Overview

In this detailed treatment of the myth of Adonis in post-Classical times, Carlo Caruso provides an overview of the main texts, both literary and scholarly, in Latin and in the vernacular, which secured for the Adonis myth a unique place in the Early Modern revival of Classical mythology. While aiming to provide this general outline of the myth's fortunes in the Early Modern age, the book also addresses three points of primary interest, on which most of the original research included in the work has been conducted. First, the myth's earliest significant revival in the age of Italian Humanism, and particularly in the poetry of the great Latin poet and humanist Giovanni Pontano. Secondly, the diffusion of syncretistic interpretations of the Adonis myth by means of authoritative sixteenth-century mythological encyclopaedias. Thirdly, the allegorical/political use of the Adonis myth in G.B. Marino's (1569-1625) Adone, published in Paris in 1623 to celebrate the Bourbon dynasty and to support their legitimacy with regard to the throne of France.

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9781474244039

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This illuminating study of the early modern revival of the Adonis myth combines careful analysis of important works by Pontano, Marino and other authors with a nuanced understanding of the intellectual milieux through which their texts circulated, in Italy and beyond. Grounded on close knowledge of ancient sources and their transmission, Adonis is an exemplary demonstration of the importance of the history of scholarship for both Latin and vernacular literature from the fifteenth to seventeenth centuries, highlighting the remarkable extent of interconnection between the arts, sciences and humanist philology in the Italian Renaissance. -- Andrew Laird, University of Warwick, UK

Caruso's exploration of the figure of Adonis in Italian Renaissance literature is an accomplished and detailed exemplar of the variety of interpretation and afterlife of classical myths ... This is evidently an exhaustive and illuminating book ... and as such is invaluable to researchers of this period or those interested in the cultural afterlife of mythology. * The Classical Review * Caruso's detailed study on the tradition of the myth of Adonis combines an accurate analysis of the literary texts with a rigorous examination of their sources ... [His] study is methodologically impeccable and brings new and interesting perspectives to the Renaissance and early Baroque interpretations of the Adonian myth, which no future scholarly discussion can afford to disregard. * Modern Language Review * Like a prism that splits a single ray of light into a whole spectrum, this book sheds new light on a wide range of issues in the arts, sciences and humanist thought in the Italian Renaissance. An outstanding book. * Sun News Miami * A very successful contribution to the history of the reception of antique mythology ... featuring a comprehensive and informative set of endnotes, a bibliography and a very useful index ... The book not only provides a wealth of knowledge but proposes new interpretations and substantiates them convincingly ... In both method and content this stands as an exemplary contribution to the field. * Gymnasium (Bloomsbury translation) * This illuminating study of the early modern revival of the Adonis myth combines careful analysis of important works by Pontano, Marino and other authors with a nuanced understanding of the intellectual milieux through which their texts circulated, in Italy and beyond. Grounded on close knowledge of ancient sources and their transmission, Adonis is an exemplary demonstration of the importance of the history of scholarship for both Latin and vernacular literature from the fifteenth to seventeenth centuries, highlighting the remarkable extent of interconnection between the arts, sciences and humanist philology in the Italian Renaissance.

Author Information

Carlo Caruso is Professor of Italian at the University of Durham, UK. He has published widely in the areas of the classical tradition, literature and the arts from humanism to neo-classicism, and the history of scholarship. He is the author of critical editions of Paolo Rolli, Libretti per Musica; Paolo Giovio, Ritratti, and Diomede Borghese, Orazioni Accademiche.

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