Italian & Roman Literature

In many ways, the history of Italy is one of a nation searching for its own identity, always one step behind when it comes to cultural advances. The often glorified Roman Empire stole its art and literature from the Greeks, and much later Benito Mussolini (purportedly following in the footsteps of the Caesars) plunged his country into Fascism on the heels of Adolf Hitler's lead. For the several hundred years between both regimes, the history of the area was largely one of political fracture and conquest.

The one era (and arguably the most important) in which Italy led the rest of the world was the Renaissance. Italy was less unified back then, existing as a series of independent city-states rather than a single nation, but the cultural forces that emanated from places like Florence, Sienna and Venice were very much of a piece. Even with the Renaissance, however, the Italian humanists borrowed from their own Roman heritage to build a complex of progressive architecture, literature, painting and sculpture, philosophy, political theory, and religion.

Most Roman literature centered around the one thing the Romans were really, really good at: warfare. A lot of the extant manuscripts are nonfiction accounts of Roman conquest, wars, civil wars, and other military ventures throughout Europe, Western Asia, and North Africa. These are some of the most valuable historical documents we have, actually: the accounts of Julius Caesar and Agricola concerning the early Celtic tribes are the best among the limited documentation we have about ancient Britain.

Of course, Rome had her poets and philosophers as well—Ovid wrote love poems and mythology, Catullus wrote love poems and polemics, Propertius just wrote love poems; Epicurus and Marcus Aurelius were philosophers; Apuleius wrote the first novel (The Golden Ass, which also happened to be the first dirty novel); Livy, Tacitus and Suetonius wrote history; Cicero and Seneca wrote oratory; and Virgil wrote one of the greatest works of all literature of all time: The Aeneid, which simultaneously managed to codify the Roman preoccupation with war ("I sing of arms and the man") and pay homage to the Roman debt to Greece for all things cultural and refined.

Then came a long period in which not much was written of lasting value. The English historian Edward Gibbon (1737-1794) said the beginning of the end of the Roman Empire was marked by a single event: when Constantine had to borrow from existing buildings to construct an ornamental victory arch because there were no competent artisans to be found. The same situation had settled on the literary realm as well, inaugurating a particularly dry period only reversed during the Middle Ages by prolific Churchmen.

It wasn't till Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274) that things really began to reverse. On the cusp of the Renaissance he wrote and published a massive presentation of both theology and philosophy in which he defended the idea that man could know God through nature itself, and that while the Bible was useful for particulars, specific written revelation wasn't a necessary element of salvation. This set the stage for the Renaissance (by shifting authority away from Scripture) and the Reformation (by putting in place ideas about the Church's authority against which Luther would react).

If a greater epic poem than The Aeneid exists, it is Dante's The Divine Comedy. In it, the author imagines himself touring Hell, Purgatory, and Heaven (in that order), all the while commenting on what he finds there. Its imaginative elements, its flawless construction, and Dante's attention to the four standards of interpretation (literal, allegorical, moral and anagogical) all contributed to make The Divine Comedy the representative work of the Renaissance. Perhaps better than any other human literary effort, it combined the spiritual and physical realms through aesthetic grandeur.

The term "Renaissance" means "rebirth," and for the Italians that's exactly what it was. In many ways a rejection of the Church's authority, the movement began as a rediscovery of the Classical world, through archeology and scholarship primarily, and a reinventing of the current milieu through imitation of the older forms. Man's reason was seen as ultimate, and thus the seeds of the Enlightenment were sown. The literature of the era reflected this attitude, not least in the suddenly acute interest writers took in bawdy humor (none so wantonly as Giovanni Boccaccio in The Decameron).

After the Renaissance, things died down again from a literary perspective. It wasn't really till the Postmodern Era that things really took off again, with writers like Umberto Eco and Italo Calvino writing some of the great contemporary novels like The Name of the Rose and Foucault's Pendulum (by Eco) and If on a winter's night a traveler and The Baron in the Trees (by Calvino).

Whatever one's opinions are concerning the literature produced in the narrow strip of Mediterranean territory known as Italy, the fact remains that it has continued to exert a powerful influence over both Western and Eastern writers for two and a half thousand years. It's also true that the forms observed by the Classical and Renaissance writers were very much not their own, that they borrowed and even stole from neighboring cultures to produce a body of work at once unique and derivative. But then, isn't that the story of every country's literature?

Review by C. Hollis Crossman
C. Hollis Crossman used to be a child. Now he's a husband and father who loves church, good food, and weird stuff. He might be a mythical creature, but he's definitely not a centaur. Read more of his reviews here.
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106 Items found Print
Aeneid
by Virgil, translated by Robert Fitzgerald
from Vintage Classics
Ancient Literature/Epic Poetry for 10th-Adult
in Ancient Literature (Location: LIT1-ANC)
$16.00
Aeneid
Penguin Classics
by Virgil, translated by David West
Reissue from Penguin Classics
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$16.00
Aeneid
by Virgil, translated by Frederick Ahl
from Oxford University
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Aeneid
by Virgil, translated by L. R. Lind
from Indiana University Press
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Aeneid
by Virgil, translated by Stanley F. Lombardo
from Hackett Publishing Company
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$15.00
Aeneid
by Virgil, translated by Shadi Bartsch
from Modern Library
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$18.00
Aeneid
Penguin Classics
by Virgil, translated by Sarah Ruden
Reissue from Yale University Press
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Aeneid Of Virgil
by Virgil, translated by Allan Mandelbaum
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$5.95
All Hallows Eve
by Wesley Callihan
from Regent College
for 9th-Adult
in Old Western Culture (Location: LITCUR-OWC)
Annals
by Tacitus, translated with introduction & notes by A.J. Woodman
from Hackett Publishing Company
for Adult
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$10.00 (1 in stock)
Annals of Imperial Rome
Penguin Classics
by Tacitus
from Penguin Classics
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$19.00
Ascent to Love
by Peter Leithart
from Canon Press
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in Classical Literature Guides (Location: LIR-CLA)
$16.00
Betrothed
by Alessandro Manzoni
REPRINT Edition from Living Book Press
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$18.99
Betrothed: I Promessi Sposi
by Alessandro Manzoni
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Civil War
Penguin Classics
by Julius Caesar
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Conquest of Gaul
Penguin Classics
by Julius Caesar
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$12.00
Consolation of Philosophy
by Ancius Boethius
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Consolation of Philosophy
by Ancius Boethius
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Dante's Inferno
by Dante Alighieri (translation by Anthony Esolen)
from Modern Library
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$16.00
Dante's Paradise
by Dante Alighieri (translation by Anthony Esolen)
from Modern Library
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$18.00
Dante's Purgatory
by Dante Alighieri (translation by Anthony Esolen)
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$16.00
Decameron
by Giovanni Boccaccio
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Decameron
by Giovanni Boccaccio
Revised from Penguin Classics
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$15.00
Divine Comedy
by Dante Alighieri (translation by John Ciardi)
from New American Library
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$21.00
Divine Comedy
by Dante Alighieri (translation by Henry Francis Cary)
from Wordsworth Classics
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Divine Comedy
by Dante Alighieri, translated by Melville Best Anderson and illustrated by William Blake
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Divine Comedy
by Dante Alighieri, translated by Robin Kirkpatrick
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$28.00
Divine Comedy
by Dante Alighieri, translated by Allan Mandelbaum
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$35.00
Divine Comedy
by Dante Alighieri, translated by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow and illustrated by Gustave Doré
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Divine Comedy
by Dante Alighieri, translated by Henry Francis Cary and Illustrated by Umberto Romano
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Divine Comedy - Dorothy Sayers trilogy
Penguin Classics
by Dante Alighieri, translated by Dorothy Sayers and Barbara Reynolds
from Penguin Putnam
Medieval Allegory/Poetic Epic for 10th-Adult
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$42.50
Divine Comedy I
Penguin Classics
by Dante Alighieri, translated by Dorothy Sayers
from Penguin Classics
Medieval Allegory/Poetic Epic for 10th-Adult
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$16.00
Divine Comedy II
Penguin Classics
by Dante Alighieri, translated by Dorothy Sayers
from Penguin Classics
Medieval Allegory/Poetic Epic for 10th-Adult
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$17.00
Divine Comedy III
Penguin Classics
by Dante Alighieri, translated by Dorothy Sayers & Barbara Reynolds
from Penguin Classics
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Divine Comedy Volume 1: Inferno
by Dante Alighieri, translated by Robert Pinsky
Revised from Farrar & Rinehart
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$14.00
Divine Comedy Volume 2: Purgatory
by Dante, translated by Mark Musa
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Divine Comedy Volume 3: Paradise
by Dante, translated by Mark Musa
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Early Christian Writings
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Early History of Rome
by Livy
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First Voyage to America
by Christopher Columbus
from Dover Publications
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$9.95
Four Voyages
by Christopher Columbus
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$17.00
History of the Church
by Eusebius
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$20.00
Josephus: New Complete Works
by Flavius Josephus
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$34.99
Josephus: New Complete Works
by Flavius Josephus
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$24.99
Josephus: The Essential Works
by Flavius Josephus
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Josephus: The Essential Writings
by Flavius Josephus, translated by Paul L. Maier
from Kregel Publications
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$21.99
La Vita Nuova
by Dante Alighieri
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Medieval Poetry for 10th-Adult
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Lives of the Noble Romans
by Plutarch
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Lives of the Twelve Caesars
by Suetonius, translated by Philemon Holland, edited by Moses Hadas, and illustrated by Salvatore Fiume
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Marco Polo
by Marco Polo
from Book League of America
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Marcus Aurelius and His Times
by Marcus Aurelius
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Meditations
by Marcus Aurelius
from Modern Library
Classic Literature for 9th-Adult
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$11.00
Metamorphoses
by Ovid, translated by Charles Martin
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$17.95
Metamorphoses
by Ovid
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$7.95
Music Appreciation 2 - Basic Set
by Wesley Callihan
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Name of the Rose
by Umberto Eco
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Nature of the Gods
by Cicero
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Nature of the Gods
by Cicero
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New Atlantis and The City of the Sun: Two Classic Utopias
by Francis Bacon, Tomasso Campanella
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New Testament
by Richmond Lattimore
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$25.00
North's Plutarch - Two Volume Set
by Plutarch, translated by Thomas North
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Old Western Culture Year 2 Volume 2 - Reader
by Wesley Callihan
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Old Western Culture Year 2 Volume 2 - Video Lectures
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$84.75
Old Western Culture Year 2 Volume 3 - Video Lectures
by Wesley Callihan
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Old Western Culture Year 2 Volume 4 - Video Lectures
by Wesley Callihan
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Old Western Culture Year 3 Volume 1 - Reader
by Wesley Callihan
from Roman Roads Media
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Old Western Culture Year 3 Volume 1 - Video Lectures
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Old Western Culture Year 3 Volume 2 - Reader
by Wesley Callihan
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Old Western Culture Year 3 Volume 2 - Video Lectures
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Old Western Culture Year 3 Volume 3 - Reader
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Old Western Culture Year 3 Volume 3 - Video Lectures
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Old Western Culture Year 3 Volume 4 - Reader
by Wesley Callihan
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Old Western Culture Year 3 Volume 4 - Video Lectures
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Old Western Culture Year 4 Volume 1 - Reader
by Wesley Callihan
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Old Western Culture Year 4 Volume 1 - Video Lectures
by Wesley Callihan
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Old Western Culture Year 4 Volume 2 - Reader
by Wesley Callihan
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Old Western Culture Year 4 Volume 2 - Video Lectures
by Wesley Callihan
from Roman Roads Media
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Old Western Culture Year 4 Volume 3 - Reader
by Wesley Callihan
from Roman Roads Media
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by Wesley Callihan
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Old Western Culture Year 4 Volume 4 - Reader
by Wesley Callihan
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Old Western Culture Year 4 Volume 4 - Video Lectures
by Wesley Callihan
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On the Nature of Things
by Lucretius
from Penguin Classics
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$16.00
On the Nature of Things
by Lucretius
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$19.00
On the Nature of Things
by Lucretius
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Paradiso
by Dante, translated by Joe Carlson
from Roman Roads Media
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Paradiso - Reader's Guide
by Dante, translated by Joe Carlson
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Portable Dante
by Dante Alighieri, translated by Mark Musa
from Penguin Classics
Medieval Allegory/Poetic Epic for 10th-Adult
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$24.00
Prince, The
Penguin Classics
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from Penguin Classics
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$8.00
Prince, The
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by Niccolo Machiavelli
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Political Philosophy for 11th-Adult
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Prince, The
by Niccolò Machiavelli (translation by Harvey C. Mansfield)
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Political Philosophy for 11th-Adult
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Purgatorio
by Dante, translated by Joe Carlson
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$21.95
Purgatorio - Reader's Guide
by Dante, translated by Joe Carlson
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Roman Lives
by Plutarch, translated by Robin Waterfield
Reissue from Oxford University
Biography for 9th-Adult
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Rule of St Benedict
by St. Benedict & Timothy Fry, editor
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Rule of St. Benedict in English
by St. Benedict & Timothy Fry, editor
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Satyricon
by Petronius
from Heritage Press
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Selected Poems
by Horace
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Selected Works of Cicero
Penguin Classics
by Cicero
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$17.00
Selected Works of Cicero
by Cicero
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Ancient Roman Philosophy for 10th-Adult
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Summa of the Summa
by St. Thomas Aquinas, edited by Peter Kreeft
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$25.50
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