Ambrosius Leo's De Nola (1514) between antiquarian culture and local identity

This paper will focus on the antiquarian literature produced in the most prominent towns of the Kingdom of Naples from 16th to 18th century, and will briefly examine a work in particular, namely Ambrosius Leo's De Nola, a book which set a model for the following local historiography of the Italian peninsula. In De Nola, printed in Venice in 1514, Ambrogio Leone describes and praises the Roman antiquities of his birthplace, the Campanian town of Nola, discussing in detail Greek and Latin sources, and elaborates – with the aid of the painter Girolamo Mocetto – some noteworthy maps of both the ancient and the modern Nola, which constitute the combined result of his own autopsy and his use of literary sources. The paper will illustrate how Leone’s antiquarian and philological skills, along with the pride of the Nolan identity, concur to produce an encomiastic portrait of the town