Zu monumentum ancyranum

Like many of his contemporaries, Montaigne quotes abundantly from classical sources. But unlike most sixteenth-century writers, he does not use his quotations primarily as a source of authority or as rhetorical ornament. He deploys them in such a way as to make his readers take note not only of the quotation itself but also of its original context. He thus engages in a much deeper and more complex dialogue with his sources, one which may be regarded as a form of cross-cultural communication. As such, his quotation practice illustrates a fundamental (but often overlooked) feature of human communication: a great part of the information transmitted through an utterance or a text is communicated implicitly.1 This article is based upon a paper given at the workshop “Virgil's Eclogues and Georgics, and their reception”, organized by Dr Juan Christian Pellicer and Professor Monika Asztalos at the University of Oslo in November 2007. 2 I wish to express my gratitude to Terence Cave and Kyrre Vatsend, who read with great care earlier drafts of this article and gave valuable advice on crucial aspects of it.