The Delitiae CC Italorum Poetarum (1608) Edited by Jan Gruter, Its Sources and Models

Abstract

Abstract Delitiae CC Italorum poetarum huius superiorisque aevi illustrium is the title of a two-volume anthology of Neo-Latin poetry which collects texts by more than two hundred Italian authors. Published in 1608 by the Flemish philologist Jan Gruter, this collection establishes a canon of Neo-Latin poetry written in Italy in the sixteenth century. With his anthology Gruter aimed to complete a project already undertaken by Giovanni Matteo Toscano, who had published in Paris, between 1576 and 1577, a two-volume collection of Carmina illustrium poetarum Italorum. The two anthologies differ in the number of chosen authors and selected texts, but above all in the way they choose them. By comparing the two collections of poems, this contribution aims to highlight the strategies adopted by Gruter to establish his canon of Italian authors of Neo-Latin poetry, and to discuss the different sources he used to build his anthology.