Virgil's fourth Eclogue in the Italian Renaissance

Uittreksel

Virgil's fourth Eclogue is one of the most quoted, adapted and discussed works of classical literature. This study traces the fortunes of Eclogue 4 in the literature and art of the Italian Renaissance. It sheds new light on some of the most canonical works of Western art and literature, as well as introducing a large number of other, lesser-known items, some of which have not appeared in print since their original publication, while others are extant only in manuscript. Individual chapters are devoted to the uses made of the fourth Eclogue in the political panegyric of Medici Florence, the Venetian Republic and the Renaissance papacy, and to religious appropriations of the Virgilian text in the genres of epic and pastoral poetry. The book also investigates the appearance of quotations from the poem in fifteenth- and sixteenth-century fresco cycles representing the prophetic Sibyls in Italian churches.

Inhoud

Eclogue 4: text and translation -- Prolegomena -- Introduction: noua progenies -- A new age: the Virgilian renaissance -- Politics -- Florentine fantasies: Maro and the Medici -- Maritime Maro: Virgil in Venice -- Princely propaganda: the Italian states -- Vatican vaticinations: the papal golden age -- Religion -- Poet and Christian? : the messianic fourth Eclogue -- Tua dicere facta: the messianic epic -- A child is born: the nativity eclogue -- Teste Sibylla: Virgil in church -- Epilogue: time regained.