Editorial Board
Editors:
Prof. em. Dr. Dirk Sacré (KU Leuven, General Editor); Prof. em. Dr. Gilbert Tournoy (KU Leuven); Prof. em. Dr. Monique Mund-Dopchie (Université Catholique de Louvain); Prof. Dr. Jan Papy (KU Leuven); Prof. Dr.
Lambert Isebaert (Université Catholique De Louvain); Prof. Dr. Jeroen De Keyser (KU Leuven).
Associate Editors:
Prof. Dr. Karl Enenkel (Münster); Prof. em. Dr. Charles Fantazzi (Windsor- Ontario); Prof. Dr. Marc Laureys (Bonn); Dr. William McCuaig (Montréal);
Prof. Dr. Massimo Miglio (Viterbo); Prof. em. Dr. Jan Öberg (Stockholm);
Prof. Dr. Elena Rodríguez Peregrina (Granada); Prof. em. Dr. R.W. Truman (Oxford); Prof. Dr. G. Hugo Tucker (Reading); Prof. Dr. Terence O. Tunberg (Lexington, KY); Prof. em. Dr. D. Wuttke (Bamberg).
Editorial Assistants:
Dr. Jeanine De Landtsheer; Dr. Marijke Crab.
Deceased Members:
Prof. em. Dr. Jozef IJsewijn (KU Leuven); Prof. em. Dr. Leonard Forster (Cambridge); Mgr. José Ruysschaert (Bibl. Apostolica Vaticana); Prof. em.
Dr. Lidia Winniczuk (Warzawa); Prof. em. Dr. Veljko Gortan (Zagreb);
Prof. Dr. Constant Matheeussen (K.U. Brussel); Prof. Dr. Fred Nichols (New York).
*
Volume 1 through 16 were edited by the late Mgr. Henry de Vocht from 1928 to 1961 as a series of monographs on the history of humanism at Louvain, especially in the Collegium Trilingue. These volumes are obtainable in a reprint edition.
Beginning with volume 17 (1968) HUMANISTICA LOVANIENSIA appears annually as a Journal of Neo-Latin Studies. The journal was founded by Prof. Dr.
J. IJsewijn.
All issues of the journal published before 2018 will remain available in print edition and can be ordered at Leuven University Press, Minderbroedersstraat 4, B-3000 Leuven (Belgium) (orders@lup.be).
For future issues, please consult the ‘Praemonitio’ in this volume (p. VII)
Ed. Prof. em. Dr. D. SACRÉ
Volume XVII, 1968, 162 p.
Volume XVIII, 1969, 164 p.
Volume XIX, 1970, 514 p.
Volume XX, 1971, 297 p.
Volume XXI, 1972, 412 p.
Volume XXII, 1973, 341 p.
Volume XXIII, 1974, 441 p.
Volume XXIV, 1975, 376 p.
Volume XXV, 1976, 306 p.
Volume XXVI, 1977, 280 p.
Volume XXVII, 1978, 366 p.
Volume XXVIII, 1979, 386 p.
Volume XXIX, 1980, 353 p.
Volume XXX, 1981, 278 p.
Volume XXXI, 1982, 256 p.
Volume XXXII, 1983, 471 p.
Volume XXXIII, 1984, 366 p.
Volume XXXIV, 1985, 513 p.
Volume XXXV, 1986, 336 p.
Volume XXXVI, 1987, 358 p.
Volume XXXVII, 1988, 334 p.
Volume XXXVIII, 1989, 378 p.
Volume XXXIX, 1990, 427 p.
Volume XL, 1991, 508 p.
Volume XLI, 1992, 450 p.
Volume XLII, 1993, 526 p.
Volume XLIII, 1994, 506 p.
Volume XLIV, 1995, 463 p.
Volume XLV, 1996, 608 p.
Volume XLVI, 1997, 450 p.
Volume XLVII, 1998, 466 p.
Volume XLVIII, 1999, 457 p.
Volume XLIX, 2000, 526 p.
Volume L, 2001, 557 p.
Volume LI, 2002, 412 p.
Volume LII, 2003, 510 p.
Volume LIII, 2004, 492 p.
Volume LIV, 2005, 480 p.
Volume LV, 2006, 306 p.
Volume LVI, 2007, 450 p.
Volume LVII, 2008, 412 p.
Volume LVIII, 2009, 538 p.
H U M A N I S T I C A L O V A N I E N S I A
JOURNAL OF NEO-LATIN STUDIES
Vol. LXVI -
LEUVEN UNIVERSITY PRESS
Universitaire Stichting van België
© Universitaire Pers Leuven / Leuven University Press / Presses Universitaires de Louvain,
Minderbroedersstraat - B Leuven/Louvain, Belgium
All rights reserved. Except in those cases expressly determined by law, no part of this publication may be multiplied, saved in an automated data file or made public in any way whatsoever without the express prior written consent of the publishers.
ISBN
D/ / /
ISSN -
NUR:
CONSPECTUS RERUM
— Praemonitio . . . .
Eleventh Annual Jozef IJsewijn Lecture
— Florian S , Some Considerations on the Poetological Aspects of Basinio da Parma’s Hes-
peris . . . 1-21
. Textus et studia
— Susanna B , In the Footsteps of Aeneas: Hu- manist Appropriations of the Virgilian Walk through
Rome in Aeneid . . . 23-55
— Luke B.T. H , Nova progenies: Virgil’s Fourth Eclogue and the Tradition of Christian Neo-
Latin Pastoral . . . . 57-118
— Francesco L C , Esegesi e restitutio textus nella tradizione a stampa dei commenti umanistici a Giove-
nale . . . . 119-152
— Françoise F -H , Un grand seigneur humaniste, Georges d’Halluin: Œuvres inconnues, œuvres dis-
parues, œuvres inédites . . . . 153-228
— Stephen M – François R , L’Epithala- mium Martis et Palladis (Paris: M. de Vascosan, ): Une contribution de Claude d’Espence à la célébration du mariage de François de Lorraine et
d’Anne d’Este . . . . 229-249
— Joaquín P B , Imitación del poema noveno del Corpus Priapeorum en un epigrama latino de
Rodrigo Morgante a Santa Helena . . . . 251-269
— Wojciech R , e Praise of the Humanities: De
ratione studii of Stanislaus Sokołowski . . . . 271-305
— Eduardo P -G , Una versión inédita del poema Bacchanalia del humanista flamenco Le-
vino Torrencio . . . . 307-330
— Tom D , Admiring the Admiranda? Jacob Masen SJ ( - ) and Justus Lipsius’s Prose
Style . . . . 331-369
— Joaquín José S G – José Manuel
C R , Literatura grecolatina tardoantigua en Isaac Newton: El ejemplo del manuscrito Yahuda
. (National and University Library, Jerusalén) . . 371-407
— Walther L , Humanismus im . Jahrhundert:
Das lateinische und deutsch-niederländische Stamm- buch des Martin Martens Eelking aus Bremen ( -
) . . . . 409-438
— Per Pippin A , Nicolai Krog Bredal Oneiro-Kos- mos. Id est mundus in somnio, poëma philosophico- heroicum (Hafniae, ): Editio diplomatica, prae-
fatione notisque instructa . . . . 439-452
— Andrew D , Woodstock Letters and the Jesuit
Commitment to Latin . . . . 453-486
. Instrumentum criticum
— Ludovica R , No more, please: Il ‘pazzo’ Moro di
Germano Brixio ( AP XI. ) . . . . 487-492
— Gilbert T , Andreas Schottus in the Corre-
spondence of Henry Cock . . . . 493-499
— Dirk S , Cultor maiorum. Lusus: An Allegedly
Lost Poem by Antonio Faverzani ( - ) . . . . . 501-511
— Heinz H , Some Considerations on the eo-
retical Status of Neo-Latin Studies . . . . 513-526
. Instrumentum bibliographicum Neolatinum . . . . 527-609 . Instrumentum lexicographicum . . . . 611-613 . Indices
— Index codicum manuscriptorum . . . 615
— Index nominum . . . 616-629
PRAEMONITIO
Tempora mutantur … neque hi commentarii, quae Humanistica Lo- vaniensia inscribuntur, immutabilitate insigniuntur. Noli vero timere, candide lector, ne talis conversio vel etiam inclinatio Humanisticis Lovaniensibus impendeat, ut litterae neolatinae desinant hisce libris annuis tractari. Nam materiae de quibus agetur manebunt eaedem, idem erit commentariis ingenium, una forma ad tempora, quae nunc sunt, magis accommodabitur: derelinquetur chartacea atque in eius locum substituetur digitalis, quae latius pateat. Quo fiet inde ab anno MMXVIII ut non iam typothetis committantur commentationes, prelis typographicis non subiciantur, formis non excudantur neque ex Acade- miae Lovaniensis domo editoria emittantur, verum per rete mundanum publici fiant iuris atque id quidem ita, ut ad eas accessus liber om- nibus praebeatur, qui adierint hunc retis locum: www.humanistica.be.
Qui plura de commentationibus parandis atque edendis scire cupiat, vel consulat www.arts.kuleuven.be/sph/humanistica, vel scribat ad hu- manistica@kuleuven.be. Supplementa vero Humanistica Lovaniensia de suo cursu nihil deflectent.
Ceterum monemus commentariorum volumina, quae typis sunt im- pressa, apud domum editoriam Academiae Lovaniensis venalia adhuc prostare eaque mandari posse per litteras electronicas (orders@lup.be);
quae in tabularium electronicum sive digitale apud JSTOR sunt relata, in eodem tabulario perlegi et replicari posse.
Hac data occasione, cum commentarios hos novus iam grex doctus sit administraturus, par est ut prelo academico Lovaniensi praepositis gratias agamus magnas, maximas collegis, editoribus, adiutoribus in collegium ecdoticum olim adoptatis. Horum enim opera et auxilio fieri potuit ut in lucem ederentur Humanistica Lovaniensia. Qui commen- tarii, a Iosepho IJsewijn ante hos quinquaginta circiter annos feliciter conditi atque ab eodem et deinceps a Gilberto Tournoy recti, vivant ter Nestoris annos!
D. Sacré
Susanna B
IN THE FOOTSTEPS OF AENEAS:
HUMANIST APPROPRIATIONS OF THE VIRGILIAN WALK THROUGH ROME IN AENEID *
. Introduction
In book of Virgil’s Aeneid, Evander, the Arcadian King of Pal- lanteum, receives Aeneas as his guest and shows him around the site where the future city of Rome will rise.1Evander leads Aeneas from the Ara Maxima, past the Capitoline, to his house on the Palatine, all the while recounting the history of the site, from the Golden Age of Saturn up to more recent events. Modern scholars have underlined the importance of this passage in understanding how Virgil presents the religious and historical significance of the site of Rome.2Indeed, al- though this is an epic about the foundation of the Roman empire, this is the only passage where Aeneas actually visits the site destined to be the caput mundi (head of the world).
During the Renaissance, numerous humanist poets imitated Virgil by including similar walks through Rome in their Latin epics, the most famous being Francesco Petrarch’s Africa, and Ugolino Verino’s Carlias.3Yet although this link has been acknowledged to some extent,
* is work was supported by grants from e Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (NWO) and e Netherlands Institute for Advanced Study in the Humanities and Social Sciences (NIAS).
1 Virgil, Aeneid . - .
2 See Virgil, ‘Aeneid’Book VIII, ed. and comm. K.W. Gransden (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, ), pp. - ; Gerhard Binder, Aeneas und Augustus. Interpreta- tionen zum . Buch der ‘Aeneis’ (Meisenheim am Glan: Anton Hain, ), pp. - ; P.T. Eden, A Commentary on Virgil, ‘Aeneid’ VIII (Leiden: Brill, ); W. Warde Fowler, Aeneas at the Site of Rome. Observations on the th Book of the ‘Aeneid’ (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, ) and C. Renaud, Studies in the Eighth Book of the ‘Aeneid’. e Importance of Place (diss.) (Austin: University of Texas, ).
3 Some others (e.g. in the epics by Basinio da Parma, Bartolomeo Bayguera and Ra aele Ma ei) have been mentioned by Charles Stinger, ‘Roman Humanist Images of Rome’, in
many of these references have not been adequately explored and they have also never been studied from a comparative perspective.4 ese Virgilian walks o er an intriguing insight into the complex process by which the humanist poets appropriated the multiple dimensions of the passage from the Aeneid. In addition, the walks show how the site of Rome became a prominent battleground during the Renaissance for a debate over scholarly, moral and political idea(l)s.
e passages under consideration are complex, and this follows from the fact that the humanist authors were not only appropriating the Virgilian text on a literary level, but also aiming to recapture the passage’s interaction between literature, topography and history as a means to create an image that was ideologically connected to the Rome of their era.5 is impacted the form and content of their walks in two crucial ways. First, while Virgil gave a pivotal role to Augustus by linking him, as the second founder of Rome, typologically and genealogically to Aeneas, similarly humanist authors also often create a link between their dedicatees and Rome.6Second, also in imitation
Roma Capitale ( - ), ed. Sergio Gensini (Pisa: Pacini, ), pp. - and Frances Muecke, ‘Poetry on Rome from the Ambience of Pomponio Leto: Topography, History, Encomium’, L’Elisse. Studi storici di letteratura italiana, ( ), - (p. n. ), who terms it ‘the guided visit’. Apart from Aeneid , they also found inspiration in other literary visits to Rome, such as discussed by Ulrich Schmitzer, ‘Literarische Stadtführungen – von Homer bis Ammianus Marcellinus’, Gymnasium, ( ), - and Roland G.
Mayer, ‘Impressions of Rome’, Greece and Rome, ( ), - . On humanist Latin epics in general see Craig Kallendorf, ‘ e Neo-Latin Epic’, in Brill’s Encyclopedia of the Neo-Latin World, eds Philip Ford et al., vols (Leiden: Brill, ), I, - and Paul Gwynne, ‘Epic’, in A Guide to Neo-Latin Literature, ed. Victoria Moul (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, ), pp. - . Virgilian walks through Rome are also found regularly in humanist lyric poetry, but they represent another perspective.
4 Except for Andrew Hui’s analysis: ‘ e Textual City. Epic Walks in Virgil, Lucan, and Petrarch’, Classical Receptions Journal, ( ), - , from which this article has greatly benefited.
5 By this means their reception of the Aeneid can indeed be seen as ‘the continuation of the reception of pre-Virgilian literature, culture and history that is performed in the Aeneid itself’, as Philip Hardie put it recently in e Last Trojan Hero. A Cultural History of Virgil’s ‘Aeneid’ (London: I.B. Tauris, ), p. . For the reception of the Aeneid, see also Companion to Virgil’s ‘Aeneid’ and its Tradition, eds James Farrell – Michael C.J.
Putnam (Malden: Wiley-Blackwell, ) and David Scott Wilson-Okamura, Virgil in the Renaissance (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, ).
6 Binder, Aeneas und Augustus, especially pp. - ; Hardie, e Last Trojan Hero, p. : ‘Aeneas is both ancestor and exemplary model. History is present through analogy and typology.’ is same connection o ers the humanist poets a means to claim the same kind of support from their dedicatees, as Virgil received from Augustus. Cf. Susanna de Beer, e Poetics of Patronage. Poetry as Self-Advancement in Giannantonio Campano (Turnhout: Brepols, ).
of Virgil, the Renaissance writers locate Rome’s past on the city map in a very sophisticated way, using narrative structures that employ the city’s monuments and sites as lieux de mémoire, while also hinting at their contemporary significance.7
However, there is also a crucial di erence between the texts: unlike Virgil, the humanist poets all set their Virgilian walks in a period when Rome had already come in existence, whether in Antiquity, the Middle Ages or their own times. e Renaissance writers thus follow the Virgilian template in so far as they include a walk through Rome, but the specific image of Rome they create is completely their own.
ey invest this image both with their specific humanist antiquarian interests in the topography and history of Rome, and also with their reflections on the contemporary political, religious or physical state of Rome.
Accordingly, in order to understand the significance of these pas- sages within the epics and in the wider context, this article will focus on the way the humanist poets employ the Virgilian narrative template, and also on the specific image of Rome they present. To this end, the article examines a selection of six humanist Virgilian walks by dif- ferent authors. ey vary in length, date and place of origin, but each text recognizably uses the passage in Aeneid .8 e texts will be an- alyzed individually in order to shed light on the interaction between the various parameters in a given situation, while comparing the texts will o er more insight into the flexibility of the Virgilian model and in the mutable discourse of Rome. At the same time, this compara- tive approach will also allow us to identify which core elements of the original passage especially appealed to these authors.
7 For the application of the concept of lieux de mémoire to Antiquity and to Rome in particular see Erinnerungsorte der Antike. Die römische Welt, eds Elke Stein-Hölkeskamp – Karl-Joachim Hölkeskamp (München: Beck, ), pp. - . For more on the interaction between locations in Aeneid and Augustan Rome, see Stephen Harrison, ‘ e Epic and the Monuments. Interactions between Virgil’s Aeneid and the Augustan Building Programme’, in Epic Interactions. Perspectives on Homer, Virgil, and the Epic Tradition presented to Jasper Gri n by Former Pupils, eds Michael J. Clarke et al. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, ), pp. - ; James E.G. Zetzel, ‘Rome and its Traditions’, in Cambridge Companion to Virgil, ed. Charles Martindale (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, ), pp. - and James Morwood, ‘Aeneas, Augustus, and the eme of the City’, Greece and Rome, . ( ), - .
8 ey all signal their debt to the Aeneid, either by using similar phrases (Leitzitate), or by the inclusion of typically Virgilian characters (like Aeneas or Evander) or locations (like Pallanteum or the Ara Maxima).
By so doing this article also aims to make a methodological contri- bution to the study of humanist Latin poetry. As exceptionally rich and complex examples of the interaction between humanist scholarship and Renaissance politics, the authority of the ancient Roman legacy and the dynamics of classical reception, these Virgilian walks chal- lenge us to move beyond the usual intertextual analysis and widen our methodological scope. is is necessary because although the refer- ences to the Roman past are often mediated through classical literature, they cannot be categorized as solely literary references, but rather of- ten function on several other levels at the same time. For example, if a poet uses the words of Martial to refer to the Colosseum, he unites the literary with the extra-literary aspects of that monument, such as its long history, moral connotations or contemporary state of ruin. More- over, the significance of such a reference cannot only be described in literary terms, as it is also part of a wider social, cultural and political debate over the meaning of Virgil and Rome in the Renaissance.9
To do justice to this multi-dimensional process of literary creation this article will combine a literary approach with methods and insights from both heritage studies and imagology.10It views literary imitation as a process in which Rome’s literary legacy is appropriated by means of intertextual references. is imitation is an intricate part of the process of heritage construction, involving the selection, interpretation and appropriation of elements from the Roman legacy at large.11 us, rather than separating the literary realm, this article will consider the Roman past as a very large and flexible repertoire of texts, stories,
9 Cf. Elizabeth McCahill, ‘Rewriting Virgil, Rereading Rome. Ma eo Vegio, Poggio Bracciolini, Flavio Biondo and Early Quattrocento Antiquarianism’, Memoirs of the Amer- ican Academy in Rome, ( ), - .
10 In the field of heritage studies, the work by David Lowenthal has been groundbreak- ing: e Past is a Foreign Country (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, ) and e Heritage Crusade and the Spoils of History (Chicago: Chicago University Press, ). For imagology I refer to Imagology. e Cultural Construction and Literary Representation of National Characters: A Critical Survey, eds Manfred Beller – Joep Leerssen (Amsterdam, New York: Rodopi, ).
11 is approach is presented in more detail in my ‘Framing Humanist Visions of Rome.
Heritage Construction in Latin Literature’, in Framing Classical Reception Studies, eds Maarten De Pourcq et al. (Leiden: Brill, forthcoming). e threefold scheme in the case of heritage construction is developed on the basis of the introduction in e Ashgate Re- search Companion to Heritage and Identity, eds Brian Graham – Peter Howard (Aldershot:
Ashgate, ), pp. - . For appropriation as pivotal in intertextuality see Stephen Hinds, Allusion and Intertext. Dynamics of Appropriation in Roman Poetry (Cambridge: Cam- bridge University Press, ).
monuments, motifs and historical templates from which humanist writers could select and appropriate at will.12 In this paradigm the Virgilian pretext can be considered both as part of the legacy used by the humanists, and as the literary template they used to give meaning to their selection.
anks to the writers’ di erent ways of processing various aspects of the past, the poems under discussion activate certain traditional images of Rome, while repudiating others.13 ese images go beyond the physical aspects of the city, encompassing other realms traditionally associated with Rome, such as imperial power, religion, morality or literature. e advantage of using methods from heritage studies and imagology is that they direct our attention to the function and dynamics of such images. In other words, they help us answer the question of what was at stake for these humanist epic poets. Most importantly, they do not consider these images and appropriations as objective descriptions of a certain status quo, but rather as claims to a specific past for present purposes, often in competition with other claimants.
ese purposes can be situated in the literary, scholarly, political, religious or social sphere, and are usually concerned with issues of identity formation and legitimization. In accordance with this approach we will consider the images of Rome presented in the Virgilian walks as specific heritage claims and ask what future they intend to shape.
. Francesco Petrarch ( - ), Africa
Petrarch includes a Virgilian walk in book of Africa, his epic poem about the Roman general Scipio Africanus.14 In this book, Petrarch
12 is means that literary allusions can be put on par with phyiscal lieux de mémoire as triggers of the cultural memory of Rome. See also Philip Hardie, ‘Augustan Poets and the Mutability of Rome’, in Roman Poetry and Propaganda in the Age of Augustus, ed. Anton Powell (London: Bristol Classical Press, ), pp - .
13 Cf. Susanna de Beer, ‘Rom: Symbolischer Ort’, in Der Neue Pauly. . Sta el, Band : Renaissance-Humanismus. Lexikon Zur Antikerezeption, ed. Manfred Landfester (Stuttgart: Metzler, ), pp. - .
14 Text edition: Francesco Petrarca, Africa, eds and transls Bernhard Huss – Gerhard Regn, vols (Mainz: Dieterich’sche Verlagsbuchhandlung, ). All references here are to the verse numbers in this edition. Commentary in the same edition and in Francesco Petrarca, Africa, ed. and transl. Rebecca Lenoir (Grenoble: Jérôme Millon, ). About the Africa in general, apart from the commentaries by Huss/Regn and Lenoir: Bernhard Huss,
‘Roma caput rerum? Geschichtsinszenierung, episches self-fashioning und christlicher
tells the story of Scipio, who had defeated the Carthaginians at the Battle of Zama in BCE. Following the peace negotiations in Rome, the Carthaginian envoy Hasdrubal Haedus asks to be shown around the city.15Accompanied by a Roman guide he walks past numerous monuments and sites, often pausing to gaze at the view or listen to stories about Rome’s history. e walk ends at the Capitol, where Hasdrubal meditates about the magnificence of Rome. [see fig. ]
Just like Aeneas in Virgil’s text, Hasdrubal functions as a ‘first- time-visitor’, while his Roman guide, like Virgil’s Evander, controls the characters’ interpretation of the sites in the walk. Petrarch closely follows Virgil’s method of combining walking, seeing and hearing to connect the sites of Rome with their appearance and their histories.16 In this narrative template the guide acts as a kind of spokesman representing the writer’s expertise in Roman history. Petrarch fully exploits the metapoetic potential of this character by letting him recall the story of Hercules at the moment they pass Cacus’ cave.17On a narrative level, this figures as an etiological explanation, while on an intertextual level it points to an analogy with the episode in the Aeneid where Evander tells the same etiological story to his guest.18 However, by referring to the episode as a story ( fabula), Petrarch suggests that the guide himself is recalling this particular passage from the Aeneid, thereby o ering a metapoetical reflection on the imitation process.
Selbstzweifel in Petrarcas Africa’, in Das alte Rom und die neue Zeit. Varianten des Rom- Mythos zwischen Petrarca und dem Barock, eds Martin Disselkamp et al. (Tübingen:
Gunter Narr Verlag, ), pp. - and Gerhard Regn – Bernhard Huss, ‘Petrarch’s Rome. e History of the Africa and the Renaissance Project’, Modern Language, . ( ), - . For this specific passage see also Guido Martelotti – Pietro Paolo Trompeo,
‘Cartagenesi a Roma’, in Scritti petrarcheschi, eds Michele Feo – Silvia Rizzo (Padova:
Antenore, ), pp. - ; Hui, ‘ e Textual City’; omas M. Greene, e Light in Troy.
Imitation and Discovery in Renaissance Poetry (New Haven: Yale University Press, ), pp. - ; Schmitzer, ‘Literarische Stadtführungen’, pp. - and Susanna de Beer, ‘De Africa van Francesco Petrarca: Een nationaal epos?’, Lampas, . ( ), - . It is the longest walk in the corpus, covering . - .
15 See Livy, Ab Urbe condita . ; Petrarca, eds Huss – Regn, II, .
16 E.g. Petrarch, Africa . - : ‘Now they descend along the river and see the hill where the old kingdom of Janus used to be, next to the once Saturnian home. Here they learn about the origins of the kings of Ausonia and the Latian people and the famous names of men.’
17 Petrarch, Africa . - . For metapoetics in Latin literature see Susanna M.
Braund, Latin Literature (London: Routledge, ), pp. - .
18 Virgil, Aeneid . - .
Hasdrubal’s tour through Rome starts at the same point in time and space as Aeneas’, but is much longer both in terms of the route it follows and the history it covers. e sites visited and the histories connected to them focus on Rome’s function as caput mundi. is is corroborated by the high number of foundation stories in the passage and the fact that the protagonist Hasdrubal actively contemplates this topic.19Moreover, at various sites the guide elaborates on the virtuous Romans of the past who laid the foundations for Rome’s power and freedom, stories that activate an image of Rome as City of Virtue.20 For his reconstruction of a walk through the city in the second century BCE, Petrarch made use of various literary and antiquarian sources, with Livy and the Mirabilia figuring most prominently, combined with his own experiences.21In this way he aimed to create a walk that was both highly realistic and historically well-grounded.22
So what are we to make of this Virgilian walk and its place in the Africa? When Petrarch started to work on this epic around , he originally planned to dedicate it to Robert of Anjou, King of Naples.
is was the same King who also instigated Petrarch’s coronation as poet laureate both for this (not yet finished) epic and also his De viris illustribus. It is generally assumed that Scipio, as a second Aeneas, was the model for King Robert, who in this way would be urged to found Rome for a second time.23 us, although Petrarch does not explicitly contrast Scipio’s time with contemporary Rome, the comparison is
19 Petrarch, Africa . - .
20 He refers among others to the deeds of Lucius Junius Brutus, Horatius Cocles, Mucius Scaevola and Camillus.
21 Petrarch, however, has Hasdrubal take a slightly di erent route of approach, entering the city through the Appian gate, which is commonly seen as reflecting the author’s own first entrance to the city: Petrarch, eds Huss – Regn, II, ; Martelotti, ‘Cartagenesi a Rome’, p. . Hasdrubal’s tour is also often compared to Petrarch’s own visit of Rome represented in Familiares . . However, this letter was just as much inspired by Aeneid , among others, as his account in the Africa. See Martin Disselkamp, ‘Nichts ist, Rom, Dir Gleich.’ Topographien und Gegenbilder aus dem mittelalterlichen und frühneuzeitlichen Europa (Ruhpolding: Franz Philipp Rutzen, ), p. ; Greene, e Light in Troy, pp.
- .
22 Petrarch added in his own revisions to the text rursus (back) as an alternative to tandem (finally) (Petrarch, Africa . ) at the point where they come to the Capitol for the second time: see Vincenzo Fera, La revisione petrarchescha dell’‘Africa’ (Messina: Centro di studi umanistici, ), p. .
23 Likewise Petrarch presents himself to Robert as an Ennius to Scipio, or a Virgil to Augustus. See Werner Suerbaum, ‘Petrarca. Ein Ennius alter oder ein Vergilius alter?’, in Petrarca und die römische Literatur, ed. Ulrike Auhagen (Tübingen: Narr, ), pp. - .
nonetheless very present in the background of the narrative, pointing to a city waiting to be restored to ancient greatness.
However, unlike Aeneas, Scipio does not figure as the protagonist of the Virgilian walk. is is a consequence of the fact that he, as native Roman, could not fulfill the role of a ‘first-time-visitor’. By allotting this role to Hasdrubal, Petrarch can combine his status as a foreigner who approaches Rome with a ‘tourist-gaze’, with his status as a former enemy who is ‘made friend of the Romans’ thanks to this walk.24In that respect Africa can be seen to represent an intermediate step between Aeneas and Augustus, as Petrarch here claims a crucial role for the defeat of the Carthaginians in Rome’s path to imperial power.
However, if the remainder of Africa and the process of composition are taken into account, Petrarch’s image of Rome appears far less straightforward than it may seem at first sight. He continued to work on the epic until the s, and it still remained unfinished at his death.
Over this long period not only did King Robert die, but Petrarch’s perspective on Roman history and his own literary endeavors also became increasingly ambiguous.25 He started to question his own ambitions for literary fame and the simple take on Rome as a city destined for greatness became more complex.
As a consequence, in the passages of Africa which he added later, Petrarch included several hints regarding the inevitable downfall of Rome in the end.26He also left the epic unfinished, which in this light can be seen not only as an imitation of Virgil, but also as a reflection of Petrarch’s inability to formulate a proper ending.27Considering the Virgilian walk from this point of view may also shed light on some of the intertextual references. For example, could the analogy suggested between Hasdrubal’s guide (monstrator viae) and the guide showing Caesar around the ruins of Troy in Lucan’s Bellum civile be seen to
24 See Hui, ‘Textual City’, p. , who describes the walk as ‘a dialectic between conquered and conqueror’. e walk renders the conquered Hasdrubal ‘Roman’ as the city that was hated has become dear to him in the end (Petrarch, Africa . - ).
25 For this evolution see Huss, ‘Roma caput rerum?’. More generally about Petrarch’s view on Rome see Disselkamp, ‘Nichts ist, Rom, Dir Gleich’, pp. - and Gerhard Regn,
‘Aufbruch zur Neuzeit. Francesco Petrarca - ’, in Francesco Petrarca - . Werk und Wirkung im Spiegel der Biblioteca petrarchesca Reiner Speck, eds Reiner Speck – Florian Neumann (Köln: DuMont, ), pp. - .
26 Most clearly in the Somnium Scipionis, in which the end of Rome is foretold by Scipio’s father Publius: see Petrarch, Africa . - .
27 Huss, ‘Roma caput rerum?’, p. .
foreshadow Rome’s final destruction?28Can the passage just before the Virgilian walk in which Scipio visits Carthage and praises it as a second Rome be seen as alluding to the final fate of both?29
In the period when Petrarch created his Virgilian walk, he wished for the possibility of Rome’s physical restoration but was also uncertain about it. However, independent of the fate of Rome itself, the Roman virtues which form the basis of Petrarch’s appropriation of the Aeneid still hold their exemplary value.30In addition, Petrarch’s appropriation of the literary discourse about Rome in general, and his imitation of Virgil in particular, can also be seen as an attempt at least to found literary – if not physical – Rome for a second time.31
. Battista Spagnoli ( - ), De Dionysii Areopagitae conver- sione, vita et agone
e Italian humanist and Carmelite friar Battista Spagnoli, also known as the ‘Christian Virgil’, included a Virgilian walk in the second book of his Life of Dionysius the Areopagite.32 e text describes Saint Dionysius’ visit to Rome on his way from Athens to Paris around
28 Petrarch, Africa . . e wording recalls the monstrator in Lucan, Bellum civile . . For further references to Lucan in Africa see Richard T. Bruère, ‘Lucan and Pe- trarch’s Africa’, Classical Philology, . ( ), - .
29 Petrarch, Africa . - .
30 See Craig Kallendorf, In Praise of Aeneas. Virgil and Epideictic Rhetoric in the Early Italian Renaissance (Hanover: University Press of New England, ).
31 is ties in with the ancient topos of writing as building, see Catherine Edwards, Writing Rome. Textual Approaches to the City (Cambridge University Press, ), p. , and with the humanist variation of literary imitation as using spoils, see Hui, ‘Textual City’, p. .
32 Text: Battista Spagnoli (Mantovano), De Dionysii Aeropagitae conversione, vita et agone, in id., Opera omnia, ed. L. Cupaerus, vols (Antwerp, ), consulted in the Perseus Digital Library, http://www.perseus.tufts.edu. References here are to verse numbers from this edition (cited as ‘Spagnoli’). e date of composition is unknown, but the text was first printed in in Milan, cf. Edmondo Coccia, Le edizioni delle opere del Mantovano (Rome: Institutum Carmelitanum, ), p. . e complete work consists of three books each of c. verses. e journey from Greece and the Virgilian walk through Rome together cover the first c. verses of book two. I was notified about the Virgilian walk in this work by Muriel Cobussen. Spagnoli was also known as il Mantovano. For Erasmus calling him Christianus Maro, see Lee Piepho, ‘Erasmus on Baptista Mantuanus and Christian Religious Verse’, Erasmus Studies, . ( ), - .
CE. Dionysius’ and his companions’ journey to Rome takes them along the Italian coast and over the Tiber. Before entering the city, they visit the site where Saint Paul had supposedly been beheaded by Nero.
eir subsequent walk through Rome starts at Tiber Island, covering a large part of the city and ending with a visit to Pope Clement I, which Spagnoli places at the San Clemente.33[see figs and ]
In this Virgilian walk, Dionysius obviously re-enacts the role of Aeneas, but he and his companions visit Rome without any Evander- like guide. Instead, they talk amongst each other while entering the city.34At that point they have already had a view of Rome from afar, and recognized the sites of the city’s origins.35Apart from representing the beginnings of Rome, both in time and in space, these key locations also reference the Virgilian pretext as starting place. Yet by condensing this into just a few lines, Spagnoli also signals that his walk does not repeat, but builds on and goes beyond his model.36
Dionysius’ route through Rome is largely realistic. However, to be able to include sites that are not on the route, Spagnoli also o ers Dionysius a bird’s eye view of the city from one of the hilltops.37 e sites that matter most to Spagnoli are those that had been recently built in the period when Dionysius supposedly visited Rome. ese buildings and monuments are not employed as triggers of specific memories nor is their function reflected upon. Instead, the passage represents a highly aesthetic approach to the cityscape, coinciding with the absence of a native guide to o er further interpretations of the sites.
Dionysius and his companions approach the city with a tourist’s gaze,
33 is church was built around and dedicated to Pope Clement I. In the time of Dionysius (c. CE) on this location was the private home of Titus Flavius Clemens, a Roman nobleman converted to Christianity, and a site for clandestine Christian worship, see Eduardo Yunyent, Il titolo di San Clemente in Roma (Roma: Pontificio istituto di archeologia cristiana, ). It seems that Spagnoli does not distinguish between the two Clements.
34 Spagnoli, . recalls Virgil, Aeneid . - .
35 Spagnoli, . - . Such views from afar recall Virgil, Aeneid . - . Cf. also Andrea Fulvio, Antiquitates Urbis Romae, fol. Biiir-v( - ) and Petrarch, Africa . -
.
36 e complete journey via Sicily along the Campanian coast up to the Tiber is also – except for the Carthaginian excursus – rather similar to Aeneas’ journey from Troy. As such it functions as a kind of summary of Aeneid books - . is analogy is highlighted among others by explicit references to Aeneas, or by using similar phrases.
37 Spagnoli, . . Such views from a hilltop show a nity with Aeneas’ view over Carthage (Virgil, Aeneid . - ). Cf. also Ferreri, and .
activating images of Rome as the head of the world and the City of Marvels: the place where all the riches of the world come together.38
is focus on Rome in her glory days also o ers Spagnoli the op- portunity to show his rather exact knowledge of the city’s topogra- phy and building history. To that purpose he used, among others, the Flavian poets, who were contemporary to the time of his narrative.
us, his references to the equestrian statue of Domitian on the Forum and the Temple of Peace were based on Statius’ Silvae.39 Moreover, the location Spagnoli assigns to the Colosseum, ‘Nero’s lake’ (stagna Neronis), refers to Martial.40 ese poets were especially popular in the Renaissance in the academic circle of Pomponio Leto and at the eccle- siastical courts in Rome, circles to which Spagnoli also belonged.41It was in these same circles that antiquarian scholarship thrived, making it very likely that this Virgilian walk also benefited from the state-of- the-art information about Rome’s topography available in Spagnoli’s immediate environs.42
However, with his antiquarian image of pagan Rome in the Virgilian walk, Spagnoli departs considerably from the Christian message in the rest of the work. As said, before he enters the city, the protagonist Dionysius pauses on the bank of the Tiber, at the site where the Tre Fontane Abbey would later stand. Here he meets a herdsman who recounts the story of Saint Paul’s martyrdom at the hands of Nero and the subsequent rise of three fountains.43 is etiological story has a comparable function to Evander’s story of Hercules and Cacus
38 Spagnoli . - : ‘Contemplating such a great city they admit that Rome has brought together marvelous things from all over the world.’
39 Spagnoli, . - . e equestrian statue refers to Statius, Silvae . . e Temple of Peace, which has long been assigned to Domitian as well, to Silvae . , and . , . In case of the Temple of Peace Spagnoli explicitly remarked that it was a recent structure.
40 Spagnoli, . refers to Martial, De spectaculis . .
41Andrea Severi, ‘La maturità del “Carmelita”. Il periodo romano di Battista Manto- vano ( - )’, in Roma pagana e Roma cristiana nel Rinascimento, ed. Luisa Secchi Tarugi (Florence: Franco Cesati, ), pp. - .
42 Important antiquarian sources were, though not all of them already published in Spagnoli’s time, Biondo Flavio’s Roma instaurata, Albertini’s Opusculum de mirabilibus novae et veteris urbis and Andrea Fulvio’s Antiquitates Urbis Romae, among others.
Ruth E. Kritzer, Rom: bewunderte Vergangenheit – inszenierte Gegenwart. Die Stadt in literarischen Topographien der Renaissance (Wien: Horn, ); Philip Jacks, ‘Guidebooks to Ancient Rome’, in e Classical Tradition, eds Anthony Grafton et al. (Cambridge MA:
Harvard University Press, ), p. .
43 Spagnoli, . - .
told at the Ara Maxima.44Both episodes are important for the future of Rome: just as Hercules’ victory over Cacus gave the site safety and divine sanction, so too the martyrdom of Paul and subsequent death of Nero as punishment made way for the rise of a Christian Rome.45
e link here with Dionysius is clear: he was converted to Christian- ity by the very Saint whose martyrdom he hears the account of, and travels from Greece to Rome in order to continue the work of his mas- ter.46Although he is not genealogically linked to Aeneas as founder of Rome, Spagnoli does suggest a typological link between Dionysius the Areopagite and Aeneas by giving Dionysius, a convert of Saint Paul, a role in the continuation of Rome as the Christian caput mundi.47
To understand the link with Rome in Spagnoli’s own days we have to turn to his interest in Dionysius the Areopagite, and Spagnoli’s prominent membership of the Carmelite order.48 e mystical writings allegedly written by Dionysius are usually linked specifically to the Carmelites in the time of Teresa of Avila and Saint John of the Cross, although the texts had permeated Christian spirituality already in the writings of Spagnoli’s contemporary Marsilio Ficino and earlier.49 More generally, the Carmelite order under the leadership of Spagnoli advocated moral reform within the church, proposing a return to early Christianity, the time of the martyrs. To plead for such reform Spagnoli
44 Virgil, Aeneid . - .
45 Nero as the stereotypical enemy of the Christians, designated by Spagnoli, . - as ‘the most monstrous enemy of humankind’, can be compared to Cacus. See Verino, Carlias M . - : ‘horrible Nero’. In light of this portrait Spagnoli’s positive remarks about the Domus Aurea of Nero ( . ) in the Virgilian walk proper are especially strik- ing.
46 e goal of Dionysius’ journey is briefly explained at the end of book (Spagnoli, . - ).
47 In addition to the clear references to the Aeneid Dionysius also compares his own journey to the one made by Saint Paul (Spagnoli, . - ). Interestingly, Dante also aligned himself with both Aeneas and Saint Paul, see Regn – Huss, ‘Petrarch’s Rome’, p. .
48About Spagnoli’s life and works see Baptista Mantuanus (Spagnuoli), Adulescentia.
e Eclogues of Mantuan, ed. and transl. Lee Piepho (New York: Garland, ), pp. xv- xxviii; Coccia, Le edizioni. In he became vicar-general of the Carmelite order in Mantua. From (or ) onwards he was general of the whole Carmelite order.
49 For (Pseudo-)Dionysius’ influence see Jean LeClercq, ‘Influence and Noninfluence of Dionysius in the Western Middle Ages’, in Pseudo-Dionysius. e Complete Works, transl. Colm Luibheid (New York: Paulist Press, ), pp. - . See also Marsilio Ficino, On Dionysius the Areopagite, ed. and transl. Michael J.B. Allen, vols (Cambridge MA:
Harvard University Press, ).
himself appeared before the Pope twice during his lifetime.50It may be too far-fetched to suggest that Spagnoli therefore also identified with Dionysius, but the link between the Saint’s visit to Rome in the first century BC and the religious challenges of Spagnoli’s own days seems clear nonetheless.
But how does this connect to the image of Rome as City of Marvels and caput mundi presented by Spagnoli in the Virgilian walk proper?
He may have regarded it an opportunity to indulge in an intellectual game of reconstructing Rome in the late first century CE. is is further implied by the fact that such a walk through Rome is not included in earlier descriptions of Dionysius’ life.51Yet in combination with the preceding passage, it also reflects the harmony between ancient and Christian Rome, and the belief that God chose Rome to be the seat of the Popes, precisely because it was already the ‘head of the world’.52 is harmony is a feature that characterizes both Spagnoli’s literary oeuvre and papal humanism more broadly.53
. Ugolino Verino ( - ), Carlias
e next Virgilian walk occurs in book of Carlias, an epic poem about the deeds of Charlemagne written by the Florentine human- ist Ugolino Verino. is epic survives in many versions, each with a slightly di erent Virgilian walk.54 e walk starts just after Charle-
50 See Severi, ‘La maturità’: in Spagnoli traveled to Rome to plead before Sixtus IV. During the time when he lived in Trastevere ( - ) he delivered a sermon about curial corruption before Innocentius VIII.
51 e most influential life of Dionysius was written in the ninth century by Hilduin of Paris, abbot of the monastery placed under the patronage of Dionysius. He was also the one to link Dionysius of Paris, who traveled from Rome to Paris to Christianize the Gauls, with Dionysius the Areopagite, see Johannes C. Westerbrink, Passio S. Dionysii Areopagitae Rustici et Eleutherii (Alphen aan den Rijn: Haasbeek, ), pp. - .
52 In Spagnoli, . .
53 See John W. O’Malley, Giles of Viterbo on Church and Reform. A Study in Renais- sance ought (Leiden: Brill, ), especially pp. - .
54 Text: Ugolino Verino, Carlias. Ein Epos des . Jahrhunderts, ed. and comm. Niko- laus urn (München: Fink, ). Commentary: Nikolaus urn, Kommentar zur ‘Carlias’
des Ugolino Verino (München: Fink, ). An early version is published in Anhang C of urn’s edition on pp. - : Carlias M . - , cited as ‘Verino, Carlias M’. A later version is part of the main text in this same edition on pp. - : Carlias R . - , cited as ‘Verino, Carlias R’. References are to verse numbers from this edition. With regard to the Virgilian walk, see also Christine Ratkowitsch, ‘Karoli vestigia magna secutus’. Die
magne has been crowned Holy Roman Emperor in Saint Peter’s basil- ica ( CE). Verino recounts how the Emperor, like a second Aeneas, is taken on a tour around the ancient and Christian remains of the city by members of the most important Roman families who play the role of Evander. At the end of the tour he is feted with a banquet at the palace of the Orsini family. [see figs and ]
Verino follows the Virgilian narrative template rather closely, in- cluding a ceremony before the walk and a banquet at the host’s palace at the end. ese similarities are marked, among others, by the use of similar wording to describe how after the sacred rites have been performed, the protagonists leave for the tour around the city, while talking to each other ‘with varied talk’ (vario sermone).55Verino first takes Charlemagne from the Vatican over the Mars Field towards the Capitol and the Colosseum, mainly walking past and looking at ancient sites.56Just like Virgil, he uses monumenta (monuments) and vestigia (traces) of the past to manage the relationship between the past and the time frame of the narrative itself.57In this way he employs them as relevant lieux de mémoire of a specific past, for example by asso- ciating the Campus Martius with the military triumphs that caused the Romans’ idleness, and damning the Domus Aurea as insana.58
Verino also focuses on the present state as a means to reflect on the time lapse between that ancient past and Charlemagne’s day. At the Capitol he reverses the famous Virgilian contrast associated with that same site: ‘Look at the prostate cadavers of the Palatine temple, the marble buildings and the high Capitoline of the underer, how you can hardly see them overgrown as they are with bristling brambles.’59
Rezeption des ‘Aachener Karlsepos’ in der ‘Carlias’ des Ugolino Verino (Wien: Verlag der Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften, ), pp. - .
55 Verino, Carlias R . - recalls Virgil, Aeneid . - . Cf. also Spagnoli, . and Ferreri, .
56 Ratkowitsch, ‘Karoli vestigia’, p. .
57 Explicit references to monuments (monumenta) in Verino, Carlias M . and ; Carlias R . . Cf. also Nagonio, Maximilian I, fol. r; Louis XII, fol. r; Julius II, fol.
r; Fulvio, fol. Biiir( ). References to traces (vestigia) in Verino, Carlias R . , but also in Fulvio, fol. Biiir( ); Nagonio, Maximilian I, fol. r; Louis XII, fol. v; Julius II, fol. r. For a metapoetic interpretation of vestigia, see Hui, ‘Textual City’, pp. - .
58 Campus Martius: Verino, Carlias M . - and - . Cf. also Petrarch, Africa . and . - . Domus Aurea: Verino, Carlias M . , if he indeed refers to the Domus Aurea here, see urn, Kommentar, p. ; Ratkowitsch, ‘Karoli vestigia’, p. . Cf. also Spagnoli, . .
59 Verino, Carlias M . - and Carlias R . - , which reverses Virgil, Aeneid . - .
is is not only an allusion to Virgil, but also to Poggio Bracciolini, who reversed the same Virgilian passage in his treatise on the vicis- situdes of Fortune.60Verino presents the destruction of the city as the consequence of moral decay in the past and as a sign that the impe- rial power of Rome is definitively finished.61 is ancient empire has in the meantime been replaced by the Christian empire, as reflected in the second part of the Virgilian walks, in which Verino takes Charle- magne past the most important Christian churches.62
Verino’s Virgilian walk owes much to the Mirabilia Urbis Romae, which takes a similar route through the city and also reflects on the relationship between the pagan and Christian monuments in a similar way.63In addition, Verino also relies heavily on other antiquarian lit- erature, the most important being Biondo Flavio’s Roma instaurata.64 He used these sources to make his walk as realistic as possible, also confirmed by the fact that he adapted his text to include new identifi- cations or insights regarding the topography of Rome.65
e central theme of Verino’s Virgilian walk is the discontinuity be- tween ancient and contemporary Rome, symbolized by the destruction of the city’s most important pagan monuments and the erection of new
60 Bracciolini, De varietate fortunae . (Gianfrancesco Poggio Bracciolini, De vari- etate fortunae, ed. Outi Merisalo (Helsinki: Suomalainen Tiedeakatemi, ), p. .
61 Cf. Christophe Imbert, Rome n’est plus dans Rome. Formule magique pour un centre perdu (Paris: Classiques Garnier, ).
62 In the shorter version he mentions the San Pietro and the Santa Maria in Trastevere, but in the longer version he also includes the San Paolo fuori le Mura, the San Giovanni in Laterano, the Santa Maria in Cosmedin and the San Giorgio in Velabro.
63 Ratkowitsch, ‘Karoli vestigia’, p. and pp. - . is relationship between pagan and Christian Rome is more pronounced in the first version of Verino’s Virgilian walk.
64 urn, Kommentar, p. . e description of monuments per category that is com- mon in antiquarian guides may explain, for example, why the pyramids of Cestius and Romulus, as well as the columns of Trajan and Antoninus Pius are mentioned together, although they are too far apart to be seen together: Verino, Carlias M . ; Carlias R
. ; Cf. also Ferreri, .
65Among other things Verino changed the Via Appia into the Via Sacra, and took out the excursus leading to the Castel’ Sant Angelo, thus making the sequence of the route more realistic, see Ratkowitsch, ‘Karoli vestigia’, pp. - . Assuming that the authors present a realistic route in their texts may also help to interpret references that seem obscure or ambiguous from a modern reader’s point of view. Along such lines Ratkowitsch, ‘Karoli vestigia’, pp. - argues against the identification of Verino, Carlias M, . - with the Domus Aurea, because they have moved towards the Vatican area. Based on the same assumption urn (Kommentar, p. ) argues that Verino could not possibly have visited Rome, or otherwise he would not have referred to the Mars Field as covered with grass.
Christian buildings, often in the same spots. He interprets this in a moral framework: in the first half of the walk he paints an image of Rome as the City of Empire, which is also a City of Decadence, ul- timately causing her own destruction; in the second half he presents a city converted to Christianity, which is also a City of Virtue whose churches attract pilgrims from all over the world.66In this way, the Virgilian walk reflects in a nutshell the central theme of the Carlias, the transition from vice to virtue, which in itself is an imitation of the allegorical reading of the Aeneid by Verino’s master Cristoforo Landino.67
However, the Carlias is also a foundational epic for the city of Florence, as embodied by the restoration – or second foundation – of Florence by Charlemagne in the passage just before the Virgilian walk. By presenting Florence as the new Rome, the Carlias can thus be seen to fulfill the prophecy that was not fulfilled in the Aeneid itself.68 In this context the image of Rome as City of Ruins o ers a negative foil for Florence as well as the necessary precondition for Florence’s foundation through the parallel with the ruins of Troy.69 is imagery is an expression of Florence’s competitive claim to the imperial legacy of Rome and reflects the competition between Florence and papal Rome in contemporary politics.
At the same time, this passage also links Florence to the main character of the epic, Charlemagne, meaning that the Carlias can also count as a celebration of the relationship between Florence and the Frankish kings.70With Paris as a political and intellectual center these kings o er a second substitute for the death of ancient Rome,
66 See urn, Kommentar, p. . For the negative image of ancient Rome, see Verino, Carlias M . - and Carlias R . - : ‘Triumphs have caused idleness.’ For the image of Christian Rome attracting people from over the world freely instead of by force, see Verino, Carlias M . - .
67 For the specific influence of Landino’s Disputationes Camalduenses on the Carlias and Charlemagne as the exemplary Christian hero, see urn, Kommentar, pp. - and . More generally about humanist readings of the Aeneid from the viewpoint of epideictic rhetoric, see Kallendorf, In Praise of Aeneas.
68 e restoration of Florence by Charlemagne is recounted in Verino, Carlias R . - . See urn, Kommentar, pp. , and .
69A similar image of Rome as city of the past as a negative foil for Renaissance Florence can be found in Cristoforo Landino’s Xandra, see Christoph Pieper, Elegos redo- lere Vergiliosque sapere. Cristoforo Landino’s ‘Xandra’ zwischen Liebe und Gesellschaft (Hildesheim: Olms, ), p. . See also Edwards, Writing Rome, pp. - .
70 urn, Kommentar, pp. , and .
proclaimed in the Virgilian walk, without questioning the notion of contemporary Rome as the center of Christianity.
Verino’s Carlias o ers a clear example of how philosophical, liter- ary and political dimensions interact in a humanist epic. is is all the more evident because the author made di erent versions that testify to his changing ideas about imitation and the changed political landscape.
e two most important versions in this respect are the Florentine au- tograph manuscript dated , and the dedication copy for the French King Charles VIII, dated .71In line with the changes Verino made to the epic as a whole, in the second version he shortened the Virgilian walk, rendered the text more classical and o ered an image of Rome that was both more correct and less negative.72 e first three elements tie in primarily with his ideas about literary imitation and his knowl- edge of Roman topography. e last, however, can be best understood by taking the changed political context and the dedication history into account.
Although the exact addressee of the text is not known, it is likely that Verino had the Medici-party in mind as dedicatees for the first complete version of the Carlias.73In this context the explicitly negative image of ancient Rome can be seen to reflect the political tensions between Florence and Rome in this period, which had culminated in the Pazzi wars.74 e less negative image of ancient Rome in the second version may partly follow from Verino’s attempts to shorten overlong pas- sages, and his growing preference for classical over medieval sources.
However, it can also be seen as a result of how relations between Flo- rence and Rome had been restored in the meantime and the fact that this
71 Florence, Biblioteca Laurenziana, MS Magliabecchianus II, II, (Carlias M) and Biblioteca Riccardiana, MS Riccardianus (Carlias R). For the description and context of the manuscripts, see Verino, ed. urn, pp. - and urn, Kommentar, pp. - . ere are clearly more versions of the Carlias (Verino, ed. urn, p. : ‘es handelt sich um eine ständig sich fortsetzende Entwicklung’), but for a discussion of the Virgilian walk Carlias M and Carlias R are the most relevant.
72 For the general di erences between the two versions see Verino, ed. urn, pp. - . With regard to the Virgilian walk, Verino for example inserted the Virgilian phrase vario sermone (‘with varied talk’) and a reference to a wild fig tree from Martial (Carlias R ), see Ratkowitsch, ‘Karoli vestigia’, p. .
73 See urn, Kommentar, pp. - and - . A clear indication forms a passage on the history of Florence, the Medici and a laudatory catalogue of Florentines that is only found in the earlier version, which apart from Carlias M is also preserved in Parisinus (Verino, Carlias M . - ).
74 See Laura Martines, April Blood. Florence and the Plot against the Medici (London:
Jonathan Cape, ).
