Ovid, Antiquarianism, and Political Revival in Novidio Fracco's Sacri Fasti

Published in 1547, the Sacri Fasti of the Italian poet and priest Ambrogio “Novidio” Fracco is a Latin calendar poem modelled on Ovid’s Fasti and set during Renaissance Rome. Written over a period of thirty years, the poem provides a window into the feasts and religious life of the city, as well as the hardships, concerns, and triumphs of Fracco’s day and age: the 1527 Sack of Rome, the role of Charles V as supreme European hegemon, and the rise of the Farnese family. Beginning with an investigation of the origins of calendrical poetry in the Middle Ages and the Italian Renaissance, I examine how Fracco’s almanac responds to the major political and religious currents of the sixteenth century to create a teleological vision for Rome culminating in the papacy of Pope Paul III (1534-1549).