Italy's original fascination with its cultural origins in Greece and Rome first created what is now known as 'the Classical tradition' - the pervasive influence of ancient art and thought on later times. In response to a growing interest in Classical reception, this volume provides a timely reappraisal of the Greek and Roman legacies in Italian literary history. There are fresh insights on the early study of Greek and Latin texts in post-classical Italy and reassessments of the significance attached to ancient authors and ideas in the Renaissance, as well as some innovative interpretations...

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...