This volume of conference proceedings contains, after the introduction by the president of the Accademia del Subasio, the institution promoting the conference, and the greetings of many authorities, fourteen contributions, organised in alphabetical order, based on the surnames of the authors. The essays are produced both by classical philologists specialising on Propertius and by scholars of other disciplines (art, music, linguistics, archaeology) proposing studies on selected elegies of Propertius or making comparisons between Propertius and authors from other eras and other cultural fields, giving the volume an interdisciplinary character.
Various topics are therefore alternated, with attention both to Propertius in his time and to the fortune and reception of Propertian motifs or, sometimes, not specifically concerning this author, but Latin language and literature in general, as is evident from the statements of some authors.
This is the case of the first contribution by P. Baldacci, ‘Giorgio De Chirico, il latino e la poetica della lingua morta. Arte e letteratura’, since, in the absence of documented relationships between Propertius and De Chirico, it rather deals with the literary influences exerted on De Chirico's metaphysical landscape by the poetry of Horace, Leopardi and Pascoli. This is followed by E. Cavallini, ‘Properzio nella canzone d'autore’, who investigates, based on an article by Luigi Spina, some re-propositions of the Latin poet's poems in the songs of Battiato (especially in Delenda Carthago, with Latin citations, among others, from Prop. 3.7), Giorgio Gaber and above all Virgilio Savona, the author of the album Sexus et Politica (1970) in which he draws on various Propertian elegies (2.20; 4.7; 4.11).
The contribution by R. Dimundo, ‘Cogor … e tabula pictos ediscere mundos (Prop. 4,3,37). Scenari properziani di guerra nell'immaginario femminile’, examines Propertius’ elegies with attention to characters who are antithetical to the poet, and to women abandoned in war contexts, such as Tarpeia in elegy 4.4. P. Fedeli, in ‘Properzio e il paesaggio di Roma, dalle origini alla città augustea’, focuses on the fourth book, in which he highlights Propertius’ idea of a refoundation and growth of his poetry, corresponding to the effective ‘growth’ of Rome achieved by Augustus.
This is followed by L. Landolfi, ‘Properzio, il paesaggio del sogno’, who re-examines three elegies (2.26a; 3.3; 4.7) containing ‘dream dossiers’ with systematic oscillations between opposite choices in the details of the landscapes (marine, wooded, otherworldly respectively), in the ‘graphics’ and in the frames. The sixth contribution by M. Papini, ‘Omnia vertuntur: ruinae e vestigia di città nel periodo Giulio-Claudio’, deals with the literary topos of ruins, not only in literature, but also in relation to art (painting, marble reliefs).
The next contribution by R. Perrelli, ‘Properzio e la campagna che non c’è. Sul tema del paesaggio agricolo nelle elegie properziane’, argues that the agricultural landscape is very little present in the elegies of Propertius, who prefers the urban landscape; indeed, the countryside seems hostile to his elegiac ‘ego’, unlike the case of Tibullus. This is followed by P. Pinotti's ‘Il paesaggio delle laudes Italiae’, which focuses on elegy 3.22 and presupposes Virgil's laudes Italiae, but without aemulatio between different genres.
The following two essays are both dedicated to the god Vertumnus, the protagonist of Propertius’ elegy 4.2. On the one hand, the contribution by D. Poli, ‘Vertumno e il paesaggio: dall'antichità a Josif Brodskij e Sebastiano Vassalli’, proposes a linguistic-etiological analysis of the elegy and a diachronic comparison on the theme of landscape with the contemporary authors Brodskij and Vassalli, both in poetry and prose. On the other hand, F. Roncalli delves into the Etruscan origins of the god on a cultural and religious level, in ‘Gli Etruschi, l'ambiente e il Vertumno di Properzio’.
In the contribution by G. Rosati, ‘Il paesaggio del mito’, the technique of superposition between the mythical world and the real world, used by Propertius to mythologise his experience of love, is investigated, as well as the use of the locus amoenus. This is followed by S. Sisani's ‘Il paesaggio amministrativo della Valle Umbra nell'età di Properzio’, about territorial structures imposed by Augustus after the bellum Perusinum.
The contribution by F. Stok, ‘Il paesaggio dell'Oltretomba’, compares the image of the afterlife in Tibullus (1.3) and in Propertius (1.19), and examines the infernal landscapes in Book 4. A. Cucchiarelli concludes the volume with ‘Considerazioni conclusive. Le elegie di Properzio ovvero storie dalla donna-mondo’, which enhance the encounter, in Propertius, of the force of eros with poetic invention.
Overall, the theme of landscape in Propertius appears to be interpreted in a free way, now real, now topical or imaginary, by each scholar within these conference proceedings. Also, the structure of each contribution is different, among other things, in the quantity and subjective criteria for selecting the cited bibliography. The titles of the contributions sometimes appear broad and general, but the contents are focused on the analysis of individual compositions and passages.
As anticipated, the alphabetical order based on the names of the authors generates a mix of topics, perhaps intentional in the interest of variatio and following the example of the Propertian books, which form a collection of varied compositions. The only (random) comparison between contributions of similar subject is, as mentioned, that on the suggestive god of Vertumnus, examined from different points of view, with the possibility of a close comparison between different readings and interpretations (on this topic cf. the present reviewer's L'elegia di Vertumno – Properzio 4.2 [1999]).
As the president of the Accademia del Subasio, Bonamente, notes at the beginning of the volume, the conference that led to these proceedings had the aim of placing the poet in a broad-spectrum cultural perspective. Indeed, the volume combines the traditional interest in philology and literary studies with other interests to reach and involve a wide audience. Thus, nearly every aspect of the Propertian landscape (urban landscape, agricultural-agronomic, Roman, Etruscan, Umbrian, otherworldly, dreamlike landscape) receives at least some in-depth analysis, directly or indirectly.
In conclusion, the volume is heterogeneous, rich in information and interesting associations, ranging from philological-literary studies to many other cultural and artistic fields. All this demonstrates the vitality of Propertius’ poetry and encourages further research and conferences on this Latin poet and his learned elegies, always fascinating and a source of inspiration for other writers and artists.
