CONTENTS
Illustrations = vii
Tables = xi
Acknowledgments = xiii
Abbreviations and Citation Editions = xix
Chronology of Medieval Mythographers and Commentary Authors = xxv
Introduction = 1
Chapter One. Toward a Subjective Mythography : Allegorical Figurae and Authorial Self-Projection = 17
Chapter Two. Dante's Self-Mythography : The Inverted Ovid "Commentary" of the Commedia (1321) and Its Family Glosses = 39
  Ⅰ. A Preface to Dante : His Sons' Glosses and His Medieval Commentary Authors(Inferno, Cantos 1-4) = 47
  Ⅱ. Ovidian Inglossation(Inferno, Cantos 3-27) = 71
  Ⅲ. Pilgrim Dante Metamorphosed(Inferno, Cantos 28-34) = 90
Chapter Three. "Iohannes de Certaldo" : Self-Validation in Boccaccio's "Genealogies of the Gods"(ca. 1350-75) = 126
  Ⅰ. The Allegoria Mitologica(1332-34) of Naples : Boccaccio's Personalized Ovid = 138
  Ⅱ. The Genealogie Deorum Gentilium : Boccaccio's Quest for Authority in Epic Mythography = 144
  Ⅲ. At Certaldo : Boccaccio's Unfinished Commentary on Dante(1373-74) = 196
Chapter Four. Franco-Italian Christine de Pizan's Epistre Othea(1399-1401) : A Feminized Commentary on Ovid = 206
  Ⅰ. Christine de Pizan Anti-Rose : Évrart de Conty and Finding a Female Voice = 212
  Ⅱ. Righting the Rose : The Othea's Moralized and Christianized Ovid = 244
  Ⅲ. Othea, Minerva, and Other Mythological Women : Humanizing Ovid = 258
Chapter Five. Christine de Pizan's Illuminated Women in the Cité des Dames(1405) = 172
  Ⅰ. From Othea and Proba to "Je, Cristine," Une Clere Femme = 281
  Ⅱ. Reading Boccaccio : Learned Women, Sibyls, and "Women Made Famous by Coincidence" = 299
  Ⅲ. Arms and the Woman : Honorat Bovet, Jean de Meun, and Minerva in Le Livre des Fais d'Armes et de Chevalerie(1410) = 352
Chapter Six. Coluccio Salutati's Hercules as Vir Perfectus : Justifying Seneca's Hercules Furens in De Laboribus Herculis(1378?-1405) = 363
  Ⅰ. Reading Senecan Tragedies : The Origins of Salutati's De Laboribus Herculis = 371
  Ⅱ. Aeneas's Failed Descent into Virgil's Underworld : The Pythagorean Y = 374
  Ⅲ. The Influential Boethian Descents : Hercules versus Orpheus, Ulysses, and Amphiaraus = 382
Chapter Seven. Cristoforo Landino's "Judgment of Aeneas" in the Disputationes Camaldulenses(1475) = 396
  Ⅰ. Petrarch's Neoplatonic Aeneas, Vir Perfectus = 398
  Ⅱ. Landino's Medievalized Aeneas and the Three Goddesses = 405
Conclusion = 420
Notes = 425
Bibliography = 539
Index = 613

With this volume, Jane Chance concludes her monumental study of the history of mythography in medieval literature. Her focus here is the advent of hybrid mythography, the transformation of mythological commentary by blending the scholarly with the courtly and the personal. Chance’s in-depth examination of works by the major writers of the period demonstrates how they essentially co-opted a thousand-year tradition. Their intricate narratives of identity mixed commentary with poetry, reinterpreted classical gods and heroes to suit personal agendas, and gave rise to innovative techniques such as “inglossation”—the use of a mythological figure to comment on the protagonist within an autobiographical allegory. In this manner, through allegorical authorial projection of the self, the poets explored a subjective world and manifested a burgeoning humanism that would eventually come to full fruition in the Renaissance. No other work examines the mythographic interrelationships among these poets and their unique and personal approaches to mythological commentary.