Italian Studies 397
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Italian Studies 397 HUMANISM AND THE RENAISSANCE By Paolo. L. Rossi, Senior Lecturer in Italian Studies, Lancaster University and Geraldine Muirhead, Lecturer in Italian, Manchester Metropolitan University 1. General Il canone della letteratura. Antologia degli autori da Dante a Marino, ed. Giorgio Ba´rberi Squarotti and Riccardo Verzini, T, Tirrenia, 621 pp., is a useful collection which attempts to give an overall appreciation of literary production, though it is not at all clear what selection criteria have been applied. It covers both poetry and prose and provides biographies, a chronology of works, critical assessments, and annotated extracts. Antonio Piromalli, La letteratura calabrese, 2 vols, Cosenza, Pellegrini, 1996, 464, 399 pp., has good chapters on Greek humanism, the present state of studies on 15th-c. prose, and the evolution of devotional literature dedicated to specific saints. The chapter on the 16th c. is an excellent fusion of social, political, cultural, and literary history, showing how texts were inspired by banditry, local political conditions, heretical movements, and piracy. The approach taken in this volume has much to commend it. The introduction of CD-ROM technology has made a significant contri- bution to our ability to read, compare, and analyse texts. Art Theorists of the Italian Renaissance, ed. Deborah Howard and Amanda Lillie, Cambridge, Chadwyck-Healey, 1997, CD, contains 90 first or early editions of treatises on art and architecture. The series Archivio Italiano, Ro, Lexis, has made available: Torquato Tasso, Tutte le opere, ed. Amedeo Quondam, 1997; Archivio della tradizione lirica da Petrarca a Marino, ed. by the same, 1997; Giordano Bruno, Opere complete, ed. Nuccio Ordine. Letteratura Italiana Zanichelli CD-ROM dei testi della letteratura italiana, ed. Pasquale Stoppelli and Eugenio Picchi, Bo, Zanichelli, is a CD containing 780 texts which can be explored using the powerful search engine. This is an excellent research tool as all the texts are taken from good, and many from critical, editions. It comes with a useful reference volume: Nadia Cannata, Dizionario biografico compatto degli autori della letteratura italiana, 1997, 431 pp. A series of texts by Ariosto, Machiavelli, Cellini, Michelangelo, Tasso, Vasari, Galileo, Prosatori del Cinquecento, Prosatori del Seicento, F, D’Anna, 1996–97, is available on diskette, in hypertext format. Beer, Saggi, includes a discussion of the innovations and complexit- ies of dialogue structure as well as the literary and philosophical background to Guazzo’s Civil Conversazione. Sondaggi sulla riscrittura del Cinquecento, ed. Paolo Cherchi, Ravenna, Longo, 157 pp., oVers new insights into the creative process. An essay by A. Quondam on 398 Italian Studies imitation and plagiarism in classicism is followed by studies of plagiarism in Franco, Doni, Dolce, Fioravanti, L. P. Rosello, Garzoni, E. Tasso, and A. Farra. Claudio Giovanardi, La teoria cortegiana e il dibattito linguistico nel primo Cinquecento, Ro, Bulzoni, 275 pp., identifies the features of a proposed Roman courtly language ‘basata su una varieta` toscaneggiante e tuttavia non del tutto toscanizzata, quale dovette apparire il cosidetto ‘‘romanesco di seconda fase’’ ’. Annick Paternoster, Aptum. Retorica ed ermeneutica nel dialogo rinascimentale del primo Cinquecento, Ro, Bulzoni, 276 pp., sets out to examine the methodological links between rhetorica docens and rhetorica utens and the tradition of humanist dialogue with a detailed study of Bembo and Aretino. Posthomerica I. Traduzioni omeriche dall’antichita` al Rinascimento, ed. F. Montanari and S. Pittalunga, Genoa U.P., 1997, 157 pp., has an article by R. Fabbri on the development of Greek studies in the 15th c. that traces the theoretical stances taken with regard to Homer and the stylistic experimentation in the translations of the Iliad. Traduire et adapter a` la Renaissance, ed. Dominique de Courcelles, Paris, E´ cole des Chartes, 142 pp., contains six essays which explore the ways in which texts were translated, copied, transferred, and adapted across national language boundaries. The topics covered include the internal diYculties in Poliziano’s creative process inherent in his use of Latin, Greek, and the vernacular, and the way translations from the Italian had much to do with commercial concerns. Regards sur la Renaissance italienne. Me´langes de litterature oVerts a` Paul Larivaille, ed. Marie-Franc¸oise Pie´jus, Nanterre, Paris X U.P., 474 pp., has 35 essays that sustain a high level of scholarship. There are sections on politics and philosophy, Aretino, Machiavelli, chivalric literature, theatre, Tasso, and aesthetics. Katia Marano, Apoll und Marsyas, Bern, Lang, 222 pp., points to concern with hubris in literary interpretations of the myth, whereas in the visual arts it was treated in a fundamentally diVerent manner. Bernadine Barnes, Michelangelo’s Last Judgement. The Renaissance Response, Berkeley, California U.P., 171 pp., examines the works of Aretino, Lomazzo, Vasari, Dolce, Varchi, Gilio, and Paleotti, to identify what visual images meant to a contemporary audience and the artist’s awareness of this audience. Giancarlo Mazzacurati, Rinascimento in transito 1528–1532, Ro, Bulzoni, 1996, 231 pp., includes an essay on Alemanni which examines the social and cultural changes in Florence after the Medici restoration and how Alemanni had to refashion his activities to be employable as poeta di corte. The Search for a Patron in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, ed. David G. and Rebecca L. Wilkins, Lampeter, Mellen, 1996, 264 pp., has 13 essays including a study of the relationship between L. de’ Medici, Botticelli, and Landino’s commentary on Dante, and an analysis of the way in which Salviati communicated the propaganda of Cosimo I and how.