Cristoforo Landino's Aeneid and the Humanist Critical Tradition*

There is little question that the Virgil criticism of early Italian humanism reached its zenith in theDisputationes Camaldulensesof Cristoforo Landino. Professor of rhetoric and poetry at the FlorentineStudiumfrom 1457 to 1497, Landino was active in the circle of philosophers, poets, and scholars associated with Marsilio Ficino and often referred to now as the Platonic Academy of Florence. The dialogue, written in 1472 and set a few years earlier in the monastery at Camaldoli, begins as an examination of the active and contemplative lives and the nature of thesummum bonum(Books I and II). Since Landino believed that Virgil also described thesummum bonumand the path by which we reach it, Books III and IV of theDisputationesturn to theAeneidas a parallel source of philosophical truth.

Cristoforo Landino's Aeneid and the Humanist Critical Tradition* Academic Article