Editing Virgil (section)

====Site of Andes====

A tradition of obscure origin, which was accepted by Dante,<ref>''Purg.'' XVIII.83</ref> identifies Andes with modern [[Pietole]], two or three miles southeast of Mantua.{{sfn|Conway|1923|p=194}} The ancient biography attributed to [[Marcus Valerius Probus|Probus]] records that Andes was thirty [[Mile#Roman|Roman miles]] (about {{Convert|45|km|mi|abbr=|disp=or}}) from Mantua.{{sfn|Conway|1923|p=189}}{{sfn|Nettleship|1879|p=7}}{{sfn|Brummer|1912|p=73}} There are eight or nine references to the ''[[gens]]'' to which Vergil belonged, [[Vergilia gens|''gens Vergilia'']], in inscriptions from [[Northern Italy]]. Out of these, four are from townships remote from Mantua, three appear in inscriptions from [[Verona]], and one in an inscription from [[Calvisano]], a [[votive offering]] to the [[Matres and Matronae|Matronae]] (a group of deities) by a woman called Vergilia, asking the goddesses to deliver from danger another woman, called Munatia.{{sfn|Conway|1923|p=190}} A tomb erected by a member of the [[Magia gens|''gens Magia'']], to which Virgil's mother belonged, is found at [[Casalpoglio]], just {{Convert|12|km|mi}} from Calvisano. In 1915, G. E. K. Braunholtz drew attention to the proximity of these inscriptions to each other, and the fact that Calvisano is exactly 30 Roman miles from Mantua,{{sfn|Braunholtz|1915|p=108}} which led [[Robert Seymour Conway]] to theorize that these inscriptions have to do with relatives of Virgil, and Calvisano or [[Carpenedolo]], not Pietole, is the site of Andes.{{sfn|Conway|1923|pp=190–4}} [[Edward Kennard Rand|E. K. Rand]] defended the traditional site at Pietole, noting that [[Egnazio]]'s 1507 edition of Probus' commentary, supposedly based on a "very ancient codex" from [[Bobbio Abbey]] which can no longer be found, says that Andes was three miles from Mantua, and arguing that this is the correct reading.{{sfn|Rand|1930|pp=123–4, 127–42}} Conway replied that Egnazio's manuscript cannot be trusted to have been as ancient as Egnazio claimed it was, nor can we be sure that the reading "three" is not Egnazio's own conjectural correction of his manuscript to harmonize it with the Pietole tradition, and all other evidence strongly favours the unanimous reading of the other witnesses of "thirty miles."{{sfn|Conway|1931|pp=71–5}} Other studies<ref>{{cite magazine
| last        = Nardoni
| first       = Davide
| date        = 1986
| title       = La terra di Virgilio
| language    = it
| magazine    = Archeologia Viva
| edition     = January–February
| pages       = 71–76
}}</ref> claim that today's consideration for ancient ''Andes'' should be sought in the Casalpoglio area of [[Castel Goffredo]].<ref>{{cite book |last=Gualtierotti |first=Piero |date=2008 |title=Castel Goffredo dalle origini ai Gonzaga |location=Mantua |language=it |pages=96–100 }}</ref>