Nonno di Panopoli. Parafrasi del Vangelo di san Giovanni. Canto IV

Almost nothing is known about Nonno di Panopoli's life. Born in Egypt in the vth century A.D., Nonno has been long ignored and set aside as an obscure follower at least until recent times when the edition of the Dionisiache, the great epic poem dedicated to the feats of the good Dyonysus, revealed the figure and his work in the framework of the literary culture in late ancient Paganism. The other work attributed to him contributes even more to a critical understanding of this figure, in close connection with the Pagan and Christian literature of the time: this is the Parafrasi del Vangelo di S. Giovanni, an exegetic commentary in hexameters of one of the texts in the New Testament where the doctrinal and theological element is more definite.
From the Parafrasi is published, edited by Mariangela Caprara, Canto iv, whose narrative structure develops around two episodes in the discussion with the Samaritan woman and the healing of Capernaum. By means of an exact commentary, the book tackles the complex questions posed by Nonno's text on the exegetic, philosophical and stylistic level, analysing its paraphrastic technique and narrative mechanisms in the light also of their possible models in the Pagan and Christian epic and philosophic tradition.