Classical Mythology

CLASSICAL MYTHOLOGY IN LITERATURE AND ART 677

Thus the importance of three of the principal sources for classical legends

(Homer, Vergil, and Ovid) was confirmed.

THE ITALIAN RENAISSANCE

The figures of classical mythology first returned to their classical forms in Italy,
after the centuries of metamorphosis. Their revival was part of the Renaissance
("rebirth") of classical Greek.^4 During the fourteenth century scholars journeyed
to Byzantium, where they learned Greek. If they were lucky or persistent, they
also acquired manuscripts of classical Greek authors, which they brought back
to Italy. Thus the study of classical Greek (which had been limited during the
preceding centuries) was expanded. Petrarch (1304-1374) and Boccaccio
(1313-1375) learned classical Greek, and the latter's teacher translated Homer
and some Euripides into Latin. The most powerful impetus to the revival of
Greek studies came from the capture of Byzantium by the Turks in 1453, for
many Greek scholars fled to Italy bringing with them manuscripts of classical
authors. They taught Greek to Italian humanists, although it is hard to say how
many of these were learned enough to be able to read a Greek text with ease.
In the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries Italian scholars hunted for classical
manuscripts, which they copied in the libraries of monasteries, and even stole.
Petrarch, for example, possessed and copied two manuscripts by Livy. Boccac-
cio possessed copies of Varro and Apuleius, while others—of whom Coluccio,
Poggio, and Politian are the most distinguished—formed extensive classical li-
braries and commented upon the classical works. Thus by the time classical au-
thors began to be printed (Cicero's De Oratore was printed at Subiaco in 1465)
there was a large corpus of fairly reliable texts.
Another aspect of the Italian Renaissance was the publication of mytholog-
ical handbooks, often illustrated with woodcuts.^5 The earliest was Boccaccio's
De Genealogia Deorum (1371), which was first printed in 1472 at Venice. Giraldi's
De Deis Gentium was published in 1548, and the Mythologiae of Conti (Natalis
Comes) in 1551. These were written in Latin, while in Italian Vincenzo Cartari
published his Le Imagini degli Dei Antichi at Venice in 1556. These handbooks
gave basic narratives for writers and artists to draw on, and their woodcuts pro-
vided basic iconographies for artists to copy or elaborate. They were a signifi-
cant element in the recovery of the classical forms of the gods.

PETRARCH, BOCCACCIO, AND CHAUCER'S "KNIGHT'S TALE"
Petrarch and Boccaccio used classical mythology in their poems—Petrarch in his
Latin epic Africa, and Boccaccio in his Italian epic Teseida (Theseid). Chaucer used
the Teseida as his principal source for "The Knight's Tale" (ca. 1387), the first of
his Canterbury Tales. The tale begins at the point in the Theban legend when the