La presenza di Omero nella biblioteca e nelle opere di Aulo Giano Parrasio

The humanist Aulus Ianus Parrhasius (1470-1521) had a large library, which is partially preserved. The most part of his books are today at the National library of Naples. Through the catalogues of his books and the quotations in his works, we can assume that Parrhasius studied intensively the two epic poems of Homer and that he had probably a collection of ca. ten books related to Homer (Greek texts, Latins translations, commentaries and his notes). Today, the corpus of Homeric texts belonged to Parrhasius, which we can trace, is very small and not representative of his interests in Homer (for instance, we do not know any book of the Odyssey in Greek, which we can attribute to Parrhasius). Nevertheless, the quotations of Homer in his works testify a careful study of the ancient poet. Thus, in his commentary on Aen. 1-2, Parrhasius notes all the Virgilian passages where Homer was Virgil’s model for style, expressions, descriptions, customs of the heroes and mythology.