Università Roma Tre

The course is aimed at all students wishing to gain a solid understanding, in a historical-cultural perspective, of themes and forms of Latin literature ranging from the phases immediately preceding the fall of the Western Roman Empire to the threshold of the Carolingian Renaissance, with particular reference to the culture of the so-called Roman-barbarian kingdoms. To this end, it is divided into two parts.
1) An initial cycle of lessons will offer an organic picture of authors and tendencies of Latin literary production determined by the meeting of the barbarian civilizations with Romans and Christians, between the end of the 5th century and the end of the 7th century
2) In the second part, paying attention to the aspects of form, style and metric, the course will proceed with the complete reading, interpretation and commentary of the "Aenigmata", a collection of one hundred riddles - each consisting of three hexameters - attributed to the not otherwise known Symposius. Perhaps produced in the same African environment in which, towards the end of the Vandal kingdom (534 AD), the so-called Anthologia Latina was set up, unlike other compositions transmitted only by the ms. Parisinus Lat. 10318 (the Salmasianus), the work has known a wide manuscript tradition, becoming the forefather of a very successful literary genre, halfway between teaching and entertainment.

- Aenigmata Symposii. La fondazione dell’enigmistica come genere poetico. Edizione critica, traduzione e commento a cura di Manuela Bergamin, Firenze, SISMEL. Edizioni del Galluzzo, 2005.
- Further teaching materials will be distributed in class and / or uploaded to the teacher's page available on the website of the Department of Humanities.

Non-attending students will integrate the program with the individual study of the following text:
- F. Gasti, Profilo storico della letteratura tardolatina, Pavia University Press, 2013
(only chapters: 1-4, 8-9, 11-12, 23-26, 28-29)

or

- F. Gasti, La letteratura tardolatina. Un profilo storico (secoli III-VII d.C.), Roma, Carocci, 2020 (same chapters)