PHILOLOGY AS THANATOLOGY: A STUDY ON ANGELO POLIZIANO’S INTELLECTUAL BIOGRAPHY by Francesco Caruso A dissertation submitted to the Graduation Committee in conformity with the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Baltimore, Maryland September, 2013 © 2013 Francesco Caruso All Rights Reserved ABSTRACT The present study deals with the Italian and Latin writings of Angelo Poliziano, a poet and scholar active at the court of Lorenzo de’ Medici in the second half of the fifteenth century (1454-1494). I shall examine Poliziano’s works through the notion of thanatology, literally a “discourse on death,” and the way it accounts some of the key aspects of his intellectual biography: poetic production, textual criticism, and philosophical convictions. ii To my mother and to the dear memory of my father iii TABLE OF CONTENTS 1. INTRODUCTION I.1. Preliminary Matters p. 1 I.2. Angelo Ambrogini from Montepulciano, a.k.a. Poliziano (1454-1494) p. 7 I.3. Literature Review p. 11 I.4. Goals of the Present Study p. 17 I.5. Structure of the Dissertation p. 18 2. CHAPTER ONE 1.1. Thanatologia p. 19 1.2. An Age of Anxiety p. 23 1.3. Asclepius p. 34 3. CHAPTER TWO 2.1. Under the Laurel p. 42 2.2. Laurentian Classicism p. 56 2.3. Philologia Municipalis p. 67 2.4. Ordo Grammaticorum p. 76 4. CHAPTER THREE 3.1. “Et in Arcadia ego” p. 87 3.2. Albiera p. 89 3.3. Simonetta p. 95 3.4. Eurydice p. 103 5. CHAPTER FOUR 4.1. “Amicus Plato, sed magis amica veritas” p. 113 4.2. The Weapons of Epictetus p. 115 4.3. The Athenian Old Man p. 123 4.4. Philology as Philosophy p. 138 6. CONCLUSIONS p. 145 7. LIST OF WORKS CITED p. 154 8. CURRICULUM VITAE p. 176 iv INTRODUCTION “…e quello strano disturbo del comportamento che costringe a trasformare tutti i sentimenti in parole scritte e che, pur mirando alla vita, riesce sempre con sorprendente precisione a mancare il centro.”* I.1. Preliminary Matters In a general review of Poliziano’s scholarship, the Italian critic Attilio Bettinzoli has pointed out two of the most pressing issues that the scholar of Poliziano has to face: the need for a comprehensive hermeneutics accounting for the various facets of the Tuscan humanist’s literary activity, and the lack of a “systematic mapping of the Politianesque world”--which is a flowery way to voice the need of new or updated critical editions of Poliziano’s works.1 This analysis of the state of the art dates back to 1987 but it is still valid today. As for the first issue, a somewhat paradoxical key factor of resistance to a general interpretation of Poliziano’s oeuvre is its very variety, which has attracted the attention of scholars belonging in the most diverse fields of study: from * R. Calasso, Soggiorno in una casa di campagna, by W. G. Sebald. Bookflap. 1 “Il problema di fondo che coinvolge inevitabilmente chiunque intenda misurarsi, utilizzando qualsivoglia punto di accesso, con la variegata superficie ricoperta dalle carte del Poliziano resta di fatto ancora il possibile reperimento di un’ideale sutura, o di una coerente linea di sviluppo, che non recida e isoli l’una dall’altra le diverse esperienze in essa confluenti. Ora, se qualche insegnamento generale è possibile trarre dall’insieme degli studi accumulatisi in questi ultimi anni […] è per l’appunto che un tale disegno di ricomposizione complessiva non può riuscire veramente fattibile sino a che non si sia adeguatamente sdipanata sotto i nostri occhi quella sorta di sistematica descrizione dell’orbe polizianeo cui andiamo gradualmente assistendo, e attraverso la quale si vanno dunque concretamente ponendo le basi di un tale venturo edificio” (Bettinzoli 1987, 53 passim). All translations are mine unless otherwise indicated. 1 Italian literary studies to the history of classical scholarship, from music to legal studies, from philosophy to the history of medicine. Nonetheless, what has been achieved in depth from by such an extraordinary cross-disciplinary attention and detailed examination, has rendered Poliziano less accessible on the surface. The result is that his intellectual figure has been stretched so much that it is now somehow recognizable only to specialists in each single field. In other words, Poliziano and his accomplishments struggle in finding a substantial place in a general discourse on Renaissance literature. A good piece of evidence of this state of things is the treatment that Poliziano enjoys in the anthologies still in use today in Italian high schools. This handful of influential handbooks, which are for the students their first and most direct means of access to Italian literary history, constitute the place where the national literary canon is shaped and are key to determine the perception that a literary national tradition has of the authors who belong in it.2 For what interests us here, these handbooks feature only few excerpts from Poliziano’s works, most notably passages from the Stanze per la giostra and the Orfeo and fragmentary translations of some of his Latin writings. As a result, it should not sound too far fetched to say that from the standpoint of literary history, which is the compass with which, for better or for worse, we orient ourselves in the sea of literature, references to Poliziano are increasingly disappearing.3 2 See Luperini 1999. 3 On this side of the Atlantic, this perception is confirmed by the very limited number of papers devoted to Poliziano in the major conferences on the Italian Studies, such as the the North Eastern Modern Language Association, or the American Association for Italian Studies. Only very recently the Renaissance Society of America Convention has hosted panels specifically dedicated to Poliziano. 2 As for the second problem, the solution ideally rests on the Progetto Poliziano, a large research project recently launched by the Centro Dipartimentale di Studi Umanistici in Messina, directed by Vincenzo Fera and aimed at the publication of the critical edition of the whole corpus of Poliziano’s works. I said “ideally” because critical editions take a very long time to be carried out and, at times, they are never completed.4 Still, some editions by scholars involved in the project have already seen the light: as in the case of Poliziano’s Latini (Mercuri 2007), the preface to his course on Homer (Megna 2007), the notes to his translation of the Iliad (Megna 2009), and a study on a chapter of the first Miscellany (Megna 2012). In more general terms, is it to welcome the initiative of those publishers who have decided to put out editions that, although not critical stricto sensu, allow to access works which otherwise should be read in facsimile of early printed editions. For Poliziano in particular, I am thinking to the first volume of the Letters (Books 1-4), edited by Shane Butler in 2004 for the series I Tatti Renaissance Library, directed by James Hankins for Harvard University Press, with Latin and English text; or to the Lamia, edited by Christopher S. Celenza for Brill in 2010, with Latin and English text and four accompanying essays. For the present study I have used all modern editions where available, but for the first Miscellany, Poliziano’s philological masterpiece, I had to rely to the Angeli Politiani Opera omnia, printed by Aldus Manutius 4 See the considerations made in Bausi 2008. For the Progetto Poliziano see: http://www.cisu.unime.it/index.php?option=com_content&task=blogsection&id=6&Ite mid=78. Last access: 16 July 2013. If on the one hand critical editions, due to their unique nature and scope are technically irreplaceable, on the other it must be said that some of the scholars who have largely contributed to this field of study--to limit myself only to he great few such a Eugenio Garin, Ida Maïer, and Mario Martelli--never provided critical editions of Poliziano’s works (Mario Martelli’s edition of the Stanze for the publisher Tallone in 1979 was not a critical one). 3 (Venice 1498), trustworthy from the standpoint of the text but not paginated, collated with the 1553 Basileana, textually less reliable but paginated.5 With regards to the lack to the issue mentioned before, that is the lack of a comprehensive critical approach due to the variety of Poliziano’s writings, the theoretical way of access I chose--what I shall later expound upon as the “thanatological discourse”--is apt to retie many of the several strings constituting the different facets of his activity as poet and scholar. As I hope it will become evident in the details of each single chapter, mine is not an attempt to assemble together, by means of the privileges of hindsight, literary objects that were disconnected at their origin. Rather, what I shall be trying to accomplish is to trace and describe that “consistent line of development” Bettinzoli was talking about in the opening passage. But with a caveat: that that “consistency” should not be understood as an attribute of the “line of development” but as an indicator of the presence of a pulsating force underscoring Poliziano’s writings. Indeed, as I am reluctant to apply the category of “development” to a work of art, whatever its medium may be, I shall consider that unifying principle--thanatology--not as a vector of a progressive line, but rather as a point from which a series of lines irradiates. 6 As long as we assume that in scholarly contributions, competing methodologies are empirically discernable, and hence easily recognized and 5 A critical text of the first Miscellany is probably the most sought after editorial product by the scholars of Poliziano.