In the sixteenth-century Cantici di Fidenzio, unhappy teacher Fidenzio sings of his disastrous love for one of his students. As may be expected of a Renaissance teacher of Latin, he drew on both ancient and contemporary literary models, from Virgil over Petrarch to Berni, in order to enhance his homosexual desire and his poems with appropriate auctoritas.Fidenzio’s language (a morpho-syntactical mix of Latin and Italian), the exaggerated expectations, and the implied consequences cannot easily be understood from the perspective of today’s readers: for the contemporary audience the Cantici, teeming with citations and allusions, certainly were a hilarious read, we today need further explanations in order to fully grasp the meaning of Fidenzio’s verses. For the first time, this study offers a bridge into the Cantici’s world and allows a more wholesome understanding of this great work of the Italian Renaissance.
About the author
Dr. Winfried Schmitz ist Professor für Alte Geschichte am Institut für Geschichtswissenschaft der Universität Bonn.
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