Description
Book Synopsis"The Golden Ass" tells of a young man changed into an ass by magic. This book follows Apuleius' tale from antiquity through the sixteenth century, tracing its journey from roll to codex in fourth-century Rome, into the medieval library of Monte Cassino, into the hands of Italian humanists, into print, and, finally, over the Alps.
Trade ReviewWinner of the 2009 Charles J. Goodwin Award of Merit, American Philological Association "With a graceful style and an immense knowledge of the vicissitudes of the story, Gaisser traces the manuscripts that carried The Golden Ass through the Middle Ages and into the Renaissance; the editions and translations that followed; and the ways in which readers interpreted, imitated, and adapted it. The result is a remarkable work of scholarship: detailed and learned, but accessible to the general reader with an interest in the fate of a brilliant book over the course of two millennia."--D. Konstan, Brown University, for CHOICE "Gaisser has done all students of Apuleius a profound service in a book that is not only a model for reception studies but will also be a standard reference in Apuleian studies for at least a generation."--Joel C. Relihan, New England Classical Journal "This valuable book provides a fascinating perspective for comparativists on the nature of early modern exegesis. More importantly, it offers an invigorating re-evaluation of an enigmatic author whom many Latinists see only in the context of the time in which he lived--a context which has been constructed and constrained by the myopias of early-twentieth-century classical scholarship."--Andrew Laird, European Legacy
Table of ContentsList of Illustrations ix Preface xi Chapter 1: Apuleius: A Celebrity and His Image 1 Chapter 2: Exemplary Behavior: The Golden Ass from Late Antiquity to the Prehumanists 40 Chapter 3: A Mixed Reception: Interpreting and Illuminating the Golden Ass in the Fourteenth Century 76 Chapter 4: Making an Impression: From Florence to Rome and from Manuscript to Print 129 Chapter 5: Telling Tales: The Golden Ass in Ferrara and Mantua 173 Chapter 6: Apuleius Redux: Filippo Beroaldo Comments on the Golden Ass 197 Chapter 7: Speaking in Tongues: Translations of the Golden Ass 243 Conclusion: The Fortunes of Apuleius and the Golden Ass 296 Appendix 1: Ancient Readers of Apuleius (ca. 350 to ca. 550 AD) 300 Appendix 2: Manuscripts of Apuleius' Metamorphoses 302 Appendix 3: Extant Manuscripts of the Metamorphoses Written before 1400 309 Appendix 4: The Florentine Connection 311 Appendix 5: Adlington and His Sources for Met. 11.1 315 Bibliography 319 Index of Manuscripts 355 General Index 357
