Ovid and Poliziano in exile

Abstract

This paper examines how the Renaissance poet and scholar Angelo Poliziano draws on Ovid's Tristia, Ibis, and Epistulae ex Ponto to shape his own experiences as a “poet of exile” during a six-month period of self-imposed absence from Florence in 1479–80. In four Latin epigrams, the Sylva in scabiem, and a lengthy letter of apology from the Gonzaga court in Mantua Poliziano appeals to his patron, Lorenzo de’ Medici, to call him back to Florence. Poliziano’s appeals to Lorenzo invoke Ovid’s appeals from exile to the Roman emperor Augustus, who becomes in turn a model for a Renaissance ruler well aware of the importance of historical precedent. In appealing thus to his patron to have himself restored to Florence, Poliziano also lays claim to a powerful poetical exemplum in the figure of Ovid.