Un dramma satiresco in latino. Il Ciclope nell’Italia del Cinquecento

This article is concerned with an artistic Latin translation of Euripides’ Cyclops, which was published in 1556 by the Calabrian humanist Coriolano Martirano (1503-1557). It illustrates the way in which Euripides’ text is reworked in the broader context of the reception of the satirical drama in sixteenth-century Italy. An analysis of the work shows that Martirano intervenes on the text, modifying and integrating it, not only under the influence of other ancient sources dedicated to the figure of the cyclops, ranging from Homer to Ovid and from Theocritus to Virgil, but also in a dialogue with the Neo-Latin and vernacular production that other exponents of Calabrian humanism, such as Antonio Telesio and Coriolano’s brother Bernardino, dedicated to the cyclops in the 1520s and 1530s.