FIGURAL AND LITERARY RECEPTION OF THE MYTH OF TROY IN THE LATE MIDDLE AGES
FIGURAL AND LITERARY RECEPTION OF THE MYTH OF TROY IN THE LATE MIDDLE AGES

Summary/Abstract: During the Late Middle Ages, the myth of the Trojan War enjoyed a second lease of life. This article aims to analyse the artistic reception of the myth during the Late Middle Ages when it was reappraised through the lens of Christianity and related to the Crusades. This timeframe has been selected and merits further examination also considering what happened in the following age. In fact, since the sixteenth century, numerous artists and intellectuals dealt with this myth in a completely changed cultural context by mediating on the editio princeps of several literary texts. This article is focused on the literary traditions that inspired visual interpretations and, on the other hand, when these figural representations were instead dependent on a previous visual tradition. Specifically, this article argues against a recurrent idea in academic literature that sees Medieval and Early Modern iconographies as being inspired directly by famous classical texts such as Homer, Ovid, or Statius.

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