Philosophical Readings of Virgil

The philosophical background of Virgil’s works has been studied with different positions and conclusions since Antiquity, and has provided inspiration and suggestions that have stimulated innovative developments through the ages. This book explores the philosophical – and often ‘creative’ – interpretations of Virgil’s works through ten chapters that focus on different stages of the history of Virgilian criticism, starting from the so-called Appendix Vergiliana , going on with the Virgilian exegesis of Late Antiquity (Donatus, Servius, Macrobius, Fulgentius) and the erudite and creative literature of Middle Ages (including Dante et Petrarch), up to the Renaissance, notably with the humanist Cristoforo Landino, and with a forward raid to the 18 th century, notably on the poet James Thomson. Hence comes a complex and multifaced picture of Virgil and his thought, grasped and reworked from the different viewpoints of scholars and writers belonging to different periods and cultural trends, providing an interesting and fascinating insight – a crosswise insight, one may say into the history of Western culture.