Originalità ed emulazione dei classici nella poesia di Manilio Cabacio Rallo: l’elegia 'Non esse deserendos amores' ed il riuso di Ovidio

Manilius Cabacius Rhallus (Mystras 1447 - Rome 1523) was still very young, when he knew the fate of exile shortly after the fall of Constantinople in 1453. Moving to Italy, he settled in Rome and became known among the Italian humanists as a fine poet with a fortunate collection of poems, which was also edited in print shortly before his death (Manilii Cabacii Rhalli Iuveniles ingenii lusus, Naples 1520). Among the various motives that we find in his poetry it is very important the erotic one, which takes on from time to time the tones of the lyric or of the elegy, and in which the images and the allusions are drawn from a rare and sophisticated wealth of classical knowledge and culture. This essay aims to provide a critical examination of the third elegy of the collection, entitled Non esse deserendos amores, focusing the attention above all on its relationship with the classical models and in particular with a passage of the Metamorphoses of Ovid (Ov., Met. 14, 698-764). It also demonstrates that despite the reliance on its classical models, this elegy preserves originality and creative autonomy.