DOCSLIB.ORG

Arcadia at the Newberry Author(S): Carlo Vecce Source: I Tatti Studies in the Italian Renaissance, Vol

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Arcadia at the Newberry Author(S): Carlo Vecce Source: I Tatti Studies in the Italian Renaissance, Vol View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by Università degli Studi di Napoli L'Orientale: CINECA IRIS Arcadia at the Newberry Author(s): Carlo Vecce Source: I Tatti Studies in the Italian Renaissance, Vol. 17, No. 2 (Fall 2014), pp. 283-302 Published by: The University of Chicago Press on behalf of Villa I Tatti, The Harvard Center for Italian Renaissance Studies Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1086/678253 . Accessed: 17/01/2015 03:54 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp . JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. The University of Chicago Press and Villa I Tatti, The Harvard Center for Italian Renaissance Studies are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to I Tatti Studies in the Italian Renaissance. http://www.jstor.org This content downloaded from 128.122.149.154 on Sat, 17 Jan 2015 03:54:38 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions Arcadia at the Newberry Carlo Vecce, Università degli Studi di Napoli L’Orientale THE WING COLLECTION (ZP 5351.07) of the Newberry Library in Chicago holds one of the first editions of Jacopo Sannazaro’s Arcadia, described in the catalog as follows: “Former Ownership History: Mounted on 16 pages are colored borders and initials done by hand, cut from another copy of this work./Notes: Signatures: A-N./Reprints the Naples, Sigismund Mayr 1504 edition, edited by Pietro Summonte; the type is not the same as that used by Mayr in 1504.”1 The Newberry Arcadia is in reality the first reprint of the princeps, published in Na- ples by Mayr in 1504, the culmination of a passionate editorial labor that took place during the twenty decisive years of the evolution of the Italian language and literature toward unity and commonality among the diverse areas of the penin- sula.2 The work was born in the mid-1480s against a backdrop of political and civil crisis in Aragonese Naples, when Sannazaro, a young nobleman in the ser- vice of Alfonso d’Aragona, duke of Calabria, having again taken up and reworked some of his eclogues composed in the preceding years (ca. 1480–82), inserted them into an original prosimetrum structure, resulting in ten prose pieces and ten ec- logues introduced by a prologue under the title Libro pastorale nominato Arcadio (late 1482–early 1486). The “pastoral book,” following a popular trend in the courts Contact Carlo Vecce at Università degli Studi di Napoli L’Orientale ([email protected]). Translated by Danielle Callegari. 1. Dictionary Catalogue of the History of Printing from John M. Wing Foundation in the Newberry Library, Second Supplement, vol. 4, Chronology (Boston, 1981), 4. Acquired by the London dealer Maggs in 1977, the volume presents a typescript record on the inside of the first plate: “SANNAZAR. JACOPO. Arcadia del Sannazaro tutta fornita et tratta emendatissima dal suo originale et novamente in Napoli stampita. Small 4to, old oak boards, with leather back and brass clasps/Naples about 1505./ Rare Early Edition of Sannazaro’s Famous Poem. Of Unique interest from a former owner’s having enriched it by insertion of a number of old hand-painted borders containing small views of Naples, Monkes, Birds and Musical Instruments.” On fol. A2r, on the upper-left corner, a note in pencil: “John Doe/77-33701.” 2. Material from this and the three paragraphs that follow is drawn from the introduction to Iacopo Sannazaro, Arcadia, ed. Carlo Vecce (Rome, 2013), 43–53. I Tatti Studies in the Italian Renaissance, volume 17, number 2. © 2014 by Villa I Tatti: The Harvard University Center for Italian Renaissance Studies. All rights reserved. 0393-5949/2014/1702-0005$10.00 283 This content downloaded from 128.122.149.154 on Sat, 17 Jan 2015 03:54:38 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 284 | I TATTI STUDIES IN THE ITALIAN RENAISSANCE FALL 2014 and in Italian intellectual circles (from Florence and Siena to Mantua, Ferrara, and Venice), immediately met with great success, enjoying a substantial manu- script tradition extending especially across northern Italy, into the Po valley and the Veneto. In the allegory of the pastoral world, the refined habits of shepherds mirrored an entire community of poets, literati, and courtiers, with their rituals and codes and with respect to the friendship and reciprocal exchange that distin- guished, for example, the Venetian circle of the young Pietro Bembo.3 It was in Venice and the Veneto that the work would find its most attentive readers and its first intense interactions with other forms of expression and in- terpretation between the end of the quattrocento and the beginning of the cin- quecento: the figurative arts (represented by Lorenzo Lotto, Giorgione, the young Titian), theater, music, architecture, and the art of gardening. It is no coincidence that the first edition (unauthorized) of the Libro pastorale nominato Arcadio was Venetian, published by Bernardino Vercellese, June 14, 1502 (then reprinted No- vember 22, 1502, and again December 12, 1504), immediately followed by Sig- ismond Mayr in Naples (January 26, 1503) and by Giovanni Angelo Scinzenzeler inMilan(January9,1504).Theproblemwiththefirst editions of the Libro pasto- rale was that the text no longer corresponded to the work that remained in the author’s workshop after 1486, heavily revised in a second redaction between 1490 and 1496 with the addition of two prose pieces and two eclogues and given the new title Arcadia. It was not only a metamorphosis of form but an elevation of the entire imaginary world Sannazaro had created, enriched with new human- istic, ancient, and artistic experiences (including a unique citation of Andrea Mantegna) that the Neapolitan poet had acquired in the intervening years. While it was printed in Venice, without the permission of the author, as the Libro pas- torale nominato Arcadio,theArcadia remained unpublished in Naples, left in its original manuscript form by Sannazaro to his brother Marcantonio. Sannazaro himself had left Italy for France, following the last Aragonese king of Naples into exile. In Blois, February 3, 1503, a correspondent of Isabella d’Este informed him of the unfaithful Venetian edition of the Libro pastorale, and Sannazaro requested that the correspondent procure him a copy “così come se ritrovava affinché se potesse correggere et provedere ad tanto errore” (asitwasfoundsothatitcould be corrected and every error seen to).4 Perhaps only then he may have asked his 3. Compare, esp., Lina Bolzoni, Il cuore di cristallo: Ragionamenti d’amore, poesia e ritratto nel Rinascimento (Turin, 2010). 4. Carlo Vecce, Iacopo Sannazaro in Francia: Scoperte di codici all’inizio del XVI secolo (Padua, 1988), 50. This content downloaded from 128.122.149.154 on Sat, 17 Jan 2015 03:54:38 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions Arcadia at the Newberry | 285 friends who had remained in Naples (the humanist Pietro Summonte and the poet Cariteo) to publish his incomplete work, sending them the final piece, a congedo, Alasampogna, that is simultaneously a bitter farewell to the work and to bucolic vernacular poetry. The completed Arcadia was finally released in Naples in March 1504 through Mayr (hereafter S), with the frontispiece “ARCADIA/DEL SANNAZARO/TVTTA FORNITA/ET TRATTA/EMENDATISSIMA/DAL SVO/ORIGINALE” (The Arcadia/of Sannazaro/fully enhanced/and drawn/thoroughly amended/from its original; S f. A1r). In the end, the edition was granted a decennial privilege from the new Spanish viceroy of Naples, Consalvo di Cordova, to prohibit the work from being either reprinted within the kingdom or imported from abroad: “IMPRESSA/in Napoli per Maestro Sigismundo Mayr: con somma & assidua diligenza di Petro Summontio: nel anno .MDIIII. del mese di Marzo. Con privilegio del Illustrissimo .S. Gran Capitanio Vice Re: & generale Locotenente dela Catholica Maiesta: che per X anni in questo Regno tal opera non si possa stampare: ne stampata portarsi da altre parti: sotto la pena: che in esso si contiene” (Printed/in Naples by Master Sigis- mund Mayr: with the highest and most assiduous diligence of Petro Summontio: in the year 1504 in the month of March. By concession of His Most Illustrious Lord Great Captain Viceroy and Lieutenant General of the Catholic Authority: that for ten years under this Reign such a work cannot be printed: nor printed in order to be taken abroad: under the penalty foreseen for this act; S f. N4v). The text had been edited, as the colophon indicates, by Pietro Summonte, who in the preface to Cardinal Luigi d’Aragona declared himself to be working from “quello originale medesmo quale ho trovato di sua mano correttissimo” (the orig- inal itself which I found corrected by his hand; S f. A2r) from Marcantonio San- nazaro. Having an original that was, however, without the final revisions of the author (and thus perhaps still bearing later redactional variants or uncertainties in the script and the spellings), Summonte, a student of Giovanni Pontano and a specialist of predominantly Latin texts, encountered more than a few difficulties. At the end of the edition, Summonte was forced to add an errata corrige,while the surviving copies today present a series of variants, introduced by the editor during his work on the revision. In 1505, Sannazaro returned to France and began to personally supervise Sum- monte’s editorial activity, then dedicated to the works of Pontano (who had died in 1503).
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Facing the Responsibility of Paulus Manutius
    UCLA UNIVERSITY RESEARCH LIBRARY Department of Special Collections OCCASIONAL PAPERS 8 ^ 5 .-<« fyHtufnt k't* tILt- f^t \fL W mm^Jtitm. * t-nt«ji^/' /J<^ -«<»«a* 'hhi^,^ VJKliw*" "*^ Ju -it t, «»i/e<rf /nj'^/ ^uy» ^ /5*> fC'lf' f^ fa^* t*.Zi. )«»V» rM<fKi4d-y MFi^ fu>J7iUlf IA.1^ ^t^4A ^^ s'^^mj^antai ul^ fl.''A«*S)j««^ '?HW-\ ^UmIZ4/''^ The Contract Facing the Responsibility of Paulus Manutius by MARTIN LOWRY Department of Special Collections University Research Library University of California Los Angeles 1995 Copyright © March 1995 by the Regents of the University of CaUfomia ISSN 1041-1143 This publication is produced with support from The Bemadine J. L. M Zelenka Endowment CONTENTS The Problem 1 New Evidence. The Ahmanson-Murphy Document 6 The Forces behind the Contract 17 The Editorial Strategy of the Counter-Reformation 35 Failure of Funds: Failure of Nerve? 52 Conclusion 71 Appendix; Transcription of the Contract 78 ABBREVIATIONS Aldo Aldo Manuzio di Paolo Junior Aldus Aldus Manutius Senior CEBR Contemporaries ofErasmus: a Biographical Register, 3 vols.. University of Toronto Press 1985-87 Eubel K. Eubel & G. Van Gulik, Hierarchia Catholica Medii et Recentioris Aevi, vol. 3, Regensburg 1923 Nolhac P. de Nolhac, "Lettres inedites de Paul Manuce" in Ecole Frangaise deRome, Melanges dArchaelogie etd'Histoire, vol. 3, 1883 Pastor L. von Pastor, History of the Popes from the Close of the Middle Ages, new English edition, 40 vols., Liechtenstein 1968-69 PMEL Pauli Manutii Epistolarum Libri decern, duobus nuper odditis, Venice 1580 PMLV Tre Libri di Lettere Volgari di M.
    [Show full text]
  • Renaissance Receptions of Ovid's Tristia Dissertation
    RENAISSANCE RECEPTIONS OF OVID’S TRISTIA DISSERTATION Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate School of The Ohio State University By Gabriel Fuchs, M.A. Graduate Program in Greek and Latin The Ohio State University 2013 Dissertation Committee: Frank T. Coulson, Advisor Benjamin Acosta-Hughes Tom Hawkins Copyright by Gabriel Fuchs 2013 ABSTRACT This study examines two facets of the reception of Ovid’s Tristia in the 16th century: its commentary tradition and its adaptation by Latin poets. It lays the groundwork for a more comprehensive study of the Renaissance reception of the Tristia by providing a scholarly platform where there was none before (particularly with regard to the unedited, unpublished commentary tradition), and offers literary case studies of poetic postscripts to Ovid’s Tristia in order to explore the wider impact of Ovid’s exilic imaginary in 16th-century Europe. After a brief introduction, the second chapter introduces the three major commentaries on the Tristia printed in the Renaissance: those of Bartolomaeus Merula (published 1499, Venice), Veit Amerbach (1549, Basel), and Hecules Ciofanus (1581, Antwerp) and analyzes their various contexts, styles, and approaches to the text. The third chapter shows the commentators at work, presenting a more focused look at how these commentators apply their differing methods to the same selection of the Tristia, namely Book 2. These two chapters combine to demonstrate how commentary on the Tristia developed over the course of the 16th century: it begins from an encyclopedic approach, becomes focused on rhetoric, and is later aimed at textual criticism, presenting a trajectory that ii becomes increasingly focused and philological.
    [Show full text]
  • View the Marchesa Program Notes
    About the Program by Anne MacNeil The Marchesa of Mantua, Isabella d’Este — known as “The First Lady of the Renaissance” — is often described as a female counterpart to the “Renaissance men” for whom Italy is celebrated. Among her interests, Isabella planned gardens and raised animals. She operated a perfume and cosmetic pharmacy that produced soaps and scents for herself and her friends. She excelled in fashion design, creating for herself a signature style that other women, like Lucretia Borgia, were eager to imitate. She was keenly interested in politics, government, and social life, and had evident gifts for all three, but it is chiefly for her activities as a patron and a collector that history remembers Isabella d’Este. Her famous studiolo and grotta, the empty rooms of which may still be seen in the ducal palace in Mantua, once housed one of the most magnificent art collections of Europe. Isabella’s paintings, sculpture, jewels, and other art objects demonstrate important themes of the Renaissance: possessing the ancient world through the collection of antiquities, demonstrating erudition and virtue through the acquisition of classical narratives, and fashioning an identity through portraiture and personal emblems. Her collecting increased her cultural capital among the aristocracy. It also reflected her humanist education as a child at the court of Ferrara, enhanced the prestige of the Gonzaga court in Mantua, and facilitated political and social opportunities for her children. Isabella was a scholar of Greek, Latin, and Italian literatures, an avid musician, a patron of music and musicians, and a connoisseur of musical instruments.
    [Show full text]
  • Redating Pericles: a Re-Examination of Shakespeare’S
    REDATING PERICLES: A RE-EXAMINATION OF SHAKESPEARE’S PERICLES AS AN ELIZABETHAN PLAY A THESIS IN Theatre Presented to the Faculty of the University of Missouri-Kansas City in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree MASTER OF ARTS by Michelle Elaine Stelting University of Missouri Kansas City December 2015 © 2015 MICHELLE ELAINE STELTING ALL RIGHTS RESERVED REDATING PERICLES: A RE-EXAMINATION OF SHAKESPEARE’S PERICLES AS AN ELIZABETHAN PLAY Michelle Elaine Stelting, Candidate for the Master of Arts Degree University of Missouri-Kansas City, 2015 ABSTRACT Pericles's apparent inferiority to Shakespeare’s mature works raises many questions for scholars. Was Shakespeare collaborating with an inferior playwright or playwrights? Did he allow so many corrupt printed versions of his works after 1604 out of indifference? Re-dating Pericles from the Jacobean to the Elizabethan era answers these questions and reveals previously unexamined connections between topical references in Pericles and events and personalities in the court of Elizabeth I: John Dee, Philip Sidney, Edward de Vere, and many others. The tournament impresas, alchemical symbolism of the story, and its lunar and astronomical imagery suggest Pericles was written long before 1608. Finally, Shakespeare’s focus on father-daughter relationships, and the importance of Marina, the daughter, as the heroine of the story, point to Pericles as written for a young girl. This thesis uses topical references, Shakespeare’s anachronisms, Shakespeare’s sources, stylometry and textual analysis, as well as Henslowe’s diary, the Stationers' Register, and other contemporary documentary evidence to determine whether there may have been versions of Pericles circulating before the accepted date of 1608.
    [Show full text]
  • CURRICULUM VITAE ET STUDIORUM of Arianna Sacerdoti
    CURRICULUM VITAE ET STUDIORUM of Arianna Sacerdoti Dr. Arianna Sacerdoti (email: [email protected]) was born in Naples, in 1979. Since December 2008, and after successfully passing a selection process, she has worked as Full Time Researcher in Latin Language and Literature at the once Faculty of Literature and Philosophy and now Department of Literature and Cultural Heritage of the Second University; she was confirmed in her role of Researcher on December 11, 2011. Training, curriculum vitae before tenure, language certifications Her academic training was carried out between Naples, Canada and Germany; her in itinere training takes place, besides Italy, in foreign institutions, thanks to periods of teaching abroad (Muenster, 2007; Helsinki 2010, 2011, 2014; Erasmus agreements renewed or established in 2016 with Helsinki, Santiago de Compostela, Lisbon); research abroad (University of Toronto: 2005; 2006; 2012); participation in international conferences (Toronto 2006; Delphi 2012; Naples-Santa Maria Capua Vetere 2015; Santiago de Compostela 2017). Arianna Sacerdoti, great-granddaughter of the writer, artist, and intellectual Carlo Levi (author of Christ stopped at Eboli and other books) grew up and studied in the city of Naples. She graduated in June 1998 at the "Jacopo Sannazaro" High School with a grade of 60/60 (examined by an external committee in the following disciplines: written Greek; Philosophy; Italian Literature). In that same high school, Arianna Sacerdoti was known for her strong propensity towards literary disciplines and had been selected for participation in two non-local certamines (Certamen Aeschylaeum, Gela, 1997; Certamen Leopardianum, Pordenone, 1998). She enrolled in the Faculty of Literature and Philosophy of the University of Naples "Federico II" (Classical Literatures) from September 1998 and graduated with honors on February 11, 2003 in Latin literature with a thesis titled "Commentationes hasce ludere ac facere: literary program and models in the praefatio of Aulus Gellius".
    [Show full text]
  • Philip Sidney's Book-Buying at Venice and Padua, Giovanni Varisco's Venetian Editions of Jacopo Sannazaro's Arcadia
    This is a repository copy of Philip Sidney's Book-Buying at Venice and Padua, Giovanni Varisco's Venetian editions of Jacopo Sannazaro's Arcadia (1571 and 1578) and Edmund Spenser's The Shepheardes Calender (1579). White Rose Research Online URL for this paper: http://eprints.whiterose.ac.uk/136570/ Version: Accepted Version Article: Brennan, MG orcid.org/0000-0001-6310-9722 (2018) Philip Sidney's Book-Buying at Venice and Padua, Giovanni Varisco's Venetian editions of Jacopo Sannazaro's Arcadia (1571 and 1578) and Edmund Spenser's The Shepheardes Calender (1579). Sidney Journal, 36 (1). pp. 19-40. ISSN 1480-0926 Reuse Items deposited in White Rose Research Online are protected by copyright, with all rights reserved unless indicated otherwise. They may be downloaded and/or printed for private study, or other acts as permitted by national copyright laws. The publisher or other rights holders may allow further reproduction and re-use of the full text version. This is indicated by the licence information on the White Rose Research Online record for the item. Takedown If you consider content in White Rose Research Online to be in breach of UK law, please notify us by emailing [email protected] including the URL of the record and the reason for the withdrawal request. [email protected] https://eprints.whiterose.ac.uk/ 1 Philip Sidney’s Book-Buying at Venice and Padua, Giovanni Varisco’s Venetian editions of Jacopo Sannazaro’s Arcadia (1571 and 1578) and Edmund Spenser’s The Shepheardes Calender (1579)1 [Abstract] This essay traces Philip Sidney’s involvements with the book trade at Venice and Padua during his residence there from November 1573 until August 1574.
    [Show full text]
  • Virgil of Naples
    Virgil of Naples Sannazaro's (meta)poetic succession R. A. E. Poelstra Classics and Ancient Civilizations: Classics Student number 10012354 University of Amsterdam Thesis supervisor: David Rijser Second reader: Michael C. J. Putnam August 1st 2014 Word count: 21 093 1 Contents 1. Title page, p. 1 2. Contents, p. 2 3. Acknowledgments, p. 3 4. Introduction, pp. 4-7 5. Chapter 1 'Virgil', pp. 8-24 5.1. The dream of Hector and its context, pp. 8-10 5.2. The dream of Hector and its symbolism, pp. 10-12 5.3. The underworld and its context, pp. 12-13 5.4. The underworld and its symbolism, pp. 13-15 5.5. The Tiber and its context, pp. 15-16 5.6. The Tiber and its symbolism, pp. 16-20 5.7. The shield of Aeneas and its context, pp. 20-21 5.8. The shield of Aeneas and its symbolism, pp. 22-23 5.9. General Remarks, p. 23 6. Chapter 2 'Sannazaro', pp. 24-38 6.1. The underworld and its context, pp. 24-26 6.2. The underworld and its symbolism, pp. 26-33 6.3. Proteus' prophecy and its context, pp. 33-35 6.4. Proteus' prophecy and its symbolism, 35-38 6.5. General remarks, p. 38 7. Chapter 3 'the Eclogues', pp. 39-50 7.1. Virgil's sixth Ecloga and its context, pp. 39-40 7.2. Virgil's sixth Ecloga and its symbolism, pp. 41-45 7.3. Sannazaro's fourth Ecloga Piscatoria and its context, pp. 45-47 7.4.
    [Show full text]
  • Art and Politics at the Neapolitan Court of Ferrante I, 1458-1494
    ABSTRACT Title of Dissertation: KING OF THE RENAISSANCE: ART AND POLITICS AT THE NEAPOLITAN COURT OF FERRANTE I, 1458-1494 Nicole Riesenberger, Doctor of Philosophy, 2016 Dissertation directed by: Professor Meredith J. Gill, Department of Art History and Archaeology In the second half of the fifteenth century, King Ferrante I of Naples (r. 1458-1494) dominated the political and cultural life of the Mediterranean world. His court was home to artists, writers, musicians, and ambassadors from England to Egypt and everywhere in between. Yet, despite its historical importance, Ferrante’s court has been neglected in the scholarship. This dissertation provides a long-overdue analysis of Ferrante’s artistic patronage and attempts to explicate the king’s specific role in the process of art production at the Neapolitan court, as well as the experiences of artists employed therein. By situating Ferrante and the material culture of his court within the broader discourse of Early Modern art history for the first time, my project broadens our understanding of the function of art in Early Modern Europe. I demonstrate that, contrary to traditional assumptions, King Ferrante was a sophisticated patron of the visual arts whose political circumstances and shifting alliances were the most influential factors contributing to his artistic patronage. Unlike his father, Alfonso the Magnanimous, whose court was dominated by artists and courtiers from Spain, France, and elsewhere, Ferrante differentiated himself as a truly Neapolitan king. Yet Ferrante’s court was by no means provincial. His residence, the Castel Nuovo in Naples, became the physical embodiment of his commercial and political network, revealing the accretion of local and foreign visual vocabularies that characterizes Neapolitan visual culture.
    [Show full text]
  • Metaliteracy & Theatricality in French & Italian Pastoral
    THE SHEPHERD‘S SONG: METALITERACY & THEATRICALITY IN FRENCH & ITALIAN PASTORAL by MELINDA A. CRO (Under the Direction of Francis Assaf) ABSTRACT From its inception, pastoral literature has maintained a theatrical quality and an artificiality that not only resonate the escapist nature of the mode but underscore the metaliterary awareness of the author. A popular mode of writing in antiquity and the middle ages, pastoral reached its apex in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries with works like Sannazaro‘s Arcadia, Tasso‘s Aminta, and Honoré d‘Urfé‘s Astrée. This study seeks to examine and elucidate the performative qualities of the pastoral imagination in Italian and French literature during its most popular period of expression, from the thirteenth to the seventeenth century. Selecting representative works including the pastourelles of Jehan Erart and Guiraut Riquier, the two vernacular pastoral works of Boccaccio, Sannazaro‘s Arcadia, Tasso‘s Aminta, and D‘Urfé‘s Astrée, I offer a comparative analysis of pastoral vernacular literature in France and Italy from the medieval period through the seventeenth century. Additionally, I examine the relationship between the theatricality of the works and their setting. Arcadia serves as a space of freedom of expression for the author. I posit that the pastoral realm of Arcadia is directly inspired not by the Greek mountainous region but by the Italian peninsula, thus facilitating the transposition of Arcadia into the author‘s own geographical area. A secondary concern is the motif of death and loss in the pastoral as a repeated commonplace within the mode. Each of these factors contributes to an understanding of the implicit contract that the author endeavors to forge with the reader, exhorting the latter to be active in the reading process.
    [Show full text]
  • Introduction Around 1493, During the Kingdom of Ferrante of Aragon
    soranzo:0Syrimis 12/11/11 3:06 PM Page 1 READING MARSILIO FICINO IN RENAISSANCE ITALY . THE CASE OF ARAGONESE NAPLES 1 MATTEO SORANZO Summary : This essay focuses on the reception of Marsilio Ficino’s works and ideas in Naples at the time of the Aragonese domination, and it offers a preliminary discussion of this neglected area of Renaissance Neoplatonism. Based on a contextualization of Ficino‘s letters to Giovanni d’Aragona, four manuscripts produced at the Aragonese library and other pieces of evidence such as Pierantonio Caracciolo’s Farsa de l’Imagico and Giovanni Pontano’s dialogue Actius , it argues that the works and ideas of Marsilio Ficino did circulate at king Ferrante’s court, but were criticized by Giovanni Pontano and his elite of followers. In particular, the essay provides new evidence about the existence of a Ficinian workshop based at the King’s library, and about some of its pro - tagonists such as the scribe and scholar Ippolito Lunense. Introduction Around 1493, during the Kingdom of Ferrante of Aragon (1423-1494), Neapolitan playwright Pierantonio Caracciolo presented a farsa entitled The Wizard (L’imagico ) to the King and his court at Castelnuovo. 2 Farces and other theatrical genres such as the gliommero and the intramesa were commonly practiced at the Aragonese Court. Local poets such as Jacopo Sannazaro and Pietro Jacopo de Gennaro—as De Blasi and Bianchi have recently illustrated—composed successful farces and gliommeri , which voiced the multicultural and multilingual society of Aragonese Naples, and sometimes even channeled elements of social dissent. 3 Farces, moreover, are important documents of the intellectual life of the court, and in par - ticular of the group of intellectuals gathered at Castel Capuano, the small - 1 I would like to thank Valery Rees, Christopher Celenza, Teodoro Katinis and Dario Brancato for their comments and useful feedback on earlier versions of this essay.
    [Show full text]
  • Jacopo Sannazaro's Piscatory Eclogues and the Question of Genre
    NEW VOICES IN CLASSICAL RECEPTION STUDIES Issue 9 (2014) Jacopo Sannazaro’s Piscatory Eclogues and the Question of Genrei © Erik Fredericksen INTRODUCTION In 1526, Jacopo Sannazaro (1458-1530), the Italian humanist and poet from Naples, published a collection of five Neo-Latin eclogues entitled Eclogae Piscatoriae. He had already authored a hugely influential text in the history of the Western pastoral tradition (the vernacular Arcadia) but, while the Piscatory Eclogues had their admirers and imitators, these poems provoked a debate for many later readers over their authenticity as pastoral poems, due to one essential innovation: Sannazaro exchanged the bucolic countryside and shepherds of classical pastoral for the seashore and its fishermen.ii Through this simple substitution, Sannazaro’s poems question the boundaries of the pastoral genre and— considered along with their critical reception—offer a valuable case study in how a work attains (or does not attain) generic status. In what follows, I argue, against recent criticism, that Sannazaro’s Piscatory Eclogues should be regarded as a pastoral work and suggest that this leads to a better understanding both of the poems themselves and of the dynamics of generic tradition. After examining various features of Sannazaro’s poems, I turn to his models for literature of the sea, both within and outside of pastoral poetry. This is more than a debate over how to label or categorize Sannazaro’s poems; rather, I am arguing that these poems are best understood in relation to the classical tradition of pastoral poetry.iii Thus, after arguing for the collection’s identity as pastoral poems, I will examine the structural relationship of Sannazaro’s eclogue collection to earlier eclogue books (especially Vergil’s), emphasizing how recognition of the poems’ genre helps us appreciate Sannazaro’s sophisticated intertextuality with Vergil and other pastoral predecessors.
    [Show full text]
  • Ekphrasis and the Feminine in Sannazaro's Arcadia
    View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by K-State Research Exchange Ekphrasis and the feminine in Sannazaro’s Arcadia Melinda A. Cro How to cite this manuscript If you make reference to this version of the manuscript, use the following information: Cro, M. A. (2012). Ekphrasis and the feminine in Sannazaro’s Arcadia. Retrieved from http://krex.ksu.edu Published Version Information Citation: Cro, M. A. (2012). Ekphrasis and the feminine in Sannazaro’s Arcadia. Romance Notes, 52(1), 71-78. Digital Object Identifier (DOI): doi:10.1353/rmc.2012.0005 Publisher’s Link: http://muse.jhu.edu/login?auth=0&type=summary&url=/journals/romance_notes/v052/52 .1.cro.html This item was retrieved from the K-State Research Exchange (K-REx), the institutional repository of Kansas State University. K-REx is available at http://krex.ksu.edu Ekphrasis and thE FEmininE in sannazaro’s ArcAdiA mElinda a. C ro in Chapter iii of Jacopo sannazaro’s Arcadia (1504), the shepherds celebrate the feast of pales, “veneranda dea di pastori.” as the shep - herds enter the temple, the narrator describes the murals on the walls, struck by a depiction of nymphs laughing at a little ram. While dis - tracted by nature’s tableau, a group of satyrs steals upon the nymphs and, realizing the peril they face, the nymphs take flight. the mural comes to life as the author describes the nymphs’ rapid and panicked escape from the threat of physical violence as the satyrs give chase. this particular mural is one of a series of tableaux found on the walls in pales’ temple.
    [Show full text]