Natale Conti at the Crossroads

This collective volume examines Natale Conti’s ‘Mythologiae libri’ as a major crossroads of Renaissance mythography. Its main stake is to move beyond the dismissive view of mythographic compilations as merely derivative reference books, and to show instead that Conti’s work functioned as a dynamic site of interpretation, transmission, rewriting, and visual invention.
The selected essays highlight how Conti redefined myth as a field of philosophical, poetic, philological, and artistic inquiry, while also tracing the dialogue between his ‘Mythologia’ and other central figures such as Cartari, Giraldi, Boccaccio, and later translators, editors, illustrators, and readers. Conti appears not as a passive compiler, but as an active mediator whose work shaped how myth was read, taught, visualized, and reinvented from the Renaissance onward.

This collective volume examines Natale Conti’s ‘Mythologiae libri’ as a major crossroads of Renaissance mythography. Its main stake is to move beyond the dismissive view of mythographic compilations as merely derivative reference books, and to show instead that Conti’s work functioned as a dynamic site of interpretation, transmission, rewriting, and visual invention.
The selected essays highlight how Conti redefined myth as a field of philosophical, poetic, philological, and artistic inquiry, while also tracing the dialogue between his ‘Mythologia’ and other central figures such as Cartari, Giraldi, Boccaccio, and later translators, editors, illustrators, and readers. Conti appears not as a passive compiler, but as an active mediator whose work shaped how myth was read, taught, visualized, and reinvented from the Renaissance onward.