Il motivo della metamorfosi nel Tumulus Ielseminae puellae in florem versae di Giovanni Pontano

The paper aims at analyzing the motif of metamorphosis in the epigraphic elegy Tumulus Ielseminae puellae in florem versae from the volume De tumulis by Giovanni Pontano. The author indicates the classic sources of inspiration: the myths from the Metamorphoses by Ovid and compares the motif of metamorphosis from the epigraphic elegy of Pontano with the transformation of human beings into plants described in the canto XIII of Dante’s Inferno and in Petrarch’s Canzoniere. Further, the paper analyses the motif of metamorphosis and the representation of Death in other epigraphic elegies from De tumulis as well as the significance of the Nature in Pontano’s works and in the fifteenth-century writings in Latin by Italian poets.