The verse epitaphs in Paolo Giovio’s Elogia virorum literis

In his villa on Lake Como, the Italian humanist Paolo Giovio (1483-1552), pioneer of modern museum work and museum education, collected portraits of famous literary figures, rulers and artists. Below the heads were Latin parchments with obituaries composed by Giovio himself, frequently concluded with fictitious tomb inscriptions composed by others in verse. Giovio published these texts in the Elogies of Famous Literary Figures (1546) and Elogies of Famous Military Figures (1551) and also prompted Giorgio Vasari to write the Descriptions of the Lives of the most Famous Painters, Sculptors and Architects (1550). The verses, which have been neglected in research, reach the highest level of literary complexity among Giovios writers from the early modern period simply because reference is cleverly made to prominent texts from ancient Roman literature and to the work of those portraited, i.e. what appears to be biographical information, motives, language, style or verse construction. The outstanding success of the verse epitaphs of writers can be seen in the fact that in the second edition of Giovios Elogies of Famous Literary Figures (1557) and the other 16th century prints there are numerous other examples from the Flemish philologist Johannes Latomus (1523-78). The project would like for the first time to carry out systematic research on the craft and the context of the epitaphs of literary figures compiled by Giovio and Latomus. A first element would correlate the 370 poems of the second edition (1557) to ancient and humanist role models by creating an online platform with a moderated Wiki function. Following on from the philological preparation and translation, content-related, linguistic and formal standard elements will be broken down in detail; i.e. those which have developed around graves and funerals, and in particular deceased literary figures (topic). The open-access format with flexible hypertextuality opens up new opportunities here for an interactive dialogue with specialist colleagues from institutional cooperation partners and a reputation system and invitations to lectures provide an incentive to participate. External reports and additions will be uploaded by the project staff members after examining and adapting them. The second project element focuses on literary localization in the book. A particular focus of the research will be about dialogue relationships arising between the poetic epitaphs, the preceding prose biographies and the implied portrait images, how several poems about the same person interact, and which relationship the epitaphs have to different authors when the book is received completely and in the given order. An international conference on this collective aesthetic effect including a conference volume and a Latin- German edition of all Elogia virorum literis illustrium (ed. 1557), with an introduction and explanations, would complete the undertaking.

As the primary result of the project, the website "Musaeum Iovianum" (paologiovio.univie.ac.at) should be mentioned. It is a digital open-source edition, including commentary and German translation, of the 372 epigrams from the corpus of the "Elogia" editions by Giovio (1546) and Latomus (1557 etc.). Additionally, it visually presents detailed analyses of poetic-literary topics, speaker and addressee figures, stylistic devices, as well as inter- and intratextual relations. For the first time, the numerous poems can be searched according to specific criteria using a filter search function, thus providing targeted support for researchers' inquiries, keyword-guided browsing for interested laypersons, and the selection of material for didactic purposes. The website is not to be seen as a finished product but is intended to continue 'growing' as much as possible. Through the feedback form provided, all users can easily submit questions, comments, correction suggestions, or additional material. This interactive aspect, along with the aforementioned functions of the website, aims to utilize and make accessible the advantages offered by a digital edition. While the website represents a comprehensive, primarily philological analysis of the epigrams included in the "Elogia," the conference organized as part of the project addressed more literary and cultural aspects, such as the complex history and overall conception of the museum and book edition. Additionally, there are individual studies on specific Elogia-epigram-complexes or certain authors. The presentations held during the conference, along with some additional ones, were published in the anthology "Von Paolo Giovio bis Johannes Latomus. Intermedialität und Intertextualität in den Elogia virorum literis illustrium" (edited by Hartmut Wulfram and Matthias Adrian Baltas, Tübingen, Narr-Francke-Attempto, 2025, ISBN 978-3-381-11511-2). Together, the website and the book will contribute to a better understanding of the "Elogia virorum literis illustrium" and a more appropriate appreciation of the two authors and editors, Giovio and Latomus.