Il topo e l'ostrica: la lunga fortuna di un motivo favolistico

Francesca Piccioni

Abstract:

This article traces the main stages of the reception of The mouse and the oyster, a fable first attested in Antiphilus of Byzantium (1st c. CE, Anthologia Palatina 9. 86), but continuously reshaped over the centuries (including in several modern and contemporary versions). The principal aim of this contribution is to add and contextualize a further literary document, overlooked by and indeed almost unknown to studies concerning this fable so far: I am referring to a Greek epigram included in the anthology of Rodrigo Baeza, a Spanish scholar who taught classical rhetoric in Cagliari in the mid-16th century; his work is preserved in a manuscript of the Biblioteca Comunale Generale e di Studi Sardi in Cagliari, Sanjust, num. 55.