Thursday, June 28th – Saturday, June 30th 2018

When Nicholas of Cusa transferred a manuscript containing 12 previously unknown Plautine comedies to Rome and handed them over to Cardinal Giordano Orsini (Cod. Ursinianus, Vat. lat. 3870), he increased the number of preserved plays to 20 and gave way to an intensive revival in the study and appreciation of Plautus in the Early modern period.

Textual criticism carried out on the comedies by Italian humanists contributed to the revaluation of Plautus, whom the Middle Ages had regarded as both stylistically and morally inferior to the school author Terence. Since the editio princeps of the comedies prepared by Giorgio Merula and published in 1472, humanists all over Europe showed increasing interest in the older playwright and made his dramatic work subject of numerous Latin and vernacular imitations, adaptions and stage performances. The complete edition of the Plautine comedies by the German humanist Joachim Camerarius (Hervagius: Basel, 1552) can be regarded as a milestone of Plautine philology. It was the artistic reception of Plautine comedy that prepared the ground for the broad tradition of vernacular comedy and established the important role of the theatre during the Early modern period.

The 20th NeoLatina Symposium aims to contribute significantly to the understanding of the Neo-Latin reception of Plautus from the 15th to the 17th century in Europe. We welcome proposals on topics such as: humanistic work on and distribution of Plautine comedies; images of Plautus; early modern theories on Plautine comedy; theory and practice of stage performances; relationship between Latin and vernacular imitations of Plautus.

Please submit working titles and abstracts (max. 200 words) by September 15th 2017 to Prof. Thomas Baier (gubznf.onvre@hav-jhremohet.qr) and Tobias Dänzer (gbovnf.qnramre@hav-jhremohet.qr).

Proposed papers should not exceed 20 minutes in length. They will be followed by 10 minutes of discussion. Papers may be given in German, English, French, Italian and Latin.

The organisers will reimburse travel and accommodation expenses. The publication of the conference proceedings in the series NeoLatina (Narr-Verlag, Tübingen) is planned for 2019.

Organiser: Institut für Klassische Philologie, Julius-Maximilians-Universität Würzburg in collaboration with the Ludwig Boltzmann Institute for Neo-Latin Studies (Innsbruck)

Venue: Würzburg, Toscanasaal and Philologische Bibliothek (Residence)
Institut für Klassische Philologie
Lehrstuhl II (Latinistik) – Prof. Dr. Thomas Baier
Residenzplatz 2, Tor A, 97070 Würzburg