Grandi mandrie per piccole gemme: variazioni sul tema nell’epigramma greco-latino

In a small group of Greek-Latin ecphrastic epigrams, the topic about the congruence between the stone and the effigy is revisited with a game of variationes and the artist is not only praised for his technical skills, but also for the ingenium that has permitted him to make the most appropriate choice: in some compositions the topos finds a refined reversal. While the Greek epigrams seem to present a metapoetic allusion, combining the artistic miniature with poetic brachilogy, in the Latin epigrams the composition becomes a pure divertissement.