Un poema epico neolatino su Ivan Mazepa

The author publishes for the first time, translates into Italian, and analyzes a Neo-Latin poem composed to celebrate the conquest of the fortresses along the Dnipro (1695) by the Ukrainian hetman Ivan Mazepa. The peculiar feature of this poem is that, on one side, it is one of the few, or the only epic poem devoted to the Ukrainian hetman, on the other that it is modeled, at least partly, on Virgil’s Aeneid. The poem, however, also shows some features of the panegyric genre. The author points out the many linguistic-literary and historical reminiscences, especially those of Latin epic authors and Roman history, on one side, and of the panegyric discourse elaborated by the Latin-Polish rhetorical tradition, on the other. Through these reminiscences, the author of the poem aspires to insert the history of Ukraine-hetmanščyna into the European Latinitas by underlining the glorious deeds of its hetman Ivan Mazepa, whose fundamental contribution to the antemurale christianitatis and to Russian history only in the last years has begun to be assessed in a more objective and unprejudiced way.