Overview

This 1564 Roman issue is the second of the three nearly identical Luchinus settings of the editio princeps of Faerno's fables, printed in 1563, 1564, and 1565, the only bibliographical distinction between them being the date in the colophon. Gabriele Faerno, the Cremonese humanist, Latin poet, and scholar in papal service, regarded the collection as his principal literary achievement, though he died before it reached print. Published in the Rome of Pius IV, immediately after the closing of the Council of Trent, and under the educational influence of Carlo Borromeo, the work belongs to the moment when classical learning was consciously enlisted in the service of Catholic counter-reform. The dedication makes that program explicit, presenting Aesop's ancient fables not as elegant exercises in Latin verse but as instruments for the moral formation of children, uniting literary refinement with ethical instruction. A pagan fabulist enlisted for a child's education is less surprising than what we might think: Christian humanism had long put classical material to pedagogical use, and fables concerned with prudence and flattery, rather than pagan cult or myth, needed little correction. The choice is nonetheless telling. Opting for Aesop-via-Faerno over a strictly catechetical text suggests the Borromean circle saw moral formation as requiring worldly discernment as much as doctrine, precisely the case Antoniano's dedication makes in likening the child's character to soft wax best shaped early. Faerno's polished classical Latin and his close engagement with the ancient tradition soon made the collection the most influential Renaissance version of Aesop, widely adopted in schools throughout Europe. Taken as a whole, the volume represents a papal Roman recasting of the Aesopian corpus into humanist Latin verse, conceived from the outset as a union of text and image through its celebrated cycle of Renaissance etchings.