Abstract: In 1624, the most celebrated Spanish baroque poet and famed Anacreontea translator, Francisco de Quevedo, provided the Latin preface for the In regem solem ad Salustium Panegyricus (1624), his Hellenist colleague Vicente Marnier's translation of Julian's fourthoration. In praising Mariner, philologist and librarian of Greek manuscripts at the royal Escorial palace, Quevedo emphasized his colleague's vast contributions to Greek studies in Spain (including more than 50 Greek translations), embedding this elogio in a matrix of Virgilian references and vocabulary. This talk will explore the most evocative of these encomiastic elements, Quevedo's metaphor of Mariner as a Hellenist Aeneas undertaking with his voluminous translations the moles of recovering the Greek tradition for Spain, his valiant Humanist pursuits thus recalling the hero’s monumental task of founding of Rome. This presentation will also position Quevedo and Mariner's work within the rich history of Greek studies among early modern Spanish-speakers, thus challenging the frequent erasure of these Hellenists from modern histories of classical studies and humanism, despite the range and depth of their contributions.
