Fortunatus agricola ? Una lettura dell’epistola di dedica della Vita Martini

In troubled Gaul under the Merovingians Gregory, bishop of Tours from 573 to 594 and a member of the highest Gallo-Roman aristocracy, and the poet Venantius Fortunatus, who left Ravenna in 565 to settle in Poitiers, had the opportunity to spend more than twenty years in contact with each other and to forge a strong friendship. Fortunatus dedicates his hexametric poem on the life and miracles of saint Martin of Tours to his friend Gregory. This essay offers an interpretation of the dedicatory epistle of Vita Martini , highlighting in particular the author’s skilful use of the agricultural metaphor of writing.