Contaminazioni delle fonti greco-latine ed incrocio dei generi negli Expositi di Lorenzo Gambara

After the first translation into Italian by Annibal Caro around 1538 and into French by Jacques Amiot in 1559, Lorenzo Gambara wrote an adaptation of Longus’ Daphnis and Chloe in Latin hexameters, published for the first time in Naples in 1574 under the title of Expositi (“The Foundlings”). In this paper I first discuss Gambara’s alterations of some characters and structurally important scenes of the original narrative, and then I try to assess his translation as a literary work full of doctrina, characterized by a strong tendency to the ‘contamination’ of Greek and Latin models (novel, heroic and didactic epic, mime, demonstrative and deliberative oratory, bucolic poetry, etc.).