Da Kairos a Occasio: un percorso tra letteratura e iconografia

This article presents a history of the motive Kairos in Greco-Roman literature and art from the time when Lysippus created his famous statue in the 4th century up to the transformation of the allegorical male subject into the feminine image Occasio. This is an extremely complex matter, as we do not yet know all the characteristics of Lisippus’ work or the details of the iconographic model he had created. Based on both literary and iconographic material, this analysis focuses mainly on the epigram that Ausonius dedicated to Occasio (epigr. 12 Green), its ties to the Greek epigrammatic tradition (Posidipp. APl 275) and the re-elaboration of the motive by the Romans (above all, Phaedr. 5,8). From this analysis we see how Phaedrus’ bold attempt to introduce the static image of Kairos into the conflictual action of the fable influences Ausonius’ original rewriting of Posidippus’ text. Indeed, Ausonius’ epigram shares the strong moral import of Phaedrus’ apologue, its descriptive dynamism and the resolution in action that involves the spectator-reader. Finally, our findings allow us to conjecture that the image of Occasio and Paenitentia described by Ausonius is essentially the fruit of an elaborate literary remake. This would leave little room for the supposition of an ekphrasis founded on the autopsy of a work that really existed (even if the influence of freely associated iconographic suggestions aiming at an original poetic creation cannot be excluded). Nonetheless, it was precisely this ‘autopsy’ of Ausonius’ ekphrasis that was to inspire – in a sort of circular continuum between art and literature – a late 15th-century fresco of the school of Mantegna in Mantua. The article ends with an examination of further documentation concerning the fortune of the new Ausonian paradigm in the iconography and literature of the 15th and 16th centuries.