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Corso Di Dottorato Di Ricerca Storia E Cultura DIPARTIMENTO DI SCIENZE UMANISTICHE, DELLA COMUNICAZIONE E DEL TURISMO (DISTUCOM) CORSO DI DOTTORATO DI RICERCA STORIA E CULTURA DEL VIAGGIO E DELL’ODEPORICA IN ETA’ MODERNA – XXIV Ciclo. ‘EXPEDITION INTO SICILY’ DI RICHARD PAYNE KNIGHT: ESPERIENZE DI VIAGGIO DI UN ILLUMINISTA INGLESE DI FINE SETTECENTO Sigla del settore scientifico-disciplinare (M.STO/03) Coordinatore: Prof. Gaetano Platania Firma ……………………. Tutor: Prof. Francesca Saggini Firma ……………………. Dottoranda: Olivia Severini Firma ……………………. “Questo Payne Knight era uomo di forte intelletto.” Ugo Foscolo, 1825 I N D I C E Pag. Indice delle illustrazioni 1 Introduzione 2 Capitolo primo - Traduzione con testo inglese a fronte 7 Capitolo secondo - L'autore, l'argomento e la storia del manoscritto 2.1 Notizie sulla vita e le opere di Richard Payne Knight 50 2.2 Il lungo viaggio di un diario di viaggio 65 Capitolo terzo - Il contesto del viaggio di Knight 3.1 Il contesto storico: dall’Inghilterra alla Sicilia 94 3.2 Il contesto filosofico: l’Illuminismo inglese e il pensiero di Knight 106 3.3 Il contesto artistico: alla riscoperta dei classici tra luci ed ombre 120 3.4 Il contesto scientifico: il problema del tempo nel settecento 134 3.5 Il Grand Tour nella seconda metà del Settecento 148 Capitolo quarto - L’analisi del testo e il pensiero di Knight 4.1 Analisi del testo della Expedition into Sicily 169 4.2 Gli stereotipi sull’Italia 215 Conclusioni 226 Bibliografia 230 I N D I C E D E L L E I L L U S T R A Z I O N I Pag. Richard Payne Knight (Nathaniel Hone) 51 Esterno del castello di Downtown 53 Sir William Hamilton (Joshua Reynolds) 68 Richard Payne Knight (Thomas Lawrence) 68 Sir William Hamilton and Pietro Fabris (Pietro Fabris) 72 Tomb of Theron (Thomas Hearne) 78 Ruins of the Temple of Hercules (Jacob Philipp Hackert) 78 Prima pagina del manoscritto della Expedition into Sicily 86 The Passage of the St. Gothard (William Turner) 129 The Landscape (Thomas Hearne) 132 Mappa di alcuni dei percorsi dei Grand Tourists inglesi 154 La posta di Radicofani 157 Frontespizio del diario di viaggio di Richard Lassels 160 Copertina della rivista Archaeologia 160 Prima pagina della rivista Gentlemen’s Magazine 160 Vesuvio (Pierre-Jaques Volaire) 166 Vesuvius from Portici (Joseph Wright) 166 Eruption of Vesuvius (Jacob Philipp Hackert) 166 Temple at Segesta (Jacob Philipp Hackert) 182 Temple of Cerere, Segesta (Charles Gore) 182 Temple said to be of Juno Lacinia at Agrigentum (Jacob Philipp Hackert) 186 Temple of Juno Lacinia at Agrigentum (Charles Gore) 186 1 Introduzione Expedition into Sicily di Richard Payne Knight, il testo argomento della presente tesi di dottorato, è il resoconto del viaggio svolto in Sicilia, sul finire del diciottesimo secolo, da un ricco inglese accompagnato da due altrettanto benestanti acquarellisti. A una prima lettura, questo testo sembrerebbe non discostarsi in modo particolare dal canone sociale e letterario dei numerosi diari di viaggio dell’epoca: un giovane connoisseur giunge in Italia per completare la sua educazione e registra per iscritto pensieri e accadimenti che si susseguono nel corso del viaggio, accompagnandoli con vedute spettacolari e accurate dei luoghi visitati. Di questo parere è anche Claudia Stumpf, la ricercatrice che – poco più di trent’anni fa – ha scoperto la copia originale del diario di Knight, creduta persa per due secoli. Stumpf scrive infatti: Knight’s diary may be an entertaining piece of Eighteenth-century travel literature, but it is not a masterpiece by any means.1 Ho avuto il piacere di incontrare Claudia Stumpf al British Museum di Londra nel maggio 2010. In tale occasione, pur confermando le sue riserve generali sul valore estetico dell’opera, la ricercatrice ha fatto aperture sulla possibilità di diverse interpretazioni della stessa. D’altra parte, al momento della scoperta del manoscritto a Weimar, questa stava concludendo la sua tesi di laurea in storia dell’arte sui disegni di Charles Gore, uno dei due artisti che accompagnarono Knight nella spedizione in Sicilia, ed era interessata soprattutto ai valori artistici del manoscritto trovato. Come vedremo nel corso del secondo capitolo, secondo il progetto di Knight la qualità estetica del diario doveva risiedere nel rapporto tra testo ed immagini, ma questo progetto non ha mai visto la fine e quello scoperto nel 1980 da Stumpf è un manoscritto privo di immagini. Sotto questo aspetto quindi, il disappunto della scopritrice riguardo alla sua scoperta è pienamente comprensibile. Prima del prezioso lavoro di Claudia Stumpf, che è anche la curatrice della prima ed unica edizione inglese della Expedition, tutto quello che restava del viaggio di Knight era una traduzione parziale in tedesco di Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, preceduta, tra l’altro, da una valutazione non certo benevola del diario e del suo autore da parte del grande poeta tedesco. Questi testi, insieme a una raccolta di saggi sulla vita e le opere di Knight, dal titolo non 1 Il diario di Knight non è un capolavoro – quanto piuttosto il lavoro svolto da un giovane dilettante per far sfoggio della propria erudizione. Claudia Stumpf, Introduction to the “Expedition into Sicily”. In: Richard Payne Knight, Expedition into Sicily, British Museum Publications, London, 1986, p. 9. incoraggiante The Arrogant Conneisseur 2 , hanno rappresentato le prime, in quanto più facilmente accessibili, fonti su cui ho lavorato nel corso della mia ricerca triennale. Si noterà che tutti questi contributi critici sono precedenti al 1990. Esiste, tuttavia, accanto ad essi, una serie di studi più recenti e meno noti che, nel loro complesso, tendono a rivalutare l’opera odeporica di Knight. Questo filone di ricerca ha coinvolto anche l’Italia allorché, nel 2000, Federica Mazzara ha fatto la traduzione italiana del testo integrale della Expedition3, traduzione preceduta da un’introduzione critica dell’autrice e pubblicata sulla rivista italiana Nuove Effemeridi. Mazzara, che pur seguendo di massima lo schema di Stumpf, appare meno critica di quest’ultima riguardo il valore complessivo dell’opera, scrive al termine del saggio introduttivo: L’esperienza siciliana, insomma, non rimase fine a se stessa, come la mancata pubblicazione potrebbe far credere, ma, al contrario, rappresentò per Knight un primo momento di vera e matura riflessione, a contatto con una terra calpestata anticamente da quel popolo che per Knight rappresentava l’incarnazione della perfezione: i Greci.4 Un altro contributo importante alla mia ricerca è venuto da un saggio dell’americano Bruce Redford, dal titolo: Richard Payne Knight’s “Expedition into Sicily”, pubblicato nel 2008 all’interno del testo antologico Dilettanti. The Antic and the Antique Eighteenth-Century England. 5 Qui, dopo aver riportato testualmente la conclusione di Claudia Stumpf, per la quale la Expedition, non avendo portato alla pubblicazione del diario da parte di Knight, si era conclusa con un fallimento, l’autore puntualizza: However, close analysis of the journal and the drawings points toward a likelier explanation: because Knight designed his enterprise as a set of credentials for membership in the Dilettanti, the ‘turn’ had served its turn when he was elected to the Society in 1781.6 2 Michael Clarke, Nicholas Penny (a cura di), The Arrogant Connoisseur: Richard Payne Knight, 1751-1824, Manchester University Press, Manchester, 1982. 3 Federica Mazzara, “Viaggio in Sicilia” di Richard Payne Knight. In: Nuove Effemeridi n.52, Edizioni Guida, Palermo, 2000. 4 Federica Mazzara, “Viaggio in Sicilia” di Richard Payne Knight, p. 100. 5 Bruce Redford, Richard Payne Knight’s “Expedition into Sicily”. In: Bruce Redford (a cura di), Dilettanti. The Antic and the Antique in Eighteenth-Century England, Getty Publications, Los Angeles, 2008. 6 Tuttavia, un’attenta analisi del diario e dei disegni suggeriscono una spiegazione più plausibile: poiché Knight aveva progettato la sua impresa come un insieme di credenziali per l’adesione tra i Dilettanti, il viaggio era servito al suo scopo allorché, nel 1781, egli fu eletto nella società. Bruce Redford, Richard Payne Knight’s “Expedition into Sicily”, p. 83. 3 Grazie anche all’accurata ricerca bibliografica di Redford, ho successivamente scoperto gli studi critici di Valeria Salgueiro (2003), Raimonda Modiano (1994) e Alessandra Ponte (1992).7 Particolarmente utili si sono rilevate le idee proposte da quest’ultima. Ponte afferma che tutta la Expedition può essere letta come un ritorno alle origini della cultura e della storia europea e osserva che il diario di Knight anticipa l’Italienische Reise di Goethe, per il quale il viaggio in Italia rappresentò una rinascita personale. Ma il ritorno alle origini, sia nell’ambito storico- sociale che in quello personale, viene legato a un bisogno di rigenerazione, di cambiamento e, in ultima analisi, di rivoluzione. Scrive Alessandra Ponte: Origin and revolution: the two terms are linked to the anxiety of beginning, of remembering, to the anxiety of regeneration. It is the anxiety of the century: one looks to the past-to origins- for a new beginning.8 Il diario di Knight si conclude, in effetti, con un’amara riflessione sullo stato attuale della Sicilia e sulla necessità di una rivoluzione in Europa affinché l’isola possa ritornare alla grandezza delle origini. To determine how far it is ever likely to return to its ancient purity would led me into too long a dissertation at present, but I am inclined to believe, that nothing less than another general revolution in Europe could affect it.9 Questa considerazione dimostra, a mio modo di vedere, sia la giustezza dell’analisi di Ponte, sia la coerenza interna e l’unità del testo di Knight. Questo testo è stato infatti spesso considerato (da Redford, da Stumpf e da Mazzara, ma anche dallo stesso Goethe) come composto da due parti distinte: una prima, più lunga e descrittiva, scritta da Knight durante il viaggio in forma di diario e una seconda, più breve e critica, scritta dallo stesso a Londra dopo il ritorno.
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