Maps the literary import of Naples on Milton in the course of his one-month sojourn and beyond. As the first book devoted solely to "Manus, " arguably the most accomplished of Milton's neo-Latin writings pertaining to his Italian period, it offers a series of fresh interpretations of the poem. It does so by situating it alongside Milton's seemingly voracious reading of contemporary Italian literature while abroad, by assessing the poem's academic, religious, topographical, and linguistic contexts, and by analyzing its classical, neo-Latin, Italian, and English intertexts. It also draws upon the writings of two Italian poets who benefitted from Manso's care and patronage, namely, Torquato Tasso and Giambattista Marino.