Christine de Pizan in The Book of the City of Ladies mentions the story of how Plato died with a book by Sappho under his pillow. Funny to think of who read and was familiar with which people in history.
In the 1400s, de Pizan, also spoke of Proba the Roman (section I.29.1) who knew all of Vergil’s poems (of 70 BCE) by heart and realized she could shuffle them to retell the story of Old and New testaments in a sort of plunder verse.
She recontextualized Vergil’s words so dexterously, as to keep his voice and tone, that he seemed “both a prophet and evangelist” retelling the scriptures.
she would run thru the Eclogue, then the Georgics, and the Aeneid […] in one part she would take several entire verses unchanged and in another borrow small snatches of verse, and through marvelous craftsmanship and conceptual subtlety, she was able to construct entire lines of orderly verse. She would put small pieces together, coupling and joining them, all the while respecting the metrical rules, art and measure in the individual feet, as well as i n the conjoining of verses[…]
This most noble lady wished that this said work, drawn up and composed through her labour, be called the Cento
Cento means patchwork as well as one hundred. A later work of verse, she also entitled Cento, but because it was 100 lines.
Christine de Pizan said Boccaccio related how this woman poet Proba was exceptional. This one work, which others might spend a lifetime on, was for her one of many.