In the



late medieval and early modern periods, Scottish latinity had its distinctive



stamp, most intriguingly so in its effects upon the literary vernacular and on



themes of national identity. This



volume shows



how, when viewed through the prism of latinity, Scottish textuality was



distinctive and fecund. The flowering of Scottish writing owed itself to a



subtle combination of literary praxis, the ideal of eloquentia, and



ideological deftness, which enabled writers to service a burgeoning national



literary tradition.



Alessandra Petrina is Associate Professor of English Literature at the University of Padova. Ian Johnson is Reader in English at the University of St. Andrews.



Introduction: Scottish Latinitas by Ian Johnson and Alessandra Petrina



Part I: Rewriting the Classical and Medieval Legacy



Classical Reception and Erotic Latin Poetry in Sixteenth-Century Scotland: The Case of Thomas Maitland (ca. 1548-1572) by Steven J. Reid



Mnemonic Frameworks in The Buke of the Chess by Kate Ash-Irisarri



Part II: Writing the Scottish Nation



Defining Scottish Identity in the Early Middle Ages: Bede and the Picts by Tommaso Leso



Universals, Particulars, and Political Discourse in John Mair's Historia Maioris Britanniae by John Leeds



A "Scottish Monmouth"? Hector Boece's Arthurian Revisions by Elizabeth Hanna



Topography, Ethnography, and the Catholic Scots in the Religious Culture Wars: From Hector Boece's Scotum Historia to John Lesley's Historie of Scotland by John Cramsie



A View from Afar: Petruccio Ubaldini's Descrittione del Regno di Scotia by Alessandra Petrina



Part III: The Vagaries of Languages and Texts



Reading Robert Henryson's Orpheus and Eurydice: Sentence and Sensibility by Ian Johnson



Seget's Comedy: A Scots Scholar, Galileo, and a Dante Manuscript by Nick Havely



The Inventions of Sir Thomas Urquhart by Jeremy Smith



Afterword by Nicola Royan