Il Lasca’ (1505‐1584) and the Burlesque

Antonfrancesco Grazzini ‘Il Lasca’ (1505‐1584) and the Burlesque Poetry, Performance and Academic Practice in Sixteenth‐Century Florence Antonfrancesco Grazzini ‘Il Lasca’ (1505‐1584) en het burleske genre Poëzie, opvoeringen en de academische praktijk in zestiende‐eeuws Florence (met een samenvatting in het Nederlands) Proefschrift ter verkrijging van de graad van doctor aan de Universiteit Utrecht op gezag van de rector magnificus, prof.dr. J.C. Stoof, ingevolge het besluit van het college voor promoties in het openbaar te verdedigen op dinsdag 9 juni 2009 des ochtends te 10.30 uur door Inge Marjo Werner geboren op 24 oktober 1973 te Utrecht Promotoren: Prof.dr. H.A. Hendrix Prof.dr. H.Th. van Veen Contents List of Abbreviations..........................................................................................................3 Introduction.........................................................................................................................5 Part 1: Academic Practice and Poetry Chapter 1: Practice and Performance. Lasca’s Umidian Poetics (1540‐1541) ................................25 Interlude: Florence’s Informal Literary Circles of the 1540s...........................................................65 Chapter 2: Cantando al paragone. Alfonso de’ Pazzi and Academic Debate (1541‐1547) ..............79 Part 2: Social Poetry Chapter 3: La Guerra de’ Mostri. Reviving the Spirit of the Umidi (1547).......................................119 Chapter 4: Towards Academic Reintegration. Pastoral Friendships in the Villa Poems (1560s).............................................................................................................161 Epilogue and Conclusions.................................................................................................193 Bibliography........................................................................................................................213 Samenvatting.......................................................................................................................229 Dankwoord (Ringraziamenti)...........................................................................................235 Curriculum Vitae................................................................................................................239 List of Abbreviations ASF Archivio di Stato di Firenze Annali Annali dell’Accademia Fiorentina (ms. BMF) BNCF Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale di Firenze BMF Biblioteca Marucelliana di Firenze Capitoli Capitoli della nuova riforma (ms. BNCF) DBI Dizionario biografico degli Italiani. Rome: Istituto dell’Enciclopedia italiana Diario IV ‘Frammenti di notizie dell’Accademia della Crusca descritte dal Trito (conte Piero de’ Bardi)’, in: Diario di Benedetto Buommattei (ms. Accademia della Crusca) Libro Libro, Capitoli Compositioni et Leggi, della Accademia degli Humydi di Firenze (ms. BNCF) Magl. BNCF, fondo Magliabechiano Palat. BNCF, fondo Palatino s.f. stile fiorentino 3 4 Introduction The name of Antonfrancesco Grazzini, also known as ‘il Lasca’ (1505‐1584),1 is forever associated with the burlesque. Although in his long life Lasca was a prolific writer of novelle, plays and lyric poetry,2 he owes his reputation mostly to his burlesque poetry, which contemporaries considered to be second only to Berni.3 To modern readers, however, Lasca’s burlesque language has proved to be an obstacle rather than an asset. With its particular code language and its topical, local character, Lasca’s favourite genre is quite inaccessible for outsiders, past and present. Our understanding of Lasca’s great mock‐heroic poem, La Guerra de’ Mostri, for example, is still hampered by the inscrutability of its imagery and allusions. Although scholars agree that the burlesque is 1 Bramanti (2004: 19‐20) has recently found archival evidence that proves that Lasca was born on the 22th of March 1505 (1504 s.f.), instead of 1504 as was suggested by his first biographer Antonmaria Biscioni (in: Grazzini 1741: XXVI). See also: Plaisance 2005: 11. 2 Plaisance (2005: 16) has recently shown that, other than presumed so far, Lasca never worked as an apothecary; he had the financial space to entirely devote his time to writing. Though he may have helped his brothers with administrative duties, he never was a professional scribe. A tavola delle opere drawn up by Lasca on 15 September 1566 demonstrates his versatility. He tried his hand at various verse forms: Petrarchan, pastoral and spiritual verse, eclogues, epigrams, canti carnascialeschi. He also composed drama: comedy, spiritual comedy, farse, and prose: ‘lettere poetiche e notabili’, commenti, dialogues and novelle (see: Grazzini 1882: CXXI‐CXXIV). 3 In this tavola delle opere, Lasca himself categorizes his burlesque poetry. To it, he counts his ‘capitoli in lode’ (circa 50 selected and rewritten), ‘sonnetti’ (circa 600),‘Canzoni’ (4), ‘madrigali’ (circa 200), ‘Madrigalesse’ (circa 50), ‘La Guerra de i Mostri’, ‘Le lodi dell’Antella, e di Ligliano’ and ‘Stanze’ (Ibidem: CXXII‐CXXIII). I owe much to the work of Carlo Verzone, editor of Le rime burlesche edite e inedite di Antonfrancesco Grazzini detto il Lasca (1882) who provided a complete overview of Lasca’s burlesque works. To define the burlesque, he has followed Lasca’s categorization, as will I. 5 an anti‐genre, what or who exactly is being opposed, mocked or attacked – and to what purpose – is always subject to debate. As we shall see, especially the social impact of burlesque poetry remains problematic. When little is known about the context in which a poem appeared, it is difficult to tell the difference between licensed mockery and violent, dangerous satire. The association between Lasca and this anti‐genre has contributed to the fact that modern scholars have classified him as a subversive poet. Given that Lasca primarily satirized the politically motivated developments within the Accademia Fiorentina, which after its establishment in 1541 by Cosimo I de’ Medici increasingly became a state‐ controlled organ, it has been presumed that his use of the burlesque was political and even anti‐Medicean as well. This political reading of Lasca’s burlesque poetry, as advocated by Michel Plaisance, has been particularly dominant. This study will argue that this image needs to be adjusted. By placing Lasca’s person and poetry in their social context, at defining moments in his lifelong and constantly troubled relationship with the Accademia Fiorentina, I will try to show that, rather than (cultural) politics, Lasca’s poetics and his views on the organization of literary life were at stake. Instead of reducing the academic context to an extension of Florentine politics, we should take the discussions about practice and organization seriously in their own right, especially in the initial years of the Academy’s existence. Only then can we begin to understand how Lasca’s burlesque poetry functioned. All Lasca’s burlesque works were created for use in a social or academic context. As Lasca himself said in his Tavola delle opere (1566), they are: ‘tra mandati a varie persone e composti sopra diversi soggetti, e scritti in lode, e in biasimo d’alcuni Amici, o Nimici’.4 Whenever he commented on academic practice, he had an audience in mind. I will analyse the poems for their topical value, as an entrance into the social world of the Accademia Fiorentina, and for their role in the institutional structures. This social approach of Lasca’s poetry will yield a more complete image of the poet‐academician. 4 Grazzini 1882: CXXIII. 6 There is but little exaggeration in the statement that Lasca’s literary career began and ended with the founding of an Academy.5 The Accademia degli Umidi, the first Academy Lasca founded, was transformed into the Accademia Fiorentina within three months after its founding. Currently, the Accademia Fiorentina of the sixteenth century is regarded as a prototype of the cultural organizations that would become the face of absolutism in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.6 In the early years of its existence, the 1540s, however, practising its new political mission was not self‐evident. As this political aim – the legitimization and propagation of the Medici regime and policies – was unprecedented in a literary Academy, the Fiorentina had to invent new forms of organization. Therefore, various rounds of reforms were initiated. The years between the founding of the Accademia Fiorentina and the severest of these reforms, in 1547, can therefore be regarded as a transition period. It is this period particularly that has received extensive scholarly attention.7 In the turbulent first decade of its existence, when the Fiorentina was in constant crisis, Lasca, as one of its members most critical of the change in orientation within the Academy, played an important part, ever challenging the centralizing reforms. Yet he did not get his way: disillusioned, he was expelled from the Academy ranks in August 1547. The exile from official literary life weighed heavily on the poet, and he worked endlessly to be readmitted into the 5 Lasca’s vocation as a man of letters is indeed recorded best from the moment he acted as one of the founders of the Accademia degli Umidi, in November 1540. By that time, however, he was already an established writer. This can be concluded from a condemnation by the Otto di guardia in January 1537. The document refers to Lasca as ‘compositorem’ and his writer’s name is already in use as well (‘vocato il Lascha’). The condemnation was for

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