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David Scott Wilson-Okamura
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VIRGIL IN THE RENAISSANCE

The disciplines of classical scholarship were established in their

modern form between 1300 and 1600, and Virgil was a test case for
many of them. This book is concerned with what became of Virgil in
this period, how he was understood, and how his poems were
recycled. What did readers assume about Virgil in the long decades
between Dante and Sidney, Petrarch and Spenser, Boccaccio and
Ariosto? Which commentators had the most influence? What story,
if any, was Virgil’s Eclogues supposed to tell? What was the status of
his Georgics? Which parts of his epic attracted the most imitators?
Building on specialized scholarship of the last hundred years, this
book provides a panoramic synthesis of what scholars and poets from
across Europe believed they could know about Virgil’s life and poetry.

david scott wilson-okamura received his Ph.D. from the

University of Chicago. He is an Associate Professor of English at
East Carolina University.

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David Scott Wilson-Okamura
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VIRGIL IN THE RENAISSANCE

DAVID SCOTT WILSON-OKAMURA

East Carolina University

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David Scott Wilson-Okamura
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cambridge university press

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Cambridge University Press
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Published in the United States of America by Cambridge University Press, New York

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© David Scott Wilson-Okamura 2010

This publication is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception

and to the provisions of relevant collective licensing agreements,
no reproduction of any part may take place without the written
permission of Cambridge University Press.

First published 2010

Printed in the United Kingdom at the University Press, Cambridge

A catalogue record for this publication is available from the British Library

Library of Congress Cataloguing in Publication data

Wilson-Okamura, David Scott, 1970–
Virgil in the Renaissance / David Scott Wilson-Okamura.
p. cm.
i s b n 978-0-521-19812-7 (hardback)
1. Virgil – Appreciation – Europe. 2. Virgil – Influence. 3. European literature – Renaissance,
1450–1600 – Classical influences. 4. Literature, Medieval – Classical influences. 5. Authors and
readers – Europe – History – To 1500. 6. Authors and readers – Europe – History –
16th century. I. Title.
p a 6825.w 537 2010
8730 .01–dc22
2010000070

i s b n 978-0-521-19812-7 Hardback

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David Scott Wilson-Okamura
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Multa renascentur quae iam cecidere, cadentque

quae nunc sunt in honore . . .

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Contents

Illustrations page x
Acknowledgements xi
Texts and abbreviations xii

Introduction 1
Method 3
Lacunae 6
Models 8
Plan 10

part i publication 13
1 Virgil with an i 15
Poliziano’s proof 15
How they reacted to Poliziano’s bombshell 18
The market for Virgil editions and commentaries 20
The state of publishing in England; or Did the Reformation make
any difference? 27
Servius and Donatus: the authority of antiquity 31
Landino vs. Badius: originality vs. utility 35
Valeriano: the scholarly argument for i 37
Innovation vs. influence 40
Latin: dead language or living? 42

part ii reputation 45
2 Patronage and the Eclogues 47
The idea of Virgil and its ancient sources 47
How Virgil got rich 50
Virgil as counselor to the prince 54
Eclogues as encomia 56

vii

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viii Contents
Was Virgil a flatterer? 59
Maecenas as the model patron 60
Darkness invisible 64
Imitating Theocritus: the bookishness of Virgilian pastoral 66
Love among the shepherds 69
Christian prophecy and Epicureanism 70
Variety and the low style 73

3 Variety and the Georgics 77

The ancient tradition of Virgil’s erudition 78
Science or poetry? 81
Labor and the plow 82
Looking for the Georgics in Renaissance poetry 83
“Ille ego qui quondam” 85
Generic substitution 87
A spectrum of styles 89
The myth of Virgil’s Wheel 90
Style and genre 91
Style and variety 93
Listing variety 95
Virgil as second Nature 96

4 Morals and minimalism 101

Virgil the reviser 101
Style and character 103
Virgil’s chastity 106
Rumors about Virgil’s sex life 108
Nisus and Euryalus 109
Virgil’s gay eclogue 113
Defense by forgery 115
Perfect poetry 119
Virgil and Ennius 120
Virgil as imitator of Homer 124
Refining Homer 128
Brevity as chastity 129
Defenders of Homer against Virgil 132
Why brevity is better 134
Style: Virgil’s last stand 138

part iii interpretation 143

5 Virgil’s Odyssey 145
Prioritizing episodes 145
Troy in the Odyssey 146

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Contents ix
The weight of the underworld 149
The Gates of Sleep 153
Descent by murder 157
Character by example 163
Pluto’s daughter: hell as riches 166
Mourir, c’est facile: hell as habit 170
Life in hell 172
Purgatory 173
“Sinfull mire”: the moral status of matter 178
Resurrection 181
Imitation: competition or assimilation? 185
Dynastic prophecy 187

6 Virgil’s Iliad 191

Turnus as tragic hero 191
Modern relativism 194
Defining pietas 196
Weighing anger 199
Organizing interpretation i: classroom techniques 203
Organizing interpretation ii: the ideal man theory 208
Organizing interpretation iii: repetition and rereading 212
Six-book readers vs. twelve-book readers 215
The renaissance of Virgil’s Iliad 220
Camilla 227
The modernity of romance 230
Dido and Lavinia: the importance of Eneas 233
Vegio’s sequel: the missing link with the Middle Ages 237
Vegio’s influence 247

Epilogue 248

Appendix A Virgil commentaries in Latin editions, 1469–1599 252

Appendix B Virgil commentaries ranked by number of printings 267
Index 282

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Illustrations

1 Virgil and Ovid: Latin texts and commentaries published

in France, 1469–1599 page 22
2 Geography of printed editions 34
3 Geography of new commentaries 34
4 Prompted by Venus (viz., beauty), Aeneas woos Lavinia 244
5 Lavinia’s wooing and wedding feast 246

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Acknowledgements

My cup is full. This book was written with the aid of several institutions:
the University of Chicago, the Mellon Foundation, the Newberry Library,
Macalester College, the Bibliothèque Nationale de France (through its
Gallica collection), the Rare Book Library of Duke University, the Rare
Book Collection of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and
the Thomas Harriott College of Arts and Sciences at East Carolina
University. Special thanks are due to Sarah Stanton, Sarah Roberts, and
Rebecca Jones of Cambridge University Press; my copy-editor Caroline
Howlett; and two anonymous readers. I am grateful to the many friends,
classmates, colleagues, and teachers who answered questions, commented
on drafts, made gifts of their books, and offered fellowship: Joel Baer, David
Bevington, Garth Bond, April Brewer, Jean R. Brink, Colin Burrow, Nina
E. Cannizzaro, Alan Cottrell, Raymond J. Cormier, my research assistant
LeAnna Cox, Jeff Dolven, Charles Fantazzi, Robert Fehrenbach, Julia Haig
Gaisser, Mario Geymonat, John Given, Timothy C. Graham, Peter Green,
Andrew Hadfield, A. C. Hamilton, Richard F. Hardin, Peter C. Herman,
Thomas Herron, Leofranc Holford-Strevens, Craig Kallendorf, Carol
V. Kaske, Arthur Kinney, Christopher Kleinhenz, Roger Kuin, Elisabeth
Leedham-Green, Allen Mandelbaum, Stuart McDougal, Scott McGill,
David Lee Miller, Jerry Leath Mills, Janel Mueller, James Nohrnberg, Jim
O’Hara, Wendy Olmsted, William Oram, Anthony Papalas, Adrian Pay,
Lee Piepho, Joshua Phillips, Tanya Pollard, Anne Lake Prescott, Michael
C. J. Putnam, Thomas P. Roche, Jr., Frank Romer, Charles Ross, Sarah
Skwire, Andrew Smyth, John Stevens, Richard Strier, Sandra Tawake, Bart
van Es, Matteo Venier, and Jan M. Ziolkowski. In particular I wish to thank
W. R. Johnson, Joshua Scodel, my classmate Greg Kneidel, and Michael
Murrin, il mar di tutto ’l senno. I am especially grateful to my in-laws, Arnold
and Patricia Okamura, and my learned wife, Tricia Wilson-Okamura, who
labored with me on the index. This book is dedicated to my parents, Ralph
and Jean Wilson.
xi

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Texts and abbreviations

Virgil’s works are cited from P. Virgilii Maronis Opera . . . (Venice: Heirs
of Luca Antonio Giunta, 1544), facsimile repr., The Renaissance and the
Gods, 2 vols. (New York: Garland, 1976), as are the Supplementum of
Maffeo Vegio; the life of Virgil by Aelius Donatus; and the Virgil
commentaries of Marius Servius Honoratus, Tiberius Claudius Donatus,
Pierio Valeriano, Agostino Dati, Antonio Mancinelli, and Jodocus Badius
Ascensius; in the notes, this edition is cited as “Giunta 1544.” The Bible is
cited from The Geneva Bible: A Facsimile of the 1560 Edition (Madison:
University of Wisconsin Press, 1969). Except in the appendices, where
Latin names are used throughout, the names of Renaissance authors are
given in whatever form seems familiar now: hence “Jodocus Badius
Ascensius” for “Josse Bade van Asche,” but “Cristoforo Landino” instead
of “Christophorus Landinus.” Abbreviations, with the exception of &,
have been silently expanded. Translations are mine except where other-
wise noted.

Aen. Aeneid.
Ecl. Eclogues.
ECE Elizabethan Critical Essays, ed. G. Gregory Smith, 2 vols.
(London: Oxford University Press, 1904). Repr. 1937.
FQ Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene, ed. A. C. Hamilton,
2nd edn. (Harlow: Pearson, Longman, 2001).
Geo. Georgics.
Giunta 1544 P. Virgilii Maronis Opera . . . (Venice: Heirs of Luca
Antonio Giunta, 1544), facsimile repr., The Renaissance
and the Gods, 2 vols. (New York: Garland, 1976).
GL Torquato Tasso, Gerusalemme liberata (1582), ed.
Lanfranco Caretti (1971; repr. Turin: Einaudi, 1993).
OF Ludovico Ariosto, Orlando furioso (1532), ed. Cesare Segre,
I Meridiani (Vicenza: Mondadori, 1976).

xii

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Texts and abbreviations xiii

OI Matteo Maria Boiardo, Orlando innamorato (1482, 1494),

ed. Giuseppe Anceschi, I Grandi Libri, 2 vols. (Milan:
Garzanti, 1978).
SC Edmund Spenser, The Shepheardes Calender, in The
Shorter Poems, ed. Richard A. McCabe (London: Penguin,
1999).
STC A. W. Pollard and G. R. Redgrave, A Short-Title Catalogue
of Books printed in England, Scotland, & Ireland and of
English Books Printed Abroad, 1475–1640, 2nd edn., rev.
W. A. Jackson, F. S. Ferguson, and Katharine F. Pantzer,
3 vols. (London: Bibliographical Society, 1986–91),
supplemented by English Short Title Catalogue [database],
Online, British Library and North American Center for
ESTC, 1997.
Supp. Maphaeus Vegius, Libri xii Aeneidos supplementum
(1428), in Giunta 1544.
VT Jan M. Ziolkowski and Michael C. J. Putnam (eds.), The
Virgilian Tradition: The First Fifteen Hundred Years (New
Haven: Yale University Press, 2008). Where two page
numbers are provided (e.g., “279/280”), the first number
indicates a Latin original, the second an English
translation.

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