Cacciagione ed eternità della poesia: un carme di Tito Strozzi a Guarino Veronese (Eroticon libri, V 2).

Tito Strozzi, one of the most prolific poets of Humanism in Ferrara, dedicates to his youth teacher, Guarino Veronese, an original encomiastic composition, that has as an unusual motive the death of a pheasant (Eroticon libri, V 2). The text, which is published here according to the reading of the most authoritative manuscript of the collection (ms. Ott. Lat. 1661), follows the hexametrical model of the Horatian epistles, but it is also inserted in the classical tradition of the poems that accompany presents, on the example of Martial’s Xenia and Apophoreta. This poem shows the author’s refinement in the personal elaboration of consolidated topoi: an episode of the everyday life - the gift of a pheasant caught with a falcon during a hunting trip - turns into a commendation of the dedicatee and becomes an expression of the eternalizing power of poetic art. On the other hand, the critical and philological observations allow us to highlight the critical issues deriving from the lack of a modern critical edition of Strozzi’s work: this text, which presents variants between the manuscripts reading and that of the posthumous editio princeps, provides an opportunity for reflection on the author’s way of working and the possible interventions of the editor.