Pontano's De hortis Hesperidum: The Use of Myth between Topics and Political Propaganda

De hortis Hesperidum is a poem in two books about Citron growing in which Pontano competes with ancient poets Vergil and Ovid. A didactic and mythological poem, De Hortis rivals Vergil's Georgica and Ovid's Metamorphosis. By staging the myth of Citron's birth and Adon's death in the landscape of Campania, Pontano renews the poetic genre of hellenistic Epyllium. Completed in 1501 and dedicated to Francesco Gonzaga, Prince of Mantova, the composition of De Hortis parallels works such as De bello Neapolitano, Aegidius, De immanitate, and De luna, in which Pontano celebrates Naples, the Campania region and Southern Italy as lands devoted to the cult of Sapientia and Studia Humanitatis. Therefore, this poem's ideological perspective needs to be explained along with its problematical dedication to Francesco Gonzaga, a non-Neapolitan Prince