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The Virgin in the Woods: Virgilian Traces in the Construction of Mary, Mother of God

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Notes

  1. What troubles the readers most of this encounter between mother and son is its lurking eroticism (deriving above all from the Virgilian allusion to the Homeric Hymn to Aphrodite, acknowledged at least since Sainte–Beuve: see e.g., K. Reckford, ‘Recognizing Venus: Aeneas Meets his Mother’, Arion 3, 1995–6, pp. 1–42). Furthermore, Venus’s reasons to disguise herself and for choosing her peculiar disguise remain unclear throughout the episode; her sudden revelation provokes a violent reaction to Aeneas, whose words of reproach sound frustrated and angry.

  2. In particular, the iconography of the Aphrodite lactans, through that of the Isis lactans, would be at the root of the image of the Virgin nursing the baby Jesus (M. Marcovich, ‘From Ishtar to Aphrodite’, Journal of Aesthetic Education 30, 1996, p. 43). It is noteworthy that in the Libri Carolini sive Caroli Magni Capitulare de imaginibus, written at the court of Charlemagne against the rulings about sacred images issued by the second Nicean council (787 AD), there are two passages associating Mary with Venus. The first one (4.16) says that God’s design is expressed through the Scriptura, not through the pictura. Thus, the pictura always needs a caption (superscriptio) that makes it clear to the worshippers what imago is sacred and what imago is instead reprehensible. By way of example, the author contrasts the image of Mary, Dei Genetrix, with the image of Venus, defined – and here the tone turns disparaging – as Aeneae cuiusdam profugi genetrix, ‘the mother of some refugee named Aeneas’. The opposition must have sounded all the more marked as it had to demonstrate the compelling necessity of a superscriptio. The second passage (4.21) states that only a caption allows us to determine, in front of the image of a woman holding a baby, whether it represents either a scene of maternity drawn from the Scripture (Sarah with Isaac, Rebecca and Jacob, Bathsheba and Solomon, Elizabeth with John); or a scene of maternity derived from the pagan myth (Venus and Aeneas, Alcmene with Hercules, Andromache and Astyanax); or finally the Virgin Mary with Jesus. Through these cases, we may perceive that at the end of the 8th century, in the development of the Marian cult, there were still contrasts about the connection established between the image of Mary, mother of God, and the image of Venus, mother of Aeneas. On the pagan roots of Mary’s cult, see e.g., P. Carroll, The Cult of the Virgin Mary: Psychological Origins, Princeton, 1986; S. Benko, The Virgin Goddess. Studies in the Pagan and Christian Roots of Mariology, Leiden/Boston, 2004.

  3. For a general overview, see P. Hardie, The Last Trojan Hero. A Cultural History of Virgil’s Aeneid, London/New York, 2014, pp. 240–76. See also infra.

  4. Translations of the Aeneid are by D. West with minor changes.

  5. See e.g., S. Freund, Vergil im frühen Christentum: Untersuchungen zu den Vergilzitaten bei Tertullian, Minucius Felix, Novatian, Cyprian und Arnobius, Paderborn/München/Wien/Zürich, 2003, pp. 29–96 (Tertullian); 97–189 (Minucius Felix). For a general overview, see A. Ceresa-Gastaldo, s.v. ‘Cristianesimo’ in Enciclopedia Virgiliana, ed. F. Della Corte, Rome.

  6. Trans. by H. R. Fairclough.

  7. On the Oratio, which offers a Greek translation of the Virgilian text and a detailed commentary, see M. Giardino, La versione greca della IV Ecloga di Virgilio e il commento di Costantino, Diss. Università degli studi di Napoli “Federico II”, 2011–12. The allegorical interpretation of the fourth eclogue is also in Lactantius, Divinae institutiones 7.24; Philargyrius ad Verg. Ecl. 4.6 (Virgo id est Iustitia vel Maria, ‘Virgin, that is Justice or Mary’); Scholia Bernensia ad Verg. Ecl. 4.6 (virgo: secundum nos Maria, ‘virgin: in our opinion Mary’). On the transformation of Virgil’s eclogue into a messianic prophecy, see e.g., P. Courcelle, ‘Les exégèse chrétiennes de la quatrième églogue’, Revue des Études Anciennes 59, 1957, pp. 294–319; G. Bernardi Perini, ‘Virgilio, il Cristo, la Sibilla. Sulla lettura ‘messianica della quarta egloga’, Atti e Memorie dell’Accademia Galileiana di Scienze, Lettere ed Arti in Padova 102, 1999–2000, pp. 115–24.

  8. Or. 182.5–10.

  9. See e.g., A. V. Nazzaro, ‘Intertestualità biblica e classica in testi cristiani antichi’, in Cultura e lingue classiche 3 (III Convegno di aggiornamento e di didattica, Palermo 29 ottobre–1 novembre 1989), ed. B. Amata, Rome, 1993, pp. 489–514.

  10. See e.g., M. Bažil, Centones Christiani: Métamorphoses d’une forme intertextuelle dans la poésie latine chrétienne de l’Antiquité tardive, Paris, 2009.

  11. See e.g., S. McGill, Virgil Recomposed: The Mythological and Secular Centos in Antiquity, Oxford/New York, 2005.

  12. On this passage, see K. O. Sandnes, The Gospel ‘According to Homer and Virgil’. Cento and Canon, Leiden/Boston, 2011, pp. 127–31.

  13. ‘You see that today out of Virgil are being written completely different stories, where the subject-matter is arranged according to the verses and the verses according to the subject-matter’ (My trans.).

  14. On Ausonius’s cento, see e.g., McGill, Virgil Recomposed (n. 11 above), chap. 5; K. Pollman, ‘Sex and Salvation in the Virgilian Cento of the Fourth Century’, in Romane memento. Virgil in the Fourth Century, ed. R. Rees, London, 2004, pp. 83–7.

  15. Trans. by H. G. Evelyn White with minor changes.

  16. On Venus’s recurring presence in epithalamia cf. e.g., Statius, Silvae 1.2.11–15; Luxorius, Epithalamium Fridi (Anth. Lat. 18 R) 4–50.

  17. Ausonius combines segments drawn from the scene where Venus is both a seducing girl and a mother with segments concerning Dido and Lavinia, female figures marked by a strong erotic component. Thus, the poet seems to be perfectly aware of the eroticism characterizing Virgil’s context (see n. 2 above): this awareness, as demonstrated by e.g., S. Hinds (‘The Self–conscious Cento’, in Décadence. “Decline and Fall” or “Other Antiquity”?, ed. M. Formisano, T. Fuhrer, Heidelberg, 2014, pp. 171–98), is frequent in the Cento nuptialis, and more generally in centonic poetry (including the Christian one: see S. Schottenius, ‘Typology and the Cento of Proba’, QUCC 95, 2010, pp. 43–51).

  18. On Proba’s use of Virgil, see e.g., M. R. Cacioli, ‘Adattamenti semantici e sintattici nel centone virgiliano di Proba’, SIFC 41, 1969, pp. 188–246; Pollman, ‘Sex and Salvation’ (n. 14 above), pp. 87–92; Schottenius, ‘Typology’ (n. 17 above); id., Proba the Prophet: The Christian Virgilian Cento of Faltonia Betitia Proba, Leiden/Boston, 2015, ad loc.

  19. See Cacioli, ‘Adattamenti semantici’ (n. 18 above), p. 91, n. 2; Schottenius, Proba the Prophet (n. 18 above), pp. 163–4. On Mary in Proba, see S. Kyriakidis, ‘Eve and Mary: Proba’s Technique in the Creation of Two Different Female Figures’, MD 29, 1992, pp. 121–53.

  20. Trans. by Schottenius, Proba the Prophet (n. 18 above), p. 164, with minor changes.

  21. On the messianic reading of the fourth eclogue in Proba, see e.g., Courcelle, ‘Les exégèse chrétiennes’ (n. 7 above), p. 299; Schottenius, Proba the Prophet (n. 18 above), p. 127.

  22. We should note, however, that Christian centos, at least in the earlier period, also provoked hostile reactions: cf. e.g., Schottenius, ‘Typology and the Cento’ (n. 17 above), p. 43.

  23. OLD: s.v. gero, 3b ‘to have (physical or mental qualities)’ and 1b ‘to have on (clothing)’.

  24. Cf. such expressions as personam gerere (OLD: s.v. gero, 6 ‘to play the part, perform the functions of, act as’).

  25. Gerens will become decens in Avitus’s De consolatoria castitatis laude ad Fuscinam sororem Deo virginem sacratam (vv. 55–8).

  26. Between the 5th and the 6th century, the Virgilian expression reappears in the anonymous cento De ecclesia (= Anth. Lat. 16 R.2), usually attributed to the poet Mavortius (see J. M. Ziolkowski, M. C. J. Putnam, The Virgilian Tradition. The First Hundred Years, New Haven and London, 2008, p. 481). Here Venus-virgo is once again reused in regard to Mary and her virginal birth (vv. 16–9).

  27. On this undertone of memoro, see e.g., A. Schiesaro, ‘Emotions and Memory in Vergil’s Aeneid’, in Emotions Between Greece and Rome, ed. D. Cairns, L. Fulkerson, London, 2015, p. 173.

  28. See e.g., L. Doppioni, Virgilio nell’arte e nel pensiero di Seneca, Firenze, 1937, pp. 128–31. Drawing upon Seneca, Augustine (Contra Academicos 1.5.14) will interpret the path leading to Carthage that Venus shows Aeneas (Aen. 1.401) as an allegory of the path leading to Christian Truth. In the proem of Petrarch’s Secretum Venus-virgo will become the Truth, to whom Francesco addresses Aeneas’s o quam te memorem, virgo.

  29. Ad Aen. 1.327.

  30. The so-called theory of the two Venuses, Ourania and Pandemia, Coelestis and Vulgaris, famously dates back to Pausania’s speech in the Symposium (180d with Dover ad loc.). On the medieval and humanistic reception of the double Venus, see E. G. Schreiber, ‘Venus in the Medieval Mythographic Tradition’, The Journal of English and Germanic Philology 74.4, 1975, pp. 519–35, and J. C. Warner, Augustinian Epic. Petrarch to Milton, 2005, Ann Arbor.

  31. The verb memoro is recurrent in Christian prayers: see e.g., the invocation Memorare, attributed to Bernard of Clairvaux but more probably composed in the 15th century by the monk Claude Bernard (cf. e.g., S. J. H. Thurston, Familiar Prayers: Their Origin and History, Westminster, MD, 1953, pp. 155–63).

  32. See Ziolkowski/Putnam, The Virgilian Tradition (n. 26 above), p. 480.

  33. In the anonymous cento De Verbi Incarnatione (5th century?), the segment haud equidem tali me dignor honore, ‘I am sure I deserve no such honour’ (Aen. 1.335), with which Venus dismisses the praise that Aeneas has addressed her, is assigned to Mary, who comments with these words God’s choice to make her the mother of the Messiah (719 R 23–5). See Ziolkowski/Putnam, The Virgilian Tradition (n. 26 above), p. 481.

  34. In the past, the work was attributed to Bernard of Clairvaux: see G. D’Onofrio, ‘Il mysterium Mariae nella teologia e nella pietà dell’alto medioevo latino (secoli V–XI)’, in Storia della mariologia, ed. A. Serra and E. Dal Covolo, Rome, 2009, p. 551, n. 152.

  35. Of Moses’s speech in front of God: Vulg. Exodus 6.30 en incircumcisus labiis sum (on this expression, see C. Laes, C. F. Goodey, M. Lynn Rose (eds.), Disabilities in Roman Antiquity. Disparate Bodies A Capite ad Calcem, Leiden, Boston, 2013, pp. 169–70).

  36. Cf. Vulg. Ep. Iac. 3.8 linguam autem nullus hominum domare potest, inquietum malum, plena veneno mortifero (‘But no human being can tame the tongue, restless evil, full of deadly poison’).

  37. Cf. Lc. 1.35 Spiritus Sanctus superveniet in te et virtus Altissimi obumbrabit tibi.

  38. On these verses and their stratified reception, see e.g., P. Courcelle, ‘Le cliché virgilien des cent bouches’, REL 33, 1955, pp. 231–40; S. Hinds, Allusion and Intertext. Dynamics of Appropriation in Roman Poetry, Cambridge, 1998, pp. 35–47; A. Laird, ‘The Poetics and Afterlife of Virgil’s Descent to the Underworld’, PVS 24, 2001, pp. 72–3; E. Gowers, ‘Virgil’s Sibyl and the ‘Many Mouths’ Cliché’, CQ 55.1, 2005, pp. 170–82.

  39. In this period, the theme is recurrent in Marian compositions: see D’Onofrio, ‘Il mysterium Mariae’ (n. 34 above), pp. 550–1.

  40. On the representation of Heaven in Prudentius, see J. Fontaine, Études sur la poésie latine tardive, Paris, 1980, pp. 488–507, who however does not consider the Hamartigenia but focuses on the hymns.

  41. See A. Mahoney, Virgil in the Works of Prudentius, Diss. Washington D.C., 1934, p. 43; M. Lühken, Christianorum Maro et Flaccus. Zur Vergil- und Horazrezeption des Prudentius, Göttingen, 2002, p. 313 with some hesitation. For a similar image in Prudentius cf. Liber Cathemerinon 5.113–4.

  42. In general on this poem, see Fontaine, Études (n. 40 above), pp. 415–43; A.-M. Palmer, Prudentius on the Martyrs, Oxford, 1989, pp. 239–41; on its Virgilian reminiscences, see M. Roberts, Poetry and the Cult of the Martyrs. The Liber Peristephanon of Prudentius, Ann Arbor, 1993, pp. 93–101.

  43. According to P.-Y. Fux, Prudence et les martyrs: hymnes et tragédie. Peristephanon 1, 3–4, 6–8, 10: Commentaire, Fribourg, 2013, ad loc., the theme of the perfumed hair is in contrast with the severe appearance of Eulalia as well as with the bad smell of burnt hair. For a similar image cf. Prud. perist. 2.385–92.

  44. Fux, Prudence (n. 43 above), ad loc. notices the anomaly of the watery image but does not connect it with the Virgilian defluxit.

  45. Cf. e.g., carm. 18.184; 27.403–5; 31.531–46. On ambrosia as a divine scent in Christian contexts, see S. Prandi, Jacopo Sannazzaro, De partu Virginis, Il parto della Vergine, Rome, 2001, pp. 259–60. On the smell of Christ, and more generally on the smell of sanctity, see e.g., P. Meloni, Il profumo dell’immortalità. L’interpretazione patristica di Cantico 1,3, Rome, 1975; S. Evans, ‘The Scent of a Martyr’, Numen 49.2, 2002, pp. 193–211; F. Bordone, ‘Povertà ed escatologia nei carmi di Paolino di Nola tra Scrittura e retorica’ in Poesia e teologia nella produzione latina dei secoli IV–V: atti della 10. giornata ghisleriana di filologia classica, Pavia 16 maggio 2013, ed. F. Gasti and M. Cutino Pavia, 2015, pp. 29–57. See also infra.

  46. On this, see in general Nazzaro, ‘Intertestualità biblica’ (n. 9 above), pp. 510–1 and P. Rullo, Paolino di Nola, carme 21 vv. 1–364, Diss. Università degli studi di Napoli “Federico II”, 2010–1, ad loc.

  47. See A. Hudson-Williams, ‘Virgil and the Christian Latin Poets’, PVS 2–7, 1962, p. 19; Nazzaro, ‘Intertestualità biblica’ (n. 9 above), p. 510. The tendency to associate Venus-virgo with ascetic figures continues in the modern era. The humanist Battista Mantovano (see infra) attributes to Catherine of Alexandria, determined to suffer martyrdom, the same features as Venus (Parthenice secunda sive Catharinaria, Deventer, 1497, 2.597–602). The German printer Johann Kinckius recounts that during the feast of Saint Leocadia, her grave opened, letting out the dead woman. St Ildefonsus, though frightened, addressed her with o quam te memorem (Flos Sanctorum, seu Vitae et res gestae Sanctorum, vol. 1, Vita S. Ildefonsi, Colonia, 1659, p. 57, col. 2). The Jesuit Vincenzo Guiniggi reshapes the same expression by applying it to the virgin Theodora (Poesis heroica, elegiaca, lyrica, epigrammatica, Antuerpiae, 1637, Carmen IV, p. 48): locked up in a brothel by the Romans for her stubborn chastity, she managed to flee militis os habitumque gerens, ‘with face and dress of a soldier’, that is after swapping clothes with the Christian soldier Didymus. It is interesting that the 19th century Virgilian commentator James Henry (ad Aen. 1.343) associates the apparition of Venus-virgo with the encounter between the hermit Zosimus and Saint Mary of Egypt in the Syrian desert. The predilection for Virgil’s description of the virgo (disguised as a Spartan huntress and similar to Diana) is probably due to the frequent attribution of masculine traits to women facing martyrdom.

  48. See E. Wind, Pagan Mysteries in the Renaissance, New Haven, 1958, p. 29. On the Renaissance Christianization of Virgil’s Venus (with no specific reference to our scene), see also I. Rowland, ‘Vergil and the Pamphili Family in Piazza Navona, Rome’, in A Companion to Virgil’s Aeneid and its Tradition, ed. J. Farrell and M. J. Putnam, Chichester, 2010, p. 258, studying the representation of the goddess by Pietro da Cortona at Palazzo Pamphili (‘this Venus should be understood as an entirely Christian figure… she is the fulfilment of ancient eros in Christian agape’). Something similar happens with the Christianization of the Lucretian hymn to Venus, which in humanistic rewritings becomes a hymn to the Virgin: see V. Prosperi, «Di soavi licor gli orli del vaso». La fortuna di Lucrezio dall’Umanesimo alla Controriforma, Torino, 2004, pp. 145–52.

  49. On Attavanti, see A. M. Serra, ‘Memoria di fra Paolo Attavanti (1449 ca.–1499)’, Studi Storici dell’Ordine dei Servi di Maria, 21, 1971, pp. 47–87.

  50. G. B. Visi, Notizie storiche della città e dello stato di Mantova, II, Mantova, 1782, p. 139.

  51. Cf. Ps. 85.1.

  52. Ibid., pp. 138–9.

  53. Cf. also the quotation of Aen. 1.255 vultu, quo caelum tempestatesque serenat.

  54. For a similar reuse, see Julius Montius, Sanctum saeculare Marianum sive Sanctae Dei Genitricis Virginis Mariae icon sacra, Olomouc, 1732, where the encounter between mother and son is transformed into a dream visitation of the Virgin to her worshipper Joannes (Praefatio II).

  55. See e.g., M. Lamy, L’immaculée conception. Étapes et enjeux d’une controverse au Moyen Âge (XII–XV siècles), Paris, 2000.

  56. As it is well known, courteous love is among the secular sources of the Marian cult: see e.g., H. Hackett, Virgin Mother, Maiden Queen: Elizabeth I and the Cult of the Virgin Mary, Basingstoke, 1995, pp. 15–8.

  57. On this author and his Parthenice see e.g., Poeti latini del Quattrocento, ed. F. Arnaldi, L. Gualdo Rosa, L. Monti Sabia, Milano/Napoli, 1964, pp. 885–935; C. M. Piastra, La poesia mariologica dell’umanesimo latino: repertorio e incipitario, Spoleto, 1994, pp. 3–57.

  58. See A. Scherbaum, C. Wiener, ‘Caritas Pirckheimer und das Bild der heiligen Familie im ‘Marienleben’ von Albrecht Dürer und Benedictus Chalidonius’, Pirckheimer Jahrbuch für Renaissance–und Humanismusforschung 21, 2006, pp. 131–3.

  59. On the symbolism of the rose, see e.g., M. Ferber, A Dictionary of Literary Symbols, Cambridge, 1999, s.v. ‘Rose’.

  60. The iunctura pudicis imaginibus, ‘with chaste images’, seems to contrast the Virgilian falsis imaginibus, ‘with false images’ (Aen. 1.407–8).

  61. I. B. Ascensius, Parthenice Mariana F. Baptistae Mantuani ab Iodoco Badio Ascensio familiariter explanata, Paris, 1499, ad loc.

  62. On this description, see S. Weber am Bach, Hans Baldung Grien (1484/85–1545): Marienbilder in der Reformation, Diss. München, 2006, p. 173. On Wimpfeling and pagan poetry, see Piastra, La poesia mariologica (n. 57 above), p. 173.

  63. The iunctura is a reminiscence of Ad Lydiam (porrige labra, labra corallina), a medieval poem attributed to Cornelius Gallus, which enjoyed great popularity in the humanistic age (cf. P. Pintacauda, ‘Una versione castigliana cinquecentesca del carme Ad Lydiam’, in U. Serani, I. Porfido, A. De Benedetto, Tradurre. Riflessioni e rifrazioni, Bari, 2008, pp. 199–212).

  64. On Pontanus and his commentary, see V. Zabughin, Vergilio nel Rinascimento italiano da Dante a Tasso: Fortuna, studi, imitazioni, traduzioni e parodie, II, Bologna, 1921–3, pp. 93–4. According to C. Baswell, Virgil in Medieval England: Figuring the Aeneid from the Twelfth Century to Chaucer, Cambridge, 1995, p. 157, some annotations by the ‘Norwich commentator’, from the late 14th century, contain references to the Virgin in correspondence with the apparitions of Venus in Aeneid 2 and 8 (ad Aen. 2.632 applica ad Mariam omnia bona de Venere, ‘Apply to Mary all the good things about Venus’; ad Aen. 8.532 applica historiam Veneris beate Marie virginis, ‘Apply the history of Venus to the Blessed Virgin Mary’).

  65. Just as the Catholic world is appropriating Venus-virgo in order to strengthen the Marian cult, British propaganda starts using the Virgilian figure and the Virgin Mary as encomiastic frames of reference to represent Elizabeth I: see e.g., P. McClure, R. Headlam West, ‘Elizabeth I as a second Virgin Mary’, Renaissance Studies 4.1, 1990, pp. 38–70; Hackett, Virgin Mother (n. 56 above); C. Weber, ‘Intimations of Dido and Cleopatra in Some Contemporary Portrayals of Elizabeth I’, Studies in Philology 96.2, 1999, pp. 127–43; P. Hardie, ‘Spenser’s Virgil. The Faerie Queene and the Aeneid’ in A Companion to Vergil’s Aeneid and its Tradition, ed. J. Farrell and M. J. Putnam, Chichester, 2010, pp. 173–85. The point of contact between the reuse of Virgil in Mary’s cult and the reuse of Virgil for the development of the myth of Elizabeth lies precisely in the construction of a powerful female figure within a political and religious context that is structurally masculine. We should also add that the association between female authority and Venus-virgo is recurrent in the modern era: for example, o quam te memorem, virgo is used for Maria de’ Medici (Pompa regia Ludouici 13. Franciae et Nauarrae regis christianissimi, Flexiae, 1614); for Christina of Sweden, in an engraving by D. van den Bremden (1649, Kungliga Biblioteket, Stockholm SVP 184); for Isabella I of Castile – with Columbus cast in the role of Aeneas (U. Carrara, Columbus. Carmen epicum, Rome, 1715, 5.148–50).

  66. This phenomenon is also anticipated and influenced by early modern Christian epic, which draws significantly on Virgil. Examples include the De partu virginis by Jacopo Sannazzaro (1526), which adapts the dualism of Venus-virgo to the figure of the angel at the Annunciation (cf. in particular De part. Virg. 1.105–8) and the Christias by Marco Girolamo Vida (1535), which echoes Virgil’s text when portraying Jesus as simultaneously human and divine (Christ. 1.937–9) and then in the account of the apparition of Jesus at Emmaus (Christ. 6.503–60).

  67. See W. Pass, ‘Jacob Regnarts Sammlung ‘Mariale’ und die katholische Reform in Tirol’, in Festschrift Walter Senn zum 70. Geburtstag., ed. E. Egg, München, Saltzburg, 1975, pp. 158–73.

  68. For an overview of Virgil in music, see e.g., W. Fitzgerald, ‘Vergil in Music’, in A Companion to Vergil’s ‘Aeneid’ and its Tradition, ed. J. Farrell and M. C. J. Putnam, Chichester, 2010, pp. 341–52.

  69. On this painting, see S. Momesso, La collezione di Antonio Scarpa (1752–1832), Cittadella, 2007, pp. 106–8.

  70. See supra n. 3.

  71. See G. Mazzacurati, Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani 8, 1966, s.v. ‘Beni, Paolo’.

  72. Il Goffredo, overo la Gerusalemme liberata, col commento di Paolo Beni, Padova, pp. 541–2.

  73. The renewal of the cento at the end of the 16th century – the genre that, as we have seen, had contributed the most to the convergence between Venus-virgo and Mary in Late Antiquity – is another channel through which the superimposition of the two figures is strengthened. Cf. e.g., Giulio Capilupi, Ad beatam Mariam Virginem cento I (1590), connecting virginis os habitumque gerens (v. 3) and o quam te memorem, virgo (v. 12) with segments drawn from other epiphanies of Venus in the Aeneid. Alexander Ross, in his cento about the life of Christ (Christias or Virgilius evangelisans, London, 1634), describes Mary as she lies under the gaze of the newborn Jesus (Warner, Augustinian Epic (n. 30 above), pp. 150–1). The puer seems to be devoted to contemplating her virginal face, which, just like Venus under Aeneas’s gaze, flashes from the rosea cervix, while her hair flows bright across her milky neck (8.20–2 iurat usque videre | virgineum vultum, ut rosea cervice refulget | utque fluunt nitidi per lactea colla capilli) – a reminiscence of the beautiful Lalage praised by Poliziano (In Lalagen 11 aureoli ut ludunt per lactea colla capilli). Fluunt, possibly derived from the Virgilian defluxit (Aen. 1.404), replaces the ludunt of the model.

  74. In most cases, these authors are Jesuits. Many examples quoted below are from the anthology Parnassus poeticus Societatis Jesu, hoc est poemata patrum Societatis, Francofurti, 1654. On Virgil and the Jesuits, see Y. Haskell, ‘Practicing What They Preach? Vergil and the Jesuits’, in A Companion to Virgil’s Aeneid and its Tradition, ed. J. Farrell, M. J. Putnam, Chichester, 2010, pp. 203–16.

  75. Conciones sacrae, In conceptione SS. V. Mariae concio scholastica, concio IV, Compluti.

  76. See also e.g., Robertus Obrizius, Hymnorum libri septem, Rigiaci Atrebatium, 1592, h. 27.1–2, where the inability to speak of the Madonna ends up resembling to the aphasia affecting the lover.

  77. Conciones sacrae, De Nativitate SS. V. Mariae concio IV. Cf. also concio III, Thema: Invenisti Gratiam apud Deum.

  78. De hierarchia Mariana libri VI, Antuerpiae, 4.18, Oratio septima, p. 317. Cf. also p. 382.

  79. Virgo Maria mystica sub solis imagine emblematice expressa, Antuerpiae, Emblema XI, p. 42.

  80. Carminum libri tres, Parisiis, In visitatione B. Virginis montana, 1.7.164–7. On Galluzzi, see J. J. Mertz, J. P. Murphy, J. Ijsewijn, Jesuit Latin Poets of the 17th and 18th Centuries, Wauconda, 1989, p. 185, and Haskell, ‘Practicing’ (n. 73 above), pp. 212–3.

  81. Parnassus Societatis Iesu, Alexandri Donati Carminum liber I, Natalitia Magnae Virginis, 3.45–7. On Donati, see G. Formichetti, Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani, 41, 1992, s.v. ‘Donati, Alessandro’.

  82. Musei Rhemensis Paris Gymnasiarchae Lyra plectri Horatiani aemula item Acrostichis aliaque diversa poemata, Parisiis, p. 390.

  83. Conciones sacrae, In annunciatione Virginis Mariae, Concio I, Thema: Regnabit in domo Jacob in aeternum et regni eius non erit finis, Compluti, p. 343.

  84. Commentarii in Genesim, Lugduni, 49.9.18. On Fernandius, see A. de Backer, C. Sommervogel, Bibliothèque des écrivains de la Compagnie de Jésus, Liège Paris, 1869, s.v. ‘Fernandez, Fernandius, Benoit’.

  85. On the Marian reading of the Song of Songs, see e.g., M. Warner, Alone of All Her Sex: The Myth and the Cult of the Virgin Mary, London, 1976, pp. 121–33.

  86. Quaresimale del Reverendo Don Alessandro Calamato Messinese, Venezia, Ragionamento per il Sabbato doppo le ceneri, p. 35.

  87. Ponderationes in Psalmos iuxta multiplicem divinarum scripturarum sensum, vol. 2, Lugduni, In Psal. XLIV, v. XV, p. 63: Quidni nobis liceat hos prophanos versus ei sacrare, cum eidem sacratum fuerit Pantheon, Deorum quondam, sive potius daemonum omnium fanum? At non indigemus ab ethnicis mutuare verba, quibus Dominam et Reginam nostram honorificemus.

  88. Diptycha mariana, Gratianopoli, Pars 1, Punctum 2, n. 18, p. 68: Lego insuper apud nonnullos corpus Deiparae iam a prima nativitate divinum quendam spirasse odorem. Ita ut de Virgine longe verius quam de illa fabulosa Aeneae parente dici possit illud principis Poetae.

  89. Electa sacra, Turnoni, IV.31, p. 233: Quod falso de falsis numinibus dictum, vere de vero numine eiusque matre dici potest, quorum nomina ut suavissimum odorem spargunt, cum de utroque dicatur oleum seu unguentum effusum est nomen tuum, sic divinum quidpiam etiam nomine praeferebant. The discalced Carmelite Gioacchino di Santa Maria also maintains that ambrosia, employed by pagan gods to perfume their hair, just like the Virgilian Venus, when she revealed herself, symbolizes the fragrance of celestial virtues and the sweet smell of Mary (Mystica anatomia sacratissimi nominis Deiparae Virgini Mariae, Venetiis, 1690, Similitudines inter Deiparam et ambrosiam, VI.2, p. 320). See also Ignatius Brentano Cimarolo (Historicus et encomiastes Marianus, Norimbergae, 1729, p. 212), who recounts the miraculous finding of an image of Mary buried in a field: as soon as the soil was turned over, it started smelling like ambrosia. On this theme, see e.g., Warner, Alone (n. 84 above), pp. 99–100.

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    Viola Starnone

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Correspondence to Viola Starnone.

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I am grateful to Philip Hardie, who has encouraged me to look deeper into the connection between these two virgin-mothers, a connection which I came across while writing my PhD thesis (‘Nessuno guarda Elissa. Due luoghi del primo libro dell’Eneide di perturbata ricezione critica’, PhD diss., Scuola Normale Superiore, Pisa, 2016, which I am reworking for publication). I wish to thank Alessandro Schiesaro for improvements and suggestions and the anonymous readers of the International Journal of the Classical Tradition for precious comments.

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Starnone, V. The Virgin in the Woods: Virgilian Traces in the Construction of Mary, Mother of God. Int class trad 27, 153–170 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12138-018-0491-9

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