ITALIAN BOOKSHELF Edited by Dino S. Cervigni and Anne Tordi
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ITALIAN BOOKSHELF Edited by Dino S. Cervigni and Anne Tordi REVIEW ARTICLE Vita nuova * Rime. A cura di Donato Pirovano e Marco Grimaldi. Premessa (XIII-XVII) e Introduzione di Enrico Malato (XIX-XXXI). Bibliografia citata in forma abbreviata (XXXII-LXXIV). Volume 1, tomo 1 delle Opere di Dante. 8 volumi. Roma: Salerno Editrice, 2015. Pp. 804. Hardcover. €49. ISBN 978-88-8402-986-7. This very elegant volume of more than 800 pages — containing prefaces, introductions, Dante’s Vita nuova, Rime of the Vita nuova, and other rhymes of the same time, with a very extensive commentary — constitutes the first volume of a new edition, accompanied by commentary, of the entire opus of Dante Alighieri. Spearheaded and directed by the eminent professor Enrico Malato, supported by a committee of distinguished scholars, and edited by renowned philologists and literary critics, this new edition and commentary — divided in eight volumes and several tomes, some of which have already appeared — links itself with, relies on, and seeks to supersede the editions of the sixth centenary of Dante’s death and seventh centenary of his birth, as well other very prestigious editions of Dante’s works appeared afterward, such as — to mention just a few — Giorgio Petrocchi’s critical edition of the Divine Comedy and Domenico De Robertis’s Vita nuova (1980) and Rime (2002). Begun a few years ago, this Nuova edizione commentata delle opere di Dante (NECOD) is scheduled to be completed by 2021, the seventh centenary of Dante’s death. Judging from the high scholarly level of the volumes already published, including this one edited by Donato Pirovano and Marco Grimaldi, one cannot but applaud such an undertaking: a true monument (as I will further elaborate below) to Dante, Italian scholarship, and Italy’s illustrious literary culture. The volume begins with a general preface by Enrico Malato (“Premessa” XIII-XVII), the coordinator of NECOD, who presents the criteria underlying the multi-volume undertaking, which he had already illustrated extensively in previous essays announcing this exceptional editorial endeavor, primarily in a study first published in 2004 and recently republished with a new postface (Per una nuova edizione commentata delle opere di Dante. Con una nuova postfazione. La realtà della NECOD. Roma: Salerno Editrice, 2016). In the volume which I am reviewing, Malato’s “Premessa” is followed by his “Introduzione” (XIX-XXXI) to the Vita nuova and Rime, both of which further suggest the influence that Malato has exercised, and still exercises, on the entire undertaking. Next follows the bibliography to the volume (XXXII-LXXIV). Donato Pirovano’s “Nota introduttiva” (3-36) outlines the principal ideas at the basis of his commentary, while his “Nota al testo” (37-75) explains the philological criteria underlying this new edition of Dante’s libello (77-289). The Rime, edited 458 Annali d’italianistica, volume 34 (2016). Italian Bookshelf and with commentary by Marco Grimaldi, occupies more than the second half of the volume (291-800), and contains all of Dante’s poems, with the exclusion of the rhymes of the Convivio and maturity, which will appear in the second tome of volume 1. A brief index concludes the volume (801-03), leading me to surmise that either the announced second tome of this first volume, or volume 13 of the NECOD, called “Indici generali,” will provide analytical indices to this first volume and/or the entire edition as well. Let us focus on Donato Pirovano’s edition of Dante’s youthful work. Pirovano’s “Nota introduttiva” is extensive and touches on the most important and by and large current interpretive ideas essential for the understanding of the Vita nova. He wisely encapsulates his reading of the Vita nuova in seventeen titled paragraphs, beginning with the notion of the libello as a new book (“Un libro nuovo” 3-4). He then deals essentially with such (by and large accepted) notions as the genesis of the book (4-7), its autobiographical nature (7-8), title and plotline (9-14), the book’s tripartite structure (14-16), spatiality and characters (16-20), and “eros” vs. “caritas” (20-22). He further refines the autobiographical nature of the libello calling it an autobiography of “un poeta d’amore” (22-24). Next he goes on with considerations on the libello’s intended audience and public (25-26) and the renewal of vernacular love poetry as “uno stile dolce e nuovo” (26-28). Considerations on the libello´s literary genre, models, and contemporary reactions to its circulation (29-33) precede Pirovano’s final and important observations on the relationships between the poetics of Dante and that of Cavalcanti (“La vita nuova: Dante and Guido Cavalcanti” 33-35). Just as the “Nota al testo” presents the criteria underlying the text adopted for the Vita nuova, the “Nota introduttiva” I have just outlined lays the foundations of a very extensive commentary. In both the introduction and commentary, Pirovano shows himself to be fully cognizant of past and recent scholarship, such as, for instance, the fundamental importance of Dante’s creation of a “book” and its complex structure as a prosimetrum; the distinction between the protagonist (“io agens o Dante agens”) and author (“io autore o Dante auctor” 7), which I wish, however, had been better clarified; the book’s autobiographical character; eros vs. caritas; and many other essential critical elements, by and large discussed in previous and contemporary critical literature. Let us consider, not at all at random, some of the most important issues which Pirovano discusses in his Introduction and which are most frequently discussed by Vita nuova scholars: the title of the libello; its internal structural architectonics; the division of the book into chapters, paragraphs, or none of the above; the genre of the book: autobiography, history, fiction and poetry; the story as a poetic Bildungsroman of the young poet and prose writer; and the development of the life of the protagonist, from lack of awareness to awareness, sinfulness, recognition, repentance, and redemption — a spiritual itinerary Annali d’italianistica, volume 34 (2016). Italian Bookshelf 459 which in many respects anticipates the journey in the afterlife of the male protagonist of the Comedy. As to the title of the libello, Pirovano seems to be concerned primarily about defending the validity of the most commonly accepted title, Vita nuova, against the one proposed by Guglielmo Gorni, Vita nova, as if the latter title, according to some scholars (but wrongly so), were something new and different. The evidence is that Gorni is only the last in a long list of scholars seeking to revive a long-standing and amply documented tradition according to which the title of the libello would be Vita nova.1 To begin with, one should be very careful in dealing with medieval titles, as Leo Spitzer wrote some time ago.2 In fact, the title of the libello is neither Vita nova nor Vita nuova. To understand this issue’s many implications let us bear in mind the many controversies surrounding the title of the Comedy. As scholars know full well, the Epistle to Can Grande, whose authorship is debated, proposes the following title: Incipit comedia Dantis Alagherii, florentini natione, non moribus — a fairly typical medieval title traditionally abbreviated in Latin as Comedía, following Dante himself (Inf. 16.128; 21.2). Another possible title, in Italian, is listed by Giorgio Petrocchi in his critical edition of the Divine Comedy, a title which is printed within square brackets to suggest its questionable authority and which is three- and-a-half lines long: “[Incomincia la Comedia di Dante Alleghieri di Fiorenza, ne la quale tratta de le pene e punimenti de’ vizi e de’ meriti e premi de le virtù. Comincia il canto primo de la prima parte la quale si chiama Inferno, nel qual l’autore fa proemio a tutta l’opera.]” (Dante Alighieri, La Commedia secondo l’antica vulgata, a cura di Giorgio Petrocchi, Milano: Mondadori, 1966: 3). Given the uncertainty surrounding the tile, therefore, most scholars refer to 1 According to the bibliography of VN in Enciclopedia dantesca, 6 vols. Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana fondata da Giovanni Treccani, 1970-78, vol. 6, the following editions have the title Vita nova: Pesaro: Nobili, 1829 (Vita nova); Firenze: Franceschini, 1898 (Vita nova Dantis: publication of a fragment); Firenze: Olschki, 1899 (Vita nova Dantis: also a publication of a fragment); Firenze: Sansoni, 1900-16 (La Vita Nova). Beck’s 1896 edition has on the cover Dantes Vita Nova and, at the text’s beginning, La Vita Nova; Beck has also published an abridged edition, which is not listed in ED (Opere di Dante. La Vita Nova. Bibliotheca Romanica, 40. Biblioteca Italiana. Strasburgo: Heitz & Mündel, etc.) with no date but probably printed in 1906, whose title on the cover and beginning of the text is: La Vita Nova. Pézard states that “la forme latine [Vita nova] ici au moins est incontestable” (Dante, Oeuvres complètes, Trans. and comm. André Pézard. Bibliothèque de la Pléiade. Paris: Gallimard, 1965: 5n1). Pazzaglia: “Il titolo è enunciato nel capitolo I, dove D. trascrive l’incipit latino, ritrovato nel libro de la [...] memoria, che dice, appunto, vita nova” (Enciclopedia dantesca 5:1087). 2 “‘Incipit vita nova’, il sostitutivo medioevale del moderno titolo del libro” (Studi italiani, ed. Claudio Scarpati, Milano: Vita e Pensiero, 1976: 103). 460 Annali d’italianistica, volume 34 (2016). Italian Bookshelf Dante’s masterpiece as Commedia or also, certainly since the sixteenth century, as Divina commedia. Concerning the libello, Dante himself informs the readers of the probable title of the libello at its beginning, as all readers know: “Incipit vita nova” (VN 1). The manuscript tradition, however, is far from unanimous in regard to the book’s beginning (Incipit…) as well as to its conclusion (Explicit…), as I expound in note.3 In brief, in view of the many differences in the manuscript 3 I own the microfilms (and the printed copies) of all the manuscripts of the Vita nuova listed in Barbi’s 1932 edition with the exception of the fragments.