Virgil's Aeneid

In this essay on Virgil's Aeneid, I explore the role of memory and historical consciousness as the basis for the general formation of the epic and the outcome of the interpersonal events between Aeneas and Dido, and Aeneas and Turnus. More specifically, I argue that the image on the shield of Aeneas forged by Vulcan is the key to understanding the imagery and story arc of Virgil's grand epic.

Detailed notes on Virgil's epic. The notes cover the overall relation of Virgil's work to the Homeric epics, the historical context of the Aeneid in the decline of the Roman Republic and the civil strife of the 1st Century BCE, the ambiguity of Virgil's relation to the Greek tradition and to philosophy, and the question of Virgil's attempt to celebrate the Roman achievement and the "way of the ancestors".

Ulisse è il campione della ragione che trionfa in Occidente, l’eroe dell’intelligenza e dell’avventura. Ma la sua figura non è univoca nella tradizione antica. Le maschere del mito greco parlano di altre ragioni, di passioni irriducibili, di colpe che l’eroe non ha pagato. E di una giustizia che non si lascia iscrivere nella legge condivisa.
Ulisse che calunnia; Ulisse, infido e vigliacco in battaglia; Ulisse che corrompe; Ulisse che tradisce; Ulisse che sacrifica una fanciulla affinché soffino venti favorevoli alla partenza da Troia; Ulisse che seduce e abbandona; Ulisse, il reduce, che fa strage di giovani a Itaca. Capitolo per capitolo, la luce tocca personaggi femminili e maschili – compagni di impresa in guerra e in viaggio, madri e figlie, padri e figli, dee e mortali. Nauplio, Teti, Aiace, Neottolemo, Ecuba, Polissena, Calipso, Nausica, Eupite – figure ai bordi della narrazione maggiore, travolte e stravolte nella loro vicenda mitica dal genio contorto di Ulisse. Dalle fonti antiche emergono le loro voci che, in concerto, compongono un grave atto d’accusa contro l’eroe.

Il libro è disponibile su: https://bit.ly/Contro_Ulisse_Salerno_Editrice_2021

The noticeable analogies between the funeral laments of Anna and Juturna in the Aeneid have been often explained as a means of linking the sisters of the two main Aeneas’ opponents. But the common features of the two passages (and their differences) become more clear if we trace back them to the tradition of the historical funeral lament, already included in the Iliad and used by Virgil to represent nature and feelings of these two sad characters.

This study focuses on the analysis of the direct speech between divine and human characters in Vergil’s Aeneid, with particular emphasis on the presence of features regarded as familiar and colloquial. Given that the Vergilian epic is a genre habitually regarded as an artificial construction and of a style which distances itself from normal, everyday language, this study will seek to confirm whether there is a significant accumulation of features of spoken language in the gods’ discourse. The approach of this analysis will be essentially syntactical and in necessary correlation with a pragmatic point of view.

Presentation slides for a series of lectures on Virgil's epic. The lectures cover the overall relation of Virgil's work to the Homeric epics, the historical context of the Aeneid in the decline of the Roman Republic and the civil strife of the 1st Century BCE, the ambiguity of Virgil's relation to the Greek tradition and to philosophy, and the question of Virgil's attempt to celebrate the Roman achievement and the "way of the ancestors".

Rappresentazione teatrale | dal 31 luglio al 28 agosto 2021 Valle dei Templi - Agrigento | 18 agosto 2020 Valle dei Templi - Agrigento | 20 luglio 2019 Segesta | 5 gennaio 2019, Teatro Massimo Comunale - Siracusa | 1 agosto 2018, Teatro romano - Ascoli Piceno | 14-15 luglio 2018, Valle dei Templi - Agrigento | 25-26 agosto 2017, Valle dei Templi - Agrigento | 9 agosto 2017, Fano |  | 30 luglio 2017, Sarsina, Arena Plautina | 21 febbraio 2008, Teatro Goldoni - Venezia  | 27 agosto 2005 Gipsoteca canoviana, Possagno

Con Sebastiano Lo Monaco.
Testo di Monica Centanni.
Da Omero, Eschilo, Lucrezio, Virgilio.

Un nuovo rapsodo ci racconta, ci ricorda, la guerra di Troia. La voce del cantore riannoda e ricompone i fili della narrazione omerica e la storia della spedizione achea contro la rocca di Priamo viene narrata così dall’inizio alla fine: dagli amori di Elena e Paride, fino all’inganno del cavallo, la conquista e l’incendio della città.

Storie di eroi – Achille Ettore Aiace Ulisse Diomede – che nell’impresa mettono alla prova il limite e la qualità del loro singolare valore e intanto, insieme, disegnano la variegata costellazione dei valori su cui si fonda, nel bene e nel male, la nostra civiltà occidentale: amicizia, coraggio, lealtà, carattere, astuzia, passione, ragione.
Storie di dei – Atena Poseidone Ares Afrodite – che si schierano in battaglia al fianco degli uomini per dar prova non solo del loro potere, ma della loro stessa esistenza.

L’attore si presenta nelle vesti di un moderno cantore che cuce in una nuova rapsodia i brani degli antichi racconti; ma presta anche corpo e voce agli attori del mito, dei ed eroi. Il testo è composto incastonando nel racconto epico dell’Iliade anche brani tratti dall’Odissea, dall’Agamennone di Eschilo, dal De rerum natura di Lucrezio, dall’Eneide di Virgilio, e dai poemi epici minori sulla conquista di Troia.

Les circonstances dans lesquelles s’opéra le transfert d’une partie des tableaux de la galerie d’Énée du Palais-Royal au château de Saint-Cloud restent obscures. Le duc Louis-Philippe avait laissé la jouissance du Palais-Royal à son fils, Louis-Philippe-Joseph et à sa jeune épouse, Louise-Adélaïde de Bourbon-Penthièvre. Le jeune duc de Chartres entreprit des travaux de décoration et de réaménagement . C’est dans ce contexte qu’il fit démolir, en 1778, la galerie d’Énée, peinte au début du siècle par Antoine Coypel . On ne sait si c’est lui ou son père qui fit porter une partie des tableaux démontés à Saint-Cloud. Quoiqu’il en soit, sept des tableaux étaient installés, en 1779, dans la seconde antichambre de l’appartement du duc d’Orléans au premier étage du château, lorsque parut à cette date la nouvelle édition du Voyage pittoresque de Dézallier : il y avait Énée et Anchise, Énée et Achate apparaissant dans le temple à Didon, La mort de Didon, La descente d’Énée aux enfers, Jupiter apparaissant à Énée, Les funérailles de Pallas et La mort de Turnus . Il n’en restait plus, semble-t-il, que cinq en place en 1785, lorsque le château fut vendu à Marie-Antoinette.

La personificazione della Fama inventata da Virgilio non sembra aver posseduto una tradizione iconografica. La sua rappresentazione è stata tentata solo poche volte, e in forme sempre diverse. Solo quando, a partire dalla metà del Quattrocento, si consolida l'iconografia che era stata elaborata per rappresentare la Fama nei Trionfi del Petrarca, si registra un consistente numero di casi in cui i tratti distintivi della Fama virgiliana vengono aggiungi a quelli della Fama "petrarchesca", attraverso un processo contaminatorio di cui nel saggio vengono descritti i lineamenti generali

El objetivo de este artículo es estudiar el escudo forjado por Vulcano (Eneida 8.617-731) tomando en consideración al mismo tiempo su carácter de profecía y el modo en que es representado mediante el procedimiento de la écfrasis. Se analizarán la disposición espacial de las viñetas y la vinculación de cada imagen con el centro, así como la capacidad de Eneas para comprender (o no) el contenido de la profecía acerca del futuro romano.

Cum Euryali matrem Vergilius describat, Homeri Andromacham in Iliados libro XXII delineatam imitatur. Sed in imitatione sua praesertim matris perturbationem et inopinati doloris novitatem, ad augendam erga mulierem miserationem, exprimit. Euryali mater etiam Vergilii Andromacham in Aeneidos libro III depictam imitatur propter communem fatum, dolorem et perenem suorum amissorum memoriam. Matris lamentum, denique, Euryali et Nisi gestorum narrationem omnino concludit, ut magis infirmorum dolor quam heroum gloria emineat.

A new discipline variously labelled in different countries (Anthrozoology, Human-Animal Studies, Zooantropologia) promotes approaches to cultural data which foreground animal agency and animal contribution to human activities and creativity. 
Classicists’ shift of attention to the “animal question” is destined to produce new findings and more nuanced assessments about the relationships between humans and animals in the ancient world. The new approach will also provide different standpoints for analyzing relevant issues in ancient societies such as the construction of the “other” (outsiders, enemies, foreigners), crucial key-concepts (physis-natura, ethos, feritas), as well as aspects of literary reception. The case study offered in the second part of the Chapter (the rewriting of Circe in Virgil's Aeneid 7.10-24) aims to show how an analysis that foregrounds animal agency in the scene contributes to a deeper understanding of the changes undergone by Circe in being transferred from Greek to Roman culture and of the pressures exerted by the environment on the author’s process of reshaping his model.

Allusion to Euripides' Bacchae in the Aeneid is considered in terms of Virgil's poetics of civil war. Aeneas plays the role of Dionysus; Turnus replays Pentheus; Amata alludes to Agave. The Euripidean allusion intersects with echoes of recent Roman history.

Lo studio esamina due apostrofi virgiliane dedicate a giovani morti in guerra e seguite dai lamenti dei loro genitori. In tal modo il poeta esprime un duplice punto di vista su questi eventi, quello della gloria e quello del dolore incolmabile della perdita.

La relación entre los dioses y los mortales es un aspecto característico de la poesía épica, en la que las divinidades intervienen ya respaldando y amparando las acciones humanas, ya estorbando y obstaculizando su realización. En la Eneida de Virgilio, el relato de las aventuras de Eneas hasta asentarse en Italia y fundar la gens que dará origen a la futura Roma, son centrales los discursos en los que los dioses anuncian, describen y confirman el cumplimiento de eventos venideros, tanto en el breve plazo de las acciones del poema como en el lejano porvenir reservado a la Urbs. En la bibliografía crítica de los siglos XX y XXI, los análisis de las profecías de la Eneida se han centrado en los grandes anuncios sobre Roma para indagar si encerraban mensajes optimistas y pesimistas respecto del gobierno de Augusto. Sin dejar de lado este enfoque, que ha dado lugar a lecturas valiosas y fructíferas, la propuesta del presente estudio consiste en realizar un examen exhaustivo de todos los discursos proféticos de Eneida desde una perspectiva que privilegia su dimensión comunicativa. El análisis de los rasgos que caracterizan estos discursos con personajes divinos como emisores y humanos como destinatarios, de las acciones rituales que los acompañan y de la dificultad inherente a su interpretación se revelan como una herramienta para dilucidar la particular disposición de la esfera religiosa en Eneida, el funcionamiento del fatum y la representación de la historia en un texto central para la configuración de la identidad romana.

https://www.minoydavila.com.ar/MLA-927694109-dioses-y-hombres-en-la-eneida-de-virgilio-ma-emilia-cairo-_JM

https://www.amazon.com/Dioses-hombres-Eneida-Virgilio-Mediterráneo-ebook/dp/B098R8WKLW


Reseña de M. C. Dominguez / Review by M. C. Dominguez en Circe 26.1 (2022): https://cerac.unlpam.edu.ar/index.php/circe/article/view/6710

Reseña de C. Beltrão / Review by C. Beltrão en Phoînix 28.1 (2022):
https://revistas.ufrj.br/index.php/phoinix/article/view/52888/28881

In the Aeneid, the narrative function of the Camilla story is not obvious. An ironic reading, however, encouraged in part by the episode’s dialogue with Iliad 16, in part by its ring structure, enables readers to view it as a thought experiment. As such, it demonstrates the logical if bizarre outcome of a lifelong attachment to arms, for which the Labyrinth serves as metaphor. Otherwise so dissimilar, both Camilla and Aeneas become lost in their mazes, which is to say, are overmastered by arms. Ironically, therefore, the poem’s hero, virum at 1.1, becomes ferrum at 12.950.

This paper seeks to offer an image of Aeneas` journey into the underworld. The hero`s travel into the realm of Hades represents a way of searching the origins of a nation and also the intrinsic values of an ancient hero. The wandering of Aeneas has a cathartic role, meant to reveal a true hero and founder of a great city and empire, who is trying to accomplish his fate. Sibyl, Apollo and Hecate`s priestess, is the guide of the hero into his kathabasis, counselling his acts and guiding his steps into the inferno, where he will meet the sinners, the punishers and the elated ones. The gnoseological travel into the underworld displays a geography that passes the limits of the unreal world, getting to show a social geography of Rome. The  initiatory route is designed around the journey on the Mediterranean Sea and into the realm of Hades, demonstrating that the long itinerary of Aeneas represents a spiritual and maturity quest.
Key words: the underworld, Aeneas, Sibyl, kathabasis, gnoseological travel, social geography,  maturity quest.

Virgil's opinion about love is influenced by the rising Gallus' love elegy and by the literary dialogue with that poet, as is revealed by some 'elegiac' characters in ecll. 2, 8 and -of course- 10. Love is also in the Georgics a painful passion, in the excursus at III, 209-283 and in the tragic Orpheus' story. In the Aeneid it is even more ruinous, because is a self-centered feeling and diverts from duties to the community.

Dante’s Divine Comedy is an early masterpiece of European literature as a whole and a medieval prototype of modern mythopoeic literature. In creating his epic mythopoeic narrative, Dante utilizes widely recurring narrative metaphors and symbolic topographical motifs adapted from pre-existing mythologies to describe a mortal’s mythic journey of descent into the mythical Underworld or Land of the Dead. The essay examines Dante’s nekyia or archetypal hero journey of descent into the netherworld of Dis, the archetypal Land of the Dead, led by the spirit of Virgil as they travel ever downward through the dark depths of The Inferno’s underworld landscape. The paper analyzes the poetic text of The Inferno (augmented by the iconographic, pictorial art of Gustave Dore), focusing on symbolic, structural depth-imagery of a conventional nature in Dante’s literary narrative adapted from recurring primordial images found throughout the world’s mythologies and ritual narratives. The Inferno is interpreted as a medieval literary example of mythopoeic imagery common to ancient hero myths (including The Aeneid) and initiatory ritual schema the world over, interpreted as loci of psychological meaning in the interdisciplinary works of psychologist Carl G. Jung, mythologist Joseph Campbell, and others.

  Keywords: archetypes, Carl G. Jung, comparative mythology, Dante, depth 
  psychology, Divine Comedy, iconography, Joseph Campbell, literature, mythology,
  nekyia

Funde, Eigennamen und Schriftzeichen beweisen Roms lange Zugehörigkeit zur etruskischen Kultur. Die historisch faßbaren Anfänge des Etruskertums in Italien fallen mit der mythischen  Gründungzeit Roms (datiert auf 753 v. Chr.) zusammen. Die Sage berichtet vom korinthisch-etruskischen Ursprung der letzten römische Könige und von Einfällen der Etrusker unter dem König von Clusium Lars Porsenna nach dem Sturz der Tarquinier.  Die zwei römischen Gründungsmythen, die Äneas- und die Romulus-Sage, bezeugen die enge Verbindung Roms mit den etruskischen Nachbarn. Von den sieben sagenhaften Königen Roms, von Romulus bis Tarquinius Superbus, waren vier etruskischer Herkunft. Romulus ist der mythische Ahnherr der *Ruma, eines aus lat. Roma erschlossenen Geschlechternamens. Die erschlossene etruskische Form von Romulus lautet *Rumle. Von ihm leiten sich auch die Gentilizien Romulius bzw. Romilius ab. Auf die Romulii oder Romilii ist auch die erste der  sechzehn ältesten römischen Landtribus, die Romulia zurückzuführen. Remus gilt als der Ahnherr der Remmii, eines Geschlechts, das es wohl im ältesten Rom gegeben haben muß. Dem Gentilnamen liegt der etruskische Name  Rem-ne oder Rem-ni zugrunde. Von diesem Gentilizium leiten sich in und um Rom die Toponyme Rem-ona und Rem-oria her. Tyrrhener  und Römer wurden von den Griechen häufig synonym benutzt: Tyrrhenoì  è Rhomaîoi („Tyrrhener oder Römer“), ebenso wie Tyrrhenía è Italía. Einige Sprachelemente seien zusätzlich genannt: Im Etruskischen lauten die Namensbezeichnungen für Rom Ruma, für Römer Rumach, für Troja Truia, für Trojaner Truial. In der Frühzeit herrschte ein Priesterkönig (lauchme oder lochume, lat. lucumo) in jeder etruskischen Stadt, ein Titel, der möglicherweise auf die Heilskönige und Richter der nordostgeorgischen Bergstämme verweist, die häufig den Namen Luchumi trugen.

Das etruskische Erbe Roms gelangte erst Jahrhunderte später, während des Humanismus und in der Renaissance wieder zum Vorschein. Bei der Hinwendung zur Antike in der Rinascita spielte in der Toskana und in Latium, vor allem in Florenz und Viterbo, die Etruscheria, die Begeisterung für die Etrusker, eine besondere Rolle. Das Etruskertum diente als Modell gesellschaftlicher Erneuerung und fand Eingang in die kulturellen Programme der Renaissancefürsten, nicht zuletzt  der Medici. Der römische Baumeister Vitruv hatte  in seinem Augustus gewidmeten Werk De architectura  die tuskische Säulenordnung beschrieben. Diese Schrift regte die Renaissancearchitekten Andrea Palladio und Giorgio Vasari an. Der Palladianismus bildet zwei Jahrhunderte später eine der wichtigsten Stilrichtungen des Klassizismus. Durch die Lektüre von Palladio inspiriert, errichtete Thomas Jefferson sein Haus „Monticello“ mit toskanischem Portikus – die  erste toskanische Villa in der Neuen Welt.  Den Etruskern verdankt das  abendländischen Denken  schließlich  eine zentrale Kategorie – die Person.

Este pequeno trabalho analisa o papel das profecias no poema épico Eneida de Virgílio, procurando estabelecer as motivações poéticas, religiosas e políticas do conjunto de adivinhações identificadas e tentando demonstrar que a profecia é para o poeta como uma seta no tempo, apontada do mito à história de Roma, para dar a essa história uma significação divina.

This Master's degree thesis want to analyze the Dante’s conception about the nature of the soul and his relationships with the body in the Commedia. It was considered appropriate to take advantage of poetry and philosophy as instruments of investigation.
The first chapter is a chronicle of the question about the physical pain soffered from the the soul in the afterlife, as posed by Scripture. Passing through the exegetical production that goes from the 5th to the 13th century, we come to highlight the different solutions underlying the different lines of thought of medieval theology.
The second chapter discusses the relationship between soul and body in the previous Christian of the Dante's poem, or the medieval genre of the visiones animarum. The benefit of a selection was used, favoring the reading of some particularly representative samples of visionary production: The Visio Baronti (VII century), the Visio Tnugdali (mid XII century) and the Tractatus de Purgatorio Sancti Patricii (end of XII sec.).
The third chapter traces the anthropological theme in the most authoritative journey of the afterlife of classical antiquity known to Dante, or the descent of Avernus of the VI book of the Aeneid. By giving a short speech about the model of the virgilian κατάβασις, or the nekya of the 11th book of the Odyssey, the chapter goes on to deepen the doctrine of the mens (Aen. VI, 724-51) and the poetic representation of the umbrae.
The fourth chapter introduces the Commedia, dealing with the Inferno. Moving from the observation of the absence in the first canticle of a doctrine of the soul, the chapter follows the track given on the other possible analytical directrix of the argument, or the poetic representation of the spirits, extrapolating the cognitive contribution offered on the subject by the poetic data from a precise examination of the verses.
The fifth chapter focuses the exegesis of the lectio about the origin of the soul and its superhuman destiny held by Stazio in the twenty-fifth canto of Purgatorio, establishing a continuous intertextual comparison with other similar passages of the Commedia and the Convivio.
The conclusions reconstruct the contribution offered by literary models and theological sources to the representation and the doctrine of the soul in Dante, reaching the otherworldly anthropology of the Commedia.

It is not true that, as to the content of the scenes, there is no relationship between the shields of Aeneas and of Achilles: Virgil’s scenes are a transformation and a deformation of the scenes on the shield of Achilles. But whereas Homer depicts two “universal” cities, one in peace and one in war, Virgil only depicts a specific city in war. Also in the light of ancient allegorical interpretations, the meaning of the relationship between the shields of Aeneas and of Achilles is reconsidered: are the “cosmic” ambitions of the shield of Achilles reproduced by the “historic” shield of Aeneas (as Hardie sustains), or is the history of Ro- man wars on the shield of Aeneas pointedly narrowing Homer’s all-comprehensive picture of human society?