Cum peteret dulces audax Leandros amores… Lectures européennes ­d’une épigramme de Martial, entre 1530 et 1550

Beginning with the allusion that Rabelais (Tiers livre, chapter 36) makes to the epigram of Martial De spectaculis 25b, this ­contribution examines the fortune of this epigram in the first half of the sixteenth century, notably in the work of Forcadel and Tahureau. The epigram is imitated alongside the poem of Musée, not through medieval allegorical exegesis, but through ­Ficin’s interpretation. The article ­concludes with a ­comparison between these imitations and that of sonnet XXIX by the Toledan poet Garcilaso de la Vega.