This volume deals with the question of the continuity of Latin literature throughout its history. For the first time, contributions are brought together from each of the three fields within the studies of Latin literature: Classical, Medieval and Neo-Latin, reflecting on problems such as the transmission of the Latin heritage, the creation and perpetuation of a classical normativeness and the reactions against it. The book is divided into three parts, corresponding to the theoretical principle of organic development: "Beginnings?," "Perfections?," "Transitions?," thus questioning the validity...

No cultural phenomenon can remain vital and evolve without a continuous integration of external elements. Instead of reading the process of appropriation in terms of 'sources' or 'models', the dynamics involved are better understood using more flexible categories such as creative reception, polyphony and dialogue. In every phase of its evolution, in Antiquity, the Middle Ages or (Early) Modern times, Latin literature had to face a double challenge, one from the past, and one from the present: although the models and heritage of the past always remained normative, contemporary demands had to...

In 17th-century intellectual life, the ideas of the Renaissance humanist Justus Lipsius (1547-1606) were omnipresent. The publication of his Politica in 1589 had made Lipsius's name as an original and controversial political thinker. The sequel, the Monita et exempla politica (Admonitions), published in 1605, was meant as an illustration of Lipsius's political thought as expounded in the Politica. Its aim was to offer concrete models of behavior for rulers against the background of Habsburg politics. Lipsius's later political treatise also forms an indispensable key to interpret the place...