Valerius Flaccus and the rewriting of the Argonautica

This book offers an intertextual study of the Argonauts’ departure from Pagasae in Book 1 (ll. 481–850) of Valerius Flaccus’ Argonautica. The episode is examined from structural and verbal perspectives to show how the poet’s literary models interact in shaping the text. The three main scenes – the council of the gods, the storm and the death of Jason’s parents – are analyzed in their broader development and through a line-by-line intertextual commentary, with attention to Valerius Flaccus’ imitative techniques. The final chapter (Venturing beyond) presents a metapoetic reading that explores the reworking of the Flavian poet’s principal models.

Lorenzo Vespoli, Ph.D. (Université de Genève, 2024), is a post-doctoral fellow at the Justus Liebig-Universität Gießen. His research focuses on Greek and Latin literature of the Imperial period and on the reception of classical texts in Humanism. He has published books and many articles, including the critical edition of Angelo Poliziano’s (1454–1494) marginal notes on Virgil’s Eclogues (Olschki, 2024) and an edition with translation and commentary of Plutarch’s Life of Cicero (Rusconi, 2025).