Ovidio in Germania. Le metamorfosi di Narciso e Penteo nella riscrittura protomoderna di Jörg Wickram

This dissertation investigates the rescript of Narcissus and Pentheus episodes in Ovid’s "Metamorphoses" as published in 1545 by German author Jörg Wickram (met. III, 339-510 / W. III, 840-1239; met. III, 511-733 / W. III, 1240-1416). The text is a remake of Albrecht von Halberstadt’s corrupted work dating back to the late 12th and early 13th centuries, of which only five fragments survived. While there is an established interest among Classics scholars in Ovid’s reception in the U.K., France, and Italy, there is a paucity of research in Germany. Indeed, there are currently no translations, even in contemporary German, of Wickram’s poem, which has thus been largely ignored. Motivated by this gap in the literature, I translate and analyze Wickram’s transcript to discredit the alleged decline of classical humanism in 16th-century Germany and to examine the role of antiquity in the genesis of modern cultural identities. Additionally, I examine the commentary on Wickram’s "Metamorphoses" written by Gerhard Lorichius, a 16th-century priest of the city of Hadamar (Hessen), which provides meaningful insights into the first German example of moralization of the "Metamorphoses". Lorichius’s commentary, published in Roloff’s modern edition (1990), which includes the 1545 editio princeps of the text (A) and the 1551 edition (B) in apparatus, explains the Latin fabulae from a Christian perspective. The commentator illustrates pagan mythology, omitting and defusing Ovid’s representation of ‘indecencies.’ In the conclusive chapter, I highlight how this work contributes to the literature on the Ovidian reception during the Reformation in Germany and, more broadly, across Europe.