The epigram is certainly one of the most intriguing, while at the same time most elusive, genres of Neo-Latin literature. From the end of the fifteenth century, almost every humanist writer who regarded himself a true ‘poeta’ had composed a respectable number of epigrams. Given our sense of poetical aesthetics, be it idealistic, post-idealistic, modern or post-modern, the epigrammatic genre is difficult to understand. Because of its close ties with the historical and social context, it does...