Magni spirti dentro a i picciol corpi: le api 'politiche' di Giovanni Rucellai

The paper introduces the poem Le api by Giovani Rucellai in order to examine the political aim of the poet, who emphasizes some suggestions of Virgil’s Georgics, book IV. This interpretation of the Virgilian poem depends on the historical and cultural context in which Rucellai’s poem was made and published. This political approach to the world of bees became central in the Sixteenth century debate on republic or monarchy