Baiae

The Baiae, also known as Two Books of Hendecasyllables are a collection of 71 poems by the eminent fifteenth-century scholar-poet and scientist Giovanni Gioviano Pontano. Born in Umbria, Italy in 1429 (others say 1426), Pontano spent most of his life in the Kingdom of Naples. There he served in high offices, including tutor to the sons of the King of Naples, Alfonso V of Aragon. He was an influential intellectual who led what came to be known as the Accademia Pontaniana. That learned academy carried on the humanism and classical scholarship well represented in the work of the medieval church official Poggio Bracciolini. Pontano, who died in 1503, wrote the Baiae in the last thirty years of his life.

The Baiae are in an eleven-syllable meter known as the Phalaecium. That’s a meter that Catullus commonly used. The poems were first published in 1505. They display a tolerant, humanistic, and welcoming view of men’s sexuality. A central interest is pleasure — the Baiae was a pleasure resort on the coast of Naples. Pontano’s poems particularly show sympathetic understanding of the sexual difficulties of old men and great appreciation for the sexual allure of young, beautiful women.