Two versions of the 'Iuveniles ingenii lusus' by Manilius Cabacius Rhallus in Berlin ms. Hamilton 561 and in their Neapolitan 'editio princeps'

Manilius Cabacius Rhallus (Mistra, ca. 1447 - Rome, 1523) composed a collection of latin poems entitled 'Iuveniles ingenii lusus' of which we have two principal witnesses: the ms. Berlin Hamilton 561 (Staatsbibliothek, Preußischer Kulturbesitz) and the 'editio princeps' published in Naples for the types of Johannes Pasquet de Sallo. The code ms. Berlin Hamilton 561, dated between 1505 and 1507, is dedicated to Cardinal Galeotto De Franciottis Della Rovere; the 'editio princeps' appeared in Naples in 1520 and is dedicated to the Cardinal Giulio de’ Medici, later Pope Clemente VII. In these witnesses the text of the poems appears substantially identical, except few particulars of little importance, but their structural organization is profoundly reworked: the case seems to be particularly interesting to show how an author at the beginning of the sixteenth century could repurpose an old text not only according the needs of a new dedication, but also according the requirements and the literary taste of a new audience. The operation of reworking, in fact, in this case does not concern the microstructures of the text, but its macrostructures, in such a manner that the author was able to propose again after a certain time a same work in a profoundly changed cultural context, trying to meet the new spirit of the time without spending too much energy.