Printing Virgil

Book excerpt: In this work Craig Kallendorf argues that the printing press played a crucial, and previously unrecognized, role in the reception of the Roman poet Virgil in the Renaissance. Using a new methodology developed at the Humboldt University in Berlin, Printing Virgil shows that the press established which commentaries were disseminated, provided signals for how the Virgilian translations were to be interpreted, shaped the discussion about the authenticity of the minor poems attributed to Virgil, and inserted this material into larger censorship concerns. The editions that were printed during this period transformed Virgil into a poet who could fit into Renaissance culture, but they also determined which aspects of his work could become visible at that time.