In this article the author provides a critical edition, with commentary, of the praefatio
to Publius Papinius Statius’ silvae composed by the humanist Aulus Ianus Parrhasius.
The text, which is preserved in ms. V D 15 of the Biblioteca Nazionale Vittorio Emanuele III,
Naples, dates from the period of Parrhasius’s second stay in Rome (1514-1518). It provides
information about the scholars connected with Pomponius Letus and illuminates
both Statius’ reception in the Renaissance and teaching practices in the first half of the
16th century
