Flens consolator

Daniele Di Rienzo

Flens consolator: The consolatory Epistles of Ennodius

Authors

Daniele Di Rienzo

University of Naples

https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2157-2345

Keywords:

Consolatio, Epistolography, Classical and Patristic Auctores

Synopsis

Publisher: FedOA - Federico II University Press

Series: Texts. Antiquity, Middle Ages and Humanism, 7

Pages: 127

Language: Italian, Latin

ISBN: 978-88-6887-250-2

Abstract:Enodius from Pavia devoted much of his literary endeavour to letter-writing. The corpus of his letters is motivated by the plan of building a network of relationships within Ostrogothic Italy. The result is a picture in which Enodius appears intent on weaving significant relationships with the most prominent men in the Theoderic court, with the hierarchies of the clergy and with members of the Roman aristocracy. There are, however, four letters of consolation that, while preserving the sign of the social relevance of his epistolary writing, give us an image of a more intimist Enodius, capable also of acting as a spiritual director. The essay consists of an introductory section in which the author is placed in the tradition of Latin consolatio in both the pagan and Christian spheres, and is followed by the translation and commentary of the epistles. The final chapter defines the meaning of an expression that Enodius uses to designate his status as a friend who brings the word of comfort: he is a flens consolator.

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Author Biography

Daniele Di Rienzo, University of Naples

Daniele Di Rienzo is professor of Latin and Greek and adjunct professor of Latin Language and Literature at the Department of Humanistic Studies of the University of Naples Federico II and at the Department of Humanities and Cultural Heritage of the University of Campania Luigi Vanvitelli. He has been interested in prose and poetry of the Augustan (Propertius) and late antique (Anthologia Latina, Isidore of Seville) ages, with particular reference to Ennodius from Pavia, an author to whom he has dedicated a monograph (Gli epigrammi, 2005) and several contributions in journals and conference proceedings. In recent years he has also focused his attention on philosophical prose from the republican age, publishing a translation of Cicero’s Academici libri and some exegetical proposals on individual passages.