Interpretatio : Making Sense of Catullus

Abstract Although his companions in the first edition had all received printed commentaries by 1475 and were well on their way to acquiring a modern critical tradition, it was to be another decade before anyone published a commentary on Catullus. Renaissance readers could use Propertius and Tibullus to explain each other, and they found Statius’ subjects well documented in Martial and Pliny, but they lacked contemporary comparandaand sources for Catullus. Because the poet had appeared in the Renaissance without any critical baggage from the past, they lacked even the dubious guidance of ancient scholia or medieval allegories to assist their interpretations. Thus, they had to confront Catullus directly, explaining his poetry either from the confusing and corrupt text itself or from clues scattered here and there in other ancient authors.