Imagines Antiquitatis : Representations, Concepts, Receptions of the Past in Roman Antiquity and the Early Italian Renaissance

In the last few years a reconsideration of the past of the ancients and of the concepts correlated to it (e.g. the ʻclassicalʼ) has been important to many scholars. The present volume adds to the range of perspectives on the antique by expanding research to include different, hitherto unexplored spheres, whether that be chronological perspectives or disciplinary ones, as well as by opening up the discussion to include textual types that previous studies have treated little or not at all. Fourteen essays on various fields aim at defining the categories in which the past is constructed, thought, valued, functionalized and redrawn. They concentrate on the category of the ʻantiqueʼ and the role it plays in texts and authors, with specific reference to the ʻtopicalizationʼ, conceptualization and renegotiation of the ʻantiqueʼ and the ʻancientsʼ. The textual types analysed belong to the following fields: ancient philosophy and history of ideas, ethnography, historiography and antiquarianism, literature and philology, grammar and Roman law, Renaissance studies. Preface 5 Contents 7 List of Abbreviations 9 Introduction 11 I. Thinking the past: categories and structures of the antique 27 Mankind’s Past: Evolution or Progress? 27 Semantica senecana del primitivo 37 Quando i romani ‘scoprirono’ gli armeni: il re Tigran e la tigre (Varrone, ling. 5.100) 49 The past in Pausanias: its narration, structure and relationship with the present 59 Tarda antichità anacronica. Tra storiografia e panegirico 75 II. Functionalizations of the past 97 Livy’s antiquities: rethinking the distant past in the Ab urbe condita 97 Princeps et res publica: Des multiples façons de se référer au passé 121 Apud antiquos. La ricostruzione dell’antichità nell’insegnamento di Poliziano 141 I nuovi antichi. Classicismo e petrarchismo fra Bembo e Tasso 165 III. Veteres: the relation to past authorities 185 The Burden of Antiquity in Horace and in the Dialogus de oratoribus 185 Fronto’s and Gellius′ veteres 209 Vetustas e antiquitas, veteres e antiqui nei grammatici latini 223 Quando i giuristi diventarono ‘veteres’. Augusto e Sabino, i tempi del potere e i tempi della giurisprudenza 259 Convertire l’enciclopedia: Agostino e Varrone 313 Index Nominum et Rerum Potiorum 329 The volume aims at inquiring the categories in which the past is constructed, thought, valued, functionalized and redrawn. Fourteen essays on various fields (ancient philosophy, literature, history, antiquarianism, grammar, Roman law, Renaissance studies) concentrate on the category of the?antique? and the role it plays in texts and authors, with specific reference to the conceptualization and renegotiation of the?antique? and the?ancients? The volume aims at inquiring the categories in which the past is constructed, thought, valued, functionalized and redrawn. Fourteen essays on various fields (ancient philosophy, literature, history, antiquarianism, grammar, Roman law, Renaissance studies) concentrate on the category of the antique and the role it plays in texts and authors, with specific reference to the conceptualization and renegotiation of the antique and the ancients