Nathan Chytraeus: Fastorum Ecclesiae Christianae Libri duodecim (1594). Übersetzung und kommentierende Lektüre der Einleitung

Nathan Chytraeus’ twelve-volume work Fastorum Ecclesiae Christianae Libri duo-decim (Hanau 1594) marks a most exemplary Christian ‘imitatio’ of Ovid’s cal-endar poem in the early modern period. This paper systematically interprets a coherent excerpt from Chytraeus’ Fasti, aiming to instigate and encourage further inquiry into this little-known text. The first sixty-one verses warrant separate analysis due to their programmatic character and their literary-historical reflexivity. Chytraeus understands his work to be in a double relation: once to the Fastorum libri duodecim by ‘alter Vergilius’ Baptista Mantuanus, and once to the projected, but never realized calendar poem of Johannes Stigelius. A commenting reading of the introduction can thus uncover connections not only to classic didactic poetry (Lucretius, Vergil, and Ovid), but also to the ‘Neolatinitas’. The – separately printed – first edition of the liber primus (Leipzig 1573) serves as reference for a philological analysis.