Riscoperta ed esegesi di classici tra Sei e Settecento. Muratori e Cuper su Paolino da Nola

Abstract

This article retraces the story of the exchange of letters between Lodovico Antonio Muratori and Gisbert Cuper of Deventer (1644-1716), a scholar who was deeply involved in the cultural and political life of his country and corresponded with the major literary figures of the time. Muratori began exchanging letters with Cuper in mid-August 1696 and their letters (the Latin texts of which will be the object of a forthcoming article) had an impact on the transmission of the four unpublished poems by Paulinus of Nola (fl. 353-431) which Muratori had just discovered in a manuscript at the Biblioteca Ambrosiana in Milan (Ambrosianus C 74sup. cc. 77r-104r) dating from the years 820 to 830. Indeed, Paulinus’s text raised various pressing problems for Muratori who, grappling with philological and, above all, historical questions related to some of the poems, especially the one known as Poema ultimum, wrote to Cuper and other scholars seeking advice. This matter captured the interest of some of the great names of the European intellectual network called the Republic of Letters which included Antonio Magliabechi (the first to be informed of Muratori’s discovery) as well as Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz.