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Hellenic Verse and Christian Humanism: From Nonnus to Musurus

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‘By Apollo, no true Greek would suffer a line of yours to pass his lips!’

Henrik Ibsen, Emperor Julian, act III, sc. 2 (Julian to Apollinaris)

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Notes

  1. Useful, updated overviews: A. Cameron, ‘Poetry and Literary Culture in Late Antiquity’, in Approaching Late Antiquity, ed. S. Swain, Oxford, 2004, pp. 327–54; G. Agosti, ‘Greek Poetry’, in Oxford Handbook of Late Antiquity, ed. S. F. Johnson, Oxford, 2012, pp. 361–404 (361–3 on the recent studies); G. Agosti, ‘Greek Poetry in Late Antique Alexandria: Between Culture and Religion’, in The Alexandrian Tradition, ed. L. A. Guichard et al., Berne, 2014, pp. 287–311; G. Agosti, ‘Cristianizzazione della poesia greca e dialogo interculturale’, in Pagans and Christians in the Roman Empire, ed. P. Brown and R. Lizzi Testa, Zurich and Münster, 2011, pp. 193–214; for a less optimistic perspective, however, see G. A. Cecconi, ‘Contenuti religiosi delle discipline scolastiche’, ibid., pp. 224–43.

  2. G. Bowersock, Hellenism in Late Antiquity, Michigan, 1990; L. Török, Transfigurations of Hellenism: Aspects of Late Antique Art in Egypt AD 250–700, Leiden and Boston, 2005.

  3. K. Weitzmann, Greek Mythology in Byzantine Art, Princeton, 1951, p. 4.

  4. A. Cameron, ‘Poets and Pagans in Byzantine Egypt’, in Egypt in the Byzantine World 300–700, ed. R. Bagnall, Cambridge, 2007, pp. 21–46 (29).

  5. G. Agosti, ‘Usurper, imiter, communiquer: le dialogue interculturel dans la poésie grecque chrétienne de l’Antiquité tardive’, in L’oiseau et le poisson, ed. N. Belayche and J.-D. Dubois, Paris, 2011, pp. 275–99, esp. 293 and 277.

  6. See, most recently, R. Shorrock, The Myth of Paganism, London, 2011, on the cultural meaning of the identification between Dionysus and Christ, on which see also Cameron, ‘Poets and Pagans’ (n. 4 above), p. 37; P. Chuvin, ‘Revisiting Old Problems: Literature and Religion in the Dionysiaca’, in Nonnus of Panopolis in Context, ed. K. Spanoudakis, Berlin and New York, 2014, pp. 3–18.

  7. See L. Pagani, ‘Language Correctness (Hellenismos) and its Criteria’, in Brill’s Companion to Ancient Greek Scholarship, ed. F. Montanari, S. Matthaios and A. Rengakos, Leiden 2015, pp. 798–848. On the relationship with Homer and poetry, see F. Pontani, ‘Ex Homero grammatica’, in Ancient Scholarship and Grammar, ed. S. Matthaios, F. Montanari and A. Rengakos, Berlin and New York, 2011, pp. 87–103.

  8. Julian, Oeuvres complètes, ed. J. Bidez, 3rd ed., I.2, Paris, 1972, 61.422a–424b (this is no. 36 in Julian, Letters. Epigrams. Against the Galilaeans. Fragments, transl. and ed. W. C. Wright, Cambridge MA, 1923) (at 423a: ‘ἄτοπον γὰρ οἶμαι τοὺς ἐξηγουμένους τὰ τούτων ἀτιμάζειν τοὺς ὑπ᾿ αὐτῶν τιμηθέντας θεούς’). See Bowersock, Hellenism (n. 2 above), pp. 11–12. Cf. Henrik Ibsen, Emperor Julian, act IV, sc. 2: ‘Henceforth you will no longer be allowed to interpret our ancient poets and philosophers, for I regard it as unreasonable to let you suck knowledge and skill from sources in the truth of which you do not in the least believe.’

  9. A. Kaldellis, Hellenism in Byzantium, Cambridge, 2007, pp. 146–54. K. O. Sandnes, The Gospel ‘According to Homer and Virgil’, Leiden and Boston, 2011, pp. 84–97, gives an overview of the evidence. See also K. O. Sandnes, The Challenge of Homer, London, 2009, pp. 160–72.

  10. Gregory of Nazianzus, Discours 4–5. Contre Julien, transl. and ed. J. Bernardi, Paris, 1983, IV.5. Translation from Bowersock, Hellenism (n. 2 above), pp. 11–12 (adapted).

  11. See also Gregory of Nazianzus, Discours 42–43, transl. and ed. J. Bernardi, Paris, 1992, 43.21; H.-G. Nesselrath, ‘Die Christen und die heidnische Bildung’, in Leitbilder der Spätantike, ed. J. Dummer and M. Vielberg, Stuttgart, 1999, pp. 79–100 (92–5); K. Demoen, ‘The Attitude towards Greek Poetry in the Verse of Gregory Nazianzen’, in Early Christian Poetry, ed. J. den Boeft and A. Hilhorst, Leiden, 1993, pp. 235–52 (252); Kaldellis, Hellenism (n. 9 above), pp. 158–63, on Gregory’s approach.

  12. Sandnes, Challenge (n. 9 above); id., Gospel (n. 9 above), pp. 65–84; Nesselrath, ‘Die Christen’ (n. 11 above), pp. 87–9; A. Cameron, Christianity and the Rhetoric of Empire, Berkeley, 1991; ead., ‘Education and Literary Culture’, in The Cambridge Ancient History, XIII, Cambridge, 1998, pp. 665–706 (667–79); L. Miguélez-Cavero, Poems in Context: Greek Poems in the Egyptian Thebaid: 200–600 AD, Berlin and New York, 2008, pp. 191–6 and 209–10.

  13. See the excellent overview by C. Simelidis, Selected Poems of Gregory of Nazianzus, Göttingen, 2009, pp. 30–46; Cameron, ‘Poets and Pagans’ (n. 4 above), pp. 30–31; Cameron, ‘Poetry’ (n. 1 above), p. 347; Demoen, ‘The Attitude’ (n. 11 above), also stressing the contradictions in Gregory’s oeuvre; Agosti, ‘Greek Poetry’ (n. 1 above), p. 366; J. A. McGuckin, ‘Gregory: The Rhetorician as Poet’, in Gregory of Nazianzus: Images and Reflections, ed. J. Børtnes and T. Hägg, Copenhagen, 2006, pp. 193–212.

  14. Socrates, Historia Ecclesiastica, ed. G. C. Hansen, Berlin, 1995, III.16.1 and III.16.3.

  15. C. Markschies, ‘Lehrer, Schüler, Schule’, in Religiöse Vereine in der römischen Antike, ed. U. Egelhaaf-Gaiser and A. Schäfer, Tübingen, 2012, pp. 97–120 (109–10); Nesselrath, ‘Die Christen’ (n. 11 above), pp. 84–8; Cecconi, ‘Contenuti religiosi’ (n. 1 above), pp. 234–5.

  16. P. Speck, ‘Sokrates Scholastikos über die beiden Apollinarioi’, Philologus, 141, 1997, pp. 362–9. See Sandnes, Gospel (n. 9 above), pp. 97–105, stressing that the Apollinarioi also used other metres, ‘so that no form of the Greek language remained unfamiliar to the Christians’ (p. 98). For a sober discussion, see Simelidis, Selected Poems (n. 13 above), pp. 24–6.

  17. G. Agosti, ‘L’epica biblica greca nell’età tardoantica’, in La Scrittura infinita, ed. F. Stella, Florence, 2001, pp. 67–104 (85–93); Cameron, ‘Poets and Pagans’ (n. 4 above), pp. 29–30; Sandnes, Gospel (n. 9 above), pp. 103–5.

  18. Agosti, ‘Usurper’ (n. 5 above), pp. 277–8; Agosti, ‘Cristianizzazione’ (n. 1 above), pp. 195–9; Cameron, ‘Poetry’ (n. 1 above).

  19. One might cite Nilus of Ancyra’s epistle II.49 (available in Patrologia Graeca, ed. J.-P. Migne, LXXIX, Paris, 1865, col. 221b–c) against Apollinarios τὸν δυσσεβῆ καὶ καινοτόμον … πολλὰ λίαν μετρήσαντα καὶ ἐποποιήσαντα καὶ ματαιοπονήσαντα καὶ παντὶ καιρῷ ἐν λόγοις ἀνοήτοις κατατριβέντα (‘the impious innovator … who wrote so much in metre, in epic fashion and in his vain style, being constantly versed in absurd writings’); but it is by no means a mainstream attitude: see Simelidis, Selected Poems (n. 13 above), pp. 27–9.

  20. Cameron, ‘Poets and Pagans’ (n. 4 above), p. 39.

  21. On the genre of paraphrase in late antiquity see Miguélez-Cavero, Poems in Context (n. 12 above), pp. 309–16. See also R. Green, Latin Epics of the New Testament, Oxford, 2006; Agosti, ‘Cristianizzazione’ (n. 1 above), pp. 202–3.

  22. Agosti, ‘Greek Poetry’ (n. 1 above), p. 372.

  23. P. W. A. T. van der Laan, ‘Imitation créative dans le Carmen Paschale de Sedulius’, in Early Christian Poetry, ed. J. den Boeft and A. Hilhorst, Leiden, 1993, pp. 135–66; K. Thraede, ‘Epos’, Reallexikon für Antike und Christentum, ed. E. Dassmann et al., V, Stuttgart, 1962, pp. 983–1042 (1034–42); Nonnus of Panopolis, Parafrasi del Vangelo di San Giovanni. Canto V, ed. G. Agosti, Florence, 2003, pp. 89–92.

  24. Nonnus of Panopolis, Parafrasi, ed. Agosti, (n. 23 above), pp. 100–102.

  25. See H. Hagendahl, Latin Fathers and the Classics, Göteborg, 1958, pp. 382–95; van der Laan, ‘Imitation créative’ (n. 23 above), pp. 150–64.

  26. Agosti, ‘Greek Poetry’ (n. 1 above), pp. 378–80.

  27. See Agosti, ‘Usurper’ (n. 5 above), pp. 283–4; Agosti, ‘Cristianizzazione’ (n. 1 above), pp. 199–200 and 204–10; id., ‘L’epica’ (n. 17 above), pp. 68–73.

  28. Nonnus of Panopolis, Parafrasi, ed. Agosti (n. 23 above), pp. 95–102.

  29. Agosti, ‘L’epica’ (n. 17 above), pp. 87–9; A. Faulkner, ‘Faith and Fidelity in Biblical Epic’, in Nonnus of Panopolis in Context, ed. K. Spanoudakis, Berlin and New York, 2014, pp. 195–210, with earlier bibliography.

  30. Zonaras, Epitome historiarum, ed. T. Büttner-Wobst, Bonn, 1897, p. 62, ll. 2–4: ‘ἵν᾿ ἀντὶ τῶν Ἑλληνικῶν μαθημάτων ταῦτα οἱ νέοι μανθάνοντες τήν τε γλῶσσαν ἐξελληνίζωνται καὶ τὰ μέτρα διδάσκωνται’; see Simelidis, Selected Poems (n. 13 above), p. 26.

  31. G. Agosti, ‘Niveaux de style, littérarité, poétiques’, in «Doux remède…» Poésie et poétique à Byzance, ed. P. Odorico, Paris, 2009, pp. 99–119 (113).

  32. See Simelidis, Selected Poems (n. 13 above), pp. 77–9. It should be further noted that a set of mythographical scholia to Gregory of Nazianzus’s Oration 4 (and 5, 39 and 43) have been (wrongly) attributed to Nonnus of Panopolis: see Pseudo-Nonniani in IV orationes Gr. Nazianzeni commentarii, ed. J. Nimmo Smith, Turnhout, 1992, esp. p. 8.

  33. ‘Ein Schulbuch der Grammatik mit ausschließlich christlichen (biblischen?) Beispielen’, according to Speck, ‘Sokrates’ (n. 16 above), p. 364; ‘a book which included how Christians could cope with Greek literature’, for Sandnes, Gospel (n. 9 above), p. 100, n. 111.

  34. Kaldellis, Hellenism (n. 9 above), p. 163; H. Rahner, Greek Myths and Christian Mystery, New York, 1963; Griechische Mythologie und frühes Christentum, ed. R. von Haehling, Darmstadt, 2005; W. Liebeschuetz, ‘Pagan Mythology in the Christian Empire’, International Journal of the Classical Tradition, 2, 1995, pp. 193–208.

  35. On this turning-point, see F. Pontani, ‘Scholarship in the Byzantine Empire’, in Brill’s Companion to Ancient Greek Scholarship (n. 7 above), pp. 298–300, with further bibliography.

  36. A. Kaldellis, ‘Classical Scholarship in Twelfth-Century Byzantium’, in Medieval Greek Commentaries on the Nicomachean Ethics, ed. C. Barber and D. Jenkins, Leiden and Boston, 2009, pp. 1–40 (1–7); P. Agapitos, ‘Teachers, Pupils and Imperial Power in Eleventh-Century Byzantium’, in Pedagogy and Power, ed. N. Livingstone and Y. L. Too, Cambridge and New York, 1998, pp. 170–91 (171–4); Pontani, ‘Scholarship’ (n. 35 above), pp. 301–2, with updated bibliography.

  37. On opheleia, see, e.g., Sandnes, Challenge (n. 9 above), pp. 218–30; L. Bossina, ‘La chiesa bizantina e la tradizione classica’, Humanitas, 58, 2003, pp. 64–84.

  38. P. Magdalino, ‘Hellenism and Nationalism in Byzantium’, in id., Tradition and Transformation in Medieval Byzantium, London, 1991, pp. 1–29 (11), with special reference to the Comnenian age.

  39. W. Treadgold, ‘The Macedonian Renaissance’, in Renaissances before the Renaissance, Stanford, 1984, pp. 75–98; id., The Byzantine Revival, Stanford, 1988.

  40. M. Lauxtermann, Byzantine Poetry from Pisides to Geometres, Vienna, 2003; id., ‘La poesia’, in Lo spazio letterario del Medioevo, ed. G. Cavallo and G. de Gregorio, III.1, Rome, 2004, pp. 301–43.

  41. A. Cameron, Christianity and the Rhetoric (n. 12 above).

  42. Agosti, ‘L’epica’ (n. 17 above), 100–102.

  43. E. M. van Opstall, Jean Géomètre. Poèmes en hexamètres et en distiques élégiaques, Leiden and Boston, 2008; ead., ‘Poésie, rhétorique et mémoire littéraire chez Jean Géomètre’, in «Doux remède…» (n. 31 above), p. 229–44.

  44. See M. Cardin, ‘Teaching Homer through (Annotated) Poetry: John Tzetzes’ Carmina Iliaca’, in Brill’s Companion to Prequels, Sequels and Retellings of Classical Epic, ed. R. Simms, Leiden-Boston 2018, pp. 90–114.

  45. J. Martin, Histoire du texte des Phénomènes d’Aratos, Paris, 1956, pp. 295–9; F. Pontani, ‘The World on a Fingernail’, Traditio, 65, 2010, pp. 77–100; id., ‘Esametri nonniani e mappae mundi’, in Intorno al papiro di Artemidoro, ed. C. Gallazzi and B. Kramer, II, Milan, 2012, pp. 197–217; Maximus Planudes, Idyllium, ed. F. M. Pontani, Padua, 1973. See now, I. Taxidis, Les épigrammes de Maxime Planude, ed. I. Taxidis, Berlin and Boston, 2017.

  46. MS Heidelberg, Universitätsbibliothek, Pal. Gr. 23, p. 569: ‘τέρψιν οἰκείαν τὴν ἀπαγγελίαν τῶν ἐπιγραμμάτων, οὐ τὸν νοῦν ποιούμενος’: see Anthologia Palatina, ed. C. Preisendanz, Leiden, 1911, p. xli.

  47. G. A. Karla, ‘Dr. Bowdler in Byzanz?’, Classica et Mediaevalia, 57, 2006, pp. 213–38; F. Valerio, ‘Planudeum’, Jahrbuch der Österreichischen Byzantinistik, 61, 2011, pp. 229–36.

  48. MS Venice, Biblioteca Marciana, Marc. Gr. 481, fol. 122v; translation from R. Browning, ‘Tradition and Originality in Literary Criticism and Scholarship’, in Originality in Byzantine Literature, Art and Music, ed. A. R. Littlewood, Oxford, 1995, pp. 17–28 (21); Pontani, ‘Scholarship’ (n. 35 above), p. 414.

  49. See N. Vakonakis, Das griechische Drama auf dem Weg nach Byzanz, Tübingen, 2011, pp. 97–104; W. Hörandner, ‘Lexikalische Beobachtungen zum Christos paschon’, in Studien zur byzantinischen Lexikographie, ed. E. Trapp, Vienna, 1988, pp. 183–202; F. Pontani, ‘Homer, the Bible and Beyond’, Classical Quarterly, 56, 2006, pp. 661–4. For the attribution, see Gregory of Nazianzus, La Passion du Christ, ed. A. Tuilier, Paris, 1969; F. Trisoglio, San Gregorio di Nazianzo e il Christus patiens, Florence, 1996.

  50. J. Seznec, The Survival of the Pagan Gods, Princeton, 1972.

  51. See A. Buck, L’eredità classica nelle letterature neolatine del Rinascimento, Brescia, 1990, pp. 247–69; E. Panofsky, Studies in Iconology, New York, 1939; E. Garin, ‘Le favole antiche’, in id., Medioevo e Rinascimento, Bari, 1963, pp. 66–89. See also D. C. Allen, Mysteriously Meant, Baltimore, 1970.

  52. Garin, ‘Favole antiche’ (n. 51 above), p. 73; D. Lummus, ‘Boccaccio’s Poetic Anthropology’, Speculum, 87, 2012, pp. 724–65.

  53. Coluccio Salutati, De laboribus Herculis, ed. B. L. Ullman, Padua, 1951. For a different, less favourable, verdict on pagan virtues as opposed to Christian faith, see R. G. Witt’s introduction to Coluccio Salutati, On the World and Religious Life, Cambridge MA and London, 2014, pp. xiii–xiv.

  54. Coluccio Salutati, De fato et fortuna, ed. C. Bianca, Florence, 1985, proemium, ll. 12–16.

  55. Giovanni Dominici, Regola del governo di cura familiare, ed. D. Salvi, Florence, 1860, p. 135.

  56. Lucula noctis XLV.133–7. See C. Mésonnat, Poetica Theologica. La ‘Lucula Noctis’ di Giovanni Dominici e le dispute letterarie tra ’300 e ’400, Rome, 1984.

  57. Ugolino Verino, Epigrammi, ed. F. Bausi, Messina, 1998, p. 67.

  58. Garin, ‘Favole antiche’ (n. 51 above), p. 71.

  59. See De oratore III.167; De natura deorum II.60 with Pease ad loc. (II, Cambridge MA, 1958, p. 691).

  60. Including the Sun, in the wake of Julian the Apostate’s Oration on the Sovereign Sun; see P. Chuvin, Cronaca degli ultimi pagani, Brescia, 2012, pp. 197–205.

  61. See Michael Marullus – ein Grieche als Renaissancedichter in Italien, ed. E. Lefèvre and E. Schäfer, Tübingen, 2008; K. A. E. Enenkel, ‘Todessehnsucht am Schwarzen Meer: Michael Marules’ lyrische Autobiographik im “Exilgedicht” (“De exilio suo”; 1489/90; 1497) und anderen Gedichten’, in Die Erfindung des Menschen: Die Autobiographik des frühneuzeitlichen Humanismus von Petrarca bis Lipsius, Berlin and New York, 2008, pp. 368–428.

  62. N. Siniossoglou, Radical Platonism in Byzantium, Cambridge, 2011.

  63. Michael Marullus, Inni naturali, transl. D. Coppini, Florence, 1995; id., Hymnes naturels, transl. J. Chomarat, Geneva, 1995; id., ‘Hymni naturales’. Hymnen an die Natur. Erste deutsche Gesamtübersetzung, transl. Otto Schönberger, Würzburg, 1996. See also W. Ludwig, Antike Götter und christlicher Glaube: Die Hymni Naturales von Marullo, Hamburg, 1992.

  64. The ‘fundamentalist’ stance taken by Dominici and Savonarola – on which see Verino, Epigrammi, ed. Bausi (n. 57 above), pp. 62–100 – is, of course, not taken into account here.

  65. See J. Burckhardt, The Civilisation of Renaissance in Italy, New York, 1954, III.12; C. Marsico, ‘Dii veteres fugere’, in Allusions and Reflections - Greek and Roman Mythology in Renaissance Europe, ed. E. Wåghäll Nivre, Cambridge, 2015, pp. 347–63.

  66. Verino, Epigrammi, ed. Bausi (n. 57 above), pp. 101–23.

  67. Jacopo Sannazaro, letter to Antonio Seripando (13 April 1521) about the De partu Virginis, in id., De partu Virginis, ed. C. Fantazzi and A. Perosa, Florence, 1988, p. 93. On the broader issue, see R. Béhar, ‘Virgilio, San Agustín y el problema del poema heróico cristiano (1520–1530)’, Criticón, 107, 2009, pp. 57–92, esp. p. 66.

  68. Pierre de Ronsard, Hymne à la Justice, ed. P. Laumonier, Paris, 1966, ll. 473–6: ‘Jupiter, Pallas, Apollon sont les noms / Que le seul Dieu reçoit, et meintes nations / pour ses divers effectz que l’on ne peut comprendre, / si par mille surnoms on ne les fait entendre.’

  69. Synod of the French Reformed church, 1578, quoted in Buck, L’ eredità classica (n. 51 above), p. 269; see État religieux et légal des protestants en France, Paris, 1822, XIV.1.17.

  70. For a first outline of Greek versification in Renaissance Italy, see F. Pontani, ‘Graeca per Italiae fines’, in Hellenisti! Altgriechisch als Literatursprache im neuzeitlichen Europa, ed. S. Weise, Stuttgart, 2017, pp. 311–47, esp. pp. 311–21. A comparative approach between late antiquity and the Renaissance in other respects was applied programmatically in the articles collected in Antiquity Renewed: Late Classical and Early Modern Themes, ed. Z. R. W. M. von Martels and V. M. Schmidt, Leuven, 2003.

  71. The sylloge was first published in Francesco Filelfo, De psychagogia, ed. G. Cortassa and E. V. Maltese, Alessandria, 1997. See also E. V. Maltese, ‘Appunti sull’inedita Psychagogia di Francesco Filelfo’, Res Publica Litterarum, 12, 1989, pp. 105–13.

  72. Filelfo, De psychagogia (n. 71 above), pp. 59–60 (I.12); this poem was written around 1457 for Donato Acciaiuoli, Palla Strozzi’s son-in-law and John Argyropoulos’s pupil.

  73. See D. Robin, Filelfo in Milan, Princeton, 1991, p. 120.

  74. This is letter PhE XIII.62 (to John Argyropoulos, of 5 November 1457) in Francesco Filelfo, Collected Letters (Epistolarum libri xlviii), ed. J. De Keyser, II, Alessandria, 2015, p. 648.

  75. Cortassa and Maltese’s invaluable editio princeps is a faithful reproduction of the autograph, with some interesting linguistic notes. There are also some useful hints in Robin, Filelfo (n. 73 above), pp. 125–37. On Filelfo’s fondness for metrical variety, see Francesco Filelfo, Odes, ed. D. Robin, Cambridge MA and London, 2009, pp. xx–xxi.

  76. E.g., Borso d’Este in De psychagogia (n. 71 above), I.4; and Cardinal Bessarion in II.7.

  77. See Angelo Poliziano, Liber epigrammatum Graecorum, ed. F. Pontani, Rome, 2002.

  78. On Poliziano’s sources, see ibid., pp. xxxi–xlii.

  79. F. O. Mencke, Historia vitae et in litteris meritorum Angeli Politiani, Leipzig, 1736, p. 448. This idea has been subsequently rejected on the basis of the scarcity and the poor inspiration of the author’s other religious output: see already I. Del Lungo, Florentia, Florence, 1897, p. 201; a much needed study of Poliziano’s scholarly reception is currently being prepared by Jaspreet Singh Boparai. On Poliziano’s religious dimension, see now M. Accame Lanzillotta, Poliziano traduttore di Atanasio, Tivoli, 2012.

  80. Where the Pater Noster is, of course, absent, since that prayer only appears in the Gospels of Matthew and Luke; on Poliziano and Nonnus, see G. Agosti, ‘Prima fortuna umanistica di Nonno’, in Vetustatis indagator: scritti offerti a Filippo Di Benedetto, ed. V. Fera and A. Guida, Messina, 1999, pp. 89–114 (105–8).

  81. See Poliziano, Liber epigrammatum, ed. Pontani (n. 77 above), pp. 39–40.

  82. Ficino’s copy is today the sole extant witness of these hymns, along with the much later MS Vienna, Österreichische Nationalbibliothek, Vind. Theol. Gr. 43; see M. Sicherl, ‘Zwei Autographen Marsilio Ficinos: Borg. Gr. 22 und Paris. Gr. 1256’, in Marsilio Ficino e il ritorno di Platone, ed. G. C. Garfagnini, I, Florence, 1986, pp. 221–8.

  83. Agosti, ‘Prima fortuna’ (n. 80 above), pp. 105–8.

  84. Essential elements concerning his biography, scribal activity and intellectual life have recently been provided by L. Ferreri, L’Italia degli umanisti, 1: Marco Musuro, Turnhout, 2014, and D. Speranzi, Marco Musuro. Libri e scrittura, Rome, 2013.

  85. U. von Wilamowitz-Moellendorff, Euripides. Herakles, I, Berlin, 1959, p. 221. See now Ferreri, Marco Musuro (n. 84 above), pp. 17–18.

  86. See F. M. Pontani, ‘Epigrammi inediti di Marco Musuro’, Archeologia classica, 25–6, 1973–1974, pp. 575–84; Ferreri, L’Italia (n. 84 above), passim.

  87. G. M. Sifakis, ‘Μάρκου Μουσούρου τοῦ Κρητὸς ποίημα εἰς τὸν Πλάτωνα’, Κρητικά Χρονικά, 8, 1954, pp. 366–88, and Ferreri, Marco Musuro (n. 84 above), pp. 140–51. See now Aldus Manutius, The Greek Classics, transl. N. G. Wilson, Cambridge MA and London 2016, pp. 302–17.

  88. This would be the short-lived Collegio greco, opened under the aegis of Musurus and Janus Lascaris between 1517 and 1519; see S. Pagliaroli, ‘Giano Lascaris e il Ginnasio greco’, Studi Medievali e Umanistici, 2, 2004, pp. 215–93; Le prime edizioni greche a Roma (1510–1526), ed. C. Bianca, S. delle Donne, L. Ferreri and A. Gaspari, Turnhout, 2017.

  89. C. Dionisotti, Aldo Manuzio umanista e editore, Milan, 1995; M. Lowry, The World of Aldus Manutius, Oxford, 1979, p. 205.

  90. See F. Pontani, ‘Musurus’ Creed’, Greek, Roman and Byzantine Studies, 43, 2002–2003, pp. 175–213; F. Pontani, ‘Preghiere, parafrasi e grammatiche: il Credo e l’Ave Maria di Marco Musuro’, Bibliothèque d’Humanisme et Renaissance, 76, 2014, pp. 325–40. I add here that Musurus' Creed also appears in ff. 36r-38r of ms. Par. suppl. gr. 1254 (late 16th c.), where it is wrongly ascribed to an otherwise unknown Ioannes Choniates.

  91. The Olympus, the Erinyes, the erebos; the stylistic features derive from epic prototypes of different ages, from Homer and the Homeric Hymns to Apollonius Rhodius and Quintus Smyrnaeus.

  92. The procession of the Holy Spirit, the Crucifixion, the Anastasis or Resurrection, are amplified ad hoc, often along the lines of Nonnus of Panopolis’s interpretation.

  93. Pontani, ‘Musurus’ Creed’ (n. 90 above), pp. 191–6.

  94. Marcus Musurus, Credo (τὸ Πιστεύω δι᾿ ἑξαμέτρων, c. 1512), ll. 8–15, ed. in Pontani, ‘Preghiere’ (n. 90 above), p. 334. Cf. the text of the Creed: ‘τὸν δι᾿ ἡμᾶς τοὺς ἀνθρώπους καὶ διὰ τὴν ἡμετέραν σωτηρίαν κατελθόντα ἐκ τῶν οὐρανῶν καὶ σαρκωθέντα ἐκ πνεύματος ἁγίου καὶ Μαρίας τῆς παρθένου καὶ ἐνανθρωπήσαντα, σταυρωθέντα τε ὑπὲρ ἡμῶν ἐπὶ Ποντίου Πιλάτου.’

  95. Musurus, Ave Maria (τὸ Θεοτόκε παρθένε, c. 1512), ed. in Pontani, ‘Preghiere’ (n. 90 above), p. 337. Cf. the text of the Ave Maria: ‘χαῖρε κεχαριτωμένη Μαρία, ὁ κύριος μετά σου, εὐλογημένη σὺ ἐν γυναιξίν, καὶ εὐλογημένος ὁ καρπὸς τῆς κοιλίας, ὅτι σωτῆρα ἔτεκες τῶν ψυχῶν ἡμῶν, ἀμήν.’

  96. Bowersock, Hellenism (n. 2 above), pp. 46–9.

  97. A. Cataldi Palau, ‘La vita di Marco Musuro alla luce di documenti e manoscritti’, Italia Medioevale e Umanistica, 45, 2004, pp. 295–369 (343–8).

  98. Pontani, ‘Preghiere’ (n. 90 above), pp. 325–33.

  99. P. Botley, Learning Greek in Western Europe 1396–1529, Philadelphia, 2010, p. 74; F. Ciccolella, ‘Greek Grammars and Elementary Readings in the Italian Renaissance’, in Libri di scuola e pratiche didattiche dall’antichità al Rinascimento, ed. L. del Corso and O. Pecere, Cassino, 2010, pp. 577–605.

  100. In the famous preface to his 1495 edition of Constantine Lascaris’s Erotemata – see Aldus Manutius, Greek Classics, ed. Wilson (n. 87 above), p. 6; but there were also hints in Justin Dekadyos’s preface to the 1494 Psalter; see Aldo Manuzio editore, ed. G. Orlandi and C. Dionisotti, I, Milan, 1975, p. 4.

  101. Dionisotti, Aldo Manuzio (n. 89 above), pp. 106–7.

  102. On the saga of this editorial project, see Lowry, The World (n. 89 above), pp. 148–9; C. Vecce, ‘Aldo Manuce [sic] et les découvertes de manuscrits’, in Les humanistes et l’antiquité grecque, ed. R. Aulotte and M. Ishigami, Paris, 1989, pp. 147–56 (149).

  103. The second volume of Poëtae Christiani veteres is the first of Aldus’s books to bear the anchor and dolphin emblem, with the famous motto ‘Festina lente’.

  104. The ‘Nonni poëtae Panopolitani Paraphrasis … carmine heroico excellenti’ is quoted in the 1503 and 1513 catalogues of the Aldine editions: Agosti, ‘Prima fortuna’ (n. 80 above), pp. 109–14; M. Lowry, Il mondo di Aldo Manuzio, Rome, 2000, p. 352.

  105. This statement is in the 1503 catalogue, for which see Aldo Manuzio tipografo 1494–1515, ed. L. Bigliazzi et al., Florence, 1994, p. 119, but not in the 1513 list, ibid., p. 166.

  106. Dionisotti, Aldo Manuzio (n. 89 above), p. 132.

  107. Aldus Manutius, preface to the 1501 edition of Sedulius, Iuvencus and Arator (Poëtae Christiani veteres, I), in Aldo Manuzio editore (n. 100 above), I, p. 36. A very similar point is made in the 1501 volume with Prudentius, Prosperus, John of Damascus, ibid., p. 34: ‘… statui Christianos poetas cura nostra impressos publicare, ut loco fabularum et librorum gentilium infirma puerorum aetas illis imbueretur, ut vera pro veris et pro falsis falsa cognosceret, atque ita adolescentuli non in pravos et in infideles, quales hodie plurimi, sed in probos atque orthodoxos viros evaderent, quia adeo a teneris assuescere multum est … .’ See also the preface to Gregory’s Carmina cum versione Latina of 1504 (Poëtae Christiani veteres, III), ibid., p. 81: ‘nam et Graece simul discetis et Christiane vivere, quandoquidem summa in illis et doctrina est et gratia, et sanctis moribus mire instituunt adolescentes’ .

  108. Pontani, ‘Preghiere’ (n. 90 above), pp. 332–3.

  109. A comparison between these two historical ages has been sketched by Liebeschuetz, ‘Pagan Mythology’ (n. 34 above), pp. 193–5.

  110. Cameron, ‘Poets and Pagans’ (n. 4 above), p. 39; already quoted at n. 20 above.

  111. On his biography, see Pagliaroli, ‘Giano Lascaris’ (n. 88 above); M. Ceresa, ‘Lascaris, Giano’, in Dizionario biografico degli Italiani, LXIII, Rome, 2004, pp. 785–91; A. Pontani, ‘Per la biografia, le lettere, i codici di Giano Làskaris’, in Dotti bizantini e libri greci nell’Italia del secolo XV, ed. M. Cortesi and E. V. Maltese, Naples, 1992, pp. 363–433.

  112. Janus Lascaris, Epigrammi greci, ed. A. Meschini, Padua, 1976; M. Lauxtermann, ‘Janus Lascaris and the Greek Anthology’, in The Neo-Latin Epigram, ed. S. T. M. de Beer, K. A. E. Enenkel and D. Rijser, Leuven, 2009, pp. 42–65.

  113. F. Pontani, ‘Sognando la crociata: un’ode saffica di Giano Làskaris su Carlo VIII’, Italia Medioevale e Umanistica, 56, 2015, pp. 251–94.

  114. Lascaris, Epigrammi, ed. Meschini (n. 112 above), p. 80.

  115. Cameron, ‘Poets and Pagans’ (n. 4 above), p. 29.

  116. See S. Trovato, Antieroe dai molti volti: Giuliano l’Apostata nel Medioevo Bizantino, Udine, 2014.

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Pontani, F. Hellenic Verse and Christian Humanism: From Nonnus to Musurus. Int class trad 25, 216–240 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12138-018-0468-8

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