Un Virgilio dei Giunta (Venezia 1543-1544) nella biblioteca del Liceo Beccaria di Milano

The four centuries old library of the Liceo “Cesare Beccaria” (Milan), a formerly Barnabite school, owns an edition of Virgil, lavishly illustrated, printed in Venice 1543-1544 by the Giunta, one of the several Virgilian editions produced or sold by them between 1493 and 1552. It includes Virgil's works followed by the opuscula (the spurious corpus vergilianum normally studied by 16th-century pupils); commentaries by ancient grammarians, Italian humanists and the bulky one by the Belgian Iodocus Badius Ascensius are printed along the text. A detailed description of the book contents is given and compared with the other Giuntine and with a select number of contemporary Venetian editions. The French and Italian sources of the Giuntine are investigated; their significance in the context of the early printed editions of the full corpus vergilianum is assessed as well as their part in the enormous success of Ascensius in Italy.