La parodia delle scene tipiche nella Batrachomyomachia e la sua imitatio nel Rinascimento

Abstract

The present work analyzes the relation between Batrachomyomachia and
zooepic poems of Italian Humanism and Renaissance. The Batrachomyomachia was
used in schools as an educational text in the Byzantine period and was the first Greek
literary text to be printed in Italy: for these reasons it was a well-known work among
humanists, although most of them read the poem in a Latin translation instead of the
original Greek text. In the Batrachomyomachia parody is achieved in particular through
the juxtaposition of animal characters and presence of Homeric type-scenes. The selected
type-scenes parodied by the author of the Batrachomyomachia are all present in
the zooepic works: aristeia, assembly, arming, catalogues and battles. The first part of
the paper is focused on the way in which the type-scenes are parodied in the Pseudo-
Homeric poem. The second part is focused on the presence of the same type-scene in
the Italian zooepic of the Sixteenth century: the works taken into consideration are the
Croacus of Elisio Calenzio, the Moschaea of Teofilo Folengo and the anonymous poem

La gran battaglia de li gatti e de li sorzi. The intention of this comparative analysis is to
highlight that the Batrachomyomachia was the archetype of the zooepic genre: it was
found that some elements contained in the Batrachomyomachia were reused by erudite
humanists and later became canonical elements in the zooepic poems.