Gareth Williams

Gesine Manuwald

Stephen Harrison

Bobby Xinyue

William M. Barton

This book offers the first annotated translation into English of two works of the eminent Venetian humanist, Ermolao Barbaro (1454–93). The Neo-Latin texts are also accompanied by a detailed introduction. The first work, On Celibacy, seeks to justify the contemplative life far from the career path expected of the patrician class, while in contrast the second, On the Office of Ambassador, outlines the conduct expected of the dedicated ambassador of Venice. Barbaro's two works are presented as embodying key contrasts within the much wider 15th-century debate about the claims of the reflective as opposed to the active life. On Celibacy argues for an alternative ideal to Barbaro's grandfather's seminal treatise celebrating marriage, promoting the celibate who proudly renounces civic life in the pursuit of self-discovery and wisdom. Presenting a more secular argument, On the Office of Ambassador revolutionises the role of the ambassador in Venetian politics. On a personal level for their author, these two works also captured the dichotomy in Barbaro's life between his humanist calling of scholarship and his public service to the Republic.

Ermolao Barbaro's On Celibacy and On the Duty of Ambassador

Nicholas Freer

Virgil's Georgics, the most neglected of the poet's three major works, is brought to life and infused with fresh meanings in this dynamic collection of new readings. The Georgics is shown to be a rich field of inherited and varied literary forms, actively inviting a wide range of interpretations as well as deep reflection on its place within the tradition of didactic poetry. The essays contained in this volume – contributed by scholars from Australia, Europe and North America – offer new approaches and interpretive methods that greatly enhance our understanding of Virgil's poem. In the process, they unearth an array of literary and philosophical sources which exerted a rich influence on the Georgics but whose impact has hitherto been underestimated in scholarship. A second goal of the volume is to examine how the Georgics – with its profound meditations on humankind, nature, and the socio-political world of its creation – has been (re)interpreted and appropriated by readers and critics from antiquity to the modern era. The volume opens up a number of exciting new research avenues for the study of the reception of the Georgics by highlighting the myriad ways in which the poem has been understood by ancient readers, early modern poets, explorers of the 'New World', and female translators of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries.

Bobby Xinyue

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