The Inquisition and the "Editio Princeps" of the "Vita Nuova" Author(s): Paget Toynbee Source: The Modern Language Review, Vol. 3, No. 3 (Apr., 1908), pp. 228-231 Published by: Modern Humanities Research Association Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3713711 Accessed: 16-03-2016 19:56 UTC
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This content downloaded from 131.91.169.193 on Wed, 16 Mar 2016 19:56:18 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions THE INQUISITION AND THE 'EDITIO PRINCEPS'
OF THE 'VITA NUOVA.'
WITH the exception of the Latin Eclogues and Letters, the Vita
Nuova was the last of Dante's works to appear in print. The Divina
Commedia was first printed in 1472, the Convivio in 1490, the Quaestio
in 1508, the De Vulgari Eloquentia (in Trissino's translation) in 1529,
and the De Monarchia in 1559. The editio princeps of the Vita Nuova
did not appear until 1576, more than a hundred years after the first
edition of the Commedia. It was printed at Florence, and in the same
volume were included fifteen of Dante's Canzoni, and Boccaccio's Vita di
Dante.
'Habent sua fata libelli!' Certainly the fate of Dante's works, as
printed books, has been a curious one. The Divina Commedia, after
it had been in print for over a century, and more than forty editions of
it had been published, was placed on the Index, as a book which no good
Catholic might read until it had been expurgated by the Holy Office.
The De Vulgari Eloquentia, first printed in Italian, was for fifty years
regarded as a falsification by Trissino, until the publication of the
original Latin text by a Florentine exile in Paris'. The De Monarchia,
which was in all probability seen through the press by an Englishman,
an Oxford scholar, the famous John Foxe, the martyrologist, made its
first appearance in print in the guise of a Reformation tract2, and was
promptly in its turn placed on the Index. The Eclogues and the Letters,
the Quaestio, which owes its rehabilitation to the scholarly labours of
two members of the Oxford Dante Society, have all been denounced, at
one time or another, as contemptible forgeries. While, strangest fate of
all, the Vita Nuova, the work of Dante's earliest years, 'the first and
tenderest love-story of modern literature,' as it has been called, had to
submit to defacement and mutilation at the hands of the Inquisition,
before it was allowed to leave the press in its native Florence.
By Jacopo Corbinelli in 1577. 2 See my letter in the Athenaeum, April 14, 1906.
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It was long ago remarked by Milton that the version of Boccaccio's
Vita di Dante contained in this same volume is a garbled one. In an
entry in his Commonplace Book, under the heading Rex, he notes that
Boccaccio's account of the De Monarchia, and of its being condemned to
the flames as a heretical book by the Cardinal Bertrand Poyet, which is
to be found in previous editions of the Vita, was suppressed by the
Inquisitor in this edition1: 'Authoritatem regiam a Papa non dependere
scripsit Dantes Florentinus in eo libro cui est titulo Monarchia, quem
librum Cardinalis del Poggietto tanquam scriptum haereticum comburi
curavit, ut testatur Boccatius in vita Dantis editione priore, nam e
posteriori mentio istius rei omnis est deleta ab inquisitore' (fol. 182)2.
That certain passages of the Divina Commedia should have been
censured as too plain spoken, or that the De Monarchia should have
been placed on the Index, is perhaps not altogether surprising; but
that in the Vita Nuova even the Inquisition should have been able to
discover anything offensive to the Church, or to religion, is almost
incredible. Yet such was the case. Witte, thirty years ago3, pointed
out that certain terms applied by Dante to Beatrice in the Vita Nuova,
and certain phrases, have been altered or suppressed in the editio
princeps; and Professor Barbi has recently drawn attention to the same
fact in more detail4. Allusions to the Deity, quotations from Scripture,
words with sacred associations, and so on, have in nearly every instance
come under the ban of the censor. One cannot help being struck with
the triviality, not to say absurdity, of the majority of the alterations.
For example, Dante five times applies to Beatrice the epithet gloriosa.
Once, apparently by an oversight, the word has been allowed to stand
(? 38, 1. 12); in the four other instances it has been changed either to
graziosa (? 2, 1. 5 'la graziosa donna della mia mente'), or to leggiadra
(? 33, 1. 6), or to vaga (? 34, 1. 6), or to unica (? 40, 1. 4 'questa unica
Beatrice'). Again, for salute the censor has substituted in one passage
quiete (? 3, 1. 41 'la donna della quiete'), in another dolcezza (? 11, 1. 3),
and in a third donna (? 11, 1. 18), which last has been adopted in several
modern editions, including the Oxford Dante, although all the MSS. read
1 See my article on the Earliest References to Dante in English Literature in Miscellanea
di Studi Critici edita in onore di Arturo Graf (1903).
2 The Inquisitor's imprimatur runs as follows: ' Si e veduto la Vita Nuova descritta da
Dante Allighieri, insieme con la Vita dell' istesso Dante descritta da Giouan Boccaccio, e
si e concesso licenzia che si stampino questo di ultimo di Dicembre 1575. Fra Francesco
da Pisa Min. Conu. Inquisitor Generale dello stato di Fiorenza /.'
3 In his edition of the Vita Nuova (Leipzig, 1876), p. xxxii.
4 In his critical edition of the Vita Nuova, published by the Societa Dantesca Italiana
(1907).
This content downloaded from 131.91.169.193 on Wed, 16 Mar 2016 19:56:18 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 230 The Inquisition and the 'Vita Nuova'
salute. In like manner beatitudine is replaced six times out of twelve
by felicita (? 3, 1. 14; ? 5, 1. 4; ? 9, 1. 12; ? 18, 11. 35, 38, 49, 59); twice
by quiete (? 10,1. 16; ? 11, 1. 27); and elsewhere by chiarezza (? 11, 1. 21),
or by allegrezza (? 12, 1. 2), or by fermezza (? 18, 1. 38). While beato is
either omitted altogether, as where Dante speaks of 'quella nobilissima
e beata anima' (? 23, 1. 61), or of 'questa Beatrice beata' (? 29, 1. 11),
or else it is altered to contento (? 23, 1. 83, 'o com' e contento colui che
ti vede').
On occasion, however, the tampering with the text is of a much
more serious nature. For instance, at the beginning of ? 22 a whole
sentence has been radically altered. Where Dante wrote 'Siccome
piacque al glorioso Sire, lo quale non negb la morte a se,' the censor
prints 'Siccome piacque a quel vivace amore, il quale impresse questo
affetto in me'! In ? 26 (11. 14-17) where Dante describes how people
in the streets of Florence exclaimed of Beatrice as she passed by,
'Questa non 'e femmina, anzi e uno de' bellissimi angeli del cielo', the
censor has thought it necessary to substitute 'anzi e simile a uno de'
bellissimi angeli.'
Still more serious are the suppressions, affecting as they do some of
the most beautiful passages in the book. In ? 23 the words 'Osanna in
excelsis,' chanted by the angels who receive the soul of Beatrice, are
omitted, and their place is supplied by dots. In ? 24 the reference to
St John the Baptist, 'quel Giovanni, lo quale precedette la verace luce,
dicendo: Ego vox clamantis in deserto: parate viam Domini,' which is
introduced in order to explain the connexion between the names
'Giovanna' and 'Primavera,' is ruthlessly cut out; as is the touching
cry in the words of Jeremiah from the Lamentations: 'Quomodo sedet
sola civitas plena populo' facta est quasi vidua domina gentium,' by
which the narrative is interrupted (in ? 29) when Dante comes to record
the death of Beatrice. These words occur a second time a little later
on (in ? 30), and are again omitted by the censor; but by an oversight
he has allowed Dante's twice repeated reference to 'le allegate parole'
to remain in the text, whereby he has thrown the whole paragraph into
confusion.
The last, and in some respects the most cruel and senseless mutilation
of the text occurs in the closing sentence of the book. Dante, after
expressing the hope that he may be spared to write that concerning
Beatrice, which has never yet been written of any woman, concludes in
these words: 'E poi piaccia a Colui, che e Sire della cortesia, che la mia
anima se ne possa gire a vedere la gloria della sua donna, cioe di quella
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benedetta Beatrice, la quale gloriosamente mira nella faccia di Colui,
qui est per omnia saecula benedictus. Amen.' The censor has destroyed
the whole significance of this impressive passage by cutting out the
reference to Beatrice in the last lines, so as to read 'E poi piaccia a
Colui, che e Sire della cortesia, che la mia anima se ne possa gire
a vedere la gloria di Colui, qui est per omnia saecula benedictus.'
Such treatment of a book is indeed like 'raking through the entrails
of an author,' as Milton puts it1, 'with a violation worse than any
could be offered to his tomb'! The outrage is all the more flagrant
because in the dedicatory epistle prefixed to the book the reader is
solemnly told that the Vita Nuova, 'operetta del famosissimo Poeta
e Teologo Dante Allighieri, da esso Dante, e da altri riputata di non
piccol valore,' is one of those works, 'le quali ne migliorare, ne pareg-
giare si possono, bastando dir solamente essere opera di Dante.'
PAGET TOYNBEE.
In the Areopagitica.
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