L. offers an extremely useful new edition of Mesomedes' 24-line Hymn to Nature and a thorough commentary on the text. The book is a revised version of her doctoral dissertation completed at the Università Degli Studi di Roma Tor Vergata. A substantial introduction looks well beyond the single poem in examining Mesomedes' corpus and the historical-cultural context in which he composed his poetry: the first section examines the ancient testimonia for Mesomedes' life and poetic activity, his language and style, his function as a court poet under Hadrian and Antoninus (pp. 16–20, in which L. re-evaluates Whitmarsh's reading of Mesomedes as a court poet in B. Borg [ed.], Paideia: the World of Second Sophistic [2004], pp. 377–402), as well as his later reception; the second section details fully the transmission of the poems (including disputed attributions such as the so-called ‘Berlin paean’ P. Berol. 6870) and the contributions of early modern editions; the third explores the place of Mesomedes' hymnic corpus within the Greek hymnographical tradition. The text, with a full apparatus and an Italian translation, follows. The detailed commentary forms the weightiest part of the book (pp. 95–222), buttressed by two appendices (the first a table of terms and definitions, the second a convenient edition of the rest of Mesomedes' œuvre), a bibliography and three concise indexes of general terms, Greek words and passages discussed.

The critical edition of the Hymn to Nature, for which L. consulted reproductions of the sole witness (cod. Ott. gr. 59), supersedes previous editions. Furthermore, the inclusion in an appendix of the rest of Mesomedes' poems (Heitsch 1–3 and 5–13), with an integrated apparatus based on previous editions and studies, makes this book a convenient place to consult the larger corpus. The focus of recent editors E. Pöhlmann and M. West (Denkmäler altgriechischer Musik [1970] and Documents of Ancient Greek Music [2001]) is upon the musical notation that accompanies Mesomedes' poetry in the manuscript tradition. L., who gives comparatively little attention to questions of ancient music, provides the first extensive philological commentary on the Hymn to Nature. The fresh autopsy of the manuscript has not uncovered anything original, but L. is meticulous in recording prior conjectures and discusses these options at length in the commentary. Indeed, the strength of this work lies not in its novelty but in its careful and scholarly synthetic evaluation and exposition of the text. L. covers a great deal of ground in the commentary: textual criticism, structure of the poem, Mesomedes' place within the hymnic tradition, as well as the broader literary, historical and religious contexts of the Hymn to Nature. If anything, the level of detail in the commentary is at times excessive, due no doubt in part to its origin as a doctoral thesis. Quotations and citations of modern scholarship, whose purpose is not always clear, sometimes add unnecessary bulk, while certain lengthy lemmata could have been restructured to make navigation easier (such as in the case of the four-and-a-half page entry under v. 12 ἀσκηθεῖς). This, however, is hardly a major criticism, for L. consistently brings a wealth of ancient texts (even less well known late-antique poetry, such as the Vision of Dorotheus of the Bodmer Papyrus, is taken into consideration) and modern scholarly perspectives to bear on her interpretation of each and every section of this small poem. She shows balanced evaluation of the evidence at hand and overall good philological judgement, qualities which will serve a wide readership in search of guidance.

A particular strength of the commentary is the attention it gives to Mesomedes' place within the Greek hymnographical tradition. L. demonstrates good knowledge of the scholarship on the form and function of Greek hymns, and throughout considers the relationship of Mesomedes' hymns to a variety of hymnic modes and authors, including reception in later authors. This book will serve as a basis for future scholarship and should be consulted by anyone whose work intersects with Mesomedes and the later Greek hymnic tradition.