Venanzio Fortunato tra il Piave e la Loira
Atti del terzo Convegno internazionale di studi
open access | peer reviewed
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edited by
- Edoardo Ferrarini - Università degli Studi di Verona, Italia - email
- Donatella Manzoli - Sapienza Università di Roma, Italia - email
- Paolo Mastandrea - Università Ca’ Foscari Venezia, Italia - email
- Martina Venuti - Università Ca’ Foscari Venezia, Italia - email
Abstract
Over three decades after Venanzio Fortunato tra Italia e Francia (Treviso, 1993), and more than twenty years after the international conference Venanzio Fortunato e il suo tempo (Treviso, 2003), this new collective volume seeks to reassess the field of Fortunatian studies. Born in Duplavenis – today’s Valdobbiadene – between 530 and 540, and educated in the Byzantine Ravenna reconquered by Belisarius, Venantius Fortunatus left Italy around 565 to travel to Merovingian Gaul. Whether moved by a vow to Saint Martin, as he himself wrote, or by the hope of literary success in a land that still revered the prestige of Latin culture, Fortunatus found there both recognition and enduring fame among kings, aristocrats, and bishops. He eventually settled in Poitiers, near Queen Radegund’s monastery, where he later became bishop and died in the early years of the seventh century.
A poet of transition between Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, Fortunatus inherited the refined literary legacy of the classical world while inaugurating the long and fertile season of medieval Latin poetry. His works – ranging from hagiography and panegyrics to personal and occasional compositions – bear witness to a new synthesis of classical form, Christian content, and Merovingian political reality. His influence extended far beyond his own time: from the epitaph written for him by Paul the Deacon to Dante’s citation in Inferno XXXIV, Fortunatus was received as a model of elegance and poetic mastery.
Bringing together leading scholars from Italy and abroad, this volume presents new research on Fortunatus’s language, style, theology, intertextual networks, and artistic legacy. Opening new paths of inquiry, the essays collected here illuminate the poet’s central place in the intellectual history of early medieval Europe and trace the continuity of his reception from Late Antiquity to the Modern Era.
Keywords Itinerary • Carmina figurata, Visual poetry • Greek exempla • Book • Saint Martin • Images • Saint Martin of Tours • Venanzio Fortunato • De tumulis • Intertextuality • History • Women’s asceticism • Classical heritage • Diakonia • Constitutio Antoniniana • Late-antique Christianity • Merovingian Gaul • Architecture • Roland the paladin • Anchor • Late Latin poetry • Literature • Parthenopeus • Asceticism • Jovinus • Reception • Shipwreck • Landscape • Historia Apollonii regis Tyri • Intervisuality • Ostrogothic Italy and Merovingian Gaul • De laudibus divinis • Realism • Sidonius Apollinaris • Visual construction of poetic Images • Winter • Spirituality • Roman Law • Early medieval Latin poetry • Shrines • Rhetoric • Epistolography • Miracle • Poetry • Prose • Ausonius • Roman Heritage • Venantius Fortunatus • Eridanus • Self-representation • Exile • Modesty • Giovanni Pontano • Optatian Porphyry • Ancient Rome • Verse inscriptions • Hagiography • Praise poetry • Saint Lawrence • Strategies of inclusion • Gregory of Tours • Citizenship • Late Latin Poetry • Barbarians • Late Latin literature • Late Antiquity • Classical Heritage • Epitaphs
Permalink http://doi.org/10.30687/978-88-6969-985-6 | e-ISBN 978-88-6969-985-6 | Published Jan. 21, 2026 | Language fr, it
Copyright © 2026 Edoardo Ferrarini, Donatella Manzoli, Paolo Mastandrea, Martina Venuti. This is an open-access work distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction is permitted, provided that the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. The license allows for commercial use. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.