Aspects of Animal Imagery in Petrarch’s Rerum Vulgarium Fragmenta Nicolò Morelli Pembroke College This dissertation is submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy August 2018 Aspects of Animal Imagery in Petrarch’s Rerum Vulgarium Fragmenta This dissertation examines the role of animal imagery in Petrarch’s Rerum vulgarium fragmenta (Rvf) as a means of elucidating his poetics in conversation with his predecessors. To achieve this aim, the present study compares and contrasts Petrarch’s poetry with that of the poets quoted in Rvf 70, namely Arnaut Daniel, Guido Cavalcanti, Dante Alighieri and Cino da Pistoia. My research sheds light on the way in which Petrarch draws on and diverges from his precursors as he establishes his poetic language. The comparison between Petrarch and one or more of his predecessors poses three areas of enquiry central to my research: Petrarch’s reuse of traditional animal images, such as those in troubadour poetry; the question of allegory in the Rvf; and the language and communication strategies which characterise Petrarch’s poetic exchanges. Chapter 1 introduces a theoretical framework, based on the sources in Petrarch’s possession, which discusses and reviews the implications, in medieval culture, of the notion of animality in relation to and in the representation of human passions. Chapter 2 considers Petrarch’s potential engagement with the repertoire of animal imagery in the tradition of Occitan poetry. It examines the set of zoological images of bestiary derivation that Petrarch shares with the troubadours, specifically focusing on Petrarch’s debt to Arnaut Daniel. Chapter 3 explores the role of allegory in Petrarch’s animal imagery as compared with Dante’s poetry. Chapter 4 considers how the employment of animal images varies between the poems without apparent correspondents and those with specific recipients. The first part of the chapter is concerned with the lyrics of Guido Cavalcanti and Cino da Pistoia, while the second part analyses animal vocabulary in the Rvf and in the poetic exchanges that Petrarch left uncollected as estravaganti. This dissertation is the result of my own work and includes nothing which is the outcome of work done in collaboration. It is not substantially the same as any that I have submitted, or, is being concurrently submitted for a degree or diploma or other qualification at the University of Cambridge or any other University or similar institution. I further state that no substantial part of my dissertation has already been submitted, or, is being concurrently submitted for any such degree, diploma or other qualification at the University of Cambridge or any other University or similar institution. This dissertation does not exceed the prescribed limit of 80,000 words. Nicolò Morelli Pembroke College To my parents Et meditata manu componit verba trementi. Dextra tenet ferrum, vacuam tenet altera ceram. Incipit et dubitat, scribit damnatque tabellas, et notat et delet, mutat culpatque probatque inque vicem sumptas ponit positasque resumit. Quid velit ignorat; quicquid factura videtur, displicet. In vultu est audacia mixta pudori. (Ovid, Metamorphoses, IX. 521–27) Contents Acknowledgements IX INTRODUCTION 1 1. PETRARCH’S RECEPTION OF ANIMAL IMAGERY 10 Introduction 10 1. Classical Philosophical and Encyclopaedic Works 12 2. Latin Poetry 24 3. The Biblical and Patristic Tradition 31 4. Hunting in the Middle Ages: Meanings and Implications 40 Conclusion 47 2. PETRARCH AND THE TROUBADOURS 48 Introduction 48 1. Observations about Petrarch’s Reception of Troubadour Poetry 50 2. Petrarch, the Troubadours, and Animal Images of Bestiary Derivation 55 3. Petrarch, Arnaut Daniel, and the Adynaton of the Chasing Ox 69 Conclusion 79 3. PETRARCH AND DANTE 80 Introduction 80 1. Dante’s Bear: A Bestial Poetic Voice 86 2. Petrarch’s Stag and Hind in Rvf 23 and 190 90 Conclusion 120 4. PETRARCH, CAVALCANTI AND CINO DA PISTOIA 121 Introduction 121 1. Guido Cavalcanti’s and Cino da Pistoia’s Rime 122 2. Petrarch’s Fragmenta and his Correspondences in the Estravaganti 136 Conclusion 159 CONCLUSION 161 Bibliography 165 VII Acknowledgements Writing a doctoral thesis is a long process, which benefits from the crucial support and encouragement of teachers, friends and family members. I am profoundly grateful to all my interlocutors and I regret that I can only name a few of them. I wish to thank, first and foremost, my supervisor at the University of Cambridge, Heather Webb, for her patient guidance, enthusiastic commitment, as well as her intellectual and human generosity. Her inspiring mentorship has contributed to my work more than anything else and has shown me what it means to be a scholar. I am also deeply indebted to my examiners, Abigail Brundin and Simon Gilson, for their attentive reading and invaluable feedback during my viva voce examination, as well as during the progress interview at the end of my probationary year. I am likewise grateful to Giuseppe Ledda for his insightful comments and expert advice during the final stages of my writing. A number of people have helped me academically and personally since I first arrived in Cambridge. In addition to Heather and Abigail, I would like to express my gratitude to the other Italianists in the Faculty of Modern and Medieval Languages, who gave me the opportunity to be part of a vibrant and stimulating community: Pierpaolo Antonello, Ambrogio Camozzi Pistoja, Claudia Domenici, Robert Gordon, Helena Sanson and the ‘honorary Italianist’ Keith Sykes have done much more for my morale and academic growth than I could say in these brief acknowledgements. The completion of this work would have been much more difficult without the friends who have shared part of their path with me: Charlie Barranu, Daniele Pio Buenza, Chiara Capulli, Sara Delmedico, Manuela Di Franco, Ollie Finnegan, Kim Groothuis, Helena Phillips-Robins, Manuel Piña Dreyer, Maria Teresa Rachetta and Eleonora Serra have, in different ways, made my time in Cambridge particularly enriching and enjoyable. I am sincerely grateful to Alessandra Diazzi, who was the first person I met in the Fens and, although she is no longer in Cambridge, continues to be a dear friend of endless conversations and healthy laughter. I also wish to thank Kath Powlesland, not only for her precious friendship but also for having helped me resolve all my grammatical doubts and obsessions. Vicki Sunter, in addition, proved to have tireless and painstaking proofreading eyes on the warmest days of July. IX Finally, a special mention is due to my family. I am truly thankful to my brother Gian Maria, for reminding me how important it is to keep fighting, as much with the pain of boxing as with the fatigue of writing. Above all, I owe my greatest and heartfelt gratitude to my parents, Maurizio and Stefania, for their unconditional support and for encouraging me to pursue my interests. My journey from the Giovanni Pascoli primary school to Pembroke College would not have been possible without them: in this case, as Dante would say in the ‘lingua che chiami mamma o babbo’, the debt I incurred to them ‘significar per verba | non si poria’. My research has been generously funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (under grant number 1503145), the School of Arts and Humanities, and Pembroke College, University of Cambridge. X 1 Introduction This thesis examines animal imagery in Petrarch’s Rerum vulgarium fragmenta (Rvf), or Canzoniere, as a means of elucidating its poetics as engaged in covert conversation with the earlier vernacular poetic tradition. Animal images and animal imagery, in this study, are defined as any references to animals other than humans, irrespective of the rhetorical category in which each occurrence falls, and the set of meanings which they evoke. Scholars have shown that zoological imagery plays a key role in the interpretation of medieval Italian literary texts. Since the publication of the pioneering book by Richard T. Holbrook, Dante and the Animal Kingdom, in 1902, a rich body of literature has been devoted to animal references in Dante’s Commedia.1 More recently, we owe a renewed interest in and contribution to this topic to Giuseppe Ledda. In his studies, Ledda particularly explores the deployment of animal similes in the Commedia, with special attention given to the bestiary tradition, observing that in many cases animal-centric rhetorical devices serve to structure the narrative and the development of certain motifs throughout the poem.2 Antonio Montinaro, in turn, investigates animal lore in the lyric poetry 1 See Richard T. Holbrook, Dante and the Animal Kingdom (New York: The Columbia University Press, 1902). For later studies, see Francesca Baraldi, ‘Il simbolismo dell’aquila nella Commedia dantesca’, I castelli di Yale: quaderni di filosofia, 9 (2007–2008), 85–101; Sonia M. Barillari, ‘L’animalità come segno del demoniaco nell’Inferno dantesco’, Giornale storico della letteratura italiana, 174 (1997), 98–119; Annamaria Carrega, ‘Immagini intessute di scrittura: aquile dantesche’, L’immagine riflessa, n.s., 7.2 (1998), 285–301; Elisa Curti, ‘Un esempio di bestiario dantesco: la cicogna o dell’amor materno’, Studi danteschi, 67 (2002), 129–60; Guglielmo Gorni, ‘“Gru” di Dante: lettura di Purgatorio XXVI’, Rassegna europea di letteratura italiana, 2 (1994), 11–34; Teresa Gualtieri, ‘Dante’s Crane and the Pilgrimage of Poetic Inspiration’, Rivista di studi italiani, 13 (1995), 1–13; Lucia Lazzerini, ‘L’“allodetta” e il suo archetipo: la rielaborazione di