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Boccaccio As Homer: a Recently Discovered Self-Portrait and the 'Modern' Canon

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Boccaccio As Homer: a Recently Discovered Self-Portrait and the 'Modern' Canon Chapter 2 Boccaccio as Homer: A Recently Discovered Self-portrait and the ‘modern’ Canon Maddalena Signorini The ways through which Italian Humanists at the dawn of the Renaissance were able to develop a canon which spread throughout Europe, are the indica­ tors of a complex cultural process, which still bears some relevance to us today, as our gathering here in Cambridge (Mass.) somehow demonstrates. Although the phenomenon can be investigated from different angles, usu­ ally we look at this question from the point of view of literature, mostly by trying to identify the classical sources resounding in Renaissance texts, and the use made of them, as models or as hidden themes within the new texts. Naturally the conditio sine qua non for an author to enter any canon (in our case the canon of classical authors), is him being known and read, and there­ fore by extension, the availability of his texts in a given milieu. To this end the study of the material composition of the private libraries belonging to leading humanists is of the greatest interest for us. In other words, the analyse of the libraries of a few key protagonists of the Humanist movement is one possible way to reveal the genesis of the canon. B.L. Ullman, R. Sabbadini, G. Billano­ vich, and A. de la Mare have already taught us as much. Giovanni Boccaccio – like other founding authors of the Italian pre­ Humanism – as well as creating the basis of the formation of that canon, in­ troduced himself as a relevant constituent of it and as a founding author of a ‘modern’ canon and he was also perceived as such by his peers. In particular I would like to investigate how Giovanni Boccaccio acknowledgeds himself as part of a canon of modern authors stretching back all the way to antiquity and establishing his continuity with the ancient as if in a kaleidoscopic reflection. In April 2012 Marco Cursi and Sandro Bertelli made an important and thrill­ ing discovery: a profile of quite remarkable dimensions, though now nearly invisible, on the last page of the oldest of the three copies in which Boccaccio acted as editor of the Comedia.1 1 Toledo, Archivo y Biblioteca Capitulares, Zelada 104.6, f. 267v: Sandro Bertelli, and Marco Cursi, “Novità sull’autografo Toledano di Giovanni Boccaccio. Una data e un disegno scono­ sciuti”, Critica del testo 15/1 (2012): 287–295; Marco Cursi, La scrittura e i libri di Giovanni © koninklijke brill nv, leiden, ���9 | doi:�0.��63/9789004398030_003 <UN> 14 Signorini The drawing is accompanied by two captions both in Boccaccio’s hand as is the portrait itself.2 The top one, in the vernacular, identifies the subject: home- ro poeta sovrano; the other, in Greek characters but in Latin, functions as a signature: HOαννEC ΔE XEPϑαΛΔΩ Π[Hνξ]HT (Ioannes de Certaldo p[inx]it)3 (pl. 1). The manuscript was recently dated between 1348 and 13554 but the por­ trait was added later, probably after the end of the 1350s.5 This implies that its realization happens to be very close to the period when Boccaccio and the Greek monk Leonzio Pilato were working together on the Latin version of the Odyssey – 1360–1362 – a date which is further confirmed by the recent discover of Leonzio’s autograph manuscript.6 On the basis of the first caption, the profile so far has been identified with Homer’s portrait, even though it doesn’t match at all with the usual iconogra­ phy of the poet. We do not know which models they had in Florence in the mid Trecento but we do know, however, how Boccaccio imagined Homer from his own words: Boccaccio (Roma: Viella, 2013), 105–106, pl. ixa; Sandro Bertelli, and Marco Cursi, “Homero poeta sovrano”. Dentro l’officina di Giovanni Boccaccio. Studi sugli autografi in volgare e su Boccaccio dantista, eds. Sandro Bertelli, and Davide Cappi (Città del Vaticano: Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, 2014), 131–136, pls. 29–30, 32; Sandro Bertelli, and Marco Cursi, “Ancora sul ritratto di Omero nel ms. Toledano,” Rivista di studi danteschi xiv/1 (2014): 170–180, pls. 1–2; Sandro Bertelli, “L’immagine di Omero nel Dante toledano”. Boccaccio letterato. Atti del convegno internazionale di studi (Firenze – Certaldo, 10–12 ott. 2013), eds. Michaelangiola Marchiaro, and Stefano Zamponi (Firenze: Accademia della Crusca, 2015), 266–268. 2 A different opinion is held by Francesca Pasut, “Boccaccio disegnatore”. Boccaccio autore e copista, 59 and, more recently, in “Una recente scoperta e il rebus di Boccaccio disegnatore”. Boccaccio letterato, 177–188 who does not think the portrait is autograph. An elaborated in­ terpretation of the drawing – that shares some points of contact with my conclusions – is independently presented by Fabio Vendruscolo, “Nuove ipotesi sul ritratto riscoperto nel Toledano autografo di Boccaccio”, Archivum mentis 4 (2015): 153–161. He claims that the upper caption is not in the hand of Boccaccio and that the portrait – originally drawn by Boccac­ cio, and representing generically a poet – was transformed into a portrait of Boccaccio by an artist belonging to the milieu of the dantist Luca Martini in the Cinquecento. The conclusion seems rather untenable on several grounds, but mostly in the light of the extended analysis provided by Bertelli, and Cursi, “Homero poeta sovrano”, 136, and demonstrating both draw­ ing and caption to be realizated by Boccaccio’s hand. 3 Deciphered by Stefano Martinelli Tempesta, and Marco Petoletti, “Il ritratto di Omero e la firma greca di Boccaccio”, Italia Medioevale e Umanistica 54 (2013): 399–409; the last word could be either be read as ϕ[Ηνξ]Ητ (finxit). 4 Cursi, La scrittura e i libri, 31; a different date can be found in Bertelli, “L’immagine di Omero”, 266: «fine del sesto o inizi del settimo decennio». 5 Bertelli, and Cursi, “Homero poeta sovrano”, 136. 6 Marco Cursi, “Boccaccio lettore di Omero: le postille autografe all’Odissea”, Studi sul Boccac- cio 43 (2015): 5–27. <UN>.
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