Ancient Latin epics in Girolamo Vida's Christiad

Thesis

The topic of this thesis is the influence of ancient Latin epics on the Christiad, a Neo-Latin epic poem published in 1535 in Cremona and written by an Italian poet and Catholic bishop, Girolamo Vida (circa 1485-1566).

While the impact of Virgil’s Aeneid on Vida’s poem has been studied, it is still in need of further investigation. Likewise, recent scholarship has detected many loci similes between the Christiad on the one hand, and Lucretius’ De Rerum Natura, Ovid’s Metamorphoses, Lucan’s Bellum Civile, Valerius Flaccus’ Argonautica, Silius Italicus’ Punica and Statius’ Thebaid, on the other, without systematically studying the nature of such resemblances.

This thesis argues that many of these loci similes, including borrowings from Virgil, affect the meaning of the Christiad. Vida’s technique covers a wide range of nuances of literary imitation on a hypothetical spectrum that has at its poles, respectively, the inert refashioning of the words of a previous author and the in-depth engagement with the source on an ideological level. Virgil is undoubtedly his favourite model both qualitatively and quantitatively. However, Vida regarded Lucretius and the post-Virgilian epicists of the first century AD as valuable, though problematic, poets and interlocutors.

The first part of the thesis contextualises the Christiad by analysing the role of ancient Latin epics and literary imitation in Italy in the fifteenth and sixteenth Centuries (chapter 1), Vida’s imitative theory and practice in his De Arte Poetica (1527) (chapter 2), and the historical, ideological and intertextual framework of the Christiad (chapter 3). The second part focuses on four major themes, namely knowledge (chapter 4), marvels and miracles (chapter 5), Good and Evil (chapter 6), and Succession (chapter 7), to illustrate the actual presence of ancient epic models in the poem.

Authors: Cianciosi, S

• DOI: 10.5287/ora-ozmeq8emy
• Type of award: DPhil
• Level of award: Doctoral
• Awarding institution: University of Oxford
• Language: English
• Keywords: Christian epic; Latin epics; Neo-Latin; Renaissance; Literary Imitation; Classical Reception