Tidsskrift for renæssanceforskning 9 2015 VITAE POMPONIANAE: Lives of Classical Writers in Fifteenth-Century Roman Humanism ed. Marianne Pade VITAE POMPONIANAE Renæssanceforum 9 • 2015 • www.renaessanceforum.dk Preface The present volume contains the proceedings of the conference “Vitae Pom- ponianae: Biografie di autori antichi nell’Umanesimo romano/Lives of Clas- sical Writers in Fifteenth-Century Roman Humanism” held at the Danish and American Academies in Rome 23–24 April 2013. The conference was organ- ised by Giancarlo ABBAMONTE (Università di Napoli Federico II), Chris CELENZA and Marianne PADE (of the American and Danish Academies in Rome respectively), Johann RAMMINGER (Thesaurus linguae Latinae, Mün- chen/Wien), Fabio STOK (Università di Roma Tor Vergata, which covered participants’ travel expenses), and by the REPERTORIUM POMPONIANUM. The aim of the conference was to investigate the extraordinary surge in the production of lives of ancient Roman writers which we find in late fifteenth- century Roman humanism. Many of these lives either break with the medie- val tradition or deal with writers of whom no previous lives existed. The majority of them were compiled by Pomponio Leto (1428-1498) and his circle, a group that has been the object of renewed scholarly interest during the last fifteen years. Suffice it here to mention the 2008-monograph by Ma- ria Accame, Pomponio Leto. Vita e insegnamento, Biblioteca pomponiana (Tivoli), the conference held to celebrate Pomponio’s life and work in Teg- giano in 2008, the proceedings of which have been published as Pomponio Leto tra identità locale e cultura internazionale, edd. Anna Modigliani, Patricia Osmond, Marianne Pade, Johann Ramminger, RR inedita 48, saggi. Roma 2011), and last but not least, the on-line bio-bibliographical Repertorium Pomponianum (www.repertoriumpomponianum.it). It is well known how Pomponio for teaching purposes compiled bio- graphical sketches of the more important writers he lectured on at the Ro- man Studium. In the works of his pupils and collaborators we find the same interest. The participants in the conference were invited to discuss how an ancient writer was depicted in these lives, which biographical models they followed, and to what degree the lives in question might be said to be inno- vative, to break with a medieval biographical tradition of the accessus. At the conference, papers were presented on the lives of Theocritus (Trine Jo- hanne Arlund HASS, Aarhus University), Varro (Maria ACCAME, Sapienza Università di Roma), Sallust (Patricia OSMOND, Iowa State University), II VITAE POMPONIANAE Renæssanceforum 9 • 2015 • www.renaessanceforum.dk Virgil (Fabio STOK, Università di Roma Tor Vergata), Lucretius (Ada PALMER, then Texas A&M University, now University of Chicago), Ovid (Frank COULSON, Ohio State University), Seneca (Lucia GUALDO ROSA, Sapienza Università di Roma), Lucan (Elettra CAMPERLINGO, Università di Salerno), Silius Italicus (Frances MUECKE, University of Sydney), Statius (Marianne PADE, Accademia di Danimarca), Martial (Johann RAMMINGER, Thesaurus linguae Latinae – München/Wien), and Juvenal (Giancarlo ABBAMONTE, Università di Napoli Federico II). The papers were all fol- lowed by lively discussions from which this volume has profited im- mensely. At the end of the two days the main issues that had been debated were lucidly summed up by Concetta BIANCA (Università di Firenze): though each life is unique in the problems it poses, the conference showed that the approach of Pomponio and his circle was indeed novel and that the texts discussed in the present volume for the most part constitute a critical review of the medieval tradition and an iter ad fontes. This we hope will also be evident from the individual articles in this volume. Not only do they discuss one or more ‘Pomponian’ lives of an ancient writer; as some survive only in manuscript form and others in early imprints, many articles also con- tain critical editions of these texts, with English or Italian translation and – as far as possible – an extensive apparatus fontium. A number of these Lives will be also published in the Repertorium Pomponianum. * The editor wishes to thank the board of Renæssanceforum for accepting the manuscript and the contributors both for their articles and for their willing- ness to comply with editorial suggestions. The editorial process has been long and a number of colleagues have generously assisted in various ways. My thanks especially go to Giancarlo Abbamonte, Camilla Horster, Patricia Osmond, Johann Ramminger and Fabio Stok. Marianne Pade Rome, 23 June 2015 III VITAE POMPONIANAE Renæssanceforum 9 • 2015 • www.renaessanceforum.dk Table of Contents Trine Johanne Arlund HASS, Pastoral Conventions in Martino File- tico’s Vita Theocriti 1 Maria ACCAME, Le vite di Varrone nei corsi di Pomponio Leto 19 Patricia OSMOND, Pomponio Leto’s Life of Sallust: between vita and invectiva 35 Fabio STOK, Virgil’s Biography between Rediscovery and Revision 63 Ada PALMER, The Use and Defense of the Classical Canon in Pomponio Leto’s Biography of Lucretius 87 Frank COULSON, The Life of Ovid by Pomponius Laetus 107 Frances MUECKE, “Suberat imago Syllii Italici…”: Pomponio Leto and fifteenth-century Lives of Silius Italicus 117 Marianne PADE, The Vitae Statii of Pomponio Leto and Niccolò Perotti 139 Johann RAMMINGER, Perotti’s Life of Martial and its Literary Con- text 157 Giancarlo ABBAMONTE, Materiali biografici antichi su Giovenale recuperati da Domizio Calderini 177 Vitae Pomponianae: Lives of Classical Writers in Fifteenth-Century Roman Humanism, ed. Marianne Pade, Renæssanceforum 9 • 2015. ISSN 1902-5041. URL: www.renaessanceforum.dk/rf_9_2015.htm IV P ASTORAL C ONVENTIONS IN M ARTINO F ILETICO’ S D E V ITA T HEOCRITI By Trine Arlund Hass Martino Filetico (1430–1490) recounts the life of Theocritus in De Vita Theocriti, a brief text of thirty verses. In the traditional description of Renaissance pastoral poetry, Virgil is considered the primary model and the best example, and the authoritative commentators praise his qualities by comparing them to Theocritus’: Servius describes Theocritus’ style as plain and simple, whereas Virgil has added an allegorical layer to the bucolic verses, which makes his poetry more complex. This paper examines how Filetico describes Theocritus’ status and poetry, and how these descriptions relate to normative views on bucolic poetry in general, and on Theocritus. Martino Filetico (c. 1430–c. 1490) worked as a teacher.1 He was a student of Guarino Veronese. On Guarino’s recommendation, he went to Urbino around 1454 or 1455 to teach the oldest son of Federico da Montefeltro, Buonconte, and Bernardino, son of Ottaviano degli Ubaldini. It was proba- bly during this stay in Urbino that he translated the first seven Idylls of Theocritus, preserved in MS. 84 in the Biblioteca del Seminario di Padova.2 The translation was revised, and this revised edition was first published in Rome by the publishing house of Eucharius Silber between 1480 and 1482.3 1 On the life and works of Martino Filetico, I follow Bianca 1997. 2 Dedicated to Alfonso V of Aragon, who died June 27 1458. Consequently, this date is a terminus ante quem for the translation (Bianca 1997). On this first edition of the translation, see Arbizzoni 1993. 3 Editions accompanied by the Vita, all in print: Rome: Eucharius Silber, c. 1480-1482, ISTC it00146000 (the imprint does not have a kolophon; the attribution to Silber is confirmed by a poem of fourteen verses at the end of the little volume "Idem Phileticus ad Eucharium Argirion impressorem". For the dating, see Dell’Oro 1983, 429 note 9). Milan: Simon Magniagus?, c. 1483, ISTC it00146400 (Vita before translation. Contains poem to Eucharius Silber and is suggested to have been printed by him in GW M45830); Venice: Bernardinus Venetus de Vitalibus, c. 1498-1500, ISTC it00145000 (Vita missing. The last words of the edition is: “FINIS// Phileticus de vita Theocriti in libro de poetis antiquis”, f. 22a. As Dell’Oro writes, the last page must not have been printed by mistake. Dell’Oro 1983, 429); 1 VITAE POMPONIANAE Renæssanceforum 9 • 2015 • www.renaessanceforum.dk Trine Arlund Hass: Pastoral conventions in Filetico’s De Vita Theocriti In Eucharius Silber’s edition, as well as in several other printed editions, the translation is accompanied by a dedication to Federico da Montefeltro, and by the text that will be the focus of this paper, a short biography of Theocri- tus, which is presented as an excerpt from a work entitled De Poetis An- tiquis. After both his students died of the plague in 1458, Filetico left Urbino for Pesaro and the court of Alessandro Sforza to tutor Battista and Constanzo Sforza, but he returned to Urbino with Battista Sforza in 1460 and stayed there until 1467, as tutor for her and for Federico’s illegitimate son, Anto- nio. During this time, he probably began to work on the De Poetis Antiquis.4 The work was most likely intended to have a didactic purpose, just as his De Viris Illustribus, also written in Urbino between 1460 and 1462.5 Filetico went to Rome in 1467, where he came in contact with Pomponio Leto and Bessarion, among others, and where he published his translation of Theocri- tus with Silber, the publisher closely connected to the Roman academy.6 De Poetis Antiquis is not extant as a complete work, and it is uncertain whether Filetico ever completed it.7 We know that it included his life of Theocritus, since the Vita is introduced as part of De Poetis Antiquis, in the edition of Filetico’s translation printed by Eucharius Silber – the headline reads: “Phileticus de vita Theocriti in libro De poetis antiquis”.8 Similarly, the introduction to a life of Horace at the end of a commentary on the Ars Poetica attributed to Filetico9 states that it comes from “liber De poetis an- tiquis”,10 and the same commentary mentions a life of Homer, also as part of Venice: Bernardinus Venetus de Vitalibus, 1499, ISTC it00145400 (Vita after translation).