Estetica dei trucioli

The review-article on Galli’s edition of the Virgilian Cento Medea by Hosidius Geta aims to contribute to the textual history of Virgil. It suggests that editors should give more attention to variants in the centos as indirect testimonia to the Virgilian text, rather than dismissing them as lapsus memoriae on the part of the centonist. To that end, it examines the test-case of the variant (in Hosidius Geta’s Medea 251) sudans for fumans at Verg. georg. 3.515. Humanistic and modern imitations of the same Virgilian passage (adopting each of the two readings) are adduced, including da Fiano’s poem on Cincinnatus, Spagnoli’s Parthenice prima and others, up to Pascoli’s Lavandare.