The songs of Homer were first translated into Latin by humanists of the Italian Renaissance (1362–1474). My project aims at a historically contextualized analysis of the transmission of Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey during this period from Greek manuscript into Latin print. The process whereby Homer went from Greek minuscule on calf’s skin to Latin incunabula represents much more than an exchange in the media of textual transmission. It reflects a substantive shift in historical understanding. The Troy tale had deep roots in the Bronze Age civilizations of the Eurasian steppes and Mediterranean. To the literate societies of Renaissance Italy this was a baffling world of feudal monarchies expressed in the even more baffling idiom of oral composition. Humanists often refracted Homer through the lens of more familiar authors such as Virgil or Cicero. The Homers they invented were thus a distinct product of the humanist program to revive a certain moment in Roman history.