[The Table of Contents is listed below.]
As reported in the preface, the volume is a Festschrift for Giovanna Garbarino; as a tribute to her passion for music, the title comes from a famous Rossini’s opera. The wide array of contributions, carefully assembled by the editors, demonstrates the genuine affection and appreciation of friends and colleagues, but also mirrors the wide-ranging scholarly interests of the dedicatee, covering Augustan poetry and Roman theatre, Cicero and Seneca, philosophy and textual criticism.
The book is organized alphabetically by author, as is often the case with Festschriften. A thematic or chronological arrangement might perhaps have helped the reader to perceive the continuity of themes through such a wide range of subjects and periods as covered in the volume, which regrettably has neither indexes nor abstracts. I will therefore attempt to identify the main topics and briefly summarize them, even though it is impossible to do justice to all contributions in the brief space of a review.
The volume includes a number of papers on Greek topics. Paola Dolcetti (pp. 361-371) explains the figure of Alcimedon, the charioteer of Iliad 17, as a double of the better attested Automedon; Elisabetta Pitotto (pp. 711-722) defends the manuscript reading θνατός and the conjectural restoration διερός in Ibycus S 151, 23-26; Elisabetta Berardi (pp. 51-64) points out the importance of Pindaric references in the opening and conclusion of Aelius Aristides’ Hymn for the Asclepiads.
Alongside Greek poetry, a prominent topic is Greek philosophy. Luciana Repici’s essay (pp. 755-764) concerns Plato’s comparison of the use of images by artists and sophists with the use by philosophers. Three essays are on Aristotle’s politics: Lucio Bertelli (pp. 65-77) describes how the theory of justice (and especially of distributive justice, discussed in the fifth book of the Nicomachean Ethics) is applied to constitutions; Dina Micalella (pp. 629-646) shows how Aristotle evaluates the relation between rhetoric and politics; Michele Curnis (pp. 297-304) identifies the manuscript used by William of Moerbeke in his translation, considered an important witness for the text of Politics.
Three papers focus on lexical matters: Alessandro Garcea and Carla Bazzanella (pp. 437-449) analyze the Latin use of numerals expressing approximation; Giovanni Polara (pp. 723-732) investigates the etymologic and semantic connections between the Plautine rete iaculum and the word retiaculum, attested with different meanings in early Christian texts and in Apicius; Concetto Del Popolo (pp. 333-342) provides some examples of the use of speaking names in biblical, Medieval and proverbial Latin.
The bulk of the volume, however, is obviously devoted to Latin literature. Plautus is the subject of the piece of Valeria Lomanto (pp. 525-536), on the hexametric funerary epigram quoted by Gellius 1, 24, and of two articles dealing with individual passages: Laura Fiocchi (pp. 415-421) defends Amph. 481f., rejected by many scholars, and Mario Seita (pp. 821-830) comments on two Pseudolus passages mirroring poetry’s creative power: the metapoetic lines 401-405 and the first scene, with the evocative function of the tabellae.
Cicero is discussed from a philosophical point of view by Carlos Lévy (pp. 511-524, in French), who compares Cicero’s theory of language development with Lucretius’; from a philological point of view by Giuseppina Magnaldi (pp. 537-545), who refers to De finibus in order to solve some textual problems of part. 86f., and by Ermanno Malaspina (pp. 547-554, in Latin), who discloses, anticipating his forthcoming critical edition of Lucullus, some remarks on the recensio of the recentiores. Two essays deal with the letters Ad familiares, edited by Giovanna Garbarino in 2008: with reference to fam. 16, 9, Raffaella Tabacco (pp. 845-854) examines the meanings of the number 7 in medicine and music, and Alice Borgna (pp. 131-142) discusses some loci critici of the correspondence with Lucius Munatius Plancus ( fam. 10, 4; 14; 21; 24).
There are many essays on first-century B.C. poetry. Luca Mondin (pp. 659-672) points out the influence exercised on Catull. 1 not just by the proem, but also by the conclusion (the so-called Coronis) of Meleager’s Stephanos. Antonio Aloni (pp. 1-19) discusses two passages of the Aeneid : 1, 474-78, where Vergil, representing Troilus’ death, blends different mythological versions, and 3, 13-18, where the Thracian town founded by Aeneas is identified with Ainos. Using Virgilian examples ( ecl. 2, 12f.; Aen. 4, 23; 1, 88ff.; 1, 500-504; 4, 143-150), Marco Fernandelli (pp. 401-413) reflects on the limits of intertextuality.
Three contributions are devoted to Horace’s Odes. Alberto Cavarzere (pp. 183-199) reviews some apparently surprising Horatian remarks on Pindar, Anacreon and Plautus in the light of Quintilian’s distinction between rhythmus and metrum –a distinction employed also for a rereading of sat. 1, 4, 56ff. Isabella Gualandri (pp. 473-487) interprets the Priamel of carm. 1, 1—which many critics have viewed as monotonous and scarcely original—as a deliberate and highly allusive camouflage of the poet rather than as a sign of poetic immaturity. Emilio Pianezzola (pp. 685-692) analyses carm. 2, 20 with particular reference to the swan metamorphosis and to a probable Propertian allusion.
Two articles are on Propertian elegies: according to Valeria Viparelli (pp. 885-892), in Prop. 2, 23 the traditional argument borrowed from the genre of diatribe,, that affairs with courtesans and prostitutes are better than adultery, conceals the reflection of the poet on the service owed to his domina; Paolo Fedeli (pp. 385-399) suggests a new arrangement, and a new reading, for the first twenty lines of Prop. 4, 4.
Single essays are devoted to Ovid, Petronius, Vitruvius and Pliny the Younger respectively. Luigi Piacente (pp. 677-683) reflects upon the fate of the last six books of the Fasti, the existence of which seems to be testified by the same Ovid (especially trist. 2, 549) but that probably got lost soon; Alberto Borghini (pp. 121-129) connects the first part of the Widow of Ephesus tale with the folktale type called “specter bridegrooms” (Aarne-Thompson 365); Elisa Romano (pp. 781-788) points out the importance, in Vitruvius’ treatise and in its reception (Leon Battista Alberti, Alessandro Verri), of the concept of firmitas, viewed both in its pragmatic aspects and in its ideological meanings; Paolo Mastandrea (pp. 593-598) examines the first lines ascribed to Augurinus by Pliny ( epist. 4, 27).
In line with Giovanna Garbarino’s interests, there are numerous contributions on Seneca. Rita Degl’Innocenti Pierini (pp. 321-331) explores the highly rhetorical description of the fire that destroyed Lyon (Sen. epist. 91); Guido Bonelli (pp. 105-119) examines the paradoxes of Senecan ethics, paying particular attention to De providentia and Consolatio ad Marciam and to the relation between virtus and happiness; Gian Franco Gianotti (pp. 451-458) detects an allusion to Soph. Oed. C. 1704 in the quotation of a Senecan clausula occurring in Quintilian’s assessment of the philosopher ( inst. 10, 1, 125-131).
Luciano De Biasi (pp. 305-308) suggests for apocol. 11, 2 the reading tristes necessarios; as to Seneca’s tragedies, Federica Bessone (pp. 79-88) discusses the maxim Quod nolunt velint ( Thy. 212) with reference to Stoic thought on tyrannical power, and Giancarlo Mazzoli (pp. 599-608) offers a description of the different dynamics of furor characterizing Phaedra‘s main characters, and focuses particularly on the peculiar features of Hyppolitus’ furor, linked to lunar symbols, misanthropy and escape.
Two essays are on Martial: Marcella Guglielmo (pp. 489-499) surveys Martial’s meditation on time, with special reference to epigr. 1, 15, and Gabriella Moretti (pp. 673-676) identifies a lewd double entendre in apophor. 63, entitled tibiae.
From a historical perspective, Chiara de Filippis Cappai (pp. 309-319) reconstructs why Nero gave up the journeys in Achaia and Egypt which he had planned, according to Tacitus, for 64 A.D.
The book also collects many contributions on Late Antiquity and Christian literature, which mirror the Turin tradition of interest in the subject shown, as is confirmed by the wide-ranging treatment of this period in the third volume of Italo Lana’s and Armando Fellin’s Antologia della letteratura latina, which, as Domenico Lassandro (pp. 501-509) points out, is one of the first textbooks that devoted significant space to Christian literature.
Four papers deal with Church Fathers. Clementina Mazzucco (pp. 609-628) offers a reading of the section of De institutione virginis (paragraphs 16-34) where Ambrose, providing biblical instances, refutes prejudices against women, and Domenico Devoti (pp. 343-359) surveys the psychological interpretations of Augustine’s Confessions. According to Adele Monaci Castagno (pp. 647-657), Jerome, in his Life of Paul of Thebes, surpasses the model proposed by Athanasius in the Life of Anthony, thus presenting himself as an exegete of monasticism. Francesco Trisoglio (pp. 865-873) illustrates the moral forcefulness and lack of celebrative excess in the hagiographic sermons of Maximus of Turin.
On textual criticism, Guglielmo Ballaira (pp. 41-49) reconstructs the origin of the two surviving codices of Priscian’s panegyric to Anastasius, which come from a Visigothic antigraph, and Maria Rosaria Spanò (pp. 831-843) presents the tradition of two works of Gregory the Great, the Expositio in Cantica Canticorum and the Expositio in I Regum, raising the question of the authenticity of the latter, generally considered spurious.
Tracing the cultural context of western science from the fourth to the sixth century, Lellia Cracco Ruggini (pp. 279-296) dwells upon Cassiodorus’ pragmatic assessment of medicine; Massimo Manca (pp. 563-578) focuses on the Coena Cypriani to illustrate the notion of lectio ludicrior, i.e. wit, as a major factor in the evaluation of variants in humorous works.
Three essays are on Jewish topics: Corrado Martone (pp. 589-592) discusses the tradition of the Hebrew Bible; Ruben Riccardo Trevisan (pp. 855-864) reconstructs the political situation in Israel between the second and the first century B.C. on the basis of two Diodorus Siculus’ fragments ( bibl. 40, 2 and 3); Bruno Chiesa (pp. 205-213) focuses on the emendation and interpretation of the obscure περπωλή of Flav. Ios. ant. 14, 35.
Given the interdisciplinary character of the book, a number of contributors address various aspects of classical reception, from the Middle Ages to contemporary literature.
Antonella Borgo (pp. 143-161) illustrates the persistence of the theme of journey in the variants of Medea’s myth and in some related toponyms; Enrico V. Maltese (pp. 555-561) focuses on Maximus Planudes’ translation of Ovid’s Metamorphoses; Edoardo Bona (pp. 89-104) examines the Virgilian episodes enumerated by Gregory of Tours in the prologue of the Liber in gloria martyrum, connecting them with the controversy against pagan culture; Andrea Balbo and Giuseppe Noto (pp. 11-40) provide an annotated catalogue of the occurrences of the names of Latin authors in troubadour poetry.
Coming to the early modern period, Paola Pinotti (pp. 693-709) detects some elegiac patterns (esp. from Prop. 4, 4) in Torquato Tasso’s Erminia, mediated by the epic and Petrarchan tradition; Franco Marenco (pp. 579-588) surveys Ovid’s Fortleben during the Elizabethan era; Marina Scialuga (pp. 807-819) suggests that Electra’s presence in Mozart’s Idomeneo – and in the previous French libretto written by Danchet – may have something to do with the river with the same name in Crete, where the opera is set; Giovanni Cipriani and Tiziana Ragno (pp. 215-278) illustrate the iconography of Phaedra, mediated by the version of the myth given by Racine, in the works of two J.-L. David’s pupils, A.-L. Girodet and P.-N. Guérin.
Contemporary literature features in the papers of Pierpaolo Fornaro (pp. 423-436) on Euripides’ fortune not only in the work of Racine and Corneille, but also in the play of the Nigerian Nobel prize Wole Soyinka, and of Winifred Farrant Bevilacqua (pp. 373-383, in English) on the use of the Demeter-Persephone myth in the contemporary American poet Rita Dove.
The volume includes also essays on ancient and medieval history (Patrizia Cancian, Maria Luisa Porzio Gernia, Alessandro Roccati), history of the Italian language (Claudio Bracco), Italian and German literature (Gioacchino Chiarini, Amedeo Alessandro Raschieri, Chiara Sandrin, Barbara Zandrino), history of music and art (Alberto Rizzuti, Giovanni Romano), and philosophy (Silvia Giorcelli Bersani, Ugo Maria Ugazio).
The editing is accurate enough, and misprints are very few; bibliographical references, however, are inconsistently given, partly in the footnotes, partly in Harvard style. On the whole, this volume offers a stimulating and up-to-date survey of an impressive range of research fields, and a very impressive tribute to a highly esteemed Italian scholar.
Table of Contents
Tabula gratulatoria
Valeria Lomanto, Sergio A. Cecchin, Gian Franco Gianotti, Premessa
Antonio Aloni, Due note virgiliane
Andrea Balbo – Giuseppe Noto, I nomi dei classici latini nella poesia dei trovatori
Guglielmo Ballaira, Sulle tracce della perduta recensio Visigothica del Panegirico di Prisciano
Elisabetta Berardi, Quando Asclepio mostra il principio (Elio Aristide, Or. 38; Pindaro, fr. 108 Maehler)
Lucio Bertelli, La giustizia politica in Aristotele
Federica Bessone, Quod nolunt velint (Seneca, Thyestes 212)
Edoardo Bona, Non ego Saturni fugam. Cicerone, Virgilio nel Prologo al Liber in gloria martyrum di Gregorio di Tours
Guido Bonelli, Seneca e i limiti dell’etica stoica
Alberto Borghini, Tipi o sottotipi narrativi nel racconto della matrona di Efeso: una schematizzazione folklorico-strutturale
Alice Borgna, Note filologiche all’epistolario tra Cicerone e Lucio Munazio Planco ( fam. 10, 1-24)
Antonella Borgo, Il lungo viaggio di Medea
Claudio Bracco, It. anfitrióne, (anfitrióna)
Patrizia Cancian, Scrittura e culture femminili del potere in dinastie d’ufficio del secolo XI
Alberto Cavarzere, Metro e ritmo in Orazio (da carm. 4, 2, 11-12 a sat. 1, 4, 56-62)
Gioachino Chiarini, Due silenzi di Dante
Bruno Chiesa, Volute o voluttà? A proposito di Flavio Giuseppe, Antiquitates Iudaicae 14, 34-36. Ovvero dell’importanza del latino per capire un autore ebreo che scrive in greco
Giovanni Cipriani – Tiziana Ragno, Fotogrammi di Fedra (1801-1802). Girodet, Guérin, Racine e l’eco di una posa antica
Lellia Cracco Ruggini, Cassiodoro e la medicina: l’evoluzione del concetto di utilità
Michele Curnis, Il codice Marc. Lat. 2527, Muretus e la Politica di Aristotele
Luciano De Biasi, I parenti di Claudio. Nota a Seneca, apoc. 11, 2
Chiara de Filippis Cappai, Riflettendo sul principato di Nerone. La rinuncia ai viaggi in Oriente nell’anno 64
Rita Degl’Innocenti Pierini, Tutto in una sola notte: Seneca e la ‘morte’ di Lione ( epist. 91)
Concetto Del Popolo, L’occasione fa il nome adatto
Domenico Devoti, Le scienze psicologiche e le Confessioni: bilancio e prospettive
Paola Dolcetti, La figura dell’auriga nella tradizione epica: Automedonte, Alcimedonte e i ricordi di Pilo
Winifred Farrant Bevilacqua, «Through sunlight into flowers she walked, and was pulled down»: Demeter and Persephone in Rita Dove’s Mother Love
Paolo Fedeli, Prop. 4, 4, 1-22, revisited
Marco Fernandelli, Problemi dell’intertestualità: qualche esempio virgiliano ( ecl. 2, 12-13; Aen. 4, 23; 1, 88 ss.; 1, 500-504 e 4, 143-150)
Laura Fiocchi, Nota a Plauto, Amphitruo 481-482
Pierpaolo Fornaro, Un tragico trasecolato
Alessandro Garcea – Carla Bazzanella, Tria verba. Numeri e approssimazione in latino
Gian Franco Gianotti, Quintiliano, Seneca e l’ombra di Edipo
Silvia Giorcelli Bersani, Hannah Arendt e l’eredità di Roma. Riflessioni sull’ auctoritas
Isabella Gualandri, Mimetizzazioni oraziane. Minima su un’ode molto studiata (1, 1 Maecenas atavis)
Marcella Guglielmo, Carpe diem, Giulio! (Mart. epigr. 1, 15)
Domenico Lassandro, L’età tardoantica nell’Antologia della letteratura latina di Lana-Fellin
Carlos Lévy, Lucrèce et Cicéron à propos du pouvoir de la parole
Valeria Lomanto, Plauto e l’esametro
Giuseppina Magnaldi, Critica del testo e filosofia in Cic. part. 86-88
Ermanno Malaspina, Primae notulae ad Luculli Ciceroniani recentiores recensendos
Enrico V. Maltese, Ancora su Planude traduttore di Ovidio (e sui suoi editori moderni)
Massimo Manca, ‘Scusi, non ho capito la battuta.’ La tradizione della Coena Cypriani e il suo sense of humour
Franco Marenco, Metempsicosi eccellenti: Ovidio e gli elisabettiani
Corrado Martone, Osservazioni sulla formazione del testo biblico e la testimonianza di Qumran e delle antiche versioni
Paolo Mastandrea, Veteres, novi e novelli: alle origini della poesia di Augurino (Plin. epist. 4, 27)
Giancarlo Mazzoli, Dinamiche del furor nella Fedra di Seneca: Ippolito
Clementina Mazzucco, Ambrogio contro i pregiudizi sulle donne ( De institutione virginis 16-34)
Dina Micalella, Retorica, politica ed etica. La città e i logoi in Aristotele
Adele Monaci Castagno, Vitae in dialogo: la Vita di Paolo di Tebe di Gerolamo e la Vita di Antonio di Atanasio
Luca Mondin, Catullo 1 e Meleagro
Gabriella Moretti, Il monaulos: strumenti musicali e pointe oscena in Marziale, Apophoreta 63
Luigi Piacente, I Fasti di Ovidio opus ruptum
Emilio Pianezzola, Orazio: l’ode 2, 20. Autoironia e autobiografia della sphragís
Paola Pinotti, Erminia eroina elegiaca? Properzio in Tasso
Elisabetta Pitotto, Note testuali e interpretative a Ibico, S 151, vv. 23-26: limiti umani ed encomio poetico
Giovanni Polara, Rete iaculum / retiaculum
Maria Luisa Porzio Gernia, La funzione del dio Fiso(vio) nel sistema teologico iguvino
Amedeo Alessandro Raschieri, Bonino Mombrizio traduttore dell’Epitome grammaticale di Costantino Lascaris
Luciana Repici, Platone e il buon uso delle immagini
Alberto Rizzuti, Celibe Largo
Alessandro Roccati, Aspetti della cultura egiziana nel periodo dell’affermazione dell’egemonia di Roma
Elisa Romano, Ratio firmitatis. Un concetto vitruviano e la sua fortuna
Giovanni Romano, Toesca e il gotico internazionale in Piemonte
Chiara Sandrin, Lo spirito del fiume. Sul significato del centauro nella poesia di Hölderlin
Marina Scialuga, Il viaggio-non viaggio di Elettra
Mario Seita, Magia di poeta: Plauto, Pseud. 401-405 e 20-73
Maria Rosaria Spanò, Le Expositiones in I Regum e in Cantica Canticorum di Gregorio Magno: una storia comune, due esiti opposti
Raffaella Tabacco, Medicina, musica e il numero sette in Cicerone, fam. 16, 9, 3
Ruben Riccardo Trevisan, Frammenti di storia giudaica: Diodoro Siculo 40, 2
Francesco Trisoglio, S. Massimo di Torino agiografo
Ugo Maria Ugazio, Esperienza ermeneutica e medicina antica in H.-G. Gadamer
Valeria Viparelli, Properzio 2, 23 e le inattese scelte di un poeta elegiaco
Barbara Zandrino, Deformità e «capriccioso crottesco» nel Trattato de’ ridicoli di Emanuele Tesauro
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