O Carmen de insitione de Paládio como reescrita da tradição agronômica latina

Abstract

In this article, our aim is to discuss how Palladius (4-5th centuries A.D.) rewrites the agronomical tradition of Latin Literature. As we discuss below, this firstly occurs in the sense that, in Book XV of his Opus agriculturae, he makes efforts to assign poetical features to the topic of arboreal grafting, similarly to what Virgil had done in Georgics II, 69-82. Secondly, when he attaches the same Book – mainly written with the resource of elegiac couplets – to a technical treatise in prose, Palladius reproduces procedures which were before followed by Columella (1st century A.D.), in the context of his De re rustica. Nevertheless, always making changes and rearrangements in accordance with his own choices, the author of Opus agriculturae renews the old writing tradition in which he takes part.