Dr Vittorio Danovi

Postdoctoral research: Dr Vittorio Danovi

Irish Research Council Postdoctoral Fellow (2024–2026)

Irish readings of Vergil: the Philargyrian corpus and its medieval reception

From the Antiquity to the Modern Period, the unique status held by Vergil within the literary canon led his poems to be treated not only as a fundamental tool to teach and learn Latin but also as a key source for the study of almost every conceivable subject. As a corollary, a branch of scholarship emerged whose chief concern was to provide critical explanations of the text of the poems, addressing the different needs of different communities of readers: Vergilian exegesis.

Vittorio Remo will produce a comprehensive study of the Irish early-medieval tradition of Vergilian exegesis, focusing on the only major outputs of this tradition that have survived: the four commentaries on the ‘Eclogues’ and the ‘Georgics’ known as the Philargyrian corpus. Being rewritten versions of a seventh(?)-century commentary that ultimately emanated from late-antique sources, they exhibit a unique mixture of ancient and medieval features. For the first time, these features will be contemporarily studied against the background of the whole history of Vergilian exegesis and against the background of Irish and Continental coeval scholarship.

The project will aim to transform our understanding of pre-modern Vergilian exegesis, offering a novel reconstruction of the development of the tradition to which the four commentaries belong and revealing its long-lasting influence. More broadly, it will shed new light on how exegesis was practiced between Ireland and France and on how annotated copies of Vergil could be used as tools to store and produce knowledge before and during the Carolingian cultural revival.

E-mail: vittorioremo.danovi@universityofgalway.ie
Mentor: Dr Pádraic Moran