ABSTRACT
The topos of inviting the Muses was popular in Neo-Latin poetry all over Europe. Perhaps even more than in contemporary vernacular poetry, poetry in Latin played with known models; conventions and themes were used and reused, being fitted into ever new contexts. To invite the Muses to one's homeland was one of these often-repeated elements. In Denmark, there was no single poet like Celtis who was the promoter of classical culture. The movement was carried forth by a small group of poets who entered the scene in the 1550s, were pupils of the old Melanchthon and had their first books printed in Wittenberg. Laetus was the most ambitious of the Danish poets who were Melanchthon's pupils during the last decade of his life. The Danish Latin poetry of the sixteenth century has in common a dialectics of nationalism and internationalism.
