This edition with commentary of Catullus' poem 67 is the latest in the series ‘Quaderni di Paideia’. Recently, books by A. Agnesini (ed.), Il carme 62 di Catullo (2007) and G. Maggiali (ed.), Il carme 68 di Catullo (2009), together with two other important critical surveys (G.G. Biondi [ed.], Il liber di Catullo. Tradizione, modelli e Fortleben [2012]; M. Bonvicini, Il Novus Libellus di Catullo. Trasmissione del testo, problematicità della grafia e dell'interpunzione [2012]), have been published in the same series. The book is well organised. A large and updated bibliography is followed by an introduction focused on manuscript tradition and literary features of the poem; an extensive line-by-line commentary (pp. 141–317) is preceded by a critical prolegomenon, the sigla codicum and the text of the poem; the book is completed by a ‘proposta di traduzione’, synoptic tables of variae lectiones and indexes (rerum; modern authors; locorum).

P. has benefited from some significant contributions in recent Catullan scholarship. His proposal to remove the initial couplet from the poem, by attaching it to the end of the preceding poem 66, is crucial to our understanding of the poem's structure (cf. pp. 102–6, 141–4, and A. Agnesini, ‘Catull. 67, 1 s.: incipit della Ianua o explicit della Coma?’, Paideia 66 [2011], 521–40; P. [p. 105] makes no clear distinction between his own and Agnesini's interpretation of this issue). Undoubtedly, there are some striking similarities between Catull. 67.1–2 o dulci iucunda viro, iucunda parenti / salue and Call. Aet. 4.213.94^a χ[αῖρε] ϕίλη τεκέεσσι (τοκέεσσι Lobel): it is very likely that the Latin couplet is the last one in Catullan translation of Callimachus' Coma Berenices, and that poem 67 begins with the allocution to the door (67.3 Ianua, quam Balbo dicunt seruisse benigne). P. (pp. 76–98) also corroborates his proposal by referring to two Catullan manuscripts, α (Bologna, Bibl. Univ. 2621) and D (Berlin, Staatsbibliothek, Diez. B. Sant. 37): in both of them a later corrector has inserted a similar sign of division (a ‘gamma capitularis’) between 67.2 and 67.3, in the margin. Additionally, in OGR there is no division between poem 66 and 67: Coluccio Salutati provided it in R² , probably by conjecture, setting the boundary between 66.94 and 67.1; this solution has been adopted in Catullan vulgata from the editio Parmensis (1473) onwards (p. 97 and nn. 102–3). The status quaestionis is carefully reconstructed, and P.'s accurate report of the specific features of α³ and D² is a valuable acquisition in itself. Notwithstanding, we still do not have enough evidence to suppose an extra-OGR (not extra-V!) tradition in later Catullan manuscripts, as suggested (cautiously) by P. (p. 91, cf. also p. 96) and by G.G. Biondi, in a recent, stimulating paper (‘Catullo, Sabellico [e dintorni] e … Giorgio Pasquali. «Recentiores non deteriores»’, Paideia 68 [2013], 663–88). This point requires further investigation.

The generic patterns of the poem are well analysed. P. (pp. 108–10) is right in reminding us of the importance of an ancient tragic topos, represented for example by A. Ag. 36–8 or E. Hipp. 415–21 (the tragic heroine fears that the door and walls of her house could talk and reveal scandalous secrets). The refined blend of genres (hymn, epithalamium, paraklausithyron) is carefully described: perhaps it would have been appropriate to stress the importance of Roman occentatio (cf. line 14 ad me omnes clamant: ianua, culpa tua est), cf. E. Fraenkel, ‘Two Poems of Catullus’, JRS 51 (1961), 46–53 (= Kleine Beitr. z. klass. Philol. II [1964], 115–29), as the poem is filled with references to Roman folk culture.

The text is established with commendable prudence. P. sets between cruces not only line 12 istius populi ianua qui te (like D.F.S. Thomson, Catullus [1997]), but also line 5 uoto (nato Thomson, conjectured by Froehlich: however, P. assumes that the reading uoto is more likely than nato) and line 32 chinea (Cycneae Thomson, conjectured by Voss), where I am not convinced of P.'s defence of Brixia … sub positum specula (neuter positum can hardly agree with feminine Brixia: P. furnishes inappropriate examples, without explaining the origin of quam. Supposita speculae is still the best solution, -ā sp- is metrically plain in Catullus). At line 33, P. appropriately benefits from a recent, very valuable paper on ancient and medieval names of the Brixian specula and river (L. Degiovanni, ‘Brixia Catulliana (Catull. 67, 31–34)’, Eikasmós 24 [2013], 159–83: Melo is an ancient and still surviving name of the river Garza. P. is only perhaps too prolix at pp. 268–71, when recollecting and discussing many examples already mentioned by Degiovanni). At line 27, P. reads unde <unde>: Thomson adopts the same text (a trivial and very likely haplography is assumed). P.'s defence of line 44 speret (speraret Thomson) is sound (there are several instances of hiatus at the pentameter's dieresis in Catullus, and P. [p. 297] also quotes 68.158 and 66.48, from the carmina docta; 66.48 must be quoted in the form Iuppiter ut Chalibum omne genus pereat).

The commentary mostly deals with textual, interpretative and literary questions; great attention is commendably devoted to the history of the text (although in P.'s detailed account it is sometimes difficult to discern what is actually relevant for establishing the text). The interpretation of the plot raises key questions. In P.'s opinion, the ianua says the domina has not arrived as a virgin at the house of Verona because she had been raped by the father of her sponsus, in Brixia: the sponsio had already been celebrated in Brixia, the nuptiae took place later in Verona (cf. line 6 porrecto facta marita sene), where the couple moved to in order to hush up the scandal (the old Balbus at line 3 might be the husband's father, who went earlier to Verona and bought a house for the couple: cf. pp. 246–53). P.'s reconstruction is ingenious, but also complicated and unconvincing. Catullus' language at lines 19–28 presupposes that the girl was already married as she was raped by her father-in-law: he dishonoured his son's bed and house (lines 23–4 gnati … cubile / miseram … domum). P. assumes that the sponsio is legally equipollent to a marriage, but Roman sponsi never slept in the same bed and in the same house (I do not understand P.'s interpretation of line 24 domum, p. 231: ‘è la casa bresciana in cui il uir e la uirgo vissero prima del trasferimento a Verona’). Along with many other scholars (cf. p. 214), I suggest that uir prior at line 20 means ‘the former husband’: Catullus is alluding to a first marriage, in Brixia, which has been invalidated because of the husband's proclaimed impotence (cf. C. Fayer, La familia romana II [2005], pp. 132–3 n. 388). On the other hand, P. carefully reviews the cultural background of the poem: P. cleverly points out connections with sermo and topics of the Latin comic tradition, as well as parodies of epic and tragedy (see above and also, for instance, pp. 221–4, on Catull. 67.21–2 and Hom. Il. 3.357–67), although the accumulation of loci similes is sometimes redundant and makes it difficult to recognise what material is relevant to a correct interpretation of the poem (see for instance pp. 232–6).

P. provides an useful and accurate edition with commentary, setting up recent improvements in several topics related to Catullus 67; however, some basic problems concerning the text and its interpretation still remain sub iudice.