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Virgil's Fourth Eclogue in the Italian Renaissance

L B T Houghton author

Format:Hardback

Publisher:Cambridge University Press

Published:19th Sep '19

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Virgil's Fourth Eclogue in the Italian Renaissance cover

This pioneering study reveals the central place held by Virgil's 'messianic' Eclogue in the art and literature of Renaissance Italy.

The first book-length study of any aspect of the reception of one of the most prominent and influential poems in European culture. It will appeal to students and scholars of Latin literature and classical reception, of political, religious and cultural history, and of early modern literature and art.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.

'This excellent volume will be a valuable guide and resource for scholars of Renaissance literature and of classical reception, and should be made available in every university library.' Syrithe Pugh, International Journal of the Classical Tradition

ISBN: 9781108499927

Dimensions: 235mm x 157mm x 34mm

Weight: 710g

390 pages