Muret e Orazio

In this paper I will examine, starting from the 1555 (Aldine) edition, the contribution made to the text and the interpretation of Horace by the French humanist Marc-Antoine Muret. Since there are few annotations in this edition, it is worth asking if the increased interest in Horace' text Muret shows afterwards in his Variae lectiones (first published in 1559) is linked to Denys Lambin's intense study of the Latin poet. Indeed, between 1558 and 1559, the two French scholars had met both in Venice and Conegliano and fervently discussed several Horace's passages Lambin was going to publish in his 1661 commentary. But Lambin's serious charge against Muret, that he had dishonestly used his observations, turns out to be strained, because Muret, in his philological and exegetical proposals of the Variae lectiones, is largely autonomous.