Un canzoniere umanistico ed i suoi modelli strutturali: le 'Elegiae Aurimpiae' di Elisio Calenzio

The collection of the Elegiarum Aurimpiae Libri by the humanist Elisio Calenzio (Fratte-Ausonia 1430 – Fratte-Ausonia 1502), member of the Academia Neapolitana and friend of G. Pontano, as well as tutor and secretary of Frederick of Aragon, the future king of Naples, is one among the most interesting elegiac works of the italian '400. This essay aims to identify the structural patterns, that underlie this collection of poems. In this regard the humanist seems to mediate between Catullus and the others Latin elegiac poets, but he also takes account of the experience of others erotic poets of his time. The comparison of its two witnesses, i.e. of the Roman posthumous editio princeps of 1503, curated by Monsignore Angelo Colocci, with ms. Vat. Lat. 2833, written by Lucio Calenzio, son of the humanist, and also revised by the curator of the printed edition, allows to detect many problems not only from the point of view of a future critical edition, but also from the point of view of a proper critical judgment on the structure of the collection. In fact, some problems, such as, for example, the one related to the actual number of books of which this collection had to be constituted, can not find a proper solution, because the humanist died before to complete a final revision of his work.