I will create a comprehensive introduction, textual edition, and scholarly commentary of the Priapea, a collection of eighty poems that scholars have generally avoided on account of their risqué contents. I will explore the arrangement of the Priapea as a poetry book, analyze the whole text from a literary standpoint, and consider its relationship to Roman sexual attitudes. I am therefore collating all of the extant manuscripts—some have never been consulted—thirty-five of which are in Italy and half of those in Rome. While in Rome, I will use the manuscripts and catalogues of the Vatican Archives; the sculptural and epigraphic collections of the Roman museums; the extensive libraries of the Academy and neighboring universities, especially their collections of early Renaissance editions of Virgil; and the differing perspectives of the other scholars on the Priapea and its themes, especially in medieval and Renaissance art and literature.