Tacitis regnavit Amyclis. Francesco Peto da Fondi su Virgilio Aeneis, X 563-4 e sul relativo commento di Servio

This paper focuses on an elegy of an Italian humanist connected to Pontano’s circle, Francesco Peto of Fondi. As it is here proposed, the elegy is to be dated about to 1504, and constitutes an encomium of the Capuan nobleman Ettore Fieramosca, leader of an Italian cavalry squad who defeated the rival French squad in a famous duel that took place in a rural area close to the Apulian city of Barletta, in 1503. It is noteworthy that, although it praises a Capuan nobleman, this poem curiously begins with an extended antiquarian excursus on the mythical city of Amyclae, a Spartan colony traditionally collocated on the coasts of the southern part of the Latium, mentioned by several classical authors and, above all, by Virgil in Aen. X 564. Following Servius’ commentary to Virgil, in this excursus Peto proposes a new interpretation of the whole mythical account, assuming that the inhabitants of Amyclae, after the destruction of their city, founded the poet’s hometown Fondi. These verses are indeed an exhibition of Peto’s classical erudition, but also a celebration of the origins of Fondi; their presence in an encomiastic poem of Fieramosca, however, is probably due to the fact that Peto and Fieramosca were both protegées of the great Italian condottiero Prospero Colonna, who had recently become count of Fondi and whose troops had freed Capua from the French occupation.