Epilogue: Time Regained

Summary

The preceding pages have demonstrated the pervasive diffusion of Virgil’s fourth Eclogue in the literary and artistic worlds of the Italian Renaissance. Although the analyses presented here have sometimes gone into considerable depth and detail in excavating Virgilian strata in the art, literature and scholarship of early modern Italy, even within the limits of this historical period and location it is impossible to give an exhaustive account of the uses of material derived from this endlessly tapped seam of poetic inspiration. In the light of specific cultural circumstances outlined in the course of this study, there is reason to believe that the states of Renaissance Italy witnessed a particular density of engagement with the language and imagery of the Roman poet’s vision of temporal renewal; but the writers and artists of the Italian peninsula were very far from being alone in their exploitation of this august ancient archetype.