Problems Mainly Propertian

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The poetic works of the Italian poet Francesco Sperulo ( 1463-1531) contains a cycle of four books of elegies originally dedicated to Cardinal Luigi De’ Rossi and later revised for presentation to Cardinal Ercole Rangone (Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, Vat.lat. 1683). Books One (De amore iuvenili, 5v-38v) and Two (De amore coniugali, 39v-72v), modelled upon the works of the classical elegists (Propertius in particular), conventionally chronicle the poet’s infatuation with a certain girl named Leuca. Yet without recourse to the contemporary editions and commentaries of Sperulo’s classical sources many of the poet’s lines and references are inexplicable. This paper uses Filippo Beroaldo’s edition of Propertius to highlight Sperulo’s method of composition and, in so doing, offer a definition of the concept of imitatio as it was perceived in the intellectual circles of Rome in the early sixteenth century with emphasis on the court of Pope Leo X.