Adonis The Myth of the Dying God in the Italian Renaissance [Paperback]

In this detailed treatment of the myth of Adonis in post-Classical times, Carlo Caruso provides an overview of the main texts, both literary and scholarly, in Latin and in the vernacular, which secured for the Adonis myth a unique place in the Early Modern revival of Classical mythology. While aiming to provide this general outline of the myth's fortunes in the Early Modern age, the book also addresses three points of primary interest, on which most of the original research included in the work has been conducted. First, the myth's earliest significant revival in the age of Italian Humanism, and particularly in the poetry of the great Latin poet and humanist Giovanni Pontano. Secondly, the diffusion of syncretistic interpretations of the Adonis myth by means of authoritative sixteenth-century mythological encyclopaedias. Thirdly, the allegorical/political use of the Adonis myth in G.B. Marino's (1569-1625)Adone, published in Paris in 1623 to celebrate the Bourbon dynasty and to support their legitimacy with regard to the throne of France.

Like a prism that splits a single ray of light into a whole spectrum, this book sheds new light on a wide range of issues in the arts, sciences and humanist thought in the Italian Renaissance. An outstanding book. Clifford Cunningham, Sun News Miami

Like a prism that splits a single ray of light into a whole spectrum, this book sheds new light on a wide range of issues in the arts, sciences and humanist thought in the Italian Renaissance. An outstanding book. Sun News Miami

Caruso's exploration of the figure of Adonis in Italian Renaissance literature is an accomplished and detailed exemplar of the variety of interpretation and afterlife of classical myths ... This is evidently an exhaustive and illuminating book ... and as such is invaluable to researchers of this period or those interested in the cultural afterlife of mythology. The Classical Review

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