G.'s erudite and insightful book is a welcome addition to the literature on Callimachus' Delos Hymn. Previous monographs on this poem are W.H. Mineur's commentary (Callimachus, Hymn to Delos [1984]), P. Bing's partial commentary in The Well-Read Muse. Present and Past in Callimachus and the Hellenistic Poets (1988) and K. Ukleja's monograph (Der Delos-Hymnus des Kallimachos innerhalb seines Hymnsextetts [2005]), but since the 1980s the field of Hellenistic literary studies, as G. outlines in his introduction, has seen some notable changes. This is mainly due to the recognition that Hellenistic poetry of the sort written by Callimachus, Apollonius and Theocritus did not function as a purely meta poetical exercise (which is what Bing seemed to imply) in a socio-political vacuum, but should rather be understood to be linked with very tangible political issues in Ptolemaic kingship and its ideology (a topic Ukleja in her otherwise enlightening book tends to neglect): ‘l'Esplicita associazione del mito delio all'attualità è senz'altro una sfumatura che caratterizza in modo del tutto peculiare il componimento del poeta alessandrino’ (p. 130). Of course, this is not to deny or underrate the omnipresent learnedness of Callimachus and his contemporaries. On the contrary, as this study successfully demonstrates, the challenge is to connect the two concerns, and to understand how erudition could be made to underline certain political and ideological claims in the Ptolemaic context. Why is a playful, allusive and deeply learned poem about the erstwhile floating island of Delos, birthplace of Apollo, apparently a viable choice to celebrate the power of Ptolemy II?

In answering this question the G. manages to say many new things and leave the reader feeling she can now make better sense of this extraordinary poem, both stylistically and historically.

The book is divided into six chapters, which each focus on different aspects of the poem. These can be read separately, but also mutually enforce each other's arguments. The first chapter, ‘Un canto per Delo’, analyses how the hymn functions as an encomium for Ptolemy, and more broadly speaking discusses the Ptolemaic context of the poem. It starts with tracing the political as well as religious importance of Delos through the ages, culminating in the Hellenistic era. In this connection, G. points to the celebration of the Ptolemaieia on Delos, and on the geo-political importance of Delos in the Nesiotic league (pp. 28–9). Delos is thus made into a trait d'union between the god Apollo and the ‘god’ Ptolemy, who both vanquished the Galatians, Apollo in Delphi, Ptolemy in Egypt.

The following chapter, ‘Le Primizie delle Muse’, does in fact identify several exciting meta-poetical moments in the poem, pointing out that the generically surprising act of writing a hexameter hymn to an island rather than a god, is referred to in the wish that Delos may receive the ‘first offerings to the Muses’ (lines 4–5 τὰ πρῶταφέρεσθαι ἐκ Μουσέων), i.e. a novel kind of poetry, and in the emphatic reference to παιγνία fashioned for Apollo (lines 323–4, indicating this Hymn). Interesting discussion of the difficult adjective Pi(m)pleian (line 7), linking it with Macedonia, and hence with Ptolemaic ideology, also finds a place in the chapter. G.'s suggestions about the place of the Delos Hymn in the book of Callimachean hymns are elegant and convincing (pp. 76–84).

‘Nel Laboratorio di Callimaco’ (Chapter 3) expertly analyses the way Callimachus draws upon and alters the important pre-existing hymns that celebrate Delos, the Homeric Hymn to Apollo and Pindar's Paean 7b M (C2 Rutherford) and frr. 33a, 33c–d M. But also, more unexpectedly and equally interestingly, G. identifies thematic parallels with drama (especially the Prometheus Vinctus), and investigates how the mythical theme of Apollo's birth as a son ‘dearer to Zeus than Ares’ (lines 57–8) relates to mythological themes, also present in, for instance, the Iliad, where it is expressed in the story of Thetis. Like Leto his nymph too was desired by Zeus, but she was eventually forced into betrothal to mortal Peleus, because of the prophecy that declared that she would bear a son more mighty than his father. G. points out sufficient verbal echoes to make these suggestions convincing. This focus also has the benefit of bringing out the difference between the Homeric Hymn to Apollo, where the flight of the localities fleeing the approaching Leto is attributed to their fear of Apollo (who is rumoured to become an arrogant god) and the Callimachean Hymn to Delos, where the theme of the wrath of Hera receives such prominence, a difference that was not always sufficiently acknowledged in former studies of the poem.

‘Apollo Profeta’ (Chapter 4) looks at various aspects of the astonishing poetic artifice of the fetal prophecy of Apollo, which announces the future power and glory of Ptolemy Philadelphus and thus forms the main encomiastic passage of the poem. G. proposes some convincing readings for the oracular and hence obscure expressions used in this passage and in particular comments at some length on the use of the much-debated phrase ἀμφοτέρη μεσόγεια (line 168). G. explains this as referring to the two continents of the oikoumene, Europe and Asia (p. 152), rather than Africa and Asia, or Higher and Lower Egypt, as the phrase has previously been tentatively explained. He furthermore argues that the words are to be read together with the phrase καὶ αἵ πελάγεσσι κάθηνται (line 168, which he takes to refer to the islands of the Mediterranean, rather than the coastal regions), as referring to ‘un regno universale’. This would mean that the prophetic assertion of Apollo here is in fact no different from the universal claims that are being made for Ptolemy's dominion in the Theocritean Encomium of Ptolemy Philadelphus (lines 91–2), although scholars have usually read Callimachus' claims as far more circumscribed and specific. This kind of revisiting of vexed interpretations, often finding convincing and commonsensical rather than over-ingenious solutions, is one of the fine qualities of this study, and it shows a profound respect for and understanding of Callimachus' poetry. Rather than reading the prophecy in an Egyptianising vein, as previous scholarship has done, G. moreover persuasively argues for a specifically Greek perspective.

‘Aspetti dello Stile’ (Chapter 5) focuses in detail on questions of vocabulary, direct speech and similes, and how they reveal the way Callimachus adopts and adapts different poetic codes and genres. The section on vocabulary, besides discussing Callimachean coinages and variations on Homeric roots, also does a good job of showing the poet's use of debated Homeric words in deliberately ambiguous new contexts so as to show up the discussion about their meaning (e.g. pp 172–3, προθέλυμνα line 134; πεπάλακτο line 78). The sections on discourse and similes similarly discuss variations on Homeric practice and their significance. The final chapter, ‘La metamorfosi di Delo’, follows the structure that also informs the Homeric Hymn to Apollo with regard to the paradoxical nature of Delos, brought out by her various transformations: barren, invisible and insignificant at first, yet of golden riches and widely famed once it has accepted to become Apollo's birthplace, and thus finally most sacred of all the islands. In discussing the way Callimachus incorporates these various stages in the metamorphosis of Delos, G. ties together many of the themes discussed earlier on in the book. Particularly welcome is the discussion of the rites on Delos which, as G. shows, far from being mere antiquarian Spielerei, form a fundamental component of Callimachus' praise of the island and its importance in the Ptolemaic context.