ABSTRACT
Chapter 3 addresses how and why Lydia bella puella candida—a lyric poem written in a style resembling that of Catullus, which was by far the most widely imitated of all the pseudo-Gallan poems—became associated with Gallus (and with Gallus-Maximianus), and investigates the reasons for its success. The dating of the poem is discussed, and its manuscript transmission is surveyed. It considers why Renaissance readers were able to disregard the striking stylistic disparities between the poem and the elegies of Maximianus, and to accept both as the work of Cornelius Gallus. There is discussion of translations and imitations of the poem by Joachim Du Bellay, Angelo Poliziano, Marcantonio Aldegati, Francesco Molza, Giovanni Cotta, Johannes Secundus, Jean Salmon Macrin, Marc-Antoine Muret, Ronsard, Jean-Antoine de Baïf, John Fletcher and Shakespeare. The chapter includes text and translation of the poem.
