Early Modern and Modern Commentaries on Virgil

Commentaries on classical authors are more and more becoming a privileged field of study for the specialists in the reception of the classics. As Virgil is one of the most influential, widely read, and intensively commented upon classical authors throughout the ages, the study of the commentaries to his texts is especially rewarding, both as a tool for a better understanding of those very texts, and as a window onto the cultural features of the age in which each commentary was produced. This volume collects twenty-six papers from a conference held at the University of Rome “Tor Vergata” in June 2021. The essays cover a wide chronological span from the Renaissance to present day, and address the topic of Virgil’s commentaries from a variety of points of view. Some papers are devoted to the study of single commentators, both well-known, such as La Cerda, Heyne, and Conington, and more marginal to the canon, such as Nannius, Willichius, and Keightley. Wide-ranging themes encompassed by other papers include metamorphosis, Egypt and Africa, and the rediscovey of Homer in early modern commentaries. Also considered are the different geographical and cultural areas of production, from the commentaries by Jesuit scholars to the reception of Virgil in modern Russia. The volume will be of interest both to scholars interested in the interpretation of Virgil’s texts and to scholars of classical reception.