Pietro Bembo on Etna

This book is centered on the Venetian humanist Pietro Bembo (1470-1547), on his ascent of Mount Etna in 1493, and above all on the striking artistic originality of the elegant Latin work that he wrote about his climb after his return to Venice in 1494: his De Aetna, published at the Aldine press in Venice in 1496.

Gareth D. Williams is Violin Family Professor of Classics, Columbia University. His previous OUP publications include The Cosmic Viewpoint (2016) and Roman Reflections (with Katharina Volk, 2015).

Contents
Preface
Abbreviations
List of Illustrations
Introduction
Chapter 1. The Etna Idea
I: Pindar, Pythian 1
II: Virgil and Lucretius
III: Seneca, Ovid and the Aetna Poet
IV: The Open-Ended Etna Idea
Chapter 2. From Memory to Modernity
I: Mnemonic Topography
II: Antiquarian Travel before Bembo
III: Urbano Bolzanio
IV: Etna as an Island, Noniano as a Memory Place
V: Petrarch on Mont Ventoux
VI: De Aetna and the History of Mountaineering
VII: Banishing Hellish Myth and Legend
Chapter 3. From Venice to Sicily: Bembo's Greek Education, His Teachers,
His Inspirers
I: Poliziano, the Bembine Terence, and Bembo's Sogno
II: Bembo's Greek Studies in Messina
III: Absent Presences: Giorgio Valla and Ermolao Barbaro
IV: The Half-Story So Far
Chapter 4. De Aetna in the Context of Quattrocento Venetian Humanism
I: Ermolao Barbaro, Born for Letters, Bred for State-Service
II: The Evolution of Quattrocento Venetian Humanism
III: Pietro's Peers, Gli Asolani, and the Leggi della Compagnia degli Amici
(i) Angelo Gabriele
(ii) Gli Asolani, and Pietro's Correspondence with Trifone Gabriele
(iii) Vincenzo Quirini and Tommaso Giustiniani
Chapter 5. Physical Form and Textual Meaning in the Aldine Book: The Symbolic
Significance of Typeface
I: Venice, the Rise of Printing, and the Aldine Press
II: The Aldine Octavo Hand-Book
III: The Interrelationship of Physical Form and Textual Meaning
IV: Bernardo Bembo, Petrarch's Laura, and Leonardo da Vinci's Ginevra de'
Benci
V: End-Point, Start-Point
Chapter 6. Activations of Landscape in De Aetna
I: Venice, the Veneto, and Villa Culture
II: Father and Son in Pietro's Early Verses
III: The Recalibration of Perspective Through Contrasts of Landscape
IV: Shaping Etna's Landscape Through Poetic Inscription
Chapter 7. The Bembo Collection, and Evocations of Noniano
I: Pietro Bembo the Collector
II: Coins, Medals, and Valerio Belli's Bembo
III: Titian, Bembo, and Evocation of Sweet Noniano
IV: De Aetna and Naturalist Collecting
V: Bembo and Giovanni Bellini
Text and Translation
Bibliography
Index of Passages
General Index
Index of Latin Words
Index of Greek Words