Immagini di Roma antica nei Carmina di Giovanni Pascoli

This essay examines two different representations of ancient Rome, its history and its power, to be found in Giovanni Pascoli’s Latin poetry. Starting from a critical approach that considers the simultaneous presence of seemingly contradictory elements as a typical feature of Pascoli’s poetics, this article focuses both on the great emphasis accorded to the Roman past in the two Hymni composed in 1911 and on the more nuanced and indirect description of Rome’s powerful action in three historical poems later included in the section called Res Romanae.