What became explicit in Marchetti's case had implicitly been the rule since the poem's unearthing: this only partially discouraged humanists enticed by the charm of Lucretius' poetry. The key factor was probably the prohibition on translating the poem into the vernacular: the fate met by Alessandro Marchetti's belated attempt is usually proof enough of the perils that awaited the transgressors.
Spared from the index of forbidden books, humanists had to be particularly careful when handling this epicurean, materialistic, soul's-immortality-denying poem. In the Renaissance admiration for Lucretius was widespread, but it nevertheless had to comply with a set of unwritten rules in order for the De Rerum Natura to be read and allowed into humanist culture.
0 kommentar(er)
