa m ilia risé T h e extent to w h ich neo-Latin letten
could adhere to form ulism w a s fo u n d in d ed icato ry letters and letten o f
recommendation, w h ic h w e re related to literary letten .54 Dedicatory
tenets, which prefaced a b o o k b e in g o ffered to a patron, increased expo­
nentially from the secon d h a lf o f th e fifteenth cen tu ry onwards, as authon
and editon (the latter o f b o th classical a n d con tem p orary works) com peted
fiercely for patronage. D e d ic a to r y letters co n n ected w rite n and editon
with patrons, prom oted the sale o f b o o k s a n d so con tributed to the spread
of literacy.55 A further related cate g o ry , letters o f recom m endation, also
played an im portant role in th e R e p u b lic o f L e tte n even though such
lettere may have o n ly seld o m b een p u b lish e d d u rin g an author’ s lifetime.
Letters o f reco m m en datio n created o r reinforced the bonds between
scholars (in the sense that th e y w e re o ften p a n o f reciprocal exchanges
of favours) and also fo rm ed an essential elem en t in the patronage system
(where the guarantee o f an a u th o rity w o u ld influence the outcom e o f
a request).56

’ As he states In the I n t t it v t io (Lipsius 1996: 3a—) ) : . . . cum o m n ia a p te et convenienter tc r ip ta .

0 Henderson 1993; 14 9 ,15 1. ” Henderson 1983a: 339.
MClough 1976: 46 -7. Ijsew ijn and Sacré 1998: 119 , however, view dedicatory letters as related to
utilitarian letter-writing.
" Glomski Z007: 6 1-3 ; Enckel 2008: 40. ’ * W aquet 2010b: 151-53.
 270 JACQUELINE G LO M SK I

W ritten exclusively for p u b licatio n , d e d ic a to ry letters w ere never ‘pri­

vate’; rather, they put the w riter’s rep u ta tio n a t stak e b y demanding
conformity to an ostentatious rh eto ric.57 T h e se letters required the dedi­
catee, the author/editor o f the book, th e b o o k its e lf a n d th e reading public
all to be taken into account, an d resulted in an ac u te tension between an
apparent hum ility and an u n d erlyin g self-p ro m o tio n o n th e part of their
author. This tension was expressed in a lin g u is tic iro n y : a text expressing
humility and self-deprecation fo rm ulated in a h ig h ly sophisticated and
stylized language that was m eant to tra n sm it th e values o f erudition,
cultural sophistication, piety an d d ilig e n c e .58 W h ile th e use o f simple
diminutives to refer to the auth o r/edito r a n d h is b o o k becam e character­
istic,59 so did more elaborate strategies, su ch as th e (o v er-)u se o f proverbs
and adages, w hich, by covering o b vio u s in te n tio n s w ith obscurity, pro­
vided an elegant mode o f exp ressio n .60 S u c h an em p h asis on modesty
was not required in the literary, n o n -u tilita ria n letters cited above. Wc
note for example that Erasm us, in h is le tte r to F u g g er, praises him at
length and expresses a deep ap p rec iatio n o f h is frie n d sh ip an d generosity,
but he does not hum ble h im se lf b efo re F u g g e r. L ik e dedicato ry letters,
letters o f recom m endation, b ecau se th e y w e re b ased upon petitio
(a request on behalf o f the person b e in g re c o m m e n d e d ), w ere tied to a
highly rhetorical form ula.6'

Conclusion

It would not be until the end o f th e sixteen th c e n tu r y th a t, in conjunction

with the anti-Ciceronian m ovem ent as e x em p lified in the writing of
Lipsius, neo-Latin authors w o uld lib erate th em selv es from the doctrine
of s tria imitatio, and the rhetorical an d fo rm u la ic a s p e a s o f lener-writing.
Still, Lipsius’ style had, in the long ru n , little im p a c t o n neo-Latin writers;
the vein of ‘moderate’ C icero n ian ism - an o v erall adm iratio n for the
authors o f the ‘Golden A ge’, b u t also a r e a a io n a g a in st extrem ism of any

r The prindplei of whang dedicatory letten in neo-Latin are discussed by Glomski 2002: 165-82 ami
Glomiid 2007; 62-71.
** Kiss 200Î: 141. * Glomski 2007: 64, 66; De Landtsheer 2008: 258.
*° Kiss 2008:141-2. Allusions to the classics were, o f course, a similar, popular strategy (Glomski
2007:67).
* Taquet 20tob: rjo. ij2-j. Taquet gives a thorough analysis o f the letters o f recommendation of
Gerardus Joannes Vossius. Morford 2002: 185-9 summarizes the treatment of letten of
recommendation in the fifteenth- and sixteenth-century handbooks on cpistolognphv. He
remarks how Lipsius refused to be bound by the rules o f rhetoric and succeeded in achieving a
certain informality in his lettets of recommendation (190,198).
 Epistolary Writing 271

(and in neo-Latin style — th a t w as espoused b y M uret and the teachers of

the Jesuit order, rem ain ed th e norm for neo-Latin prose during the
seventeenth cen tury.61 E p isto lary w ritin g w as, w ithin the constraints of
its genre, a laboratory for tren ds in n eo -L atin style and textual composition
in general.

F U R T H E R R E A D IN G
Scholarship on neo-Latin epistolography, overall, has tended to concentrate on
die theoretical aspect of the genre, with Martin Baños 2005 as the most
comprehensive survey to date. H is bibliography is extremely valuable as a guide
» the extensive secondary literature on Renaissance letter-writing as well as to
editions of primary sources. Still useful, though, as general, concise introducdons
to humanist epistolography, are Clough 1976, Fumaroli 1978, and Henderson’s
series of essays (1983a, 1983b, 1993, 2002, 2007). The volumes edited by
Wotstbrock (1983), Gerlo (1985), M cConica (1989) and especially Van Houdt
et al. (2002) contain important articles on individual writers and their letters.
Mote recendy, De Landtsheer (2014a and 2014b) and Papy (2015) have provided
in overview of the style and content o f the major humanist letter collections.
Dedicatory letters and letters o f recommendation are covered by Glomski 2007,
Bossuyt et al. 2008, W aquet 2010b, and Verbeke and De Landtsheer 2014.
In addition, the correspondence o f prominent seventeenth-century intellectuals
is discussed by Nellen 1993.

41 Tunbag 1999:178; Tunberg 1004:166-7.

 CHAPTER l 6

Oratory and Declamation

M arc Van der Poel

Introductory Remarks
On Easter Sunday, 8 April 1341, on the C ap ito l at Rome, Francesco
Petrarca (Petrarch, 1304-74) was crow ned poet laureate and delivered a
speech on the art o f poetry w hich heralded the b irth o f hum anist oratory.
Although this speech, usually called Collatio Laureationis, has the five-pan
structure typical of a medieval serm on, it show s traces o f Cicero’s speech
on poetry and the liberal arts, the Pro Archia, w h ich Petrarch had found in
Liège in 1333.' The history o f h u m an istic o rato ry an d declamation truly
began around the end o f the fourteenth ce n tu ry , w ith the work of Antonio
Loschi, Sicco Polemon and G asparino Barzizza on C icero's orations.
Between 1390 and 1396 Loschi (1368-1441) w ro te a co m m en tary on eleven
speeches by Cicero, the Inquisitio super undecim orationes Ciceronis, in
1413 Polcnton (1375-1447) produced co m m en taries on sixteen further
speeches, the Argumenta super aliquot orationibus et invectivis Ciceronis.1
Gasparino Barzizza (1360-1431) gave lectures o n C icero ’s speeches and
published a commentary on fifteen o f th em in 1420.’ O ther important
developments were Poggio B racciolini’s (1380-1459) discovery, in 1416, of
Asconius Pedianus* com m entaries on eig h t speeches b y Cicero and the
complete text of Q uintilian’s Institutio oratoria* an d G erardo Landriani’s
(d. 1445) discovery o f Cicero’s De oratore, Orator an d Brutus in 1421.’
Although the Q uattrocento Italian h u m an ists sto o d firm ly in the two
medieval traditions o f prose co m p o sitio n an d le tte r-w ritin g (ars dictanti-
nit) and of political debate and d eliv ery o f sp eech es at cerem onies in the
city states of Italy (ars arengandt) ,6 th e red isco v ery o f m any ancient

' On che Cattai* L**n*tonis, see Buffano 197$: 1, 1255-8} for the Latin text; English translación i»
Wilkins 1955. Looney 2009 oScn a brief analysis.
* Mercer 1979:9}. 1 Gualdo Rosa 1997.
* See Poggio'i letter to Guarino da Verona announcing these discoveries (Gordan 1974:195).
’ Reynolds and Wilson 1991:1)9, 4 Camaigo 1991, Koch 1992, Cox 2003.

272
 Oratory a n d Declamation 273

writings concerning rhetoric and eloquence did constitute a sort o f new

beginning. T h e bo d y o f ancient theories o f eloquence and the surviving
orations and declam ations (in the latter category especially the Major
Declamations ascribed to Q u in tilian ) form ed a fresh starting point for
everybody in Renaissance E u ro p e w h o wrote on rhetoric, composed
prose texts or wrote and delivered speeches.
The most important means b y which the study o f eloquence continued
to occupy centre stage during the Renaissance is the educational pro­
gramme o f the studia humanitatis, which was introduced everywhere in
Europe. This curriculum, taught at grammar schools and in the university
{acuities o f arts, consisted o f a substantial programme o f reading and
analysing classical texts on the one hand and continuous exercises in
writing and speaking Latin on the other. T h e writing o f themes, and the
writing and delivery o f classical-style orations in one o f the three classical
patra causarum (judicial, deliberative and demonstrative) were standard
classroom exercises. Declamatio, that is, writing a complete oration and
delivering it before an audience, constituted the pinnacle o f this method of
teaching. This exercise was reserved for students in the highest grades of
grammar schools and in the (acuities o f ans. W e will see that in the course
of the second half o f the sixteenth century, there seems to have been a
development towards concentrating the exercise o f declamatio on memory
and delivery to the detrim ent o f invention, arrangement and style; one
factor that may have contributed to this development is simply the diffi­
culty of writing original speeches.7
In spite o f this very strong con tinuity o f classical pedagogical practice,
the different historical circum stances o f the Renaissance transformed the
place and functions o f eloquence in society. In ancient Greece and Rome,
eloquence functioned in three vital areas o f society: in the lawcourts, in the
various kinds o f citizen councils and in formal meetings pertaining to
the public sphere, such as state funerals or official commemorations, where
orators delivered speeches o f praise or blame. In the Renaissance, however,
public speaking was confined to the dom ain o f ceremonies and private or
public social gatherings o f all kinds (diplomatic missions, university cere­
monies, religious events, w eddings, etc.), in which no decision o f any kind
had to be made and the delivery o f an oration usually had a purely
ornamental function. T h e w ritin g o f judicial and political orations and
! kdamations was also revived in the Renaissance, but these were always

7for 1 briefsummary of the place and development of declam ano in sixteenth-century schools north
oftheAlps, see Van der Poel 1987; 148-50.
 274 MARC VAN D E R P O E L

texts written to be read only by a general readership, and were never meant
to be used in the professional fields o f lawyers and politicians. Thus,
although the classical framework o f the three branches o f oratory con­
tinued to be in use during the Renaissance, a m ore significant distinction
was that of works intended for delivery before an audience and those that
were only to be read. In the present contribution w e w ill discuss these two
classes separately.

SpeechesandDeclamationsWrittento beDelivered
Before discussing examples o f epideictic speeches w ritten to be delivered, it
is useful to present a few observations concerning the subject of delivery.
In antiquity, actio or pronuntiatio (‘delivery’) w as considered by many as
the most important of the five tasks o f the orator {inventiolinvtm m ,
dispositio! elocutio/svy\c, memorialm em ory, actio or pronuntia-
ító/delivery), because the impact o f a speech depended largely on the
emotional force with which the orator w as able to im press his arguments
on the audience.8 Ancient rhetors gave detailed rules on the handling of
the voice and body movement in order to m axim ize the emotional effect
upon the audience. In the Renaissance, atten tio n to delivery implied not
only concern for a proper use o f voice and gesture, but also for other
aspects of speech and speaking.
In the early days of humanist education in Italy, delivery had primarily
to do with correct pronunciation o f Latin. Bartolem eo Platina (1421-81)
records in his biography of Vittorino da Feltre (1378-1448), who founded
one of the first humanist schools in M an tua, that V ittorino wanted to hear
his pupils frequendy read and declaim in order to correct any mistake in
pronunciation they might make.9 But atten tio n to delivery could also
imply considerations of euphony; for exam ple, B attista Guarino (Guarirli)
(1374-1460), the famous school teacher from V erona, attached much
weight to prose rhythm and metrics, and therefore paid a great deal of
attention to delivery.10 Furthermore, delivery had even wider ramifica­
tions, for the ability to speak gracefully in p ub lic constituted, in conjunc­
tion with a good posture, an im p o rtan t elem en t o f Renaissance
gendemanly ideal as described in Baldassare C astigiio n e’s authoritative
description of Renaissance court life in II cortesano (‘T h e Courtier, 1529).
Castiglione speaks about the two com ponents o f delivery - voice and

' Quintilian, Irm. iLj.1-9. * Garin 1958: 684. “ See Kallendorf iooz: 174-6.
 Oratory a n d Declamation 275

movement - in a passage explicitly devoted to oratory," but it is clear from

the context that these were in fact important components o f Castiglione’s
ideal of the perfect gendem an, w hich had an enormous influence through­
out Europe.11
In Renaissance Europe outside Italy, Latin pronunciation constituted
somewhat o f a problem, in so fer as Latin was spoken with different
accents according to the speaker’s nationality. Thus, differences in pro­
nunciation could lead to the com plete frustration o f effective communi­
cation, as is recorded by Erasm us in a well-known anecdoté about a
ceremony in which welcom e speeches were delivered by orators o f several
nationalities: they all spoke in Latin , but with such heavy accents that they
failed to make themselves understood b y their audience.13 Even if we allow
for a certain degree o f playful exaggeration in Erasmus’ account, his story
helps to remind us that in spite o f the ubiquity o f Latin in literate
communities and its unchallenged status as a lingua franca throughout
Europe, Latin remained in the Renaissance what it had been since the end
of antiquity, a ‘language in search o f a com m unity’.'4 It was perhaps an
awareness o f the difficulties surrounding spoken Latin, on top o f the
perception that the function o f oratory was restricted to purely formal
occasions, which stimulated Erasm us and other humanists o f his dme to
neglect delivery in their descriptions o f humanist education.
There is, in fe a , only one field in which Erasmus did see an effective role
for delivery, that is, the field o f sacred oratory. Erasmus was critical o f the
practice of preaching and wrote a detailed art o f preaching, which was based
entirely upon classical rhetoric. In this work, he discussed in detail the
proper use in the pulpit o f voice and body, advocating moderation as more
effective than exaggerated effects.,J Although the Ecclesiastes is very learned,
it is also an eminently practical handbook written to assist parish priests in
their task o f teaching their congregations, which Erasmus considered the
most important o f their duties.'6 Etasm us’ w ork is thus o f a completely
different nature to the im pon an t body o f later sixteenth-century guides to
sacred rhetoric which advocated the so-called Christian grand style in Latin
sermons, and which exercised a great deal o f influence on the high culture

“ Castiglione 1967: 76-7. '* Burke 1996. *• See Van der Poel »007: 113-4.
" Buda 2004: 43-60 (chapter a).
11 Eramus 1991-4: 0.16-44, lines 115-786. This is a very informative passage on preaching style at
thetime.
Etasmus 1991-4: 1.198-101, lines 174-98. He also advocates a good knowledge of the audience's
vernacular language (1.161-4, Unes 9)9-41$), including reading ihe best vernacular authors, such as
Danteand Petrarch in Italian (1.264, lines 391-$).
276 MARC VAN D E R P O E L

of chat rime.17 On the other hand, the emphasis Erasmus laid on delivery in
the context of preaching to the laity was not n ew .'8
Erasmus’ contemporary Philip M elanchthon (1497-1560) does not dis­
cuss actio in his De rhetorica lib ri tres (first ed. 1519), and confines himself
to stating briefly that memory and pronunciation are natural gifts, and
that whatever can be learned may be gathered from other authors who
have written on rhetoric.*9 In the same vein, Ju an Luis Vives (1493-1540)
described pronuntiatio as an ornament rather than a true part of rhetoriq
according to Vives, an orator can perform his task by w riting alone.10 At
the same time, however, both M elanchthon and Vives did include
declamatio, that is, the writing and delivering o f a fully fledged oration,
in their description of the arts curriculum . M elanchthon in fact introduced
declamatio as an exercise in the arts faculty o f the U niversity ofWittenberg
in 1523, and he also placed the exercise o f scribere et recitare declamationem
(‘to write and deliver a declamation’) on his program m e of the Latin
school, which formed the blueprint for the Lutheran schools throughout
Germany.“
As we mentioned above, the exercise o f declam atio, w hich included the
performance of the five tasks o f the orator (invention, arrangement, style,
memory, delivery) constituted the culm inatio n o f the humanist am
curriculum. However, in the second h alf o f the sixteenth century decla­
matio increasingly tended to be restricted to the elegant delivery of an
already written text. Several docum ents pertaining to the exercise of
declamatio in Sturm’s gymnasium in Strasburg, w hich I have discussed
elsewhere, are indicators of this developm ent.11 A nother illustration of this
trend is the existence of a close connection in hum an istic schools of that
period between training in eloquence on the one hand and school theatre
on the other. Numerous examples o f the close connection between speech
delivery' and stage performances in schools could be mentioned; the vast
literature on Jesuit theatre offers a good access to this subject matter.1’
Similarly, in Sturm’s gymnasium perform ances o f a paraphrase of an
ancient oration or poem, or o f an ancient trial featuring two or more

17 On Renaissance sacral oratory see O'Malley 1979, focusing on the papal court in Rome, Fumati
19S0. on France; and Shuger 1988, on England.
11 See for instana the Franciscan preacher Johann Meder on the importance of delivery; Meder 1499
fol. alj"\ I owe this reference to Pietro Delcorno MA (Radboud University Nijmegen).
* Melanchthon 1519: Atij*. “ Vives 1785; 6.160.
11 Van der Poel 1987:946. Vives also included the delivery o f declamations in his school cuniculum:
Vives 1785:6.361.
“ Van der Pod 1007:176-8. ** Griffin 1976 and 1986. McCabe 1983, Filippi 1006.
 Oratory a n d Declamation *77

orations were held by the students, and Sturm explicitly compared these
performances to the perform ance o f tragedies.14
Besides delivery, the Renaissance theory o f epideictic eloquence also
merits our attention because o f the differences from its classical counter-
pan. In the Renaissance, as w e have seen above, eloquence could properly
fonction only in the dom ain o f cerem onies in which no decisions were
made. Hence, the genus demonstrativum always came third after the other
two genera in an tiq u ity, whereas m any Renaissance theories and hand-
boob place it first or second after the genus deliberativum . In addition, the
treatment of the loci (topics) for praise and blame, and, especially after
1 .1550, the discussion o f the techniques for am plificatio (amplification) is
usually more far m ore detailed than in classical handbooks. Moreover,
Melanchthon distinguished exp licitly between two functions o f the epideic­
tic genre, that is, teaching on the one hand and moving on the other, in his
Elementa rhetorices (‘Elem ents o f R h eto ric’, 1531), he introduced a separate
genus for the teaching function, the genus didascalicum or didacticon.2f
Finally, Renaissance theorists defined different categories of occasional
speeches, reflecting the m anifold events at which public speeches were
delivered, such as speeches at w eddings or birthdays, thanksgiving or
recommendation speeches and funerary speeches.16
Within the genre o f ep ideictic speeches written to be delivered in
public, the speeches delivered in an academ ic or religious setting probably
constitute the largest corpus. T h ere exists a huge body o f such speeches,
delivered in particular at the opening o f the academic year or at the
beginning of a course. T h e traditio n o f opening the academic year with
a public speech b y a pro m in en t professor goes back to the time when
universities were first founded, an d w h ile m any such speeches from the
Renaissance survive in m an uscript on ly, m any others were published, often
because their author was a fam ous scholar. For instance, a series o f editions
of Melanchthon’s academ ic speeches delivered by him self or by others at
foe University o f W itten b erg w ere published from at least 1533 onwards
until his death.17 In som e cases collections o f academ ic orations were
reprinted until long after th eir auth o rs’ death, because they were deemed
worthy as stylistic m odels.18*

** Vin Act Poei 1007:177.

11 Melanchthon root: 32, 40-54. Mclanchthon's new genus was adopted by Luis de Granada in his
Mímica ecclesiastica sive de ratione condonandi (1576); see Van der Pod 1987:166.
For a hewexamples see Van der Pod 2001: 68. Recent scholarship has examined (uncial oratory in
putkubr, see e.g. Saulnier 1948 and McManamon 1989.
Melanchthon 1535,1544,1565,1566-9. u E.g. Murenis 1750; Muietus 1887.
 278 MAR C V AN D E R P O E L

The typical subject of an academic inaugural address is the praise of tin

arts and sciences. A fine example is Rudolph A gricola’s (1444-84) Orar»/,
laudem philosophiae et reliquarum artium (‘Speech in praise o f philosophy
the rest o fthe arts) from the year 1476, delivered in the presence of Dula
Ercole 1 of Ferrara, in whose service A gricola w orked from 1475 und
1479.19 The following passage is a good illustration o f Agricola’s elegant
attempts to match his style to the solem nity' o f the occasion and the
loftiness of his subject:

Si quis autem assit fortassis istarum rerum imperitior, quum fêtri a ne

tantis laudibus philosophiam audiat, ut haec sit praecipuum maximumque
eorum, quae a principe deo genus accepit humanum, utque hac ipsa dua
homines proxime deum accedant, ipsam pulcherrimo virtutum agmine
comitatam pectora nostra implere sui amore, alia omnia sperni, relinqui
solamque sincero constantique gaudio nostra desideria cumulare, postremo
ipsam esse, quae inter cantam turbam accidentium humanorum et sine
metu nos faciat tutos et sine periculo securos, si quis, inquam, imperitia
audiat haec, nonne me i ure interroget atque dicat: “quae est ergo hæc ont
clara tibi et laudata philosophia, quod ipsius officium, quid pollicetur?’’0
Suppose that someone in the audience who is ill-informed about dux
matters hears that I praise philosophy so highly, that it is the moa
important and greatest of all things received by mankind from God du
Creator and that by means o f it human beings come closest to God
suppose this person hears that philosophy, accompanied by the magnificent
throng of virtues, fills our hearts with love for Him, that everything cisti
spumed and left behind, that philosophy alone satisfies our desires with
pure and lasting joy, and finally that it is again philosophy which, antida
the endless turmoil of events in human life, makes us live safdy without
fiar and secure without risk - suppose, I repeat, that someone who is id-
informed hears all this, would he not jusdy interrogate me and say. *whx
then is this thing philosophy, so magnificent in your eyes and praiseworthy,
what is its task, what does it hold in store?”

After a detailed praise of philosophy as the highest pursuit for human

beings in the first part of the speech, this passage contains the transitionto
the briefdiscussion of the various parts of philosophy in the second panof
the speech. One notes especially the complex but well-balanced first
sentence, in which the central notion philosophia is repeated twice by 1m
followed by ipsa, sola, ipsa. Numerous other repetitions add to the dignity*

** A modem edition of the ridi texr in Rupprich 19);; partial edition with translation in Van der Pad
i » 7a.
* Rupprich 1935: rp..
f

Oratory a n d Declamation 279

aid grandiloquence o f the passage: Si quis . . . S i quis inquam, the poly­

m eric et sine metu . . . e t sine periculo, interroget atque dicat, the tricolon
qua est ... philosophia, quod (est) ipsius officium, quid polliceturi The
passage is markedly formal in its structure and rhetorical techniques.
One of Agricola’s sixteenth-century biographers, Goswinus van Halen,
records that the Italians, having heard Agricola’s speech, were filled with
admiración, and when they heard that Agricola was a Frisian, reproached
(hemselves that this foreigner from an uncivilized country had purer Latin
than any native Italian.M
An example o f a com pletely different kind o f opening lecture is the
speech delivered by Lorenzo V alla ( 14 0 7 - 5 7 ) twenty-one years earlier at the
opening o f the academic year in R om e (i455).?1 Unlike Agricola, Valla was
at this time a well-known scholar and author o f m any famous, and in pan
voy controversial, works.” T h e theme o f Valla’s speech is somewhat
unexpected, as he indicates him self in the introduction, because it praises
the Latin language instead o f the arts and sciences; the style is equally
unexpected, because it is com pact and direct rather than verbose and
circumstantial. Instead o f a standard praise o f arts and sciences, the speech
offers a description o f the function o f Latin as an agent o f civilization both
in the Roman Empire and in Europe since antiquity. Th is argument leads
to the hailing o f the papal court as the current centre o f civilization, to
which all scholars and artists feel attracted. T h e ending o f the speech is
iprite remarkable, because V alla com plim ents the new pope, who was not
known to be a generous patron o f scholarship and the arts, on his decision
to raise the salaries o f the university professors. T o illustrate the difference
in style from Agricola’s praise o f philosophy, here is the beginning o f
Valla’s brief discussion o f the role o f the Vatican as the guardian o f
civilization in Europe. W hereas Agricola’s style is florid if not wordy,
Valla’s is vet}' succinct. A sim ple sentence in the form o f a brief question
is followed by a series o f longer sentences with a simple structure and
unsophisticated syntax; the style is colloquial and pleasant, but plain:”

Quod cur in Europa non contingit? Nempe, ut reddam quod tertium est
quod initio promisi, quia id fleri sedes apostolica prohibuit. Cuius rei sine
dubio caput et causa extirit religio chrisdana. Cum enim utrunque

’ Akkerman ton: 88-9 and uo.

* Tat. «filiation and detailed studies of the linguistic, literary and historical context in Valla 1994.
9 Forexample, his speech of 1444 denouncing the Donation of Constantine as a forgery and criticizing
thepapacy, the Oratio or D eclam atio D e fatso credita et em entita Constantini donatione. See Valla
1007.
MSeeCampanelli'! analysis of the language and style of the speech in Valla 1994t 87-107.
 28o MARC VA N D E R P O E L

testamentum erntet scriptum latinis litteris, quas deus in cruce una cum
grccis et hebtaids consecravit, cumque tot hominum clarissimorum ingenia
in illis exponendis consumpta essent, nimirum hi qui christiani censebantur
nomine, quanquam imperium romanum répudiassent, tamen nefas puta­
verunt repudiare linguam romanam, ne suam religionem profanarem;
quorum preseram tot milia erant cum sacerdotum tum aliorum clericorum,
quos omnes necesse esse litteratos, apud quos videmus maiori in usu esse
linguam ladnam quam apud príncipes seculares, quorum etiam iudicia
litterate duntaxat exercentur.n

And why does this (i.e. the hilling into disuse o f Latin) not happen in Europe?
Well - and this is the third point I promised at the beginning - because the
Holy See has prevented it from happening. The first and foremost cause of
this is without doubt the Christian faith. For it was evidently because both
Testaments existed in the Latin language, which God consecrated on the
cross together with Greek and Hebrew, and because so many o f the brightest
men had spent their intellectual strengths in explaining them, that the people
who considered themselves Christians, although they had rejected the Roman
Empire, considered it a sacrilege to reject the language o f the Romans, lest
they befouled their religion. There were in particular many thousands of
priests and other clerics, who all had to be educated, amidst whom we see the
Latin language in stronger use than among the secular princes, whose legal
procedures are conducted at least in written form (i.e. in Larin).

In the rest of Europe it was also custo m ary to d eliv er speeches at the
beginning of the academic year or o f a lecture series on a theme or a
particular author. This centuries-old traditio n w as m ade stronger by the
culture of public speaking that becam e p articu larly prom inent in the
second half o f the sixteenth century, as w e have discussed briefly above.
Among the huge number o f speeches p u b lish ed in th is period, many
remain available only in early m odern ed itio n s.36 A far sm aller number
of speeches have been made easily accessible b y m ean s o f m odern editions
or translations. An example o f the latter is a v o lu m e edited by Sachiko
Kusukawa containing an English tran slatio n b y C h ristin e F. Salazar of a
selection of Melanchthon’s academ ic o ratio n s.37
One may assume that academ ic speeches c o n tain ed for the most pan
purely standard discussions o f the scholarly su b jects m en tio n ed in the title

” Valla 1994; J9S-J00.

* For locating such editions, printed catalogues such as the British Library General Catalogue of
Printed Boob to 197; or the National Union Catalog o f Pre-1956 Imprints remain invaluable and
should be consulted alongside digital search engines and online resources.
v Kusuitawa and Salazar 1999. Unfortunately this edition does not print the Latin text, which must be
consulted separately (see Mdanchthon 1961, Melanchthon 1842-4, or in one of the many early
modern editions).
 O ratory a n d D eclam ation z8i

of the speech. Yet this w as not always the case. Katharina Graupe’s recent
analysis o f eighty speeches delivered b y scholars in the Republic o f
the Seven United N etherlands in th e period o f the conflict between the
Republic and Spain ( 15 6 6 -1 6 4 8 / 9 ) has sh ow n that academic speeches could
contain, under the guise o f a m ainstream scholarly subject (e.g. the
historical works o f T a citu s), observations on the political situation o f the
moment.38 Although speeches o f this sort are formally epideictic, their
content brings them d o se to the deliberative genre, thus illustrating the
blurting and shifting o f the classical boundaries w e have already noted.

C o rn e liu s A g r ip p a ’ s C o lle c t io n o f T e n Sp eech es

It might seem reasonable to suppose that m ost epideictic orations followed

the dassical rules concerning the form o f the speech and the presentation
of the subject matter, and that th ey therefore show little variation. T h e
small collection o f ten orations w ritten b y H einrich Cornelius Agrippa o f
Nettesheim (14 8 6 -1535 ), published in the year o f his death by the Cologne
printer Johannes Soter, illustrates th at this is not necessarily the case.39 It is
unknown who prepared this collection fo r publication, but it may have
been meant to assert A g rip p a ’s place in the w orld o f humanists, since his
lift’s work, De occulta philosophia (‘ O n O cc u lt Philosophy’ , 1533) had been
attacked for heresy b y the Inquisitor o f C olo gn e. T h e funeral oration
which Agrippa wrote for M argaret o f Austria (O ration 10) illustrates that
Agrippa was indeed capable o f w ritin g a fully fledged humanist oration in a
very polished style.40 Y e t this funeral oration is the only one in this
markedly varied collection w h ich , b y its long-windedness and its exuberant
praise of the deceased, answers to o u r expectation o f a typical demonstra-
ave speech. T h e collection includes tw o academ ic speeches (Orations
i and 2), dating from A g rip p a ’s Italian period ( 15 11-18 ), w hich are similar
in kind to the funeral oration, although they are m uch shorter. T h e y deal
very thoroughly w ith difficult philosophical subject matter (Plato’s
Symposium and M arsilio F ic in o ’s L atin translation o f fourteen Hermetic
tens respectively), but are nevertheless w ritten engagingly and in a pur­
posefully elegant style. T h e oration on justice and injustice in canon
and civil law delivered to an audien ce o f clerics and distinguished men
{colendissimi patres omatissimique viri, O ratio n 3) for a person taking his
doctorate, is a shorter and less cerem onious oration. Its most striking *

* Gnupc 2012. ” Agrippa 1535: Aii'-Gi'; Agrippa 1970:1.1074-1149.

On Agrippa as orator, see Van der Poel 1997a.
 282 M ARC VAN D E R P O E L

feature is that it contains a large number of direct quotations from

authoritative sources in civil and canon law, especially in the section
dealing with injustice; one wonders how Agrippa read out all these
citations without impairing the fluency of his delivery. The speech ends
rather surprisingly with a brief admonition to judges and to all those who
wish to be called connoisseurs of civil and canon law chat they should abide
by the laws themselves rather than teach others to do so, and to showthe
public, by profession and practice, the rules of law and good living, rather
than punish the foolish too severely.
The four orations delivered by A grippa as legal adviser and ambassador
(advocatus et orator) for the city o f M etz (1518-20) are b y contrast quite
unlike typical demonstrative orations, casual an d rather unsophisticated
texts (Orations 4 -7 ). T he first o f this series, A g rip p a s acceptance speech of
the honourable post, was delivered extem p o ran eo usly; it is the longest
of the four Metz orations, but, w ith a len gth o f alm o st three and half pages
in the Qpera-edition it is only one-tenth o f th e size o f the funerary speech
for Margaret of A ustria T here are also tw o very b rie f w elcom e speeches on
behalf of the d ry o f M etz for a certain p rince-bishop an d a prominent Ioni,
and finally a short speech on som e business co n cern in g taxes delivered to
the Council of Luxemburg, w hich w as th en u n d er H absburg tule. The
attractiveness of these speeches lies n o t in th e ir literary quality, but in the
fact that they seem to give the reader a g lim p se o f th e d aily business of an
administrative position o f this sort, an d o f th e fu n ctio n o f Latin as the
language o f offidal com m unication.41
Agrippa’s collection o f orations shows th e rich v ariety one may encoun­
ter when one sets out to acquain t o n eself w ith Renaissance epidekxic
orations written to be delivered. It show s th at such orations are not
necessarily just model orations w ritten in acco rd an ce w ith the dassid
literary standards, but that th eir sty le m a y in fact vary considerably.
Agrippa’s orations also show th at read in g a n d u n d erstan d in g such speeches
may present a challenge to the reader in asm u ch as th e text may contain
references to things or situations w h ich are u n k n o w n o r difficult to find
additional information about. T h is is a p ro b lem to w h ich we will return
briefly in section 4.

41 Orations 8 and 9 are very brief formal addresses, one delivered in Paris by a relative o f Agrippa,
was a Carmelite and btcutlaum u in theology, on his acceptance o f the tule o f a communi tv offa x
the other, a welcome speech (òr Charles V, deivered immediately after the death of Margaret cf
Austria (tyo), on behalf o f the son o f the then former K in g o f Denmark, Norway and Snoda
Christian 11.
 O ratory a n d Declam ation 283

Speeches and D eclam ations W ritten to be Read Only

We now turn to a co m p le tely differen t group o f texts, that is, orations and
declamations in ten d ed to be read o n ly. T h is category o f orations and
dedamations w ere n o t w ritte n for delivery at a cerem ony o f some kind,
and they can best be ch aracterized as texts in w hich the author formulates
his ideas on the su b ject m a n e r at h an d in an asserdve manner, with the
purpose o f convincing the reader. T h is is a very heterogeneous group of
tan, and one m ay w ell w o n d er w h at if an y u n ity is to be found between
them. Two considerations m ay h elp us to accept these texts, in spite o f all
their differences, as b elo n g in g to a specific class o f Renaissance wridng.
One concerns the genus to w h ich th ey belong, the other the ideological
stance that their auth o rs seem to share.
None of the speeches o r declam atio n s w ere w ritten to be delivered - in
other words, th ey do n o t o b vio u sly belong to the epideictic genre.
However, as we have alread y seen, the tw o other classical branches o f
oratory (the ju d icial an d th e d elib erativ e) could not be used as they were
in antiquity, because in th e R enaissance formal speeches were not
delivered as part o f th e system o f ad m in isterin g justice or political debate.
Therefore, the range o f these tw o branches was adapted to the new
historical context. M e lan ch th o n , for instance, explained in his Elementa
rhetorices (‘Elem ents o f R h eto ric’, 1531) th at adolescents must be taught
the principles o f ju d ic ia l o rato ry in order to discuss disagreements in
letters, and to be ab le to ad m in iste r C h u rch affairs, since these have a
great resemblance to forensic d isp u tes.41 In D e conscribendis epistolis (‘On
Writing Letters’, 1522), E rasm us defin ed several classes o f letters in the
juridical field, that is, accu sato ry letters, letters o f com plaint, apology,
justification, reproof, in v ectiv e an d en treaty.45 T h e deliberative genre was
likewise adapted to fit th e co n tem p o rary historical context. Thus, Eras­
mus explains that letters o f co n ciliatio n , reconciliation, encouragement,
discouragement, p ersuasio n , dissuasio n , consolation, petition, recommen­
dation, adm onition an d th e am ato ry letter are usually considered as
examples o f delib erative w ritin g .44 M elan ch th o n also mentions some of
these functions as the p ro p er d o m ain o f the deliberative genre, where the
goal is not sim p ly k n o w led ge, b u t som e form o f action in addition to
knowledge (ubi fin is est non cognitio, sed praeter cognitionem actio ali-
qua).*** Another ex am p le o f h o w th e deliberative genre was adapted to

* Melanchthon 2001: 60. 4> Erasmus 19 7 1:5 16 -4 1; Erasmus 1985; 207-25.

* Erasmus 1971; ju ; Erasmus 1985: 7 1. 4’ Melanchthon 2001:118.
 Z84 MARC VAN D E R P O E L

modem needs is found in the w ork o f Ju a n L uis V ives (1493-1540). In Û,

consultatione (1523), he extended the classical b o un d aries o f the deliben,
uve genre almost indefinitely b y stating: ‘w e d elib erate about everything
within our power, about the works o f o u r han ds [w ith a reference to
Isaiah 45:11] and the deeds o f our m in d ’.46 T h ese kinds o f innovative
adaptations of classical theory allow us to co n sider orations and declam­
ations written only to be read to belong, nevertheless, to the sphere of
deliberative or judicial oratory.
There is a second reason w hy one m ig h t reaso n ab ly view orations and
declamations written only to be read as a co h eren t group: namely, that
their authors appear to share a com m on n o tio n th at eloquence not only
displays one’s intellectual sharpness an d literary talen t, b u t also represents a
commitment to the values o f the res publica Christiana, an d a willingness
to demand freedom to express ideas necessary to m ain tain those valúa47
Lorenzo Valla expressed this com m itm ent b riefly an d clearly at the begin­
ning of his refutation o f the valid ity o f the D o n atio n o f Constantine,
where he claimed that an orator is o n ly w o rth y o f th at title when he not
only knows how to speak w ell, but also dares to sp eak up: Neque enim is
mus orator est habendus, qui bene scit dicere, n isi et dicere audeat? When
Valla wrote the pamphlet, he was in the service o f K in g Alfonso of Aragon,
who was involved in a territorial conflict w ith th e P apal States. The treatise
contains a brief address to the princes o f h is o w n tim e, three fictive
speeches by Constantine’s fam ily m em bers, th e sen ate an d the people of
Rome, and finally a passionate appeal to the p o p e to give up his claim to
worldly power and concentrate on sp iritu al lead ersh ip . O n e may debate
the degree to which opportunistic m otives p layed a role in the composition
of the treatise, but Valla’s own statem ents an d the rhetorical force of his
text leave no doubt that he claim ed for h im s e lf th e freedom to voice
his controversial opinion about the p o p e’s p o licies in the interests of
Christianity at large.
A number of declamations by E rasm us, m ost n o ta b ly a letter in favour
of matrimony, first published as Encom ium m atrim onii (‘ Praise of Mar­
riage’, 1518),49 and four declam ations b y H ein rich C o rn eliu s Agrippa of*

* Vives 1781242. 47 See also Van der Poel 2 0 0 7 :12 9 -31.

* Valla 197& 57- Valla strongly opposed the use o f the Donation during the Council of Fenan irei
Florence (1438-9) to assert the authority o f the pope, and his treatise is as much a politicaJ
intervention against the Church's claim to worldly power as it is a philological treatise.
4> Erasmus 1971: 400-29 and Erasmus 1985: 129-45: for a separate edition see Erasmus 1975 awl
Erasmus 2015.
 O ratory a n d Declam ation 285

Metteshcixn constitute a gro u p o f treatises labelled declamatio which came

under attack from conservative scholastic theologians.50 T h e declamations
are prime examples o f hum anist texts w h ich roused vigorous debate and
thus helped define the intellectual legacy o f the early sixteenth-century
humanists.5' Erasm us’ letter in favour o f m atrim ony differs from Agrippas
declamations in that Erasm us presents a fictitious case involving circum­
stances o f persons, place an d tim e, in other words, a hypothesis, whereas
Agrippa’s declamations are straightforward theseis without these circum­
stantiae. But the works share a discussion o f matters o f faith and morality
which were usually treated o n ly b y theologians. Confronted with attacks
by conservative theologians, th e y both claim ed the freedom to present
their views about subjects o n w h ic h scripture does not make conclusive
and authoritative statem ents, an d about w h ich the C h urch has not yet
made a definitive pro n o un cem en t in the form o f dogma, confirmed by
universal consensus. T h is strategy is rooted in the ancient technique o f
arguing in utramque partem (‘o n bo th sides’ ) about subjects concerning
which the truth is not k n o w n . I have discussed in detail elsewhere how
.Agrippa and Erasm us used this ancient m ethod o f arguing in their dec­
lamations in order to create a space in w h ich they could state their moral
and religious views indepen dently from the conservative theologians whose
ideas they rejected.51
Erasmus withstood attacks against his declamation on the praise o f
marriage for fourteen years. H is oth er declam ations on moral, pedagogical
and political subjects, such as the Querela pacis (‘Com plaint o f Peace’ ,
1517), De pueris statim oc liberalster instituendis declamatio (‘ Declamation
on the Education in the Liberal A rts from Early Childhood O nward’ ,
1519), and the other w ritings w h ich he considered to belong to the genre o f
declamation,53 did n o t en co u n ter such heavy opposition, but they too
show how Erasmus fulfilled his co m m itm en t to the commonwealth o f
Christians by using rhetorical form s o f reasoning and stylistic devices to
express frankly his opin io n s o n im p ortant matters. H is ‘ Praise o f Folly’10

10 D t a ttn it u d in e t t v a n ita te s d e n tia r u m f t a r tiu m , a tq u e e x c e lle n tia v e r b i D e i d ec la m a tio ('On the

Uncertainty and Vanity o f the A m and Sciences, and the Pre-eminent Declamation of God's
Word'. 1530); D e n o b ilita te e t p r a e c e lle n t ia Jb e m in e i sex u s (’On the Nobility and Pre-eminence of the
female Sea'. 1519)1 D e sa c ra m e n to m a tr im o n ii (‘On the Sacrament o f Marriage’, 1516); D e o rig in a li
fe tte st d isp u ta b ilis o p in io n is d e c la m a tio ('A Speech on a Debatable Opinion concerning Original
Sia', 1519).
* See for a good introduction to these disputes Rummel 1995.
” Van der Poel 1997b (especially chapters 3-5) and Van der Poel 1005a.
® Erasmus lists and discusses all his declamations and writings belonging to the 'declamatorium genus'
in his letter to Botzheim from 30 January 1513 (Erasmus 1906:18-19).
 286 MARC VAN D E R P O E L

(Encomium moriae or Laus stultitiae) is probably the best manifestation of

the freedom claimed by the declaimer and his rhetorical strategies involv­
ing argument and style.54

R eading O ratio n s a n d D e c la m a tio n s

In contrast with Classical Studies, the field o f N e o -L a tin Studies lacks

the strong philological tradition o f detailed linguistic and historical
commentaries on literary and other kinds o f texts. A great majority of
the orations and declamations we have m entioned o r discussed above are
not available in editions that provide a reliable text and a thorough
philological study o f the author, the genre and th e historical context in
which the text was produced and received. T h is is an important reason
why reading and interpreting Latin texts from the Renaissance remains
largely pioneering work, requiring not o n ly excellent knowledge of the
Latin language and literature o f all periods u p to the Renaissance, but
also knowledge about the times and historical circum stances in which
these texts were written, and ability to deal w ith the typographical
idiosyncracies (spelling, punctuation etc.) o f early m odern editions. In
fact, given the present state o f scholarship, the varied and often difficult
tats discussed in the present chapter usually require readers who com­
mand all the philological skills needed to co n d u ct the fundamental
research necessary to explicate them. In the co n text o f this volume it is
particularly appropriate to dwell a m om en t on the complexity of the
Latin o f the orations and declamations.
Latin orations and declamations from the Renaissance may vary quite
strongly in language and style. Th is is due to several factors. First, style is
above all a question o f personal taste. T h e re w as a lively debate in the
Renaissance about the doctrine o f imitatio. A lth o u gh there certainly were
purists who strictly followed a given m odel, for example Cicero or
Apuleius, or who affected extreme brevity after the fashion o f Lipsius,
most authors advocated and wrote polished yet functional Latin.55 This
practice usually resulted in a sensible adherence to the classical rules of the

H The 'Praise of Foil/ belongs to the genre o f the paradoxical encomium, which was widely usedin
die Renaissance. Works of this kind focus upon unexpected subjects, that is, subjects considered to
be either bad or worthless; this very heterogeneous genre is discussed further in Chapter to of this
volume. See also Van der Poel 1996 and toot.
” The literature on style and imitation in the Renaissance is vast; a good place to start is Ijsewijn and
Sacré 1998; 4U-19. Sec also Chapter 14 in this volume. Hallbauer 1716 prints a series of fifteenth-
and sixteenth-cennuy treatises on imitatio as well as a very informative Introduction.
 O ratory a n d D eclam ation 187

virtues o f style ( virtutes dicendi) form ulated in rhetoric: (1) correctness

{latinitas), (2) lucidity (perspicuitas), (3) ornam ent ( omatus), (4) propriety
[decorum)?6 T h u s, an epideictic oration written for a very solemn occasion
will be written in a m ore grandiose style than an epideictic oration written
fora ceremony o f lesser im p ortance: A grip p a ’ s funeral oration for Margaret
of Austria may serve as an exam p le o f the form er, and one o f the orations
from his period in M e tz o f the latter.
It is also im portant to keep in m in d a linguistic factor, that is, that the
humanists stood in a liv in g tradition o f usin g Latin for scholarly and
literary purposes. T h u s , m a n y m edieval texts con tin u ed to be used, such
as Alexander o f V illa D e i’s Doctrinale, w h ic h Erasm us, for instance,
considered a w h o lly accep tab le h an d b oo k .*7 A lso , the ideological con­
frontation between th e sch olastics an d th e early sixteenth-century
humanists obscures the fact th at th e sch olastic m ethod continued to be
employed in R enaissance un iversities un til the end o f the sixteenth
century.*® Th u s, m edieval L a tin w a s not com p letely superseded, and
many medieval w o rd s a n d co n stru ctio n s con tin u ed to be used as a matter
of course. Also, since L a tin w a s a liv in g language, the humanists coined
many new words b y m ean s o f suffixes, prefixes etc. for things in their
environment w h ich d id no t exist in earlier tim es.** N o r did the hum an­
ists use a limited can on o f classical authors such as was adopted in the
nineteenth century, w h e n o n ly the authors o f the so-called ‘G olden A ge’
of Latin literature w ere d eem ed w o rth y o f b e in g read; rather, they moved
around unrestrictedly in the entire su rvivin g b o d y o f Latin literature,
including texts from all p erio d s a n d all strata, from o ld com edy in the
third century bce up to a n d in clu d in g the patristic texts produced at the
very end o f antiquity. F in a lly , th e hum anists did not have at their disposal
dictionaries o f purely classical L a tin and detailed gram m ars in which the
usages o f the classical authors w ere forced into s t r ia rules o f syntax. Such
works are the produ ct o f th e n in eteenth -cen tury Altertumswissenschaft,
and although the h um anists d id in fact con tribute substantial materials on
which the later classicists co u ld bu ild , such as V alla’ s Elegantiae and
Ambrogio da C alep io ’ s L atin d ictio n ary ( Dictionarium ), their own ideas
about the language and its f u n a io n s w o u ld never have resulted in hand­
books enforcing the rules o f g ram m a r as s tr ia ly as those o f the ninceenth-
century classicists.60

* Set i l» ljscwijn and Sacri 1998: 377-80. n Ford aooo: 16 1-3.

* Set eg, Nuchclmaro 1980. '* See. e.g.. the recapitulative appendices in Hoven 1006.
** See abo ljscwijn and Sacri 1998: 410-11.
 288 MARC VAN D E R PO EL

All in all, the characteristics of Renaissance Latin and the humanists'

comprehensive approach to Latin language and literature make high
demands of the readers of their texts. First of all, one must have good
knowledge of ancient Latin in all its varieties (archaic, classical, vulgar,
patristic Latin), and be able to use the relevant dictionaries, grammar
books, linguistic studies, etc. Yet one must also be open to the various
forms of Medieval Latin and be able to use the numerous dictionaries
necessary to read texts from this period. Finally, one must be aware of the
numerous but sometimes hard to find studies on the language and style
of individual Renaissance authors. There exists an online bibliographical
aid to find many of these studies,6' but a critical and comprehensive
study of them as a first step towards a syntax of humanistic Latin is still
very much a desideratum.

F U R T H E R R E A D IN G
The number of Latin speeches and declamations from the Renaissance available in
recent scholarly editions is very limited, so the frequent use of early modem
editions is unavoidable. The bibliographical search for recent editions is not easy,
since many lie hidden in journals or collections o f essays (e.g. Agricola’s orations
in Bertalot 1928, Spitz-Benjamin 1963, M ack 2000, Sottili 1997, Van der Laan
2003 and 2009, Walter 2004). Hence, thorough bibliographical research is an
indispensable first step in reading Renaissance Latin speeches and declamations.
For recent editions and studies, the Instrumentum Bibliograph icum Neolatinum
published yearly in Humanística Lovaniensia is a m ine o f information. A few
examples of separate editions of orations or declamations are Miillner 1899
(repr. 1970), Bembo 2003, Dolet 1992, Dorpius 1986, Poliziano 1986 and 2007,
Scaliger 1999, Vives 1989-2012, Valla 1994, Valla 2007. Scott 1910 (repr. 1991) and
Dellaneva and Duvick 2007 (in addition to H allbauer 1726) offer a good access to
the principal Renaissance source texts on im itation and style. For a critical
evaluation of Renaissance Latin prose style Norden 1958: 732-809 is still a good
starting point. For a history of Renaissance rhetoric see M ack 2011 and for a brief
survey of both the theory and practice o f eloquence during the Renaissance
Van der Poel 2015.41

41 Tb* ‘Bibliographical Aid to the Study o f Renaissance Latin Texts" (http://tnvdpoel.ruhosting.nl/

B(bliopaphlcai%ioAid.htm).
 CHAPTER 17

Dialogue
V irginia Cox

Dialogue was one o f the m ost significant ancient literary genres renewed
by the humanists o f early m odern Europe, ‘a fundamental part not only o f
neo-Latin literature but o f early m odern culture in general’ .1 M an y o f the
most influential thinkers o f the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries adopted
this form in their w ritings: in Italy, we have important dialogues by
Leonardo Bm ni, Poggio B racciolini, Lorenzo Valla, Leon Battista Alberti,
Giovanni Pontano; north o f the A lps, b y Desiderius Erasmus, Thomas
More, Ulrich von H u tten , Ju stu s Lipsius and Jean Bodin. Originating
in Larin, dialogue m igrated fairly early into humanistically inflected ver­
nacular literary culture, w ith A lberti com posing his Della famiglia (‘O n
the Family’) as early as 14 33—4 . T h e tw o traditions developed in parallel
thereafter, with Latin dialogues frequen dy translated into the vernacular
and vernacular dialogues m ore occasionally into Latin. A famous example
of the latter is G alileo G a lilei’s ‘ D ialogue on the T w o W orld Systems’
(1632), translated b y M atth ias Bernegger in 1635 at Galileo’s urging; it was
mainly through Bernegger’s Systema cosmicum (‘C osm ic System’) that
Galileo’s great w ork, bann ed fro m circulation in the Italian original, first
reached the European intellectual w orld.
When we speak o f Renaissance hum anists reviving the dialogue form,
we should be careful no t to im p ly that it had ceased to exist between
classical antiquity and the fifteenth century. A medieval tradition o f
dialogue can certainly be identified, including some works o f notable
interest, such as Peter A b ela rd ’s Collationes (‘ Debates’ , or ‘Comparisons’)
or the dialogues o f R am o n L lu ll.1 W h a t was new from the fifteenth
century was a sustained engagem en t w ith the classical tradition o f dialogue,
made possible in p a n through th e renewal o f the study o f Greek, which

' IJiewijn and Sacré 1998:194.

' On the rwo meanings of Abelard's title, see Abelard loot: sdii. For an overview of medieval dialogue
production, see Jacobi 1999.

289
 290 VIRGIN IA COX

made the dialogues o f Plato, X enophon, L u cian an d Plutarch available as

models for the first tim e. W h ile it has so m etim es been argued that the
explosion o f dialogue w riting we see from th e fifteenth century reflects the
open and questing attitude characteristic o f th e Renaissance, by contrast
with the supposedly 'monologicaT, d o gm atic ch aracter o f medieval intel­
lectual culture, this seems overly sch em atic, an d rooted in nineteenth-
century historiographical models. M edieval cu ltu re w as hardly lacking in
disputational impulses; it m erely co n d u cted its dialogues differently.
A sufficient explanation o f the new attractio n o f the dialogue form seems
to be offered by hum anism ’s intense im m ersio n in classical literature and
the centrality of imitatio in its com positional practices - although it mav
also be true that Renaissance C h ristian ity’ s p rolonged dialogue with the
classical pagan Other lent a special ap p eal to a literary form geared to the
dramatization o f contrasting views.

Typologies

One problem in studying literary d ialo gu e as a g en re is the extraordinary

formal and thematic variety o f the w orks th a t m ay be grouped under this
heading. W hile all dialogues dram atize exchanges betw een two or mote
voices, the character o f the speakers can v ary im m en sely, from classical
gods and heroes, to talking anim als, to in v en ted h u m an figures intended to
typify different positions, to clearly id en tifiab le h isto rical personages who
bring their own extra-dialogical ethos to th e text. T h e relationship between
the speakers may vary from one o f straigh t d id acticism , w ith an authorita­
tive figure imparting wisdom to a ‘p u p il’, to o n e o f a genuine conflict of
ideas. The subject m atter o f early m odern d ialo gu es is equally varied, in
addition to the kind o f philosophical topics w e m ig h t ex p ea from the
precedents o f Plato and C icero, w e have d ialo gu es from this period on
subjects ranging from the the causes o f th e N ile ’s an n u al flood to mining
practices, the properties o f balsam , the c o r r e a o rth o grap h y o f English, and
the miserable fates suffered b y literary m e n .3 T h is is o n ly to speak of the
serious tradition o f dialogue, m oreover, w ith o u t to uch in g on the comic
tradition, which features works such as th e fam ous satirical Julius excim
(‘Julius Shut out o f H eaven’, 15x3—14), often attrib u ted to Erasmus, in
which the recently deceased Pope Ju liu s II is in terro gated b y St Peter and
refused entry to Heaven, m uch to his sp lu tte rin g ire.

’ The dialogues referred to are Nogarola 1J52; Agricola 15JO; Alpino 1591; Smith t$S8; Gainer tffí
(Valeriano).
 D ialogue 191

Modem analysts o f d ialo gue have introduced various categorizations

that can help m aintain som e order in the lace o f this bewildering multipli­
city. One useful divisio n , proposed b y D avid M arsh in his 1980 book, The
Quattrocento Dialogue, rests sim p ly on the classical models most current in
the period. M arsh d elin eates four m odels o f dialogue, while acknowledging
that the four cross-fertilize in practice. O ne is Platonic dialogue, character­
ized by a dram atic, rather than a narrative, presentation, arid by the
peculiar, probative m an n er o f q u estio n in g Plato attributes to Socrates
in his dialogues. A n o th er is C icero n ian dialogue, typically narrative and
showcasing the rh eto rical exercise o f argum ent in utramque partem (on
both sides o f an issu e). A th ird is the Lucianic dialogue: dramatic,
tantastic, com ic, ch a ra cteristica lly u sin g invented speakers, rather than
historically id en tifiab le ones; w h ile a fourth is the convivial or symposiac
dialogue, based on texts su ch as X enophon’s Symposium (T h e Banquet’)
or Macrobius’ Saturnalia (‘T h e Festival o f S atu m ’), which portray leis­
urely, often m ean d erin g after-d in n er conversations among erudite men.
Matsh identifies fifteen th -cen tu ry Italian dialogues corresponding to
each type, alth o ugh h e em p h asizes the dom inance o f the Ciceronian
model. His an alysis is v a lid for neo-L atin dialogue more generally,
although the sixteen th c e n tu ry saw L ucian’s influence spreading, espe­
cially north o f the A lps.

‘Open* vs. ‘Closed’ Dialogue

In addition to this m odel-based typology, subdivisions o f the dialogue

genre may be essayed based on them e (religious; philosophical; literary,
sdentific) or function (p o lem ical; didactic; consolatory, satirical); on the
number o f speakers (d ip h o n ie; polyphonic); or on the type of argumenta­
tion employed.4 Perhaps esp ecially interesting, though not easy to capture,
are subdivisions based on th e extent to w hich individual dialogues exploit
the possibilities o f am b ig u ity an d polyvocaliry to which the form seems
intrinsically to lend itself. Eva K ushner distinguishes in this regard between
‘dialogical’ and ‘m o n o lo gical’ dialogues, w hile I have used the largely
synonymous term s ‘o p en ’ an d ‘d o sed ’.5 A monological or dosed dialogue
is one in which a sin gle perspective dom inates, and speakers for alternative
viewpoints have th e role o f straw m en. A d ear-cut example is Aurelio
Lippo Brandolini’s De comparatione re publicae et regni (‘Republics

* SntuT 100;: 25-7 has a useful summary o f typologies o f dialogue proposed by recent crido.
’ Cox 1992; Kushner 2004; 125-31.
292 V IRGIN IA COX

and Kingdoms C o m p ared’, 1489), in w h ic h M a tth ia s C orvinus, king of

H ungary, defends m o n arch y as th e b est fo rm o f go vern m en t against a
republican spokesm an, D o m en ico G iu g n i, in a co n test th at the work’s
recent editor, Jam es H an k in s, h as ch a ra cteriz e d as ‘co n d u cted with mag­
nificent unfairness’.6 A d ialo g ic al, o r o p e n , d ia lo g u e , b y contrast, gives
sufficient w eight to m ore th an o n e v ie w p o in t fo r it to be a matter of
legitim ate debate w h ich o f these v ie w p o in ts th e a u th o r favored, and indeed
whether he favored one at all.
The dialogue form ’s p o ten tial for o p en n ess is w e ll illustrated if we look
at an exam ple like Lapo da C a stig lio n c h io ’s D e curiae commodis (‘On the
Benefits o f the C u ria’, 1438), a b rillia n t exercise in th e genre, now begin­
ning to take its rightful p lace w ith in th e ca n o n o f fifteenth-century
hum anistic dialogues. D e commodis d ram atiz e s a conversatio n between a
fictionalized version o f th e au th o r, referred to as L ap us, and a friend,
Angelo da Recanati (‘A n gelus’), w h o atte m p ts to p ersu ad e Lapus to leave
the corruption o f the papal co u rt for a re tire d life o f sch o larly leisure. Lapus
resists this suggestion, p artly b ecause h e c a n n o t afford the luxury of
retirement, and p ard y on th e g ro u n d s th a t th e C u r ia is n o t the sink of
moral in iq u ity that A ngelus claim s, b u t ra th e r a g re a t an d vibrant intellec­
tual and religious centre, u n iq u e ly c o n d u c iv e to th e quest for spiritual
beadtude that is h u m an ity’s tru e en d .
O n the surface o f it, L ap us’ p ro -c u rial p o sitio n triu m p h s within Dt
commodis, and the w o rk has been read in th e p a st as effectively ‘mono­
lo gu ai’, especially in its in gen io u s d efen ce o f c le ric a l w ealth as justifiable
w ithin a m odem context, d esp ite its a p p a re n t co n trad ictio n of New
Testam ent values.7 For w h at p u rp o rts to b e a defen se o f the Curia,
however, D e commodis co n tain s a re m a rk a b le q u a n tity o f m aterial support­
ive o f Angelus’ original criticism s o f th e c o u rt (it is d ifficu lt, for example, to
read Lapus’ lengthy d isq u isitio n s o n th e c u lin a r y a n d sexual pleasures on
offer in elite curial circles w ith o u t s u sp e c tin g iro n ic in te n t).8 De commodis
has the ‘Rorschach test’ q u a lity o f a ll tr u ly o p en d ialo g u e s, in that it gives
scope for radically differing read in g s: e v id e n c e can b e fo u n d in the text for
reading it as a defence o f th e C u r ia , an a tta c k o n th e C u ria, or, more
interestingly, som ething in b etw een . T h e d ia lo g u e p a in ts papal Rome as a
place o f immense vitality an d co sm o p o lita n ism , sim u ltan eo u sly attractive
and repellent: a com plex re a lity th a t th e d ia lo g u e fo rm , w ith its vocation
for am biguity, is id eally w ell eq u ip p e d to exp ress. *

* Brandolini 1009: xix. 7 On the reception history o f the text, see Celenza 1999: 26-7.
* Lapo in Celenza 1999:178-90 (vn, 19-44)! see also Celenza’s discussion at 66-71.
I — —
Dialogue 293

While m odern critics o f th e gen re ten d to have a preference for open-

ended, contentious, u n reso lv ed d ialo gues, there are dangers in over­
privileging this criterio n o f assessm ent. N ot least, we risk anachronism,
(or early m odern readers ap p ear no t to have considered openness an
essential com ponent o f d ialo g u e . O f th e three m ain sixteenth-century
theorists o f the d ialo g u e fo rm , all Italian , o n ly one, Sperone Speroni,
emphasizes the a m b ig u ity o f d ialo g u e as part o f its attraction, while
another, C arlo S igo n io , p resup p o ses a m ore closed model o f dialogue,
with one character d esig n ate d th e princeps sermonis (‘leader o f the conver­
sation'). The th ird th eo rist, T o rq u ato T asso, identifies as the key feature of
dialogue its co m b in atio n o f arg u m en t an d m im esis, positioning the writer
of dialogue ‘m id -w ay b etw een the d ialectician and the poet’.9 Tasso’s
emphasis on m im esis can be useful in alertin g us to virtues in the literary
dialogue that transcend th e open/closed distinction, such as the vivacity
and naturalness o f th e ex ch an ges, the character-painting (ethopoeia) o f the
speakers, the charm o f th e settin g, an d even, occasionally, the historical
poignancy o f the m o m e n t w h en th e dialo gue is set. Thus Pietro Bembos
De Aetna (On Etna, 1496), w h ich co uld easily have been a mere erudite
travelogue, is given lite ra ry life th ro ugh B em bo’s edgy representation o f his
relationship w ith his h ith er, th e o th er speaker, w hile Paolo Giovio’s review
of contemporary Italian c u ltu re an d m ores in De viris et floeminis aetate
nostra florentibus (‘O n C o n te m p o rary M en and W om en’, 1528-9) gains
much depth from its se ttin g , on th e dream -like island o f Ischia in the
aftermath o f the ca tacly sm ic S a c k o f R o m e.10
A good exam ple o f a d ialo g u e th at succeeds ‘ poetically’ while remaining
firmly didactic in term s o f its d istrib u tio n o f roles is Justus Lipsius’ De
constantia (‘O n C o n sta n c y ’, 1584), o n e o f the most popular neo-Latin
dialogues o f this w h o le p erio d. L ipsius’ dialogue is set during a time of
political turm oil in his n ativ e N etherlands, in the early 1570s, and he
portrays h im self as sp eaker in a state o f near-desperation, receiving solace
from his m uch o ld er frien d ‘L an giu s’ (C harles de Langhe), who consoles
him through S to ic w isd o m . L an giu s is clearly the authoritative speaker
here - the princeps sermonis, to use Sigo n io ’s term - yet Lipsius’ choice of
the dialogue form , rath er th an a m onological form such as the treatise, is
anything but inert. T h e se ttin g is carefully realized and even thematically
incorporated a t o n e p o in t, w h e n L an gius’ rapturously described garden

’ f Quasi mezzo fra '1 poeta e '1 dialettico’; Tasso 1981: jz). For early modem dialogue theory, sec
Snyder 1989.
" For discussion o f Giovio from this perspective see Enenkel zoto: 40-z.
 19 4 V IRG IN IA COX

becomes the subject o f a debate on the correct use o f the pleasures offered by
such lociamoent.11Etbopoeia is also a feature o f the dialogue, with the young
Lipsius, in particular, a sharply characterized figure: questing, sceptical
sometimes touchy, constantly testing L angius’ Sto ic wisdom against lived
experience. The dialogue’s dynam ics are rem iniscent at points of Petrarch’s
remarkable Secretum (‘The Secret’), o f the 1340s, in w hich a figure named
Augustinus, ostensibly representing St A ugustine, seeks to provide moral
succor to a figure named F ran cisais, ostensibly a figure for the author. In
both the Secretum and De constantia, a princeps sermonis is dearly identifi­
able, yet che ‘minor’ speaker plays a key role in the development of the
dialogue’s argument, goading his interlocutor, contesting each point, never
allowing a thesis to escape untried. Both w orks have something of the
character of a dramatized psychic conflict, portraying an inner dialogue is
much as an outer, a quality pointed up in the tru e title o f the SecretumDt
secreto conflictu curarum mearum (‘O n the Secret C onfi i a o f M y Cares’).

Dialogue and Portraiture

Despite their thematic and structural consonance, Petrarch’s Secntun

and Lipsius’ De constantia are sharply differentiated in respect of their
mimetic texture, in a m anner that reflects the transition between die
medieval and humanistic dialogue traditions. T h e Secretum is set in a
dream-space reminiscent o f Boethius’ Consolatio philosophiae (‘The Con­
solation of Philosophy’), in w hich a fo urth -cen tury bishop may convene
with a fourteenth-century poet. De constantia, b y contrast, adheres to the
norms of verisimilitude we find observed a t least in a substantial propor­
tion of post-fourteenth-century dialogues; it portrays identifiable contem­
porary' speakers engaged in a conversation w e are invited to imagine a
having actually taken place. T his elem ent o f p o rtraiture constituted oneof
the great appeals o f dialogue as a genre w ith in hum an ism : in addition to
their substantive element, historical o r ‘d o cu m en tary’ dialogues of this
kind sought to capture the affect an d m ores o f p articular erudite circles,
while at the same time m odeling ideals o f friendship and urbane conversa­
tion dose to the heart o f the h um an ist R ep u b lic o f Letters.11
Exemplary cases of such portrait-dialogues are found within Marsh’s
category of convivial or symposiac dialogues, of which a distinguished
example is Angelo Dccembrio’s vast, seven-book De politia litteram

“ On the p id e n in Lipsius, see Swan 2005: u$-i8.

" On dialogue and friendship, s e e Vallée 2004. On the poetics o f the 'documentary' dialogue, seeCot
1992:42-4.
 D ialogue
*95

Figure 17.1: Ham Burgknuir the Elder, woodcut from frontispiece of

P o lin tu ¡it e r a r m e A n g e li D e t e m b r u M e d io la n e n s is o ra to r is c la n s s im t, a d su m m u m
p o n tificem P iu m ¡ I , l i b r i s e p te m (Augsburg; Heinrich Steiner, in o ) , showing a group of sii
humanists in conversation, (abided as (from left) Guarirne [Guarino of Verona), Vegius [Maflêo
Vegn), Decembrius [Angelo Decem brio], Arentinus [presumably Leonardo Bruni Aretino], Poggius
[Poggio Bracdolini], and Gualengus [Giovanni Gualengo). The image first appeared in a medical text.
Aiuhanviu$ [AJ-Zahrawi;, L ib e r th e o ric a r n e t n o n p r a t ic a r (Aupburg: Grimm and Witsung, 1519).

(‘On Literary Polish’, 1463), ari erudite m iscellany on the model of Aulus
Gellius’ Attic Nights, loosely structured around the theme o f the perfect
library and w hat it sh o uld co n tain . T h e m im etic elem ent is fundamental
to this work. T h e d ialo gu e is set at Ferrara, under the rule of the
humanistically ed ucated m arquis Leonello d ’Este, and it seeks to memor­
ialize the Ferrarese co urt as ep ito m izin g the ‘literary polish’ of the tide.
Leonello him self takes a p ro m in en t role in the dialogue, as does the
humanist G uarino o f V ero n a, the great intellectual icon of the court.
Given De politia littera ria 's investm ent in portraiture, it is interesting to
note that its first p rin ted ed itio n (A ugsburg 1540) contains as a frontis­
piece illustration a rare attem p t at a visual evocation of humanistic
dialogue. T h e w o o d cut th at prefaces the volum e, repurposed from an
earlier medical w o rk, show s six w ell-dressed men crowded around a table
in animated debate, lab eled w ith the nam es o f prom inent Italian human­
ists and interlocutors from D ecem brio’s dialogue, w ith the dominant
figures a spry, e ld erly ‘G u arin u s’ and an im posing ‘ Decembrius’ pointing
at a book lyin g open before h im on the table (Figure 17.1). The detail of
the book, effectively m ad e vocal b y D ecem brius’ gesture, is evocative in
 296 VIRGINIA COX

context, alluding most obviously to th e lite ra ry eru d itio n that informs

the conversation, but perhaps also to th e statu s o f d ialo gu es as ‘speaking
volumes’, attempts to conjure the effect o f sp eech o n th e page.

D ialo g u es a n d W o m e n

The conversation we see depicted in the D ecem b rio w o o d cut is all-male, as

are the vast majority o f conversations p o rtrayed in neo-Latin dialogues.
Where we encounter female voices w ith in n eo -L atin dialo gue, it is most
frequently within the Erasmian tradition o f fictive colloquia, which makes
effective use of women as speakers w ith in d eb ates th a t touch on gender-
conscious social issues such as m arriage.1* W ith in the ‘documentary’
traditions, Ciceronian or sym posiac, dialo gues co n ta in in g female inter­
locutors are much rarer, though a few in terestin g cases m ay be noted,
notably Martino Filetico’s in triguin g locundissim ae disputationes (‘Delight-
fid Disputations’, 1462.), w hich is set at the co u rt o f U rb in o and contains a
lively portrait of its young countess, B attista Sforza, an d O rtensio Lando’s
Forcianae quaestiones (‘Debates at Forci’, 1535), w h ic h portrays a large and
festive mixed group o f speakers in the v illa o f th e w e a lth y Buonvisi family
at Forci, near Lucca, and features a lively d iscu ssio n o f the status of
women, with a woman as princeps sermonis. A few exam p les o f female-
authored Latin dialogues also survive from th e p erio d , all w ith exclusively
female speakers. These comprise tw o sh o rt u n tid e d d ip h o n ie dialogues on
ethical issues by the Italian reform ist O lim p ia M o ra ta (d. 1555) and a more
substantial work by the Portuguese h u m an ist L u isa S igea (d. 1560), also
diphonie, on the relative merits o f court a n d p riv ate life .'4

Leonardo B run i, D ia lo g i a d P etru m P a u lu m H istrum

The remainder o f this chapter w ill be ta k e n u p b y readings of two of

the most famous o f neo-Latin d ialo gues: L eo n ard o B ru n i’s Dialogus for
Pierpaolo Vergerio and T hom as M o r e s U topia. B o th these dialogues,
especially Utopia, are highly com plex w o rk s, w ith exten sive secondaiy
literature. My focus here w ill be on a so le asp e ct o f these texts, their
exploitation of the dialogue form .

q See Leushuis 2004. For the tradition o f school colloqu ia generally see Deneire 2014«!.
14 For brief discussion o f Fíleteos and Lando's dialogues, see C o x 2013: 58, 68. O n Morata, secSmair
2005: 71-8Ü on Sigea, George 2002. See also Allen 10 0 2 : 96 6 -8, on a dialogue featuring the
fifteenth-century erudite Isotta N'ogarola as speaker, and partly composed by her.
\ D ialogu e 197

Bruni’s Dialog is of foundational importance in the history of literary

dialogue as the first post-classical dialogue to take a ‘documentary’, Cicero­
nianform. The dialogue is set in Florence, not long before the likely date of
composition, which crides now place at h o j - ó.'5 The discussions portrayed
take place across two days, and involve a small cast of speakers, all friends.
The eldest and most eminent is the chancellor and humanist Coluccio
Salutati (Colucius), in whose house the first day’s discussions take place.
With him are three younger men, Bruni himself (Leonardus) and the
patridan humanists Niccolò Niccoli (Nicolaus) and Roberto de’ Rossi
(Robertus). The latter is the host for the second day’s discussion, when a
filthspeaker, Petrus (Pietro di ser Mino da Montevarchi), joins the group.
The element of portraiture intrinsic to Ciceronian dialogue is present to
amarked extent in the D ialog , especially in the sharply drawn figures of
Colucius and Nicolaus. The former is represented as grave, revered, faintly
ponderous, the quintessential elder statesman; the latter, as brilliant,
mercurial, provocative, a well-calculated foil to the older man. Bruni
underlines this ethopoeia in his dedication of the dialogue, to Pierpaolo
Vergerio, once part of Salutatis circle in Florence, but now departed for
Padua. Brani speaks fondly of how keenly Vergerio is missed,
. . . tunc tamen maxime cum aliquid illarum renun agimus quibus tu, dum
aderas, delectari solebas; u t nuper, cum est apud Colucium disputatum,
non possem dicere quantopere ut adesses desideravimus. Motus profecto
fuisses tum re quae disputabatur, tum etiam personarum dignitate. Scis
enim Coludo nem inem fiere graviorem esse; Nicolaus vero, qui illi adver­
sabatur, et in dicendo est prom ptus, et in laecessendo acerrimus (236)
... especially when we speak of chose things you used to delight in when
you were with us, as happened the other day, when we were debating at
Coluccio’s and felt your absence very badly. For you would have been much
struck not only by the dignity of what was said but by the dignity of the
speakers - for, as you know, no one is graver than Coluccio, and Niccolò,
his opponent, is fluent and extremely sharp in debate.

Bruni underlines here Vergerio’s intimacy with the group, which makes
himcapable of conjuring its discussions in his imagination vividly through
memory - an important gesture, since it points to the dialogue’s ambition
toevoke these same discussions with equal enargeia for the reader. We are
reminded of Vergerio’s familiar eye at various later points in the narration,

4 See Brani 1994: 61-4. AU parenthetical page references in the text ate to this edition. In the first
quotation (tu n c ta m e n m a x im e . ..) , r e i has been corrected to f t on the basis o f the edition in Brani
1996.
 298 VIRGIN IA COX

as when we see Salutati prepare to speak ‘with that expression he has when
he is about to engage seriously with a subject’, or respond to another
speaker’s diatribe ‘smiling, in that way he has!'6
Bruni’s description of Nicolaus in the passage just quoted as Colucius
‘adversary’ captures the exuberandy contentious, though always amicable,
character of thedialogue. The principal issue on which the two men differisa
key one for early Florentine humanism, of the relationship between the•
avant-garde classical learning it pursued with such enthusiasm and the
modern, Christian, civic culture of Florence.*7 This was a question of
extreme topicality at the time of Bruni’s composition of the Dialogi, and
echoes of numerous contemporary polemics may be heard in the work,
perhaps most saliendy a tetchy letter-exchange between Salutati and
Poggio Bracciolini, a younger contemporary of Bruni’s, regarding the relative
merits of the great classical Greek and Roman authors and modern Tuscan
writers such as Dante, Petrarch and Boccaccio, much beloved of the ver­
nacular readers of the day.'8 Nicolaus, in the Dialogi., takes the positionof
Bracciolini - and one that the historical Niccoli is known to have embraced-
arguing that modem culture is irremediably inferior to that of dassid
antiquity, as he trenchandy puts it, he would happily exchange the complete
works of Dante or of Petrarch for a single lener of Cicero’s or a single poemof
Virgil’s.19Bruni’s Colucius takes the more balanced position espoused bythe
historical Salutari, that it is possible to revere antiquity and to strive to imitate
the classics without despising the literary products of the modern world.
Although the question of the relationship of classical and modem
literature is the primary theme of the Dialogi, a brilliantly exploited
secondary theme is dialogue itself, or ‘disputation’ in Colucius’ preferred
term. The first day’s conversation begins with a moment of awkward
silence, broken by a speech from Colucius reproaching his young friends
for not exerting themselves in the practice of disputation, which he extols
as the true means to knowledge. Nicolaus responds with a witty and
impassioned diatribe arguing for the impossibility in the modern world
of civilized debate as Cicero might have conceived it, given the miserable
levels of learning possible after the West’s millennium-long dark ages. The
best modernity can offer in place of the ‘ancient and true way of disputing

“ Bruni 1994; 137 (eo im ltu q u o so le t a tm q u id p a u lo a c a t r a t iu s d ic tu r u s est)-, 158 (su b rid en s, u t soldi.
17 For a summary of the content o f the D ia lo g i, s e e Q uint 198}: 4 25-7. For discussions of the cridol
tradition, sec Quint 1985: 427-30 and Gilson 2005: 86-7.
a Witt 2000:391-402.
” Bruni 1994:158 (E go m eb ercu le u n a m C ic e ro n is e p is to la m a t q u e u n u m V e r g ilii c a rm e n om nibus otsa*
opusculis longissim e a n tep o n o ).
 D ialo gu e 299

(vetus et vera disputandi via) — presumably the leisured style of rhetorical

argumentation attested in classical dialogue - is the jargon-ridden
jabbering of northern European scholastics such as ‘Farabrich, Buser,
Occam’, whose very names suggest their origins in the cohorts of Rhada­
manthus, the infernal judge.10 Nicolaus’ speech is greeted by stunned
silence from his listeners, followed by an acclamation from Colucius
('Never have you been so powerful a combatant, so weighty a disputant!’)1'
As Colucius later underlines, Nicolaus has paradoxically undermined his
ownargument through his learning and eloquence - for, hearing his ‘most
polished oration’ , no one could possibly credit his claim that the an of
rhetorical disputation was dead.11
It is after this lively warm-up that the two disputants proceed to debate
the more controversial question of the status of the modern Italian poets.
Nicolaus first delivers a withering account of the failings of Dante, Petrarch
andBoccaccio; then, on the following day, prompted by Colucius’ protests,
he produces a palinodie speech praising them - a device imitated from
Cicero’s De oratore, where Antonius similarly reverses an earlier stated
position, claiming that he adopted it purely to stimulate debate. Much
scholarly discussion has surrounded the question of whether Nicolaus’
recantation is genuine, or simply a further witty rhetorical tour de force.
Therelated but separate question of where Bruni himself stands on the issue
hasalso provoked much debate, although the work seems expressly designed
tobaffle any attempt to ascertain this. Teasingly, Brunis self-figure within
thedialogue, Leonardus, refuses to speak on the subject when pressed. As
DavidQuint has noted, however, we may at least be sure that Bruni did not
share the extreme cultural pessimism that he has Nicolaus express on the
first day.13 The Dialogi itself, like Bruni’s other great work of this time, his
Laudatio Florentinae urbis (‘Panegyric on the City of Florence’), which
imitates Aelius Aristides’ Panathenaic Oration, evinces a strong confidence
in the capacity of modern humanistic writing to revive the rhetorical and
literary traditions of the ancient world.
A further clue to Bruni’s perspective in the dialogue may perhaps be
identified in a telling detail in its scene-setting: his choice to locate the work
temporally at Easter, ‘when those days were being solemnly celebrated that
are held as feasts for the resurrection of Jesus Christ’.14 Although this

“ The figures referred to are Richard Ferrybridge, W illem Buser o f Hcusdcn and William o f Ockham.
“ Brani 1994:149 (N e tu . . . N ic o la e , f it t it i in re s iste n d o ta m fo r t is , in d isse re n d o ta m g ra v is !).
“ Bruni 1994: 290 (*accuradssima[m] orado[nem ]'). 11 Quine 198$: 44).
MBrani 1994:136 (C u m s o le n n i t e r c e le b r a r e n t u r i i d ie s q u i p r o re s u rre c tio n e le s u C h ris tifo s ti h a b en tu r).
 300 V IRG IN IA COX

paschal allusion is dearly relevant to the dialogue’s them es, which turn on
the ‘death’ of classical culture and its possibilities for resurrection, there ¡5
also a high degree of irony in this setting; w e are invited to imagine
Salutati’s humanist circle doistering itself to discuss literature and pande
its classical erudition on the very day w hen the greatest feast of the
Christian calendar is being celebrated outside. N o tim e setting could better
dramatize the risk of cultural alienation an d ivory-tow erism implicit in the
project of humanism, if that project rem ained too firm ly rooted in nostalgia
for pagan antiquity, and in a perception o f m o dern ity as characterized by
inevitable and terminal decline.
The subtlety of B run is deploym ent o f th e d etail o f the Easter setting-
seemingly throwaway, but in fact crucial to o u r understanding of the
dialogue - is characteristic o f his a n in the D ialogi. Com pared with many
writers of dialogue, Bruni is d istin ctly sparing in his use of descriptive
detail and action. W hen the speakers decam p to R o b en us’ Oltrarno villa
on the second day, we might expect from an o th er w riter a lyric description
of a locus amoenus. W ith Bruni, w e m ust co n ten t ourselves with a laconic
‘having crossed the Amo and arrived, w e inspected the garden, and retired
to the loggia’.*5
This minimalism is deceptive, however; as w e saw in the case of the
allusion to Easter, Bruni works his few narrative details very hard. The
mention of the Amo crossing on the second d ay recalls a moment on
the first day when Colucius fondly recalls that, w hen visiting his mentor
Luigi Marsili, he would use his crossing o f the river on the way to Maisili's
house to mark the point when he m ust begin to m arshal his thoughts for
their discussions (240). A further m en tio n o f Florence’s most famous
bridge, the Ponte Vecchio, is found in the last sentence o f the text. This
subtle emphasis on Florence’s river an d its crossings points to the crucial
metaphorical importance o f bridges in th e d ialo gu e - bridges between
generations, bridges between eras and cultures, bridges between differing
views. Colucius himself is a bridge in a sense, betw een the generation of
Petrarch and that o f a new generation, em pow ered b y its advanced classical
learning, but in danger o f arrogance in desp isin g the foundations on which
its new edifice has been built.
Although Bruni produced no form al th eo ry o f dialogue and does not
discuss the form in any detail in his ded icato ry letter to Vergerio, an
implicit reflection on the genre m ay be id en tified in the text itself, in*

** B ru n i 1994; 259 (Amum itaque transgressi, cum illum perventum esset inspectisque kero. *
perticam. . . redissemus).
 D ialogue 301

Colucius’ initial paean to disputation. Much of what is said there of oral

disputation applies equally to written dialogue, especially the initial simile
Colucius chooses to illustrate the value of the art:

Nam quid est, per deos immortales, quod ad res subtiles cognoscendas atque
discutiendas plus valere possit quam disputatio, ubi rem in medio positam
velut oculi plures undique speculamur, ut in ea nihil sit quod subterfugere,
nihil quod latere, nihil quod valeat omnium frustrari intuitum? (237-8)
By the immortal gods, what is there more valuable than disputation in
helping us to grasp and examine difficult ideas? It is as if an object were
placed centre stage and observed by many eyes, so that no aspea of it can
escape them, or hide from them, or deceive the gaze of all.

This image of the scru tin y o f an object b y viewers arrayed in a circle is

valuable in capturing the d yn am ics o f literary dialogue, which deploys
multiple viewpoints precisely to conduct this kind of intellectual inquiry
‘in the round’. S p ecifically, the notion o f dialogue operating like an
inverted panopticon, w ith differen tly positioned eyes all trained on the
same object, is useful in cap tu rin g the dialogue’s intrinsically heuristic
character; just as the spectato rs’ differing angles o f vision are determined by
their different physical positions vis-à-vis the viewed object, so the inter­
locutors’ viewing angles are shaped b y their experience, education, circum­
stances, character an d age. In th e case o f Colucius and Nicolaus, their
generational distance is cru cial to us in decoding their differing positions,
as is the gulf between th e tw o m en’s professional status - Colucius the
responsible public servant an d lo n g-tim e ‘voice o f Florence’ as chancellor
of the city, N icolaus th e w ealth y am ateur scholar and bibliophile, free to
indulge his contrarian in stin cts b y pouring scorn on a civic icon like
Dame. The inverse-panoptic character o f dialogue, its rejection of an
exclusive, ‘frontal’ perspective, also creates space for the reader, who is
effectively invited to jo in the scrutin izin g circle. Bruni signals this tacidy in
his dedicatory letter w h en he positions Vergcrio as an ‘absent presence'
in the text.

Thomas More, Utopia (1516)

If Bruni’s D ialogi m ay be read as an exercise in reformulating Ciceronian
dialogue to serve th e ends o f m odern cultural debate, Thomas More’s
Utopia, written ju st over a cen tu ry later, has a sim ilar relationship to the
Lucianic tradition. M o re had translated four works o f Lucian’s, including
two dialogues, around a decade before he wrote Utopia, and one of the
301 VIRGIN IA c o x

early editions of Utopia (Florence 1519) p u b lish es th e work alongside his

and Erasmus’ L udanic translations. L u d a n ic elem en ts in Utopia include
its mingling of realist w ith fantastic elem en ts a n d its concerted deployment
of the device, or register, o f serio ludere o r ‘serio us p lay’, the use of comic
means to explore serious truths.,26 L ike B ru n i’s D ialogi, Utopia is markedly
open in character and defies an y attem p t to estab lish a stable authorial
position. Both authors insert them selves in to th e ir d ialo gue but relinquish
the role of princeps sermonis: w here B ru n i’s L eo n ard us declines to speak,
More’s Morus does enter into debate in th e first b o o k w ith the dominant
speaker, Raphael H ythloday, b u t it is far from clear that his prudent,
conservative persona m ay be id en tified straightfo rw ardly with the
authorial voice.
As we have it now, M ore’s U topia co n sists o f tw o books, the second
almost entirely occupied b y a speech o f H y th lo d a y ’s describing the laws
and customs o f the island o f U to p ia (‘N o w h ere’), w here he purports to
have lived for five years. T h e first, d ialo gical b o o k introduces the romantic
figure of Hythloday, philosopher-adventurer an d h eir to Odysseus and
Plato, in conversation w ith tw o real-life figures, M o rtis himself and the
Antwerp humanist Pieter G illis, to w h o m M o re d ed icated the work. In a
technique familiar from P latonic d ialo gu e, M o re em beds a number of
secondary, narrated dialogues w ith in th e d ia lo g u e o f Book 1: Hythloday
recounts a semi-comic conversation h e h ad so m e years before at the table
o f More’s old mentor, the cleric an d h u m a n ist Jo h n M orton, and also
sketches out hypothetical conversations h e m ig h t w itn ess in the council of
the king of France and in another, u n id e n tifie d royal council. Together
with the dazzling series o f paratexts th a t p reface th e w o rk (commendatory
letters and verse, maps o f U to p ia, a ch a rt o f th e U to p ian alphabet), the
intricately imbricated dialogues o f B ook 1 serve to em phasize the hall-of*
mirrors character o f M ore’s ‘tru ly go lden little b o o k’.27 If Bruni’s Coludus
defines disputation, and hence d ialo gu e, as a d evice for seeing things from
all angles, More carries this p an o p tical te n d e n c y w ith in the genre to
virtuosic extremes.2*
More’s close friend Erasmus rem ark ed o f th e com position of Utopia
that it proceeded in two stages: M o re first w ro te B ook n , presumably

a On die LucUnic influence in Utopia, see Baker-Smith 2011:142-4. Marsh 1988:193-7, nota the
fusion of Ciceronian with Lucíante elements.
17 The description (libtU u vere aurem) comes horn the title-page of the 1516 Louvain edition. Fot the
pantois or parerga, see Mote 1995: 4-39.
J For discussions of Utopia in the context o f dialogue, see Houston 2014, 13-40; also the essays of
Chontas. Vallée and Warner in Heitsch and Vallée 2004.
 D ialogue jo j

together w ith the scen e-settin g first pages o f Book i, and only later - and
in more haste - in serted th e m o re substantive dialogue that occupies the
bulk of Book I.19 T h is d etail is in triguin g, and it is instructive to
reconstruct the first red actio n o f the w ork following Erasmus' narration
and to consider how m u ch th e prefatory dialogue o f Book t complicates
our reception o f H y th lo d ay ’s su b seq u en t lengthy speech. Book i ’s discus­
sions introduce questio n s o f p o litical theory and practice o f relevance to
Book it ’s description o f U to p ia, n o tab ly the key issue o f private property
and wealth d istrib u tio n . T h e y also offer dystopian glimpses o f contem­
porary English an d E uropean realities that serve tacitly as a point of
comparison d u rin g o u r read in g o f Book n , and motivate More’s (or
iViorus’) closing rem ark th a t U to p ian society contains m any features
rather to be hoped for th an exp ected in the world he inhabits.50 Despite
these important su b stan tive an ticip atio n s, however, perhaps the most
important role th at B o o k i ’ s d ialo gu e plays w ithin the overall economy
of the work is to raise m etap o litical and metarhetorical questions
concerning the w ays in w h ich w e speak o f politics, the contexts
and reception d yn am ics o f p o litical argum en t, and, crucially, the relation­
ship between sp eculative p o litical an d ethical thinking and concrete
political practice.
In dassic d ialo gical sty le , U topia raises these im portant issues not to
offer a resolution, b u t rath er to illu strate th eir com plexity. If Hythloday
and Moms represent tw o p o litical types, the speculative, impassioned
idealist and the realist, w e are given rem arkably little guidance on which
of their perspectives is ‘rig h t’ . It is tem p tin g to see the two as presenting
positions between w h ich M o re , as auth o r, was divided himself, and to
read Book i o f U topia, lik e P etrarch ’s Secretum, as a ‘dialogue o f the mind
with itself.51 O n e effect o f th is irreso lution, as in every open dialogue, is
that the reader is ac tiv e ly im p licated in the process o f truth-seeking.
In J. Christopher W a rn e r’s w o rds, th e text’s com plexity and ambiguities
'challenge us to d ecid e b etw een th e positions o f H ythloday and Mor[us]
not once for all, b u t h ere a n d th ere . . . w h ile at every stage we are also
urged to im agine alte rn a tiv e p o ssib ilities that w ould transcend the
wisdom o f eith er sp eaker’.31 T h e d yn am ic W arner describes is well
captured in the d ialo g u e th eo rist Sperone Speroni’s comparison o f the

* On the composition of Utopia, see Baker-Smith toil: 148-9.

” Mote 199;: 148 (ita facite confiteor perm ulta a te in Utopitndum república quae in nostris civitatibus
optarim verius quam tperarim ).
" The phrase it from Bevington 1961: 497. *** Warner 1004; 6).
 304 VIRGIN IA COX

dialogue to a tinderbox, in w h ich th e sp eakers’ view s, as they clash, act as

the flint and the firesteel, strikin g o ff sparks o f tru th to be kindled in the
receptive reader’s m ind.33
Hythloday’s and M orus’ richest deb ate is th at w h ich concerns the key
metarhetorical issue o f ‘counsel’. It arises u ltim a te ly from Pieter Gillu
innocent suggestion that H yth lo d ay’s vast exp erien ce w ould fit him well
for a role as member o f the co un cil o f som e k in g. H ythloday demurs,
aiguing that a man w ith his co u n ter-cu ltural ideas w o u ld find no welcome
audience in such a context. H e portrays royal co u n cils as cndemically
corrupt loci o f political delib eratio n , in w h ich flattery and self-interest
reign, and considerations o f u tility or ad v an tage o u tw eigh consideration of
what is morally right. M ortis counters th is p essim ism b y arguing that,
while a confrontational and u n m o d u lated expression o f ideas such as
Hythloday’s would undoubtedly m eet w ith a h o stile reception, this would
not necessarily be the case if he w ere p rep ared to ado p t a more cautious
and rhetorically calculated approach. T h is is ju stifie d on grounds of public
interest reminiscent o f P lutarch’s essay ‘A P h ilo so p h er Should Conson 1
Principally with Those in Power’: in tellec tu als h av e m u ch to contribute to
public lifr and should consider it th eir d u ty to d o so , w hatever the personal j
compromises involved.
Central to M om s’ argum ent in th is p o rtio n o f th e d ialo gue is the nodon
of a ductus obliquus, a term he uses to ch aracterize th e form o f philosoph­
ical discourse acceptable w ith in sen sitive p o litic a l contexts.
at neque insuetus et insolens sermo inculcandus, quem scias apud diurna
persuasos pondus non habiturum, sed obliquo ductu conandum est, atque
adnitendum tibi, uti pro tua uiriii om nia tractes commode, et quod in
bonum nequis uertere, efficias saltem, ut sit quam m inim e malum.34
You must not subject your listeners to unaccustomed and outlandish
speeches, when you know it will carry no weight with those persuaded of
the contrary, rather, using an oblique ductus, you should seek and strive with
all your power to handle things in a sensitive manner. In that way, what you
cannot tura to the good, you can at least m ake the least bad possible.
Hythloday picks the phrase up an d th ro w s it b ac k at M o m s scornfully
(‘1 do not even see w h at y o u m ean b y o b liq u e ductus’)?* In a council
setting, dissimulation is im possible; th e o n ly sp eakers w h o w ill be listened
to are those who openly approve th e w o rst p ro p o sals’ an d ‘endorse the

” $«e Cox 1992; 72. M More 1993: 96 (my translation).

” Ibid., 98 (nam obliquus tilt duaus tuus non video q u id sib i velie).
 Dialogue 305

most noxious decrees’ .,6 T h e o n ly form o f speech ethos H ythloday is

prepared to co u n ten an c e is th e ca n d id m an ner that characterizes Christ,
whose ethical p ro n o u n ce m en ts, h e rem in d s M o rus, were more ‘outlandish’
(insolentia) - in th e sen se o f c h a lle n g in g to convendonal wisdom - than
anything he, H y th lo d a y , has said .37
Morus’ allu sio n to ductus obliquus is to a relatively obscure, post-
classical portion o f rh e to ric a l d o c trin e m o st fu lly theorized in the Renais­
sance by the G re e k -Ita lia n h u m a n is t G eorge o f T rebizond, although
More probably k n e w th e d o c trin e th ro u g h th e sim pler versions found
in the late-an tique th e o rists F o rtu n a tia n u s a n d M artian u s C apella.38 The
ductus of a speech w a s its o v e ra ll s tra te g y o f argum en t. In Fortunatianus’
typology, it co u ld b e sim plex (w h e n th e sp eaker sim p ly states w hat he
means); subtilis (w h en h e in s in u a te s so m e th in g o th er than w hat he states
directly); or figuratus o r obliqu us (w h e n h e d isgu ises his true m in in g and
speaks o b liquely o n a c c o u n t o f, resp e c tiv e ly , sham e or fear). Trebizond’s
definition o f ductus obliqu us is d iffe re n t. H e presents it as a com bination
of a ductus sim ulatus., w h e re th e sp e a k e r argues for the case he supports,
but disguises h is reaso n s fo r s u p p o r tin g it, a n d a ductus contrarius, where
he subtly seeks to p e rsu a d e h is a u d ie n c e o f p recisely the opposite o f what
he is saying.
Although M o re in tro d u c e s th e n o tio n o f ductus obliquus w ithin his
discussion o f th e e th ic s a n d tactics o f p o litical counsel, the concept is
clearly of u tility in c h a ra c te riz in g th e rh eto rical strategy o f Utopia itself.
Where the fictive H y th lo d a y illu stra te s th e force an d the lim itations o f a
ductus simplex w ith in p o litic a l d isco u rse, th e literary construct in w hich his
speeches are em b ed d ed c o u ld h a rd ly b e m o re o b lique. It is not m erely at a
macroscopic level, th ro u g h s tru c tu ra l d istan c in g devices, that the work
strives to baffle a n y a tte m p t a t a u n iv o cal o r ‘ straight’ reading. O bliquity
even permeates th e s ty lis tic te x tu re o f th e w o rk , as E lizabeth M cCutcheon
has dem onstrated in h e r classic essay on litotes in Utopia. Consistendy,
rather than assertin g sim p liciter, M o re prefers th e m ore oblique locution o f
double negation (e .g . non insu avis: ‘n o t lack in g ch arm ’). T h e result is a
pervasive textual d ia lo g is m , w ith p h rase after phrase b u ilt around a tension
of opposites, crea tin g a n a m b ig u ity th a t ‘vivifies th e t e x t . . . an d agitates its
points, however c a s u a lly th e y see m to b e m ad e’ .39*

* Ibid, 100 (approbanda tunt aperte pessim a consilia, et decretis pestilentissim is subscribendum est].
r More 1995:98.
* For publications of the three theorists prior to 1516, see Green and Murphy 2006: 205-6, 214. For
discussion of ductus theory, sec Cox 2003: 657-8, 660-7.
* McCutdtcon 1971: u8.
 306 V IR G IN IA COX

Any attempt to read Utopia as a political statement by the author scena

destined to founder in this quicksand of obliquity, and modem criticism
has rightly jettisoned past tendencies to see the text as advancing a political
program. Abstracting from the question of what More 'really thought',
however, it is intriguing as a hermeneutic hypothesis to consider Hvthlo-
day's speeches and Mores written text as parallel and specular, both
advancing the same theses, but one using a simple and one an oblique
ductus. Read in this sense, Utopia may be seen as an experiment in ho»
radical thinking might be brought in from the wilderness and insinuated
into political discourse in an urbane and 'deniable’ guise. Where Hythlo-
day puts his views straight, without accommodating to his listeners, More
recasts them dialogically, anticipating and incorporating the resistance the?
may engender in the figure of Moms. The result is a radical philosophy
that critiques itself even as it critiques society and its values.
Setting aside the particular case of Utopia, ductus theory’ offers a useful
tool in approaching literary dialogue, as it helps remind us of how self,
conscious rhetorically trained early modem readers were about the
differing relationships that can obtain between utterance and belief or
conviction. Where the modem reader often subconsciously takes a ductu
simplex as the default mode, and approaches works o f moral and philo­
sophical reflection with the expectation o f learning 'the author’s views’, the
rhetorically informed readership of humanism was more nuanccd in its
approach and more alert to dissimularory tactics o f argument. The vor
existence of a typology of ductus as complex as George of Trebizond's isa
product of such wary’ habits of reading; George honed his skills as a
theorist of ductus in his commentaries on Cicero’s speeches, attempting
to discern the Roman orator s mac agenda beneath his ostensible argu­
ments, beanng circumstantia] factors in mind. This inquisitorial model of
reading is ideal as an approach to dialogue and positively demands to be
employed in the more complex works in the genre, both in interpreting
the overall strategy of the author and the interventions of individual
speakers. ‘What is he saying?’ and what does he mean?’ were far from
synonymous questions for early modern readers. W e should ensure they
are not, either, for us.

FURTHER R E A D IN G
Good modemeditions are now available o f a number of neo-Latin dialogues: see,
for oample, in the bilingual I Tatti Renaissance Library scries, Bembo zoo*
Dondolini 2009. Gualdi 2011. Pontano 2012, Giovio 2013, Filelfo 201« also
Ftleoco 1992, Cdema 1999, Gaisser 1999, Lipsius 2011 (though see Crab ion
 D ia lo g u e 307
on the Latin text in th is e d itio n ). E rasm us’ Colloquia and Ciceronianus are
¿nthbie in the Collected Works, p u b lish ed b y T oronto University Press (1974-).
It i few cases, English ed itio n s are av ailab le o f texts found less readily in Latín; see
for example, Bodin 2 0 0 8 . C ritic a l m o n o grap h s specifically on neo-Latin dialogue
«e lacking, though IJsew ijn an d Sacré 1998 offers a good short overview, and
Tueo 1967 and M arsh 1980b su rv e y fifteen th -cen tu ry Italian production. Essays
on indivìdua] texts an d au th o rs m a y b e fo u n d in G eerts, Paternoster and Pignarti
«01 and in H eitsch an d V a llé e 2 0 0 4 . K ushner 2004 discusses the Latin and
«macular traditions o f d ialo g u e s in sixteen th -cen tu ry France.
 CHAPTER I 8

Shorter Prose Fiction

David Marsh

In the history of neo-Latin literature, co m p o sitio n s o f short prose fiction

appear only sporadically and, unlike th eir v ern acu lar counterparts, seldom
form pan of any larger collection. T here is little classical precedent for such
fiction, which fits no particular category o f trad itio n al poetics or literary
genre. Nevertheless, various men o f letters - esp ecially Italians - were
drawn to this kind of literature, for it offered a w rite r th e chance to display
in Latin his wit and powers o f invention, an d also p ro vided learned readers
with the amusement familiar from m ore p o p u lar w orks.
In Italy, short fiction in Latin was in ev itab ly th e learn ed double of the
vernacular novella, which attained its greatest p erfectio n an d success in the
Decameron of Giovanni Boccaccio (1313-75).' S in ce its influence on Latin
prose fiction is decisive, several observations are in order. First, the work
emphasizes the social setting o f its narrators an d narratives. T he so-called
frame of the Decameron establishes a co urtly settin g d o m in ated by noble
women and their predilection for am orous tales, w h ile the stories told more
often describe contemporary m ercantile so ciety th an co u rtly or classical
settings.1*Second, the Decameron forms a lin k b etw een classical Latinity
and emergent humanism: two o f Boccaccio’s tales (.Decameron 5.10: Pietro
di Vinciolo; and 7.2: Peronella) are based on episodes in A puleius’ Meta­
morphoses, the most important Latin novel to survive from antiquity.3

Versions o f Boccaccio

Boccaccio’s Italian prose inspired Latin translations by a number of

humanists. Most famously, his tale of patient Griselda, the last story of

1 The classicstudy is Di Francia 1914-1915. See now also Albanese 1000, Tunbcrg-Morrish 1014, Riley
1015, and Rdihan, Chapter 10 In this volume.
1 In France, the novella tended to have a domestic setting dominated by men, and it is only with the
Cat NowtUt!NouttUn (c. 1460) that the Boccaccian model influences its French counterparts.
’ White 1977 and Gaisser 100Í: 100-7.

308
 Shorter Prose Fiction 309

¿ic Decameron (10.10) w as ren d ered in to L atin b y his h u m an ist friend

Petrarch in a Latin letter to th e a u th o r ( Seniles 17.3). T h is version enjoyed
wide circulation an d o ften in flu e n c e d later h u m an ists w ho translated
Boccaccio.'* T h e L atin Griseldis is strik in g for tw o features external to its
narrative. First, P etrarch ’s v ersio n is p resen ted as an ep isd e; an d later
humanists like A n tonio L o sch i (1368-1441), an d E nea Silvio P iccolom ini
(1405-64) w ould em p lo y an ep isto la ry fram e in p ub lish in g th eir Latin
novellas.’ Second, in his ep isto la ry in tro d u ctio n Petrarch voiced his clear
preference for the noble sty le o f th is tale as opposed to th e co m ic and
popular tone o f m uch o f th e Decameron * P etrarch ’s version w as translated
into Catalan by B em at M e tg e in 1388, in to F ren ch b y P h ilip p e de M ézières
in 1384—9, and in to G erm an b y G erh ard G oss (1436) and b y N iklas von
Wyle (1471).7 It also fam o u sly in sp ire d th e ‘C le rk ’s T ale’ o f Geoffrey
Chaucer (c. 1340-1400), w h o read it in L atin an d in fact attrib u ted the
tale to Francesco P etrarca (P etrarch ), rath e r th an B occaccio. T h en , m ore
than a century later, th e F lo ren tin e h u m a n ist N ero d e’ N erli (1459-1524)
followed suit by tran slatin g th e G riseld a ta le in to L atin .8
Independently o f B o ccaccio , th e d ev elo p m en t o f L atin short fiction in
èe late Middle Ages w as in p a n in flu en ced b y th e exempla, o r illustrative
anecdotes, that w ere co m p ile d for th e u se o f orators an d preachers. In
Trecento Italy, a parallel gen re aro se in th e form o f facetiae, o r hum orous
savings, such as the De salibus virorum illustrium acfacetiis (‘Jo kes an d Jests
of Famous M en’) th at P etrarch in c lu d e d in B ook 2 o f his Memorandarum
mm libri (‘Books o f N o te w o rth y F acts’). In the next gen eratio n , Franco
Sacchetti would co m p ile a v o lu m e o f Italian motti in his Trecentonovelle,
and a generation later, th e h u m a n ist P o ggio B raccio lin i (1380-1459) w rote
his popular Facetiae or Confabulationes (‘Jo k e s’ o r ‘C o n versatio n s’), a book
of Latin anecdotes an d jests th at in flu en ced th e Cent Nouvelles Nouvelles
(r. 1460), and was p artly tran slated in to F ren ch b y G u illau m e T a rd if
(1491).’ An heir to P o gg io ’s ‘ facetio u s’ ach iev em en t m ay be seen in the
treatise De sermone (‘O n C o n v e rsa tio n ’) b y th e N eap o litan hum an ist
Giovanni Pontano (1429-1503), w h ic h relates a n u m b er o f hum orous

‘ For Petrarch'« tact, tec Petrarch 1998. For a b rief litt o f Latin venions from Boccaccio, sec Branca
1991:192, n. 89.
' Albino« 1997, at 9. C f. M arconi 2004: 14), n. }6. 4 See Petrarch 19 9 8:15-19 .
( For the German versioni, tee Pabtt 1967; 54, n. 2.
Tie vtnion survives in the code* Florence. Biblioteca Morcniana 220. See Toum oy 1974b, with a
doaipdon of the codex at 260 -1. An anonymous Quattrocento version o f the Griselda taie (Parma.
f Biblioteca Palatina 79; Florence, Biblioteca Riccardiana 991) is reported by Branca 1991: 2.192, n. 89.
Pogio Bncdolini 1983 and 2005. For the French translation, see T ardif 200).
 310 D AVID M A R SH

anecdotes and provides a bridge betw een C ic e ro ’s digression on the

rhetorical uses o f w it, and C astiglio n e’s II Cortigiano (‘T h e Courtier’).10
Contemporary with the 1528 p ub licatio n o f C astig lio n e ’s Italian dialogue
was the Latin treatise in two books De re aulica (‘O n Life at Court’, 1528)
by the philosopher Agostino N ife (1473-1545), w h ich offers a series of
Latin fitcetiae." Nifo’s contem porary, th e G erm an sch o lar Heinrich Bcbd
(1472-1518), compiled a book o f prose Facetiae (1506) an d also translated
Decameron 5.1 (Cimone) into L atin eleg iacs.11*
Indeed, the interest o f hum anists in B o ccaccio ’s fictions was primarily
rhetorical, and stressed the im portance o f speeches in defining characters’
oratorical response to their situatio n . Ju s t as a n c ie n t controversiae or school
debates could inspire narratives in th e Gesta Romanorum (‘Deeds of
the Romans’), so a fifteenth-century M ila n ese h an d b o o k for notaries con­
tains, inter alia, Petrarch’s Griselda, L oschi’s Fabula (Decameron u), and
Salutad’s Declamatio Lucretie (‘L u cretia’s D e clam atio n ’) - works built
around declamatory set-pieces.13 In 1437, th e h u m a n ist an d historian Leo­
nardo Bruni (1370-1444) paid sim ilar h o m age to B occaccio by rendering
Decameron 4.1 in Latin as the Fabula Tancredi (‘T a le o f Tancred’). Like
Petrarch’s Griselda, the work is notable for its elev ated m oral and rhetorical
tone; and was likewise translated in to G erm an b y N ik las von W yle (1477).14
In the early sixteenth century, the Ferrarese ju ris t, theologian, and Latin
poet Tommaso M elenchino m ade a verse tran slatio n o f the Tancredi stoiy
which survives in the Rom an codex, B ib lio teca C o rsin ia n a 268.15
In a parallel tribute to Boccaccio, B ru n i co m p o sed an Italian novella
called Seleuco based on an episode in G reek h isto ry. W here Tancredi
punishes his daughter w ith severity, th e p rin ce Seleu cu s, desperately in
love with his mother-in-law Strato n ice, is p ard o n ed b y his father King
Antiochus, who in fact yields his w ife to h is so n ! B ru n i’s intended contrast
between paternal severity and gen ero sity w as so strik in g th at the Florentine
humanist Giannozzo M anetti (1396-1459) m a d e it th e subject of a debate
in his Dialogus in symposio (‘B an quet D ia lo g u e ’) o f I4 4 8 .'6
In 1444-5, Bartolomeo Facio (c. 1 4 0 0 -5 7 ) m ad e a Latin version of
Decameron 10.1 (messer R uggieri) th at he d ed ic a te d to Alfonso o f Aragon,
the king o f Naples. M ore creatively, h e co m p o sed De origine belli inter

10 Pabn 1967; *i-). “ Nifo 2010.

M Bebel's Elegia Cimonis appeared in a 1512 Strasbourg edition, fols. 93v-ro o ,( available online a
Sutton's Philological Museum (Sutton online).
15 Cherdii 1983; Albanese 1997.
14 On Bruni's version o f the Tancredi taie, sec Branca 1990; Marcelli 2000; Marcelli 2003.
14 Kristeller 1963:169. 16 See Albanese and Figliuolo 2014, Martelli 1000 and Marth 1980a.
 Shorter Prose Fiction 311

Galios et Britannos historia (‘T h e O rigin o f the H undred Years’ W ar’). Set
in England, France an d R om e, th is com plicated romance, which narrates
the vicissitudes o f an E nglish princess (a so n o f royal Griselda), was soon
translated, rather freely, in to Italian b y Jacopo Bracciolini.*7 Later in the
century, Boccaccio w as tran slated b y tw o Bolognese humanists: Giovanni
Canoni (1419—1505) m ad e L atin versions o f Decameron 4.1 (Tancredi), 6.7
(Madonna Filippa), an d 8.2 (P eronella), w hile the learned philologist
Filippo Beroaldo (1453-1505) rendered the T ancredi tale in Latin elegiacs,
and Decameron 5.1 (C im o n e) an d 10.8 (T ito and Gisippo) in prose.'
This last tale was th e o n ly o n e w ith a classical setting, and therefore
enjoyed particular favor am o n g h um an ists. Besides Beroaldo, there were
five other Latin versions. T h e earliest is b y Jacopo Bracciolini (1442-78),
son of the hum anist P oggio an d a scholar who was noted for his transla­
tions into both L atin an d Italian.*9 A round 1470 the Venetian jurist and
humanist Francesco D ied o (c. 1435-84) followed suit.10 In the next cen­
tury, the celebrated novelliere M atteo Bandello (1485-1561) published his
Titi Romani historia in M ila n in 1509.11 In the same period, Roberto
Nobili, cardinal o f M o n tep u lc ia n o , dedicated his Latin version o f the tale
to Pope Julius II (1503-13).“ A n d in 1580 Francesco Mucanzio, master of
ceremonies to Pope G rego ry X III (1572-85), m ade a version that survives in
a single m anuscript.13
In Ferrara, around 1 4 6 0 -7 0 th e N eapolitan hum anist and jurist Paolo
Marchesi, a friend o f L ud o vico C arb o n e (1430-85), translated Decameron
25 (Andreuccio da P erugia) in to L atin .14 H e dedicated his version to
Gaspar Tal am anca, a royal secretary at the court in Naples.15 His

0 AJbaneac and Bcssi 2000. C f. Viti 1994. O n Jacopo Bracciolini, see n. 9 above.
* On Ganoni, tee Mantovani 2009, texts edited at 264-81. See also Ridolfi 1999. On Beroaldo, see
Vid 197;. See also Gilmore 1983. Editions of the M y th ic * h is to ria C y m o n is and the M y th ic a h iste ria d e
Tite R om an e e t G is ip p o A th e n ie n s i, published in Leipzig r. 1498, are available online at Sutton's
fíM o g c a l M u seu m . Branca 1991:2.192, n. 89, lists a Latin version of the Cimone tale by one Andrea
Dernier (London. British Museum. Add. Ms. 10300).
4 Meritalo 2009. See also Vasoli 1971. *° Toum oy 1970 and 1991a.
" Modem edition in Bandelli 1983: 31-46 (introduction), 182-225 (Latin texts). See also Sapegno 1963.
* See Wolff 19 10 :58t, n. t.
* MS Bologna, Biblioteca Unhrcnitaria 1072 xi 17. The date o f 1580 for Mucanzio is given by Toumoy
1981.' 116. Toumoy lists a number o f obscure translations but gives no references. His last entry for
dieearly modem period is ‘1648. Marcantonio Bondario, D e c . x, t', which I am unable to verily. See
also Negri <969.
** A letter from Ludovico Carbone to Marchesi is addressed C la rissim o v iro e t p ru d en tissim o
jm tcm n d so P a u lo M a rc h e s io c iv i N e a p o lita n o (Vat. Ottob. U53, f. 33*).
" I have consulted the copy in Vat. Barb. Lat. 2323, fols. 8 -ti’ . The codex also contains Aurtspa's
translation of Lucian’s D ia lo g u e o f th e D e a d 25 (Alexander and Hannibal), fob. 1-7’ , and Gianisozzo
Manetd's lives o f Dante. Petrarch, and Boccaccio, fob. 22-87*.
 }I1 DAVI D M A R S H

dedication was appropriate, since the tale recounts the Neapolitan adven­
tures of a merchant from Perugia. In Florence, Francesco Pandolfini
(1470-1520), a student o f Ficino and Poliziano, translated Decameron 6.9
(Guido Cavalcanti) and 7.7 (m adonna B eatrice) around 1487-8, and
dedicated them, respectively, to his friends Pietro M artelli and Angelo
Tubalia.16
In the next century, the Ferrarese pro digy O lim p ia Fulvia Morata
(1526-55) translated the first two tales o f the Decameron - 1.1 (ser Cepper­
ello) and 1.2 (Abraham the Jew) - w hich , as a convert to Protestantism,
she may have viewed as a call for religious to leran ce.27 T h ey were printed
in the 1562 Basel edition o f her Orationes, dialogi, epistulae, carmina*
The 1570 and 1580 reprints of these works also in clu d ed five Latin versions
from Boccaccio by Marco Antonio Paganutio: 1.2 (Abraham the Jew),
3.8 (Ferondo), 3.9 (Giletta di N erbona), 6.7 (m ado n n a Filippa), and 10.1
(messer Ruggieri).19

Alberti and the Humanist N ovella

Latin humanists also composed original novellas in Latin. In the last

decades of the Trecento, the humanist Giovanni Conversini (1343-1408)
was employed by Francesco Da Carrara, for whom he composed three
Latin novellas. The Familie Carrariensis natio (‘The Origin of the Carrara
Family, 1380) offers a fictional romance - the union of an adventurer with
a noblewoman - that elucidates the origins of the Carrara dynasty; the
work both borrows from medieval romances and anticipates courtly
novelle by Masuccio and Bandello. In 1397, Conversini composed two
more tales with courtly settings: the Historia Elysiae or Violate pudicicit
narrado (‘Story of Elissa’ or Tale of Violated Modesty’), and the Historia
Lugi et Conselicis or Dolosi astus narratio (‘Story of Luigi and Conselicc' or
Tale of a Deceitful Trick’) set in Ferrara.90
In 1451-3, the Florentine Francesco T ed ald i (c. 1420-c. 1490) composed
a Latin novella while residing in France, w h ere h e heard the story and
wrote it up for his friend Bartolomeo B uo n co n te.9' In 1482, the Pistoian*

** Pirovano 1998b: tous at 566-8. 17 Pirovano 1997 and 15598a.

J The edition is available online at Sutton's P h ilo lo g ic a l M u s e u m : D e c a m e ro n u , pp. « mo;
D eco m em 1.2, pp. 40-7. See alto Marconi 2004:145.
** Morata 1580.
w See Leoncini 1000, Albanese 1998:179-80 and Kohl 1983. Albanese and Leoncini have premiseli a
critical edition of all duce worb.
* Króteller 1956: ten at 170-80; reprinted in Kristeller 1985: 385-402 (text at 392-402).
 Shorter Prose Fiction 313

grammarian B enedetto C o lu c c i (c. 1438-c. iso 6 ) dedicated his Historiola

0ttíoria (‘Sh o n T ale o f L ove’) to th e yo u n g Piero de’ M edici
(1472-1503).31 Set in P isto ia d u rin g th e 1348 plague, this b r ie f tale narrates
how‘Romeo*and-Juliet’ lovers from rival fam ilies - D iego C ancellieri and
Francesca Rossi - are h a p p ily u n ite d w h en D iego rescues the comatose
Francesca from en to m b m en t. In 1493, L u ig i Passerini o f Brescia dedicated
his Historia lepida de quibusdam ebriis mercatoribus (‘Pleasant Story of
Drunken M erchants’) to th e B o lo gn ese A ch ille V olta; its them e o f an
imagined shipwreck bears an affin ity to C h au c er’s ‘M ille r’s T ale’.33
In the Q uattrocento, Italian h um an ists soon tried their hand at the
amatory tale typical o f B occaccio’s m asterpiece. T h e most original o f all
was Leon Battista A lberti (1 4 0 4 -7 2 ), w h o w as both an accomplished Latinist
and a champion o f the T u scan vern acular. Follow ing Boccaccio’s model o f
èe amatory soliloquy, he com posed four w orks in Italian on the them e o f
love De amore, Deifira, Ecatonfilea an d Sofrona-, significandy, the last three
works feature characters w ith G reek nam es like those in the Decameron.
Tradition attributed to A lb erti th e Italian tale know n as the lstorietta amorosa,
which is probably sp urio us.34 In a n y case, it was translated into Latin
sometime after 1481 b y P aolo C o rtesi (1465-1510) as the Historia Hippolyti
a Dtyanirae (‘Story o f H ip p o lytu s an d D ejanira’). Another Q uattrocento
Italian text thus transform ed w as A lessandro Braccesi’s Historia di due amanti,
translated into Latin b y Francesco Fiorio, Historia de amore Camilli et Emiliae
(‘Story of the Love betw een C am illu s an d E m ilia’, 1467).35
More im portant for th e h isto ry o f short L atin fiction are the authentic
works that Alberti co llected as h is Intercenales (’ D inner Pieces’).36 T h is
series of Latin d ialo gu es a n d fables, so m e o f them paired w ith Italian
translations, seems to h ave b een assem b led in eleven books between
1430 and 1440. N o t all o f th e w o rk has survived, b u t the extant text
contains at least seven n arrativ es th a t reveal th e in fluen ce o f the vernacular
novella: Fatum etfortuna (‘F ate an d F o rtu n e’), Naufragus (‘Shipw recked’),
Vidua (T h e W id o w ’) , Defunctus (‘T h e D eceased’), Maritus (‘T h e H us­
band’), Uxoria (‘M arriag e ’) an d Amores (‘T h e Love Affair’).37 Alberti

" Frugoni 1939. See also Riston 198a. ” D i Fronda 19 14-3: 311-33.
MFuilan 1003:113-15 rejects as spurious the Quattrocento novella h to n e tta a m o m a , which Grayson
included (albeit with reservations) in voi. in o f the O p e n 1o ig a n . Grayson 1973: 406-12-
* Toumoy 1991b; Pictragalla 2000; Marconi 10 0 4: 160. On Fiorio, see Vid 1997. On Bracccsi, see
Pensa 1971.
* Latin ten and Italian translation in Alberti 2003 and in Alberti lo to ; English translation from
Alberti 1987.
” Ricci 1007.
 3H D AVID M A R SH

evidently considered these works o f som e im p o rtan ce, and an allusion to

two of them gives us a clue to the date o f th e ir composition. In his
autobiography of 1437, he m entions T h e D eceased’ an d 'T h e Widow' a
two humorous pieces that he com pleted before he w as th irty (1434).
Although presented as dialogues, two o f A lb erti’s din n er pieces describe
the perils of shipwreck - a clearly Boccaccian th em e, as w e shall see. ‘Fate
and Fortune’ relates the symbolic dream o f a philosopher, who beheld a
turbulent river of Life in which various souls an d vessels sought to stay afloat
and teach the safety o f its banks. Som e critics have com pared this ostensibly
medieval allegory to Boccaccio’s tale o f Landolfo R ufolo in Decameron 2.4;
and indeed both narratives offer m eticulous d etails in describing how
survival at sea often requires planks or other flotation devices. But Boccac­
cio's protagonist is literally saved by his good fortune: he washes ashore on a
chest containing a treasure o f precious gem s. B y contrast, Alberti lauds the
souls who spurn larger vessels that often run agro un d, and instead cling to
the planks which ‘among mortals are called th e lib eral arts’.58
A second narrative o f disaster at sea is A lberti’s ‘Shipwrecked’, which
imitates features of Boccaccio’s tale o f Alatiel in Decameron 2.7. In Boccaccio,
the princess Alatiel, daughter o f the sultan o fB ab ylo n , sails from Alexandria to
marry the Moroccan king o f Garbo (El G harb); b u t the ship is wrecked offthe
coast of Majorca, and everyone on board perishes aside from Alatiel and her
maidservants. Rescued by one Pericón da V isalgo, she eventually succumbs to
his advances; and in a series o f adventures provoked b y m ale lust and anger,
she is repeatedly kidnapped and seduced. A fter som e four years and nine
lovers, she returns to her father, and weds the k in g o f G arbo as a virgin. Alberti
reduces this elaborate story to three characters trapped in a shipwrecked htill:
the honest narrator, an innocent virgin, an d a vio len t ‘barbarian’. Rather than
rape, the violence in the tale is cannibalism , w h ich th e baibarian attempts to
perpetrate when starvation threatens the im prisoned trio. After the narrator
and young girl defeat him, they are soon rescued an d brought to the nearest
port, where the expected bride is m et b y her th an kful groom. Alberti was
aware that such a tale would, like Boccaccio’s adventure, find vernacular
readers, and translated the work into Italian.39
The appeal of the story lies in the G rand G uignol o f the struggle between
the violent cannibal and his intended victim s. H ere is the clim ax o f the tale

Magno enim emisso eiulatu: “Aut me” clamitans inquit “mácate, aut
vestrum profecto alter cadat necesse est.” . . . puelle insonti lachrime et*

** Albeto 1987:15: Alberti looj: jo. ” Pome 1999; Futían îoo).

 Shorter Prose Fiction 315

mihi pro immeritis apud im m itissimam belluam oranti preces deficiebant,

cum demens et furiis debacchatus truculentissimus barbarus in ceterrimum
salus irru p it. . . belluam ipsam cum in puellam, tum et in me frementem
morsibusque crassantem m ulta vi desudans averti, eiusque furentis manu
destra meise ambabus m inibus apprehensa, brachium ad tergum intor­
quens, ut pre dolore eiularit, d e tin u i. . . levant quidem manum, qua solute
quidem barbarus infestissime sese nobis prebebat, correpsit et adtortam in
tergum adduxit; mox ultim am linteolam, que exutis reliquis madentibus
vestibus supererat, discidit in fascias, ut diis ambas ferocissimi barbari
manus penes terga revinxerimus. Nonnullos tamen in eo duello morsus
atque in femore gravissimos plerosquc pugnos excepi; qui quidem, tametsi
erat constrictus, voce territando . . . tabulataque ipsa navis dentibus demor­
debat, dislaccrabat, mandebat.

With a loud bellow, he cried: “Either you must kill me, or one of you must
die!". . . The innocent girl was exhausting her tears, and I my entreaties on
her behalf, when the crazed, raging, and fierce barbarian leapt to his
monstrous crime . . . W ith a great effort, I pulled the beast away, as he
raged and bit at the girl and me. W ith both hands, I caught the right hand
of the frenzied savage, and twisted his arm behind his back, so that he
howled with pain . . . [The girli took hold of the savage’s left hand, which
was still free to menace us, and bent it against his back. Then she ripped off
the last bit of fabric which remained after she had removed her wet clothes,
and tore it into strips, w hich we used to bind both of the wild barbarian’s
hands behind his back. D uring the struggle, I sustained several bites and a
number of painful blows on m y thigh from this monster, who, even while
firmly bound, frightened us w ith his cries and . . . even bit off some of the
ship’s board-work, shredding and chewing it in his teeth.40

At this critical point in the narrative, Alberti cannot resist citing a

series of classical examples that demonstrate the irresistible power of
hunger;

Nimirum igitur, Silio poete ut assentiar, ipsa a nobis perpessa calamitas

edocuit; qui etsi ultim o periculi m etu parumper a fame sentienda alieni
eramus, eam tamen esse durissim am et intolerabilem sentiebamus: 'Nihil
enim tolerare piget: rabidi ieiunia ventris insolitis adigunt vesci.’ Ut nunc
quidem queque de Sagunto, queque de Hyerosolima et queque de Cassilino
oppido litteris tradita sunt facile apud me fidem faciant: fuisse qui rudentes,
quei ligneos cortices, quid scutorum pelles, vaiava rum vectes pestiferasque
herbas ac denique q u i filios fame tracti comederint; et fuisse quidem
nonnullos, qui pre frime in T ybrim aut e muris nudos inter hostium tela
precipites sese dederint.

Utin: Alberti 1003: $84-6: English: Alberti 1987: 16 1-3.

 JIÍ DA V I D M A R S H

] must concur with the poet Silius Italicus that the calamiry we suffered
taught us how bitter and intolerable hunger is - although for a moment
scarcely felt it, in our fear of this new danger: ‘Starvation makes a rabid
stomach welcome any nourishment, and drives men to eat strange food,;
Hence, I can easily believe the stories told about the sieges at Saguntum,
Jerusalem and Cassilinum. They say that, driven by hunger, some people
have eaten topes, some bark from trees, some leather from shields, some
latches from doors, some deadly herbs and some their own children.
Because of hunger, some have hurled themselves into the Tiber, or have
plunged naked from city walls onto an enemy’s weapons.41

Five of Alberti’s dinner pieces deal w ith the traditional topic o f marriage and
its vicissitudes. The longest o f these is Defunctus (T h e D eceased’), a Lucianic
'dialogue of the dead’ in which the tide character witnesses the aberrant
behavior of his wife and kinsmen after his dem ise. H is denunciations of his
wife’s flagrant infidelity seem to echo the strident m isogyny o f Boceacdo’s I
late invective Corbaccio rather than the m ore tolerant Decameron. Both
DtfunctusiiÀ Corbaccio portray a dialogue held in the afterlife. In Boccaccio,
the unhappy lover dreams that he meets a friend in the Underworld who
denounces the ways o f women. In A lberti, tw o souls m eet after death, and
Neophronus (‘newly-wise’) relates to his friend Polytropus (‘experienced’)
the hypocrisy that he beheld when he visited the earth on the day of his
funeral. The first shocking episode - borrowed from L ucian ’s Cataplus (The
Voyage Down’) - relates how the deceased’s w ife an d his steward made love
that very day: a scene that causes Polytropus to decry the falsity of women.
This is followed by his son’s outbursts o f hatred, th e destruction o f his library
by kinsmen, a bishop’s fatuous sermon, an d th e p lu n d erin g o f his hidden
treasure by a hostile neighbour. In both w orks, th e protagpnisr is (like the
author himseli) a scholar whose studies sh o uld have p u t him on his guard
against female perfidy.
Book 7 of the ‘Dinner Pieces’ consists o f tw o tales that examine the
problems of married life. M aritus (‘T h e H u sb an d ’) tells the tale of a wife
augh t with her lover, and then forgiven b y a to leran t husband. This
closely follows Boccaccio’s tale o f Pietro d i V in c io lo (Decameron 5,10),
which in turn is based on an episode in B ook 9 o f A p u leiu s’ Metamorph­
oses.*1 Boccaccio’s tale ends w ith a rather am icab le d in n e r, an d the peaceful
departure of the lover the next m o rn in g; an d th e sto ryteller Dioneo -
the author’s alter ego - advises the ladies to e n jo y love when they can.

* Latin: Alberti ¡o o y 586-8: English: Alberti 1987: i 6 x- j .

41 Marsh 2000; see also White 1977 on Boccaccio and Apuleius.
 Shorter Prose Fiction 317
By contrast, A lberti’s w ro n ged h usb an d later takes revenge by treating his
wife with cold indifference, an d ev en tu ally drives her to suicide. For this,
he is praised for co m b in in g p atien ce an d severity in dealing w ith his
wife’s infidelity.
Set in ancient Sparta, Uxoria (‘M arriage’) presents a debate between
three sons who seek to w in th eir father’s inheritance by proving their
superiority in facing th e challenges o f m arried life. M itio, whose name
suggests ‘meek’ and echoes th at o f M icio in T erence’s Adelphoe (‘Brothers’),
boasts of tolerating an in tran sigen t w ife; A crinnus (‘harshly severe’) vaunts
his absolute control o f his w ife; an d the youngest son Trissophus (‘thrice-
wise’) proudly asserts th at h e has rem ained single despite the urgings o f his
bmily to marry. T h e deb ate en ds w ith o ut a declared w inner, and the
lather’s symbolic in sign ia are h u n g in a tem ple. T his inconclusive three-
pan debate has rem inded readers o f the tale o f Melchisedech ( Decameron
t.3), in which the sagacious Je w uses a parable to prove the validity o f the
three great religions - Ju d aism , C h ristian ity and Islam. H e recounts the
story of a father w ho loved his three sons equally, and who therefore
bequeathed them id en tical rings, so th at none could claim superiority.
Concluding A lb erti’s ex tan t co llectio n , Book 11 offers two stories that
ponray women in illic it relatio n sh ip s. In ‘T h e W ido w ’, w hich is presented
as a dialogue, a w id o w an d h er aged servant plot to conceal an unwanted
pregnancy until she can secred y give b irth to the child. T h e source o f the
ole is not clear, b u t it ap p ears to ow e som ething to Rom an com edy.
(Alberti’s first L atin co m p o sitio n w as a p lay called Philodoxus that he
circulated as the w o rk o f an an c ie n t p layw righ t nam ed Lepidus.) T hus,
early in the dialogue th e o ld w o m an says Te ego <et re>, ut aiunt, et
ansiliofortasse iuvabo (‘ I’ll a id y o u perhaps w ith resources, as they say, and
counsel’) - a phrase ad ap ted from P lau tu s’ Pseudolus.4* Indeed, w e recall
that unwanted p regn an cy is in vo lved in P lautus’ Amphitruo, Aulularia and
Truculentus, as w ell as in T e re n c e ’s Hecyra an d Adelphoe. A nd A lberti's first
essay in literary L atin w as th e allego rical co m edy Philodoxus (c. 1424).
In T h e Love A ffair’, D u rim n a ('h ard w o m an ’), the w ife o f Fabellius,
torments her husband’s b est frien d , th e stu d en t F rigin n ius, by arousing his
passion for her an d th en d e n y in g h im a n y satisfaction. T h e cruelty o f the
plot clearly recalls Decameron 8 .7 , in w h ich a w idow causes a scholar in
love to spend a n igh t freezin g in th e snow ; b u t u n like A lberti, Boccaccio
has the scholar take reven ge. H is sch o lar lures the w idow one sum m er

*’ htu dolu s 19: iu v a b o a u t r t o u t o p e ra o u t ( u m ilio b o n o (TU help with resources or labor or good
counsel'). Alberti frequently uses the phrase ‘as they say' (w a iu n t) t o indicate a classical quotation.
 318 DAVID M A RSH

night to ascend a tower platform, where the next d a y she is revealed naked,
exposed to stinging insects and the scorch in g sun. But as in Hie
Deceased', Alberti has also used an ancient source, an episode in Lucian’s
Taxaris or 'On Friendship’.44 Lucian w as also an im portant influence on
other neo-Latin writers o f the sixteenth centu ry. H is paradoxical encomia
inspired Erasmus’ ‘ Praise o f Folly’ ; and the fantastic voyage o f his Trae
Stoty’ inspired Thomas M ore’s Utopia.45*
Although the ‘Dinner Pieces’ were m ostly dispersed until the 19605,
Alberti’s Quattrocento editor, Girolam o M assaini, regarded him as a modem
Apuleius for his diverting narratives.40 T o be sure, Boccaccio himself had
drawn upon the Metamorphoses in tw o tales o f his Decameron (5.10; 7.2)/'
But Alberti surpasses his Tuscan predecessor as an eclectic and idiosyncratic
author. As a voracious scholar, he draws on a vast range o f literary sources
and as a fluent stylist in both Latin and Italian, he commands a dazzling
variety’ of registers that blend lofty eloquence w ith earthy humor.

Piccolomini’sDe Duobus Amantibus Historia

andLatínProseStyle
The most important Latin tale o f the Q u a ttro ce n to , De duobus amantibus
historia (‘The Tale o f T w o Lovers’), was w ritten b y En ea Silvio Piccolo-
mini (1405-64), a Sienese humanist w h o w o rk ed at the council of Bard
and was later elected Pope Pius II.48 H e p urpo rtedly repons a love af&ir
that occurred in 14 32 -3, when Sigism und III, k in g o f Lom bardy, traveled
to Rome to be crowned H o ly R om an E m p ero r. W h ile in Vienna, Picco­
lomini sent the tale with a letter dated 3 J u l y 1 4 4 4 to his Sienese law
professor Mariano Sozzini; and in a second letter, addressed to the imperial
chancellor Kaspar Schlick ( 13 9 6 -14 4 9 ), P iccolo m in i hints that his tale isa
true account o f a love affair that Sch lick had w h ile attending the emperor
in Siena, which he calls the Civitas Veneris (‘ C it y o f V e n u s’ ). The author
also confesses that he has treated this low ly sub ject o n ly to com ply with the
wishes o f his patrons - a classical m odesty topos. T h e success o f this tale
was phenomenal. It was not only translated into G e rm an by Niklas von
Wyle, but stirred the interest o f French writers in com p o sin g novellas, and
even inspired Matteo Bandello.49 T h e first edition appeared in Cologne in

44 Marsh 1ft ) and Marsh 1998: 31—j.

4t Maob 1998:167-76 (Erasmus), 193-7 (More). See also Chapter 20 in this volume.
* On Massaini, tee Marsh and d’Alessandro 2008-9. 47 See n. 3 above.
* Piccolomini 2007: 311-45. 49 Pabst 1967: 49-54; Pirovano 2002; Marcozzi 2004:158-61.
 Shorter Prose Fiction 319
1468, and by 1600 had been tran slated in to Italian, French, German,
Spanish, Polish, H u n g arian an d E nglish.’®
The story is set in S ien a, th e n ative c ity o f the author and his dedicatee,
but its characters all b ear classical nam es that alert the reader to the
author’s erudition. T h e p lo t is sim p le. O n e o f the emperor’s retinue, a
Gemían nam ed E uryalus, falls in love w ith the Sienese housewife Lucretia,
who is married to th e w e alth y M en elau s. A lthough his German servant
Sosias tries to dissuade h im , E uryalus sends a letter to Lucretia by an old
bawd, which L ucretia tears up in a Ht o f passion. (W hen he writes more
letters, Euryalus asks Italian friends to help him w ith his Tuscan prose.)
Quattrocento au th o rs w ritin g L atin novellas had few prose models to
guide them. Som e w riters, lik e A lb erti, drew upon the colloquial speech of
the Roman com edians P lau tu s an d T eren ce. M eanw hile, the influence o f
Apuleius - whose Metamorphoses had supplied two Boccaccian plots -
began to m ake itself felt in th e 1440s, as Italian hum anists occasionally
imitated his m an nered prose.5* F or am atory' topics, Italian authors most
often had recourse to sn ip p ets o f classical L atin poetry, especially (although
not only) the elegists. H en c e, even th o u gh Piccolom ini describes the lovers
as communicating in th e v ern acu lar, his narrative is laced w ith allusions to
Latin poets - O vid, V irg il, a n d Sen eca - and cites instances o f classical
mythology that not every Sienese housew ife w ill have known.52 In particular,
he inserts echoes o f T eren ce’s com edies an d Seneca’s Phaedra, texts notable
for their dram atizadon o f am o ro us passion.53 Indeed, the exchange o f letters
between Euryalus an d L u cretia — there are ten in all - clearly evokes the
situation o f O vid’s Heroides, in w h ich w om en separated Horn their lovers
write verse episdes ab o u t th eir p ligh t. L ike A lberti expatiating on the power
of hunger, his co n tem p o rary cu rialist can n o t resist a purple passage on
the irresistible force o f love. B efore he sends his first letter to Lucretia,
Euryalus delivers this so lilo q u y, w h ich is filled w ith echoes o f O vid, Seneca
and Virgil:

Herculem dicunt, qui fuit fortissimus et certa deorum sobóles, pharetris et

leonis spolio positis, colum suscepisse passumque aptari digitis smaragdos et
dari legem rudibus capillis, et m anu, que clavam gestare solebat, properante
fuso duxisse fila. Naturalis est hec passio. Sentit ignes genus aligenum; nam
niger a viridi turtur am atur ave et variis albe iunguntur sepe columbe . . .

B See Piccolomini 1999. 51 O n the Renaissance fortune o f Apuleius, see Gaisscr 2008.
0 Pinaluga (989; Pirovano zooo.
9 Piccolomini 2007: J44-S: Van H eck 1994 records twenty-four echoes o f Tetence and twenty of
Seneca’s P h a e d ra
 JZO D AVID M ARSH

movet pro coniugio bella iumcntum, timidi cervi prelia poscunt et concepti
furoris dant signa mugientes, uruntur kircine tigres, vulnificus aper dentei
acuit, peni quatiunt terga leones. Cum movit amor, ardent insane Ponti
belve. Nihil immune est, nihil amori negatum.
The}' say that Hercules, che strongest o f men, and a clear descendant of the
gods, laid by his arrows and his lion-skin trophy, and cook up a disuif,
letting emeralds be fitted on his fingers, and law enforced on his rough
locks; and in chat hand, with which he but now bore the dub, he spun out
threads on the flying spindle. This passion is normal. The winged race feds
the flames: thus a dark turtledove is loved by a greener bird, and white
doves are often mated with colourful ones . . . the bull undertakes battle for
his mate, and timid stags challenge to war, and by their roaring give token
of their engendered passion. The tigers of Hircania burn; the boar whets his
death-dealing tusks and African lions shake their spines. When Love has
roused them, the crazed beasts of Pontus are ablaze. Nothing is safe from
love, and nothing denied it.54

At last, a tryst is arranged: Euryalus will disguise him self as a peasant

delivering grain. Before the plan is realized, the narrator indignantly decries
the daring o f lovers, whose bestiality is sym bolized in the metamorphoses
recounted by Ovid and Virgil.”
As in Boccaccio s tales based on Apuleius (.Decameron 5.10 and 7.2), the
cuckolded husband returns home suddenly, and Euryalus is nearly dis­
covered hiding in a closet. B ut the resourceful Lucretia cunningly knocks a
box o f legal documents out the w in d o w in order to distract her husband
and his steward. After the two have m ade love, E u ryalu s escapes. A second
assignation is planned when the husband is a w a y in the country, and the
lovers’ accomplice Sosias shrewdly confines his fellow-servant Dromo to
the kitchen. Once more, Menelaus returns unexpectedly; but Eutyalus
again escapes, and now enlists Pandalus to help h im reach Lucretia. After
the next cyst, they succeed in seeing each other several times, until
Euiyalus must depan for Rome with the em peror. A fte r another exchange
o f letters, Euiyalus departs; and returning to Sien a finds no way to
approach his love. Eventually he follows the em p eror back to Bohemia,
where he is given a young and noble bride.

M Piccolomini 1007: jtS; sources identified on p. 344.

" IbuL, JZ7: hoc a t, quod O vidius Metamorphoscos smk, duns fie r i ex hom inibus ata batios sentit sta
lapida osa piantai, hoc a poetarum exim ius M aro sensit, cum O rces am atores in terga feranm uni
cantavit, nam ita a t ex am oritfiam m a sie mens hom inis alien atu r, u t parum a bestiis difitrm . (This c
what Ovid in his Métamorphosa means when he writes that men become beasts or stones ot plants
and the excellent poet Virgil sensed this when he sang how G r c e ’s lovers were changed into beam,
for the Same of love so alters the human mind that it hardly differs from that o f beasts.’)
 Shorter Prose Fiction ill

Piccolomini’s popular fiction com bines a num ber o f genres, introducing

dations of Rom an elegiac p o etry in to essentially Boccaccian situations.
Yet unlike m any o f bis contem poraries he d id not compose any books of
poetry.5* As noted above, the lovers’ use o f learned episdes in the narrative
naturally relies on the trad itio n o f O vid’s Heroides, and seems to anticipate
the epistolary novel o f th e eigh teen th century.
As we have seen, tran slatio n s o f stories from Boccaccio continued iftto
the sixteenth century. Y et there w as another current o f fiction that grew
out of Quattrocento L atin prose narratives. B uilding on his experience
with Latin novellas, Leon B attista A lb erti composed a Latin novel in four
books titled Momus (r. 145°) • Th« protagonist is the Greek god o f mockery
whose earthly and h eavenly adventures - like those in several of Alberti’s
'Dinner Pieces’ - are in deb ted to the G reek satirist Lucian. This much
longer work is discussed in the next chapter.
Building on the recent proliferation o f studies in the held, the present
essay has traced the h isto ry o f neo-Latin short fiction in the Italian
Renaissance. T o be sure, m an y o f the novellas described above constitute
isolated exercises in L atin prose th at have only recendy been exhumed
from manuscript sources an d ed ited in learned journals. T hey interest the
contemporary reader p rim arily as illustratio n s o f the hum anist reception of
Boccaccio and the novella trad itio n . B y contrast, original composidons like
Pkcolomini’s Historia de duobus amantibus and Alberti’s Intercenales and
Mcmus played an essential role in the transition from medieval fabliaux
andfacetiae to the rise o f th e E uropean novel.

F U R T H E R READING
Riley 1015 discusses Latin fiction as a whole (both longer and shorter forms), while
Tunberg 1014 concentrates on the novel. The survey by Di Francia 1924-5, while
dated, offris much useful information. For classical Latin fiction, see Hofmann
1999. Marcozzi 2004 provides a rich bibliography of Quattrocento novellas. On
vernacular novellas, see Pabst 1967 and Auerbach 1971. On Piccolomini’s popular
Historia, see Pirovano 2000 and 2002, and the edition in Piccolomini 2007.

* On humanist poetry, see Marsh 2015.

 CHAPTER 19

Longer Prose Fiction

Stefan Tilg

Introduction
The longer Latin prose fiction o f the early m odern period is a compara­
tively neglected field. There are very few m odern editions o f texts, we do
not have a single larger study o f the genre, and w e even lack a more or less
complete list o f relevant tides.1 W e k now about tw en ty to thirty essential
texts, although this figure could be considerably increased if we added
related texts from prose satire, historiography, biography and similar genres
which include fictional elements. L o n g er neo -Latin prose fiction runs as a
trickle until c. 1600, then quickly swells to a torrent in the first half of the
seventeenth century, is reduced to a stream in its second half and dries up
in the eighteenth century (with tw o very notable exceptions). A hill
account o f this development over tim e w o u ld be com plex, but the hug;
influence o f the Latin novels o f Jo h n Barclay, w h o was writing at the
beginning o f the seventeenth century, and the heightened interest in
current affairs - often a point o f reference fbr longer prose fiction - during
the period o f the Thirty Years’ W a r ( 16 18 -4 8 ) can be singled out as the two
most imponant factors.
In this chapter I offer a prelim inary outline o f the field by discussing
what I see as the major and m inor strands. I use the terms ‘ longer prose
fiction’ and ‘novel’ synonym ously, as is usual, for instance, in Classics,
but not in English literature (where ‘ n o vel’ tends to be restricted to 2
certain type o f realistic prose fiction em ergin g in the eighteenth cen­
tury). I first discuss the m ajor strands o f the satirical novel, the romantic
novel and the utopian novel ind ividually, a n d then add a summary
account o f minor strands. I con clude w ith a general consideration of the
link between neo-Latin longer prose fiction an d reality, and of its
literary techniques.

1 IJsewijn and Saetí 1998:25S.

322
 Longer Prose Fiction 3*3

M ajor Strands

Few authors can claim to have shaped even a single literary tradition. John
Barclay (15 8 1-16 x 1), Scottish b y birth and French by education, shaped
two, the satirical and the rom antic novel à clef. T h e third major strand o f
longer neo-Latin fiction is utopian and can easily be traced back to
Thomas More’s ( 14 7 8 -15 3 5 ) seminal Utopia o f 1516.

Major Strand A : The Satirical Novel

The satirical novel is the o n ly strand which was to some extent considered
in early modern literary theory; not as novel, however, but as Menippean
satire, a genre characterized b y its prosimetric form and satirical outlook.1 *
Historical and modern approaches conflict here because there were two
traditions o f M enippean satire (which are sometimes combined), one less,
the other more narrative, w ith the more narrative tradition overlapping
with the modern idea o f the novel. I. de Smet describes these two
traditions as ‘Varronian’ and ‘ Petronian’ .* T h is distinction refers respect­
ively to Varro ( 1 1 6 - 2 7 b c e ), the R om an pioneer o f Menippean satire, and
Petronius.4 T h e Varronian tradition tends to be static, non-narrative and
focused on a single event such as Em peror Claudius’ trial in the afterlife
in Seneca’s Apocolocyntosis (the only fully extant Roman example of
Menippean satire). T h e Petronian tradition is more dynamic, narrative
and episodic. In this chapter, 1 consider only the Petronian tradition.
The founding w o rk o f the neo-Latin Petronian tradition is John
Barclay’s Euphormionis Lusinini satyricon (‘ Euphormio o f Lusinia’s
Satyricon’), published in tw o parts in 1605 and 16 0 7 .5 During this period,
Barclay was preparing his m ove from France to the English court of
James I - the first part o f the Euphormio is dedicated to James, and the
second pan ends w ith the hero’s journey to England, presented as an ideal
state under an ideal ruler. B arclay’s o w n arrival in London inaugurated his
European career as a highly respected and versatile diplomat - some years

1 See generally IJsewijn 1999, and for a fuller discussion o f Menippean satire. Chapter lo in this
volume.
’ De Smet 1996: esp. 60-8.
* Both Varro's and Petronius* works are extant only in fragments, with the Satyrica transmitted in
mote substantial parts than Varro’s Menippean satires. Note, however, that the most extended and
coherent pan of the Satyrica, the Cena Trim alcbtonis. was published only in 1664.
1 Edition and English translation by Fleming 1973. M y translations normally follow the English
translations indicated in the footnotes (where applicable: sometimes with minor adaptations).
 3*4 S T E FA N T I L G

later he entered the service o f Pope Paul V in R o m e and sought the favour
of the French king Louis X III. H is political celebrity across Europe
also aided the success o f his fiction, which reflected his diplomatic experi­
ence and introduced a new way o f dealing w ith current affairs in literature.
In feet, the publication history o f the Euphormio demonstrates that his
work was also read as a kind o f ‘Barclay rom ance’ : the author’s apology for
any satiric wrongdoings in his Apologia Euphormionis pro se (‘Euphormio'j
Apology for Himself, 1610) was published as p a n three o f the Euphormio,
and his Icon animorum (‘ Image o f [different] M in d s’ , 16 14), a completely
unrelated account o f European national characters, w as printed as pan
four. Later continuations o f the Euphormio b y C la u d e Barthélemy Morisot
(1614, published as part five) and G abriel B u gn o t (16 7 4 , published as
pan six) prove its enormous success, as does the plethora o f editions
and translations (around fifty o f them) produced before the end of the
eighteenth century.
The basic idea o f the Euphormio is expressed in its first sentences, often
imitated in later satirical novels:

Si nomen a me quaeris, Euphormio sum; si patriam, Lusinia est, ubi nullae

unquam nubes caelum asperant, nulla bruma segetes extinguit, nulli aestus
adurunt [...] Non illic in honore supellex curiosa, non gemmae, non
imperium, non opes, non ea omnia quibus impotens hominum libido
pretium fecit [...] Illinc ego devolutus in hunc terrarum orbem, 0 dolor,
quae non vidi, quae non passus sum indigna!

If you want to know my name, it is Euphormio. M y country? Lusinia-a

place where douds never trouble the heavens, where winter’s blasts neta
freeze the crops, summer’s heat never sets them aflame [ . .. ] Here no o k
worships fency furniture, jewels, power, wealth, or any o f those things on
which the sterile lust o f men sets a high price [ . . . ] W hen from this place
I came down to the present world - O misery! W hat did I not see, what
shameful things not suffer!

The Euphormio is a reversed utopia, in which the naive protagonist come

from his perfect (and imaginary) country ‘Lusinia’ to contemporaiy
Europe with its rotten characters and institutions. The culture shock is
inevitable. At the beginning of the fust part, Euphormio does not bow
that eating and drinking in Europe costs money and runs up debt.
A nobleman who pretends to be his friend pays for him and makes him
his servant (later Euphormio escapes). The remainder of che fitst pan
consists of a loose string of adventures, dealing with magic, erotic affairs,
conflicts with the Jesuits (one of Barclay’s favourite targets), and visio to
courts and a number of countries. All this gives Euphormio plenty of
 Longer Prose Fiction 325

opportunity to learn an d lam ent the vanity and vices o f the world. In a
pessimistic ending w e see h im in Paris, w here he bum ps into one o f his
master's men and is forced to flee o n ce again. T h e second p an has longer
episodes and is m ore coherent, w ith fewer satirical targets - the Jesuits, the
French court and the p a p a cy - an d a h ap p y ending in Euphorm io’s final
journey to England.
The most im portant characteristic w h ich m ade this simple story a sensa­
tion and proved im m en sely influential for the firnher development o f
seventeenth-century prose fiction is its sophisticated allegory as a roman-à-
dtf. In my brief su m m ary abo ve I h ave already resolved the allegory, but in
ha all names in the Euphormio are fictional, and the extent to which they
represent specific individuals an d institutions varies from case to case. T h e
author has made it easy in so m e cases: the Jesuits are represented by the
character Acignius, an anagram o f their founder Ignatius (o f Loyola; here in
the variant spelling Ignaciu s); B ritain is called Scolim orrhodia, from the
Greek words for ‘ thistle’ (skolumos) an d ‘ rose’ ( rhodon), referring to the
emblems o f Scotland and E n g la n d respectively; its king is known as Tessar-
anactus, the ‘ four-fold m aster’ (from tessara, ‘ four’ , and anax, ‘ master*),
alluding to Jam es’ tide as k in g o f E n glan d , Sco dan d, Ireland and France.
Some characters, like the n o b lem an C a llio n , Eu ph o rm io ’s master in the first
part, were probably m eant to designate types rather than certain individuals.
| Other characters are an elusive co m p o site o f f e a and ficrion, o r perhaps
meant something o n ly to B a rcla y ’s in n er circle. Eu ph orm io himself, despite
obvious autobiographical to u ch es, is no t sim p ly Barclay bu t a com plex
narrator who matures o v e r rim e an d co m es to m o ck his younger self. T h is
dense and subde m ix o f persona, fact and fiction fascinated Barclay’s
contemporaries and m ad e h im n o th in g less than the founder o f the
following tradition o f nm ans-à-clef, a w ild ly popu lar fictional m ode in the
seventeenth century, w ith con siderab le success beyon d that period.6
Although Barclay h im se lf w as careful enough to avoid explicit identifi­
cations, his editors soon attach ed keys to the w o rk , w h ich gave helpful but
also oversimplified corresp onden ces betw een fictional and historical char-
I aaers. Such formal keys b eca m e a hallm ark o f the reception o f the genre.
Further significant exam p les in clu d e the Gaeomemphionis Cantaliensis
vofñcon (‘G aeo m em p h io o f C a n ta l’s Sa tyrico n ’ , 16 28) b y French classicist
François Guyet, a d o se im itatio n o f B arcla y ’s Euphormio, but m ore moral­
izing and pessimistic;7 the Satyricon in corruptae iuventutis mores corruptos
fSatyricon against the C o r r u p te d M o ra ls o f the C o rru p te d Y o u n g ’ , 1631)

' See eg- R&ch 1004. 7 Edition by Desjardins 1972a; French translation by Desjardins 1972b.
 32Ä S T E FA N T I L G

by Leiden professor Jan Bodecher Benningh, an attack upon the profligate

life o f Leiden students;8 or James H u m e ’s Pantaleonis vaticinia satyra
(‘Pantaleon’s Prophetic Satire’ , 1633), a relatively short story about the
travels and adventures o f a lecherous yo un g stranger.9
None of Barclay’s seventeenth-century followers in Latin satirical prose
fiction was as successful, and hardly any as skilled in creating a lively and
intriguing narrative, but the genre was appreciated by the learned because
of its contemporary relevance (as opposed to sentimental romance) and its
display of classical erudition. T h e latter characteristic is not always to the
modem taste. The Latin is sometimes recherché to the point o f obscurity,
and the narrative voice is quick to insert a classical reminiscence, theoret­
ical discourse, or quotation o f poetry in a m arkedly artificial fashion. The
fabric of fiction remains loose. Com pare, for instance, how Euphormio
bursts out into hexameters when entrusting h im self to the Jesuit school
at the beginning o f part two:

Acignius [...] me ad infimi ordinis scholasticum manu duxit, et in audi­

torum numerum redegit:

0pater, Aoniae moderator maxime turbae.

Qui Xanthum Lyciamque colis, Delonque vagantem,
Et Claron, et Delphisfamam vocalibus addis:
Dafaciles vultus, meque ad tua limina deduc.

Acignius [...] led me by the hand to the master o f the lowest form and
consigned me among his listeners:

0father, greatest leader ofthe Aonian flock,

You, who dwell the Xanthus, Lycia, wandering Delos
And Claros, and who bring sonorous Delphifame:
Grant me a mild countenance and lead me toyour threshold.

The resulting impression is often that o f a stilted and openly moralizing

Petronius.10 But the contribution o f the genre to the further development
of prose fiction is important, and it was always open to creative innovation:
Ludvig Holberg’s brilliant Iter subterreaneum o f 1 7 4 1 , for instance, which
1 discuss below, may be seen as com bining elements o f the satirical and the
utopian novel.

1 See De Smet woo.

' A hypertext edition and an English translation o f this rare work has recently been posted by
M Riley at www.philologicaLbham.ac.uk/hume/.
10 Cf. Grafton 1950 on how Petronius himself came to be read this way by the writers of satirical
novels.
 Longer Prose Fiction 327

M ajor Strand B : The Romantic Novel

It was Barclay h im self w h o adapted th e allegorical and historical tech­

niques o f the Euphormio to create another successful strand o f longer
Latin prose fiction, the ro m an tic novel. W ith his Argenis (16 21),11 Barclay
managed to elevate and en n ob le the rom ance genre, and he points out
from the beginning that his w a y o f w ritin g romance will be new, that is
historical and political. H is d ed icatio n to the French king, Louis X III,
begins with the phrase Novo isti generi scriptionis ...utfaveas (‘ I hope you
cherish this new genre o f literature’), and the following preview o f the
content highlights the political dim en sio n o f the story and its character as
mirror for princes. A m o n g o th er th in gs, Lo u is is alerted explicidy to the
similarity between h im se lf an d his ‘ cou n trym an ’ Poliarchus, the hero o f
the story.
On the face o f it, the p lo t o f the Argenis is a romantic novel o f love and
adventure, set in a vague past o f the M editerranean before Roman rule.
The story unfolds in m a n y tw ists an d turns over five books. T h e scene is
set in medias res b y the arrival o f the y o u n g African gallant Archombrotus
on the shores o f S id ly , w h ere he meets Poliarchus, a young man later
revealed to be from Fran ce. Poliarchus loves the beautiful Argenis, the
daughter o f the Sicilian k in g M elean d er, bu t is forced to flee to Mauritania
after he loses the favour o f the king. A fte r a complex sequence o f plots,
rebellions, battles and rival suitors for Argenis, the pair are finally reunited
and allowed to marry.
Beneath this basic rom ance plot is concealed a com plex historical and
political allegory w h ich denies sim ple correspondences, here even more so
than in the Euphormio (although keys appended to editions o f the Argenis
soon oversimplified the m atter in the sam e w ay). O n one level, the story
represents the religious a n d political conflicts in France ( - Sicily) under
Henry III ( - M eleander) as well as the rise o f the Bourbons under
Henry IV Poliarchus) - this is w h y the attention o f the dedicatee,
Louis XIII, H enry IW s son, is d ra w n to his similarity w ith Poliarchus. But
Meleander and Poliarchus are far from accurate historical depictions o f
Henry III and H en ry I V ; th ey are just as m uch ‘ types’ , representing certain
kinds of rulers and the p ro b lem s th ey face, and there is a good deal o f pure
fiction in them. T h e sam e holds true for Lycogenes, a Sicilian nobleman
who leads a revolt, an d w h o m a y be identified w ith the duc de Guise, the
leader o f the C ath olic league an d o p p o n en t o f H e n ry III, but who also

" Edition and English translation in Riley and Pritchard Huber 2004.
 3*8 STEFAN T ILG

represents all rebellious noblemen; o r for Q u e e n H y a n isb e o f Mauritania

and King Radirobanes o f Sardinia, w h o b ea r so m e traits o f Queen
Elizabeth I o f England and Philip II o f S p a in (R adiro ban es’ attack on
Mauritania reflects the attack o f the Sp an ish arm ad a o n England in 1588),
although this is never made explicit and the a n a lo g y can n o t be taken too
far. Argenis herself is not inspired b y a n y historical person at all. It has
been persuasively argued that her n am e is an a n agram o f the Latin word
regina (‘queen*) with an -s added to m ake it loo k like a G reek ending in
-is, suggesting both the name o f a girl (such as P h yllis o r Lycoris) and the
tide o f an epic work (such as Aeneis o r Thebais).'1 A rgen is, then, stands
for royal power as such, and w h oever m arries h er w ill rule - one might
compare the allegorical figure o f M aria n n e , th e nation al em blem o f post-
revolutionary France.
The similarities in allegorical tech nique w ith th e Euphormio are obvious,
but there are also significant points o f in n o va tio n . Argenis - like all subse­
quent Latin romantic novels - has a th ird -p erso n narrator and the lack of a
first-person satirical voice creates a tighter fiction al fabric. T h is greater
coherence can also be related to classical m o d els: w h ile the satirical novel
looks to Petronius’ highly episodic first-person n arrative o f the Satyrica, the
romantic novel follows the more coherent th ird -p erso n stories o f the Greek
love novels, especially Heliodorus’ Aethiopica, first edited in 15 3 4 and readin
numerous translations ever since. T h e form o f th e Argenis and later Latin
romance is still prosimetric and there are still th eoretical discourses insened
in the plot - for instance at 4 .18 , w h ere w e find a discussion between
Poliarchus and Queen Hyanisbe ab o u t the need to ask parliam ent to lev)'
taxes (a clear allusion to a peculiarity o f th e E n g lish parliam entary mon­
archy). But both verse passages an d th eoretical discourses are grounded
firmly in the stoty, for example w h en verse is read o u t b y a character (instead
o f coming from a satirical voice w h ich is as it w e re ‘ ofF-cam era’).
The Argenis remains erudite and disp lays its classical learning, but less
obtrusively so than the Euphormio, an d its L a tin ity , m o delled particularly
on Livy,*3 is more standard. A ll this shifts fo c u s o n to th e story, raising
its interest and verisimilitude. In fact, B a rcla y d e p lo y s the w h o le repertoire
o f narrative devices to absorb the reader, sta rtin g fro m the beginning
in medias rer.

Nondum orbis adoraverat Rom am , nondum O ceanus decesserat Tibri,

cum ad oram [ ...] ingentis speciei iuvenem peregrina navis exposuit [.. .1

IJjcwljn 1983: 7-8. ** Riley and Pritchard Huber 1004: 42.

 Longer Prose Fiction 329

insuetus navigii malis procubuerat in arenam quaerebatque circumactum

pelagi erroribus caput sopore componere, cum acutissimus clamor, primum
quiescentis mentem implacida imagine confundens, mox propius advolutus
somni otium horrore submovit.

The world had not as yet bowed to the Roman sceptre, nor the wide ocean
stooped to the Tiber, w hen a young man o f excellent feature was landed
[.,.] by a foreign ship [ . . . ] N o t accustomed to the sea’s tyranny, he lay
down on the shore, desiring to refresh his weather-beaten head by sleep,
when a shrill noise first disturbed his restful mind with unquiet fancies, and
dien, as it approached, quite broke o ff his sleep with horror.

Tension builds further w h e n th e stran ger sees a dam sel in distress running
out of the woods and w itn esses a figh t b etw een Poliarchus and a num ber o f
villains. As in H elio d o ru s (w h o p ro v id e d the m odel for the beginning w ith a
mysterious scene on the seashore) o r in m o d em detective fiction, the
identity o f the characters a n d th e m e a n in g o f the plot is only gradually
unveiled - the full circ u m sta n c e s o f this stranger, Archom brotus, are
revealed only in the last b o o k o f the Argents. Further narrative devices to
keep readers on their toes in c lu d e inserted tales, flashbacks and recognitions.
Incombination w ith th e h isto rical a llego ry, B arclay thus created a new kind
of historical fiction, w h ic h h e allo w s o n e o f his o w n characters to describe.
Nicopompus, a poet at M e le a n d e r’ s Sicilian cou rt, describes Barclay’ s own
poetics when he talks a b o u t th e ‘sta te ly fable in the m anner o f a history’
which he is going to w rite ( 2 .1 4 .5 , Grandem fabulam historiae instar ornabo).
The success o f this fo rm u la w a s p h en o m en al. W ith more than a
hundred editions a n d tra n slatio n s in to m o re than a dozen languages, the
Argnis was one o f the a b so lu te bestsellers o f the early m o dem period.14
It even prompted three seq u els b y o th e r authors. T h e last o f these, Gabriel
Bugnot’s Latin Archombrotus et Theopompus o f 16 6 9 , updated the political
allegory for the tim e o f L o u is X I V a n d the dauph in. T h e Argenis was
erudite enough to ap peal to th e learn ed, b u t it w as also the first romance
that politicians an d co u rtiers c o u ld read w ith o u t feeling guilty. It became
mandatory reading fo r the e le ga n t statesm an , and its success am on g this
group is perhaps best illu strated b y th e anecdote that C ardinal Richelieu
consulted the Argenis c o n sta n tly as a h a n d b o o k o f statesm anship and that
it thus contributed to th e rise o f F ra n ce as the d o m in an t European
superpower in the sev en tee n th c e n tu r y .15

14 SeeSchmid 1904; j-u 8 for a detailed description o f all editions and translations; for a summary see
Riley and Pritchard Huber 2004; 51-8.
The origin o f this anecdote is the L ife o f Barclay appended to Gabriel Bugnot's 1659 edition o f the
Aigtnit (page 4 o f the unpaged Life).
 330 STEFAN TILG

But as an exciting romance the Argents appealed equally to a less political

and less learned readership, and this possibility o f dual reception remained
a characteristic o f the genre. T h e next large-scale example was Claude
Barthélemy Morisot’s Peruviana (‘ Peruvian S to ry ’ , 16 4 4 /3), which deals
with recent French history, starring H e n ry I V and his wife Marie de
Médicis as well as their sons, L o u is X III and Gaston d’Orléans
(the dedicatee o f the w ork).16 T h e intricate sto ry in five books employs
Peruvian names in a fashionable Peruvian In ca setting to stand for the
French royal family. In this case, the allegory is doubled b y the addition of
a conclusion, in which the story is further explained as a metaphor for the
alchemical quest for the philosopher’s stone (personified in Louis XIV).17
Another major example is A n to n W ilh elm E rtl’s Austriana Regina Arabi#
(‘Austriana, Queen o f Arabia’ , 16 8 7 ), a sort o f H ab sb u rg reaction against
French dominance in the fictional propaganda wars o f the seventeenth
century, published (not coincidentally) soon after the defeat o f the French-
supported Turks in the Baule o f V ie n n a in 16 8 3 .18 T h e last significant neo-
Latin romance - and indeed the last m ajor n eo -Latin novel o f any kind- is
the Argonautica (‘Stories o f the A rgo n au ts’ , 17 7 8 ) b y the Hungarian
member o f the Piarist order A ndrás D u g o n ic s.'9 T h is work is a very free
adaptation o f the myth o f the Argonauts and th e love o f Jason and Medea,
which here ends at the m om ent o f Ja so n ’s trium phal conquest of the
Golden Fleece. In the subde allegory o f th e story, the conflicts
between Colchians and Scythians seem to r e fle a tensions between the
ruling Habsburg dynasty and the H u n garian nobility, with Medea and
the Fleece representing political pow er. T o understand the late date of the
Argonautica one has to consider that H u n garian literature at the time was
bilingual, just as was W estern Eu rop ean literature in m uch o f the seven­
teenth century. In fà a , the Latin Argonautica w as o n e o f the first ‘serious’
and learned novels in H ungary, and it m ad e an im portant contribution to
the development o f Hungarian prose fiction.

Major Strand C: The Utopian Novel

The utopian strand o f longer neo-Latin prose f ia io n begins with Thomas
More’s celebrated Utopia o f 15 16 .10 T h is w o rk lent the whole genre its*

* The influential French lawyer, Morisot (1592-1661), is another key figure in the tecepdoa of
Barclay's novels; apart from the Peruviana, he also wrote the first continuation of the Evfbenm
(see above).
17 Maillard 1978. 11 Tilg 2012. '9 T ilg 2013.
“ Edition and English translation in S u m and Heater 1965. See also Chapter 17 o f this volume.
 Longer Prose Fiction 331

name, derived from G reek ou (‘ no t’) and topos (‘place’) - hence ‘ nowhere-
land’. Inspired b y Plato’s Republic and imitating both its dialogue setting
and its focus on political theory, the Utopia m ay be called a philosophical
and political dialogue rather than a novel. Nonetheless, its basic idea of
reporting a fictional jo urn ey to a hitherto unknown, imaginary island state
(here playfully nam ed U to p ia) lies at the heart o f later utopian literature.11
There is little plot in this and similar works, but detailed descriptions of
the people, custom s and institutions o f the newly discovered land which
are in stark contrast to norm al European conditions at the time - Utopia,
for example, seems like a large com m une in which people do not have
individual property and prom ote national statehood throughout. The best-
known such neo-Latin U to p ias after M o re are Tom m aso Campanella’s
Civitas Solis (‘T h e C it y o f the S u n ’ , written in 160 2 in Italian, translated
into Latin by the author h im self 1 6 1 2 - 2 0 , and edited in this version 1623)
and Francis Bacon’s fragm ent Nova Atlantis (‘N e w Atlantis’, written in
1(24 in English, soon translated into Latin by the author himself and
edited in this version in 16 2 7 ) . A d d to this imponant, but less-known,
representatives like C a sp a r Stiblinus’ De república Eudaêmonensium
('On die Republic o f the P eople o f Eudaem on’ , 1555), Johann Valenun
Andreae’sChristianopolis (‘T h e C h ristian C ity ’ , 1616) or Antoine Legrand’s
Sytdromedia (16 6 9; the tide refers to the name o f the utopian country
described, derived from its king, Scydrom edus). All these and other
examples are prose fiction in that they talk about fictional journeys and
countries. But their lack o f plot and their emphasis on polines, society and
institurions make them a rather abstract kind o f fiction, between literature
and theory. For this reason th ey receive but summary discussion in
the present chapter. U to p ian fiction in a more concrete sense only comes
into being when it m ixes w ith the strands o f the satirical and the romande
novel discussed above.
The best exam ple o f rom antic utopian fiction is the Nova Solyma
fNew Jerusalem’ , 16 4 8 ), w ritten b y the English lawyer and politician
Samuel G ott.11 Inspired b y m illenarian beliefs about the eventual conver­
sion of the Jew s to C h ristia n ity, G o t t ’s setting is a Christian city built on
the site o f old Jerusalem . H is heroes are tw o students from Cambridge,
who visit N e w Jerusalem an d are involved in an elaborate plot o f sut books,
packed with descriptions o f local custom s, romantic affairs and discussions

” Generally on neo-Latin Utopias see Kytzler 1981 and. very briefly, IJsewijn and Sacri 1998: IH-4.
Seeesp. Patrick 1977 and M onish lo o j; an English tramUrion can be (bund in Begley 190a - note
* * B*iky’i attribution o f the N ova Sofym a to John Milton hat long been obsolete.
 STEFAN T ILG

about education, philosophy, theology an d o th er subjects. Although Gott's

overarching purpose is educational and m oralizing, he unabashedly uses an
exciting and colourful narrative to drive h o m e his message.
As far as the satirical novel is con cern ed, there is a general parallel with the
Utopias in the presence o f a first-person narrator w h o visits a strange world
and reports what he has seen there. W h ile this w o rld is normally an ideal
world in the Utopias, Joseph H a ll’s satirical i f alm ost plodess Mundus alterit
idem (1605) illustrates h o w easily the form can b e turned into a dystopia -
the normal setting o f satirical novels. A n exam p le o f a fully fledged satirical
utopian novel is G ian V itto rio R ossi’s Eudemia o f 16 3 7 .13 Its pseudo-
historical scene is set b y tw o conspirators against the Roman emperor
Tiberius, who have to flee from R o m e a n d are driven b y storms to an
unexplored island called Eu dem ia ('th e lan d o f th e good people’) off the
Mauritanian cost. T h e y are received b y fello w R o m an s w h o had previously
come to this island and established their o w n so ciety, fro m which - in actual
fact - we learn m uch about characters a n d cu sto m s in the Barberinian Rome
o f Rossi’s own day. B y involving his heroes in th e discussions and activities
o f the Eudemians, Rossi presents us w ith a fiction al a n d humorous mirror of
his own life as a humanist and friend o f th e R o m a n elites.
Th e most accom plished an d en jo ya b le n e o -L a tin combination of
utopian and satirical elem ents, h o w e ve r, is th e Nicolai Klimii iter sub­
terraneum (‘N iels K lim ’s U n d e rg ro u n d T r a v e ls ’ , 1 7 4 1 ) , penned by the
father o f Danish and N o rw eg ian literature, L u d v ig H o lberg.*4 The hero
o f this novel is a bored recent grad uate, N ie ls K lim , w h o explores a ave
near Bergen, falls into it and finds h im s e lf in a strange subterranean
world - H olberg here exploits th e vario u s H o llo w E arth theories dis­
cussed in contemporaneous scien ce.*5 It tu rn s o u t th at the inside of the
earth is inhabited b y a nu m b er o f p e o p les, so m e utopian, some dysto­
pian. M uch o f the satire is based o n th e fact th at eith er Klim himself or
the societies he visits are o u t o f to u ch w ith th e enligh tened ideas which
Holberg himself propagated. K lim first arrives at a planet inhabited by
walking and speaking trees w h o m o ve a n d th in k slo w ly but all the more
wisely and considerately. T h e ir e n ligh ten ed m o n a rc h y is characterized by
ideals like gender equality, tolerance a n d freed o m o f ideas - a stark
contrast to H olberg’s ow n experiences u n d e r th e repressive regime of

15 There is no modem edition and no translation; for some helpful remarks see IJsewijn 1999.
u Edition o f Latin text (with Danish translation and notes) by K ngelund 1970; for an English
translation see McNelis 2004; for studies e.g. Jones 1980, Peten 1986 and Skovgaard-Petecsen
1015.
11 E g. Standisti 2006.
 Longer Prose Fiction 333

the pietist king C h ristia n V I o f D e n m a rk and N orw ay. Elsewhere, Klim

encounters a land o f apes w h o act and speak like humans and are the
exact opposite o f the trees: ru sh ed, vain and easily impressed by fads. T o
advance in their esteem , K lim at o n e point introduces them - and in
particular their ‘ sy n d icu s’ , a term used for what we might cäll the
president o f the senate - to the Eu ro p ean fashion o f wearing periwigs.
This passage is w o rth q u o tin g because it illustrates Holberg’s lively
narrative, his talent for situ atio n co m e d y and his inventiveness in lan­
guage. Here he in tro d u ces a n e w w o rd into Latin (perucca, ‘ periwig’ ,
from the French perruque) a n d is called b y the name the apes have given
him in their lan guage, K a k id o ran , translated earlier in the novel as
‘stupid’ and ‘ lethargic’ - after all, K lim seems sluggish to the glib apes.
None o f this is o b scu re, h o w e v e r, an d although there is a good deal of
classical learning in the n o vel, it can be read easily without understanding
every allusion ( 1 0 .3 5 - 6 ) :

Comparatis igitur lanis caprinis effinxi peruccam, capiti meo convenien­

tem, ac ita ornatus, Syndico me sistebam. Obstupescens ille ad novum et
insolitum phaenomenon, quid rei esset, rogat, moxque capiti meo ademp­
tam, suo imponit, ad speculum properans, ut se ipsum eo ornatu intuer­
etur. Tantum sibi ipsi tunc, cum novo isto capitis tegmento, placuit, ut
prae gaudio alte exclamaverit: Diis proximus sum! Coniugem suam mox
arcessivit, ut gaudii sui participem faceret. Illa non minori laetitia exsul­
ans, maritum amplexa, testatur, nil lepidum magis, ac gratum oculis suis
fuisse, cui sententiae tota etiam familia suffragatur. Tunc ad me conversus
Syndicus: ‘Si istud tuum com m entum ’, inquit, ‘0 Kakidoran! Senatui
aeque arriserit ac nobis, sum m os in nostra re publica honores tibi polliceri
poteris.’

I procured some goat’s hair, and made a periwig fitted to my own head,
and thus adorned, I appeared before the president. Startled at so new and
unusual an appearance, he asked me what it was, and immediately
snatching it from m y head he put it upon his own and ran to the glass
to survey himself. H e was so pleased to see himself in that novel headgear
that he burst into an ecstasy o f pleasure, crying ‘I'm god-like’ and
forthwith sent for his wife to join with him in his joy. Her wonder was
equal to his, and em bracing her husband, she vowed she never saw
anything so charming, and the whole family was o f the same opinion.
The president then turning towards me ‘M y dear Kakidoran’ says he ‘if
this invention o f yours should take with the senate as it does with me, you
may promise yourself everything in our state.’

The Itersubterraneum w as an im m ediate success. B y the end o f the eighteenth

century about thirty editions an d translations (into French, German, Dutch,
 334
STEFAN TILG

English, Swedish, Russian, Hungarian and N o rw egian ) had been produced,

and it gave the infant genre o f fiction in D anish and Norwegian (which was
very much the same language at that time) a significant boost. The choice of
Latin at a comparatively late date is best explained b y the European audience
that Holberg had in m in d he could not have hoped for a similar circulation if
he had written in Danish. Furthermore, there was no respectable tradition of
Danish fiction up to that point - in this regard one m ay compare Dugonics
choice o f Latin in the H ungary o f the 17 7 0 s . T h e reasons for Holbergs
success are obvious. H is uropian/dystopian discussion o f enlightened ideas
reflected the Zeitgeist (compare, for instance, S w ift’s Gulliver's Travelsof 1726,
one of Holberg’s avowed models), and his style is w itty and engaging.
Moreover, Holberg is one o f the most im aginative neo-Latin prose writers,
and he can righdy be called a classic author o f fantasy and science fiction:
although any direct influence is unclear, his walking and speaking
trees anticipate Tolkien’s Ents; his hum an-like society o f apes Pierre Boulle’s
Planet of the Apes. M ore narrowly speaking, H o lb e rg pioneers the soon-to-
flourish genre o f subterranean fiction, o f w h ich Ju les V erne’s Journey totht
Centre ofthe Earth (1864) is just one fam ous exam ple.16 F o r all these reasons,
the dual reception - both learned and popular — discussed above under the
romantic novels, worked also for the satirical and utopian Iter subterraneum.
Its Danish translation made it alm ost a folk tale in Denm ark and Norway,
and the Danish Broadcasting Corporation even adapted it as a three-pan TV
mini-series in 1984 (Niels Klims underjordiske rejse).

Minor Strands and Exam ples o f T h e ir O w n Kind

The above discussion should not lead us to believe that longer neo-Latin
prose fiction can be fully accounted for b y three m ajor strands and their
combinations. There are quite a few exam ples that do not fall into any of
the categories presented so far, o r do so o n ly partially. First o f all, there are
a number o f works in the tradition o f the sm aller, no t always plot-centred,
fantastic fiction o f Lucian (2n d centu ry c e ) . L u c ia n ’s satirical dialogues,
especially their mockery o f classical m y th o lo g y in w orks like the Dialogua
of the Gods, are the single most im portant inspiration for Leon Battista
Alberti’s Momus, written in 1 4 4 3 - 5 0 an d first p rin ted in 152o.*7 The main

14 Standisti 2006.
17 Edition and English translation by Knight and Brown 2003; generally for Lucian’s influence on neo-
Latin writers, esp. o f the early Renaissance see Marsh 1998 (with remarks on M rnui at vaimi
places).
 Longer Prose Fiction îîî
characters o f this w o rk arc the O lym p ian gods; its story is driven by the
arch-critic, M o m u s, the personified god o f blame, who travels to and fro
from heaven to earth and exposes the follies o f divine and human life.
Although taking his cue from Lu cian, the long and twisted plot o f Alberti’s
four books transcends short fiction and can be called the first neo-Latin
(fantasy) novel, even though it remained an isolated experiment at its time.
Perhaps, however, Momus and its rogue main character served as a model -
through a Spanish translation b y Agustín de Almazán {El Momo, 1553,
reprinted 1598) - for the tradition o f the Spanish picaresque novel started
with the anonym ous Lazarillo de Tomes (1554) and Mateo Alemán’s
Guzman de Alfarache (139 9 ). L u cia n ’s lasting influence on both short and
long Latin prose fiction - especially o f the fantastic and utopian varieties -
is farther suggested b y L u d v ig H olberg’s Iter subterraneum, discussed
above, and b y Jo h an n es K ep ler’s brief Somnium o f 1634, reporting a
journey to the m oon and often seen as the birth o f the genre o f science
fiction.1® Both w orks are clearly indebted to Lucian’s True Story, the
deliberately incredible report o f a fantastic journey in which Lucian mocks
the genre o f fanciful travelogues.
Another interesting m in o r strand is collections o f shorter narratives
in a larger frame, such as the Utopia (1640) by German Jesuit Jakob
Bidermann.19 Its six books include about sixty tales o f very different
character, from fables to anecdotes to romantic novellas to satirical
sketches. T h e y are tied together b y a framing narrative about three friends
who meet in a co u n try house and tell each other stories during two days
and one night - the setting is similar to Boccacio’s Decameron, which
served as one am on g m a n y oth er classical and vernacular models. From the
second book onwards, the narratives have a shared setting in the reported
journey o f two o f the friends to the country Cimmeria, which is also
called Utopia. T h e nam e ‘ U to p ia ’ (hence the title o f the work) is ironical
and somewhat m isleading here, since C im m eria is not an ideal state, but a
land of idlers, liars, drinkers and criminals; nor is there a focus on the
description o f custom s and institutions - this U topia is fully narrative,
and ultimately its nam e seem s o n ly to draw attention to the fictional status
of the journey. T h e stories in C im m eria are interwoven in a highly
sophisticated m anner via a m ultitude o f digressions and up to four narra­
tives nested w ithin one another.

11 tg . Christianson 1976.
** Edition (in 6 a annotated reprint o f the 1640 edition) and German translation by Schuster 1984;
some interpretive approaches in W im mer 1999.
 336 STEFAN TILG

Bidermann wrote this w o rk as reading m aterial fo r his pupils in the Jesuit

school, and there is a certain moral p o in t ab o u t the vanity o f the world
implied. But nowhere is this m ade explicit, a n d narrative entertainment
clearly prevails over moral teaching. T h is is not alw ays true for the Gyps
Gallus (1658) by Zacharie de Lisieux, a F re n ch C a p u c h in w h o wrote under
the pen name o f Petrus Firm ianus.30 Its fram in g story is that o f a young
philosopher at the dawn o f the French nation in late antiquity. Chancing
upon the tomb o f a druid, he finds a ring w h ic h makes him invisible (hence
‘Gyges Gallus’ , the ‘ French G y g e s’ , after the k in g o f L y d ia w ho owned such
a magic ring in classical legend). C u rio u s ab o u t the true character of his
contemporaries, the ring allows him to enter their houses and observe their
private lives without being seen him self. T h e results o f this enquiry are set
out in twenty-nine more or less unrelated chapters, illustrating various vices
like hypocrisy, luxury, gluttony and van ity. R em arkably, Zacharie indudes
some social critique - aimed, for instance, at th e privileges o f the nobility
and the exploitation o f farmers - o f a sort n ever fo u n d in supporters of royal
absolutism such as Barclay and his followers.
Some neo-Latin prose fiction m a y best be called novels o f ideas. In facta
large proportion o f longer n eo -Latin prose fiction a n d certainly the whole
utopian strain tends towards reflection (I return to this in m y conclusion).
But some examples do not foil clearly u n d e r a n y o f the categories discussed
so for and are focused very tig h d y up o n a p h ilosop h ical o r religious point.
One such work is the Parergi philosophici speculum (‘Mirror of the
Philosophical Parergon’ , 16 2 3) b y th e H e r m e tic philosopher Heinrich
Nolle.3' This tells o f a y o u n g m an , P h ilaretus (th e ‘lover o f virtue’), whose
quest for truth leads him , via alch em y a n d H e rm e s Trismegistus, to the
allegorical fortress o f w isdom . M o r e re w a rd in g fro m a literary point of
view is the Psyche Cretica (1685) b y th e learned m ayo r o f Regensburg,
Johann Ludw ig Prasch.31 Prasch’s novel in three short books is a Christian
allegorical adaptation o f the story o f C u p id a n d P sych e at the centre of
Apuleius’ Metamorphoses. A lth o u g h C h ristia n iz in g interpretations of this
story, invited by its Platonic allusions, d ate b a c k as early as Fulgentius’
Mytholopae (c. 500 c e ) , Prasch’s allegory d istin gu ish es itself because of the

Guiry 1912; Wiegand 2013; briefly also IJsewijn and Sa cri 1998: 2 4 1-2 .
* Kasza 201}. Copies o f this book are rare, and there is no m odem edition. The only tnmlanu
available is in Hungarian (Kasza 2003). Generally on N olle see Meier-Oeser 2009.
** Modem edition by Destnet-Gocthals 1968 (cf. correction o f errata in IJsewijn 1982; 29); a weit
hypertea edition by M . Riley can be (bund at www.csus.edn/indiv/r/rileyint/Psyche_CretkiktraL
There do not seem to be more recent translations than the G erm an one o f 1703. For studia sa
Tunberg-Monish 2008 and Gärtner 10 13 with references; for Ptasch's poetics see esp. Holm 1001.
T

Longer Prose Fiction 337

liberties it takes and its h igh ly literary texture. It is characterized by non­

linear narrative a n d dense intertextuality with many classical (especially
Virgil) and vernacular authors. Prasch follows Apuleius only loosely; the far
greater part o f the Psyche Cretica is Prasch’s own invention. After her
separation from C u p id (Jesus C hrist), Psyche (the human soul), is
threatened b y C o sm u s (the w orld) and escapes to Athens, where she hides
in a cave. Tracked d o w n b y C o sm u s again, she is rescued by Theophrastus
fthe voice o f go d ’). E ven tu ally C o sm u s is killed by Cupid. Psyche is
reunited with C u p id in heaven. T h e consistent religious allegory in this
novd owes m uch to theoretical considerations about the nature o f the
genie o f prose fiction, w h ich Jo h a n n Ludw ig Prasch developed together
with his wife, Susanna. Su san n a Prasch wrote a brief poetics o f the novel in
1684, in which she dism issed political and erotic affairs and advocated
religious allegory, ideally presented in relatively short and concentrated
novels.53 T h e Psyche Cretica is very m uch the practical illustration o f
these ideas.
Finally, there is a large and diffuse body o f texts that fall between longer
prose fiction and genres like historiography, biography and travel writing.
The blurring o f clear distinctions and the range o f different approaches
can be illustrated b y tw o particularly intriguing works o f the German
Jesuit Johannes Bissei, his Icaria o f 16 3 7 and his Argonautica Americana
('American Argonauts Stories’) o f 16 4 7 .34 T h e Icaria is a personal account
of Bissel's journey to the U p p e r Palatinate region o f Bavaria amidst the
turmoil o f the T h ir ty Y ears’ W a r. T h e basic structure o f a travel narrative is
varied, however, b y the prosim etric form and highly literary intertextuality,
the consistent and playful use o f fictional names for persons and
places (such as ‘ Icaria’ , ‘ the land o f Icarus’ for the Upper Palatinate) in
the manner o f a roman-à-clef, and b y an explicit reference to Barclay’s
Euphormio in the preface. T h e approach taken here - and which can often
be seen in similar w orks o f the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries - is to
graft the entertaining literary form o f the satirical or romantic novel on to a
more historical content.
The Argonautica Americana takes a different tack. It is based on the
Spanish travel accou nt Naufragio y peregrinación, written by the adventurer
Pedro Gobeo de V ic to ria and published in 1610, upon Gobeo’s return to
his native Seville. T h e w o rk reports G o b e o ’s voyage to South America,

w Prash 1684 (reprinted in W eber 19 7 4 :1,18 3 -2 2 8 ).

M For the ¡caria see esp. W iegand 1997; for the Argonautica Am ericana Hill 1970. There are no modem
editions and no translations.
 338 STEFAN TILG

his shipwreck, his arduous journey across the continent to Peru and h¡,
eventual decision to enter the Society of Jesus in Lima. Bissel adapts
this narrative (which he read in a German translation based on a now-loj,
Latin version made by Gobeo himself) in a truly literary mannen I*
inserted lyrical descriptions of landscapes he probably never saw himself
changed and added scenes to make the story more consistent and dramatic,
and focused on the psychological development o f Gobeo as representing!
parable of the human condition in a hostile environment. All this he
did not do to render the story superficially entertaining - there is no
prosimetrum, no display o f classicism (despite the tide alluding to the
Argonauts of Greek mythology) and no roman-à-clef - but to achieve
realism and credibility. With these characteristics Bissel’s Arpmuhu
belongs to the most modern-looking Latin novels of the early modem
period, and in fact the author does what many modern novelists do when
they seek inspiration in true stories, making a more literary and mo«
general narrative out of them.

U tile et D uke
In reviewing the material set out above we can note as a general point that
longer neo-Latin prose fiction is seldom purely entertaining and escapist
It usually attempts to connect with reality in one way or another and»
contribute to contemporaneous discourses in the fields of politics, sodrn
and religion. In this respect, it anticipates the well-known discussions
about the genre and the potential of the novel as a serious literary form
in the eighteenth century. In order to reflect reality, diffèrent, bur not
mutually exclusive, strategies were developed, for instance the nman-à-dtf,
political allegory, the novel of ideas and the literary generalization and
dramatization of historical events. All these strategies remain options in '
modem prose fiction,” and while it would be problematic to constructa
linear ancestry from neo-Latin fiction to the modern novel, it is clear that
longer neo-Latin fiction raised awareness about the novel as a serious
medium. At the same time, all writers of neo-Latin novels knew that their
message also had to entertain - related prefaces are lull of considerations
about the famous Horatian link between utility and pleasure. The literary
pleasure in neo-Latin novels may consist of different things: the frequent

For cunera cam pici o f political nm um s-à-cU fcf. c.g. the anonym ously published novels Prmoj
C obrv A N ovel o fP o litia (1996) and 0 : A P ra id cn tu d N o vel (20 11), dealing with Bill dimoi» v i
Barack Obama’s presidential campaigns.
I L o n g er Prose Fiction

prosimele form, to some extent indebted to the revival of the Menippean

satire m the late sixteenth century;’6 particular narrative techniques like the
use of an interesting first or third person narrator; the framing and nesting
of stories, the beginning in medias res, or flashbacks and anticipations of
later events; a web o f imertexruaiity with classical and vernacular texts; the
wide appeal o f alluring exotic locations or imaginative fantasy as seen in
many utopian novels. Last but not least, the frequent focus on private
interests appeals to the curiosity and emotions of readers and makes the
stories told and ideas discussed more relevant.

F U R T H E R R EA D IN G
For various surveys o f lo n ger n eo -L a tin prose fiction see IJsewijn and Sacré 1998:
141-57, M orrish T u n b e r g 2 0 1 4 and Riley 2015. T ilg and Walser 2013 is the first
edited volume dedicated to th e subject and illustrates the variety and richness of
the material. IJsew ijn 19 9 9 provides further information on the satirical novel. For
a number o f satirical novels also see D e Sm et 1996, although De Smet classifies
them as M en ip p ean satires. K y tz le r 19 8 2 gives a cursory account o f utopian novels.
The introductions o f F le m in g 1 9 7 3 and Riley and Pritchard Huber 2004 are good
starting points fo r stu d y in g the satirical and romantic novels.*

* Nore, however, th at the p ro sim etru m w as kn o w n as a phasing Ihetaiy form before (IJsewijn 1999:
tj4) and that it w as n o t lim ited to satirical fiction afterwards.
 C H A P T E R 20

P rose S a tire

J o el Relihan

The only two Latin hum anist texts that h ave passed into the Western
canon are Erasmus’ ‘ Praise o f F o lly ’ (15 0 9 ) a n d M o r e ’ s Utopia (1516 )/Their
affiliation with M enippean satire is certain ly a large p a n o f the reason for
their success. Erasmus, steeped in L u cia n as befits his translator, drew
inspiration both from Lu cian ’s Icaromenippus an d fro m the Greco-Roman
traditions o f paradoxography to create a fiction w h o se didactic purposes are
purposefully left hard to decipher.1 It is fo lly to insist on unequivocal truth
from Folly. T h e work is sophisticated, learned, am biguòus: critical whik
also self-critical. W . Scott B lanchard m akes a nice point, that Folly in
Erasmus, like Vanity in Ecclesiastes a n d M e la n c h o ly in Burton, means
nothing and everything; such texts ‘v o ice a radical skepticism concerning
the capacity o f humans to place a n y m ean in gfu l definitions upon their
experiences o f the w orld’.3 T o this exten t it operates w ithin the traditions
o f classical Menippean satire, even i f th at tradition w as not fully available
to Erasmus.
But when Erasmus needed to d e fe n d h im s e lf against the controversy
created b y the ‘Praise o f F o lly ’ , he w a s pleased in th e prefatory material
in later editions to augm en t h is o rig in a l list o f playful authors of
paradoxical encomia w h o served b o th as m o d e ls an d as excuse with
the example o f Seneca’s Ludus de mone Claudii, ‘ A Je s t o n the Death of
Claudius’ (the punning tid e Apocolocyntosis, ‘ P um p k in ificatio n ’, was not
attached to the text until 15 5 7 ).4 T h e p o in t th at I w ish to make is that
Apocolocyntosis has its value in this c o n te x t as a conservative tat: it
justifies a philosopher w ritin g c o m ic fan ta sy, a n d its satiric affiliations

1 Branham «no: 863.

1 Haarberg 1998:177-243 analyzes the relation o f ‘Praise o f Folly’ to Menippean satire; 196-7 disais»
the ancient texo, including Boethius, that were known to Erasmus.
’ Blanchard 1007; 124 .
* Erasmus read the Ludits'm its editio princeps in 1513, and published ‘Folly’ along with it in the Frota
edition o f 1315; see De Strict 199 6 :74-5; Haarberg 19 9 8 :19 6 -7 .

34O
 Prose Satire 341

¡tic asserted to prove that ‘ Praise o f F o lly ’ has a laudable social or moral
goal. With this insertion o f Seneca, intellectual ambiguities o f the
Praise o f Folly’ , the sophistications that continue to secure it a modem
audience, are do w n p layed in the nam e o f something narrower, namely,
satire more pedantically referenced as social criticism.*
Yet neither Erasm us n o r M o re called his work Menippean,6 and so
Menippean satire, b y w h ich I m ean the prose satire o f this era, cannot be a
generic and interpretive label applied exclusively to the few works that have
labeled themselves as M en ip p ean or Varronian. It is the Senecan satire,
certainly a crucial text in the history and development o f the ancient genre,
that draws a bright line in the history o f humanist prose satire, placing on
one side Erasmus and M o re , w hose Utopia owes nothing to Seneca and
much to Lucian and to Plato, and on the other the explicidy Menippean
tradition that follows them .7 T h e se latter works, led by Justus Upsius
in 1581 with his Satyra Menippaea. Somnium. Lusus in nostri aevi criticos,
‘A Menippean Satire. A D ream . A Jest on O u r Contemporary Critics’,
analyzed in the crucial stu dy o f Ingrid D e Smet, are only a thin slice o f a
literary movement that both predates and outlives them.8 A consideration
of the origins and destinations o f this division gives a dearer picture o f the
means and motives o f M en ip p ean satire in humanist literature as a whole.
What we have is tw o M en ip p ean traditions: one whose concerns are
broadly intellectual, b o m o f Lu cian and at home in the traditions o f
paradoxography; the other broadly social and moral and controversialist,
inspired by Seneca and the traditional concerns o f Roman satire.9 There is
overlap o f course: paradoxical encom ia in their medical aspea (praise o f
blindness, fever, gout, etc.) are aligned with the traditions o f Roman satire
and the healing powers o f the satirist (see now Sari Kivistö’s excdlent
study, and her chapter o n verse satire in this volume).10 T h e self-labeled
Menippean satires, inspired b y the genre’s mixture o f prose and verse, find
the medium appropriate fo r the criticism o f poets and poetry, pedants,

' Smft, (he modem « vio r o f Menippean satire, revena this in G u iln trs Travels as he moves from the
mon cautious social criticism o f Books 1 and 2 to the intellectual and anti-sdennfic satire of Boob 3
and 4.
* Though Folly does speak o f Menippus (48): 'I f you could look down from the Moon, as Menippus
once did ..
For a good discussion of humanist utopian fiction, which is not the topic of this chapter, see
Monish Tunberg 2014: also in this volume Chapter 17 (on Mote's Umpui) and Chapter 19 on
utopian fiction in general.
1 De Smet 1996: 88-91; edition in Maihecussen and Heesakkcrs 1980.
’ In Chapter 19 o f this volume Stefan T ilg discusses this distinction in terms of Petronian and
Varronian models for prose satire.
* Kmstô 2009 and Chapter 9 in this volume.
 342 JO ËL RELIHAN

poetasters, philologues and bib liom anes o f all sorts. But where tht*
two traditions are m ost usefully distinguished is in the anthologies di«
contain them.

SatiricAnthologiesintheSixteenthandSeventeenthCenturies
The ‘ Praise o f Folly’ was q u ick ly packaged w ith Sen eca and with Synesiuj'
‘Praise o f Baldness’ (in the Latin translation o f Jo h n Free) in the 1515
Froben edition. T h is form ed the nucleus o f an anthologizing tradition that
found its vastest expression in the 16 19 com p ilation o f Caspar Domau
(Domavius), the Amphitheatrum sapientiae Socraticae joco-seriae, ‘The
Amphitheatre o f Socratic Serio co m ic W is d o m ’ , n o w beautifully reprinted
with invaluable aids b y R obert Seidel (hereafter, s im p ly Amphithrtatrum)0
In the encyclopedic Amphitheatrum, p arad o xo grap h y grows radically while
Seneca is eliminated; it praises the trivial and the pernicious, finding room
for both Utopia and ‘ Fo lly’ . Lip siu s’ Somnium, o n the other hand, is given
pride o f place in a 1655 anth ology o f related M e n ip p ean satires called the
Elegantiorespraestantium virorum satyrae, ‘ E le g a n t Satires o f Distinguished
M en’, published in tw o völum es b y Je a n M a ir e (hereafter, simply Elegm-
tiores). Here Seneca has been kept, prin ted a lo n g w ith the Emperor Julian’s
Caesares (itself inspired b y Seneca) and Misopogon, ‘T h e Beard Hater’, and
such descendants o f Lipsius as Petrus C u n a e u s ’ Sardi Venales, ‘Sardinians
on the Slave Block’ , N ico la s R iga u lt’s Funus parasiticum, ‘A Parasite’s
Funeral Rites’ , Fam iano Strada’s Momus (the nam e o f the god o f criticism,
and not to be confused w ith A lb e rti’s Momus), and various academic
Somnia, ‘ Dream Visions’ .11
It is the nature o f these tw o anthologies, a n d th e attitudes toward satire
that each represents, that is m y to p ic here. T h e history o f the humanist
anthology has not yet been w ritten , a n d th is c h a p te r is an appeal to others
to pursue in greater detail w h a t I o u d in e here in broad strokes. But these

0 Seidel 1995.
11 The complete contents: Volume t: Lipsius. Summum-, Cunaeus, S a rd i Venales-, Julian, Catum iß
Cunaeus' free translation, with ancillary materials); Julian, C aesam (with prefatory material, Gseck
text, and translation by Cam odaras); Julian. M isopogon (Greek text and translation by Pura
Martini us); Seneca, Apocolocyntosir, Petrus Nannius, Som nium and Som nium alterum: Franami
Bend us [Bena], Som nium . Volume IE Rigai ti us [Rigault], Funus Parasiticum : Puteanus, Gm k
C astellanus, Convivium Saturnale, ‘A Banquet at dic Saturnalia'; Strada, Cornui and Aadeuia
prim a et secundat Bermi ngius [Benninghj, Satyriam ; Fabridus, Pransus p aram , 'Well Fed and Red«
for Aetion' (the title o f one o f V a n o s ‘M enippean Satires’); Ferrarius, nine prolusione!, 'Prtferao
Pieces'; Sangenesius. de Pomoso et fin itim is locis, lib r i d m , T w o Books on Mt. Parnassus and b
Environs'.
 Prose Satire
343

broad strokes will serve both to indicate the evolution o f the Menippean
genre within the hum anist era, and the evolution o f the genre by means
«/the humanist era, from classical to modern times. A work written under
one inspiration is rethought b y its successors; the theory o f satire that
informs a given w o rk is necessarily tentative; topical objects give way to
broad, thematic trends; and the cliché o f telling the truth with a laugh,
invoked both as a cover w h en w riting fiction and as a hermeneutic
principle, gradually finds its w a y toward valuing humor as a kind o f truth
all its own. H o w Utopia is read when it is new is not how it is read a
hundred years later.

The Characteristics o f Humanist Menippean Satire

and the Medieval Tradition

I have argued at length that the character o f Menippus himself is not

much o f a guide to the genre that passes under his name.13 Menippus is a
mocker o f both the orthodoxies o f the learned and the superstitions o f the
simple, but can h im self be m ocked as a charlatan and a fraud. Renaissance
appropriations o f Lu cian (and not everything that is Lucianic in origin is
Menippean b y definition o r b y classification) are more content to criticize
the culture o f their contem poraries than to query their own right to
criticize it. M enippus in Lucian, after all, is a universalist, looking down
from the moon o r observing hell and in either case seeing the totality of
human life and hum an endeavor, Erasmus’ Folly has this son o f vision,
and though we com e to appreciate seeing the limitations o f Folly the critic,
the critical gaze is directed m ore outward than inward. O ur Latin authors
are quite serious about their o w n Latinity, and fantasy is the vehide
for serious aesthetic and social criticism, as it was in Aristophanes’
‘Frogs’, with D ionysus harrow ing hell to find a poet worthy to speak to
the Athenian people.
Blanchard in Scholars' Bedlam makes b y w ay o f condusion the excellent
point that M enippean satire in the Renaissance is not to be thought o f so
much as anti-intellectual as anti-systematic, and that in various ages
Menippean satire is revived as a form o f attack against dominant intellec­
tual models; early Italian hum anism opposes scholasticism; early modem
Swift and Blake use M en ip p ean satire in opposition to sdènce.'4 In fact,
Menippean satire has an even earlier history o f documenting intellectual
systems in decline. The tw o crucial texts o f the twelfth-century

n fWihan 1996. 14 Blanchard 1995: 166.

 344
JOEL RELIHAN

Renaissance, Bemardus Silvestris’ De cosmographia, ‘A Map of the Uni­

verse, and Alan of Lille’s De planctu Naturae, T h e Complaint of Nature’,
arise in the demise of Christian Platonism, as human nature no longer
finds a logical place within the fabric of the universe and so requires the
special providence of theology.15
Medieval Menippean satires - like Silvestris’ De cosmographia - often
emplöyed a mixture of prose and verse, either to suggest an attempt to
encompass the whole of experience, or as a fundamentally destabilizing
literal}’ device.16Humanist Menippean satire has other uses for verse within
prose: it is deployed more as stylistic embellishment or out of allegiance toa
specific stylistic model (most often Seneca’s Apocolocyntosis); the idea that
the mixture of verse and prose is paradoxical, or polemical, is largely lost, as
is the use of prosimetrum for the writing of autobiography. When prose
and verse arc found together in the texts o f our era, they represent for their
authors an attempt to show mastery o f Latin in all its forms. One wodt
which stands out in this respect is Puteanus’ Cornus, with an elegant ninety-
five catalectic iambic dimeters; more thoroughly prosimetric is the Mrnus
of Famiano Strada {Momus, sive satira Varroniana, poësi poëtisque cognoscen­
dis accommodata, ‘Momus, or a Vanonian Satire Designed for the Recog­
nition of Poetry and Poets’), where poetry is included for its own sake, not
as a marker of a literary genre that thrives on the impropriety of mixing
prose and verse.'7 (Modem Menippean satires are not prosimetric, though
they may reserve a space for one heightened poetic experience.'8)
The multiplicities of medieval prosimeuicality, from saints’ lives to the
Cosmographia of Aethicus Ister, are not each individually and organically
continued into the Latin Renaissance, where Lucian and Seneca lead toa
general starting over. We can nevertheless discern some continuity between
medieval and humanist Menippean satire.'9 Most simply, Menippean
satirists mock the idea that words are sufficient to describe what is true,
and because the satirists work in words, theirs is a medium that tends to

” See Wetherbee M ir 545-7 for a brief account o f the mythology o f Bernard's and Alani
prosimetric works.
* See Dronke 1994 for a discursive account o f the varieties, M enippean and non-Menippean. d
medieval prosimetrum; and my review o f that book (R dihan 2004). For a consideration d
prosimetrum as a classical phenomenon, see Ziolkowski 1997.
17 Elegantiam u, 465-501.
* Cf. Marionetta'! long in Peacock's N ightm are A bbey (eh. v i); the lovely song o f M r Hilary and dx
Reverend Mr Larynx (cfa. xj), and the poetry o f Jem Casey in Flann O ’Brien’s A t Sm im -fut-Bàà
The modem Larin Menippean satires o f Harry Schnur follow a more classical approach (see Pona
2014c).
** See Haarbetg 19 9 t: zro for the break between medieval and humanist M enippean satire. See also my
'Prosimetra', forthcoming.
 Prose Satire
345

collapse in upon itself. T h e h u m an ist voyages to heaven and to hell, the

immediate successors o f L u c ia n ’s Icaromenippus, ‘Menippus the N ew
Icarus*, and Necyomantia, ‘A C o n su ltatio n with the Dead’, are in some
sense journeys back to A risto p h an es and his ‘ Birds’ and ‘Frogs’, works o f
inestimable im portance in th e h istory o f M enippean satire; and Lucian,
himself a student both o f A risto p h an es and o f Plato, allows his Renaissance
imitators and innovators a glim p se through him into a Platonic world in
which words cannot c o n v e y u ltim ate truth, where those who put their faith
in words in their search fo r perfection find themselves embarrassed.“
Viewed through the lens o f M e n ip p e a n satire, we find that the humanist
enterprise was from its in cep tio n self-critical.

Prose Satire and the Encyclopedic Shift

Justus Lipsius’ Somnium (15 8 1) a n d its descendants - the consciously self-

styled Menippean dream visions o f trips to unearthly places where vice and
aesthetic offense are castigated — o w e their assumption chat Menippean
satire should be political an d topical to the example o f Seneca’s Apocolo-
gntosisand its abuse o f th e e m p ero r C la u d iu s. B u t this path proved to be a
dead end in hum anist literature: the future did not belong to works like
Erasmus’ Julius Exclusus, ‘ P o p e Ju liu s II Barred from Heaven’ (or Donne’s
¡putius. His Conclave). R ath er, the encyclopedia, the miscellany, the work
of the scholar at p lay, the jo u rn e y to the ends o f the earth are the forms
that emerge from this era.21
If the verse satirist is co n ce rn e d w ith the hum an being’s role in larger
human society, the prose satirist is m ore concerned with his place in the
universe. M enippean satires ten d to g ro w large, as Northrop Frye would
say, as more and m ore atten tio n is given to the world into which human
beings do not fit. T h e tw o anth ologies o f hum anist texts that allow us to
chart the growth and fortu nes o f tw o particular types o f Menippean satire,
the Amphitheatrum and th e Elegantiores, each show the triumph o f the
universal over the p articular, th o u gh the processes o f their growth and
development differ. T h e traditio n s o f paradoxographv, which begin with

“ One itfeahingty Menippean aspect o f Albert:'» otherwise ponderous and. frankly, dull M omie b
dm the world o f Jupiter is itself a source o f humor. Jupiter’s wisdom is not absolute. See Robinson
1979t 91-4. for a synopsis; M arsh 1998; 49 -50. for an appreciation o f M ctùppanJJaevm rnippie
nurds.
° la fact, dm it reflected in modem classical scholarship, which has recently demonstrated that the
rety topicality o f Seneca's work places it on the hinges o f the prate satire tradition, rather than at its
center. See for example Borundini lo r o and Relihan 10 12 for a review.
 346 JO EL RELIH AN

iminations o f Lucian (‘T h e F ly ’ , T h e Parasite’ ) in the w orld o f paradoxical

encomia, generate a string o f anthologies: the Facetiae Facetiarum
(The W it o f W it’ , 1615, itself an an th o lo gy o f o th er Facetiae texts), the
Admiranda rerum admirabilium encomia (‘ L au d ab le E n co m ia o f Laudable
Things’, 1666), and the Nugae venales (‘ N o n se n se for Sale’, 171o).11
The odes o f these anthologies stress the serio -co m ic, the elegant, the
witty. But Dom au’s 16 19 Amphitheatrum lies also w ith in this paradoxo-
graphical tradition. It is an encyclopedia, to o b ig to be read in its entirety,
and intended surely as a w ork o f reference. It prom ises, however, that its
contents offer the reader a w ay to understand the m ysteries o f Nature. It
opposes, I would argue, the science o f its tim e, particularly that of the
Bolognese polymath and encyclopedist U lysses A ld ro va n d i; it leads imme­
diately to Burton, who publishes in 162.1 the first edition o f his Anatomyof
Melancholy, Both Burton and D o rn au are do cto rs (D o rn au calls himself a
philosopher and a doctor), and both attem p t through com ic or serio­
comic encyclopedias (that is, M e n ip p ean satires) to achieve an under­
standing o f the human m ind b y a consideration o f the limitations of the
human body.15
An anthology o f curiosides, the Amphitheatrum is itself the product and
benefactor o f quite a few other such com ic anthologies.14 It promises on iu
ornate title page a new view o f wisdom : that is, a public display o f wisdom
that is Socradc and serio-comic, derived from authors ancient and modem,
taking the form o f both speeches o f praise (encomia) and essays (commentaria)
in two large categories, each the subject o f o n e o f its tw o large divisions
things trivial and things damnable. It is a useful w ork, designed to teach the
mysteries o f nature as well as wisdom , virtue an d delight in both public and
private spheres (opus admysteria naturae discenda, ad omnem amceniuaem,
sapientiam, uirtutem, publice priuatimque utilissimum). T h e first book of
trivialities begins with the Hellenistic G re ek T h e Barde o f the Flop and
Mice’ and proceeds through six hundred double-colu m n ed pages devoted to
the praise of animals (texts are m o sd y in Latin , though there is some
German) before it reaches a final tw o hundred an d fifty wide-ranging paga
of praise o f cheese, beer, shadows, som ething, nothing, anything, everything,

“ Panni liso of contents o f these volumes, and o f the Am phitheatrum as well, may be found in an
appendix to Kivistö 2009.
*’ König 2on: 266-7, makes the nice point that Bakhtin's association o f grotesque consumption with
the camivalesque overlooks how ‘the grotesque physicality o f the human body can also producei
sense of honor and mystery'.
* Seidel's 199; reprint o f Dornau has invaluable introductory material detailing all o f its contents and
indicating the anthologies in which individual pieces may be found.
 Prose Satire W

no one, the country life, the solitary life, academic hazing rituals and finally
Mote’s Utopia, w h ich com es as a b it o f a surprise. It has pride o f place,
coining at the end o f the b o o k , at once the largest and the most characteristic
piece, a massive praise o f N o P l a c e .15
The second book consists o f three hundred pages devoted to the praise
of morally corrupting th in gs, b egin n in g w ith ancient authors (Isocrates’
Praise o f Helen’ and ‘ Praise o f Busiris’) and then an amalgam o f ancient
and modern authors in praise o f B acch u s and drunkenness, Nero, Julian,
the Parasite (Lucian is represented b y ‘T h e F ly ’ and ‘T h e Lawsuit o f Sigma
against Tau’ in V o lu m e i, a n d ‘T h e Parasite’ and ‘T h e Praise o f Gout’ in
Volume i i ). Erasm us’ ‘ Praise o f F o lly ’ com es at about the mid-way point,
followed by a series o f paradoxographical pieces (in praise o f fever, gout,
blindness, war, lying, en v y , o ld age and death).16 T h e two most important
humanist M enippean texts — those o f M o re and Erasmus - have therefore
been apportioned into th eir separate sections, subjugated b y the antholo­
gizing process to serve a n ew fu nction as constituent parts o f a way to
understand the m ysteries o f nature. A series o f contemplations o f nothing,
of the values o f nothings, o f paradoxographies designed to show the
littleness o f people ends u p d efin in g hum an nature in a new and scientific
way. Anthologizing is decontextualizing, and offers new contexts. Erasmus’
Praise o f Folly’ is abo ut h u m an nature; but in D o m au , a hundred years
later, that work is o n ly p a n o f a larger project that shows the complexities
of the human experience b y p u ttin g it under a microscope (not to say
anatomy). T h e a n th o lo gy effectively ends the endeavor, and coincides with
the rise o f a scientific assen io n o f the value o f minutiae; but in humanist
Menippean satire, the rhetorical exam ination o f minutiae is sufficient to
redefine the h um an’s role in the brave new world.
What I think no o n e has seen is that D o m a u is him self a Menippean
author, that the Amphitheater is a M en ip p ean satire, an ironic encyclopedia
of counter-wisdom, an d it stands in contrast to the encyclopedic compil­
ations of Ulysses A ld ro v a n d i ( 1 5 2 2 - 1 6 0 5 ) .17 Aldrovandi represents a non-
rhetorical, non-iron ic p ro gram : a know ledge o f the minutiae o f the world
equals a knowledge o f th e w o rld as a whole. Aldrovandi as an academic

’’ The first items in Molnar's Lusus p o etici exetUentium aliqu ot m gm onwn . . . ('Poetic Diversions of
Certain Outstanding Talents’, Hanau, 1614) include three works on Nemo/No One (Ulrich von
Hutten, Theodorus Marcilius. Johannes Huldrichius) and two on Nihil/Nothing (Jean Passent and
Anonymous). The last o f these, unfortunately, does not appear in the Am phitheatrum .
* Kjvittô 2009.
One could contrast this to Byzantine cncyclopedism. which is in the service o f orthodoxy. See Van
Deun and Mt e i aoii and M arciniak 201).
348 J OE L R E LI HAN

phenomenon can be glimpsed behind D o rn au ’s text (he is quoted thirty,

three times, more often than any other author, though these passages are
relatively brief) as an example o f the sort o f philosophus gloriosus that
Menippean satire typically mocks: you can’ t lay out the world in order;
you can’t pigeonhole the world and assign everything to its proper
category, truth lies rather in the contem plation o f the inability o f human
beings to be so categorizable. It is not that D ornau in any way deforms
or misquotes Aldrovandi; rather, the satiric effect lies in the repackaging of
Aldrovandi’s encyclopedic pedantry - w h ich was already beginning to
seem dated - as a collection o f encomia.
It may come as a surprise that D o m a u ’ s first volum e (1.75 1-6 ) contains a
work by the scientist and astronomer Johannes Kepler: T h e Six-Sided
Snowflake’ {De Nive Sexangula), wedged between encom ia o f Nihil and
some elaborate pieces on gpat’s wool (a proverbial item o f no value) on one
side and a series o f pieces ‘ In Praise o f N o O n e ’ on the other (induding
Ulrich von Hurten’s Nemo; the Lusus de Nemine o f one Theodorus
Marcilius; and Heinrich G ötting’s G erm an verse satire Niemandt).a This
shows Dornau at his most contem porary: ‘Snow flake’ was published at
Frankfurt/Main in 1611. Kepler, w h o knew Lu cian well and put him to
good use in his scientific fantasy Somnium, in general finds the universe as
opened up by the telescope and by M en ip p u s’ flights a liberating place, hill
of good angles from which to ask good questions.29 In ‘Snowflake, it is
more the microscopic view that pleases h im , but in his own way he
embodies a new sort o f diptych in these M enippean writings, a telescopk
and a microscopic view.90 Kepler the scientist finds a place in Amphithea­
trum that is quite distina from A ldrovandi’s.

AnthologiesandSatiricDecontextualization
Even those Menippean works w hich, like Seneca’s Apocolocyntosis, ate
strongly and specifically topical and political in their satirical force are
transformed by anthologization. T h e Elegantiores praestantium virorum
satyrae documents the decontextualization o f these satires; simply, the
more they are colleaed, the smaller is the interest in their original focus.

11 These west taken from M dinar's compilation o f 1614. See above, n. 25.
** For the complicated history o f the Somnium see Rosen 1967: zvii-xxiii. For Kepler's knowledge of
1tifian, see Pandit 1007.
* A Eddy reliable English translation o f 'Snowflake' is given by Jacques Bromberg in Glngerich « si
to u r iy-U ). The modem Menippean fascination with Renaissance science and the microscope
view is in evidence in Kktnsky 1974.
 Prose Satire H9
Before considering the Elegantiores per se, consider the examples o f
Daniel Heinsius and N ico la s Rigault. Heinsius published his Menippean
satire Hercules tuam fidem (‘ H ercu les, H elp !’) in 1608; by 1609 it was in a
fourth edition. Its o bject is G a sp a r Scioppius, vilified as a sponger and
parasite; his crim e w as his attack on Joseph Scaliger, the Scaliger hypobo-
¡imaeus (‘Scaliger the B astard’). F ro m the first edition, Heinsius’ satire
had been accom panied b y a satirical biography o f Scioppius by Rutgersius,
the same man w h o allow ed S c a lig e r i self-defense, the Fabulae burdoniae
confitado (‘T h e R efutation o f the Fiction o f Scaliger the M ule’), to appear
under his own initials; from the third edition on, Rutgersius’ Confutado
was printed with the Hercules tuam fidem. T h e fourth edition, improved
and expanded, then included a second M enippean satire by Heinsius,
the Virgula divina (‘T h e M a g ic W a n d ’), in which (following the example
of the Apocoiocyntosis) Scio p p iu s’ father appears in heaven for apotheosis,
but is rejected. In other w o rd s, later editions offer not a single text, but
an anthology o f Scaliger a n d Scio p piu s texts, their topicality preserved,
augmented, and insisted u p o n .3’ B u t this topicality has a shelf life: all o f
this happens in the space o f a year.
Twelve years later, in 1 6 2 1 , H ein siu s w rote the Menippean Cras credo,
hodie nihil (T U Believe Y o u T o m o rr o w , But N o t T o d a y ). It is a dream
vision o f a trip to the m o o n and then via comet to the Epicurean
intermundia’, he hears w h a t his detractors say about him, and one o f them
turns into an ass so that the narrator m ay ride on him. T h e moral, cautious
and unsurprising, is against excess in learning.31 Heinsius, a notorious
reviser of his ow n w o rk s, p u ttin g out new and newer, large and larger
editions o f his Orations and his Elegies, produced in 1629 a third edition o f
his Laus asini (Tn Praise o f the A s s ’ ) (first edition 1623).” Here, the mock
encomium, now gro w n to 2 6 4 pages, has becom e the leading piece in his
own miscellaneous an th o lo gy: it is followed b y the Cras credo-, the-/4» et
quak viro literato sit ducenda uxor (‘ Sh o u ld a Philologue M arry, and, I f So,
Whom?’); the Laus pediculi, (‘ Praise o f the Louse’);34 De poetarum ineptiis,
et saeculi vitio (‘O n the Insipidities o f the Poets, and the Faults o f Our
Eta’); a synopsis o f ‘T h e B atd e o f the Frogs and M ice’ ; and various epistles.
There is no Heinsius in the Elegantiores, and there are no Scioppius texts in
the Laus Asini. T h e m an w h o co u ld have made an anthology o f his own

" The Scioppius texts are the subject o f a fascinating and detailed chapter in De Smet 1996: tsi—
93.
They still await a critical edition and translation.
* I treat this more fully in Rclihan 1996: 268-70.
8 See Giornalai 1997 for a discussion o f ass-literature in Erasmus, Passent and Heinsius.
u An augmented version (pp. 385-400) o f what is to be found in Am phitheatrum 1.78-80.
350 JOEL RELIHAN

Menippean satires made instead a m iscellan y w ith o n e Menippcan satire

and one huge m ock encom ium . A n d as he says at the end o f this table of
contents, Omnia hac editione ita aucta et interpolata, ut alia videri ¡mirti
(‘Everything in this edition has been so su p p le m e n te d and so touched up
that it may seem other than w h a t it w a s’ ). W h ile the Scioppius texts
remained frozen in 16 0 9 , H ein siu s m o ved o n to generalities.
Nicolas Rigault’s Funus parasiticum has a sim ilarly com plex publication
history. A self-styled M en ip p ean satire, th e title o f the first edition (1596)
is clearly modeled on Lipsius’ Somnium , a n d so R igault steps forward as
Lipsius’ first follower. Satyra Menippaea. Somnium; Biberii curculionis¡an­
siti mortualia ad ritum priscifuneris (‘A M e n ip p e a n Satire. A Dream; the Last
Rites o f Biberius C u rcu lio the Parasite, D o n e in A n cien t Funeral Trad­
ition’). In the 1599 edition the generic label ( Satyra Menippaea) and the
Lipsian short title ( Somnium) are d ro p p e d ; in th e 16 0 1 reprint the short tide
reappears, but the M enippean label does n o t.35 T h e Funus was originally two
separate pieces; when the Asinus sive de scaturirne onocrenes (T h e Ass, or
T h e Bubbling W aters o f the D o n k e y ’s S p r in g ’ ), also o f 159 6 , was added to
the beginning o f the original Somnium , th e c o m b in a tio n o f the two (pub­
lished in 1599) saw the rem oval o f so m e o f th e m o re obvious homages to
Lipsius’ Somniurrr, sim ultaneously, an e n co u n te r w ith Lucian and Apuleius
was added. After its peak o f popu larity, th e Funus w as repeatedly antholo­
gized: in the four-satire collection o f 1 6 2 0 , Quattuor clarissimorum virom
satyrae (‘Four Satires o f M o s t Illustrious M e n ’ ) a lo n g w ith Lipsius, Cunaeus
and Julian’s Caesars; in the Elegantiores o f 16 5 5 , w h e re it begins Volumen
(Lipsius, Cunaeus and Ju lian begin V o lu m e 1); and in the Epulum para­
siticum ( T h e Parasite’s B an q uet’ ) o f 16 6 5 , a collection o f invectives against
Pierre de M ontm aur. In the Paris edition o f 1 6 0 1 , th e Funus is augmented by
three appendixes on parasites (the sources are Ju lia n the Apostate, Rigault
himself, and an anecdote o f Lib an iu s); b u t in 1 6 3 6 , th e Funus itself becomes
an appendix to Johann K irch m an n ’s revised an d expanded four books on
Roman funerary practice (first edition 16 0 5 ) , in clu d ed as a brief overview of
the whole ritual. T h e political nature o f the piece co u ld be downplayed, in
other words, and the w ork p ro m o ted as a d id a c tic te x t.36
The examples o f H einsius and R igau lt prep are us fo r understanding the
Elegantiores compilation. Its in tro d u ctio n , delivered b y the personified

” De Smct 1996: 117-50 devotes a chapter to Rigault, the generic affiliations o f the Funus and is
political limi. She identifies the political target o f the piece as the court o f Henry III, last of the
Valois kings o f France.
14 De Smet 1996:148-9.
 Prose Satire 35*
Title itself, im plies that the con ten ts o f the work would be better if less
political, if m ore m iscellan eous, i f m ore literary. T h e talk here is mostly
of Greek satyra vs. R o m a n satira, w h ich should seem quite unnecessary
after Casaubon’s 16 0 5 De satyrica graecorum poesi & romanorum satira libri
duo ( T w o B ooks o n G r e e k S a ty r P oetry and Roman Satire’), but which
is here made c o m ic b y reference to a battle between Greeks with their
T-shaped sticks (this is th e Pyth agorean sym bol) and the Romans with
their T-shap ed spears. O n e needs to take sides, and the Title would have
preferred to be R o m a n ( satirae, in other words) but the editor thought
otherwise.1v Playful titles are a lon g-stand ing M enippean tradition, but a
title that is dissatisfied w ith itse lf is a pleasant innovation.
What the T it le says is w o rth excerp tin g at length, because o f the way in
which the history o f satire a n d M e n ip p e a n satire, ancient and modern, is
so truncated. W h e re is L u cia n ?’ 8 W h y so m uch concern with spelling?
Why the insistence o n satire as m iscellany? Satire, says the Tide, is a
Roman thing, reflectin g A dlness, abundance and elegance. The Tide
prefers satira, the m o re an tiq u e R o m a n term; V arro’s title ‘ Menippean
Satires’ does not label a R o m a n th in g as G re e k but puts a Roman stamp on
yet another foreign m o n u m e n t im ported into Rom e. But the Tid e does
not get all that it w an ts:

Secuti Varronem postgeniti eleganda doctrinarum praestantes viri, quorum

opuscula hoc libello continentur, auctores fuerunt, ut mihi proprium magis
fieret nomen, Satyrae elegantiom praestantium virorum, parum sollicito
Typographo pro Romana an Graeca, Graeco-Romana, an Romano-Graeca
haberer, qui id sibi negotii credidit solum dari, ut quam plurimos conjun­
geret in unum syntagma, à quo tamen exemptum optassem mei nominis
ergo quendam Caerite cera dignum. Imò maluissem solummodo exhibiros,
qui rem literariam tractant. Aliter visum illi, qui, ut monui, junxit. Singulos
ad panes vocarem, et contra ineptos Aristarchos pro se liberaliter equidem
edissere juberem, libereque in patria libertatis, nisi et scirem patrocinio eos
non indigere, et confiderem expectationem meam hic superandam à can­
dore candidorum. Versa pagella vides cunaos miscelle et per Saturam veré
oblatos: licet, sine ulla gratiae, à qua Saturae honos, jactura, potuisset
temporum ordo, quo scripserunt, observari: quod demum post absolutum
Senecae ludum fieri coepit. Aspice: inspice; fruere; vale. Si te faventem
Typographic experiatur, offeret mox quoque Satiras elegantiam rùv
ávuvúfjuv, neque tamen minus praestantium, virorum.

De Sm« 1996:59 nates that Jean M aire him self was responsible for the Title's introductory temarles.
De Smet 1996:56 remarks that 'Lucian's writings ate not at all prominent In any of the humanisa'
disamions o f ancient M enippean satire'.
 JO EL RELIH AN
35*
Then there followed in his footsteps those who came after Varro, outstanding
for the elegance o f their learning, they whose works are contained in this
book, and they were the authorities that m y name would be more appropri,
ate to me as Satyrae elegantiampraestantium virorum, seeing that the typeset­
ter is not too worried whether I be considered Roman or Greek, Greco-
Roman or Romano-Greek, as he thought that the only job assigned to hvs
was to bind as many works together into one collection as possible. All de
same, I would still have hoped that there be left out o f this collection, for dit
sake of my name, a certain one worthy o f the wax o f Caere.” In fact, I would
have preferred that only those authors be included who deal in literary mpici
But, as I said, the man who bound them all together thought odicrw«.
I would now call on these individual authors to take sides, and would urge
them to speak against these incompetent crides on their own behalf, freeh­
and as befits free citizens in a free country, were it not for the fact that 1 also
know that they do not lack for patronage, and that I am confident that my
own expectations would here be exceeded by the candor o f the candid. On
the next page you will see them all presented in a jumble and truly pit
Saturam, although, granted, the chronological order in which they wrote
could have been preserved without any loss o f the charm from which Satura
has her honour; this finally begins to happen after Seneca’s ludus has ban
taken care of. Look; investigate; enjoy; farewell. Should the typesetter find
you amenable, he will soon offer as well the Elegant Satins ofAnonymats,
though no less outstanding, Men.40 (m y translation)

Th e Eleganteres disdains the controversialist literature that is bound up

within it (Rigault), overlooks H ein sius a n d the S d o p p iu s invectives, wishes
Julian were gone, and speaks in term s o f literary m iscellany, eager only to
defend its Romanness against the encroachm ent o f the G reek satyia-with-a-y.
These satires do not prize their to p icality. A n d i f Menippean satire is
thought o f as narrative, w e can see th at Sen eca is not prized for narrative
either. In the seventeenth century, it is the rediscovery o f Petronius that is
the real impetus to narrative experim ent.

Prolalia a n d Praelectio fr o m V iv e s to B o rg e s

A t the end o f the first vo lu m e o f th e Elegantiores satyrae come two

academic Somnia b y Petrus N a n n iu s. T h e first, subtitled Paralipomm

” The reference is to Horace, Epistles 1.6.6 r, that is, one who should be struck from the atiisenship
tolls. 1 presume that the title objects to the presence o f Julian’s Caesars and M isopogm, given Julian's
status as the Apostate. Cunae us' Encom ium o fJu lia n is found in Am phitheatrum n, 101-3, the book
o f damnable topics, right after Cardano’s Encom ium o f N ero. For the history o f Julian’s Casam i*
the humanist era, see Smith Z012.
*° That is, the hope is that the sequel will be called Satirae. T h u would have been on the modd of da
'Letten o f Anonymous Men’; no such book ever appeared.
 Prose Satire 353

Vergilii, res inferae à poeta relictae (‘ W h a t Virgil Passed O ver Infernal

Matters the Poet L e ft B e h in d ’ ), w as written last (1545), and served to
entertain his students w h ile th ey w ere working through Aeneid vi. (How
was it that Virgil k n ew m o re than H o m e r did about the underworld?) The
second, probably from 15 4 3 , is subtitled In Lib. n Lucretii praefatio
fPreiâce to the S e co n d B o o k o f Lucretius’). T h e first has more o f moral
outrage, directed to w ard th e dissolute life o f students; the second, ‘dearly
meant as a divertim ento’ , is designed to keep his students amused and in
class as he takes th em through the opening books o f Lucretius.4' Puteanus,
who is responsible for their b e in g called somnia, calls the first one a satire in
his preface to it; b u t the au th o r himself, as Dirk Sacré points out,41 docs
not quite k now h o w to label his o w n w ork when he completes it:

Jam finita ista commentatione, quam addam coronidem mecum subdubito.

Subjiciam plaudite? non est comoedia. Subjidam dixi? non est oratio.
Dicam nugatus sum? sed adsunt quaedam gravia. Jam scio, quid subjicere
debeam. Dicam enim Miscellanea mea jam absolvi.
Ite domum pasti, si quis pudor, itejuvenci (Verg. Ecl. 7.44)
Now that I’ve finished m y account, I have my doubts as to what signature
to add. Plaudite! It’s not a comedy. Dixit It’s not an oration. Nugatus mm!
But there are serious elements within it. Now I know what to add: I’ll say
‘Now I have brought m y Miscellanies to a conclusion.’
Now you’re stuffedfidi Go home, my cattle, go, if you have any sense of
shame.
He can’t bring h im self to say ‘ M en ip p ean ’, but he can refer to his work as a
satire in the m iscellaneous sense; this agrees with the fact that he knows
that Menippean satire is com p o u n d ed o f prose and verse (in his Commen­
tary on H orace’s Ars poetica 2 2 0 - 1 ) . In f i a , when he tells the readers, as
cattle, to go hom e n o w that they have been fed (pasti) he refers dearly to
satire as the lanx satura, the m ixed plate.43
Nannius draws his inspiration here from Juan Luis Vives, whose Som­
nium et vigilia . . . i n somnium Scipionis (‘A Dream and an All-Night Vigil
on The Dream o f Scipio’ , 15 2 0 ) predated him by twenty years as the first
text in the hum anist M e n ip p e a n m ovem ent.44 These works are intellectual
fantasies, in w hich an auth or, whisked away to the heavens in a vision, a*

* Sieri 1994: 87; the estay treats both o f these Som m a, and it the source o f my treatment here.
" <994: 93
* C f the parallel passage In the Ecttgurs. 10.77: ite domum saturae, venit Hesperus, ite, capdke, 'No»
you’re stuffed iuli. G o home, m y goats; the evening star is coming; go.'
** Vives’ work has pride o f place in the chronology o f Menippean works in De Smet 1996:147-50; see
also IJscwijn 1994.
 JO EL RELIH AN
354
dream or an ecstasy, sees figures o f truth an d co m e s back with that truth
for his students. Vives’ topic is m ore bo o k s than the w h o le o f human life;
the narrator, no longer a M e n ip p u s, rarely c o m e s back with a tale told
against himself. But N an n iu s, w restlin g w ith th e archaism o f Lucretius, is
willing to make him self look a little foolish in p ro m o tin g a favorite, if
difficult, author.
In general, humanist authors have d ifficu lty referring to works as
Menippean satires outside o f their tid e pages. T h e o ries o f Menippean
saute are not to be found, though there are d efin itio n s; it all comes down
to miscellany in that branch o f M e n ip p e a n literature that deals with poetiy
and poets. A s Latín authors, hum anists sp eak o f R o m a n satire, but not
o f the formal relationship betw een th e G r e e k L u cia n and their own
productions, and it is rem arkable th at th ere is n o Lu cian included in
the Elegantiores satyrae. B u t i f th e p a ra d o xo grap h ical traditions lead to
Utopia and then to th e Amphitheatrum, Anatomy of
‘ Praise o f Folly’ and
Melancholy, and Swift, then the Sen ecan trad itio n , w h ic h envelops the
somnium, the dream vision, the v ie w o f th e a ca d e m ic conclave, does have
one particular modern descendant w h ich m a y a llo w us in retrospect to see
the humanist traditions m ore clearly.
In Borges’ T h e Library o f B abel’, a librarian describes the fantastic library
in which he and an entire tribe o f librarians labor: a near-infinite honeycomb
o f cells, unimaginably more vast than o u r entire universe, holding all of the
possible combinations o f tw enty-five orth ograp h ic sym bols (twenty-two
letters, comma, period, space) as contained in books 4 1 0 pages long each
page with forty lines, each line w ith abo ut e igh ty characters. Inevitably, the
volumes are gibberish, but the library in toto is said to contain everything
That is, o f course, impossible, if there are texts w ritten in alphabets of mote
than twenty-two letters, unless one im agines the possibility o f coding.45
The tide is, o f course, biblical: the T o w e r o f B abel represents the unity of
human language prior to the G o d -se n t catastrophe that has resulted in the
incommunicability o f hum an cultures. T h e narrator is taking the nature of
the existence o f the library as som e so n o f a p r o o f o f the existence o f God, a
way to reason back to G o d through the f e a o f incommunicability. The
narrator, like all the librarians, is involved in a search for m eaning in a world
o f gibberish, combing the library for scraps that resem ble things already
known in the world o f language and literature o utside o f the library. Evety
librarian, not just the narrator, is ben d in g o v er backw ard s in a desperate
attempt to find meaning that p robab ly does n o t exist: *

* Bloch M o i.
 Prose Satire 355
Some five hundred years ago, the chief o f one o f the upper hexagons came
across a book as jum bled as all the others, but containing almost two pages
of homogeneous lines. H e showed his find to a traveling decipherer, who
told him that the lines were written in Portuguese; others said it was
Yiddish. W ithin the century experts had determined what the language
actually was: a Sam oyed-Lithuanian dialect o f Guarani, with inflections
from classical Arabic.4*

The only con clusion to b e d ra w n is that the narrator is looking for

meaning where it is n o t to b e fo u n d , because the test o f whether or not
anything in the library is m e a n in g fu l is b y com parison to what is known
outside o f the library. H e lives in h o p e o f discovering a coincidental
relationship betw een a library text an d the texts o f the outside world.
The narrator’s c o n c lu d in g e le g a n t h o p e, that it will be discovered that the
finite library is p erio d ic, th e sa m e lim ite d gibberish repeating infinitely, is
just a delusion: w h y w o u ld th e in fin ite repetition o f a finite number o f
boob - books that c a n n o t p o s s ib ly co n ta in all the w isdom in our world -
be some sort o f p r o o f o f th e m ean in gfu ln e ss o f the universe and o f the
human place w ith in it? ‘ T h e L ib r a r y o f B ab el’ , in its thematic aspects,
accords with the tra d itio n s o f a n c ie n t M e n ip p e a n satire: the philosopher,
the word m an, go es to th e e n d o f the universe in a quixotic desire to
attain an absolute a n d p ro v a b le k n o w le d g e that w as present to him in his
own world all the tim e ; rig h t at his feet, the G re e k phrase is. M enippus’
flight to heaven in L u c ia n ’s Icaromenippus, and his descent to Hades in
Lucian's Necyomantia, m a k e p h y sic a l th e jo u rn ey that is only imagined
but never un dertaken a t th e e n d o f B o e th iu s’ Consolation o f Philosophy.
The profundity o f the in te llectu a l quest o f B orges’ narrator is only mock
profundity, and the tale se lf-d e stru cts at the end: I f only the gibberish went
onforever!
Borges’ story gre w in stages. O rig in a lly an article, ‘T h e To tal Library*
(1939), it m ocked the Totaltheater project o f G ro p iu s; this became ‘T h e
Library o f Babel’ , p u b lish e d in 1 9 4 2 an d 19 4 4 . T o start w ith, his tower was
one hexagonal cell in d ia m eter, in fin itely tall; bu t in the second edition o f
1956 it grew in all d irectio n s, th u s p a ro d y in g L e C orbusier’ s design for an
infinitely expandable m u se u m co rrid o r.47 In the history o f modern M enip­
pean satire, this s to iy represents the sh ort form , as opposed to monstrous
worb like Anatomy o f Melancholy, Tristram Shandy and Gargantua and
Pantagruel, and it m a y be related to the Renaissance literature that makes*

* Tnmbrion o f Andrew Hurley (Borges 1998: 114). reprinted in Bloch 2008: 6.

c Com 200 0:7-9.
356 JOEL RELIHAN

firn o f critics and scholars, w ord men lost in thought, in worlds of their
own making. It is functionally a prolalia.4® ‘T h e T o w e r o f Babel’ serves as
an introduction, not to one literary w ork, but to the literary and interpret-
ive enterprise as a whole.
Menippean satire as a m odem analytical tool and critical category still
struggles to make itself known. Every stu dy feels the need to define the
genre as if to an audience that has never heard o f it; the theories of Bakhtin
quickly displaced the approaches o f F iy e , but n o w w e live in a world that is
becoming increasingly comfortable in leaving Bakhtin behind as well
What emerges is this: M enippean satire not o n ly has a history, but is
involved with the histories o f other genres; it speaks in different voices
at different times; it is not uniform , not because it is fundamentally
unstable (an unsatisfactory definition o f a genre), but because it arrays
itself against different literary m ovem ents and different literary genres at
different times.
The Menippean satire o f the Amphitheatrum m ay be illuminated,
again in retrospect, b y more m odern literary phenom ena. Vincent Miller,
referring to the work o f L e v M an o vich , m akes the argument that in the
digital age the database supplants the narrative as the authoritative form
o f expression.49 T h e struggle between postm odern database and modem
narrative re-enacts, though with m ovem ent in the opposite direction, the
shift from pre-modem database to m odern narrative. T h e rediscovery of
the Cena Trimalchionis in 16 50 (codex Traguriensis) coincided with the
effective end o f humanist M enippean satire b y affording a stronger
impulse to extended narrative.50 H u m an ist anthologizing, which was
the recasting o f works, discarding som e m eanings and overtones whik
supplying others, was a repurposing o f satire, often a decontexualization,
discarding the overdy ‘satirical’ for the ‘e n cyclo p ed ic’ , and moving from
the particular to the universal, w here the satirist, o r the satirical compil­
ation, found in the rhetoric o f extolling the trivial a new view of the
world, one which the twin forces o f science and narrative were soon to
displace.4
1*

41 A pm lalú or 'opening remark’ is a short piece to warm the audience up. specifically by talking about
the nature o f literature or an, usually via an exaggerated analogy, asid with a comic or self-pandk
twist. Lucian has several examples (Prom etheus es in verbis, o t ‘You’re a Literary Prometheus^
Zeuxis)i in Latin, we have the fragmentary collection o f Apuleian pieces known as the Fhriit
('Purple Passages’).
49 Miller 1008: 390-1; Manovich zooi. I thank m y colleague Josh Stenger for this reference.
*° Grafton 1990.
 Prose Satire 357

F U R T H E R R E A D IN G

For che history of Lucian in the early Renaissance (to the 1520s) see Marsh 1998,
withchapters on the dialogue of the dead, on dialogues in heaven, the paradoxical
encomium and the fantastic voyage. For symposium literature, Jeannerct 1991
is indispensable, augmented by Burke 199), and Marsh 1987 on Xlbetti’s
Intm etuU s. While IJsewijn 1976 is fundamental, the three ‘most important
studies of humanist Menippean satire are Blanchard 1995, taking a broad,
theoretical approach to ana-systematic intellectual saure; De Smet 1996, taking
1 narrow approach to the politics of Menippean satires and, above all, to the
historyof the dream vision; and Kivistö 2009 on the traditions of paradoxography
asthey relate to the traditions of Roman satire as a healing genre. De Smet 1996;
247—50 offers an invaluable chronological listing of Menippean works from
1520 to 1761 (and beyond). Poner 2014c helps to disentangle Menippean satire
from prose fiction; Morrish Tunberg 2014 considers utopian literature as a
separate set of literary phenomena. For Menippean traditions immediately prior
tothe Renaissance, see Dronke 1994 and Relihan (forthcoming); for traditions
immediately subsequent, Castrop 1983 and the opening chapters of Weinbrot
2005. What remains to be written is an account of the process of the successive
mthologizations of humanist texts.
 CH APTER 21

Historiography
Felix M undt

Considering the vast num ber o f n eo-Latin w orks dealing with the history
o f peoples, territories, dries, kings and families from all over Europe and
the New W orld, it was an inevitable decision not to attempt an overview of
these works themselves but rather to focus on the most important issues
and problems that emerged w ith the begin n in g o f the Renaissance, and the
methods humanist historiographers developed in response from about
1400 to 1550. This essay aims to consolidate the reader’s insti n a for some
important characteristics o f neo-Latin historiography, regardless of which
region or period he or she is interested in.

Leonardo Bruni - The H om er o f N eo-Latin Historiography?

Many scholars consider Leonardo B ru n is ( 1 3 7 0 - 1 4 4 4 ) Historiae Fiorentini

populi (‘History o f the Florentine People’) as n o t o n ly the very first pica of
humanist historiography but also the m ost perfect o n e.' Bruni seems to
combine all the virtues one expects from a Renaissance historiographer
thorough analysis o f all available sources, veracity and above all the ability to
describe the history o f a late medieval d ty-state using an elegant language and
a system o f values and terms shaped b y T h u cyd id es, Polybius, Livy and
Sallust. T o combine contemporary matters w ith ancient patterns in such
a masterly way requires not only a skilful author bu t also a topic that is
suitable for this kind o f approach, and B ru n i’ s Florence certainly was: an
Italian dty-state o f ancient origin, it held m ore than regional importance in
terms o f culture and power. Despite the continual struggles between nobility
and bourgeoisie, its inhabitants considered themselves to be a popolo united
under a republican constitution. T h e first o f B ru n i’s twelve books covers the
period from the origins o f the city to the first h a lf o f the thirteenth century.
Bruni o f course takes pride in the history o f his hom etow n, bur he does not

‘ As Cochrane 1981:1 pots tc ‘Like Minerva, humanist historiography was bom fully grown.’

35«
 H istoriography 359
(tel the need to decorate its origins w ith any kind o f founding myth. Instead,
he elegandy and concisely em beds the Florentine history into the course o f
centuries dominated b y Etruscans and Romans, always attaching slightly
more importance to Florence than it deserved and blaming Rome for
granting less relevance to Florence in ancient times.1
The account o f the Rom an emperors - who according to Bruni were
intolerant o f liberty, became victim s o f their own intrigues and thus caused
the decline o f the R om an Em pire3 - provides the leitmotif for the rest o f the
work: the meaning and importance o f libertas. In b o o b l - n Bruni gives an
account o f the 150 years up to 14 0 2 in a distinctively Livian manner. The
antagonism between the nobiles w h o were always prone to abuse their power
and the upcoming bourgeoisie w h o wanted to have their right to liberty
guaranteed by law, the broader and omnipresent antagonism between Guelphs
and Ghibellines and the wars against rival dty-srates are combined to create a
coherent account. In accordance w ith ancient tradition, the regularly inter'
spersedspeeches are invented but m in o r the substance o f actual statements. By
means o f speeches the author can stage a prominent character, whose words
lead to a focus on a com plex historical conflict. Take, for example, the speech
of Ianus Labella (G iano della Bella) w ho in 1293 was the initiator of the
Ordinamentidi Giustizia, a law that kept members o f the nobility from public
office. He is introduced as a true tribune o f the people (4.26-7):

Nec sane plenam ad servitutem plebis quicquam aliud obstare videbatur

quam quod nobilitas ipsa, inter sese varie divisa, aemulatione et invidia
concertabat. [27] H an c igitur deformitatem et labem rei publicae tollere
aggressus est vir unus, per eam tempestatem magnitudine animi et consilio
pollens, Ianus Labella, claris quidem maioribus ortus, sed ipse modicus dvis
et apprime popularis.

Indeed, it seemed that the only obstacle to the complete servitude of the
common people was the nobility's own internal divisions, riven as it was by
envy and competitive rivalries. One man tried to stop the corruption and
decline o f the commonwealth: Giano della Bella, who showed greatness and
wisdom during that stormy time. He was descended from distinguished
ancestors, but was himself a man o f moderation and strongly populist in
his sympathies.

In the final paragraphs o f the speech, Bruni makes Labella combine the
central concepts o f the Historiae-, personal liberty and the relative

'Rome drew to herself everything wonderful that was engendered in Italy and drained all other cities.'
(Hbt Flor, i.u) Translations closely fellow Hankins toot.
1 Hin. Flor. i.jí.
360 FELIX M U N D T

independence o f ancient Florence (4 .33): 'M a io re s nostri ne imperatoribus

quidem romanis servire sustinuerunt, q u a m q u a m et titulum praetenden­
tibus et dignitate hom inum servitutem honestante. V o s vilissimis homi­
num servire sustinebitis?’ ('O u r ancestors forebore to serve even Roman
emperors, although the title to w h ic h the em perors pretended and their
rank made the servitude less dishonourable. Sh all y o u continue serving
the vilest men?’) T h e narrative then shifts fro m internal to foreign affairs.

[3$] Constituta per hunc modum re publica domi, externam ad quietem

versae mentes, de pace cum Pisanis agere coeperunt ... Sed ne nobilius,
quae bello clarescere solebat, per occasionem militiae aliquid moliretur, «
plebs nusquam a rei publicae custodia abscederet, pacem potius visumest
quam bellum expedire.
Public affairs having thus been put in order at home, the people turned
their attention to tranquility abroad, and began to negotiate a peace with
the Pisans ... Nevertheless, it seemed the better course to nuke peace
rather than continue the war to prevent the nobility, which generally
distinguishes itself in wartime, from using the occasion of military service
to begin some plot, and the common people from ever relaxing their
vigilance in protecting the commonwealth.
If the reader o f these lines is strongly rem in ded o f L ivy, that is not by
accident.4 Everyone familiar w ith classical R o m a n historiography feds
immediately at home, but caution is recom m en ded: the reader is easily
set on the wrong track if he is not aware that it is anything but natural or
self-evident to describe the condition o f late m edieval Florence in a Livian
style, following the classical R o m an system o f values. A contemporary
Florentine reader might well have been led to im agine republican Rome
as a replica o f his hom etown; a m odern reader w h o is not familiar with die
history o f medieval Italy will p robab ly use R o m e as a mental model for
medieval Florence. So Brami and the con tem p orary exponents of what
Hans Baron has called ‘civic h u m an ism ’5 established a powerful and
sophisticated set o f associations w h ich m ade the lon g distance between
antiquity and present disappear before the reader’s eye.
I could now bring this chapter to a very q u ick end if it was true that
every humanist historian used this tech nique in ju st this w ay to bridge the
gap between his own tim e and the adm ired m odels o f antiquity and at

4 Vir uitur. Liv. 2 3 . 2 i . 6 -, ii.3 7 .ii 38.17.8; servitili p leb is: 1.17 .7 ; titulum praeten dar: 37.54.13; nimmt
(general hominum: 36.17.5; bello ela n s: 9.26.14; 42.49.7. O n the importance o f Livy for Bruni ct
lanàri 2012:14-18; ¿3-8.
4 The concept o f dvic humanism and its limitations arc discussed by H ay 1988:133-49. Fubini 2003
94-5 and Blicklc 2000: 295.
 H istoriography 361

the same time to ennoble the recent past o f the region or kingdom about
which he wrote. B ut it is no t that simple. Style and themes o f fifteenth-
century historiography even in th e Italian city-states diverge to an enor­
mous extent,6 let alone the rest o f Europe. Every historian has his own
story to tell and his o w n masters to serve, and draws on ancient models as
he thinks best. T a k e as an exam ple the Bellum ävile et Gallicum (‘Civil and
Gallic W ar’) b y G ia c o m o C u rio , w h ich praises the defeat o f the French by
the Genovese D o g e Paolo Fregoso in 14 6 1. T h e title reminds us o f Caesar,
the beginning is taken from P lin y’s fam ous letter 6.16 to Tadtus; Fregoso
is on a par w ith the L iv ia n C am illu s.7 So where to start?

The Artes Historiae Scribendae

If Bruni’s m ethod is n o t th e universal model for the myriads o f neo-
Latin histories, it co u ld be tem p tin g to save the trouble o f reading
through coundess vo lu m es b y referring instead to some o f the neady
arranged Artes historicae. E x c e p t for the famous Methodenkapitel (meth­
odological digressions) o f several historians and some passages in Cicero,
Quintilian and D io n ysiu s o f H alicarnassus, classical antiquity has left
us with only a single treatise about the writing o f history: Lucian’s
De historia conscribenda (‘ H o w H is to ry Should Be W ritten’), written
by a man w h o does n o t h im se lf co u n t am ong the masters o f ancient
historiography.8 T h e R en aissance in contrast brought forth a larger
number o f system atic o u d in es o f the historian’s an. O ne o f the first
and most influential w as G io v a n n i P on tano’s dialogue Actius, although
written some years after P o n ta n o h ad com posed his De bello Neapolitano
fOn the N eapo litan W a r ’ ) .9
Theory followed p ractice, an d the sam e holds true for the whole genre
of che Ars historica. A m o n g the best-kn ow n treatises are François Bau-
douin’s De institutione historiae universae et eius cum iurisprudentia con-
¡unctione prolegomenon libri n (‘T w o Books o f Prolegomena ön the
System o f Universal H is to ry and its Connection with Jurisprudence’ ,
1561), David C h ytra eu s’ De lectione historiarum reçu instituenda (‘On
How to Establish the P rop er W a y to Read Historiography’, 1563) and Jean*

* S a Germano 1998: 150 with further reading. 7 Germano 1998:147, 152.

Nevertheless, Guarino's short treatise D e historiae conscribendaeform a is highly indebted to him; cf.
Rcgoiioci 1991, with an edition o f the ten.
* As Mond Sabia 199; has shown, Pontano just reworked a few passages o f his monograph after writing
dic Actius. Another important theoretical text is Lorenzo Valla’s preface to his Historiae Fertbu n Ji
nps Artgtmiae (written in 144s), thoroughly analyzed by Femù 2001:1-42.
 362 FELI X M UN DT

Bodin’s Methodus ad facilem historiarum cognitionem (‘ Method to Easily

Understand Historiography’, 15 6 6 ).10 In these texts that were written at a
time when the practice o f hum anist historiography was already fully
developed," much is said about the skills necessary for the historian in
terms o f methodology and style, the difference between philosophers and
historians, the usefulness o f history as magistra vitae, history as an image of
divine providence, the value o f truth and the im portance o f a training in
law and geography. T h e treatises are shaped b y concepts drawn from
rhetoric and philosophy o f history. T h e y set o u t a complete and coherent
system which hardly any historian ever follow ed. Interesting as they may
be for the study o f humanist political thought and philosophy of histoty,
they fall short o f explaining the w ay h o w historiography had developed
since Bruni’s times.11* B ut in one thing Jean B odin was perfectly right:
Nulla quaestio maps exercuit historiarum scriptores, quam quae habetur
de origine populorum,} (‘N o problem ever bothered historians more than
the open question o f the origin o f peoples’), w h ich leads us to the next
paragraph.

(Pseudo-)ModemAnswers toMedieval Questions:

Annius, Antiquitates
Origin tales inserted in historiographical texts serve various purposes. They
satisfy the curiosity to learn som ething about the remote past, build a
foundation for the society o f the present an d provide a connection between
local history and the larger context o f w o rld history as it was transmitted by
the Bible, Eusebius/Jerome and pagan m yth s.14 Problem s appeared as soon
as it was felt necessary to establish an uninterrupted genealogical connec­
tion between peoples or persons p layin g m ajor roles in the biblical or
classical tradition and the nation o r at least the ruling dynasty relevant to
the chronicle. Th e Historia Brittonum, datin g probably from the ninth

10 Treatises from Italy are assembled and commented upon by Kessler 1971; the development of de
genre is examined by Cotroneo 1971.
u This being the case, Bodin was able to suggest in his last chapter a canon o f historians from antiquin
to his own rime, immured by countries.
'* This simple general rule, first stated in 1911 by Fueter 19yd: v, has been challenged by Croa 191p
Ijo -i, but still holds some validity i f it is taken with caución, cf. Cotroneo 197t; 3-8 and Laudiate
1972:8. It should however not prevent us from examining historiography and its theory as produca
of the same intellectual background.
11 Bodin i;6 6 :403.
14 Especially in the late Middle Ages the genres o f universal and regional history are aim«
indistinguishable, cf. Johanek 1987 and M enem 2001.
 H istoriography 363

century, does not hesitate to d raw on both the Bible and the Aeneid to
explain the origins o f the British people without preferring one version.
In a first account the m ythical ancestor Brutus or Britto is introduced as a
grandson o f Aeneas. A few pages later he is embedded into a so-called
‘Table o f Nations’ and presented, alongside other eponymous heroes, as an
offspring o f N o a h ’s son Japhet. In the fifteenth century the problems
concerning the con nection betw een biblical and pagan tradition and the
origins o f European nations had not yet been solved. But at the end o f
the century, the D o m in ica n friar G iovanni N anni (Annius) o f Viterbo
(r. 1432-1502) made a darin g attem pt to offer a solution. In his monumen­
tal Antiquitates he presented a range o f works written by Fabius Pictor,
Cato the Elder, a certain X en o p h o n and others along with a detailed
commentary. A s he told his readers, he had found the texts among the
assets o f a deceased fellow friar. Actually he had forged them himself.
The major pan o f the seventeen books deals with the history o f Latium
and Italy but since the m o n ey for the publication was procured by the
Spanish ambassador at the c o u n o f the Borgia pope Alexander V I, Annius
dedicated the volum e to the Spanish crown and broadened the scope of
his work to include the origins o f Spain and other European nations.
Although most o f the sources the Antiquitates contained soon came under
suspicion, the forgeries had a deep im pact on sixteenth-century historiog­
raphy and divided the co m m u n ity o f scholars into believers and critics.
The Annian system o f forged evidence is based upon euhemerism and
onomastics.1* A m o n g oth er traditional and recendy discovered texts such as
Lactantius’ Divinae institutiones (‘ D ivin e Principles’), O vid’s Fasti and the
Origogentis Romanae (‘ O n th e O rigin o f the Roman People1), Annius drew
upon Diodorus Siculus w h o had been published in 14 72 in Latin translation
by Poggio Bracciolini.'6 I f the pagan gods were in f r a nothing but great men
and kings, every m ythical acco u n t could be used for the history o f mankind,
a popular method in late a n tiq u ity em ployed by both Christian and pagan
authors.17 A s we are told in the first book o f O vid ’s Fasti, Janus ruled Latium
when Saturnus arrived there in his flight from Jupiter. Annius’ source of
information for that a cco u n t is Q u in tu s Fabius Pictor.'8 The second
important concept is that o f h om on ym s: some things or people bearing
one name are in f r a m ultiple. T h a t idea is developed in the short treatise De

'' Annius' methods are revealed by Goez 1974 and Ligota 1987. on his biography see Weiss 1961.
Diodorus had introduced euhemerism into historiography and held that (Cronos was a former king
of Sicily and Italy (Diod. Sic. 3.61.3).
17 Origo Rom. t; Lact. im i. 1.15.1-4. '* Ps.-Fabius Pictor, Annius 1515: (bl +T.
364 FELIX MUNDT

aequivocis (‘O n Hom onym s’) by a certain X en o p h on , son o f Gripho, who,

as we learn from Annius’ com m entary, lived during the ninety-fifth Olym­
piad, i.e. in the first half o f the fourth century b c e .1'1 T h e confusion withthe
famous historian, son o f Gryllos, is certainly intended. Sharing the same
name works with places10 as well as w ith mortals and gods:11

The eldest ancestors o f the dynasties o f noble kings, who founded cities, ate
all called Saturn. Their firstborns are called Jupiter and Juno, the strongest
among their grandsons Hercules. The fathers o f the Saturns are died
Heavens, their wives are in each case Rhea, the wives of the Heavens Vesta.
Hence there are as many Heavens, Vestas, Rheas, Junos, Jupiters and
Herculeses as Saturns. Besides, a person who is called Hercules by oik
nation might well be a Jupiter for another. For Ninus, who had been called
Hercules by the Chaldeans, was regarded as a Jupiter by the Assyrians.

Annius’ most important forgeries, Pseudo-Berosus and Pseudo-Manetho,

filled the spatial and chronological gap between biblical history and that of
western Europe. ‘Berosus’ provides us with a genealogical tradition for almost
every European nation. Annius has chosen his mouthpiece with great cate.
The Babylonian historian Berossos had lived around 30 0 bce and was known
by name from Flavius Josephus and Eusebius. H e had written a historid
work dedicated to Antiochus 1 and thus belonged simultaneously to Baby­
lonian and Hellenistic culture. T o lay the ground for his forged Berosus,
Annius in Book 7 o f the Antiquitates had m ade his ‘C a to the Elder’ discard
the whole tradition o f Greek and R om an historiography. T h e commentaries
upon the forged sources, which are themselves often written in a rather
clumsy Latin style to suggest antiquity, show an enormous amount of
humanist learning. In these commentaries, A n n iu s cites the authors who
had been the inspiration for all his forgeries, as for example Pliny the Elder
and Tacitus. A t the end, Berosus provides the d u e to the whole pude:“

Cumque [sc. Noah] ivisset ad regendum Kitim, quam nunc Italiam nomi­
nant, desyderium sui reliquit Armenis, ac propterea post mortem ilium
arbitrati sunt in animam caelestium corporum tralatum, et Uli divina
honores impenderunt . . . O b beneficium inventae vitis et vini dignatus
est cognomento fano quod Arameis sonat vitifer et vinifer.

When Noah had gone away to rule Kitim, which is now called Italy, he lé
the Armenians with a desire for him, and then, after his death, they believed

’’ Annius isij: foL jV*.

20 Ps.-Xenophon De aequivocis, Annius 1515: fol. 36': ‘"Olympus” denotes more than one thing, ft*
every mountain o f a certain altitude in any region is called "Olympus* by the Giceks.’
21 Ibid,, foL }4t. u Ps.-Berosus, Annius 1515: fol. ì i f .
 H istoriography 365

chat he had joined the soul o f heavenly bodies,and honored him as a god. . .
And because he had invented the convenience of viticulture,they found
him worthy to bear the epithet 'Janus’, which in the Aramaic language
means 'Bringer o f vines’ and ‘Bringer o f wine’.

Thus Noah and Jan u s are the same person, and Annius’ beloved Latium
has the privilege o f having been ruled by the founder o f mankind himself.
The resr o f Europe has been populated b y his sons and grandsons, e.g. the
Germans by Hercules A lem an n u s w ho, as a Hercules, was a son of Jupiter
(i.e. Tacitus’ T u isco ) and grandson o f Janus alias Heaven alias Noah.M
Based on his deep learning, which also included some knowledge of
Hebrew, and acquaintance with a vast number o f ancient texts cited in the
extensive commentaries - the forged sources themselves are quite short -
Annius attempted to solve a question which had already begun to become
obsolete: whether we are descended from a man called Noah or some promin­
ent character o f the pagan tradition, or both. In the first half o f the sixteenth
century (and even for som e decades after), the community of European
historians was split into two factions. For some o f them this question was still
so important that they were inclined to trust the Antiquitates. The others
frankly called Annius a liar and turned their attention to different modes of
bridging the gap between present and past which had already been developed.

T h e Spatial Tu rn : Flavio Biondo I

The description o f a given geographical space combined with information

on the historical background had a well-established tradition in antiquity
(cf. the works o f Strabo, P om ponius M ela, Pliny the Elder, Solinus) and
was known to medieval authors. S o the combination o f geography and
history is not a hum anist invention but it became a very important feature
of Renaissance historiography by the efforts o f Flavio Biondo of Forlì
(1392-1463). After h aving distinguished himself as a linguist by his work
De verbis Romanae locutionis ( 'O n the W ords o f Roman Speech’ , 1433) and
as an annalist b y the Historiarum ab inclinatione Romani imperii decades m
(‘Three Decades o f H isto ry from the Decline o f the Roman Empire’, 1441),
and after having established R om an archaeology by his De Roma instaurata
libri tres (‘ Rom e Restored in T h re e Books’ , 14 4 4 -6 ), in the 1450s he wrote
the Italia illustrata and introduced geography into the writing o f history.15

" Cf. Gen. 9-lof. M Commentary on Berosus. Annius tjij: foL u j ’ .

* The description o f countries is o f course nor limited to historiography, in his vast contribution
Dcfilippii rota locates the chorégraphie genre within the whole range o f neo-Latin prose writing.
366 FELIX M Ü N D T

In the prologue o f the third decade o f th e Historiae, he had outlined very

distinctively the challenges a historian w r itin g in L atin had to face. The«
problems are condensed in the term mutatio. F o r a historian writing in
classical Latin, the changes that have taken place since antiquity in terms of
language, manners and custom s, political institutions and, after the Migra­
tion Period, the population o f every E u ro p e a n region are much more
difficult to handle than for a poet. H o w sh o uld he reconcile the require­
ments for a writer and a historian, n am ely elegance and veracity?

Ut enim pauca de multis dicam, eum, qui omnibus in bello praeest, sive
proprium, sive alienum mercennarius administrat exercitum appellaturus,
si more vetusto imperatorem dixero, in aequivocum incido illius, quem
Caesaris loco habemus.

To speak briefly about a complex topic: if I follow the ancient tradition by

calling the man who in the war is the leader o f all imperator (no maner ifhe
commands his own or, as a mercenary, a foreign army), I get into a conflict
o f homonymy with the man who for us is the Emperor.

It is this awareness that the resuscitation o f th e an cien t style o f writing is

as desirable as it is impossible th at is d istin ctive o f the best humanist
historians.*7 In the Italia illustrata, he tried o u t a n e w approach. The aim
o f the whole project is oudin ed in an early version o f the preface, which
had been written b y Francesco B arbaro o n b e h a lf o f B iondo:28

Unde peragrare ac lustrare Italiam coepi, ut . . . non solum cum praesentis

aevi hominibus in Italia nunc essem, quod a principio quaesiveram, sed ut
in Italia, ut ita dicam, me censore illustrata tecum in futurum et cum
posteris viverem et intermortuam culpa temporum memoriam cum doc­
tissimis hominibus huius aetatis in lucem revocarem.

I therefore started to travel through Italy because I not only wanted to live
in Italy now together with the people o f this age (that was my desire from
the beginning), but my aim is to live together with you and with posterity
in an Italy that has been illustrated thanks to m y records, and, together with
the most learned men o f m y age, to bring to light again the remembraría
abolished by the fault o f time.

The term illustrarelillustrata, w h ich w as to h ave a distinguished foture as a

book tide,*9 denotes very w ell w h a t th e h u m a n ist historian is doing.’0
Instead o f relying exclusively o n w ritten so u rces, he travels around (lus­
trare) searching after all kinds o f rem ains o f th e past: texts, ruins and place

* Biondo 1531: 393. Place Sames cause similar difficulties: Biondo 1331: 394. 17 Cf. Hay 198ft S1
a Pomari zou: 41; cf. Qavuot 1990: 23; Cappelletto 1992: r8 i-4. 19 Pomari 2011: 217-9.
w Pomari 2011:32.
 H istoriography 367

names. B y d o in g so, he (1) sheds light upon the past and thus (2) praises
the present o f a c o u n try (illustrare), granting (3) immortality to himself.
Biondo s m eth od o f g iv in g an account o f Italian history arranged not
chronologically b u t b y regions w as adopted b y humanist historians all over
Europe because o f its m a n y advantages:3'

. Space is con tin u o u s an d provides a consistent framework. The history

even o f the m ost fam o u s dynasties is m urkier in the more distant past,
and in the h istory o f events, there are always periods not reflected in
the sources at all. A n y h istoriographic w ork organized chronologically
cannot avoid this d ifficu lty.
• A spatial fram ew ork dispenses the historian from constructing chrono­
logical (and b y that: causal) co n tin u ity where there is none.
• The geographic point provides a bridge between present and past. Its name,
its inhabitants, the political constitution m ay have changed, but its position
is immutable. It serves as an Archim edean point for any humanist who
aims to stress the interrelation between present and antiquity.
• Any rhetorically an d philologically trained humanist who followed Bion-
do’s method m ost p ro b ab ly felt at hom e immediately because historiog­
raphy in the ‘x-illustrata-style’ resembles a commentary - not on a text but
on a clearly defined region.32 Ju st as a philological commentator is always
free to explain a single term o r person, or offer comment on the context
(and, at the sam e tim e, to o m it things he could not find out about or
which he considers irrelevant), the humanist historian may explain some
place name, describe so m e ruins, deliver a panegyric on a famous city or
cite some ancient sources dealing w ith the place he is interested in - if
there are any. I f n o t, there are m an y other options to fill the pages.
• The m ethod w o rk s fo r regions o f any size; it is appropriate for king­
doms as well as fo r co u n tie s a n d cities.

T h e L in gu istic T u rn - Flavio Biondo II

As we have seen, humanist historiographers adopted the spatial point of view

as a technique that allowed the author to connect present and past without
offending the rule of veracity. There is a second preference - humanist

” At the beginning o f the sixteenth century the geographical approach was especially favored in
Getmany. Cf. Strauss 1 9 5 9 :12 - 5 ; M uhlack 2002. O n successors in Italy set Hay 1988: )8o-7.
* Compare, e.g., Vadianus’ com m entary on Pomponius Mela with Beams Rhenanus' Res Germanum.
C i. Schirrmeister 2009: 2).
 368 FELIX M U N D T

historians are fond o f etymological research for three reasons: their philo,
logical training in general; the idea that finding the oldest and very
meaning o f a word means finding the truth, invented already by Heraclitus
and Plato and communicated to the M id d le A ges b y Isidore o f Seville; and
the ancient rhetorical convention that an y description o f places should begin
with the explanation o f their names. T h e etym ological method has an air of
scienrificity, and so the humanists used it as well as their medieval predeces­
sors. There are many examples o f tem ptin g bu t w ron g etymologies which
helped to support alleged relations between peoples and places that today
seem hazardous. From the tim e o f G o ttfried o f V iterbo, it was common to
identify the Hungarians with the H u n s;53 A lb ert Krantz thought that the
land o f the Slavic W ends at the Baltic sea coast was the home of the
Vandals;34 Heinrich von G undelfingen stated a kinship between the Swedes
and the Swiss.35 A n old-fashioned historian w ish in g to flatter a king or an
emperor would have constructed a genealogy tracing the royal family back to
Aeneas or Priam. But these methods becam e a feature o f panegyric rather
than historiography. A n early m odern historian like Beatus Rhenanus pre­
sents the dedicatee - the Rom an king Ferdinand, brother o f Charles V -o f
his Res Germanicae, published in 1531, w ith the ‘ p ro o f that the name of the
ancestral seat o f his family (H absburg) stem s from the Roman military camp
o f Avendum.30 Apart from the uninterrupted medieval tradition, Biondo)
Italia illustrata, which starts w ith considerations about the etymology of the
word Italia, is again highly influential on later writers.

The Transmitter: Enea Silvio Piccolomini

As in other genres, the historiographical w o rk s o f the lealians had a deep

impact on the rest o f Europe.37 It is w ell k n o w n that, due to his diplomatic
activities in Vienna and Basel, E n e a Silvio P iccolo m in i (1405-64) was an
important figure in the transm ission o f h um anist knowledge and style to
northern Europe. T h is is above all true fo r historiography. Asia and Europi
are widescale histories structured b y geo grap h y. T h e Historia Austrialis is
the prototype o f humanist regional h isto ry.38 Its m ain characteristics ate:

M Hava* and Kiss 2002: 188-9. M Andermann 19 9 9 :17 2 . ” Maisscn 1002; 217.
* Mund: 2008: 32. He does this by applying the rules o f aspiration and betacism. Unfomnutdy dà
etymology (Habsburg in fact is derived from H abichtsburg - ‘the hawk’s casde’) is as wrong a :
Trojan pedigree would have been.
v Cf. Helmratb, Muhlack and Walther 2002.
11 Strictly speaking, this is true o f the important second o f three revisions o f the text; cf. Knottier aid
Wagendorier 2009; udii.
 H istoriography 369

, The com bination o f geographical and chronological structure.

, An initial geographical description and etymological analysis o f Vienna
and Austria.
, The plain style abandon ed rarely, e.g. in speeches.
, Even if a certain ruler (in this case Frederick III) is a central figure, it is
a country that gives shape to the work as a whole. This change of
perspective is an im portant starting point for concepts o f nation and
nationalism, especially in the Germ an-speaking areas.”
, Where possible, allusions are made to incidents recounted by ancient
historians, e.g. the characterization o f the aristocratic opponents of
Frederick is m odeled on Sallust’s account o f the Catilinariam.40

The Ideal H istorian — and the Pitfalls of Practice:

Johannes Aventinus

At the turn o f the sixteenth centu ry Italian scholars all over Europe were
commissioned b y kings and princes to write official national histories in
elegant Latin, e.g. P olydo re V ergil b y H enry V II in Britain, Paolo Emili
by Louis X II in Fran ce a n d A n to n io Bonfini by Matthias Corvinus in
Hungary. Lucius M arin eu s Siculus worked in Spain.4' But native scholars
were also involved in the process o f rewriting the history o f their own
nations. Johannes A ven tin u s ( 1 4 7 7 - 1 5 3 4 ) wrote the Annales ducum Boiariae
by order o f the D u k es o f Bavaria. Som e years later, he delivered a German
version, the Bairische Chronik.41 In a letter to his colleague Beatus Rhenanus,
he outlines the challenges for a contemporary historian:44

Stilus quidem ac iudicium ut necessaria sunt, ita non propria huic operi;
sunt enim o m n ium professorum communia, ut ita loquar, ferramenta . . .
Proprium historiae est m axim arum rerum cognitio, nimirum agnoscere
atque scire regionum gentium que mores, situm, qualitatem telluris, reli­
giones, instituta, leges, novos veteresque colonos, imperia, regna. Haec
autem absque cosm ographiae mathematicaeque diligenti studio ac peregri­
natione usque ad fastidium , etiam sine ope principimi ac sumptibus
nec disci nec inquiri p o s s u n t. . . Diligentissimam lectionem veterum scrip­
torum, quales T a citu s, Strabo, Ptolemaeus, taceo. Hi diligentissime*

* Hinchi zoi2. 40 Wagendorfer 100 3: 143-80.

" On Polydore and Marineus cf. Rexroth 2002 and Schleiern 2010.
* On die Interdependence o f Latin and the vernacular in hinoriognphy <£ Gocrlitz 1999, Burke
2007b, Schldcin 2009 and Vôlltel 2009. O n Aventinus in general tee Doronin 2013.
41 Honrwitz and Hartfelder 1886: 344-6. Letters are an important source for theoretical reflections of
Rendaun ce historiographers, cf. Landfester 1972: 32-3.
370 FELIX MUNDT

omnium Germaniam descripsere, sed quotusquisquc eosdem intelligit? Oh

commutationes rerum nulla gens in Germania est, adde etiam, si libet, in
universa Europa, Asia, Aphrica, quae aut vetera cognomina aut avitas sedei
retineat: Ita omnia commutata sunt. Istaec scire et diligenter animadvertere
proprium historiae est. Praeterea diplomata vetera imperatorum, regum,
principimi, pontificum, leges, edicta, epistolae ultro citroque missu,
rescripta verissima certissimaque historiae sunt fundamenta. Illa indagare
ac evolvere opus est maius privatis opibus. N am monachi huiusceniodi
monumenta, sicut sacra, sexcentis clavibus in cistis conclusa servant, nec te
nisi ¡ussu eius, cui parere necesse est, eadem vel a limite salutare sinunt...
Haud alio pacto inlustrari Germania poterit, quam ut quique publicis
auspiciis terrae suae omnes angulos perreptent, dirutarum urbium vestigia
ab accolis inquirant, bibliothecas excutiant, diplomata evolvant suamque
observationem cum veterum traditione conferant, hique tandem consi­
dentes communi consilio, quae unusquisque observarit, communicent
atque in publicum prodant. . . . Aiunt Sallustium scripturum bellum
Iugurthinum Aphricam perlustrasse . . .

Style and judgment may be necessary, but they are not peculiar to this
occupation. In fact they are, so to say, tools common to all kinds of
scholars. Peculiar to history is the investigation o f the most important
concerns, that is to recognize and to know the habits, the geographical
location, the soil quality, the religions, customs, laws, the current and
former inhabitants, dominions and kingdoms o f regions or peoples. These
things are neither to be learned nor to be investigated without a diligent
interest in cosmography and mathematics and without traveling ad nau­
seam and, I may add, without support and funding from the rulen... to
say nothing o f the most scrupulous studying o f ancient authors like Tacitus,
Strabo and Ptolemy. These three have described Germany more accurately
than anyone else - yet how many understand them? Things have changed,
and this is why there is no tribe in G erm any (and, you may add: all over
Europe, Asia and Africa) which has preserved its ancient name or still
inhabits its ancestral place o f settlement. So profoundly everything has
changed. T o know this and to be exactly aware o f it - this is peculiar to
history. Besides, old charters o f emperors, kings, princes and popes, their
laws, edicts, letters sent to and fro and rescripts are the most veracious and
reliable fundaments o f history. T o seek out and to read through all thee
records is a task that exceeds the capabilities o f one private citizen. For the
monks keep such documents safe in their chests secured by innumerable
pediocks, as if they were sacred objects. A n d they will not even allow you
just to say hello to them from a distance, unless they are ordered to doso
by a person they have to obey. There is only one way to illuminate the
history o f Germany: M any people by public order must creep into each and
every corner o f their particular region, must inquire o f the inhabitants
where to find ruins o f abandoned towns, they must scrutinize libraries,
read through documents and compare their observations to the old and
established tradition. And finally, they shall gather by common
 Historiography 371

appointment, communicate what they have found and publish i t... It is said
that Sallust has traveled Africa before he was going to write his ‘Iugurthine war’.

There is much to be learned from this lener o f the self-conception of the

early modem historian, w hich necessarily shapes his literary style. I would
like to point out the central thoughts:

• The philological and rhetorical virtues o f stilus and indicium are neces­
sary but not sufficient for a good historian. Note that Sallust is
mentioned not as a model o f style but as a predecessor in perlustratio.
It is a common mistake to claim indiscriminately that for ‘real’ human­
ist historians history is above all a rhetorical exercise. Likewise, the
sharp distinction between rhetorical historians and unambitious anti­
quarians once established by Fueter should be discarded.
• The historian has to leave his office and do fieldwork (peregrinatio).
Whoever wants to illuminate, to investigate and to embellish (illus­
trare) the history o f his country first has to travel (perreptare or lustrare)
even to the most remote pans o f his region.
• He should know ancient authors who are relevant for his topic rather
than those w h o belong to the humanist canon: Tacitus is mentioned
not as the author o f Historiae and Annales or as a stylistic model but on
account o f his Germania.
• The history o f regiones and gentes includes such disciplines as geology
(qualitas telluris), cultural history ( religiones, instituta, leges), geography
and astronomy (which are included in cosmographia and mathematica).
• The historian needs patronage and funding.
• He must be aware o f the most disturbing changes (commutationes) of
peoples and geographic names that have taken place since the Migra­
tion Period.
• First o f all he should collect the most reliable sources, which are not
earlier chronicles and histories but diplomata, leges, edicta, epistolae.
• Those sources have to be vindicated from the medieval world repre­
sented by the yet unexplored monastic libraries.
• The time has not yet com e when one person alone could write a
reliable history o f G erm an y. Historical research is a task for a commu­
nity o f scholars w illin g to collaborate.

The realization o f these well-defined, strikingly modem requirements

and their transformation into words was not easy to provide. Aventinus’
Annales are exem plary o f the striving after the proper way of writing
history. Th ey display the m any, sometimes contradictory, influences an
early modem historian had to deal with. There are three different exordia:
37 * FELIX M UNDT

Chapter t (p. 34): Bavants nom en barbarum , obscacnum inauspicacumqu«,

semidocto vulgo protritum, recens est, nuper ab imperitis usurpari caepium.
Chapter 2 (p. 36): Boiaria est om nis divisa in tres partes quarum unam
incolunt Narisci ( . . . ] aliam [ . . . ) Vindelici, terciam Norici.
Chapter 3 (p. 41): Iam primum om nium satis constat inter omnesque
convenit [. . . ] illud, quicquid est, sum m um , quod deum vocamus, omnia
posse, esse unum, optimum, m axim um , imm ensum, aeternum, infinitum [...)

Chapter r. 'Bavarian* is a barbarian w o rd , obscure, infelicitous, current

among the semi-educated com m on people, quite new and only recently
seized by the ignorant.
Chapter 2: All Bavaria is divided into three parts, one o f which die
Narisci inhabit, che Vindelici another, the N o rici the third.
Chapter3 : First o f all it is certain enough and generally accepted that this
highest being, whatever it m ay be, w h ich w e call G o d , is almighty, one, the
best and greatest, immeasurable, eternal, infinite.

The first is modeled on the humanist regional and national history,

which, as we have seen, often starts with the origins of names; the second
recalls the documentary and ethnographical writings of Caesar and
Tacitus; the third ties the work to the tradition of the medieval universal
chronicle with its reverent, if philosophically disguised, mention of the
Creator.

The Everyday Business o f the Humanist

Historian - Polydore Vergil

Th e monumental A ntica Historia b y P olyd o re V e rg il (1470-1555) aims to

cover the whole history o f E n glan d from an tiq u ity to the present and has
already been investigated exhaustively e n o u g h to serve as an example for
humanist national history. T h e b eg in n in g o f this w o rk evokes neither the
annalistic nor the biographical tradition:

Britannia omnis, quae hodie Anglia et Scotia duplici nomine appellatur,

insula in Oceano contra Gallicum litus posita, dividitur in partes quatuor
quarum unam incolunt Angli, aliam Scoti, tertiam Vualli, quarum
Cornubienses. Hi omnes vel lingua, vel moribus seu institutis inter st
differunt.

Britain as a whole, which today is called Anglia and Scotia with a twofold
appellation, being an island in the ocean opposite to the French coast, is
divided into four parts. O ne o f these is inhabited by the English, the
second by the Scots, the third by the W elsh, the fourth by the Cornish;
who all differ from each other in terms o f language, character or
constitution.
 H istoriography 373

The classically trained reader will immediately recognize the influence of

Caesar and T a c itu s,44 bu t the M iddle Ages should also be taken into
account. There is no classical m odel for a British history, but there is an
early medieval text to com pete with: Bede’s Historia ecclesiastica gentis
Anglorum (Ecclesiastical history o f the English people’) 45 Polydore’s ta t
not only recalls classical authors, bu t also continues a medieval tradition.
Every piece o f h um anist historiography is a blend o f several genres that
incorporates parts o f classical and medieval historiography, chorography,
panegyric, philological source criticism and more. The chronologically
structured Anglica Historia is strongly influenced by Latin biography.
Books 1-8 cover the period up to 10 6 6 ; from then onwards each king is
alloned one book. A fte r a continuous historical narrative with a certain
emphasis on warfare, each book ends as a biography in the uadidon of
Suetonius with the omina mortis (if any) and a list o f the ruler’s good and
bad traits o f character. A ttach ed is a short survey on great men of his age.44
Where Rom an sources about the earliest Bridsh history are extant, they
are cited closely.47 B y an alo gy w ith Livy, who doubts the historicalness of
the Roman kings and their deeds but reports them nevenheless, Polydore
fills some pages w ith m yth ical kings descending from the eponymous hero
Brums. M ost notably, he adopts the legend o f the brothers Belinus and
Brennus first told b y G e o ffre y o f M onm outh. Brennus is said to have
emigrated to G a u l and to have com e to fame as the well-known conqueror
of Rome, w hich induces P olydore to cite the famous passages from Livy
concerning the sack o f R o m e .4* A story, which a medieval writer had
modeled after the legend o f R om u lu s and Remus, is again conneâed with
Livian criticism and L ivian narrative and by this means handed down to
the Renaissance. S u ch kinds o f melanges, mixed out o f still influential
medieval sources, an cien t authors and autonomous reflexions about the
plausibility o f various traditions are characteristic for neo-Larin historiog­
raphy. O n the other h and, the hum anists took pleasure in deconstructing
or concealing im portant m edieval traditions. In a way similar to that in
which Beams R h en an u s discounted the coronation o f Otto I, an event
which - transform ed to the con cept o f translatio imperii - had become so
crucial for the m edieval an d early modern self-conception o f the German
empire, Polydore m ention s K in g A rth u r with only a few lines. He does not*

** As did Winchow 2009: 6}.

* For (hit passage, compare in particular the opening o f Bede’i first book. 44 Hay tftt: 97-9-
47 For a comparison o f Polydore Vergil and C a s . G a lt 4 .10 -1 tee Schleiern io ta 201.
4 Windrow 2009: 6 7 -9 .
 )74 FELIX M U N D T

dispute that Arthur existed, but points out that nothing certain is known
about him, and that the pertinent tales suspiciously resemble the Italian
adaptations of the Song o f Roland.*9 Most intriguingly, the antiquarian
John Leland, first in the series of British scholars who tried to save the
Arthurian tradition, subsequently fought for Arthur’s historicity with
the very weapons of humanist historical scholarship: etymologies, source
criticism and autopsy of monuments and inscriptions.10 So the newly
developed methods could also be used in a conservative manner. As for
the speeches of rulers and military commanders, Polydore often deviates
from his sources in favor of an imitation of Livian models.’1 In his text,
William the Conquerer uses Hannibal’s words to address his soldiers
before the Barde of Hastings.12 Such analogies13 are of course pan ofevery
humanist’s stock, but rarely integrated into a sophisticated system of
references as complex as Bruni’s.
As for as we can judge, Polydore was an honest historian also in the pansof
his work dealing with contemporary history. Nevertheless, there is a tendency
to cast a favorable light on the first Tudor kings, perceptible by omissions. So
he managed both to observe the virtue o f veracity14 and to write nothingthat
could contradia his own conservative attitude towards religious policy.11
The influence of neo-Latin historiography on literature, culture and
understanding of history is mostly difficult to estimate and does nor
compare to the impaa of Sallust, Livy or Tacitus on Latin literature. Most
humanist histories are specimens of a scholarly large-scale production.
Some of them are outstanding in terms o f methodology, extent, innova­
tiveness or rhetorical elaboration, and have been reprinted for more than
two hundred years. For Polydore Vergil (as for his Scottish colleague
Heaor Boethius) it holds true that, via the English translations, his wotk
influenced Shakespeare’s royal dramas.16 Beatus Rhenanus has been used
by Leibniz,17 and the large historical and topographical monographs by
men such as Sebastian Münster or William Camden emerged from the
tradition traced in this short overview.

m Polydore Vergil 15 J4 :58. Carley 1996; U n 2006.

” An andern or early modem reader probably knew better than w e do that it was nearly impossible to
deliver a Livian speech before the soldiers in a military cam p and therefore exonerated the histon»
from the duty o f stria accuracy. C f. C u rry 2008: 78-9 .
w Liv. 21.44.!, cf. Schlelein 201 u 253. C f. C u rry 2008 on the Battle o f Agincourt (1415).
” Cf. the obvious parallels between Jeanne d'Arc and the Livian Q oelia: Royan 2002:467.
H Hay 1932; 154. ” Hay 19 5 2 :114 -16 .
14 Hay 1951:14 4-3: Rosenstein 2003. O n his im p a a on Elizabethan historiography see Bin» tftCt
178-86.
17 Mundt 2008:480.
 Historiography 375

Instead o f a Conclusion: A Little Toolkit

For the reader who hopes to explore one of the coundess pieces of humanist
historiography that have not been mentioned here, the following questions
may help to reach beyond the mere accumulation of classical similia:
, Neo-Larin historians often exceed the boundaries of the genre(s)
defined by Sallust, Livy and Tacitus and also borrow from other genres,
e.g. biography, commentarii, geography or panegyric. Which of them
are relevant in your special case?
( How is the material arranged? Chronologically, geographically, genea­
logically or is there a mixed structure?
, Are the aims and methods of the work revealed in the paratexts (e.g.
preface, letters of dedication)? The design of the indices may also hint
at the intention of author and publisher.
• Which sources were available to your author? Which sources have been
discovered most recendy, and been discussed by members of his circle
ofacquaintances? It is obligatory to examine the historian’s correspond­
ence, if extant.
, Did he evidently prefer one ancient model (in terms of style or political
attitude) or is he an eclecticist?
• Are there traces of medieval traditions in the contents as well as in the
overall structure?
« How does the author use anachronistic terms? Is he conscious of that
problem? To give an example: If he calls the mayor of a city consul or
the French Galli, is that a kind of assertion or are those terms used
unwittingly?
• The same test should be applied to terms denoting traditional Roman
values (e.g. virtus, auctoritas, libertas), be they attached to peoples or
persons. It may be obvious that being described aspirn means something
diderent for an early modem king than for Aeneas. But your author has
probably also another conception of iustitia, modestia and dignitas than
Sallust had.
i Is the author obliged to any special ruler or dynasty?
• Is he interested in Church history and confessional disputes?
• What are his methods of bridging the gap between antiquity and the
present time? Genealogies, language and etymology, the coritinuity of
places and territories, the kinship of nations?
• How are traditional elements (e.g. ancient myth, the Old Testament,
the Four Empires, translatio imperii) treated? Arc they integrated,
approved, criticized or ignored?
 376 F ELI X M U N D T

• Is there any kind of a proto-nationalist conception of history? Does the

investigation of language and ancient ancestors (or alleged ancestors)
serve as a basis for the construction o f national identity or for the
purpose of contemporary political discourse?
There is still much work to be done.

F U R T H E R R E A D IN G

Rabasa et al. 2012 is the standard handbook. The overview in Volke! 2006:
195-249 is an excellent introduction and offers a manageable canon of authors.
Readers without German should begin with Laureys 2014 and Baker 201;.
Cochrane 1981 and Fubini 2003 are most significant for the beginnings of
humanist historiography in Italy. Landfester 1972 and Grafton 2007 may serve
as introductions to the artes h isto ria e . The forgeries of Annius are explainedby
Stephens 1979 and Ligota 1987, their impact on European historiography and
poetry is discussed by Stephens 2004 and Bizzocchi 1995. The best account of
Flavio Biondo’s merits is given by Fubini 2003 and Pontari 2011. The papen
collected in Helmrath et al. 2002 deal with thé dissemination of methods and
styles of history-writing from ltaly to the rest of Europe. For anyone interestedin
Polydore Vergil, Hay 1952 is still indispensable. The route that leads fromthe
humanist historians to the beginnings of historism is described by Muhlack1991
Various aspects of early modem history writing are covered by the collected
volumes edited by Di Stefano et al. 1992, Helmrath et al. 2009 and Rau and
Studt 2010.
 PART IV

Working with Neo-Latin Literature

 CH A PTER 22

U sin g M a n u scrip ts a n d E a rly Printed Books

C ra ig K a lle n d o rf

Introduction
In many respects n e o -L a tin literature can be viewed as the natural chrono­
logical extension o f th e L a tin literature o f antiquity, whose language and
literary conventions it largely shares. A ll books, however, have a material as
well as a textual c o m p o n e n t, a n d here it is dangerous to posit a seamless
continuity from V ir g il to Petrarca (Petrarch) to Erasmus. Only a few
papyrus fragm ents a n d a h an dful o f manuscripts from late antiquity that
contain works o f classical literature survive, so modem scholars have to
reconstruct the o riginal texts. Sin ce generally accepted procedures have
been developed to a cc o u n t fo r the m issing textual states, however, and
since the corpus o f classical Latin literature is relatively small, there is
widespread agreem ent that all the surviving works should be made avail­
able in modern critical edition s. T h is has largely been done, and the reader
often has a ch o ice b e tw e en an O x fo rd Classical Text, a volume from the
Loeb Classical L ib ra ry , a B u d é text and a Teubner edition o f the same
work o f classical L a tin literature.
From the m aterial p ersp ective, the situation is quite different for neo-
Latin. M an y n e o -L a tin w o rk s o f literature survive in contemporary manu­
scripts, some in a u to gra p h versions, som e in presentation copies and some
in multiple states o f revision . It is therefore not necessarily a good idea
simply to transfer th e sam e editorial procedures from classical to post-
classical texts w ith o u t th in k in g carefully about method and practice. And
diere is b y no m ean s a co n sen su s that neo-Latinists should be working
toward a m odern critical ed ition o f every text in an enormous corpus that
has so far resisted co m p le te bibliographical control.1

1 For further discussion o f the particular challenges o f editing neo-Latin material, see Chapter i}.
For reasons that w ill becom e d ear in the discussion that follows, a good many references in this
chapter will be to digital resources. In order to avoid overburdening the notes, these references will be
placed in the text. A ll U R L s were accurate as o f September lots.

379
 380 C RA I G K A L L E N D O R F

In this essay I shall try to provide som e answers, b y necessity pania) and
at times provisional, to three questions that arise from this state of affairs:
first, what are the advantages o f a p p ro ach in g neo -Latin texts through the
manuscripts and early printed books in w h ich th ey are generally found,
rather than through m odern critical editions? Seco n d , what resources exist
to allow the neo-Latinist access to the w o rld o f manuscripts and early
printed books? A n d finally, w h a t kinds o f eviden ce are lost if the material
aspeas o f neo-Latin literature are n o t taken into account?

Manuscript, EarlyPrintedBookor ModernEdition?

For some neo-Latin authors the rationale for a m odern printed edition
initially seems clear and com pelling. O n e th in ks im m ediately, for example,
o f Francesco Petrarca (Petrarch), w h o is con sidered the founding father of
neo-Latin literature but also a m ajo r figure in intellectual history and
Italian studies. Progress here has been sporadic, but after a long hiatus,
the Com m issione per l’ Ed izio n e nazionale delle opere di Francesco Pe­
trarca (w w w .fian ciscu s.u n ifi.it/C o m m issio n e/in d ex.h tm ), which published
seven volumes between 19 2 6 an d 19 6 4 , has resum ed its aaivity. Erasmus
inidally seems to be another o b v io u s can d id ate for a traditional critical
edition, which is being p rovided in this case b y B rill, w ith an international
advisory board supervising the series (www.brill.com/publications/opera-
om nia-desiderii-erasm i-erasm us-opera-om nia). In both cases early primed
editions exist o f the Opera omnia-, for P etrarch, a Henricpetrine edition
(Basel, 1554), and for Erasm us, edition s p rin ted b y Frohen (Basel, 1538-40)
and V an der A a (Leiden, 1 7 0 3 - 6 ) . B u t since n eo -Latin writers of this
stature continue to a ttr a a at least as m a n y readers as m ost classical authors,
m any scholars today feel the need to replace these early printed books with
editions prepared according to m odern standards.
Th is is not the case, h ow ever, fo r m o st n e o -L a tin writers. With this
essay in m ind, I turned to Katalog 51, Alte Drucke vor 1700 by an antiquar­
ian book dealer from Salzburg, A u stria , Jo h a n n e s M üller. Among his
offerings, w e find the follo w in g: N ic c o lò A v a n c in i, Leopoldi Guilitlm
archiducis Austriae. . . virtutes ( T h e V ir tu e s o f L e o p o ld W illiam , Archduke
o f Austria’) (Antw erp: P la n tin -M o re tu s, 16 6 5 ); Johannes Aventinus,
Annalium Boiorum libri v ii (‘ S e v e n B o o k s o f the A n n als o f the Bou)
(Basel: P. Pema, 1580); D a n ie l B eck h e r, M edicus microcosmi (T h e Med­
ical M icrocosm ’) (Leiden: J . M a rcu s, 16 3 3 ); G io v a n n i B ona, Via compatii
ad Deum, per motus anagogicos, et orationesjaculatorias ( T h e Shorter Route
to G o d , through A n ago gical M o v e m e n ts a n d R a p id ly Uttered Speeches’)
 Using Manuscripts and Early Printed Books 381

(Munich: S. R auch for J . W agn er, 16 74); Antony van Dale, Dissertationes
di origine et progressu idolatriae et superstitionum (‘ Dissertations on the
Origin and D evelopm ent o f Idolatry and Superstitions’) (Amsterdam:
H. & V. T . B oom , 16 9 6 ) and Thom as Draxe, Extremi iudicii tuba mon­
itoria (T h e A d m onitory T ru m p e t o f the Last Judgment’) (Hanau: Hulsian,
1617). For those interested in the flattery o f Renaissance princes, historiog­
raphy in sixteenth-century G erm an y, the theory and practice of early
modern medicine, w itchcraft and exorcism and astronomical foreshadow­
ings o f the Last Ju d gm en t, these books are well worth reading. But before
we set up a Com m ission for the National Edition o f the Works ofThomas
Dtaxe, some hard thinking should take place.
In printing, as in other areas o f life, plus ça change, plus c’est la mêmechose,
so that most scholarly edidons today have the same press run as they did
during the incunabular period (i.e., before 1501): 30 0 -70 0 .1 The question,
then, is whether books like those in the paragraph above can attract enough
readers to justify a critical edition disseminated in traditional print form. In
many cases the answer has to be ‘ no’ , but the question becomes even more
acute in relation to books like the Mutineis (‘ Mutineid’) o f Francesco
Rococciolo. T h is w o rk , w h ich is a perfectly competent neo-Latin epic
focused on a series o f political and military events that unfolded around
Modena at the begin n in g o f the sixteenth century, was not published until
1006, with the carefully edited text being accompanied three years later by a
lengthy com m entary that w as prepared with equal skill and effort.3 A great
deal of time, effort and expense was lavished on these boob, but one has to
wonder whether it w as all w orth it: if Rococciolo could not find enough
readers to justify publication am on g his fellow citizens who lived through
these events, where w ill readers com e from today?
Until the middle of the last century, publication options had not
changed substantially in five hundred years. New technologies for repro­
ducing manuscripts and early printed boob, however, offer other options
today. Both manuscripts and early printed boob have been reproducedon
microfilm, then on microfiche, for a couple of generations now. This is an
especially appealing option for a neo-Latinist, since it makes possible a
press run, as it were, of one, but the technology is a bit off-putting and
prices have remained stubbornly high. Another possibility is offered
through projects that offer digitized versions of manuscripts and early
printed boob. The Bayerische Staatsbibliothek in Munich, for example,
is systematically digitizing all its early printed boob (www.digitale-samm

* Fcbvrc 2nd Martin 1976: 216—22. * Haye 2006, 2009.

 382 CRAIG KA LL EN D O R F

lungen.de/index.h tm l?c= d ig ita le _sam m lu n g e n 8d = e n & p ro je k t= ). Special

mention should be m ade here o f tw o large p rojects: A n Analytical Bibliog.
raphy o f O n -L in e N e o -L a tin T e x ts (www.philological.bham .ac.uk/BIBLl
O G R A P H Y / I N D E X .H T M ) , m ain tain ed b y D a n a Sutton , which offered
access to almost 4 3 ,0 0 0 different w o rk s in m id -Se p te m b e r, 2012; and Early
English Books O n lin e ( E E B O , h ttp ://eeb o .ch ad w yck .co m /h o m e), which
will contain digital facsim iles o f 1 2 5 ,0 0 0 titles listed in Pollard and Red-
grave’s S h o rt-T id e C a ta lo g u e ( 1 4 7 5 - 1 6 4 0 ) , W i n g ’ s Short-Title Catalogue
(16 4 1-17 0 0 ), the T h o m a so n T r a c ts ( 1 6 4 0 - 6 1 ) an d the Early English Tract
Supplem ent. T h e n eo -Latin sectio n o f th e D ig ita l Lib rary (http://thelatin
library.com /neo.htm l) in turn offers texts o f w o rk s by such canonical
authors as Philip M e la n ch th o n a n d Isaac N e w t o n along with those of
writers like G islenus Bultelius a n d L a u re n tiu s C o rv in u s. M any of these
texts are not critical editions a n d m ech a n ism s to ensure scholarly quality
are still being developed, b u t access is free a n d available to anyone with an
Internet connection.
Digital reproductions o f m an u scrip ts a n d early printed books are a
powerful n ew resource w h ic h all n e o -L a tin ists sh o u ld embrace eagerly. In
the end, however, the decision as to w h e th e r a m odern critical edition
should be prepared m ust be m ad e o n a case -b y -ca se basis. A work like
Cristoforo L a n d in o ’s Disputationes Camaldulenses (‘ Camaldulensian Dispu­
tations’), for exam ple, is o f sig n ifica n t interest to historians o f Florentine
hum anism in general an d specialists in th e recep tio n o f Plato and Virgil in
particular. T h ere are o n ly five textual a u th o rities, all o f w hich can be dated
to within a decade o f the co m p o sitio n o f th e w o rk . O n e o f the four
manuscripts, V atican u s U rb in a s lat. 5 0 8 , is th e dedication copy presented
b y Landino to Federico d a M o n te fe ltro ; th e o th e r three com e from contem­
porary Florence and the fifth w itn e ss is th e editto princeps which contains
corrections and changes su p p lied b y L a n d in o him self. In this case the
w ork is im portant, the n u m b e r o f textual w itn esses is manageable and the
path through them is clear, so P e te r L o h e ’s d ecisio n to prepare a traditional
critical edition was reasonable. T h e result is a text that was prepared
according to a rational, w id e ly a cc e p te d p ro ce ss, accom p anied by an appa-
ratus criticus (a collection o f v arian t read in gs a t th e b o tto m o f each page) and
a list o f references to o th er a u th o rs, p rim a rily classical, that Landino makes
but does not identify e x p licid y .4 L o h e ’s e d itio n is in a series sponsored by
the Istituto N azionale di S tu d i sul R in a s c im e n to (www.insr.it/index.php!
id=38), w hich suggests th at o th e r w o rk s o f n e o -L a tin literature merit similar

4 Landino 1980.
 U sin g M an u scripts a n d Early Printed Books 383

treatment. T h e R en aissance So ciety o f America has a similar series

(www.brill.com/publications/renaissance-society-america), as does Leuven
University Press (Bibliotheca Latinitatis Novae, www.bln-series.eu/), but
the most extensive collection o f neo-Latin texts, offered in scholarly but not
critical editions along w ith English translations, is The 1 Tatti Renaissance
Library ( I T R L , www.hup.harvard.edu/collection.php?cpk=H45), which
reached its fiftieth vo lu m e in less than a decade o f existence.
While projects like I T R L confirm that there is a place for the modern
critical edition even in to d a y’s challenging publishing environment, modern
textual theory has offered a new rationale for relying on manuscripts and
early printed editions instead. T h e traditional model that Lohe used was
developed b y Karl L a ch m a n n in the nineteenth century, and it is admirably
suited for classical literature, w here almost all the surviving textual evidence
dates from centuries after the w o rk was composed and the circumstances of
initial publication have to be recreated.5 But as Jerome McGann has noted,
the circumstances o f textual production and dissemination, along with the
surviving evidence, are quite different in the early modem period. Lach-
mann's model treats the text as a sort o f Platonic form, unchanging as an
expression o f its au th o r’ s final intention and approachable only through the
rigors o f abstract th o u gh t. M c G a n n argues, however, that texts are fluid,
changeable both b y the au th o r and b y a series o f other people like editors,
primers and critics in a process that is more akin to the Aristotelian discus­
sion o f probabilities chan to Platonic dialectic. In other words, texts do not
exist in solemn ontological splendor, but are embedded in society, and each
textual instantiation is the result o f one moment in which a series of
relationships (proofreading, censorship, revision) is temporarily frozen.6
Sometimes these forces prevented publication altogether: Petrarch, for
example, released o n ly a fe w lines o f his Africa during his lifetime through
a sort o f self-censorship, in w h ich his fear o f critical judgment sent him back
again and again to revise th e w o rk .7 Indeed Petrarch was a sort o f incurable
reviser, so that w o rk s like th e Secretum, as Hans Baron has shown, común
layers o f changes a n d rew orkin gs.8 A modern critical edition obscures all
this at the sam e tim e as it rem oves what it has become fashionable to call
the ‘paratext’ , things like prefaces, dedications, introductory poems by the
author’s friends in praise o f the w o rk at hand and so forth.9 Stripping the
text o f this con text in a m o d ern critical edition obscures the relationships*

* Kenney 1974. 6 M cG ann 1983. 7 Petrarch 1926: esp. xxxv-xxxvi. 1 Baron 1985.
* The term was popularized by Gérard Genette in ‘Introduction to the Paratext’ (Genette 1991:261).
picking up on a term used in Palim psatcs (Genette 1981: 93).
 384 CRAIG KALLENDORF

through which it was produced. T h is loss is greater in the cases of son»

authors than o f others: E rasm u s, fo r exam p le, regularly broke his longer
works apart so he cou ld dedicate each section to som eone else, then rededi­
cated works as they w en t into n e w editions.*0
In m any cases, then, there are sign ifican t advantages to relying on
manuscripts and early printed books instead o f m odern critical editions.
In any event, anyone w h o decides to prepare an edition should not forget
the famous dictum o f Paul O sk a r K risteller, that for post-classical works,
two editions are w orse than n o n e. W h a t he m eant b y this is that if
circumstances justify a m odern critical e d itio n , go ahead and prepare it,
but be sure no one else is w o rk in g o n the sam e project, for if two editions
o f the same obscure w o rk are p ub lish ed, n o o n e will know which one to
cite and h alf the collecdve effort w ill h ave been wasted.

Resourcesfor theStudy ofManuscripts andEarly PrintedBooks

A good m any resources exist to facilitate w o rk w ith manuscripts and early
printed books. W ith m anuscripts, th e first p ro b lem is sim ply being able to
read them, since a go o d n u m b e r o f m edieval scripts, especially those
written rapidly in inform al con texts, are q u ite different from what the
m odem eye is used to and therefore d ifficu lt for us to read, at least initially.
Fortunately m ost o f w h a t the n e o -L a tin ist is likely to encounter in the
study o f literary texts does no t fall in to this class. A s part o f their effort to
revive the past, Renaissance h um an ists effected a handw riting reform at the
beginning o f the fifteenth c e n tu ry th a t b an ish ed the ‘G o th ic’ script that
they associated w ith the barbarism o f th e M id d le A ges. T h e y made a big
mistake here, in that the script th e y rep laced it w ith because they thought
it was used in antiqu ity in fact w as C a ro lin g ia n , bu t for us this is a fila
culpa, in the sense that the bo o kh an d s fro m the tim e o f Charlemagne ate
quite easy to read. S o m e m an u scrip ts w ere also written in humanist
cursive, but this is also co m p a ra tively e a sy to read, w ith the letters clearly
divided and spaced o u t reasonably w ell. W h a t is m ore, after the invention
o f printing, these tw o scripts served as the fou n d atio n for the fonts in
w h ich Latin books have been p rin te d th ro u g h o u t m o st o f Europe for five
hundred years. T h e revived C a ro lin g ia n b o o k h a n d is what we know as
‘ rom an’, and the h um anist cu rsive is w h a t w e call ‘ italic’ .11

10 Kalkndorf 1997.
" The classic account o f the handwriting revolution, Ullm an i96 0, should be supplemented by deb
Mare 1973.
 U sing M anuscripts a n d Early Printed Books 385

When it com es to fin d in g manuscripts containing world of neo-Latin

literature, the problem s becom e more serious. The basic difficulty is that
there is no single reference w ork that contains everything one might want
to know. O n e should start w ith series like the Inventan dei manoscritti delle
biblioteche d ’Italia, begun b y Giuseppe Mazzatinti at the end of the
nineteenth century, w h ich contains references to a good many works of
neo-Latin literature fo u n d in Italian libraries. Large national libraries like
the Bibliothèque nationale de France and the British Library have issued
catalogues o f their holdings that contain information on thousands of
televant manuscripts, and a go o d number o f libraries, both large and small,
oder online inventories o f at least part o f their manuscript collections.
In some cases, like that o f Poliziano, we have books like Ida Maïer’s Les
manuscrits d'Ange Politien that identify all the manuscripts containing the
works o f a particular author and provide detailed descriptions of them.'*
In the end one is still left w ish in g for something more systematic. The best
solution at this p o in t is to .begin with Paul Oskar Kristeller’s Latin
Manuscript Books before 1600,IJ w hich proceeds library by library and lists
the resources available for finding the manuscripts in each place. Getting
access to all these resources is an issue, even for someone working at the
best of research libraries, b u t F . Edward Cranz’s ‘ Microfilm Corpus of the
Indexes to Printed C atalo gues o f Latin Manuscripts before 1600 a d ’ offers
38 reels o f m icrofilm con tain in g the indexes to the printed inventories in
Kristeller’s guide, allo w in g o n e to search for a particular author and narrow
down the num ber o f m anuscript catalogues that have to be consulted.
Many manuscript inventories remain unpublished, but here again, there is
a solution, w ith the 3 4 0 reels o f C ranz’s ‘Microfilm Corpus of Unpub­
lished Inventories o f L a tin M anuscripts through 1600 a d ’ making this
material accessible. A n d finally there is one o f the crowning achievements
of late twentieth-century scholarship, Paul Oskar Kristcller’s monumental
Iter Italicum, w h o se su b tid e explains that it provides ‘a finding list of
uncataiogued o r incom pletely catalogued humanistic manuscripts of the
Renaissance in Italian an d other libraries’.14 This resource can be consulted
through the six p rin t vo lu m es, a C D - R O M , or electronically.
Early printed books are easier to w ork with, since access can be obtained
through a good n u m b e r o f large-scale projects, many of which are available
online. T h e In cu n ab u la Sh o rt T itle Catalogue (www.bl.uk/catalogues/
iste/) offers inform ation about books printed before 1501, while the
Universal Short T id e C a talo g u e (http://aro.st-andrews.ac.uk/~ustc/) will

Maier 1965. n Km tcllcr 1965. 14 Kmtcllcr 1965-1992.

 386 CRAIG KALLENDO RF

incorporate this material an d entries fro m various national bibliographical

projects into inform ation o n o v e r 3 5 0 ,0 0 0 separate editions published
through the end o f the sixteenth ce n tu ry . Im p o rtan t national databases
exist for France (C a ta lo g u e c o lle c tif d e Fran ce, http://ccfr.bnf.fr/por
tailccfr/jsp/index.jsp), Italy ( O P A C S B N , www.sbn.it/opacsbn/opac/iccu/
free.jsp), Spain (C a tá lo g o co le ctiv o del p a trim o n io bibliográfico español,
h ttp ://c cp b _ o p a c.m cu .e s/cg i-b rs/C C P B /a b n e to p a c /O 9 17 3/ID a o 4 3b 9 l}?
A C C = l 0 i ) , th e B ritish Isles (E n g lish S h o rt T it le Catalogue, http://esic.bl
.u k /F /?fu n c=file& file_n am e=lo gin -b l-estc), the Netherlands (Shon Tide
Catalogue N etherlands, www.kb.nl/en/organisation/research-expenisi/
for-libraries/sh ort-title-catalogue-n eth erlands-stcn) and Flemish-speaking
Belgium (Short T itle C a ta lo g u e Flanders, www.vlaamse-erfgoedbibliothak
.be/en/oude-drukken). Se v en teen th -cen tu ry G e rm an Books are most easily
accessed through V D - 1 7 , D as V erzeich n is d er im deutschen Sprachnum
erschienenen D rucke des 17 . Jah rh u n d e rts (w w w .v d 17 .d e /). Books in eastern
and central European libraries are m o re difficult to find, but more and mon
individual libraries from the area are p u ttin g their catalogues o f early primed
editions online.
N eo-Latinists should n o t forget that antiquarian booksellers also provide
an important source o f inform ation a b o u t early printed books. While most
incunables (books printed before 15 0 1), for exam ple, had a press run of
several hundred copies, the m o st fre q u e n d y recurring number of surviving
copies is one.15 Statistics generated fro m th e U niversal Short Tide Catalogue
suggest that, for the sixteenth ce n tu ry , the n u m b e r rises to four or five; but
again, there are hundreds o f edition s w h o se existence can be confirmai
through on ly one surviving c o p y . M a n y tim es that one copy comes on dx
market through an antiquarian bookseller, so th at the neo-Latinist wouldbe
well advised to look regularly th ro u gh th e catalogues o f dealers like Magp
and Q uaritch in L o n d o n , A n tiq u a ria a t F o ru m in the Netherlands aid
Erasmushaus in Sw itzerland for n e w finds. D ealers like those at Libieña
Philobiblon in M ila n a n d R o m e a n d B ru ce M cK irtrick Rare Boob in
Philadelphia are also first-rate scholars w h o se catalogue descriptions provide
valuable inform ation ab o u t th e b o o k s th e y sell. Unfortunately prices for
early printed books have risen con sid erab ly in the last couple o f decades, bin
it is still possible to get an interesting v o lu m e o f neo -Latin literature that»*
published shortly after it w as w ritten fo r three o r four hundred pounds,
sometimes less, from a dealer, a n d o ften fo r considerably less at auctkm
Christie’s and Sotheby’s h a ve trad itio n ally d o m in a te d the high-end market,

“ Green, McIntyre and Needham zooi.

 U sin g M anuscripts a n d Early Printed Books 387

but Swann G alleries an d Bloom sbury Auctions regularly offer attractive

items at ap p ealin g prices, an d there are other galleries throughout Europe
and die U nited States th at deal in books that are less expensive yet

H o w to U se an E arly Printed Book: A Case Study

As an example o f h o w m anuscripts and early printed boob can be used in neo-

Latin scholarship, I w o u ld lik e to look at the first seven lines of a poem, Maffeo
Vegio’s thirteenth b ook to the A eneid (see the Appendix to this chapter). This
work was w ritten in 1428 as a supplem ent to Virgil’s epic, in an effort to tie up
what the tw enty-one-year-old poet saw as the loose ends left dangling in the
original. T ryin g to com plete a poem that Virgil left finished at his death, except
for some final stylistic polishing, m ay initially seem like a curious thing to do,
but in fact V egio’s Book ly is typical in many ways of neo-Latin literature in
general, for it is b o u n d closely to the Larin literature of antiquity, which it seeks
to reproduce an d exten d in term s o f both style and content.
The poem can b e read in a m odem critical edition prepared by Bernd
Schneider in th e m id -eigh ties. Schneider is a fine scholar, but what has
happened here dep icts w ell the challenges faced by modem scholars who
must use m anuscripts an d early printed editions. Schneider's work with the
manuscripts shows th at the editio princeps (first printed edition) comes from a
particularly corrupt p a n o f the tradition, which confirms that Anna Cox
Brinton’s ed itio n , w h ich w as published in 1930 and based on it but is still in
print, should not be used a n y longer. Schneider lists twenty-one manuscripts
in the preface to h is ed itio n , b ut unfortunately the hill number is more than
twice that. W h at is m ore, how the manuscripts should be handled is hr less
dear than it w as w ith th e Disputationes Camaldulewes. There has been a
general consensus for over a hundred years that two Vatican manuscripts. Vat.
Lat. 1668 and 1669, are p articularly good witnesses for Book /3, but neither is
an autograph an d both sh o w signs o f contamination, so it is difficult both to
construct a stem m a th at shows the relationship of all the surviving manu­
scripts w ith o n e an o th er an d to assign relative weights to their variant
readings. As a result, th e text is more fluid than the stemma and apparatus
criticus (the list o f v arian t readings, the first block below the text in the
appendix to th is ch apter) w o uld lead us to believe.16 This is a common
problem in trad itio n ally prepared critical editions of neo-Latin texts.

Schneider 1985, with the discussion o f the manuscripts on 14-19. See also my review of this edition
(Kallendorf 1987). Schneider’s edition replaces Brinton 1930. A translation into modem English can
be (bund at Vegjo 10 0 4 : >-31.
 388 CRAIG K A L L E N D O R F

Schneider’s second apparatus, his list o f textual parallels, is a master­

piece, and it is this list at w hich I w ish to look m o ie closely. As the second
block below the text in Appendix 1 shows, V egio has constructed his poem
with his gaze fixed constantly on classical L atin poetry. T h is is an aspea of
neo-Latin literature that can be o ff-putting to m o d em readers, swept up as
we are by Romantic notions o f in d ivid u ality an d creativity that put a
premium on doing som ething different from w h at past poets have done,
not something that is bound inextricably to th eir w o rk. Yet Vegio has done
his job well, and so has his editor, w ho has provided the tools by which the
modem reader can appreciate the neo-Latin poem on its own terms.
Schneider’s second apparatus is valuable for a second reason as well, for
it suggests not only that standards for ju d g in g p oetry have changed
through time, but also that how p oetry w as read has changed as well
What is going on here is a little less straightfo rw ard an d requires that we
step aside for a moment and look at a co up le o f carefully chosen earl)’
printed books. Since for obvious reasons, m ost o f V egio ’s references are to
Virgil, I would like to look briefly at a co p y o f V irg il published in Leipzig
in 1581 by Joannes Steinm an, now in a p rivate co llectio n . An early reader
has gone through this book and underlined selected passages. In A m idi,
for example, this reader un derlin ed Tu ne cede m alis, sed contra audentur
ito / Quam tua tefortuna sinet (‘D o n o t re le n t before distress, but be /for
bolder than your fortune w ould p e rm it’, A en. 6 .9 5 - 6 ) ,17 then a longef
passage:

fäcilis descensus Averni:

Noctes atque dies patet atri ianua Ditis:
Sed revocare gradum, supe rasque evadere ad auras,
Hoc opus, hic labor est. pauci, quos aequus amavit
Iuppiter, aut ardens evexit ad aethera virtus,
Diis geniti, potuere

(e a s y -
che way that leads into Avemus: day
and night the door of darkest Dis is open.
But to recall your steps, to rise again
into the upper air. chat is the labor,
char is the task. A few, whom Jupiter
has loved in kindness or whom blazing worth
has raised to the heaven as gods’ sons, returned.)
(Aen . 6.126-31)

17 TransUriom o f partages from the A m o la r e from Mandelbaum 1972.

 U sing M anuscripts a n d Early Printed Books 389

Then later, he underlined Discite iustitiam moniti, et non temnere dim

(Be warned, learn justice, d o not scorn the gods’ , Aen. 6.610). Precisely
the same lines are underlined in another book in the same private collec­
tion, a copy o f the 13 6 7 Fran kfurt edition. T h is reader has added what are
(ailed ‘ indexing notes’ next to the underlined passages, where we see key
words like avarus (‘greedy’) next to line 6 10 , tyrannus (‘tyrant’) next to line
613, incestuosi (‘the incestuous’) next to 6 2 4 and so forth (f. 140''). Both of
these readers are d o in g the sam e thing: searching for easily remembered
expressions o f moral w isd o m , underlining them for future reference and
adding a key w ord to rem ind them w h y they had marked the passage.
These examples were chosen for their moral content, but the early reader
of die Frankfort edition also m arked passages whose style he admired,
tagging the similes at Aen. 3 .2 7 3 - 8 0 (f. 118*) and 5.388-91 (f. 124') and the
hypallages (the transfer o f a description from the word it should describe to
another one) in Aen. 5 .4 5 8 - 9 ( f . I 2 2 1) and 5 .5 0 0 -1 (f. m v) and putdng the
names of the figures in the m argin as ‘indexing notes’ .
Other early printed hooks sh o w us that there is a second step to this
reading practice. I f w e turn, for exam ple, to Jean Petit’s P. Virgilii Maronis
opera in locos communes . . . digesta (‘T h e W orks o f Publius Virgilios
Maro, Distributed into C o m m o n p laces’), published in Lyons by jean
Pillehotte in 1587, w e find w h at m ight initially strike us as a curious thing,
a book with lines from V irg il ranged out below headings like aetas aurea
(‘golden age’), aetasferrea (‘ iron age’), amare (‘to love), amicus (‘friend’),
arm (‘arms’) and so forth. B u t if w e think about the markings in the early
primed editions o f V irg il m entioned above, what Petit has done begins to
make sense. U nder avaritia (‘greed’) for example, we find Aen. 6.610, Aut
pii diiôtiis soli incubuere repertis (‘A n d here are those who . . . had brooded
aliatone on new-w on treasure’ ), w h ich was accompanied by the ‘ indexing
note’ avarus (‘greedy’ ) in the Frankfurt edition o f Virgil. Th e line with the
warning to learn justice and not to scorn the gods (Aen. 6.620), which was
underlined in the L eip zig edition, is listed under the heading iustitia
(‘justice’) in Petit’s com m o n p lace book (p. 568), while the lines promising
apotheosis for those possessing virtus (‘virtue’ , Aen. 6 .129-31) are listed
under that heading (p. 10 0 5 ). In other words, in commonplace books like
these - and there are a great m an y examples just like this one - the
‘indexing notes’ that have been added in the margins o f classical texts have
become the headings and the underlined passages from Virgil have been
listed out below them .
Marking passages in classical texts, and then rearranging them in com­
monplace books, are not the end o f Renaissance reading practices, but a
390 CRA.1 G K A U . E N D Ô R F

means. The end is the production o f a new w o rk o f literature, like Miff«,

Vegio’s Book 13. T o produce a poem like this, writers like Vegjo took whu
they found valuable in ancient literature, the passages that were memorable
for their moral sentiments or their stylistic grace, and wove them into the
works they created, using the headings o f their com m onplace books to find
the right line for the right place in the new p o e m .'8 Underline, reorganize
and reuse - this is the process that produced poem s like Vegio’s Book /j,
and hundreds o f other neo-Latin w orks as well.

Conclusion
As the example o f Vegio’s Book /3 has sh ow n, w orks o f neo-Latin literature
require some understanding o f m anuscripts an d early printed books to be
understood. Even when a modern critical edition exists, it is important to
know something about the manuscripts and early printed books on which
it is based to be able to w ork w ith it successfully. W h a t is more, parts of
such an edition, like the apparatus con tain in g parallel passages from
classical literature, take on an added richness and texture when we under­
stand how neo-Latin writers worked. T h is process, in turn, only makes
sense when we understand h o w m anuscripts and early printed books were
read by the neo-Latin writers w h o broke them apart, reorganized them and
reused the pieces in original com positions o f their ow n.
As the study o f neo-Latin literature enters the twenty-first centuty, itis«
worth thinking about h ow scholarship in the field is generally conducted
and what might be done differendy. Research has o n ly begun to exploit the
possibilities offered by new technologies, especially those based on the
Internet, both to find books and to reproduce them more widely than
before. N ew theories o f textual editing have challenged the long domin­
ance o f the traditional model used b y classicists, but scholars have just
begun to think through the consequences o f this challenge. Paradoxically,
at the centre o f the opportunities offered b y new technologies are old
objects, the manuscripts and early printed editions that have brought the
works o f neo-Latin literature d o w n to us. It is n o w possible to find this
material for more easily than it w as a generation o r tw o âgo, and tò exploit
how it might be used for a new sort o f edition in w hich multiple versions
in early modem documents can be placed side-by-side on a compute

'* This process u also described in educational treatises o f the d a v sm- (nr I n • „
 U sing M anuscripts and Early Printed Books 391

screen and consulted with a click of a mouse, by far more people than ever
hadaccess to the originals. Much remains to be done, and manuscripts and
early printed books are at the top of this agenda.

FURTHER READING
For information on the handwriting of humanist manuscripts, see Ullman 1960
andde la Marc I9 7 3 >while Kristellcr 1965 and 1963-92 provide guidance onhow
tofindmanuscripts containing neo-Latin texts. On early printedbooks ingeneral,
seeFebvrc and Martin 1976. The Univeral Short Title'Catalogue offers easyaccess
toinformation on over 350,000 early printed boob, while EEBO andSuttonoffer
extensive selections of neo-Latin printed boob in digital form. Contrastingviews
about preparing a text may be found in Kenney 1974 and McCann 1983.
Renaissance reading practices are discussed in Kallendorf 2015.
 A p p e n d ix

The block o f text presented here, the first seven lines o f M affeo Vegio’s
Book 13, along with the textual apparatus a n d th e list o f parallel passages, is
from Schneider’s edition. I have replaced his G e r m a n translation with that
o f Thom as T w yn e, w h ich w as first p u b lish ed in 15 8 4 and gives a period
flavor to the Latin text, as prin ted in B rin to n ’ s edition .

Text
i Turnus ut extremo devictus M arte profudit
effugientem animam medioquc sub agmine victor
magnanimus stetit Aeneas, M avortius heros,
obstupuere omnes gemitumque dedere Latini,
et durum ex alto revomentes corde dolorem
6 concussis cecidere animis, ceu frondibus ingens
silva solet lapsis boreali impulsa tumultu.

(When Turnus in this finali fight downethrowne, his flittring ghost

Had yeelded up unto the aire, in middest o f all the host
Aeneas valient victour stands, god M avors cham pion bold.
The Latines stoynisht standing, from their hartes great groanes untold,
And deepely from their inward thoughts revolving cause o f care,
Their daunted minds they do let fell: Like as thick woods that are
O f bignesse huge, lament their losse w h en first their leaves do fall
Through fiirious force o f northren blastes, o f greene that spoiles them aUJ

Textual Variants
i devictus] confectus e (devictus L * s. L) z s u b ] e x e (sub H s. D
removentes] N 7 soletj dolet F 6 e: so n a t H L c t v . /.

392
 U sing M anuscripts a n d Early Printed Book 393

P a ra lle l Passages

I Aen. 9,47 T u r n u s u t’ ante volans tardum praecesserat agmen; 12,1 sq.

Turnus ut’ infractos adverso ‘M a n e ’ Latinos / deficisse videt; 12,324 Turnus
ut Aenean cedentem ex agm ine vidit 1 - 2 Aen. 1,98 tuaque animam hanc
effondere dextra; Lucan. 3,6 23 ‘effugientem animam’ lassos collegit in artus
lAen. 9.28 ‘medio’ dux ‘agm ine’ T u rnu s; 9 ,728 sq. qui Rutulum in ‘medio’
non ‘agmine’ regem / viderit; 11,7 6 2 qua se cumque furens ‘medio’ tulit
'agmine' virgo; Lucan. 1,2 4 3 celsus ‘ medio’ conspectus in ‘agmine’ Caesar 3
Aen. 1,260. 9 ,2 0 4 ‘ m agn an im u m ’ Aenean; 5,17 ‘ magnanime’ Aenea; cf.
5,407. 10 ,771 4 O v. m et. 8,6 16. 7 6 5. 12,18 ‘obstipuere omnes';
georg. 4,350sq. om nes / ‘obstipuere’ ; A en. 2,120. 3,404 ‘obstipuere’ animi;
8,530; 9,123 ‘obstipuere’ anim is; A en. 2,53 ‘gemitumque dedere’; Ov.
met. 13, 612 demisere oculos om nes gemitumque dedere 5 Aen. 1, 209 pre­
mit altum ‘corde dolorem ’ ; O v . met. 2 ,6 2 1 - 23 tum vero gemitus. . . / alto
de corde petitos / edidit; - A e n . 5,182 salsos rident ‘ revomentem’ pectore
fluctus; cf. Sil. 1 0 ,3 2 5 6 A e n . 3 ,2 6 0 'cecidere animi’, 9,498 hoc fletu concussi
‘animi’; Ov. pont. 2 ,3,5 0 anim i non cecidere tui 6 sq. Aen. 7,676 'ingens /
silva’; Ov. ars 3 , 161 sq. raptique aetate capilli / ut Borea frondes excutiente
cadunt
 C H A P T E R 23

Editing Neo-Latin Literature

Keith S id w e ll

Introduction

This chapter w ill briefly discuss the gen eral state o f p ublishin g in the area
o f neo-Latin literature, enquire in to th e issue o f w h at additiônal textual
resources might" be deem ed necessary an d h o w th e ir selection might be
made, and finally outline briefly the cen tral p rin cip les involved in the
production o f such editions. A lth o ugh these issues have largely been well
addressed elsewhere, especially b y IJsew ijn an d S acré,' w hich should be a
fundamental starting-point for those to w h o m th is area is o f interest, what
is said here w ill rely heavily upon th e au th o r's o w n experience of editing
seventeenth-century Irish poetic texts. T h is exp erien ce does not change
any fundamentals, but m ay serve to in tro d u ce th e su b ject fröm a different
perspective.

W hat Kinds o f Texts A re out There?

As IJsewijn and Sacré note, n eo -L atin literatu re, though a particular

‘growth area’ in the past tw en ty years, w as also a focus o f interest for many
scholars before the m odem era.2 Even on E uro p e’s p erip h ery, eagerness to
preserve knowledge o f a lan d ’s literary h eritage led very early to the
compilation o f annotated b ib lio grap h ies, o f th e sort represented by James
W are’s De scriptoribus H iberniae (1639), w h ich w as revised and enlarged by
W alter Harris in 1739-46. T exts o f th e co llected w o rks o f major authors
from the fourteenth to th e sixteenth cen tu ries w ere published as early as
the eighteenth century (e.g. J. C lericu s’ E rasm us, Leiden 1703-7! the
‘Letters’ o f Ambrogio T raversari, F lorence 1759). D esp ite the development
o f a haughty attitude tow ards w o rks o f n o n -classical L atin writers on the
part o f the increasing cohort o f professional stu d en ts o f the ancient world

1 IJiewijn and Sacré 1998:434-501. 1 IJsewijn and Sacié 1998: 502-7.

394
 E d itin g N eo -L a tin Literature 395

during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, their contemporaries

who were historians o f the early modern period and specialists in the an
or vernacular literatures o f this tim e began to recognize the importance of
such Latin works. G o o d exam ples o f texts resulting from these sources
of interest can be fou n d in the edition o f the history oflreland by Philip
O'Sullivan-Beare ( Historiae Catholicae Ibemiae Compendium, 1621) by
Matthew Kelly (D u b lin 18 50 ), o f the letters o f Enea Silvio Piccolomini
(Pope Pius II) by R . W o lk a n for Fontes rerum Austriacarum (Vienna,
1909-18), and the series entided Nuova collezione di testi umanistici inediti
0 mi published under the auspices o f the Scuola Normale Superiore di
Pisa, of which C . G ra y so n ’ s text o f Leon Battista Alberti’s Musca and Vita
S. Potiti (Florence 19 54) w as num ber 10.
Over the last ten years o r so, new series, dedicated to the production of
critical editions o f n eo-Ladn texts, have begun to emerge, in the context,
however, o f new or renewed institudonal interest in the phenomenon o f neo-
Latin itself. Examples are Supplementa humanística Lovaniensia produced by
die Seminarium Philologiae Hum anisdcae at the Katholieke Universiteit
Leuven since 19 78 , Noctes Neolatinae: Neo-Latin Texts and Studies, a series
of supplements to Neulateinisches Jahrbuch, published under the auspices of
Bonn University’s A b teilu n g fü r Griechische und Lateinische Philologie since
2001, the Harvard I Tatti Renaissance Library, under the general editorship of
Professor o f H istory Jam es H ankins, which began publication in 2001 and
now runs to more than fifty volumes, and Officina Neolatina: Selected
Writing Jrom the Neo-Latin World, announced by Brepols Publishers in
2007 and with its first text published in 2o n .J Individual presses (often
associated with universities w h ich have strong research interests in neo-
Latin Studies) also occasionally publish critical texts o f neo-Latin authors.
Instances are the texts o f E m m an u el Swedenborg edited by Hans Helander
and published in Acta Universitatis Upsaliensis,* texts from the project on the
neo-Latin drama o f the U n iversity o f Salzburg, under the tide Musae Bene-
dittmae Salisburgenses? Florian Schaffenrath and Stefan Tilg’s Achilles in
Tirol Der 'bayerische Rummel’ lyo j in der 'Epitome rerum Œnovallensium\6
and The Zoilomastix o f Philip OSullivan-Beare, edited by Denis O ’Sullivan
(arising from the Renaissance Latin W riters oflreland project at the Centre
for Neo-Latin Studies at U n iversity College Cork).7 These editions present,
however, seriously divergent choices in what support material to offer to the

1 Edwards and Sidwdl 1012. Unfortunately, this series is currently suspended.

* Hdander 1985,1988 and 1995. ’ W itcli zooi; Oberparleiter 1004.
Sdafenrath and T ilg 2004- 7 O'Sullivan 2009.
 39<S KEITH SID W E L L

reader, some opting only for critical text plus translation, others for text,
translation and notes, and relatively few for the w hole panoply o f linguistic
apparatus and commentary usual for classical texts.
In addition to standard printed editions, the arrival o f the Internet has
facilitated the publication o f m an y digital versions o f texts, sometimes
(as for example in E E 6 0 ) in facsim ile, som etim es in digital transcription
(Renaissance Latin Texts o f Ireland). T h e se d o not represent critical edi­
tions, but nonetheless have increased exponentially the amount of neo-
Latin textual material available for consultation w ith o u t the vast expense
of travel. Dana F. Sutton has produced a useful bibliography o f these
resources, with direct links (www.philological.bham .ac.uk/bibliography:
An Analytic Bibliography o f O n -lin e N e o -L a tin T e x ts, University of
California, Irvine). A new initiative, T h e L ib ra ry o f Digital Latin Tats,
a joint research project o f the So ciety for C lassical Studies, the Medieval
Academy o f Am erica and the Renaissance S o cie ty o f Am erica, hosted by
the University o f O klahom a, directed b y Sam u el J . H u skey and funded
by the Mellon Foundation, is n o w tryin g to open up a new direction in
the digitization o f Latin texts. T h e project aim s to establish a site for
new digital editions o f Latin texts (http://digitallatin.org/). It is currendy
exploring ways o f encouraging scholars to publish in its series, which will
include neo-Latin texts. It does seem very likely, given the relatively small
groups o f specialists w ho will use such editions and the probability that in
the future fewer and fewer conventional publishers will risk their capital in
such a restricted market, that digital p ro d u ctio n o f this kind will become a
more and more promising route for scholars in the field to take.

What Kinds ofTexts DoWe Need?

However, the field o f neo-Latin is alm o st inco m p reh en sib ly vast. Figures
in W aquet’s Latin ou l ’empire d ’un signe suggest th at even at the beginning
o f the eighteenth century, books in L a tin still acco u n te d for the majority
o f all primed output. A n d while vern acular languages m ay have effectively
(though by no means exclusively) taken o v e r in the realm o f literature
by the end o f the seventeenth ce n tu ry, nonetheless L a tin continued to be
the preferred medium o f scholarship w ell into th e nineteenth (and in
some places, well into the tw entieth), as w ell as the (belligerent) choice for
debate and written reports in the parliam ents o f C ro a tia and Hungary.
W e cannot hope to produce critical edition s o f all this material, partly
because o f its vast bulk, partly because th e n u m b e rs o f properly qualified
scholars o f Latin is continually foiling, p a rtly because o f a persisting
 E d itin g N eo -L a tin Literature 397

preference on the p a n o f m an y departm ents of classical philology (who

almost exclusively still are the trainers o f Latinists) to encourage their
graduate students to ta ck le ed itio n s o f classical authors (already, one
would think, w ell en o u g h provided for after several hundred years of
ctfort) rather than to co n trib u te to an area o f reception studies in which
their knowledge o f classical L atin ity is b adly needed and where it would
become necessarily b ro ad er (because the canon utilized by neo-Latin
authors is so broad). T h ree in terlin k ed questions arise, therefore: which
texts ought we to be p rio ritiz in g, for w hat audiences, and who is to
produce them?
A major consideration in an sw erin g the firn question is the tendency for
neo-Latinists as a b o d y to regard literary texts (poetry, history, drama,
philosophy, fiction) as th eir proper focus o f attention. The reasons why
they do this are rooted, o f course, in the history of university disciplines:
interest in neo-Latin texts has arisen principally out o f an interest in the
reception of classical literatu re, an d in particular its links with and relation
to the emerging v ern acu lar literatures o f the W est from the fourteenth
century onwards. T h is is w h y th ere are for more critical editions of Italian
Renaissance texts o f th e fifteen th cen tury than o f later periods (exceptions
being made for such lu m in aries as Erasmus and Scaliger). The relatively
recent broadening o f in terest in neo-L atin as a whole, seen in the establish­
ment of academic u n its such as the Sem inarium Philologiae Humanisticae
at Leuven, has tended to b e b u ilt upon this essentially literary model. Signs
that this restrictive approach is now altering towards an inclusion of all
Latin material can be seen in th e section o f IJsewijn and Sacré 1998 on the
literature of scientific d iscip lin es an d b y H elander’s statement of principle
in Symbolae Osloenses.8
Nonetheless, i f the p h en o m en o n o f neo-Latin as a whole has begun to
uke on the form o f a b ro ader en q u iry into intellectual history, in practice
its study tends still to be co n cen trated around somewhat more restricted
themes, both because o f th e w a y in w hich funding for research operates
(Le. within national b o ud aries: though the European Research Council
now offers for E uropeans a b etter chance o f constructing more inter­
national projects), an d b ecause universities tend to have specific sets of
research strengths o r sp ecific local interests around which they build their
neo-Latin projects. T h o u g h it is b y no m eans the only way to make choices
about which texts to ed it c ritic a lly , it seems a reasonable basic principle, to
avoid fragmentation a n d lack o f gen eral intellectual cohesion, that editors

l]*cwijn and Sacré 1998: 9 11-6 1. Helando- 10 0 1.

 398 KEI TH S I D W E L L

should attach themselves to one o f these projects o r start one themselves,

to which their chosen text w ill contribute in a cum ulative way. I have in
mind examples such as the D atabase o f N o rd ic N eo-Latin Literature
(www.uib.no/neolatin/), the Salzburg B en edictin e Drama project of
Petersmann and W itek at the U n iversity o f Salzburg, Renaissance Latin
Texts of Ireland, established b y m yself at U n iversity C ollege Cork and now
run by Jason Harris, and the m ore recently established Ludwig Boltzmann
Insiture for Neo-Latin Studies at the U n iversity o f Innsbruck, which is
running a variety o f research p rogram m es sim ultaneously, including
the role of Latin in the H apsburg E m pire, C ath o lic school drama of the
eighteenth century and hym nography from th e sixteenth to the eighteenth
century. In all o f these cases, th e p ro ductio n o f critical editions runs
parallel with more broadly historical an d cu ltu ral com m entary, to provide
a platform for better understanding o f th e w id er context within which
these Latin texts were produced, as w ell as to facilitate access to the most
important o f them to non-Latinists w h o are studen ts o f their contempor­
ary culture. Gilbert H ighet’s criticism o f th e P h .D . system, with its
concentration on the isolated study, u n d er th e pretence o f producing
‘bricks for the cathedral o f know ledge’ is no less ap t now than it was when
he made it: ‘brick-making does not p ro duce arch itects’.9 W h at we require,
then, for our ‘cathedral’ o f neo-Latin kn o w ledge are not isolated texts, but
texts associated with w ider projects, w h ere historical and cultural analysis
can move hand in hand w ith the task o f ed itin g .
This last set o f considerations helps us to id e n tify th e parameters for an
answer to our second question. S in ce n eo -L atin texts are products of their
surrounding culture, however m uch th e y w ere p ro d u ced and consumed
originally by an educated elite, one cru cial au d ie n c e for editions of these
texts must assuredly be those sch o lars an d stu d en ts whose focus of
attention is the period w hen such texts w ere p ro d u ced , be they intellec­
tual historians, historians o f science, art h isto rian s, studen ts o f vernacular
literature, historical geographers o r h isto rian s o f religio n . The Italian
Renaissance, which m akes no sense a t all w ith o u t close attention to its
Latin writings and its stu d y o f G reek texts in th e o rigin al language, is a
good example o f an area in w h ich n eo -L atin text e d itio n s have long been
produced (by scholars o f Italian c u ltu re ) an d w h e re , alb eit belatedly, the
English-speaking world has now b egun to be p ro v id ed w ith a series of
accessible texts o f the most im p o rtan t L atin w o rk s (I T a tti Renaissance
Library). A major goal o f R en aissan ce L atin T ex ts o f Ireland is the*

* Highet 1967: 499.

 E d itin g N eo -L a tin Literature 399

provision o f such a series for th e m ajor products o f Irish Latin writers for
historians and sp ecialists in th e literatu re o f Ireland (both English and
Irish (Gaeilge)). C lassicists sh o u ld not, however, be indifferent. With the
rise in ‘reception stu d ies’ in recen t years, special attention ought to be
being paid b y a gro up o f in d iv id u als who have been trained in philology
to the tradition w h ich n o u rish ed the studies they pursue, and where
quite often the roots o f m o dern orthodoxies (not necessarily correct)
are to be discovered. M a n y o f the literary neo-Latin works, indeed,
offer remarkable in sigh ts also in to the reception and reuse of classical
literature, often at a v e ry p ro fo un d level. An example might be the
so-called Poema de H ibernia, a lo n g hexam eter poem about the Williamite
War in Ireland (1688-91), w ritten b y a highly educated member of the losing
Irish Jacobite elite on the m odel o f L ucan’s Bellum civile.
Let us turn now to o u r th ird questio n : w ho is to produce such editions?
Editing Latin texts requires a very p articular - and increasingly rare - set of
skills. The obvious o n e is a first-rate know ledge o f Latin, which is still most
often acquired through courses offered b y w hat in the English-speaking
world are known as ‘C lassics d ep artm en ts’. Indeed, in the past, neo-Latin
editions were alw ays p ro duced b y scholars who had had serious training
in Latin, but that w as b ecause L atin was a sine qua non of pre-university
training until a gen eratio n ago and a required university course at some
level for many co n tiguo us sub jects, such as English, History and Romance
Philology. W ith th e ab an d o n m en t everywhere in the English-speaking
world of Latin as a req u ired secondary school subject and the extraordin­
arily short-sighted lack o f support for classical philology by many of
the early-modern d iscip lin es in m an y universities, the training in Latin
philology of early-m o d em ists has suffered general decline. Moreover, the
broadening o f the c u rric u lu m in C lassics outw ard from philology towards
a more all-encom passing u n d erstan d in g o f the ancient world and its
cultures, while an excellen t th in g in itself, has tended to contribute (along
with the fact th at stu d en ts are often obliged to begin their study of Latin
and Greek at u n iversity) to a lessen in g o f focus upon strictly philological
skills. This situation does req u ire attention and m ay perhaps be amelior­
ated by collaborative actio n betw een departm ents of Classics and early
modern specialists.
At present, h ow ever, it ap p ears to be the case that where such collabor­
ation is absent, those w ith th e p h ilo gical skills to undertake editing neo-
Latin texts w ill lik e ly h av e b een train ed in Classics departments or by
Classics departm ents (th o u g h th ere w ill be exceptions). They will not
necessarily, how ever, b e e q u ip p e d w ith the understanding o f the early
 400 KEI TH S I D WE L L

modern culture to w hich their chosen text belongs. H ence, although the
philological asp eas o f the editio n m ust n ecessarily fall upon the shoul­
ders o f the philologist (though not alw ays w ith o u t aid , as we shall see),
contextualization and co m m entary m ay need to be provided by a collab­
orator specializing in the text’s period. T h e P h .D . train in g offered in
humanities, o f course, m ilitates again st m u ltip le authorship, but given
that few texts are sm all enough to be ed ited in fu ll for a dissertation, this
should not prevent those w ho ed it a n eo -L atin text for a Ph.D . qualifica­
tion from seeking a collaborator for a p u b lish ed ed itio n .

Editorial Principles i : W h a t Is ‘T h e Text’?

For a classicist, this question is h ard ly o f im p o rtan ce, since the goal of
editors is ‘to get back as nearly as possible to th e w ords intended by the
writer’, but there is no access for an y an cien t w o rk to material which
originated with the w riter h im self o r even in his lifetim e. However, once
autograph manuscripts become available, as th e y often do for early Quat­
trocento works, or we find m ultip le ed itio n s overseen b y the author, as
with Erasmus in the sixteenth cen tury, for exam p le, it becomes dear that
the classicist’s mantra is an oversim plification . T h e w riter m ay revise his
work either by corrections on the m an u scrip t (see Philip O ’Sullivan-
Beare’s Zoilomastix, especially book i) o r b y a co m p lete rewriting, which
may refiect different periods o f his life an d differen t political or personal
views or goals. For exam ple, L ilio T ifèrn ate, au th o r o f a very widely
diffused translation o f Lucian’s Verae N arrationes, appears to have revisited
his version a number o f tim es, after p ro d u cin g a trial text o f Book I in the
late 1430S. This led its editors D apelo an d Z o p p elli to a decision to present
their main text as a collation o f the tw o m ain branches o f the textual
tradition, but to print the w hole o f the earlier d raft (o f book 1) at a lower
level on the same page, to allow scholars to see in stan tly w hat changes the
author made in his revisions.10 A p rin ted text m a y be expanded (as with
progressive additions to Erasm us’ A dagia an d Colloquia), or errors cor­
rected (often several tim es, as in th e ‘A d d itio n al Poem s’ appended to
Dermot O ’M eara’s Ormonius). In all such cases, th e ed ito r must seek to
represent the relationship between the various versions as accurately as
possible. In extreme conditions, if an ap p aratu s can n o t adequately be
made to provide such inform ation so as to allo w the reader to choose
which version to read, then eith er the e d itio n sh o u ld p rin t all the different

n Dapelo and Zoppelli 1998: 134-92. For other examples, see IJsewijn and Sacré 1998:463—4-
 E d itin g N eo -L a tin Literature 401
venions (whether in chronological sequence or in tabular form) or, if the
texts differ mainly in passages o r words added or deleted, they should
be distinguished typographically (as in the case o f the modem Vatican
edition o f Enea Silvio P iccolom ini’s Commentarii, where the published
sixteenth-century edition had deliberately censored and bowdlerized Pope
Pius’ original text).

Editorial Principles 2: EstablishingtheText

Where only manuscripts exist, the editor will be aided by following the
procedures established lon g since b y classical philologists for the creation of
2 stemma, which helps to establish the relationships between them.”
However, the one clear difference w hich must be kept in mind is the
possibility o f identifying an autograph, which must clearly be given
priority. This is m ore easily done, o f course, for a well-studied period like
the Italian Quattrocento, w here the handwriting o f the main humanists
has been identified.
For most printed editions, the autograph manuscript was used during
the process o f typesetting and correction and then discarded. Hence,
editing a printed text from the second h alf o f the fifteenth century onwards
requires in most cases collection and a close study o f the available editions.
There can be surprises even w h en apparendy identical copies arc examined
closely. In the case o f the ‘ A dditional Poems’ in O ’ Meara’s Ormonius,
grammatical and metrical errors have been corrected in the octavos of later
copies, even though the text o f the poem itself and its introductory
material have not been altered. A decision had to be made about the likely
roleof the author h im self in these corrections before it was dear which text
to prioritize. A full conspectus o f editions must therefore be given along
with an account o f their relationship w ith each other.

Editorial Principles 3: Orthography, PunctuationandTypography

One of the most contentious questions to be answered by the editor o f a
neo-Latin text is about w h eth er o r not to ‘ normalize’ spelling and punctu-
tion, that is to present the Latín text according to the conventions now
accepted for classical Latin . A s regards punctuation, early modem texts*

* Maas 1958, Deligiannis’ edition o f some early Quattrocento Latin translations o f the Greek author
Ludan is an excellent example o f these principles put into practice (or neo-Latin texts with multiple
manuscripts (Deligiannis 2006).
 402 KEITH SID W ELL

mostly use a system w hich attem p ts to b reak u p sentences according

to rhetorical units. For example, the scribe o f G ilb ert m s. 141 writes at Poma
dt Hibernia 1.177-8: Hoc, Jacobe, Tibi, Lex Exclusiva, roganteJ Figitur
f At this man’s request, Jam es, the Exclusion B ill is fixed against thee’).
The proliferation o f com m as - p erfectly ratio n al from the viewpoint of the
seventeenth-century scribe - w ill d o n o th in g to h elp , and everything to
distract, the modem reader, w h o w o u ld see th e stru cture better here if only
the vocative Jacobe were m arked off. It does n o t seem unreasonable,
therefore, to allow m odem p u n ctu atio n co n ven tio n s (w hich in any caie
differ among different m o dem lan guages) to b e used in neo-Latin editions.
One might think that the sam e co u ld b e said o f sp ellin g, and indeed this
has been argued strongly b y D eitz.'* H o w ever, even he gives a number of
cases where exceptions should b e m ad e, viz. (1) w h ere the author makes
allusions to an etym ology w h ich is reflected in th e spelling; (2) where the
author uses a 'w ord, figure o r sp ellin g w h ich is w ro n g according to our
standards, that word m ust be retain ed i f it is such th a t the author could not
have known the right one’;,} (3) n eologism s. T o (1), a partial response is
that in any case this category' m ust b e ex ten d ed to cover all spellings to
which false etym ologies w ere attach ed in th e e a rly m o dem period, since
these were regularly taught, th ey w ere d iscu ssed in th e m ajor dictionaries
of the period (e.g. in the various ed itio n s o f C alep in u s) an d there is no way
of knowing how m uch in an y in d iv id u al in stan ce the author expected
his reader to supply the etym o lo gy. A n ex am p le m ig h t be the spelling
Alecto for the V irgilian Fury, as again st th e m o d ern convention AUecttr. the
spelling with one T reflects a false etym o lo g y from G reek (alpha privative
plus legò , ‘I desist’). T o (2), one m ig h t say th at, even if one agrees in
principle that the editor o ugh t to k n o w in p recise detail where in the
history of philological en q u iry th e text is to b e p laced, the requirement
loads onto the scholar w ho w ishes to p u b lish th is sid e o f the next millen­
nium too great a burden o f in v estig atio n , in v estigatio n w hich might still
for reasons not the scholar’s fault (such as th e discovery o f new infor­
mation) foil short o f com pleteness. T o (3), o n e n eeds to add that included
in this category o f necessity m u st be all n am es o f m odem people and
places, which were, as for as o n e can see, n ever su b ject to any sort of
standardization (e.g. A rklow in Ormonius ap p ears as Arckloa, Arkehts,
Arcklus and in the vernacular form Arckloe a n d S m erw ick as Smermcu
and Smerwicka). T he net result it seem s to m e o f a p p ly in g Deitz’ principles

U
D e in 19 9 8 . " D ein 1998:156.
 E d itin g N eo -L a tin Literature 403

would be a hippocencaur, a beast that has never actually existed (and would
be extremely ugly an d frigh tening i f it did!).
It seems a better o p tio n , since full standardization is not possible for
reasons given b y D eitz, to leave the orthography o f the original text intact
(as làr as possible), b u t to offer the reader in the introductory material a
conspectus o f the deviations from standard classical spelling which are to
be (bund in it. T h is does n o t a m o u n t to a major dissertation and it has the
advantage that the reader m a y be better equipped to tackle other original
editions than i f m ost spellings are normalized.14 I would also include here
the accents used b y m a n y printers (though never totally consistently): they
ate not used in m odern edition s o f classical Latin, yet they form a definite
pan of how early m o dern Latinists thought about distinctions between
words. This h aving been said, it will not help most readers to keep
abbreviations or ligatures fo u n d both in manuscripts and printed editions
(sudi as the line o ver a final o r m edial vowel standing for m) and these
should be written o u t in full.
Typefaces used in early prin ted editions (as in modem, also) are some­
times used to differentiate kinds o f material or to place emphases. It is not
always easy to see, h o w ever, precisely w hat their function is. In Omonius,
characteristically the p rin ter italicizes names in the otherwise Roman
typeface o f the cogn itive apparatus o f a text, because they seek to impan
information that m igh t oth erw ise be missed (i.e. this is the name o f a
person or place, even th o u g h y o u m ay not have seen it before in Latin), or
that they are mere frip p e ry a n d can be discarded; it is a matter to which the
editor needs to give so m e th ough t.

Editorial P rinciples 4 : A pparatuses (A) Criticus (B) Fontium

Critical texts need to be supported b y various kinds o f apparatus. The one

most familiar to classical philologists, the apparatus criticus., which reports
«riant readings, is also appropriate to neo-Larin texts, although in cases where
the witness is a single printed edition, it m ay be limited to the reporting of
corrections made b y the editor, or, as is the case with Omonius, o f corrections
offered by errata slips attached to copies o f the earlier edition.
Far more im portant in m o st cases will be an apparatusfontium. How­
ever, some discussion o f this is necessary, since there are a number of
possibilities about w h a t sh o u ld be reported: ought it to be limited to giving
the source o f citations (w h ich are listed in some original texts in the

H Foran example, tee Edwards and Sidw dl 2 0 11. list o í deviations given 34-40.
 404 KEITH SID W ELL

margins) or should it seek (especially w ith po etic texts) to trace and report
the source(s) of phrases (and som etim es in d ivid u al w ords, if distinctive
enough)? Much depends, o f course, on th e sort o f text which is being
edited. In the case o f a polem ical discussion, such as the Tenebriormtix
of Philip O ’Sullivan-Beare, or Jo h n L yn ch ’s A litfonologia, the sources of
the author’s scholarly support netw ork an d o f th e propositions he is
attempting to refute are m uch m ore im p o n an t than the language in which
the discussion is couched. M oreover, even in th e case o f an historical work
in prose (such as Richard Stanihurst’s D e rebus in H ibernia gestis), which
consciously and deliberately follows classical stylistic norm s, it is rarely the
case that wholesale borrowing can be traced. W h ere it can, it may be of
interest, but perhaps a note o r an en try in th e co m m en tary might be the
best place to comment upon it.
Poetic works are on the w hole co m p letely different. T he poet often
makes a conscious decision to im itate an ap p ro p riate classical author and
the linguistic amalgam w hich ensues is an im p o rtan t index o f what the
poet was trying to achieve (or m ay be). O f course, such decisions (like
choice o f genre) do not alw ays an d in v ariab ly have stricdy linguistic
consequences, since early m odem m aterials for close im itation were not
as easily come by as they are today. A n d ’im itatio n ’ m ay be broader than
matters of style: the author o f Poema de H ibernia im itated Lucan mainly
not in stylisdcs so much as in his approach to th e m aterial, focusing on the
bizarre and unlovely side o f conflict as w ell as th e v illain y o f the victors. An
attempt at full reportage (such as m ay be fo un d in th e apparatus fontium
for Ormonius) has some drawbacks: it is very lo n g, it takes an inordinate
time to construct and it m ay, b y in clu d in g co m m o n turns o f phrase, not be
focusing on the actual sources the poet used (sin ce gram m atical manuals
and collections o f useful phrases m ig h t w ell have provided this material
rather than close reading o r m em ory). O n th e o th e r h an d , it certainly is the
case that such a procedure does help locate in large m easure the linguistic
material available to the w riter. T h is in its tu rn m a y allo w the reconstruc­
tion in outline o f the library the w riter possessed o r w as, at least, available
to him while he was com posing. M o reo ver, it can often turn up inter-
textual allusion o f a h igh ly sophisticated typ e, w h ich depends not only
upon the erudition o f the author, b u t for its full effect upon that of the
work’s proposed audience: a good exam p le in Ormonius is the close
linguistic imitation o f a passage from C la u d ia n ’s In Rufinum to structure
a criticism o f the action o f Irelan d’s V icero y ag ain st the Earls o f Ormond
and Desmond. Partly, then, this decisio n dep en ds u p o n the nature of the
text chosen, which m ay in fact o n ly reveal its e lf i f th e ed ito r undertakes a
 Editing Neo-Latin Literature 405

detailed linguistic an alysis p ari passu w ith establishing the text: the deci­
sion on which route to take w ith the apparatus fontium will then follow
from the results o f this en q u iry.

Editorial Principles 5: Translation, Notes and Commentary

Given that one o f the cru cial audien ces for neo-Latin editions will be
scholars and students o f th e e a rly m o dem world, and that many of these
will not have had Latin as a m ajo r com ponent o f their training, it is crucial
10 provide a hill tran slatio n o f the text. T h e most accessible means of
presenting this w ill be on th e facin g page, as for example in the I Tatti
Renaissance Library. T h e lan guage o f the translation will depend to some
«tent upon the lan gu age-area for w h ich the edition is destined. In any
case, it is best for the ed ito r to use his or her native language for such a
task, in the interests o f accu racy and com prehensibility. It is not necessary
10produce a verse tan slatio n for po etic works, though it has always seemed
to me that the w rong im pression can be given to non-Latinate readers if an
cfort is not made to cast the text in som ething akin to the form chosen
and carefully executed b y th e au th o r (see Ormonius, which is translated
into blank verse, a m ed iu m ap p ro p riate in the vernacular for the presenta­
tion of epic m aterial in th e seventeenth century).
Few neo-Latin texts sp eak for them selves. T h e more specifically rooted
in the concerns o f th eir tim e th e y are (contem porary arguments about
histoiy, for example, such as P eter L om bard’s Commentarius or the Poema
&Hibernia), the m ore th e y req u ire annotation. At the most minimal, this
should involve provision o f d etailed notes appended to thè translation
(footnotes are best for th is, sin ce the reader w ill often need to know
immediately who a specific person is or w hat event is being referred to).
However, neo-Latin texts are also o f interest to the philologist, not least for
their use of vocabulary an d th e ir en gagem en t w ith classical texts. Detailed
work of this kind is best left for a lin e-b y-lin e com m entary (supporting the
apparatusfontium ), p laced at th e en d o f the text and translation section,
except in those rare in stan ces w h ere it is crucial to the understanding of
the text.
For many texts, perh ap s th e m a jo rity , classical erudition is not enough,
however. The body o f m a te ria l p ro d u ced b y Irishm en during the fif­
teenth to eighteenth c e n tu rie s, for in stan ce, is deeply rooted in a know­
ledge of (or at least a set o f co n tem p o rary belieft about) Irish history -
and quite often o f th e G ae lic lan g u ag e as w ell. T hus not only are
historical allusions an d d eb a tes p art o f th e unseen substructure of these
 406 KEITH SID W ELL

works, but it can often be the case th at G a e lic literary motifs and even
Gaelic words m ay underlie the L a tin text. F o r e xam p le, in Ormonius, the
poet uses G aelic m otifs, intervenes in po litical debates and translates
Gaelic expressions into Latin : w ith o u t co llab o ra tio n w ith scholars of Irish
place-names, for exam ple, it w o u ld n o t h ave b een possible to locate the
Bungundulus limes referred to at Ormonius 4 , 6 8 5 , n o r to understand
without an expert in the O rm o n d L o rd sh ip th e c h o ic e and disposition of
historical data made b y the w riter. F o r s u c h reasons, it seems to me
crucial that editors should un dertak e th eir textu al w o rk in close collabor­
ation with appropriate early m o d ern exp erts. Introductory' material,
notes to the translation, b ib lio g ra p h y a n d historical commentary are
among the tasks that need to b e sh ared , un less th e philologist is also
deeply enough im bued w ith an u n d e rstan d in g o f th e early modern period
to which the chosen text belongs. T h e sam e a d vice , v ice versa, will apply
to an expert in early m o d em cu ltu re w h o tack les e d itin g a neo-Latin text
but is not trained in classical ph ilo lo gy.

E d ito ria l P r in c ip ie s 6: S u p p o r t i n g M a t e r ia l

All users o f a neo-Latin text are ben efited b y th e provision o f effective and
accurate indices. Philologists w ill w a n t a co n sp e ctu s o f authors referred to
in the edition (both in the apparatusfontium a n d th e com m entary). They
will also require an index o f g ra m m a tica l c o m m e n ts and, i f the ta t is
poetic, an index o f references to d iscu ssio n s o f m etrical issues. They will
also be happy to see a list o f n o tab le w o rd s. T h e s e need not be necessarily
words not found anyw h ere else: fo r o n e th in g , th e state o f neo-Latin
lexicography is not such as to a llo w a b so lu te c e rta in ty in the location of
neologisms. T h e editor sh o uld strive to search all th e available classical,
late Latin and m edieval lexica, p a y in g sp e cia l atten tion to Forcellini
(especially the list o f rejected w o rd s to b e fo u n d there) and D u Cange,
and also check H o ven and R a m m in g e r.15 E a r ly m o d e rn bilingual diction­
aries are also an indispensable so u rce o f in fo rm a tio n ab o u t the meanings
assigned to Latin w ords in the v e rn a cu la r lan gu a ge s an d sometimes reveal
the currency o f terms fo u n d n o w h e re else. F o r exam p le, Ormonius 4,
7 2 uses the w ord Comarchus-, this is fo u n d in P la u tu s meaning ‘village
leader’, and in m edieval Latin as ‘ lead er o f lead ers’ , b u t in the Anglo-
Latin dictionaries o f the sixteen th c e n tu r y is glo ssed ‘ E a rl’ , exactly the
required meaning in the text. A t Ormonius 5, 5 0 , the w o rd turrifrape

11 Foredlini 1864-1916; D u Cange 1883-7; H oven 10 0 6 ; Ram m inger (online).

 E d itin g N e o -L a tin Literature 407

tower-smashing1 o c c u rs, w h ic h w o u ld appear to be a neologism, except

¿ i t it is cited in T h o m a s T h o m a s ’ D ictionarium (though in the meaning
gunner’). A system o f s ig la s h o u ld b e p u t in place to indicate (i) when a
word is (bund in a c la ssic a l L a tin d ic tio n a ry , b u t has ä meaning in the
tot not listed th e re ; (2 ) w h e n a w o rd is o n ly found in a late Latin,
medieval, or n e o -L a tin le x ic o n ; (3) w h en it is found only in an early
modem lexicon. F in a lly , fo r th e gen eral reader, it w ill be important to
provide a good in d e x o f m a tte r a n d n am es covering the translation, notes,
introduction an d co m m e n ta ry .

C on clusion

Producing a text w ith a ll o f th e vario us philological and historical tools

listed above m ay seem a d a u n tin g prospect an d in truth the wprk involved
is by no m eans n e g lig ib le . T h is is th e reason w h y the choice o f text in
consultadon w ith a n e tw o rk o f e a rly m o d em experts to whom the chosen
tat is of interest a n d im p o rtan c e is cru cial. A nd it is also a strong argument
for preferring co llab o ratio n to iso latio n . N eo-L atin Studies is not merely
not an island, it is a series o f in terlo ck ed continents in w hich the construc­
tion of m u lti-n atio n al co rp o ratio n s m a y prove the most effective way of
ensuring progress in o u r u n d e rsta n d in g o f the phenom enon. Text-editing
is at the centre o f th is e n te rp rise , y e t edito rs m ust not deceive themselves
into thinking th e ir w o rk can b e d o n e in a vacuum .

F U R T H E R R E A D IN G
For a general introduction to textual criticism , see Maas 1958. Th e best general
introduction to the editing o f n e o -L a tin texts is IJscwijn and Sacré 1998:434-501.
On orthography, see D e itz 19 9 8 . O n accents see Steenbakkers 1994b. Further
useful contributions o n e d itin g n eo -L a tin texts are: Rabbie 1996, Deneirc 2014b
and Van der Poel 2 0 14 ,
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 Index

Abekrd, Peter, C o lla t io n e s , 289 Ammonio, Andrea. 104

Acevedo, Pedro Pablo de, i}0 anagram poetry. S e e epigrams
Addison, Joseph, 188 Ancient Greek
on epigram, 96 quotation of, 44
A d m ira n d i rerum a d m ira b iliu m en com ia, 346 used to corn new words, 254
Agricola, Rudolph, 188 Andrene, Johann Valentin, C h r is t ia n o p o lis , 331
Omne in lau dem p h ilo so p h ia e e t reliq u a ru m Andrelim, Publio Fausto. A m o r e s s iv e L i v i a , 100
a rtiu m . 178-9 Angeriano, Fausto, A m o r e s s iv e L i v i a , 100
style compared to Valla. 7 7 9 Angariano, Girolamo
Agrippa, Heinrich Cornelius E ro to p a e g ru o n . IOO
D e in c c rtitu d in t e t va n ita te scien tia ru m et Angeriano, Girolamo. E r o u p a e g n io n , 96
artm m . a tq u e a ceU en tu te rb i D et Anisio, Giano, M e lis a e u s . 164
d eclam atio , 284-; Annius, 363-5, 376
281
D e o c c u lt a p h ilo s o p h ia . anti-Ciccronianism, 48-9
281-2
O r a t io n e t , Apuleius, 241, 251, 286, 350
Alberti, Leon Barrirà, 49. 52, 289. 321. 39; commentary on, by Filippo Beroaldo the
D e am ore. 313 Elder, 231
D e com m odis a tq u e incom m odis U cterarum . (3 356
F lo r id a ,

D e ifrrt, 313 M e ta m o rp h o s e s . 316, 319-20

D ella fa m ig lia , 2S9 M e ta m o rp h o s e s and Boccaccio. D e c a m e ro n .

E ca ten ß lca , 313 308

imitation of Roman comedy, 317 M e ta m o rp h o s e s , imitated by Prasch, P s y c h e
¡n tercen a les. 313-18.32t, 337 C r e t ic a , 336-7
M am ut, 32t, 334-J, 3 42 . 3 4 Î Aratus, 187-8
M usca, 395 Ariosto, Ludovico, 107, 203,108
P h ilo d tn a a , 317 D e d i v e r t it a m o r ib u s , ioi

short fiction, 313-18 Aristides. Aelius

S o fren a , 313 P a n a ih e m c O r a t i o n , 299

V ita S . P o m i, 395 Aristophanes, i$8.345

Alesato, Andrea. E m blem ata, 84, 96 F r o g s , 343

Aldegari. Marcantonio, C y n th ia , 100 a r t d k t a m i n i i , 131,155, l$8, 172

Aldravandi. Ulysses, 34 ¿. 347-8 Arsilli, Francesco, D e p o e t is u r b a n is , 108

Aiegre. Francisco Xavier art, works of, described in poetry, 106-7
A lex a n d ria d , 119-20 Aulus Hirtius, 144
d' Alembert, Jean Le Rond Ausonius, 85,132
E n cyclo p éd ie, 70, 80 Avancini, Niccolò, 380
allegory Aventinus, Johannes, A n n a le s , 369-72,380
in Barclay. A r g e n it , 327-8 AvrancJies, Henry o f epic poetiy, 203
in Barclay, E u p h o r m io . 323-6
de Almíaan, Agustín, translation of Alberti, Bacon, Frands, 3, 48
M o m a , 335 N o v a A d a n t i s , 70,331

474
 Index
475
Bilde. Jacob Bidermann, Jakob
Contri abmum u baci, 157 drama by, 230
Medicinae ¡lo ria , 156-7 epigrams, 88
mock encomia. 157 Utopia, 335-6
Solatium podagricorum , 157 Bion, 163
tene « it e . 156-8. i6z Biondo, Flavio, 376
Bindello, Matteo. T iti /tonum bitum a, 311 De Roma instaurata, 365
Bubiro. Francesco, 66, 366 De verbis Romanae locutionis, 365
Bubenni, Maffeo Historiarum ab inclinatione Romani im perii,
elegies, in 365
scriptural paraphrases, 108 historiography. 365-8
Baici«?, John, 322-3 Italia illustrata. 365-7
A i p n ù , 41. 517-30 Birck. Sixt or Xystus. See Betuleius, Sxnis
Arpnù, translations and continuations of, Bisse, Thomas. 188
51P-50 Bissei, Johanna
Euphomuo. 513-8, 337 Argonautica Americano. 337-8
Eupbormo, translations and continuations of, icario. 337
}M Blake, William, and same. 343
314
I c o n a n im o r u m , Blanu, Piene de, Nonceid, 206
Babau, Caspar, 107 Boccaccio, Giovanni. 32,85,176,298-9,319-21
ino Barth. Caspar, Satirarum lib er unto, 152-3 Bucolicum Carmen 5,173
Bartholin. Thomas, D e m edicis poetis, 191 Bucolicum Carmen to, t<6
Binon, Gasparino. commentary on Cicero, 1 7 1 Bucolicum Carmen 14,164
Basini. Basinio, Hesperis, 20$ Decameron, 318,32t, 335
Hassle o fFrog and M ice, 346 Decameron, adapted in drama, 229
Baudouin, François, D e institutione historiae Decameron, influence upon Albem,
umtersac, 361 ¡m ercenalet, 314, 316-17
Baubuis, Bernard, 90 Decameron, influence upon neo-Larin
Bayle, Pierre, Nouvelles de la République des literature, 309
Lettres, 67-8. 76 Decameron, translation into Latin, 308-12
Bebel, Heinrich Bodin, Jean. 289
facetiae, 310 Methodus ad facilem historiarum cogntotmem,
translation o f Boccaccio, 310 362
Beccadelli. Antonio. H erm aphroditus, 115 Boethius, Comolaaon o f Philosophy, 294. 340, 355
Bedther, Daniel, M edicus microcosmos, 380 Boethius, Hector. 374
Bede, Historia ecciesictsttca gentis Anglorum , 373 Boiardo. Matteo Matia, 205
Bimbo. Pietro, 36, 86 ,10$, 148 Boileau. Nicolas, 150
and Ciceronian style, 144 Bona, Giovanni, Via compendii ad Deum. 380
DeAetna. 193 Bordini, Antonio. 369
B o d Francesco Bordini, Giovanni Francesco, 105
Quinqué m anyes e Soneuste len t in In dia, 118 Borgo, Jorge Luis. The Library o fBabel, 356
Somnium, 342 Bourbon. Nicolas, 53, 92
Bamingb, Jan Bodechcr, Sasyricon, 326, 342 Paedagogum, 59-60
Bttatggcr. Matthias. Systema cosmicum, Boyd, Mark Alexander, imitation of Ovid's
translation o f Galileo, 289 Heroides. 143-4
Bernoulli, Jacob, 78 Boyie, Roben, The Christian Virtuoso, 71
Btroaldo, Filippo [the Elder). 13t Braccai, Alessandro, 98,106
translations o f Boccaccio, 311 elegia, 103
Betossus, 364 H istoria d i due am anti, 313
Betuleius, Sixtus, 47 Bracciolini. Jacopo. 311
drama by, 217 translaiion of Boccaccio, 311
de Bére, Théodore de Bracciolini. Poggio, ( 6 ,1 7 1, 289,311.363
epigrams, 88,93-4 and Ciceronian style, 244
Juvenilia, 64,84 correspondence with Coluccio Salutati. 29®
Bidermann. Herman, Epigram m ata, 91 Facetiae or Confabulationes, 309
476 Index

Biacdolim, Poggio (com.) Epigram m ata, 92

ternatee fer the elutio, 198 epigrams. 93-4
Brandolini, Aurelio Lippo, De campáronme Canottieri, Pietro Andrea, Flores illustrium
mpubiicue a n p ú , 19 1-1 epitaphiorum , 84
Brandon, Ondes. 8; Cápella, Martian us. theory o f rhetoric, 303
Brandon, Henry, 85 Cardano. Gerolamo, Encom ium o fN ero, 332
Bram. Sebastian, 10$ Cardillo, Fulvio. Terentius purgatus. 229
Brecht. Lcwin, Euripus, 191 Castighi. Rattier, 202
Brenkman, Hendrik. 68 Casaubon, Isaac. 7 3 ,7 9
Bridges, John, translation of the New Testament. commentary on Penius. Sastres, 134
prefatory letter to, 145-6 D e satyrica praetorum poesi et rom ononm
Brinsley, John, 33, 58 saritu, 931
Luba ¡aerarius, 57—8 Castellanus, Petras, C onvivium Saturnale, 342
Bruni, Leonardo, 204,149.189,374 da Castigbonchio, Lapo. D e commodis curiae
and Ciceronian style, 144 rom anar, 292
Dialogi od Petrum Potdsm Histrum, 296-301 Castiglione, Baldassare, 107
Fabula Tancredi, translation o f Boccaccio. 310 A lcon, 16 4 -3 .17 2 .17 6 - 7
Historiae Florentini fírp u t, 338-61 tt cortepano, 273. 310
Panegyric on dre G tp o fFlorence, 199 Catholicism
Seleuco, 310 relationship to neo-Larin literature. 36-7
views on contemporary poetry. 299 Catullus, 4-6, tt. 64, 91. 93, 9 7 ,12 1
Brano, Giordano. 12-7 Carm en 6 4 .141
Buchanan. George, 53,62-3,125.188 imitation o f
Biblical drama. 223 in Goliardie verse, 224
Calendae Maine, 125 in neo-Larin lyric, 114 -2 0
drama. 228 style, 96
elegies, 58-9, in Caussin. Nicolas, drama by, 230
epigrams, 86,93-6 Cehis. Conrad, 130
Epithalamium, 8 A d Senectutem Stu nt, O de 4 .1,12 3-4
leones, 84 lyric poetry, 123-4
lyric, 115 Ceva. Tommaso, 27-30, 32-4
psalm translations. 108.130 Chakmcr, Thomas, D e república Anglorum
Sphaera. 188 instauranda, 192-3
Budé. Guillaume. 77 Champion, François, Su gn a, 183
Bugnac. Gabriel Chìrilkm, Walter of, A lexandreis, 201—4, 211.219
Arehomhrotus et Theopompus. 329 Chaucer, Geoffrey
continuation o f Barclay, Euphormio, 324 and Boccaccio, 309
Bultellus, Gistcnus, 382 The Canterbury Tales, 313
Bu (meiner, Johannes, 91 Cheke, John, 83
Burton, Roben Chytraeus, David. D e lectione historiarum . 361
Anatomy o fMelancholy. 340, 334-3 Cicero, 188, 238. 241. 238, 286. 298. 36t
Anatomy o fMelancholy, and prose satire, 346 dialogues. 290
early commentaries on, 272
Caesar, Julius, 146,361,372-3 letten, 132, 269
Calepinus. Ambrosius. See da Otiepio, rediscovered in early Renaissance, 132
Ambrogio da as model for epistolary writing, 238-9,266
Calepio, Ambrogio da, 287 and neo-Latin prose style, 270
Callimachus. 126 Pro A rchia, 272
Aetia, i8i and rhetorical theory, 306
Camden, William, 374 Qapham, John, 39
Britannia, 178 classical literature
Camdeni insignia (collection on his death). 179 imitation o f in medieval Latin literature. 237»
De connubio Tamac a ¡sis, u 244
Campanella, Tommaso, C aitas Salis, 331 imitation o f in neo-Larin literature, 238
Campion, Thomas, 4,6,86 imitation of, in oratory, 286-7
 In dex 477
rcUwMship o f neo-L i tin literature to, 5, Decembrio, Angelo, De pobtia litteraria, 294-6
•o-i), 34 declamation
ought in schools, 56 as educational exercise, 276-7 Set also oratory
Cbudian. 132, 202 dedicatory leiten, 269-70
imiUDon of. lo a Demetrius, On Style. 239
h Rs/imem. imitation of, 404 Denisot, Nicolas, 64-5
tad panegyric-epic. 200 Descanes, Rend, 29,48,74
úupkis, Gregorius, 47 dialogue. 189-306
Codio, Urceo. 1)4 Ciceronian, 291
Colonna, Francesco, H ypnrrotom arhia PoliphiU . convivial or symposiastic dialogue, 291
47 Lucianic, 291
Colacci, Benedetto, H istoriola am atoria. 313 medieval tradition, 289-90
Gobimdli. D t tt n atica, 181 models for, 290-1
mtnnwnorame volumes, 8; 'open' and ‘dosed' forms, 291-4
Cotaandnople. fell of, as subject of epic poetry, Platonic, 291
209-12 sixteenth-century theories of, 293
Cond. Antonio, 72 women and, 296
om m m ùe (school debates), and neo-Latin dictionaries, africo-Larin, 406-7
literature. 310 didactic poetry, 180-99
Coovenirti, Giovanni. Latin novellas, 312 and education, 183,189-92
Coriffus, Flavius Cttsconius. panegyric epic. 201 Jesuit didactic poetry, 182,199
Gomtrius, Joannes, 88,91 on astronomical and astrological themes,
Gstréa. Tommaso, 87 187?$,199
Cotter. Gregorio, tjt rediscovery o f daniral texts, 181
Or tisttendu tt erudiendis U beris, 182 Diderot, Denis, 70
Saltean drama, 224 Diedo, Francesco, translation o f Boccaccio, 311
Canea, Paolo Diodari. d u tie s. See Milton, John, Epitaphitem
and Qcemnian style, 145 Damonis
debate on imitation with Angelo Poliziano, Diodorus Siculus, 363
237-8,244 Diogenes, 155
H am it H ippolyti et D tyanirae, 313 Dionysius o f Halicarnassus, 361
Corvinus, Laurentius, 382 Distelmavr, Qeophas, 231
Cowley, Abfaham. 3, 7 Donne, John, 188
Plaunsm U ri sex, l8l Ignatius, H is C oudoie, 343
Cmbuv, Richard, 91 Domau, Caspar
Efiptm nutu stem , 90-2 Am phitheatrum Sapientiae Socraticsu Joco-
Crespa, Jean, 89 Seriae, 354
Cnvdtl. Lodrisio, 105 van Dorp, Erasmus Maarten, 226
Cm, Luit da, 230 Dousa. Janus. 49
Seltnes, 233 drama, 221-34
Cunseui. Petrus, 350 biblical drama. 223
Emmsum e f Jtd ia n , 352 Christianizing adaptions o f Roman comedy,
Sent Venales, 342 ** 7 -9
Cribs, Marius. See Hccrkens, Gerard Nlcolaas imitation o f Seneca in early neo-Latin drama.
Colo, Giacomo, Bellum c iv ile et G allicu m , 361 **4
Jesuit drama, 229-34
fAmboise, Michel, 96 links with educational settings, 223-6
Osen, Anne Le F i r n (Madame Dacier), 72 revival and imitation of Roman drama.
na Dale. Antoni, D issertatsonei de origine et 123-6
progressu idololatriae, 381 University o f Saitbutg neo-Larin drama
Onte (Durante degli Alighieri), 36. 39, 85,165, project, 395
tu. 27). 298-9, 301, 311 vernacular drama, 221-2
Dmqnztk, Jan, 137 Draxe, Thomas, 381
Dati», Giovanni, Canes, 220 Esortati in d icii tuba m onitoria. 381
Dai, Leonardo. Scaccan drama, 224 Drummond, William, 47
478 Index
Drury, William, A hitaba, 114
Du Barias, Guillaume de Saliuste, 49
Du Bellay, Jean, 39, 47,49 ,10 7, ut
Tumuli, 98
Xenia, 94
Dugonics, Andris, Argonautica, 330
Dupuy, Jacques, 7a
Dupuy, Pierre, 7 1
early printed books, using, 379-93
editing neo-Latin literature, 394-407
digital editions, 381-1,396
role o f translation, 403
elegy, 98-iu
on Christian themes, 108-u
and encomium, toj-5
and mourning, 98
and patronage, 103-6
elegy, love, 3-4
adaption of classical Latin love elegy,
roo-3
Elizabeth 1, Latin written in honour of, ; ;
Emili, Paolo. 369
encomium, paradoxical, 286, 337
encyclopedias, and prose satire, 343-8
Ennius, 140
as chameterin Petrarca, A frica, 104
epic poetry, 100-10
on battle o f Lepanto, 213-16
biblical epic, 120
classical models for, 10 1
description of warfare in, 107-9
encomiastic epic of die fifteenth century,
104-7
on the fill of Constantinople, 209-12
influence o f Walter of Chitillon, AUxandrra,
201-4
Italian epic in the sixteenth century, 212-13
Jesuit epic poetry, 117-18 ,12 0
medieval tradition. 200-4
on the New World, 118-10
epigrams, 83-97
anagram epigrams. 90
and argutia, 86-7
Christian epigrams, 88, 92
epitaphie epigrams. See epitaphs and epitaphie
poetry
and inscriptions, 83-6
relationship to vernacular poetry, 93-7
and wordplay, 89-90
epistles, prose. See epistolary writing
epistles, verse. Set verse epistles
epistolary novel, 321
epistolary writing, 233-71
Cicero as a model for, 238-9
dedicatory letters and letters of
recommendation, 171
and friendship, 236, 2 39-61,167
handbooks of, 237-9
letter collections, 238
letten o f dedication and recommendation,
269-70
and self-fashioning, 237, 262,166-9
epitaphs and epitaphie poetry, 84-6
Epulum Parasiticum , 330
epyllion. 39
Erasmus, Desiderius. 3,37,4 6 .32 ,6 5 ,71,7 7, uj,
226 ,14 3, 259, 273, 287. 289.379
A dapt, 264
A dagia, 5, 239-40, 268, 400
Ciceronianus, 243. 248,133, 307
Ciceronianus and eclectic prose style, 239
CoUetptia, 237, 239, 196,307, 400
D e conscribenda epatóla, 138-9, 263, 283
D e cotsscribendis epistola and judicial oratory,
283
D e du p lici copia uerborum ac rerum, 239
D e pueris instituendis, 32, 54. 37-8, 283
dedications in his works, 384
Ecclesiastes, 273-6
and eclectic prose style, 238-43
editions of. 380. 394, 400
Encom ium m atrim onii, 233, 284-6
Epigram s, 94
Epistolae 2192 (to Amon Fugger), 261-4, ató,
270
Ju liu s excitata, 290, 343
Laus stulätiae, 38,238-41, 286, 318,340-1,343,
347.354
letters, 257, 2Ä1-4, 266-7
Paraphrasis in Vaüae Elegantias (paraphrase of
Valla, Elegantiae), 239
prose style, 261-4
Q uerela paca, 238, 241-3, 283
and sacred oratory, 273-6
and Thomas More, 302-3
as translacor, 301
use o f acem pla, 264
variety o f dicción, 233
Erd, Anton Wilhelm, A tatriana Retina Arabist,
330
Esdcruie, Henri
A rtb tjpogrophicoe tpierim om a, 105
Epigram m ata Graeca, 89
Eriielwold, Bishop o f Winchester, Regularis
concordia, 222
Euler, Leonhard, 78
Eusebius, 362, 364
Even-Zohar, Itamar, 3 7 - 4 2 ,3t
exem pla, collections of, 309
 Index
479
Fsbridus, Georg. Prom us Paratus. 341 Galvani, Luigi, 78
ju n ta , collections of. 310 Gamier, Charles, HenriaJe, wry
F o n ia Facetiarum , 346 Garzoni, Giovanni, translations of Boccaccio, 31]
Fido. Bartolomeo Gassendi. Piene, 29
De origine tells in ter C allos et Britannos Gasdus, Johannes, 91
historia, 310—11 Gellius, Aulus, Attic Nights, 241,293
translation o f Boccaccio. 310 genres, 7
di Feint, Vittorino, 17 4 Gibcrri, Gian Matteo, 138
Ferrarius, Johannes Baptista, Prolusiones, 34a G illa of Paris, Canimus, tat
Ficino, Manilio, 152, 181 Giovio. Paolo
fiction, 308-39 De viris tt Joem inis, 293
fiction, longer prose, 312-39 G n id i, Lilio, D rpoetis nostrorum temporum, 220
and pradmctric form, 339 Gnaphaeus, Wilhelm, AcoUstus, 127-8
romantic novels. 317-30 . 339 Gott, Samuel Nova Solymo, 331-2
satirical, 313-7 Götting, Heinrich, 348
satirical novels, 339 Grattius, 181
utopian novels, 330-4, 339 Gray, Thomas, i88
fiction, shorter prose, 308-11 Greek Anthology, 88,97
figure poems, 89 Greene. Thomas, 18
FÜeKb, Francesco, 9 8 ,110 ,14 8 Greiser, Jakob, Jesuit drama, 230
Sfhonias. 105 Grimald, Nicholas
Flldfb, Gian Maria, Am yrit, n o Archipnpheu site Joham ta Baptista, 228
Filetta), Martino, locundissim ae disputationes, 196 Gronovius, Johann Friedrich. 71
Firmianus, Petrus. See Lisieux, Zacharie de de G root, Willem, 44-3
fisher. Payne, 191 Grotius, Hugo, 48. t04
Flaminio. Marcantonio, hymns. 118 -9 Guarirti. Bardita Guarino, 274
Hymnus in Auroram , 118 GugUelmini, Bernardo, Sermones, 139-60
Fletcher, G ila, 96 Guyet, François, Gaomemphiomt CantaSensis
Fletcher, Phineas. Edogues, 167 Satyriem , 313
Flotta Francesco. H istoria Je am ore C am illi et
E m ilia, 313 Hall, Joseph, Mundtq cher a uhm, 332
Floras, 152 Hallbauer, Collectio praesunmtimorum
Fominidanus opusculorum, 1Í6
theory o f rhetoric, 305 van Havre, Jan, Arx virtutis (verse sadici), 160
Foraminis, Venandus, panegyric epic, 200 Hawkins, William, Pesufúgtum, 174
Fracascoro. Girolamo Heerkens, Gerard Nicolaas, 17,131
Alton, ú i Satyra, 130
Syphilis, 182.218-20 Heinsras, Daniel, 48-30,71,332
Franchini. Francesco, 104 Cras ernie, hodie nihil, 349
Fiaimce, Abraham, 129 Hercules tuam fidem , 349
des Freux, Andrd, expurgated editions o f the Laut A tini, revised as satiric anthology, 349-30
daisies, 229 prose sarite, 349-30
Fruchlln, Nieodemus Virgula divina, 349
drama, 128 Heliodorus, Aethiopico. 328-9
serse satire, 130 Hendirus, j68t
Fronto, 141 Herben, George, ¡3
dd Fmlovisi, Tito Livio. H um froidos, 10 6 letters, 8-10
Fulgendus, 167 Luctu, 90
M ythologia, 336 M em oria M otril Sacrum, 9,13,86
funerary poetry. See epitaphs and epitaphie M usa Responsoria. 9
poetry Passio Discerpta, 9,92
The Temple, 9
Gager, William. 164 Hesiod. 194
drama. 228 Hessin. Hclius Eobanus, 61-2,98,104
Galilei, Galileo, translated into Latin, 289 H eñida Christiana, 108,141-3
480 Index

Hcssus, Hcliiu Eobanus (cont.) von Hutten, Ulrich, 53, 55-6, 289
Hemdes Christianae 1,14 1 Nemo, 348
Heroides Christianae 2, 141-3 Hyginus, D e astronomia , 188
H eñida Christianae 14,139-40
Puberium universum carmine elegiaco imitation
reddition, 108 metaphora of, 19
Neumann, Christoph August, 67,70 and neo-Latin prose style, 237-8
Historia Brittonum, )6 i Isidore o f Seville, 368
historiography, 358-76 Isocrates, 347
Hobbes, Thomas, 13 Ister, Aechicus, Cosmographia, 344
Holberg, Ludvig, 326
her subterraneum, 2,332-5 Jankki. Klemens, 53, 6 0 -2 ,10 4
Homer Jerome, 237, 362
is character in Petrarca, A frica, 204 Jesuit literature
early editions of. 204 and Gcenmianisra, 250
Iliad, 263 didactic poetry, 182-3, >99
Ilia d 2,215 drama, 128-34. 276
Odyssey, 218 elegies, 109
Hooft, P. C , 4p epic, 217-18. 220
de l’Hôpital, Michel, Epistoìamm seu sermonum epigrams, 84, 87-9, 91, 97
Ubri sex, 136-7 oratory and rhetoric, 250
Horace, 17, 28,61, 65, up, 133,146,161,188 satire. See Balde, Jacob
Ars Poetica, 99.180-1,186-7,189, 200,353 Jesuits, 29-30,33,19 1,20 2,253, 27t. » . . ,
as school text. 56 Johnson. Charles, 89 ' ^ 5-7
Epistles, 132,134, 1ST. 352 Johnson, Samuel, 97
Epistles, imitation of, 136-8 Johnston, Arthur, 107
Epodes, 118-19 psalm translations, 208
imitation of, in neo-Latin lyric, 120-5 Johnston, John, 107
and Filelfb, 120 Josephus. 219, 364
and Hcaicos, 150 Jou rn al des savants, 73, 76, 78
and Neaera, 95 Julian, the Emperor (the Apostate), 3J0>
Odes, 6 ,113 ,118 ,126 prose satire, 342
Odes Li, 149 Juvenal, 59, 6 2 ,15 4 ,16 1, 201, 261
and Petrarch, U3-14 imitation of, 192,198
and Rastic, 161 Satires 1,19 0
Sadia, 28,135,148,150,154,157-8,161 imitation of, 190
S a tim u , tfo Satires 9,161
imitation of, 155
Satires 1.3,5,240 Karolrn Rex et Leo Papa, 201
Satires 2.2,161 Kepler, Johannes
style, 96 D e nitre sexangula, 348
Hortensius, Lambeitus, Satyrae, 148 Somnium, 339, 348
de Hosschc, Sidron Kercitmeister, Johannes, Codrus, 126
Christus pattern, tu Kinloch, David
Cum a humanae vitae, u o -ll D e hom inis procreatione, 192
Elegiac 3.1, uo Kiichmann, Johann, 330
religious elegy, 109-11 Kirchmeycr, Thomas. See Naogeorg
van Horn, Jan, 49 Kitscher, Johannes von, Tragicom oedia de
Hueu Pierre-Daniel, 75 ¡kerosokm itana profectione, 229
Hugo. Hetman, Pia desideria, 84 Koch, Eoban. See Hessus, Helms Eobanus
Hume, David, Asekama, 196-8
Hume, James, Pantaleonis vaticinia satyra, 326 Lactantius. 237
Hussovianus, Nicolaus D ivinae institutiones, 363
Carmen de statura,jábase a t venatione bisontis, Lanckvdt. Joris van, 227
106 Landino, Cristoforo, 4 ,12 0 , 130
 Index
481
D itfum iontí Cam aidulenses, 3 8 1-3, 387 Loyola. Ignatius, 229
X/rnim, 98, too, 1 0 3 - 4 ,1 1 1 Spiritu al Exercises, 2 17 ,13 1
Xtm/m L), 10 0 -1 translated into Latin, 229
Undo. Ortensio. Fontanae quaestiones, 296 LQbben, Eilen
Lindrünl. Gerardo. 1 7 1 Declam ationes satyricat tres, 153-4
Umidii. Lodovico. verse satire, 159-60
Drpotiliu m deorum im aginibus, 10 7 Lucan. 56
Opuntium de Bom byce, 182 ¡miration of, 10 1,4 0 4
U F t W . François Antoine, A urum Carm en and Lucan, Bellum C ivile, 201
Ttttut-m otw Carm en, 183 continuation by May, 205
Leech, John. Id yllia , 167 imitation of, 399
Ugge, Thomas. Riehardus tertiu s, 2 14 Lucian, 316, 318, 3 « . 3Î5. J4 0 -1.344.346-8.
Itgrand, Antoine, Syedrom edia, 331 350-1, 354-5
Ufará. Gottfried Wilhelm, 3, 74, 76, 374 D e historia conscribenda, 361
Irland. John, 8;, 374 dialogues, 290-1
Dt quibusdam nostri saecu lipoetis, 108 D ialogues o f the Gods, imitation of, 334
Leu, Bernardino. Bellum Tureum , 2 13-16 imitation of, 343
Lrpinco, battle o f in the early Renaissance, 357
epic poetry on, 215-16 influence upon More, Utopia, 301-1
Lessing, Gotthold Ephraim, 83 prolalia, 356
letters. See epistolary writing translation into Latin, 301, 400
Ubanius, 350 True Story, 335
Ulienthal, Michael, D e m achiavellism o Lucretius, 1 7 , 1 1 , 1 8
Osteremo. 71 and didactic poetry, 183
lile, Alan of, D e planctu N aturae, 344 D e rerum natura, 22-30,181.215,353-4
branny poetry (prefatory o r concluding verses), and Bruno, 22-30
45 and neo-Latin didactic poetry, 185-7
Linnaeus, Carl, 78 as epic, 200
Liphis, Justus. 48, 79, 158 -9, 2 8 6 ,18 9 , 350 influence upon Fracastoro, Syphilis, 219
andWtirCiceronunism, 2 5 0 - 2 ,1 7 0 ¡miration o f his style, 251
Deconstantia. 293-4 rediscovery of, 204
epistolary prose style, 26 7-9 style. 96
Epistolica institutio, 258-9 and Vida. D e atte poetica, it
/«liratie epistolica, 267-8 Ludovico, Ariosto, tu
letter to Erycius Puteanas (t6oo), 26 7-9 Luther, Martin, 37
prose style, 254 Lygdamus, rib
Somnium. 34 1-1. 345, 350 Lynch, John, AJithinologia, 404
de Latein. Zacharie, Gyges GaUsis. 336 lyric poetry, 113-30
lay, » 3 . 14t, 261. 328. 358. 361. 374 in Canillan tradition, 114-20
imitation of, 359-60, 373 hymns, 126-9
spachet, imitation of, 374 in imitation o f Horace and Pindar, 130
Lloyd. John. Peplus, 86
LhtH, Ramon, 289 macaronic poetry, 46-7
loher, Jakob. Tragoedia de T u n is et Saldano, 229 Macrin. Jean Salmon, 93,119,130
Lombard, Peter, Com m entarius. 405 A d Dominum Christum ante somnum, 128-9
leogolius, Chnsropliorus. 237, 245, 248, 253 Canillan lyric. u8
and Qeeronian style, 244 Macrobius, Saturnalia, 291
use of pagan terminology, 253 Macropedius, Georg. Set Lanckveit, Joris van
Loschi, Antonio, 309 Maflèi, Giovanni Pietro. 253
Fabula, 310 Magliabechi, Antonio, 69,77
Inquisitio tuper undecim orationes Maire, Jean, Elegantiam praestantium risorum
Ciceronis. 272 satyrae, 341. 345 . 849 -Í 4
Scnean drama, 224 Malvezzi. Paracleto Cometo, Tenutine, 206
Lorati, Antonio. 135-6 Mambrun, Piene. Constantinus sive idolatria
love degy. See elegy, love debellata, 216
482 Index

Mandili, Domenico, Quatuor de virtutibus as and sdf-fahioning, 163

school text, 191 In quintum N ovem bris, 216
Mancai, G ium arva,hD iakpu in symposio, 310 O fEducation, 63
Manilius, 187-8 Paradise Lost, 177
Astronomiea, 181, i8; mock encomia, 137
Manovich, Lev, 356 Moka, Francesco Maria, 9 8 ,10 6
Mantuan, Baptista Spagnuoli, 56,118,188 degies, 108
Adulescentia, 1(4 Monmouth, Geoffrey of, 373
Eclogue i, 169 de Montaigne, Michel, 49,34, 92, 224-3
Eclogue 7,16 6 de Montaigu. Hcrvaeo. R atio conscribendae
manuscript sources ¡epistolae, 183
locating, 385,391 Montanus, Petrus
palaeography. 384,39* verse satire, 151-2
using. 379-Í7 Moor, Roben, D iarium bistoricopoeticum , tgg
Marchesi, Paolo, translation o f Boocaodo, 3x1 Molata, Olimpia Fulvia, 296
Mardlius, Theodorus, Lusus de Nem ine, 348 translations o f Boccaccio, 312
Marineus, Ludus, 369 More, Thomas, 3 ,13, 48, 289
Martial, 6, 86, 88-9,91-2, 94-7,144. tç 8 ,178 Epigram m ata, 91, 96
in Goliardie verse, 214 epigrams, 93
expurgated edition, 229 translations o f Lucian, 30t
Marnilo, Michele, 17, 91, 93,93,119. t u - 4 , 128 U topia, 2, 296, 301-6, 318, 323, 330-1, 340-3,
Hymni naturales, 126-8,130 347. 3Í4
Hym ni naturales 1.6 (Hymn to Bacchus), ductus theory o f rhetoric, 303-6
126-8 paratcxtual dements, 302
and the imitation of Catullus, 118 Morhof, Daniel Geotg, Polyhistor, 72
Masen, Jacob, 87 Morisot, Claude Barthélemy
Massicu, Gulidmo, Cajjkeum Carmen, 183 continuation o f Barclay, Euphorm io, 324
Massimi, Padfioo, 4,103 Peruviana, 330
HecateUgrum, 101-2 Moschus, 163
May, Thomas, continuation o f Lucan, Bellum du Moulin, Peter, 7
Cisóie, 205 Mucanzio, Francesco, translation o f Boccaccio,
Mdanchthon, Philip, 276, 382 3«
and Ciceronian style, 243 Münster, Sebastian, 374
D e rhetorica lib ri tres, 276 Muret, Marc-Antoine, 48, 33, 237, 251, 262,271
deliberative oratory, 283 and Ciceronian style, 243, 230
Elementa rhetorices, 277 epigramf, 94
and judicial oratory, 283 Epistolae, 264-6
speeches, 277,280 Epistedae 26. 266-7
Mdenchino, Tommaso, translation o f Boccacdo, epistolary style, 264-6
310 Ju ven ilia , 64-3
Mdville, Andrew, 196 Pro Francisco I I and Ciceronian style, 246-9
Ménage, Gilles, 79 Mussato. Albertino. E cerin is, 224
Mendie, Johannes Burkhard, De charlsttaneria
eruditorum , 71 Nagonius, Johannes Michael, encomiastic epic,
Mcnippean satire. See sanie, prose 206
Mercier, Nicolas, 88 de Naidi, Naldo
Milton. John, «3,50,53,64, in , 179,188. 208 elegies, 98,103
A d patrem , 61,64 Volaterrais, n o
and Italy, 163-6 Nanni, Giovanni. See Annius
compared to Homer, 64 Nannius, Petrus
compared to Virgil, 64 Som nia, 3421-354
elegies, 99 Naogeorg, Thomas
Epistolaefam iliares 7,16 6 Satyrarum lib ri quinque, 148-30
Epistolae fam iliares 10.30,167 verse satire, 13;, 16 0 ,16 2
Epitaphium Damonis, 163-3,168-79 critique o f contemporary poets in, 152
 Index 48}
Nemesianus, 181 as school text, 56-7,62
Neo-Latin literature style, 96
cultural significance, a Tristia 4.10, imitations of,' 139-40
definition, 1 verse tenets, 132
and education, 3, 5 6 -7 Ovid (ascribed to), H alieutica, 181
educational significance, 2 Owen, John, 88-90,92-3
as juvenilia. 64-$
de' Netti, Neri, 309 Palingenio, Marcello
Nestel, Martin, 50 Zodiacus tritae, 28,188,191
Newton, Isaac. 382 Pandolfini, Francesco, translation of Boccaodo, 3a
Nifi). Agostino. D e re a u lica , 310 Pandoni, Giananronio de Porcellio
Nlnolliu, Marius, and Ciceronian style, 245 Feltria, 206-7
Nobili, Roberto, translation o f Boccaccio, 311 Pannonius, Janus, 107
Nogarola, Isotta, 296 Pansa, Paolo, 98
Nolle, Heinrich, Parergiph iloso ph ici speculum , 336 papacy
Nomi, Federigo and panegyric, 105
Liber satyrarum , 158-9 Papeus, Petrus, Comoedia de Samaritano
verse satire, 15 0 ,16 1- 2 euangelico, 228
novella. See fiction, shorter prose da Parma, Basinio, Astronomicon lib ri II, 182
novels. See fiction, longer prose Pascoli, Giovanni, 13
N upe Venales, 346 Passerini, Luigi
H istoria lepida de quibusdam ebriis
occasional literature, 7 - 1 0 m ercatoribus, 313
Odand. Christopher, P raelia A nglorum , 191 pastoral poetry, 10-13,163-79
Oldenburg, Henry, 69 pastoral elegy, 163-5
O’Meara, Dermot Paulinus Nolanus, 132
O rm nius, 216, 4 0 0 -7 de Peiiesc, Nicolas-Claude Fabri, 69
Opidus, Johannes, 104 Persius, 1 5 a 152,154,156
Opitz. Martin, 39, 49-50 Petit, Guillaume, 77
oratory, 272-88 Petit, Jean, edition o f Virgil, 389
and classical imitation, 286 -7 Petit, Jehan, 77
deliberative oratory, 283-4 Petit, Nicolas, 53,56
and freedom o f speech, 284 Petrarca, Francesco,3, 32 ,36 ,5 0 ,10 6 ,132,165,
Renaissance uses of, 2 73-4 , 283-4 200,158, 298-300. 379,383
style and technique, 286-8 A frica, 169, 201, 203-5, u o , 383
Origa pruts Rom anae, 363 and classical imitation, 237
O'Sullivan-Beare, Philip Bucolicum Carm en, 165,167-70,179
Historiae Catholicae Ibern in e Com pendium , 395 Bucolicum Carmen 9,174
Tenebriom astix, 404 Bucolicum Carmen io, 173-7
Zoiltm astix, 395, 400 Bucolicum Carmen n, 174
Oudin, François Cantoniere, 95
Poemata didascalica, 7 ,1 8 1 , 183 Collatio Laureatianis and early humanist
Ovid. 6 .17 , 98-9, n o , 134, 319 oratory, 272
Amores. 137 Eclogue 2 ,16 4
didactic poetry, r8i editions of, 380
Ex Porno. 177 Epistolae Fam iliam 10.4,167
Ex ponto 4 .16 ,17 7 Epistolae Fam iliam 16 .1,175
exile poetry, 1 3 5 ,13 7 -9 G riselda, translation of Boccaccio, 308-10
Fasti, 90 ,18 1, t88, 363 influence upon neo-Latin love elegy, 102-3
and Goliardie verse, 224 M emorandarum rerum lib ri, 309
Heroides, 132, 14 1-4 , 146 pastoral poetry, 166
influence upon Piccolom ini, 319, 321 Rerum fam iliarum , 132
imitation of, 17, 202 Rerum fam iliarium 13.8, 259-61
Métamorphosa, 2 1 ,1 8 1 , 208, 320 Rerum fam iliarium 24.10 (verse letter to
as epic, 200 Horace), 113-14
 Index
484
Rusticus, 194-6
Petrarca, Francesco (com.)
Siim e, 177. 19t
Herum fam iliarium lib ri. 156-7
Polybius, 358
Setrttum . 194, )Oj, 383
Polydore Vergil, 369, 376
verse epistles, 144
Anglica Ustoria, 372-4
Petronius, 313, 316, 55z
poly-system theory, 37-41
Cena Thmalcbionis, 356
Pontino, Giovanni Gioviano, y, 91, 93-4, togi
satiric style, 323
tu, 120.190, 250
Satyriea, 518
Aetius, 361
Philip, Ambrose, on verse epistles, I))
De am ort conjugali, 12
Philomusus. St* Locher
De amore conjugali i.t, 102
Philp, James, Gram eid, 116
De bello Neapolitano. 361
picaresque noveL 5)5
De iatuUbus d ivin is, 109
Piccolomini. Enea Silvio Bartolomeo. 5 1 , 1 ° 9
De sermone, 310
Chrysis, 115
and didactic poetry. 182
Cinthia. 100
Eclogue 1 , 10-13
Commentarti. 401
D t duobus omontibus h isttrit, 318-11 Hendecasyllabi sive Balde, 113
Hesperides, 220
De liberorum educatione, 34
Historio AmtridUs, 368-9 and the imitation o f Catullus, 118
letten. 395 M elisaeus, 164
Pietro Carmetiano, Pietro. 104 N aeniae, 13
Pindar, no, 116 Parshtnopeus, n o
Pisano, Ugolino Parshenopeus 1.3,116 -17
PM ogntia et Epipbema, 115 Parthenopcus 1.28, 115-16
Pius, Ioanncs Baptista Pius Pruritus, 115
and anti-Ciccronian style, 231 Tum uli, 86. 98
Plante, Frandscus Urania, 188
M auritiat, U7 Pontanus, Jacobus. Progymnasmata Latinitatis,
Platina, Bartolomeo, 274 250
Plato, 34J, 343,368, 382 Pope, Alexander. 130
dialogues, 190 Prasch, Johann Ludwig, Psyche Crética, 336-7
Symposium, 281 Prasch, Susanna. 337
Plautus, 224-7, 850 printed books, locating early modem Latin,
expurgated edition. 229 j l j -7
and Lipsius, 151 printing (as a theme in poetry), 103
Pseudolus, 317 prolalia
Pl&kde, 48-9 definition, 356
Pliny the Elder, 364 and prose satire, 352-6
N ettati Hittory, 14t, 246 pronunciation o f Latin, 79, 274-3
Pliny the Younger. 87,361 Propertius, 4, 6, 98. too, 10 4 .10 6 ,110
letters, 269 prose style. See style, prose
Plutarch, 155, 304 Prodendus, 6
dialogues, 290 psalms, verse translations of, 108
Poema de H ibernia, 399,402, 404-3 pseudo-Libanius, 264
Polemon, Sicco, Argumenta super aliquot Ptolemy, 370
orationibus et invectivis Ciceronis, 272 Pusculo, libertino, Canstantituspolev 4, 209
Polignac, Melchior de, Anti-Lutretius, 18 Puteanus, Eiyclus, 267, 353
Poliziano, Angelo, 93,103, nt, 123,130, 259,385 Cornut, 341
and classical imitation, 243 as prosimctric text. 344
debate over Imitation with Paolo Cortesi. lener from Justus Lipsius, 267
237-8. 244 Puttenham, George, 85
Elegiae, 98
M iscellanea 1.6,117 Quarks, Francis, 84
N utricia, 123,176 Quattuor Clarissim orum Virorum Satyrae. 350
Ode 6 , tll-3 Quevedo, Fmndsco de, 48
 índex 4*5
QuiUa. Claude, C e llip e tilie , 1I7 -5
Sangeneaiui. Joannes. De Pernete tt/m dm len .
Quintili™, 97, i ) | , 14 4 , i7 ) , ,6 ,
H*
Inainuo anturi*. 171 to n a u ro . Iacopo, 97, w , m , m
quotation In Utcnry tests, 49-5 A rcedie, 174
.compand to Virgil, 16
lUbelili, François. G erjen in e en d Pem egm el D é fo n t V tijtiw , U7-14, 1 »
m O tgiee Lin, io(
RimbiUl. Benvenuto, Interpretation o f Petrarca. epigrams. 16. I I, 94
Bttnlirum C erm eti, 167 and the imitation of Candire, ut
(Unno, Mercurio. D e je ito hypocrite, 1 1 5 Pucetory E rftpm . 166
Repin. Reni, H ont, n o Pírcem e) Edtjpm 4, t7)
Rente. Diano, vene u r i re, 1 ( 1 - 1 Sapidus, Joannes. Anthem um Lem m i m itrine,
itöwismendatlon, lenen of, 1 ( 9 - 7 0 ut
republic o f lenen, ( ( - t o Saibtewski, Madej Kasimien
«s « Q uitti™ republic, (8 epigrams, n
definition of, « - 9 satire, prore, 740-37
and hum enitei. 7) anthologies of, 741-7
motalwng dement of. 7 1 - 1 and eneydopedhm. 745-I
rale o f conversation within, 77 Lúdanse and Scnecan traditions within, 741-1
ndcofconopondencc within. 7 6 -7 In medieval period, 747-4
Rotilo, Juniui. See Restie, D ion o modem venions, 744
ReudiRn, Johann. 55 proaimctric texta. 744-4
Reusnet, Nicola*. 90 satire, vose. Set a tre sanie
Rhenanus, Beatus. 769, 577-4 satiric poetry. S erren t sure
Kb Germentrte, 3(8 Sautd. Piene-] uste
Richdct. Citar Piene, (7 , 69 Armor ame parraras. 9t
Result, Nicolás Dnmt M egielenee gres. »1
huuu Penm hcttm 350 Scaliga. Joseph Justus. 749
Rooocdolo, Francesco, M uttneìs. 10 7 . 781 F eh elet Btmlemiee Cenjem ne. 749
Roja. Francisco de. C ela tin e. U4 Scaliga, Julius Caesar, 87,87,1B9
Reatan comedy See Plautus: Terence and G erron i™ style. >45
influence upon Alberti. huerceneler. on elecr. 99
M7 . J19 on epigrams. K - 7
Rumini Piene. 49, 63-4 U ria , 107
imhtUon o f Socundus. u o Schoen, Cornelius. Ttm om ' i - w — u t
Real Gian Vittorio. Endem ie, 771 scholasticism. 18?
dt Roulen. Adriaen. Su rette treg etd ie. 1 14 Scholiriua. Petrus
Rapi Society. The, 7) Serm onen jtportoiiaaa Uri tro, 154
Rayen. Adrianus van (Patricio Trente), vene salile. 1(1
Or cen trin i /bru m , «*} SchAppa. Jacob [the Elda],/atoren toadfana.
Rara, Jean. Cannea erde m m , il) «7
Rato. Curtius. War Alexerrdri, a o i Schonen. Hermann. 119
Ra^e. George. 47 drama. U9
Retentus, Jan. )49 Scìoppsre. Carpar. 749. « 1
Sect™ us. Quintus
Stoma. Angelus vene retire. 1 ( 1
replies » Ovid's Henrida, 147 Secundus. Joannes, 4. 94, ut
tonus. Georg)iss. 107 B ette, ti), u t - 10, t)0
Sacchetti, Franco. Trtcentonmeäe, 909 Berneu »6.119
Sri*. 141. ){l, 569.171.174 P ip e r yy . 99-100
tonti. Cotticelo. 171, 197-8 defies, sol 107
cona^ondencr with Poggio Brecciolini. 19I epigram*. 91
Dedemetio Lam ie, yio Fpta eU rem U ri dm (vene spreto). 177-I
rene epistle. 174 Secundus, Rema lonchan
to b u an , Johannes Pannonicus. U n s r e . (4 tftctd te. 9t
 486 Index

Seneo, 261. 319 Stodewood. John. Progymnasnuta scholasticum.

Apomlocjntosù, 323, 340-2, 334-3, 348,332,354 «9
De beneficiis, 158 Straba 370
drama, 224 Strada. Famiano. 230
on imitación, 243 Mamas, 342
imitation of in early neo-Latin drama. 224 as prorimenic text, 344
influence upon vene same, 134-3 Scradling, John. 93
letters, 132, 269 epigrams, 93
and Lipsius, 232 Strozzi. Tito Vespasiano, 107
Ludusdem ene Claudii. See Seneca. E retina lib ri, too
Aptxeiocjnwm Sturm, Jean
Phaedra, 319 and Ciceronian style, 243
as prose model. 239 Phem io, 126
Sepulveda. Ioanncs Ginesiu* Roman drama and education, 226
De orée nevo. 234 style, prose. 237-34
Sapidi, Lodovico. Ser Seccamo, Quintus anri-Gceronianisin, 230-2, 234
Seymour sisters (Anne, Jane and Marpiet). Ciceronian style. 243-30. 234
Hrcotodissiche», 85 and Jesuit education, 230
Seymour, Anne. See Seymour sisters eclectic style, 238-43
Seymour, Jane. See Seymour sisters and historiography, 232
Seymour, Margara. Set Seymour soten and rhythm, 249-50, 234
Shakespeare. William. 3,17,39.188, 221, 374 use of pagan and Christian terms, 253
The Taming e f the Shrew, 227 vocabulafy, 234
Sibcr. Adam. 91 Suetonius. 241. 373
Enchiridion pietatis psteeibs. 92 Swedenborg, Emmanuel, 393
Sidney. Philip. 37, 83.228 Swift, Jonathan. 343, 334
Sidonius Apollinaris. 251 G ulliver's Trotéis, 334, 341
Sipa, Luisa, 296 Symonds, John Addington. 203
Sjgonia Cado, 36,293 Synesiuii Praise o fBaldness. 342
theory of dialogue, 293
Silius Italicus. Ptanea, 204. 206 Tadtus, 244, 28t, 361. 364-5, 370, 372-4
silvae, 6 Germania, 371
Silvestris, Bernardos. De casmopaphia, 167, 344 and Lipsius, 232
Sota. Joannes. 88, 91 Tardif, Guillaume, 309
Souder. Etienne Aupase, Cometae Carmen, 183 Tatillon, Fianças, Pulvis Pyrius Carmen, 183
Sperai, Edmund. 208 Tasso, Torquato, theory of dialogue, 293
Speróni, Spaone Tcdaldi. Francesco, 312
tbeosy of dialogue, 303 Teive. Diogo de, historical drama. 224
Spenda Francesco, 209 Terence, 224-6, 317, 319
elegies, toi Adelphoe, 317
epic poetry, 208 as school ten, 56
Spina. Lai. 17-18 Tesauro. Emanuele, 97
Spiar, Thomas, 73 Cannocchiale, 88
Stamhutsr, Richard, De erbai in H ibernia, 404 Theocritus, 163,179
Statius, 144. 201-2 Thomas, Thomas. Dietìanam em , 407
Silvae, 6 Thucydides, 338
Thebaid, 201 Tibullus, 6, 64, 98, no
Stay, Benedia, 24 Tifcmate, Lilio, 400
Siefenia,Bernardino, 230 translation into Latin, 48-9.78, 80, 85, 308-12
Stella. Giulio Cesare, Columhrid, 218 Trame. Patricio. 183 See Royen, Adrianus van
Stephanus, Harrietts. Set Estienne, Henri Trebizorfd. öeorge of
Sterne, Laurence, Tristram Shandy, 33; theory of thetoric. 305
Sfevin, Simon, 40 Trisstna Gian Giorgio. Sefim isba, 224
Sublimo, Caspar. D e república Eudeemonemium, Turmair, Johann Georg. See Aventinus,
33* Johannes
 Index
4*7
Valentin, Jem-Marie. R épertoire o í Jesuit diam»,
Scucchie kdus, 20
l} i- i
veiseepisdes, 138-9
Valerius Maximus, 261
VaQa, Lorenzo, 289 Vlgneul-Marväe, Benaventi« J'Araoaoc,
69.73
inaugural speech from 1435, 279-80 Villa Dei. Alexander of, Dominole. O r
U tftiH n a tila et em entita G nutanH ni
de Valerias y Rodas, Jo * Amonio, GuaJdtqe, 219
denotóme. 279
Viperino, Giovanni Antonio, Film iprodiga, 127
B tgm tiæ , 243, 287
Virgil, 17 .140,188, zoi, 218,260,29I,319-20,
and eclectic sytyle, a}8
337. 3*1
pnphiased by Erasmus, 239
Aeneid, 56 ,138. wo, 113. 218,363
Varro, M enippeun S a l i r e i . 241, 323, j4 i_a, 351-2
oonriiutarion of, 387-9)
Vaughan, William. D e sphaerarum tedine, its
and epic tradition. 200
Vega. Lope de. 22t
as school text, rill
Vegetius, 209
Aeneid 4, 91
Vcgio, Malico
Aeneid 6,198,353
Book rj o f the A eneid. 203, 387-9} Aeneid 9,90
Vdhrs. Caspar Ursinus, Poematum ¡U ri quinque, and didactic poetry. 183
«34- í Eebgues. u - 12 163.214-45
Venegu. Miguel. ajo. 1 3 1 - 3
landscape of, 173
V an Jus. Carolus. Historia Baetica, 229 and neo-Larin pastoral poetry, 163-79
Venidos. Marcellinus. 229 wandering in, 166
Fernandas tenuius, 229 Eclogues 1 , 171,179
Veleno. Rer Paolo [the Elder], 52 and Petrarca, Bucolica Carm o, 167-8
Deingmuú moribus. 37 Eclogue 4,141,164
Paukt, 223. S d ra io Bruni, D ialogi o d Petrum Ectopia 5,163-4,176
Paulum H ittrum Eclogues S, 166
Verino, Michele. 53, 60
A depte 7,353
Verino. Ugolino. 33, 60. 9 8 ,10 7 Ectopie 9 , ¡76
Codiai. 212 Edegues io, 169, *7*
«fcgies. 10} G eorgia, 181
fíam ete. 10 0 ,10 3
and neo-Larin didactic poetry. 182-5,
vernacular therarure 189-92 199
relationship to neo-Larin literature, 3 -3 ,13 , Georgias 3,190-8
33- 5«. 93- 7.4 0 3 - 6 Georgia 4,19 9
Verae.Jules,/eew i^ to the Centre o fthe Esodi, 334 imitation of. 202 n o
wise epòdo, 131-47
by Vida, 20,30-2
prdaroty cpisdes. 14 4 -6 and Neaera. 93
tene letters. See verse epistles
as school tea. 56-7.62-3
«ene miie, 148-62 style, 96
classical satirists, 14 8 ,13 0 Virgil (ascribed to), Aetna, 181
influence o f Seneca upon, 134-3
Vît* Stated Deodati V aiam i Mediam, 170-2
and literary critique, 13 1-4
Vitalis, Janus, Elegia, Í07
medical satire. 13 6 -9 ,16 2
Vitruvius, 209
moralising force of. 148-31
Vives. Juan Luis, 238
and philosophy, 134-6 Colloquia, 237
Vespasiano. Tito, B en ias, 203
D e conscribendis epistobs, 238-9
Victoria, Pedro Gobeo de. N aufragio y
D e consuhottone 2nd deliberative omoty, 283-4
peregrinación, J37
on oratory, 276
Vida. Marco Girolamo
Somnium a Vigilia, 334
Bombyca, 10
Voltaire} 67
Cbriniod, 30-1, 212-13, 220
van den Vondd. Joost, 36.43,48
Christiad 2, 208-9
Vossius, Gerardus Joannes, 72
De one poetica. 18 -21. 3 2 ,18 9 -9 * . 19 7-8
“ d the imitation o f Virgil, 20
Ward. Arnold Sandwich, 21-2
Opuicukm de bom byce, 183
Ware, James, D e scriptoribus Hiberniae, 394
 Index

Watson, Thomas. 164 translation o f Piccolomini, D e duobus

Amyntae Querula, 169 am antibus historia, 3x8
Antigone, prefatory letter to. 144-5
Hckatm patkia, 95,103 Xenophon
Meliboeus, 16$ (Ps.) D e aequivocis, 364
Weston, Elizabeth Jane, 93 dialogues. 19 0
Willes, Richard, *9 Sym posium , Z91
William the Breton, Philippeis, zoi
Wilson, Thomas, 85 Zanchi, Basilio
Wimpheling, Jakob. Styipho, 116 Damon, 164
Wyatt, Thomas, 85
Zovitius, Jakob, O vis p erdita , n s
von Wyle, Niklas, 3x0
Zuppando, Matteo, A lfonsea, a io -u