ABSTRACT
Chapter 1 begins in 1502, year zero for the Renaissance Gallus. Pomponio Gaurico’s edition of Cornelii Galli Fragmenta had an immediate impact, and would continue to shape the reception of Gallus for centuries to come. It contained both the elegiacs of Maximianus, the subject of this chapter, and Lydia bella puella candida, discussed in Chapter 3. The argument is that the perplexing success and durability of the attribution of the Maximianus elegiacs to Gallus—which, on the surface of it, has little to recommend it except wishful thinking and a few superficial coincidences—is best understood through a close consideration of the metapoetic functions of the elegies themselves, which Renaissance humanists found particularly amenable to the preoccupations of their age. The chapter includes text, translation and analysis of the paratexts in Gaurico’s edition.
