Imitatio: Catullan Poetry from Martial to Johannes Secundus

Abstract Catullus’ first Renaissance readers searched his text for tags to ornament their own writings and correspondence, but their successors were more ambitious. By the first decade of the fifteenth century poets (or would-be poets) were attempting to write their own versions of Catullus’ poems; by mid-century, Giovanni Pontano, the major poet of the age, had produced two remarkable collections of poetry in the style of Catullus, and within a few years Catullan poetry was established as a recognizable and popular genre.