1,721,078 research outputs found
Petrarch's Lucan and the Ambiguities of Ancient Heroism
No full textThis article reconsiders the issue of Petrarch's reception of Lucan's political views. Its contention is that Petrarch does not regard Lucan as a fiercely anti-Cesar author, as scholars have often assumed, but rather as the poet of both Caesar and Pompey and as a narrator who is able to highlight the different standpoints, virtues, and shortcomings of the two opposing commanders. In his works, Petrarch exploits the ambiguities that he already finds in Lucan's text to produce ambivalent representations of both Caesar and Pompey. At the same time, Petrarch substantially re-adapts the "Bellum Civile" from a Christian perspective: he extols Lucan's heroes as models of fortitude, and yet in so doing shows the intrinsic inferiority of pagan heroism to Christian virtus
Lucan and Virgil: from Dante to Petrarch (and Boccaccio)
Get PDFQuestioning recent accounts of Dante's Lucan, this article argues that Dante does not view Lucan as an "anti-Virgil", but rather regards and redeploys the "Bellum Civile" and the "Aeneid" as fundamentally consonant with each other. In the "Divine Comedy", Dante interweaves Lucan's and Virgil's works as expressions of the same moral, poetic, and historical universe: this literary strategy finds significant parallels in medieval Latin commentaries on Lucan's poem. In the "Monarchia" and "Epistles", Dante combines Lucan's and Virgil's texts to underpin his pro-monarchist agenda, effacing the contrast between Roman Republican and Imperial ideals. Far from regarding Lucan as a "nihilistic" author, Dante references him as a moral-philosophical "auctoritas"; in the "Convivio", he applies to the "Bellum Civile" the same allegorizing reading he adopts for the "Aeneid". The article demonstrates the difference between Dante's and late-fourteenth-century views of Lucan in relation to Virgil. Unlike Dante, the early humanists Petrarch and Boccaccio emphasize Lucan's controversial biography and the idea of his poetic rivalry with Virgil. However, the concept of Lucan's anti-Virgilianism, which underlies twentieth-century interpretations of the "Bellum Civile", is much more nuanced in fourteenth-century receptions of the poem, where it emerges only gradually and in a very limited, mostly biographical, sense
Lucan’s Pompey between Petrarch and Boccaccio
No full textThe paper focuses on a particular aspect of Lucan’s late medieval and early humanist reception — namely, Petrarch’s and, especially, Boccaccio’s reception of the figure of Lucan’s Pompey
Petrarca e l'agiografia camaldolese: la fonte della vita di san Romualdo nel Legendario di Nicolò Malerbi
No full textThe "Life of St. Romuald" included in Nicolò Malerbi's vernacular translation of Jacobus da Voragine's "Legenda Aurea" ("Legendario di sancti", 1475) is not a summary of Peter Damian's "Vita beati Romauldi", as scholars used to believe, but rather a literal translation of Petrarch's "Supplementum Romualdinum" ("De vita solitaria" II, 8)
Il Cesare di Lucano, da Dante a Manzoni
No full textIl presente articolo avanza l’ipotesi che all’interno del “Cinque maggio” del Manzoni sia presente un’allusione al “Bellum Civile” di Lucano, possibilmente mediata dalla descrizione dantesca del "volo" di Cesare in “Paradiso” VI
Albertino Mussato, "De lite inter Naturam et Fortunam": Edizione critica, traduzione e commento a cura di Bianca Facchini
No full textThe volume contains the first critical edition of the dialogue De lite inter Naturam et Fortunam by Albertino Mussato (1261-1329), provided with a full Italian translation. This work, which dates back to the final years of Mussato’s exile, discusses the place of Nature and Fortune in the universe and their role in the human existence, also considering the potential influence of Fate. It also contains several references to Mussato’s personal life and to the political events of his time, and reflections on matters of moral philosophy
A Philosophical Quarrel among "Auctoritates": Mussato's "De Lite inter Naturam et Fortunam" and its Classical and Medieval Sources
No full textL’articolo si concentra sul "De Lite inter Naturam et Fortunam" di Albertino Mussato, con particolare riguardo al riutilizzo del pensiero filosofico classico entro la prospettiva cristiana e dichiaratamente “moderna” del dialogo. L’opera è l’unica testimonianza significativa della familiarità di Mussato con le traduzioni latine delle opere di Aristotele e pertanto rappresenta un importante punto di riferimento per lo studio della tradizione aristotelica nel tardo Medioevo. Altra fonte ampiamente utilizzata è il ciceroniano "De fato". Nel dialogo le abbondanti citazioni classiche sono sottoposte a revisione alla luce della fede cristiana e della riflessione teologica di Tommaso d’Aquino ("Summa contra gentiles"). Questa doppia strategia, di richiamo e al contempo correzione delle autorità antiche, è resa particolarmente evidente dall’organizzazione narrativa e retorica del testo
The reception of Italian neo-Latin poetry in English manuscript sources, c. 1550-1700: literature, morality, and anti-popery
No full textThis essay presents a preliminary overview of the presence of, and engagement with, Italian neo-Latin poetry in a large corpus of English manuscript sources dating from between c.1550 and c.1720 and currently conserved in English libraries and archives. Italian neo-Latin verse circulated widely in these manuscripts, where it was, however, subject to a process of selective cultural appropriation. The moralising intent of several manuscript miscellanies, and of commonplace books in particular, especially encouraged the quotation of brief poetic extracts, selected because of their edifying potential. Moreover, the availability of printed anthologies, school texts, and editions enabled different levels of familiarity with individual Italian poets: Mantuan and Palingenius, for example, are well-represented in early modern manuscripts as they were in the contemporary English school curriculum. Overall, the manuscript collectors’ selective redeployment of the Italian neo-Latin tradition particularly emphasises its anti-Papal potential, in line with the collectors’ generally Protestant views
Giurisprudenza da favola. Note sul lessico giuridico delle Metamorfosi di Apuleio
No full textApuleius’ "Metamorphoses" abounds with legal expressions. While juridical terms tend to reflect and witness Roman historical practices, from a literary standpoint their use seems to be functional to the author’s taste for linguistic experimentation and witty play on traditional motifs. The insertion of legal technicalities in fairy-tale or highly literary contexts is indeed congruent with the tendency of the novel to variation and stylistic contamination. It further reveals Apuleius’ strategy of Romanization of Greek models and his uninhibited attitude towards traditional mythology and inherited "topoi", which appear to be handled with smiling irony
"As Lucan Says": Dante's Reuse of the "Bellum Civile" in the "Monarchia" and the Political Epistles
No full textThis article examines Dante’s redeployment of Lucan’s "Bellum civile" in the "Monarchia" and Epistles 5–7, and shows how Dante appropriates Lucan’s poem in order to support his philo-imperial agenda. In anchoring his Christian imperial ideal in the historical precedent of ancient Rome, Dante applies Lucan’s text to the task of extolling the Roman political past, considered as a continuous historical reality throughout its monarchic, Republican, and Imperial phases. In so doing, Dante both emphasizes philo-Roman elements already implicit in the "Bellum civile" and quotes Lucanian passages out of context, thus altering or notably twisting their original meaning. Dante glosses over Lucan’s denunciation of inter-Roman civil wars and focuses, rather, on the conflicts that ancient Rome fought and won against its external enemies. Moreover, Dante rereads ancient Roman history as governed by Divine Providence and transforms Lucan’s pessimistic historical account into a Christian teleological narrative. In the Epistles, Dante claims that true freedom is only possible under a single ruler and implicitly equates the evils of the Roman civil war with the chaos and anarchy of anti-imperial Florence
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