The Bavarian Commentary on the Metamorphoses

Medieval and Renaissance art and iconography would be very different had writers and artists of the time not encountered Ovid's work.

And along with that work came the interpretive work that transformed Ovid into Ovide Moralise and many other versions of grappling with the world of myth and poetry he gave us.

Now a scholar has published an edition of the earliest medieval commentary on Ovid's Metamorphoses: The Bavarian Commentary and Ovid: Clm 4610. 

Here's the blurb from Open Book Publishers about the publication of Robin Wahlsten Böckerman's edition:

The Bavarian Commentary and Ovid is the first complete critical edition and translation of the earliest preserved commentary on Ovid’s Metamorphoses.

Today, Ovid’s famous work is one of the touchstones of ancient literature, but we have only a handful of scraps and quotations to show how the earliest medieval readers received and discussed the poems—until the Munich Bayerische Staatsbibliothek clm 4610. This commentary, which dates from around the year 1100 is the first systematic study of the Metamorphoses, founding a tradition of scholarly study that extends to the present day.

Despite its significance, this medieval commentary has never before been published or analysed as a whole. Böckerman’s groundbreaking work includes a critical edition of the entire manuscript, together with a lucid English translation and a rigorous and stimulating introduction, which sets the work in its historical, geographical and linguistic contexts with precision and clarity while offering a rigorous analysis of its form and function.

 

The book is available in hardcover here, and also, with a blessed openness worthy of Open Book Publishers, as a free, downloadable pdf.