The Idea of Beauty in Italian Literature and Language 900438894X, 9789004388949

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The Idea of Beauty in Italian Literature and Language

The Idea of Beauty in Italian Literature and Language “Il buono amore è di bellezza disio” Edited by

Claudio Di Felice Harald Hendrix Philiep Bossier

LEIDEN | BOSTON

This publication was made possible thanks to funds contributed by the Department of Italian Language and Culture – Leiden University (grant from the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation) and by MasterLanguage (https://masterlanguage.nl/). Cover illustration: Lady with an Ermine (Portrait of Cecilia Gallerani), circa 1490, by Leonardo da Vinci, Czaertoryski Museum, Kraków, Poland. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Di Felice, Claudio, editor. | Hendrix, Harald, editor. | Bossier,  Philiep, editor. Title: The idea of beauty in Italian literature and language : “il buono  amore ?e di bellezza disio” / edited by Claudio Di Felice, Harald Hendrix,  and Philiep Bossier. Description: Leiden ; Boston : Brill, 2018. | Includes bibliographical  references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2018048819 (print) | LCCN 2018049770 (ebook) | ISBN  9789004388956 (E-book) | ISBN 9789004388949 (hardback : alk. paper) Subjects: LCSH: Arts, Italian—Themes, motives. | Aesthetics, Italian. |  Italian literature—History and criticism. Classification: LCC NX552.A1 (ebook) | LCC NX552.A1 I3 2018 (print) | DDC  709.45—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018048819

Typeface for the Latin, Greek, and Cyrillic scripts: “Brill”. See and download: brill.com/brill-typeface. isBn 978-90-04-38894-9 (hardback) isBn 978-90-04-38895-6 (e-book) Copyright 2019 by Koninklijke Brill nv, Leiden, The Netherlands. Koninklijke Brill NV incorporates the imprints Brill, Brill Hes & De Graaf, Brill Nijhoff, Brill Rodopi, Brill Sense, Hotei Publishing, mentis Verlag, Verlag Ferdinand Schöningh and Wilhelm Fink Verlag. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, translated, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior written permission from the publisher. Authorization to photocopy items for internal or personal use is granted by Koninklijke Brill nv provided that the appropriate fees are paid directly to The Copyright Clearance Center, 222 Rosewood Drive, Suite 910, Danvers, ma 01923, usa. Fees are subject to change. This book is printed on acid-free paper and produced in a sustainable manner.

Contents List of Figures vii Introduction 1 Harald Hendrix, Claudio Di Felice, and Philiep Bossier  1 Forms and Variations of Lemmata Indicating “Beauty” in Literary Italian and the Common Language 13 Rosario Coluccia  2 “Bellezze ed adornezze e piacimento”: The Concept of Beauty in the Sicilian School 31 Francesca De Blasi 3 Beauty as a Forma Mentis: Francis of Assisi 50 Brigitte Poitrenaud-Lamesi 4 From Earthly Venus to Heavenly Venus: On the Evolution of the Concept of Beauty in Girolamo Benivieni 67 Sergio Di Benedetto 5 The “True Form” of Beauty: Poetry and Portraits from Petrarch to the Sixteenth Century 89 Veronica Pesce 6 “Love is Naught But a Certain Desire to Enjoy Beauty”: Castiglione and Raffaello 114 Pasquale Sabbatino 7 The Principle of Beauty in the Literary Criticism of the Sixteenth Century 132 Antonio Sorella 8 Beauty at the Limit: The Baroque “Body”, with Reference to Adonis 152 Silvia Fabrizio-Costa 9 Words for Beauty: Giuseppe Parini between Ideal Cities and the Decadence of the World 169 Marcello Ciccuto

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10 Amorose e di galanteria: Considerations about the Language of Love, Beauty and Desire in Some Unpublished Poems by Giulio Bajamonti 180 Monica De Rosa 11 “The Profound Beauty is Greatness”: Itinerary in Giovanni Boine’s Aesthetics 204 Enrico Riccardo Orlando 12 The Origins of Beauty in Leopardi’s Zibaldone 225 Stefano Bragato 13 History of a Modest Beauty: Models of Woman’s Aesthetics from Fermo e Lucia to I promessi sposi 243 Gavino Piga 14 The “Second Beauty”: Ideas of Politeness and Beauty in Italian Books of Manners 253 Giovanna Alfonzetti 15 Fosca and Her Sisters: Origins and Hypostases of the “Medusean Beauty” in the Narrative of the Scapigliatura 275 Francesco Bonelli 16 Reconsidering Fin de Siècle Aestheticism: The Case of Gabriele D’Annunzio 297 Filippo Fonio 17 Paradise Saved and Lost of Fin de Siècle Aesthetics: Matelda and Mariana in the Works of Giovanni Pascoli 319 Francesca Irene Sensini 18 Eugenio Montale: For the “Incredible, Wonderful Face” of Clizia, between Photographs, Letters, the Palio and Other Verses 336 Epifanio Ajello 19 P.V. Tondelli and the Cannibals’ Generation in Search of the Lost Beauty 356 Agata Pryciak Index of Concepts 369 Index of Names 372

Figures 9.1 17.1 17.2 17.3 17.4 18.1 18.2 18.3 18.4 18.5 18.6 18.7 18.8 18.9 18.10

Andrea Appiani, allegoric composition, 1793, pen drawing with touches of white lead, unknown location 176 Sir John William Waterhouse, study for Dante and Matilda (formerly called “Dante and Beatrice”), about 1914/1917  323 Gustave Doré, illustration for Dante’s Purgatorio XXXI, 101–2 324 Photo by Julia Margaret Cameron, Mariana in the Moated Grange, 1875 330 John Everett Millais, Mariana, 1851 332 Irma Brandeis (Contorbia 1996, 153) 338 Esterina Rossi (Contorbia 1996, 80) 340 Anna degli Uberti (Arletta-Annetta), 1920 (Contorbia 1996, 66) 341 Maria Rosa Solari (Contorbia 2006, foto 19, no page number) 341 Dora Markus’s legs (Contorbia 1996, 122) 342 Gerti Tolazzi, 1932 (Contorbia 1996, 115) 342 Maria Luisa Spaziani (Volpe), photo by Eugenio Montale (Contorbia 1996, 218) 343 Drusilla Tanzi Marangoni (Mosca), 1927 (Contorbia 1996, 109) 343 Paolo Vivante, Elena De Bosis, Irma Brandeis, Leone Vivante, Camillo Sbarbaro, Eugenio Montale. Villa Solaia, Siena 1938 (Contorbia 1996, 177) 348 Eugenio Montale and Irma Brandeis at Palio di Siena, 1934 (Bettarini 2006, no page number) 350

Introduction Harald Hendrix, Claudio Di Felice, and Philiep Bossier* 1 Beauty is a central concept in Italian cultural imagination throughout its history and in virtually all its manifestations. When looking for elements constantly informing Italian identity as such, beauty indeed is amongst the strongest candidates. The widespread use of words connected to the concept, in a large variety of expressions all indicating positive notions, underscores the undisputed status of the idea of beauty in all layers of the Italian populace, in past and present. From the stereotypical fare bella figura ‘keeping up appearances’ to the generic use of bello ‘beautiful’ to express feelings of admiration, affection or simple well-being (che bello … ‘how nice’, bella bambina ‘an adorable child’, un bel piatto di spaghetti ‘a good pasta dish’), beauty in Italian culture is what one thrives for, as its opposite (brutto ‘ugly’) denotes anything one wants to reject and avoid (brutto tempo ‘bad weather’). As such, the concept not only expresses a generally held feeling, it also reinforces the shared identity of being Italian. This explains why in recent times politicians and marketeers ever more eagerly embrace the idea of beauty in order to create consensus, a distinctly Italian strategy we may find in government policies as well as in commercial publicity campaigns. From the 2015 slogan used by Matteo Renzi’s Democratic Party Bella l’Italia che riparte ‘Beautiful Italy moving forward’ and his government’s 2016 policy to increase investments in heritage on the basis of popular consent [email protected] ‘[email protected]’, to a business strategy coined Italia patria della bellezza ‘Italy homeland of beauty’ introduced in 2013 by leading captains of industry interested in making the country more competitive and economically robust: bello / bellezza clearly serves to promote feelings of adhesion and consensus, rooted in an undisputed shared identity that finds its essence in this very element of beauty. The idea that Italy is the quintessential Bel Paese ‘Beautiful country’ not only has deep but also very old roots. These moreover are closely intertwined with the ungoing project to establish a national identity for a country that is characterized by its diversities, on all levels: geographically and geologically, politically and socially, linguistically and culturally. Indeed, one of the most successful initiatives of the young united nationstate as it emerged by *  Editors are respectively responsible for parr. 1, 2 and 3 of this introduction. © koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2019 | doi:10.1163/9789004388956_002

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the 1870s was a book precisely called Il Bel Paese (1876) by a school teacher, Antonio Stoppani, who not unlike his colleague Carlo Collodi/Lorenzini in Pinocchio (1881) aimed to win his young pupils’ hearts and allegiance for the cause of Italian national coherence by inviting them to visit and explore the natural beauties of the peninsula’s landscapes. Observing the richness and variety of the country’s components and reflecting on their origins – Stoppani was a passionate geologist and paleontologist – would enhance in the new generations feelings of community and indeed create consensus, the author anticipated. The huge success of his bestselling book indicates how fortunate his connecting the ideas of beauty and national identity was. Its title immediately became – staying such until today – a ready-made formula to suggest an unproblematic, indeed ‘natural’ and essentialist sense of national belonging, as it was successfully exploited by the producers of the first Italian cheese made of milk coming no longer from just one but from various regions, calling their product Bel Paese (1906) and thus introducing all over the country what most Italians since would consider to be a strong marker of their common identity. However, this defining national identity through associations of beauty did not rise with the advent of political union, nor does it find its major focus in the admiration of natural heritage. The very idea of the Bel Paese has much older and stronger roots in Italy’s literary culture as it emerged from the thirteenth century onwards. We find the expression famously in the poetry of both Dante and Petrarch, who together potently project the idea that what they consider to be Italy is by all means the country where beauty reigns, elevating their homeland to a status far superior to that of other nations. Del bel paese là dove ’l sì sona, (‘of the beautiful land where the ‘yes’ is spoken’) Dante, Inferno, XXXIII, 80

… il bel paese / Ch’Appennin parte e ’l mar circonda e l’Alpe., (‘… the beautiful land, / divided by the Apennines and delimited by the sea and the Alps.’) Petrarch, Canzoniere, CXLVI, 13–14

As highly accomplished and self-conscious pioneers of the vernacular poetical culture only recently established, theirs was of course an enterprise aimed at creating a sense of national belonging grounded in a shared effort to design a new supraregional vernacular that would convince intellectuals from all over the peninsula. But whereas they used the expression bel paese as a general reference to this distinctly Italian characteristic, comprising various elements

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of beauty ranging from landscapes and monuments to persons and attitudes, their poetical idea of beauty had a much more precise focus. It is the language itself, specifically created and developed for this purpose, that is both the medium and the message of beauty, since it strives to become the expression of a culture which distinguishes itself from the regional and local vernaculars it originates from, as well as from the everyday reality it intends to transcend. In Italy’s earliest poetic culture beauty thus emerges as an essentialist component of this project to design a literature able to create consensus all through these lands “dove ’l sì sona”, a hugely successful enterprise considering that up till the Risorgimento it was only literary culture and the language variety it promoted which proved able to unite the peninsula. This universal literary cult of beauty concentrates, again following the hugely authoritative samples developed by the likes of Dante and Petrarch, on the rendering of the physical qualities of the human body (mainly female but not excluding males) considered to be the expression of the subject’s inner self. Consequently, the moral characteristics of the persons presented – clearly all positive – are metonymically communicated through the presentation of their outer appearance, causing a close connection between the aesthetic and the ethic dimensions in the literary idea of beauty, as evidenced in a quintessential passage from Baldassar Castiglione’s seminal Book of the Courtier (1528), here taken from the 1561 translation by Thomas Hoby: Beeside other thinges therfore, it giveth a great praise to the world, in saiynge that it is beawtifull. It is praised, in saiynge, the beawtifull heaven, beawtifull earth, beawtifull sea, beawtifull rivers, beawtifull wooddes, trees, gardeines, beawtifull Cities, beawtifull Churches, houses, armies. In conclusion this comelye and holye beawtie is a wonderous settinge out of everie thinge. And it may be said that Good and beawtifull be after a sort one selfe thinge, especiallie in the bodies of men: of the beawtie wherof the nighest cause (I suppose) is the beawtie of the soule: the which as a partner of the right and heavenlye beawtie, maketh sightlye and beawtifull what ever she toucheth, and most of all, if the bodye, where she dwelleth, be not of so vile a matter, that she can not imprint in it her propertye. Therfore Beawtie is the true monument and spoile of the victorye of the soule, whan she with heavenlye influence beareth rule over materiall and grosse nature, and with her light overcommeth the darkeness of the bodye.1 1  Castiglione, Baldassar. 1984. Il cortegiano. A cura di Vittorio Cian. Firenze: Sansoni, 418–9: “Dassi adunque molta laude, non che ad altro, al mondo dicendo che gli è bello; laudasi dicendo: bel cielo, bella terra, bel mare, bei fiumi, bei paesi, belle selve, alberi, giardini;

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We find such interchanging of bello and buono/ ‘beautiful’ and ‘good’, sometimes synthesized in intermediate terminology like grazia / ‘grace’, in virtually all poetical production in the Italian vernacular published until the modern age, but nowhere is it more evident and ideologically grounded than in the works of poets inspired by neoplatonism, as for example Vittoria Colonna and Michelangelo Buonarroti. Partly due to the fact that both friends poetically address men as subjects and destinataries of some of their poems, they develop an ethically defined concept of physical beauty that denotes clear religious overtones. Thus in their oeuvre, where the eulogy of beauty becomes an act of faith, we find a culmination of the idealistic urge underpinning the cult of beauty in Italian literary culture. But we also touch upon the limits of this very phenomenon. Following the idealistic thought that beauty is a moral concept only indirectly manifest in reality, artists like Michelangelo voiced overt negative judgments on colleagues – like his counterparts from the Low Countries – who introduced new manners of painting precisely pointed at producing accurate representations of reality, including scenes from everyday life. In the Low Countries they paint things that give joy or do not offend, like saints and prophets, precisely because they want to deceive the eye. Their art of painting only represents torn clothes, ruined walls, green meadows, stains full of trees, rivers and bridges they call landscapes, with many figures indifferently positioned. Although to some it seems beautiful, all this in essence is painted without sense of distinction nor art, without respect for symmetry or proportions, without any effort to select or to accomplish harmony, and in the end without essence or soul.2 belle città, bei templii, case, eserciti. In somma, ad ogni cosa dà supremo ornamento questa graziosa e sacra Bellezza; e dir si po che ’l bono e ’l bello a qualche modo siano una medesima cosa, e massimamente nei corpi umani; della Bellezza de’ quali la più propinqua causa estimo io che sia la Bellezza dell’anima, che, come partecipe di quella vera Bellezza divina, illustra e fa bello ciò che ella tocca, e specialmente se quel corpo ov’ella abita non è di così vil materia, che ella non possa imprimergli la sua qualità; però la Bellezza è il vero trofeo della vittoria dell’anima, quando essa non la virtù divina signoreggia la natura materiale e col suo lume vince le tenebre del corpo.” 2  de Holanda, Francisco. 1964. Dialoghi romani con Michelangelo. Trad. it. Laura Marchiori. Milano: Rizzoli, 30–1: “Nelle Fiandre dipingono, proprio per ingannare gli occhi, cose che vi rallegrino o delle quali non possiate dir male, come santi e profeti. La loro pittura rappresenta soltanto stracci, muraglie, verdi campi, macchie d’alberi, fiumi e ponti, che chiamano paesaggi, con molte figure quà e là. Tutto questo, anche se sembra bello a certuni, in realtà è dipinto senza criterio né arte, senza simmetria né proporzioni, senza la cura di scegliere né alcuna disinvoltura, e insomma senza sostanza né nerbo.”

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Judging this sort of artistic production a naive kind of expression hardly to be considered art, the master demonstrates that by the mid-sixteenthcentury (his comments were recorded in 1538) discussions on beauty had come to dominate debates on art as such. Consequently, this brought also alternative visions and positions to the fore, since debating beauty logically presupposes and indeed justifies a sphere beyond beauty to be taken into consideration. To most, like Michelangelo, this sphere was to be avoided, as a century later Guido Reni would explicitly recommend in responding to his biographer that “there is indeed also an idea of ugliness, but I leave it to the devil to explain this, since for my part I do everything to keep it out of my system”.3 Others, though, were less convinced by this idealistic urge dominating most conceptions of beauty, and actually took offense in its aggressive claim to domination. This explains how in the heydays of this cult of beauty, in the early sixteenth century, a provocatively opposing aesthetics of the non-beautiful started to develop. First this unfolded in the strictly connected expressive mode of caricature and satire, with poets like Francesco Berni flamboyantly attacking the emphatic and sterile poetry on beauty only recently presented by the most authoritative follower of Petrarch, Pietro Bembo. But it also opened the way to other explorations of the universe “beyond beauty”, when artists and men of letters started to develop an interest in opportunities to stimulate various emotional effects, precisely by using devices that create not only pleasure and intellectual gratification but also other effects, from surprise, fear and disgust to what in the later eighteenth century would be coined as ‘sublime’. This emancipation of a universe beyond beauty permeates Italian literary culture from the late sixteenth century onwards. Always in a somehow symbiotic coalition with the interest in beauty that through history maintains its dominant position, it offers a welcome and necessary space for experimentation. Thus it comes as no surprise that as of the seventeenth century most of the authors engaged in finding new and innovative solutions within the Italian literary culture in one way or another experiment with elements taken from this universe beyond beauty, as we can clearly see in the works of the ‘Scapigliatura’ and the slightly later decadent movement headed by Gabriele d’Annunzio. Not to mention the futurist avantgarde and its explicit programme to completely do away with the traditional idea of beauty, 3  Reni’s famous comment is reported in his biography included in Giovanni Pietro Bellori’s Le vite de’ pittori, scultori e architetti moderni (1672): “Vorrei aver avuto pennello angelico, o forme di Paradiso, per formare l’Arcangelo e vederlo in cielo, ma io non ho potuto salir tant’alto, ed in vano l’ho cercate in terra. Sì che ho riguardato in quella forma che nell’idea mi sono stabilita. Si trova anche l’idea della bruttezza, ma questa lascio di spiegare nel Demonio, perché io fuggo sin col pensiero, né mi curo di tenerlo a mente.”

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substituting it with a modern version centred round the idea of speed. Yet, while all this experimentation clearly foregrounds its oppositional drive, as the recent ‘Cannibali’ literary production exemplifies, it has difficulties developing new and independent alternatives to what in the end always pops out as the backbone of Italian literary culture: its orientation on beauty. 2 For a better understanding of the subtleties governing this recurrent debate on beauty and its role as a defining element in ideas on what literature and indeed language as its foundation can and should strive for, a closer look at the early modern discussions centered round such issues and conventionally coined as the Questione della lingua ‘The Language Querelle’ can be useful. While triggered off as a debate on the emancipation of the Italian vernacular, and thus primarily oriented on the linguistic issues informing the ideal of the bel parlare italiano ‘the beautiful Italian language’, it quickly became the preferred vehicle for erudite debates on aesthetics, sharing the vocabulary and rhetoric of the many treatises on philosophy and art produced in these very years. This intrinsic bond between ideas on language, art and beauty is epitomized in the wide-spread use of one of the more popular anecdotes from classical mythology, the story of Zeuxis, often used by supporters of linguistic eclecticism to defend their advocating a language and literature inspired by a large variety of elements singled out for their beauty. As of early humanism, this idea of a composite beauty not informed by a single model dominates debates on art, literature and language, as the interventions of a radically multitalented figure like Leon Battista Alberti demonstrate. The idea of beauty advocated in his De Pictura (1435) indeed is rooted in a Zeuxis-inspired technique of selecting and collecting particularly attentive to the exemplary specimens of what had been produced in early Italian vernacular literature, a field he equally explored from a purely linguistic perspective in his Della lingua toscana (1438–41). Such ideas also govern the reflections on language in the epistolary treatises exchanged between Giovanni Pico della Mirandola and Pietro Bembo that center on two alternative positions: in his epistle De imitatione (1512) Pico asserts, clearly informed by the platonism advocated by Marsilio Ficino, that the ideas of correct language and of beauty are proper to man from birth and offer him a natural guidance while selecting in a large variety of authors and texts those elements that by their being correct and beautiful are eligible for imitation. In his response Bembo rejects the idea of an innate sense of beautiful and proper writing, stating on the other hand that it can only be gained after a

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long exercise of reading ancient texts, and therefore advocating the imitation of what he considers to be the most excellent model authors: Cicero for prose and Virgil for poetry. Bembo’s rejection of an eclectic aestheticism also informs his other influential works, from the Asolani (1505) where he develops a hierarchical philosophy of beauty – physical and spiritual – considered in close relationship to the capacity for love, to his Prose de la volgar lingua (1525) which embraces the idea that one particular model – the Florentine template developed by Petrarch and Boccaccio – should govern all literary production in the vernacular. Bembo’s suggestions quickly turned out to be most persuasive, partly because he was able to offer a new and refined vocabulary for evaluating aesthetic accomplishments, using qualifications like gentile ‘gentle’ and regolata ‘regular’ for the Florentine language, singling out a well delivered speech for its being “sweeter, more elegant, faster, more vital” (“più dolce, più vago, più ispedito, più vivo”), and introducing a concept like ordinatissimo ‘most ordered’ for expressing ultimate praise.4 Although Bembo’s positions came to dominate sixteenth-century thinking on literary and linguistic beauty, other voices did not lack. Gian Giorgio Trissino, for example, continued to promote an eclectic vision on this issue, advocating in a series of works on the argument – Epistola de le lettere nuωvamente aggiunte (1524), Il Castellano (1529), and Dubbi grammaticali (1529) – a composite and artificial Italian language bringing together what he considered the best elements in the various local and regional vernaculars. In his Poetica (1529), on the other hand, he reflected on the importance of beauty in poetry, which he valued highly though only as a “third general form” after what he defined as “clarity” and “greatness”. This poetical beauty is considered in close relationship to the beauty of the human body, which can be “natural” or, when enriched with external ornaments, “adventitious” (avventizio). Trissino clearly was sensitive to the Petrarchan canon of beauty, as may be gathered also from the reflections on language he advanced in a treatise on ‘Portraits’ written to honor Isabella d’Este, I ritratti (1514), a dialogue between the characters Pietro Bembo and Vincenzo Macro constructed on the model of the homonymous poem by Lucian of Samosata. In their common ambition to give an adequate description of the beauty of the ladies they admired, one of the interlocutors, Macro, laments his inability to do so effectively since her beauty is such that “neither Mantegna, nor Vinci, nor Apelles, et Euphranor,

4  Bembo’s and Varchi’s ideas are deepened in Sorella’s chapter in this volume.

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if they were there, would be by chance sufficient”,5 and resorts to quote some of Petrarch’s celebrated verses on female beauty. The character Bembo, on the other hand, defends the position that the physical beauty of the lady corresponds to her moral qualities, and that these find expression in a manner of talking which is “not purely native, nor purely Tuscan; but she chose the beauty of one and of the other, and expresses herself most sweetly in that mix of tongues”, a position obviously contrasting with the teaching the biographical person Pietro Bembo would advance a few years later in his Prose della volgar lingua.6 Yet another position in this ‘Language Querelle’ on the centrality of beauty may be found half a century later, in Benedetto Varchi’s L’Hercolano (1570), a treatise which presents a chapter discussing “For what one may know and ought to judge a language to be better, namely richer, or more beautiful, or more pleasant than another; and in which of these three things Greek, Latin or vulgar is better”.7 Here Varchi locates the beauty of a language in its very words and clauses, in the length or brevity of syllables, and in the harmony of compound words and clauses, determined by the combinations of brevity and length of syllables and the lowering and raising of the accents. This focus on harmony then brings him to promote the Florentine language as being superior, even in comparison to Greek and Latin, because of its unchallenged attention to what Varchi defines as the “most beautiful thing, the most pleasant, and the most grateful to the ears”.8 From another late testimony of the ‘Language Querelle’ we may gather that all along its development and notwithstanding the many variations this debate on beauty, language and literature denotes, the Zeuxis anecdote remains of pivotal importance in expressing the central issue at stake: eclecticism versus a single model. In the second book of his 1581 Commentarii della lingua italiana, the polygraph Girolamo Ruscelli advances a meditation on the “arguments to demonstrate the dignity and importance of language” which synthesizes this strain of thought: 5  Trissino, Gian Giorgio. 1792. Tutte le opere. Verona: Iacopo Vallarsi, vol. 2, I Ritratti, 271–2: “nè il Mantegna, nè il Vinci, nè Apelle, et Eufrànore, se ci fussero, sarebbeno per aventura sufficienti.” 6  Ibid., 274: “La loquela sua poi non è patria pura, nè pura Toscana; ma il bello de l’una, e de l’altra ha scelto, e di quello insieme mescolato, dolcissimamente favella.” 7  Varchi, Benedetto. 1995. L’Hercolano. A cura di Antonio Sorella. Pescara, Libreria dell’Università: “A che si possa conoscere e debbasi giudicare una lingua essere o migliore, cioè piú ricca, o piú bella, o piú dolce d’un’altra; e quale sia piú di queste tre cose, o la greca, o la latina, o la volgare” (Ques. IX, 196). 8  Ibid., 229: “non credo che alcuno possa negare che ella [l’armonia] sia, più bella cosa, e più piacevole, e più grata a gli orecchii che il numero.”

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And just as in order to establish the rules for the making of beautiful bodies or faces in the past men of judgment have selected the bodies and faces that were the most beautiful and the most in line with the order, likewise they did in establishing rules and indications, which then were converted into the rules of their language.9 3 Since the central issue of this volume is the semantic and heuristic development of the concept of beauty in the Italian language and literature, a preliminary lexicographic analysis conducted by Rosario Coluccia symbolically opens the series of contributions. The analysis of the semantic field of vernacular derivatives of the Latin bellus underscores in various and changing occurrences in the history of the Italian language a high coefficient of literariness. As a concrete example of this statement, Francesca De Blasi investigates the crucial role of beauty played in the literary production of the “scuola siciliana”. It comes as no surprise in this second lexicological study that, rather than the concept of love (the Provençal fin’ amor) traditionally pictured as the main topic of this specific cultural environment, it rather is the conceptual rhizome around the variety of beauty that predominates all linguistic expressions of the scuola siciliana (metaphors, synonyms, personifications, idiomatic expressions). In the same area of pre-Dante literature in medieval Italy, one should not forget the pivotal importance of a similar ethical and psychological renewal boosted by the concept of beauty as forma mentis in saint Francis of Assisi. In her study on this new Franciscan cultural model, Brigitte PoitenaudLamesi privileges the relation between beauty and joy as a starting point for a new sensitive, empathic and anti-hierarchical attitude towards God and all creatures in the world without distinction. Given the importance of Quattrocento Florence as the main cultural capital of both literary expressions in Florentine vernacular and of the philosophical accent on neo-platonism at court, a contribution is dedicated to the evolution of the concept of beauty in this particular norm-setting area in Italy. In his study of the Florentine poet Girolamo Benivieni, Sergio Di Benedetto focuses on the watershed line which can be clearly distinguished before and after the poet’s adherence to 9  Ruscelli, Girolamo. 1581. Commentarii della lingua italiana. Venezia: Damiano Zenaro, 74: “Et sì come nel fare le regole delle bellezze d’un corpo, o d’un volto i giudiciosi elessero i corpi, o i volti più belli, et più conformi con l’ordine, così puntalmente fecero nelle regole et osservationi, che poi si convertirono in leggi delle lingue loro.”

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a Savonarolian Weltanschauung. By this means, one realizes how polemics around a far less than innocent concept like beauty can affect in early modern Italy extra-literary matters like religion, philosophy and even politics. In Cinquecento Italy, one of the main ideological models is the re-use and reinterpretation of this axe of cultural codification and this search of life standard as studied in all former contributions. So, after Petrarch came neo-Petrarchism as a challenging standard for both respectful imitation and artistic creativity in Renaissance Europe. In her study on typical neo-Petrarchan occurrences of beauty, Veronica Pesce focuses on the female portrayal in poetry as it represents the woman’s ideal image painted in the poet’s heart. In fact, the defense of the “vera icon”, the ‘true form’ of the beloved is present in numerous examples in poetry but keeps influencing also theoretical discourse over time, from Pietro Bembo to Giovanni Della Casa and beyond. Not only in aesthetical theory, but also in architectural, urbanistic and iconographic realizations at Court, in the city, or in private palaces, as shows us the contribution of Pasquale Sabbatino. In his study, Sabbatino foregrounds the model-making effect of artistic connections like the one between Bembo, Castiglione and Raphael, setting a new trend at the beginning of the sixteenth century. The pictorial project of Raphael’s Triumph of Galatea in the Villa Farnesina can be summed up like a norm-establishing event insisting on the desire of enjoying beauty. So, “desire” is from now on connected to “beauty” in a new cultural program ready to be disseminated in Renaissance Europe. In his study of the principle of beauty in the literary criticism of the sixteenth century, Antonio Sorella foregrounds the fact that in the crucial period of standardisation of the Italian language serious attemps were made to base the concept of the beauty of this language on objective reasoning. While continuing earlier statements of Dante and Petrarch, Florentine humanists (Machiavelli, Varchi) in constant dialogue with the Venice-born Bembo tried to establish rational criteria in order to defend a national matter. In a striking way, what is now often considered a simple commonplace in culture – the beauty of the Italian language – can be brought back to a historical scientific discourse on linguistic expression. “All Baroque culture is characterized by the decisive emerging of the sphere of sensitive experience”. By this statement, Silvia Fabrizio Costa underlines the difference between Renaissance standards and Baroque aesthetics, since the latter insists more than before on the erotic presence of the human body thus styling a new concept of beauty. In her study of Marino’s poetry and the beauty of the body of a sinner like Mary Magdalene, Fabrizio Costa highlights the new rhetorical dimension of baroque poetry. In this innovative rhetoric, the sense of real perception is mingled with an imaginary experience, which by the end provokes an object of desire, be it male or female, substantially unrepresentable and subject to a continuous metamorphosis. When it comes

Introduction

11

to neo-classical aesthetics, the ancient adagio of ut pictura poesis comes into a new conceptual framework. Here, the civil and civilizing function of beauty occupies the center of interest and artistic creativity. In his study of the “period paintings” made by Giuseppe Parini for Il Giorno, Marcello Ciccuto offers a new interpretation of the role of these literary fragments valorized as “delightful paintings”. Given the context of a disturbing fin-de-siècle society, Parini’s insisting on the knowledge of beauty and the civil role of the arts can be seen as the ultimate belief in human harmony which from each individual can raise into all-encompassing truth for mankind. The debate on fine arts in eighteenth-century Italy is analyzed as well in the contribution of Monica De Rosa, who takes as a starting point the close reading of unpublished love poems by the Dalmatian poet Giulio Bajamonti. As a heir of Venetian culture, Bajamonti explores the archetype of female beauty as a civilizing nucleus for mankind in search of harmony and happiness. As the main point of reference in late-Romantic aesthetics, Benedetto Croce is frequently labelled in nineteenth-century polemics dealing with conflicting views on beauty. In his study of Giovanni Boine as an original counter-figure in this context, Enrico Riccardo Orlando pictures this prominent author for La Voce as the purveyor of beauty by means of the fragment, the partial and the provisional. In his study of beauty in Giacomo Leopardi, Stefano Bragato acknowledges the seminal importance of the author’s impressive Zibaldone as major attestation of the evolution of the concept of beauty in the Romantic era. At different stages, the ideas in the Zibaldone serve as earlier transcriptions of the concept of beauty that is designated to mark the last cosmological, extensive poems of Leopardi, like his Ultimo Canto di Saffo. In Leopardi’s view, beauty doesn’t depend on absolute models, but is a pattern of emotions that every single person creates by experience in observing a throughout lived reality. After Leopardi, the second giant of Italian Romanticism is Alessandro Manzoni. Gavino Piga analyzes the contrast between two female portraits in the oeuvre of Manzoni as guideline to understand the complex evolution of his concept of beauty. On the one hand, we have the “modest beauty” of Lucia in the preliminary version of the author’s masterpiece; on the other, we have the “faded beauty” of Gertrude of what is now the final version of his project in I promessi sposi. The complex duality between peasant and lady is topical in both representations and can be seen as the interdependency, in Manzoni’s poetics, between the post-Petrarchan ideal version of female beauty and the readapted model of the Christian mulier. Alongside Manzoni’s national model of the Italian historical novel we can discern the importance of literary genre as a basic structure in disseminating dominant concepts in literary society. Another genre is interesting in this regard. During Romanticism, the classical Italian ‘book of manners’ (the genre

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of the galatei) gets new shape and becomes a central figure connecting together the Renaissance model of Della Casa’s Galateo and the modern adaptations of the genre in modern dictionaries and guides of manners. Giovanna Alfonzetti offers a rich overview of the different aspects of this literary prototype. She highlights the adventure of prescriptive texts about politeness as social beauty. Norm and decadence are the topics of the contribution of Francesco Bonelli. The anticipatory role of the Scapigliatura movement as a laboratory of Italian decadence literature is by now quite established. In his analysis, Bonelli uses the emblematic female character of Fosca in Tarchetti’s novel. Fosca is the first one in a gallery of post-Risorgimento feminine characters who are deranging and corrupted because of their physical or moral disease. The versatile prototype of late nineteenth-century female beauty remains a structural matter at the start of the Novecento, albeit it objects to criticism, parody or re-adaptation. Filippo Fonio presents a reconsidering of fin-de-siècle aestheticism in D’Annunzio’s poetics as seen through feminine figures as well. His main hypothesis is dealing with the possible “medieval” (or medievalist?) orientation of the author when focusing on the initiatic, inaccessible and desparate (although wise) nature of such figures as femmes fatales. Feminine figures are again the main interest of the study of Francesca Irene Sensini. In this contribution, hypostasis of beauty is observed by means of a double female portrayal in Pascoli’s oeuvre, Matelda and Mariana, which can be seen as features of an alternative gendered version of the author’s famous “fanciullino” model as a contemporary myth. Finally, Novecento aesthetics in Italy do really re-interpret myths for contemporary society. This does happen when different media like poetry and photograph are linked together in order to shape new forms for beauty. Epifanio Ajello investigates the fascinating process of poetic fusion between poetical evocation and photographic image in the work of Nobel-Prize winner Eugenio Montale. The use of photography by Montale is not meant to put an equivalent to poetry but rather to function as a tool in order to rememorize an earlier event and to “write back in the time of the image”. In the final essay, Agata Pryciak uses the concept of “broken beauty” in order to analyze the postmodern Italian literature of the “cannibali” generation. In an age in which predominates the lack of a widely established paradigm and a violent view on human kind, in Pier Vittorio Tondelli and his fellow authors the reader’s benevolence is caught by a cry of broken, melancholic and individual beauty designated to survive.

chapter 1

Forms and Variations of Lemmata Indicating “Beauty” in Literary Italian and the Common Language Rosario Coluccia 1 Compared with other important European languages with which it is historically and geographically contiguous, in many cases sharing the same genealogy, Italian displays a highly distinctive, maybe even unique, characteristic: the influence of the literary aspect is conspicuous, often predominant. Setting aside for the moment other reflections (to which I will return), this has a crucial consequence: constantly revitalised by recourse to classical culture (both Latin and Greek, valuable sources on which Italian has drawn throughout its history) and linguistic exchange with a wide range of other languages; subject to tensions arising from its relations with a multiplicity of Italian dialects; affected by normal processes of new word coinage on one hand and obsolescence on the other, which modify its structure, Italian is characterised by clear diachronic continuity and (relative) stability over time. This is why even ancient literary works look rather familiar. If the substance of this premise is granted, we may then (by way of example) focus our analysis on the semantic field of nouns derived from bellus, concerning the concept of ‘beauty’, and its correlates *bellitate and *bellitudo. The aim is to verify the forms, uses, variations and developments affecting this Italian word family, which often occurs in discourse with a medium to high degree of literary style. As a full reconstruction of these intricate cultural pathways is not possible in the space available here, I will make a personal and therefore arbitrary selection, giving priority to the early stages of Italian linguistic history. As far as possible I will try to link lexical facts with broader linguistic aspects, while seeking to avoid duplicating themes tackled by other reports presented at this congress. The continuity between old and modern Italian (referenced by many scholars) was first highlighted by Gianfranco Contini nearly forty years ago (though he has returned to the theme many times since then) in his dense and incisive style, in this quotation on which I will briefly comment:

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2019 | doi:10.1163/9789004388956_003

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Anyone … who starts from Dante, passing over the more obscure elements while treating them with due reverence, readily understands and will eventually realise what they originally missed (which would not be the case with French readers of the Chanson de Roland or German readers of the Nibelungenlied), i.e. that the Commedia is written in ancient Italian. Contini [1977, 1986] 2007, I 31

Clearly, we immediately recognise Dante’s language as “old” Italian, but at the same time we perceive that it is not foreign to us. Any reasonably well-educated Italian speaker, even if it is not their first language, will understand easily enough the overall and elementary meaning of many parts of the Commedia and Petrarch’s Canzoniere. Who does not understand the literal meaning of sentences such as “Nel mezzo del cammin di nostra vita / mi ritrovai per una selva oscura / ché la diritta via era smarrita”?2 Or even “Per alti monti et per selve aspre trovo / qualche riposo: ogni habitato loco / è nemico mortal degli occhi miei”?3 An exception to this pattern of ready accessibility are those passages (and certain lexemes) which, because of their intrinsic allusiveness and obscurity, have been the object of endless hermeneutics but remain partly undeciphered or controversial even today (those elements that Contini would happily have left to the medieval pentacle [it.: “aree pentacolari”]). The key point for our purposes here, which we have already mentioned in passing and will now flesh out in greater detail, is that an Italian reader of average education (not necessarily a specialist), is largely able to understand a text written in old Italian, unlike the case of a French speaker reading the Chanson de Roland or a German speaker attempting the Nibelungenlied. This singularity of Italian lies in the fact that unlike other European languages it has changed little over the course of time. Founded on the literary and consciously archaic approach of Dante, Petrarch and Boccaccio (the fourteenth1  Not a literal translation: “Chi […] si inizierà a Dante, tolte le aree pentacolari riservate all’oscurità, da lambire e oltrepassare in convenzionale reverenza, comprende senza ostacolo, ed è destinato a rendersi conto in tempo più maturo come gli fosse sfuggito, più ancora che il deposito di una memoria sapientissima, il fatto elementare (che naturalmente non capiterebbe ai suoi coetanei lettori della Chanson de Roland o del Nibelungenlied) che la Commedia è scritta in italiano antico”. 2  “Midway in the journey of our life / I came to myself in a dark wood, / for the straight way was lost” (Translation Robert and Jean Hollander, Princeton Dante Project, http://etcweb .princeton.edu/dante/pdp/). Where an English translation of the cited verses already exists, it is included. 3  “I find some repose in high mountains / and in savage woods: each inhabited place / is the mortal enemy of my eyes” (transl. A.S. Kline, http://www.poetryintranslation.com/PITBR/ Italian/PetrarchCanzoniere).

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century “three crowns”), it remained fairly stable for centuries. Following Italy’s historically delayed political unification, various factors contributed decisively to the linguistic integration of the nation. Thanks to the reforms inspired by Manzoni, which fostered the actual use of Italian, especially among writers who habitually wrote in a clear style such as Collodi, De Amicis, Artusi (cf. Frosini-Montanari 2012), Salgari (the latter being the least famous, but not the least important; cf. Polimeni 2012), the model has become progressively more widely adopted, especially since Italy became a Republic after World War II. In 2006, 94% of the population was able to understand and use Italian, while obviously maintaining certain regional traits and without abandoning their highly valued native dialects (De Mauro 2014: 116). It is not my intention to verify the presence or quantity of literary elements in contemporary Italian, be it of the varieties referred to as« italiano dell’uso medio, neostandard, italiano nuovo, nuovo italiano, italiano in movimento, lingua in forte ebollizione, lingua in rivoluzione, italiano imbastardito, lingua selvaggia, malalingua », etc. Much could be said about the current trends of Italian, but this is not the right place. 2 Literary Italian did not begin with Dante. The brief reconstruction set out here does not claim to cover all aspects of a thousand-year history (of literature I mean, that of the language being even older). Rather, it shall limit itself to citing a number of significant episodes which, if my judgement is correct, might also provide key indications regarding method. In the beginning, before Dante, there were the Sicilians. For our purposes, their original linguistic guise, a composite language with a strong southern component, is irrelevant; what counts is how these poems came to be read by a wider public, which was thanks to the (so-called) “Tuscanisation” of collections of poems transcribed by Tuscan copyists who recorded the verses of these poets for posterity: V (Vatican City, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, Vat. lat. 3793), L (Florence, Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana, Redi 9, in the two sections usually labelled La and Lb), P (Florence, Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale, B.R. 217, previously Palatino 418), the manuscripts dating to the last quarter of the thirteenth century or the first few years of the fourteenth. Modifying the original texts, the copyists gave them a Tuscan “stamp” that rendered them linguistically closer and more accessible, if not immediately recognisable, to speakers of modern Italian. It was in this form (familiar to him and today to us), that those texts were read by Dante, who spoke highly of them in his De vulgari eloquentia. The process of Tuscanisation at the hands of the copyists tempered many of those poets’ local linguistic features and, at least theoretically, made them more acceptable to a Tuscan ear.

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Carefully considered, some of the lexical data help us to assess the gradual establishment of the tradition of poetic language. Let us perform a search of TLIO for the lemma beltà. Right through the fourteenth century, texts from the various regions display considerable formal variation: beletade, beltá, beltà, beltade, beltadi, beltae, beltat, beltate,4 beutà, bialtade, bieltá, bieltà, bieltade, bieltate, biltá, biltà, biltade, biltadi, biltate. No less intense is the semantic variation, with the following meanings recorded: 1 Qualità di ciò che è bello; il valore estetico delle cose, la conformità e armonia degli aspetti sensibili che suscitano ammirazione o diletto. 1.1 Singoli attributi di bellezza o, in senso collettivo, l’insieme delle qualità estetiche. 1.2 [Con rif. alle qualità interiori, morali e spirituali]. 1.2.1 Singole qualità morali. 1.3 [Personificata]. 2 Donna bella. The geolinguistic distribution of the occurrences is equally significant: the data for the lexeme and its variants are clustered in the northern area (starting with the most ancient, the descort of Raimbaut di Vaqueiras), Tuscany and Umbria. The Mezzogiorno would seem to be excluded, but this is an optical illusion, resulting from TLIO’s grouping of the Sicilian (and SicilianTuscan) pieces together with the “testi toscanizzati”. If we verify directly the poems of the Mondadori edition of 2008 (PSs), we see evidence of the presence of the lexeme, in its various forms, even in verses by the poets of the court of Frederick II, which are clearly of the southern tradition: Giacomo da Lentini, Guiderdone aspetto avere [→1.3] 33, Guido delle Colonne, Gioiosamente canto [→4.2] 49, Iacopo Mostacci, Amor ben veio [→13.2] 21, and Mazzeo di Ricco, Lo gran valore [→19.6] 26 bieltate; Giacomo da Lentini, Madonna à ‘n sé vertute [→1.36] 5 beltate. If we include the Sicilian-Tuscan poets, we have Galletto Pisano, Credeam’essere, lasso! [→26.2] 31 beltà pl.; Tiberto Galliziani, Già lungamente, Amore [→30.2] 8, and Lunardo del Guallacca, Sì come ’l pescio al lasso [→31.1] 71 beltà; and various anonymous authors: Anonymous, Non me ne maraveglio [→49.34] 14, Anonymous, Qualunque donna à pregio [→49.36] 1 bieltate, Anonymous, Un’alegrezza mi vene dal core [→49.50] 11 bieltà. The scale of variation documented in the Sicilian tradition is even greater if we consider not only the textual forms but also those of the critical apparatus. In Giacomo da Lentini, Guiderdone aspetto avere [→1.3] 33, a text taken from manuscript V, the apparatus includes the variants beltate (Ba3 [= Raccolta Bartolini, Florence, Accademia della Crusca, 53]) and beltà (hypometric) (P, Ch [= Vatican City, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, Chigiano L.VIII. 305]); in Guido delle Colonne, Gioiosamente canto [→4.2] 49, also taken from manuscript V, the apparatus contains beltate (Lb); in Mazzeo di Ricco, Lo gran valore [→19.6] 26, taken from manuscript V, the apparatus has the Sicilian form beltati 4  Depending on the interpretations, either an indigenous development or a Provençalism (cf. the presentation of the various possibilities in Cella 2003, 101).

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f.pl. (P); in Galletto Pisano, Credeam’essere, lasso! [→26.2] 31, Tiberto Galliziani, Già lungamente, Amore [→30.2] 8 and Lunardo del Guallacca, Sì come ’l pescio al lasso [→31.1] 71, both taken from La, the apparatus always has bieltà (V). The sample documents the presence of the lemma, with a fair degree of variation, in Italian’s most ancient lyrical tradition, but what is interesting above all are the indications that can be drawn from the comparison between forms in the text and forms in the critical apparatus. This is not a merely quantitative issue but rather the demonstration that from the apparatus we can draw further lexical elements, such as the idiomatic beltati f.pl., a morphologically Sicilian form, not trivial and plausibly original (Mazzeo di Ricco, Lo gran valore [→19.6] 26, an alternative version of P). In addition, it is a simple and effective tool for verifying the behaviour of the copyists at work, as attested by the constant and regular contrast of beltà (preferred in both La and P) and bieltà (preferred in V). Questions of method come into play here, which affect the history of the Italian language and its lexicography. In the famous and still-cited conference in Bologna on Studi e problemi di critica testuale held in 1960, Giovanni Nencioni’s paper5 set out the terms of the issue in exemplary fashion. A good edition, and a fortiori the annotated and technically “critical” edition, tend to establish the individual language of the authors, correcting where necessary the mistakes and arbitrary alterations made by copyists and printers. However, the latter, which for the philologist and editor are quite simply errors to be corrected, for the historian of language and the lexicographer are interpretations – or more narrowly, translations into the language of the copyist, typographer or proof-reader. Although this language is also strictly speaking individual, unless those figures acquire singular importance, it must be accepted as providing a collective testimony of the linguistic customs of the time and place where the manuscript was typographically copied or composed. Nencioni [1961] 1983, 61–26

5  It should be remembered that the works of Nencioni can be downloaded free from the site of the Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa: http://nencioni.sns.it/. An entry in the DBI is dedicated to the great scholar (Lubello 2013). 6  “La buona edizione, e a fortiori l’edizione tecnicamente ‘critica’, tendono a certificare la lingua individuale degli autori, recuperandola, quando è il caso, dalle sviste o dalle manomissioni arbitrarie di copisti e stampatori. Ma quest’ultime, che per il filologo editore sono veri e propri guasti, per lo storico della lingua e per il lessicografo sono interpretazioni o, per tenersi in limiti più specifici, traduzioni nella lingua del copista, del tipografo o del correttore di bozze; la quale, benché sia anch’essa, a rigore, individuale, dovrà rassegnarsi, salvo il caso che quegli individui acquistino un peso singolare, a fungere da testimonianza cosiddetta

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It cannot be said that these reflections, so authoritative and well argued, have ever led to particularly valuable concrete initiatives, but there is always time: new studies can achieve what has yet to be undertaken. And this applies to me as much as anyone. Even editions already published (such as the PSs cited earlier) can be furnished with a glossary created in accordance with scientifically sound criteria (set out in Coluccia 2012; and cf. De Blasi in this volume). I will thus limit myself to adding a few notes and comments. In the PSs annotated edition, the rational classification of the hand-written variants is essential for the constitutio textus of poems attested in more than one manuscript: the criteria for selecting the preferred version, spelt out case by case, must be accompanied by a careful assessment of the form of the published text (which provides a plausible indication but not certainty) and the lexical and semantic variants. The editor will consign to the critical apparatus any material held to be not original but definitely part of the lexical repertoire of the manuscripts that conserve the verses of these poets and more generally the language of the epoch. A rich analytical apparatus, that offers the entire corpus of material belonging to the tradition, in both manuscript and printed form, means documenting the existence and distribution of lemmata in space and time, enabling their acquisition, dating and geographical collocation. In terms of substance, the variability of the tradition attests to the ways in which the texts were distributed across space, time and the various environments. By taking advantage of the possibilities that this situation provides, we may be able to formulate an unusual éloge de la variante [lexicale] in a practical sense, which enables the lemmata to be given due prominence in the apparatus. In this way, they can be included in the lexica of the individual authors7 and in historic and etymological dictionaries of Italian.

collettiva, cioè dell’uso linguistico del tempo e del luogo dove il manoscritto fu copiato o composto tipograficamente”. 7  These criteria are adopted by the project entitled Vocabolario dantesco: la Commedia. The project is managed by a research group set up within the Accademia della Crusca and Opera del Vocabolario Italiano, composed of Paola Manni, Lino Leonardi, Giancarlo Breschi, Rosario Coluccia, Giovanna Frosini, Aldo Menichetti, Mirko Tavoni, all members of the Accademia della Crusca. Some other young scholars work with the first ones. They are: Giuseppe Marrani, Rossella Mosti, Zeno Verlato, copy editors; Francesca De Blasi, Barbara Fanini, Cristiano Lorenzi Biondi, Fiammetta Papi, Veronica Ricotta, editors; Salvatore Arcidiacono, computer scientist. The work is in a pretty good progress (cf. http://dev.ovi .cnr.it/dantesco_redazione/). The structure of the lexicographic item has been established, setting out the appropriate way in which to flag up the lexical variants; and the tools needed for the digital version of the Vocabolario dantesco (a print edition for a broader public is also envisaged) have been created.

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3 Let us broaden our field of observation by listing all the occurrences of the lemmata that indicate the concept of ‘beauty’ in the Sicilian and Sicilian-Tuscan corpora, together with their frequency. The nouns in the lexical family that we are using to exemplify our reasoning demonstrate considerable variation: bellezze f.sing. e f.pl. 46 occurrences (belezze f.s. 1, belezze f. pl. 1, bellezz[e] f.pl. 1); bieltate 15; beltà 8; bellezza 7; beltate 4; bieltà 3; bellesse f.pl. 2; bellore 2 (e bellor 1); bellessa 1; beltade 1; beltati 1, billici 1. While the meanings are all linked to the basic semantic field, their various occurrences are more specific (for this we await De Blasi’s glossary). As for what concerns us here, not all the different lexical realisations are continued in contemporary Italian. Some, of a southern character and too specific, have a rather limited life even in the circles of the literary language or fall into disuse. A never-to-be-repeated case is that of billici (Stefano Protonotaro, Pir meu cori allegrari [→11.3] 21), which in the manuscript is also characterised by the maintenance of the grapheme ‹c› per [t∫], attested in the most ancient Sicilian vulgarisations both at the beginning and in the body of the word (Pagano in PSs, II, 358). Editors would usually be expected to perform a reasoned graphic normalisation; for example, in our case, standardising the oscillations of -z-/zz- to modern spelling (belleza > bellezza).8 However, all the forms are part of the historical reservoir of the language and, to varying degrees, are exploited: most intensely by the versifiers of the 13th and 14th centuries (TLIO) and to a lesser extent by subsequent generations, without notable use outside poetic and literary circles. This is clearly seen with the forms *bellitate LEI 5 935 36– 938 34; bellus LEI 5 955 23–956 36 (for bellezza), 5 972 23–34 (for bellore), 5 972 8  Serianni 2014, 33 and n. 11, finds that the standardisation of agio to aggio is accompanied by the opposite tendency to keep the singular in batuta, dotata, tuta (which is even made to rhyme with distrutta) (Rinaldo d’Aquino, Giamai non mi conforto [→7.6] 45, 22, 32 [ed. A. Comes]), which by the rules of modern Italian spelling should be double. On the latter point, the reasons for the standardisation (which almost inevitably entails inconsistencies) are set out in PSs, III, CXX and (with an intentionally almost identical formulation, emphasising the similarity of viewpoints) in PSs, II, CXVII. The fact is that the otherwise excellent Italian philological tradition can be slow to take heed of the linguistic (and thus the cultural and historic) value of the spellings used in the manuscripts. In addition, the decision to standardise is often justified by invoking a hypothetical “reader of average education” who would be alarmed by the reading of texts that respected the manuscripts’ original writing. These are obviously complex questions, for which the reader is referred to Coluccia (in print).

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36–977 19 (for bellezza. The dialect attestations should mostly be considered as deriving from the standard). Only a part of this lexical armoury finds an echo in Dante. Of the lexical varieties provided by the Sicilians, bellor occurs only in Detto d’Amore (whose attribution to Dante is uncertain); beltà occurs once in Rime; beltate once in Rime; bieltà three times in Fiore (whose attribution to Dante is uncertain) [but in one case it is a proper noun], once in Detto d’Amore, twice in Rime, once in Vita nuova, three times in Convivio; bieltate twice in Fiore [but in one case it is a proper noun], three times in Rime, seven times in Vita nuova [but in three cases it is a proper noun], four times in Convivio; biltate once in Fiore, once in Rime and twice in Convivio. Of all of these, the preferred option by far is bellezza (bellezze pl.), which is the only one used in Commedia (all the others disappear), four times in Purgatorio and seven times in Paradiso, but never in Inferno (surely significant). Together with other forms, bellezza is used six times in Vita nuova, always alluding to Beatrice; in Convivio the lemma recurs thirty times, and in ten of these it has a clearly linguistic reference: the word “bellezza refers twice to Latin, twice to the parts in prose of Convivio and six times to its poetry, anthologised and commented” (Patota 2013, VIII).9 Although the prevalent orientation was by then beginning to emerge, the other possibilities were not hurriedly discarded by the Italian tradition; even the rarelyused bellore, highly valued by the Tuscan-Sicilian Guittone and basically in use in the first quarter of the fourteenth century (TLIO, LEI 5 972 23–34), is reprised in the nineteenth century in Figurine (1st edition 1877) by the Piedmontese Giovanni Faldella: “gli balenavano innanzi tutto il bellore e la degnezza di lei” (BIZ; “first of all the beauty and the dignity of her flashed through him”).10 Petrarch was more selective. Indeed, it fell to him to undertake a drastic reduction of the possibilities, establishing what to keep and what to discard from the legacy bequeathed by the previous generations. It this way he imposed a new set of rules on subsequent poetry, as shown by his much reduced lexical repertoire: we have beltà only eight times in Canzoniere; beltate eight times in Canzoniere and three times in Trionfi; and beltade three times in Canzoniere. 9   “bellezza è associata due volte alla lingua latina, due volte all’assetto formale delle parti in prosa del Convivio e ben sei volte all’assetto formale delle poesie antologizzate e commentate”. 10  Certain late or dialect creations are not relevant to our argument here: the Latinism bellitudine ‘sublime beauty’, of sixteenth-century coinage, which recurs sporadically in ancient Umbrian (1530, Podiani) and subsequently in the dialect of Modena (LEI 5 938 40–7, cf. bellitudo); the Italian bellagine ‘silliness’ [?] (LEI 5 978 11 cf. bellus); the Tuscan belluria ‘apparent beauty’, with attestations from the second half of the eighteenth century (LEI 5 977 37–54 cf. bellus); the Ligurian (and Tuscan) bellozia (and associated forms) ‘beautiful thing or appearance’ (LEI 5 978 1–9 cf. bellus); the Sicilian billia ‘beauty’ (LEI 5 978 10 cf. bellus). Apart from the first, all these forms are rare and of late attestation, often more frequently found in the dictionary than in actual use.

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Naturally predominant (as in Dante) is bellezza (twenty-five occurrences in the singular [twenty in Canzoniere, two of which are personifications; one in Rime Extravaganti, four in Trionfi] and eighteen in the plural [sixteen in Canzoniere and two in Trionfi]). However, this does not imply the elimination of the competing forms, which on the contrary are in some cases preferred by subsequent great poets: “beltà splendea / negli occhi tuoi ridenti e fuggitivi”,11 wrote Leopardi to Silvia, highlighting not simply the beauty of the woman’s eyes, “but that beauty (the idea of beauty) lights up her countenance” (Bruni [2002] 2007, 104).12 An additional consideration: in the Sicilian poets the lexical exuberance that we recorded with regard to ‘bellezza’ is not exceptional. Indeed, the phenomenon is seen in many other semantic fields, as highlighted (by way of example) by the following two lists, which include the frequencies of the forms in the Sicilian and Sicilian-Tuscan corpus: adornezze ‘ornament, beauty’ 14 occurrences; adornamento 1; addornessa 1; adornezza 1. allegranza ‘contentment, happiness’ 35 occurrences; alegranza 24; alegrezza 17; allegrezza 7; allegrezze 4; alegraggio 2; alegramento 2; allegrare (infinitive) m. 2; alligranza 2; alegressa 1; allegresse 1. The multiform wealth of lexemes in the same field is recurrent, customary and therefore structural in the language of the Poets of the Sicilian School. The availability of the lexical resources, obtained thanks to the studied use of suffixes, making it possible to multiply words derived from a single root with an identical or contiguous meaning, is fundamental to the poets’ communication strategy. Indeed, they tend to return to a small number of important concepts and situations, skilfully animating their formal texture. The resources provided by lexical neologisms obtained by the intensive exploitation of multiple suffixes (-aggio, -anza, -enza, -ezza, -mento, -ore, -oso, etc.) and prefixes (di-, dis-, in-, mis-, re-, ri-, s-, sor-)13 provide the poets with a high number of duplicates and variants of identical (or highly similar) semantic value, to be used for stylistically diversifying the text. The growth of the available repertoire is no mere technical artifice serving as an end in itself; rather it makes it possible to systematically apply mechanisms of formal variation to content that is often repetitive. It therefore becomes a key stylistic feature of this type of poetry. 11  “when beauty still shone / in your sidelong, laughing eyes” (transl. A.S. Kline, Giacomo Leopardi. The Canti, http://www.poetryintranslation.com/klineasleopardi.htm). 12  “ma che la bellezza (l’idea della bellezza) ne illumina lo sguardo”. 13  Cf. the lists drawn up by Coletti 1993, 11–3.

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In the subsequent tradition the pattern is not immutable and – we should clarify – does not entail a progressive and endless expansion of the lexical resources; on the contrary, via the cultural pathways that we are reconstructing, with the application of selective procedures by Dante and more intensely by Petrarch, poetic language was to become progressively more honed, specialised and technical. This is confirmed by examination of the different but concordant operational approach, which characterises the search for a language that was valid for poetic communication by the versifiers of the XIII and XIV centuries. In addition to the lexical coinage so skilfully executed by the most ancient poets, there was another technique, rather similar in that it also availed itself of variational mechanisms, which entailed the use of a rhetorical figure of speech labelled “synonymic dittology”, of clear Provençal origin (Elwert 1970). Placing two words of similar meaning in succession has the effect of conceptual enhancement; lexical elements in sequence can also change places, change their constituent parts, acquire adjectives and even increase in number to three or more. We present here some examples that concern us, starting with the poems of Giacomo da Lentini, which may also help to verify any quotations from the leading figure of this school made by the other poets. The pair avenantezze: bellezze recurs in Giacomo da Lentini, Amando lungiamente [→1.12] 44–5 “avenantezze / e somma di bellezze” and, with variations, in Mazzeo di Ricco, Madonna, de lo meo ’namoramento [→19.4] 45–6 «ogni belleze / finalemente e tute avenantezze». Avenantezze is a word of French origin with no southern allotrope (Cella 2003, 329). Whether these and the morphologically similar occurrences that will be cited below are singular (from the suffix -ities, a typically southern form) or plural is something that needs to be assessed case by case. Given the coexistence with the singular pregio, bellezze could also be considered singular in another case of dittology that highlights the inner qualities rather than the physical beauty of the poet’s beloved: Giacomo da Lentini, Poi no mi val merzé [→1.16] 41 “pregio e belleze”, which is not repeated by other poets of the School. From another author is another pair of nouns that we can consider semantically interchangeable with the first pair just described. This pair is also intended to highlight the woman’s physical qualities: Rinaldo d’Aquino, Poi li piace ch’avanzi suo valore [→7.3] 25 “bellezze e adornezze”; Anonymous, Lo dolce ed amoroso placimento [→25.9] 31–2 “la vostra bellezza e la gaia adornezza”. Physical and moral qualities are platonically joined in the famous descort by Re Giovanni, Donna, audite como [→5.1] 72 “di bellezze e di bontate”.14 14  As Brugnolo points out (2014, 61 n. 9), the key troubadourian pair “joi e joven” is manifested in the Italian poets in the entirely exterior and conventional “bellezza e gioventù” (still

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The technique allows for an increasing number of lexemes, introducing new elements that can also be presented in a different order. Piero della Vigna, Amor, da cui move tutora e vene [→10.3] 20 “bellezze ed adornezze e piacimento”; Giacomino Pugliese, Donna, per vostro amore [→17.3] 42–4 “di bellezze / e d’adornezze / e di bello portamento”; Mazzeo di Ricco, Lo gran valore [→19.6] 25–6 “l’angeliche bellezze / e l’adornezze e la vostra bieltate” (“the angelic beauties / and the adornments and your beauty”). The last of these examples demonstrates in an almost exemplary way what we said earlier regarding the broadly interchangeable and fungible nature of lexemes which while differing in form, express the same meaning and are identical in substance. In the trinomial series, Mazzeo di Ricco unabashedly places the two nouns “bellezze” and “bieltate”, for which it is impossible to descry any semantic difference, in first and third place. In combination with the intermediate term “adornezze”, they give rise to a unique sequence that seeks to celebrate the physical qualities of the beloved lady. Placing the lexemes together like this is designed to form a semantic unit that should be considered as a whole (a little bit like what happens, if the comparison is valid, with polyrhematic units). This is confirmed by another case, frequently used by Italian poets (who thereby imitate each other and implicitly cite each other) and even seen in prose (Cella 2003, 207–8). The styleme, of troubadorian origin, means ‘pleasure, joy’: it presents variations which, while arranging key elements of the joy of love (sollazzo, gioco, gioia, riso, ecc.) in different ways maintain a substantially identical meaning (with obvious semantic nuances associated with the various lexemes). Below are some more pairs, with the poets who use them: “sollazzo e gioco” (Giacomo da Lentini, Guido delle Colonne, Anony­ mous, Guglielmo Beroardi, Inghilfredi, Arrigo Baldonasco and two different anonymous authors),15 “sollazzo e bene” (Ruggeri d’Amici, Percivalle Doria / Semprebene da Bologna, Compagnetto da Prato,

seen in Petrarch, Triumphus Mortis I, 35: “[…] O tu, donna, che vai / di gioventute e di bellezze altera”; the so-called “Amico di Dante”, “Friend of Dante”, sees gathered in the beloved woman “giovane bieltade e cortesia, / saver compiuto con perfetto onore” (sonnet Ne l’amoroso affanno 9–10). 15  Giacomo da Lentini, Chi non avesse mai [→ 1.34] 3: “solazzo e gioco”; Guido delle Colonne, Gioiosamente canto [→ 4.2] 59: “Solazo e gioco”; Anonymous, Ancora ch’io sia stato [→ 25.10] 10: “sollazzo e gioco”; Guglielmo Beroardi, Gravosa dimoranza [→ 39.1] 18: “’n solaccio e ’n gioco”; Inghilfredi, Dogliosamente [→ 47D.1] 9: “di sollazzo e d’ogne gioco”; Arrigo Baldonasco, Lo fino amor piacente [→ 48.1] 72: “’l lor solazzo e ’l gioco”; Anonymous, Morte fiera e dispietata [→ 49.5] 21: “’l sollazzo e ’l gioco”.

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Arrigo Baldonasco and two different anonymous authors),16 “sollazzo, ispellamento” (‘conversation’, cf. French espelir) (Anonymous);17 “gioco e solazzo” (two different anonymous authors),18 “gioia e solazzo” (Galletto Pisano, Arrigo Baldonasco),19 “gioia e alegranza” (Tommaso di Sasso, Giacomino Pugliese, Anonimo),20 “gioco e riso” (Anonymous),21 “gioco e allegrezza” (Anonymous).22 The formula enables easy expansions to three-word series: “sollazzo, gioco e riso” (Giacomo da Lentini, Giacomino Pugliese),23 “sollazzo ed allegrare e gioia” (Iacopo Mostacci);24 “sollazzo, / gioco ed ispellamento” (Anonymous).25 Four-word series are also found: “sollazzo e gioco e canti / e compagnia” (Giacomino Pugliese).26 The construction of an extensive repertoire of lexical variants and rhetorical phrases by the Sicilian poets has a genetic explanation but becomes a rhetorical resource; in other words, the flexible exploitation of the available lexical repertoire makes it possible to transform a variational artifice into a 16  Ruggeri d’Amici, Lo mio core [→ 2.2] 10: “sollazzo e tuto bene”; PercDor/Sempreb?, Come lo giorno [→ 21.1] 14: “sollazzo e tuto ben”; Anonymous, Po’ ch’io partìo, amorosa [→ 25.21] 17: “sollazzo e bene”; Compagnetto, Per lo marito ch’ò rio [→ 27.1] 3: “sollazzo e gran bene”; Arrigo Baldonasco, Lo fino amor piacente [→ 48.1] 10: “solacio e tutto bene”; Anonymous, La gran sovrabbondanza [→ 49.24] 5: “d’onni lontan solasso e d’onni bene”. 17  Anonymous, Sì altamente [→ 49.10] 89. 18  Anonymous, Lo dolce ed amoroso placimento [→ 25.9] 10: “in gioco e ’n solazzo”; Anonymous, Donna, lo fino amore [→ 49.7] 37: “gioco e solazzo”. 19  Galletto Pisano, Inn-Alta-Donna [→ 26.1] 3: “gioi e solasso”; Arrigo Baldonasco, Ben è rason [→ 48.2] 9: “in gioia e in solazzo”. 20  Tommaso di Sasso, L’amoroso vedere [→ 3.1] 6: “la gran gioia e l’alegranza”; Giacomino Pugliese, Morte, perché m’ài fatta sì gran guerra [→ 17.1] 9: “la gioia e l’alegranza”; Anonimo, De la primavera [→ 25.2] 63: “gioia ed alegranza”. 21  Anonymous, D’uno amoroso foco [→ 25.24] 7: “gioco e riso”. The prototype would seem to date back as far as Anonymous, Quando eu stava 19: “çogo, risu sempre passce lui” (Stussi 1999, 26 e 31). The existence of any intertextual relationships, whether of Italo-Romance or Provençal origin, still needs to be tackled (though not in this paper). 22  Anonymous, Dispietata Morte e fera [→ 49.6] 11. 23  Giacomo da Lentini, Io m’aggio posto in core [→ 1.27] 4: “sollazzo, gioco e riso”; Giacomino Pugliese, Morte, perché m’ài fatta sì gran guerra [→ 17.1] 11: “sollazzo e gioco e riso”. 24  Iacopo Mostacci, Amor, ben veio [→ 13.2] 18. 25  Anonymous, Quando la primavera [→ 25.8] 59–60. 26  Giacomino Pugliese, Morte, perché m’ài fatta sì gran guerra [→ 17.1] 16–17.

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fundamental poetical tool. In the light of these considerations, it might also be possible to better assess the coexistence of phonetic and morphological variants from different traditions, which I shall refrain from discussing in detail here. In this way, the description of the language becomes a means of verifying the effective communication technique established by the poets of the Sicilian School and inherited by those of subsequent generations. The lexical pairs and sequences created by the former paved the way for the considerably more famous Petrarchan formulae: “solo et pensoso” (“alone and thoughtful”), “a passi tardi et lenti” (“measuring out slow, hesitant paces”), “monti et piagge / et fiumi et selve” (“mountains and river-banks / and rivers and forests”), “fior’, frondi, herbe, ombre, antri, onde, aure soave” (“flowers, leaves, turf, shade, cave, wave, gentle breeze”), etc. There are syntactically more elaborate structures: “fra le vane speranze e ’l van dolore” (“between vain hope and vain sadness”); phrases linked by correlated elements: “spero trovar pietà, nonché perdono” (“I hope to find pity, and forgiveness” [Serianni 2014: 46]) and antonymous groupings: “guerra et pace” (“war and peace”), “in ghiaccio e ‘n foco” (“with ice and fire”), further amplified into “pace non trovo e non ho da far guerra” (“I find no peace, and yet I make no war”) and “ardo et son un ghiaccio” (“and burn, and I am ice”).27 As always, the final decision in the poetic process falls to Petrarch, who turned an often still naïve or uncertain technique into a characteristic feature and a functional resource available to subsequent poets, who would intensely exploit its elementary reproducibility (Colussi 2011, 177). 4 The arrival on the scene of Dante and Petrarch was to have a decisive impact on the development of the Italian poetic language. The Divina Commedia is characterised by an extraordinary capacity for absorbing the most varied contributions: phrases from Latin and Provençal, literary Sicilian and various dialects all directly enter the text. This patchwork is referenced in the highly influential study by Contini, which describes the “plurilinguismo dantesco”. However, this rich “plurilinguismo” was subjected to drastic restructuring by Petrarch, a writer of a younger generation (1303–1374). Despite the tangible elements of continuity between the first and second of these great figures (essential bibliography in Santagata 1996, XLV n. 1; cf. also the more recent Afribo [2003], 2009), this would produce radically different linguistic and stylistic outcomes, although it should be remembered that lyric poetry is selective for reasons that are intrinsic to the genre, a long way from the variety of forms and arguments 27  The translation of the Petrarchan formulae is due to A.S. Kline.

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that characterise the Divina Commedia. Variable in both form and substance, the Divina Commedia has circulated in the most intimate recesses of Italian culture with enormous success, providing – over the centuries – the linguistic reference (literary, ideological, conceptual) for millions of Italians. Specifically, Dante’s text has familiarised non-Tuscans with a language that step by step was to become the language of the whole of Italy. The clearest demonstration of the enormous influence that the Divina Commedia has exerted on Italian is the sheer number of famous phrases of Dantean origin. These are rooted in the language to the point of giving rise to idiomatic expressions and fully-fledged proverbs, often used in ways that are completely disconnected from the original context, with reference to the most varied themes: love, friendship, poetics, politics, memories, life in general, the landscape, states of body and mind and much more besides.28 The language of Petrarch is the result of a demanding selection, the careful sifting of the linguistic inheritance, which simplified and normalised what had been handed down in vivacious, multiple, almost irregular forms, by previous generations, Dante included. Subjected to an impeccable work of formal regularisation, the Canzoniere gradually became the guiding light of lyric poetry in Italy and beyond. The organisation of the individual pieces into a structured body of 366 compositions, the ideal presentation of a love story centred on the life and death of the beloved, generated a model that was adopted for centuries, occasionally with variations (although in this case even variation means substantial adhesion). The verdict (again Contini’s) on Petrarchan monolinguismo (a uniform and highly selective language, of a Florentine stamp, cultivated and measured, not exempt from certain minor features of the Arezzo vernacular [Vitale 1996]), has recently been the target of not wholly unreasonable criticism, which has stressed the innovative (and not simply selective) reach of Petrarch’s choices (Bozzola 2012, 35–43). However that may be, that particular language became a prototype that was practised and imitated, even by exceptional figures, to the point that at times it is difficult to distinguish the model from its variants, despite being attributed to great poets separated by many centuries. The attribution of canonical status to the two poetic crowns was not instantaneous, nor is it unanimous; the history of the language after the fourteenth century contains numerous rejections, criticisms, proposed exclusions and revisions, and even parodies aimed at one or other of the two. 28  Tavoni 2010–2011; the list of dantismi (attributed to F. Rossi) is on pp. 330–4. The list (obviously incomplete) does not include “capo ha cosa fatta” (Inf. XXVIII, 107–8). In the variant “cosa fatta capo ha”, the phrase is attested by diarists and historiographers from the first years of the fourteenth century onwards. Cropping up repeatedly in subsequent centuries, albeit with semantic nuances differing from the original, it gradually became widely used and is almost proverbial in contemporary Italian (Coluccia 2004).

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There are frequent suggestions that the linguistic choices were no more than the adoption of pre-existing models, of whatever provenance, rather than the autonomously determined acts of the speakers and writers. However the main (and in the end the victorious) trajectory is clear: in the field of the written language the influence of Dante and Petrarch is enormous, deciding the destiny of the Italian language over the centuries. The spoken language is another thing entirely, with its various local and dialect identities, all differing from each other, each having its own history, autonomous from that of the written language, within a context of uninterrupted contacts and exchanges between the many linguistic worlds active on the Italian scene. It was only in the second half of the twentieth century that the two fundamental forms, written and spoken, were finally reunited and Italy became linguistically more cohesive. 5 A popular anthology of Umberto Eco of 2004 fairly ambitiously sought to reconstruct the Storia della bellezza via the images of hundreds of pictorial masterpieces from all ages and a vast anthology of texts from Pythagoras down to modern times. The book was intended to illustrate the ways in which the beauty of nature – whether it be flowers, animals, the human body, stars, mathematical ratios, light, precious stones, clothes, God and the Devil – has been conceived over time. It clearly cannot be said that the aspiration to define beauty has gone out of fashion. Pasquale Sorrentino did this, in his own way, in his hit film of 2013, and Giuseppe Patota pursued the same objective in his study of the works of the three great fourteenth-century authors, whose title deliberately recalled that of Sorrentino’s film. There is a precedent that I shall cite here because it refers directly to language. In the Confessions of Felix Krull, the hotel manager Stürtzli, who speaks “a German tinted with Swiss”, questions Krull, who hopes to be hired as a bellboy: the job interview is supposed to verify the candidate’s knowledge of languages, a necessary qualification for the post. Mann’s novel naturally is in German, but in the context, the characters directly converse in various languages. Asked by the manager if he knows French, the would-be bellboy quickly responds: “Cette langue de l’elegance, de la civilisation, de l’ésprit, elle est la langue de la conversation, la conversation elle-même”. The question about his knowledge of English gets the following response (here transcribed only partially): “I certainly do, Sir. Of course, Sir, quite naturally I do. […] In my opinion, English is the language of the future, Sir”. And regarding his knowledge of the Italian he states: “Ma signore, che cosa mi domanda? Sono innamorato di questa bellissima lingua, la più bella del mondo. Ho bisogno soltanto d’aprire la mia bocca e involontariamente diventa

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il fonte di tutta l’armonia di quest’idioma celeste. Si, caro signore, per me non c’è dubbio che gli angeli del cielo parlano italiano. Impossibile d’immaginare che queste beate creature si servano d’una lingua meno musicale”.29 The concluding adjective, ‘musicale’, unwittingly prefigures the famous formula coined decades later by Gianfranco Folena, which labels Italian as the true and proper “language for music”.30 The preceding superlative, “bellissima lingua, la più bella del mondo”, returns in a somewhat unusual way to the theme of beauty that has marked this entire volume. The stereotype confers, with no need for explanations, the marque of beauty on our language: in the eighteenth century such an assurance was “una certezza di massa da ‘Guide bleu’”.31 But I can assure you that I have heard similar words even in our times. The link between Italy, its language and “beauty” (in its diverse manifestations) recalls the success that the Italian approach to life has often had in the world, perhaps even beyond our merits:32 this should induce a certain optimism, even in objectively difficult moments, for the language and for everything else. On this hopeful note, perhaps a little rash but aspiring to elegance nonetheless, I would like to close this paper. Acknowledgements I thank George Metcalf for the English translation of the text. Special thanks are due to Giovanna Alfonzetti, who provided valuable insight on controversial and particularly difficult points.

29  Mann 1965, 141. The episode is recalled by Stammerjohann 2010, 630 and taken up by the same author again in Stammerjohann 2013, 270. An extended citation of the passage, with an articulate commentary, is to be found in Giovanardi - Trifone 2012, 11–12. 30  The formula, extremely successful and reused in various ways in subsequent studies, is from Folena 1983, the whole of Chapter III, 219–355 (which contains essays composed in different periods) is entitled Una lingua per la musica. The same title of Folena’s article returns in the third edition of the Piazza della lingue, dedicated to Folena; cf. Maraschio – De Martino – Stanchina 2012. In the latter work, the essay by Leso (2012, 17) lists various writings dedicated to the language of music that explicitly take Folena’s work as their starting point. A fully-fledged line of enquiry containing studies by various subsequent scholars is the subject of Covino 2014, 41. 31   ‘A common and widely-held opinion’ (De Mauro [1963] 200810, 277, cited by Stammerjohann 2013, 270 and also taken up by Patota 2015, VII). 32  Opinions on this point are not unanimous. It is however a fact that Italian food, fashion, architecture and culture in general have enjoyed success all over the world, even in recent years. And cf., specifically for music, Bonomi - Coletti 2015.

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References Afribo, Andrea. [2003], 2009. La rima nei Fragmenta. In Id., Petrarca e petrarchismo. Capitoli bilingui, stile e metrica. Carocci: Roma, 35–118. BIZ = Stoppelli, Pasquale (testi a cura di). 2010. Biblioteca Italiana Zanichelli. DVD-ROM. Zanichelli: Bologna, 2010. Bonomi, Ilaria e Coletti, Vittorio (a cura di). 2015. L’italiano della musica nel mondo. Accademia della Crusca-goWare: Firenze. Bozzola, Sergio. 2012. La lirica. Dalle origini a Leopardi. Il Mulino: Bologna. Brugnolo, Furio. 2014. “‘… esta bella pargoletta’. L’amore “giovane” nella lirica italiana antica e in Dante.” Deutsches Dante-Jahrbuch 89: 55–82. Bruni, Francesco. [2002] 2007. L’italiano letterario nella storia. Il Mulino: Bologna. Cella, Roberta. 2003. I gallicismi nei testi dell’italiano antico (dalle origini alla fine del sec. XIV ). Presso l’Accademia della Crusca: Firenze. Coletti, Vittorio. 1993. Storia dell’italiano letterario. Dalle origini al Novecento. Einaudi: Torino. Coluccia, Chiara. 2004. “‘Cosa fatta capo ha’. Origine e storia di una locuzione.” Lingua Nostra LXV: 73–82. Coluccia, Rosario. 2012. “Il glossario dei Poeti della Scuola siciliana.” Bollettino del Centro di Studi Filologici e Linguistici Siciliani 23: 25–42. Coluccia, Rosario. in print. “Grafia dei testi e grafia delle edizioni.” In Scritti per Nicoletta Maraschio («Acciò che’l nostro dire sia ben chiaro»), a cura di Marco Biffi, Francesca Cialdini e Raffaella Setti. Firenze: Le Lettere. Colussi, Davide. 2011. Figure della diligenza. Costanti e varianti del Tasso lirico nel canzoniere Chigiano L VIII 302. Antenore: Roma-Padova. Contini, Gianfranco. [1977, 1986] 2007. “Filologia.” In Frammenti di filologia romanza. Scritti di ecdotica e linguistica (1932–1989), a cura di Giancarlo Breschi, 2 voll: I, 3–62. Firenze: Edizioni del Galluzzo per la Fondazione Ezio Franceschini. Covino, Sandra. 2014. I maestri di Gianfranco Folena e la storia della lingua italiana oggi. In Lingue, testi, culture. L’eredità di Folena vent’anni dopo. Atti del XL Convegno Interuniversitario (Bressanone, 12–15 luglio 2012), a cura di Ivano Paccagnella e Elisa Gregori. Esedra: Padova, 27–48. DBI = Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani. Istituto dell’Enciclopedia Italiana: Roma, 1960–. De Mauro, Tullio. [1963] 200810. Storia linguistica dell’Italia unita. Laterza: Bari. De Mauro, Tullio. 2014. Storia linguistica dell’Italia repubblicana. Laterza: Roma-Bari. Eco, Umberto. 2004. Storia della bellezza. Milano: Bompiani. Elwert, Theodor. 1970. “Per una valutazione dell’elemento provenzale nel linguaggio della scuola poetica italiana.” In Saggi di letteratura italiana, 29–56. F. Steiner: Wiesbaden.

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Folena, Gianfranco. 1983. L’italiano in Europa. Esperienze linguistiche del Settecento, Einaudi, Torino. Frosini, Giovanna e Montanari, Massimo (a cura di). 2012. Il secolo artusiano, Atti del Convegno (Firenze-Forlimpopoli, 30 marzo–2 aprile 2011). Accademia della Crusca: Firenze. Giovanardi, Claudio e Trifone, Pietro. 2012. L’italiano nel mondo. Carocci: Roma. LEI = Pfister, Max e Schweickard, Wolfgang (a cura di). Lessico Etimologico Italiano. Reichert: Wiesbaden, 1979–. Leso, Erasmo. 2012. “‘L’italiano in Europa’ trent’anni dopo.” In Maraschio, De Martino, e Stanchina (2012), 11–25. Lubello, Sergio. 2013. “Nencioni, Giovanni.” In DBI 78, 220–3. Mann, Thomas. 1965. Confessioni del cavaliere d’industria Felix Krull. Milano: Mondadori. Maraschio, Nicoletta, De Martino, Domenico e Stanchina, Giulia (a cura di). 2012. L’italiano in Europa, Atti dell’Accademia della Crusca (Firenze, 6–7 maggio 2011). Accademia della Crusca: Firenze. Nencioni, Giovanni. [1961] 1983. “Filologia e lessicografia a proposito della ‘variante’.” In id., Di scritto e di parlato. Discorsi linguistici. Zanichelli: Bologna, 57–65. Patota, Giuseppe. 2015. La grande bellezza dell’italiano. Dante, Petrarca, Boccaccio. Giuseppe Laterza & figli: Roma-Bari. Polimeni, Giuseppe (a cura di). 2012. Sui flutti color dell’inchiostro. Le avventure linguistiche di Emilio Salgari. Edizioni Santa Caterina: Pavia. PSs = Antonelli, Roberto (a cura di), Di Girolamo, Costanzo (dir.), e Coluccia, Rosario (dir.). 2008. Poeti della Scuola siciliana, 3 voll. Mondadori: Milano. Santagata, Marco (a cura di). 1996. Francesco Petrarca, Canzoniere. Mondadori: Milano. Serianni, Luca. 2014. “Lirica.” In Storia dell’italiano scritto. I. Poesia, a cura di Giuseppe Antonelli, Matteo Motolese, Lorenzo Tomasin, 27–83. Roma: Carocci. Simone, Raffaele (a cura di). 2010–2011. Enciclopedia dell’Italiano, comitato scientifico Gaetano Berruto e Paolo D’Achille. Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana: Roma, vol. I (A–L) 2010, vol. II (M–Z) 2011. Stammerjohann, Harro. 2010a. Immagine dell’italiano, in Simone (a cura di). 2010–2011. I, 627–30. Stammerjohann, Harro. 2013. La lingua degli angeli. Italianismo, italianismi e giudizi sulla lingua italiana. Accademia della Crusca: Firenze (III cap. dedicated to Giudizi sulla lingua italiana, 135–73). Tavoni, Mirko. 2010–2011. “Dante.” In Simone. 2010–2011. I (A–L), 329–37. TLIO = Tesoro della lingua italiana delle origini (www.ovi.cnr.it). Vitale, Maurizio. 1996. La lingua del Canzoniere (Rerum vulgarium fragmenta) di Francesco Petrarca. Antenore: Padova.

chapter 2

“Bellezze ed adornezze e piacimento”: The Concept of Beauty in the Sicilian School Francesca De Blasi The aim of the present research is to investigate the crucial role played by Beauty in the Sicilian and Siculo-Tuscan poetic tradition. This study arose from working on the Lessico dei Poeti della Scuola siciliana, a complete and annotated glossary, currently being prepared for publication by myself 1 with reference to Antonelli, Coluccia and Di Girolamo, 2008. Starting from a lexicological study, the work will analyse all the occurrences of the term bellezza – as well as the word family to which this term belongs – and its synonyms, metaphors and personifications. Special attention will also be paid to concepts that appear to be strongly connected to Beauty. It will reveal the existence of a vocabulary of Beauty and will illustrate the importance of Beauty in Sicilian poetic works and, more specifically, in the Sicilian poets’ representation of amorous relationships. As a result, it will also highlight the significance of Beauty in the act of poetic creation itself.2 1

Beauty and Love

As is commonly known, the main theme of the earliest Sicilian poetry, with some exceptions,3 is the so-called fin’amor – inspired by the lyrics of the troubadours – that makes the poet sing of his great and unconditional love for his woman. However, considering that Beauty is the driving force of Love, it 1  The glossary of the Sicilian School was the subject of a thesis for the PhD in “Lingue, Letterature e Culture moderne e classiche” at the University of the Salento (Lecce, Italy) and in “Sciences du Langage” at the University of Lorraine (Nancy, France). All translations are mine, except where indicated otherwise. 2  It should be pointed out that in this context I will deal only with the theme of Beauty in Courtly love, without going into this broad and complex subject in depth. The scope of this study will not go beyond lyrical conventions, meaning that I will not tackle meta-literary and political issues such as the feudal nature of love relationships (cf. for example Mancini 1993) or the sincerity of this kind of love. 3  Such as Cielo d’Alcamo’s Rosa fresca aulentissima, the anonymous lyric Amor, non saccio a cui di voi mi chiami, Lunardo del Guallacca’s Sì come ’l pescio al lasso, etc.

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may be said that it is precisely the concept of beauty that stands out in Sicilian poems. But how does such an intense feeling begin? And what really initiates Love? According to Andrea Cappellano in De Amore: there are five means by which it may be acquired: a beautiful figure, excellence of character, extreme readiness of speech, great wealth, and the readiness with which one grants that which is sought. But we hold that love may be acquired only by the first three, and we think that the last two ought to be banished completely from Love’s court.4 Sicilian poetry speaks both of the madonna’s moral virtues and of her physical beauty, both essential in the phenomenology of love, but which comes first in originating the feeling of love? With regard to troubadours, Moshé Lazar wonders: “Mais sont-ce bien les qualités spirituelles et les vertus morales de la dame qui éveillent la fin’amors dans le coeur du troubadour? Est-ce sa beauté d’âme, avant tout, qui lui inspire son désir et son chant? Non pas”.5 He clarifies: “L’amour naît de la contemplation du corps de la dame, de la blancheur éclatante de sa peau, de la douceur troublante de son regard, etc.”.6 Therefore, love arises after seeing a woman and contemplating her beauty. Although it is unlikely one will find elaborate philosophical speculation in the works of either the troubadours or the Sicilian poets, it is still possible to identify a keenly debated interpretation of love and, consequently, an aesthetically aware point of view. Whether love arises from sight and then grows in the poet’s heart or is born in the poet’s heart and is nurtured by the madonna’s beauty is one of the main questions7 that the troubadours sought to resolve, and they did so 4  Transl. by Parry, 1960, 33. “Nunc igitur sequenti restat loco videre, quibus modis amor sit acquirendus. Et quorundam fertur narrare, doctrina quinque modos esse, quibus amor acquiritur, scilicet: formae venustate, morum probitate, copiosa sermonis facundia, divitiarum abundantia et facili rei petitae concessione. Sed nostra quidem credit opinio, tantum tribus prioribus modis amorem acquiri, duos autem ultimos modos omnino credimus ab aula propulsandos amoris, sicut mea tibi suo loco doctrina monstrabit” (Trojel 1892). An anonymous translation of the text, taken from the Barberiniano-Latino codex, reads: “Aliquanti dicono che in cinque modi s’aquista amore, cioè per bellezza, per belli costumi e per savere bene parlare e per ricchezza e se la femina si dà tosto a l’uomo. Ma mia sentenzia è di tre primi modi che l’amore s’acquisti, e non per li due ultimi”. Both the Latin and the vernacular texts appear in Ruffini 1980 (16–7). 5  Lazar 1964, 64. 6  Ibidem. Cf. also Catenazzi 1977. 7  Although this literary genre is not deeply influenced by Scholasticism, it is important to remember that Thomas Aquinas, considering Beauty from a subjective perspective in contrast to the objective stance of his teacher Albert the Great, had said: “pulchra enim dicuntur quae visa placent”. One of his sources, Augustine, asks explicitly in De vera religione

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by means of the tenso8 (a song in which two or more poets defend opposing positions) or partimen (a special type of tenso), while Sicilian poets used the corresponding form, the tenzone.9 The more widely accepted position was the exterior visio thesis, based on the well-known Ovidian theory according to which love comes from the sight of a woman’s beauty,10 perfectly expressed in Aimeric de Peguilhan’s text: “[…] Amos es fina benevolensa / Que nays del cor e dels huelhs, sens duptar, / Que l’huelh la fan florir e·l cor granar” (“Love is fine kindness that comes from the heart and the eyes, doubtless, the eyes make it flourish and the heart makes it produce fruit”).11 These verses recall the anonymous Sicilian poet who wrote Con gran disio pensando lungamente, which says: “E par che da verace piacimento / lo fino amor discenda, / guardando quel ch’al cor torni piacente; / che poi ch’on guarda cosa di talento, / al cor pensieri abonda / e cresce con disio imantenente, / e poi dirittamente / fiorisce e mena frutto”12 (“It seems that love arises from true delight, gazing at what appeals to the heart, because when you look at something special, the heart is inspired and desire grows and then love blooms and yields its fruit”, my transl.). The same theme is analysed by Mazzeo di Ricco, who talks about a natural law of attraction: “guardate lo vostro amoroso viso, / l’angeliche bellezze / e l’adornezze e la vostra bieltate, / e sarete sicura / che la vostra bellezze mi c’invita / per forza, come fa la calamita / quando l’aguglia tira per natura”13 (“Look at your lovely face, your angelic qualities, your delicate features and your beauty and you can be sure that your beauty will draw me perforce, like a magnet attracts the needle”, my transl.). Again with reference to natural attraction, the anonymous writer of Lo folle ardimento m’à conquiso gives us the simile of the moth attracted to a flame: “Che similmente vostra gran bieltate / seguir mi face la folle natura / del parpaglione che fere lo foco”14 (“In the same way, your great beauty drives me to imitate the madness of the butterfly, when it enters the flame” my transl.).   whether things are beautiful because they give delight, or whether they give delight because they are beautiful; he emphatically opts for the latter. But the troubadours and Sicilian poets launched a new literary (but not philosophical) season driven by a new sensitivity for the passion of love and a new consciousness of poetic invention. 8   A good example is the partimen between Giraut de Salignac and Peironet, in which the former affirms that it is the heart that generates and maintains love, and the latter that it is the eyes (cf. De Riquer 1975). 9   Cf. Fratta 1996. 10  Cf. Spampinato Beretta 1991. 11  Transl. by Shepard and Chambers 1950, 33–5. 12  An 25.26, 12–19. All the texts of Sicilian and Siculo-Tuscan poems (and the abbreviations used for reference) are taken from: Antonelli, Coluccia and Di Girolamo 2008. 13  MzRic 19.6, 24–30. 14  An 49.35, 9–10.

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Giacomo da Lentini in Amore è un disio che ven da core also insists on the relationship between vision, pleasure and love, trying to rationalise his point of view in his answer in the famous tenzone with Iacopo Mostacci and Piero della Vigna.15 While the two ponder the true nature of Love and whether it is visible and physical, Giacomo da Lentini chooses areas of investigation that are closer to our concerns: the aetiology and phenomenology of amorous passion. The poet shows how falling in love comes the from sight of the beautiful madonna and he explains how, through the eyes of the lover, the woman is represented in his heart, where the newborn Love is first fed. His verses illustrate his point of view well and indeed, they would become a model for subsequent poets. He states: Love is a desire which comes from the heart through an abundance of great pleasure; but the eyes first generate love, and the heart gives it nourishment. Truly, at times a man is a lover without seeing his beloved, but that love which brings torment with great furor has its source in what the eyes are seeing: for the eyes report to the heart everything they see, both good and bad, the way it is formed in a natural manner; and the heart, which receives this, contemplates the images and finds pleasure in that desire: and this love prevails among the people.16 Falling in love often happens at first sight, as with the anonymous Siculo-Tuscan who starts his poem with the following verses: “Sol per un bel sembiante / 15  Cf. Picone 2003. 16  Transl. by Jensen 1986, 135. GiacLent 1.19c: “Amor è uno disio che ven da core / per abondanza di gran piacimento, / e li occhi imprima generan l’amore / e lo core li dà nutricamento. / Ben è alcuna fiata om amatore / senza veder so ’namoramento, / ma quell’amor che stringe con furore / da la vista de li occhi à nascimento, / che li occhi rapresentan a lo core / d’onni cosa che veden bono e rio, / com’è formata naturalemente; / e lo cor, che di zo è concepitore, / imagina, e piace quel disio: / e questo amore regna fra la gente.” Many Sicilian poets support the opposite theory, well expressed in the following anonymous verses (An 49.58, 1–6): “S’a torto voglio gli ochi giudicare, / inver’ di lor nonnaio dritta fede, / che ’l core è quello che mi face amare; / e provo al core ch’egli è quel che ’l vede / e gli ochi a·cciò neiente ànno che fare, / se non quanto lo core lor concede” (“If I seek to condemn my own eyes, in truth I do not trust them, because it is the heart that makes me love, and I feel in my heart that he is the one who sees, and eyes have nothing to do with it, except what the heart gives them”, my transl.).

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mi misi ’n aventura”17 (“Only for a beautiful face did I venture”, my transl.) and later confirms: “De la vostra bieltate / naque la segnoria, / la quale m’ave in ballia e ’n sua potestate”18 (“The power that controls and dominates me comes from your beauty” my transl.).19 In Pucciandone Martelli’s Madonna, voi isguardando senti’ Amore (PuccMart 46.5), we find the same topic but with a slight difference: it is not the figure of the beloved woman that enters the poet’s heart, but the personification of Love itself, which in this poem – as Berisso (in Antonelli, Coluccia, Di Girolamo, 2008) remarks – plays an even more important role than the woman.20 Whenever the beloved woman appears in the poet’s vision, a number of feelings and physical sensations inspired by Love stir the poet’s body and heart. These feelings include delight, as the anonymous Siculo-Tuscan poet tells us: “Se dilletto e piacere / ò sol de la veduta, / tanto che divisare / cor d’omo nol poria, / né lingua profferere”21 (“On seeing you, delight and pleasure arise, so that a man’s heart cannot reason and his tongue cannot speak”, my transl.). Every other desire fades away, as Protonotaro remarks: “In the same manner, it is sweet to me to see my lady: / for when looking at her, I forget / all the worry I may have, / so suddenly does her love strike me, with a blow that becomes ever more powerful” (transl. by Jansen 1986, 85).22 Love paralyses the body (“Through my eyes, you steal my heart so suddenly that all my other senses are numb”,23 my transl.) and weakens the mind: “The beauty that manifests itself in you, / torments me, and so does the look / on your face. / Your pleasing figure 17  An 49.11, 1–4. 18   Ibid., 25–7. 19  And also PVign 10.4, 25–7: “non avea miso mente / a lo viso piagente, e poi guardai / in quello punto ed io m’inamorai” (“I had not noticed that pretty face, then I looked at it and I fell in love”); GuidoCol 4.2, 49–50: “La vostra gran bieltate / m’à·ffatto, donna, amare / e lo vostro ben fare / m’à·ffatto cantadore” (“Your beauty made me love and your admirable qualities made me a poet”); here, if Beauty generates Love, this generates a poetical feeling that encourages one to sing. BonDiet 41.2, 7–10: “Così, primeramente ch’eo guardai / lo vostro chiar visaggio, / che splende più che raggio, / distrettamente, donna, inamorai” (“So as soon as I looked at the purity of your face shining brighter than the sun, immediately I fell in love”). On this topic, cf. Picchio Simonelli 1982, 222–3. 20  PuccMart 46.5, 1–10: “Madonna, voi isguardando senti’ Amore, / che dentro da lo core / mi fue molto piacente, / cotanto umilemente / inver’ me si mostrao. / Ver’ lui mi misi a gir con gran baldore / credendo aver bonore / da·llui, al meo vivente. / Ello veracemente / di voi m’innamorao” (“My Lady, looking at you, I felt Love, that pleased me deep in the heart, when he so humbly showed himself to me. I went to meet him with great joy, thinking that I would have happiness for my life. And he made me fall deeply in love with you”). 21  An 49.21, 49–53. 22  StProt 11.3, 32–6: “Cusì m’è dulci mia donna vidiri: / ke ’n lei guardando mettu in ublïanza / tutta altra mia intindanza, / sì ki istanti mi feri sou amuri / d’un culpu ki inavanza tutisuri”. 23  An 49.102, 3–5: “per li occhi miei, subitamente [… -ore] / furastemi lo core, in tal manera / che·ll’altre membra non ànno sentore”.

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breaks my heart: / when I think of you, / my courage falters and turns to ice” (transl. by Jensen 1986, 31).24 The feeling can even drive the lover crazy, as in the anonymous D’Amor volendo traerne intendimento, in which the poet treats the word amor as an acronym to be revealed, arriving at the phrase animo mosso oltra ragione25 (“soul moved beyond reason”, my transl.). Pleasant or not, the same effects of love are felt even in the lady’s absence, simply by remembering her: “The memory makes me desire and desire makes me listless” (my transl.).26 And yet, “And though I may be trapped in woe, just by remembering you, I feel joy” (my transl.).27 In the phenomenology of love, Beauty is one of the necessary conditions for desire and love to develop in the lover’s heart; without beauty there can be no courtesy and without courtesy there can be no courtly love. But what really is “beauty”, and how is it expressed in poetry? While considerable attention is paid to the lady’s physical features, her beauty remains vague and indeterminate. How is this reflected in the vocabulary of Sicilian poetry? 2

The Vocabulary of Beauty

The corpus of Sicilian and Siculo-Tuscan poems in Antonelli, Coluccia and Di Girolamo (2008) contains 5 lexemes with the root bel-:28 84 occurrences of the 24  GiacLent 1.3, 49–50: “Le bellezze che ’n voi pare / mi distringe, e lo sguardare / de la cera; / la figura piacente / lo core mi diranca, / quando voi tegno mente / lo spirito mi manca e torna in ghiaccio”. Giacomo’s verses are echoed by those of Guido delle Colonne (4.5, 39–46): “Eo v’amo tanto che mille fïate / inn-un’or si m’arranca / lo spirito che manca, / pensando, donna, le vostre beltate; / e lo disïo ch’ò lo cor m’abranca, / crescemi volontate, / mettemi ’n tempestate / ogna penseri, che mai non si stanca” (“I love you so much that a thousand times / an hour my spirit / wearies and falters, / thinking, my lady, of your beauty; / and the desire I feel oppresses my heart, / my passion grows, / and my desire fills with anguish / each and every thought, since it never wearies”, Jensen 1986, 47). 25  An 49.96, 9–14: “Lo Dio d’Amor, in ciò ben dicer posso, / ’n quattro diverse lettere si pone / e s’intende gramaticalemente: / per A dico animo, per M dico mosso, / per O dico oltra e de R fo ragione / se son congiunti fanno amore [… -ente]” (“The God of Love, this I can surely say, is expressed in four different letters and you can understand it in terms of grammar: A is for animo (soul), M is for mosso (moved), O is for oltra (beyond) and R is for ragione (reason), together they produce amor (love)”). 26  IacMost 13.3, 43–4: “La rimembranza / mi fa disïare / e lo disïo mi face languire”. 27  An 49.24, 58–9: “E possa ch’eo in pene me contegno, / per sol membrar di voi, e prendo gioia”. 28  Regarding the other word families of Latin origin that are semantically close to the idea of beautiful, in our corpus of texts there are no words that derive from the Latin bases pulcher, formosus, lepidus, venustus. For further information about the situation in ancient French, cf. Duchacek 1978, 287–98.

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adjective bello,29 the base of the word family, 68 occurrences of the noun bella,30 60 of the noun bellezza,31 31 of the noun beltà32 and 3 of the noun bellore.33 The adjective bello, narrowly considered in terms of the sense of sight, describes a person (or an object) with harmonious features and pleasant visual qualities. More broadly, overlooking the aesthetic domain, the adjective has a more 29   Bello: Giacomo da Lentini 1.2, 45; 1.2, 58; 1.5, 48; 1.5, 118; 1.5, 138; 1.12, 39; 1.12, 70; 1.13, 45; 1.14, 6; 1.14, 33; 1.27, 11; 1.27, 12; 1.28, 2; 1.28, 9; 1.35, 12; Guido delle Colonne 4.4, 15; 4.4, 29; Re Giovanni 5.1, 60; Rinaldo d’Aquino 7.1, 37; 7.1, 37; 7.5, 6; 7.10, 16; Piero della Vigna 10.2, 13; 10.4, 18; Iacopo d’Aquino 12.1, 8; Federico II 14.2, 36; 14.3, 33; 14.3, 48; 14.3, 52; Ruggerone da Palermo 15.2, 20; Cielo d’Alcamo 16.1, 60; 16.1, 144; Giacomino Pugliese 17.1, 33; 17.1, 34; 17.2, 19; 17.3, 44; 17.4, 14; Re Enzo 20.1, 23; Percivalle Doria/Semprebene? 21.1, 9; 21.1, 2; 21.1a, 34; 21.1a, 38; Percivalle Doria 21.2, 15; Folco di Calavra 22.1, 12; An 25.1, 17; An 25.2, 64; An 25.7, 39; An 25.12, 11; An 25.15, 4; An 25.21, 29; An 25.22, 19; An 25.23, 62; An 25.24, 38; Galletto Pisano 26.2, 27; 26.2, 58; Tiberto Galliziani 30.1, 22; 30.2, 7; Bartolomeo Mocati 35.1, 17; Carnino Ghiberti 37.2, 50; Guglielmo Beroardi 39.1, 33; 39.2, 18; Maestro Francesco 42.8, 11; Inghilfredi 47.1, 27; An 49.1, 62; An 49.3, 12; An 49.3, 16; An 49.3, 45; An 49.4, 31; An 49.4, 32; An 49.7, 26; An 49.7, 27; An 49.11, 1; An 49.11, 44; An 49.13, 16; An 49.16, 29; An 49.17, 3; An 49.20, 59; An 49.31, 7; An 49.36, 9; An 49.50, 10; An 49.56, 10; An 49.63, 10; An 49.99, 3; An 49.99, 14. 30   Bella: Giacomo da Lentini 1.1, 4; 1.1, 56; 1.1, 66; 1.2, 7; 1.2, 21; 1.2, 39; 1.4, 9; 1.4, 42; 1.5, 64; 1.5, 153; 1.6, 21; 1.8, 29; 1.20, 14; 1D.1, 5; 1D.1, 14; Ruggeri d’Amici 2.2, 17; 2.2, 21; 2.2, 30; Tommaso di Sasso 3.1, 43; Odo delle Colonne 6.1, 28; Rinaldo d’Aquino 7.7, 26; 7.7, 29; 7.9, 3; Piero della Vigna 10.2, 2; 10.2, 23; Iacopo Mostacci 13.1, 25; 13.2, 47; Cielo d’Alcamo 16.1, 25; 16.1, 35; 16.1, 92; 16.1, 115; Giacomino Pugliese 17.1, 59; 17.2, 34; 17.5, 2; 17.6, 19; 17.8, 5; 17.8, 9; 17.8, 5; 17.8, 7; 17.8, 9; 17.8, 30; 17.8, 33; 17.8, 54; Mazzeo di Ricco 19.2, 24; Percivalle Doria/Semprebene? 21.1a, 25; An 25.2, 23; An 25.2, 29; An 25.2, 42; An 25.2, 56; An 25.14, 50; An 25.17, v. 2; An 25.17, 7; An 25.17, 33; An 25.17, 36; An 25.19, 8; An 25.21, 18; Compagnetto da Prato 27.1, 46; Carnino Ghiberti 37.1, 5; Petri Morovelli 38.1, 30; 38.3, 4; MaestroFrancesco 42.6, 8; An 49.10, 29; An 49.10, 50; An 49.21, 9; An 49.32, 5; An 49.36, 2; An 49.43, 11; An 49.102, 12. 31   Bellezza: Giacomo da Lentini 1.2, 48; 1.3, 35 e 46; 1.8, 23; 1.35, 7; 1.9, 6; 1.12, 45; 1.13, 44; 1.16, 41; 1.37, 6; 1D.2, 10; Tommaso di Sasso 3.1, 48; Guido delle Colonne 4.4, 27; Re Giovanni 5.1, 72; Rinaldo d’Aquino 7.3, 25; 7.4, 12; 7.8, 3; Piero della Vigna 10.3, 20 e 56; 10.5, 59; Stefano Protonotaro 11.1, 67; 11.3, 21; Iacopo Mostacci 13.6, 23; Federico II 14.3, 36; Cielo d’Alcamo 16.1, 47; Giacomino Pugliese 17.1, 3 e 32; 17.3, 42 e 90; Mazzeo di Ricco 19.4, 45; 19.6, 25 e 28; Percivalle Doria/Semprebene? 21.1, 20, 23 e 26; Iacopo 24.1, 33; An 25.2, 70 e 105; 25.9, 30 e 31; Compagnetto da Prato 27.2, 28; Tiberto Galliziani 30.1, 80; 30.2, 10; Betto Mettefuoco 32.1, 72; Guglielmo Beroardi 39.2, 45; Maestro Francesco 42.1, 15; Pucciandone Martelli 46.2, 9; Inghilfredi 47.1, 10; An 49.4, 32 e 33; 49.5, 7; 49.7, 23; 49.10, 33; 49.16, 34; 49.27, 3; 49.35, 8; 49.46, 10; 49.56, 11; 49.72, 11; 49.85, 12. 32   Beltà: Giacomo da Lentini 1.3, 33; 1.36, 5; Guido delle Colonne 4.2, 49; 4.5, 42; Iacopo Mostacci 13.2, 21; Mazzeo di Ricco 19.6, 11 e 26; Folco di Calavra 22.1, 31; An 25.9, 28; Galletto Pisano 26.2, 31; Tiberto Galliziani 30.1, 65; 30.2, 8; Lunardo del Guallacca 31.1, 71; Bartolomeo Mocati 35.1, 25; Carnino Ghiberti 37.1, 14; Brunetto Latini 40.1, 16; Bondie Dietaiuti 41.2, 13 e 28; Pucciandone Martelli 46.3, 19; 46.4, 4; 46.5, 75; An 49.11, 25; 49.25, 45; 49.34, 3 e 14; 49.35, 9; 49.36, 1; 49.50, 12; 49.76, 13; 49.93, 6; 49.107, 14. 33   Bellore: Piero della Vigna 10.1, 2; An 49.35, 6; An 49.102, 13.

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general meaning, describing something with unspecified positive qualities: bel parlamento (good conversation), bel servimento (‘good service’), bella gioia (‘intense delight’), bello accoglimento (‘nice welcome’), bello tempo (‘nice weather’), canti e gai e belli (‘joyful and pleasant [bird]song’). The adjective is frequently used with certain nouns and in fixed formulas. In order of frequency we have: bel viso/visaggio (‘beautiful face’), bei sembianti (‘beautiful traits’) and bel portamento (‘good bearing’). Sicilian poets describe female beauty without specifying the actual specific features of their own beloved woman, so that in the end, all ladies look the same and their individual bella sembianza (‘beautiful countenance’) does not really emerge in the poetic context. In Mostrar voria in parvenza, Iacopo Mostacci tries to justify this vagueness by referring to a very common topos of this literary genre, i.e. the need to conceal the madonna’s identity and thus her honour: “come ò che se contare le volesse / le sue bellezze, certo non poria, / poi si savria / qual èste quella donna per cui canto”34 (IacMost 13.6, 22–25). For whatever reason, it is a fact that these poems celebrate the bella cera (‘beautiful visage’), bella figura (‘beautiful traits’) and bei sembianti (‘beautiful countenances’) in purely generic terms. Regarding their Gallo-romances models, in his Vocabulaire courtois, Glynnis Cropp tells us that “chez les troubadours classiques, la description du physique de la dame est en général brève; le troubadour n’énumère que rarement plus de cinq parties du corps; le plus souvent il n’en énumère que deux”.35 The same remarks can be applied to the Sicilian school, whose poems refer to vague female figures who are impossible to visualise. Returning once more to the troubadours, according to Cropp, the most frequently mentioned women’s body parts were: hair, forehead, eyes, nose, face, mouth, teeth, chin, neck, breasts, hands and fingers. In the corpus of Sicilian poems, the woman’s hair is never directly mentioned, except for those cases in which the woman is called blondetta (‘little blonde’) or bionda (‘blonde’) and when the verses refer to her bronde trezze (‘blonde tresses’), blonda testa (‘fair hair’) or treccia d’auro (‘golden locks’). The ‘laughter’ (quoted 15 times) is usually described as dolce (‘gentle’), while the mouth (8 times) is often qualified as aulente (‘fragrant’) and in one case colorita (‘vivid’). The eyes (mentioned 19 times) are chiari/cleri (‘bright’), vaghi (‘graceful’), piagenti (‘pleasing’) and even feri (‘fierce’); the gaze (6 times) is soave (‘agreeable’), piagente (‘pleasing’) or doglioso (‘painful’); and the verb sguardare (‘to look’) (used 6 times as a noun) is described as morbido (‘tender’) e amoroso (‘loving’). Lastly, viso and visaggio 34  “then even if I wanted to tell about / her beautiful features, I surely could not do so, / for it would be known / who the lady is for whom I sing” (Jensen 1986, 81). 35  Cropp 1975, 158.

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(‘face’), mentioned 81 and 10 times respectively, are variously qualified by the following adjectives: chiaro/claro (‘fair’), adorno (‘graceful’), amoroso (‘loving’), netto (‘clear’), rosato (‘rosy’), piagente (‘pleasing’), gioioso (‘joyful’), prezioso (‘precious’), dolce (‘mild’), piacentero (‘pleasing’), lucente (‘bright’), grazioso (‘gentle’), caro (‘dear’), splendiente (‘bright’), but also fero (‘fierce’) and altero (‘haughty’). Only once do we find a reference, with no adjective, to the teeth, the neck, the hands and the breasts. The generic beltà di faccia (‘facial beauty’) is an essential element in the female figure, but in our corpus the adjective bello explicitly qualifies parts of the woman’s face (or body) in very few cases; the eyes twice and the mouth once: “Who has ever seen such beautiful eyes or such lovely features or a mouth with such a sweet smile?”; “Your eyes, my lady, are beautiful”; “I want nothing but her beautiful mouth” (my transl.).36 Just as the lily and the rose are the most beautiful flowers in the garden, according to the poet, his madonna is certainly the most beautiful woman on earth, her beauty exceeding that of all other women. As Frederick II states, she is “la fiore d’ogne fiore”37 (“the flower of all flowers”, my transl.); consequently, from a strictly linguistic point of view, the adjective bello is often used in the feminine form38 and in degrees of comparison: “più bella mi parete / ca Isolda la bronda”39 (“you appear to me more beautiful than blonde Iseult”, my transl.). It is also used in the superlative, as in Percivalle Doria’s verse “Pecato fece e torto / Amor, quando sguardare / mi fece la più bella”40 (“Love erred and was at fault when it let me see the most beautiful lady”, my transl.). The beauty of the beloved goes beyond the common and takes on angelic or divine features, as in the anonymous sonnet Non me ne meraviglio, donna fina: “ma penso che divina Maestate / a semiglianza d’angelo, formata / aggia per certo la vostra bieltate”41 (“I think that the Divine Majesty moulded your beauty in the likeness of an angel”, my transl.). Sicilian poets frequently compare their beloved woman with other women, as in this simile deployed in an anonymous Siculo-Tuscan text: “You are like the sun that appears and masks the brightness and radiance of all stars and

36  In order of citation: GiacLent 1.28, 9–11: “Chi vide mai così begli ochi in viso, / né sì amorosi fare li sembianti, / né boca con cotanto dolce riso?”; GiacLent 1.5, 47–8: “di voi, donna mia, / son gli ochi belli”; An 25.21, 28–9: “ch’io non disio altra cosa / se no la sua boca bella”. 37  FedII 14.2, 40. 38  In the masculine form it refers to the lady’s face, to her portamento ‘bearing’, to her sembianti ‘traits’ and to her eyes. 39  GiacLent 1.13, 45–6. 40  PercDor 21.2, 13–5. 41  An 49.34, 12–4.

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sheds more light than any other: thus, my fair one, as Nature wishes, you mask the beauty of all women, when your brightness appears among them”.42 In all metaphors and similes, the poet’s madonna is the most beautiful among all flowers, all precious stones and all stars, as for example in a sonnet by Giacomo da Lentini: Neither diamond, nor emerald, nor sapphire, nor any other precious stone; neither topaz, nor jacinth nor ruby; neither heliotrope, with its so many virtues, nor amethyst nor garnet, which is a very shiny stone, none have so much beauty as the woman I love. She is more virtuous than any other woman, and she shines like the sun, with her perfect and joyful love, she is more beautiful than a rose or any other flower: may Christ grant her a long and happy life and may He increase her virtue and honour.43 The poet’s madonna also defeats those women appointed by literature as the personification of beauty and even the extraordinary heroines of love stories: Isotta (Iseult) is mentioned eight times, Elena (Helen) five and Morgana four, and Biancifiore, Ginevra (Guinevere) and Polissena (Polyxena) all once. The lady’s beauty is incomparable and insurmountable, “ch’emperadrice sembra, tant’è bella”44 (“who seems to me an empress, so beautiful is she”, Jensen 1994, 41). And it is because of this extraordinariness that the beloved woman’s beauty is indescribable and impossible to adequately praise, as in the anonymous Siculo-Tuscan sonnet Donna, lo fino amore: “Se lingua ciascun membro / del 42  An 49.102, 9–14: “Che fate sì·ccome, ’l sole che appare, / che cela claritat’e su’ splendore / a tutte stelle ed a·cchi più dà spera: / così, bella, poi c’a Natura pare, / a tutte donne celate ’l bellore, / quando fra·lloro appar vostra lumera”. 43  GiacLent 1.35: “Diamante, né smiraldo, né zafino, / né vernul’altra gema prezïosa, / topazzo, né giaquinto, né rubino, / né l’aritropia, ch’è sì vertudiosa, / né l’amatisto, né ’l carbonchio fino, / lo qual è molto risprendente cosa, / non àno tante belezze in domino / quant’à in sé la mia donna amorosa. / E di vertute tutte l’autre avanza, / e somigliante al sole è di sprendore, / co la sua conta e gaia inamoranza, / e più bell’è che rosa e che frore: / Cristo le doni vita ed alegranza / e sì l’acresca in gran pregio ed onore.”    Cf. also GuidoCol 4.2, 13–4: “Ben passa rose e fiore / la vostra fresca cera” (“your fresh visage exceeds roses and flowers”); FedII 14.3, 51–2: “a lo sole riguardo / lo vostro bello viso” (“I compare your beautiful face with the sun”); RinAq 7.8, 2–6: “stella che levi la dia / sembran le vostre bellezze; / sovrana, fior di Mesina, / non pare che donna sia / vostra para d’adornezze” (“your beauty seems like the morning star (Venus); queen, flower of Messina, there seems to be no other woman as beautiful as you”); IacMost 13.2, 21–24: “quella ch’è di bieltate / sovrana in veritate, / ch’ognunque donna passa ed àve vinto, / e passa perle, ismeraldo e giaquinto” (“the one who is, in beauty, truly the queen, who surpasses and has overcome every woman, and exceeds pearls, emerald and jacinth”). 44  GuglBer 39.1, 33.

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corpo si facesse, / vostre bellezze non porian contare”45 (“Even if I had a tongue for each limb I still could not praise all your beauty”, my transl.). The word bella occurs 68 times in the corpus, and in 65 cases it has the function of a vocative. Bella is actually the epithet par excellence of the beloved woman.46 While the noun bella is used only for the woman, in a few cases the adjective bello also refers to the man; in Giamai null’om nonn-à sì gra·richezze the anonymous author says of himself: “Absalom wasn’t more beautiful than me, I am beautiful and I haven’t beauty; if I had the beauty I have lost, nevertheless I should have ugliness”47 (my transl.). Worthy of mention in this passage are the adjective bel (two occurrences), the noun bellezze (two occurrences), semantically close to ‘youth’,48 and the antonym of the latter rustichezza (‘ugliness’). In only one case do we find the word bellezza used with reference to a man, in the anonymous poem Morte fera e dispietata: “di bellezze era porto e foce, / e d’adornezze l’angelica boce”49 (“His angelic voice had beauty and grace”, my transl.). In the poem Ben mi deggio alegrare by Ruggerone da Palermo, beauty is also attributed to an animal, i.e. a kite: “e fa come lo nibio certamente, / ch’egli è bello e possanti”50 (“and he is truly like a kite, beautiful and powerful”, my transl.). To the abstract meaning of bello correspond three different nouns: bellezza (formed from the adjective by adding the suffix -ezza, documented for the first time in the twelft century in old Venetian vernacular51), beltà (documented from the twelft century, from the old Occitan beltat, derived in turn from reconstructed Latin *bellitāte52) and the masculine noun bellore, a derivative of bello with the suffix -ore (documented for the first time before 1249 in the Lettere in prosa by Guittone d’Arezzo53 but actually used also by Piero della 45  An 49.7, 21–3. 46  On the nouns that most frequently substitute the word donna, cf. Pagani 1968. 47  An 49.4, 31–4: “Assallone non fue più bel di mei, / ch’io son bel tuto e non aggio bellezze; / s’io avesse le bellezze ch’io perdei, / non avrei meno nulle rustichezze”. The nonsense is deliberate, as the poet is using the literary form of the Occitan devinalh, constructing the whole poem on a long series of opposita. 48  Another example is StProt 11.1, 64–6: “o ch’io mi rinovasse / come cervo in vechiezze, / che torna in sua bellezze” (“O I wish that I could be rejuvenated / like a stag which, in its old age, / returns to its former beauty”, Jensen 1986, 91); Stefano Protonotaro refers to the legend of a deer that was rejuvenated after having eaten a snake and drunk from a special spring (cf. Stahl Garver and McKenzie 1912, 1–100). 49  An 49.5, 7–8. 50  RugPal 15.2, 19–20. 51  According to TLIO (Tesoro della Lingua Italiana delle Origini 2018). 52  Cf. lexical entry *bellitāte in Pfister and Schweickard 1979-. 53  According to TLIO (Tesoro della Lingua Italiana delle Origini 2018).

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Vigna: “Poi tanta caunoscenza / e compimento di tutte bellore / senza mancare natura li à dato / non mi ven mai increscenza / penare lungamente per suo amore”54 (“Since Nature, without fail, gave her so much wisdom and such perfect beauty, I never tire of suffering because of my love for her”, my transl.). Here the noun bellore is interpreted as feminine on the basis of a variant of the Palatino manuscript,55 probably a calque of the Occitan belor, a feminine noun. Other editors prefer the masculine form found in the Vaticano56 and Chigiano57 versions, more widespread in old Italian vernaculars. As already mentioned, in 52 cases out of 60 the word bellezza is in the plural form, but it is often a copyists’ interpretation of the word due to its original Sicilian singular form from Latin suffix -ITIES58 (cf. billici in Pir meu cori allegrari by Stefano Protonotaro, v. 21). Finally we have the parasynthetic abellire,59 with the literal meaning of ‘make beautiful’. In our corpus it appears only in the anonymous poem Del meo disio spietato, where it is explained by Bruno Panvini60 as ‘make proud’. Besides the native abellire, in ancient Italian, a loan word from Occitan abelhir (‘to please’) is also found, constructed with the dative.61 In our corpus of texts, the metaplastic verb abellare (‘to please’)62 is also found four times. Going back to the Sicilian school’s vocabulary of Beauty, we should not limit ourselves to considering the derivatives of bello. On the contrary, the vocabulary of bellezza is varied and rich in lexemes, albeit semantically poorly 54  PVign 10.1, 1–5. 55  Banco Rari 217 (previously Palatino 418), Florence: National Central Library. 56  Vaticano Latino 3793, Vatican City: Vatican Apostolic Library. 57  Chigiano L.VIII.305, Vatican City: Vatican Apostolic Library. 58  Cf. Avalle, Sintassi, pp. 19–25 and CLPIO, p. CXCV–CXCV e CCXXXIII–CCXXXIV. 59  An 25.1, 73–6: “Se per disio son morto / avanti ch’io acevisca, / non credo ch’abellisca / chi tene il mio core” (“If I die before my time because of my desire, I don’t think this would make the lady who holds my heart proud”). 60  Panvini 1962–1963. 61  Cf. Cella 2003, 304. 62  GiacPugl 17.1, 38–40: “or no la veggio, né notte né dia, / e non m’abella sì com’ far solia / in sua sembianza” (“no longer do I see her, neither by night nor by day, / and she does not bring me pleasure, as she used to when she was present”, Jensen 1986, 95); MstTorrig 45.2, 3–4: “s’eo lo dico, l’altrui detto isfaccio, / che piace più del meo, forse, ed abella” (“if you ask me, I blame the poems of others, which maybe are liked more than mine and give pleasure”); An 49.21, 35–40: “tutta mia miradura / sembr’a lei ’maginata, / sì ca creder s’abella / lo spirito e la mente / che sia propia figura, / sì com’ell’è incarnata” (“All my contemplation is imagining her, because believing that she is really here, just as she is in the flesh, comforts the spirit and the mind”); An 49.78, 3–4: “Che, conoscendol, opero a me danno, / per servir voi de quel che sso v’abella” (“Even knowing [the deceit], I ruin myself to serve you and do what you enjoy”).

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differentiated. These lexemes are often used in repetitions or enumerations where the words reinforce each other in the struggle to describe the madonna’s perfect beauty. We may cite here adornamento and adornezza,63 namely ‘the set of talents, qualities and feminine graces’, avenantezza and contezza64 (‘grace, prettiness’), compimento65 (‘perfection’) and fineza (‘refinement’), although it should be pointed out that the latter word was reconstructed by Panvini 1962– 1964,66 and was not confirmed by Antonelli, Coluccia and Di Girolamo (2008). Other examples include the words grazia (‘grace’) and plagenza or piacimento67 (‘pleasantness’). The Gallicism gente, an adjective that qualifies what is noble and exquisite, from the Occitan and French gent,68 is interesting, as is the lexicalisation of the comparative più gente69 (‘more noble’, ‘more exquisite’), 63  GiacPugl 17.1, 31–5: “Ov’è Madonna e lo suo insegnamento, / la sua bellezza e la gran canoscianza, / lo dolze riso e lo bel parlamento, / gli ochi e la boca e la bella sembianza, / lo adornamento e la sua cortesia?” (“Where is my lady with her discretion, / her beauty and her great wisdom, / her sweet smile and her beautiful conversation, / her eyes and her mouth and her beautiful presence, / and her grace and her courtesy?”, Jensen 1986, 93, 95); PuccMart 46.2, 9–11: “Tanto doblata data v’è bellessa, / e addornessa messa con plagensa, / ch’ogna che i pensa sen sa per mirata” (“You received such great beauty and you have so much grace mixed with pleasantness that all who realize it are struck with wonder”). 64  GiacLent 1.12, 43–5: “E tutto quanto veggio / mi pare avenantezze / e somma di bellezze” (“And everything I see seems to me grace and great beauty”); PVign 10.5, 25–28: “Per tale termin mi compiango e doglio, / perdo gioia e mi svoglio, / quando süa contezza mi rimembra / di quella ch’io amai e servir soglio” (“Because of this [short] span, I am lamenting and grieving, / I am losing my joy, and I am consuming myself, / whenever I remember the grace / of the lady I used to love and serve”, Jensen 1986, 77). 65  IacMost 13.6, 4–6: “tacer mi fa temenza, / ch’io nonn auso laudare / quella in cui è tuto compimento” (“fear makes me remain silent, / for I do not dare to praise / the lady in whom perfection dwells”, Jensen 1986, 81). 66  On this point, cf. De Blasi 2017. 67  An 49.7, 17–20: “E vero certamente credo dire, / che ’nfra le donne voi siete sovrana, / d’ogni grazia e di vertù compita, / per cui morir d’amor mi saria vita” (“And I think I am telling the truth when I say that of all women you are the queen, perfectly endowed with grace and virtue, so that to die of love for me would be life”); An 49.76, 1–3: “Lo gran valore e la gentil plagenza / e la valenza che·tten vostro core, / a mio dolore fece far partenza” (“The great value and the refined pleasure and the virtue of your heart, have sent my pain away”); PVign 10.3, 20: “che [Amore] m’à donato a quella ch’à per uso / bellezze ed adornezze e piacimento, / e aunore e canoscenza / i·llei senza partenza / fanno soggiorno ed àlle al suo talento” (“[Love] has given me to a lady who has beauty and good qualities and goodness, and honour and wisdom that never leave her and she makes use of them at will”). 68  From the Latin [homo] gentis, cf. Cella 2003, 418–20. 69  PercDor/Sempreb? 21.1, 14: “così m’à·ffatto Amor certanamente, / ca ’mprimamente d’amor mi mostrava / sollazzo e tuto ben de la più gente, / poi per neiente lo cor mi cangiava” (“So indeed Love has treated me, / for joyously, it first showed me / the solace and every good from the fairest lady; / then, for no reason, it changed its disposition towards me”, Jensen 1986, 127).

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which is often used as an epithet of the lady. Derived from the ancient Occitan adjective gen, which for the troubadours indicates sometimes physical beauty and sometimes courtly excellence,70 we have the verb agenzare71 (from the ancient Occitan agensar, ‘like’), which entered the vocabulary of the ancient Italian lyrics and produced ragenzare,72 both used to mean ‘make beautiful’.73 The woman’s beauty is sometimes so great that it makes her crudele (‘cruel’), orgogliosa (‘haughty’) and fera (‘harsh’), like the lady Giacomo da Lentini addresses in his poem Ben m’è venuto prima cordoglienza: “And you who are without discernment, / like Florence, which acts arrogantly, / take example of Pisa, full of wisdom, / which fears the opposition of arrogant people”74 (transl. by Jensen 1986, 27). Pride does not suit a beautiful woman, and nor does a hard and insensitive (and sometimes even mean) attitude. In this regard, in his poem Guiderdone aspetto avere the Notaro says: “Noble lady, do not be / cruel to me, since so much beauty / is found in you, / for a lady who has beauty / and yet is without mercy / is like a man who possesses wealth / and yet is stingy with what he owns”75 (transl. by Jensen 1986, 31). The anonymous Sicilian author of Lo dolce ed amoroso plagimento urges his woman – so spietata (‘merciless’) as to be “più ca diamanti” (harder than diamonds) – to abandon her cruel attitude that clouds all her other qualities: “Non vene lo mio core in disperanza, / ancor mi sia aveduto / che ’n voi non trovo cor d’umilitate; / ca quello che vi diede la bieltate / troppo averia falluto, / se ’n voi fosse bellezza e non pietanza. / Però, madonna, la vostra bellezza / e la gaia adornezza, / ch’avete e prosedete d’abondanza, / no la guastate, usando spïetanza, / ch’assai saria di peggio un buon giardino / s’avesse una fontana di veleno”76 (“My heart does not despair although I realise that I will not find in you a humble heart; because he who gave you beauty would have failed indeed if such beauty were in you without pity. But, my lady, do not ruin the beauty and fair grace which you have in such 70  Cf. Cropp 1975, 155–7. 71  GiacLent 1.5, 89–92: “La vostra benvolenza / mi dona canoscenza / di servire a chiasenza / quella che più m’agenza” (“Your goodwill persuades me to gladly serve the lady I like the most”). 72  GiacLent 1.18D, 6: “pur uno poco sia d’amor feruto / sì si ragenza e fa suo parlamento” (“despite being lightly wounded by Love, he [the lover] rallies and starts his speech [of love]”). 73  Cf. Cella 2003, 310–1. 74  GiacLent 1.7, 33–6: “E voi che sete senza percepenza, / como Florenza che d’orgoglio sente, / guardate a Pisa di gran canoscenza, / che teme tenza d’orgogliosa gente”. 75  GiacLent 1.3, 32–8: “Fina donna, no mi siate / fera, poi tanta bieltate / in voi si trova, / ca donna ch’à bellezze / ed è senza pietade, / com’omo ch’à richezze / ed usa scarsitade di ciò c’àve”. 76  An. 25.9, 25–36.

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abundance, by being pitiless, because a beautiful garden would be terrible if it had a fountain of venom”, my transl.). As has been noted in the verses quoted above, in courtly love a woman’s beauty often goes together with other qualities. While their coexistence sometimes results in an oxymoron, such qualities may also complement and enhance each other, as long as they maintain rigorous respect for aesthetics and the rules of courtly ethics. In the era of this form of poetry, aesthetic and ethical values were also social values, contributing to an ideal and a way of life conceived in accordance with rules of beauty and gracefulness, so that we may speak of a true medieval kalokagathìa.77 In addition, as in Giacomo’s famous sonnet Angelica figura e comprobata (GiacLent 1.37), it emerges that beauty is often accompanied by other important female virtues, including: benenanza (‘good health’), bontate (‘goodness’), caunoscenza (‘wisdom’), dolzore (‘mildness’), gentilezza (‘refinement’), onore (‘honour’), mercede (‘mercy’), misura (‘goodwill’), nobilitate (‘nobility’), pietanza (‘sympathy’), pregio (‘merit’), ricor (‘abundance of virtues’), segnoria (‘class’) and valimento (‘virtue’). However, the beloved woman’s physical qualities, together with her moral virtues, are extremely vague and indistinctly attributed to almost all women celebrated in Sicilian poetry, so that in the end, these poems do no more than present a series of similar figures in compliance with a rather trite literary model. 3

Beyond the Sicilian School78

As a final point, if the beginnings of Love are to be found in aesthetics, its persistence is guaranteed by courtly ethics. In other words, the most secret reasons for a feeling of love originate from contemplation of extraordinary female beauty and settle in the poet’s heart; however, only after considering the madonna’s great virtue does he really fall in love. This motif was largely accepted by subsequent generations of poets, in both a moderate and an intensified form. The dynamics of love based on the eyes-heart dyad had already acquired new elements during the shift from Frederician to Siculo-Tuscan poetry; core was complemented by arma, penzero or mente, which are important, but are no substitute for the lover’s eyes and the beloved’s beauty in the feeling of love. The same idea was widely accepted, albeit in a sharper and more hermetic style, by the Tuscan poets (Guittone and the Guittonians for example) and in 77  Cf. Eco 1987. 78  Cf. Coluccia in this volume.

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a more gentle style79 by the Stilnovisti,80 who, compared to their precursors, show a greater interest in doctrinal engagement and philosophical reasoning. If at this point Love is entirely identified with gentilezza of soul, Beauty still plays the most important role in stimulating Love, as can be seen in Guinizzelli’s Al cor gentil rempaira sempre amore, and most of all in Lo vostro bel saluto e ’l gentil sguardo: “Per li occhi passa come fa lo trono, / che fer’ per la finestra de la torre / e ciò che dentro trova spezza e fende”81 (“Through the eyes it [Love’s arrow] passes, as the lightning through the window of the tower, breaking and tearing apart everything that is there”, my transl.). Consider also the words of Cavalcanti: “Per li occhi venne la battaglia in pria, / che ruppe ogni valore immantenente, / sì che del colpo fu strutta la mente”82 (“The assault came first through the eyes and immediately defeated every form of valour, so that the blow destroyed the mind”, my transl.). The eyes-heart motif, albeit in a milder way, is also present in Dante83 and Petrarch84 as a crystallised formula of lyric language,85 although it is associated with new and more original reflections. By this time however, Love has already been elevated to the ontological-ethical principle of Goodness, undergoing theological transfiguration in Dante’s Commedia, and even becoming a pretext for psychological exploration and the analysis of inner conflicts in Petrarchan love poetry. Simultaneously, beauty changed its role in both the genesis and erotic phenomenology of love, reaching towards other and higher values.

79  Dante, Purg. XXVI, 99 (from Petrocchi, 1966–7): “[…] / rime d’amor usar dolci e leggiadre” (“Practising the sweet and elegant rhymes of love”). 80  Cf. Savona 1973 e Leonardi 2004. 81  Guido Guinizzelli, Lo vostro bel saluto e ’l gentil sguardo from Contini 1960. 82  Guido Cavalcanti, L’anima mia vilment’è sbigotita, from Contini 1960. 83  Dante, Amor e ’l cor gentil sono una cosa (from Barbi 1932): “Bieltate appare in saggia donna pui, / che piace a gli occhi sì, che dentro al core / nasce un disio de la cosa piacente; / e tanto dura talora in costui, / che fa svegliar lo spirito d’Amore” (“Then appears beauty in a wise woman who is so pleasing to the eyes as to generate in the heart a desire for the thing whence came the pleasure, and it lasted so long in him that it awoke the spirit of Love”). On this topic, cf. Nardi 1949. 84  Petrarch, Era il giorno ch’al sol si scoloraro (from Chiari 1985): “Trovommi Amor del tutto disarmato, / et aperta la via per gli occhi al core, / che di lagrime son fatti uscio e varco” (“Love found me disarmed, the road to the heart was open through the eyes, which are now the doorway and passageway for tears”). 85  Somehow still revisioned: cuore, for example, is complemented by anima and mente (cf. Librandi 1988).

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References Antonelli, Roberto, Coluccia, Rosario and Di Girolamo, Costanzo. 2008. I Poeti della Scuola siciliana. Milano: Mondadori. Avalle, D’Arco Silvio. 1973. Sintassi e prosodia nella lirica italiana delle Origini. Torino: Giappichelli Editore. Avalle, D’Arco Silvio. 1977. Ai luoghi di delizia pieni. Saggio sulla lirica italiana del XIII secolo. Milano – Napoli: Ricciardi. Barbi, Michele. 1932. Dante. Vita nuova. Firenze: Bemporad. Brugnolo, Furio. 1999. “I siciliani e l’arte dell’imitazione: Giacomo da Lentini, Rinaldo d’Aquino e Iacopo Mostacci.” La Parola del Testo 3: 65–74. Catenazzi, Flavio. 1977. L’influsso dei provenzali sui temi e immagini della poesia siculotoscana, Brescia: Morcelliana. Cella, Roberta. 2003. I gallicismi nei testi dell’italiano antico. Firenze: Accademia della Crusca. Chiari, Alberto. 1985. Francesco Petrarca. Canzoniere. Milano: Mondadori. CLPIO. Concordanze della Lingua Poetica Italiana delle Origini, a cura di d’Arco Silvio Avalle. Milano-Napoli: Ricciardi, 1992, vol. I. Coluccia, Rosario. 2012. “Il Glossario dei Poeti della Scuola siciliana.” Bollettino del Centro di Studi Filologici e Linguistici Siciliani 23: 25–42. Contini, Gianfranco. 1960. I poeti del Duecento. Milano-Napoli: Ricciardi. Cropp, Glynnis. 1975. Le vocabulaire courtois des troubadours de l’époque classique. Genève: Librairie Droz. De Blasi, Francesca. 2017. Il Lessico dei Poeti della Scuola siciliana (LPSs). In In fieri. Ricerche di linguistica italiana. Atti della I Giornata dell’A SLI per i dottorandi (26–27 novembre 2015, Firenze, Accademia della Crusca), a cura di Sergio Lubello, 41–55. Firenze: Franco Cesati Editore. De Robertis, Domenico. 1986. Guido Cavalcanti. Rime. Con le rime di Jacopo Cavalcanti. Torino: Einaudi. De Riquer, Martín. 1975. Les Trovadores, Historia Literaria y Textos. Barcellona: Planeta. Duchacek, Otto. 1978. “Esquisse du champ conceptuel de la beauté dans le français du XIIIe siècle.” In Mélanges de philologie romane. Monpellier: C.E.O. Monpellier, 287–98. Fratta, Aniello. 1996. Le fonti provenzali dei poeti della Scuola siciliana. Firenze: Le Lettere. Eco, Umberto. 1987. Arte e bellezza nell’estetica medievale. Milano: Bompiani. Jensen, Frede. 1986. The poetry of the Sicilian school. New York and London: Garland Publishing. Jensen, Frede. 1994. Tuscan poetry of the Duecento. An anthology. New York and London: Garland Publishing.

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Lazar, Moshé. 1964. Amour Courtois et fin’amors dans la littérature du XIIe siècle. Paris: Librairie C. Klincksieck. Leonardi, Lino. 2004. “Guinizzelli e Cavalcanti”, in Da Guido Guinizzelli a Dante. Nuove prospettive sulla lirica del Duecento. Atti del convegno (Padova-Monselice, 10–12 maggio, 2002), a cura di Furio Brugnolo e Gianfelice Peron, 207–26. Padova: Il Poligrafo. Librandi, Rita. 1988. “Dal cuore all’anima nella lirica di dante e Petrarca”, in Capitoli per una storia del cuore, a cura di Francesco Bruni, 119–60. Palermo: Sellerio. Mancini, Mario. 1993. Metafora feudale. Per una storia dei trovatori. Bologna: Il Mulino. Menichetti, Aldo. 1965. Chiaro Davanzati. Rime A cura di Aldo Menichetti. Bologna: Commissione per i Testi di Lingua, 1965. Nardi, Bruno. 1949. “Filosofia dell’amore nei rimatori italiani del Duecento e in Dante”, in Dante e la cultura medievale. Nuovi saggi di filosofia dantesca, Bari: Laterza, 9–79. Pagani, Walter. 1968. Repertorio tematico della Scuola poetica siciliana. Bari: Adriatica Editrice. Panvini, Bruno. 1962–1964. Le rime della Scuola siciliana. Firenze: Olschki. Parry, John Jay. 1960. The Art of Courtly Love by Andreas Cappellanus. New York: Columbia University Press, 1960. Petrocchi, Giorgio, 1966–1967. La Commedia secondo l’antica vulgata. Milano: Mondadori. Pfister, Max and Schweickard, Wolfgang. 1979–. Lessico Etimologico Italiano. Wiesbaden: Ludwig Reichert Verlag. Picchio Simonelli, Maria. 1982. “Il grande canto cortese dai provenzali ai siciliani.” Cultura Neolatina 42: 202–38. Picone, Michelangelo. 2003. “La tenzone de amore fra Jacopo Mostacci, Pier della Vigna e il Notaro”, in Percorsi della lirica duecentesca. Firenze: Cadmo, 47–67. Roncaglia, Aurelio. 1993. “Note d’aggiornamento critico su testi del Notaro e invenzione del sonetto.” In In ricordo di Giuseppe Cusimano, giornata di studio sul siciliano antico (17 dicembre, 1991), a cura di Francesco Bruni and Giovanni Ruffino. Messina: Sicania, 775–8. Ruffini, Graziano. 1980. Andrea Cappellano. De Amore. Milano: Guanda. Savona, Eugenio. 1973. Repertorio tematico del dolce Stil nuovo. Bari: Adriatica Editrice. Shepard, William P. and Chamber, Frank M. 1950. The poems of Aimeric de Peguilhan. Evansot: Northwestern University Press. Spampinato Beretta, Margherita. 1991. “Il percorso “occhi-cuore” nei trovatori provenzali e nei rimatori siciliani.” Messana 8, 187–221. Stahl Garver, Milton and McKenzie, Kenneth. 1912. “Il Bestiario toscano secondo la lezione dei codici di Parigi e di Roma.” Studi Romanzi 8, 1–100. TLIO = Tesoro della lingua italiana delle origini (www.ovi.cnr.it).

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Vitale, Maurizio, 1953. Rimatori della Scuola siciliana: Ruggerone da Palermo, Folco Ruffo di Calabria. Palermo: Mori e figli.

Manuscripts

Banco Rari 217 (previously Palatino 418), Florence: National Central Library. Barberiano-Latino 4086, Vatican City, Vatican Apostolic Library. Chigiano L.VIII. 305, Vatican City, Vatican Apostolic Library. Vaticano Latino 3793, Vatican City, Vatican Apostolic Library.

chapter 3

Beauty as a Forma Mentis: Francis of Assisi Brigitte Poitrenaud-Lamesi It is known that Francis of Assisi, despite being considered the first Italian poet – we refer, obviously, to the Canticle of Brother Sun (Vicinelli 2011, 243) which we will discuss below – did not leave an extensive literary production. Beside the Canticle, his writings are limited to various prayers and exhortations, general or personal letters and a number of legislative texts: rules and admonitions. Not all of them belong to the Italian or Latin literary corpus. Not all were written only by Francis; they were often dictated or written in collaboration with other friars. We share the opinion of scholars, biographers, historians and commentators who stress the fact that Francis’s legacy is not limited to his personal writings but also includes his deeds and his own personality, the path of his life, which is an example of beautiful, holy living. Francis’s writings therefore emphasize the verbal aspect of his message and consequently the importance of the early biographers and of the collection of the Little Flowers as a source of information on the life of the Poor Man and his companions. We are therefore dealing with a corpus of literature that is consistent yet not entirely usable as regards the notion of beauty in literature. We will focus, first of all, on the emergence of a new awareness, particularly of the notion of beauty, a phenomenon tightly linked to Francis’s ethical and social contribution, which we propose to call a “mental revolution”. Then we will try to address, through some examples and lines of study, the uniqueness of the Franciscan vocabulary – that of Francis himself – through which the different approaches to the beautiful are expressed. Our goal being, as indicated in the title we have chosen, to demonstrate that the idea of beautiful with regard to Franciscan thinking is proposed primarily as a forma mentis, which obviously can find a way out in literary works, that is, as “a literary result”. In his book Saint Francis of Assisi (1999; 2002),1 the historian of the Middle Ages Jacques Le Goff devotes a chapter, entitled “Franciscanism and cultural models”, to the models of behaviour and sensibility at the time of Saint Francis. He focuses, among others, on the concepts of beauty and joy to show how the idea of beauty is particularly dear to Francis, insisting on the complexity 1  First edition 1999 (Paris: Gallimard). We refer to the Italian edition of 2002 (Bari: Laterza).

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2019 | doi:10.1163/9789004388956_005

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of his vision of the beautiful. Typical of his century is in fact his hesitation with respect to the feeling of beauty: hesitation between the fear that beauty may weaken the ascetic will and the attraction for beauty as an expression of the divine creation. Luigi Salvatorelli in his work Franciscan Movement and Joachimism, emphasizes the freshness of the aesthetic sensibility of Saint Francis and evokes “the very perception, filled with enthusiasm, of beauty conferred on the love of God” (1955, 425). 1

The Birth of the Feeling of Beauty: The Mental Revolution

Let us remember, firstly, how and to what extent the minors overturned the values asserting that small is great because it is small, that the poor and the outcast are beautiful because they are marginal, the insane, the sick and the children are worthy because they are weak. Michel Mollat in « La notion de pauvreté au Moyen Âge : position de problèmes » (1966, 5–23) informs us that the notion of poverty is complex and fluctuating. It appears, however, that being poor is (or may be) a spiritual virtue (within the realm of religion). The expression Pauperes christi implies a form of possible redemption connected to the fact of being poor. This, however, as Mollat (1966), specifies, does not occur systematically; poverty, on the contrary, is also, and perhaps mostly, a social situation. Terms like “precarious”, “miserable”, “beggar”, “sick”, “old”, “young”, “weak”, “insane”, “deficient”, “abject”, “ignoble”, “delinquent”, “outlaw”, “prisoner” associated with the term “poor” are words that designate wretched people as they have been, for various reasons, stigmatized. Therefore poor people do not constitute a social class, they are rather people without a social status, they are not part of the civil community because they have no legal right. That is why Francis’s position appears scandalous, according to the terms chosen by Mollat (1966, 8): The scandal of the mystical marriage of Saint Francis to Lady Poverty, despite the obsolescence of the theme, retains the value of a signal. The indiscreet proclamation of the primacy of the virtue of poverty and of the eminent dignity of the poor contained a virus capable of arousing, in the following century, a reaction of contempt and fear.2

2  All translations are mine, except where indicated otherwise.

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The expression nihil habens refers to the fact that they own nothing and may not own anything. They are opposed to the social group of the rich and the powerful. They are potentially dangerous because they are similar or comparable to the criminals (the outlaws) and arouse above all disgust, repugnance and contempt. This means that they are seen as inferior beings. On the other hand, poverty is the consequence of a moral fault; the deserved punishment of sinners. This is the reason why, in most cases, the poor accept their condition as natural. Although charitable works develop, especially at the end of the Middle Ages, the resources remain scarce and the factors are numerous (natural disasters, epidemics, famine, structural injustices in the social order). As a result, Mollat (1966) reiterates: the poor is impotent, disabled like a blind, a lame, a crippled; he is covered with ulcers glimpsed through his rags, lives in dirt: the poor is ugly, filthy, obscene. Thus Fo (2006, 90) represents Francis in his famous solo performance dedicated to the saint, as if Francis had received all the typical illnesses and diseases of the poor: Saint Francis is now over forty years old, but looks like a decrepit old man, has got all the diseases one can imagine. Continuous stabs of pain squeeze his stomach, has pain in the liver; his eyes weep blood, has fever due to malaria with tremors … but he never stops to take breath. Let us remember, for example, the allegorical portrait that Guillaume de Lorris (contemporary to Francis of Assisi) draws of Wealth and Poverty in his Roman de la rose. Wealth is all gold and embroideries, has a richly edged collar and necklaces and delights a young man of great beauty, who very much appreciates her. While Poverty is described in a completely different way: “[Poverty] crouched and cowered, apart from the others, naked as a worm, she would have died of cold3”; Poverty is shamed and despised by all, which is why, as de Lorris adds, Poverty “had nothing but an old, tight sack, all tattered, full of patches”4 and consequently the poor faces a desperate fate, as he finally states: “Cursed be the hour in which a poor man was conceived! He will never be well fed, well clothed, nor well shod!”5

3  De Lorris - de Meung 1949, 25. The work was commenced by Guillaume de Lorris in 1237, then completed by Jean de Meung in 1275. Recently translated into Italian in de Lorris - de Meung 2014. 4  De Lorris - de Meung 1949, 25. 5  Ibid.

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Conversely, as Mollat (1966, 8) adds, “near Beauty Wealth was held”. This combination of words is very significant; a close correspondence is imposed between beauty and wealth and between ugliness and poverty. If we crossreference now, in an intertextual process, these analyses with those in Le Goff (1964),6 we find out that the idea of beauty in the Middle Ages was systematically linked to that of wealth, preciousness (that is, rarity) and safety. In fact, Le Goff dwells a great deal on the issue of the “mentalities, sensibilities, and attitudes in the Middle Ages” and in particular on the idea of the beautiful and he concludes that all that is permanent, established and reassuring can be qualified as “beautiful”. In that regard the author provides a list of adjectives that serve to define the beautiful such as “bright splendid precious resistant solid rich” and a list of the objects judged beautiful by definition: luxury clothing, jewellery, decorative items like arms and crowns, especially when associated with bright, showy colours: The medieval taste for bright colours is well known. It was a ‘barbarous’ taste, which favoured big jewels inserted into the boards of bookbindings, glowing gold objects, brightly painted sculpture, paintings covering the walls of churches and of the houses of the powerful, and the coloured magic of stained glass. The almost colourless middle ages which we admire today are the work of the destruction wrought by time and of the anachronistic taste of our contemporaries. However, behind this coloured phantasmagoria lay the fear of darkness and the quest for light which was salvation.7 Those remarks refer to the economic notions that characterize the rise of the active and industrious bourgeoisie, the notions of wealth and profit seen as so many social virtues. Beauty is thus systematically associated with wealth, with the appearance of the wealthy and with abundance. By contrast and logically, anything that was potentially dangerous or scary should not be considered “beautiful”: animals – particularly the wild ones – plants – perhaps poisonous – unworthy men – such as the sick, the delinquent or the poor. Nature, says Le Goff, has nothing beautiful, it is rather a source of symbols that allow us to name and understand the world, express fears, wishes and hopes. From this vision stem the famous bestiaries, full of monsters and/or fantastic animals, the herbaria with both harmful and healthy plants, sometimes deemed active 6  Le Goff 2008. 7  Le Goff 1964, 310.

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only depending on their colour. Such a vision implies a moral categorization of human beings, one that takes into account their appearance and their formal qualities. 2

Francis’s Uniqueness

With Francis of Assisi, a new perspective takes shape. Le Goff even suggests an early Renaissance, a new Middle Ages from the year 1000 to the thirteenth century. There appear new motions, directly linked to the change of statute of the laymen: the possibility of a holy apostolic life outside the monasteries. Vauchez (1975) talks about a new spirituality that emerged with the pauper movements of the Humiliated, the Waldensians or the Cathars – who took over the Gospel message to fight against the ecclesiastical hierarchy; they ended up being persecuted without achieving any political results as they were systematically repressed and eradicated. On the contrary, the movement initiated by Francis of Assisi remained within the limits accepted by the ecclesiastical authorities, and this allowed it to assert itself as a model of holy life without running the risk of excommunication. Its originality, as it is well known, lies in the willingness to have a wandering and poor life, to imitate Jesus Christ and hence to refuse to own property or have possessions.8 The Franciscans chose the condition of minores. Thus Francis “was breaking the tie that united the religious State and the seigneurial condition. […] Clerics and laymen found themselves on equal footing” as Vauchez (1975, 134) wrote, and this is a true revolution. Agamben (2011) reaffirms that Francis invented a new “form of life” that denied the right to property and radically upset the social relations and the economic structures of his age. By doing so, Francis of Assisi and his first companions imposed a new view of the world as well as a new approach to aesthetic categories. According to Francis, there is a strong link between beauty and love – beauty being the expression of the joy of earthly life. He has an empathetic and compassionate look towards the whole of creation, especially towards the weakest, the outcasts and the poor. His is a political reaction to the uses and abuses of his time: the dramatic enrichment of the middle class, the ostentation of the curia and the economic inequalities, the social injustices that arise from them. By choosing the name “Minors”, Francis announces an ethical and aesthetic programme: no more contempt for the poor or the humble creatures but, on the contrary, a feeling of admiration and love for every being and thing of any kind. Considering even 8  On the philosophical significance of this choice, cf. Agamben 2011.

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the most common creatures as expression of the highest will, the divine, he rehabilitates even the most obnoxious beings and objects: the wolf is no longer the ugly wild beast, hay becomes an object of veneration after the episode of the crib at Greccio, humble stones become more precious than the hated coins. The beautiful rather expresses the direct feeling of the divine present in all things, as beauty is first of all indiscriminate divine love. Research by Thode (1885) later continued by Morghen (1959) makes of Saint Francis the father of the Renaissance (it is a controversial but interesting concept) and consequently puts him at the origin of the discovery of the “beautiful”. Art, happy life and love for creation then form an unprecedented whole. A new sense of beauty is born, one that accompanies the spiritual, economic and social disruption of the 12th and 13th centuries. This idea overturns the organization of society and upsets the usual reference points: the most beautiful places are no longer indoor but also in open spaces; forests and woods rather than churches and castles – gracious persons can be poor children and women, not only rich and powerful men. Referring ourselves to the traditional medieval concepts of the ugly just listed above we will ascertain that Francis brings out the conditions that allow to literally reverse the categories of value: a new hierarchical order transforms the approach to, and the perception of, beauty. Let us simply remember the issue of dress: the poor is poorly dressed with a sack, according to Guillaume de Lorris. Francis chooses this patched sack-cloth, hand-sewn with all he could find: his rough habit becomes beautiful because it is synonymous with humility and compassion – here we remember the highly symbolic deeds of the Poor Man, when he stood naked in front of his father in rebellion against the mercantile precepts of his family and his society, when he gave his mantle to a poor man or distributed to the poor the pieces of cloth his dress was made of. This attitude gives rise to a new representation: beauty is poverty, nakedness and modesty, beautiful things are humble and insignificant, that is without monetary value, thus a sack but even a stone or a worm or a bug, like many other little animals of any kind, are beautiful not despite their smallness and irrelevance but because there are negligible and hence stigmatized. Stigmatized like Francis himself, the first man to experience or “invent” the stigmata as Frugoni (1995) maintains.9 This new perception promotes and announces a philosophical, political but also aesthetical revolution. It is a new “tale” that merges into

9  Cf. the works of the eminent scholar Chiara Frugoni, expert of Saint Francis, whose biography of the saint has become a classic: Vita di un uomo: Francesco d’Assisi (Frugoni 1995); on the stigmata, cf. in particular Frugoni 1988.

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Franciscan legends; the image of poverty and the poor that Francis gives birth to is already a literary text because it is true poetics if not yet a poem. The uniqueness of Francis of Assisi concerns his very personality, his life path before his so-called conversion: because he was a young bourgeois belonging to a wealthy family of merchants, Francis soon distinguishes himself because of his particular sensitivity to elegance and for the refinement of his clothes. He furthermore appears very sensible to a form of beauty linked to the historical context to which he belongs, an expanding bourgeoisie he envies; he imitates the models of behaviour of the declining aristocracy, which is losing its privileges but is still capable of imposing its aesthetic codes on the rising middle class. The young Francis associates with the young noblemen of Assisi and the border between the social classes becomes increasingly porous. All the historians have underlined a marked taste for the beauty of courtly language and for reading in French – in particular the tales of the Knights of the Round Table – which, beside the Bible and in particular the Gospel, are the essential source of knowledge. The knightly tales recount the heroic deeds of the noblemen and enhance a feeling of demanding love for the Dame, inaccessible object of desire. Nourished by poetry and knightly images, Francis knows an early form of sensibility to beauty that will be strangely reinvested in the register of faith and compassion for the other. It is surprising, says Le Goff (1964, 69), that Francis’s taste continued after his conversion and was kept alive in his (oral and written) style: His love of poverty was expressed through the symbolism and the vocabulary of courtly love […] He brought the knightly culture and sensitivity that he had acquired before his conversion into his new religious ideal; Poverty was his spouse, Lady Poverty; the Holy Virtues were so many courtly heroines; the saint was God’s knight understudied by a troubadour, a jongleur. The chapters of the Purtiuncula were inspired by the gatherings at the Round Table around Arthur. Does Saint Francis’s modernity then amount to introducing the ideal of chivalry into Christianity? […]. Thus appears a typically Franciscan terminology that generates Lady Poverty, the herald of the great King, the paladins of the faith or the friar Knights of the Round Table who are hiding away in distant and lonely places to devote themselves to prayer and meditation. The Poor Man keeps, of the culture he admires, the greatness of soul, magnanimity and courtesy; however he puts the ideal of chivalry in the service of Christ and the Church. The significance of Francis’s texts in which he makes

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use of that rhetoric has always been discussed, and is still discussed. Among academics there are those who minimize it like Miccoli and those, like Frugoni or Le Goff, who attach decisive importance to it. In any case, the element appears as an important if not crucial factor in Francis’s spiritual formation. In our research, it is clear that the idea of beautiful appears strongly linked to a specific aesthetic context but this traditional canon seems to slide with Francis towards other objects and new subjects, and the word, thanks to this subterfuge, becomes more performative. Because Francis expresses himself in the current language, widespread at that time and understood by everybody “with images and references known to everyone, outside the channels and traditional mediations of religious and moral literature” (Miccoli 1999, 12). A language that brings Francis closer to laymen when the saint is no longer “God’s athlete” but “God’s knight”. This knightly sensibility, with particular regard to poverty and the poor, then becomes typical of the “Minors”. It is not taken only from the influences of his education and/or a personal taste, typical of that time; actually, the choice of letting migrate the noble language towards a discourse on poverty reflects his intention to make the poor “beautiful” because worthy of love. Such linguistic choice affirms itself also as a programmatic choice. 3

Being Minors, a Hymn to the Beauty of Creation

Francis’s writings, as we have pointed out, are of a different nature. His prayers, lauds and orations are taken from or inspired by the liturgical corpus. However, Francis, who did not write much, among all the texts available, chose to give prominence to the texts most dear to him. It is, therefore, a form of selection and election. Sometimes he adds some personal writings, “adjustments”, which are sometimes true original works. In the volume that gathers Francis’s works, we have found some significant examples of his personal aesthetic taste. Vicinelli (2011, 208), on the subject of Francis’s major autograph, maintains that here is manifested the distinctive character of the Poor Man as a writer. This text is: one of the writings most worth remembering and most directly revealing of the saint’s soul and sensibility, and of his paternal and divine love; one of those that most closely link us to a precise biographical anecdote; and it is especially the one that more than any other let us learn some specific element relating to Francis as a writer […] here the impetus of exaltation seeks, in the repeated return of the mystical wave, a rhythm, a musicality that, in the echoes of the cadenced Latin translation of the Bible, which

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meets in some way the expression of the unspeakable […] This of the mystic is, allow me to repeat it, both a conscious and unconscious motion, like the creative impulse of the poet. The prayer was written on a parchment, which also contains the blessing that Francis gave to Brother Leo. The parchment with the autographs of Francis is treasured as a relic in the Basilica of Saint Francis in Assisi. The text deals with a biographic episode, recalling the moment immediately after the stigmatization. Francis addresses himself directly to God to thank him for what he has been given – it is a moment of thanksgiving: You are the holy Lord God Who does wonderful things. You are strong. You are great. You are the Most High. You are the almighty king. You holy Father, King of heaven and earth. You are three and one, the Lord God of gods; You are the good, all good, the highest good, Lord God living and true. You are love, charity; You are wisdom, You are humility, You are patience, You are beauty, You are meekness. You are security, You are rest. You are gladness and joy, You are our hope, You are justice, You are moderation, You are all our riches to sufficiency. You are beauty, You are meekness. You are the protector, You are our custodian and defender. You are strength, You are refreshment. You are our hope. You are our faith, You are our charity. You are all our sweetness, You are our eternal life: Great and wonderful Lord, Almighty God, Merciful Savior.10 The wonder and amazement are expressed through stylistic expedients like the rhythm given by the anaphora “You are,” which serves as an obsessive invocation, the art of repetition that produces a kind of vertigo. One is stricken by the diversity of the terminology, as noticed and commented by Jacques Dalarun who observes that “Francis employs some thirty different qualifiers” (2012, 13) to name God, terms that belong to the liturgical tradition but also suggest a possible parallelism with the traditional prayer of the Muslim world. We find above all the alternation, dear to the Franciscan rhetoric, between 10  Vicinelli 2011, 206–8.

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traditional references and more intimate and personal passages. In that regard Giorgio Petrocchi suggests the autobiographical watermark, the personal way through which Francis deals with the issue of a direct communication with God, like the ability to modulate between elegant formulations and a direct verbal style, which would be his characteristic. Francis composed this prayer of praise on Mount Verna in September 1224, when he received the stigmata. We notice that at such a particular moment, so crucial for Francis, the man and his destiny as a saint, the only noun repeated twice in the text that, along with the Canticle, is both a testimony and a literary testament, is the word “beauty” as if to point out that this quality has a central and essential place in Francis’s spiritual adhesion: “you are beauty […] you are beauty”. We also notice that all the values praised by the traditional medieval society – as recalled by Le Goff (1964): strength, protection, defense and safety – are taken here to hail the divine but are associated with completely different qualifications: sweetness, docility, beauty, humility, etc. Francis distinguishes himself thanks to a desire to mix up the registers and a personal ability to recover a traditional lexical field to render it in more intimate and human tones. To very briefly confirm this hypothesis, we take another example of stylistic innovation, which we find in the Psalms of the mysteries of Jesus Christ (Codex 338 of Assisi),11 namely a recovery of the Mysteries of the Lord. Some were completed by quotes and personal expressions, and here Christ becomes the “narrator” of his own life. The effect is very evocative and allows a parallelism between the word of Christ and that of Francis. It is a sort of simulation – Francis, Alter Christus, reveals himself in a more intimate way, through his writings, his style and his poetics, identifying himself with Christ. The concept of beauty as a form of approval and consent to the Creation appears in the First Rule – prayer and thanksgiving in Chapter XXIII. The reader discovers an enumeration of the elements of the earthly society that Francis wants to praise: And we supplicate all those who desire to serve the Lord God, in the bosom of the Catholic and Apostolic Church, all priests, deacons, subdeacons, acolytes, exorcists, readers, porters, all clerks, all monks and nuns, all children and little ones, the poor and indigent, kings and princes, labourers and peasants, servants and masters, the virgins, the continent 11  Ivi, 243. The oldest known draft of Francis’s Canticle is the one found in the thirteenthcentury Codex 338, f.f. 33r–34r, kept in the Library of the Sacred Convent of Saint Francis in Assisi.

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and the married, the lay folk, male and female, all children, adolescents, young men and old men, healthy people and the sick, the small and the great, the peoples of every tribe and tongue and nation, all human beings everywhere on earth, who are and who shall be, we pray and beseech them, all we Brothers Minor, unprofitable servants, that all together, with one accord we persevere in the true faith and in penitence, for outside of this no one can be saved.12 Le Goff insists in this passage, so surprising but so typical of the Poor Man, on the principle “of social levelling […] on this hierarchical uniformitas”13 imposed by Francis as, unlike in the celestial world, deliberate confusion reigns on earth, there is no order in earthly society; those who desire to serve the Holy Church have legitimacy to exist and to be nominated: What is manifest above all is the desire to consider society as a set of categories that are not hierarchic from a spiritual point of view and, with due respect paid to church society, are all equal on the level of salvation or, if anyone is favoured on that level, the advantage goes to the unprivileged here below.14 The feudal model is not followed and social categories are mixed, the “poor and indigent” are called upon prior to the “princes”; the “lay folk” and the “religious”, “male and female”, “healthy people and the sick”, “children”, “old men”; the dizzying list would suggest a true profession of faith, a political and spiritual programme (Francis makes no difference) that converges toward an aesthetic requirement that makes “gracious”, in other words amiable and attractive, all creatures. Finally, the ideal model for Francis is the family: let us remember, in fact, that he called himself “bella donna” or “mother” and his children were all “beautiful”; he invoked an ideal family relationship in which the faithful become brides, sisters, and mothers; brothers, fathers and companions: the register being always a personal and affective one. It is always a form of appropriation, and perhaps exploitation of the most common references put in the service of an ideal reconfiguration of the world. This distinctive trait, which consists finally in embellishing the world and recreating a perfect cosmogony, inspired many authors; we find this point of view in Christian Bobin’s

12  Ivi, 111. 13  Le Goff 2002, 117. 14  Ivi, 97.

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volume Le Très-Bas (1992, 59), in which the author exalts this humble approach to the beauty of the Creation: […] only the Most Low can bow so deeply, with so much simple grace […] Now he knows where the Most Low dwells: at the edge of the light of the century, there where life lacks everything, where life is just raw life, elementary wonder, poor miracle. Sigmund Freud himself perceived this uniqueness of Francis, as he mentioned in his The Uneasiness of Civilization: “It may have been Saint Francis of Assisi who went furthest in this use of love for the inner feeling of happiness”.15 This attitude marks an attention to totality, a desire of mixing the schemes and a rejection of any form of hierarchization or competition. The major upheaval of social ideology appears in the choice of the vocabulary. The enemies of Francis, Le Goff reiterates, are designated by prefixes marking superiority: magis prae super.16 On the contrary the low, the lesser and the negative are valued in Francis’s discourse through the diminutives he used. Such linguistic preferences and stylistic choices are aimed at outlining a poetics based on love, empathy and compassion and make every element of creation irrevocably beautiful. Beauty is also an assurance of a right balance among creatures, his main concern being that of ensuring peace. His most important work in this regard is The Canticle of Brother Sun, which offers itself as the maximum expression of an ideal of life – the ideal of those who see the world around them with a new and benevolent look. The author of the Canticle was for a long time best known as a saint rather than a poet. The value of the Canticle was that of being written by Francis, therefore the Canticle was known but read through the centuries as a sort of prayer, not as a literary work. Italian literary historians, including Francesco De Sanctis, considered the Canticle a bad copy of the Bible. It was not until the work by Chavin de Malan (1869)17 that the Canticle draw the attention of the critics who regarded it as a work of profound poetry and doctrine. We can refer to the essential works of Fortini (1954) and Branca (1950), which we will not discuss in our study. Let us briefly recall instead the demonstration made by Contini (1963) on the literary value of the text: he found, in particular, the presence of the cursus, that is a rhetorical device, used in prose, to confer a particular rhythm on the final part of a sentence and, consequently, achieve 15  Freud, S. 1978. “Disagio nella civiltà” in Id., Opere. Torino: Boringhieri, vol X, 591. 16  Le Goff 2002, 116–7. 17  Chavin de Malan, F.E. 1869. Histoire de François d’Assise. Paris: Debécourt.

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better communication efficiency. To add something about the language of the Canticle, we must mention two specific characteristics that contribute to make it an unicum: the theme of fraternity, ignored in the Bible (including the two biblical sources cited), and the enthusiasm towards nature: this loving attitude towards the other and for all creatures restores the beauty of the world. We have noticed that in the Praises of God, the word ‘beauty’ occurs two times, like in the Canticle in which the sun is “beautiful” and the stars are “precious and beautiful”. The two texts were written in the same period; their comparison highlights the same repetition, giving a particular value to the word: O most high, almighty, good Lord God, to thee belong praise, glory, honor, and all blessing! Praised be my Lord God with all his creatures, and specially our brother the sun, who brings us the day and who brings us the light; fair is he and shines with a very great splendor: O Lord, he signifies to us thee! Praised be my Lord for our sister the moon, and for the stars, the which he has set clear and lovely in heaven. Praised be my Lord for our brother the wind, and for air and cloud, calms and all weather by the which thou upholdest life in all creatures. Praised be my Lord for our sister water, who is very serviceable unto us and humble and precious and clean. Praised be my Lord for our brother fire, through whom thou givest us light in the darkness; and he is bright and pleasant and very mighty and strong. Praised be my Lord for our mother the earth, the which doth sustain us and keep us, and bringeth forth diverse fruits and flowers of many colors, and grass. Praised be my Lord for all those who pardon one another for his love’s sake, and who endure weakness and tribulation; blessed are they who peaceably shall endure, for thou, O most Highest, shalt give them a crown. Praised be my Lord for our sister, the death of the body, from which no man escapeth. Woe to him who dieth in mortal sin! Blessed are they who are found walking by thy most holy will, for the second death shall have no power to do them harm. Praise ye and bless the Lord, and give thanks unto him and serve him with great humility.18 18  Vicinelli 2011, 243.

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Giorgio Petrocchi in his essay Saint Francis As A Writer long insisted on the rhetoric of beauty, explaining that “Francis impressed the mark of a personal lyrical and spiritual creation” (Petrocchi 1991, 26). He specified this idea insisting on the recurrence of the feeling of beautiful: […] his vision of the universe has nothing dramatic or restless: it is a calm, relaxing, joyous expanse of beautiful things, celebrating in unison the praise of the Creator. […] The one who sings the praises of the creatures, is the universe itself, protagonist and cantor of the hymn by means of the mouth and on behalf of all men, who exalt his beauty in every object or aspect of creation. Beautiful are the clouds as they make the vault of the sky more various and fascinating; beautiful is the wind, which moves, rather than clears, the clouds; and beautiful are clear skies, like the serenity of spaces.19 The spiritual centre of the lauda is in the fraternal embrace of Creation, driven by an act of total love, and the theme of love is not expressed in abstract forms, but through visual images. The idea of a beautiful universe stems from the awareness that it is the fruit of the divine will, being the Most Beautiful. It is clearly a chant of reconciliation and solace, but also one of reassurance – with respect to what has been said before about medieval sensitivity based on reverence and fear – a chant of confidence and perhaps of relief, which offers to simple men the keys to the humble beauty of our earthly world. Beauty is regarded by Francis as the highest form of expression of the divine, and this is clear; however, Francis, particularly, but not only, in the Canticle of Brother Sun, may be regarded as the inventor of a new kind of feeling of beautiful, linked to a strongly empathic attitude towards all living creatures, with no hierarchical distinction. Therefore, the Franciscan movement is often seen as a precursor to a “sense of beauty” that anticipates the Renaissance. In fact, the words, the deeds and the works of Francis of Assisi mark a spiritual revolution that upsets the way of thinking and behaving of all social classes, imposing new ethical approaches and new aesthetic categories. In conclusion, such sensitivity to the earth’s beauty is manifested through a mindset essentially linked to the notions of happiness, good mood, frank gaiety and therefore not limited to the question, already much discussed, of perfect joy intended as virtue and salvation of the soul. This unique synergy between joy and beauty seems to characterize the Franciscan thought, at least one of the origins. Through the study of the Franciscan vocabulary and the analysis of Franciscan poetry when nourished by French courtly literature, we 19  Ivi.

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have focused on three main features. On the one hand, the feeling of love and the empathic look for Creation and, on the other hand, the sense of wonder and the strong propensity to inventiveness that favours the emergence of a truly artistic taste, and, finally Francis’s ability to express himself through evocative images to reveal the beauty of the prosaic world: the Beautiful is opposed to the Sublime. There are many aspects that support the thesis of a “joyful” saint, who recommends joy to his companions, a saint sensitive to singing, music and poetry (Francis is believed to have composed music, now lost, for the Canticle), a man moved by the beauty of the cosmos to the point of appearing, according to Le Goff, as “the originator of a medieval feeling for nature expressed in religion, literature and art”.20 This disposition to happiness, this willingness to welcome the sense of beauty make his personality fascinating and his deeds decisive for the history of human sensibility. In conclusion, let’s remember how Francis told the friar who tended the garden not to “use all the soil for planting edible herbs, but [to leave] a plot free to let the wild herbs grow […] to keep a part of the garden for flowerbeds, planting there all fragrant herbs and all plants that produce beautiful flowers”.21 Beside Francis’s emphasis on the aesthetic (and not only utilitarian) aspect of gardening, we will see the birth of a new aesthetics of poverty and simplicity. References

Works of Francis of Assisi and Franciscan Sources

Bonaventura da Bagnoregio, da. 2005. Vita di San Francesco. A cura di Mario Spinelli. Roma: Città Nuova, [1 ed. 1973]. Francesco d’Assisi. 2009. Scritti. A cura di Carlo Paolazzi. Grottaferrata, Roma: Quaracchi. François d’Assise. 1981. Écrits, bilingual edition. Intr. Théophile Desbonnets, Thaddée Matura, Latin text of the critical edition Esser Kajetan, trans. and notes JeanFrançois Godet, index Damien Vorreux. Paris: Cerf / Éditions franciscaines, coll. Sources chrétiennes n° 285. François d’Assise. 2010. Ecrits, Vies, témoignages. Dir. Jacques Dalarun. Paris: Editions du Cerf / Editions franciscaines.

20  Le Goff 2002, V. 21  According to Tommaso da Celano cited in Frugoni 1995, 14.

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AA.VV. Fonti francescane: scritti e biografie di san Francesco d’Assisi, cronache e altre testimonianze del primo secolo francescano, scritti e biografie di santa Chiara d’Assisi. Padova: Edizioni Francescane, 1990. IV ed. Lorris, Guillaume de, Meung, Jean de. 1949. Le roman de la rose. Paris: Gallimard. Lorris, Guillaume de, Meung, Jean de. 2014. Il romanzo della Rosa. A cura di Mariantonia Liborio, Silvia De Laude. Torino: Einaudi. Tommaso da Celano. 2012. Vita di San Francesco d’Assisi e Trattato dei miracoli. Traduzione di Fausta Casolini. Assisi: Edizioni Porziuncola, [1 ed. 1970]. Vicinelli, Augusto (a cura di) 2011. Gli scritti di San Francesco e i Fioretti. Milano: Il Saggiatore.



Saint Francis, Franciscan Spirituality Poverty

Agamben, Giorgio. 2011. Altissima povertà. Regole monastiche e forma di vita. Vicenza: Neri Pozza. Balducci, Ernesto. 1989. Francesco d’Assisi. Firenze: Cultura della pace. Bertin, Mario. 2013. Francesco. Roma: Castelvecchi. Dalarun, Jacques. 1996. La Malaventura di Francesco d’Assisi in uso storico delle leggende francescane. Milano: Biblioteca Francescana. Fo, Dario. 2006. Lu Santo Jullàre Françesco. A cura di Franca Rame. Milano: Fabbri, [1 ed. 1999]. Frugoni, Chiara. 1988. Francesco. Un’altra storia. Milano: Marietti. Frugoni, Chiara. 1995. Vita di un uomo: Francesco d’Assisi. Torino: Einaudi. Jorgensen, Johannes. 1912. Saint François d’Assise. Paris: Librairie académique Perrin. Le Goff, Jacques. 1999. Saint François d’Assise. Paris: Gallimard. Manselli, Raoul. 2004. François d’Assise. Paris: Cerf / Éditions franciscaines. Miccoli, Giovanni. 1999. Francesco d’Assisi e l’ordine dei minori. Milano: Biblioteca Francescana. Miccoli, Giovanni. 2010. Francesco d’Assisi. Memoria, storia e storiografia. Milano: Biblioteca Francescana. Mollat, Michel. 1966. “La notion de pauvreté au Moyen âge: position de problèmes.” Revue d’Histoire de l’Église de France 52, n. 149, 5–23. Morghen, Raffaello. 1959. “Francescanesimo e Rinascimento.” In Jacopone e il suo tempo. Atti del 1. Convegno del Centro di Studi sulla spiritualita medievale, Todi: Accademia tudertina, 30–5. Petrocchi, Giorgio. 1991. San Francesco scrittore. Bologna: Pàtron. Sabatier, Paul. 1894. Vie de saint François d’Assise. Paris: Fischbacher. Salvatorelli, Luigi. 1955. “Movimento Francescano e gioachimismo. La storiografia francescana contemporanea.” In Relazioni del X congresso internazionale di scienze storiche. Firenze: Sansoni. Vol. III, Storia del Medioevo.

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Thode, Henry. 1909. Saint François d’Assise et les origines de l’art de la Renaissance en Italie. Paris: Librairie Renouard Henri Laurens ed., [I ed. 1885]. Vauchez, André. 2009. François d’Assise entre histoire et mémoire. Paris: Fayard. Vauchez, André. 1994. La spiritualité du Moyen Âge occidental. Paris: 1975 Seuil.



Notion of Beauty



The Canticle of Brother Sun

Eco, Umberto. 2007. Storia della bellezza. Milano: Bompiani. Eco, Umberto. 2009. Storia della bruttezza. Milano: Bompiani. Le Goff, Jacques. 2008. La civilisation de l’Occident médiéval. Paris: Flammarion, [1 ed. 1964].

Branca, Vittore. 1994. Il cantico di frate Sole. Studio delle fonti e testo critico. Firenze: Olschki, [1 ed. 1950]. Chavin de Malan, François Émile. 1869. Histoire de François d’Assise. Paris: Debécourt. Contini, Gianfranco. 1963. “Un’ipotesi sulle Laudes Creaturarum.” In Rendiconti delle sedute dell’Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei. Classe di Scienze morali, storiche e filologiche. Roma: Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei, XVIII, 3–4 (serie VIII). Fortini, Arnaldo. 1954. “Di alcune questioni riguardanti la composizione del Cantico del Sole.” In Santa Chiara. Studi e Cronaca del VII centenario. 1253–1953. Assisi: Comitato centrale per il VII Centenario morte s. Chiara, 275–98. Von Görres, Johann Joseph. 1963. “Saint François d’Assise troubadour.” In Romantiques allemands. Dir. Maxime Alexandre. Paris: Gallimard NRF, vol. 1.

chapter 4

From Earthly Venus to Heavenly Venus: On the Evolution of the Concept of Beauty in Girolamo Benivieni Sergio Di Benedetto 1

Girolamo Benivieni and Neoplatonic View on Beauty

In October 1486, in the small Umbrian village of Fratta, Giovanni Pico della Mirandola wrote his well-known commentary on the Canzona d’amore composed by the Florentine poet Girolamo Benivieni (1453–1542).1 The commentary was a little summa of the Neoplatonic doctrine on love and it showed not only the profound and fruitful relationship between the Florentine author and the philosopher, but also the esteem and the friendship which Pico had for Benivieni, so much so that Pico wanted to entrust his theory on love to the interpretation of the Benivenian verses, which in turn were suggested by Pico.2 The relationship between Pico and Benivieni has to be situated in the network which develops around Lorenzo de’ Medici and which involved, over time, a lot of the main figures such as Ficino and Poliziano: Benivieni belonged to this cultural milieu, as demonstrated by a poetic dispute between Lorenzo, Poliziano, Pandolfo Collenuccio and Benivieni himself, or by many a Benivenian sonnet dedicated to Lorenzo (cf. Leporatti 2008, 228–30). If we want to investigate Benivieni’s aesthetic conception, it is necessary to start from his early thinking, influenced by Florentine Neoplatonism, which prevailed in the Tuscan city during the Seventies and the Eighties of the

1  The Canzona and the commentary were published in Benivieni’s Opere in 1519, printed by Giunti; Benivieni modified the original text by Pico, removing the anti-Ficinian passages. For the chronology of the commentary cf. Fellina 2014, 68–9. 2  Sears Jayne writes: “When Pico agreed to write a commentary on Benivieni’s poem, he evidently requested a number of changes and additions in the poem itself” (Jayne 1984, 155).

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fifteenth century, thanks to Ficino’s translations and commentaries on Plato’s works (then taken up by Pico in a personal interpretation).3 One of the most important elements in Neoplatonic aesthetics is the distinction between terrestrial beauty and celestial beauty, which Benivieni retraces in his Canzona and Pico analyses in his commentary: Since beauty is found only in visible things, and since there are two kinds of sight, one corporeal and the other incorporeal, there must also be two kinds of visible objects, and consequently two kinds of beauty. These two kinds of beauty are the two Venuses celebrated by Plato and by our poet, namely, corporeal or sensible beauty, which is called the earthly Venus, and intellegible beauty, which is called the heavenly Venus. Intellegible beauty is found among the Ideas […]. Hence it follows that since love is a desire for beauty, just as there are two beauties, there necessarily must be two loves, earthly and heavenly, and just as the former desires earthly or sensible beauty, so the latter desires heavenly or intellegible beauty. This is why Plato says in the Symposium that there are necessarily as many loves as there are Venuses. Pico della Mirandola 1984, 105

Pico refers to Plato’s Symposium, which quotes the Greek myth of the two types of Aphrodite: We all know that Love is inseparable from Aphrodite, and if there were only one Aphrodite, there would be only one Love; but as there are two Aphrodite, there must be two Loves. And am I not right in asserting that there are two Aphrodite? The elder one, having no mother, who is called the heavenly Aphrodite – she is the daughter of Uranus; the younger, who is the daughter of Zeus and Dione – her we call common, and the Love who is her fellow-worker is rightly named common, as the other love is called heavenly. Plato 2001, 216

Similarly, Ficino wrote in De Amore, his commentary on the Symposium: Now we must discuss briefly the two kinds of Love. Pausanias says that for Plato, Cupid was the consort of Venus, and that there are necessarily as many Cupids as there are Venuses. Now, he mentions two Venuses, 3  Ficino’s translation of Plato’s Opera Omnia (1484) was decisive for the development of Florentine Neo-platonism; cf. Kristeller 1978.

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which are accompanied by two Loves. One Venus he calls Heavenly, the other Earthly. The Heavenly one was born of Heaven of no mother; the other was born of Jupiter and Dione. Ficino 1944, 141–24

Both Ficino and Pico (and Benivieni) think that love is “desire for beauty” (“desiderio di bellezza”), understood as grace and harmony,5 and both affirm the superiority of heavenly Venus, because she leads to God, supreme beauty, the beginning and the end of all things. However, to reach ideal beauty, they maintain that it is first necessary to see earthly Venus, visible and perceivable: in this way the terrestrial beauty obtains an important role in the staircase to God, because it is the first step on the ladder.6 4  Ficino and Pico have different conceptions of Venus. For the Tuscan philosopher, the two Venuses inhabit man’s soul, earthly Venus as power to generate, heavenly Venus as power of intelligentia; this is different from Pico, who thinks that the two Venuses are not a power, but a presence of ideas in the angelical mind and in man’s soul, together with beauty, which accompanies both. On this conception cf. Fellina 2014, 105–7 and Bacchelli 2001, 122–5. 5  Ficino declares: “The attractiveness of this Orderliness is Beauty. To Beauty, Love as soon as it was born, drew the Mind, and led the Mind formerly un-beautiful to the same Mind made beautiful” (Ficino 1944, 128). Similarly, Pico writes: “The proceeding is the broad or general meaning of the word beauty. In this meaning it is related to the word harmony. Thus God is said to have created the whole world by a musical or harmonic ordering. Although the word harmony in its general sense can mean the normal state of order in any composite thing, strictly speaking it means only the arranging of several notes which fit together to make a pleasant sound. In the same way, although the word beauty can be used for anything which is nicely put together, nevertheless it properly refers only to visible things, just as the word harmony properly refers only to audible things; and it is this visual beauty the desire for which is called love” (Pico della Mirandola 1984, 104). For Augustine’s influence on this issue cf. Vasoli 1999. For harmony in Renaissance thought cf. Garin 1994, 128. 6  In identifying the stages to reach God, Pico writes: “Following this order, the poet shows how a man is led through six stages, beginning with material beauty, to his first end. First stage: when the soul is still turned toward the senses, there is presented to it through the eyes the particular beauty of Alcibiades, or Phedrus, or some other attractive body. The soul is attracted to that body and takes pleasure in its particular beauty. If the soul stops here, it is in the first stage, the stage which is the most imperfect and most material. At the beginning of this stanza [the sixth] the poet assigns a cause to the following effect, namely, how it happens that one is attracted to one person sooner than to another. Second stage: the second stage is when the soul, using its own inner faculty, refines inside the soul the image which it has received from the eyes, even though it is still material or sensible. The more spiritual the imagination makes the images (or the more it separates it from matter), the more perfect it makes the image, and the closer it brings it to ideal beauty. But it is still very far away” (Pico della Mirandola 1984, 158). Ficino and Pico have two different ideas of corporal beauty since the former gives a more positive opinion: “We shall praise, of course, that former physical beauty, and approve the other of just; and we shall always try to keep in mind that the greatness of love corresponds to the greatness of the beauty it desires. When the body is beautiful and the soul is not at all, let us be slow and reluctant to worship the

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The concept of two kinds of beauty is also present in Benivieni’s thought, but it is subject to change during his long life: in his early lyrics he gives consideration to earthly Venus and to physical allure, although he mainly focuses on heavenly Venus and on the path to God. Instead, in the poems written in maturity after his encounter with Savonarola, Benivieni attributes absolute preminence to ideal beauty, seen in a christological light: heavenly Venus will assume the concrete features of Christ, highest beauty and yet also tangible, God incarnate. Christ embodies the extraordinary union between earthly Venus and heavenly Venus, which leads man to God, apex of human happines. 2

The Early Canzoniere: the Coexistence of the Two Venuses

The young Benivieni’s Canzoniere – dating back approximately to the Seventies and the Eighties of the fifteenth century – comprises several sonnets, canzoni, sestine, madrigals, for a total of 81 compositions. They are organized in thematic nuclei, because the texts are structured around similar themes, without a general organizational criterium.7 Among these nuclei, love is a dominating theme. Sung in a Petrarchan manner, it has a Neoplatonic message, but there are also some references to physical love, as demonstrated by sonnet 64: Oh pleasant night, more joyful and whiter than the other, oh fortunate bed, oh delightful embraces, oh last pleasure, first reason of our eternal pains; bodily beauty, like the shadowy passing image of beauty. When the soul alone is beautiful, let us love ardently this immutable beauty of the soul. When either beauty happens to coincide with the other, let us be especially adoring, and thus we shall testify to our having belonged to the Platonic family, for it knows nothing but holy, joyful, heavenly, and divine things” (Ficino 1944, 132). On the other hand, Pico declares: “I say that the sense judges that beauty has its origin in the body, and therefore the object of love in all irrational animals is coitus. But the reason judges very differently. The reason knows that the material body is not only not the source or cause of beauty, but is by nature entirely averse to and destructive of that beauty. Moreover the reason knows that the more one separates beauty from the body and considers it in itself, the more beauty has the proper dignity and excellence of its own nature. Therefore the reason does not try to proceed beyond the image received in the eyes to the body itself; on the contrary, if the reasons sees any trace of anything corporeal or material remaining in that image, the reason tries to purge the image of it as much as it can” (Pico della Mirandola 1984, 124). 7  For the critical edition of the early Canzoniere cf. Leporatti 2008, 144–299.

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oh woman, my good, running away you have left a great desire for you in my heart and in my breast, and I uselessly search and wait for that pleasure that I have tasted, but that will not return, because it is in the past; Love, my lord, has left the ivory breast at the breaking of dawn. Poor me! The woman does not want to return, o sweet sleep come to comfort my afflicted heart before I die.8 It is an explicit composition, where the poet sings the suffering caused by his beloved’s departure after a love encounter. Benivieni asks sleep to take possession of him so he may achieve peace while resting.9 In this sonnet, there are verses that have clear references to physical love: delightful embraces (“grati amplexi”), pleasure (“piacer”), ivory breast (“eburneo seno”). Similar themes appear also in sonnet 53, where the poet sings the topos of the female greeting, while searching for a physical contact with his beloved: Oh happy day, fortunate place, joyous sky, favourable and beautiful Star, sweet, gentle and tranquil word, delightful face, fruitful gaze, honest game; my avid eyes, slow at running away from the arrows and the traps of love. 8  I chose to paraphrase the Benivenian poetry, rather than translate it; all translations are mine, except where indicated otherwise. “O dolce, lieta e sopra ogni altra assai / candida nocte, o fortunato lecto, / o grati amplexi, o ultimo dilecto, / prima cagion de’ nostri eterni guai; // O ben, che sol di te, fuggendo, hor m’hai / pien di disio el cor lasciato e ’l pecto, / ch’i scio ben che ’nvan cerco e ’ndarno aspecto / quel piacer che tornar non de’ già mai, // passato è poi che da lo eburneo seno / pender del mio signor doveo già el Sole / dal primo albergo in braccio a l’Aürora. // Lasso, ma poi che lei tornar non vole / vien, pria ch’io pera, o dolce somno, almeno / ad consolar lo afflicto cor tu hora” (Leporatti 2008, 261–2). The Incipit refers to Propertius II, 15: “O me felicem! o nox mihi candida! et o tu / lectule deliciis facte beate meis!” (“How happy is my lot! O night that was not dark for me! And thou beloved couch blessed by my delight!”, Butler 1912, 103). 9  The insomnia theme of love is traditional; cf., for example, Petrarch’s Canzoniere 216, 224 e 234 (every quote from the Canzoniere is taken from Petrarch 2001, retrieved from http://www .poetryintranslation.com/PITBR/Italian/Petrarchhome.htm).

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White, beautiful and honest hand, that put in my heart love’s tinder. Through you, in a moment I perceived not only the biggest pleasure enjoyable by man, but all the goods of paradise, when I touched the ivory woman’s hand together with sweet words and a smile, which the sun could not make less beautiful.10 The references to physical love are traditional, indeed, the poet speaks about the voice, the face, the gaze, the white and ivory hand, which – as we know from the end of the poem – has been touched by the poet and this action originates paradisiacal happiness in him. In this case Venus is terrestrial too: there are no references to celestial beauty and heaven here is only mentioned as the basis for the comparison with a concrete and physical bliss. Furthermore, Benivieni also cites the female name, Stella, which gives historical significance to the woman (one of the rare cases in which a female name appears in his poetry).11 Another element that is very important to situate the sonnet in an historical frame, is the introduction written by the author, who declares: “The sonnet speaks about the pleasure originating from a woman’s greeting and from the touch of the whitest of hands; the woman’s real name is Stella”.12 We do not know anything about Stella, but, importantly, Benivieni points out this realistic detail, through which we understand that the woman was a real person: he underlines that love is concrete and true, not a result of poetic imagination. In any case, the presence of physical love is secondary, and it coexists with spiritual love. Indeed there are some compositions where the poet celebrates 10  “Felice giorno, adventurato loco, / lieto ciel, dextra e gracïosa Stella, / dolce, suave e placida favella, / grato volto, almo sguardo, honesto gioco; // occhi miei troppo ingordi, al fuggir poco / prompti e lacci d’Amor, le sue quadrella; / candida, vaga e schietta mano, ond’ella / nell’esca impria del mio cor pose el foco; // per voi non sol[o], quanto in concepto humano / scender può di piacer, senti’ in un punto, / ma tutti insieme e ben[i] del Paradiso, // alhor che da la eburnea amata mano, / con sì dolce parole e con un riso / che far men bello el sol pote, fui giunto” (Leporatti 2008, 255). Cf. the echo with Petrarch’s sonn. 243, v. 14: “o sacro, aventuroso et dolce loco” (“Oh advantaged sweet and sacred place”), where “loco” rhymes with “gioco” and “poco”, like in Benivenian sonnet. 11  Another case is sonnet 57, where the poet speaks about Fiammetta, a woman of Mugello loved by him. 12  “Quanta fusse la dolceza presa da uno amoroso saluto e dal toccar d’una candidissima mano d’una gentil fanciulla, el cui vero nome è Stella”. The first 58 texts have an introduction written by the poet; for their function cf. Leporatti 2008, 181–5.

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his lady (in particular her eyes) only to move on to love’s consequences in his soul. Sonnet 50, containing numerous stilnovistic references, is emblematic in this sense: My woman is not a mortal object that is perceptible through the senses or the mind, because our defective mind is not able to carry out this operation. Her words, her beautiful face have such virtue that when someone hears her words or sees her face, he ascends to heaven and he abandons all evil, purified like gold in fire. This Love says to me; Love, faithful witness of my woman’s power, who exceeds every woman like the sun exceeds the stars. The simple soul, which believes in love, experiences through every sense a divine sensation.13 The sonnet clearly expresses the woman’s power: her perceivable beauty (her voice, face) has the virtue to lead the lover to Heaven. In this experience every single sense of the poet is involved, as is declared at the end of the poem. The introduction too is significant: “The woman loved by the poet is not mortal; her 13  “La donna mia non è cosa mortale / che si possa veder sensibilmente, / né immaginar, ché nostra inferma mente, / nostro concepto human tanto non sale. // Le sue parole, el suo bel volto han tale / Virtù, che, qua·l’un vede o l’altre sente, / come oro in fiamma, ogni suo mal presente / lascia, e da gire al Ciel gli son date l’ale. // Questo me dice Amor, che in terra fede, / giurando, a l’alma fa de’ beni di quella, / che, come el sol le stelle, ogn’altra excede. // L’anima simplicetta, che gli crede, / un non scio che divin[o], mentre favella, / di lei sente, ode, intende, gusta e vede” (Leporatti 2008, 252). There are explicit references to Dante’s Donne ch’avete intelletto d’amore, vv. 43–4 (cf. Dante 2012, 23): “Dice di lei Amor: ‘Cosa mortale / come esser pò sì adorna e sì pura?”) (“Love says of her: ‘How could it happen that / a mortal is so lovely and so pure?”). The motif is taken up also by Petrarch, Canzoniere, 90, v. 9: “Non era l’andar suo cosa mortale” (“Her way of moving was no mortal thing”). In the Benivenian sonnet there are some philosophical terms: “sensibilmente” (through the senses), “immaginar” (to imagine), “concepto human” (human concept), “virtù” (virtue), “anima simplicetta” (“simple soul”, with a reference to Dante’s Purgatorio, XVI, 88).

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words and her face have such virtue that, through Love, they can purify every human sin and can render everyone immortal”.14 The woman’s beauty has the power to purify every sin, and, through her, man can reach God – a concept symbolized by the biblical image of gold purified by fire. In this spiritual perspective, beauty is only to be contemplated, not to be physically enjoyed, as sonnet 5 shows: If someone could see my woman’s eyes, which are moved by Love, and if someone could perceive the light that descends from her beautiful face into her lover’s heart, he would see that Love chose a man to lead him to the goods of heaven through woman’s beauty. If someone could hear her words, when she speaks, he would become a sun among the stars. But if someone wanted to pick the flower of her beauty, they would make a mistake, and this action is inconceivable to my mind and unspeakable in my verses.15 The second quatrain is a brief summary of Neoplatonic doctrine: the woman’s beauties lead to Heaven through their virtue, but these beauties do not have to be experienced and enjoyed, as the last tercet demonstrates: the only aim for the poet is to reach God. 14  “Che la donna da lui amata non è mortale e che ne le sue parole e ne la visione del suo volto è tal virtù, secondo che Amore gli dice, che ha la forza di purgare ogni labe terrena e de fare gli huomini immortali” (Leporatti 2008, 252). 15  “Chi potessi ben gli ochi mirar fiso, / gli occhi che Amor suavemente move, / e ’l lume, che nel cor per gracia piove / di chi l’ama, sentir dal suo bel viso, // vedre’ ben come Amor n’ha alcun diviso / dal comun corso per guidarlo altrove, / e per virtù di sue belleze nuove / in terra e primi beni del paradiso. // Et chi potessi intender le parole / mentre lei parla, al suon di quelle alhora / diverre’ quasi fra le stelle un sole. // Ma qual chi el fior di sue belleze ancora / cogliessi, opra non è da la mia lima, / ch’io nol concepo pur, non ch’io lo exprima” (Leporatti 2008, 217–8). Cf. also Petrarch, Triumphus cupidinis, III, v. 133 (cf. Petrarch 1807, 39): “veramente è fra le stelle un sole” (“A splendour which obscures each lesser star”), where the last term rhymes with “parole”, v. 135.

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Nevertheless, there is another important theme here: the female words have a great power, because they can turn the poet into a metaphorical sun, i.e. they can raise the lover to heaven. Furthermore, the poet also claims his incompetence in describing beauty (the topical theme of ineffability): his lyre cannot sing adequately “sue belleze”, her beauties. Therefore, in young Benivieni’s Canzoniere, earthly Venus and heavenly Venus exist side by side, but the early Canzoniere already contains the moral and religious themes that will become predominant in mature Benivenian poetry. For example, the sestina 42 is a prayer offered to the crucified Christ on Good Friday, where the author asks Christ the grace of conversion. His life is represented by the traditional image of a ship that finds it difficult to maintain its course: If ever a human word has opened heaven, if ever a prayer has moved your benign face, my Lord, I pray, turn your holy eyes towards the fragile boat of my life, which sails among the rocks of doubt and is heading towards volontary death.16 The verses become a prayer that the repenting poet may be freed from his sins by God’s Grace: Oh Lord, before I die, help me and release me from the rocks of doubt. Do not look at my sins, which deserve damnation; I know that I am not worthy of heaven.17 After the encounter with Savonarola and Benivieni’s acceptance of the Dominican’s moral reform plan, these poetical themes – starting from the 16  “Se mai lingua mortal piangendo el cielo / aperse già, se mai alcun prego in terra / piegò, Signore, el Tuo benigno volto, / volgi, priego, e sancti occhi al fragil legno / che, combattuto infra dubbiosi scogli, / misero córe ad voluntaria morte” (Leporatti 2008, 245, vv. 1–6). The Benivenian sestina follows the model of Petrarch’s 2001, 80, where life is represented as a voyage. From this Petrarchan poem, Benivieni also takes two rhymes “scogli” and “legno”. 17  “Però, prima ch’el corpo in fredda terra, / Signor, ritorni, al mio soccorso volto / tra’mi, ché puoi, de sì dubiosi scogli. / Non guardar l’error mio, che eterna morte / merita, ch’io scio ben che inutil legno / indegno è di spiegar suo rami al cielo” (Leporatti 2008, 245–6, vv. 19–24).

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Nineties – will increasingly shape the author’s poetry. The earthly Venus’ role will be more and more restricted, until she almost disappears, as we can infer from the Commento of 1500.18 3

Canzoni et sonetti dello amore e della bellezza divina: The Centrality of Heavenly Venus

In 1500 Benivieni published – for the Tubini printing house – a collection of 100 of his poems, 55 of which are rewritings of his youth lyrics; he also matched the compositions with a detailed self-comment and he titled the work Commentary by Girolamo Benivieni, Florentine citizen, on some of his songs and sonnets on love and divine beauty (Commento di Hieronymo Benivieni cittadino fiorentino sopra a più sue canzoni et sonetti dello amore e della belleza divina). Given the title, it is clear in which thematic frame the texts are to be placed: love and celestial beauty. Benivieni modified some texts and he oriented the reader through a moral and religious filter, wanting to show “The ascension, fall and redirection of the human soul to his very own aim, which is God himself”.19 Elaborating a precise structure, he divides his Commento into three parts, to describe the soul’s path in approaching God, and he declares the work’s aim in the Proemio: “The primary intention of these love lyrics is nothing but to redirect our soul away from the excessive affection for creatures to the love of its Creator”.20 It is clear, therefore, starting from the introduction, that love for the creatures is seen in a negative way, as “disorderly affection”. Furthermore there is a negative reading of his youth poetry, as the proemial sestina declares: Time has come for me to abandon my sweet rhymes and loving verses, which have fed my heart for a long time like a poison, and to wake up from a lazy sleep 18  To understand Benivieni’s poetic evolution Savonarola’s Apologeticum is very important. It negatively evaluates every kind of poetry, except for a spiritual poetry aimed at the moral edification of the worshippers (but the Domenican warns that poets should not devote too much time to it). Cf. Savonarola 1998. 19  Benivieni 1500, Ivr: “Lo ascenso, la ruina e la revocatione della anima humana in el suo fine che è epso Dio”. Benivieni modified the texts in a moral and religious way, eliminating numerous passages that could be understood in a profane way. 20  Ivi, Iir: “La intentione primaria di epsi amorosi miei versi non sia altro che revocare l’anima nostra dallo affecto inordinato delle creature allo amore del suo creatore”.

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and a dark night, because the sun already shines in the sky.21 Now the “loving verses” are considered a source of poison for the heart: they have placed the poet into a dark night, i.e. in a situation of sin, where he cannot enjoy the sunlight, symbol of God’s grace. Henceforward his poetry (and his life) have to be exclusively aimed at the contemplation of divine beauty, running away from everything that impedes the journey to ascesis: this is the Leitmotiv of the whole Commento, as many a texts demostrate. Therefore there is no indulgence to terrestrial beauty in itself, instead, we find it is totally subordinated to the path towards God. Sonnet IV of the second part is an example of this: When my idle thoughts speak about love that has its aim in itself, the deceptive appearances of this thinking are so sweet that the heart accepts them happily. Alas, when the heart places itself into their power, envy, wrath, pride, hate and suffering are born in the poet’s soul. This happens with every thing terrestrial, because the more the heart loves the bait, the more poison it releases. Oh my Lord, you are that very peace and bait with which the dead heart feeds itself in order not to die again in the future.22 21  Ivi, VIIr: “Le dolci rime e gli amorosi versi / che di occulto venen mio cor gran tempo / hanno e di pianto invan pasciuti gli occhi, / tempo è ch’io lasci e che, dal pigro somno / sciolto, mi svegli e da la obscura nocte, / mentre che in cielo ancor risplende el sole”. The sestina rewrites the early sestina 43, which now receives more emphasis, appearing as it does at the beginning of this work. However, the sestina’s presence in the early Canzoniere is another proof of the continuity between young and mature poetry (in rewriting the verses I have introduced punctuation, accent marks, apostrophes; I have also used uppercase letters, and square brackets for hypermetric verses.). 22  Ivi, 45v–46r: “Tutti e mie vani pensier qualhor d’amore, / d’amor quel che in sé pon suo primo obiecto, / parlon, sì dolce el loro mendace aspecto / ne appar, che lieto gli riceve el core. // Lasso, ma come sotto el loro valore, / sotto el loro freno, è el miser cor recepto / del

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This sonnet – almost proto-Mannerist – is explicit: every terrestrial good has a deceptive appareance, it is a poisonous trap, which produces sinful results (wrath, hate, envy, suffering, pride). God only is the bait that every man has to look for, because he gives life to a dead heart, as the final tercet declares (with a topical reversal of life and death). However, the comment to these verses softens the harshness of the Benivenian judgment: In every earthly good there is a lure, which poisons the heart to death, when it accepts these goods in themselves. Consequently, a moderate use of them, through God, can become useful and delightful and, on the contrary, the abuse of them was always obnoxious and detrimental.23 According to this passage, a total disapproval of earthly goods in themselves is not happening, rather, the passage condemns their excessive use, not aimed at spiritual growth: there is therefore a problem with moderation in man’s behaviour, who has to seek God’s beauty only. During his journey, material goods and terrestial beauty can be an obstacle since they can cause terrible dangers for the soul – as Benivieni warns in the following passage: The moment the soul in love with divine beauty leaves every material thing behind, it can equally happen that the soul, little by little, almost inadvertently, leaves the sweet yoke of God and when it realizes its damnation, it is already in Satan’s power.24 Everything must be subordinated to divine beauty. When this does not happen, a serious danger for the soul arises, and the risk of real damnation: Oh Love [God, my note], I so yearn for you, who are my good and my peace, male, dissimulato lor dilecto, / nasce invidia, ira, sdegno, odio e dolore. // Et così va che in ciascun ben terreno / una esca è tal[e], che quanto più al cor piace / tanto più el nutre di letal[e] veneno. // Tu solo quella esca se’, tu quella pace / Signor, di cui chi el morto suo cor pasce, / per non mai più morir d’amor, rinasce”. The sonnet is not a rewriting of an early text. 23  Ivi, 46r: “In ciascuno bene terreno una esca è tale che, quanto più al core piace, tanto più el nutre di letale veneno. Imperoché, così come lo uso temperato di epsi beni terreni può essere a chi quello fine per el quale loro furono prima creati lo converte utile e giocondo, così per lo opposito lo abuso di quelli pestifero fu sempre e danoso”. 24  Ivi, 46r–v: “Subito che l’anima inamorata della divina belleza lascia per qualunche altro bene o remette le redine della amorosa sua intentione, così talhora a poco a poco, quasi insensibilmente, si aliena da el giogo suavissimo di Dio, che epsa non prima della sua ruina si acchorge che sotto el freno incomportabile di Sathana sè essere relegata cognosce”.

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that my thirsty heart would want to die to enjoy your new and noble beauties. But my spirit is weak, or, on the way, it meets someone by whom it is deceived or deflected by flatteries. So, whilst the eye can see the true divine sun, the heart arrives where there is only a shadow of the sun, and thus the heart deceives itself and it deprives the soul from the good; this happens to whoever searches the sun, but lives in its shadow.25 The author’s paraphrase of the sonnet leaves no doubt: the poet is longing so intensely for his good – which is God – that he must consider every creature as dead in order to rapidly reach God’s beauty.26 However, the fragility of the soul can cause an interruption of the elevation because of an excessive contemplation of perceivable beauties, which is not aimed at God. For this reason, the soul is stopped in its path by earthly beauty – a mere shadow of highest beauty – and deceives itself admiring what is only a pale reflection of God.27 In this perspective, we can understand the central theme in the Benivenian aestethic vision: the highest perceivable beauty is the beauty of Christ. Being God, Christ is the greatest spiritual and celestial beauty, however, being human, he is also the greatest terrestrial beauty, incarnating the light of God:

25  Ivi, sonn. 21, I part, 40r: “Io son sì vago, amor[e], del mio ben, dove / dove in pace posta hai la vita mia, / che l’ingordo mio cor morir disia / per fruir sue belleze altere e nuove. // Ma quel pietoso spirito che ’l muove / o mancha inanzi al fine o truova in via / chi dal vero camin sì lo disvia, / che lusingando lo conduce altrove. // Così mentre el cor, l’occhio al vero sole / del suo ben primo scorge, in parte arriva / ove sol l’ombra sua resplender suole, // così s’inganna el core, così ne priva / del suo ben l’alma e così cerca e vuole / chi in lui si specchi e pure a l’ombra viva. 26  Ivi, 40r: Benivieni writes in the comment: “My avid will has to consider every created thing as dead, so it can reach God’s Love and enjoy his new ideal beauty”. 27  Ivi, 50v: “The soul finds on the way to God (in the contemplation of concrete things) what (the senses) diverts it from its aim, that is to contemplate God. The terrestrial things are only a tenuous shadow of real and true good”.

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Sometimes my thoughts lead me where I see a true good within a human body, the true good, which many people have looked for in vain, wandering all over the world. But this is the best part of beauty, which shows the power of God’s hand, but which my sinful heart is not able to see. Love lives in his holy eyes, grace lives in his chaste lips, his white haired [mature] and green [happy] virtue lives in his face, and something incomprehensible lives in his breast. Something the eye is not able to see, the tongue is not able to sing, but from which one cannot detach oneself.28 The human body described in the sonnet, in which the poet perceives the real good, is not the body of a woman: it is the body of God’s son, the real good and the highest beauty. Many people have looked for their good in terrestrial things, but they have deceived themselves: Someone thought that real good consists in pleasure, like Epicurus; someone thought that real good consists in honour, in health or in the beauty of the body; someone thought that real good consists in virtue and in fortitude, but everyone walked away from the light and ended up caught in inextricable darkness, like the Apostle said: “their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened.29 28  Ivi, sonn. 18, III part, 91v: “Guidami un mio pensier talhora in parte / dove io veggio raccolto in corpo humano / quel vero ben, per cui molti hanno invano, / cercando, el mondo scorso ad parte ad parte. // Ivi credo, ad monstrar quanto loro arte / fuori d’ogni uso comun possa la mano, / natura pose e el ciel, ma el cor mio, insano, / indegno è di veder la miglior parte. // Amor suo albergo fe’ degli occhi sancti / delle caste sue labra honesta gratia, / del volto gravità canuta e verde, // del pecto un non so che contro a cui perde / l’occhio e la lingua di cantar non sazia, / ma ritrar non si può perché l’huom canti”. 29  Ivi, 91v: “Alchuni existimorono [il fine della vita] essere nelle voluptà, come lo Epicuro; altri nelli honori, altri nella sanità e belleza del corpo, e altri in ella virtù e forteza dello animo, e quali tutti, perché dalla luce si partirono, caddero in tenebre inextricabile e, come dice lo Apostolo: “Evanuerunt in cogitationibus suis et obscuratum est insipiens cor eorum”. In this passage Benivieni seems to consider different ancient philosophical traditions, from Epicureanism to stoicism. The Pauline quotation is from Romans 1, 21.

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Interestingly, the second quatrain of the sonnet states that God’s beauty goes beyond every other beauty, showing the majesty of His power, although the poet is not able to recognise Christ’s divinity, which is the best part of the man-God. The poet introduces the theme of the supreme beauty of Christ, referring to the authority of the Scriptures: “It is written that He (Christ) is the most excellent of men and grace is in his lips, love is in his eyes and virtue and tenderness are in his face.30 Continuing with the poem’s interpretation, Benivieni describes the superiority of interior beauty compared to external beauty, explaining why Christ is endowed with both kinds of beauty at the highest level: The inner beauty of the soul shows itself in the external body and it shines especially in the eyes. Hence we see that grace, beauty and decorum appear in the body and in the actions of those who have a pure soul and this grace attracts everyone. Love lives in the most holy eyes of Christ because He has limitless charity. Grace shows itself in Christ’s lips, and this reveals not only his words’ purity but also the clarity of his soul. Virtue and happiness live in his face because his actions, his soul and his life are honest, honorable and joyous.31 30  Ivi, 92r: “Perché scripto è Lui essere bellissimo sopra tutti e figliuoli de gl’huomini e che in elle sue labra è diffusa la gratia, così come in elli occhi amore e in el volto gravità e dolceza dixi”. Benivieni refers to Psalm 44, 3: “You are fairer than the children of men: grace is poured into your lips: therefore God has blessed you forever” (“speciosus forma prae filiis hominum diffusa est gratia in labiis tuis propterea benedixit te Deus in aeternum”); all biblical quotations come from the 21st century King James Version. Christ’s beauty is a traditional theme of theological reflection: cf. for example Augustine In epistulam Ioannis ad Parthos tractatus decem, IX, 9: “Let us love, because He first loved us. For how should we love, except He had first loved us? By loving we became friends: but He loved us as enemies, that we might be made friends. He first loved us, and gave us the gift of loving Him. We did not yet love Him: by loving we are made beautiful […] But our soul, my brethren, is unlovely by reason of iniquity: by loving God it becomes lovely. What a love must that be that makes the lover beautiful! But God is always lovely, never unlovely, never changeable. Who is always lovely first loved us; and what were we when He loved us but foul and unlovely? But not to leave us foul; no, but to change us, and of unlovely make us lovely. How shall we become lovely? By loving Him who is always lovely” (Augustine 2007, 517–8). 31  Benivieni 1500, 92r: “[La] belleza interiore della anima ha per la excellentia della sua clarità forza di reflectersi e redundare etiam in elle parte exteriore di epso corpo, maxime in elli occhi. Onde noi veggiamo che in quelli, e quali hanno la anima molto purificata, apparisce non solo in el volto, ma anchora in qualunche loro parte, opera e actione una certa gratia e una certa venustà e decore, che ha la forza di tirare a sé gli huomini mirabilmente. Habita dunque Amore in elli occhi sanctissimi di Christo in testimonio della ardentissima e immensa sua charità. Resplende gratia in elle castissime sue labra, ad demonstrare la purità non solo delle sue vive (come è scripto) e caste parole, ma della sanctimonia e

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In this passage, Benivieni argues for the synthesis of terrestrial beauty and celestial beauty: he thinks that in Christ there is an absolute perfection of the soul – which is interior beauty – because of his immense caritas, and from this it follows that Christ possesses the highest external beauty too. Therefore, in the union of the human and divine nature of Christ, a perfect fusion between heavenly and earthly Venus is achieved. The two forms of beauty find their highest realisation in God incarnate and thus Christ becomes a standard for any other form of beauty. Benivieni’s early distinction between earthly and ideal beauty ceases to be: Benivieni still uses Neoplatonic concepts, but in a Christian sense, indeed beauty always forms the apex of his vision, but now as Christ’s beauty. NeoPlatonism and Christian thought are reconciled in Benivieni’s aesthetics, which becomes a moral vision too. The centrality of the Christ figure allows us, then, to understand Benivenian mature poetry, which is encreasingly characterized by moral and religious themes in an evolution from early voluptas to Christian caritas.32 4 The Opere of 1519 and the “Wise Madness” (“savia pazzia”) In the Benivenian Opere, edited in 1519 by the poet himself and published by Giunti, the third section includes numerous spiritual poems: sonnets, canzoni, octaves, chapters, frottole, and lauda-ballads. The theme of beauty is not relevant and the author only needs it to demonstrate the fugacity of time and life’s precariousness, as we can see – for instance – in some consolation poems written for his friends’ death (cf. Benivieni 1519, 109r–15r)33 or in the sonnet My thought, my mind and my heart were (Erano i miei pensieri, la mente, el core), in which he describes the sudden demise of a handsome boy from Giovanni Pico della Mirandola’s servants (cf. Benivieni 1519, 116r). munditia della sua anima. Siede nel suo volto gravità e letitia perché grave ancora, mature e gioconde son le opere sue, l’anima sua e tutta la vita sua”. On the centrality of eyes and sight in Ficinian thinking, cf. Vasoli 1999, 257–60. Cf. also the Pichian Commento, commento particulare, stanza V, in which the philosopher explains the importance of light to perceive spiritual beauty. For the prominent role of sight in Pico’s thought, cf. Fellina 2014, 55. The Benivenian passage recalls Luke 4, 22: “And all spoke well of him, and wondered at the gracious words which proceeded out of his mouth. And they said, “Is not this Joseph’s son?” The connection between good and beauty is Neoplatonic. 32  A similar evolution can be found in Giovanni Pico della Mirandola’s biography. Cf. Bausi 2001, 55–61. 33  These are lyrics dedicated to Caterina de’ Medici, Ugolino Verini, or to himself for the death of his brother Domenico. For this work, cf. Di Benedetto 2010, 165–203.

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To understand the aesthetic evolution in Benivieni, it is important to read the sonnet dedicated to Falchetta de’ Rinuccini, a mysterious woman maybe loved by the poet in his youth:34 Tell me, oh Falchetta: where are now your new and celestial beauties? Where are your beautiful eyes, which Love lived in? Where is your ivory neck, where your upright head, where is the one who moves this neck? Where is your white breast, which sent love darts to hit your husband? My gracious beauties, which were present in this ill flesh for heaven to show its eternal beauty, now are but dust and shadow, and now we can clearly see that if the heart considers the terrestrial beauties like a final aim, it is blind and foolish.35 The sonnet presents the traditional theme of the ubi sunt: every kind of terrestrial beauty is destined to die and no wise man should admire it because it is but dust and shadow, “polvere e ombra”, as Horace wrote.36 Only foolish men admire the beauty of the flesh, even when it is the expression of celestial beauty, because earthly Venus is “ill” (“inferma”) and fleeting, whereas heavenly Venus is eternal and incorruptible. In the poems published in 1519, the religious themes – already present in nuce in the early Canzoniere and especially in the Commento – are developed into the extreme: every thing terrestrial is now seen as dangerous for the soul’s 34  There is little extant information about Falchetta: we know that she was already dead by 1477. Cf. Re 1906, 166–99. 35  Benivieni 1519, 116r–v: “Dimmi ove sono, ove sono hora Falchetta / l’alme belleze tue celeste e nuove? / Dove son gli occhi, e tuo belli occhi dove / Amor havea sua prima sede electa? // Dove lo eburneo collo, ove la erecta / cervice hor giace, e chi l’inclina e muove? / Dove el candido sen, onde anchor piove / nel tuo sposo a ogn’or qualche saecta? // L’alme belleze mie, che in questa inferma / carne per far delle sue eterne fede / havea qui el ciel mirabilmente accolto, // polvere e ombra son, dove hor si vede / chiaro quanto quel cor sia cieco e stolto, / che in lor come in suo fin si posa e ferma”. 36  Horace, Odes, IV,7.

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salvation and as having no value, as we can read in the incipit of the laudaballad On the vanity, deceptiveness and arrogance of the world (De la vanità, inganni et superbia del mondo): What I see, understand and perceive, what I search in the world and desire, what I hope, worship or love, it is only shadow, dreams and wind.37 Christ only must occupy man’s thought, in particular the crucified Christ: I see Jesus, my God, who is hung on the cross: he died because of my sins, but my ungrateful heart does not know him, nor does it understand him.38 The soul must now get closer to God through the same experience of the crucified Christ: Oh Jesus, who is not hung on the cross with you, who is not hurt and suffering, he cannot enjoy peace.39 This is the theme of the “santa pazzia”, which Benivieni derives from St. Paul’s works. It is a motif that had great diffusion between the thirteenth and the fourteenth century.40 Whatever is refused by common sense, is necessary for the salvation of the soul, such as scorn, self-forgetfulness and poverty. To this “savia follia” (“wise madness”) the poet dedicates his lauda “How the madness for Christ can be, and really is, wise” (“Come la pazia di Iesu possa essere, e sia veramente, savia”).41 However, despite the evolution of Benivenian poetry, the early Neoplatonic vision does not disappear altogether, as we can deduce from the letter to 37  Benivieni 1519, 148r, vv. 1–4: “Ciò ch’io vego, intendo e sento / Ciò ch’io cerco al mondo, o bramo / Ciò ch’io spero, honoro, o amo, / tutto è ombra sogni e vento”. 38  Ivi, 145r, vv. 1–3: “Veggo Iesù, el mio Dio, che in croce pende / morto pel mio peccato, / el cor mio ingrato nol conosce, o intende”. The poem is called laude di Iesù. 39  “Chi non è Iesù teco / sempre in croce conficto, / vulnerato e afflicto / pace non può haver seco” (ivi, 145v; vv. 1–4); it is another laude di Iesù. 40  Concerning the madness for Christ, cf. Gagliardi 1998. 41  Benivieni 1519, 139r–41r.

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Bernardo Gondi in which Benivieni introduces the poem (in 30 octaves) The admonition from Man to the soul where he shows the way to known and love God through the creatures (“Admonitione de lo huomo ad la anima per la quale demostra come lei possa per le mezo dele creature conoscere e consequentemente amare el suo creatore”).42 The letter contains the theme of the vestigia Dei, which derives from Bonaventure’s works43 and it explains the verses quoted below, stating that they originated in Gondi’s request to read Benivieni’s philosophical concepts in verse form. The author provides therefore a short summary of the content of the octaves: God created this world and through his creatures God showed himself, because He cannot be seen. There are three visible characteristics of God: power, wisdom and benevolence. And, as all creatures proceed from these three things, in these they are preserved and by these they are ruled and governed. The power shows itself in the greatness of creation, wisdom appears in usefulness and beauty, benevolence shines through necessity.44 42  For the identification of Bernardo Gondi, cf. Di Benedetto 2010, 195. 43   In the Benivenian oeuvre the presence of Bonaventure is prominent, as can be demonstrated by many quotations in the 1500’s Commento and in the rewriting of Bonaventure’s Epistola continens viginti quinque memoralia, which the poet attached to his Psalmi penitentiali (cf. Benivieni 1505). Cf. also Zorzi Pugliese 1994a, 476 e Id. 1994b, 347–62. 44  Benivieni 1519, 152v: “[Dio] creò questo universo per el quale lui, che vedere non si poteva, si monstrò sotto el velo de le sue creature agli occhi nostri, […] Tre sono le cose invisibile di Dio: la potentia, la sapientia, la benignità e, come da queste tre cose procedono tutte le creature, così in queste tre si conservano, e per queste tre sono recte e governate. […] La potentia appare per la immensità et grandeza de le cose create, la sapientia per l’utile e per la belleza, la benignità per lo utile comodo et necessità di quelle”. These words recall a passage from the Commento (XVIIIr) where Benivieni quotes Bonaventure: “from the greatness, the dignity and the essence of creation one can somehow ascend to the Creator, whose power, wisdom and goodness show themselves in created things” (“dalla grandeza, dignità e natura delle cose create si ascenda […] in qualche modo e pervenga ad epso loro Creatore, la potentia, la sapientia e bonità del quale riesce mirabilmente e si demostra in epse cose create, […]”). Cf. Bonaventura da Bagnoregio, Itinerarium mentis in deum, I, 10–1: “The Creator’s supreme power, wisdom and benevolence shine forth in created things, as the bodily senses convey this to the interior senses in three ways […]. From these, as from a vestige, we can rise to knowledge of the immense power, wisdom and goodness of the Creator” (Bonaventure 1978, 63–4), “Relucet autem Creatoris summa potentia et sapientia et benevolentia in rebus creatis secundum quod hoc tripliciter nuntiat sensus carnis sensui interiori. […] Ex quibus consurgere potest sicut ex vestigio ad intelligendum potentiam, sapientiam et bonitatem Creatoris immensam”, (Bonaventura da Bagnoregio 1891, V, 298).

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Beauty is a proof of divine wisdom, a vestige of the highest beauty: If it is true, as it is true, my Lord, that in what I perceive through my senses there is a shadow, or a ray, an image of Your eternal Word, lead the heart and rule the affections, open and direct the eye of my soul, so my friend can know and see You in the things that show You on Earth.45 The poet sings again the early theme of terrestrial beauty – perceivable by senses – which is the epiphany of celestial beauty. Man has a task: he has to train his eyes to recognise beauty and, through it, he can reach God; whatever is earthly is an image of the eternal Word. In the mature Benivieni we still find an echo of his Neoplatonic education, vice versa, in his early poetry, there are moral and religious themes that will become dominant after his encounter with Savonarola. Gradually, terrestrial Venus has withdrawn in favour of heavenly Venus, but she survives and never fades away, because Benivieni has always thought that every spiritual beauty needs a concrete form in which to reveal itself to man.46 45  Benivieni 1519, 154v, vv. 57–64: “Se gl’è ver Signor mio, come gl’è certo, / ch’in ciò che io veggo, ch’io palpo e discerno / si absconda un’ombra, anzi un vivace e certo / raggio, una immagin del tuo Verbo eterno, / illustra, priego, el cor, reggi l’incerto / affecto, apri e diriza l’occhio interno / di costui [l’amico] sì che la [sic] conosca e veggia / Te per quel che di Te quagiù lampeggia”. 46  The manuscript Riccardiano 2811 contains a rewriting of the early Canzona which was commented upon by Pico; it is entitled Canzona of celestial and divine beauty according to christian truth and catholic faith (Canzone dell’amore celeste e divino secondo la verità della religione christiana e della fede chatolica). Benivieni wrote in the Proemio: “I have often wondered of a way to correct the mistake [his early poetry], and I have opted to divide the gold of christian love from the alchemy of platonic love and so I have written a song on love in accordance to christian theologians and christian truth” (“Ho più volte pensato come e’ si potessi, e se non in tutto almanco in qualche parte, recompensare questo mio errore. E non mi occorrendo altro migliore modo che scoprire col paragone della verità e scoperto discernere lo oro dello amore christiano dalla alchimia dello amore platonico, di nuovo mi messi a comporre una altra canzone d’epso medesimo amore, ma secondo la conditione de sacri theologi crestiani [sic], cioè secondo la verità christiana”). The poem has themes similar to the 30 octaves Admonition to man (Admonitione de lo huomo), which has a Neoplatonic vision similar to Bonaventure’s. In these verses the author says that from the Father and the Son proceeds the Holy Spirit and from it derives angelical love. Man raises to celestial beauty through terrestrial beauty, discovering that creation is God’s work and God’s imagine in his soul. From this the love ladder was born, which

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The mystery of the incarnation of Christ resolves the tension between the two kinds of Venus. The encounter with Savonarola caused Benivenian aesthetics to evolve, but his mature poetry is in continuity with his early thinking: certainly a common thread in his work is the constant importance given to the theme of beauty. Acknowledgements Special thanks go to Annick Paternoster (University of Leeds, Università della Svizzera Italiana) for reviewing the language of the text. Needless to say, all errors are my responsibility. References Augustine, 2007. Homilies on the Gospel of John, Homilies on the First Epistle of John, Soliloquies. Edited by Philip Schaff, in Id., Nicene and Post-Nicene fathers. First series, vol. VII. New York: Cosimo classics. Bacchelli, Franco. 2001. Giovanni Pico e Pier Leone da Spoleto. Tra filosofia dell’amore e tradizione cabalistica. Firenze: Olschki. Bausi, Francesco. 2001. “Giovanni Pico, o la fuga dalla voluptas”, in Id., Pulchritudo, Amor, Voluptas. Pico della Mirandola alla corte del Magnifico. Firenze: Pogliai Polistampa. Benivieni, Girolamo. 1500. Commento sopra a più sue canzoni et sonetti dello amore e della belleza divina. Firenze: Tubini. Benivieni, Girolamo. 1505. Psalmi penitentiali di David tradocti in lingua fiorentina et commentati. Firenze: Tubini. Benivieni, Girolamo. 1519. Opere. Firenze: Giunti. Bonaventura da Bagnoregio. 1894. “Itinerarium mentis in deum”, in Id., Opera Omnia. Edited by P. Aloysii a Parma. Firenze: Ex Typ. Collegii S. Bonaventurae, 293–316. Bonaventura da Bagnoregio. 1978. The soul’s journey into God. Translation and introduction by Ewert Cousins. Mahwah: Paulist Press. Butler, Harold. 1912. Propertius with an English translation. London: Heinemann. Dante, 2012. Vita Nova. Translation, introduction, and notes by Andrew Frisardi. Evanston: Northwestern University Press. Di Benedetto, Sergio. 2010. “L’edizione giuntina delle Opere di Girolamo Benivieni.” Acme 63 (1): 165–203. derives from Augustine and which consists of fear, compunction, humility, escape from sins, virtue, purity of the heart, love. For the rewritten Canzone cf. Jayne 1984.

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Fellina, Simone. 2014. Modelli di episteme neoplatonica nella Firenze del ’400. Le gnoseologie di Giovanni Pico della Mirandola e di Marsilio Ficino. Firenze: Olschki. Ficino, Marsilio. 1944. Marsilio Ficino’s Commentary on Plato’s Symposium. Translated by Sears Jayne. Columbia: University of Missouri. Gagliardi, Isabella. 1998. Pazzi per Cristo. Santa follia e mistica della Croce in Italia centrale (secoli XIII–XIV ). Siena: Protagon. Garin, Eugenio. 1942. Giovanni Pico della Mirandola, De hominis dignitate. Heptalus. De ente et uno e scritti vari. Firenze: Vallecchi. Garin, Eugenio. 1994. La cultura filosofica del Rinascimento italiano. Milano: Bompiani. Jayne, Sears. 1984. “Benivieni’s christian canzone.” Rinascimento XXIV: 153–79. Kristeller, Paul Oscar. 1978. “The first printed edition of Plato’s works and the date of its publication (1484)”, in Science and history. Studies in honor of Edward Rosen, edited by Erna Hilfstein et al. Varsavia: The Polish Academy of sciences press: 25–35. Leporatti, Roberto. 2008. “Canzone e sonetti di Girolamo Benivieni fiorentino.” Interpres 27: 144–299. Petrarch. 1807. The Triumphs of Petrarch. Translated by Henry Boyd. London: Longman. Petrarch. 2001. The Complete Canzoniere. Translated by Anthony S. Kline. Pim Poetry In Translation. Accessed December 17, 2017. http://www.poetryintranslation.com/ PITBR/Italian/Petrarchhome.htm. Pico della Mirandola, Giovanni. 1984. Commentary on a Canzone of Benivieni. Translated by Sears Jayne. New York: Peter Lang. Plato. 2001. Selected Dialogues of Plato. Translated by Benjamin Iowett, edited by Hayden Pelliccia. New York: Modern Library paperback edition. Re, Caterina. 1906. Girolamo Benivieni fiorentino. Cenni sulla vita e sulle opere. Città di Castello: Lapi. Savonarola, Girolamo. 1998. Apologetico. Indole e natura dell’arte poetica. A cura di Antonino Stagnitta. Roma: Armando. Vasoli, Cesare. 1999. Quasi sit deus. Studi su Marsilio Ficino. Lecce: Conte. Zorzi Pugliese, Olga. 1994a. “Il Commento di Girolamo Benivieni ai salmi penitenziali.” Vivens homo V: 475–93. Zorzi Pugliese, Olga. 1994b. “Benivieni’s Commento and Bonaventure’s Itinerarium: autobiografy and ideology.” Rivista di storia e letteratura religiosa XXX: 347–62.

chapter 5

The “True Form” of Beauty: Poetry and Portraits from Petrarch to the Sixteenth Century Veronica Pesce What poet, oh lover, can put before you the true effigy of your idea with such truth as the painter?1 Leonardo da Vinci

⸪ 1

Before Petrarch

It is well known that the image of the beloved painted in the heart of the poet or portrayed on canvas dates back to the birth of Italian lyric poetry and its earliest origins in Sicily. In some cases, precedents can even be found in Occitan lyric poetry,2 yet in this case there is one clear difference: although Provençal troubadours carried their beloved in their hearts, direct and precise references to works of figurative art (pintura) are unprecedented in the courtly tradition. These can be attributed in large part to Giacomo da Lentini and a number of his most famous texts, such as Madonna, dir vo voglio and Meravigliosamente (my italics, cf. Lu’lu’a 2013, 267): Like a man who has his mind Elsewhere and keeps painting the one picture. So it is with me, my fair: Within my heart I bear your image. […] 1  Free transl., like elsewhere when not otherwise specified. I am grateful to Laura Bennett for the linguistic revision of the text. 2  We see the image of the woman carried in the poet’s heart, or Love fixing the image of the beloved in his heart, or even the representation of the poet’s heart as a mirror in which the image of the lady is reflected. Examples of these categories can be found in the work of Bernart de Ventadorn, Folquet de Marselha, Arnaut Daniel, Sordello, Arnaut de Mareuil, Aimeric de Belenoi and Peire Vidal etc. Cf. Catenazzi 1977, 179–80. On these connections, cf. Pich 2005, 31–43. Cf. also Mancini 1988. © koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2019 | doi:10.1163/9789004388956_007

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Feeling great desire, I painted a picture, my fair, your likeness; And when I do not see you, I look upon that image, and it seems that I have you before me […].3 The introduction of the image of the woman painted in the poet’s heart (with explicit reference to the act of painting and the relative semantic field) is immediately linked to the idea of beauty as an obvious equivalent (“simigliante”) to the beloved’s earthly beauty. This topos accompanies the development of lyric poetry in the volgare through Siculo-Tuscan poetry4 and into the Stil Novo. I will not dwell on the evolutions and variations that occur at these heights, except to point out that in the context of Stil Novo poetry, the motif of the image carried within is linked to the topos of the description of love, which reaches the poet’s heart through his sight.5 This does not, however, develop into a tangible sign of the woman’s further (ideal) beauty, imperceptible to earthly senses, despite remaining within the topos of the angelic woman.6 Scholars have even gone so far as to recognise in the image of the woman, in her “portrait” in a broader sense, nothing less than the cornerstone of Western lyric poetry.7 Although it may be excessive to ascribe such a decisive role to 3  “Com’omo che ten mente / in altro exemplo pinge / la simile pintura, / così, bella, facc’eo, / che ’nfra lo core meo / porto la tua figura” […] cf. “Avendo gran disio / dipinsi una pintura, / bella, voi simigliante, / e quando voi non vio / guardo ’n quella figura / e par ch’eo v’aggia avante” (vv. 4–9 and 19–24, cf. Antonelli 2008, 47–9). 4  I would like to refer to Pucciandone Martelli and Panuccio del Bagno, cf. Catenazzi 1977, 179–80. I would also like to mention Guittone d’Arezzo: “Tant’aggio en amar la voglia penta, / e tanto sua piagenza in cor m’è penta, / che mai de servir lei non credo penta, / né sia da me la sua figura empenta” (vv. 19–22, cf. Egidi 1940, 26). “My desire is aimed so clearly at love / and her beauty pressed so deeply into my heart / that I do not believe it will ever repent of this service / or that her figure will be distanced from me”. 5  Cf. for example Cino da Pistoia: “Veduto han gli occhi miei sì bella cosa, / che dentro dal mio cor dipinta l’hanno” (“My eyes have seen such a beautiful thing / that they have painted it within my heart”). Cf. Berisso 2006, 208. 6  The topos had already been seen in Provençal poetry and is then taken up by Giacomo da Lentini (Angelica figura e comprobata) on numerous occasions (cf. Antonelli 2008, 541–2). Examples of this topos in Stil Novo poetry can be found in Guido Calvancanti, Io non pensava che lo cor giammai: “Di questa donna non si può contare, / ché di tante bellezze adorna vène, / che mente di qua già no la sostene / sì che la veggia lo ’ntelletto nostro” (vv. 15–8). Cf. Berisso 2006, 134 and Savona 1973, 305. West 2009, 25: Never would I have thought the heart: “No one can show in words this lady’s worth, / for she is so adorned and beautiful / that minds born here on earth can’t hold / her image in the intellect”. 7  I am referring to Pich 2005. She begins with a purely linguistic consideration: if “imaginare”, in the original Italian, points not only to mental activity but also to genuine artistic representation – thinking of the “imagined” Virgin, and other examples of humility at the

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the poetic portrait of the woman (real or imagined), that it has not only been present from the very beginning but gradually crystallised into a motif and eventually a topos cannot be denied. 2

The “True Form” of Laura

We are nevertheless witnessing a moment of transition, or perhaps rather an essential turning point with Petrarch, who goes beyond the cliché of the image of the “portrait” by reprising it in his two famous sonnets (Rvf 77–8) dedicated to Simone Martini and his (lost) portrait of Laura (Durling 1976, 176–9):8 Even though Polyclitus should for a thousand years compete in looking with all the others who were famous in that art, they would never see the smallest part of the beauty that has conquered my heart. base of the first terrace of Purgatory in the Divine Comedy – the image, real or mental, of the beloved, a building block of volgare poetry since its inception, may well be nothing more than a portrait, even if it is a mere simulacrum of the mind, to be recognised therefore as a founding trait of Italian lyric tradition: “The pictorial and plastic metaphors hold together the doubly illusory system in which the beloved figure is broken up before reappearing in the heart and words of the poet. It is a crucial and fruitful superimposition, because the birth of love, poetry and the ‘figure of the heart’ tend to coincide at the dawn of Western lyric poetry and at the origin of the canzoniere form […]. Recognition of the interior simulacrum accompanies the rise of poetry as a lament of love and provides rhythm to its ongoing attempt to praise and portray”. (“Le metafore pittoriche e plastiche tengono insieme il sistema di doppi illusori nei quali la figura amata si frammenta e riappare, nel cuore e nelle parole del poeta. È una sovrapposizione cruciale e feconda, perché nascita dell’amore, della poesia e della “figura del cuore” tendono a coincidere, all’alba della lirica occidentale e all’origine della forma canzoniere […]. Il riconoscimento del simulacro interiore accompagna il sorgere della poesia come lamento d’amore e ne ritma l’incessante tentativo di lodare e ritrarre”. Pich 2005, 53). 8  Rvf 77: “Per mirar Policleto a prova fiso / con gli altri ch’ebber fama di quell’arte / mill’anni, non vedrian la minor parte / de la beltà che m’ave il cor conquiso. / Ma certo il mio Simon fu in paradiso / (onde questa gentil donna si parte), / ivi la vide, et la ritrasse in carte / per far fede qua giù del suo bel viso. / L’opra fu ben di quelle che nel cielo / si ponno imaginar, non qui tra noi, / ove le membra fanno a l’alma / velo. / Cortesia fe’; né la potea far poi / che fu disceso a provar caldo et gielo, / et del mortal sentiron gli occhi suoi.” Rvf 78: “Quando giunse a Simon l’alto concetto / ch’a mio nome gli pose in man lo stile, / s’avesse dato a l’opera gentile / colla figura voce ed intellecto, / di sospir’ molti mi sgombrava il petto, / che ciò ch’altri à più caro, a me fan vile: / però che ’n vista ella si mostra humile / promettendomi pace ne l’aspetto. / Ma poi ch’i’ vengo a ragionar co•llei, / benignamente assai par che m’ascolte, / se risponder savesse a’ detti miei. / Pigmalïon, quanto lodar ti dêi / de l’imagine tua, se mille volte / n’avesti quel ch’i’ sol una vorrei.” Here and elsewhere quotes are taken from Petrarca 1996.

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But certainly my Simon was in Paradise, whence comes this noble lady; there he saw her and portrayed her on paper, to attest down here to her lovely face. The work is one of those which can be imagined only in heaven, not here among us, where the body is a veil to the soul; it was a gracious act, nor could he have done it after he came down to feel heat and cold and his eyes took on mortality. When Simon received the high idea which, for my sake, put his hand to his stylus, if he had given to his noble work voice and intellect along with form he would have lightened my breast of many sighs that make what other prize most vile to me. For in appearance she seems humble, and her expression promises peace; then, when I come to speak to her, she seems to listen most kindly: if she could only reply to my words! Pygmalion, how glad you should be of your statue, since you received a thousand times what I year to have just once. The importance of this pair of sonnets has already been examined in a number of respects: Édouard Pommier unreservedly deemed the author of the Canzoniere as being fully responsible for the first modern reflection on art and the possibility of depicting human beings, in other words, he attributed to Petrarch the first theory of portraiture in Western culture.9 Several other recent 9  In his most recent publication, L’invenzione dell’arte nell’Italia del Rinascimento (Pommier 2007), the French scholar does not refrain from emphasising praise for the role of writers in

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studies10 have addressed this issue, paying careful attention to the diptych and inextricably linking the Petrarchan theory of the portrait to the founding theological, philosophical and poetic question theorised in Rvf 16. Here, as is well known, the poet likens himself to the old pilgrim who distances himself from his loved ones at the end of his life to make a pilgrimage to Rome to see the Veronica, or better, to see in the Veronica “the likeness of Him / whom he hopes to see again up there in Heaven” [“la sembianza di Colui / ch’ancor lassù nel ciel vedere spera”], or rather, to venerate the face of Christ, whom he hopes to see again soon in Paradise. Similarly, the poet, far from the woman he loves and desires, is searching “in others / for your longed-for true form” [“in altrui / la disïata vostra forma vera”], (Durling 1976), rather for the “ideal image” or the “idea” of Laura directly (Bertone 2008a, 21): it is not a representation that is venerated there but God himself. It is not a search for a generic similarity but, in the words of Enrico Fenzi, for the true “Platonic essence” (Fenzi 2003, 21). The reference to the sacred icon of Christ, the Veronica, which the pilgrim visits, is much more than a simple comparison. The name11 is never spoken but remains implicit in the term ‘true form’ [“forma vera”], which finds its roots and enduring fortune in the interpretatio nominis (pseudoetymology12 in fact takes the name back to its basis: ‘true icon’, “vera icona”). Rather than retracing the long history that links the name Veronica with the acheiropoieta image of Christ – through apocryphal gospels, legends and vernacular stories – we will instead consider the passage that directly concerns us: the cult of the Veronica of St Peter’s,13 the destination for Petrarch’s pilgrim. Its popularity began to increase in the twelfth century and it was formally recognised by Pope Innocent III at the start of the following century, before eventually becoming customary for pilgrims during the Jubilee year of 1300. These are the historical premises artistic recognition and the status of art. As already noted by Maria Cecilia Bertolani, what matters to Petrarch is precisely the theoretical issue of the “immagine come ritratto di una persona” (“image as a portrait of a person”), rather than the specificities of various types of art (sculpture or painting). Bertolani 2006, 186. 10  To name but a few: Bertolani 2005; Bertone 2008a; Ciccuto 1991; Fenzi 2003. 11  Before becoming a person’s name, the term veronica (or Veronica) was used to designate an object, as demonstrated by the Grande Dizionario della Lingua Italiana (Battaglia 2002, a.v., 793). 12  “In truth the personal is a reference to the Greek Berenìke, Pherenìke ‘bearer of victory’ (from phérein ‘to bear’ and nìke ‘victory’) and therefore to the trope of Berenice”. (“In realtà il personale rimanda al greco Berenìke, Pherenìke ‘portatrice di vittoria’ (da phérein ‘portare’ e nìke ‘vittoria’) ed è quindi allotropo di Berenice”.) Cf. Rossebastiano 2005, a.v., 1286. 13  A Byzantine icon believed to be the true image of the face of Christ, transferred, according to Christian legend, onto a cloth with which a woman, named in turn Veronica, was said to have wiped Christ’s face during his ascent to Calvary. Cf. Bosco 1978, a.v., 978.

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for Dante’s literary legitimisation, on which we will dwell briefly before moving on to Petrarch. 3

The Icon of the Veronica

The only mention of the name of Veronica in Dante’s work can be found in the Divine Comedy. We should, however, also remember the figure of the pilgrim who visits the icon of the true face of Christ in the earlier Vita Nuova (“At the time when many people go to see that blessed image which Jesus Christ left us as an imprint of his most beautiful countenance”)14 with the sonnet Speak, pilgrims, who go so thoughtfully15 (Deh, peregrini, che pensosi andate). In the Commedia, the character of Dante before Bernard of Clairvaux, his final guide in his journey to God, likens himself to the pilgrim who has travelled from afar to Rome to venerate the very same icon of the Veronica (Kline 2001): Like one who comes from Croatia perhaps to see our cloth of Veronica, and is not sated with looking because of its ancient fame, but, as long as it stays visible, says, in thought, ‘Lord Jesus Christ, true God, was this then your face?’ such was I gazing at the living love of him, who in this world tasted of that peace in contemplation.16 The issue develops here into a consideration of the image and of divine likeness. This is further amplified by the mirroring created between the figure 14  Trans.: Kline 2014, cf. http://www.poetryintranslation.com/. It: “in quel tempo che molta gente va per vedere quella imagine benedetta la quale Gesocristo lasciò a·nnoi per essemplo della Sua bellissima figura”. 15  Santagata in Alighieri 2011, 1049, remarks: “It is peculiar that the mention of the Veronica, here as there [in the Divine Comedy] should be introduced when Beatrice distances herself from view”. However, there have also been critical considerations of the connotations of Beatrice as an acheiropoieta image, which have been ascribed to the mere Christological scriptural references that regularly accompany the figure in the short book. Cf. Guglielminetti 2001. 16  “Qual è colui che forse di Croazia / viene a veder la Veronica nostra, / che per l’antica fame non sen sazia, / ma dice nel pensier, fin che si mostra: / ‘Signor mio Iesù Cristo, Dio verace, / or fu sì fatta la sembianza vostra?’; / tal era io mirando la vivace / carità di colui che ’n questo mondo, / contemplando, gustò di quella pace” (Par. XXXI, 103–11).

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of the pilgrim travelling to worship the face of Christ and that of Dante (also a pilgrim) as he contemplates the face of St. Bernard (himself a contemplative mystic), prefiguring his future contemplation of Christ.17 This mirroring could also go even further, and perhaps come full circle if we consider that the effigy (of Christ, and “ours”) appears “painted” to Dante (Par. XXXIII, 131) in one of the three circles of the Trinity. The Veronica has therefore become “your face”, “la sembianza vostra”, the true image of the holy face of Christ. The fundamental theological question underlying this name and its pseudoetymology in fact reformulates “the mystery of the incarnation”, “an indicator of the immanent dialectic in the entire story of the image of Christ”.18 However, can the image of Christ therefore be represented, made of the same substance as the Father? What about the image of man, made in the image and likeness of God? 4

The Idea of the Modern Portrait

This question goes beyond theological matter with Petrarch and sonnet 16, all the more so in its close links to the pair of sonnets dedicated to the portrait of Laura. Besides the chronology – philological studies date the diptych on the portrait of Laura and this sonnet to the same years – there is no direct link between the portrait praised in Rvf 77–8 and the poet who, in pilgrim guise, searches for the idea of Laura in other women; Rvf 16 could, however, be chalked up as a “historical prelude” in the discussion of the birth of the modern portrait (Bertone 2008a, 39). This is perhaps even more relevant if, as Surdich suggests, we consider that Rvf 1519 – a sonnet about distance – is datable, along with Rvf 16, to the 1330s. I turn back at each step with my weary body which with great effort I carry forward, 17  On this point Vettori 2003, 45: “Dante’s simile establishes a polymorphous specular dynamic. It associates the Croatian pilgrim’s experience of adoration with Dante’s own incredulous feeling. Dante stares at Bernard, the mystic about whom he has so often thought, just as the Croatian pilgrim stares at the Veronica. The poet stands in relation to Bernard’s soul as the pilgrim stands in relation to Christ’s image. Through this simile Dante emphasises Bernard’s symbolic significance as contemplation, as well as Bernard’s ability to evoke the image of Christ. It is through contemplation that Bernard gained vicinity to God, and therefore he can now lead Dante along the same path”. 18  Wolf 2000, 103: “il mistero dell’incarnazione”, “indice della dialettica immanente in tutta la storia dell’immagine di Cristo”. 19  Surdich 2008, 11. Cf. also Calcaterra 1936, 152–71.

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and I take then some comfort from your sky, which enables my body to go onward, saying ‘Alas, woe’s me!’ Then, thinking back on the sweet good I leave behind, on the length of the road and the shortness of my life, I stand in my tracks dismayed and pale and lower my eyes weeping to the ground. At times in the midst of my sad laments a doubt assails me: how can these members live far from their spirit? But Love replies to me: ‘Do you not remember that this is a privilege of lovers, released from all human qualities?’20 For Santagata, the sonnet “does pick up on the Romanic topos of the soul or the heart, which become separated from the lover in order to live near the beloved, but with one significant change: the ‘spirit’ from whom the elements have separated here is Laura herself”.21 Santagata also links the last tercet about the “privilege of lovers” with two passages from the Familiares (Petrarca 1992, 236): “Amantum quidam illum notum et insigne privilegium apud poetam est, quod absentem absens auditque videtque” (VII 12,5) and “meque post Alpes ac maria plusquam linceis oculis, plusquam aprinis auribus insigni quondam et vulgato amantum privilegio absentem absens auditque videtque” (XII 4, 8). The author makes an explicit connection between the “privilege of lovers” and the question of the absent image by quoting Virgil and his description of Dido’s state of torment (Aen. IV 83): “Illum absens absentem auditque videtque”, to which we must also add the verse that follows immediately, which is linked,

20  Durling 1976, 50 (my emphasis). Rvf 15: “Io mi rivolgo indietro a ciascun passo / col corpo stancho ch’a gran pena porto, / et prendo allor del vostr’aere conforto, / che ’l fa gir oltra dicendo: Oimè lasso! / Poi ripensando al dolce ben ch’io lasso, / al camin lungo et al mio viver corto, / fermo le piante sbigottito e smorto, / et gli occhi in terra lagrimando abasso. / Talor m’assale in mezzo a’ tristi pianti / un dubbio: come posson queste membra / da lo spirito lor viver lontane? / Ma rispondemi Amor: Non ti rimembra / che questo è privilegio degli amanti, / sciolti da tutte qualitati humane?”. 21  Petrarch 1996, 66: “riprende, sì, il topos romanzo dell’anima o del cuore che si separano dall’amante per vivere presso l’amata, ma con una sostanziale modifica: lo ‘spirito’ da cui le membra sono separate è qui Laura stessa”.

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doubly so, to the question of the image (Aen. IV 84–5): “aut gremio Ascanium, genitoris immagine capta, detinet, infandum si fellere possit amorem”. In Rvf 77, the portrait of Laura painted by Simone Martini is not praised for its mimetic qualities but “in terms of identifiable physiognomy, rather than in concordance with the idea” (“in termini di identificabilità fisiognomica, quanto piuttosto di concordanza con l’idea”:22 “Even though Polyclitus should for a thousand years compete in looking with all the others who were famous in that art, they would never see the smallest part of the beauty that has conquered my heart. // But certainly my Simon was in Paradise, whence comes this noble lady; there he saw her and portrayed her on paper, to attest down here to her lovely face” (Durling 1976, 176–9).23 In every way an ideal portrait, therefore, the picture by Maestro Simone, who “certainly was in Paradise” to have been able to create it, would have been impossible on earth “where the body is a veil to the soul”. Simone, in essence, “contemplated beauty with the eye of the soul” (Ciccuto 1991, 83: “ha contemplata la bellezza con l’occhio dell’anima”). This neither removes nor contradicts the statement that the portrait of Laura was capable of glorifying her perceivable beauty, bearing witness to the earthly senses of her celestial beauty, because the portrait essentially attests to “the beauty that has conquered my heart”. The concept is reiterated shortly afterwards: it offers evidence of Laura’s “beautiful face”, a “beauty” the like of which not even Polyclitus and the other masters would have been able to capture if they had been competing for a thousand years to look at her beautiful face. And yet, it should be noted that no explicit references are made to the portrait, to the means of painting or to the physical appearance of the woman and her representation (other than in terms of her ideal beauty).24 Returning to Rvf 16, the stakes are even higher. What is at stake is not only the question of the image (of the face) of the beloved, her identity 22  Bertolani 2006. Clear reference is made to Hirdt 1983. The term “idea” is not found in the text (it is however analogous to the “concetto” [“concept”] of Rvf 78), but the allusion is clear, cf. Rvf 159: “In qual parte del ciel, in quale ydea/ era l’exempio, onde Natura tolse/ quel bel viso leggiadro, in ch’ella volse/ mostrar qua giù quanto lassù potea?” Durling 1976, 304: “In what part of Heaven, in what Idea was the pattern from which Nature copied that lovely face, in which she has shown down here all that she is capable of doing up there?”. 23  Rvf 77, vv. 1–8: “Per mirar Policleto a prova fiso / con gli altri ch’ebber fama di quell’arte / mill’anni, non vedrian la minor parte / de la beltà che m’ave il cor conquiso. // Ma certo il mio Simon fu in paradiso / onde questa gentil donna si parte: / ivi la vide, et la ritrasse in carte / per far fede qua giù del suo bel viso”. 24  On this issue cf. Pozzi 1993, 146 and more recently Pich 2005. Cf. also Ciccuto (1991, 83) for the condemnation of Petrarch “to the mimetic principle regulating artistic and figurative creation”.

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and representation, but also the broader and more complex issue of the relationship between the human and divine figure, therefore between portrait and icon. One (the icon) is a prerequisite for the other (the modern, secular portrait): they both result in an intellectual operation (“the intellectualisation of sight”, which, in the first case, allows for “contact with the divine”, while the second lays the foundation for “modern subjectivity”. The experience is therefore simultaneously cognitive and aesthetic (Bertone 2008a, 71–3). Here, with a deliberate contamination between sacred and profane, the idea of Laura becomes her “true form”, passed through the etymology of a name that indicates the object, the cloth onto which the “true image” of Christ has become imprinted. The “true form” therefore is none other than the Platonic idea, with its immediate and consubstantial reference to the ideal of beauty and perfection. The preconditions for an already embryonic Neoplatonic reinterpretation are clear. They also mark a fundamentally important cultural turning point, the legacy of which, across the centuries, would eventually crystallise in lyric poetry dedicated to portraits (real or ideal), destined to become extremely popular during the Renaissance. In a Petrarchist context, the influence of the model would endure in many and varied forms. 5

After Petrarch

The Petrarchan source25 gives rise to both slavish emulation and profound revision. Despite this it almost always includes a timely reconsideration of the textual element in question here, the “true form” (it goes without saying that the original name reference is lost immediately). The ideal and perfect image of the beloved remains the ultimate goal, whether for the painter whose work is described in poetry, or for the poet who wants to have her in his heart. The “true form” element (with all the variations we will see) occurs surprisingly frequently in sixteenth-century lyric poetry, in which the work of an artist is 25  In his Lezioni petrarchesche Giovann Battista Gelli does not fail to point out the complexity of the diptych: “[i testi] paiono più bassi e più piani degl’altri […] e molti, non conoscendo la dottrina la quale è nascosta in loro, si credono perfettamente e con facilità grandissima intendere” (“The texts appear lower and flatter than the others […] and many, not aware of their hidden doctrine, believe they have understood them perfectly and with great ease”). And again: “si possono difficilissimamente intendere perfettamente, senza la cognizione della filosofia Platonica e Aristotelica” (“It is extremely difficult to understand them perfectly without knowledge of Platonic and Aristotelian philosophy”). According to the critic, Simone’s portrait is praised in the first text “secondo la via di Platone” (“according to Plato’s path”) and in the second in accordance with “la via e la dottrina di Aristotile” (“the path and teachings of Aristotle”). Cf. Gelli 1969, 238 et seq.

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praised and the image is called into question as a (real or mental) simulacrum of the woman. From Pietro Bembo to Giovanni Della Casa, from Vittoria Colonna to Gaspara Stampa, this ideal of perfection linked to the image, to the representation of the beloved woman, continues to bring with it the deep theoretical discourse initiated by Petrarch, the question of the ability of representation, the relationship between idea and tangible beauty, in short, the theory of portraiture. Pietro Bembo, emulating the form of the diptych, dedicates two sonnets to Giovanni Bellini for the now lost portrait, thought to depict Maria Savorgnan (transl.: Land 1994, 83; Johnston 1823, 143). Specific themes and structural aspects are taken from Petrarch: the apostrophe addressing the portrait, the theme of the comparison between copy and original, the lack of voice, and the lack of pity for the poet. On the other hand, the motif of the portrait, which, unlike the woman, is unable to escape her lover, is new:26 O image of mine, celestial and pure, which shines greater than the sun in my eyes, and to me resembles the face of her, whom I have carved with great care in my heart. I believe that my Bellini with his art has given to you also her manner so that you burn me when I look at you, although of yourself you are cold paint which has received good fortune. And like a lady, sweet and humble in her look, you well show your pity on my torment; but then, if I pray for mercy, you do not answer. 26  Bembo 2008, 53–7: “O imagine mia celeste et pura, / che splendi più che ’l sole agli occhi miei / et mi rassembri il volto di colei / che scolpita ho nel cor con maggior cura, / credo che ’l mio Bellin con la figura / t’habbia dato il costume ancho di lei, / che m’ardi, s’io ti miro, et per te sei / freddo smalto a cui giunse alta ventura. / Et come donna in vista dolce humile, / ben mostri tu pietà del mio tormento; / poi, se merce’ ten’ prego, non rispondi. / In questo hai tu di lei men fero stile, / né spargi sì le mie speranze al vento, / ch’al men, quand’io ti cerco, non t’ascondi”; “Son questi quei begli occhi in cui mirando / senza difesa far perdei me stesso? / È questo quel bel ciglio a cui sì spesso / in van del mio languir merce’ dimando? / Son queste quelle chiome che legando / vanno il mio cor sì ch’ei ne more expresso? / O volto, / che mi stai nell’alma impresso / perch’io viva di me mai sempre in bando, / parmi verder nella tua fronte Amore / tener suo maggior seggio et d’una parte / volar speme, piacer, tema et dolore; / da l’altra, quasi stelle in ciel consparte, / quinci et quindi apparir senno, valore, / bellezza, leggiadria, natura et arte.”

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And as far as that’s concerned, your style is less cruel than hers And you do not throw my hope away: For at least when I look for you, you do not hide Are these those eyes, before whose dazzling gaze I fell all at once, o’ercome without defence? Is this that brow, to whose omnipotence My voice so oft in vain for pity prays? Are these those locks, in whose beguiling maze My heart is bound in lifeless impotence? O thou, whose charms have stol’n my ev’ry sense, Which far from me in fond delusion strays, Upon thy front, bright visage, love his throne Has fix’d; and while from this side hope and fear, Sorrow and joy, I see their influence dart; On that, like stars in heav’n’s pure azure sown, In bright confusion issuing forth appear, Beauty, and goodness, wisdom, nature, art. The opening apostrophe is almost a definition of the Platonic idea of the woman captured in her ideal perfection: the “image celestial and pure”, is nothing more than a variant of the “true form” that depicts (“to me resembles”) the face of Maria Savorgnan. Her beauty is made explicit only in the second text in which the portrait is contemplated in all its parts (“Are these those eyes”, “Is this that brow”), including the face (not admired as it is painted but “imprinted in the soul”, “ne l’alma impresso”). It is not by chance that the face dominates the second half of the poem, which ends with a verse that is extremely significant in this regard: “Beauty, and goodness, wisdom, nature, art”. Giovanni Della Casa also looks back at the Petrarchan diptych and at Bembo’s precedent in his praise for the portrait of Elisabetta Quirini by Titian (trans. Conway 2010, 115–6), also now lost but known from a sixteenth-century copy at the Galleria Borghese.27 27  Della Casa 2003, 97–104: “Ben veggo io, Tiziano, in forme nove / l’idolo mio, che i begli occhi apre e gira / in vostre vive carte, e parla e spira / veracemente e i dolci membri move; / e piacemi che ’l cor doppio ritrove / il suo conforto, ove talor sospira, / e, mentre che l’un volto e l’altro mira, / brama il vero trovar, né sa ben dove. / Ma io come potrò l’interna

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Titian, how well I see in these new forms My idol, whose lovely eyes open and turn On your living canvases, whose sweet members move, And who speaks and truly breathes. O joy, that my heart twice finds Its comfort which makes it often sigh; And while it looks now on this face and now on that one, It yearns to find the true one but knows not where. But how will I ever be able to forge The inner part of this proud image, An obscure smith chosen for so high a task? You, Phoebus (since Love makes me so fond of it), Raise up my style so that such a lofty subject Will be the highest glory of your noble art Are these, Love, those graceful golden tresses Scattered among fresh roses and pure milk That I burn to seize and, in part, to take revenge For the deep and painful wounds that I bear? Is this the beautiful brow that conceals The one who, as she pleases, controls my desires? Are these the eyes from which your arrow departs? Nor could it issue forth from anywhere else with such a force! O, who enclosed on such a small page this beautiful face which my style seeks to portray in vain? Nor do I blame myself alone for this but also art as well! parte / formar già mai di questa altera imago, / oscuro fabro a sì chiara opra eletto? / Tu, Febo, poi ch’Amor men rende vago, / reggi il mio stil, che tanto alto subietto / fia somma gloria a la tua nobil arte”; “Son queste, Amor, le vaghe trecce bionde, / tra fresche rose e puro latte sparte, / ch’i’ prender bramo, e far vendetta in parte / de le piaghe ch’i’ porto aspre e profonde? / È questo quel bel ciglio in cui s’asconde / chi le mie voglie, com’ei vuol, comparte? / Son questi gli occhi onde ’l tuo stral si parte? / (Né con tal forza uscir potrebbe altronde). / Deh chi ’l bel volto in breve carta ha chiuso? / (Cui lo mio stil ritrarre indarno prova, / né in ciò me sol, ma l’arte inseme, accuso). / Stiamo a veder la meraviglia nova / che ’n Adria il mar produce, e l’antico uso / di partorir celesti dee rinova.”

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We are witnessing a new miracle, Produced upon the Adriatic Sea, Where, by ancient law, celestial goddesses are born anew. In “an impossible parallel between painting and poetic art” (“un impossibile parallelo fra pittura e arte poetica”, Della Casa 2003, 97) Della Casa finds his “idol”, Elisabetta Quirini, in a “new form”. This introduces her true form, which corresponds neither with the original nor with the portrait but is a Neoplatonic idea from which the “imago” must be “shaped” (“formar”)28 in both the exterior (Titian’s painting) and interior (the poem) worlds. In keeping with the Petrarchan model, the beauty of the portrait is remarked upon in the second sonnet. Here we see the “graceful golden tresses”, the “beautiful brow”, the “beautiful face”, and eventually the “new miracle” that sees “celestial goddesses” born anew in the Adriatic Sea. The portrait may as well only be fictional, a figment of poetic fantasy: there is almost no difference between the image actually portrayed on the canvas or simply engraved in the poet’s heart; what counts is the idea, the need for the ideal and perfect form. In order to attain this, Gaspara Stampa calls upon scores of artists to carry out a double portrait in which Collaltino di Collalto has two hearts, his own and that of the poet, which has been taken from her (Tylus 2010, 105–7):29 You who with paints and marble, wax and bronze, imitate and even defeat nature, forming now this, now that other figure, so they resemble their own true form,

28  Carrai stresses the “relationship of distant adnominatio with ‘forms’ in v.1” (Della Casa 2003, 101). 29  Stampa 2002, LV–LVI: “Voi, che ’n marmi, in colori, in bronzo, in cera / imitate e vincete la natura, / formando questa e quell’altra figura, / che poi somigli a la sua forma vera, / venite tutti in graziosa schiera / a formar la più bella creatura, / che facesse giamai la prima cura, / poi che con le sue man fe’ la primiera. / Ritraggete il mio conte, e siavi a mente / qual è dentro ritrarlo, e qual è fore; / sì che a tanta opra non manchi niente. / Fategli solamente doppio il core, / come vedrete ch’egli ha veramente / il suo e ’l mio, che gli ha donato Amore”; “Ritraggete poi me da l’altra parte, / come vedrete ch’io sono in effetto: / viva senz’alma e senza cor nel petto / per miracol d’Amor raro e nov’arte; / quasi nave che vada senza sarte, / senza timon, senza vele e trinchetto, / mirando sempre al lume benedetto / della sua tramontana, ovunque parte. / Ed avvertite che sia ’l mio sembiante / da la parte sinistra afflitto e mesto, / e da la destra allegro e trionfante: / il mio stato felice vuol dir questo, / or che mi trovo il mio signor davante; / quello, il timor che sarà d’altra presto.”

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gather together in gracious array to make the world’s most beautiful creature – not since First Care fashioned with his hands the first being has anything like him been made. Portray my counts, and don’t forget to show what lies within him, what without, so that your work is lacking in nothing. Just be sure to give him a double heart, for as you’ll see, he really has two, his own and mine – a gift Love gave him. There on the other side, you must portray me too, just as you see me, as I am in truth: alive without a soul, my breast without a heart through a rare miracle of love and new art, like some ship that sails without its ropes or rudder, without its foremast and sails, aiming always for that blessed light or his northern star, wherever it travels. And make sure that from the left I convey a countenance that’s sad and troubled, while on the right, I’m bright and triumphant. Such happiness shows me as I am today, with my lord before me; such dread speaks to the fear that he’ll soon be another’s. The artists are able to “defeat nature”; they are the only ones capable of “forming now this, now that other figure”, which continue to resemble “their own true form” (Stampa 2002, 114–5). The crucial question is again that of the relationship between poetry and image and the illusory power (real or imagined) the image brings with it, provided it fulfils the need for “true form”, which is constantly evoked in all possible variants. For Vittoria Colonna, who dedicates the bulk of her poetic corpus to the memory of her husband, the interior image of the late Ferrante d’Avalos

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(“always with me”, “carved into my heart”),30 in a sort of mystical experience may eventually seem more real than reality (“as vivid as if he were really here”, but see the original version “tal che l’occhio il vedea quasi men vero”):31 By losing myself in a deepening dream my lovely wanderer is always with me. I bear him carved into my heart, as vivid as if he were really here. On the gentle breath of his radiance like a bird my ecstatic spirit flies high to Paradise, far from this world, free from mortal cares, moving lightly at last. A scissors cut the single noble thread which twisted our lives into one; he’s gone and the life I lived through him is vanished. He who was everything to me is now with God – but I know a luminous peace, waiting, reason suspended, in a dream. How lucky you are – your courage puts you beyond the reach of everyone everywhere – among the noble on earth you are the first, among the blest you hold a treasured seat. 30  Cf. Moody, http://www.jimandellen.org/ellen/emhome.htm. 31  Colonna 1982, 4–5: “Per cagion d’un profondo alto pensero / scorgo il mio vago obietto ognor presente; / sculto il porto nel cor, vivo in la mente / tal che l’occhio il videa quasi men vero. / Lo spirto acceso poi veloce altero / con la scorta gentil del raggio ardente / sciolto dal mondo al Ciel vola sovente, / d’ogni cura mortal scarco e leggiero. / Quel colpo che troncò lo stame degno / ch’attorcea insieme l’una e l’altra vita / in lui l’oprar e in me gli effetti estinse; / fu al desir primo e fia l’ultimo segno / la bella luce al sommo Ciel gradita / che sovra i sensi mia ragion sospinse”; “Alma felice, se ’l valor, ch’excede / nel mondo ogn’altro ancor nel Ciel sublima, / come in le nobil menti sei la prima / esser de’ tua la più pregiata sede. / Finché l’imagin viva a l’occhio riede / la bella tua memoria in l’alta cima / di quei degni pensier c’han vera stima / farà de l’opre chiare immortal fede, / ché né invidia qua giù, né là su merto, / di fama al mondo, e al Ciel di gaudio eterno / l’ultimo pregio a la tua gloria tolse. / Ragion l’afferma e amor me ’l mostra aperto / ché ’l tuo vivo splendor riluce interno / nel petto, ov’ogni error prima disciolse.”

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For as long as your living image comes back to noble eyes, your memory will carve an image of deathless loyalty in the minds of those who discern justly. Your worldly fame and heaven’s eternal peace cannot be diminished by men who envy you or saints who’ve earned more. Reason affirms the ultimate value of your living splendour and Love agrees your light shines in the few unenvious The game of combinations is almost endless, but the question of the illusion always remains at its centre. Veronica Gambara unequivocally and seamlessly settles the score with the topos of Love as it succeeds in subjugating her heart to the usual motif by making her beloved appear “god-like”, which is linked intrinsically to the first, the image carved into the poet’s heart: Love had assaulted my heart many times but had not been able to conquer me. I felt no awe. Now he wanted not only power but real control; and it seemed so hopeless. Then one day when he felt especially troubled, when he had exhausted all force and courage, he resolved to imprison my heart, to keep her in eternal chains. It happened thus: the evil sisters placed you before me, you seemed god-like and love made me your slave, my soul enthralled by you. From that time to this, I bear you image engraved in my heart, so that wherever you are, my mind and my will follow you.32 32  Moody, http://www.jimandellen.org/vgpoetry/vgpoem18.html. Gambara 1995, 57: “Più volte il miser cor avea assaltato / Amor, né mai potendo averne onore, / ma sempre ritrovando il suo vigore / forte, talché di speme era privato; / onde, essendo esso un giorno

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Petrarchism is evidently a complex and multifaceted literary and cultural phenomenon, but it does not seem too far-fetched to suggest that a critical re-reading may be attempted in this light. One fact also remains constant from Petrarch onwards: the portrait is one of the key points of comparison and sometimes fierce competition between literature and painting, measured on their ability to represent the interior world, and with this inner beauty. The dialogue, which often becomes a challenge between images and words, always reveals itself as the bearer of profound cultural demands, primarily the celebration of poetry as a consideration of its expressive potential, especially if we extend our field of investigation beyond the “sub-genre” of poetry directly linked to portraits. This is in fact an integral part of social practice and often becomes an exercise in “style” or “commendation”. Going beyond portraits, we can also examine those occasions when significant aesthetic theories are advanced, whether they relate to portraits, the issue of representing the human figure, its interior world and its beauty, or the relationship between art and literature as a whole. This discourse would eventually be extended to Neoplatonic aesthetic theory tout court in a historic turn of events that would see the involvement of great artistic figures. 6 Michelangelo Michelangelo is emblematic of these. The question of the portrait in a broad sense, of the image and beauty of the beloved, became absolutely central to the complex and multifaceted figure of the artist and author. The issue even seems to have been freed from being explicitly approached as a theme, from the occurrence of the term and, it goes without saying, from opportunity. The question of the image enters Michelangelo’s poetry at a higher level because it sees the convergence of the Neoplatonic concept that relates to word and image in equal measure. This was highlighted several years ago by Roberto Fedi (Fedi 1992). In the madrigal that opens Michelangelo’s Canzoniere (1546), Fedi identified a timely tracing of the final part of Rvf 16, immediately choosing the question of the “true image” as a thematic focus for the anthology (Saslow 1993, 247):

assai turbato, / usando ogni sua forza e ogni valore / deliberò aver prigione il core, / e poi tenerlo in eterno legato. / Così gli riuscì che i fati rei, / ponendo inanzi a me tuo sacro aspetto, / posono in servitù gli spirti mei; / da indi in qua l’imagin tua nel petto / porto scolpita, talché dove sei / sempre è la mente mia con l’intelletto.”

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What ultimate refuge or escape for me is there that’s more secure, and no less strong than weeping and prayer? Yet they’re no help to me. For love and cruelty have pitched camp against me; the one is armed with mercy, the other with death; the latter kills me, the other keeps me alive. And thus my soul, prevented from dying – which alone could benefit me – has many times felt moved to go up there where it hopes to be forever, where beauty stands alone, outside any proud lady; But the true image on which I live revives within my heart, so that love might not be defeated by death.33 In addition to intertextual connections (the most important being the rhyme between spera and vera), Fedi underlines: duplicity, in addition to the many others contained in this dramatically conceived collection of poems, between the complementary entities of a ‘cruel’ and ‘proud beauty’ and the ‘true image’ of the woman, deeply immersed in the poetic memory and always ready to re-emerge. This is the ‘true image’, the ‘true icon’, the evangelical and Christian Veronica towards which the journey to the ideal is directed, despite being troubled by the struggle against mercy and pain, beauty and death: as in the Petrarchan Movesi il vecchierel (Rvf 16), on which the final part of Michelangelo’s text is clearly modelled.34 We are witnessing the definitive consecration of the eternalising function of art compared with the transience of human life (Saslow 1993, 406): Art wills this lady’s face to live down here as long as years go by, 33  Buonarroti 2006, sonn. 112: “Il mio refugio e ’l mio ultimo scampo / qual più sicuro è, che non sia men forte / che ’l pianger e ’l pregar? e non m’aita. / Amore e crudeltà m’han posto il campo: / l’un s’arma di pietà, l’altro di morte; / questa n’ancide, e l’altra tien in vita. / Così l’alma impedita / del mio morir, che sol poria giovarne, / più volte per andarne / s’è mossa là dov’esser sempre spera, / dov’è beltà sol fuor di donna altiera; / ma l’imagine vera, / della qual vivo, allor risorge al core, / perché da morte non sia vinto amore.” 34  Fedi 1992, 52–3.

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if only in living stone. Then what should God do for her, this being my handiwork, and she being his, not merely mortal but godly, and not only in my eyes? And yet she’ll last but a short time and must leave; and her fortune will be hobbled on its right side if a rock remains and death still hurries her on. Who’ll take revenge for her? Nature alone, since only her children’s works last here below, and time carries off her own.35 The face (the beauty) of the woman can only be brought back to life forever through a work of art. The entire collection of poems insists on the concept of the image, with a series of lexical variations: “true image”, “living image” etc. This is the “buon concetto” at which the artist arrives late in life through trial and error, like nature; poetry is now an opportunity for a game of reflections and mirroring, another lyrical topos, between beloved and lover, the “hardness” of the stone and the cruelty of the woman who, it does not need to be said, looks to Dante’s “petrose” for its style and phonic choices. This occurs in S’egli è che ‘n dura pietra alcun somigli, closely linked to the madrigal that brings an end to the collection of poems (Se dal cor lieto divien bello il volto), in which the play of reflections is complicated further, making the woman responsible for having the artist carry out an ugly portrait of her as she torments him with her cruelty. In addition to this, as has already been highlighted, Michelangelo’s perspective is that of an artist in the broadest and most accomplished sense, of an educated man who was able to absorb Neoplatonism and Ficinism in its slightest detail and was fully aware of art theory: Art is not merely a static theme of the Rime but their point of departure and arrival. As well as being central, it is also a ray that suffuses each individual section. Michelangelo in fact sees the world and the things in it not as a philosopher nor as a humanist but as an artist: he sees the human 35  Buonarroti 2006, sonn. 240: “Sol d’una pietra viva / l’arte vuol che qui viva / al par degli anni il volto di costei. / Che dovria il ciel di lei, / sendo mie questa, e quella suo fattura, / non già mortal, ma diva, / non solo agli occhi mei? / E pur si parte e picciol tempo dura. / Dal lato destro è zoppa suo ventura, / s’un sasso resta e pur lei morte affretta, / chi ne farà vendetta? / Natura sol, se de’ suo nati sola / l’opra qui dura, e la suo ’l tempo invola.”

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condition through the eyes of an artist. He sees himself and others as potential artistic material; he perceives beauty as an artist and resolves the tragic question of his own existence in terms of art, not faith, redeeming him. The section of the Rime dedicated to a specific discussion of what art is and what it implies offers an incredibly valuable tight core of Michelangelo’s meditations on the essence of art.36 The relationship between art and literature therefore reveals itself to be extremely complex and rich in implications; these provide ample demonstration of different interpretative approaches, some of which remain closer to the text, while others are exegetic and all-encompassing in nature. Oscar Schiavone, for example, in a survey of the most recent publications on Michelangelo, suggests, among the many possible critical directions, that “the more correct comparison to be made is that between Michelangelo’s literary practice and his artistic craft, and not that between works belonging to different expressive codes”.37 He intends to legitimise a structural comparison that examines the “method he follows in ordering his poems, knowing that he often takes fragments of one poem to create another, or frees individual fragments, making them autonomous, exactly as he does when developing his most complex drawings”.38 From another angle, more or less recent linguistic analysis, such as that carried out by Isabel Violante (Violante 2005) and Carla Rossi (Rossi 1998, cf. also Campeggiani 2012), reveals how the sculptural process comes into play in Michelangelo’s poetic production by creating an equivalence between represented (sculpted) image and word. This is noted in rhetorical and figural invention (in simile in particular), in the themes themselves, and in the position of the poet in the first person. In short, in Michelangelo art and literature find an extremely elevated point of contact and synthesis that sometimes allows one (figurative art) to be understood through the other (poetry), and vice versa. Susanna Barsella notes that “the most original application of the idea of art in Michelangelo’s work” is given “in terms of love”. In fact, the idea of Ficinian love is present above all as a “subjective ability to transform and be transformed”, a fulfilment “of dying in order to be reborn in the other person through the ‘raising’ that allows the lover to attain the perfection they are seeking for themselves through the other person”. In the same way, sculpture acts on the material and “mirrors the action of love, becoming, in the Rime,

36  Folliero-Metz 2005, 21–2. 37  Schiavone 2007, 191. 38  Schiavone 2007, 191.

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a macro-metaphor for human striving for perfection” (free trans. by Barsella 2003, 215). Of course, this analysis should not be limited to the so-called Canzoniere: other milestones of Neoplatonism can be identified on the border between text and image, between poetic and artistic activity in the strictest sense. From the famous “Not even the best of artists has any conception that a single marble block does not contain within its excess, and that is only attained by the hand that obeys the intellect” (“Non ha l’ottimo artista alcun concetto / c’un marmo solo in sé non circoscriva / col suo soperchio, e solo a quello arriva / la man che ubbidisce all’intelletto”), to the sonnet Dimmi di grazia, Amor, se gli occhi miei “where a portrait as such is not discussed, [but where] psychological questions on Neoplatonic foundations laid by Petrarch are reintroduced in an exceptional way”.39 Tell me, Love, I pray thee, do mine eyes Behold that Beauty’s truth which I admire, Or lives it in my heart, – for wheresoe’er I turn, more fair her countenance appears? Thou well must know, for thou dost come with her, To take from me my peace, whence I complain; And yet I would not wish one brief sigh less, Nor that the flame within me were less strong. The Beauty thou regardest is from her, But grows as to a better place it riseth, If through the mortal eyes it finds the soul. There it becomes ennobled, fair, divine; ‘For immortal thing assimilates the pure: This one, and not the other, meets thine eye.40

39  Bertone 2008b, 26. 40  Cheney 1885, 105. Buonarroti 2006, sonn. 42: “Dimmi di grazia, Amor, se gli occhi mei / veggono ’l ver della beltà c’aspiro, / o s’io l’ho dentro allor che, dov’io miro, / veggio scolpito el viso di costei. / Tu ’l de’ saper, po’ che tu vien con lei / a torm’ogni mie pace, ond’io m’adiro; / né vorre’ manco un minimo sospiro, / né men ardente foco chiederei. / – La beltà che tu vedi è ben da quella, / ma cresce poi c’a miglior loco sale, / se per gli occhi mortali all’alma corre. / Quivi si fa divina, onesta e bella, / com’a sé simil vuol cosa immortale: / questa e non quella agli occhi tuo precorre –”.

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The sonnet plays on the competition between two types of beauty: earthly (short-lived) beauty and spiritual (immortal) beauty. And herein lies the crux. The poet is in dialogue with Love – with perfect question and answer symmetry divided exactly between fronte and sirma – and asks which is true beauty (“Beauty’s truth”): that of the woman, or rather the beauty that objectively belongs to her, or that idea of beauty that the poet (the artist) holds inside and projects wherever he directs his gaze (“for wheresoe’er I turn”). The motif of the female image projected anywhere in the exterior world goes back to Petrarch and is revived here syntagmatically (Rvf 96: “But that lovely smiling face, which I carry painted in my breast and see wherever I look”).41 It is, however, revisited through the Neoplatonic concept duly explained by Love in the tercets: although beauty is in the object (the woman), this idea of beauty grows when it passes through the soul, which, being immortal and pure, makes the beauty itself (which comes from the woman) immortal, pure and divine. Although these two forms of beauty are closely related, the superiority of the idea of beauty over the material beauty of the woman is forcefully sanctioned. The Petrarchan model is therefore not successfully reused in terms of its psychological approach, which may even be stripped and reduced to a mere process or to praise; it is instead revitalised by the freedom with which Michelangelo moves closer to the model in order to conduct a close philosophical reasoning that involves his artistic and poetic being. References Alighieri, Dante. 1994. Commedia. A cura di Anna Maria Chiavacci Leonardi. Milano: Mondadori. Alighieri, Dante. 2011. Opere. A cura di Marco Santagata, vol. I. Milano: Mondadori. Antonelli, Roberto (a cura di). 2008. I poeti della scuola siciliana. Giacomo da Lentini. Milano: Mondadori. Battaglia, Salvatore. 1961–2002. Grande Dizionario della Lingua Italiana. Torino: Utet. Barsella, Susanna. 2003. “Michelangelo. Le rime dell’arte.” Letteratura & Arte 1: 213–25. Bembo, Pietro. 2008. Le rime. A cura di Andrea Donnini. Roma: Salerno. Berisso, Marco (a cura di). 2006. Poesie dello Stilnovo. Milano: Rizzoli. Bertolani, Maria Cecilia. 2005. Petrarca e la visione dell’eterno. Bologna: il Mulino. Bertolani, Maria Cecilia. 2006. “Dall’immagine all’icona.” Quaderns d’Italià 11: 183–201. Bertone, Giorgio. 2008a. Il volto di Dio, il volto di Laura. La questione del ritratto. Petrarca: Rvf xvi, lxxvii, lxxviii. Genova: il melangolo. 41  Durling 1976, 198.

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Bertone, Giorgio. 2008b. “Sotto l’involto di seta”, review of Poesia e ritratto nel Rinascimento, by Lina Bolzoni. L’indice dei libri del mese 9: 26. Bosco, Umberto. 1970–1978. Enciclopedia dantesca. Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia italiana. Buonarroti, Michelangelo. 2006. Rime. A cura di Stella Fanelli con prefazione di Cristina Montagnani. Milano: Garzanti. Calcaterra, Carlo. 1936. “‘Illam absentem absens audies et videbis’”. In Convegno petrarchesco, Arezzo, 11–13 ottobre 1931, 152–71. Arezzo: Accademia Petrarca. Campeggiani, Ida. 2012. Le varianti della poesia di Michelangelo. Scrivere per via di porre. Lucca: Maria Pacini Fazzi Editore. Catenazzi, Flavio. 1977. L’influsso dei provenzali su temi e immagini della poesia siculotoscana. Brescia: Morcelliana. Cheney, Ednah (trans.). 1885. Selected Poems from Michelangelo Buonarroti with translations from Various Sources. Boston: Lee and Shepard. Ciccuto, Marcello. 1991. Figure di Petrarca. Giotto, Simone Martini, Franco Bolognese. Napoli: Federico & Ardia. Colonna, Vittoria. 1982. Rime. A cura di Alan Bullock. Bari: Laterza. Conway Bondanella, Julia (trans.). 2010. In Ridolfi, Carlo. The Life of Titian. Pennsylvania: Penn State Press. Della Casa, Giovanni. 2003. Rime. A cura di Stefano Carrai. Torino: Einaudi. Durling, M. Robert (trans.). 1976. Petrarch’s Lyric Poems. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Egidi, Francesco (a cura di) 1940. Le rime di Guittone d’Arezzo. Bari: Laterza. Favaro, Maiko. 2013. “Gli occhi del cielo. Sull’interpretazione di alcune ‘Rime’ michelangiolesche.” Rivista di letteratura italiana 31: 185–98. Fedi, Roberto. 1992. “‘L’imagine vera’: Vittoria Colonna, Michelangelo, e un’idea di canzoniere.” Modern Language Notes 107. Fenzi, Enrico. 2003. “Note petrarchesche: Rvf 16, Movesi il vecchierel.” In Id., Saggi petrarcheschi, 15–39. Firenze: Cadmo. Folliero-Metz, Grazia Dolores. 2005. “Michelangelo tra arte figurativa e ‘Rime’ e l’estetica della bellezza nel Rinascimento italiano.” Testo 26: 9–28. Gambara, Veronica. 1995. Le rime. A cura di Alan Bullock. Firenze: Olschki. Gelli, Giovan Battista. 1969. Lezioni petrarchesche, with a letter from S. Carlo Borromeo and another from Giosuè Carducci. Bologna: Commissione per i Testi di Lingua. Guglielminetti, Marziano. 2001. “Beatrice acheropita.” Arzanà. Cahiers de littérature médiévale italienne 7: 131–45. Hirdt, Willi. 1983. “Sul sonetto del Petrarca ‘Per mirar Policleto a prova fiso’.” In Miscellanea di studi in onore di Vittore Branca, vol. I, 435–47. Firenze: Olschki. Johnston, Charles (trans.). 1823. Sonnets, Original and Translated. London: Murray.

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Kline, A.S. (trans.). 2001. La Vita Nuova. ‘The New Life’ of Dante Alighieri. In PIT Poetry In Translation. Accessed November 23, 2018. https://www.poetryintranslation.com/ PITBR/Italian/TheNewLifeI.php. Land, Norman (trans.). 1994. The Viewer as Poet. The Renaissance Response to Art. Pennsylvania: Penn State Press. Lu’lu’a, Abdulwahid (trans.). 2013. Arabic-Andalusian Poetry and the Rise of the European Love-Lyric. Houston: Strategic Book Publishing. Mancini, Franco. 1988. La figura nel cuore fra cortesia e mistica. Dai Siciliani allo Stilnovo. Napoli: Edizioni Scientifiche Italiane. Petrarca, Francesco. 1992. Secretum. Il mio segreto. A cura di Enrico Fenzi. Milano: Mursia. Petrarca, Francesco. 1996. Canzoniere. A cura di Marco Santagata. Milano: Mondadori. Pich, Federica. 2005. I poeti davanti al ritratto. Da Petrarca a Marino. Lucca: Maria Pacini Fazzi Editore. Pommier, Édouard. 2007. L’invenzione dell’arte nell’Italia del Rinascimento. Torino: Einaudi. Savona, Eugenio. 1973. Repertorio tematico del Dolce Stil Nuovo. Bari: Adriatica Editrice. Pozzi, Giovanni. 1993. Sull’orlo del visibile parlare. Milano: Adelphi. Rossebastiano, Alda e Papa, Elena. 2005. I nomi di persona in Italia. Dizionario storico etimologico. Prefazione di Giuliano Gasca Queirazza, vol. II. Torino, Utet. Rossi, Carla. 1998. “Similitudini nelle Rime di Michelangelo.” La parola del testo 2: 293–308. Saslow, James M. (trans.). 1993. The Poetry of Michelangelo: An Annotated Translation. New Haven & London: Yale University Press. Schiavone, Oscar. 2007. “‘Non è forza d’arte’ Rassegna di studi michelangioleschi (2000–2006).” Humanistica 2: 191–203. Stampa, Gaspara. 2002. Rime. Prefazione di Maria Bellonci, note di Rodolfo Ceriello. Milano: Rizzoli. Surdich, Luigi. 2008. “Il ritratto e l’icona.” Review of Bertone 2008a. In L’indice dei libri del mese 11: 11. Tylus, Jane (trans.). 2010. The Complete Poems of Gaspara Stampa: the 1554 Edition of the “Rime”, a Bilingual Edition. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Vettori, Alessandro. 2003. “Veronica: Dante’s Pilgrimage from Image to Vision.” Dante Studies 121: 43–65. Violante, Isabel. 2005. “Le contraddizioni dell’io” nelle Rime di Michelangelo.” Letteratura & Arte 3: 35–42. West, Simon (trans.). 2009. The Selected Poetry of Guido Cavalcanti. Leicester: Troubadour Publishing Ltd. Wolf, Gerhard. 2000. “‘Or fu sì fatta la sembianza vostra?’ Sguardi alla ‘vera icona’ e alle sue copie artistiche.” In Il volto di Cristo a cura di Giovanni Morello e Gerhard Wolf. Milano: Electa.

chapter 6

“Love is Naught But a Certain Desire to Enjoy Beauty”: Castiglione and Raffaello Pasquale Sabbatino 1 Raffaello’s The Triumph of Galatea* At the beginning of the sixteenth century, a new trend developed within the field of art history: The Triumph of Galatea (1511–12), a fresco by Raffaello Sanzio,1 aroused general interest and marked the start of a successful period for the mythological tradition. In his first edition of Vite2 (1550), Vasari does not mention the Galatea when he presents Raffaello’s biography, although he lists the other works that were executed in Agostino Chigi’s Villa in Lungara (which was purchased in 1576 by cardinal Alessandro Farnese and renamed Villa Farnesina).3 He does however acknowledge the Galatea in the biography of the Sienese Baldassarre Peruzzi, the architect responsible for the U-shape of Villa Farnesina, which was conceived to make the exterior appear like a theatre stage. Peruzzi was also the painter of the illusionistic decorations in the Sala delle Colonne or Sala delle Prospettive (1518–9), with fake colonnades and landscapes:4 Even greater was the fame that came to him from the model of the Palace of Agostino Chigi, executed with such beautiful grace that it seems not to * This essay elaborates on the findings previously presented to an Italian audience in Sabbatino, Pasquale. 2004. “Il Trionfo della Galatea di Raffaello e Il libro del Cortegiano di Castiglione. Il dibattito sull’imitazione nel primo Cinquecento.” Studi rinascimentali 2: 23– 48. The translation was carried out by Mirella De Sisto and George Metcalf. 1  Cf. Thoenes 1977, 220–72; Id. 1986, 59–72; Chastel 1986, 3–10. 2  Le vite de piu eccellenti architetti, pittori, et scultori italiani, da Cimabue insino a’ tempi nostri (Firenze, [Torrentino]), “Lives of the Most Eminent Architects, Painters, and Sculptors, from Cimabue to Our Times”. All translations are mine, except where indicated otherwise. 3  In his autobiography (begun in 1558 and finished in 1567), Benvenuto Cellini also mentioned the works by Raffaello in Chigi’s Villa, which became an actual school of painting. Cf. Cellini 1985, 120: “During that time I used to go to draw, sometimes in Michelagniolo’s chapel, and sometimes in the house of Agostino Chigi of Siena, which contained many incomparable paintings by the hand of the extremely talented Raffaello from Urbino.” (Addington Symonds 2001, XIX). 4  Cf. De Fusco 1981, 93–5, 166; Frommel 2003.

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have been built, but rather to have sprung into life; and with his own hand he decorated the exterior with most beautiful scenes in terretta. The hall, likewise, is adorned with rows of columns executed in perspective, which, with the depth of the intercolumniation, cause it to appear much larger. But what is the greatest marvel of all is a loggia that may be seen over the garden, painted by Baldassarre with scenes of the Medusa turning men into stone, such that nothing more beautiful can be imagined; and then there is Perseus cutting off her head, with many other scenes in the spandrels of that vaulting, while the ornamentation, drawn in perspective with colours, in imitation of stucco, is so natural and lifelike, that even to excellent craftsmen it appears to be in relief. And I remember that when I took the Chevalier Tiziano, a most excellent and honoured painter, to see that work, he would by no means believe that it was painted, until he had changed his point of view, when he was struck with amazement. In that place are some works executed by Fra Sebastiano Viniziano, in his first manner; and by the hand of the divine Raffaello, as has been related, there is a Galatea being carried off by sea-gods. Vasari, Lives. In de Vere 1912–14, 65–65

In the biography of Sebastiano del Piombo, painter of the majestic Polyphemus (Roma, Villa Farnesina, loggia of Galatea), Vasari gives chronological precedence to The Triumph of Galatea.6 The two frescos are based on the same sources, represent the same mythological anecdote and, consequently, complement each other: After this work, Raffaello having executed a story of Galatea in the same place, Sebastiano, at the desire of Agostino, painted beside it a Polyphemus in fresco, in which, spurred by rivalry with Baldassarre of 5  Cf. Vasari 1986, 685. 6  Regarding the still unresolved issue of the chronology of the two frescos, cf. Thoenes 1986, 62–3: “In the literature on the subject, opinions are more frequent than proper arguments. It is usually assumed that the Polyphemus preceded the Galatea. This seems the most logical solution: the story, as told by Poliziano, goes from left to right, starting in the first bay of the wall with the work by Sebastiano […].who is then followed by Raffaello. […] As to the Galatea, there is indeed a claim of it being a previous work: it is Vasari’s claim […]. Hirst furthermore, on a stylistic basis, dates the Polyphemus to “no earlier than the first few months of 1512”, which would be somewhat later than I would estimate the Galatea to have been executed. But none of this is conclusive, and it remains more plausible that Raffaello altered Sebastiano’s conception, either as his successor or even – according to Philipp Fehl – as his competitor, who was active in more or less the same period […].

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Siena and then with Raffaello, he strove his utmost to surpass himself, whatever may have been the result. Vasari, Lives. In de Vere 1912–14, 1747

Raffaello Sanzio was commissioned to paint the fresco of Galatea by a wealthy banker, Agostino Chigi, as Raffaello Borghini describes in Riposo […] in cui della Pittura, e della Scultura si favella, de’ più illustri Pittori, e Scultori, e delle più famose opere loro si fa mentione; e le cose principali appartenenti a dette arti s’insegnano (Firenze, Giorgio Marescotti, 1584): He had first painted, for the rich merchant Agostino Chigi, in a loggia of his palace in Trastevere, a Galatea in the sea, on a chariot drawn by two dolphins with Tritons and other marine deities […].8 The reason for the commission, assigned in the autumn of 1511, was the desire of Agostino Chigi (a widower since 1508) to marry the charming Margherita Gonzaga, natural daughter of the marquis of Mantova, Francesco Gonzaga. However, the marriage proposal was rejected in 1512, perhaps due to a conflict of economic interest with the court.9 This desire to marry is also linked to the “(the) poem by Egidio Gallo, De Viridario Augustini Chigii, which describes this palace as being that of Venus, who from Cyprus begins a journey round the world and, having reached Rome, decides to live in Chigi’s house”.10 Citing Vasari’s reference to the “Galatea kidnapped by the gods of the sea” (“Galatea rapita da’ dèi marini”), in the treatise De’ veri precetti della pittura (Ravenna, Tebaldini, 1586), Giovan Battista Armenini attests to the fame that the Galatea had by then acquired, saying it was considered “admirable” (“mirabile”) by everyone.11

7   Cf. Vasari 1986, 839–40. 8   Borghini 1967, 389: “Aveva egli prima dipinto in una loggia ad Agostin Ghigi mercatante ricchissimo del suo palagio in Trastevere una Galatea nel mare sopra un carro tirato da due delfini con tritoni, & altri dei marini […]”. 9   Cf. Thoenes 1986, 61: “from a letter of November 1512 we learn that in the meantime Agostino had resigned himself to not achieving his goal”. 10   Ibid. 11  Cf. Armenini 1988, 208.

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Origins of the Mythological Story

Concerning the mythological story of Galatea and Polyphemus, two sources were available in the period of renaissance humanism, as can be deduced from the famous anthology edited by Vincenzo Cartari, Le imagini con la spositione de i dei de gli antichi (Venice, Marcolini, 1556), which was printed several times between 1500 and 1600: And, although the Nereids were many – Hesiod counts fifty of them and names all of them – I shall speak of one only, namely Galatea. She was named thus due to her whiteness, which perhaps represents in her the foam of the sea, or rather, her name comes from “gala”, which means milk, which is why Hesiod portrays her with white hair and a face resembling milk. She is loved by Polyphemus, who, seeking to praise her in Ovidian terms, calls her “whiter than the whitest privet”. And Philostratus the Elder, describing a painting of the Cyclops, refers to Galatea moving away across a calm sea on a chariot drawn by dolphins, which are guided and held by some of Triton’s daughters. The girls surround the beautiful nymph, always ready to serve her. Raising her arms, she holds a purple cloth against the sweet aura of Zephyr, as a cover for the chariot and to provide shade for herself; her hair is not tossed in the wind, for it is wet and lays partly on her candid face and partly on her white upper arms.12 The first source is the Greek rhetorician, Philostratus (II, 18), who focuses on the figure of Galatea while describing an ancient painting portraying Polyphemus. The nymph travels on the sea in a chariot drawn by four dolphins guided by “daughters of Triton”; she holds a red cloth that creates some shade while being blown by Zephyrus. She has wet hair that falls on her face and her upper arms. The second source is Ovid, who, in Metamorphosis (XIII, 740–899), describes the unlucky love story of Galatea and Akis, a Sicilian shepherd boy, and the violent reaction of a blinded-by-jealousy Polyphemus. Petrarch uses this source in his Rerum Vulgarium Fragmenta, 325, 31–4, in which he counts Polyphemus among the most famous figures to be won over by Love, together with Jupiter, Apollo and Mars. He also mentions Polyphemus in the Triumphus Cupidinis II, in which he describes a number of famous lovers, most of them 12  Cf. Cartari 1996, 216. The text is based on the edition of 1587, which “has been recognised as the most advanced stage, albeit not definitive, of the work that can be attributed to Cartari” (ivi, note 615).

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found in Ovid’s Metamorphosis and, in a few cases, Heroides. In the Triumphus, he describes Galatea and Akis’ love in a tercet: Fra questi fabulosi e vani amori vidi Aci e Galatea, che ‘n grembo gli era, e Poliphemo farne gran romori. Triumphus Cupidinis II, 169–71

I saw amidst the vain and fabulous host, Fair Galatea lean’d on Acis’brest; Rude Polyphemus’ noise disturbs their rest. Hume 1644, 162–4

Poliziano also draws on Philostratus in his epic-mythological poem, Stanze per la giostra (I, 70–119). The last two of the bas reliefs that decorate the door to the palace of Venus, which are extremely lifelike (I, 97, 2: “sì vivi intagli”, “such vivid carvings”), are dedicated to the story of Polyphemus and Galatea. In Poliziano’s ekphrasis, Polyphemus is represented with fearsome hair and a crown made of oak branches, sitting on a rock beneath a maple tree. The Cyclops praises the beauty of Galatea, who is “whiter than milk”, according to the etymology (Greek Galáteia, from gala “milk”: born from sea foam), and expresses his love in song. Galatea passes on her chariot holding the bridles of two dolphins, accompanied by a retinue of other Nereids (her loyal sisters) and marine animals. Galatea mocks the Cyclops’ love song: Gli omer’ setosi a Polifemo ingombrano l’orribil chiome e nel gran petto cascono, e fresche ghiande l’aspre tempie adombrano: d’intorno a lui le sue pecore pascono, né a costui dal cor già mai disgombrano le dolce acerbe cur’ che d’amor nascono, anzi, tutto di pianto e dolor macero, siede in un freddo sasso a pie’ d’un acero. Dall’uno all’altro orecchio un arco face il ciglio irsuto lungo ben sei spanne; largo sotto la fronte il naso giace, paion di schiuma biancheggiar le zanne; tra’ piedi ha ‘l cane, e sotto il braccio tace una zampogna ben di cento canne:

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lui guata il mar che ondeggia, e alpestre note per canti, e muova le lanose gote, e dica ch’ella è bianca più che il latte, ma più superba assai ch’una vitella, e che molte ghirlande gli ha già fatte, e serbali una cervia molto bella, un orsacchin che già col can combatte; e che per lei si macera e si sfragella, e che ha gran voglia di saper notare per andare a trovarla insin nel mare. Due formosi delfini un carro tirono: sovr’esso è Galatea che ‘l fren corregge, e quei, notando parimente, spirono; ruotasi attorno più lasciva gregge: qual le salse onde sputa, e quai s’aggirono, qual par che per amor giuochi e vanegge; la bella ninfa colle suore fide di sì rozo cantor vezzosa ride Poliziano, Stanze per la giostra, I, 115–8.13

The bristling locks of Polyphemus cover his hairy shoulders and fall onto his huge chest, fresh acorns wreathe his harsh temples: his sheep feed about him, nor can the bittersweet cares that are born of love be ever removed from his heart, but rather, weakened by weeping and grief, he sits on a cold stone at the foot of a maple. His hairy brow makes an arch six spans long from ear to ear; beneath this brow lies a broad nose, his fanglike teeth seem white with foam; his dog rests between his feet, and under his arm a shepherd’s pipe of over a hundred reeds lies silent: he regards the waving sea, he seems to sing a mountain tune, as he moves his woolly cheeks. 13  Cf. Poliziano 1988, 106.

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saying that she is whiter than milk, but even prouder than a heifer that he keeps for her a very beautiful doe and a bear-cub that already can fight with dogs; that he mortifies and torments himself for her, and that he has a great desire to know how to swim in order to go forth and find her even in the sea. Two shapely dolphins pull a chariot: on it sits Galatea and wields the reins; as they swim, they breath in unison; a more wanton flock circles one spews forth salt waves, others swim in circles, one seems to cavort and play for love; with her faithful sisters, the fair nymph charmingly laughs at such a crude singer Quint. 1993, 59–61

To a large extent, the sequence of Polyphemus’ love song to Galatea reflects Chigi’s courtship of Margherita Gonzaga, with the inevitable alteration of Galatea’s response. Indeed, in the Stanze per la giostra, she “charmingly laughs at such a crude singer” (“di sì rozo cantor”), while in Raffaello’s fresco she appears positively inclined to listen. Thus, the mythological story of Polyphemus and Galatea becomes the archetype of the relationship between Agostino Chigi and Margherita Gonzaga. The text of Poliziano is then used, with some adaptations, as a reference for the artistic program of Sebastiano del Piombo’s Polyphemus and Raffaello’s Galatea in Chigi’s palace of Venus. As early as the sixteenth century, in the Dialogo della pittura intitolato l’Aretino (Vinegia, Gabriel Giolito de’ Ferrari, 1557),14 Ludovico Dolce asserts that Raffaello’s invention competes with the beautiful poetry of Poliziano in a contest of creativity between painter and poet. Thoenes’ comparison of Raffaello’s Galatea and Sebastiano del Piombo’s Polyphemus15 demonstrates the highhandedness of the former and the loyalty of the latter towards their source: 14  Cf. Barocchi 1960, 192. 15  Cf. Frommel 2003, 176–85, and Calì 2000, 132: “With the figure of Polyphemus, the young Sebastiano del Piombo, “already influenced by Michelangelo”, shows that he has not yet completely abandoned his previous training under Giorgione, which led him to meditate on the effects of light and colour and on the contrast between highlights in the background and the dark patches of the tree in whose shade Polyphemus is sitting.”

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Sebastiano’s efforts to produce the most meticulous representation of Poliziano’s text is evident: the Cyclops’ “hairy shoulders” and “bristling locks”, the “fresh acorns that wreathe his harsh temples” and the “stone at the foot of a maple” he sits on are rendered literally; “his dog rests between his feet, and a pipe lies silent under his arm”. In contrast, Raffaello not only dares to enrich the poet’s description with details such as the sea-shell chariot, which is mentioned neither by Poliziano nor by any of his classical predecessors, but he even invents new roles, thereby creating a completely different story. Indeed, Poliziano mentions no other characters than Galatea and her nymphs – the “faithful sisters”, as the poet calls them – who joke and play amongst themselves: “one spews forth salt waves, others run around each other, one seems to cavort and play for love”. There is definitely no man, no marine monster, no Cupid and none of the erotic episodes that Raffaello portrays.16 Raffaello thus re-writes the story with his painting. His alteration of certain aspects and the addition of new elements lead to the creation of a new version of the story. Specifically, he changes the chariot to a sea shell and enriches the scene with other characters (the Cupids in the sky, the conch player with a white-blue horse on the left, the pairing of the muscular Triton and the Nereid who defends herself from his unwanted embrace, and the marine centaur on the right). He makes Galatea appear relaxed and joyful, while the sea wind, which pushes her forward while caressing her, raises her blood-red dress and her long loose hair and uncovers her left ear, with which she listens to Polyphemus’ love song. 3

Representation and Imitation of the Idea of Beauty: Raffaello’s Letter to Castiglione

Castiglione was enthusiastic about the Triumph of Galatea fresco, which has been the object of various interpretations over the centuries and remains an “unintelligible”17 painting even today. For this reason, he sent a letter of praise 16  Thoenes 1986, 63. 17  Ivi, 72. Among the possible interpretations of the painting referenced by Thoenes, Chastel (1986, 7), on the basis of interesting arguments, sees it as a celebration of profane love, i.e. the amor chigianus, in the context of both the palace of Venus (Chigi’s villa) and the sensually pagan Renaissance Rome: “John Shearman has admirably demonstrated how the Farnesina, Agostino Chigi’s villa, was entirely conceived as the “palace of love” described by Apuleius […] We should not be surprised, at this point, to find within it the

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to the artist, which unfortunately has not been conserved. The thirty-year-old Raffaello answered it with a note that is undated but is thought to have been written in April-May 1514, due to the reference to his appointment as chief architect of St Peter’s basilica, together with Friar Giovanni Giocondo. This appointment, which took place on April first 1514, after Bramante’s death (11th of March), was ratified by a brief of Leo X in August: In conferring this honour upon me Our Lord also gave me a great burden to carry, that is, responsibility for the construction of St Peter’s. I hope that it won’t be too heavy a burden for me and that His Holiness and many brilliant minds will appreciate what I made of it. But In my thinking I wish to aim higher than this. I would like to find the beautiful shapes of the ancient buildings, though my flight may be like that of Icarus. Vitruvius is a shining light in this regard, but he is not enough.18 Raffaello’s interest in Vitruvius Pollio’s De architectura, a cornerstone of Renaissance classicism, grew significantly in this phase; one of the reasons was his friendship with Giovanni Giocondo, who was the editor of the Latin two most inventive celebrations of profane love: the Galatea and the Loggia di Psyche, two celebrations inspired by ancient models of nudity, profane joy and vitality. First the Galatea: In the joyful tumult of its water-dwelling inhabitants, the circle of profane love, ferinus et vulgaris, is closed within itself. However, when Galatea takes part in this swirling movement together with her retinue, she twists her body in a way that leaves us somewhat perplexed. Not only does she ignore Polyphemus, painted on the left by Sebastiano del Piombo, but she does not even look in the direction where the chariot drawn by the dolphins is carrying her. Indeed, she looks somewhere else, excelsius. […] Is this expressive movement enough to contradict the sense of the composition or, at least, to instil a note of conversio in altum? I ask the reader to bear with me as I dwell a moment on this small issue. It has already been noted, I believe, that Galatea’s gaze seems to be directed towards the Cupid, hidden by a pillow of clouds in the upper left-hand corner, who holds a bundle of arrows. While his three brothers fly around in a threatening manner, he stays calm. It is tempting to think that in this unusual composition, in which the nymph plays the role of Venus, the painter is seeking to make it appear that he is depicting the classic tale of omnia vincit amor, as a jolt or resistance in the viewer, preparing the ground for the conversio to a higher form of love. While this interpretation is plausible I do not think it is the right one. It may be observed that the bundle of arrows, a recurring symbol of harmony, was part of Agostino Chigi’s heraldic emblem. In a gesture of immense but understandable adulation towards the master of the house […] the nymph probably does no more than address the amor chigianus. I consider this interpretation to be in line with the extraordinarily pagan character of the villa.” According to Chastel (8), the ascent of the soul towards divine love can be found only in the Chigi chapel. 18  Sanzio 1994, 166. The model of the initial design of St Peter’s Basilica in the Vatican was executed by the wood carver Giovanni Barile. Cf. also Barocchi 1973, 1529–31.

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edition (1511).19 Moreover, Raffaello obtained a version of the work in the vernacular in August 1514. He himself had commissioned it from the classical philologist Fabio Calvo20 and his annotations can be found on the margins of the manuscript.21 The letter to Castiglione,22 which was published in the collection edited by Ludovico Dolce, Lettere di diversi eccellenti huomini (Venice 1554), clearly alludes to the issue of imitation, a central aspect of Renaissance culture: I would consider myself to be a great master of the Galatea if it contained even half of the many elements that Your Lordship describes in your letter. But I can read in your words your affection for me, and I tell you that in order to paint a beautiful woman, I would need to see more beautiful women. I could do so on one condition, that Your Lordship and I must choose the best together. But, due to the shortage of both good judges and beautiful women, I make use of an idea that comes to mind. I do not know if this idea contains any excellence of art, but I put much effort into creating it.23 Even without openly mentioning the Platonic doctrine, the letter of Raffaello is substantially pervaded by it.24 The imitation of nature is not sufficient to paint beauty. Indeed, the eclectic and selective imitation adopted by Zeuxis to paint 19  Regarding the popularity of Vitruvius during the Renaissance period, cf. Pagliara 1986, 3–85. 20  Cf. the letter to Fabio Calvo (15th of August 1514) in Sanzio 1994, 202: “I have received the vernacular Vitruvius from you through your Lodovico from Vicenza. It is beautifully written and I sincerely thank you for it.” (“ho recieuto el Vetruvio vulgare per parte vostra che me ha dato el vostro Lodovico vicientino schritto de bellissima lectera, e ve ne rengrazio de core.”). The publisher Lodovico degli Arrighi was the person who delivered the manuscript – currently cod. it. 37 in the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek of Munich. 21  Calvo’s translation of De architectura with Raffaello’s comments can be found in FontanaMorachiello 1975. 22  Regarding the attribution of the letter to Raffaello, cf. Sanzio 1994, 154. He firmly excludes the notion that the letter, which can be dated to 1514, was written by Raffaello: “in that year he was not yet in Rome, where he arrived only in 1516 or 1517”; Thoenes (1986, 66) considers the letter “probably a fake, or […] an invention by the Aretino/Dolce circle”. 23  Sanzio 1994, 166: “Della Galatea mi terrei un gran maestro se vi fossero la metà delle tante cose che Vostra Signoria mi scrive. Ma nelle sue parole riconosco l’amore che mi porta, e le dico che per dipingere una bella mi bisogneria veder più belle, con questa condizione, che Vostra Signoria si trovasse meco a far scelta del meglio. Ma, essendo carestia e de’ buoni giudici e di belle donne, io mi servo di certa iddea che mi viene nella mente. Se questa ha in se alcuna eccellenza d’arte io non so, ben m’affatico di averla.” 24  Chastel 1954, 72.

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the legendary beauty of Helen is no longer feasible. As Raffaello explains with “polite irony” (“garbata ironia”),25 there are two reasons for this: the absence of beautiful women and the absence of good judges able to evaluate their individual beauty. Raffaello thus assigns a crucial role to the idea of beauty that “comes to mind” (“viene alla mente”) and to the artist’s ability to represent that idea of beauty or “intimate representation” (“intima rappresentazione”), without imitating nature and without being dominated by external stimuli. 4

The Imitation of Nature in Castiglione’s Libro del Cortegiano and the “perfettissimo giudizio di bellezza” of the Painter and the Courtier

From a historiographical perspective, the importance of Raffaello’s letter to Castiglione lies in its highlighting of the profound difference between the aesthetic conceptions of the sender and the recipient; between the proposal of the former, who considers art to be the imitation of the idea of beauty, and the proposal of the latter, for whom art is the imitation of nature and the multiplicity of models that nature offers. Indeed, in the Libro del Cortegiano, which was written in the period 1513–1516, Castiglione extensively develops his meditations on aesthetics: first, referencing the sculptor Giovan Cristoforo Romano, he declares that painting and sculpture are “artificial imitations of nature” (“artificiosa imitazione di natura”, I 8, 27);26 he then reaffirms the concept with reference to the figure of Count Ludovico da Canossa: “You say very truly that both the one and the other are imitations of nature” (I 8, 29).27 Particularly interesting in the Libro del Cortegiano is the use of the anecdote of Helen being painted by Zeuxis, which Castiglione combines with the anecdote of Campaspe being painted by Apelles. In tackling and resolving the debate about whether painting or sculpture is the finest form of art, Castiglione gives the accolade to painting, which is [“nobler and more susceptible of skill, than sculpture.” (I 8, 34).28 Hence, Count Ludovico da Canossa concludes that the perfect courtier must understand and know painting: So let it be enough to say that it is fitting for our Courtier to have knowledge of painting also, as being honourable and useful and highly 25  Barocchi 1973, 1525. 26  Eckstein Opdycke 1903, 67. Cf. Castiglione 2002, 88. 27  Eckstein Opdycke 1903, 67. Cf. Castiglione 2002, 88. 28  Eckstein Opdycke 1903, 68. Cf. Castiglione 2002, 90.

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prized in those times when men were of far greater worth than now they are. And if he should never derive from it other use or pleasure than the help it affords in judging the merit of statues ancient and modern, of vases, buildings, medals, cameos, intaglios, and the like, – it also enables him to appreciate the beauty of living bodies, not only as to delicacy of face but as to symmetry of all the other parts, both in men and in every other creature. Thus you see how a knowledge of painting is a source of very great pleasure. And let those think of this, who so delight in contemplating a woman’s beauty that they seem to be in paradise, and yet cannot paint; which if they could do, they would have much greater pleasure, because they would more perfectly appreciate that beauty which engenders such satisfaction in their hearts (I 8, 41–2).29 “Having knowledge” of painting gives the courtier the necessary knowledge to express judgment within the artistic field – painting, sculpture, architecture, minor arts – and to seek, on the same level as the painter, a fuller knowledge of natural beauty and the beauty of human bodies and animals. In this way, the courtier moves closer to the painter, whose professional training enables him to know beauty on a deeper level, just like Apelles when contemplating the beauty of the body of Campaspe, the woman loved by Alexander the Great (Pliny, Naturalis historia, XXXV 86).30 He can therefore reach “the most perfect judgment of beauty” (“perfettissimo giudizio di bellezza”, I, 8, 48), just like Zeuxis in selecting the five young girls of Kroton (Cicero, De inventione, II 1, 1–3):31 the love that springs from the outward bodily beauty which we see, will doubtless give far greater pleasure to him who appreciates it more than to him who appreciates it less. Therefore, to return to our subject, I think that Apelles enjoyed the contemplation of Campaspe’s beauty far 29  Eckstein Opdycke 1903, 69. Cf. Castiglione 2002, 91–2. 30  The anecdote of Apelles is also cited by Castiglione (I 8, 35–6 (Castiglione 2002, 90–1). “Thus we read that Alexander loved Apelles of Ephesus dearly, – so dearly, that having caused the artist to paint a portrait of his favourite slave undraped, and hearing that the worthy painter had become most ardently enamoured of her by reason of her marvellous beauty, he gave her to Apelles without hesitation: – munificence truly worthy of Alexander, to sacrifice not only treasure and states but his very affections and desires; and sign of exceeding love for Apelles, in order to please the artist, not to hesitate at displeasing the woman he dearly loved, who (we may believe) was sorely grieved to change so great a king for a painter.” (Eckstein Opdycke 1903, 68). Cf. Castiglione 2002, 88. 31  Regarding the sources of the anecdote of Helen being painted by Zeuxis, cf. Sabbatino 1997, 14–20.

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more than Alexander did: for we may easily believe that both men’s love sprang only from her beauty; and perhaps it was partly on this account that Alexander resolved to give her to him who seemed fitted to appreciate her most perfectly. “Have you not read that those five maidens of Crotona, whom the painter Zeuxis chose above the others of that city for the purpose of forming from them all a single type of surpassing beauty, were celebrated by many poets as having been adjudged beautiful by one who must have been a consummate judge of beauty? (I 8, 47–8).32 In his reference to the anecdote of Campaspe being painted by Apelles, Castiglione takes account of his source, i.e. Pliny the Elder. In Pliny the act of Alexander the Great in offering a woman he loves to the painter, who then himself falls in love with her while painting the beauty of her figure, represents proof of Alexander’s huge respect for the artist. In addition, it attests to the great spirit of the bold hero, who is able to dominate his personal feelings and be the master of himself: And yet Alexander conferred honour on him in a most conspicuous instance; he had such an admiration for the beauty of his favourite mistress, named Pancaspe, that he gave orders that she should be painted in the nude by Apelles, and then discovering that the artist while executing the commission had fallen in love with the woman, he presented her to him, great-minded as he was and still greater owing to his control of himself, and of a greatness proved by this action as much as by any other victory: because he conquered himself, and presented not only his bedmate but his affection also to the artist, and was not even influenced by regard for the feelings of his favourite in having been recently the mistress of a monarch and now belonged to a painter.33 However, Castiglione goes beyond his source: he offers a personal and functional interpretation (“I think”, “it can easily be believed”) of the artist’s specific way of operating, arguing that he has the necessary professional instruments to know a woman’s beauty more perfectly (“più perfettamente”), to the extent that he can enjoy contemplating her more than others. It is only for this higher cognitive appreciation of beauty that Alexander deprives himself of the woman who is so important to him and offers her to Apelles.

32  Eckstein Opdycke 1903, 70. Cf. Castiglione 2002, 93. 33  Rackham 1942, 325. Cf. Pliny the Elder 1988, 382–4.

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By presenting the anecdote of Helen being painted by Zeuxis in the Libro del Cortegiano, Castiglione ably exhibits certain elements such as the “most perfect judgment of beauty” that Zeuxis deployed when examining and selecting the most beautiful women and in identifying the most perfect parts of their bodies. This aspect strongly recalls Raffaello’s letter, i.e. the part where the artist declares the unacceptability of imitating nature, mockingly complaining about the shortage of good judges and of beautiful women (“carestia e de’ buoni giudicii e di belle donne”). In this way, the difference between the two aesthetical conceptions is stressed again, contrasting the idea of beauty with natural beauty, and the imitation of the idea with the imitation of nature. In his answer to Raffaello, Castiglione reassures the readers of the work, which enjoyed great success in Italy and elsewhere in Europe, and reaffirms his credo, addressing it to the courtier: there are still beautiful women and the courtier, who must acquire the knowledge of painting necessary to recognise the beauty of living bodies, can play the role of judge. The message is also addressed to the women of the court, whose role in this dialogue is anything but secondary. Indeed, it is they who both feed and pursue the beauty of the body in the real context of the court: there are still good judges of beauty and there is still the pleasure of looking at women (“piacere di vedere alcuna donna”, I, 8, 43).34 Indeed, the more the men of court are able to recognize the female beauty that “we see superficially in their bodies”, the more pleasure there will be (I, 8, 46).35 This effectively encapsulates the rules of court life, which is based on competition between the woman of the palace and the male courtier. While on the one hand the woman of the palace is moved by a desire to tend towards beauty, which is manifested in bodies and especially in faces (“nei corpi e massimamente nei volti”), by using every instrument available (clothing, jewellery, cosmetics, etc.) to highlight her beautiful traits and to hide the inevitable flaws, on the other hand, the man of court, a connoisseur of painting, is moved, as always, by the primary knowledge of that beauty and by the resulting love, i.e. the desire to enjoy it. The transition from knowledge of beauty to fruition of beauty is delineated, in I, IV, by the character of Pietro Bembo, deployed by Castiglione, the painter of truth (“pittore di verità”), to conclude the portrait of the courtier: I say, then, that according to the definition of the ancient sages love is nothing but a certain desire to enjoy beauty; and as desire longs only for 34  Castiglione 2002, 92. 35  Ivi, 92–3.

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things that are perceived, perception must needs always precede desire, which by its nature wishes good things but in itself is blind and does not perceive them (IV 6, 14).36 All the phases of the genesis of the desire to enjoy beauty are examined by the figure of Pietro Bembo, who summarises the essential tenets of the Asolani (1505). Castiglione’s Bembo ranges from the definition of beauty as an influx of divine goodness that illuminates those bodies and faces that are finely proportioned and shaped, making them beautiful and admirable, to the attraction that those bodies and those faces exert on the eyes of those who behold them; from the penetration of beauty in the soul, where it is imprinted and brings harmony, to the arousal of desire in the courtier: But speaking of the beauty we have in mind, which is only that which is seen in the bodies and especially in the faces of men, and which excites this ardent desire that we call love, – we will say that it is an effluence of divine goodness, and that although it is diffused like the sun’s light upon all created things, yet when it finds a face well proportioned and framed with a certain pleasant harmony of various colours embellished by lights and shadows and by an orderly distance and limit of outlines, it infuses itself therein and appears most beautiful, and adorns and illumines that object whereon it shines with grace and wonderful splendour, like a sunbeam falling upon a beautiful vase of polished gold set with precious gems. Thus it agreeably attracts the eyes of men, and entering thereby, it impresses itself upon the soul, and stirs and delights her with a new sweetness throughout, and by kindling her it excites in her a desire for its own self (IV 6, 19–21).37 Regarding the desire to enjoy beauty, there are alternative paths, just as there are in Pythagorean literature: on the one hand, there is the path guided by the senses and, on the other hand, the path guided by reason. With the former, the courtier runs into very grievous errours, and judges that the body wherein the beauty is seen is the chief cause thereof; and hence, in order to enjoy that beauty, she deems it necessary to join herself as closely to that body as she can; which is false: and accordingly, whoever thinks to enjoy the 36  Eckstein Opdycke 1903, 288. Cf. Castiglione 2002, 373. 37  Eckstein Opdycke 1903, 289. Cf. Castiglione 2002, 374–5.

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beauty by possessing the body deceives himself, and is moved, not by true perception through reasonable choice, but by false opinion through sensual appetite: wherefore the pleasure also that results therefrom is necessarily false and vicious (IV 6, 22–3).38 It is only in the latter case, guided by reason, that the courtier avoids the snares of deceit and judges that the origin of bodily and facial beauty lies in the divine influx. He thus sees that in order to enjoy beauty, it is necessary to raise himself up to the level of God, thereby achieving true goodness and accomplishing spiritual ascesis. The portrait of the perfect courtier, seen in relation to the art of the Court of Urbino (“pittura della corte d’Urbino”),39 appears to reach its conclusion only in I. IV. In fact, during the process of “educating with words a perfect courtier” (I, 3, 44),40 Ludovico di Canossa’s initial statement about the relations between courtier and painting expresses the goal of inculcating in the courtier a fuller knowledge of the beauty of bodies and faces: I […] therefore think our Courtier ought by no means to omit: and this is to know how to draw and to have acquaintance with the very art of painting (I 8, 17).41 To sum up, Bembo’s discourse on the desire of the courtier to enjoy the beauty he experiences and on the resulting mystical ascesis from specific beauty to divine beauty, from the earthly Venus to the heavenly Venus (IV 6, 105–25), reveals Castiglione’s ultimate purpose, which is to bring together, in the figure of the new courtier, a social code and a philosophical code, behaviour and culture, specific professionalism and Neoplatonism. References Armenini, Giovanni Battista. 1988. De’ veri precetti della pittura. A cura di Marina Gorreri. Torino: Einaudi. Barocchi, Paola (a cura di). 1973. Scritti d’arte del Cinquecento. Milano-Napoli: Ricciardi, 1973, vol. II. 38  Eckstein Opdycke 1903, 289. Cf. Castiglione 2002, 375. 39  Ivi, 5 (Dedication to Michel De Silva). 40  Cf. ivi, 28. 41  Eckstein Opdycke 1903, 65. Cf. Castiglione 2002, 86.

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Barocchi, Paola (a cura di). 1960. Trattati d’arte del Cinquecento fra Manierismo e Controriforma. Bari: Laterza, vol. I. Borghini, Raffaello. 1967. Il riposo. Saggio biobibliografico e Indice analitico, a cura di Mario Rosci. Milano: Edizioni Labor. Calì, Maria. 2000. La pittura del Cinquecento. Torino: UTET, vol. I. Cartari, Vincenzo. 1996. Le imagini de i dei de gli antichi, a cura di Ginetta Auzzas, Federica Martignago, Manlio Pastore Stocchi, Paola Rigo. Vicenza: Neri Pozza. Eckstein Opdycke, Leonard (transl.). 1903. Baldassarre Castiglione. The book of the courtier. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons. Castiglione, Baldassarre. 2002. Il Cortigiano. A cura di Amedeo Quondam. Milano: Mondadori. Cellini, Benvenuto. 1985. Vita. A cura di Ettore Camesasca. Milano: Rizzoli. Cellini, Benvenuto. 1887. The Autobiography. Trans. by John Addington Symonds. London: John C. Nimmo. Chastel, André. 1986. “Amor sacro e profano nell’arte e nel pensiero di Raffaello.” In Raffaello a Roma. II convegno del 1983. [A cura di Christoph Luitpold Frommel, Matthias Winner], 3–10. Roma: Edizioni dell’Elefante. Chastel, André. 1954. Marsile Ficin et l’Art. Geneve: E. Droz; Lille: R. Giard. De Fusco, Renato. 1981. L’architettura del Cinquecento. Torino: UTET. De Vere, Gaston du C. (transl.). 1912–1914. Giorgio Vasari. Lives of Most Eminent Painters, Sculptors and Architects. London: Macmillan. Fontana, Vincenzo, e Morachiello, Paolo (a cura di). 1975. Vitruvio e Raffaello. Il De architectura di Vitruvio nella traduzione inedita di Fabio Calvo ravennate. Roma: Officina. Frommel, Christoph Luitpold. 2003. La Villa Farnesina a Roma. Modena: Franco Cosimo Panini. Pagliara, Pier Nicola. 1986. “Vitruvio da testo a canone.” In Memoria dell’antico nell’arte italiana, a cura di Salvatore Settis, 3–85. Torino: Einaudi, vol. III: Dalla tradizione all’archeologia. Hume, Anna (trans.). 1644. Francesco Petrarca. The triumphs of love, chastity, death. Edinburgh: Evan Tyler. Plinio Secondo, Gaio. 1988. Storia naturale. Traduzione e note di Antonio Corso, Rossana Mugellesi, Gianpiero Rosati. Torino: Einaudi, vol. V: Mineralogia e Storia dell’arte. Libri 33–37. Poliziano, Angelo. 1988. Stanze. Fabula di Orfeo. A cura di Stefano Carrai. Milano: Mursia. Quint, David L. (transl.). 1993. Angelo Poliziano. The Stanze. University Park, Pennsylvania State University Press. Rackham, Harris (transl.). 1942. Pliny. Natural History. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, vol. II: Books 3–7.

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Sabbatino, Pasquale. 1997. La bellezza di Elena. L’imitazione nella letteratura e nelle arti figurative del Rinascimento. Firenze: Olschki. Sanzio, Raffaello. 1994. Gli scritti. Lettere, firme, sonetti, saggi tecnici e teorici. A cura di Ettore Camesasca, Giovanni M. Piazza. Milano: Rizzoli. Thoenes, Christof. 1986. “Galatea: tentativi di avvicinamento.” In Raffaello a Roma. II convegno del 1983. [A cura di Christoph Luitpold Frommel, Matthias Winner], 59– 72. Roma: Edizioni dell’Elefante. Thoenes, Christof. 1977. “Zu Raffaels Galatea.” In Festschrift Otto von Simson zum 65. Geburtstag, 220–72. Frankfurt am Main: Propylaen Verlag. Vasari, Giorgio. 1986. Le vite de’ più eccellenti architetti, pittori, et scultori italiani, da Cimabue insino a’ tempi nostri. Nell’edizione per i tipi di Lorenzo Torrentino. Firenze 1550. A cura di Luciano Bellosi, Aldo Rossi, prefazione di Giovanni Previtali. Torino: Einaudi.

chapter 7

The Principle of Beauty in the Literary Criticism of the Sixteenth Century Antonio Sorella Too many decades of “linguistic liberalism”, as promoted for example by Tullio De Mauro, and generative grammar, as advanced by the followers of Noam Chomsky, have resulted in the neglect of the attempts, dating back to the renaissance, to establish a scientific linguistic theory that would explain – and at the same time facilitate – the success of Tuscan in Italy and the rest of Europe. And yet, even today, ask anyone studying Italian as a foreign language why they chose to do so and among the answers they give there will almost certainly be a reference to the “beauty” of the language, to what is considered to be its sweet and harmonious sound. The most surprising thing to have struck me in many years is that this stereotype is propounded precisely by those colleagues who are most fiercely loyal to De Mauro: defenders of such notions as “languages create themselves”, “languages evolve on the basis of sociolinguistic variables and cannot be subjected to “management” by the state, academies or grammarians”, “languages and dialects are all equal and there are no beautiful or ugly languages”. Indeed, it is above all university colleagues professing “linguistic liberalism” who have set up Italian language courses at university level, publicised with images showing the “beauty” of historic Italian cities, metaphorically linked to the beauty of Italian, and have written volumes and articles on the primacy of the language in key economic sectors such as cosmetics and fashion, as well as art, music, wellness and the quality of life. Not to mention the titles of the innumerable conferences, books, essays and articles dedicated to the “grande bellezza”, i.e. the “great beauty” of Italian, in order to exploit the international success of Paolo Sorrentino’s Oscar-winning film of that name. After having fought a long battle against this dominant attitude in Italian academia, I must now admit to having lost on all fronts. Fifteen or so years ago, together with my colleague Lucio D’Arcangelo, I tried to convince the senator from my home town Andrea Pastore (of the same region but not the same religion, as Benedetto Croce – a famous philosopher from Abruzzi – would have said) to sponsor a law that would place a much greater emphasis on safeguarding our linguistic heritage. After enjoying brief initial success,

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our attempts failed miserably, precisely because, as soon as those same above-mentioned colleagues became aware of it, they exerted every kind of pressure imaginable in order to become part of the restricted circle of figures tasked with managing the public funds (at least a million euros a year) that were envisaged for the initiative. Senator Pastore and the politicians of various stripes who he had rallied in support of what in its intentions and proclamations was supposed to be a “defence of the language”1 soon realised how unrealistic it was to entrust the initiative to scholars convinced that all languages are equal, shaped and governed by their social use rather than by the state, or grammarians, or academies. Many years have now passed since that era of controversies, to the point that, from the corridors of power, the winners of the dispute, as pointed out above, can today get away with using the noun “beauty” next to “language”, just as, in our strange times, a rationalist or even a practising Christian can speak of signs of the zodiac and horoscopes, without appearing inconsistent or compromising their identity. And yet, above all in the sixteenth century, in the crucial period of the standardisation of the Italian language, serious attempts were made to base the concept of the “beauty” of the language on objective reasoning. During the Italian Renaissance, there were intellectuals who argued that the superior beauty of Italian could be demonstrated on the basis not of subjective or impressionistic arguments, but rational criteria. Scientific linguistics is considered to have emerged in the nineteenth century, but this is true only concerning the discovery of genetic relationships between the so-called IndoEuropean languages. Indeed, who could possibly deny the solid scientific basis of the most “modern” linguistic pamphlet of the sixteenth century, i.e. the Discorso o dialogo intorno alla nostra lingua (“Discourse or Dialogue Concerning our Language”) by Niccolò Machiavelli, or the treatise that was for a long time the point of reference for all European grammarians, i.e. Prose della volgar lingua (“Writings on the Vernacular Tongue”) by Pietro Bembo? Machiavelli’s classification of languages on the basis of their phonomorphological – rather than lexical – features and his explanation of linguistic evolution with reference to historical and sociolinguistic reasons are still today considered insights of extraordinary value, centuries ahead of nineteenthcentury scientific linguistics. In the same way, Bembo’s reconstruction of the origins of European poetry, from the Provençal and Sicilian authors to the Tuscans and down to Petrarch, still constitutes the foundation of the history of the literature and the linguistics of Romance languages. 1  The intellectual paucity of the slogan contributed to the predictable failure of Senator Pastore’s bill in parliament.

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According to Machiavelli, the beauty of a language depends on its lexical richness, which in turn derives from the ability to meld native terms and expressions and adapted loanwords into a single fabric of phono-morphological rules. However, in the history of languages, which in his view are born, rise and then decline, transforming themselves into other languages, there is always a point of rupture, consisting of the moment when foreign loanwords overwhelm a language and transform it irredeemably: And from this it follows that languages enrich themselves from the very beginning, becoming more beautiful as they acquire more words. But it is also true that with time, due to the multitude of these new words they become bastardised and become something else entirely. But this is a process that takes place over hundreds of years, so that people do not notice until it has degenerated into complete barbarism. Machiavelli 1982, 30–12

The concept expressed by Machiavelli rings broadly true today, if we consider the historical and linguistic reasoning and ignore the attribution of “beauty” to a language that happens to be particularly rich. Indeed, if he was with us today, Machiavelli would have to admit, by his own logic, that English has now become the most “beautiful” language in the world, since it possesses lexical databases of many millions of words, in comparison, for example, to Italian, which, according to the GRADIT (or GDU) headed by Tullio De Mauro has “only” about 250,000 lemmas. However, aside from any value judgement concerning the criteria for assessing the “beauty” of a language, it is undeniable that Machiavelli is making a conscious effort to move away from a logic based on “general words and conjectures” (Machiavelli 1982, 27) towards “quantitative” and thus – ultimately – scientific arguments. When the discussion shifts from the beauty of the language to that of literature, Machiavelli argues that there are genres that require the use of idiomatic expressions that are specific to the language in question, without which a work cannot therefore be deemed “beautiful”: I will say again that many things that are written are not beautiful, since they are written without using words and expressions from their native language. Comedies are a good example of this, because, although the point of a comedy is to reflect a person’s private life, it must do so with 2  All translations are mine.

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language that inspires laughter, so that the audience of the spectacle fully appreciate the useful example that is set before them. Machiavelli 1982, 65

It is important that the beauty of a work is subordinated to the skilful use by the author of a literary language that is however always derived from a spoken language. Machiavelli speaks of comedies in the renaissance sense, after the rediscovery of the literary genres of classical antiquity. However, since his dialogue is intended to reflect an imaginary dispute with Dante in person, it is inevitable that he also makes reference to the Divine Comedy. N. In what language is the work? D. Curial. N. What does curial mean? D. It means the language spoken by the people at the courts of the Pope and the Duke, who, being learned men, speak better than the inhabitants of certain regions of Italy. N. You must be lying. Tell me: what does “morse” mean in that curial language? D. It means “he died”. N. And in Florentine what does it mean? D. It means “to grip between the teeth” N. When you say, in your verses: “Et quando il dente longobardo [And when the Longobard’s tooth] morse”, what does that “morse” mean? D. “Jabbed”, “wounded” and “attacked”, which is derived from “mordere” as spoken by the Florentines. N. So you speak Florentine and not the language of the court. D. This is true for the most part. However, I do take care not to use certain words from our own language. N. How do you take care? When you say: “forte [strongly he] spingava con ambe le piote [with both feet]”. This “spingava”, what does it mean? D. In Florence when an animal kicks we say, “ella spinga una coppia di calci” [it gives a couple of kicks]; and since I wanted to show how he was kicking, I said “spingava”. […] N. By my faith you take great care to avoid Florentine words! […] N. My dear Dante, I want you to amend your ways, and to think more carefully about speaking Florentine and your work. You will see that

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if anyone has something to be ashamed of, it is Florence rather than you; because, if you consider carefully what you have written, you will see that in your verses you have not avoided clumsiness, as in: “Poi ci partimmo et n’andavamo introcque” [Then we set out and we went on our way]; You have not avoided crudeness, for example when you say: “che merda fa di quel che si trangugia” [that makes shit of what we eat]; You have not avoided obscenity, such as: “le mani alzò con ambedue le fiche” [He raised his hands with both the figs (an obscene gesture with the thumb between forefinger and middle finger)]. And not having avoided this sort of thing, which dishonours your entire work, you were unable to avoid using an infinite number of local words that are not used anywhere else but there [Florence], because art can never entirely hold itself aloof from nature. Machiavelli 1982, 38–50

Not only did Dante use “i motti et i termini proprii patrii”, i.e. words and idiomatic expressions from Florentine, but he was not able to avoid clumsiness, crudeness and obscenity, one reason for this being that “art can never entirely hold itself aloof from nature”. In this way, according to Machiavelli, in some cases Dante rendered his work “ugly”, rather than “beautiful”. Despite being favoured by speaking such a rich language as Florentine, using “i motti et i termini proprii patrii” without which his work, and the Inferno above all, could not have aspired to “beauty”, at times he exaggerated, and was not always able to avoid sinking to levels that are considered intolerable in the literary style of the Renaissance. Machiavelli’s real target was not so much Dante however, as contemporary supporters of the so-called courtly theory, such as Vincenzo Calmeta (who died in 1508) and Gian Giorgio Trissino, who argued that the most “beautiful” language was the one spoken by the people who frequented the main courts (such as those of Rome, or the dukes of Milan, Mantua and Urbino),3 whose lexicon was drawn from all over Italy, selecting and amalgamating words as – in their view – Dante himself did in the Divine Comedy.4 For this 3  Machiavelli 1982, 38: “a language spoken by the men of court of the Pope, of the Duke”. Calmeta, author of the lost treatise Della volgar poesia (“On vernacular poetry”), frequented all four of those courts. 4  This was the opinion of Trissino, who began to set out his views in printed books in 1524, although Machiavelli could have heard them in the conversations of the Orti Oricellari, in which the nobleman of Vicenza often participated. I believe that Machiavelli’s Discorso should be dated to 1518, and in any case clearly before Lodovico Martelli’s Risposta (1524) and the publication of the Prose della volgar lingua (1525), in which Dante was also criticised for his lexicon, which was compared to a vine on which the fine bunches of grapes were

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reason, Machiavelli’s defence of the Florentine language necessarily entailed the confutation of the opinion that Dante used mainly courtly and Italian words, even at the cost of admonishing him for having put forward unpatriotic notions in his treatise De vulgari eloquentia, which Trissino had rediscovered and introduced to the friends gathering in the famous Gardens of the Rucellai family in Florence (Orti Oricellari). Machiavelli, who also used to attend the meetings in the Rucellai Gardens, did not deny the attribution to Dante of the De vulgari eloquentia, but obviously could not accept that Florentine, together with the other Tuscan dialects, was dismissed by the author of the treatise as a turpiloquium (De vulgari eloquentia, I 13), that is, a foul language, in contrast with the perfection of the courtly language. Machiavelli could not imagine then that Bembo and Giovanni Della Casa would soon condemn the language of Dante on the basis of classicist criteria aimed at stylistic equilibrium that proscribed the medieval excursions of the Commedia both upwards, i.e. towards Latin, and above all downwards, i.e. precisely towards the clumsy, the crude and the obscene. In the final analysis however, in his Discorso, Machiavelli continued to insist that the “beauty” of a work depended on how the language was used by an author, which means that in his opinion literary criticism ought to be founded on “scientific”, that is linguistic and stylistic criteria. And it was with reference to these very criteria that he criticised Ariosto’s comedy I suppositi, again in the Discorso (Machiavelli 1982, par. 69–71). A language such as Florentine could be more “beautiful” than others, by virtue of having a richer and more varied lexicon, but this did not make it axiomatically alien to the clumsy, the crude and the obscene: it was the task of the author to take care and make his work “beautiful”. Linguistic beauty and literary beauty were viewed on two separate, albeit complementary planes, because while an author was certainly helped by his use of an intrinsically more “beautiful” language, it was down to him to write a work that was “beautiful” according to the stylistic canons of the Renaissance. Unlike Machiavelli, Bembo had an eminently literary conception of language, but it is not true that he denied the importance of a nobleman being suffocated by weeds and by leaves that should have been pruned before. However, it could not have been many years after the publication of Furioso in 1516 (a great success, leading to a second edition in 1521), in order for Ariosto to be remembered unfavourably in the Discorso not for his poem (which Machiavelli had been among the first to praise, in a letter to Lodovico Alamanni of 17 December 1517), but only as “one of the Ariosti of Ferrara” (Machiavelli 1982, 69), the author of the contested Suppositi (Sorella 1990). The great success of Furioso followed the second edition of 1521, as shown by the numerous unauthorised reprintings (which were not illegal, since Ariosto had not sought to protect himself with suitable guarantees) after 1524.

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able to master “beautiful” speech. Indeed, deriving the concept from Greek and Latin grammarians and rhetors, he argued in his treatise Prose della volgar lingua that in a society of free men it was essential to be able to converse in a “beautiful and gracious” way: Moreover, one requires not only the ability to show others what you desire, but how often is it that the additional ability to express oneself skilfully and with beautiful and gracious speech is the reason why a man obtains from another man, or even from many men, what he would not obtain otherwise? +Therefore, of all the things that are able to move free human souls to act, the strength of human words is great. Bembo 2018, I 1, comm. 7–8

The text added between + and + was inserted by Bembo in the second edition of 1538. He decided on this addition while he was still in Venice, before being appointed cardinal (1538) and moving to Rome (October 1539), but probably did not intend it to be an exaltation of the republican regime of Venice, his hometown, compared to absolute monarchies such as Rome. He took from the Greeks and Romans the concept of the “liberty” of those citizens who enjoyed full rights (especially Athenian and Roman citizens, as distinct from other categories of men), i.e. those citizens who were entitled to speak in the public assemblies in Athens or to enter the cursus honorum in Rome. Moreover, being a scion and a protagonist of the refined culture of the Renaissance, Bembo concurred with Baldessar Castiglione in praising rhetorical skills, in that they represented a distinctive feature of men with respect to animals, and consequently of some men with respect to others, in accordance with the principles of an aristocracy by selection and not by descent: And just as this is what makes human beings so utterly different from other animals, that they speak, the most beautiful thing any human being can do, can this faculty, which places human beings so far above the other animals, also place one man above other men, especially when one sees their perfect and charming manner? Bembo 2018, I 1, comm. 21–2

Having said this, it should also be stressed again that for Bembo the written language was more important than the spoken. As a boy he had accompanied his father Bernardo to Florence, coming into contact with the most prestigious dialect in Europe in the late fifteenth century, which mostly thanks to him was soon to become the standard language of the entire peninsula. And yet,

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according to the testimony available to us, his fluency in spoken medieval Tuscan would never reach the level of his proven skill in writing it. Indeed, in his Dialogo della volgar lingua (“Dialogue on the vernacular language”), Pierio Valeriano described him as “a gentleman who, despite knowing everything there is to know about the Tuscan language, does not speak it himself, unless he is with Florentines, and then only modestly; with others he uses the courtly language” (Valeriano 1988, 56). I take this to mean that Bembo sought to speak Tuscan with the Tuscans as best he could (i.e. “modestly”), while he felt more inclined to use Venetian expressions and linguistic habits acquired in the court of Urbino when he was dealing with people from other regions.5 In Prose della volgar lingua, he defended the use of the literary vernacular against the ardent supporters of Latin, considering it to be almost a patriotic duty for Italians, as the Greeks had done with their own “language, so beautiful and well-rounded”, instead of using Phoenician: But despite all these reasons it will not be conceded that it is always better to write in the worthier language than in the less worthy. Indeed, if the ancients had paid consideration and regard to this rule, the Romans would not have written in the Latin tongue, but in the Greek, just as the Greeks would have avoided their own language, so beautiful and wellrounded, and rather used that of their Phoenician teachers, and the latter that of Egypt, and so on. In this way, with race after race turning to that language for which paper and ink were used first, we should consider that any people and any nation that sought to write differently made a big mistake, as will any people and nation that seek to do this in the future. And we would be obliged to believe that of so many and so different ways of speaking, so far away from each other, of all the languages that have ever existed among human beings and will ever exist in the future, it is only that one single form, that one single language, with which the first ever written script was wrought, which can be praised and used and no other. But this is so clearly wrong that it need not even be discussed. It must therefore be admitted, mister Hercole, that men should employ not the most dignified and most honoured languages in their writing, but

5  Valeriano’s comments are interpreted somewhat differently by Giovanardi 1998, 154: “The reference to Bembo is interesting first and foremost because it establishes the existence of a spoken courtly language, and secondly because this variety is presented as the high register of all non-Tuscan Italian dialects. In other words, the common people speak their own ‘language of the cradle’, while the educated use the courtly tongue”.

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their own, whenever it may be of such quality as to acquire dignity and majesty. Bembo 2018, I 5, 7–14

In a highly revealing passage, Bembo ponders the relationship between the beauty of language and liberty: the beauty of Italy did not change with the medieval subjection to the “barbarians”, while the once majestic Latin degenerated into a servile language, which however soon, if not entirely, began to become beautiful and noble again (as Italian) only once its speakers had regained their liberty and were able to speak freely once more: our poor, beautiful Italy changed, together with the majesty of its monuments, even the gravity of its words, and began to speak in a servile voice, which lasted for generations and still lasts, though nowadays it is more beautiful and noble than in the beginning, since, by freeing itself from servitude, it has been able to express itself in a fitting manner. Bembo 2018, I 7, 12–3

In just a few pages, in the first book of the Prose, Bembo tackles the crucial point of his argument and defends Tuscan from the claim that it does not have a sufficiently broad lexicon in comparison to Latin, citing by way of example the word valore, which in his opinion had no equivalent in Latin.6 He then sets out his central thesis, which was to ensure his success in the “questione della lingua” – the “language issue” of the sixteenth century – that the beauty of languages derives from the excellence of their writers: On the contrary, one might say that sometimes it [Tuscan] was even richer. Indeed, considering all aspects, you will not find the word with which the Latins say what the Tuscans commonly express with the word valore. And thus, the more or the less beautiful and good one language is with respect to another, the more or the fewer illustrious and honoured writers it has. It can surely be said, Mister Hercole, that the Florentine tongue is without doubt superior not only to mine, but to all the other vernacular tongues that we are aware of, and by a long way too. – What 6  This position was vigorously disputed by (among others) Florentine humanists such as the famous Pier Vettori, who criticised both Bembo and Varchi, who had taken up the point raised in the Prose with reference to the example of the verb farneticare (cf. Sorella 1995, ch. I, 1).

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fine and fulsome praise this is, Giuliano, of your manner of speaking – said Strozza – and, as I see it, all the truer for having come from such a distinguished and judicious personage. But you, Mister Federigo, what say you? Does this seem to you to be the case? – It does without doubt seem to me to be the case – replied mister Federigo – and I would say the same as Mister Carlo in this regard. And the point is further strengthened by the fact that it is not only Venetian composers of rhymes who write with the Florentine language, if they want to be read by the public, but all other Italians. And as for writers of prose, it seems to me that we do not yet see many who are not Tuscan. And it is no wonder either, considering that prose was acquired by the other nations much later than verse. Bembo 2018, I 15, 18–27

If Bembo had based his argument purely on humanistic and scholastic disputes, such as the alleged non-translatability into Latin of the word valore, this would not have taken him very far. However, he strongly emphasised the excellence – recognised throughout Europe in the sixteenth century – of Italian literature, thanks to its three great “classical” (in the technical sense of Greek and Latin humanism) writers, i.e. Dante, Petrarch and Boccaccio. Of these three, from the very beginning of his treatise, Bembo declared the foundation of poetry and prose to be respectively Petrarch and Boccaccio, deliberately leaving out Dante. In his opinion, the two great writers had not used the language of the people, but a language of art, which enabled the former to compose “such beautiful” songs, and the latter to write stories destined to live on through the centuries thanks to the “beautiful figures” used by him to ennoble even those words and expressions drawn from popular modes of speech: Do you believe that if Petrarch had composed his songs in the language of his fellow citizens, that they would have been as charming, as beautiful, as beloved, as refined as they are? You would be quite wrong to do so. Nor did Boccaccio reason with the tongue of the people, although it conflicts with prose much less than with verse. For example, on occasion, and especially in his tales, depending on the topic of the narration, he introduced characters from the common people, making them speak with the voices of the common folk. However, it will be seen that the entire corpus of his compositions is so full of beautiful rhetorical ornaments and fine turns of phrase never used by the people, that it will be no surprise if he lives for many centuries. Bembo, 2018, I 18, 14–7

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The task of writers is not just to ennoble with their art the “vulgar” (i.e. vernacular) language, but also to select the lexicon on the basis of the classicist criteria envisaged by Latin rhetors: In any case, it is a general and universal rule, in each of these manners and styles, that the purest, the cleanest, the clearest, the most beauti­ ful and most pleasing words and phrases possible must always be chosen and included in our compositions. How this is achieved is a topic on which we may speak at length, considering that these words and phrases either belong to the things which are being spoken of and appear almost to have been born together with them, or are derived from other similar things that are associated with those matters of which we speak, or are newly made and formed by us.7 And these words then, thus divided and classified, have other parts and other sub-divisions that remain to be discovered. But from those writers you can learn that they write them in the Latin way. Bembo 2018, II 4, 15–8

For Bembo, literature was no more or less than a noble craft, comparable to that of the Venetian shipbuilding yards, which, by following precise criteria succeeded in building a « right and beautiful » ship from common materials. In the same way, writers had to find the right way of achieving beauty by means of the skilful syntactical weaving of lexical raw materials, so that the perfect result obtained is the fruit of their art and not an intrinsic property of the particular language used: I say then, that it is just like the builders of ships, which you can see being made in many parts of this city, who do three main things: first of all they decide which wood, or iron, or rope goes with which wood, or iron, or rope, that is, they determine the order in which they will be fitted together and joined. They then consider the wood that they must join to another wood, or iron, or rope in terms of how best to position it, whether lengthways, or crossways, or sloping, or vertical, or bent, or straight, or in whatever other manner. Finally, these measures of rope, or iron, or wood, if they are too long the builders shorten them, if they are short they lengthen them, or otherwise broaden, narrow, or in other ways raise and fit them, arranging them in such a manner that the ship is wellmade and beautiful, as you see. In the same way, writers also organise 7  Cf. Cicero, De oratore, III, 37, 149.

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their work into three phases.8 Their first concern is to see the order and what word goes with what word, that is, which verb with which noun, or which noun with which verb, or which of these words, or which part of them, goes best with the other parts of speech. After this they must consider whether these same parts can be arranged in a better and more beautiful way than in some other manner. That is, how and by what means the word used as a noun can be more pleasing, in either a greater or a lesser number, in the male or female form, in the direct or oblique case. In the same way, with a word used as a verb, whether it sounds better in the present or future, in the active or passive voice, or in some other way; and the same with the other parts of speech, to the degree that this is possible and their quality allows, within the discourse. Lastly then, what remains is the effort required, when some of these parts, either short or long, or otherwise arranged, appear to be without beauty or without harmony, making it necessary to add to them or reduce them, changing and shifting, as the case may require, a little or a lot, from the start, or in the middle, or in the end. Bembo 2018, II 7, 3–10

Indeed, what makes a literary work beautiful is a combination of variables that the author must master and skilfully deploy: Thus, what makes every passage of writing beautiful may be divided into two parts: gravity and pleasantness;9 and there are three things that then flesh out and make concrete these two parts: the sound, the number and the variation.10 I argue that equal attention must be paid to each of these three things, each of which supports the other two. Bembo 2018, II 9, 12

It is on this principle that Bembo bases his negative opinion of Dante, who is accused of mixing words of every kind, with no criterion, to the point that he makes his work look like a vineyard full of weeds that “offend the beautiful grapes”: Since, in order to be able to write whatever came into his head, regardless of how unsuitable and out of place in the verse, he very often worked, 8   Cf. Quintilian, Inst. Orat., IX, 4, 146–7. 9   Cf. Cicero, De oratore, 54, 182. 10  Cf. ivi, 49, 163.

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now with Latin words, now with foreign words that are not used in Tuscany, now old and completely neglected, now coarse and rarely used, now crude and ugly, now extremely hard and, in contrast, using pure and noble words, sometimes changing and ruining them, and sometimes with no criterion or rule, inventing and pretending, his Comedia can rightly be said to resemble a beautiful broad field of wheat, which has become filled with oats and ryegrass, and sterile and harmful weeds, or to resemble a vine that has not been properly pruned, which after the summer is seen to be so overgrown with stalks and leaves and tendrils that offend the beautiful grapes. Bembo 2018, II 20, 20–1

To summarise, Bembo argues that without gaining experience in the practice of writing in accordance with rhetorical and literary criteria, it is not possible to achieve beauty of style, just like the other arts (or even more so), which in any case require writers in order for them to be remembered and celebrated: Its use and study, if applied to these much lesser arts, is, as can be seen, extremely helpful and beneficial, and thus all the more reason why it must be applied to writing, which is so graceful and so noble, that no art can be fully beautiful and clear without it. Bembo 2018, III 1, 6

The beauty of the vernacular language was established by Petrarch and Boccaccio, who precisely for this reason must be seen as models for the writers of the sixteenth century and thereafter. This was a beauty composed of art rather than nature, but still founded on a historic vision of vernacular literature, which induced Bembo to choose fourteenth century Florentine, not because of its intrinsically greater “beauty” than – for example – his own Venetian dialect, but because it had been ennobled by the work of those writers and could thus by then hold its own throughout Europe on the level of the classical languages. Machiavelli and Bembo were the two greatest Renaissance theoreticians of the “scientific” foundations of the “beauty” of Italian language and literature, but their positions seemed irreconcilable. Indeed, the former was unwilling to admit that the Florentine of their time differed significantly from that of the so-called “Three Crowns” and the latter unwilling to accept an osmotic relationship between the written and the spoken language, even declaring that « being born Florentine today, is no great advantage to those who seek to write in Florentine » (Bembo 2018, I, 16, 3). A mediator was needed, someone who could find a way of reconciling the overwhelming success of Bembo’s

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ideas throughout Italy with the living language of Florence. It fell to another Florentine, albeit one who had spent his formative years in northern Italy, Benedetto Varchi, to continue Machiavelli and Bembo’s attempt to demonstrate the beauty of the vernacular on the basis of arguments that were not merely impressionistic, but founded on the most objective criteria available. In my introduction to the critical edition of his treatise, L’Hercolano, first published posthumously by the Giunti family in Florence and immediately afterwards in Venice in 1570, I believe I demonstrated, with an abundance of arguments and against the consensus of opinion until that time,11 that from an early age Varchi sought to found Bembo’s teaching on a defence of living Florentine. He considered the linguistic refinement achieved by the writers of the fourteenth century (including Dante, who he stressed above all others) to be essential, but at the same time he emphasised the need to refer to the spoken language for insight in such sectors as the lexicon and syntax, concerning which the Three Crowns could not have exhausted every possible feature of the language and therefore could never represent the only models of reference. Unlike Prose della volgar lingua, in L’Hercolano the arguments are set out in accordance with a philosophical, i.e. Aristotelian approach, which goes so far as to adopt the tree diagrams typical of the philosophy and science of the late Middle Ages and early Renaissance (Sorella 1995, 17–18 and notes). Varchi had studied Aristotelian philosophy in Padova and Bologna with some of the great teachers of the age, and after being recalled to Florence by Duke Cosimo de’ Medici in 1543 he became famous above all for this reason. Shortly after returning from exile, he came to the attention of his fellow citizens as a result of his lessons, in which he spoke of science and literature, defending Bembo on the one hand and the use of the vernacular against the humanists on the other. However, starting precisely from Bembo’s above-cited reflection on the word “valore”, he launched an imprudent anti-humanist polemic, arguing that Latin did not possess a word corresponding to the Florentine “farneticare” (to wander or to talk nonsense). The idea of assessing the richness of languages by identifying individual words with no translation from one language to another was taken from Cicero, who himself had pointed out that Greek lacked an equivalent of the Latin ineptus. However, this was an extremely weak method of argument, considering that even Cicero’s claim

11  The commonly held opinion was that Varchi had passed from strict adherence to Bembo’s ideas to an attitude that was closer to Machiavelli’s defence of contemporary spoken Florentine, even going so far as to promote the language of the lowest social classes (cf. for example Bruni 1969).

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was refuted by the learned Guillaume Budé in his Commentarii linguae graecae (1529).12 In 1545 Varchi had probably not yet read the treatise by the French humanist (who was however cited in L’Hercolano in the subsequent edition of 1548).13 Therefore, just as Bembo before him had done with “valore”, he sought to demonstrate the extraordinary wealth of Florentine and its equal worth with the classical languages, citing as an example the non-translatability into Latin or Greek of the verb “farneticare” (Sorella 1995, 1. 1 and note 47). This prompted a reaction on the part of the Florentine humanists, in particular the famous Piero Vettori, who defended the classical languages against Varchi. The latter, rather than withdraw gracefully in the face of a reproach from such a legendary figure as Vettori, insisted on making his point in his Sul verbo farneticare, written in 1545. Although Varchi’s essay maintained a respectful tone, an anonymous biography of Varchi records that “between Piero Vettori and him there were great disputes on the matter” (Varchi 1841, XXIV). In any case, it should be pointed out that in this spirited defence of Florentine, Varchi stressed the similarities between his own dialect and other Italian dialects, particularly northern ones, which were also found to possess terms analogous to “farneticare”. Indeed, in Sopra il primo canto del Paradiso (1545), he argued: “where we say farneticare and the Lombards civariare, in Latin this is expressed with two words” (Varchi 1958–9, II, 385), and in Sul verbo farneticare (1545), he added: “that illness or true passion of the soul that we Florentines properly call farneticare, and the Paduans zavariare” (Varchi 1958–9, II, 739). Thus, although Varchi assumed the role of the paladin of Florentine, he did not close himself off in the narrow confines of provincialism, but recognised and explored the common origins of Florentine and other Italian dialects in the transformation from medieval Latin, while continuing to assert its excellence for historical reasons as well as its intrinsic properties. It should be pointed out here that, up until Antonino Pagliaro, teacher of Tullio De Mauro, this was the position of all (or nearly all) Italian linguists and philologists. In his posthumously published treatise, Varchi showed that he had made great strides with respect to twenty years earlier. Indeed, in L’Hercolano, finished just before his death in 1565, he decided to drop the linguistic disputes over individual terms, aware that “everyone can believe what they prefer 12  Cf. Varchi 1995, Ques. IX, 50. A pupil of Lascaris, the Parisian humanist Guillaume Budé (Budaeus) was considered one of the greatest scholars of Greek of his time. 13  However, Varchi subsequently cited a later, expanded edition of Budé’s treatise (cf. Varchi 1995, Ques. IX, 50 and note), i.e. Commentarii linguae graecae […] Ab eodem accurate recogniti, atque amplius tertia parte aucti, Paris, Robertus Stephanus, 1548 (where the citation is on page 349).

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concerning these matters, where no sanction can be imposed” (Varchi 1995, Ques. IX, 51). In addition, with reference to Cicero’s claim regarding ineptus and clearly alluding to the controversy stirred by Bembo’s observations on “valore” and his own comments on “farneticare”, he argued that “such things, more than anything else, are said by great and high minds either as a joke or from gallantry” (Varchi 1995, Ques. IX, 57). In short, he was more able than most figures of the Renaissance to recognise the vacuousness of linguistic disputes of that nature, preferring to stress “scientific”, i.e. Aristotelian arguments. Indeed, in the ninth question of the treatise, he posited the primacy of Florentine, founding his theory on what in his opinion were a language’s main criteria of excellence, i.e. bounty (bontà), beauty (bellezza) and delicacy (dolcezza) (Varchi 1995, Ques. IX, 3 ff.). Concerning bounty, Varchi argued that the best languages were those that were richer “in the abundance of words and phrases, i.e. orations” (Varchi 1995, Ques. IX, 6). In this field Varchi faithfully followed Machiavelli (admittedly transforming the latter’s criterion of beauty into bounty), and he opposed the classicist model proposed by Castelvetro, who was broadly hostile to linguistic and lexical innovations, contrasting it with the example of the Greeks, who always tended to expand their language (Varchi 1995, Ques. IX, 99).14 In the end, he proved willing in the L’Hercolano to agree with Vettori and recognise that Greek was richer than Tuscan, which however, being a living language, could in his view still expand and overtake the more ancient one (Varchi 1995, Ques. IX, 89–90).15 Concerning the second quality identified by Varchi, languages are to be considered beautiful not so much by virtue of individual words, but as a result of the way they are arranged in sentences (Varchi 1995, Ques. IX, 9–12). Judged from this point of view, the beauty of the vernacular language would appear to be superior to that of both Greek and Latin (Varchi 1995, Ques. IX, 271 ff.), deriving more from harmony (accent) than from numerus, typical of the classical languages, which consists of the varying alternation of long and 14  In reality Bembo had never been completely opposed to foreign loan words and new coinages, but he adopted a highly cautious approach. Varchi could therefore attribute to Castelvetro the demand for the total exclusion of linguistic enrichment. 15  Citing Claudio Tolomei, who had argued that Tuscan was richer than either Greek or Latin, Varchi pointed out that this would indeed be true considering not only the nobile (i.e. noble), but also the ignobile (i.e. ignoble) language, with respect to which “Greek would not be able to beat the vernacular, and Latin even less so” (Varchi 1995, Ques. IX, 564). The idea that Florentine had not yet reached a degree of maturity comparable to that of the classical languages, but could soon achieve this objective with the contribution of scholars and writers, was not new in Varchi’s linguistic thought: cf. the Orazione nel pigliare il consolato dell’Accademia fiorentina l’anno 1545 (“Speech on receiving the consulate of the Florentine Academy in 1545”), in Varchi 1858–9, II, 338.

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short syllables (Varchi 1995, Ques. IX, 355). The third property is delicacy, which characterises languages that possess words and phraseological sequences with a sweet sound. Thus, Florentine is sweeter than classical languages because, for example, it does not have aspirated sounds (Varchi 1995, Ques. IX, 20–6).16 The whole of this part of the treatise reveals an attempt to argue – on the basis of objective evidence – the superior bounty, beauty and delicacy of Florentine with respect to the other Italian dialects and even the classical languages, without recourse to axiomatic judgements or impressionistic assessments, whether his own or those of non-Tuscan intellectuals and writers who concurred with the primacy of Tuscan. In this sense, Varchi’s “scientific” method differs sharply from that of the sixteenth-century polemicists who intervened in favour of or against the Tuscan option. Varchi himself stressed this, even commenting ironically on Trissino’s way of reasoning, in his opinion syllogistic and therefore not scientific, from an Aristotelian point of view: Conte. I would say the same; but tell me, is it the case then, as I have heard from more than one source: “The Florentine language is spoken in Florence, Florence is in Tuscany, Tuscany is in Italy, therefore the Florentine language is Tuscan and Italian”? Varchi. Why not add: “and Italy is in Europe, and Europe is in the world, therefore the Florentine language can be called European and global”, as Socrates himself said?17 This reason seems to me to be similar to that of the well-to-do-man, who, having the most beautiful house there is in May Street, said that he had the most beautiful house there is in the world, and he proved it in this way: “Of all three parts of the world Europe is the most beautiful; of all the provinces of Europe Italy is the most beautiful; of all the regions of Italy Tuscany is the most beautiful; of all the cities of Tuscany Florence is the most beautiful; of all four districts of Florence Santo Spirito is the most beautiful; of all the streets of the district of Santo Spirito May Street is the most beautiful; of all the houses in May Street mine is the most beautiful; therefore, my house is the most beautiful house in the whole world” Varchi 1995, Ques. X, 72–4

16  On the stereotype of the delicacy of Tuscan, cf. Maraschio 1977, 215–8. 17  Cf. Cicero, Tusculanae disputationes, V, 37. However, the polemical allusion is to Trissino’s Castellano, which reads: “Just as the wise Socrates did not want to call himself a ‘citizen of Athens’, so as not to limit himself to such a small part of the Earth, but called himself a ‘citizen of the world’, thus these highly prudent poets of ours [Dante and Petrarch] did not wish to limit their language to our few Florentine words, but sought to use it to communicate with the whole of Italy” (Trissino 1986, 66).

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At the same time as Varchi exposed the weakness of Trissino’s arguments,18 he took issue with the provincialism of many of his fellow citizens, who exalted Florentine as a matter of principle, probably also alluding to his internal adversaries such as Giovan Batista Gelli, Pier Francesco Giambullari, Carlo Lenzoni and Cosimo Bartoli, the so-called “Arameans”, who went as far as to argue Florentine’s descent from Aramaic in order to celebrate its antiquity and nobility. In adopting this “modern” attitude, Varchi was not being entirely original, but at least it showed that he had learnt the lesson of Machiavelli, who, in Mandragola had derided the vulgar campanilismo of Nicia, who boasted of never having been out of sight of Brunelleschi’s dome, i.e. never having left his city. This anti-chauvinistic attitude would subsequently be adopted by the members of the Crusca Academy (Accademia della Crusca) in the creation of their Vocabolario (Dictionary), printed in Venice and not Florence in 1612, which did not even include the adjectives Florentine or Tuscan in the title.19 As is known, the Vocabolario listed lemmas derived from the analysis of authors not just of the fourteenth century, but also of the sixteenth century, including Florentine, Tuscan and even non-Tuscan authors who had written in Tuscan such as Ariosto and Annibal Caro.20 In this way, the Florentine language defended by Machiavelli and grammatically codified by Bembo was able to become truly Italian, via the skilful mediation of Varchi and the Accademia della Crusca. In the premise A’ lettori (“To the readers”), the members of the Accademia explicitly acknowledged the importance of Bembo. Without any attempt to justify a concept that was by then considered to be fully established, they stated that their aim was to satisfy the desire of the great many people in Italy and abroad who sought to discover the beauty of their language: Indeed it was taken for granted that the language they offered to the readers was TuscanFlorentine and that “its beauty” was known all over the world: seeing, by manifest arguments, the esteem in which our language is held rising by the day, and the number of scholars of that language, both inside and outside Italy, growing together with the desire to learn about its beauty, we judged that the hard work and study that was used in the 18   Il castellano: “the Florentine language is the most beautiful in Tuscany” […] “taken all together I call them the Tuscan language, among which Florentine is the most beautiful” (Trissino 1988, 139–40). 19   Vocabolario 1612. However, the licence to print, reproduced in f. a1v, refers to the Vocabolario della lingua Toscana delli Accademici della Crusca (“Dictionary of the Tuscan language by the academics of the Crusca”). 20  The reader is referred to the Glossario, in the appendix to Sorella 1995.

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pursuance of this result should not go without praise or recognition. This opinion stirred in all of us a great desire to be useful to it, from which the idea of compiling the present Dictionary arose. Vocabolario 1612, c. a3r

The conspicuous amount of material accumulated by the members of the Accademia was in itself a demonstration of the extraordinary lexical richness that Machiavelli had postulated and Varchi had sought to give an idea of with his interminable lists of Florentine words and idiomatic expressions in L’Hercolano. However, the members of the Accademia did not explicitly acknowledge their debt either to Machiavelli (partly because the Discorso was rediscovered and printed only in the eighteenth century) or to Varchi (briefly cited in just two entries),21 preferring to recognise above all Bembo and Lionardo Salviati, as well as the commission responsible for re-editing the Decameron (1573). By then, the beauty of the language had become a given, recognised by all, and there was no longer any need, at least at that time, for abundant proof. It was only towards the end of the century that the supposedly greater “beauty” of the Italian literary language began to be attacked by French rivals, particularly Father Dominique Bouhours (La manière de bien penser dans les ouvrages d’esprit, 1687). This drew the reaction of Italian intellectuals, above all Lodovico Antonio Muratori, whose work gave rise to the systematic identification and study of documents concerning the entire history of the Italian language and Italian literature (Sorella 1981). While controversy raged between French and Italian scholars over the superiority of the one or the other language, in the first half of the eighteenth century the success of Pietro Metastasio’s melodramas in Italy and Vienna helped to generate the widespread impression of a language that was particularly “beautiful” and thus more suited to music than any other. In the nineteenth century the triumph of Italian opera in the world strengthened this common opinion, which we may say has remained unchanged to this day. Of course, this common opinion is just that, i.e. an opinion, and it has value purely from a sociolinguistic point of view. However, I would not place it on the same level as the plainly racist views recorded by Galli de Paratesi among the inhabitants of northern cities concerning southern Italian modes of speech (Galli de Paratesi 1984). Rather, I consider it to be more akin to a poll of people’s voting intentions. Although the recent unfolding of the American presidential election has shown how easy it is to manipulate public opinion, it remains true that in a democracy the judgement of citizens is of undeniable value. Clearly, 21   Vocabolario 1612, s.v. duca and fantasticare.

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the judgement of peoples in the new world order created by globalisation is also expressed in the continuous transformation of language, which is seeing the triumph of English loan words in many sectors, except however, those of beauty (fashion, design, architecture), quality of life, food-and-wine and music, where Italian is preferred. In the Renaissance, neither Machiavelli, nor Bembo nor Varchi would have dared to imagine such a success, which appears to disprove the theories of those linguists for whom all languages are equal. References Bembo, Pietro. 2018 (in preparation). Prose della volgar lingua. A cura di Antonio Sorella. Bologna: Commissione per i Testi di lingua. Bruni, Francesco. 1969. Sistemi critici e strutture narrative. Napoli: Liguori. Galli de Paratesi, Nora. 1984. Lingua toscana in bocca ambrosiana. Tendenze verso l’italiano standard: un’indagine sociolinguistica. Bologna: Il Mulino. Giovanardi, Claudio. 1998. La teoria cortigiana e il dibattito linguistico nel primo Cinquecento. Roma: Bulzoni. Machiavelli, Niccolò. 1982. Discorso intorno alla nostra lingua. A cura di Paolo Trovato, Padova: Antenore (quoted by paragraph). Maraschio, Nicoletta. 1977. “Il parlato nella speculazione linguistica del Cinquecento.” Studi di grammatica italiana VI: 207–26. Pozzi, Mario. 1988. Discussioni linguistiche del Cinquecento. A cura di Mario Pozzi, Torino: Utet. Sorella, Antonio. 1981. Il progetto linguistico-culturale di Lodovico Antonio Muratori. Pescara: Trimestre Editrice. Sorella, Antonio. 1990. Magia, lingua e commedia nel Machiavelli. Firenze: Olschki. Sorella, Antonio. 1995. Introduzione. In Varchi 1995, 9–51. Trissino, Giovan Giorgio. 1988. Il castellano. In Pozzi 1988, 117–73. Varchi, Benedetto. 1841. Lezioni sul Dante e prose varie. A cura di Giuseppe Aiazzi, Lelio Arbib. Firenze: Società editrice delle Storie del Nardi e del Varchi. Varchi, Benedetto. 1958–9. Opere. Trieste: dalla sezione letterario-artistica del Lloyd austriaco. Varchi, Benedetto. 1995. L’Hercolano. A cura di Antonio Sorella. Pescara: Libreria dell’Università Editrice, 2 volumes (quoted by paragraph). Valeriano, Pierio. 1988. Il dialogo della volgar lingua. In Pozzi 1988, 37–93. Vocabolario. 1612. Vocabolario degli Accademici della Crusca. In Venezia: appresso Giouanni Alberti.

chapter 8

Beauty at the Limit: The Baroque “Body”, with Reference to Adonis Silvia Fabrizio-Costa* Within the extremely complex universe that for convenience we refer to as “Baroque culture”, and setting aside for the moment the generic nature of “Baroque” as a label, which is subject to a constant process of critical rethinking and revision on the part of scholars, there is substantial agreement on a number of verified elements that underlie a common ideological model. On a philosophical level, this model arises from the reaction to the philosophy of the Idea and Neoplatonism, and the rediscovery of Aristotle (especially Poetics and Rhetoric, which are the source and basis of aesthetic thought). While on one hand, the fundamental principle for all Baroque poetics, i.e. ut pictura poesis, poses the essential question of verisimilitude, on the other hand, it also incorporates the problem of the activity that generates images, and therefore the development that necessarily proceeds from truth to what is possible or plausible, namely the imagination. According to Andrea Battistini,1 the decisive emergence of the sphere of sensual experience contributed to the creation of a sort of Zeitgeist: a highly distinctive new conception of beauty and its magnificence, which shared a strange and charming intimacy with its “monsters”, as if the diffidence generated by the attraction arising from physical and metaphysical beauty created other deceptive but seductive forms. This disturbing proximity of the marvellous and the “monstrous” in beauty was an additional factor in the unity of expression of the new Baroque sensitivity. It has spawned a dynamic of research that goes beyond the range of analytical perspectives adopted by adherents of the line of enquiry that for reasons of brevity2 we shall call gnoseological. This dynamic intersects with many others, but all of them lead back to the central role of experience.

* I am grateful to Mirella De Sisto and George Metcalf for the translation of this article. 1  Cf. Battistini 1997, 463–559, cited in Russo 2012, n. 47. For a first inter-disciplinary approach: cf. Argan 1989 (Italian edition 1964). 2  For example, cf. Cottegnies - Gheeraert - Venet 2003.

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This experience is projected both outwards and inwards at the same time, and the body constitutes the core, the limit and the dividing line of this duality:3 it gives rise to a perception of beauty founded on an imaginary perception of reality that precedes that of the physical body. In this perception, all senses – sight, hearing, touch, smell – merge, overlap and occupy the expositive dimension. Describing beauty means connecting the different senses, seeking to evoke and communicate what should be the basis of every image, sound and tactile contact, indeed, every sensation. Nevertheless, its substance cannot be represented and it undergoes continuous metamorphosis. It will suffice here to recall how all Baroque art, while concerning itself with the finiteness, the vanitas of being, raises questions regarding the perishable aspect of the flesh and the transitory nature of beauty, and thus of how to represent the body and its mortality. By way of example, consider sacred subjects in painting, where the space is filled with flesh in incredible detail, encompassing the aesthetic range inherent in the problem of how to represent the Passion and crucifixion of Christ. The Sorrowful Mysteries are representations that do not destroy its divine majesty. On the contrary, the Cross becomes the place where the exposition of the disfigured and suffering human body reveals the paradox of human beauty that attests to the Forma Dei of the glory of the Being (with a capital “B”).4 The Baroque writer, like the painter, ponders this relationship between being (small “b”) and appearing, and locates the body on the boundary between them. Faced with the shifting texture of reality, he asks himself where the real ends and where the illusion or dream starts. The Baroque body thus also has something of the ghost about it, and by operating on this subtle distinction, its textual representation tends, via its attributes, to show its uncertain nature. The word seeks to reveal what is usually not visible to the eye (nudity) and embodies – in the sense of becoming a body itself – the substance of a ghost. By revealing what is hidden behind the opacity of visible things, art can start to free itself from mimesis. In the constant collaboration between the eye and the ear, between what is spoken and what is written, visualization becomes the purpose and the essence of the word, which must enable the reader to see and to believe at the same time, as the sacred oratory art of that period attests. This was to become one of the most significant elements of Italian Baroque studies from Benedetto Croce onwards.5 This is the century in which, as Raimondi brilliantly argued, supremacy in the hierarchy of the senses shifted from hearing to sight, with the need for 3  Cf. Fiorini 2007. 4  Gheeraert 2003. 5  For an introduction to the highly fragmented critical literature, cf. Giombi 2002.

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a visual translation of the linguistic message, i.e. for the interchangeability of verbal and pictorial language, a principle applied by the Jesuits in their spiritual practice.6 In this incessant movement, made up of exchanges and references between iconic and textual signs, typical of the poetics of the epoch, to which the rich literature on symbols attests, the baroque writer often seeks a point of convergence, metaphorical and linguistic, between the two artistic experiences. Clearly, no one went further in this regard than Giambattista Marino, on both the theoretical plane and in terms of practical experimentation: think of his famous Galeria (1619), a collection of poems/ portraits generally conceived with reference to a painted image and raised to the level of poetry. This gave rise to a sort of personal imaginary museum, a model that Marino – the extraordinary “collector with the pen” (“collezionista con la penna”) – exported all over Europe, starting with France (think of the Jesuit Le Moyne).7 In any case, apart from providing ways of structuring the text on page, or of making it more effective, figures of speech now overcome their expository or stylistic rhetorical dimension, giving rise to a world in a state of metamorphosis. Such a world is full of analogical possibilities, “from a furtive perspective” (“per istraforo di perspettiva”) as Emanuele Tesauro puts it in his Cannocchiale aristotelico (1654), which Pierantonio Frare interpreted in relation to seventeenth-century poetry, characterised by a predilection for metaphor.8 However, this pleasure can be identified with the “cupidità d’imparar cose nuove” (“desire to learn new things”) that was typical of a century that saw the birth of the “New Science” of Galileo. By acquiring a gnoseological value, metaphor can be interpreted as reflecting the instability of reality, meeting the expressive need for a way of perceiving and manifesting things. It represents the ideal possibility of translating every term of the knowable world into a vision of reality in which things seem to lose their static and well-defined nature, in a process of continuous translation, as Giovanni Getto wrote in the 1970s.9 Thus, the frenetic search for expressive innovation on the part of the erotic poet and the sacred orator alike (think again of Giambattista Marino, prolific author of the Rime but also of the sermons of the Dicerie Sacre10) can also be 6   Raimondi, “La nuova scienza e la visione degli oggetti.” Lettere italiane XXI, 3 (July–Sept 1969): 264–305; subsequently with the title “Verso il realismo”, in Raimondi 1985, 3–56. 7   Cf. Fabrizio-Costa 2006. The description in brackets is by Claudio Sensi. 8   Cf. Frare 2000, 103–22, especially concerning the relationship between Marino and Tesauro, which is investigated in various other works by the author. 9   Getto 1969. 10  Marino 1964, 69–441, Id. 2005, Id. 2007, Id. 2014.

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interpreted as a linguistic indicator: the writer tries to express a certain feeling, epochal if you will, namely a critical dissatisfaction with the past, especially regarding its traditional and limited image of reality. Textual forms, even the most contrived, consist of more than simple intellectual pirouettes. Indeed, as indicators of unease, they reveal a desire for knowledge. They become the instruments, albeit figurative ones, by which to perceive and experience the world and to describe its “majesty”, which is the translation in psychological terms of the revelation of an unknown and unsuspected profile of the being, which is infinitely varied, changing and new. In other words, by means of an ingenious and rhetorical elaboration, sensible perception merges with imaginary experience and the life of the spirit and the flesh alike. It acquires meaning via themes or topics, above all beauty, which is already triumphant from a conceptual point of view in Marino’s Adone,11 and represents the “central node that connects such an impressive quantity of verse in both poetic and philosophical terms”, as Francesco Paolo Raimondi asserts.12 I will thus now present a small exploration of the mare magnum of Adonis, “monster of beauty” (“mostro di bellezza”). An article of a somewhat frivolous character, published in the cultural section of the “la Stampa”13 newspaper, heaped praise upon this emblematic work of the European seventeenth century. The Adone was presented as the “pacifist” triumph of the optimism of sensual delight, and as a work that ought to be read (or reread or finally read) as such. This rather surprising invitation came from Marc Fumaroli, honorary professor of the Collège de France and member of the Académie Française. Fumaroli is known in Italy for his extremely refined essays on rhetoric and the correlations between visual and literary languages. Of fundamental value is one of his works, entitled La Scuola del silenzio sul senso delle immagini in Europa fra il Concilio di Trento e il regno di Luigi XIV.14 The French scholar invites the modern reader to approach this vast poem (about 41000 verses and more than 5000 octaves), without allowing themselves to be intimidated by its vastness or prejudiced by the weight of critical opinion, which has traditionally been rather negative, ever since the author’s death (1625). For many scholars, it is still indiscriminately associated with Baroque “bad taste”, of which it represents a microcosm and the source. This is despite the enthusiasm of readers such as Jorge Luis Borges and despite 11  Id. 1976. 12  Raimondi 2009, 358. All translations are mine, except where indicated otherwise. 13  Fumaroli 2015, which presents the content of Id. 2014 in Italian. 14  Id. 1995. Cf. also Id. 2002, Id. 2005, Id. 2009, Id. 2011.

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the scientific recovery of the work by eminent scholars (especially Getto, Pieri and Pozzi) since the 1970s. The flurry of studies culminated in Emilio Russo’s edition in low-price format, which benefited from clear and cogent commentary.15 Speaking with all the authority of an expert on the European seventeenth century, Fumaroli highlights the modernity of this poem of amorous desire instigated by beauty – a driving force that is stronger than the desire for glory – and the enduring relevance of its purpose: achieving peace. Furthermore, he stresses the subversive implications of Marino’s conception. Indeed, he dared to overturn the Homeric topoi of the epic, starting with the main character, who was no longer a manly warrior in action but a young adolescent, uncertain and passive, but a “model of all beauties”16 (“esempio d’ogni beltà”, Adone, c. XVI, 166). With journalistic flair, Fumaroli explains the brilliant intuitions and analyses of father Pozzi, who was the first (in his fundamental Introduction to the 1976 edition) to highlight Marino’s creative and ideological audacity. In short, Marino was a poet who, in an era when the warrior hero was still the ideal model of the ruling class, chose to celebrate an a-hero, rather than an anti-hero. This was the spineless Adonis (“Adone smidollato”), who dreams of a private life and prefers the bridal bed to a throne, who becomes, in the spirit of a “let’s make love, not war sui generis”, the protagonist of a new literature – the literature of the private person – and of a new politics, the politics of non-alignment.17 Pozzi highlighted the way Marino renewed the exhausted epic genre from within, by means of the ambiguous eroticism of an “irregular” couple, in which the initiative is always taken by the woman, who is the mythical and divine model of beauty, but, at the same time, an immortal adulterer (“adultera immortale”, VII, 22) who manipulates (c. III), educates (c. VI, c. VII) guides, commands and imposes her whims, always taking the initiative, even in bed (c. VIII, 95). The poet placed the amatory tale on a heroic level (“l’intreccio amatorio a livello eroico”) by transferring the qualities of the heroine, i.e. physical beauty, to a young man who was so beautiful as to become the (albeit ephemeral) object of desire on the part of Venus, who is beautiful beyond beauty “bella oltre le belle” (c. II, 154). He is so beautiful that he becomes the object of desire even for bandits and wrongdoers (Malagorre and Filauro, c. XIV), “just as the languid models of Versace and 15  Marino 2013; cf. the presentation in Ardissino 2014, which highlights the modernity of Adone. A bibliography on Marino and his work can be found in Russo 2008. Jorge L. Borges made Marino the main character of La rosa gialla. 16  Priest 1967, 222. 17  I freely quote from Pozzi, Introduzione, in Marino 1976, 73–4; the introduction was substantially re-presented in the second edition of Adone (Id. 1988). On the characteristics of the anti-hero or “a-hero”, as Pozzi writes, cf. ivi, 34 and following pages.

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Dolce e Gabbana commercials are for the global Customer-Goddess today”, to cite Fumaroli’s references to the social mores of today. These references would seem to be confirmed by a reading of canto XVI, in which the throne of Cyprus is adjudicated via a male beauty contest lasting three days. On the level of the “serial structure” of the canto, with oppositions and correspondences, the eight competitors for the crown, all young men blessed with an amazing physique, are skilfully presented to the jury, which is composed of wise old men. The focus of the candidates’ physical beauty is the face, but it is also enhanced by the richness of their garments, which are described in detail: the shape of a sleeve (“tight around the upper arm and wide at the cuffs”18), the drapery, the precious fabrics (“silver cloth beneath black velvet”19), the embroidery (“with many sunflowers in gold relief embroidered on the border of the cloak”20), the accessories, such as the cut jewels (“a headband made with Ethiopian amethyst bathes the tanned forehead in a golden light”21), the shoes (“(He) wears shoes with silver scales / and golden ringlets for buckles”22) and the furs (“sable of dark colour”23). In short, a regular fashion show, with the body and its costumes taking centre stage, which even has its background music, thanks to the voice of an angelic mermaid (“angelica sirena”) accompanied by the cithara of one of the pretenders to the throne, a musician and singer with shoulder-length hair (“With the sharp instrument and handsome face, from the shock of hair alone, he resembles Apollo”24). On a theatrical scale (with cortèges25 and processions moving around, inside and outside the temple that hosts the crown), every one of the spectator/reader’s senses is involved. The whirlwind of effects prompts the spectator/reader to make the connection between regal majesty and beauty, a connection already evoked by Marino as part of an adulatory discourse in the first canto, where he addresses Louis XIII: “And thou, great Louis, who surpasseth far Adonis bright for splendor and for grace”.26 He then addresses Louis’ mother Maria de’ Medici, “she, whose fair face reveals as much 18   Adone, c. XVI, 122: “sovra l’omero stretta e larga in punta”. 19  Ivi, c. XVI 121: “sotto nero velluto argentea tela”. 20  Priest 1967, 216. Adone, c. XVI, 103: “abbordata la vesta ha tutta quanta / di girasoli rilevati d’oro”. 21   Adone, c. XVI, 121: “un frontal d’etiopico ametisto l’adusta fronte illuminando inaura”. 22  Ivi, c. XVI, 121: “Scarpe ha nel piè d’innargente scquame / cui fan boccole d’oro auro serrame”. 23  Ivi, c. XVI, 142: “zibellin di color fosco”. 24  Ivi, c. XVI, 129: “A l’arguto stromento, al vago volto, / ala zazzera istessa ei sembra Apollo”. 25  Cf. Ivi, c. XVI, 35, 77. 26  Priest 1967, 3. Adone, c. I, 5: “E te, ch’Adone istesso, o gran Luigi: di beltà vinci e di splendor abbagli”.

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of power”,27 who is described in canto XI as a model of beauty, the New Venus,28 praised by Venus herself.29 The presence of the two royals enriches the story with the theme of the Triumph of Beauty, which is the subject of the contest, where the other mythical and divine couple, Venus and Adonis, play a role. The winner, Adonis, is handsome (“vago”), affected (“vezzoso”), charming (“grazioso”) and elegant (“leggiadro”).30 He is placed on the throne by Venus, who, determined to make him win at all costs, uses three miracles that deprive the jury of its authority. However, once Adonis has received the crown, she takes him away with her and reassigns the government to the viceroy Astreo, who held power before the contest, which is thus apparently useless. However, as has been pointed out by Claudia Micocci,31 besides the contest’s apparent futility and the mocking undertone (“the election of a king by means of a beauty contest certainly does not imply great respect for royal power”32), the passage encapsulates the contemporary notion of beauty and its associated spectacle as a weapon of power. In addition, it alludes to the importance of the beauty of the person who aspires to such power and of the rituals that accompany the manifestation of the person that incarnates it. This idea was already well established in the French court even before its greatest historical realization with the “Sun King”, Louis XIV, and Marino, excellent observer that he was, had readily noticed its first signs. Here, the political authority of the people charged with making a decision is nullified by the triumph of a pretty boy, based solely on his merits as a lover. In any case, he is king by divine will in a situation that seems to deny the legitimacy of that ideological assumption.33 Indeed, in addition to being an election conducted for not entirely noble reasons (c. XV, 204, 209), it is unusual in that it makes physical appearance a fundamental criterion for the exercise of royal power. Before the beginning of the competition, the Goddess of Beauty herself proclaims this, by entrusting an oracle with the order to select the most beautiful man. The speech of the oracle directly strengthens her own, by means of the meta-narrative effect of the mise en abime (c. XV, 208). The original motive, i.e. the importance of “not wanting a man with ugly features and a rough appearance sitting on the royal 27  Priest 1967, 4. Adone, c. I, 9: “quella che tanta forza ha nel bel volto”. 28  Ivi, c. XI, 109: “esempio di beltà”, c. XI, 148: “Venere Novella”. 29  Cf. Ivi, c. IX, 152. 30  Ivi, respectively cs. III, 84 and VII, 131 (“vago”); VI, 157 (“vezzoso”); III, 175: (“grazioso”); XV, 163 and XVIII, 134 (“leggiadro”). 31  Micocci 2013, 16–9. 32  Cf. Marino 1976, II, 605. The brilliance of Pozzi’s interpretation of canto XVI in ivi, 597– 608 remains unequalled. 33  I quote freely here from Pozzi’s commentary in ivi, 599–606.

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throne”34 is restated, in a sort of amplifying echo, immediately afterwards in the prologue to canto XVI, but as the concrete conclusion to an exaltation of Beauty characterized by a Neoplatonic tone that is evident from its opening: “Beauty is the light that descends from the greatest sun to enlighten the earthly prison / and it divides into various rays / in some places brighter than others: Whatever grace that actions and words may have / is all thanks to its serene splendour, / which in conformity with the beauty concealed within / determines exterior appearances and actions”.35 The conceptual fabric of the first six octaves contains increasingly frequent references to Neoplatonism and Dolce Stil Novo, without much originality (“Gem that flickers with little flames and acquires a fine colour”) and the implicit equivalence of beauty and goodness is presented: external beauty is the demonstration of internal beauty, since the soul is the substantial form of the body (“Physical beauty is clear evidence of a no less beautiful and graceful soul, denoted by hundreds of clues, hiding within itself an alike form”). Marino returns to what he had already expressed in canto XI (32–41), when Adonis, having reached the fifth stage of his intellectual initiation, finds himself on a broad plain full of beautiful gardens in the sky of Venus. There he sees flames and extreme brightness (c. XI, 27–31), references to Dante’s Paradiso. These are the souls of famous women of the past and of the future: “Beauty is sun and lightning and flame and arrow, / it wounds where it reaches and lights everything it touches; / its strength and its virtue are such / that it intoxicates but offends without offence / Nothing without beauty has value or delight, / all is tedious where beauty does not shine: / and what in creation / can be found that is more beautiful than beauty?”.36 These abstract details regarding beauty are repetitive and, all things considered, banal, even in the expressive variatio between paronomasia and adnominal games. Their function is to introduce the array of famous women, both ancient (c. XI, 42–55) and modern, both Italian (c. XI, 52–72) and French (c. XI, 73–90). The royal ladies of France are celebrated in a specific section (c. XI, 91–7), with Pheme singing their praises (c. XI, 98–107) in a long commendation (c. XI, 108–70).37 34   Adone, c. XVI, 7: “a non voler nel regio trono assiso / uom di laido sembiante e rozzo aspetto”. 35  Ivi, c. XVI, 1: “Bellezza è luce che dal sommo sole / discende a rischiarar carcer terreno / e’n vari raggi compartir si suole / e dove più lampeggia e dove meno. / Quant’hanno di leggiadro atti o parole / tutto è mercé del suo splendor sereno, / che conformi a quel bel ch’entro si copre / fa le sembianze esteriori e l’opre.” 36  Ivi, c. XI, 36: “Bellezza è sole e lampo e fiamma e strale, / fere ov’arriva e ciò che tocca accende; / sua forza è tanta e sua virtù è tale / ch’innebria sì, ma senza offesa offende. / Nulla senza beltà diletta o vale, / il tutto annoia, ove beltà non splende: / e qual cosa si può fra le create / più bella ritrovar dela beltate?”. 37  Marino 1976, II, 776. For the details of the homages, cf. Pozzi, Commento. In ivi, 472–4.

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In this political gallery of female biographies, the evanescence of bodies is a dominant theme, although they are described with the usual registers of beauty. These give way to the themes of family and government diplomacy when referring to Maria de’ Medici (“dressed in brown, with blond braids held in a dark voile.”38), described by Adonis as “she who, among masses of beautiful women, carries the emblem of every beauty”.39 On the other hand, in the preparatory context of the male beauty contest of canto XVI, the reference to Beauty, albeit banal in terms of content, acquires a different value, signalled in the two conclusive octaves of the prologue: in the sixth octave, symmetrically organized around a double rhetorical question in four lines, a host of mythological and repulsive images of dirty beasts (“sozze fere”), characterized using metonymies of ugliness (harpies, infernal sphinxes, disfigured monsters), visually displays – with a truncated “veder” (see) in the middle of the first couplet isolated by the anastrophe – the incongruity of a non-beautiful king. The incongruity is indicated by the other truncated infinitive, “coronar” (crown), which is isolated at the beginning of the verse but connected to what will happen next by the precise reference to “the diadem whence the regal power” (“del diadema onde si regna”). The emphasis on the interrogative, hinging on chiasmus and amplified by alliterations such as the strong repetition of the syllable “or” that makes the assonances darker, reaches its peak in the second rhetorical question. This concerns the damaging effects of governance by a disfigured king, which appears to be noxious even for the governed (“to our detriment”, “a’ danni nostri”). The use of the interrogative also prepares the reader for the answer, contained in the following octave. The fealty of the subjects (“the people’s affection”, “il popolare affetto”) towards the ruler is achieved through the grace and nobility of his face (“grazie e nobilità di viso”). Given that a king must be beautiful, the decision of Venus is presented as wise advice and a sound warning (“saggio consiglio e sano aviso”, c. XVI, 7). It is no coincidence that Tricane, an extremely ugly man, is ignominiously excluded from the contest. He is then transformed into a “youth so fair”40 by the magician Falsirena, so that the most beautiful man is fooled by the ugliest one, whose portrait (c. XVI, 207–8) is an amalgam of negative elements in a specular inversion. The destiny of Lucinferno is even worse: he is a bold competitor who is killed by Cupid because he dares to question the aesthetic criterion used to choose the king, having previously attacked first the by-then

38   Adone, c. XI, 91: “a brun vestita / le bionde trecce in fosco vel ristrette”. 39  Ivi, c. XI, 94: “colei, che fra sì belle squadre …; d’ogni beltà porta l’insegna”. 40  Priest 1967, 213. Adone, c. XVI, 212: “vago donzello”.

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grey-haired41 judges, accusing them of insanity, corruption and obscenity, and then Adonis, “rather a woman than a young man, you might think”.42 This “strong and fearsome cavalier”43 becomes a victim of his own words, which are truthful enough on a common sense level, but are not true on the level of make-believe, and is the fulcrum of a vertiginous reversal of values. He gives a description of Adonis’ beauty: dark eyelashes “bruno ciglio”, blond hair “biondo crin”, red cheeks “purpurea guancia” (c. XVI, 241) and of the power that derives from it. “Could an obscene face perhaps blind you with such crazy desire that you would give control to an inept, effeminate and weak king?”44 Lucinferno asks himself and the others. The oxymoron of his name (“Luci”: Lights; “Inferno”: Hell) itself suggests that he might represent another possible beauty, despite his physical appearance, which seems to be the exact opposite of that of Adonis, with a “full beard” and “flowing hair”,45 as well as “rugged limbs […] and robust frame”.46 This is because he constantly dominates due to his gaze, revealed by visual antitheses: “his piercing eye, ‘twixt black and greenish hue, strikes terror … with firm lightening flashes”.47 If the oxymoron consists of affirming that something is what it is not,48 Lucinferno, the bad guy (“cattivo”) of the contest, appears to impose himself again by means of the final syntagm, i.e. dark light (“luce oscura”), an oxymoronic contrast, with the power of light itself, which is the essence of Beauty and the Divine. Despite the apparent Neoplatonic orthodoxy seen at the beginning of canto XVI, we are actually dealing with proof of the rejection of Platonic ideology, breaking the link between Beautiful and Good. Marino’s aesthetic practice denies that connection and in fact implicitly recognizes the dangerous contiguity between beauty and monstrosity, and this perhaps makes it possible to detect an aspect of his creative originality. If we recall the portraits of the competitors in the contest, their bodies and faces seem to correspond to the aesthetic canons of the time, which were codified by centuries of lyrical tradition but usually applied to female beauty: from the blond hair to the vermillion and white cheeks, to the hand that must be milk and snow,49 etc. Announced and 41   Adone, c. XVI, 240: “ormai canute chiome”. 42  My transl. Adone, c. XVI, 241: “più tosto che fanciul, femina il creda”. 43  Priest 1967, 219. Adone, c. XVI, 156: “cavalier tremendo e forte”. 44  My transl. Adone, c. XVI, 244: “Potrà forse in voi un volto osceno, tanto fia che v’accechi un desir folle / ch’abiate di voi stessi a dar il freno / a rege inetto, effeminato e molle?”. 45  Priest 1967, 218. Adone, c. XVI 150: “irta barba”, “irsuta chioma”. 46   Ibidem. Adone, c. XVI 150: “ruvide membra […] e ossa robuste”. 47   Ibidem. Adone, c. XVI 151: “[…] occhio pie di terrore e di bravura / infra nero e verdiccio […] con torvo balen di luce oscura […]”. 48  Perelman – Olbrechts – Tyteca 1966, 465. 49  Cf. Adone, respectively cs. XVI, 80 (“bionda testa”), XVI, 9 (“guancia vermiglia e bianca”), XVI, 105 (“latte”, “neve”).

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emphasized by the poem’s initial presentation of Adonis (c. I, 41), who has a body that is a catalogue of hyper-Petrarchan modules, in Francesco Guardiani’s words, these elements make him the personification of a beauty that is the end point of centuries of expressive tradition. It is not by accident that in the poem these traits recall the physical characteristics of Venus, Juno and Pallas Athena in a similar situation (another beauty contest). When subject to the judgment of an uncertain Paris (c. II, 112 and subsequently), the three goddesses do not hesitate to show “their bodies, heavenly beautiful”50 in a mischievous striptease. It is important to notice that the three goddesses are three suns. Hence, they are depicted using the metaphor of light, more precisely the sun, which is specifically attributed to God (in Dicerie Sacre). This constitutes one of the many passages demonstrating the “blending of sacred and profane material that represents the most complex aspect of the poem”, according to Russo,51 to which we will presently return when considering Adonis’ Christ-like body. But in the aesthetic parade of male beauty whose purpose is to decide who occupies the throne, we find new elements, such as the body of Rodaspe, characterized by the dark ebony (“fosco ebeno”) of his burnt skin (“pelle arsiccia”), short curly hair (“brevi chiome attorte”) and black eyes darker than ink (“più dell’inchiostro”), who can almost incinerate men (“che quasi incarbonir gli uomini puote”).52 On one hand, this unusual profile is a sign of taste opening up to the exotic, as Pozzi points out.53 On the other hand, it also suggests the monstrosity latent in every perfect shape, which can be easily deformed.54 This is shown by the fact that by using all expressive possibilities (for example the notion of “incinerating” with a look of his dark eyes) and extending them to encompass disfigurement, Marino eludes the codes in the very moment he applies them. He seems to affirm them precisely in an attempt to prevent them from constraining his own literary rhetoric, thereby paralyzing and fossilizing his poetry. As in other passages of the poem, in the beauty contest of canto XVI, “Marino’s abiding faith in the extension of the poetic word, in its universal applicability, beyond the closed ranks of traditional genres”,55 becomes manifest. If then, like Jean Baudrillard,56 we ask ourselves what the body of these handsome young men symbolizes, a possible answer is that Marino needs to be 50  Priest 1967, 50. Adone, c. II, 125: “lor corpi immortalmente belli”. 51  Russo 2013, 27. 52   Adone, c. XVI, 110–11. 53  Cf. Pozzi, Commento. In Marino 1976, II, 613. 54  Cottegnies – Gheeraert – Venet 2003. 55  Russo 2013, 27. 56  Baudrillard 1972.

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contextualized in a specific epistemological moment regarding his historical conception. He writes before the birth of the rational anatomical-physiological model characteristic of the eighteenth century (Buffon, Maupertuis),57 anti­ cipating one of its new conceptual aspects: the supremacy of what is visible and of the gaze, which would make the body a language that speaks by itself (“parla da solo”). It is enough to observe it: whatever is visible can be read. We see that the signs inherent in Adonis’ body and around it make those candid and graceful limbs58 something other than a simple literary hypostasis of beauty, and the personification of a theme that is already practically obsessive on a lexical level. Indeed, a simple quantitative analysis using electronic texts reveals that the word beauty (bellezza) occurs in the poem 96 times in its singular form and 54 in the plural (bellezze). Counting its variants, beltà (209), beltade (10) and beltate (19), the total reaches 388 occurrences. Adding on the 1388 occurrences of the adjectival forms, i.e. bello (74), belli (17), bei (100), begli (106), bella (355), belle (132), bell’ (90) and bel (535) further increases the total. The statistics show that beauty is the most extensive semantic field, beating that of love (amor / amore).59 Conceptually speaking, this classification reflects the rather thin narrative: the beauty of Adonis, the pretty boy (“garzone bello”), the flower of all the beautiful (“fiore di tutti belli”),60 desired by Venus, another celestial giant of beauty (“mostro celeste di beltà”), triggers the falling in love and begins the poem’s “insane engine” (“macchina demente”), this mad thing (“questa cosa dissennata”), as Giorgio Manganelli calls it.61 The writer was fascinated by the dialectical functioning of the two principles responsible for the textual development identified by Giovanni Pozzi: the dynamic one of the “engine” (“macchina”), assigned to metaphor and responsible for the clashing images, and the static one of the factory (“fabbrica”), which in contrast pursues harmony.62 Adonis’ beautiful body, the concrete representation of an abstract and ideal reality, is also the result of a refined ambiguity walking an expressive tightrope, and probably a sign of ideological audacity: critics (Pozzi again and Francesco Guardiani63) have highlighted the Christological themes and 57  Musso 1991. 58   Adone, c. VIII, 96: “quelle membra candide e leggiadre”. 59  Cf. http://www.intratext.com/IXT/ITA2623/_INDEX.HTM. 60  Marino 1976. In order, in Adone 3, 94; 3, 128; VI, 6, 10; 7, 166; 10, 33; 19, 344; 7, 24; I, 1. 61  In his book Il rumore sottile della prosa (Adelphi: Milano, 1994, II ed.), in a discussion of the category of “classics” in Italian literary history and criticism, he argued, by means of a sporting metaphor, that maybe it was time to promote Marino from the First Division to the Premier League. 62  Pozzi in Marino 1976, II, 256, and Id., comments on Ivi, 148–9. 63  Guardiani 1989, especially p. 52 and the following pages.

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elements, which are abundant especially in the second part of the poem. These start with the apparently decorative and superfluous details in the narration, such as the sacred dove destined to become a sacrificial offering in the temple of Beauty (c. XVI, 195) that alights on Adonis’ shoulder with a clear reference to the appearance of the dove of the Holy Spirit during Christ’s baptism. Among the physical features of Adonis’ body, which emanates rays of sunlight at the moment he enters the contest – a sort of sacred transfiguration of the Gospel model (c. XVI, 187) – the rose-shaped birthmark on his chest (c. XVI, 237) plays a prominent role. It “recalls the wound on Christ’s ribs via a metaphor acquired from mystical language”,64 and the 358th octave of canto XIX contains a direct reference to it: “he has a horrible wound on the ribs / ­bandaged by love with its own gauze”.65 The bandage and Cupid’s act refer directly to the sheet used by Joseph of Arimathea to cover Christ’s body. Nevertheless, Adonis dies, mortally wounded by the assault/embrace of a rutting wild boar, a “lovesick beast”,66 driven by extreme desire for the soft ivory (“avorio molle”) of the youth’s body. That impossible synecdoche or metonymy makes it possible to offer him to the beast’s fang and the reader’s eye, focalized in the metonymy on the flank or side. Adonis’ body, now reduced by means of synecdoche/metonymy to the heart, then changes nature with his transformation into a flower by divine miracle: “When she had spoken thus, by its great gift, that heart began to shower nectar sweet, which gradually, by miracle divine, changing its form, opened a lovely flower”.67 The metamorphosis seems to be linked to resurrection, enhancing the Christological symbolism: a body destroyed by a violent death which is visualized and symbolized by the blood on the side, undergoing metamorphosis/resurrection. Before being cremated, Adonis’ body is prepared by Venus: she embalms his innards with a Sabean liquor (c. XIX, 411), the gesture and the material recalling the Biblical unguents used by the pious women of the Gospel. The line between sacred and profane is erased, and is also blurred on a narrative and thematic level, as if Marino was seeking to push the process that started with the Dicerie Sacre68 to its 64  Pozzi in Marino 1976, II, 621. 65   Adone, c. XIX, 358: “egli ha la piaga del costato orrenda / fasciata amor con la sua propria benda.” 66  Priest 1967, 248. Adone, c. XVIII 94, 95: “Tutta calda d’amor la bestia folle”. 67  Priest 1967, 271. Adone, c. XIX, 411: “Poiché così parlò, di nettar fino / pien di tanta virtù quel core asperse, / che tosto per miracolo divino / forma cangiando, in un bel fior s’aperse”. 68  The relationship between profane and Christological motifs had already begun in the Dicerie Sacre, in which the poet himself compares pagan deities with Christological figures, thereby creating, among others, the analogy between Pan and Christ as the incarnation of the Logos.

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logical conclusion. The latter work seems to be guided by the goal of placing the Christian religion and Pagan mythology on the same level as the subject and object of writing. In other words, it seems that Marino intends to replace the “poetics of conversion”, typical of Christianity, with a “poetics of metamorphosis”, typical of myth.69 In canto XVIII (c. XVIII, 12), during the development of the finale, Marino introduces the character of the greedy Aurilla, in ancient myth the maid of Venus, who betrays Adonis for money. However, after his death, she repents, throws the money away and kills herself, creating a parallel that clearly recalls Judas after the betrayal of Christ. In addition, fundamental among the themes highlighted is the scene of Venus crying over Adonis’ death (c. XVIII, 151 and subsequently), which is an exact replica of the planctus Mariae. As G. Pozzi pointed out, “the representation of Venus as the Mater dolorosa is accentuated; this theme had at least three examples in the contemporary literature: Tasso’s Lagrime di Maria Vergine, Grillo’s Pietosi affetti and Campeggi’s Lagrime di Maria Vergine. Very similar are Valvasone’s Lacrime della Maddalena and the more famous work by San Pietro of Tansillo”.70 Thus, the beautiful goddess (“bella dea”), “the beauty beyond beauties and above all / the beauties of heaven”71 that had been invoked from the very beginning as the holy mother of Love (“santa madre d’Amore”), despite the Counter-­Reformation atmosphere, blends with the Virgin and, not by coincidence, with Mary Magdalene. As mentioned at the beginning, on many occasions in about thirty poems, Marino had referred to Mary Magdalene, saint and sinner, or rather “beautiful sinner” (“bella peccatrice”).72 She represents one of the icons of ­European Baroque precisely because of her amphibological potential, being both lascivious and penitent (“lasciva e penitente”), and representing a beauty that could be assimilated to that of a pagan deity,73 to the point that we may speak of an interchangeable model, widely used for praising female beauty. This ambiguity was highlighted again by Pozzi when analyzing the relationship between literary and figurative language by means of a comparison of the canons of womanly beauty created by poets (often transformed, in a theological context, into attributes of Mary) and the solutions adopted by artists for the representation of the female universe. To return to a line of critical thought that ranges 69  Frare 2005. 70  Pozzi in Marino 1976, II, 655. 71   Adone, c. II, 155: “la bella, oltre le belle e sovra quante / ha belle il ciel”. 72  Marino 1979, 71, n. 37. I quote freely here from Pieri, Introduzione. Ivi, XLI. The portraits of Mary Magdalene in the Galeria are in the Historie section, ivi, 70–4, n. 37 (“Maddalena piangente di Raffaello”), n. 37a (“Maddalena di Luca Cambiaso”), n. 37b (“Maddalena di Tiziano”). 73  Cf. Fabrizio-Costa 1999 and Piantoni 2013.

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from Pozzi to the summary by Russo, we are dealing here with a deliberately complex game that Marino plays with a calculated sense of infraction. At the same time, it also constitutes an implicit demand for freedom of literary action, which admits no boundaries and lives in its own dimension, following its own rules and even taking scandalous liberties by means of what Boillet calls “lascivious style” (“stile lascivo”).74 In this sense, beauty in Adone provides us with a key notion: the beauty of Adonis (and in Adone) is not decorative. It can be assimilated to a form or variant of modern knowledge, both earthly and metaphysical, which, just like the rhetoric of the time, enumerates the forms of speech, gesture, meditation and plastic language and makes poetry a tool of persuasion and action in the intellectual, political and social life of the time. References Ardissino, Erminia. 2014. “Giovan Battista Marino Adone”, L’Indice dei libri del mese, XXXI-4. http://www.lindiceonline.com/l-indice/sommario/aprile-2014-2/. Argan, Giulio Carlo. 1989. L’Âge Baroque. Genève: Editions d’Art Albert Skira. Battistini, Andrea. 1997. “La cultura del Barocco.” In Storia della letteratura italiana, diretta da Enrico Malato. Roma: Salerno, vol. V: La fine del Cinquecento e il Seicento. Baudrillard, Jean. 1972. “Le corps ou le charnier de signes.” Topique 9–10: 75–107. Boillet, Danielle. 2007. “Les scandaleuses libertés du style lascif dans l’ ‘Adone’ de Marino.” Italies 11: 379–418. Cottegnies, Line, Gheeraert, Tony, Venet, Gisèle (éds.). 2003. La beauté et ses monstres dans l’Europe baroque 16e–18e siècles. Paris: PSN. Fabrizio-Costa, Silvia. 1999. “G.B. Marino et Marie-Madeleine: portrait(s) poétique(s) baroque(s)?” In Marie-Madeleine figure mythique dans la littérature et les arts. Études rassemblées et présentées par Marguerite Geoffroy et Alain Montadon. Clermont-Ferrand: Presses Universitaires Blaise-Pascal: 87–109. Fabrizio-Costa, Silvia. 2006. “Marino et le Père Le Moyne: autour de la galerie littéraire.” Studi Francesi L (1): 17–34. Fiorini, Roberto. 2007. “I corpi e le cose”, in Griseldaonline. Una rivista nell’era digitale: 257–76. http://www.griseldaonline.it/didattica/corpi-e-le-cose-fiorini.html. Frare, Pierantonio. 2000. “Per istraforo di perspettiva”. Il Cannocchiale Aristotelico e la poesia del Seicento. Pisa-Roma: I.E.P.I. Frare, Pierantonio. 2005. “Il mito nella trattatistica e nella narrativa del Seicento. Metamorfosi vs conversione.” Istituto Lombardo. Accademia di Scienze e Lettere. Rendiconti. Classe di Lettere e Scienze Morali e Storiche CXXXVII, 2 (2003) [but 74  Boillet 2007.

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published in May 2005]: 381–405. http://www.pierantoniofrare.it/mitoIstLombardo. pdf. http://www.pierantoniofrare.it/Adone%20neopagano.pdf. Fumaroli, Marc. 1995. La Scuola del silenzio Il senso delle immagini nel XVII secolo. Milano: Adelphi, [French ed. 1994]. Fumaroli, Marc. 2002. L’età dell’eloquenza Retorica e« res literaria » dal Rinascimento alle soglie dell’epoca classica Milano: Adelphi, [French ed. 1980]. Fumaroli, Marc. 2005. Le api e i ragni. Milano: Adelphi. Fumaroli, Marc. 2009. Chateaubriand Poesia e Terrore. Milano: Adelphi. Fumaroli, Marc. 2011. Parigi-New-York e ritorno. Viaggio nelle arti e nelle immagini. Milano: Adelphi. Fumaroli, Marc. 2014. “L’Adone un ostracisme littéraire réussi.” Commentaire 2, n. 146: 315–25. Fumaroli, Marc. 2015. “Adone pacifista l’ottimismo della voluttà.” La Stampa, March 8. http://www.lastampa.it/2015/03/08/cultura/adone-pacifista-lottimismo -della-volutt-20AU28Q9zVhMNnp2GwAhvN/pagina.html. Getto, Giovanni. 1969. Barocco in prosa e in poesia. Milano: Rizzoli. Gheeraert, Tony. 2003. “Forma Dei, forma servi: les paradoxes de la beauté du Christ chez quelques poètes dévotionnels français du XVIIe siècles.” In Cottegnies, Gheeraert, Venet 2003, 21–33. Giombi, Samuele. 2002. “Sacra Eloquenza. Percorsi di studio e pratiche di lettura.” In Libri, biblioteche e cultura nell’Italia del Cinque e Seicento. A cura di Edoardo Barbieri e Danilo Zardin. Milano: Vita e Pensiero, 137–218. Guardiani, Francesco. 1989. La meravigliosa retorica dell’Adone. Firenze: Olschki. Marino, Giambattista. 1964. Dicerie Sacre e La Strage degli Innocenti. A cura di Giovanni Pozzi. Torino: Einaudi. Marino, Giambattista. 1976. Adone. A cura di Giovanni Pozzi. Milano: Mondadori. Marino, Giambattista. 1979. La Galeria. A cura di Marzio Pieri. Padova: Liviana, I vol. Marino, Giambattista. 1988. Adone. A cura di Giovanni Pozzi. Milano: Adelphi. Marino, Giambattista. 2005. La Galeria. A cura di Marzio Pieri e Alessandra Ruffino. Trento: La Finestra. Marino, Giambattista. 2007. Le Rime. A cura di Maurizio Slawiski. Torino: Res, 3 voll. Marino, Giambattista. 2013. Adone. A cura di Emilio Russo. Milano: BUR, 2 voll. Marino, Giambattista. 2014. Dicerie sacre. A cura di Erminia Ardissino. Roma: Edizioni di Storia e Letteratura. Micocci, Claudia. 2013. Sondaggi sull’Adone di Marino. Roma: Aracne, [I ed. 2009]. Musso, Pierre. 1991. “La ‘physiologie baroque’.” Quaderni 15 (1: Organisme: modèle pour la communication?): 29–38. doi: 10.3406/quad. 1991. 1285. Perelman, Chaïm, Olbrechts-Tyteca, Lucie. 1966. Trattato dell’argomentazione. La nuova retorica. Torino: Einaudi, [ed. orig. Traité de l’argumentation. La nouvelle rhétorique. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1958].

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Piantoni, Luca. 2013. “‘Lasciva e penitente’. Nuovi Sondaggi sul tema della Maddalena nella poesia religiosa del Seicento.” Studi Secenteschi LIV: 25–48. Priest, Harold Martin (trans.). 1967. Adonis, Selections from L’Adone of Giambattista Marino. Ithaca: Cornell University Press. Raimondi, Ezio. 1969. “La nuova scienza e la visione degli oggetti.” Lettere italiane XXI (3, lug.–set. 1969): 264–305. Raimondi, Ezio. 1985. Il romanzo senza idillio. Saggio sui “Promessi Sposi”. Torino: Einaudi, [I ed. 1974]. Raimondi, Francesco Paolo. 2009. “Tracce vaniniane nell’“Adone” del Marino?” In Il Marino e il Barocco da Napoli a Parigi. Atti del Convegno di Basilea (7–9 giugno 2007). A cura di Emilio Russo. Alessandria: Edizioni Dell’Orso: 347–83. Russo, Emilio. 2008. Marino. Roma: Salerno. Russo, Emilio. 2012. “Sul barocco letterario in Italia. Giudizi, revisioni, distinzioni.” Les Dossiers du Grihl 2. Accessed August 14, 2015. doi: 10.4000/dossiersgrihl.5223 or. Russo, Emilio. 2013. Introduzione. In Id., Giambattista Marino. Adone. Milano: Rizzoli (2 voll.). Also available at https://www.academia.edu/7187197/ Giovan_Battista_Marino_Adone_2_voll_Milano_Rizzoli_2013.

chapter 9

Words for Beauty: Giuseppe Parini between Ideal Cities and the Decadence of the World Marcello Ciccuto In what we might call the ‘period paintings’ found especially in Il Giorno, Parini employs a technical representation and a description of the characters with support of the satirical means acquired during his work at the Gazzetta di Milano1 – when he used identical literary registers and styles. In doing so, a decomposition of the human being and its parts prevails,2 stemming from a substantial sensism,3 which aims to obtain an obvious effect of satire and grotesque.4 Furthermore, this way of writing consistently favors an exhibited virtuosity in describing decorative details and fragments, thereby balancing in an isolated ritualistic fashion the taste of the Lombard barocchetto, a process that has frequently been compared to the domestic ‘paintings at an exhibition’ in the manner of Pietro Longhi.5 The accumulation of these literary fragments – these immaginette sketched out very concisely and sometimes left in an unfinished state – is in line with the concept of the “delightful paintings”. Already some near-contemporaries of the writer, namely Luigi Bramieri and Pompilio Pizzetti, recognized this mechanism as typical for Il Giorno, where the author aims almost exclusively at a figurative culture; the latter aspect certainly belongs to Parini, who was perhaps not even aware at this time of the developmental possibilities towards the highest representative ideals.6

1  Frassica 2011, 91. 2  Id. 1976, 567. 3  Id. 2011, 98. 4  Ibid. 5  Id. 1976, 569. 6  This is the text from Bramieri-Pizzetti 1801, 10: “A series of gracious paintings had been ready for a long time, where the educated and renowned hero presented himself in various, apt, well drawn and vividly coloured attitudes; only the walls on which to hang them to form a delightful gallery were missing. However, while he tried to order and connect these paintings by transitions and knots, in order to obtain a whole full of grace and harmony, the everchanging fashion, social frivolities which usually are in contrast one with the other, and even nullify each other, rendered one painting or the other useless, the work of the painter itself useless, because it had become less true from one month to the other.” (“Già da più

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It certainly is useful to recall by way of comparison the fragmentism in Hogarth’s satire and the grotesque deformations in the sculptural portraits of Franz-Xavier Messerschmidt (as Savarese recently has pointed out)7 – especially because these elements coincide with the period when Parini was managing the Gazzetta di Milano. Nevertheless, by projecting Parini’s undoubted cultural skills onto the elaborative phases of his poetic work, the analysis will be even more effective. We need to look at the various recasts that Il Giorno underwent, where the author tried to balance its overall structure with all the individual parts, thus adapting the work to a formal classicism, with an Arcadian angle. Parini followed a process – perfectly described by Dante Isella in Officina della Notte –8 that wants to attain the perfection of Beauty under the new rules of “esattezza, semplicità, purità d’Arte”,9 to the extent that an order can be given to loose papers ripped from a sketchbook. Behind this effort, we begin to glimpse at the balance of composition as reached by great masters such as Tiepolo and Appiani, just as we see Parini moving away from his fixation on isolated images so typical of Longhi’s art.10 While stubbornly overseeing the less convincing and scattered parts of his poem (at least until the publication in 1767 of Il Mezzogiorno and the recast of Il Meriggio),11 he entered a new creative period, coinciding with Soggetti e Appunti per pitture decorative.12 Critics have already punctually reconstructed the developmental course Parini went through in this period, and therefore we will not focus on it at this time. We must nevertheless insist on one aspect in particular: the effects of a sort of general re-orientation in taste, which eventually caused a complete redirection of an entire cultural attitude. These factors lead Parini to understand, and then to act on the fact that on one hand the civil and civilizing function of Beauty didn’t need the isolated descriptive exhibitionism which was typical of   lustri era a finimento condotta una quantità di graziosissime dipinture, nelle quali prendeva l’ammaestrato a un tempo e celebrato eroe moltiplici, opportune, ben disegnate e vivamente colorite attitudini; né altro quasi mancava che le pareti, per dir così, a cui si appendessero per formarne una amenissima galleria. Mentre però si accingeva ad ordinarle e collegarle insieme con transizioni e nodi, onde ne risultasse un tutto pieno di vaghezze e di armonia, eccoti che la sempre cangiante moda, le varie sociali ridicolaggini solite a collidersi di continuo e a dissiparsi vicendevolmente, rendevano inutile, perché men vera da un mese all’altro, or questa or quella dipintura e poco men che vana la fatica del dipintore.”) 7   Cf. Savarese 2000, 951–67. 8   Isella 1968, 71–4. 9   Frassica 2001, 95. 10  Savarese 2000, 949. 11  Frassica 1976, 565–79. 12  Ivi, 565.

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some parts of Il Giorno,13 and on the other, that it was unnecessary to detach sensism from the concept of Beauty itself, a flaw persistent within the Rococo perception. Instead, Parini needed an ideal artistic creation exemplary of contemporary painting to function as a model. The almost divine dignity of intelligence together with the constructive drive14 won over and transformed what had been described as “le tavole vetuste del secondo Mattino”. These were precisely related to the dispersion and vacuity without purpose of the giovin signore. This truly emancipating and momentous step by Parini would then run exactly parallel to the path of the painter Giacomo Ceruti. We can only hint at Ceruti’s style just in terms of representative and expressive means, stemming from his explicit sensism, and realized in country-life scenes observed with a physiocratic eye. The highlighting of the modest lives of shepherds and weavers in a framework of Arcadian idealization tells us of an achieved cohesion between realism and Arcadian-pastoral spirit.15 We shall now analyze some useful elements in order to better define how the new concept of Beauty was coherent to Parini’s aesthetics, and at the same time to those of the entire fin-de-siècle. Ugo Foscolo probably was the first to point out the effectiveness of the poetry-painting connection present in Il Giorno,16 and later Giosue Carducci was able to grasp the details of a “project of Beauty” to be acquired “per via di dipintura” (“through painting”) and thus enacted in Parini’s sonnets, especially in those where the figure of the painter Andrea Appiani is present.17 Attilio Momigliano intended to show how Parini had not always been able to accomplish his entire ‘framework’. The author would often stop at the mere description and the act of “dipinger minute” 13  Savarese 2000, 958. 14  This is the main focus of the booklet published in 1818 by Antonio Lissoni with the title Dialogo di Parini ed Appiani ai Campi Elisi, quoted and discussed in Mazzocca 2000a, 942. 15  The perspective is outlined in Frangi 2000, 1153–6. 16  Ugo Foscolo writes as follows about the subject in his Esperimenti di traduzione dell’Iliade: “In all his life Parini practised the precept ‘poetry must be painting’. We are sure that, except Dante, all other Italian poets are seldom painting, and in their whole life simply do describe. By way of meditations Parini succeeded in conquering the natural outcome of Dante’s genius; and it would be difficult to show ten consecutive verses in Parini’s poem, which a painter couldn’t take out from a complete painting, together with all requested variety of attitudes and expression.” (Foscolo 1961, 218–9: “Tutta la vita del Parini fu impiegata nel praticare la massima che la poesia dovrebbe esser pittura, ed infatti, eccettuato Dante, tutti gli altri poeti italiani soltanto eccezionalmente dipingono, e per tutto il resto descrivono. A forza di meditare al Parini riuscì quello che fu il prodotto naturale del meraviglioso genio di Dante, e sarebbe difficile indicare dieci versi consecutivi del poema pariniano, da cui un pittore non possa trarre un compiuto dipinto con tutte le varietà richieste di attitudini e di espressione.”) 17  Cf. Savarese 2000, 962–3.

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(“accurate painting”), even using William Hogarth’s style.18 As a matter of fact, no one better than Leopardi could identify and narratively bring to light all the components thanks to which Parini would soon be recognized as the main initiator of the civil function of poetry. This function combines all the arts under the perspective of an ideal Beauty, which is active in the contemporary world, and is therefore no longer an abstract element of a vague, retrograde culture.19 What happened? What had contributed to determine the “respect of the essential things especially for the individual and the necessary relationships towards the integrity of it”, which as we know has inspired in Milan the conversion to the Piermarinesque neo-classical style at an urban and architectural level?20 Simply put, it was the intention of finally giving an organic and harmonic function to isolated fragments of Beauty, plainly recognizable under the ceremonious bark of confused virtuosity and forced artifice of the seventeenth-century taste, and also under the softness of the barocchetto style and the rocaille taste, both appreciated at the time among the Lombard aristocracy.21 Parini wanted to organize the restrictive exaltation of artifice that flowed into infinite anecdotes and abstractions, largely unregulated by instances of compositional order. Thanks to their clear intention, Parini, Piermarini and the artists surrounding them begun to change the cultural horizon of the time.22 In a less basic way, and thinking specifically 18  Cf. ivi, 964–6. 19  “I think that antiquity, especially Roman and Greek, is aptly represented in the form of the statue of the poetess, warrior and country-saver Telesilla which was sculpted in Argo. This image showed her with a helmet in her hand, which she is contently admiring, in the act of putting it on her head; the statue had at its feet some books, almost forgotten by her, as a small part of her glory”. (“Io penso che l’antichità, specialmente romana o greca, si possa convenevolmente figurare nel modo che fu scolpita in Argo la statua di Telesilla, poetessa, guerriera e salvatrice della patria. La quale statua rappresentavala con un elmo in mano, intenta a mirarlo, con dimostrazione di compiacersene, in atto di volerlosi recare in capo; e a’ piedi, alcuni volumi, quasi negletti da lei, come piccola parte della sua gloria”. Giacomo Leopardi, Operette morali: il Parini, ovvero della Gloria, ch. I). 20  Frassica 2011: 95–6. 21  This cultural area has been amply researched by Oldani 2000 and Colle 2000: respectively 1003–21 and 1085–95. 22  Ivi, 1093, where Colle gets light around Parini’s words in his Introduzione al corso sui princìpi di belle lettere, where the writer invites the artists to pay particular attention to proportions and the distribution of the different parts composing a work of art: “As the artist has collected a lot of objects to represent them simultaneously, by raising in this way a stronger feeling of pleasure in our heart; and as he has collected those objects that have or may have a special, mutual proportion in the artwork, which is useful to combine them more easily into unity; and as he has divided proportionally the whole as he intended, he must preserve the order the nature of art allows him to preserve; which

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of Parini, we can say that he struggled to establish an organic and functional relationship between the scholar (or the educated man) and the system of the arts as a whole. A civil and civilizing dimension was added to this relationship, due to the constant flow of the already consolidated, neo-classical features of the arts, literature, architecture, etc.23 It was a felicis temporis reparatio, which coincided with the new cult of the immutable laws of reason and equality.24 This is also a key aspect in understanding the experience of Parini altogether, and specifically in relation to his aesthetics. To him, it was not abstract thinking: it is significant that Parini never explicitly mentions an “ideal beauty”,25 at the same time preparing this revolution in a purely humanistic key, studying the literature of the emblems.26 In fact, Parini brought back into fashion the ancient and modern mythological repertoires and iconographic dictionaries, using them to convey an ethic solicitation27 or, better, turning them into fields of creative perfection, thanks to the images derived from the Ancient world. Piermarini as well, back from Rome, had founded his classical-oriented educational project on the same basis. He also intended to develop the philosophes model for the ideal city, which significantly would have lead to the creation of a representative urban location, i.e. a unified space in which everything could take its specific function following an organic relation to all other functions.28 ­Almost everything could foretell ambiguous outcomes, as the whole project was based on the classic ordo rhetoricus precepts. Indeed, Parini came to endorse the principle – legitimized for example through the fable of “Zeuxis in

is to say that he has to distribute and place objects and parts of the work in the most suitable positions, so that they may produce the best of all possible effects”. (“Poiché l’artista ha raccolta una quantità d’oggetti affine di presentarli simultaneamente, e con ciò eccitare un più forte sentimento di piacere nell’animo nostro; poiché ha raccolto di quel genere d’oggetti che hanno o possono avere nell’opera d’arte più proporzione fra sé, affine di combinarli agevolmente nell’unità; poiché ha diviso in parti proporzionate il tutto che egli si è proposto, dee serbar l’ordine che dalla rispettiva natura dell’arte, ch’ei tratta, gli è permesso di serbare; dee cioè talmente distribuire e collocare ne’ luoghi più convenevoli gli oggetti e le parti dell’opera, che poi vengano a produrre il miglior effetto possibile”). 23  Mazzocca 2000a, 940–1. 24  Fedi 2000, 971. 25  Ivi, 973. 26  At first Alciati, then with better outcomes Ripa’s Iconologia. Both texts, together with many other reference works, were preserved in the personal library of Parini, as shown in the splendid research consolidated in Vicinelli 1963. 27  Cf. Mazzocca 2000b, XXX–XXXI. 28  It became Piazza Fontana in Milan. Cf. Barbarisi 2000 and Morgana 2000, respectively XII and XXXVI.

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Crotone” – that the artist is able to produce Beauty only by choosing and composing the scattered elements of natural beauty in his own work. At the very beginning of his lectures, Parini states that intellectual beauty “is the submission of various objects, pleasant for themselves, which are chosen, composed and ordered in such a way that they form a remarkably pleasant and interesting object” so that – Fedi writes – “the effects that the beautiful work can produce, that is pleasure and interest, seem to mean to Parini more than the essence of the work itself”.29 Parini is more than explicit on this point: Every time we treat human passions and operations, and we try to know the nature and the dispositions of men in order to fix the very principles useful for ourselves and the others, the shortest, the surest or, to say it better, the only path to take is to follow man continuously, and to spy on him, and even spy into the process of his own sensations and ideas. I hope I don’t confide too much in my opinion, when I say that a big mistake has been made through the abuse of abstractions – on subjects concerned solely with passion and taste – so that fine arts theory has been transformed in a sublimely superstitious kabbalah.30 Parini’s Beauty is therefore a perfect one, and at the same time it represents a “pure ideal type, superior to the senses”; but his ideal of Beauty “is derived from sensible proportions”, “falls under the senses” as Reina has pointed out. The artist’s calling is to improve the living experience of Beauty, within canons of precepts, of course, but firstly and foremost through inspiration by the public and civil function: It is after the mid-60s that his relationship with the political power encourages Parini to ponder on the civil service of the arts and their utility for civilian life. The author considered whether to mobilize artists in order 29  Fedi 2000, 974. 30  Parini 1925, 770: “Tutte le volte che si tratta delle passioni e delle operazioni dell’uomo e che si cerca di ben conoscerne l’indole ed il carattere per istabilire i veri Princìpii ad uso di noi medesimi o d’altrui, la più breve, la più sicura, anzi l’unica via da battersi è quella di tener dietro continuamente all’uomo stesso e di andarlo, per così dire, spiando nella successione delle sue sensazioni e nella serie delle sue idee. Nel che, se noi non attribuiamo di troppo alla nostra opinione, hanno gravemente errato coloro, i quali, anche nelle materie che appartengono ai sentimenti ed al gusto, si sono troppo abusati dell’astrazione, talmente che hanno fatto della stessa teorica delle Belle Arti una cabala sublimemente superstiziosa”.

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to physically redesign the collective life’s spaces, the city, the new Milan. Parini then praised the city’s urban development firstly in the Descrizione delle feste celebrate in Milano – dedicated to the wedding of the Archduke – and then in the booklet of Ascanio in Alba. This celebration of Milan seems to be already foreshadowed in the imaginative description of the Republican Athens traced by Pericles in the Discorso inaugurale of November 6th, 1769.31 It is important now to mention the twentieth-century discovery of a fragment of Parini’s ut pictura poësis revolving around a pen and ink drawing by Andrea Appiani.32 An autograph of the sonnet was in fact found inside the drawing’s frame and published for the first time in 1970. We are specifically talking about the Composizione allegorica per le nozze di Beatrice Cusani e Giovanni Battista Litta Modignani.33 We can see how in this work all the elements of ancient mythography are focused on sealing the topic of civil marriage (and not the theme of random or servile love) into a kind of Arcadian, edenic and ideal perspective: the Marriage of Alexander and Roxanne, Love that writes on the altar, the winged Genius, the presence of Apollo, the two embracing mothers. The sonnet thus blends myth and civic ideology under the banner of collaboration between painting and poetry,34 which corresponds perfectly to the importance that was granted to the marriage of Archduke Ferdinand with Maria Beatrice d’Este and their consequent settlement in Milan, events praised by Parini in a modern allegory, Ascanio in Alba, and in the description of the wedding celebrations. On its way to crediting a civil function that recovered the ideal values of the classical past, Parini celebrates and exalts everything in the decorations of the Palace of the Court, in 1778. The spectacular scene, beautifully described and interpreted by Gennaro Barbarisi, was highlighted by Parini, who gave an excellent literary and iconographic contribution using his favorite poetic key: a celebration of Beauty which in that period permeated every act of the prince and princess, the court and the political power in 31  Fedi 2000, 984. 32  You can find a full reconstruction of this episode in Mazzocca 2000b, XXVIII–XXIX. 33  This is the text of the sonnet: “Fingi un’ara, o Pittor. Viva e festosa / Fiamma sopra di lei s’innalzi e strida: / E l’un dell’altro degni e Sposo e Sposa / Qui congiungan le palme: e il Genio arrida. / Sorga Imeneo tra loro; e giglio e rosa / Cinga loro a le chiome. Amor si assida / Su la faretra dove l’arco ei posa; / E I bei nomi col dardo all’ara incida. / Due belle Madri al fin, colme di pura / Gioia, stringansi a gara il petto anelo, / Benedicendo lor passata cura. / E non venal Cantor sciolga suo zelo / A lieti annunci per l’età ventura: / E tuoni a manca in testimonio il Cielo”. 34  Mazzocca 2000a, 947–8.

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figure 9.1 Andrea Appiani, allegoric composition, 1793, pen drawing with touches of white lead, unknown location Nozze Amoretti, edited by Guido Vitaletti. Florence: private print, 1924

Milan.35 Beauty as cultivated by Parini has therefore to coincide with ‘modern life’, where public schools, academies, pragmatic teaching, theatrical shows, political and social life of the nobility itself were dominant features for the collective edification and education: noblemen could not be depicted by the 35  Cf. Barbarisi et al. 2000, XV–XVIII and 27 ff.

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greasepaints used for his cicisbeo anymore. The author states it clearly, even hurling against the old conception of academic teaching, in spite of the very measured tone he usually frequents: The purpose of fine arts is finding and producing Beauty. We know only a few lucky ingenious characters which by nature or almost instinctively, with no external aid at all, are urged toward it. Most other talents need someone to ease their pathway to that purpose. Many need to feel its appeals, so that, by effect of cognition, they can pursue it by themselves and can become as excellent as every other.36 The knowledge of beauty in Parini means exactly that: the establishment of harmony in the individual expands through communication to the point of encompassing what is common to the entire human species. I would like to stress yet another important aspect of this ‘reform of the taste of Beauty’, set to the clarity and balance of a true rhetorical-literary classical paideia, that is the role of the unity of arts and the influence of the “Belle Lettere (Fine Literature), Eloquence and Poetry in the progress and perfection of all the other Arti called Belle (Fine Arts)”,37 by recalling the flood of pictorial metaphors that in Parini’s writings confirm at every turn the idea of social harmony induced by Fine Literature. Indeed, we can say that the work Avvertenze generali intorno allo studio della lingua fully exalts the classicism of Parini: grammar and rhetoric, as well as vocabularies and textbooks, have no longer leading roles in his didactic system. This role has been taken over by authors and texts worthy for their material evidence, in addition to writers, historians, scientists, artists and essayists on technical matters. Leonardo is placed “among the Authors of language” because in his works “thanks to the property of terms relating to different arts, you can learn many things that are useful to the arts and sciences themselves as well.”38 Parini reassesses Machiavelli for this purpose: “Inasmuch as treating important matters such as politics, he needed to take care of the elocutive clarity, brevity and strength rather than the ornaments, as he did”. He writes about Vasari: “with his style and manner 36  Parini 1925, 884: “Il fine delle belle arti si è il ritrovamento e la produzione del bello […] Pochissimi sono que’ fortunati genii che, naturalmente, quasi per istinto, e senza nessun esteriore soccorso, vengono rapiti alla volta di esso. La maggior parte degli altri talenti hanno bisogno che sia loro appianata la via che ad esso conduce. Per molti è necessario di farne loro sentire una volta le attrattive, perché, conosciutolo, vi corrano poi dietro da sé, e divengano al pari d’ogn’altro eccellenti”. 37  Morgana 2000, XXXVI. 38  Ivi, XL.

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of writing he enchants the readers, and it seems to them that they do not read, but they actually see what he tells them”. Then Parini goes on commenting that “we only want you to put the reading of useful and excellent things first, before the mediocre and unnecessary ones”, and that is why the last example is Galileo Galilei, not only because he is the founder of the scientific prose, but above all because he “wrote with the regularity and naturalness of style that befits a philosopher, who has great things to say and only cares about being well understood.” Acknowledgements I am grateful to Philip Stockbrugger for careful revision of the English language in this article. References Barbarisi, Gennaro. 2000. “Parini e le Arti nella Milano Neoclassica.” In Parini e le Arti nella Milano Neoclassica, a cura di Graziella Buccellati e Anna Marchi, XI–XXV. Milano: Università degli Studi. Barbarisi, Gennaro, et al. (a cura di). 2000. L’amabil rito. Società e cultura nella Milano di Parini, vol. 2: La musica e le arti. Milano: Cisalpino. Bramieri, Luigi e Pizzetti, Pompilio. 1801. Della vita e degli scritti di Giuseppe Parini. Lettere di due amici. Piacenza: Ghiglioni. Buccellati, Graziella e Marchi, Anna (a cura di). 2000. Parini e le Arti nella Milano Neoclassica. Milano: Università degli Studi. Colle, Enrico. 2000. “La polemica sul lusso: l’arredo.” In Barbarisi et al. 2000, 1085–94. Fedi, Francesca. 2000. “Parini e i teorici del Neoclassicismo.” In Barbarisi et al. 2000, 969–92. Foscolo, Ugo. 1961. Esperimenti di traduzione dell’Iliade. A cura di Gennaro Barbarisi. Firenze: Le Monnier. Frangi, Francesco. 2000. “‘Dai pitocchi al buon villan’. Metamorfosi della pittura di genere a Milano negli anni di Parini.” In Barbarisi et al. 2000, 1145–62. Frassica, Piero. 1976. “Appunti sul linguaggio figurativo del Parini dal ‘Giorno’ ai ‘Soggetti’.” Aevum 5–6: 565–87. Frassica, Piero. 2009. “Quadri d’epoca. Dalle arti figurative al ‘Giorno’ e ai ‘Soggetti’.” In Le Muse cangianti tra letteratura e arti figurative, Atti del Convegno internazionale

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(Alessandria-San Salvatore Monferrato, maggio 2009), a cura di Giovanna Ioli, 91– 101. Novara: Interlinea. Isella, Dante. 1968. L’officina della “Notte”. Milano-Napoli: Ricciardi. Leopardi, Giacomo. 2008. Il Parini, ovvero della Gloria. In id. Operette morali. A cura di Laura Melosi, 291–350. Milano: Rizzoli. Mazzocca, Ferdinando. 2000a. “Il letterato e le arti: l’eredità del modello Parini.” In Barbarisi et al. 2000, 935–950. Mazzocca, Ferdinando. 2000b. “Parini arbitro del gusto e consulente degli artisti.” In Buccellati e Marchi 2000, XXVI–XXXIII. Morgana, Silvia. 2000. “Le Lezioni di Giuseppe Parini professore di Belle Lettere a Milano.” In Buccellati e Marchi 2000, XXXIV–XL. Oldani, Alessandro. 2000. “La scuola di ornato dell’Accademia di Brera. Materiali e modelli.” In Barbarisi et al. 2000, 1003–22. Parini, Giuseppe. 1925. De’ principii fondamentali e generali delle belle lettere applicati alle belle arti. In Id. Tutte le opere edite e inedite. A cura di Guido Mazzoni, 117–41. Firenze: Barbèra. Savarese, Gennaro. 2000. “L’ut pictura poesis mediatrice tra poesia e critica pariniana.” In Barbarisi et al. 2000, 951–68. Vicinelli, Augusto. 1963. Il Parini e Brera. L’inventario e la pianta delle sue stanze. La sua azione nella scuola e nella cultura Milanese del secondo ’700. Milano: Ceschina.

chapter 10

Amorose e di galanteria: Considerations about the Language of Love, Beauty and Desire in Some Unpublished Poems by Giulio Bajamonti Monica De Rosa 1 Introduction In eighteenth-century Italy, the debate about “fine arts” developed within a theoretical context in which the themes of beauty and pleasure, sensibility and imagination, genius and taste were strictly connected. In the eighteenthcentury Aesthetics, the link between beauty and art is heavily related to the emotional force of the poetic subject and its expressive strength: the portrayal of females is centred on the concept of beauty as harmony, whose vision also conveys health and life. The “fine arts” rise within pleasure and sensuous delight. This paper analyses, from a language and style point of view, some unpublished love poems by Giulio Bajamonti. The analysis starts from the evidence, in Bajamonti’s poems, of the idea of beauty closely relying on the sensitive dimension of our sensory perception. Giulio Bajamonti was a Dalmatian poet, musician, doctor and scholar; an eclectic intellectual who has been recently reconsidered in several branches of Humanities research. He wrote in Italian, as it was especially customary for literary works in Venetian dominions until the early nineteenth century, and his writing is one of the most important examples of the wide use of Italian language in the poetic experiences of the Levantine coast.1 2

The Aesthetic Ideas in Europe and Italy

The European aesthetic debate about beauty and taste, judgment and knowledge, senses and imagination developed quickly, and broadened the 1  This contribution is part of a wider research project which investigates the literary experiences in Italian language, their reception and processing in foreign countries. Specifically, it focused on the city of Split in the eighteenth century attempting to examine the use of the language and the different metrics, literary forms and genres therein adopted. I would like to thank here who kindly revised this paper (in alphabetical order): Russell Bishop, Michelle Cassab and Paola Marchionni. © koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2019 | doi:10.1163/9789004388956_012

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ingenious power of perception also to the users of the works of art. Eighteenth century empirical thought attained the concept of “gusto” as the structural basis of aesthetic fruition and the demand for objectivity underlies the analysis of beauty and taste. The aesthetic question becomes an enquiry about the acceptance, enjoyment and interpretation of the artworks rather than about their production processes. “Gusto”, intended as consumers’ taste for art, and judgment come to be the keywords of aesthetic and philosophical studies. Meanwhile, in Italy the concept of “gusto” never evolved as something referred to “fruition” but, especially at the beginning, it acquired an exterior meaning related to the anti-Baroque controversy. The idea of “buon gusto” was used as an obstacle to the Baroque stylistic hyperboles and wit, a refusal of Baroque style in order to restore the utile dulci of the great classics tradition.2 The new consciousness of the role of art consumers scarcely affected Italian scholars who barely took into consideration the methodological instances of the new aesthetic processes, and the notions of “gusto” and “buon gusto” narrowly dealt with the most advanced theories of European thinkers such as Hume’s Of the Standard of Taste (1757) or Batteux’s Les Beaux-Arts réduits à un méme principe (1746). Batteux reflects upon the fine arts, which have pleasure as their object and find their unique principle in the imitation of nature. This imitation, however, has to be a selective imitation reproducing an idealized nature, whereas Diderot judged art the first system of interpretation of the world through expressive symbols which produce pleasure and feelings of possession. In his opinion, beauty is generated from the connection between the emblematic originality of the work of art and the spectator’s emotions. Baumgarten, largely recognized as the father of modern Aesthetic, defines this concept as sensible knowledge (Franzini, Mazzocut-Mis 2003, 18) while Kant, in whose opinion the beautiful derives from the free interplay between sensibility and intellect, asserts that it deals with the subject who perceives rather than with the contemplated object (Kant 1979). In Italy, the debate seems to rely on the technical-stylistic facets of art, keeping the focus of aesthetic perception on the aspects of production rather than on reception. A certain disposition to rhetorical discourse affected Italian learned men. Even when they openly declared they had abandoned poetic precepts, they still considered art from a Humanistic point of view, discussing the problem from the artist’s work perspective and not from the audience’s viewpoint in terms of enjoyment. The technical-rhetorical concern had disappeared from speculative thinking abroad: it was considered a suitable 2  For the ideas expressed in the eighteenth century debate about the new role of beauty see also Ciccuto’s chapter in this volume.

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way to produce art during a period in which the artist was the protagonist in the relationship between art and people, that is, during the Humanistic age or Renaissance. In the eighteenth century the aesthetic experience was considered from the point of view of the public’s delight. It began to be valued as a sort of “anthropology of taste” (Morpurgo 2002, 32) in which the role of the public was considered as part of the work of art. The contribution of Italian literary essays was greatly influential in Europe thanks to the role of Italian writers as continuers of a great tradition that would never disappear. Nevertheless, they missed the central question of their age concerning art and its aesthetic enjoyment. They did not have a methodological approach to the matter and lacked an empirical dimension when discussing the problem. In other words, they did not address their research towards the foundation of an objectivity of the aesthetic choice, or its historicity and homogeneity. For Italian scholars, the concept of beauty will always be regarded as a system of rules. They shift their own point of view from the field of public perception to that of the laws of creative process. In poetry production, the aesthetic perception remains a relationship between the poet and the object of his versifying. The representation of beauty and the idea of imagination as a form of knowledge and its effects on readers are transformed into a set of technical precepts for the writer, resulting in unnatural proceedings. The most brilliant foresights, such as those by Gravina on the cognitive strength of imagination and poetry, are compromised by a traditional normative suit that rarely allows expressive impulses (ibid.). The enjoyment of users of art as a form of judgment was not legitimate. Even if the concept of “gusto” in Muratori’s conception is related to judgment, it is a judgment which deals with rationality and it is the ability of the authors to discern the right image. The canons for the creation of beauty were more important than the condition of taste. Rhetorical aspects of the artistic process were contemplated more than philosophical ones. According to Ludovico Muratori’s Della perfetta poesia italiana (1706), the commonly used term “buon gusto”3 has a completely different meaning and it is intended as the fruitful strength of the author in creating images, but the rhetorical pleasure of imagination does not lead to a vitalistic interpretation of art. Through the use of powerful words, the artist may re-create nature and let 3  According to Muratori, the “buon gusto” is the possibility to know and judge what is wrong, inappropriate, imperfect or mediocre in science and art in order to look out for it, and what is better and perfect in order to follow it with the maximum strength (Riflessioni sopra il buon gusto intorno le scienze e le arti, 1708, 13). It is easy to derive that in this work the “buon gusto” is intended as the author’s fruitful strength rather than an attitude of the audience that is, indeed, perceived as a sterile strength.

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the audience feel the same effects as the reality. The poet may “rappresentar sì vivamente le cose che sembri ad altrui d’averne presente la verità”, and may confer “vivezza e leggiadria”4 (Muratori 1971, 571–2) to their poetical portrayal using imagination and extraordinary words in order to convey feelings such as sorrow, pain, fear or passion into the reader’s mind. The more detailed objects are described, the more vivid they may appear to readers: the bright and simpler form of fancy is that which can produce a “dipintura dei particolari”5 (Morpurgo 2002, 53), but the natural fantasy does not lead Italian thinkers and artists toward the use of a vivid imagination as a form of knowledge. Some years before, in his Discorso delle antiche favole (1696), Gravina also attested that passion and “delirio” are sources of poetic illusion, and so is love, which is above all the most powerful of our affections and impresses in our minds the image of what is desired, the “sembiante desiderato” which fully engages our fantasy. Gravina recognizes that imagination has the power to stimulate a certain “incanto di fantasia” that would arouse the same feelings as reality in readers imitating nature in an effortless way, as it happens in dreams. The most effective words are simple, plain, and clear, without any sense of declamation. Fictional artwork completely reinvents reality through the use of fancy images producing suggestions in readers’ intellect; the perception of beauty is thus reinforced by the imaginative strength which recreates the poet’s love object. Similarly, the poet may still be delighted when his beloved is far away because the strength of imagination, reproducing her semblance, may easily mislead his psyche. This kind of delight in absence of the love object is attested in Crescimbeni’s Della Bellezza della volgar poesia (1700) with the idea that the contemplation of a woman’s beauty also brings health and life. Nature is the source of beauty and art reproduces it by imitation, the concept of variety makes this beauty perfect (Crescimbeni 1700, 4). The image of the beloved woman drives the dichotomy between sense and intellect, both constituting the loving sentiment, to the highest level of love and this platonic love, a universal feeling in which woman’s beauty is universal at the same rate, may mirror one another (ivi, 49). Moving from these authors’ conceptions, the ideas about beauty, love, happiness and the strength of imagination run throughout the whole century variously discussed in the several cultural circles of the Italian peninsula. Antonio Conti, for example, theorizes about the “particolareggiamento”, a very detailed ability to imitate nature. He was an admirer of Gravina and master of 4  The poet may “represent things so vividly that they seem real to people” and may confer “vivacity and grafulness” (my transl.). 5  “A very detailed picture” (my transl.).

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the young Cesarotti in Padua. In 1762 Melchiorre Cesarotti seems to present the first original re-elaboration of the problem of taste in an Enlightenment perspective in his Ragionamento sopra l’origine e i progressi dell’arte poetica. With Cesarotti’s essay, the plain Arcadic vision of nature is broken. Nature became passionate and imagination works with its infinite variety of combinations and forms in which the plant of poetry grows. The imitative capability of the poet conveys several aspects of universal beauty and even the readers’ perception is now considered part of this variable delight (Morpurgo 2002, 86). In this paper, the analysis is particularly focused on a number of poems on love and gallantry, still unpublished, which reflect the aesthetic principles of the time: Giulio Bajamonti’s love poems pertain to the literary Italian language production within the complex cultural framework of the late eighteenth century. They bring to light their perfect harmony with the main canons of the era, reflecting the aesthetic principles of expression, imagination and contemplation. These ideas, moving from Crescimbeni’s precepts, go through the stylistic modulations of the Academy of Arcadia and reach Rolli’s or Metastasio’s versification. Echoing even beyond Italian borders, they achieve the “volutes” of Neoclassical poetry. The analytical approach of the study starts from the evidence shown in Bajamonti’s poems of an idea of beauty closely related to the “sensible”, a dimension belonging to sensory perception, and which even the feeling of pleasure leads to. Bajamonti’s lyrics concern the intellect lingering on enjoyment which is derived from the contemplation of beauty. 3

Italian Language Experiences on the Adriatic Levantine Shore

The influences from the western shore of the Adriatic, the circulation of people, equipment, and especially ideas meant that intellectuals from the Dalmatian coast adopted styles and forms of creative expression from the Italian side. Reworking them in an original way and, sometimes, through independent paths, they find their peculiar expression in linguistic interchange and ductility of genres. Over the centuries, dating back to the Middle Ages, historical and literary documents, archival papers and written records provide evidence of trade between the two coasts and the choice of Italian as the official language of communication. Since the fourteenth century, eminent Italian intellectuals were invited to teach in Dalmatian schools and educate students on grammar,

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writing and other sciences, as well as the rules of good behaviour (Rožman and Šimunković 2003, 13). Notaries, clerks, doctors, but also the tutors of rich families’ children, especially nobles, were the factors that contributed to the expansion of Humanistic ideas (Voje 1982, 81; Giammarco 2011, 70). As well as denoting a solid groundwork of cultural literacy along the Croatian coast, these presences highlight the perception of the Italian language as the language of literature and culture. It is essential to restore the historical memory of the past, back to Marco Marulić and the Humanistic circle of Split, in order to describe the cultural life of the city in the eighteenth century with a historical approach, identifying alternating cultural continuity and discontinuity conveyed also by the local, Adriatic and European political and economic status. It was a long lasting linguistic and literary osmosis. Started since the Humanistic season, it developed through authors like Aelius Lampridius Cervinus, Marko Marulić, Sisko Menčetić, Marin Držić, Ivan Gundulić the Raguseio up to Ignjat Đurđević. Stretching from Petrarch until the early Eighteenth, the “long century” ‒ as the Renaissance is considered by many ‒ brought its ramifications into the Croatian eighteenth century, which was the extreme offshoot of an unrepeatable literary and linguistic combination. This osmosis, which was active since the fifteenth century, rekindles the still deep-seated substrate of a literature that found, in its linguistic diversity, a suitable space to accommodate the wide range of feelings and human passions (Giammarco 2011, 71–86). The history of the reformism of the Italian eighteenth century has been characterized by a multiplicity of states and civic realities which have to be taken into account because of the specific nature that the receiving environment assumes. This would be particularly true for the countries of the Venetian Republic, for which the eighteenth century cannot be considered as a homogeneous movement of ideas and culture (Diaz 2005, 225) but in actual fact it refracts a variety of shapes, interests, stances and tones that often express a different attitude beside the better known usual aspects of Venice style, worldliness, elegance and decadence, with its sense of hedonistic life and literature. The multiplicity of interests and positions is explained by the complex and various cultural geography of the Republic and its peripheral territories, where the distance from the main city could determine a heterogeneous profusion of stimuli. During the eighteenth century, as we know, the birth of Arcadia proposed an anti-Baroque poetic and achieved the unification of a whole cultural structure on an over-regional or national level, by promoting innovative ways for the development of the cultural elites that freed them from the patronage of the noble classes. The Arcadia was primarily born as an autonomous organization

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for writers who were no longer influenced by flattery or subservience to the Lords. Later it effected the birth of a considerable “middle class” (Beniscelli 2005, 11) consisting of lawyers, doctors, clergymen, professors, and intellectuals whose choices and behaviour enabled to reconsider the strong connection of literary expertise to the nobiliary code which had characterized the previous century. The aspiration to regain a lofty and balanced language is a common ground for many poets and the reason behind their versification, so that the exercise of poetry mainly becomes a test of culture to show off during the representation of various public and private solemnities. Especially in Venice, the practice of versification is widely spread and poetry develops into a game or parade to exhibit into society, or in occasional poetry (Binni 2005). Nevertheless, even in this most humble form and in its undeniable effects, this mood of producing poetry has proved the conception of the poet as a cultured creator of words. In Split, the eighteenth century is entirely part of the aforementioned cultural mould. The most outstanding figures are perfectly framed in the social entourage, cultured and enlightened, pertaining to the city’s elite: doctors, clergymen, lawyers, professors but also men from the city’s gentry redesign, as in other places in Italy, a cultural geography which fits in with the most advanced debates of the era with expertise and knowledge. Their use of the Italian language really shows mastery in practising this medium, through which they even reveal a perfect adherence to the stylistic, rhetorical and aesthetical attitudes which develop in Italy and reverberate on the Croatian coast. Actually the eighteenth century, like the previous one, is more prone to the ancient tradition rather than oriented to search new poetic expressions, and occasional poetry represents much of the poetic production. In the course of the century, plenty of hymns, odes, elegies, madrigals, sonnets, parodies, epigrams versified for any occurrence are witnessed in Split6 (Šimunković 2012, 60). Such compositions reproduce forms and styles that, with the subsequent evocations of Arcadia, express their voices of occasional poetry, the poetic 6  Among those who wrote occasional poetry in Split, it is worth remembering, for example, the Bishop of Hvar, Gian Domenico Stratico, a vivid intellectual in contact with the most advanced cultural circles of the time; Canon Antonio Tokić, whose verses reveal a languid and intimate note; Francesco Giannuizzi, Professor of Rhetoric and Literature at the Seminary of Split, who had probably been also a master of Ugo Foscolo; Niccolò Grisogono or Antonio Radoš di Michieli Vitturi, who was mentioned in 1790 as a corresponding member of the Academy of Sciences, Letters and Arts of Padua (Šimunković 2012, 60). This lyric production includes anacreontic verses that highlight a certain elegance and interesting metaphors, such as “l’adriaca donna” (ivi, 148) clearly referring to Venice, or the allusion to Pietro Bembo and his Prose della volgar lingua, work of that genius dear to the Muses that “padre della lingua oggi s’appella” (ivi, 175: “[that genius who] today we can call father of the Italian language”, my transl.), as Grisogono recognizes him.

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manner broadly widespread in the eighteenth century, particularly in Venice and its territories (Binni, 2005). 4

Jiulije Bajamonti, an Eclectic Character from Dalmatia

Giulio Bajamonti was one of the most complete, productive and liberal intellectuals in Dalmatia during the eighteenth century. He wrote sonnets, ballads, songs, pastoral eclogues. As a musician, he also wrote several operas, melodramas and sacred music, many of which remained unpublished, and transcribed the music and lyrics of some popular songs heard in Dalmatia and Bosnia during his travels with his companion Alberto Fortis, for whom Bajamonti was also one of the most reliable informants. He graduated in 1773 at the University of Padua and remained in touch with the Paduan cultural circles all his life. From the transcripts of those old songs, one of the most interesting cultural debates of the era will be built. It developed among the Croatian cultural circles, the Padua entourage (especially the scholars working with Melchiorre Cesarotti) and intellectual circles all over Europe. Alberto Fortis was one of the most trustworthy students at Cesarotti’s Seminar and was admitted to the conversations with Toaldo (Chiancone 2010). A few years later, in an epistle in blank hendecasyllables dedicated to Gasparo Gozzi, he described that cluster of friends as a “brigatella” of Toaldo’s friends, including Vallisnieri, Gozzi and Cesarotti, focused on spending their time pleasantly in an animated heavenly harmony among books, cards and lovely conversations in the hospitable mansion of the beloved master, whose virtues fill the mind and the heart up (Fortis 1762, VIII–X). A group that, before being a cultural fellowship, was an association that gathered to discuss the cult of moral beauty, art and culture. Moreover, Fortis, at the end of the century, became a crucial figure for the relationships between Italy and Dalmatia. In 1774, in fact, he released, in Venice, an account of his trip to Dalmatia accompanied by Bajamonti, a reworking of three expeditions which took place one after another. The second volume Dei costumi dei Morlacchi includes the translation of the mournful song Canzone dolente della nobile sposa d’Asan Aga’ (o Asanaganica) (Fortis 2010, 88–95), the first folk poem translated from Illyrian language into Italian, which started the literary vogue connected to the representation of the Morlaches (Leto 1992, 109–12; Giammarco 2011, 99). In Padua, Fortis and Bajamonti attended the literary salon of Fortis’s mother, Francesca Maria Bragnis, which was also frequented by Toaldo, Vallisnieri, Cesarotti and many others. The latter, moreover, together with Bajamonti and

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Fortis, animated the Giustiniana Wynne literary salon in Angelo Querini’s villa in Altichiero and all three exchanged letters with Giustiniana Wynne (Pizzamiglio 2007, 366–9). Furthermore, in 1788 she wrote Les Morlaques,7 a novel that was reviewed by Cesarotti on the Nuovo Giornale Enciclopedico in 1789 and in which he identified “la concreta attuazione di quell’idea della poesia generata dalla natura e dal sentimento”.8 The numerous twentiethcentury essays concerning Melchiorre Cesarotti have thoroughly demonstrated the prominent role that the Italian author played in the relationship between Italian and European cultures at the turn of the nineteenth century. There are numerous studies that define Cesarotti’s position between Italy and England. He should not be considered only because of his intense and prolonged activity as a translator, but also for the critical response he provided to the varied European debate on the arts, language, landscape, and aspects of aesthetic taste, a debate which deeply involved his disciples. Epistles, archival collections and unpublished documents allow the exploration of the network of relationships across borders which sustained these comrades in a spirit of brotherhood united by readings, terminology and stylistic formulas resulting from a similar substrate which, even when there is no evidence in the certainty of data records, stands out strongly by literary texts, as in Bajamonti’s poetry, where the extent of the mastery in Italian versification is shown. Because of the many different activities Bajamonti was involved in, he was considered one of the most cultured personalities, a versatile and progressive Dalmatian of the second half of the eighteenth century. Specialized in historical research, natural phenomena, improving the economy, criticism, translation and lexicography, he was a real encyclopaedic spirit, a polygraph in complete accordance with the spirit of the time. Moreover, he was also a prolific author, a physician, a scholar, a linguist, an ethnographer, an economics scholar and an agronomist too. He was a committed liberal and a Voltairean by philosophical and existential training. He became an active member of numerous academies and cultural institutions and founded the Società Economica di Spalato in 1767 together with Giovanni Moller, Giuseppe Vincenzo Ivellio, Leone Urbani, and others (Božić-Bužančić 1995, 44). His poetic production includes songs, ballads, canzonets and pastoral eclogues which, through the centuries, link the bonds back to the fifteenth 7  It may be interesting to note that the first Italian translation of Wynne’s novel Les Morlaques was by the Dalmatian Gian Domenico Stratico, Bishop of Hvar, but unfortunately it has been lost. A following edition has been published in Padua (1798) by an anonymous and it is titled Costumi de’ Morlacchi (Leto 1992, 124). 8  “A practical fulfilment of the idea of ​​poetry created by nature and feelings” (Cesarotti 1789, 57, my transl.).

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century voice of the Sannazaro’s Naples. In Bajamonti’s sonnets, the verses can be witty and ironic or offer a clear and unexpected recall of contiguity, as in “d’un aspro scoglio infido, e disadorno”9 (Bajamonti in Šimunković 2012, 150), which, though it recollects a personal experience, also revives echoes of Petrarch. Thus, in Bajamonti’s poetry, the whole Italian poetic tradition is revealed and the language joins personal experience, myth and nature in one voice. According to Tommaseo (Bezić 2012), Bajamonti is a refined versifier and has that fruitful and lively imagination that enables him to generate images, as a poet should, according to Metastasio’s opinion (Binni 2005, 640–1). Any poet who wants others to see inside his works needs this faculty in order to create poems which, specifically in the eighteenth-century, produce such a poetry that is “garbata, limpida, in versi facili, in facili rime, in sciolti decorosi, che era intrinsecamente letteratura: per una parte erotica e galante”.10 Preserved in the State Archives in Zagreb with signature IV 63, the manuscript is simply titled “Poesie di Giulio Bajamonti”, and on the verso of the first page, by a different hand, it brings the words “Autografo dagli eredi donato ad Antonio Carraciolo”.11 Consulted as a photocopy at the Historical Archive of Split only for the part of the Italian poems, the whole manuscript is wider and is composed by several sections containing poems in Croatian and French too. The Italian segment consists of 67 handwritten sheets numbered up to page 134. The Italian lyrics are again grouped according to the poetic 9   G. Bajamonti, Sonetto, l. 1 “On a rugged rock, treacherous and bare” (my transl.). This sonnet is part of a collection of poems by different authors written for a Recital in honour of Vincenzo Bembo, Governor of Split, played on the 2nd of December 1789. All the readings have been transcribed by Šimunković (2012, 150). 10  As claimed by Croce (1946, 8), the eighteenth-century poetry was “Polite, in easy verses, in easy rhymes, in decent blank [hendecasyllables] that was inherently literature: for a part erotic and gallant” (my transl.). 11  Bajamonti’s Poems are unpublished. The manuscript is described and some of the poems are partly published, cited and translated here for the first time. All the translations of Bajamonti’s poems and any other translation from the MS. have to be intended as mine. According to the needs of the analysis, the translations firstly have respected the partition of the verses. The rhythm, stresses and rhymes has been kept when possible. On the front of the first page of the MS. is written: “Poesie di Giulio Bajamonti. Autografo dagli eredi donato ad Antonio Caracciolo (Poems by Giulio Bajamonti. Autograph given to Antonio Carraciolo by the heirs, my transl.)”. It is not specified if this note concerns to the Torella family, an important and noble Neapolitan family of the time. Nevertheless, it is worth noting that several decades earlier, Muratori had added a dedication to Antonio Caracciolo, Prince of Torella, to the editions of Della perfetta poesia italiana following the first edition (Della perfetta poesia italiana, 1971, 1). This Prince of Torella could probably be considered an ancestor of the Antonio Caracciolo mentioned in Bajamonti’s Poems first page.

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genre. Each page is penned both on the front and on the back, except for the pages containing the titles of each section. The first section is titled Amorose e di galanteria and consists of thirty poems. The following sections are dedicated to weddings, funerals, praises, or the title of the section simply determines the genre: holy, burlesque, moral etc. The manuscript contains the whole casuistry of occasional poetry.12 Within the section Amorose e di galanteria the lyrics are still mostly divided by theme or topic: declarations of love, poems dedicated to the beautiful woman, wailing for her distance, songs for unrequited or ended love and the adulation of the wonderful virtues or faculties of the beloved woman or her physical qualities, above all her magnificent eyes. With regard to the love section, this seems to have a well-defined repartition, a minute collection of poems that appears to move along the fil rouge of a love story: the courtship, the falling in love, the lamentation because of distance, the betrayal and abandonment until a new love arrives. This is the path that characterizes the first part of love lyrics. Other poems always follow on the gallant matter but vary in regards to the thematic proposition. The small Bajamonti’s collection of poems may be considered an attempt to reconstruct a brief story echoing the archaic structure and narrative scanning of the traditional songbooks, but it does not possess their strength and aesthetical power. Even if the sequence of the poems seems to follow a narrative scheme, the name of the female protagonist of any single lyric is not always the same. Rather than denying the consequential action of the course of love, Bajamonti seems to transpose the love story on a universal plan; from a personal situation it becomes an emblematic dimension in which any human being may appear to be involved. The plural object “Bellezze care” in the lyric Tenerezza, immediately placed after the proemial sonnet, seems to confirm this hypothesis, essentially introducing the diversification of the figures in the subsequent poems. In Tenerezza, the poet addresses a plural “you” who, from

12  As with the first section, the others are also precisely titled. The second section is Nuziali and consists of seven poems; the third part is titled Lode di vari personaggi and contains twenty-four poems. On the head of the initial page of the section Bajamonti wrote by hand that the first five sonnets would have been better in the gallantry section. The fourth section is titled Funebri and consists of fifteen poems; the fifth section is Morali, it consists of twelve poems and is divided from the previous and the following sections by a blank page. The sixth section is titled Sacre and contains fourteen poems; the last section is titled Burlesche and contains nine poems. Annotations, inscriptions or dedications are sometimes written down by Bajamonti himself or by a different hand.

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time to time, will acquire the features of a Nice, a Giulia, a Chloris or Fille, each one a protagonist of only one story that is the love story of the poet-lover. Although the echo of a slight ancestral Petrarchan structure is barely perceptible, nevertheless, many other influences are detectable in the Bajamonti’s production, starting from the debate about taste and beauty, intended both in an aesthetic sense and as the beauty of the represented object, that is the woman, or the beauty of the landscape or the spirit. Among these, we can take into account Addison’s positions, greatly influential in eighteenth-century Italy.13 He seems to be the one who set up the new course 13  Addison’s ideas in Italy are mainly conveyed by the influence and the translations of the Spectator. Published by Addison and Steele, it was a fundamental model for the great Italian journalistic season characterized by the printing of the Osservatore veneto, the Frusta letteraria and the Caffè during the 1760s. This is an unquestionable point because the founders of the three most important journalistic expressions in Italy, respectively Gozzi, Baretti and Verri, programmatically declared the debt of inspiration due to the English journal in their newspapers – and sometimes from the title. Founded by Gasparo Gozzi, l’Osservatore veneto, first weekly, then biweekly, came out from February 1761 to August 1762 in Venice. La Frusta letteraria di Aristarco Scannabue was a fortnightly periodical founded in Venice in 1763. Published between 1763 and 1765, it was directed and written almost entirely by the intellectual Giuseppe Baretti, under the pseudonym of Aristarco Scannabue. Il Caffè was published from June 1764 to May 1766 in Milan. It was created by Pietro Verri and Alessandro Verri with the contribution of the philosopher and scholar Cesare Beccaria, and the group that used to meet at the Accademia dei Pugni. Published from 1711 to 1712, The Spectator was promptly proposed in French around the mid-nineteenth with the title of Spectateur, ou le Socrates moderne, and several reprints followed each other up to the central decades of the century. The French translation had a great echo at European level and was the text on which the first Italian version of the work was founded on. The Spectator was prepared by the Venetian Cesare Frasponi towards the end of the 1720s with the very long title, Il filosofo alla moda, ovvero Il maestro universale di quanto è oggidì proprio ad istruire, e divertire. Ricavato dall’opera di varj scrittori anonimi intitolato Lo spectateur, ou Le Socrate (Frasponi 1728–30). Frasponi’s translation was again published by Tommaso Bettinelli in Venice by the end of the 1740s (Forlesi 2017, 82). The literature about Addison’s reception in Italy is known (above all cf. Niedda 1993), as it is also known that his several travels in Italy influenced his ideas. Carried out between 1703 and 1705, they are reported in Remarks on Several parts of Italy (1705). Up to now the Spectator’s influence has been strongly recognized both from the point of view of the fortune of Addison in eighteenth-century Italy and, on a broader level, as further signs of cosmopolitan openness of the Italian intellectuals to contemporary literature beyond the Alps. Nevertheless, the prodromes of the Italian reception of the Spectator as possible source, hypothesis and vehicle of mediation remain until now unexplored, and they deserve to be explored further. An overall assessment of the reception of the Addisonian work in Italy in the eighteenth century still remains Arturo Graf’s work, L’anglomania e l’influsso inglese in Italia nel secolo XVIII (1911), but he did not know about Addison’s Spectator Italian translation (Forlesi 2017, 81). At any rate, Addison’s idea permeated the cultural circles of the Venetian territories where the role Cesarotti played

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of English speculation about art and beauty (Morpurgo 2002, 147) and can be considered one of the authors whose new ideas mostly influenced certain circles in the North of Italy: “Our Sight is the most perfect and most delightful of all our Senses. It fills the Mind with the largest Variety of Ideas, converses with its Objects at the greatest Distance, and continues the longest in Action without being tired or satiated with its proper Enjoyment” (Addison 1712, 411). The sight, therefore, the most perfect of the senses through which imagination can create, can also re-create the vision of the admired object when it is far away. The concepts of well-being and happiness bestowed by the vision of the beloved woman are well rooted in Bajamonti’s lyrics, both when they express a speculative attitude and mere technical skill. This is already clear from the prefatory sonnet Dichiarazione d’amore where, in the first quatrain, all the elements of the poetic beauty, as they have been outlined, are contained. Among them, happiness – expressed by the adjective “happy” –, in particular, represents that certain well-being which is identified in the object of the poet’s falling in love and occupies the central position in the first verse – “felice” – strengthened by the inversion which places the adjectives “felice” and “caro” before the name “istante”: “Da quel per me felice e caro istante” (l. 1). Moreover, the influence of Crescimbeni’s thesis, as they are expressed by Aegina in the dialogues Della bellezza della volgar poesia (Crescimbeni 1700), is perpetuated throughout the century and reformulated in different forms. Therefore, it may be easy to identify those canons that, through the three different styles of the sublime, humble and moderate, enrol each love poem within those coordinates shifting from sensual to platonic love. The presence of the “Gods” in the next verse may substantiate the poet’s intention to place his songs on the top of the aforementioned tripartition. The Gods are directly called upon as those who foster the meeting and the vision of the woman, and their presence clarifies the author’s intent in raising his love matter from a purely sensual level. This intention, which basically cannot be said to be completely unsuccessful, may be confirmed in the next quatrain, where the poet reveals that the woman’s way of thinking and speaking (the “ragionar”) kindled him most than just the semblance, moving from a sensitive dimension to a more conceptual one. with his popularizing action on the Italian-British scene, in which poetics and aesthetics tend to bow to the sublime notion of taste, should not be forgotten. Even if not directly approached, Addison’s ideas permeate the Venetian cultural circles under several aspects, from the conceptions around beauty and taste to the ideas about variety of nature and landscapes. In this atmosphere, Bajamonti, who was able to read and write both in Italian and French and whose interests ranged from classics to contemporaries, could be very likely influenced.

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Dichiarazione d’amore Da quel per me felice e caro istante, In cui tanto mi fur gli dei cortesi, Che lor piacque guidarmi a te davante, E ch’io ti vidi e tua favella intesi. Tal nel mio cor fe’ colpo il tuo sembiante, E del tuo ragionar così m’accesi, Che te sola poss’io pregiar fra quante Donne prima e dappoi mi fur palesi. Se dunque altra io non trovo a te simile, Se il merto tuo quel d’ogni donna atterra, Se tutte in tuo confronto io tengo a vile; Tu a me pietosa il tuo favor disserra, E soffri che a te sola io serva umile, O senza donne sia per me la terra. Bajamonti s. a., 2, ll. 1–1414

Indeed, the sensitive experience expresses its centrality – and its conclusion – in the closing of the quatrain, where, through the metric device of a parallelism “E ch’io ti vidi e tua favella intesi” (l. 4), Bajamonti underlines the value of sight in the process leading to enjoyment and happiness, adding to it the sense of hearing. From this initial dimension of the senses, the sonnet is transposed onto a higher plane where, close to the consideration of the inner intellectual qualities of the woman, with emphasis on her “ragionar”, her superiority will be stated, in comparison to so many other women that the poet might meet (“fra quante / Donne prima e dappoi furon palesi” l. 7–8), making the object of his desire exclusive and the lack of it universal: “O senza donne sia per me la terra” (l. 14). Moreover, the process of falling in love through the eyes and the subsequent pursuit of happiness are entrenched in a tradition that holds its roots in the

14  Bajamonti’s poems will be indicated by the number of the page in the MS. and the number of the quoted verses. Declaration of love. Since that moment, for me happy and dear / when the Gods were so graceful to me / ‘Cause they liked to drive me forethee / And I see thee and hear thy talk. // So in my heart thy semblance impressed / And thy discourse kindled me so / That only thee I can appreciate amid / The women that, sooner or later, revealed. // If thus I mightn’t find another like thee / If thy value knock the any other’s down / If any other compared thee I consider vile // Thou, compassionate, lay open thy favour to me / And suffer if thy humble servant I will / Or without women the earth is for me. (Bajamonti s. a., 2, ll. 1–14).

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Sicilian School and the ancient troubadours’ poetics,15 and it has remained essentially unchanged over the centuries. A process that might find renewed vigour in the eighteenth century, when large and deep speculations characterized the reflection about the concept of seeing beyond the precepts of the refined Italian poets. The sense experience of sight is crucial in Bajamonti’s poetics and is fraught with the necessary feeling of well-being and happiness which the poet aspires to. This is also attested by the compositions succeeding the first, which are combined to delineate the representation of that love story inscribed into Bajamonti’s love poems section. The tones of the successive poem, Tenerezza, are closely reminiscent of Metastasio’s lyrics. It is composed in octaves of pent-syllabic lines and, once again, the focus of the relationship lover/beloved is centred on the value of the gaze. Primarily, it has to be highlighted that in the first stanza the gaze is at the same time the subject of a vision and the object of visual and loving perception: “Chi può mirarvi / e non amarvi / occhi leggiadri / furbetti e ladri”16 (Bajamonti s. a., 3, ll. 1–4). Therefore, the importance of the look is twofold: it is an action expressed by the verb “mirarvi”, and an object that can be gazed at, as “occhi leggiadri”. Moreover, the use of the verb “mirarvi”, preceded by the interrogative pronoun “Chi” (“Who”) anaphorically present also in the following stanzas, conceptualizes the universality of the poet’s loving experience in a sort of contemplative absence of time and, although from a single voice, it becomes the emblem of an indefinite plurality suggested by the interrogative pronoun. The “who” is addressed to the female universe as a plural entity, that is the “Bellezze care” (l. 25) at the beginning of the last stanza. Reinforced by the use of the main accent of fourth grade, the noun form of the infinitivecontemplative verb “mirarvi” finds its fulfilment in the final verse, where the verb “godervi”, in nominal form too, embodies the ultimate meaning of that enjoyment that is aesthetical and adoring at once: Bellezze care, Al mondo rare, Talor vi miro, E ognor sospiro. 15  As regard the concepts of love and beauty in the Sicilian School and the Troubadours refer to the chapter by De Blasi, and as for the lexemes indicating beauty in thirteenthand fourteenth-century Italian language see the chapter by Coluccia, both in this volume. 16  “Who can admire ye / And do not love ye / Graceful eyes / Scoundrels and thieves” (Bajamonti s. a., 3, ll. 1–4).

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È ben fatica Quegli cui lica Più a voi da presso Godervi spesso.

Id. s. a., 3, ll. 25–3217

Furthermore, the evocation of beauty moves from the sense that supplies the imagination with ideas. Still according to Addison, “We cannot, indeed, have a single Image in the Fancy that did not make its first Entrance through the Sight” (Addison 1712, 411). Consequently, eyes acquire such a great importance that they are not only the acting sense of looking at, but they are also the object of poetry. A sense that, at the same time, is a means through which the emotional range of the relationship between the poet and his beloved is expressed. In that way, the Occhi belli or the Occhi di bella donna,18 next two sonnets’ titles, become a source of joy and pleasure, or even pain. Eyes that convey charm, sweetness and gentleness but also arrows, sighs, drops of love, and eventually becoming the divine light that opens the poet’s hopes for happiness. Occhi belli Nice, che mai ti sta dentro a quegli occhi, E qual malia possente in lor si trova? Ond’è quella con cui l’alma mi tocchi, Se a me li giri, alta dolcezza e nuova? Ogni tuo sguardo è come stral che scocchi Da ben teso arco, e contro a cui non giova Umano schermo; e fin nel cielo i numi Sarien mossi al poter de’ tuoi be’ lumi. Se tu sentir potessi, o bella Nice Quel che l’alma mi fiede acceso dardo Qualora (ahi raro à ciò!) veder mi lice 17  “Beautiful darlings / So rare in the world / Sometimes I admire ye / And I sigh any hour / It is very hard / To whom is allow’d / Nearest ye / Enjoying often” (ivi, ll. 25–32). 18  The two poems are respectively titled: Beautiful Eyes and Eyes of a Beautiful Woman. The first is here translated: Beautiful Eyes. Nice, whatever is inside thy eyes / And what a mighty charm in them one’d find / Whence is that, with whom thou touch my soul, / If thou turn them to me, high sweetness and new? // Every gaze from thee is like a dart that hour cometh / From a well stretched bow and which no human shield / Could never be of use; and even the gods in the sky / Will be moved from the power of thy wonderful lights. // If thou could feel, my beautiful Nice / What a fired arrow wounds my soul / And if (what a rare!) would be allow’d me to see / Some thy agreeable gaze oriented tow’d me / Then, really happy I could hope to be. (ivi, 4, ll. 1–13).

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A me rivolto un tuo soave sguardo; Sperarne io ben potrei d’esser felice. Bajamonti s. a., 4, ll. 1–13

In this poem, the word “eyes” put at the end of the first verse immediately acquires the main role as the protagonist of the lyric. Through the eyes the poet explicates the process of falling in love: considering each woman’s gaze as an arrow fired from a bow, he reminds the reader of the mythological and common figure of Eros-Cupido, the god of love to whom no human shield may resist. As powerful lights, the woman’s eyes might even influence the deities, but in the poet’s consideration they also represent the delightful location where he may find his happiness. The wide semantic spectrum of both powerful strength of love and its sweetness and pleasure characterizes the whole poem, conveyed by a skilful use of nouns and adjectivization as it is shown in l. 2 “malia possente”, l. 5 “stral che scocchi”, l. 8 “poter de’ tuoi be’ lumi” and l. 10 “acceso dardo”, or in l. 4 “alta dolcezza e nuova”, l. 12 “soave sguardo” and l. 13 “esser felice”. At the same rate, in the sonnet Occhi di bella donna the eyes are set not only in the usual significant condition, but they make better those who admire them inspiring feelings and thoughts even more delicious than love, as in the last verses of the second quatrain is stated: “sensi più degni […] più nobili scintille” (l. 7–8). The power of inspiration of good sentiments inherent in sight reaches its height in the final tercet where it is compared to a deity, “luce divina” (l. 12), and surrounds the observer’s soul with a diffused sweetness transmitted by the multiple repetition of the word “dolce” in the final couplet, also reinforced by the rhetorical stratagem of the parallelism: “dolci sproni e dolci freni / E dolci refrigeri, e dolce guida” (ll. 13–14). Occhi di bella donna Odi, Giulia gentil, di tua pupilla Qual sia l’alto poter … Ma che? T’adiri! Eh non rammento i teneri sospiri, Onde fur causa, o l’amorosa stilla. Ben reo sarei se celebrar fra mille Tuoi vanti osassi quel, cui meno aspiri; sensi più degni o ancor col guardo ispiri, e sai destar più nobili scintille. Che non fan gli occhi tuoi? Di quanti beni Con la rara virtù che in lor s’annida Non sei cagione, e quanto mal non freni?

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Chi alla divina luce tua s’affida Trova in lor dolci sproni e dolci freni E dolci refrigeri, e dolce guida. Bajamonti s. a., 4, ll. 1–14.19

It is not necessary to point out how Bajamonti’s poems of love and gallantry were completely immersed in the Arcadian poetics, which lasted beyond the middle of the century, and belong to the line moving from Crescimbeni to Metastasio. Taking into account the Crescimbeni’s lesson (1700, 49), Bajamonti’s lyrics might be placed in the middle between the sublime and the temperate and, although they seem to be an exercise in style, they, however, preserve accurate aspects of originality and, even more important, might represent the effectiveness and the ability of the Levantine coast poets to write poetry in Italian language. Furthermore, they may also be considered as a mean for measuring how strong and widespread the influence of the Italian language was as the language of culture in Dalmatia. Moreover, a closer look highlights that Bajamonti’s poems are not only exercise in style. In fact, by operating within the stylistic range that defines the concept of beauty among the thinkers of the eighteenth century – variety, harmony, simplicity, and nature (as summed up, for example, by Hogarth 1909, 31) –, the landscape is introduced into the loving relationship becoming from time to time the corollary of feeling, empathetic element, place of correspondence of amorous senses. In Notte amorosa the poet fully expresses his passion; the choice of the blank hendecasyllable seems to confer a more narrative tendency on verses, especially in correspondence with the continuity of that symbolic love romance. The nature acquires darker shades; night-time and darkness confer a tenebrous tonality to the poem. The nocturnal environment encompasses the entire universe and its imaginative inhabitants (a presence which is, indeed, a bit discordant in the text), while the change of tone and the overall atmosphere of the poem may provide insights for the dating of the composition. We should not forget, in fact, that Bajamonti, was a friend of the abbot Fortis and 19  Eyes of a Beautiful Woman. Hear, kind Giulia, of thy eyes / What is the highest power … But what? Thou get angry! / Eh, I cannot remember the tender sighs / Of which they were reason, or the love drips. // I would be guilty if celebrate among many / Of thy merit I dare that thou less aim for / More worthy senses with thy gaze thou inspire / And can arouse more noble sparks // What cannot thy eyes do? How many goods / With their rare virtue settled in them / Do not thou beget, and how much evil do not they restrain? // Whoever trusts in thy divine light / Finds in them gentle spurs and gentle brake / And gentle relief and gentle guidance (ivi, ll. 1–14).

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frequented the Paduan circles, where he was also in a friendly relationship with Melchiorre Cesarotti and, besides the diffusion of Morlaches’ costumes, as seen above,20 he also had a very prominent part in the debate around the question of primitivism in the poetry of the late eighteenth century (Bajamonti 1797, 77–98). But that is another matter. In the debate about beauty and senses, delight may arise from the view of nature and nature also has a part in relieving sorrows. Other similarities seem to emerge, indeed, respect to the concepts of variety (which can be considered a key-concept in English Empiricism) and nature, as stated in Hogarth and Addison’s words: “How great a share variety has in producing beauty may be seen in the ornamental part of nature. The shapes and colors of plants, flowers, leaves, the paintings in butterflies’ wings shells, etc. seem of little other intended use than that of entertaining the eye with the pleasure of variety. All the senses delight in it” (Hogarth 1909, 31). And furthermore: “Delightful Scenes, whether in Nature, Painting, or Poetry, have a kindly Influence on the Body, as well as the Mind, and not only serve to clear and brighten the Imagination, but are able to disperse Grief and Melancholy, and to set the Animal Spirits in pleasing and agreeable Motions” (Addison 1712, 411). Likewise in Bajamonti’s poems, delight or consolation can be produced by natural elements, and nature can directly influence or take part in the lovers’ mood. In following Bajamonti’s poems, the topic of separation is introduced. At first it is only for short periods but later becomes more and more compelling until it reaches betrayal and abandonment. In these poems, through varied metrics and stylistic choices, ranging from the blank hendecasyllables to the seven-syllable canzonet or eight-syllable stanzas, the author seems to indulge in a variety of metrical patterns – as the fixity is monotonous – when the thematic register of the variation of love languidly turns unto the almost unique theme of distance and abandonment, both if it is momentary, as in La prima lontananza benché breve,21 or long-lasting. The examples of the participation of the landscape in the poet’s condition and his situation multiply: as the humble countryside, where, better than elsewhere, love retains his freedom between the stones, flowers and grass. Nature becomes an accomplice to the concealment of the lovers, and the whole universe of nature is called to take part in the poet’s pain or provide him comfort. 20  Cf. supra, ch. 3. 21  The first separation, although brief: “The forest, the hill, the plan / the sea, the earth, the sky / all of a gloomy veil / covered were for me” (Bajamonti s. a., 9, ll. 17–20). “In the humble countryside / Among the rocks, the flowers and grass / Better than anywhere else / Love retains his goodness” (ivi, ll. 37–40).

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La selva, il colle, il piano, Il mar, la terra, il cielo, Tutti d’un tetro velo Coperti eran per me.

Bajamonti s. a., 9, ll. 17–20

[…] Nella campagna umile, Fra i sassi, i fiori e l’erba Meglio che altrove serba Amore la sua libertà. ivi, ll. 37–40

Another example may be recognized in that “little stream” that, at first, wets “the silver feet”: Fiumicel, che i piè d’argento Movi ognor fra queste sponde, Id. s. a., 13, ll. 1–222

But which then is required to transform itself into Lethe: Fiumicel, solo un istante Per me cangiati in veleno, O di Lete prendi almeno La tartarea alta virtù. Id. s. a., 13, ll. 5–823

Or, again, the earth, heaven and even the hell sometimes show their hostility, “filmed and blacks”, to lovers, but in vain. Until you reach the harassing marine: a treacherous sea-way so full of dangers which scares the poet and which is the reason for their abandonment, as it is shown in the couple of sonnets titled Lontananza, e timor del mare.

22  “Streamlet that the silver feet / Move around among these brinks” (ivi, 13, ll. 1–2). 23  “Streamlet, only an instant / for me change into poison / or, at least take of Lethe / the Tartarean highest virtue” (ivi, ll. 5–8).

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I. Nice, io no’l nego, è a me della marina molesta La poco ferma via, tra cui la nera Morte veder mi sembra; e a me par vera, Sol ch’l timor la finga, ogni tempesta. Id. s. a., 17, ll. 1–4

[…] II. L’infida, via del mar sì di perigli Piena mi sembra, e sì mi fa spavento, Ch’ad ogni tenue nube o legger vento, Già di morte io mi credo in fra gli artigli. Id. s. a., 18, ll. 1–424

From the fear of the sea the poet draws even the fear of death. The feeling of death, therefore, corresponds to the woman’s departure and it is thus meaningful that, among all the natural elements, the sea is chosen as a metaphorical place for an ultimate separation. Only with the renewed presence of the woman, the poet will regain his peacefulness: Sol pace avrò se fia che a te davante Bella Nice, io ritorni, e che di nuovo Io non deggia partir dal tuo sembiante. Id. s. a., 18, ll. 12–425

The “sembiante” in the clausula, if necessary, once again reiterates the essential centrality of vision. Concluding, these gallant lyrics, with their lonely landscapes, the golden rivers, the vague pathways and hot sighs in pleasant places, clearly express the persistence of the intellect in the pleasure derived from admiring beauty as well as the desire drawn by its delight. According to the aesthetic principles of the time, Bajamonti’s lyrics involve the intellect in yearning for that contemplation, a sort of pleasure aimed at the good and the truth, which also embraces the bodily dimension, linking the intellect with 24   Separation, and fear of sea. I. Nice I do not deny, the treacherous way of sea / bothered and unsafe for me, in which the dark / death I think to see; and any tempest, / as I imagine by fear, appears real to me (ivi, 17, ll. 1–4). II. The harassing seaway, so full / of danger I see, and I am very scared / so as at any feeble cloud or slight wind / I think myself in the claws of the death (ivi, 18, ll. 1–4). 25  “Only peace I’ll have if fore thee, / beautiful Nice, I will return and again / From thy semblance I shouldn’t leave” (ivi, ll. 12–4).

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the senses through the skilful tools of reason and poetry. To find in a woman’s beauty one’s own good – that is happiness – is the desired aim and, at the same time, it defines the aesthetic coordinates of that attitude to be pleased with the ideal of beauty embodying harmony and measure, that image of true and beautiful which leads man to experience the loving pleasure of beauty. References Addison, Joseph. 1767. Remarks on Several parts of Italy &c. in the years 1701, 1702, 1703. London: Printed for J. and R. Tonson, [I ed. 1705]. Accessed December 12, 2017. https://archive.org/details/remarksonseveral00addi. Addison, Joseph. 1712. The Spectator. No. 411, Saturday, June 21. Accessed December 12, 2017. Accessed October 21, 2018. https://www.gutenberg.org/files/12030/12030-h/120 30-h/SV2/Spectator2.html#section411. Bajamonti, Giulio. s. a. Poesie, ms. unpublished. Bajamonti, Giulio. 1797. “Il morlacchismo di Omero.” Nuovo giornale enciclopedico settembre: 77–98. Batteaux, Charles. 1746. Les Beaux-Arts réduits à un méme principe. Paris: Durand. (En. transl. by James O. Young. 2015. The Fine Arts Reduced to a Single Principle, Oxford University Press – It. transl. by Migliorini, Ermanno. 2002. Le Belle Arti ricondotte ad un unico principio. Palermo: Aesthetica. new ed.). Accessed November 21, 2017. https://books.google.it/books?id=gro8AAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcover&hl=it&so urce=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0” \l “v=onepage&q&f=false. Bellina, Anna L. e Caruso, Carlo. 2005. “Oltre il Barocco: la fondazione dell’Arcadia. Zeno e Metastasio: la riforma del melodramma.” In Storia della letteratura italiana, vol. VI: Il Settecento. A cura di Enrico Malato, 239–312. Roma: Salerno Editrice. Beniscelli, Alberto. 2005. Storia della letteratura italiana. vol. IV: Il Settecento. A cura di Andrea Battistini. Bologna: il Mulino. Bezić, Maja. 2016. Giulio Bajmaonti e Niccolò Tommaseo a confronto: l’atteggiamento verso l’illirico e l’italiano. In Književnost, umjetnost, kultura između dviju obala Jadrana i dalje od mora/ Letteratura, arte cultura tra le due sponde dell’Adriatico ed oltre. Atti del Convegno Internazionale (Zadar-Preko 25–27 ottobre 2012), a cura di Nižić Balić et al., 425–38. Zadar: University of Zadar. Binni, Walter. 2001. “La letteratura nell’epoca arcadico-razionalistica.” In La letteratura italiana, vol. X: Il Settecento. A cura di Emilio Cecchi e Natalino Sapegno, 385–614. (Special edition Corriere della sera 2005. Novara: De Agostini.). Božić-Bužančić, Danica. 1995. Južna Hrvatska u europskom fiziokratskom pokretu. Split: Književni krug – Povijesni arhiv u Splitu – Zavod za hrvatsku povijest Filozofskog fakulteta u Zagrebu.

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Cesarotti, Melchiorre. 1789. “Les Morlaques par MJWCDU.” Nuovo giornale enciclopedico: luglio. Chiancone, Claudio. 2010. La scuola di Melchiorre Cesarotti nel quadro del primo romanticismo europeo. PhD diss. Literature. Université Stendhal – Grenoble III; Università degli studi di Padova. Accessed August 3, 2017. https://tel.archivesouvertes.fr/tel-00957220/document. Crescimbeni, Giovanni Mario. 1700. Della bellezza della volgar poesia, Roma. Croce, Benedetto. 1946. “L’Arcadia e la poesia del Settecento.” Quaderni della “Critica” 4: 1–10. Digital edition CSI Biblioteca di Filosofia. Università di Roma La Sapienza. 2008. Accessed October 21, 2008. https://ojs.uniroma1.it/index.php/ quadernidellacritica/article/view/2678/2675. Diaz, Furio. 2005. “Politici e ideologi.” In La letteratura italiana, vol. X: Il Settecento. A cura di Emilio Cecchi e Natalino Sapegno, 1–350. (Special edition Corriere della sera 2005. Novara: De Agostini.) Forlesi, Simone. 2017. Una polemica “mediata” tra Addison e Voltaire intorno al genere epico. Lo« Spectator » nel cantiere del« Paradiso perduto » di Paolo Rolli. In La critica letteraria nell’Italia del Settecento. Forme e problemi, a cura di Gabriele Bucchi e Carlo Enrico Roggia, 81–91. Ravenna: Longo. Fortis, Alberto. 1762. “Il Castel di Montegalda. Epistola del padre Alberto Fortis agostiniano al signor abbate conte Giovambattista Gozzi a Roma.” In In occasione delle felicissime nozze di Sue Eccellenze la nobil donna signora Laura Donado, e il nobil uomo signor Francesco Badoer. Padova: Conzatti. Fortis, Alberto. 1986. Viaggio in Dalmazia. A cura di Eva Viani. Introduzione di Gilberto Pizzamiglio. Venezia: Adriatica di Navigazione, Marsilio Editori. [Edizione digitale a cura di Patrizia Pascazio. 2010. Edizioni digitali del CISVA]. Franzini, Elio, and Mazzocut-Mis Maddalena. 2003. Breve storia dell’estetica. Milano: Bruno Mondadori. Giammarco, Marilena. 2011. Il « verbo del mare ». L’adriatico nella letteratura II. Scrittori e viaggiatori. Bari: Palomar. Graf, Arturo. 1911. L’anglomania e l’influsso inglese in Italia nel secolo XVIII. Torino: Loescher. Gravina, Gian Vincenzo. 1839. “Discorso delle antiche favole.” In Id., Della ragion poetica. Napoli, [I ed. 1696]. Hogarth, William. 1909. The Analysis of Beauty. Pittsfield: The Silver Lotus, [I ed. 1753]. Accessed November 28, 2017. https://archive.org/details/analysisbeauty00hogagoog. Hume, David. 1757. “Of the Standard of Taste.” In Four Dissertation, London: A. Millar in the Strand. Accessed November 15, 2017. http://web.csulb.edu/~jvancamp/361r15 .html. Kant, Immanuel. 1979. Critica del giudizio. Roma-Bari: Laterza, [I ed. 1790].

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Leto, Maria Rita. 1992. “La fortuna in Italia della poesia popolare serbocroata.” In Europa Orientalis 11: 109–50. Morpurgo Tagliabue, Guido. 2002. Il Gusto nell’estetica del Settecento. A cura di Luigi Russo e Giuseppe Sertoli. Centro Internazionale Studi di Estetica. Accessed August 3, 2017. http://www.siestetica.it/download/Morpurgo.pdf. Muratori, Ludovico. 1708. Riflessioni sopra il buon gusto intorno le scienze e le arti. Venezia. Muratori, Ludovico. 1971. Della perfetta poesia italiana. Marzorati: Milano, [I ed. 1706]. Niedda, Daniele. 1993. Joseph Addison e l’Italia, Roma: Bulzoni. Orestano Francesca. 2010. “Melchiorre Cesarotti, tra Inghilterra e Italia: la traduzione infedele e l’invenzione del giardino.” In Melchiorre Cesarotti e le trasformazioni del paesaggio europeo”, a cura di Fabio Finotti, 91–9. Trieste: EUT Edizioni Università di Trieste. Pizzamiglio, Gilberto. 2007. “La Dalmazia tra viaggio e romanzo: da Alberto Fortis a Giustiniana Wynne.” In Questioni odeporiche. Modelli e momenti del viaggio adriatico, a cura di Giovanna Scianatico e Raffaele Ruggiero, 353–69. Bari: Palomar. Rožman, Milo and Šimunković, Ljerka. 2003. Carski mjernik i leksikograf / Agrimensore imperiale e lessicografo. Antonio Putti. Split: Società Dante Alighieri. Scianatico, Giovanna. 2011. “Per una letteratura adriatica. Problemi e prospettive.” In Frontiere. La cultura letteraria, teatrale, musicale e artistica del métissage, a cura di Raffaele Cavalluzzi et al., 286–93. Bari: B.A. Graphis. Simunković, Ljerka. 2012. Teatro d’occasione a Spalato verso la fine del Settecento. Split: Società Dante Alighieri. Voje, I. 1982. “I rapporti culturali interadriatici nell’attività umanistica del raguseo Ilija Crijević.” Abruzzo 1–3: 79–93.

chapter 11

“The Profound Beauty is Greatness”: Itinerary in Giovanni Boine’s Aesthetics Enrico Riccardo Orlando My life is not imagine on one side and conceptual thought on the other one. My life is an amalgam: it is an involved and touched fullness of thought and imagine. from An unknown, February 19121

⸪ The first ten years of the twentieth century represent a very important period for Italian culture. These years were a fundamental turning point generated by a new awareness of the inner insufficiency in intellectual elaboration: there was a necessity for the radical renovation of literature, in form and content. Donato Valli, in an essay, notes that young intellectuals of the time sensed […] the limited nature of philosophical positions peculiar to the Positivism. They tried to find a remedy for that situation in an almost unconscious way. They adopted the a-systematic philosophism typical of those who was not philosopher but who philosophized; typical of men of letters, of journalists, of poets, of intellectuals who were directly exposed to the storm of innovations. They harboured a wild interior uneasiness that often resulted in experiments and attempts that, in real philosophers’ opinion, were heresies (from the theoretical point of view) or moral aporias (from the practical point of view).2 1  All translations are mine, except where indicated otherwise. Boine 1997, 151: “La mia vita non è duplicemente di imagine da un lato e di concettuale pensiero dall’altro. La mia vita è amalgama, è pienezza aggrovigliata e commossa di pensiero e d’imagine.” 2  Valli 1970, 325: “Si sentiva da una parte la limitatezza delle posizioni filosofiche che facevano capo al positivismo e si cercava dai più di porvi rimedio quasi inconsciamente con un approssimativo filosofismo asistematico che trovava i suoi cultori immediati nella cerchia dei non filosofi che facevano filosofia, cioè dei letterati, dei pubblicisti, dei poeti, che più degli altri si sentivano esposti alla bufera delle novità e si covavano un turbolento malessere © koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2019 | doi:10.1163/9789004388956_013

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Giovanni Boine (1887–1917) studied and worked exactly in this intellectual situation, in this period of profound precariousness. Boine has been rediscovered over the last three decades thanks to several specific studies and translations that contributed to the spread of his works beyond Italian borders.3 He was born in Finale Marina, a small town in Liguria, on 2nd September 1887. When he was young, he moved with his family to Milan where he studied at Accademia Scientifico-Letteraria, the Department of Italian Literature at the University of Milan. In this big industrial city, rich in innovative ideas and debates, he met and befriended Clemente Rebora4 and Antonio Banfi.5 In the same period, he also came into contact with Tommaso Gallarati Scotti6 and Alessandro Casati,7 two of the most influential representatives of the group of intellectuals that, at the beginning of 1907, founded Il Rinnovamento (‘The Renewal’), the official review of Lombard modernists. Boine immediately became one of the most regular contributors to this journal and it was there that he began his intellectual career in February 1907 as a scholar of religion and mysticism. In Il Rinnovamento he wrote remarkable essays about Juan de la Cruz, Miguel Servet and Jean Cauvin. Soon after, at the age of only 19, he began a lively correspondence with the Basque writer Miguel de Unamuno (Boine 2008). In February 1907, Boine published in Il Rinnovamento a book review of Unamuno’s work, Vida di Don Quijote y Sancho (Boine 1983, 345–51), in which he underlines that the personal experience is necessary to live a complete and interno che spesso sfociava in esperimenti e tentativi i quali ai filosofi puri dovevano sembrare eresie dal punto di vista teorico ed aporie morali dal punto di vista pratico.” 3  Fundamental is the publication of the volume, edited in 1983 by Davide Puccini for Garzanti: Boine 1983. For a comprehensive survey of articles, books and translations published in the last 30 years, cf. the bibliographical review: Orlando 2013. 4  Clemente Rebora (1885–1957), a Milanese poet, collaborated with La Voce, Rivista d’Italia and La Riviera Ligure. He obtained a degree in Italian Literature in Milan and, in 1913, he published Lyrical Fragments (‘Frammenti Lirici’), the book that would later be reviewed by Boine. After the end of the First World War, he became a teacher and, in 1928, he began his journey to join the priesthood. 5  Antonio Banfi (1886–1957), Lombard philosopher and politician, in 1904 obtained a degree in Italian Literature with a dissertation on Francesco da Barberino. In 1910 he obtained a degree also in philosophy: he went on to become a teacher and published several essays. After the First World War he began his political career: he was a tenacious opponent of Fascism and, in 1948, he became a senator. 6  Tommaso Gallarati Scotti (1878–1966), Milanese writer, obtained a degree in Italian Literature in Genoa in 1901. He was an Antonio Fogazzaro’s friend and a protagonist of Lombard’s cultural life of the time. He was an opponent of Fascism, had a diplomatic career and became an ambassador. 7  The Milanese count Alessandro Casati (1881–1955) collaborated with several reviews like La Voce, Il Commento e Leonardo. A protagonist of the cultural life, he was a senator, Minister of Public Health and, after some years far from the politics, a Minister of War and holder of other top positions.

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profound path of faith. He strongly attacks those who interpret religion as a simple repetition of ceremonies, strictly controlled by the Church. This manner of representing the religious fact pushes away the faithful from his personal relationship with God, from his individual experience of religion, from his painful path of faith. Hence his interest in mysticism. A similar approach can be found in another essay entitled San Giovanni della Croce, also published in Il Rinnovamento (Boine 1971, 519–48). This article is an accurate study about life and works of the titular saint, in which Boine rails against biographers who are completely unable to examine the complexity of San Giovanni’s experience and who are prone to reduce his life to an exterior and superficial interpretation. To study a mystic’s life, Boine writes that the analysis cannot be superficial: “The mystic’s life can not be studied from an external point of view, but from an internal one, through an inner process”.8 Boine’s first reflection on the concept of beauty was strictly connected with his studies on religion. In 1909 Boine began his collaboration with an influential and innovative review of the time, La Voce (‘The Voice’). Founded in 1908 in Florence by Giovanni Papini and Giuseppe Prezzolini, this journal set itself the task of promoting a cultural and civil revival of the intellectual class. Its credo was that writers and philosophers have to obtain active roles in society, they have to be interested in politics, in current events, in education and in social problems. In the pages of this review there are not only traditional literary debates, but also reports about concrete problems. La Voce was open to intellectuals of different backgrounds and ideologies, and contact with a cultural environment such as this was a fundamental step in Boine’s career. In La Voce he also had the opportunity to reach a wider audience and, at the same time, he established contact profitably with great intellectuals and authors of the time. After some years devoted to the study of mystics, Boine realized that “weapons of reason are broken and that an obscure and painful area exists, a place of the continent-man totally unexplored. Literature, or rather ‛lyric’, is the only way to arrive there.”9 Donato Valli wrote that, at that stage, in Boine’s opinion the real philosopher “is the poet, because he knows the germinal and

8  “La vita del mistico non va studiata dal di fuori, ma ricercata al di dentro, per un processo interiore” (Boine 1971, 523). 9  Boine 1983, XIX: “Ma Boine […] si rende conto ad un certo momento che le armi della ragione sono spuntate, che esiste una zona oscura e dolente, una regione del continente uomo del tutto sconosciuta, per tentare di raggiungere la quale la letteratura, anzi la ‘lirica’, si presenta come l’unico strumento servibile.”

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unstoppable flow of things: art and poetry are forms of knowledge”.10 The author needed to elaborate his personal aesthetic ideal, his own idea of beauty. On 17th August 1911, Boine published an article entitled About some mystical pages (‘Di certe pagine mistiche’), a critical essay inspired by Stories about sacred and profane love (‘Storie dell’amor sacro e dell’amor profano’), a book of short stories written by Tommaso Gallarati Scotti. In his critical text, Boine disagreed with intellectuals who “play with the religion”, who represent religion as “a careless and sugary routine”.11 He writes that faith is not a consolation, it is not a peaceful acceptance of the Divine or an aesthetic phenomenon: “The religion is not an entertainment […]; I think that the religion is not a beautiful thing to decorate, to adorn with red and gold decorations our life […]. I think that an honest man can’t transform the religion into art: he can not, he must not entertain with the religion”.12 An honest man cannot “adore Christianity for its beauty” or “because the faith is beautiful” (Boine 1997, 83–4). In this article, Boine also proposes the first outline of his aesthetic theory: […] I can’t persuade myself that things that, morally or theoretically, are bad or false or untidy, can be considered art […]. Because I have not two criteria, one for art and one for reality, I don’t believe in two criteria. […] I think that the aesthetic evaluation of the world and of the human activity is an abstraction, […] it’s an abstract point of view that we can use to look at the reality only in a specific moment and for a practical purpose. But precisely because it’s abstract, precisely because it’s an abstraction, it’s incomplete and insufficient.13

10  Valli 1970, 333: “Il vero filosofo è il poeta, ché egli conosce le cose, il loro flusso germinale e incontenibile: l’arte, la poesia è forma di conoscenza”. 11  Boine 1997, 81–3: “Ma […] volevo allora contrapporre alla vita comune alla routine religiosa facilona e dolciastra […] qualcosa di più rude […]. Ora dunque è mistico chi gioca con la religione, possibile che passi per mistico, che passi per religioso, anche questo atteggiamento da gran nobile scettico”. 12   Ivi, 84–7: “Non è una cosa da gioco la religione […]; dico che non è una cosa bella per adornare, per parare a festa con rosso e con oro la vita […]. Dico che un uomo onesto non può tramutare in arte la religione, non può, non deve dilettarsi, dilettare colla religione”. 13  Ivi, 88–9: “Perché io non so persuadermi che ciò che, moralmente o teoreticamente, è brutto o falso o scomposto, possa esser mai ridotto all’arte […]. Perché io non ho due criteri l’uno per l’arte e l’altro per la verità, io non sto per i due criteri. […] Dico che la considerazione estetica del mondo e dell’attività umana, è un’astrazione, […] è un punto di vista astratto da cui possiamo anche, in un dato momento e per dati scopi pratici, guardare le cose, ma appunto perché astratto, appunto perché astrazione, incompleto ed insufficiente”.

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The young critic is already contrary to interpret a literary work only through external and formal factors. A few months previously, in a letter addressed to Giovanni Amendola14 on 13th March 1911, Boine wrote: “I can’t find a place for an aesthetic activity in my life […]: the aesthetic evaluation of the world exists, but it is an abstract and artificial position in which we stay for our practical purposes.”15 To estimate a literary text, it is necessary to consider especially its message and the quality of its topics. We have to go deeper, we have to read literary texts with more intensity and with a personal and subjective approach: “Like everything in the world, I think that also the work of art has to be estimated and judged not in an abstract way, but through a global, […] a spiritual and human criterion. Manifestations of our activity, like art, are all complex and with an only center.”16 Gallarati Scotti’s book, for example, is not a wellmade book: And I think that this book is poor and dull also if we read it through simple aesthetic criteria. […] This is a book of false art because it is based […] on a philosophy (a self-styled philosophy) that is false and ambiguous. […] In this literary text I can not separate the intuition of the particular (the aesthetic expression of the particular) from the general ambiguity that rules all the book. […] This text wants to be a sincerely religious book but its author is not a devout because he has only a hedonistic concept of religion.17

14  Giovanni Amendola (1882–1926), Neapolitan intellectual e politician, was a scholar of philosophy, mysticism and esotericism. He collaborated with Leonardo, Il Rinnovamento and La Voce, and was a journalist for several newspapers. He was also a deputy and opponent of Mussolini: he died after a beating organized by a group of Fascists. 15  Boine 1979, 225: “Io non trovo posto per una attività estetica […]: la considerazione del mondo estetica esiste, ma è una posizione artificialmente astratta in cui ci poniamo per i nostri scopi pratici.” 16  Id. 1997, 89: “Dico che ogni cosa nel mondo, dico dunque che anche l’opera d’arte dev’essere giudicata, dev’essere valutata non astrattamente, ma con globale […] con complessamente spirituale ed umano criterio come appunto complessa ed unicentrica è ogni manifestazione della nostra attività.” 17  Ivi: “E dico che questo libro fiacco e scialbo anche a vagliarlo con pretti criteri estetici, […] è libro d’arte falsa, appunto perché parte, appunto perché poggia, appunto perché è impastato, costrutto sopra una filosofia, sopra una sedicente filosofia che è falsa e che è ambigua. […] Non mi riesce, non vi riesce di staccare l’intuizione del particolare qui, l’espressione estetica del particolare da questo generale ambiente di ambiguità ideale che lo veste e lo regge. […] Vuol essere un libro d’arte religiosa, d’arte sinceramente religiosa, e chi lo scrive non è religioso, e chi lo scrive ha della religione un concetto edonisticamente estetico.”

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In summary, the reader’s reception becomes a central trait of the result of a literary text and the overall critical opinion on a book has to be based on its content. Some months later, on 8th February 1912, Boine published another article in La Voce: An unknown (‘Un ignoto’). In this long essay, the author imagines reading the testament of a mysterious man, knocked down by a cart. In reality Boine needed this escamotage only to have the opportunity to express freely his opinions without risking personal attacks. In An unknown, he writes that reading, as faith, is always an individual experience: A new book is published: it’s L’ôtage by Paul Claudel. Only few people can read this book as I read it, because few people can strongly understand this book as I understand it. This is a great drama, a lively and profound drama. […] Now, can a critical essay explain L’ôtage? In which critical way can I elucidate and show to the public L’ôtage? If I want to describe L’ôtage, I have to say who I am and what is my interior world […]. And I think that this operation is completely useless because people who read my articles had not my experiences: they had not a life of sentiments and thoughts similar to mine.18 A completely objective interpretation cannot exist because this act is always strictly connected with life, with researches, with intellectual activity and with studies of the reader. In view of these considerations, an opinion about a book can not be objective and valid in the same way for everybody and for every category of literary production: individual criteria of estimation change depending on who the reader is. To evaluate the beauty of a text, therefore, we cannot only read it and judge it on its formal results or through external criteria given by others. A long preparation is necessary, a way of training that, from childhood readings, leads the reader to choices concerning the maturity and then to an inner meeting with the text. To totally understand a literary work, the reader’s soul has to adhere to the text “without thinking more, without wanting more.”19 18  Ivi, 142–3: “Esce poniamo un’opera nuova, esce ora L’ôtage di Paolo Claudel, ch’io leggo, che pochi possono leggere e vigorosamente intendere com’io l’intendo. Dramma grande, dramma vivo e profondo […]. Ora dunque quale critica potrà mai ridare L’ôtage, con quale maniera di critica potrei io dunque dilucidare, stendere, mostrare innanzi al mondo L’ôtage? Dire cos’è L’ôtage equivale per me a dire chi sono io, cos’è il mio mondo […]. E dico che ciò è completamente inutile se chi m’ascolta non ha avute le esperienze mie, non ha vissuta una vita di sentimenti e pensieri molto vicina alla mia.” 19  Ivi, 142: “Dramma grande, dramma vivo e profondo, dramma a cui la mia anima aderisce senza pensare di più, senza desiderare di più.”

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The literary text is the culmination of a long journey, troubled and full of danger. In Boine’s opinion, the reader is the real protagonist of his readings. With an innovative approach, he moves his critical attention from the value of a book to the importance of its reading, from the text strictly considered to its reception: “The literary text that expresses my personality can not be the work that expresses the personality of another man”.20 Readers and critics have an active roll in choosing the text to interpret, to investigate profoundly its message and to connect this reading experience with their own lives, their essences, their souls. Boine believes in an “absorption immediately ecstatic of the essence of beauty and of life that are present in the literary text. The critical analysis can’t make you penetrate […] in the organic intimacy of a book. But your previous effort of human ascesis, your vital preparation, the long accumulation of wisdom in your heart raise you to the text. Only in that moment a book expresses you and it reveals you to yourself.”21 For Boine, traditional aesthetic canons are too superficial. They are completely unable to explore the inner essence of a text and to understand its most interesting and innovative messages. Boine writes about “great texts, not about beautiful texts” and he insists “on this […] comparison between literary text and intensity of life, of profundity of life, of intensity, of profundity, of accumulated greatness of life and thought.”22 The Ligurian author thus directly accused critics who observe and judge the beauty of a text from an external point of view: they make only a superficial analysis that gives to the reader a mediation that blocks his relationship with the text. This way of approaching a literary work is incomplete and it can be accepted only for failed books, for works that can never be included in a literary canon: “[…] we can comprehend, we can tolerate criticism only for unsuccessful books: criticism is like a nurse who wants to give life to literary works that are unsuccessful, hunchbacked and anemic; criticism brings centrality in our times only because there are lots of abortions and because there are reviews and newspapers: this is the practical

20  Ivi, 145: “l’opera che esprime la mia personalità non può essere quella che esprime la personalità di un altro”. 21  Ivi, 144: “Egli […] stava per un assorbimento immediatamente estatico dell’essenza di bellezza e di vita che è nell’opera d’arte. Non è l’analisi critica che ti fa penetrare […] nell’intimità organica di un’opera data. Ma è il precedente tuo sforzo di umana ascesi, la tua preparazione vitale, il lungo accumulamento di sapida sapienza dentro il tuo cuore che ti solleva all’opera d’arte. Essa allora ti esprime, essa ti rivela allora a te stesso.” 22  Ivi, 145: “Parlava di opera grande, non di opera bella, ed insisteva su questo […] accostamento di opera d’arte e di intensità di vita, di profondità di vita, di intensità, di profondità, di grandezza accumulata di vita e pensiero.”

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typographical-financial necessity of the recent business of journals”.23 On the contrary, masterpieces escape these superficial interpretations and another method is necessary to investigate their inner essence. On 29th February 1912, Boine published an article entitled The Unknown’s aesthetics (‘L’estetica dell’Ignoto’). This essay is very similar to the previous one, but it is clearer and more concise. Boine answers his readers’ stern criticisms and he confirms most of his theories. He writes that content is the only objective criterion to estimate the value of a literary text: the experience of beauty, the real one, “is objectively real, philosophically real, only if it is real beauty. Because beauty is reality, so the content is not indifferent”. To those who argue the superiority of formal aspects on the content, Boine replies provocatively that “Form and content are the same thing” and he writes that critical opinions, in which the form prevails over the content, are always limited and partial.24 He also sets the stage for the formulation of his innovative concept of beauty: Sometimes I prefer a speech more obscure (in which I sense an essence, a lively phosphorescence) than a clearer speech full of insufficient formulas. In concrete, I think that a gradation of beauty exists: I also think that the profound beauty is greatness. Not all the people can catch this idea of beauty: not because it is esoteric, individual, closed in a particular experience, but because not all the people are able to understand it. […] For this reason the Unknown spoke about obscurity: he spoke about a sort of interior refinement, a spiritual experience that makes you say “this is beautiful and this is bad”.25 23  Ivi, 143: “[…] la critica soltanto si capisce, si tollera, per le opere d’arte fallite: è una specie d’infermiera, di cerottiera di opere fallite, gobbe, anemiche a cui dar una lustra di vita; che ha pigliato gran voga ai tempi nostri solo perché c’è grande abbondanza di aborti e perché ci sono riviste e giornali: pratica necessità tipografico-finanziaria dell’industria recente delle riviste e giornali”. 24  Ivi, 160: “[…] la bellezza […] è obbiettivamente reale, filosoficamente reale se è bellezza vera. Perché la bellezza è realtà perciò il contenuto non è indifferente. Forma e contenuto son la stessa cosa del resto”. 25  Ivi, 162–3: “Per mio conto dichiaro di preferire a volte un discorso un po’ oscuro in cui intravedo della polpa in fondo, della fosforescenza vitale, ad un discorso troppo chiaro di insufficienti formole. Oscurità come questa che esiste una gradazione di bellezze come esiste dinnanzi a me che penso una sempre più complessamente concreta realtà e che la profonda bellezza è grandezza. La quale è una bellezza che mica tutti sanno vedere e sentire! E non perché sia esoterica, individuale, chiusa in una particolare esperienza, ma perché non tutti ci arrivano. […] Perciò l’Ignoto parlava d’oscuri; di una specie di interiore raffinamento mediante il quale giungi ad una tua spirituale esperienza che ti fa dire ‘questo è bello e questo è brutto’.”

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In this system of thought, not even the opinion expressed by the most influential critics can be considered superior and irreproachable. On 4th April 1912 Benedetto Croce,26 the greatest Italian philosopher of the time, published Loves with clouds (‘Amori con le nuvole’). In this article, he underlines that Boine’s idea of beauty was not concrete nor solid: in his opinion these characteristics are fundamental to build an effective aesthetic theory. Croce writes that the duty of an intellectual is not “the obscurity, but the light; it’s not the turbidity, but the clearness”27 and he criticizes young authors who, in his opinion, create “horrible eyesores, claiming to be rebels; they reason in a confused way, and they define themselves mystics.”28 He roughly judges the mainstays of Boine’s aesthetic theory as “pittances” (‘miserie’: Boine 1997, 169). In Croce’s opinion, the new generation does not work in a truly serious way to continue the illustrious tradition of Italian literary criticism: “[…] In Italy, I think that young intellectuals (also those who can work much better […] as precisely Boine, who is the young scholar I’m writing about) spend their energy with pastimes that they consider like serious and almost tragic problems; they are mentally immature and they believe to embrace the Cosmos, to celebrate mysteries of the Absolute, to perceive the face of the Goddess that is invisible for other people […]. That’s not how it works.”29 In reality the philosopher holds Boine in high respect: in a letter addressed to Alessandro Casati on 12th April 1912, he declared that he had not “scorn for Boine.” He stated that he appreciated “so much Boine’s articles written in ‘Rinnovamento’ and also some of the first essays published in ‘La Voce’” and he also confided to Casati that he answered so heavily to The Unknown’s aesthetics only because he felt “a vivid sentiment. A sensation of disappointment and of 26  Benedetto Croce (1866–1952), philosopher, historian and literary critic, is one of the most important Italian intellectuals of the twentieth century. In 1902 he published his Aesthetics (‘Estetica’) that soon became a fundamental work of the time: he has lots of supporters, but also strong opponents. For details about the intellectual relationship between Boine and Croce, cf. Dillon Wanke 1978. 27  Boine 1997, 167: “Il dovere nostro non è l’oscurità, ma la luce; non la torbidezza, ma la chiarezza”. 28  Ivi, 168: “Fanno bruttezze orrende, e dicono di essere ribelli; ragionano sconclusionando, e dicono di essere mistici.” 29  Ivi, 170–1: “Perché vedo che da qualche tempo in qua i giovani italiani (anche taluno di quelli che potrebbero fare assai di meglio, e hanno dato prova di saper far di meglio, come appunto il Boine, che è il giovane del quale finora ho parlato) si trastullano con questi balocchi, e insieme stimano che non siano balocchi, ma cose gravi e quasi tragiche; carezzano la loro immaturità mentale e credono di abbracciare il Cosmo, di celebrare i misteri dell’Assoluto, di avere scorto il volto della Dea, invisibile ai profani […]. Non è così che si lavora.”

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responsibility for some morbid tendencies that are spreading among the youth, and that encourage all vanities. In Italy there is a lot of work to do.”30 Croce’s esteem is true, if we consider that a few weeks before, on 6th September 1911, he wrote to Casati about Boine’s About some mystical pages: “I read Boine’s article, and I like it as all the things that this author has written before. This essay impresses me for the sincerity and the commotion that I feel in it”.31 The dispute between the two intellectuals did not finish here. On 11th April 1912, always in La Voce, Boine answers Croce seriously with Loves with honesty (‘Amori con l’onestà’). With stronger conviction, he confirms opinions previously expressed: I want to underline the sens of insufficiency of this book. You think that an insufficient music or poetry can be beautiful: but in this case, I am struck by the spiritual insufficiency of this book non by its stylistic efficacy to transmit a message. For this reason I introduce […] the term greatness […], a more appropriate word than beauty. […] And this idea of greatness […] now seems to be more vivid and more promising […]. In a literary text, I search for the greatness […], I search a breadth, a spiritual intensity, an essential presence of what is eternal.32 In reality, Benedetto Croce is right. In the spring of 1912, Boine’s aesthetic theory was not yet complete: in Loves with honesty, the young author writes that he has never written “an aesthetic theory”.33 Probably Boine did not have the need to formulate in detail a real aesthetic theory, like Croce’s one. Instead, he wanted to plan his personal artistic program: he needed to find a literary way to 30  Croce 1969, 10: “Nessun disprezzo verso il Boine, del quale stimai molto gli articoli scritti nel ‘Rinnovamento’ e anche qualcuno dei primi pubblicati nella ‘Voce’. Ma in me sorse un vivo sentimento tra di dispiacere e di responsabilità per certe tendenze morbose che si vanno facendo strada nei giovani, e che favoriscono tutte le vanità, in questa Italia nella quale c’è tanto da lavorare.” 31  Ivi, 7: “Lessi l’articolo del Boyne, che mi piacque, come tutto ciò che scrive il Boyne, e mi colpì per la sincerità e la commozione che vi sentii dentro”. 32  Boine 1997, 180: “È l’insufficienza, il senso dell’insufficienza ch’io voglio esprimere. Voi dite che è bella anche una musica od una poesia insufficiente: ma è la spirituale insufficienza sua che mi colpisce, non la compiutezza con cui quel dato insufficiente mondo è espresso. Perciò io ho introdotto […] la parola grandezza […], fuori e più comprensiva della parola bellezza. […] Ed è questo concetto di grandezza […] che per ora mi par più vivo e più promettente […]. Cerco la grandezza in un’opera d’arte […], cerco in essa l’ampiezza, la capacità spirituale, cerco un essenziale riflesso di quello che nel mondo è eterno.” 33  Ivi, 178: “[…] non ho scritto una Estetica, ho dato degli accenni brevi in una lettera. ‘Voce’, 29 febbraio ’12”.

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express his interiority, a truthful and genuine medium to transmit his thought. Already in An unknown he wrote that his world is a “World, with one hundred million actions and things simultaneously present, with one hundred billion very different lives harmonically living and present” and he frankly wonders: “how can I explain this resounded omnipresence of the universal spirit inside me?”.34 In spite of difficulties, Boine wanted to find a way to represent that complexity: “I think that I need to find an expression for this complex system of life. Philosophy that is art, art that is philosophy: I can’t be satisfied with a Parnassian representation of objective idylls, but neither the individual lyric impulse satisfies me. […] I want to make my lyric full of objectivity, and I want to make my objectivity intimately full of lyric. I want to express myself completely.”35 And “idylls” are component parts of novels: “I think that […] a novel is a larger tale, and all the tales are idylls; I say that a novel makes us represent and look at our world as a system of idylls. And I really don’t like this: I hate representing the world divided into pieces, into idylls, into little squares, into ordered drawings; I don’t like representing the world in this way. Cultivated and honest men never interpret the world in this way.”36 Indeed Boine wrote only one novel, The sin (‘Il peccato’), published from October 1913 to July 1914 in the journal “La Riviera Ligure” (‘The Ligurian Riviera’): he was not a novelist. Always in An unknown, he wrote that not even the “individual lyric impulse” satisfied him37 and, for this reason, he never wrote poetry. Already on 8th August 1908, in a letter to Ardengo Soffici, Boine wrote: “I don’t write poems and […] it is difficult that I will write them in the future”.38 The only way to follow is a literary form capable to represent and transmit the brevity of a moment without limits of stillness and without bonds to the author’s interior freedom: 34  Ivi, 149–50: “Il mio mondo è il Mondo, con cento milioni di azioni e di cose simultaneamente presenti, con cento miliardi di variissime vite armonicamente viventi e presenti. […] E come dunque dire questa riccheggiante onnipresenza dell’universo spirito in me?”. 35   Ivi, 151–2: “[…] dico che bisognerà pure ch’io trovi un’espressione a questo mio complesso organamento di vita. Filosofia che sia arte, arte che sia filosofare: io non posso accontentarmi di una parnassiana rappresentazione di obiettivi idilli, ma nemmeno m’appaga l’individuale impeto lirico. […] Voglio che la mia lirica sia travata di obiettività, e la mia obiettività sia tutta intimamente tremante di liricità, e voglio esprimermi intero.” 36  Ivi, 149: “Dico che ad esempio un romanzo è, gonfialo finché vuoi, un racconto, ed un racconto è un idillio; e dico che il romanzo ci costringe a rappresentare e a vedere il nostro mondo a idilli. È questo, appunto, che mi ripugna: il veder pezzo per pezzo, ad idilli il mondo, a quadratini, a disegnetti ordinati; il vederlo come un uomo colto e pieno né lo vede né lo sente.” 37  Ivi, 152: “[…] nemmeno m’appaga l’individuale impeto lirico.” 38  Id. 1979, 63: “Non faccio poesie e, non lo giuro, ma sarà anche difficile ch’io ne faccia”.

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[…] various tumult, anxious events of a long love story collected with violence and fused in a brief thought, in an intense word. A word “burningruby” among other formed words; various events of long stories, of long successions of real life that are totally expressed and summarized by an only rhythm, by an only word or sentence: quickness, intensity, intense vigour of speeches, of masculine imagination, not an infinite stammer of little women and children.39 Boine thus had the need to implement his theories, to put them into practice. In 1912 he began his collaboration with La Riviera Ligure, a journal founded by Mario Novaro in 1899 to promote his business of olive oil: very soon it became a privileged place for the experimentation of many writers of the time. Several authors collaborated with the review, among which were Umberto Saba, Emilio Cecchi, Guido Gozzano, Giovanni Papini, Piero Jahier and Ardengo Soffici. La Riviera Ligure welcomed diverse articles and essays, beyond their ideologies. Its editor had not rigid poetical programs and intellectual trends: that was the perfect place for Boine to put into practice, in concrete terms, his personal idea of beauty. Here he had the liberty of expression that he was searching for. Between March 1914 and October 1916 he published a critical literary review entitled Applauses and blows (‘Plausi e Botte’), in which he proposed to the public new authors and new ideas (Boine 1983, 73–255). He wrote 86 book reviews but, in spite of his great capacity to analyze both poetry and prose, the critic noticed that this process was extremely complex and difficult. In the face of such a large number of books that are published, each different from the next, it was almost impossible to determine a clear and unequivocal way to interpret and estimate them. On one side there is the reader who, as Boine underlined in his theoretical essays, operates in a subjective way and tries to absorb the literary work through his personal experience. On the other side there is the critic, a professional who has to cross this level of inner subjectivity to catch the value of a literary work, to find the validity of its message, an objective criterion to write a book review that can be read by a large public. To produce truly useful articles, Boine had to choose an unequivocal standard to interpret any book, but the difficulty in fixing this concrete aesthetic criterion 39  Id. 1997, 154–5: “[…] vario tumulto, trepide vicende di un lunghissimo amore con violenza raccolti e fusi in un’imagine breve, in una intensa parola, parola rovente-rubino tra le altre parole composte; varia vicenda di lunghi racconti, di fila lunghe di vita vissuta che un solo ritmo, che una sola parola, una frase, dice e riassume interi: – rapidità, intensità, intensa vigoria di discorsi, di imaginari da uomo, non infinito balbettare di donnette e fanciulli”.

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is already clear in a letter written on 17th September 1915 to his friend Emilio Cecchi:40 “Our sensibility always breaks universal theories and also when we do criticism […] we remain men, and we are influenced by our taste. What you call ethics […] is the living humanity that I search in a literary text […]. But what beauty specifically is, more than a problem is really a mystery. There is neither a formula that creates it, or a theory that regulates it.”41 The concept of beauty, in reality, is a mystery. However in the article of Applauses and blows, written about the book Loves, silence and scattered rhymes (‘Amori ac Silentio e Le rime sparse’) by Adolfo de Bosis, Boine tries to plan his aesthetic program. He needed a new critical method, strongly innovative and right for the study of contemporary authors. This way to interpret modern poets and novelists has to be based on concision, on essentiality, on abolition of useless rhetoric: In twenty lines it is impossible to deduce, from ideal or concrete premises, the essence of a book or of an author. […] I think that, constricted in twenty lines, criticism is reduced to its natural function: without any mask, it is the expression of a personality in front of other personalities […]; I try to go straight to others’ soul (without hindrances or conventions) and I’m happy when I meet others’ souls during my journey. I explore the contemporary Italian literature to find human substances, to find men and their life. My criticism does not want to be something different; it is not enough acute and technical, it is not enough criticism, it does not create conceptual structures. But I do all I can: I give to my readers simply myself.42 40  Emilio Cecchi (1884–1966), a Florentin literary critic, collaborated with many journals, such as Leonardo, Il Regno, Hermes, Nuovo Giornale, La Voce. He wrote for a long time in La Tribuna and in Corriere della Sera, and he became an influential Anglicist: in 1919 he was one of the founders of the review La Ronda and he was also an art critic. 41  Boine and Cecchi 1983, 171–2: “Le teorie universali la nostra sensibilità le rompe sempre ed anche facendo della critica […] un uomo è sempre un uomo, e i suoi gusti lo trascinano. Se quella che tu chiami etica, le relazioni della quale con l’arte dici ch’io sfioro qua e là, è poi quella umanità viva ch’io cerco nell’opera d’arte, amen, siamo d’accordo. […] Ma che cosa proprio sia la bellezza anche più di un problema è proprio un mistero. Non c’è formula che la crei né teoria che l’adegui.” 42  Boine 1983, 107–8: “In venti righe è chiaro che non è possibile dedurre, come si fa, da queste e quelle premesse ideali o di fatto, questa e quest’altra opera, questo e quest’altro uomo. […] Io dico dunque che costretta in venti righe la critica è più facilmente ridotta alla sua natural funzione, ad essere, cioè […] senza maschera l’espressione di una personalità dinnanzi a cose o dinnanzi ad altre personalità […]; io tento di andar diritto senza impacci e senza convenzioni all’anima altrui, felice se qualche anima o qualche poco d’anima io possa incontrare. Son qui che sondo l’Italia letteraria contemporanea in cerca di sostanza

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As he anticipated in An unknown, now he is sure that beauty can be found in the direct contact between two souls, in the immediate relationship between reader and author. The real beauty of a literary text is transmitted by an essential brevity without rhetoric, so that in a letter to Emilio Cecchi, on 24th August 1915, he writes: “[…] I defend the simple immediacy of poetry”.43 Thanks to this precise idea of beauty, Boine discovered talents like Clemente Rebora, Camillo Sbarbaro44 and Dino Campana,45 authors who were almost ignored by the traditional criticism of the time. In these poets, Boine finds an innovative language, simple in metrical and lexical aspects and far from the poetic canon of the time. In the article of Applauses and blows about Sbarbaro’s Pianissimo we read that “Sbarbaro’s poetry is not a hymn of joy and life: he never searches for the beauty in the falsehood and in the rhetoric. His poetry is a plumbeous desperation, a brief veil, a spare expression of an irreparable distress. I am struck by the dryness, by the immediate personality, by the spare simpleness of Sbarbaro’s fragments: this is a poetry on which the cultivated men can not discuss for long. But these poems are unforgettable.”46 But Boine did not want only to apply his idea of beauty to other authors’ works, rather he wanted also to experiment in the first person with this aesthetic theory. He needed to follow the artistic research of his friends, authors who were elaborating a new way to write in prose. Partially inspired by the artistic and literary experimentations of Futurists, many young intellectuals umana, in cerca d’uomini e di vita. La mia critica non è altro, non vuol esser altro; non sarà sufficientemente sottile e tecnica, non sarà abbastanza critica, non ne usciranno mai concettuali costruzioni, ma ciascuno dà quel che può ed io do me stesso.” 43  “[…] difendo la semplice immediatezza nella poesia” (Boine and Cecchi 1983, 165). 44  Camillo Sbarbaro (1888–1967), a Ligurian poet, began his career in 1911 with the book Resins (‘Resine’). In 1914 he published Pianissimo, the work reviewed by Boine, and he moved to Florence where he met great intellectuals like Papini, Soffici, Campana and Rosai. He taught Greek and Latin, he collaborated with La Voce and La Riviera Ligure. 45  Dino Campana (1885–1932), was a Tuscan poet. He did not follow regular studies because of a mental illness. He travelled a lot, including America. In 1914 he published at his own expense Orphic songs (‘Canti orfici’), the book reviewed by Boine in La Riviera Ligure. In 1918 he was committed to a mental home near Florence, where he remained until his death. 46  “Ora ecco qui una poesia, questa dello Sbarbaro, la quale ci appare il meno possibile canto di gioia e di vita, la quale non intoppa mai ricercando la bellezza, nel falso, nell’abbondevole della rettorica. Poesia della plumbea disperazione, succinto velo, scarna espressione di un irrimediabile sconforto. […] Sono colpito in questi frammenti dello Sbarbaro dalla secchezza, dalla immediata personalità, dalla scarna semplicità del suo dire: mi par d’essere innanzi ad una di quelle poesie su cui i letterati non sanno né possono dissertare a lungo, ma di cui si ricordano gli uomini nella vita loro per i millenni.” (Boine 1983, 132–4).

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attempted to project a brief prose that could transmit the fragmentation and the partiality of their historical moment. Boine tried to follow this trend, and he wrote several artistic texts. From March 1915 to January 1917, he published in La Riviera Ligure nine pieces of prose, collected by his friends after his death in a book entitled Fragments (‘Frantumi’). Here he experimented with the idea of beauty based on essentiality, spareness and sincerity that he was searching for. The syntax is dry, the single word brings centrality and the content of the text arrives to the reader through a system of analogy and opposition of brief elements, of pieces of text that are not harmonious, not sweet, not formally and traditionally ‘beautiful’. These texts are pieces of life and thought: in one word, they are Fragments. To understand the profound difference between these texts and Boine’s other works that have been quoted above, it is sufficient to read the incipit of one of them, Fragments, the prose that gives the title to the posthumous collection: – There are quick-wide anguishes, like bitumen of clouds over the valleys. – Go on, go on … Go on! And everything is black. – Everything is clear, everything is black; everything is day everything is night. It’s night, it’s day. It’s clear … it’s black … it’s black black and dark! – So, clear-black clear-black through painful twilights, the deep sky of powerless and all the exits are barred! – The nagging thought, the spur, is like a hammer. The spur of the malediction is like a deaf hummer.47 In these texts there are no rhymes, the punctuation is not linear and there are no rigorous metrics. These works can not be considered traditional poetry nor traditional prose but a new genre, a rhythmic prose, rapid, violent in its sounds and in images. Boine’s Fragments is an interesting example of a new genre that many young authors defined as ‘lyric prose’, a writing style that involved novelists, poets, essayists, and that took them to the elaboration of a new way to express themselves. In the last years of his life, Boine finally made his idea of beauty a reality. He explored a new language to transmit his essence but his fragment, contrary others’ one, is not “[…] the irresponsible and miraculous 47  Boine 2007, 72: “– Ci sono angoscie rapide-vaste come bitume di nubi sopra le valli. // – Avanza avanza … Avanza! ed ogni cosa è nera. – Ogni cosa è chiara, ogni cosa è nera; ogni cosa è giorno ogni cosa è notte. È notte, è giorno. È chiara … è nera … è nera nera e buia! // – Così è che chiaronero, chiaronero per gli affannosi crepuscoli preme il respiro l’ottuso cielo dell’impotenza e tutti gli sbocchi son sbarri biechi, tutti! // – È come un martello, l’assillo, il pungolo, come un martello sordo l’insopportabile pungolo della maledizione.”

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illumination of an initiate, but it is the hard conquest of a tormented, moral and intellectual, fighting”,48 as faith is for mystics the result of an everyday fight against obscurity. The scholar of religion and the innovative writer of lyrical prose join together, in Boine, in the same intellectual figure. Thanks to his aesthetic research, he not only elaborated a concrete project to put into practice his idea of beauty, but he also tried to integrate himself, in an active way, in the literary tradition of the time. He could not do this, at least not completely, because of his premature death. On 16th May 1917, after several years of suffering, Boine died at the young age of 29 of tuberculosis. But his lesson did not remain unheeded for long. Among Boine’s estimators, in relation to the problem of his idea of beauty, it is interesting to consider the case of a young Ligurian poet who immediately showed his interest for the artistic studies carried out by the author of Fragments. This young reader was Eugenio Montale. Soon after Boine’s death, Montale wrote few lines in his Genoese exercise book (‘Quaderno genovese’): “Giovanni Boine is dead!!! This news made me damaged. For the avant-garde (I say for the serious part of it) the damage is inestimable. But is it possible that all the great people disappear? He was a golden critic in the brief book review; he was a poet that could fascinate with some impulses and some sighs of tiredness that sprang from the page from line to line. More than a promise, he was a success. I am sorry that I never met him. ‘Riviera Ligure’ remains like damaged.”49 The young poet put Boine among the most influential representatives of the new Italian literature of the time. He celebrated both his critical work, based on an exemplary brevitas, and his artistic and poetical research of Fragments. With the term ‘avant-garde’ he did not put him near the futurist writers, near their aesthetic model and their political ideology. Montale referred to “that complex cultural movement that felt the crisis of old intellectual and moral structures of the XIX century, and that proposed a rebellion against that world, against its bourgeois mediocrity, against its culture linked with Positivism. A rebellion characterized also by experimentalism, influenced by European

48  Carpi 1966, 79: “[…] il frammento non è l’irresponsabile e miracolista illuminazione di un iniziato, ma la faticosa conquista di una tormentata lotta morale e intellettuale.” 49  Montale 1996, 1325: “È morto Giovanni Boine!!! Questa notizia mi ha fatto male. Per l’avanguardia (parlo della parte seria di essa) il danno è incalcolabile. Ma che ci siano rapiti tutti quelli che valgono qualche cosa? Era un critico d’oro nella rassegna spicciola dei libri; un poeta che sapeva affascinare con certi moti e certi sospiri di stanchezza che sgorgavano dalle sue pagine tra linea e linea. Più che una promessa, una affermazione. Mi dispiacerà sempre di non averlo conosciuto. La ‘Riviera Ligure’ ne resta come diminuita.”

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irrationalism and Pragmatism.”50 Montale perceived “in Boine a comrade in struggle, dictated by a transgressive violence that he had not.”51 In his opinion, Boine was an author of the avant-garde not because he wanted to violently break with tradition, as in the case of Futurists, but because he needed to integrate himself with the tradition in an innovative way. In the first issue of Il Baretti, a review founded by Piero Gobetti in 1925, Montale defined his own idea of tradition not as “a death system of schemes, of extrinsic rules and of habits” but as “an intimate spirit, a genius of sort, a consonance with the most constant spirits expressed by our land”52 and Boine’s aesthetic research, like the young Montale’s one, actively integrated itself in this dynamic interpretation of the concept of tradition. Many of the concrete results of Boine’s reflections about aesthetics can be found among the poetical materials of young Montale: some typical images, some suggestions, some linguistic aspects of Boine’s works are also used and elaborated by the poet in his Cuttlefish Bones. Giovanna Ioli writes effectively that “something of Boine was really compatible with Montale’s programmatic linguistic rules” and that “some of Boine’s fragments of linguistic material, considered like real objects to mould, entered in the poet’s plurilinguistic structure.”53 In Lemons, for example, we can find a marked use of the sibilant “s” associated with the term ‘silence’: “See, in these silences where things / give over and seem on the verge of betraying / their final secret, / sometimes we feel we’re about / to uncover an error in Nature, […].”54 This stylistic characteristic is referable to similar rhythmic choices adopted by Boine in Drift, one of the sections of Fragments, published in September 1915: 50  Mosena 2008, 22: “Ma Montale usando la parola avanguardia si riferiva anche a quel complesso moto culturale che avvertì la crisi delle vecchie strutture intellettuali e morali ottocentesche, proponendo una rivolta contro quel mondo, contro la mediocrità borghese, la cultura del positivismo. Una rivolta connotata anche da sperimentalismo, suggestionata dall’irrazionalismo europeo, dal pragmatismo.” 51  Ioli 1996, 147: “[…] Montale intravide in Boine un compagno di lotta e per di più dotato di una violenza trasgressiva che a lui ancora mancava.” 52  Montale 1996, 11–2: “[…] per tradizione non s’intende un morto peso di schemi, di leggi estrinseche e di consuetudini – ma un intimo spirito, un genio di razza, una consonanza con gli spiriti più costanti espressi dalla nostra terra”. 53  Ioli 1996, 149: “[…] qualcosa di Boine fu realmente compatibile come le programmatiche leggi linguistiche di Montale. E qualche frantumo della materia verbale boinaina, considerato come un vero e proprio oggetto da plasmare, entrò a far parte della sua struttura plurilingistica.” 54  Montale 1998, 8–9: “Vedi, in questi silenzi in cui le cose / s’abbandonano e sembrano vicine / a tradire il loro ultimo segreto, / talora ci si aspetta / di scoprire uno sbaglio di Natura, […].”

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– Sighs of liquidness rinse, hours of eternity float, everything dissolves in a sweet and slow way, and we go, we don’t go, in smooth silences of impassibility. – Beyond the thoughts only the sea-shores. Beyond all the destinations there are horizons (you let go the moorings, you leave the rudder, you abandon your life  …). No one knows where we are. No one knows where we go. No one knows what we want. No one wants that the world exists.55 Useful references that we can find in the comparison between two authors’ texts are not limited to rhythmic effects. The famous imagery of the “[…] wall / with broken bottle shards imbedded in the top” in Meriggiare (“[…] muraglia / che ha in cima cocci aguzzi di bottiglia”: Montale 1998, 41) seems to be inspired by the “closed wall” of the fragment 49 (“chiusa muraglia”: Boine 2007, 52) and above all it evokes “the little wall topped with sharp broken bits” of a passage of the novel The sin (“il muretto irto di cocci puntuti a difesa”: Boine 1983, 38). In the same way, “watch the red ants’ files” of Monatle’s Meriggiare (“spiar le file di rosse formiche”: Montale 1998, 40) recalls the similar image described by Boine in a passage of Idyll, one of the part of Deliriums published in August 1915: “I disturb the obstinate processions of silent ants with my foot.”56 Other interesting aspects are “unique occurrences”. In End of Childhood we read the verb “to engulf”,57 that is also present in Boine’s Deliriums both in The equivalent58 and in Transfiguration.59 Moreover in Montale’s End of Childhood there is a “tangled seaweed”60 that remembers the “tongues of seaweed” of 55  Boine 2007, 79–80: “– Sciacquan sospiri di liquidità, fiottano l’ore dell’eternità, soffice lenta ogni cosa si sfa, e in lisci silenzi d’impassibilità si va non si va. // – Sono le spiagge di là dai pensieri, son gli orizzonti di là d’ogni meta (molli le scotte, lasci il timone, la vita abbandoni …) dove si sia nessuno sa più, dove si vada nessuno sa più, cosa si voglia nessuno sa più, che il mondo sia nessuno vuol più.” 56  Boine 2007, 69: “[…] le processioni ostinate delle minute formiche le disturbo curioso col piede.” 57  “Thundering, a throbbing sea / hatched by furrows / wrinkled and flocked with foam / was engulfed in the curved shore” (Montale 1998, 82–3: “Rombando s’ingolfava / dentro l’arcuata ripa / un mare pulsante, sbarrato da solchi, / cresputo e fioccoso di spume”). 58  “As a ghostly raid, it comes back full, with grimaces thronges, it hasty engulfs itself” (Boine 2007, 65: “Come la spettral scorribanda satolla ritorna, con sghignazzi s’accalca, frettolosa s’ingolfa”). 59  “Ravines of mistery engulf the usual forms; all the geometric line exceed, an aura of fever” (ivi, 67: “Anfratti di mistero s’ingolfano fondi tra le consuete forme; esorbita ogni geometrica linea un’aura di febbre”). 60  “Offshore, tangled seaweed / and drifting tree trunks rolled” (Montale 1998, 82–3: “Giravano al largo i grovigli dell’alighe / e tronchi d’alberi alla deriva”).

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Boine’s Limit, the first part of his Fragments: “I cross the limits of the reality: – your anchors are tongues of seaweed, your walls are breezes, every prison is destroyed, the liberty is released.”61 The only occurrence of Montale’s “eddy of deepening blue” (‘gorgo d’azzurro’) is in a poem written in 1925, Marezzo,62 but this syntagm appears also in Report of an excursion, the second lyric prose published by Boine in March 1915: “Let us look with serene pupil and we hope that this eddy of blue will devour us.”63 Examples do not finish here: many other common occurrences are effectively collected in an article by Giovanna Ioli (Ioli 1996). The strong connection between so different artistic experiences reflects the importance of some of the results of Boine’s aesthetic research. He delved into the profound aspect of poetic inspiration to find those words “burning-ruby” (“rovente rubino”: Boine 1997, 155) that he needs to express his interiority: this is a lesson that was very well accepted by young Montale and by other authors of the time. Boine never formulated in detail a complete and well-organised aesthetic theory, but he contributed to fix, through a restless elaboration of his idea of beauty, the correct path to follow. If the personal results can not be considered ultimate, there is no doubt that tracing his brief literary career is necessary to understand the problems, wishes, frustrations and successes of many of his young contemporaries: […] in Boine’s experience we can find the historical uneasiness charcteristic of his generation, the dissatisfaction for what is only apparently definitive and the sentiment of estreme precariousness caused by the collapse of Romantic ideologies. Boine is one of the bearer of a permanent interior doubtfulness that he tries to translate into philosophical terms to find an interior peace […]; his innate ambiguity, his essence divided between anarchy and stability, between faith and reason, between science and mistery rise from the impossibility to find a rational and philosophical way out for his interior restlessness […]. Undestanding Boine, in a certain way, is like doing the history of the intellectual consternation in the first twentieth century.64 61  Boine 2007, 72–3: “Svalico i valichi della realtà: – son lingue d’alighe le vostre ancore, son soffi-brezze i vostri muri, è scatenata ogni prigione, è sprigionata la libertà.” 62  “No one hears us anymore, / drowned as we are / in an eddy of deepening blue” (Montale 1998, 124–5: “Così sommersi / in un gorgo d’azzurro che s’infolta”). 63  Boine 2007, 61: “Guardiamoci con serena pupilla e, questo gorgo d’azzurro, su, ci divori.” 64  Valli 1970, 339: “[…] in Boine agisce tutto il malessere storico proprio della sua generazione, tutta l’insoddisfazione verso ciò che è definitivo solo apparentemente, tutto il sentimento di una estrema precarietà dovuta al venir meno delle verità e delle ideologie romantiche.

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The idea of beauty theorized, and then put into practice, by Boine is an important example of the research of a whole generation. In the first years of the twentieth century, they found the basis for a radical attempt of literary reform. In a period of great tension, of rapid and violent innovations, of avant-garde art and of precariousness, the concept of beauty changed through the reflections of a young intellectual, a man who positioned himself with authority among the great voices of the time. References Boine, Giovanni. 1971. Il Peccato e le altre Opere. Ritratto di Boine di Giancarlo Vigorelli. Parma: Guanda. Boine, Giovanni. 1979. Carteggio IV. Giovanni Boine-Amici della “Voce”-Vari (1904–1917). A cura di Margherita Marchione e Salvatore Eugene Scalia. Roma: Edizioni di Storia e Letteratura. Boine, Giovanni. 1983. Il peccato. Plausi e botte. Frantumi. Altri scritti. A cura di Davide Puccini. Milano: Garzanti. Boine, Giovanni. 1997. L’esperienza religiosa e altri scritti di filosofia e di letteratura. A cura di Giuliana Benvenuti e Fausto Curi. Bologna: Pendragon. Boine, Giovanni. 2007. Frantumi. A cura di Veronica Pesce. Genova: Edizioni San Marco dei Giustiniani. Boine, Giovanni. 2008. Intelligenza e bontà. Saggi, recensioni e lettere sul modernismo religioso. Traduzioni e introduzione di Sandro Borzoni. Torino: Aragno. Boine, Giovanni – Emilio Cecchi. 1983. Carteggio II. Giovanni Boine-Emilio Cecchi (1911– 1917). A cura di Margherita Marchione e Salvatore Eugene Scalia. Roma: Edizioni di Storia e Letteratura. Carpi, Umberto. 1966. “Giovanni Boine: idee sulla poesia.” Belfagor XXI (1): 72–81. Croce, Benedetto. 1969. Epistolario II. Lettere ad Alessandro Casati (1907–1952). Napoli: Istituto Italiano per gli Studi Storici. Dillon Wanke, Matilde. 1978. Boine contra Croce. In Giovanni Boine. Atti del convegno nazionale di studi (Imperia, 25–27 novembre 1977), a cura di Franco Contorbia, 375– 403. Genova: il melangolo.

Boine è uno dei portatori di questa permanente interiore dubbiosità, che egli tenta di tradurre in termini filosofici per darsene una ragione e avere pace […]; la sua connaturata ambiguità, il suo sentirsi dilaniato tra anarchia e stabilità, tra fede e ragione, tra scienza e mistero sorgono dalla impossibilità di trovare uno sbocco razionale e filosofico alla interiore irrequietudine […]. Capire Boine è, in un certo senso, fare la storia dello smarrimento dell’intellettuale italiano alle origini del Novecento.”

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Ioli, Giovanna. 1996. Frantumi e rottami: note su Boine e Montale. In La Liguria di Montale, a cura di Franco Contorbia e Luigi Surdich. Savona: Marco Sabatelli editore. Montale, Eugenio. 1996. Il secondo mestiere. Arte, musica, società. A cura di Giorgio Zampa. Milano: Mondadori – I Meridiani. Montale, Eugenio. 1998. Collected poems. 1920–1954. Bilingual edition translated and annotated by Jonathan Galassi. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux. Mosena, Roberto. 2008. Boine e il torchio della parola. In Id., Proteso a un’avventura. Scritti montaliani e liguri. Roma: Edizioni Nuova Cultura. Orlando, Enrico Riccardo. 2013. “Rassegna di studi su Giovanni Boine (1983–2012).” Lettere Italiane LXV (3): 433–59. Valli, Donato. 1970. “Croce e Boine: la condizione del letterato italiano tra filosofia e vita.” Lettere Italiane XXI (3): 325–50.

chapter 12

The Origins of Beauty in Leopardi’s Zibaldone Stefano Bragato Reflections on beauty played a key role in the formation of Giacomo Leopardi’s (1798–1837) early aesthetic thought, underpinning much part of his literary production. In a letter to his friend Pietro Giordani dated April 26th, 1819, Leopardi confessed that in those years he found “nothing desirable in this life, except the delights of the heart, and the contemplation of beauty” (Leopardi 1998, 74). Beauty was a central concern for Leopardi in both his life and his intellectual enterprise, especially between 1817 and 1823, when he composed two texts that closely deal with the topic: Sappho’s Last Song, written in 1821, and To his Lady, which in 1823 marked the end of his first poetical season. The origin of Leopardi’s theories on beauty can be traced in a number of notes written mainly in the first section of his Zibaldone (1817–24), the notebook, diary, hodgepodge that he kept throughout the most part of his life (1817–32). Scholars agree to consider the Zibaldone as a non-ordinary literary artifact, a text that should not be read as a traditional book but rather approached from a number of different perspectives (Blasucci 1996, 241). The Zibaldone lacks an identifiable main thread, but rather consists of series of minor paths that constantly intertwine with each other, as Rolando Damiani noted in the introduction to his 1997 edition of the text (Leopardi 1997, XXXII– XXXIII). My aim in this essay is to trace one of these paths, namely that related to the birth and the evolution of the concept of beauty. I will track the subsequent stages of Leopardi’s theorization on the topic, through identifying the various definitions of beauty given by him and tracing the arguments he put forward to support them. I intend to show how the Zibaldone was the tool through which Leopardi moved from a traditional, eighteenth-century idea of beauty (conceived as an abstract concept) to a modern and personal one, which viewed it as an experiential manifestation. 1

Pursuing Beauty – Poetics

Leopardi’s ideas on beauty stem directly from the aesthetic principles established in the very first pages of the Zibaldone (1817–8). Here the nineteenyear-old intellectual started to reflect extensively on the contemporary status

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of art and literature and lay the foundations of his poetical system. These ideas are also central in the Discourse on Romantic Poetry that he wrote in 1818 (it would be published posthumously in 1906), and are to be found in many letters to his friend Pietro Giordani sent in this very period. Leopardi’s starting point within this theorization was the identification of the aim, means and object of poetry. At pages 2–3 of the Zibaldone, he clearly stated that the ultimate purpose of poetry should be to provoke delight in the reader. With this assumption he was moving away from a number of contemporary theories that assigned to poetry a primarily educational role (this was, for example, Alessandro Manzoni’s view), or that conceived poetry as a means to create and celebrate beauty (as many contemporary neoclassicists claimed). This belief – poetry should provoke delight – would constitute the fundamental cornerstone of Leopardi’s poetic activity throughout all his life: it underpinned a letter he wrote on March 4th, 1826 to Giovan Pietro Vieusseux, the editor of the literary journal Antologia – the letter deals with the publication of three of his Small Moral Works [Operette morali] in Vieusseux’s journal (Leopardi 1998, 180–1) – and would be categorically expressed in the introduction to the Spettatore fiorentino [Florentine Spectator], the journal Leopardi attempted to found in 1832 together with his friends Giovanni Freppa and Antonio Ranieri (Monserrati 2005, 14–16; Leopardi 1997, 3233; Leopardi 1988, 1012). The means by which the poet should reach the purpose of provoking delight in the reader is, according to Leopardi, the imitation of nature: Poetry can be indirectly useful, in the same way as an axe can scythe, but usefulness is not the natural purpose without which it could not exist, in the way that it could not exist without delight, for to give delight is the natural office of poetry […]. A plant or animal seen in real life should give us more delight than when it is painted or imitated in some other way, because it is impossible for an imitation not to leave something to be desired. But the contrary is clearly true: from which it appears that the source of delight in the arts is not beauty but imitation. Leopardi 2013, 5–6; no date; p. 31

1  In this essay all quotations from the Zibaldone are from the 2013 English edition. Following the established scholarly tradition, in addition to the page number of the edition I also indicate the date of the quoted entry and its page in the original manuscript.

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Leopardi shares the classical Aristotelian principle of mimesis according to which art should consist in the imitation of nature. This principle was central in many classical authors (Horace, Seneca, Quintilian, to name only a few) and in the rediscovery of classical beauty during the Renaissance, and more recently it played an important role within the eighteenth-century debate on Neoclassicism. In their conceptualization of mimesis, neoclassicists used to refer to art as imitation of a ‘belle nature’ [beautiful nature], arguing that art should not only imitate nature, but rather improve it and offer to the reader an enhanced version of it. Consequently, artists should look for beauty in nature and choose only beautiful and pleasant things as objects of their art (Trzeciak 2013b, 447–8; Trzeciak 2013a, 115–7; Camiciottoli 2010, 67–70). This theory was at the core of one of the most important eighteenth-century treatises on the topic, The Fine Arts Reduced to a Single Principle (1746) by the French philosopher Charles Batteux (1713–80). In this work Batteux codified in a rather definitive structure the modern conception of fine arts, by framing them in a coherent system which held the imitation of nature as its unifying principle. This seminal work influenced many contemporary intellectuals all around Europe, including Rousseau, Diderot, D’Alembert, Kant, Mendelssohn and Herder, to name only a few (Batteux 2015, XXVIII–XXXIII). It also served as a model for the establishment of subsequent systems of fine arts, including Leopardi’s one in the Zibaldone, as I will mention shortly. Although Leopardi shared the aesthetic principle of the imitation of nature, from the very first pages of the Zibaldone he moved away from the abovementioned neoclassical sources and stated that art should imitate nature ‘as it is,’ without attempting to make it better. His position originated from the belief that the source of delight in poetry lies in the very process of imitation, independently from the objects imitated. By representing things of nature, argues Leopardi, the poet creates a gap between the actual object (the extratextual referent) and the work of art (the representation), thus leaving room for the readers to fill this gap with their own imagination – and this very use of the human imaginative faculty, according to Leopardi, constitutes the source of delight, since it distracts men and women from their ontological condition of boredom (noia, in Italian). Imitation, in other words, reawakens human imagination and triggers a sense of wonder. This is why the poet should not imitate ‘truth’ in nature but rather the ‘similar to truth,’ in order to leave more room for the reader’s imagination to wander off. Further, according to Leopardi the imitation of nature is able to reawaken in the reader memories of past times, which are connected to the imaginative world of the ancients made up of delightful illusions, as stated in a passage of the Discourse on Romantic Poetry:

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for the childlike fantasies and imagination mentioned above are precisely the same fantasies and imagination that belonged to the ancients, and the memory of infancy and our first ideas that we are so drawn to love and desire, are exactly those that the imitation of pure and inviolate nature reawakens, those that the poet can and even must reawaken within us. Camilletti 2013, 123

The abovementioned process through which imagination produces delight in the reader is described by Leopardi in a passage of the same Discourse: Ordinarily, the poet does not and cannot paint the entire figure, but employs rather a few strokes of a brush in order to paint, and more often merely acknowledge, only some part of it; or he roughly sketches its outlines that contain only select features and no more: the imagination, if it has direct experience with the objects, is then able to supplement its other parts, or add colour to it, and shadows and highlights, and completes the figure. ivi, 137

A few months before starting the Zibaldone, Leopardi shared these ideas with Pietro Giordani in a letter dated May 30th, 1817 (Leopardi 1998, 45–6). He then summed them up at pages 6–7 of the Zibaldone, where he began the task of to building up his own ‘System of Fine Arts’: Purpose – to give pleasure; secondary purpose sometimes, usefulness. – Object and means of obtaining the purpose – the imitation of nature, not necessarily of beauty. – Primary cause of the outcome produced by this object or by this means – wonder […] wonder is thus produced by the imitation of the beautiful as well as by the imitation of any other real or truthful thing: hence the delight of tragedies etc., produced not by the thing imitated but by the imitation […]. Original cause of the delight aroused by wonder, etc., and therefore consequently of the delight aroused by the fine arts – man’s natural abhorrence to boredom. Leopardi 2013, 8; no date; p. 6

So according to Leopardi the value of a work of art does not depend on the object represented, but on how well it is represented. Even unpleasant events can be the object of art, as in Greek tragedies: what is important is that they are well imitated, because this way they will succeed in provoking wonder in the reader and in putting his or her imagination at work. In other words,

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in order to be beautiful it is not necessary for a literary artifact to deal with beautiful objects or to portray an enhanced version of them, as eighteenthcentury neoclassical thinkers recommended; what matters is only the quality of the imitation and its power to stir the reader’s imagination. Beauty lies in the poet’s work and in its effects on the reader. This is an important point in Leopardi’s theorization, since it shows that for him a work of art is not an aesthetically independent artifact, as neoclassicists used to claim; rather, its beauty lies in the actual relationship it establishes with men and women. Being not something intrinsic, the value of a poem thus hinges only on the poem’s ability to produce delight in the reader. This belief brings about Leopardi’s most innovative point on the theory of fine arts: the relativity of beauty. As there are no beautiful or ugly works of art if not in relation to a reader, beauty is no longer an absolute and formally self-sufficient concept, but rather a relative judgment, as clearly stated in a 1821 entry of the Zibaldone: The beautiful is simply what seems proper, that is to say, beautiful, to man. So it is. Outside of the opinion of man or other living creature has been removed, not only the ideas, but the actual qualities of the beautiful and the ugly (although good and bad, inasmuch as the help or harm other beings, etc., may remain) are wholly removed from the world. ivi, 666; July 30th, 1821; p. 1406; italics in the original

In other words, Leopardi shifts the quality of beauty from the object of poetry to its subject, from form to perception, making it a manifestation of human experience rather than an immovable absolute, an abstract platonic idea. The discovery of the relativity of beauty is not of course original of Leopardi, but came to him through the English empiricists, including Locke and especially Hume, whose The Standard of Taste (1742) expressively addressed this topic (Leopardi 2013, 638; July 17th, 1821; pp. 1339–40); however, Leopardi was able to reconcile this concept with his neoclassical sources and to create an own consistent theorization (Cacciapuoti 2010, 125–8; Camiciottoli 2010, 120–2; Leopardi 2002, XXIV; Ficara 1999, 27). As anticipated earlier, at pages 6–7 of the Zibaldone Leopardi embarked on the task of establishing a system of fine arts, probably moving from Batteux’s model. The discovery of the relativity of beauty, however, had a major impact on such undertaking. Leopardi soon realized that if beauty is a relative and experiential concept lying in the relationship between reality and human beings, its definition cannot be sought for through an abstract and normative system like Batteux’s one; rather it can be found only through observing

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beauty’s empirical manifestations, i.e. through directly experiencing it – with an inductive, rather than deductive approach. Consequently, Leopardi soon abandoned his purpose of building up a normative system of fine arts, and decided to go looking for expressions of beauty in his life experience (Trzeciak 2013b, 452). 2

Defining Beauty – Experience

The Zibaldone reflects this methodological shift, especially from the second half of 1821 to the first half of 1822, when Leopardi started to record his personal experiences of beauty and to reflect on them. These reflections soon resulted in the theorization of a new personal definition of beauty, grounded on two intertwined concepts: ‘propriety’ (convenienza in Italian) and ‘habituation’ (assuefazione in Italian). By ‘propriety’ Leopardi meant a balanced pattern of proportions that is to be found within the different components of an object, or within relations among different objects: something (or someone) is judged beautiful when all its different parts agree among each other, i.e. when they respect a particular system of features and proportions that the observer already holds in his or her mind. The coordinates of this system, however, are not given a priori by archetypes or theoretical models, but originate from everyone’s own experience and ‘habituation’ in observing reality. In other words, our ‘habituation’ in perceiving things ordered in a particular structure and with a constant pattern of proportions makes us see in that pattern a model of beauty: “every idea of proportion, propriety, beauty, definitive and specific good, and all their opposites, come from simple habituation,” writes Leopardi on June 20th, 1821 (2013, 567; p. 1186; italics in the original). Moreover, the very concept of ‘propriety’ is a consequence of human ‘habituation’: the idea that different things ought to agree among each other in order to be beautiful comes from our habituation in perceiving them as such.2

2  In an 1823 entry of the Zibaldone Leopardi proposed a secondary definition of beauty, which however appears rather isolated and would not be picked up again by him. This definition is linked to a further meaning of the Italian word for ‘propriety’ (convenienza), i.e. ‘fitness’ or ‘suitability’: the beauty of a thing, noted Leopardi, would also lie in its suitability for its purpose (Leopardi 2013, 557; June 13th, 1821; p. 1165). This definition, which as Fabiana Cacciapuoti has noted is much indebted to Kant’s Critique of Judgement (Leopardi 2002, XXV), leaves however subjective perception in the background since it focuses on the object itself only. Such exclusion of the subject is perhaps the reason why this argument was not investigated much further in the Zibaldone.

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Many authors probably influenced Leopardi’s ideas at this stage, including Gian Vincenzo Gravina, Leopoldo Cicognara, Jean-Baptiste Dubos and the English empiricists (Trzeciak 2013b, 444; Trzeciak 2013a, 121–74; Camiciottoli 2010, 115). Another important source for Leopardi, especially with regards to the concept of ‘propriety,’ probably was the Encyclopédie by Diderot and D’Alembert (1752), where the word-entry ‘beauty,’ written by Diderot, was structured as a summary of the main aesthetic theories on the subject from Plato to Hutcheson and Shaftesbury (Leopardi 2002, XXX–XXXI). Further, Alessandro Camiciottoli has recently stressed the influence on Leopardi of the treatise Del bello e del sublime [On beautiful and sublime] (1810) by philosopher Ignazio Martignoni, which probably reached Leopardi’s interest through a review written by the Milanese intellectual Pietro Borsieri in the issues 8 and 9 of the journal Annali di Scienze e Lettere. In spite of the many common points between Martignoni and Leopardi, the latter did not share the former’s distinction between absolute and relative beauty, claiming, as I have just shown, that relative beauty is the only one actually existing (Camiciottoli 2010, 77–9). In the Zibaldone Leopardi supported these statements with a few arguments, usually taken from everyday experience. The most compelling one is probably that of the development of the idea of beauty in children, which according to Leopardi grows little by little and is shaped only through the continuous observation of reality. Leopardi argued that this point demonstrates the lack of an a priori conception of beauty in human nature: [A child] in seeing, e.g., in all the people who surround him a nose or mouth of such a measure that we call well-proportioned, he necessarily and naturally forms the idea that such a part of man is and should be of such a measure. Here, right away, we have the idea of a proportion that is not absolute but relative, an idea that is not innate but acquired, not derived from nature nor from the essence of things, nor from a model and a notion preexisting in one’s intellect, nor from a necessary order, but from the habituation of the sense of sight to such an object, and from the decision of nature that has really fashioned the majority of men thus. Leopardi 2013, 566; June 20th, 1821; pp. 1184–5

A similar example is that of somebody who is born blind and thanks to some sort of surgery would suddenly start seeing: he would not be able to indicate something as beautiful, since he would not have had the possibility to develop a personal model of beauty due to his lack of experience (2013, 1224–5; July 14th, 1823; pp. 2960–2). Another example offered by Leopardi involves the

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fourteenth-century Italian poet Petrarch, who considered his collection of poems in Italian, the Rerum Volgarium Fragmenta [Fragments Composed in Vernacular] (1336–74) inferior to his Latin works. This was because, argues Leopardi, in Petrarch’s times Italian language and poetry had just been born, and thus he could not develop that sufficient degree of ‘habituation’ with them which could enable him to appreciate the “beauty, worth, elegance of the grace, naturalness, simplicity, nobility, vigor, and purity that we feel right away” (ivi, 731; August 28th, 1821; pp. 1579–80). He had instead much more ‘habituation’ with Latin language and literature, and was therefore able to judge his Latin writings much more subtly. So beauty, argues Leopardi, is strictly bounded to the individual perceptions of each man and woman. Coming exclusively from individual experience, the pattern of proportions that constitute ‘propriety’ is relative to each person: hence, there are as many models of beauty as there are people on earth. All the systems of beauty that have been established so far (including Batteux’s one) hinge on individual perceptions only and on the sensibility of the person who wrote them, rather than on universal abstracts: every person embodies a different system of beauty (Leopardi 2013, 825, 830; October 4th and 5th, 1821; pp. 1833–4). Leopardi brings along a number of examples in the Zibaldone in order to demonstrate this point. He shows how peoples in different times and places have different models of beauty, because their idea of ‘propriety’ is formed through ‘habituation’ to dissimilar things (ivi, 667, 741; July 30th and September 1st, 1821; pp. 1409–10, 1604). It is interesting however, argues Leopardi, that they will consider their model of beauty as standard and universal: “ideal beauty is none other than the idea of propriety that an artist forms according to the opinions and customs of his time, and of his country” (ivi, 10; no date; pp. 8–9). Leopardi also tackled the topic of beauty in languages, explaining how their smoothness and musicality depend only on individual perceptions (ivi, 1157–8; June 19th, 1823; p. 2797). Further, this personal model of beauty changes throughout time, since every day it is reshaped by new experiences that add on the past ones. More experience in a field brings along a subtler degree of perception and appreciation of beauty. Critics, for example, continuously develop and refine their taste thanks to the daily familiarity they hold with a subject: their taste therefore does not originate from abstract study but from direct experience. Consequently, Leopardi strongly believed that in order to develop a refined taste in the field of the fine arts one should directly deal with actual poems, paintings, etc., rather than read normative texts. The only exception to this principle occurs when opinion comes into play, since our judgment about a thing of beauty may be influenced by what we or other people think about it, rather than lie on our direct experience only:

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After all, just how much pure opinion influences the judgment and sense of the beautiful, independently of habituation itself and of every other factor, can be shown with a thousand proofs which are entirely routine, even though for that very reason less noticed. Who does not know that a mediocre beauty seems great to us, if its fame is great? […] Our sense of the beautiful is far more intense, more intimate, more frequent, more acute when we read, e.g., an already famous poet, one whose merit is already acknowledged, than when we read one whose merit we have yet to judge, even though he is finer than many others in whom we take the utmost delight. ivi, 630; July 14th, 1821; pp. 1319–20

These reflections and the discovery of the relativity of beauty had also important consequences in other fields of Leopardi’s thought, expanding for example to metaphysics: “not only beauty but perhaps nearly all those concepts and ideas which we regard as absolute and universal are relative and particular” (ivi, 153; August 13th, 1820; p. 208); “there is almost no other absolute truth, except that All is relative. This must be the basis for all metaphysics” (ivi, 256; December 22nd, 1820; p. 452; italics in the original). Aesthetics was the way through which Leopardi came to the conceptualization of relativism, which he then applied to other fields of human knowledge. 3

Writing Beauty – Texts

The acknowledgement of the relativity of beauty and of the non-existence of abstract ideas informs the poem To his Lady (written in September 1823), Leopardi’s last of his first poetic season.3 Here Leopardi says his farewells to the platonic idea of beauty in a calm and resigned way, without any weeping or complaining (“Now no hope can remain / Of seeing you in the flesh,” ll. 11–2). Beauty is summoned in the very first two words of the poem (“dear beauty”), and is addressed as a perfect “lady” that is impossible to find anywhere in the world because, being an absolute, it does not exist: “But is there anyone / At all like you? And even if there were / One like in face, in action, and in voice, / Her beauty, though alike, would still be less” (ll. 19–22; Leopardi 1994, 72).

3  Leopardi stopped writing poetry in 1824 because of a temporary loss of faith in its effectiveness, and turned to the composition of short philosophical works in prose (mainly dialogues and fictional essays), the Small Moral Works (published in 1827). He resumed his poetical activity in 1828 with the poem The Revival.

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Another text directly dealing with the topic of beauty is Sappho’s Last Song, written by Leopardi in 1822 and published in 1824. This poem is closely related to the intense reflection on the subject that Leopardi undertook in the Zibaldone from the second half of 1821 to the first half of 1822: it was composed in the very May 1822, “in seven days,” as Leopardi noted in the manuscript. In the final edition of Leopardi’s poems, called Canti (Naples: Starita, 1835) all the texts dealing with the topics of beauty and love (including, among others, To his Lady and On the Likeness of a Beautiful Lady Carved upon her Tomb) come after Sappho’s Last Song, which can thus be considered as Leopardi’s first public engagement with the topic. In this ‘canto’ the Greek poetess Sappho complains about her physical ugliness – juxtaposed to her intellectual wealth – and about her distance from nature, considered as the ultimate manifestation of beauty. Because of this, she eventually comes to the decision of committing suicide. Sappho feels as if nature withdraws from her because of her ugliness, as it appears in the second strophe of the poem: Bright is your mantle, sacred sky, and bright4 Are you, dew-covered earth. And yet of that Infinite beauty not the smallest part Was given to wretched Sappho by the gods And cruel fate. In your proud realms, O nature, Merely a humble and unhappy guest, A lover who is scorned, I turn towards The splendor of your shape in supplication Turn heart and eyes in vain. For me no sunLit places smile, nor yet the day’s first light From heaven’s gate; painted birds sing, but not

4  In J.G. Nichols’ translation of this poem the word ‘bright,’ repeated twice in this line, stands for the Italian ‘bello’ and ‘bella,’ which literally mean ‘beautiful.’ This translation is not thus able to convey a point explicitly made here by Leopardi, namely that the sky and the earth – the two most immediate manifestations of nature – are immediately perceived by humans as beautiful, in opposition to Sappho’s ugliness. This concept is also stressed by the dominant position of this verse within the poem, at the very beginning of the second strophe. For the sake of precision, however, it should be noted that the words ‘bello’ and ‘bella’ were introduced by Leopardi only in the very last version of the poem, in 1835, when he made a few handwritten corrections to the just published Neapolitan edition; the first version instead – published in 1824 in Bologna – read ‘vago’ and ‘vaga’ (Leopardi 1984, 72). In Leopardi’s linguistic system, however, ‘bello’ and ‘vago’ have a very close meaning and are almost used as synonyms, being the latter a term closely associated with the concepts of beauty and pleasure.

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To welcome me; nor ever mine the murmur Of beechen leaves: and where beneath the shade Of the inclining willow the bright river Displays its shining surface, it withdraws Its serpentining waters in disdain From my unsteady foot, Pressing on scented shores in its retreat. ll. 19–36; ivi, 41

Nature is considered by Sappho as a place of absolute and universal beauty (“infinite beauty,” l. 21) from which she is excluded, as it had been determined by “gods and cruel fate” (ll. 22–3). However, how can nature be associated with the idea of universal beauty if this idea had just been challenged by Leopardi in the Zibaldone? How can Sappho mention an “infinite beauty” if beauty is only relative? A contradiction could perhaps be spotted in Sappho’s words. I believe, however, that this apparent contradiction may have to do with Leopardi’s historical and ontological accuracy: as an ancient woman, Sappho still lived in a world where relativity had not yet been theorized and where people still believed in platonic ideas and mythological gods. It seems as if Leopardi is reminding the reader about this in the very first stanza of the poem, where Sappho employs mythological references to describe nature, most notably when addressing thunder as “the heavy car of Jove” (l. 12). This is rather interesting if we consider that Leopardi disapproved the use of mythology in modern poetry, as he claimed in the poem To Spring or Of the Ancient Fables, where myths are meaningfully called “fables” (ivi, 33–6), and in a number of entries of the Zibaldone, such as the following: “ancient mythology […] has all that is required where illusion, passion, etc., are concerned, but is completely lacking on the side of persuasion and so can no longer produce the same effect it used to, especially with modern themes” (Leopardi 2013, 188; October 19th, 1820; pp. 285–6). Leopardi believed that mythology in modern poetry is not able to carry the great imaginative power it used to carry in ancient poetry, and should therefore be avoided. The mythological references in Sappho’s Last Song could therefore be interpreted as indications of the ancient ontological condition of the poetess, who was living in a world where gods and platonic ideas were still alive and relativity not yet discovered. The very fact that Sappho pronounces the words “Jove’s car,” moreover, seems to stress this point further, since Leopardi himself a few years before in the “Essay on the Popular Errors of the Ancients” [Saggio sopra gli errori popolari degli antichi] (written in 1815, published posthumously in 1846) had noticed that this expression was very common among ancient poets (Leopardi 1988, 806–7).

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Being an ancient woman and poetess, Sappho is not able to understand that the “infinite beauty” of nature is not something intrinsic and given a priori, but rather the consequence of our experience. Nature appears as the ultimate manifestation of beauty simply because it appears to men and women as the most solid, common and immediate of all the ‘proprieties’ that they can perceive; this is especially true for the ancients, who according to Leopardi had a closer link to nature than the moderns: Since, however, the sole enduring and universal thing is the nature both of things and of each thing, enduring and universal opinion regarding propriety and beauty cannot therefore help but be the one that is in accord with nature, that is, which judges as proper whatever nature has contrived and has arranged should belong to beings […]. I have said that the natural is proper, and hence for the most part beautiful, that is to say, judged to be such. Leopardi 2013, 666–8; July, 30th, 1821; pp. 1405–11

Sappho’s ugliness is not an ontological truth, as she irrefutably claims, but derives only from her distance from the features that form natural ‘propriety,’ to which she is simply not ‘in accord.’ Although she is one of Leopardi’s alteregos, Sappho has not gone through the reflections on the relativity of beauty he had undertaken in the Zibaldone in 1821–2, and cannot therefore fully realize and come to terms with her condition. 4

From Aesthetics to Aesthetic Experience

As I discussed earlier, Leopardi’s theorization on the topic of beauty soon spurred him to adjust his methods of aesthetic enquiry, shifting from establishing a deductive system of fine arts to observing manifestations of beauty in everyday life. In other words, Leopardi moved from the fields of aesthetics to those of aesthetic experience, and went looking for common features within different experiential manifestations of beauty. Among the different aesthetic experiences that Leopardi analyzed in the Zibaldone (including sublime, indefinite, shock, etc.5), the concept of grace 5  Sublime is defined by Leopardi as a form of beauty that can move massive emotions, but only when the observer can keep a ‘safety distance’ from the observed (Leopardi 2013, 13; p. 13; Trzeciak 2013a, 243–9; Camiciottoli 2010, 78–81; Gaetano 2002, 53). Indefinite is instead considered by Leopardi as the only aesthetic experience capable to sneak away from the

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is particularly worth considering because of its primary position within his theorization. Leopardi firstly came to this topic through reading the Essay on Taste by Montesquieu (published posthumously in 1754 as an appendix to the entry ‘Goût’ [taste] in the seventh volume of Diderot and D’Alembert’s Encyclopédie), which confirmed his relativistic stances and perfected his inductive method of aesthetic investigation (Camiciottoli 2010, 116). Leopardi’s reflections on grace in the Zibaldone developed in two subsequent stages, i.e. 1818–21 and 1821–2. In the first stage, Leopardi seemed to share Montesquieu’s view that it is impossible to define grace with a sufficient degree of precision, to the extent that it is necessary to turn to “a certain something” (Leopardi 2013, 148; August 4th–9th, 1820; p. 200). However, Leopardi managed to identify a number of features that are typical of grace, including its affinity with the concepts of ‘small’ and ‘fast’ and its faculty to “shake, tickle, and sting, with a sting that often goes straight to the heart” (ibid.) Further, differently from beauty grace was considered by Leopardi as “something that whets the appetite rather than satisfying it” (ibid.) and that is perceived throughout a certain period of time, whereas beauty amazes, astonishes and provokes a sudden effect. Finally, building again upon Ignazio Martignoni’s Del bello e del sublime, Leopardi maintained that while beauty gives immediate satisfaction in the very moment in which it is perceived, grace presents itself as a hint towards something better, a surprise, a promise that spurs the perceiver to know more about it (Trzeciak 2013b, 452–3; Camiciottoli 2010, 81–3). In the second period of his reflections on this topic Leopardi came to a clearer definition of grace. In an entry of the Zibaldone dated July 14th, 1821, he stated that “grace very often (perhaps always) comes from the extraordinary in the beautiful, an extraordinary that does not destroy beauty” (Leopardi 2013, 631; p. 1322). Grace is felt when within the pattern of proportions that constitutes ‘propriety’ a small irregularity emerges, a little detail which is somewhat out of place and which makes the object look slightly different from the ordinary. This irregularity, however, does not spoil the beauty of the object because it does not significantly unbalance its system of proportions; on the contrary, it has the power to enhance that beauty, enlightening it from a new perspective. This definition carries all the features that Leopardi assigned to grace in the first stage of his reflections. The unusual detail that defines grace is little and subtle, and bears an effect of surprise on the observer because it unexpectedly sheds a new light on the object’s beauty. This new perspective, moreover, provokes curiosity in the observer and spurs him or her to know concepts of propriety and affectation, and constitutes a key pillar of Leopardi’s poetics (Trzeciak 2013b, 456–60).

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more about the object, since “it gives us greater surprise and pleasure to see the extraordinary not harming the beautiful, not destroying the proper and the regular, […] to see, in short, a beauty and propriety that is different from others, different from the every-day” (ivi, 631; July 14th, 1821; p. 1322). This effect of surprise is also much similar to that effect of wonder considered by Leopardi as the key source of delight in poetry, as stated earlier in this essay. In other words, grace is a little, exceptional swerve from ordinary beauty: “if the thing that is extraordinary or irregular in the beautiful, and within the limits of the beautiful, becomes ordinary and regular, it no longer produces the sense of grace. Once the sense of the extraordinary is lost, so is that of the graceful” (ivi, 632; July 14th, 1821; p. 1325). A few years later Leopardi pushed these arguments further, and identified grace as the very link between the two opposite concepts of beauty and ugliness: “grace in short is generally none other than ugliness in beauty. Ugliness in ugliness, and pure beauty are both alien to grace” (ivi, 1990; October 25th, 1828; p. 4416). Grace originates from the interplay between these two opposites, representing thus the only aesthetic space where they can simultaneously exist. Being a combination of an irregular (i.e. ugly) detail and a proper (i.e. beautiful) object, grace is considered by Leopardi a coincidentia oppositorum [unity of the opposites], as its existence depends on the co-existence of two opposite conditions. When exploring the topic of grace in art and literature, Leopardi also introduced another aesthetic experience strictly bounded to it, namely elegance. At the beginning of his theorization, grace and elegance seemed to be treated by him as synonyms, as it appears in the following discussion about literary style: If we look at what elegance in writing, a word, an expression, etc., consists in, we shall see that it always consists in a small irregularity, or in some small thing that is new or out of the ordinary, something that does not destroy the regularity and propriety of the style or language, but rather puts it in relief, and itself stands out. […] If you look at Virgil’s style, or Horace’s, models of elegance for all time, you will see that their elegance mainly and generally consist in the unfamiliarity of expressions and words. ivi, 631; July 14th, 1821; p. 1323

Virgil and Horace are considered masters of elegant writing because they were able to introduce little irregulars into the ordinary system of proportions that constitutes a beautiful style – irregulars that did not spoil that style but rather

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gave it new light and breadth. In giving this definition, however, Leopardi left out an important detail which he would mention instead in other passages of the Zibaldone. In order to develop an elegant style, an author must give the impression that he is introducing that little irregular detail effortlessly, spontaneously, as if he were not fully aware of being doing so. In other words, the author must conceal the effort that stands behind his literary composition, making his work look as it came about naturally, almost by accident: this apparently careless attitude is, according to Leopardi, the very key to elegance. Leopardi’s tribute to the Book of the Courtier (1528) by Baldassare Castiglione within this theorization is evident. Castiglione’s sprezzatura (a word that can be translated as ‘nonchalance,’ ‘careful negligence,’ ‘ease’) indicates a rather similar concept, i.e. the ability to conceal efforts and make actions look as they were performed naturally and spontaneously; this should be, according to the author of the book, the most important virtue of a courtier. Leopardi extensively mentioned Castiglione for the first time in the Zibaldone in an entry dated March 14th, 1823, where he copied the very passage of the Book of the Courtier expressing this concept: “to avoid affectation as far as possible […], and, to say perhaps a new word, to use in every thing a certain nonchalance [sprezzatura], which conceals art, and demonstrates that what is done and said is done without labor, and almost without thinking about it” (ivi, 1117; p. 2682). Although Leopardi knew the Book of the Courtier from at least 1817 – when in the essay “On two Italian Voices” [Sopra due voci italiane] (published anonymously in the journal Spettatore Italiano on November 1st, 1817) he made a linguistic reference to it with regards to the correct use of the word ‘sortire’ [to exit] –, the abovementioned entry of the Zibaldone shows that he started engaging critically with it only from 1823 (Motta 2010, 186–7). From this moment onwards, Castiglione became an important source in Leopardi’s aesthetics, especially because the concept of sprezzatura allowed him to closely investigate an issue that had very much troubled him from the very beginning of the Zibaldone, namely affectation in writing. Leopardi pondered lengthily in the Zibaldone – especially until the end of 1820 (Bertolio 2014, 14) – on the necessity to avoid affectation in writing. Affectation, according to him, constitutes the very contrary of grace and elegance, as it comes from the non-concealment of the compositional work behind a written page. Leopardi believed that study and practice are the best means to avoid affectation: only by carefully working on every single word it will possible to give one’s literary style an impression of naturalness and thus elegance. This is because, argues Leopardi, an artless and spontaneous writing will not result in a graceful and natural style; rather, it will generate a clumsy style showing a high degree of affectation:

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And so the last thing achieved by someone who feels and wants to express the emotions of his heart, etc., is simplicity and naturalness, and the first thing is artifice and affectation, and someone who has not studied and has not read and is, as these people [the Romantics] say, immune to prejudices of art, and innocent etc., certainly does not write with simplicity, but quite the opposite. […] The height of art is naturalness and the concealment of art, which novices and the ignorant are unable to conceal […] where there is less art, there is less nature. Leopardi 2013, 21–22; no date; pp. 20–1

The topic of concealing art is not something original of Leopardi nor of Castiglione and is rooted in classical antiquity: among others, Horace (in his Ars Amatoria [The Art of Love], 2.313) and Quintilian (in his Institutio Oratoria [Institution of Oratory] 9.3.102) discussed it in different forms (D’Angelo 2014, 20–2). It however proved to be very important for Leopardi since it was on this very ground that he challenged the contemporary Romantic theory that claimed that a spontaneous, almost inexperienced manner of writing was the best way to obtain a natural and graceful style. According to Leopardi, this might perhaps have been true in ancient times, when people were still in close contact with nature, but it does not apply anymore in today’s world, which is too distant from it. Further, the contrast between affectation and naturalness was at the basis of Leopardi’s criticism to a number of Romantic writers whom he blamed for wittingly exposing their compositional and rhetorical practices rather than concealing them. Lord Byron in particular was at the center of his disapproval: focusing especially on the pervasive use of dashes in The Corsair, Leopardi compared Byron to “a charlatan showing off his wares” who constantly struggles to attract the reader’s attention to his “remarkable epithets,” expressions and metaphors. As a result of this, argues Leopardi, rather than amazed the reader feels insulted, because “the more something presents itself at beautiful, the more he [the reader] wants to find it ugly” (Leopardi 2013, 162; August 20th, 1820; p. 226). According to Leopardi, beauty in art and literature has also to do with naturalness, careful study and concealment; without them, even the most ‘proper’ work of art will rapidly degenerate in affectation. The links among poetics, beauty, grace and elegance show how aesthetics is a pivotal area in the Zibaldone, especially between 1818 and 1822. Aesthetics spurred Leopardi to start this monumental book, which from the very first pages hosts reflections on classical and contemporary art, literature and poetics. One of main purposes (if not the primary one) of the young Leopardi when embarking into this task was arguably to build his own system of fine arts,

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modeled perhaps on Batteux’s one: a system that could lead him to uncover the means for composing effective poetry and to develop the tools for a consistent appreciation of beauty. It was through this very path that Leopardi came, as I have shown, to the discovery of relativity. He firstly theorized relativity in the aesthetic field, as soon as he recognized the chiefly experiential nature of beauty and its links to everyone’s different ‘habituation.’ This awareness would subsequently equip him with the necessary tools to reflect about relativity also in ontological terms, arguing that not only beauty, but reality in general is relative and is perceived through ‘habituation.’ In addition to the key role of beauty within the development of Leopardi’s intellectual enterprise, this awareness shows the great modernity of his thought for his times. The Zibaldone was Leopardi’s companion in his quest for beauty. If after the discovery of ‘propriety’ and ‘habituation’ a normative system of fine arts is no longer possible, Leopardi had to turn to a more unsystematic method of enquiry, searching the world for different forms of aesthetic experience – such as grace or elegance – rather than trying to trace an impossible path To his Lady, to whom he formally said his farewells in 1823. With regards to this, the Zibaldone itself could be conceived as Leopardi’s inductive system of fine arts, as it embodies his quest for beauty in its different experiential forms. The origins of beauty in the Zibaldone show, once again, that the ultimate point of Leopardi’s whole intellectual undertaking was not abstract knowledge, but an unshakeable interest in human nature. References Batteux, Charles. 2015. The Fine Arts Reduced to a Single Principle. Edited by James O. Young. Oxford. Bertolio, Johnny. 2014. “Affettazione.” In Lessico Leopardiano, a cura di Franco D’Intino, Novella Bellucci, e Stefano Gensini, 13–18. Roma: Sapienza editrice. Blasucci, Luigi. 1996. I tempi dei “Canti”. Nuovi studi leopardiani. Torino: Einaudi. Cacciapuoti, Fabiana. 2010. Dentro lo Zibaldone: il tempo circolare della scrittura di Leopardi. Roma: Donzelli. Camiciottoli, Alessandro. 2010. L’antico romantico: Leopardi e il sistema del bello, 1816– 1832. Firenze: Società editrice fiorentina. Camilletti, Fabio. 2013. Classicism and Romanticism in Italian Literature: Leopardi’s Discourse on Romantic Poetry. London: Pickering & Chatto. D’Angelo, Paolo. 2014. Ars est celare artem: da Aristotele a Duchamp. Macerata: Quodlibet.

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Ficara, Giorgio. 1999. “Sistemi leopardiani: bellezza e felicità.” In Giacomo Leopardi: poeta e filosofo. Atti del convegno dell’Istituto italiano di cultura, New York, 31 marzo-1 aprile 1998, a cura di Alessandro Carrera, 25–32. Fiesole: Cadmo. Gaetano, Raffaele. 2002. Giacomo Leopardi e il sublime: archeologia e percorsi di una idea estetica. Soveria Mannelli: Rubbettino. Leopardi, Giacomo. 1984. Canti. A cura di Domenico De Robertis. Milano: Polifilo. Leopardi, Giacomo. 1988. Poesie e prose. A cura di Rolando Damiani. Milano: Mondadori. Leopardi, Giacomo. 1994. The canti: with a selection of his prose. Translated by J.G. Nichols. Manchester: Carcanet. Leopardi, Giacomo. 1997. Zibaldone. A cura di Rolando Damiani. Milano: Mondadori. Leopardi, Giacomo. 1998. The Letters of Giacomo Leopardi 1817–1837. Edited by Prue Shaw. Leeds: Northern Universities Press. Leopardi, Giacomo. 2002. Teorica delle arti, lettere ec., parte pratica, storica ec.: edizione tematica dello Zibaldone di pensieri stabilita sugli Indici leopardiani. A cura di Fabiana Cacciapuoti. Roma: Donzelli. Leopardi, Giacomo. 2013. Zibaldone. Edited by Michael Caesar and Franco D’Intino. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux. Monserrati, Michele. 2005. Le “cognizioni inutili”: saggio su “Lo spettatore fiorentino” di Giacomo Leopardi. Firenze: Firenze University Press. Motta, Uberto. 2010. “Nel nome della grazia. Leopardi e Castiglione.” In Leopardi e il ’500, a cura di Paola Italia, 185–204. Ospedaletto: Pacini. Trzeciak, Małgorzata Ewa. 2013a. L’esperienza estetica nello Zibaldone di Giacomo Leopardi. Roma: Aracne. Trzeciak, Małgorzata Ewa. 2013b. “Oltre il sistema di Belle Arti. Leopardi e l’esperienza estetica.” La rassegna della letteratura italiana 117 (2): 443–69.

chapter 13

History of a Modest Beauty: Models of Woman’s Aesthetics from Fermo e Lucia to I promessi sposi Gavino Piga 1 In writing Fermo e Lucia, the first version of I promessi sposi,1 Manzoni gave a precise description of Lucia Mondella, the main female character of the novel. This can be seen in the original text, where the narrator, after describing Lucia’s wedding dress, wrote that she, beyond that particular ornaments, had “the ornament usual of two lively and modest black eyes, and of a regular, uncommonly beautiful face” (Manzoni 2006b, 45, 54).2 But he expunged it immediately, and eventually condensed the whole portrait to form the expression “modest beauty” (Id. 2006a, 31).3 This amendment will remain until the final version. The term ‘modest’ isn’t a way to devalue Lucia’s appearance, as Nencioni (1993, 253–6) already pointed out. Nor could it, because in Fermo e Lucia there is no doubt that Lucia is beautiful. Here Ghita, the comical servant of the noblewoman Donna Prassede, must accompany Lucia because her face attracts people’s looks (Manzoni 2006a, 436); also at the end Agnese, the Lucia’s mother, boasts that her daughter was a beautiful young woman (ivi, 582). Moreover, Lucia has a grace of movement derived from her beauty, youth and the purity of her soul (ivi, 133). Therefore, ‘modest’ has a moral meaning and it derives from the scriptural language, where the binomial ornament-modesty is a topos: “In like manner also, that women adorn themselves in modest 1  The first version of novel, entitled “Fermo e Lucia”, was written between 1821 and 1823, but the author didn’t publish it. He heavily revised it in the language and structure and published in 1827 a version entitled “I promessi sposi” (it’s called “ventisettana” by critics from the year of publication). Then, Manzoni revised again the “ventisettana”, essentially in the languageform, and published, between 1840 and 1842, the definitive version of “I promessi sposi”, called by critics “quarantana”. 2  In this paper, the english translation of the quotations from Fermo e Lucia (Manzoni 2006a; 2006b) is mine. For the definitive version of I promessi sposi (Manzoni 1954) is used the translation of Bruce Penman (Manzoni 1972). 3  In the Italian text this expression is precisely “modesta bellezza”.

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apparel, with shamefacedness and sobriety” requires St. Paul.4 The connection between physical appearance and virtue, in which beauty becomes a moral issue and modesty becomes an aesthetic one, is translated into the evangelical ideal of chasteness. From that, the author follows his strategy of description which essentially derives from St. Peter’s lesson: “Whose adorning let it not be that outward adorning of plaiting the hair, and of wearing of gold, or of putting on of apparel; but let it be the hidden man of the heart, in that which is not corruptible, even the ornament of a meek and quiet spirit”.5 The aesthetic truth of Lucia finds its specific balance in this asymmetry between the external and the hidden. Everything is consumed in the surfacing of deep feelings, that is, the biblical “hidden man of the heart” which reminds us, in my view, of the expression “secret desire of the heart” in the final version of novel (Id. 1954, 144).6 There is no reason for the exterior to continue to exist as a specific descriptive dimension since it is absorbed, devoured as well as revealed by the interior. In fact, this modest beauty is never really described in the novel:7 as for the character’s appearance, in Fermo e Lucia we can see only her black hair, parted across the forehead and pleated in multiple rings at the back of her head (Id. 2006a, 31). In the next versions Manzoni adds the black and long eyebrow (Id. 1954, 38), and nothing more. There is the description of the wedding dress, but it is separated from the true beauty of her character and it encloses the body in a static rigidity without influencing the essential aesthetics of femininity. Moreover, the term ‘modesty’ acquires centrality and enhances the double meaning of the latter image, where Lucia protected herself with a typical “modesty” of the peasant girls (Id. 2006a, 31),8 another expression which will remain in the definitive version. The modesty of her appearance thus becomes a typical feature and it postulates precisely a common and conventional image. Lucia’s aesthetic-moral virtue binds also its rural origins to a network of semantic inclusions, in the sense that it creates a synonymic convention between ‘peasant’ and ‘beauty’ through the Christian ideal of womanly virtue. 4  1 Timothy, 2:9 (King James Version). 5  1 Peter, 3:3 (King James Version). 6  “Dove il sospiro segreto del cuore doveva essere solennemente benedetto” (Manzoni 1972, 165: “where the secret desire of the heart was to be solemnly blessed”). This expression is used to describe Lucia’s feelings when she’s forced to abandon her country and she thinks about her failed wedding. 7  The only precise image of the Lucia’s features is in the illustrations of Francesco Gonin (to which the author intensely collaborated) in the “quarantana” edition, but significantly, so in the portrait of Gonin, Lucia is depicted into a devotional posture, with the eyes down. 8  “Quella modestia un po’ guerriera delle foresi” (“The brusque modesty of the peasant girls”).

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However, Manzoni does not want to build a literary topos. Indeed, as Stefano Stampa reminds us, when someone objected that he had made of Lucia an ‘ideal’ character, he replied that the purity and chastity of Lombard peasants exceeded all expectations.9 It is worth noticing that the topos of the beautiful and modest peasant is taken from the author’s observation of reality, because from this perspective we can understand its role much better. In fact, this aesthetic horizon is alternative to ideas of the Lombard seventeenth century in which the novel is set, where beauty is the prerogative of ladies as well as a rhetorical convention. 2 Significantly, the author reinserts the original description that he had removed from the original portrait of Lucia precisely into the portrait of Gertrude (the nun of Monza, an aristocratic woman forced to take the vows by her father). Gertrude, in fact, has an uncommon attractiveness, a perfect regularity of the physiognomy, the lively black eyes. But the tragedy of Gertrude resides precisely in the discrepancy between her unwanted destiny as a nun and her original, natural context of a noblewoman. All tensions and her secret crimes originate from this incongruity. Manzoni highlights her social origins by using the expression “cloister’s princess” (Manzoni 2006a, 131),10 thus linking this character to the mainstream idea of beauty within the society the novel represents. In fact, in the epilogue of the following versions, the citizens of Bergamo criticize Lucia’s appearance by saying she’s a common peasant, which provokes Renzo’s reply: “Did I ever say I would bring a princess here?” (Id. 1954, 669–70).11 Furthermore, while Lucia’s portrait frames Visconti’s ‘feeling of the beautiful’ (Visconti 1833, 101–2),12 Gertrude’s description targets beauty’s rhetorical forms. This leads to a complex network of cross-references between codes of woman’s description.13 The Gertrude’s portrait, in fact, describes precisely 9   This episode is mentioned by many authors. Cf. for example Gessi 1958, 142. 10  In the Italian text this expression is: “la donna principe del monastero” (precisely: “the woman prince of the cloister”). 11  “V’ho detto mai che v’avrei menato qui una principessa?” (Manzoni 1972, 717: “When did I ever tell you that I was going to bring a princess to your village?”). 12  Ermes Visconti (1784–1841), an intellectual very valued by Manzoni, was the first reader of the novel’s manuscript. Her aesthetic theories are close to the Manzoni ideas. 13  About the definition of ‘code’, cf. Pozzi 1984, 391–436; about the descriptions of Gertrude and Lucia, cf. De Angelis 1975; Pupino 1985.

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all her physionomy, from complexion to eyebrows, eyes, cheeks, lips, height, breasts, and hair (Manzoni 2006a, 131–2). The frame is the Petrarchist code, but this rhetorical scaffold must be recognizable in order to be distorted by the means of adversative and antithetical propositions, and to be alienated by recurring to the iconography of the monastic vestments.14 Unlike Lucia’s, Gertrude’s aesthetics is in a constant tension between topos and anti-topos. She does not build a paradigm, on the contrary she deconstructs it.15 In Fermo e Lucia, from the very beginning, Gertrude’s tragedy is constantly described in conjunction with her aesthetic degradation. As soon as the conflict with her family begins, the reference is clear: her father sensationally ignores the already visible, uncommon attractiveness of his daughter (ivi, 140).16 Yet, among the aristocratic virtues, beauty is a central element, as the author says when he builds about Gertrude’s imagination a chain of virtues inspired by the chivalrous mythology (ivi, 148).17 Instead, beauty is violently removed by her family from the ‘qualities’ which could place Gertrude within her aristocratic origins. Indeed, her attractiveness would be a conflicting requisite to cloister. Even before her seclusion, it is a taboo between her premonastic context and herself: it will always be the paradigmatic element of her dissonance. In the cloister it resists as an unholy fetish through the eyes of worldlier and flattering nuns, or through the comparison with grotesque people (ivi, 177).18 At the end, it is confined within the gaze of Gertrude herself, self-referential and self-contemplative subject/object. Therefore, the fabulous Princess which Renzo compares with the peasant Lucia is an aesthetically corrupted icon.

14  About the Gertrude’s portrait in a semiotic perspective cf. Magli 1989. 15  All the topical references, in Gertrude’s description, are intentionally destructured. For example, the traditional chromatism of woman’s descriptions (rose and ivory) is only used to reinforce the obsessive gothic white/black duotone, as it can be seen in Gertrude’s hair colour (about this chromatism cf. Grimaldi 2000; Jones 1998). The eyebrows, usually instrumental to praise the perfection of arched shape, are only represented in their sudden movements which neutralize their conventional function. The topos of hair flowing over shoulders is enclosed within the rigid symmetry of the veil. The traditional floral metaphor appears in an inverted allusion to beauty “rather withered” (“sfiorita alquanto”: Manzoni 2006a, 131). 16  “Della bellezza nè egli, nè la madre […] non parlavano mai” (“Her father, her mother […] never talked about her beauty”). 17   “Bellezza, grazia, ricchezza, nobiltà, eloquenza, sincerità, costanza, e sopra tutto appassionatezza, nulla gli mancava” (“Beauty, grace, wealth, nobility, eloquence, frankness, constancy and, above all, passion, nothing was missing”). 18  “Ella si andava paragonando con le altre, e si trovava più bella” (“She compared herself with the other, and she looked herself more beautiful than them”).

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3 From Fermo e Lucia to I Promessi Sposi, this duality of aesthetic paradigms (peasant/lady) persists as a basic pattern, but the theme is undeniably revised. In I promessi sposi, Gertrude, while maintaining her descriptive depth, ceases to represent this aesthetic polarity. She does not have an ‘uncommon’ beauty, nor are her features regular: indeed, the author evokes the irregularities of certain moves in which she appears disfigured (Manzoni 1954, 150).19 Mainly, the sections in which her beauty was broached disappear. The passage that introduced her precocious attractiveness, so artfully concealed by her family, is recovered in a meaningful summary, in which the Gertrude’s image sinks into a very carnal and colourful lexical solution (ivi, 155).20 And so later, when Gertrude is forced into a monastic life, the original comparison between herself and the deformity of other nuns pour out into her own body, when she imites her sisters like into a scene of comedy (ivi, 186).21 The dramaturgic lexicon was meta-textual because, at various levels, it alluded to the degree of difference between reality and its reduction to a mimetic-rhetorical system. This comical image in Fermo e Lucia was destined to the foreign eye of a hypothetical traveller (Id. 2006a, 133).22 Now, it directly enters the character’s physiognomy, and this is what is left of the original long digression about her beauty. There certainly remains the small aside in which she idolized her beauty (Id. 1954, 184), but it is a very small remnant in comparison to the original material, which is here expunged. 19  “La grandezza ben formata della persona scompariva in un certo abbandono del portamento, o compariva sfigurata in certe mosse repentine, irregolari” (Id. 1972, 171: “Her figure was tall and shapely; but the effect was lost in a certain carelessness of posture, or spoilt by her movements, which were hasty, uneven”). 20  Here Gertrude is “prosperosa” (“full-figured”): “Quando il principe, o la principessa o il principino, che solo de’ maschi veniva allevato in casa, volevano lodar l’aspetto prosperoso della fanciullina, pareva che non trovasser modo d’esprimer bene la loro idea, se non con le parole: che madre badessa!” (Ivi, 176: “When the prince, the princess or their eldest boy – the only one of their sons to be brought up at home – wanted to tell her how well she looked, the only words they seemed able to find to express the idea were: ‘You look a proper little abbess!’”). 21  “Se qualcheduna diceva una parola sul cicalìo della madre badessa, la maestra lo imitava lungamente, e ne faceva una scena di commedia; contraffaceva il volto d’una monaca, l’andatura d’un’altra” (Ivi, 206: “If one of them mentioned the gossipy manner of the abbess, their mistress would do a long imitation, which turned into a scene of comedy. She would ape the expression of one of the sisters, or the walk of another”). 22  “Ella avrebbe potuto parere non molto dissimile da una attrice ardimentosa […] dove i riti cattolici erano soggetto di beffa e di parodia caricata” (“She could seem not very dissimilar to a careless comedy actress […] where the Catholic rites are the subject of joke and parody”).

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Thus her initial portrait has changed: in Fermo e Lucia she had “a flowed beauty” (Id. 2006a, 133);23 in later versions she gives an “impression of beauty”, (Id. 1954, 149).24 In reducing the image to an impression, the difference is enormous, and it opens up to an increased use of unsightly lexicon (ivi, 152).25 She is no longer called to be a deforming mirror of a social-aesthetic paradigm and a literary stereotype, but a symbolic frame definitively concentrated on the psychological and moral level. 4 Moreover, from Fermo e Lucia to I promessi sposi, the references to Lucia’s objective beauty systematically disappear: she isn’t the object of sensuous glances; her villagers don’t remember her beauty; her movements in front of the nun don’t derive from graceful beauty.26 Notwithstanding, paradoxically, as Gertrude loses her original aesthetic function, Lucia increases it. The references to the latter’s objective beauty are expunged because her appearance is multiplied by a great diversity of viewpoints. Indeed, the duality of aesthetic paradigms (peasant/lady) persists as a basic pattern, but it is concentrated only on Lucia. Her initial portrait is coupled with another, which is seen from the eyes of the noblewoman Donna Prassede: in her gaze the icon of the peasant is thoroughly de-idealized, and recomposed according to aristocratic preconceptions. Lucia’s gesture of hiding her face for modesty is distorted by the use of diminutives or augmentatives. Her purity looks like stubbornness to the aristocratic lady, and the use of ellipsis diminishes the significance of Lucia’s modesty by suggesting doubt and a suspicious attitude (Manzoni 1954, 434).27 23  In the Italian text the expressions is: “una bellezza sbattuta”. 24  In the Italian text the term “beauty” is significantly duplicated with the addition of an adversative phrase: “Una impressione di bellezza, ma di bellezza sbattuta” (Ivi, 171: “The first impression was one of beauty – a flawed beauty, however”). 25  “Interruppe la Signora, con un atto altero e iracondo, che la fece quasi parer brutta” (Ivi, 173: “the Signora interrupted, with a gesture of angry pride, which made her look almost ugly”). 26  Only the comment of the Father Superior of Monza’s convent about Lucia’s beauty (Id. 2006a, 130) remains in the following versions, but it characterizes especially the comical character of the monk. 27   “Quella testina bassa, col mento inchiodato sulla fontanella della gola, quel non rispondere, o risponder secco secco, come per forza, potevano indicar verecondia; ma denotavano sicuramente molta caparbietà […] E quell’arrossire ogni momento, e quel rattenere i sospiri … Due occhioni poi, che a donna Prassede non piacevan punto” (Id. 1972, 468: “Her way of keeping her little head bent forward, with her chin pressed

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Manzoni is thus playing again with the modest beauty of the bride. Donna Prassede’s judgement is based on a stereotypical premise: since she heard Renzo is wanted by Milano’s police, Lucia’s figure too is rebuilt according to the plot. The role of her character is revised as it is typical of the processes of knowledge and recognition from multiple perspectives. In fact, the multiplication of eyes (as well as speeches) is the new context in which the density of Lucia’s initial portrait is viewed, that is, seventeenth-century culture with its false but highly resistant rhetorics. The new ending says it all, but it is cleverly anticipated by Donna Prassede as well as other characters. For example, we listen to Griso, one of Don Rodrigo’s servants, while he reports his search for Lucia to his master. In Fermo e Lucia he just says that Lucia lived in the monastery, out of the cloister (Id. 2006a, 212).28 In the latest version, he adds that she was always hidden like a nun, and that this attracted people’s curiosity, and that after hearing about her adventures, and great things about her face, they would like to see her (Id. 1954, 309).29 We can see here the dissolution of the objectivity of Lucia’s aesthetics into an intrusive storytelling. In Bergamo, the talk about Lucia and Renzo’s suffering for her, and about his faithfulness and integrity (like a true knight-errant) had caused a certain curiosity about her, and a certain expectation of her beauty (ivi, 669–70).30 Here a common literary topos occurs, such as the one which underlies the disputes about Lucrezia’s fabulous beauty in Machiavelli’s against the hollow of her throat, her way of not answering you when you spoke to her, or answering very briefly, as if against her will … all that could be taken as indicating modesty, but it certainly showed a good deal of obstinacy too […] And then that continual blushing, and those sighs that she always seemed to be holding back. And a pair of great eyes finally, which Donna Prassede didn’t like the look of at all”). 28  “Lucia abitava nel monastero, ma fuori del chiostro […] si lasciava poco vedere, e sempre di chiaro giorno” (“Lucia lived in the monastery, but out of the cloister […] she allowed her to be seen a little, and always in clear day”). 29  “Stava sempre nascosta, come se fosse una monaca anche lei, non mettendo mai piede fuor della porta, e assistendo alle funzioni di chiesa da una finestrina con la grata: cosa che dispiaceva a molti, i quali avendo sentito motivar non so che di sue avventure, e dir gran cose del suo viso, avrebbero voluto un poco vedere come fosse fatto” (Ivi, 336: “She never set foot outside the convent, and when she went to a service she sat behind a window with a grating over it. This, said Griso, annoyed a lot of people, who had heard some vague account of her adventures, had gathered that she was beautiful, and therefore wanted to have a look at her”). 30  “Il parlare che, in quel paese, s’era fatto di Lucia, molto tempo prima che la ci arrivasse; il saper che Renzo aveva avuto a patir tanto per lei, e sempre fermo, sempre fedele; forse qualche parola di qualche amico parziale per lui e per tutte le cose sue, avevan fatto nascere una certa curiosità di veder la giovine, e una certa aspettativa della sua bellezza.” (Ivi, 716: “The people in that village had heard about Lucia long before she arrived there; they knew how much Renzo had had to suffer for her, and with what firmness and fidelity he had endured to the end. Perhaps some friend who had Renzo and his affairs very much

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Mandragola or Scott’s Rowena in Ivanhoe. However, in Manzoni’s novel the expectations are disappointed. When Lucia appears, and many people came to examine her in particular, someone perceived a defect, another perceived other defects; someone also thought she was very ugly. In fact, they had imagined, as the author ironically says, “that her hair would really be of gold, and that her cheeks would really be roses” (ivi, 670):31 Manzoni reclaims some stylems of the canonical descriptive code (and also the duplicity of aesthetic moral-social paradigms), but in the mode of parody, such as that produced by popular imagination. He makes a double of Lucia: the real ‘peasant’ Lucia is counterbalanced by an imaginary ‘princess’ Lucia. He intends to frame a descriptive realm which is structured around the systemic distortion of Lucia’s image. At the end of this novel, the question is not if Lucia is really a beauty. Not even Renzo says it, and indeed he protests he didn’t say it. And really, Bergamo’s citizens don’t evaluate the objectivity of Lucia’s aesthetic character, but an arbitrary expectation. Therefore, Lucia couldn’t be beautiful, because expectations aren’t always fulfilled. However, she was a good female: Renzo proclaims it without hesitation.32 Interestingly, precisely in saying this, he joins Donna Prassede’s view on Lucia: she too had expressed the same idea, but she had immediately added the aesthetical description where Lucia’s physiognomy, as we know, is used in opposition to her goodness. The fracture of the contiguity good/beautiful is the real crux. This is a classical combination, but here the two adjectives are used differently: ‘beautiful’ is employed in its canonical meaning, whereas ‘good’ is used in an anticanonical way. Here, the goodness takes us back to the initial portrait of the virtuous peasant, and to its semantic inclusions: “good” is associated with “modest”. Instead, the appearance that people require is the uncommon attractiveness that Gertrude at heart may have added something to the story. All this had caused a certain curious interest in Lucia’s appearance, and a certain anticipation that she would be beautiful”). 31  “Quando comparve questa Lucia, molti i quali credevan forse che dovesse avere i capelli proprio d’oro, e le gote proprio di rosa, e due occhi l’uno più bello dell’altro, e che so io? cominciarono a alzar le spalle, ad arricciar il naso […] Venendo poi a esaminarla in particolare, notavan chi un difetto, chi un altro: e ci furon fin di quelli che la trovavan brutta affatto”. (Ivi, 717: “When the famous Lucia finally arrived, there were many people who expected that her hair would really be of gold, and that her cheeks would really be roses, and each of her eyes more star-like than the other; and they began to shrug their shoulders and wrinkle up their noses […] And when they came to look her over in more detail, one of them noticed one defect, and one another. There were even some people who said she was positively ugly”). 32  “E quando me lo dicevate voi altri, v’ho mai risposto altro, se non che era una buona giovine?” (Ivi, 717: “And when you started talking to me about her looks, did I ever say anything in reply except that she was a fine young woman?”).

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had. From this perspective, the goodness of Lucia, more than her appearance, is the real anti-fictional element. The peasant’s virtue breaks the link between aesthetics and morality according to the mainstream parameter, and rebuilds it again in the topos of a modest peasant who is beautiful because she is good. Furthermore, the strong semantic displacement of ‘good’ requires a semantic displacement of ‘beautiful’. Everything is eventually recomposed in a city which is totally foreign to the novel’s plot. Here Lucia was not expected and this new setting leads the characters into an almost bourgeois context. In this section, it is precisely the theme of beauty which comes back as an essential element to the narrative. Here Lucia is called beautiful ‘baggiana’ (ivi, 671). The noun ‘baggiano’ was an epithet of the Milano’s workers migrated to the neighbouring countries, and it was originally insulting, but Manzoni uses it as an ironical prompt. The same word had already been the object of a comical dialogue between Renzo and his cousin Bortolo, who had migrated to Bergamo. This epithet, however, is not just humorous, but also re-qualifying: it is an insult to a Milano’s citizen, but really it is already ‘beyond the good and evil’ of seventeenth-century imaginary. It belongs to a different ethics, which is one of industriousness and modesty. In fact Bortolo remembers Lucia as a good woman because she was a good worker. Therefore, she was perfectly ‘baggiana’, that is, precisely a typical Milano’s peasant. And that precisely, always in a network of semantic inclusions, means beautiful and good woman. Therefore, the epilogue comes full circle and reassembles the portrait of Lucia and gives her aesthetic substance full citizenship. Yet again Manzoni argues that we should search for beauty in truth, as it is typical of his literary concept. In fact, when the image of Lucia becomes an occasion of literary and cultural parody, the space where she and her double move is the same that lies between the story and its narrative forme. Significantly, Manzoni chooses to deepen the two aspects – the beauty of the main character and the beauty of the plot – by using the same strategy. This helps us understand how and why he decided to redefine the theme of beauty. He is clear about this: the story of the novel is beautiful. But wat does it mean? In Fermo e Lucia he said the novel’s plot is not beautiful but true (Manzoni 2006a, 491).33 The text quotes Horace’s Ars poetica as well as the conventions of the novel. In the following versions this quotation disappears, but the inspiration isn’t abandoned: indeed, the same idea remains precisely 33  “Noi trascriviamo una storia veridica; e le cose reali non sono ordinate con quella scelta, né temperate con quella armonia che sono proprie del buongusto: la natura e la bella natura sono due cose diverse” (“We transcribed a true story, and real things aren’t ordered with harmony and good taste: nature and beautiful nature are two different things”).

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in this definitive, anti-classical epilogue. Hence the story is beautiful in the same way as Lucia is. Furthermore, “the reader might not agree” (Id. 1954, 5 [my transl.]) just like the curious peasants. This ironic reference to the reader recalls a wider discourse displayed in the first introduction to Fermo e Lucia. Here the author reprimanded punctilious readers (Id. 2006a, 24).34 From the first pages, they “will find out that this thing is not credible, and more” and, if they disagree, they will follow the example of the women who “close the book” (ibid.). The villagers of Renzo thus “began to find many flaws” and Renzo says: “You don’t like her? Don’t look at her” (Id. 1954, 670). References De Angelis, Enrico. 1975. Qualcosa su Manzoni. Torino: Einaudi. Gessi, Leone. 1958. Arte e morale nei Promessi Sposi. Milano: Signorelli. Grimaldi, Emma. 2000. “Chiome nere … e qualcosa d’altro.” Forum Italicum 34, 1: 49–76. Jones, Verina R. 1998. Le “dark ladies” manzoniane e altri saggi sui “Promessi Sposi”. Roma: Salerno. Magli, Patrizia. 1989. “Il lavoro narrativo del volto.” In Leggere i “Promessi Sposi”, a cura di Giovanni Manetti, 111–32. Milano: Bompiani. Manzoni, Alessandro. 2006a. Testo. Tome 1 of Fermo e Lucia. Prima minuta, 1821–1823. Edizione critica diretta da Dante Isella, a cura di Barbara Colli, Paola Italia e Giulia Raboni. Milano: Casa del Manzoni. Manzoni, Alessandro. 2006b. Apparato. Tome 2 of Fermo e Lucia. Prima minuta, 1821– 1823. Edizione critica diretta da Dante Isella, a cura di Barbara Colli, Paola Italia e Giulia Raboni. Milano: Casa del Manzoni. Manzoni, Alessandro. 1954. I promessi sposi. Vol. 2, tome 1 of Tutte le opere di Alessandro Manzoni, a cura di Alberto Chiari e Fausto Ghisalberti. Milano: Mondadori. Manzoni, Alessandro. 1972. The betrothed. Translated by Bruce Penman. London: Penguin. Nencioni, Giovanni. 1993. La lingua di Manzoni. Avviamento alle prose manzoniane. Bologna: Il Mulino. Pozzi, Giovanni. 1984. “Temi, topoi, stereotipi.” In Le forme del testo. Vol. 3, tome 1 of Letteratura italiana, a cura di Alberto Asor Rosa, 391–436. Torino: Einaudi. Pupino, Angelo R. 2005. Religione e romanzo. Roma: Salerno. Visconti, Ermes. 1833. Intorno ad alcuni quesiti concernenti il bello. Milano: Crespi. 34  Significantly, in this passage, the author says that the punctilious readers are incapable of receiving “le impressioni di verità, di bellezza, di benevolenza che uno scritto può dare” (“the impressions of truth, beauty and benevolence that writing can give”).

chapter 14

The “Second Beauty”: Ideas of Politeness and Beauty in Italian Books of Manners Giovanna Alfonzetti 1

Object and Corpus

My aim is to show the role that the concept of beauty plays in Italian books of manners (galatei), through the analysis of the different ideals they propose, explicitily or implicitly. A wide corpus of texts belonging to different periods has been analyzed: the Galateo by Giovanni Della Casa (1558),1 assumed to be the prototype of this textual and literary genre, despite the radical transformations it underwent over the course of time; several editions of the Nuovo galateo by Melchiorre Gioia (1802–1820–1822–1827),2 a precious trait-d’union between the ancien régime galatei and those written in the second half of the nineteenth century; post-unification moral treatises; etiquette books written between the nineteenth and the twentieth centuries; galatei of the Fascist era; those written after the Second World War; the counter-galatei of the 1970s and today’s selfhelp handbooks and dictionaries of manners. Although galatei are texts with neither aesthetic, artistic nor literary purposes, they are valuable in casting light on the system of values, ideas and customs of a given historical time; and therefore, even more so on the ideals of beauty which characterise it, at times even clashing with one another. As galatei are prescriptive texts dealing with politeness, the perspective of my analysis will be that of the relationship between beauty and politeness. Here, politeness is used as a cover-term for the several terms to be found in different periods: buone/belle maniere, buona/bella creanza, pulitezza, urbanità, civiltà, signorilità, buona educazione, saper vivere, bon ton, etc. My analysis will deal with three main points: (i) the historical variability of the notion of beauty in relation to that of politeness; (ii) the differences related to gender; (iii) the loss of importance of the theme of beauty during the period of time under consideration. 1  Quotations from Della Casa will be drawn from Prandi’s edition (2000). 2  All the quotations from Gioia are drawn from an 1837 edition, which includes the first edition and the fourth. Here, all passages that the author was obliged to modify in the third edition have been restored and the main changes from all editions are noted. © koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2019 | doi:10.1163/9789004388956_016

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The Prototype: Della Casa’s Galateo ovvero de’ costumi

In Della Casa’s Galateo the theme of beauty is introduced almost at the end, but it can be reconnected to the main aim of the treatise stated at the beginning by the old mentor, who tells his young disciple the reasons why he decided to write it: I […] confine myself at present to those things, which perhaps to some people may appear trifling and frivolous; Namely, by what kind of conduct, in his familiar intercourse with the rest of mankind, any one may acquire the character of a well-bred, amiable, and polite man: Politeness being in itself, if not really a virtue, yet so nearly resembling a virtue, as hardly to be distinguished from it. […] to be polite and well bred, […] sweetness of manners, a genteel carriage, and polite address, are frequently of more advantage […] than any greatness of soul.3 [my emphasis] Anonymous translation 1774, 2–3

And beauty indeed can be considered one of the main ingredients of the notion of politeness in Della Casa’s Galateo: the ways of behaving and talking that are proposed as positive models are exactly those which satisfy human beings’ inborn search for beauty, which has to be particularly appreciated as it distinguishes them from other animals: Men are naturally fond of beauty, grace, and proportion; and, on the contrary, are evidently shocked at, and have an aversion to whatever is ugly, monstrous, and deformed. And, indeed, this is a privilege peculiar to mankind; for other animals are not capable of understanding what beauty and proportion are. Anonymous translation 1774, 159–604

3  This and almost all the other translations of passages from Della Casa are taken from an English anonymous translation, i.e.: Galateo: or, a Treatise on Politeness and Delicacy of Manners. Addressed to a young nobleman. 1774. London: J. Dodsley. Dbooks.bodleian.ox.ac. uk/books/PDFs/400067733.pdf http://www.bodleian.oc.ac.uk/dbooks. Della Casa 2000, 5–6: “Io incomincerò da quello che per aventura potrebbe a molti parer frivolo, cioè quello che io stimo che si convenga di fare, per potere, in comunicando ed in usando con le genti, essere costumato e piacevole e di bella maniera: il che nondimeno è o virtù o cosa molto a virtù somigliante. […] l’essere avenente e costumato, […] la dolcezza de’ costumi e la convenevolezza de’ modi e delle maniere e delle parole giovano non meno […] che la grandezza dell’animo”. [my emphasis]. 4  Ivi, 73–4: “gli uomini sono molto vaghi della bellezza e della misura e della convenevolezza e, per loro contrario, delle sozze cose e contraffatte e difformi sono schifi: e questo è spezial

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Although the old mentor is aware of the difficulty of clearly expressing what beauty is, he wants his disciple to understand its nature and, therefore, gives a definition of beauty based on the Renaissance theory of proportions, within which elements from both Medieval aesthetics and classical tradition are intertwined: Wherever there is symmetry or proportion of the parts among each other, and of the parts to the whole, there also is beauty. And those things in which this symmetry is found, we may truly call beautiful. Anonymous translation 1774, 1615

This definition – that also recalls the Neoplatonic theory of the unity of beauty and the one Bembo gives in the Asolani (1505) – is functional to Della Casa’s theory of social demeanor, which considers discordance – i.e. the cooccurrence in one individual of contrasting behaviours – a disvalue (Prandi 2000, 112). The importance of beauty in Della Casa’s conceptualization of politeness stands out more clearly in the following two passages both concerning the notion of grace (one cannot help but refer to Castiglione’s Il libro del Cortegiano), which is strictly tied to that of beauty and politeness here in Della Casa, but also in Gioia’s and in many other later galatei: Wherefore, we must not think it sufficient that we do any thing merely well, but we ought to make it our study to do every thing gracefully also. Now, grace is nothing more than a certain lustre, which shines forth from an harmony of the parts of things, properly connected and elegantly disposed in regard to the whole: without which symmetry, indeed, what is really good, may not be beautiful; and without which, even beauty itself is not graceful or even pleasing. And as a dish, however good or wholesome, is not likely to please our guests, if it has either no flavour at all, or a bad one: thus the behaviour of men, though it really offend no one, may, nevertheless, be insipid, and even distasteful, unless a man can

nostro privilegio, ché gli altri animali non sanno conoscere che sia né bellezza né misura alcuna”. 5  Ivi, 74: “voglio che sappi che, dove ha convenevole misura fra le parti verso di sé, e fra le parti e ’l tutto, quivi è la bellezza, e quella cosa veramente bella si può chiamare, in cui la detta misura si truova. E, per quello che io altre volte ne intesi da un dotto e scienziato uomo, vuole essere la bellezza uno quanto si può il più e la bruttezza per lo contrario è molti”.

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learn that sweetness of manners; which, I apprehend, is properly called Elegance and Grace. Anonymous translation 1774, 166–76

In the second passage, Della Casa tries to illustrate the concept of grace by means of an example that will be quoted by Gioia in his galateo (from which the quotation below is taken), thus showing the several features that the two galatei have in common, even if they cannot help but express a very different social and historical conception of politeness: For suppose you had an horse, [della Casa wisely says] which had some defect in his mouth, so that his tongue hung oddly out; though that circumstance might detract nothing, perhaps, from his real goodness, […] you would sell him at a much less price on that account, not because he was less spirited or courageous, but less elegant and handsome for that defect. If therefore, in brute animals, nay, even in things void of life or sensation, grace and elegance are so much prized […] how much more ought this grace and elegance to be studied and esteeemed amongst mankind! Anonymous translation 1774, 177–87

After a topical reference to Venus’s beauty (which will also be mentioned by Gioia) – that he thinks had to be compliant with his own definition – the old mentor makes it clear to his young disciple that beauty is a quality characterising not only faces, parts of the body and whole bodies, but even more “favellare” (‘speaking’) and “operare” (‘acting’) (Della Casa 2000, 75).

6  Della Casa 2000, 77: “Non si dèe adunque l’uomo contentare di fare le cose buone, ma dèe studiare di farle anco leggiadre: e non è altro leggiadria che una cotale quasi luce che risplende dalla convenevolezza delle cose che sono ben composte e ben divisate l’una con l’altra e tutte insieme: senza la qual misura eziandio il bene non è bello e la bellezza non è piacevole. E sì come le vivande, quantunque sane e salutifere, non piacerebbono agl’invitati, se elle o niun sapore avessero o lo avessero cattivo; così sono alcuna volta i costumi delle persone, come che per se stessi in niuna cosa nocivi, nondimeno sciocchi e amari; se altri non il condisce di una cotale dolcezza, la quale si chiama, sì come io credo, grazia e leggiadria”. 7  Gioia 1837, 236–7: “Se il tuo palafreno, dice saviamente monsignor della Casa, porta per avventura la bocca aperta e mostra la lingua, come che ciò alla bontà di lui non rilievi nulla […] ne trarresti molto meno; non perché egli fosse perciò men forte, ma perché egli men leggiadro ne sarebbe. E se la leggiadria s’apprezza negli animali et anco nelle cose che anima non hanno né sentimento […] quanto si dèe ella maggiormente procacciare et apprezzar negli uomini?”.

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Beauty, Civilization and Pulitezza: Melchiorre Gioia’s Nuovo galateo

In the Nuovo Galateo the theme of beauty is much more pervasive and in close relation to ethics, civilization and pulitezza. Because of his political ideology, Gioia – a “moderate Jacobin”8 – never uses the word cortesia [< corte ‘court’], too clearly linked to the court, the place that with its social demands and its way of life played a central role in determining the ancien régime conception of politeness. And indeed, as Ehlich (2003, 71) remarks, politeness is among the few relevant social phenomena whose mark of their own historicity is so indelibly etched into the terms used to refer to them in the various languages. Due also to the influence of French culture, Gioia prefers to use pulitezza (fr. politesse). French poli, English polite, Italian polito or pulito referring to human behaviour can be considered a conceptual metaphor that projects the quality of an object onto social behaviour, bodily bearing, way of dressing, acting and talking of human beings (Watts 2012, 112). Through rubbing and other similar processes, a rough, untreated material is transformed into something that feels smooth to the touch and that visually reflects light: it is thus an aesthetic experience of pleasure and delight (France 1992, 55). In Della Casa’s Galateo, the adjective polito occurs once to qualify the noun costume (‘customs’) in a passage aimed at stigmatising some people’s habit of rubbing their greasy hands on their bread: A polite man must avoid getting his fingers greasy in such a way as to smear the tablecloth, because it is nauseating to watch; and also rubbing them on the bread he is going to eat does not seem a polite habit.9 In another passage Della Casa uses the infinitive polire to refer to the action of domesticating a child’s hard and rough manners: But if, in my childhood, when the mind is yet tender and flexible, those who had the care of my education, had known properly to have bent, softened, and polished my manners; which, perhaps, were naturally somewhat harsh, stubborn, and rough; I should probably have come 8  This is how Cerruti (1998) defines Gioia. 9  The translation of this passage is mine, because this passage is missing from the eighteenthcentury English text from which all the others are drawn. Della Casa 2000, 14: “Dèe adunque l’uomo costumato guardarsi di non ugnersi le dita sì che la tovagliuola ne rimanga imbrattata, percioché ella è stomachevole a vedere; et anco il fregarle al pane che egli dèe mangiare non pare polito costume”.

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forth from their discipline such as at this time I endeavour to make you; who are no less dear to me than if you were my own son. Anonymous translation 1774, 151–210

More generally, according to Della Casa, being polito means the ability to bear oneself in a way that is pleasant – or at least not unpleasant – to others. Although this perspective is somehow shared by Gioia, he puts politeness within the wider domain of human perfectibility, a key theme on which there was a very lively debate between the eighteenth and the nineteenth centuries. According to Gioia, pulitezza is a branch of civilization, a concept that in the Preface to the 1822 edition he explains through a very incisive image: A wild fruit sometimes grows among thorns, and tastes bitter or insipid. Grafting and cultivation free it from thorns and make it sweet and flavorsome: this is the image of civilization.11 Gioia also uses a comparison that very clearly expresses his idea about the polishing action of civilization on human beings: A man coarse, egotistical and half barbaric by nature, refines and humanizes under the influence of social reason, as metal comes free of rust under the action of polishing.12 Pulitezza – which implies a vision of progress, whereby human beings are seen emerging from barbarism into the polished existence of modern times – is defined by Gioia in very similar terms to La Bruyère’s often quoted dictum: Il me semble que l’esprit de politesse est une certaine attention à faire que, par nos paroles et par nos manières, les autres soient contents de nous et d’eux-même. La Bruyère 1962, 164

10  Ivi, 70: “E se nella mia fanciullezza, quando gli animi sono teneri et arrendevoli, coloro a’ quali caleva di me avessero saputo piegare i miei costumi, forse alquanto naturalmente duri e rozzi, et ammollirgli e polirgli, io sarei per aventura tale divenuto quale io ora procuro di render te, il quale mi dèi essere non meno che figliuol caro”. 11  The translations of all the quotations from now on are mine. Gioia 1837, 169: “Un frutto selvatico nasce talvolta fra le spine, ed amaro riesce od insipido al palato; l’innesto e la coltura lo spogliano delle spine, e dolce lo rendono e saporito: ecco l’immagine della civilizzazione”. 12   Ibid.: “L’uomo naturalmente rozzo, personale e semibarbaro, si dirozza, si umanizza, ingentilisce sotto l’influsso della ragione sociale, come il metallo abbandona la ruggine sotto l’azione del pulimento”.

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L’arte di modellare la persona e le azioni, i sentimenti e il discorso in modo di rendere gli altri contenti di noi e di loro stessi, ossia acquistarci l’altrui stima ed affezione entro i limiti del giusto e dell’onesto, cioè della ragione sociale. Gioia 1837, 17113

Pulitezza, therefore, is not just “un cerimoniale di convenzione” (‘a conventional cerimonial’) but is closely connected to ethics. The only difference is one of degree: thus, to give a drink to somebody who is thirsty is an act of mercy, whereas to offer our own box to somebody who longs to watch a stage show is an act of pulitezza. From Gioia’s sensist philosophical perspective, in both cases a pain has ended, or a want has been satisfied (ivi, 173). And indeed, most precepts of pulitezza aim at sparing unpleasant sensations or sad memories and at producing gratifying ideas or moral delights. Pulitezza is “The flower of ethics, the grace which makes politeness beautiful”.14 Between pulitezza and beauty there is therefore a relation of complementarity, as pulitezza allows beauty to reveal itself fully: for example, a beautiful but coarse, rude, boorish woman is less attractive than a plainer but kinder one (ivi, 176). A fundamental component of both beauty and pulitezza is grace, which even seems to partly overlap with the latter. This is the reason why, according to Gioia, poets represent Venus together with the Graces: to make us understand that beauty itself cannot do without them. More specifically, grace – like pulitezza – has in Gioia a socio-anthropological value, which can be connected to the basic principle of Foscolo’s symbolic system, according to which, as we know, Venus emerging from the Greek sea together with the Graces symbolizes the civilizing function of Beauty, able to distance human beings from their original animality: and indeed, this is the main function Gioia assigns to his galateo, conceived, as we said, as a branch of civilization. A deeper analysis shows the coexistence of different – even partly contradictory – ideas of beauty in Gioia’s Nuovo Galateo. First, the neoclassical ideal, which conceives beauty as the union of proportions and harmony, to which Gioia adds the criterion of functionality, deriving from Tommaso d’Aquino, and distinguishing it from Della Casa’s ideal, based, as has been said, upon measure and unity (cf. Botteri 1999, 208):

13  “The art of shaping the person and his acts, feelings and speech in such a way as to make others satisfied with us and with themselves, that is to get other people’s consideration and affection within the boundaries of what is fair and honest, i.e. of the social reason”. 14  Ivi, 174: “il fiore della morale, la grazia che l’abbellisce”.

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We find beauty in the human body, when each part is provided with proportions appropriate for the aim to which it is assigned, and when all fit together in a harmonious way.15 Second, an aesthetic subjectivism according to which beauty is not an intrinsic quality of things, because there are no objective criteria of evaluation; as in Hume’s conception,16 each mind perceives a different beauty, in a similar way to what happens with physical taste regarding flavours: The same persons seem very beautiful to someone, less beautiful to someone else, almost deformed to another, according to the different ideal standard with which beauty or deformity are judged.17 Third, what can be considered an intentional component as, according to Gioia, we can, to a certain extent, get closer to the ideal of beauty or distance ourselves from it, either in attitudes and behaviours or in physical shapes. The close relationship between beauty and pulitezza leads Gioia to consider as “sconvenevoli” (‘unbecoming’) those acts which show that we intentionally distance ourselves from the ideal of beauty: from a sensist perspective they imply we do not care to arouse pleasant sensations in other people’s souls and to achieve their consideration and affection. This indifference – made manifest by exterior sloppiness – can even be an offense towards others’ self-respect, and furthermore it makes us ridiculous, depriving us of “piaceri sociali” (“social pleasures”) (ivi, 236). In modern pragmatic theories on politeness, namely in Brown and Levinson’s face-saving-view, these “atti sconvenevoli” could be comparable to those acts that threaten the positive face of both the addressee – by indicating (potentially) that the speaker does not care about his/her feelings – and the speaker, because he/she makes a fool of him/herself (Brown and Levinson 1987, 66–8).

15  Gioia 1837, 235: “Scorgiamo bellezza nel corpo umano, allorchè ciascuna parte è dotata delle proporzioni necessarie allo scopo cui è destinata, e tutte fra di loro in modo armonico cospirano”. 16  Hume 1742, Part I, essay XXXIII: “The sentiments of men often differ with regard to beauty and deformity of all kinds, even while their general discourse is the same”. 17  Gioia 1837, 234–5: “Le stesse persone sembrano bellissime a questo, men belle a quello, quasi deformi ad un terzo, secondo che è diverso il modello ideale con cui la bellezza viene apprezzata o la deformità”.

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Beauty and Gender

In Gioia’s, and in later galatei as well, there is a preferential connection between beauty and women, which is clearly stated and motivated by the author: Exterior neglect, coarseness of manners, clumsiness of movements displease us less in men than in women, as the latter are mainly destined to be liked.18 Consequently, he considers unbecoming acts according to sex, those acts which lower women’s merits: modesty, delicacy, shyness and beauty. With regard to this, he reminds us of the story told by Plutarch about Minerva. One day, while she was playing her flute, Minerva felt ashamed of herself when she saw the repugnant look of her swollen cheeks in the river: she threw her instrument away and returned to the normal proportions of her beauty (ivi, 261). For the same reason, ascribing physical flaws to somebody (which belongs to the category of entirely inurbane acts) hurts women much more than men; and this is so because “Beauty is the most powerful weapon by means of which the weaker sex subjugates the stronger”.19 The relevance of gender in the conception of beauty is even more apparent in a pair of galatei by the same author – Costantino Rodella – but one is addressed to male readers while the other to female: Enrichetto ossia Il galateo del fanciullo (1871) and Marina ossia Il galateo della fanciulla (1872). Both have a textual structure similar to that of a Bildungsroman and belong to the category of moral galatei of the post-unification era, as they identify politeness with Christian ethics. The two heroes – Enrichetto and Marina – are both proposed as models to emulate for their goodness, generosity, “urbanità e cortesia dei modi” (‘urbanity and courtesy of manners’). The word cortesia in post-unitary moral galatei is used again, as its connection to the ancien régime court had by then been almost eclipsed. Enrichetto and Marina are however sharply differentiated by their physical looks, which the author stresses from the beginning in presenting them. Enrichetto is ugly and clumsy:

18  Ivi, 239: “La trascuratezza esteriore, la rozzezza nelle maniere, la goffaggine ne’ movimenti, men negli uomini ci dispiacciono che nelle donne, essendo esse destinate principalmente a piacere”. 19  Ivi, 218: “la bellezza è l’arma più potente con cui il sesso debole soggioga il più forte”.

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Who knows why Enrichetto is a joy to everyone? […] Is he perhaps good looking and strapping? […] Ah! If you saw him! Weedy, with a thin, drawn, small face, as if he lived off lizards. He walks in a clumsy way.20 Marina, on the contrary, is so beautiful as to stand out. In his detailed description, Rodella ascribes features of the classical canon of beauty to her (such as harmony, proportions and shining colours) and depicts her as an angel-like creature, who like Beatrice in Dante (explicitly quoted by Rodella) is a means of spiritual elevation: It is not easy to find such a well-shaped body, so agile, so elegant, so wellproportioned; a very white complexion, neat features, black, shining eyes […]; if you listen to her and do not feel in your soul a wave of good inspiration it means that your heart is not made for beautiful things; she is one of those kind creatures who do not speak to your senses but to your soul and those lines that Alighieri wrote about Beatrice fit her: And it seems that from her lips a suave and loving spirit comes That keeps on saying to the soul: sigh.21 Rodella assigns to Marina beauty in its highest degree for several reasons: because it is a quality important for women (as in Gioia), but also to introduce a moralistic reflection about the risks of being beautiful: beauty indeed is a young girl’s worst enemy (ivi, 8). Because of her beauty, Marina ran the risk of becoming ill-tempered, as everybody (especially her father) used to pamper her too much. It will be her mother who leads her down the path towards the acquisition of both moral virtues and politeness. In her task she will help herself by reading to her daughter Della Casa’s Galateo that Enrichetto also reads every day: an intertextual reference that shows that for a very long time Della Casa will be assumed as the protoype for all the authors who want to write a book of manners. A second moralistic reflection introduced by Rodella regards the transitoriness of physical beauty which, as the Latin philosopher 20  Rodella 1871, 6: “Chissà perché Enrichetto è la delizia di tutti? […] Forse che è bello di aspetto, gagliardo di corpo […]? – Ohibò! Se lo vedeste! Mingherlino di persona, ha una faccetta tirata e magra, come si nutrisse di lucertole. Cammina impacciato […]”. 21  Id. 1872, 7: “Non è certo facile trovar un corpo così ben fatto, così svelto, così elegante, così proporzionato; una tinta bianca bianca, tratti puri e corretti nel viso, occhi neri e lucenti, […]; udirla e non sentirsi nell’anima un’onda di belle ispirazioni è non avere il cuore fatto alle cose belle; è una di quelle gentili figure che non parlano ai sensi, ma all’anima, e a lei convengono in tutto que’ versi dell’Alighieri sopra Beatrice: E par che dalle sue labbra si muova Uno spirto soave e pien d’amore Che va dicendo all’anima: sospira”.

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Severino Boezio wrote in his well-known treatise De consolatione philosophiae (about 523), is as fleeting as spring flowers. “Beauty without virtue is a flower without scent”,22 this is the lesson Marina learns in her life. Beauty therefore plays an important role in this galateo: beacause of her beauty, the path towards perfection is more difficult for Marina than for Enrichetto. However, she manages to attain a psycho-physical state in which beauty and goodness are blended together, thus achieving the aesthetic ideal that since Ancient Greece seems to have withstood the test of time, despite having been drastically revisited through the different ages. 5

The Pervasiveness of Beauty

Both in Marina and in Enrichetto the theme of beauty is so pervasive that it seems the author intends to elevate a hymn of praise to creation. In Marina, not only is the beauty of the girl’s body and soul to be highlighted but many more referents qualify as beautiful: virtues and sentiments such as love, fraternity, compassion and forgiveness; the native tongue, i.e. Italian, which is considered to be endowed with beauty, grace and elegance; the study of subjects such as history, music, drawing and art, whose secrets satisfy Marina’s soul, which is itself “avida delle cose belle” (‘eager for beautiful things’) (ivi, 6). And in a wider perspective, according to Rodella, women have the function and the effect of creating beauty within art, society and family. The same idea is to be found in the moral galateo written by Gatta in 1877, who thought that God created woman to make life beautiful, to soften its bitterness, to intensify and sanctify its delights (Gatta 1877, 25). Also in Enrichetto the lexicon of beauty is applied to a multiplicity of referents belonging to the moral, spiritual and material fields: Enrichetto tends to imitate any beautiful and kind action he witnesses; his father teaches him and his younger brother the beautiful habits in walking; a beautiful sign of politeness and civility is to keep silent and disciplined when the teacher leaves the classroom alone; gardens in a town are a beautiful and good thing for the people’s upbringing; Enrichetto spends beautiful and enchanting hours walking; the basilica of Superga is described as a sentinel which protects the beautiful city, mediating between sky and earth; theatre shows and organ harmonies cause in Enrichetto the most beautiful rapture; and all such beautiful and nice scenes capture his soul and lift it up in “un mondo ricco d’ogni maniera di bellezza” (‘a world rich in all kinds of beauty’) (Rodella 1871, 59). 22  Ivi, 9: “Beltà senza virtù, è un fiore senza odore”.

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Thanks to all these intense emotions and sensations, Enrichetto feels an urge to do something useful for society: he decides to become a doctor, the most beautiful career he could undertake. A close relationship between beauty and goodness, a moral conception of politeness – defined as the younger sister of charity (Castellino 1920, 2); a preferential connection beween physical beauty and women are also to be found in another pair of galatei, written shortly after the war by the same author, Francesca Castellino, but one addressed to girls – Le belle maniere. Nuovo galateo per le giovinette (1918) – and the other to boys – Il libro della cortesia. Nuovo galateo pei giovinetti (1920). Whereas moral beauty is a quality that Castellino aims at developing in her readers irrespective of their sex, physical beauty is considered more relevant for girls, (exactly as in Gioia’s and Rodella’s galatei). In fact, only in the preface to the galateo addressed to them is politeness equated to a second beauty, which implies that the first beauty is the physical one: Politeness is the gift which costs least and yields most. Whatever social class you belong to, you can make use of it as a second beauty, as a graceful dress which will adorn you much more than other ones.23 Furthermore, when in her galateo for boys, Castellino (1920, 2) wants to make the difference between politeness (a spontaneous emanation of the soul) and etiquette (a mask to hide the nothingness of thought and feeling) clear, she resorts to an example that, having to do with physical beauty, significantly refers to women: Castellino indeed makes a comparison between a woman who looks for an artificial beauty in rouge and make-up (i.e. etiquette) and a second who, instead, only uses soap and water because she is satisfied with her grace (i.e. politeness). Additionally, grace in Castellino (unlike in Della Casa) refers to a desirable quality only for women, which she compares to salt, without which the most delicious food would be tasteless (Castellino 1918, 6). It may be interesting to note that, although Castellino does not use the term pulitezza, the conceptual metaphor lying underneath it is shared by her: without the external dress of grace and politeness – she warns her giovinette – their virtues and knowledge would be insufficient, “like precious stones that man’s hand has not worked,

23  Castellino 1918, 6: “La cortesia è la dote che meno costa e più frutta. A qualunque classe sociale voi apparteniate, potrete servirvene come una seconda bellezza, come una veste leggiadra che v’adornerà assai meglio delle altre”.

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revealing all its hidden brightness and value”.24 These words apparently summon up Gioia’s image of metals that become free of rust under the action of polishing (cf. 3). That physical beauty concerns above all women is shown also by the fact that only in the galateo for girls is there a chapter named Fonti di bellezza (‘Sources of beauty’), which deals with the relationship between internal and external beauty and with the transitoriness of the latter. The general argument is exemplified by means of several narratives whose protagonists are girls. Giulietta, for example, who thinks she is ugly, is consoled by the author reminding her that: Inside the body that you despise, you have a soul, and if this soul shines with goodness and kindness, it radiates all around its light, like a flame hidden behind a transparent plate glass. And no harmony of shapes can bear comparison with this external grace, that is the reflection of internal beauty, and that speaks to the heart of those who contemplate it rather than to their eyes.25 Giulietta is positively counterposed to “una bella signorina” whose beauty is apparent to everyone but is judged detestable, as all her objectively perfect features have the hardness and rigidity of the inanimate world: her forehead is pure white and spacious but is smooth like marble, because it has never been corrugated by a sad thought; her beautiful grey almond-shaped eyes are static like glass, because her soul has never reflected into them any benevolent feeling; her perfect oval and swan neck look as if they were made of stucco, as their outline is very rigid; and her body, even if wonderfully shaped, is that of a statue. Castellino takes the cue from these two characters to clearly express her view on the relation between first and second beauty: Cold beauty, with no light of life, attracts but fleetingly; whereas that special appearance, which does not come from the perfection of shapes, but is rather a veil thrown upon hidden and palpitating and variable graces, has the power to grip hearts for a long time. And whereas that first 24  Ivi, 6: “come pietre preziose che la mano dell’uomo non abbia lavorate, palesandone tutto lo splendore e il pregio nascosti”. 25  Ivi, 9: “Tu, dentro il corpo che disprezzi, possiedi un’anima, e quest’anima se risplende di bontà e di gentilezza, diffonde attorno la sua luce, come fiaccola nascosta dietro un cristallo trasparente. E non c’è armonia di forme che regga al paragone di questa grazia esteriore, ch’è riflesso dell’interiore bellezza, e parla, più che agli occhi, al cuore di chi la contempla”.

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beauty, entirely external, shows itself almost shamelessly, all of a sudden, the second one has always in store new dear surprises to those who get close, in such a way that we do not get tired of contemplating the one who possesses it.26 And as Marina’s mother used to do with her daughter, here the author herself takes the role and the attitude of a mother and gives Giulietta, and all her readers, what can be considerd both a piece of advice and a warning concerning the transitoriness of physical beauty, traditionally conceived as symmetry of face and perfection of shapes: the loss of the external beauty will cause sadness and disillusionment, whereas the internal beauty – an inextricable mix of moral virtues and politeness – is a supply that young girls should maintain for their old age (ivi, 12). 6

Cleanliness, Gymnastics and Beauty

The principle of a correspondence between inner being and outward appearance, typical of moral galatei – a category to which in some respects Castellino’s ones also belong – manifests itself in the serious attention to the subject of the cleanliness and fitness of the body as well, which will become more relevant in Fascist galatei, even if losing the ethical component almost entirely. In Marina, the “pulitezza” (here used with the meaning of cleanliness and not as a synonym of politeness as in Gioia) of the body is considered as the outward manifestation of the beauty of the soul, whereas dirt is to be avoided as much as sin (Rodella 1872, 17–8). Furthermore, Castellino recommends both boys and girls keep clean, as cleanliness reflects inner purity, but one can notice a difference related to sex. In her galateo for girls, she tries to persuade them to wash as often as possible, because in so doing they will increase their beauty: The abundance of water that will seep in through all the pores in your body will refresh and firm up your muscles, […] will keep all skin illnesses away and, because of the reaction of the blood caused by the ablution, 26  Ivi, 10: “La bellezza fredda, senza luce di vita, attrae fuggevolmente; mentre quella fìsionomia particolare, che non deriva dalla perfezione delle forme, ma è piuttosto un velo gettato sopra nascoste e palpitanti e mutevoli grazie, ha la virtù d’avvincere durevolmente i cuori. E mentre quella prima bellezza, tutta esteriore, si palesa d’un tratto quasi sfacciatamente, la seconda prepara sempre nuove care sorprese a chi l’avvicina, sì che non ci stanchiamo di contemplare chi la possiede”.

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will strengthen the whole body and will give your cheeks the nice rosy colour that is required for any beauty.27 Whereas in order to persuade boys, she resorts only to medical and hygienic reasons, even using some technical terms but no aesthetic argument: Our epidermis is very important for health, helping respiration by eliminating carbonic acid and by absorbing oxygen through the pores, which help the emission of poisonous substances.28 Besides, gymnastics plays an important role in moral galatei. Enrichetto manages to improve his physical flaws thanks to some training; Marina – instructed by her mother, whose guide is the ancient adage a healthy mind in a healthy body – practises several sports, with great benefit to her health, intelligence, willpower and beauty. Hence in Marina, Rodella proposes both the model of a spiritual, angel-like beauty but also an ideal of “bourgeois” beauty, made up of health, strength and prosperity, which is programmatically counterposed to the romantic ideal embodied by Giuditta who: Wants to be taken as sentimental, and she shows as such in her pale face, in her languid gazes, in her sombre look: she speaks of novels, tender scenes, migraines, her nerves.29 And indeed Rodella (1872, 26–7) expresses full agreement with the decision by the Turin city council to prescribe gymnastics also in schools for girls, “because women with agile and strong limbs will improve the human race”:30 a clear anticipation of a theme that will become more and more relevant in Fascist galatei, unfortunately assuming, as we know, racist implications.

27  Castellino 1918, 16: “L’acqua ch’entrerà abbondante in tutti i pori della persona vi rinfrescherà e rassoderà le carni […], vi terrà lontana ogni pur lieve malattia della pelle e, per la reazione del sangue provocata dall’abluzione, vi rinvigorirà tutto il corpo e vi darà alle guance il bel roseo che vale ogni bellezza”. 28  Id. 1920, 170: “La nostra epidermide ha sulla salute un’importanza assai considerevole, aiutando la respirazione con l’eliminare l’acido carbonico e con l’assorbire l’ossigeno attraverso i pori, che servono anche per l’emissione di sostanze velenose accumulatesi”. 29  Rodella 1872, 41: “vuol darsi per sentimentale, e tale si mostra nella pallidezza del volto, nelle occhiate languide, nell’aria cascante: parla di romanzi, di scene tenere, di emicranie, di mal di nervi”. 30  “perché la donna di membra sciolte e robuste vuol dire miglioramento nella razza umana”.

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A similar aesthetic ideal is proposed by Castellino (1918, 103), who encourages her giovinette not to stand on ceremony at the table, but to help themselves twice if invited to do so because: The time is over when one admired sentimental girls who used to make out that they lived on air; today one prefers practical girls, who bode well for their future active life, full of responsibilities: wasp-waisted women are no longer appreciated.31 7

Intellectual Beauty

The relationship between gymnastics, hygienics and beauty also characterizes other galatei written at the beginning of the twentieth century, among which Eva Regina by Jolanda (1912) has to be mentioned for its relevance and novelty. After a Shakespearean quotation from Othello – “Our bodies are our gardens to the which our wills are gardeners” – and the explanation of the meaning and etymology of the word hygienics (deriving from the name of the Greek goddess of health, Hygeia), Jolanda stresses the valuable qualities and the positive effects that hygiene has not only on beauty but also on civilitazion; in fact she agrees with a great statesman’s opinion (whose name is not mentioned),32 who measured the degree of civilization of a population by the quantity of soap they consumed (ivi, 551). As for gymanistics, Jolanda recalls that Ancient Greece – “maestra di grazia e d’estetica” (‘master of grace and aesthetics’) – held it in great consideration and that Greek women were models of perfect beauty, intellect and knowledge: they were indeed the models for the Muses and Goddesses of classical Olympus (ivi, 557). This point shows the most interesting aspect of Jolanda’s idea of beauty, i.e. the importance given to the intellectual dimension, which she pulls alongside 31  “Non è più il tempo in cui piacevano le ragazze sentimentali, che davano a credere di viver d’aria; ora si preferisce una giovinetta pratica, la quale dia bene a sperare per la sua futura vita attiva, piena di responsabilità: non s’amano più nemmeno i vitini di vespa.” 32  An identical quotation is to be found in Matilde Serao’s Fascino muliebre (1901), probably the source of Jolanda’s quotation. In both cases the statesman’s name is not mentioned but it was probably Justus von Liebig, a German chemist. He is quoted as having said this by a Sicilian professor, Giuseppe Guerzoni (1874, 210), who was very likely the source for Serao and, indirectly, also for Jolanda: he deals with the theme of hygienics in relation to beauty and civilitazion, stating that all the powerful and great populations of the past followed the cult of physical beauty, and that the urge of embellishing oneself is a sign of superiority, stronger in women because it has to do with their being kind.

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physical and spiritual beauty as an essential gift of the feminine ideal. And to support her opinion, she provides the example of famous courtesans, hetairai, king’s favourites who, being aware of the transitoriness of physical seduction only, cultivated their minds as well. At the beginning of her galateo, Jolanda (ivi, 24–5) makes a distinction between “educazione” (‘upbringing’) and “istruzione” (‘education’): the first shapes character and feelings, also teaching girls to be attractive and pretty, not out of vanity but to elevate more easily towards the ideal those souls that approach them; whereas “istruzione” provides girls with a weapon against useless sentimentalism, prejudices, an absence of ideas, inferiority and weakness. Education opens their minds to understanding the achievement of science and “le visioni della bellezza ideale” (‘the visions of ideal beauty’). Jolanda does personally wish that all girls were able to appreciate beautiful music, beautiful paintings, beautiful statues, beautiful poems and beautiful prose (ivi, 30). And beauty in Eva Regina is indeed a central theme which links the different parts of this weighty and complex text: physical beauty in the different stages of women’s lives; spiritual, moral and intellectual beauty; beauty of creation and nature, of art, of places and even beauty of “quel mostro” (‘that monster’, i.e. racing cars) for which the most beautiful ladies save their greatest admiration, even being ready to expose themselves to bad weather and spoil their skin (ivi, 554): an ironic piece of evidence of the new aesthetic climate of the beginning of the twentieth century, which will make the Italian futurist poet Marinetti assert that “una macchina da corsa è più bella della Nike di Samotracia!” (‘A racing car is more beautiful than the Nike in Samotracia’). Although physical beauty is not everything a woman needs in order to be admired and to exercise her reign, Jolanda gives it a lot of importance, so much so as to deal extensively with it in a long chapter named Il giudizio di Paride (‘Paris’s judgment’). Here she gives a lot of very practical and detailed advice on how to take care of each part of a woman’s body, too. Even if, on the one hand, she partly agrees with the proverb that relativizes in subjective terms the ideal of beauty – “That is not beautiful which is beautiful, but that is beautiful what you like”33 (cf. Gioia’s subjectivism) – on the other, she admits that almost nobody could question the classical qualities of real beauty, e.g.: a copious, thin, shiny, wavy head of hair; white skin; eye expression; pure white regular teeth; well-proportioned shapes (ivi, 576). In this chapter Jolanda also gives a definition of grace, another effective means of feminine seduction: 33  “Non è bello ciò che è bello, ma è bello quel che piace”.

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Grace is the harmony of movements, attitudes, gestures: it is the art that regulates life, but a spontaneous art, almost unconscious, that one cannot learn if one is not lucky to have it.34 The chapter ends with two symmetrical paragraphs: in the first, Le donne che piacciono agli uomini (‘The women that men like’), Jolanda quotes Ernesto Renan’s opinion according to which men dislike women who look like them. This would explain why they prefer buxom, long silken-haired, white-skinned women, with small hands and feet. But also why, generally speaking, men prefer “la bella bambola” (‘the beautiful doll’), submissive and uneducated, who embroiders rather than writes, so they can unwind: a critical, feminist attitude which makes this galateo so innovative. In the second paragraph, Gli uomini che piaccione alle donne (‘The men that women like’), Jolanda lists the qualities women appreciate in men: courage (that is the equivalent in men of grace in women), sang froid, brilliance and politeness (that can compensate for the lack of beauty, as women are very grateful to men who are able to interpret and indulge the sensitivity of their souls). En passant she also deals with men’s beauty comparing it to zero, because “if added to more figures it can give a fabulous value, but if it is put beside other zeros, even if these were one million, it will always result in the richness of nothingness!”.35 8

Functional Beauty

The metaphor of zero is also used by Elena Morozzo della Rocca Muzzati, author of Signorilità (1933) and a Fascist activist, to indicate what even beautiful women or brilliant men would be without a cast-iron discipline. Discipline is a term that very often occurs in this galateo to refer to the main principle that regulates the political, religious, private and personal spheres: Our girls might be as beautiful as Venus […] our boys might even discover the inhabitants of Mars […] but they will always be zero […] if they are not able to tell themselves that cast-iron “I am not allowed to”, in front of the endless desires and temptations that besiege us at every step and at every moment … if they do not know that inner discipline is that one, 34  Castellino 1918, 569: “La grazia è l’armonia dei movimenti, delle attitudini, dei gesti: è l’arte regolatrice della vita, ma un’arte spontanea, quasi inconscia, che non s’impara se non si ha la fortuna di averla con sé”. 35  Ivi, 646: “accanto ad altre cifre può dare un valore favoloso, ma accanto ad altri zeri, siano pure un milione, significherà sempre la ricchezza del nulla!”.

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unique, inflexible, in all fields, either of the spirit, or of worldliness, or of everyday life!36 The strong Fascist ideological component of Signorilità is apparent in the praise of the “razze latine” (‘Latin races’) with the concomitant denigration of American parvenues, who spend too much time and money on make-up. On the contrary, women are recommended to take care of their beauty not just on the surface but “dal dentro al fuori” (‘from the inside out’): by toning muscle tissues in order to blank out wrinkles, chewing slowly, keeping the digestive system perfectly fit in order to prevent any blush and eczemas; doing exercise in the open air, in order to activate the flow of blood, eating healthy food to keep the blood pure.37 But, as is apparent in the above quotation, “the inside” in this Fascist galateo does not refer to the spiritual and moral sphere that post-unification treatises were interested in. This galateo – characterized by the new binomial beauty and signorilità (‘gentility’), where the latter is much more frequent than the word cortesia – highlights the change in the aesthetic ideal of feminine beauty, in absolute conformity with the official Fascist canon that was averse to the “donna-crisi”, pale, artificially slim, masculinized: Today ladies, beautiful ladies, want to be tanned. Marble is unfashionable, bronze sees its “shares” getting higher.38 They want to have long hair, stop wearing very tight belts and corsets that have baleful effects even on pregnancy. Fascist women had to be healthy in order to give birth to healthy children, in accordance with the rules of life given by Mussolini in the speech held at the Campidoglio on 28th January 1932, during the inaugural meeting of the Conference of the Fascist Doctors’s Trade Union. 36  Ivi, 517: “Le nostre ragazze potranno essere belle come Venere […] i nostri ragazzi potranno scoprire gli abitanti del pianeta Marte […] ma saranno sempre zero […] se non sapranno dirsi quel ferreo “non si può”, davanti agli infiniti desideri, alle infinite tentazioni che ci assalgano ad ogni passo e ad ogni momento … se non sapranno che la disciplina interiore è quella, è unica, inflessibile, in tutti i campi, sia dello spirito, sia della mondanità, sia della semplice vita di ogni giorno!”. 37  Ivi, 92: “tonificando i tessuti per cancellare le rughe, masticando con lentezza, tenendo in perfetta funzione il tubo digerente per evitare rossori, eczemi alla pelle; facendo moto all’aperto, per attivare la circolazione: mangiando cibi leggieri, per aver il sangue puro ecc.”. 38  Ivi, 76: “Oggi le signore, le belle signore, vogliono avere la pelle abbronzata. Il marmo è passato di moda, il bronzo vede salire le proprie ‘azioni’”.

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On that occasion he invited doctors to promote lifestyle based on naturismo, which according to him was much more developed in other countries but not yet in Italy: people had to change their eating, dressing, working and sleeping habits, by making elements of nature – the sun, open air, movements – work on their body.39 What is left of the correspondence between physical and moral beauty – theorised in earlier galatei – are a few somewhat playful brief spiritualaesthetic suggestions, taken, as the author says, from an old magazine: Skin cream: goodness mixed with affability; to avoid envy beacause it makes skin yellow, wrinkled and hardens the gaze. / Rouge: modesty. / Luster for eyes: vivacity, love for beauty. / Beauty of hands: ability.40 Also in Signorilità the adjective beautiful occurs frequently but mainly to qualify functional objects, such as modern and practical tea-pots whose aesthetic look is very beautiful (ivi, 111); practical and beautiful terry-towelling carpets (ivi, 193); beautiful and advisable elastic strips made by corset makers (ivi, 322); white porcelain with a thin, golden edge that is always beautiful and distinguished (ivi, 115); the beautiful house, simple but at the same time distinguished, where distinguished women entertain their guests (ivi, 140). The fact that the adjective signorile (‘distinguished’) often co-occurs with beautiful to qualify the same functional objects is a clear sign of the deep change in the conception of politeness, which refers to inner qualities less and less, either moral or intellectual. Other galatei written during the Fascist era, regardless of the author’s political ideology, express a hygienist, almost medical, conception of beauty (according to Fascist propaganda): Brelih dall’Asta, for example, in Il successo nella vita (1931), gives detailed suggestions on lifestyles and diets; on body, teeth and hair care; on physical exercise and even on aesthetic surgery. 9

The Disappearance of Beauty

The interest in beauty will tend to disappear from the galatei written after the Second World War onwards for several possible reasons: a reaction against 39  The whole speech can be read on www.adamoli.org/benito-mussolini/pag0492_.htm. 40  Ivi, 107: “Crema per la pelle: bontà mista ad affabilità, schivare invidia che ingiallisce la cute, la rende rugosa e indurisce lo sguardo. / Belletto: la modestia. / Lustro per gli occhi: il brio, l’amore al bello. / Bellezza delle mani: l’abilità”.

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Fascist ideology; the severe problems and tasks of postwar reconstruction; the profound changes in customs and values, including the diffusion of feminism and the cultural revolution in the 1970s, which will lead to writing countergalatei, such as for example Brunella Gasperini’s (1975), characterized by spontaneity, authenticity and irony. But one may wonder why even today’s galatei do not deal with beauty, although some authors – like for example Carollo (2012, 11) – acknowledge that we live in an appearance-based society. The answer to this question is not easy to find. I will therefore limit myself to proposing a hypothesis that still needs to be carefully evaluated. The existence of different ideas of beauty – (physical, spiritual, moral, intellectual, functional, etc.) with their various ingredients (grace, elegance, hygiene, etc.) – prompted a discussion on their mutual relationship and on their respective roles in defining politeness. Plus, politeness was a complex concept, which until the first half of the twentieth century had civil, ethical and socio-political implications that have almost been lost today. This has brought about a deep transformation in the function of galatei: they have become practical guides and dictionaries of manners, to be consulted as instruction booklets simply to know how to behave in certain circumstances of everyday life. In these kinds of texts – still called galatei, even if they have undergone a Copernican revolution – we can find at best some anti-aging suggestions, but the big questions such as the relationship between politeness, beauty and ethics would be out of place: as beauty seems to have no bond with politeness any longer, it is not an appropriate subject for a galateo to deal with. One also has to consider that starting from the 1960s, the ideal of beauty – physical beauty – is mainly proposed by the world of commercial consumption, or rather by the mass media. They, however, do not propose any unique model. Therefore, as Umberto Eco suggests (2004, 428), at the end of his journey along the Storia della Bellezza, one has to surrender when faced with the orgy of tolerance, the total syncretism and the absolute and inexorable polytheism of beauty. References Botteri, Inge. 1999. Galateo e Galatei. Roma: Bulzoni. Brelih dall’Asta, Mario. 1931. Il successo nella vita. Galateo moderno. Milano: Palladis. Brown, Penelope and Stephen Levinson. 1989. Politeness. Some Universals in Language Usage. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Carollo, Sabrina 2012. Galateo per tutte le occasioni. Milano-Firenze: Giunti.

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Castellino, Francesca. 1918. Le belle maniere. Nuovo galateo per le giovinette. Torino: SEI. Castellino, Francesca. 1920. Il libro della cortesia. Nuovo galateo pei giovinetti. Torino: SEI. Cerruti, Marco. 1998. “Un giacobino moderato: Melchiorre Gioia.” In Storia della Letteratura Italiana. Il primo Ottocento, a cura di Enrico Malato, 259–62. Roma: Salerno. Della Casa, Giovanni. 2000. Galateo ovvero de’ costumi (1558). A cura di Stefano Prandi. Bologna: La Biblioteca Universale. Eco, Umberto. 2004. Storia della bellezza. Milano: Bompiani. Ehlih, Konrad. 2003. “On the historicity of politeness.” In Politeness in Language. Studies in its History, Theory and Practice, edited by Richard J. Watts, Sachiko Ide and Konrad Ehlich, 71–107. Berlin: De Gruyter. France, Peter. 1992. Politeness and its discontents. Problems in French classical culture. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Gasperini, Brunella. 1975. Il galateo di Brunella Gasperini: la più famosa e divertente guida ai misteri del “savoir-faire”. Milano: Sonzogno. Gatta, Matteo. 1877. Galateo moderno ad uso dei giovinetti. Milano: Carrara. Gioia, Melchiorre. 1837. Il nuovo galateo, in Opere minori di Melchiorre Gioja, vol. 16. Lugano: Ruggia e C. [http://books.google.com/]. Hume, David. 1987. Essays, Moral, Political, and Literary (1742), edited by Eugene F. Miller. Liberty Fund. http://hermetic.com/93beast.fea.st/files/section1/hume/extras/. Jolanda (pseudonym of Marchesa Plattis Majocchi). 1912. Eva Regina. Il libro delle Signore. Il moderno galateo. Milano: Perrella. La Bruyère, Jean. 1962. Les caracterès ou les mœurs de ce siècle (1688). Paris: Robert Garapon. Morozzo della Rocca Muzzati, Elena. 1933. Signorilità. Piacevole trattato di economia domestica di galateo e di mondanità. Lanciano: Carabba. Rodella, Costantino. 1871. Enrichetto ossia Il galateo del fanciullo. Torino: Paravia. Rodella, Costantino. 1872. Marina ossia Il galateo della fanciulla. Torino: Paravia. Watts, Richard J. 2012. “A socio-cognitive approach to historical politeness.” In Understanding Historical (Im)Politeness, edited by Marcel Bax and Dániel Z. Kádár, 103–30. Amsterdam: Benjamins.

chapter 15

Fosca and Her Sisters: Origins and Hypostases of the “Medusean Beauty” in the Narrative of the Scapigliatura Francesco Bonelli For critics who wish to map the evolution of the idea of beauty in Western culture, the nineteenth century would certainly stand out for the extremely important role given to its aesthetic counterpart, i.e. the concept of ugliness. No other literary period appears to display a tighter, yet more conflicting, connection, between the concepts of beauty and ugliness than Romanticism, especially in its “agony” that led to the European fin de siècle. With reference to this process, Praz (1954, 26–7) identified in his seminal essay La carne, la morte e il diavolo nella letteratura romantica a turning point in Shelley’s description of the painting of Medusa’s head exhibited in the Uffizi Gallery: This glassy-eyed, severed female head, this horrible, fascinating Medusa, was to be the object of the dark loves of the Romantics and the Decadents throughout the whole of the century. For the Romantics beauty was enhanced by exactly those qualities which seem to deny it, by those objects which produce horror; the sadder, the more painful it was, the more intensely they relished it. In Romantic and Decadent authors’ fascination with the Medusa’s gaze, Praz (1954, 26) glimpsed the inauguration of an original aesthetic sensibility from which “a new sense of beauty, a beauty imperilled and contaminated, a new thrill” gushed. This aesthetic process, which found its roots in the philosophical debate of the preceding century,1 resulted in the coming of a 1  We obviously refer to Burke’s A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful (1757). By recognizing pain and pleasure as two autonomous concepts, no longer interdependent, and by contextually assuming the possibility of their coexistence, Burke laid the foundations of a new aesthetic concept of ugliness, which will be achieved about a century later in Aesthetik des Hässlichen (1853) by Karl Rosenkranz. As known, the origins of the concept of the sublime in aesthetics are far more ancient and date back to Pseudo-Longinus’s study On the sublime in the I century AD. For an overview cf. Panella 2012.

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“modern muse” for whom “not everything in creation is humanly beautiful, […] ugly exists side by side to beautiful, deformed near graceful, grotesque as a counterpart to sublime, evil with good, shadow with light”, as Victor Hugo (1964, 416) theorized in his famous preface to Cromwell in 1827.2 Some years later, forerunners of Decadence like Charles Baudelaire, moved forward on this path, by exploiting thoroughly the expanding extent of literary potential of the concept of ugliness. In this attempt to “extract beauty from evil”3 (1975, 181), he disclosed unexplored areas of artistic research, which revealed the development of a proto-Decadent sensibility (Praz 1954, 29–30). A new paradigm seemed, therefore, to impose itself in the Romantic literary production, succinctly expressed in the motto: “Ugliness is beauty” (“le beau, c’est le laid”), as a famous caricature by Benjamin Roubaud representing Hugo and his “hugolâtres” disciples declared.4 Parallely, representation of women characters started to evolve, giving birth to female avatars who had in common the same physical and moral disease. The mawkish-type of Victorian heroine and persecuted maiden, which was predominant in the first half of the century, begun to progressively abandon its angelical features to transform itself into vampire. From this moment on, a whole series of morbid female characters resembling the Medusean model, made its appearance and haunted a large part of the European novel for several decades, including Italy. Despite the Crocian bias on the “Italian soul [which, my note] leans naturally towards the definite and harmonious” (Croce 1947, 256), morbid and eccentric-shaped female figures will also populate italian novel and poetry since the 1860s. In this respect, the avant-garde of the Scapigliatura,5 a literary 2  “tout dans la création n’est pas humainement beau, […] le laid y existe à côté du beau, le difforme près du gracieux, le grotesque au revers du sublime, le mal avec le bien, l’ombre avec la lumière.” Unless explicitly indicated otherwise, all translations from French and Italian are my own. 3  “Il m’a paru plaisant, et d’autant plus agréable que la tâche était plus difficile, d’extraire la beauté du Mal.” 4  We refer to Roubaud’s caricature The Highway of the Future (“Le Grand Chemin de la Postérité”), dating from 1842, in which Victor Hugo is depicted riding a grotesque Pegasus and holding a banner saying “Le beau, c’est le laid”. In this lithograph, Hugo is followed by some of the most important writers of the first Romantic generation, as Théophile Gautier, Eugène Sue, Alexandre Dumas, Honoré de Balzac and Alfred de Vigny. Cf. Gluck 2005, 64. 5  The birth of the Scapigliatura movement – the word literally means “dishevelled hair” and is a translation of the French bohème – is commonly locate in December 1857, when Cletto Arrighi published some fragments of his novel La Scapigliatura e il 6 febbraio, which gives the name to the group. After having been often considered by critics as a mere “episode” in the Italian literature of the nineteenth century (Angelo Romanò, for example, spoke of this movement as “second Lombard Romanticism”, not recognizing in it elements of effective innovation), more recently scholars as Farinelli (2003) have pointed out that the

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and artistic movement originating in the Milan of the early 1860s, played a very significant role. Including some of the most influential intellectuals, writers and journalists of the late nineteenth century (Emilio Praga, the Boito brothers, Cletto Arrighi, Igino Ugo Tarchetti, Luigi Gualdo, Giovanni Camerana, to cite but a few), this movement stood out for his crucial contribution in importing the leading foreign literary models of the age (Baudelaire, Hoffmann, Poe, Gautier6), through which it conducted a sharp controversy against the literary remains of the Risorgimento and Italian novel by definition, i.e. The betrothed by the loved-hated Alessandro Manzoni.7 Cadaverous women, female vampires, satanic “femmes fatales” accompanied by macabre features constituted some of the most favourite motifs in the Scapigliatura’s repertoire, both in poetry and in novel (Carnero 2007, 16–9). Medusean and deranging beauties inspired, for example, the poetic production by Praga (La morta del villaggio) or Tarchetti (M’avea dato convegno al cimitero, Memento!); autopsy scenes are also frequent, as in Arrigo Boito’s poem Lezione d’anatomia or in his brother’s short story Un corpo, in which the conflict between Art and Science finds its representation in the dissected bodies of female characters. Such an unfavourable rendering of women’s physical appearance was due to the symbolic function that female beauty held in becoming an important gauge of disillusionment, tragic alienation and anarchic rebellion in the immediate aftermath of Italian unification.8 Seeking a composition between Ideal and Reality, the “scapigliati” authors operate on a slippery terrain of oxymoronic contrasts and try to face, at the same time, the challenge of a new aesthetic model, which could even result from the most degrading reality. Hence, the muse for them becomes “grim” (“torva”), as Arrigo Boito asserts in

Scapigliatura could be studied more successfully as “movement”, emphasising in particular the role of journals in the development of his poetics. In this respect, cf. the fundamental work by Farinelli (1984). For an overview about the Scapigliatura movement cf. Mariani 1967, Crotti, Ricorda 1992, Paccagnini 1999 and Farinelli 2003. 6  The influence of Gautier’s and Poe’s works on the Scapigliatura have been studied by Scelfo (1989) and Apollonio (1981), respectively. On the aesthetic debate on ugliness in the Scapigliatura movement with reference to Baudelaire’s poetry, cf. Bettella 2000. 7  On the conflicting relationship of “scapigliati” authors with Manzoni, cf. Negri et al. 1978. 8  In this respect, scholars, as Del Principe (1996, 44–74) and Billiani (2008), have shown how certain typologies of feminine beauty, played a major role in embodying social and gender tension, which implicitly undermined, by means of the fantastic genre, the foundations of patriarchal society in post-Unitarian Italy: “during the decades following Italian unification, the Gothic and the fantastic proved to be ideal textual solutions to put forward such an oblique critique, since they could disguise the unspoken without making it manifest in the public sphere.” Billiani 2008, 495.

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the poem A Giovanni Camerana9 (Carnero 2007, 212), because “not finding the Beautiful”, the poet has no choice but to “grapple to the Horrendous”10 (ivi, 213). Nevertheless, in other cases this attraction for an “an evil Art”11 (ivi, 184) can simply be explained by stylistic arguments, as Arrigo Boito does in a kind of ironic declaration, when he presents in 1865 his Ballatella (Little ballad) to the readers of the journal “La Cronaca Grigia” (Farinelli 1984, 196–7): We, the angry Romantic “scapigliati”, prefer the Quasimodos of our imagination, to the regular laws of Beauty. That is why I choose this refrain. If you also want to know the purpose, I will tell you that it is neither philosophical, nor political, nor religious; I only wanted to train myself in words rhyming with iccio.12 Although the Scapigliatura seems to have been truly influenced by that “aesthetic theory of the Horrid and the Terrible” highlighted by Praz (1954, 27), many critics and scholars, especially in the past, often underestimated its influence on the cultural context of the age, because of his ambiguous position between Romanticism and Decadence, as well as of his lack of unitarian poetic manifesto. Praz himself does not go beyond a few allusions to the Scapigliatura in his essays. With reference to Boito’s and Camerana’s production, for example, he speaks of “second-hand monstrosities, echoes of decadent cadences” (1954, 459), while in another work he defines the “scapigliati” as “coarse experimenters on the path towards [Italian, my note] Decadence” (1972, 370).13 Partially reconsidering this interpretation, the first part of this paper will underline how the emergence of a new model of female beauty in the narrative of the Scapigliatura, whose distinctive features are illness and moral corruption, might be successfully analysed in light of the concept of 9   Boito, Arrigo. A Giovanni Camerana, v. 33: “Torva è la Musa […]”. 10  Ivi, vv. 55–6: “e non trovando il Bello / ci abbranchiamo all’Orrendo.” 11  Id, Dualismo, vv. 92–8: “E sogno un’Arte reproba / che smaga il mio pensiero / dietro le basse immagini / d’un ver che mente al Vero / e in aspro carme immerso / sulle mie labbra il verso / bestemmïando vien.” (“And I dream of an evil Art / which diverts my thought / to the vile images / of a truth that lies to the Truth / and plunged in harsh poem / the verse comes to my lips / like a blasphemy.”). 12  “Noi scapigliati romantici in ira, alle regolari leggi del Bello, prediligiamo i Quasimodi nelle nostre fantasticherie; ecco la causa del mio ritornello. Se vuoi sapere anche lo scopo, ti dirò che non è né filosofico, né politico, né religioso; ho voluto semplicemente esercitarmi nella scabrosa rima in iccio.” 13  According to Praz (1954, 251), Italian Decadence starts only with D’Annunzio: “It was quite otherwise in the case of D’Annunzio, who, let it be said at once, was the first to introduce the Italians to the Anglo-French Byzantium of the end of the century”.

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the “Beauty of Medusa” introduced by Praz. In this respect, we will initially focus on the character of Fosca in Tarchetti’s homonymous novel, probably the most accomplished example of this new aesthetic model; then, we will pass on into review others female figures related to the Scapigliatura milieu, i.e. the feminine characters in Camillo Boito’s Vain Little Stories (Storielle vane) and Verga’s Nata from Royal Tiger (Tigre reale), trying to highlight their innovative function in the narrative plot. The second part of our contribution, instead, will insist on how these characters often become the means for a meditation on Art and the Absolute, whose feminine beauty constitutes the privileged symbolic representation. Such a characterization clearly appears, as we will see, in the shorts stories by Tarchetti (Love in Art – Amore nell’arte) and Gualdo (The Great Rival and Other Short Stories – La gran rivale e altre novelle). We will commence our analysis with Fosca, the protagonist of the abovementioned novel by Igino Ugo Tarchetti. This emblematic character, “figure between the era of liberty and D’Annunzio’s, born at least twenty years too early and in a world which is not hers yet” (Calvino 2002, 166), perfectly embodies this new aesthetic sensibility, and seems really to mark, in reason of her abnormal, horrific, even sublime appearance14 a fundamental transition in the Italian literature of the age. Published posthumously in 1869 because of Tarchetti’s dead,15 the novel tells about the morbid relationship between Giorgio, a young army official stationed in a city we can identify as Parma,16 and Fosca, a woman of singular ugliness, but also extremely cultured and sensitive. Symbolically opposed to Clara, a more reassuring character (even onomatologically speaking), with whom Giorgio had an adulterous affair in Milan, all along the plot Fosca manipulates her lover’s conduct by means of her horrid fascination. Following the suggestion of Fosca’s doctor, who considers this passion an healthy treatment for his patient, Giorgio complies with Fosca’s advances and requests in spite of her repellent physical appearance, progressively entering a state of deep distress. At the end of the novel, in fact, after Fosca’s death, Giorgio will finally fall victim to the same infirmity that affected his undesired lover: 14  We interpret this expression in the Burkanian sense of the term, as “delightful horror” (Burke 1967, 73). For an interpretation of Fosca as “sublime woman”, cf. Melloni 2008. 15   Fosca, Milano, Treves, 1869. The novel first appeared in a serialized form in the milanese journal “Il Pungolo”, from the 21th of February to the 6th of April (Crotti, Ricorda 1992, 46). After Tarchetti’s death, the novel was finished by his friend Salvatore Farina, who wrote the chapter XLVIII (cf. Villa 1976). 16  Ghidetti (1968, 62). As known, the novel was based upon Tarchetti’s autobiographical experience. Cf. Gioanola 1979, 151–2.

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“Fosca’s malady was transfused into me. I had obtained the sad inheritance of my guilt, and my love.”17 (Tarchetti 1994, 193) Fosca’s unpleasant appearance manifests initially itself in absentia through the account on her health condition given by her cousin, a colonel who had invited Giorgio to attend their house: “My cousin is illness personified, hysteria made woman, a living miracle of the nervous system” (ivi, 34).18 The illness constitutes, therefore, the main feature of Fosca’s portrait, immediately suggesting her transcendental role in the relationship with Giorgio: “I don’t understand a thing about that woman’s character. I can’t explain her conduct, I confront her as she were a myth.” (ivi, 75)19 Such a sick and exaggerated description is confirmed when her entrance, after having been carefully prepared in the first part of the novel, finally takes place in chapter fifteen (ivi, 41–2): God! How to express in words that woman’s horrendous ugliness! […] Nor did her ugliness stem so much from some natural defect, a disharmony among her features (which in fact were somewhat symmetrical), as from an excessive thinness which I would almost call inconceivable to anyone who had not seen her […]. A slight effort of imagination would permit a glimpse of her skeleton. […] her slender neck formed the most striking contrast with the bulk of her head, whose rich mass of hair, black, thick, longer than I had ever seen on a woman, further augmented the disproportion. All her life was concentrated in her eyes, which were jet black, large, veiled – eyes of a surprising beauty. All of her horror was in her face.20 17  “la malattia di Fosca si era trasfusa in me: io aveva conseguito in quel momento la triste eredità del mio fallo e del mio amore.” 18  “Mia cugina è la malattia personificata, l’isterismo fatto donna, un miracolo vivente del sistema nervoso”. 19  “Egli è che io non ho potuto comprender nulla del carattere di quella donna. Non riesco a spiegarmi la sua condotta, mi trovo di fronte a lei come di fronte ad un mito.” 20  Tarchetti 1967, II, 277–8: “Dio! Come esprimere colle parole la bruttezza orrenda di quella donna! […] Né tanto era brutta per difetti di natura, per disarmonia di fattezze, – ché anzi erano in parte regolari, – quanto per una magrezza eccessiva, direi quasi inconcepibile a chi non la vide […]. Un lieve sforzo d’immaginazione poteva lasciarne travedere lo scheletro […], l’esiguità del suo collo formava un contrasto vivissimo colla grossezza della sua testa, di cui un ricco volume di capelli neri, folti, lunghissimi, quali non vidi mai in altra donna, aumentava ancora la sproporzione. Tutta la sua vita era ne’ suoi occhi che erano nerissimi, grandi, velati – occhi d’una beltà sorprendente. […] Tutta la sua orribilità era nel suo viso.”

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In this scene, the first-person narrator, i.e. Giorgio himself, makes the portrait of Fosca stressing the ugliness of her character as well as her oxymoronic nature. What is unpleasant in Fosca’s appearance, in fact, does not lie in a disproportion of physical traits, but rather in their paroxysmal amplification.21 Her “inconceivable” thinness, exposing her bones, together with the paleness of her face and her eyes wide open in a fixed gaze, clash considerably with the surprising beauty of her thick, black hair. This mixture of ugly and beautiful traits in Fosca’s portrait cannot but call into question “The Beauty of Medusa”, in which is possible to find “pleasure and pain […] combined in one single impression” (Praz 1954, 26). The contradictory characterization inherent to Fosca’s attributes shows the extent to which this character has been conceived as an artificial and antithetical figure, who exercises her fascination in virtue of being split between life and death. Briefly mentioned above, there is a specific Medusean attribute in this description which decisively contributes to Fosca’s oxymoronic portrait: the profusion of her hair. In the passage quoted, Fosca’s hair is depicted as “black, thick, and longer than I had ever seen on a woman”.22 Moreover, Tarchetti stresses this detail several times throughout the novel, as, for example, at chapter 27, when Fosca decides to offer Giorgio her tress as a pledge of love, but then changes her mind because of the deadly omen this gesture could represent. Descriptions of flowing and beautiful hair in deranging female portraits are quite common in those years, one need only to think of Berenice’s description in the homonymous short tale by Poe or some paintings by the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood.23 Nevertheless, it is quite surprising to notice how frequently the Medusean attribute of flowing hair recurs in the Scapigliatura narrative. The Messalinic figure of Livia, the female protagonist of the short story Sense by 21  Compare Burkes’s definition of ugliness: “But though ugliness be the opposite to beauty, it is not the opposite to proportion and fitness. For it is possible that a thing may be very ugly with any proportions, and with a perfect fitness to any uses. Ugliness I imagine likewise to be consistent enough with an idea of the sublime. But I would by no means insinuate that ugliness of itself is a sublime idea, unless united with such qualities as excite a strong terror.” Burke 1967, 119. 22  Del Principe proposes a psychoanalytic interpretation of Fosca’s hair which refers to Freud’s essay Medusa’s Head, (1996, 49 and following pages): “[…] Fosca’s long, hanging locks of hair […] operate subtextually, “below the belt”, as a “displacement upward” of phallic imagery. Giorgio’s frightened observance of Fosca’s disheveled hair and appearance is actually the transfusion of his own fear of castration to Fosca”; cf. also Del Principe 1994. 23  On Dante Gabriel Rossetti’s “hair-madness”, cf. Praz 1972, 59.

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Camillo Boito, for example, immediately comes to mind because of her “long hair” that “fall into beautiful shiny waves”, “blacker than ink”24 (Boito 1970, 383). But we should also mention, moving towards Verga’s milanese production, the character of Nata in the novel Royal Tiger (1875), a tuberculous woman owing much to Fosca’s portrait, who significantly says to her lover Giorgio La Ferlita: “Why do you look at me in this way? Have I become ugly? I still have very beautiful hair”25 (Verga 1970, 411). Besides the frequency of the specific attribute of beautiful and long hair, what interests us is to highlight that the Medusean Beauty embodied by Fosca, is far from being an isolated example in the Scapigliatura narrative. This clearly appears, first of all, in other works by Tarchetti himself. Going back along his production, in fact, one gets the impression that Fosca represents in some way the peak of his literary experimentation. Some features observed in Fosca’s character, for example, seem to have been already depicted in Paolina, a social novel published in 1866.26 If, on the one hand, the main character Paolina, a young milliner persecuted – as Lucia in The betrothed – and raped by an aristocratic libertine, is physically still depicted with conventional and angelical features, on the other, the sister of her fiancé, Marianna, is characterized by an unpleasant appearance which does not differ much from that of Fosca: “Although her soul transpired entirely from her gaze, and her appearance could not be so unpleasant, she was small in stature, somewhat curved, very slim and emaciated; her features were irregular, her mouth very large (…) the poor soul had nothing that was beautiful”27 (1967, I, 275). Other than for her ugliness and physical illness, which “had preserved her from corruption”28 (ibid.) and, consequently, from the roles of mother and wife that would have been imposed by the bourgeois society – Marianna resembled Fosca also for her “exquisite delicacy that expressed excitement at the slightest

24  “La mia fronte, su cui scherzano i riccioletti, è liscia e tersa come quella di una bimba; a’ lati delle mie ampie narici, al di sopra delle mie labbra un po’ grosse e rosse, non si vede una grinza. Non ho mai scoperto un filo bianco ne’ lunghi capelli, i quali, sciolti, cadono in belle onde lucide, neri più dell’inchiostro, sulle mie spalle candide.” 25  “Perché mi guardi così? Son diventata brutta? Ho ancora i capelli molto belli”. 26   Paolina. Misteri del Coperto Figini: racconto. 1866. Milano: Angelo Andreis. 27  “Quantunque la sua anima trapelasse tutta dallo sguardo, e la sua fisionomia non potesse quindi essere spiacevole, essa era di piccola statura, alquanto curva, molto sottile ed immagrita; i suoi lineamenti erano irregolari, la sua bocca assai grande (…) la poveretta aveva nulla di bello”. 28  “ l’aveva[no] difesa dalla corruzione”.

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contact”, for her “wide, reflective, creative mind” (ivi, 298),29 which makes her appear almost as a poet, as remarked by Tarchetti himself. Furthermore, other converging traits portrayed in Fosca, such as her cadaverous thinness, remind us of some graveyard poems by Tarchetti, like Memento!: “When I kiss your fragrant lips / Dear girl, I cannot forget / That a white skull is hidden beneath.”30 (1967, II, 459) But we can also bump into male characters, such as Vincenzo D, the protagonist of the antimilitaristic novel Noble Madness (Una nobile follia), who seems to share with Fosca the same overexcited sensibility and intensified capacity of perception. In light of this, we might argue that Fosca represents, in some way, the acme of Tarchetti’s literary research, in which are combined all the Medusean features he had already used and developed in his previous works. However, “Medusean” beauties also occurs in other works related to the Scapigliatura milieu. We can find an interesting example in Camillo Boito’s collection Sense – New Little Vain Stories, published in 1883 by Treves. Besides the character of Livia that we mentioned above, there is another short story in the collection, Grey Stain (Macchia grigia), whose female protagonist reveals some common features with the ones in Tarchetti. Written in first person as a sort of medical confession, Macchia grigia speaks about the origins of a visual trouble affecting the narrating character, which consists in a grey stain on the retina of his eyes. As the story continues, the reader is made aware of the decisive role played, at the onset of the narrator’s illness, by a young shepherdess, Teresa, with whom the narrator had a brief physical relationship. In Teresa’s portrait we can find, as in Fosca, a series of wild and repulsive attributes, though this time more emphasis is given to the olfactive sphere (Boito 1970, 283): Teresa, of course, did not look like a town girl: her skin was rough, her passion almost feral. At first she loved three things: her father, her goats and me; after a week she no longer spoke of her father, she no longer took care of the goats, and just waited for me at the doorstep of the cottage starting from the crack of dawn, often reaching me up to Idro, dragging me, raping me, and throwing me on the ground as if to tear me to pieces. 29  “La sventura aveva data a quell’anima una potenza profonda nella meditazione, una delicatezza squisita che si eccitava al minimo contatto, una mente vasta, riflessiva, creatrice, e se l’arte avesse governate quelle virtù e direttele ad uno scopo, ne avrebbe modellato un poeta.” 30  “Quando bacio il tuo labbro profumato, / Cara fanciulla, non posso obbliare / Che un bianco teschio v’è sotto celato.” The poem firstly appeared in the journal “Il Gazzettino” on the 30th of November 1867 (Farinelli 1984, 494); twelve years later, it was collected by Davide Milelli in Tarchetti’s posthumous poetic collection Disjecta.

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At times her body exhaled a pungent and inebriating smell of wild herbs, at others a nauseating stench of goat, and often a stench of litter, which tainted.31 Such a characterization of Teresa, insisting on her feral eroticism, can be read as an anticipation of the vampiric role she will play during the course of the plot. This hypothesis seems to be confirmed by another description of the shepherdess few lines further: when the narrator finds a pretext to leave and abandon Teresa, she immediately falls into a sort of cataleptic state (Boito 1970, 285): At first I did not recognize her: her complexion had become of a dark red, her hair fell down on her forehead and shoulders in disrupted locks, her face strangely looked gaunt and elongated, the lower lip hanging down, her dull eyes staring out in space: I do not know why, but I thought I was face to face with a burned corpse.32 From this moment, Teresa’s illness and insanity begin to persecute her lover. After her death, seized by despair for the loss of her daughter, Teresa’s old father will commit suicide by jumping off a bridge into the water. The grey shape of his body taken by the river current in the eyes of the narrator, will hence transform into an indelible stain, which begins to haunt him by his spectral presence (Boito 1970, 298): The stain grows, the stain – a new thing! – resembles the shape of a man. Arms sprout from it, legs sprout, the head extends from it. The stain is the old man, the terribly old man!33 As this brief overview confirms, Tarchetti’s and Boito’s female characters share, first of all, a certain type of contaminated beauty, which undoubtedly reminds 31  “La Teresa, certo, non somigliava alle ragazze di città: la sua pelle era ruvida, la sua passione quasi ferina. Nei primi giorni amava tre cose: il suo padre, le sue capre e me; dopo una settimana non parlava più del padre, non badava più alle capre, mi aspettava sull’uscio del casolare a cominciare dall’alba, spesso mi veniva incontro sino ad Idro, mi trascinava, mi violentava, mi buttava in terra come se volesse sbranarmi. Certe volte dal suo corpo esalava un odore acre e inebbriante di erbe selvatiche, certe volte un puzzo di capra nauseabondo, e non di rado un fetore di strame, che ammorbava.” 32  “Nel primo istante non la riconobbi: la carnagione era diventata d’un rosso cupo, i capelli le cadevano sulla fronte e sulle spalle a ciocche sconvolte, il viso appariva stranamente smagrito e allungato, il labbro inferiore pendeva in giù, gli occhi spenti fissavano innanzi senza vedere: non so perché, credetti di essere in faccia a un cadavere bruciato.” 33  “La macchia cresce, la macchia – cosa nuova! – prende una forma d’uomo. Le spuntano le braccia, le spuntano le gambe, le nasce il capo. È il mio vecchio, il mio terribile vecchio!”.

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of the Medusean model. However, what Teresa and Fosca have in common, is also a similar narrative function within the plot of these stories. Their macabre features, in fact, seem to suggest the introduction of a new paradigm by way of the vampiric relationship established with their male counterpart. The Byronian and libertine type of male, which was predominant in the first part of the century, is now substituted with a progeny of vampirized men, idle and masochistic, of which Tarchetti’s, Boito’s and also Verga’s heroes well represent the first Italian personification. As Praz (1954, 206) stated, with reference to the type of “La belle dame sans merci”: “The function of the flame which attracts and burns is exercised, in the first half of the century, by the Fatal Man (the Byronic hero), in the second half by the Fatal Women; the moth destined for sacrifice is in the first case the woman, in the second the man. […] The male, who at first tends towards sadism, inclines, at the end of the century, towards masochism”. Thus, the ill and corrupted heroines described by Tarchetti, Boito and also Verga, should not only be considered as a mere imitation of gothic and graveyard themes derived from European models. Rather, they prefigure a sensibility we can define as proto-Decadent, if we interpret Decadence as “the experience of a new world, a region of the spirit unexplored” (Binni 1996, 21). In this sense, the gothicization of atmospheres or fantastic features, that always hovers around these female characters, must be considered a powerful impulse towards irrationality and beyond positivistic schema, which show a complex elaboration of the Romantic literary inheritance. This confirms, as Binni already noticed in 1936, that the Scapigliatura has to be read as the first Italian movement in which it is possible to recognise the “positive hints of an emerging decadent consciousness.” (1996, 42) The emergence of ill and corrupted female figures dealing with the concept of “Medusean Beauty” in the nineteenth-century Italian literature, can also be interpreted – as we will try to demonstrate in this second part – in terms of a problematic relationship between Art, Ideal and Reality. In this sense, female characters became the centre of a dialectical conflict that questions the purpose of literary and artistic works, as well as its relationship with the new reality of post-Unitarian Italy. Tarchetti explores this tension in his own way in the collection of short stories Love in Art, published for the first time by Treves in 1869 (although he started writing it from 1867) (Ghidetti 1968, 184). Inspired by Hoffmann’s musical short stories, in this work Tarchetti exploits the Medusean type of female beauty in order to formulate his personal vision of a tragic short circuit between Art, Love and Death. All the men and musicians, which are the protagonists of the three stories composing this collection, share the same search of the Absolute and

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the Ideal by means of various erotic experiences, which lead them inevitably to failure and, above all, to a destiny of death. As Alfredo M. in Story of an Ideal (Storia di un ideale),34 another short story by Tarchetti written in the same period, these characters tirelessly pursue an Illusion, which corresponds to Art. But, in contrast to Alfredo M., who following a juvenile disappointment falls in love with Perla, a woman who does not really exist and hence is only a result of his imagination, the protagonists of Love in Art focus their quest on deranging female figures that represent the deadly impulses characterizing Art. The first short story, Lorenzo Alviati, is about a musician who decides to devote himself entirely to his artistic ideal by choosing a proud isolation as a result of his renunciation of sensual love, which he considers degrading. However, he cannot do without Eros in its more spiritualized nature intended as the driving force towards the Ideal (Tarchetti 1967, I, 573): But what is art? Is it art who leads us to love, or is it love that leads us to art? Which of the two is the essence and which is the shape? Which is the one that reveals, and which is the one that is revealed? I still haven’t understood it yet; however, it is quite certain that every great soul has manifested itself by art, and that none have been able to escape the domain of love.35 After having refused for a long time the love of a young girl, Adalgisa, Lorenzo finally falls in love with her when she gets sick with phthisis (the same disease that affected Tarchetti). What fascinates Lorenzo in Adalgisa’s illness, in particular, is the mixture of natural beauty and corruption, which the imminent death draws on her body. This morbid attraction is clearly explained by Lorenzo himself during the course of the story (Tarchetti 1967, I, 586): As her illness dimmed her vitality, prostrating her strength and passions, her soul acquired a new power – as the limits of her physical life narrowed, those of her moral life dilated, and stretched. I loved her probably because I saw the woman disappear and the angel appear in her, while remaining angel and woman at the same time – for I saw her hovering between 34  This short story was published, for the first time, in Strenna italiana pel 1868. 1868. Milano. 35  “Ma che cosa è l’arte? È dessa che ci conduce all’amore, o è l’amore che ci conduce all’arte? quale dei due è l’essenza e quale è la forma? quale è quello che rivela e quale è quello che è rivelato?    Non ho potuto comprenderlo ancora; egli è però ben certo che ogni grande anima si è manifestata coll’arte, e che nessuna di esse ha potuto sottrarsi al dominio dell’amore.”

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heaven and the world, as if wanting to point me towards the sky without taking me away from the milder, more earthly joys.36 Aldagisa’s disease determines a spiritualization of her body, in which Lorenzo seems to reach the balance between the Spirit and the Matter he had always been seeking for. Because of this concept of beauty, Lorenzo’s erotic tension does not necessarily need a woman to be expressed. In virtue of this abstraction from human life, in fact, the quest of the Ideal can also concern inanimate objects (Tarchetti 1967, I, 592–3): In the desperate search for beauty, I had never searched but for beauty, although ephemeral, although inanimate. […] I always smiled to this kind of aversion that men have for anything that is inanimate: I always felt in my heart a spiritual exuberance that was enough to infuse life to all those inert beings surrounding me. Great souls suffer in the midst of what stirs and lives; they prefer solitude where they can expand their vitality.37 However, this illusion could not last long. After Adalgisa’s death, Lorenzo will be obliged to find other models to satisfy his passion. At first he will develop a form of pygmalionism falling in love with a statue, the Medici Venus of the Uffizi, symbol of classical beauty; then, he will turn his love into a narcissistic passion for himself, which will finally lead him to madness. The second short story of the collection, instead, is about a mediocre musician and avid gambler, Riccardo Waitzen, who moves to Vienna in search of fortune. Here, by attending one of the many social and cultural gatherings of the time, Riccardo accompanies at the piano, on an Hummel’s symphony, a young singer named Anna Roof (worn by illness likewise Adalgisa in Lorenzo Alviati), and immediately falls in love with her. For some mysterious reason, Anna’s love instills in Riccardo an incredible artistic talent, which leads him to 36  “Di mano in mano che la sua malattia affievoliva la sua vitalità, prostrava le sue forze e le sue passioni, la sua anima acquistava una nuova potenza – di mano in mano che si restringevano i limiti della sua vita fisica, si dilatavano, si estendevano quelli della sua vita morale. Io l’amava forse perché vedeva in lei sparire la donna e formarsi l’angelo, pur rimanendo angelo e donna ad un tempo – perché la vedeva librata tra il cielo ed il mondo, come avesse voluto additarmi il cielo senza togliermi alle gioie più miti della terra.” 37  “Nella ricerca affannosa del bello, io non aveva cercato mai che il bello, ancorché passeggiero, ancorché inanimato. […] Ho sempre sorriso di questa specie di avversione che gli uomini hanno per tutto ciò che non vive: mi sono sempre sentito nel cuore un’esuberantza di spirito sufficiente a infondere la vita a tutti quegli esseri inerti che mi stavano dintorno. Le grandi anime soffrono in mezzo a ciò che si agita e vive; prediligono la solitudine dove possono espandere la propria vitalità.”

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become a great and applauded musician. Her infirmity and corrupted beauty, seems thus to represent a means to reach a more intense experience of Art, that can raise Riccardo’s artistic research to higher and unexplored zones of expression (Ghidetti 1993, 1–20). As Anna says, the supernatural dimension of this fixed-term erotic experience – Anna is going to die because of her illness in one year – will give Riccardo the gift of an incredible sensibility (Tarchetti 1967, I, 613): I offer you the last year of my life, but a life whose Power will be increased a hundredfold by sensitivity, by love, by the thought of its imminent ending. Another woman could not offer you with a year of thrills that could be more devouring; your life will go through a series of new and burning sensations, I will not live a year in time, but will live forever in love.38 Nevertheless, Anna’s offer, like every infernal pact, has its own clause (Tarchetti 1967, I, 613–4): However, this huge passion is entitled to a reward: another pact between us: You will have to be faithful to me even after my death, you will have to love me for the rest of your life.39 In the second part of the story, Riccardo does not keep the pact and Anna’s foreboding words will turn into reality. When many years after Anna’s death Riccardo decides to marry another woman, he will incur in the punishment, which had been predicted for him. During the wedding reception, Riccardo is asked to accompany a young singer at the piano, who disturbingly resembles Anna. But, while trying to play Hummel’s symphony for a last time, he will tragically die by syncope. The last short story of this trilogy, entitled Bouvard, speaks about a genial violinist coming from Savoy to whom Mother Nature had assigned a “deformed” physical appearance. This time, contrary to Lorenzo’s and Riccardo’s situations, 38  “Io vi offro la mia vita di un anno, ma una vita la cui potenza sarà centuplicata dalla sensibilità, dall’amore, dal pensiero della sua cessazione imminente. Un’altra donna non potrebbe offrirvi un anno di ebbrezze più divoranti; la vostra esistenza trascorrerà attraverso una serie di sensazioni nuove e infuocate, io non vivrò un anno nel tempo, ma vivrò un’eternità nell’amore.” 39  “Tuttavia questa passione smisurata ha diritto ad una ricompensa: un altro patto tra noi: Voi dovete essermi fedele anche dopo la mia morte, voi dovete amarmi per tutta la vostra vita.”

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Bouvard is an extremely talented musician, but he cannot experience the erotic dimension of life because of his crippled body. After reaching the peak of his artistic success, Bouvard falls in love with a young aristocratic girl, the beautiful Giulia, who does not correspond his love. For this reason, he chooses to live a state of isolation endured during four years, from which he will emerge only after Giulia’s death. In that moment, gripped by a crazy passion, he decides to kidnap Giulia’s body – spiritualized by death – and to consume that love which was denied to him when Giulia was still alive, in a last tragic scene. The sublime product of this amplexus, regarding which Tarchetti’s reticence allows but suppositions, will be a unique and unequalled musical creation by Bouvard (Tarchetti 1967, I, 659): In it were contained all the voices of nature, there was the whispering of the wind and the fluttering of the birds, the quivering of the small stems and the shudder of the great oak trunks, the passage of the trickle of water and the breaking of the ocean waves – there was all that sound has to sour and sweet, to gentle and horrible –. Unfortunate were those who heard that music! The voice of the most beloved beings, the word “father” pronounced the first time from the lips of the child, the first revelation of love for the woman beloved, no longer had anything gentle, no longer had anything attractive to them.40 Likewise Lorenzo and Riccardo, Bouvard’s destiny will also be death, because the day after his body will be found joined in a last convulsive embrace to Giulia’s one. In Tarchetti’s short stories no mediation between Ideal and Reality seems to be possible, except by means of death or illness which affect the female characters. However, this illusion soon reveals itself ephemeral and misleading: tirelessly pursuing a “grim” Muse which is going to die, it seems, the “scapigliato” artist cannot register but his perpetual defeat and impotence. As some scholars have remarked, it would be reasonable to interpret Tarchetti’s Amore nell’arte as a “metaphor for the impossibility of Art to be 40  “Vi erano in essa tutte le voci della natura, vi era il bisbiglio del vento e l’aleggiare dell’uccello, il susurro dei piccoli steli e il fremere dei grandi fusti dei cerri, lo scorrere del filo d’acqua e il frangersi delle onde dell’oceano – vi era tutto ciò che il suono ha di aspro e di dolce, di soave e di orribile –. Sfortunati coloro che udirono quella musica! La voce degli esseri più diletti, la parola di padre pronunciata la prima volta dal labbro del fanciullo, la prima rivelazione d’amore della donna adorata, non hanno avuto più nulla di soave, nulla di allettante per essi.”

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expressed in the bourgeois society” (Ghidetti 1993, 7). According to such an interpretation of the trilogy, Lorenzo, Riccardo and Bouvard’s weak characters would symbolically represent the critical position of artists and intellectuals in the Italian society of post-Unification,41 by way of their common thread to death. If this interpretation remains valid, of course, it is undeniable that Tarchetti’s collection also configures itself as an exploration of the destructive nature of Art. In spite of the failure and death of the three characters – or maybe just because of them – Amore nell’arte welcomes the rise of a new demoniac concept of artistic creation that could be considered, perhaps, “the starting point for the development of the principle of evil in the literature of the late nineteenth century” (Spera 1976, 346). The relationship between Art, Ideal and Reality is also the subject of Novelle,42 a collection of short stories published in 1868 by Luigi Gualdo, another author linked to the Milanese avant-gard. Gualdo’s literary formation took place within the same Milanese milieu in which Tarchetti was active. We know, for example, that both authors attended Clara Maffei’s salon, a crucial social and cultural centre for the Italian intellectual life of those years, although in different periods (Montera 1983, 97). However, Gualdo’s narrative and poetry place themselves in a different sphere of the Scapigliatura group, principally because of his proximity to the Parnassian movement. Divided during all his life between Milan and Paris (he will write novels in both languages43), Gualdo became, from the late 1860’s, a regular interlocutor and friend of French intellectuals and writers such as Gautier, Mendès, and Cazalis, also having the privilege to participate to Gautier’s Tombeau, a collection of poems in honour of the Master of Parnassianism, together with the best part of French literary society (Montera 1983, 20).

41  Billiani 2008, 486–7: “The merging of drained artistic creativity, charged with necrophilic drives, […], illustrates the profound inability of art to occupy a central place within the social environment. […] In these stories […] there is a hic et nunc account of a widespread sense of social frustration and anxiety reflecting a more general sense of dissatisfaction which, in all likelihood, mirrors the country’s problematic political and economic conditions.” 42   Novelle di Luigi Gualdo. 1868. Torino: Bona, tipografo di S.M. The collection appeared in a second edition published by Treves, and entitled La gran rivale, in 1877. Gualdo began to write these short stories in 1865, and one of them, La Canzone di Weber, had yet been published in La Gazzetta musicale one year before (cf. Montera 1983, 14). For a study of Gualdo’s production, cf. Lollo 1981. 43  In chronological order: Costanza Gerardi (1871), Une ressemblance (1874), Un mariage excentrique (1879) and Decadenza (1892). Cf. Gualdo’s bibliography of works in Montera 1983, 357–60.

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Following the lesson of coeval French aestheticism, in Gualdo’s work the dialectics between Art, Ideal and Reality is presented with less tragic issues than Tarchetti. The short story that introduces the collection, The Great Rival, tells about the love affair between Alberto, a painter searching for artistic success, and Emilia, a young lady married with a man she does not love. Throughout the story, Emilia soon becomes Alberto’s principal inspiration, leading him to his artistic glory. As Tarchetti’s male anti-heroes, the young painter sees in Emilia’s love a secondary passion compared to Art, although in less conflicting and more stylized terms. Said in other words, Alberto loves Emilia sincerely, but this relationship cannot satisfy his inextinguishable hunger for the Ideal (Gualdo 1959, 37–8): There was no doubt that he loved Emilia […]. Yet, despite this is it maybe exaggeration of scepticism to doubt that that love would be enough for the rest of his life or even that it could remain crisp and florid as the first day? […] Love is everything for some, for others, especially for those who in any way deserve the name of artists, love is but the powerful auxiliary of life. […] Art is passion like love, it is love’s great rival, and its dominion is as sweet as that of love, only more strict, as it puts all that isn’t art at a lower level to art itself.44 During the course of the story this incompatibility between Art and Love becomes more glaring. After having been away for a long time to take care of her ill mother, Emilia is made aware of the secondary role she is going to play in Alberto’s life (Gualdo 1959, 59): You know that I was so jealous, but how is it possible that you had no idea! I saw many that were more beautiful, that were better than me. I was wrong and ask you to forgive me; no other woman has stood in the way between us. Now I’m not so certain anymore. I understand that you love no other, but also understand that the world you have within you has made my place smaller in your heart. You tell me you still love me; 44  “Non si potrà dubitare ch’egli amasse Emilia […]. Pure, malgrado tutto ciò è forse esagerazione di scetticismo il dubitare che quell’amore potesse solo bastargli nella vita o anche che potesse solo bastargli nella vita o anche che potesse durare fresco e roseo come il primo giorno? […] L’amore per alcuni è tutto, per altri, per coloro specialmente che in qualunque modo si meritano il nome di artista, non è che il possente ausiliare della vita. […] L’arte è passione come l’amore, è la gran rivale, e la sua signoria è dolce quanto quella dell’amore, ma più severa, poiché mette un po’ al disotto di lei tutto che non è lei.”

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I believe you, but know that you are no longer mine. All is ended; I feared other women and I was wrong, but somehow it had to end, and after you no longer need those who comfort you, what do you want to do of me? I am no longer necessary to you.45 Concluded her role of ancillary muse, Emilia – as well as the other female characters described up to now – falls ill in her turn, and finally dies, as if her mission in making Alberto reach his artistic Ideal has been accomplished. This becomes even clearer after Emilia’s death: Alberto, in fact, does not fall prey to some kind of obsession, as Lorenzo Alviati, but, on the contrary, he seems to acquire from this moment a kind of new poetic sensibility (Gualdo 1959, 62): He felt different. Thoughts occurred now he had never had before, new and deeper voices became unveiled in the concert of the world, his saddened eyes saw very clearly what could only be caught as a glimpse before, his fantasy increased of an extra human part he was not aware of before, his imagination took a vaster flight, he understood what he was previously not able to understand, his heart skipped other beats; those invisible wings that all those who attempt to create suddenly feel were more powerful, all of a sudden, he who had never written a verse, woke up as a poet.46 Likewise in Tarchetti’s works, also Gualdo’s muses must die; however, they don’t persecute the artist bringing him to death but rather seem to play the role of a nostalgic inspiration. A similar approach is followed in another short story of this collection, Narcisa, in which the homonym female main character, a sort

45  “Sai che ero così gelosa, ma come non te ne puoi fare un’idea! Ne vedevo tante di più belle, di migliori di me. Avevo torto e te ne chiedo perdono; nessun’altra è venuta a frapporsi fra noi due. Ora non lo sono più. Capisco che non ne ami alcuna, ma capisco che quel mondo che hai in te ha fatto piccolo il mio posto nel tuo cuore. Tu mi dirai che mi ami ancora; lo credo, ma so che non sei più mio. Tutto è finito; io temeva le altre ed avevo torto, ma in qualche modo doveva finire, e dopo che non hai più bisogno di chi ti consoli, che vuoi fare di me? Non ti sono più necessaria.” 46  “Si sentì diverso. Dei pensieri che mai gli erano venuti prima li ebbe ora, nuove e più profonde voci gli si svelarono nel concerto del mondo, il suo occhio rattristato vide chiaramente molto che prima non poteva che intravedere, la sua fantasia si aumentò di una parte estraumana che prima non conosceva, la sua imaginazione prese un volo più vasto, capì ciò che prima non sapeva capire, altri palpiti gli agitarono il cuore; quelle ali invisibili che tutti si sentono coloro che tentano di creare, d’improvviso se le sentì più possenti, d’un tratto, egli che non aveva mai scritto un verso, si risvegliò poeta.”

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of exceptional creature gifted by Mother Nature with an astonishing beauty, dies – as it is said in the last line – “because of her beauty” (Gualdo 1959, 221). Narcisa actually symbolizes a transcendental and superior beauty by way of her almost transfigured qualities, like her taste for Art or her narcissism. By composing and harmonizing all the possible types of beauty in her own figure (“a Nordic poet, lover of the pale, ossian figures, would have found her the most complete of all his creations, and a pagan worshiper of shape, at the same time, would have classified her as the most beautiful expression of a woman. To a disciple of Phidias she would have appeared like a Greek beauty; she would have made Horace as Byron, Rubens and Raphael together fall in love, Gautier like Hugo”47), Narcisa is not able to suffer simply because she isn’t human, but only an abstraction, to the point that she does not fear any possible offence by the bourgeois and positivistic society (Gualdo 1959, 219): An old German scientist said, talking to a friend next to him, while the countess walked away: – It is strange to think that soon all this beauty will disappear and that the gorgeous curves and gleaming eye will no longer draw victims! … Though softly spoken, these words reached the ears of the countess. – She turned and replied with an inexplicable smile and expression: – No, doctor, you are wrong. As long as I will live, I will be as you see me  now.48 In this sense, Narcisa represents the literary tensions of the artist towards an idea of Absolute that retreats in itself, a sort of plastic incarnation of Art for Art’s sake principle (the self-contemplation of Narcisa confirms that on several occasions in the story). Avoiding the tragic and macabre issues of Tarchetti’s short stories, Gualdo, thus, proposes an alternative path to Absolute and Ideal. The danger of Medusa’s 47  “un poeta nordico, amante delle pallide figure ossianesche, l’avrebbe trovata più completa di ogni sua creazione, e un pagano adoratore della forma l’avrebbe allo stesso tempo dichiarata la più magnifica espressione della donna. A un discepolo di Fidia sarebbe apparsa una bellezza greca; avrebbe inamorato Orazio quanto Byron, Rubens e Raffaello insieme, Gautier al pari di Hugo.” 48  “Un vecchio scienziato tedesco disse, parlando ad un amico che aveva vicino, mentre la contessa passava:   – È strano il pensare che fra poco tutta questa bellezza sparirà e che le forme superbe e l’occhio fulgente non faranno più vittime! …    Benché pronunciate sottovoce queste parole giunsero all’orecchio della contessa. Si volse e rispose con un sorriso e una espressione inesplicabili:    – No, dottore, vi sbagliate. Finché sarò, sarò come mi vedete adesso.”

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gaze, which seems to be contemplated from afar with ironic detachment, is averted by virtue of a Parnassian and aestheticising veil. If Tarchetti had followed the whole path, which conducts to the destructive power of Art, Gualdo seems rather to consider this possibility just as an option, never really experienced to its last consequences. The “Beauty of Medusa” deeply fascinated, anyway, the narrative production of both authors. It is reasonable to believe that solutions by Tarchetti and Gualdo inspired the future authors of the Italian Decadence, especially with regard to the representation of female beauty. References Apollonio, Carla. 1981. “La presenza di E.A. Poe in alcuni scapigliati lombardi.” Otto/ Novecento 5 (1): 107–43. Baudelaire, Charles. 1975. Oeuvres complètes. I. Texte établi, présenté et annoté par Claude Pichois. Paris: Gallimard. Bettella, Patrizia. 2000. “The debate on Beauty and Ugliness in Italian Scapigliatura and Baudelaire.” Rivista di studi italiani 18: 68–85. Billiani, Francesca. 2011. “Il testo fantasticizzato e goticizzato come metafora della destrutturazione del discorso ‘nazione’: attorno agli scrittori scapigliati.” California Studies 2 (1). Accessed January 2018. http://escholarship.org/uc/item/5zt6q9nm. Billiani, Francesca. 2008. “Delusional Identities: The Politics of the Italian Gothic and Fantastic in Igino Ugo Tarchetti’ s Trilogy ‘Amore nell’arte’ and Luigi Gualdo’s Short Stories, ‘Allucinazione’, ‘La canzone di Weber’, and ‘Narcisa’.” Forum for Modern Language Studies 44 (4). Accessed January 2018. DOI:10.1093/fmls/cqn053. Binni, Walter. 1996. La poetica del decadentismo. Firenze: Sansoni. Boito, Camillo. 1970. Storielle vane: tutti i racconti. A cura di Roberto Bigazzi. Novara: Edizione per il club del libro. Burke, Edmund. 1967. A philosophical enquiry into the origin of our ideas of the sublime and beautiful. Ed. by James T. Boulton. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul. Calvino, Italo. 2002. Mondo scritto e mondo non scritto. A cura di Mario Barenghi. Milano: Mondadori. Carnero, Roberto (a cura di). 2007. La poesia scapigliata. Milano: Biblioteca Universale Rizzoli. Croce, Benedetto. 1947. La letteratura della nuova Italia: saggi critici, vol. I. 5 ed. riveduta dall’autore. Bari: Laterza & Figli. Crotti, Ilaria e Ricorda, Ricciarda. 1992. Scapigliatura e dintorni. Padova: Piccin Nuova Libreria. Del Principe, David. 1994. “Heresy and ‘Hair-esy’ in Ugo Tarchetti’s Fosca.” Italica 71 (1): 43–4.

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Del Principe, David. 1996. Rebellion, Death and Aesthetics in Italy: the Demons of Scapigliatura. Madison: Farleigh Dickinson University Press. Farinelli, Giuseppe. 2003. La scapigliatura: profilo storico, protagonisti, documenti. Roma: Carocci. Farinelli, Giuseppe (a cura di). 1984. La pubblicistica a Milano nel periodo della scapigliatura: regesto per soggetti dei giornali e delle riviste esistenti a Milano e relativi al primo ventennio dello Stato unitario, 1860–80. Milano: Istituto propaganda libraria. Ghidetti, Enrico. 1968. Tarchetti e la scapigliatura lombarda. Napoli: Libreria scientifica editrice. Ghidetti, Enrico. 1993. Malattia, coscienza e destino: per una mitografia del Decadentismo. Firenze: La Nuova Italia. Gioanola, Elio. 1979. “Clara e Fosca: Eros e Thanatos nell’ultimo romanzo di Tarchetti.” In Igino Ugo Tarchetti e la Scapigliatura. Atti del Convegno, S. Salvatore Monferrato, 1–3 ottobre 1976. San Salvatore Monferrato; Alessandria: Comune; Cassa di Risparmio di Alessandria. Gluck, Mary. 2005. Popular Bohemia: modernism and urban culture in nineteenthcentury Paris. Cambridge (MA); London: Harvard University Press. Gualdo, Luigi. 1959. Romanzi e novelle. A cura di Carlo Bo. Firenze: Sansoni. Hugo, Victor. 1963. Théâtre complet. I. Préface par Roland Purnal; notices et notes par J.-J. Thierry et Josette Mélèze. Paris: Gallimard. Lollo, Renata. 1981. “Alla fine della Scapigliatura: Luigi Gualdo.” Otto/Novecento 5 (1): 81–105. Mariani, Gaetano. 1967. Storia della scapigliatura. Roma-Caltanissetta: S. Sciascia. Melloni, Giorgio. 2008. “The Sublime Woman: A Reading of Iginio Ugo Tarchetti’s Fosca.” Rivista di studi italiani 16 (1): 72–105. Montera, Pierre de. 1983. Luigi Gualdo (1844–1898): son milieu et ses amitiés milanaises et parisiennes, lettres inédites à François Coppée, pages oubliées. Roma: Edizioni di storia e letteratura. Negri, Renzo, et al. 1978. Il vegliardo e gli antecristi: studi su Manzoni e la scapigliatura. A cura di Renzo Negri. Milano: Vita e Pensiero. Paccagnini, Ermanno. 1999. “Dal Romanticismo al Decadentismo. La Scapigliatura.” In Storia della letteratura italiana, a cura di Enrico Malato, vol. VIII, 263–337. Roma: Salerno Editrice. Panella, Giuseppe. 2012. Storia del sublime. Dallo Pseudo Longino alle poetiche della Modernità. Firenze: Editrice Clinamen. Poe, Edgard Allan. 1982. The complete tales and poems of Edgar Allan Poe. Harmondsworth: Penguin books. Praz, Mario. 1954. The romantic agony. Translated by Angus Davidson. London: Oxford University Press.

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Praz, Mario. 1972. Il patto col serpente. Paralipomeni di “La carne, la morte e il diavolo nella letteratura romantica”. Milano: Mondadori. Scelfo, Maria Luisa. 1989. Théophile Gautier: una presenza francese nella Scapigliatura. Catania: C.U.E.C.M. Spera, Francesco. 1979. “Amore, follia e morte nella storia dell’artista.” In Igino Ugo Tarchetti e la Scapigliatura. Atti del Convegno, S. Salvatore Monferrato, 1–3 ottobre 1976. San Salvatore Monferrato; Alessandria: Comune; Cassa di Risparmio di Alessandria. Tarchetti, Igino Ugo. 1967. Tutte le opere. 2 voll. A cura di Enrico Ghidetti. [S.l.]: Cappelli. Tarchetti, Igino Ugo. 1994. Passion. Translated by Lawrence Venuti. San Francisco: Mercury House. Verga, Giovanni. 1970. Una peccatrice. Storia di una capinera. Eva. Tigre reale. Introduzione e antologia critica di Giovanni Croci; cronologia della vita dell’autore e dei suoi tempi e bibliografia a cura di Corrado Simioni. Milano: Mondadori. Villa, Edoardo. 1979. “Il sodalizio Tarchetti-Farina e il capitolo XLVIII di Fosca.” In Igino Ugo Tarchetti e la Scapigliatura. Atti del Convegno, S. Salvatore Monferrato, 1–3 ottobre 1976. San Salvatore Monferrato; Alessandria: Comune; Cassa di Risparmio di Alessandria.

chapter 16

Reconsidering Fin de Siècle Aestheticism: The Case of Gabriele D’Annunzio Filippo Fonio The main purpose of this paper is to discuss D’Annunzio’s theory of Beauty, which is one core aspect of the writer’s aesthetics. D’Annunzio himself was rather accurate in enumerating his aesthetical canons, and he composed more than one catalogue of beautiful women as well as several praises to women’s beautiful body parts – from the juvenile collection of poems Intermezzo (1883)1 to the late Libro segreto (1935). Critics, besides, already delved into this particular aspect of D’Annunzio’s aesthetics.2 At the same time, he was much less methodical in his approach to Beauty as a concept, and scholars seldom tried to fill this gap, seemingly lacking interest in the systematization of D’Annunzio’s rhapsodic aesthetics. This is probably due to the fact that D’Annunzio was, and partly still is considered more as an “amateur of sensations” (“dilettante di sensazioni”, according to Benedetto Croce’s definition) than as a theoretician in any field of knowledge. Thus, the first part of my paper will present a short review of the works of the critics who have examined D’Annunzio’s theory of Beauty so far, and will contextualise D’Annunzio’s aesthetics in the panorama of literature and art criticism of Symbolism and the Decadence. The second part will focus on some excerpts, taken in particular from D’Annunzio’s prose works, which show how D’Annunzio was concerned by a theory of Beauty. These quotes will be compared with Symbolist and Decadent analogues and precedents, and a categorisation of D’Annunzio’s polysemy of Beauty will be proposed. Finally, I will delve into a more specific case of the aesthetics of D’Annunzio’s Medievalism, as well as summarise D’Annunzio’s idea of Beauty as it emerges in his pseudo-Medieval play Le Martyre de saint Sébastien (1911).

1  Cf. D’Annunzio 1982, in particular the Baudelairian poem Sed non satiatus (235–6), but also Invocazione (238–9) or the series of sonnets Le adultere (245–56). 2  From the early Sighele 1911 to Curreri 2001 and 2008.

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Gabriele D’Annunzio, the Anti-Hero of the “Romantic Agony”

The books by Mario Praz are a necessary starting point to review previous scholarship upon D’Annunzio’s theory of Beauty. Praz’s initial interests in revealing D’Annunzio’s literary forgeries are progressively replaced by a more sophisticated form of criticism aimed at contextualising the writer and his works in the European culture of his time. In his classic book on Romantic and Decadent themes and motives, La carne, la morte e il diavolo nella letteratura romantica, which was published for the first time in 1930, Praz discusses the evolutions of the idea of Beauty throughout the nineteenth century. The critic argues that, as European culture rushes towards the fin de siècle, this evolution becomes more troubling, especially for the conservatives of the times (but also for us today), through the birth of the Decadent ideal of Beauty. This shift in the criteria of what is beautiful, and what is not, can be traced back – Praz argues – as far as the Marinist poetry of the seventeenth century and its imitations throughout Europe. There one should find the first appearance of themes which will be exploited by the nineteenth century – amongst which the fascination for the “tainted beauty”. Quoting Praz: “Many […] themes of tainted beauty appear in the writings of the Romantics, but what was often, in the seventeenth-century writers, a mere intellectual pose, became, in the Romantics, a pose of sensibility. In the Romantics feeling takes the place of the ‘conceit’ of the seventeenth century.” (Praz 1970, 38; cf. also Praz 1999, 45). The Romantics indulge on those motives with a “bitter taste of reality” (Praz 1970, 40; cf. also Praz 1999, 48). The genesis of Romantic and Decadent ideas, and ideals, of Beauty needs then to be reconsidered with this archaeological consciousness in mind. In fact, starting from the end of the eighteenth century, “[…] the ‘beautifully horrid’ passed by insensible degrees into the ‘horribly beautiful’.” (Praz 1970, 27; cf. also Praz 1999, 33). The “beauty of the horrid”, which in the seventeenth century was the source of “conceits”, became during the Romanticism the source of “sensations”,3 on behalf of the affirmation of a form of artistic existentialism. Praz thus draws a map of the “illness of the imaginary” which affected art throughout the nineteenth century, considering a series of emblematic personifications from the Beauty of Medusa to Satan, from the marquis de Sade to la belle dame sans merci and Byzantium. All these hypostasises are crucial for D’Annunzio, whose poetics can be defined according to the different symptoms of the mal du siècle: “The most monumental figure of the Decadent 3  Quoted from the Avvertenza alla seconda edizione, written in 1942 (Praz 1999, 9; Preface in Praz 1970, XXI).

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Movement, the figure in which the various European currents of the second half of the nineteenth century converged, was given to the world not by France but by Italy […].” (Praz 1970, 399; cf. also Praz 1999, 356). From a rather different perspective Walter Binni, in La poetica del decadentismo (1936), focuses more precisely on some of these fin de siècle variations on the theme of Beauty, insisting on the “art for art’s sake” perspective, which D’Annunzio derived in particular from Théophile Gautier and Algernon Charles Swinburne. Binni focuses on the ideas of music, mysticism and art pour l’art, and in the first chapter of his book he explores D’Annunzio’s works according to this perspective, making a point at the same time of the superficiality which characterises D’Annunzio’s uses of Decadent themes and motives, as well as the naiveté with which he applies these poetic principles. If compared to Praz,4 Binni paints a broader fresco of the Decadent European influences of D’Annunzio’s art which transcends the merely textual dimension, but at the same time he considers D’Annunzio as the most stereotypical writer of the Italian indigenous Decadence. These two critics in particular, as well as others who followed, recognise the deep roots of D’Annunzio’s writings in the literature and art of his time, and acknowledge the way in which D’Annunzio was able to emerge and to detach from a mere typically nineteenth-century aesthetics. On this behalf, other critics underline the demiurgic power of D’Annunzio’s art, which allowed him to create Beauty, to hypostatise and embody its evanescence through the magic of his word. A typical judgement of his contemporaries on D’Annunzio’s novels is for instance that by Fernand Gregh, who wrote an enthusiastic review of the French translation of L’innocente – L’Intrus – in the Revue Blanche in 1893, and says: “Everything Gabriele D’Annunzio touches is transformed into beauty.”5 2

D’Annunzio’s Idea of Beauty: An Attempt of Categorisation

In this second part of the paper I will focus on three categories which allow to systematize heterogeneous elements towards a theorisation of Beauty one can find in D’Annunzio’s works. Firstly I will discuss the “Beauty of Medusa” (an image of Beauty Praz [1970 and 1999] recognises as essentially Decadent), which is connected on the one hand to the fatal Beauty and on the other hand to the 4  Cf. also Museo dannunziano [1950], and Gabriele D’Annunzio e la letteratura anglosassone [1963], Praz 2002, 755–9 and 377–402, as well as Praz 1972. 5  “Tout ce que touche Gabriel D’Annunzio est transformé en beauté.” Quoted in D’Annunzio 2003, 147. Unless otherwise specified, translations are mine.

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relationship between Beauty and death. Secondly I will deal with the “useless Beauty”, or Beauty in an art for art’s sake perspective, which in D’Annunzio’s poetics is strictly dependent on the concept of feminine Beauty as a work of art. Finally I will delve into the counterpoint to the second category, that is D’Annunzio’s theorisation of a pragmatics of Beauty, of a Beauty which is to be considered as useful, both in an existential and in a political perspective. 2.1 The Beauty of Medusa, Fatal Beauty, Beauty and Death Three feminine characters of D’Annunzio’s prose works, Elena Muti, Ippolita Sanzio and the enigmatic Violante, are clearly depictions of Medusean Beauty. For D’Annunzio as a young artist, and mainly in Il piacere (1889), Beauty ignores human suffering, Beauty is unemotional. These characteristics, somehow hard to seize in reality as they are unnatural and quintessential, are the object of a peculiar kind of education, of the training which is typical of the Dannunzian hero. Thus, for Andrea Sperelli, who has been educated according to “the passionate cult of the Beautiful” (D’Annunzio 1898, 36),6 Beauty is cool, insensible and indifferent. This is the “Beauty which knows no pain”7 quoted in the dedication to Michetti of Il Piacere.8 Beauty, and feminine Beauty in particular, is also enigmatic, mystical and mysterious. Thus, the Beauty of Elena Muti in Il piacere is a “plastic enigma” (D’Annunzio 1898, 199).9 Elena is an “idol” – and a cruel one – for Sperelli (D’Annunzio 1988, 27). Feminine Beauty in Il piacere, even if it lacks any form of sensibility, is not yet theorised as evil. The woman is not yet the “enemy” – which is the title of an unaccomplished play D’Annunzio drafted in 1892 – because of her Beauty, she is not yet the “invincible”,10 while in Il trionfo della morte (1894) the woman will own all those characteristics. Ippolita Sanzio is an ill Beauty, she has cataleptic crises which emphasise her dead-like appearance, her Beauty is funereal, 6   D’Annunzio 1988, 3: “il culto passionato della bellezza”. 7   Ivi, 24: “Bellezza che non sa dolori”. 8   “to the Ideal which has no sunsets, / to the Beauty which knows no pain” (“[…] all’Ideale che non ha tramonti, / alla Bellezza che non sa dolori”), reprise of the verses 17–8 of the poem A F.P. Michetti, published for the first time in the Cronaca Bizantina, January 17 1886. The poem was then reemployed in La Chimera as the Epilogo to the collection (D’Annunzio 1982, 581–3), and was mostly refunded in the dedication to Michetti in Il piacere. Punctuation is quite different in the poem, because in this earlier version of the invocation to Beauty D’Annunzio addresses a question to his friend: “does your soul rise […] // to the Ideal which has no sunsets, / to the Beauty which knows no pain?” (“Sorge l’anima tua […] // a l’Ideale che non ha tramonti, / a la Bellezza che non sa dolori?” Ivi, 581). 9   D’Annunzio 1988, 24: “enigma […] plastico”. 10   L’invincibile was the original title of Il trionfo della morte in instalment publication.

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she is a pre-Raphaelite languid woman (cf. Pieri 2007, 59-ff): “How spiritual her beauty becomes in illness and in languor!” (D’Annunzio 1897, 181).11 She embodies the charming principle of the eternal feminine, her Beauty is divine and, especially at night, this charm frees her essence from her bodily aspect.12 In the perception of Ippolita’s Beauty, D’Annunzio hybridizes Winckelmann’s Neoclassical concept of the Beauty – according to which quietness and calm are the main attributes of the beautiful – and the Romantic, and more tumultuous one (cf. Prettejohn 2005, 15-ff). In the sonnet Causerie from Les Fleurs du mal, Baudelaire proposes a similar approach and defines Beauty as a “scourge of souls” (Baudelaire 1909, 37).13 Ippolita is a Fichtian “not-I”, she impedes the hero’s accomplishments both in art and in life. Thus Giorgio Aurispa tells to himself: “I believe that when she is dead she will attain the supreme perfection of her beauty… Dead? And if she were to die? She would then become an object for thought, a pure ideality. I should love her after life without jealous inquietude, with soothed and always even sorrow.” (D’Annunzio 1897, 182).14 Here, D’Annunzio probably thinks 11  D’Annunzio 1988, 804: “la sua bellezza si spiritualizza nella malattia e nel languore.” 12  D’Annunzio 1897, 232: “She had not made a single movement. Her prolonged immobility in the same attitude was frequent enough; and, at times, it took on a cataleptic appearance which was almost alarming. She had then no longer the young and kind aspect which the plants and beasts knew so well, but the appearance of a taciturn and indomptable creature in whom were concentrated all the isolated, exclusive, and destructive virtues of the passion of love. The three divine elements of her beauty – her brow, her eyes, her mouth – had perhaps never attained such a degree of symbolic intensity to illustrate the principle of the eternal feminine fascination. It seemed that the serene night favoured this sublimation of her form, that it liberated the true, ideal essence of her being, that it permitted her lover to know her entirely, not by the acuteness of view but by that of thought. The summer night, full of lunary brilliancy and of dreams, and of pale and invisible stars, and of the most melodious marine voices, seemed the natural field of that sovereign image. The same as the shadow grew at times out of entire proportion to the body that caused it, the same as against the infinity of that background, the fatality of love rendered the person of Hippolyte higher and more tragic for the spectators, whose prescience became every instant more lucid and more terrible.” 13  “dur fléau des âmes”. 14  D’Annunzio 1988, 804–5: “Io penso che morta ella raggiungerà la suprema espressione della sua bellezza. Morta! – E s’ella morisse? Ella diventerebbe materia di pensiero, una pura idealità. Io l’amerei oltre la vita, senza gelosia, con un dolore pacato ed eguale.” Moreover, in Ippolita’s descriptions Beauty and melancholy are strictly connected. D’Annunzio has probably in mind Poe’s 1846 essay Philosophy of Composition, where Poe clearly states: “[…] the death […] of a beautiful woman in unquestionably the most poetical topic in the world, and equally it is beyond doubt that the lips best suited for such topic are those of a bereaved lover.” (Poe 2002, 297). Also, according to Poe, in order to achieve a stronger effect such scenes of dying Beauties should take place in refined settings, in a preciously

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of Edgar Allan Poe’s verses from the Introduction to his 1831 Poems: “I could not love except where Death / Was mingling his with Beauty’s breath.” (Poe 1984, 55). Even stronger than that of Ippolita, because of the natural domination it exerts, is the Beauty of Violante from La Violante dalla bella voce (1912-) – a feminine character who is much less docile and prone to submission than her homonym in Le vergini delle rocce (1895). Thus, in the passages of the Libro segreto dedicated to Violante, alias Hermia Chancelor, D’Annunzio describes her as possessing “the tyrannical soul of sovereign beauty.”15 She is also portrayed as a powerful Medusa: […] she stares at me as a Medusa who does not fear the harp of Perseus, comparable to the highest inventions of the immortal poets. MEDUSA! Gorgon! How many times, amidst the sorrows of my poetry, I felt fascinated and perhaps turned into stone from that sublime head, before the profanation of the god in the temple, before the angry goddess ringed her with snakes, when she still had the most beautiful mane of the divine and human lunacy, when she still had the mane of Hermia Chancelor!”16 In the descriptions of Elena Muti, as well as in those of Ippolita and of Violante, something weird, anomalous and disturbing intensifies and, at the same time, corrupts feminine Beauty. This sense of an almost imperceptible line between the “strangely beautiful” and the “not beautiful anymore” is close to the concept of the “strangeness in the proportion” to which Francis Bacon refers, a notion which also influenced the aesthetics of Poe, who quotes Bacon under the pseudonym of Lord Verulam in the short story Ligeia from 1838 (cf. also Praz 1999, 25 n. 17, Praz 1970, 29 n. 15), and of Baudelaire (Praz 1999, 34–5 and nn., Praz 1970, 28–30).

furnished room for instance, which would strengthen the idea of Beauty in the reader’s mind. 15  D’Annunzio 1970, 79: “l’animo tirannico della sovrana bellezza”. 16  Ivi “[…] mi guata come una Medusa che non tema l’arpe di Perseo, comparabile alle più grandi invenzioni dei poeti immortali. / MEDUSA! Górgone! / Quante volte nelle angosce della mia poesia mi sentii affascinato e forse impietrato da quella testa sublime, innanzi la profanazione del dio nel tempio, innanzi che la dea furibonda la inserpentasse, quando ella aveva tuttavia la più bella chioma della divina e umana demenza, quando ella aveva la chioma di Hermia Chancelor!”

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Baudelaire is one of the principal sources of D’Annunzio’s aesthetics through his entire literary career. D’Annunzio makes often use of Baudelaire’s concepts of Beauty which can be found in his poetry17 and in his literary and art criticism. In particular the collection edited by Théodore de Banville and Charles Asselineau, and which is currently known as L’Art romantique, contains elements which allow to sketch a Baudelairian theory of Beauty. Baudelaire recognizes Beauty in the coexistence of a universal and eternal component, and of an immanent and epochal one.18 In his essay on Théophile Gautier written in 1859 (Baudelaire 1968, 237–60), Baudelaire also insists on the natural link between Beauty and melancholy:19 “[…] passion is a natural thing, too natural, even, not to introduce a wounding tone, a discordant one, in the realm of pure Beauty; it is too familiar and too violent not to shock the pure Desires, the gracious Melancholies and the noble Despairs which inhabit the supernatural regions of Poetry.”20 As for 17  Cf. in particular the mysterious, enigmatic and monstrous, but also thoroughly impassive character of Beauty in his sonnet La Beauté (1857) and in his Hymne à la beauté (1860), both then in the Fleurs du mal. 18  In his essay of 1863, Le Peintre de la vie moderne, Baudelaire states: “Beauty has an eternal element, which is invariable, and whose quantity is truly difficult to determine, and a relative, circumstantial element, which will be, if you like, either separately or all at once, the epoch, its fashions, its moral, its passions. Without this second element, which is, as the cover of a cake, amusing, appetizing, stimulating, the first element would be tedious, inappreciable, inapt and inappropriate to human nature.” (“Le beau est fait d’un élément éternel, invariable, dont la quantité est excessivement difficile à déterminer, et d’un élément relatif, circonstanciel, qui sera, si l’on veut, tour à tour ou tout ensemble, l’époque, la mode, la morale, la passion. Sans ce second élément, qui est comme l’enveloppe amusante, titillante, apéritive, du gâteau, le premier élément serait indigestible, inappréciable, non adapté et non approprié à la nature humaine.” Baudelaire 1976, 685). 19  Cf. again Poe’s Philosophy of Composition. In his 1958 essay on Poe (E.A. Poe, genio d’esportazione, now in Praz 1973, 41–118), Mario Praz states: “The most intense, elevate and the purest pleasure one has is that of the contemplation of the beautiful, and the supreme Beauty is the one which moves to crying, the beauty imbued with melancholia.” (“Il piacere più intenso, più elevante e più puro che si ha è quello della contemplazione del bello, e la Bellezza suprema è quella che muove alle lacrime, la bellezza intrisa di melanconia.” Ivi, 72). 20  Baudelaire 1968, 247: “[…] la passion est chose naturelle, trop naturelle même, pour ne pas introduire un ton blessant, discordant, dans le domaine de la Beauté pure; trop familière et trop violente pour ne pas scandaliser les purs Désirs, les gracieuses Mélancolies et les nobles Désespoirs qui habitent les régions surnaturelles de la Poésie.” D’Annunzio develops theories of Beauty which are quite close to those of Baudelaire both in his preface to Angelo Conti’s Beata riva. Trattato dell’oblio (1900) and in the review to Conti’s essay on Giorgione D’Annunzio writes for the Convito in 1895 (cf. D’Annunzio 2003, 287–311).

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Baudelaire – and as for Victor Hugo before him21 – Beauty for D’Annunzio possesses a character of fatality as well. 2.2 Beauty and Art for Art’s Sake, Feminine Beauty as a Work of Art Another category in which D’Annunzio’s theorisation of Beauty is particularly rich is that of Beauty as connected to the theory of art for art’s sake, an ideal Beauty, useless but nonetheless essential to human life (D’Annunzio often insisted on the importance of the “need for dreams” (“bisogno del sogno”) for mankind). According to this principle, the descriptions of women as works of art are quite common in D’Annunzio. Thus Violante again: “Similar to an arduous work of art, she seemed impossible to possess differently than by the mind, in those moments of genial intensity in which invention adds to invention, it matches and overcomes it”.22 Soon afterwards the woman is defined as an “accomplished creature of art”.23 Violante, “the woman from 21  The fatal characteristic which is connatured in Beauty is a frequent motive in Victor Hugo’s works (cf., for instance, his 1831 novel Notre-Dame de Paris). It is particularly apparent in a sonnet from 1872, Ave, dea; moriturus te salutat, where the concept of the Romantics’ fatal Beauty is illustrated by Hugo by means of the metaphor of the sisterhood between Beauty and Death. The sonnet was written by the ageing Hugo for Judith Gautier, the daughter of Théophile Gautier and wife of the poet Catulle Mendès. It was published by different newspapers, among which La Renaissance of July 27 1872. We can read it in the collection Toute la lyre edited by Paul Meurice (V, 34). It is a very interesting delving into the theme of fatal Beauty, ironically told by the elderly poet who is nonetheless still in love: “Death and beauty are two things profound / Which contain so much darkness and azure that one might say / They were two sisters equally terrible and fecund / Who possess the same enigma and the same secret; // O women, voices, gazes, black hair, blonde tresses, / Shine on, for I am dying! have the brightness, the love, the attraction, / O pearls which the sea mingles with its majestic waves, / O bright birds of the sombre forest! // Judith, our two destinies are closer to one another / Than one might think seeing my face, and yours; / The whole divine abyss appears in your eyes, // And I feel the starry chasm in my soul; / We both are close to heaven, Madame, / Since you are beautiful and I am old.” (“Ave, dea; moriturus te salutat. La mort et la beauté sont deux choses profondes / Qui contiennent tant d’ombre et d’azur qu’on dirait / Deux sœurs également terribles et fécondes / Ayant la même énigme et le même secret; // Ô femmes, voix, regards, cheveux noirs, tresses blondes, / Brillez, je meurs! ayez l’éclat, l’amour, l’attrait, / Ô perles que la mer mêle à ses grandes ondes, / Ô lumineux oiseaux de la sombre forêt! // Judith, nos deux destins sont plus près l’un de l’autre / Qu’on ne croirait, à voir mon visage et le vôtre; / Tout le divin abîme apparaît dans vos yeux, // Et moi, je sens le gouffre étoilé dans mon âme; / Nous sommes tous les deux voisins du ciel, madame, / Puisque vous êtes belle et puisque je suis vieux.” Hugo 1986, 371; cf. also Praz 1999, 37 and 1970, 31 for a close reading of the poem). 22  D’Annunzio 1970, 48: “Simile a un’ardua opera d’arte, ella pareva non poter essere posseduta se non dal cervello in quei momenti d’intensità geniale in cui l’invenzione s’aggiunge all’invenzione e l’eguaglia o la supera.” 23  Ivi, 56: “compiuta creatura dell’arte”.

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overseas”,24 is a modern American lady who, in the course of the story, is constantly compared to a Venetian Beauty of the time when Venice ruled over the isle of Cyprus; she is at the same time the legendary daughter of Palma il Vecchio, posing as a model for her father as well as for Tiziano. In describing her physical appearance, D’Annunzio constantly refers to Renaissance paintings. Nonetheless, the core of her Beauty is her voice: “[…] her voice […] was probably more beautiful than her beauty”.25 These quotes are from the scenes of the story of Violante which were written in 1912 and published on the Corriere della Sera. D’Annunzio had already read Maurice Maeterlinck’s plays26 at the time, and worked with Claude Debussy,27 whose art was particularly appreciated by D’Annunzio for the importance Debussy gave, for the first time among modern composers, to the use of silence in music. According both to Debussy and to D’Annunzio, silence brings mystery to music, as silence does to the Beauty of a voice: “The peculiarity of every creature which is truly beautiful is to have come down to earth not only, as for Beatrice, ‘in order to show miracles’ [cf. Dante’s sonnet Tanto gentile e tanto onesta pare in the Vita Nova], that is to show the miracle of her own self, but also in order to show, thanks to the virtue of silence, the incessant miracle of life happening around her as it is reflected by the sombre mirrors of Mystery.”28 This praise of a beautiful voice somehow anticipates the poetics of the unaccomplished trilogy of the “novels of flesh without flesh” (“romanzi di carne senza carne”, La Violante, La bocca velata and La Buonarrota), whose main poetic aim should have been that of representing the overcoming of the bodily dimension of love, perceived as a natural, but lower reaction to Beauty, and of consecrating the triumph of spiritual love (cf. D’Annunzio 1970, 115 24  Ivi, passim: “la donna d’oltremare”. 25  Ivi, 38: “[…] [la] sua voce […] era forse più bella della sua bellezza”. And here D’Annunzio adds an anticipation of the end of the story (which he will publish in the Libro segreto more than twenty years later): “and unexpectedly more beautiful she became when the horrible deed happened.” (“e impensatamente più bella divenne quando successe l’orribile strazio.” Ibid.). 26  Maeterlinck in fact considered silence to be more musical than any sound, and this principle is at the centre of several of his plays, in particular from 1889 to 1892 (La Princesse Maleine, Les Aveugles, L’Intruse, Pelléas et Mélisande). Cf. also Praz 1999, 27; Praz 1970, 15. One of Maeterlinck’s play from 1891, Les Sept Princesses, is an important hypotexte of D’Annunzio’s play Le Martyre de saint Sébastien. 27   Le Martyre de saint Sébastien was created at the Théâtre du Châtelet in Paris in May 1911. 28  D’Annunzio 1970, 27–8: “Il proprio d’ogni creatura veramente bella è d’essere venuta in terra non soltanto, come Beatrice, ‘a miracol mostrare’, ciò è a mostrare il miracolo di sé stessa, ma a mostrare per virtù di silenzio intorno a sé il miracolo incessante della vita riflesso nei cupi specchi del Mistero.”

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and 120–1, and also Mariano 1966). This project, which was concretely drawn in the 1930s, was nonetheless anticipated by several elements contained in others Dannunzian writings, so early as the end of the 1880s. In the artist’s conception, the trilogy should have been his most important accomplishment towards a celebration of the art pour l’art.29 The reading of Théophile Gautier’s novel Mademoiselle de Maupin (1835), as well as that of the French translations of poems by John Keats and Percy Bysshe Shelley, corroborated D’Annunzio in his intuition of the uselessness of Beauty. Gautier writes: “There is nothing truly beautiful but that which can never be of any use whatsoever; everything useful is ugly, for it is the expression of some need, and man’s needs are ignoble and disgusting like his own poor and infirm nature.” (Gautier 1905, XXVII–XXVIII).30 Or: “You see to what all my moral notions are reduced. What is physically beautiful is good, all that is ugly is evil. I might see a beautiful woman who, to my own knowledge, had the most villainous soul in the world, and was an adulteress and a poisoner, and I confess that this would be a matter of indifference to me and would in no way prevent me from taking delight in her, if the shape of her nose suited me.” (Gautier 1905, 175–6)31 – We can find passages which are very close to Gautier’s concepts of Beauty in particular in Il piacere or L’innocente (1892). 29  “There is a kind of spiritual sensuality which does not concern the body at all. There is a voluptuousness so thin that has no organic repercussion, so to say. But few understand and admit that the whiteness of a shoulder, the neat shape of a bosom which has not been altered by motherhood, the invisible pulse of a breast, the length – almost plentiful – of a leg, the perfect arch of a spine, could deeply rejoice some men without making them lustful.” (“V’è una specie di sensualità spirituale che non tocca affatto il corpo. V’è una voluttà tanto sottile che non ha, dirò così, ripercussione organica. Ma pochi comprendono e ammettono che il candore d’una spalla, la polita curva d’un ventre non deturpato dalla maternità, il palpito visibile d’un seno, la lunghezza quasi fluente d’una gamba, il perfetto arco d’una schiena, possano profondamente dilettare certi uomini senza farli desiosi.” D’Annunzio 1996, 942). This passage, which concludes an article written by D’Annunzio for the Tribuna and published on November 1 1887, is interesting on several behalves. Firstly, is can be considered as a short catalogue of the characteristics of the feminine body which D’Annunzio constantly celebrates in his art – for instance the long legs of Ida Rubinstein were, so the legend goes, at the origin of the writing of the Martyre de saint Sébastien. But what is also useful to point out is the reaction to those beautiful body parts. D’Annunzio wishes to make clear that sexual desire is not the only possible reaction, and that it is in any case the less noble. The aesthete, the worshipper of this kind of spiritual sensuality feels a contemplative pleasure which does not coincide with lust. 30  Gautier 2002, 230: “Il n’y a de vraiment beau que ce qui ne peut servir à rien; tout ce qui est utile est laid, car c’est l’expression de quelque besoin, et ceux de l’homme sont ignobles et dégoûtants, comme sa pauvre et infirme nature.” 31  Ivi, 376: “Voilà où se réduisent toutes mes notions morales. Ce qui est beau physiquement est bien, tout ce qui est laid est mal. – Je verrais une belle femme, que je saurais avoir l’âme

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Beauty is the only pleasure for the poet, “a thing of beauty is a joy for ever”, as John Keats says in a verse quoted by D’Annunzio in an article published on the Tribuna of October 8 1887. And the last of the four sonnets for Giovanni Marradi – the closing text of the 1886 collection L’Isottèo – ends on a celebration of Beauty and of its vehicle, poetry: “O poet, divine is the word; / in pure Beauty

la plus scélérate du monde, qui serait adultère et empoisonneuse, j’avoue que cela me serait parfaitement égal et ne m’empêcherait nullement de m’y complaire, si je trouvais la forme de son nez convenable.” Mademoiselle de Maupin anticipates by several decades the concepts of art for art’s sake, which will be at the centre of the Symbolist, Parnassian and Decadent aesthetic theories. The Préface to the novel is in particular to be read as an art pour l’art manifesto. But also we can find some other dogmas upon which this theory is built in chapters 5 and 9 of the novel. Thus, from a letter of d’Albert (Gautier 1905: 103– 4): “I worship beauty of form above all things; beauty is to me visible divinity, palpable happiness, heaven come down upon earth. […] Beauty, the only thing that cannot be acquired, inaccessible for ever to those who are without it at first; ephemeral and fragile flower which grows without being sown, pure gift of heaven! O beauty! the most radiant diadem wherewith chance could crown a brow – thou art admirable and precious like all that is beyond the reach of man, like the azure of the firmament, like the gold of the star, like the perfume of the seraphic lily! […] who could refrain from kneeling before thee, pure, personification of the thought of God? I ask for nothing but beauty; but I must have it so perfect that I shall probably never find it.” (“J’adore sur toutes choses la beauté de la forme; – la beauté pour moi, c’est la divinité visible, c’est le bonheur palpable, c’est le ciel descendu sur la terre. […] La beauté, seule chose qu’on ne puisse acquérir, inaccessible à tout jamais à ceux qui ne l’ont pas d’abord; fleur éphémère et fragile qui croît sans être semée, pur don du ciel! – Ô beauté! le plus radieux diadème dont le hasard puisse couronner un front, – tu es admirable et précieuse comme tout ce qui est hors de la portée de l’homme, comme l’azur du firmament, comme l’or de l’étoile, comme le parfum du lis séraphique! […] qui pourrait ne pas s’agenouiller devant toi, pure personnification de la pensée de Dieu? Je ne demande que la beauté, il est vrai; mais il me la faut si parfaite, que je ne la rencontrerai probablement jamais.” Gautier 2002, 322–3); “all that is life enters into the composition of my ideal” (Gautier 1905, 105), (“[…] tout ce qui est la vie entre pour moi dans la composition de la beauté […]” Gautier 2002, 323). And the same chapter continues in the form of an essay portraying Parnassian Beauty. Finally, chapter 9 of the novel, in which d’Albert falls in love with Théodore de Sérannes (Madeleine de Maupin cross-dressed as a chevalier) and he is afraid of his own supposed homoerotic desire, also insists on those characteristics of Beauty: “O beauty! we were created only to love thee and worship thee on our knees, if we have found thee, and to seek thee eternally through the world, if this happiness has not been given to us […]. Lovers, poets, painters and sculptors, we all seek to raise an altar to thee […]; but it is everlasting despair to be unable to give palpability to the beauty that you feel […].” Gautier 1905, 163. (“– Ô beauté! nous ne sommes créés que pour t’aimer et t’adorer à genoux si nous t’avons trouvée, pour te chercher éternellement à travers le monde si ce bonheur ne nous a pas été donné […]. Amants, poètes, peintres et sculpteurs, nous cherchons tous à t’élever un autel […]; mais l’éternel désespoir, c’est de ne pouvoir faire palpable la beauté que l’on sent […].” Gautier 2002: 366–7).

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heaven put / every joy for us; and Verse is everything.”32 This absoluteness of Beauty, and its gnoseological power – which is another key-concept in Keats’ theory – is crucial for D’Annunzio. Thus the famous address to the Grecian urn: “Beauty is truth, truth beauty, – that is all / Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.” (Ode on a Grecian Urn, vv. 49–50; Keats 1982, 283). Not only Keats identifies Beauty with truth, and reinforces the concept through the chiasm, but affirms that humankind does not need to know anything more, as the truth connatural to Beauty is a self-sufficient knowledge.33 Shelley, too – who was one of the major readings of D’Annunzio among nonFrench poets – evokes the quest for Beauty in a world which seems bereft of it. In his Hymn to intellectual beauty, he tries to call back the Spirit of Beauty, which sacralises everything it falls upon. Its departure has left the world a “[…] dim vast vale of tears, vacant and desolate.” (v. 17; Shelley 1975, 72). And he continues: “Thy light alone […] / Gives grace and truth to life’s unquiet dream.” (vv. 32 and 36; ivi, 72). If Beauty had not abandoned man’s heart, immortality would have been granted to him. Beauty is a nourishment to human thought, “Like darkness to a dying flame” (v. 45; ivi, 73), which suggests that it is at the same time something “awful” (vv. 40; ibid., and 71; ivi, 74), but capable to bring “ecstasy” (v. 60; ivi, 73) once discovered. The poet consecrates himself to Beauty: “I vowed that I would dedicate my powers / To thee and thine […]” (vv. 61–2; ibid.). He is one “[…] who worships thee, / And every form containing thee.” (vv. 81–2; ivi, 73). Shelley’s Platonism34 is quite different from D’Annunzio’s elitist approach to the cult of Beauty. Some analogies are nonetheless to be 32  “O poeta, divina è la Parola; / ne la pura Bellezza il ciel ripose / ogni nostra letizia; e il Verso è tutto.” (vv. 12–4; D’Annunzio 1982, 454). “Verse is everything” (D’Annunzio 1898, 103; “Il Verso è tutto”) is also the surtitle of the collection L’Isottèo, as well as the principle upon which is based La favola dell’Ermafrodito, Andrea Sperelli’s highest artistic accomplishment in Il piacere (D’Annunzio 1988, 145–6). 33  Cf. also the incipit to Endymion, which contains the most famous amongst Keats’ formulations of Beauty: “A thing of beauty is a joy for ever: / Its loveliness increases; it will never / Pass into nothingness; but still will keep / A bower quiet for us, and a sleep / Full of sweet dreams, and health, and quiet breathing.” (Book 1, vv. 1–5; Keats 1982, 65). And: “Some shape of beauty loves away the pall / From our dark spirit.” (vv. 12–3; ibid.). The “things of beauty” “[…] always must be with us, or we die.” (v. 33; ibid.). However, it is important to point out that this is not the only keatsian conception of Beauty. The poet elsewhere connotes Beauty as mortal, vanishing, non-everlasting. Cf. on this behalf the Ode to a Nightingale (“[…] Beauty cannot keep her lustrous eyes”, v. 29; ivi, 280), the Ode on Melancholy (“[…] Beauty that must die”, v. 21; ivi, 284), the sonnet The day is gone, and all its sweets are gone (“Faded the sight of beauty from my eyes, / Faded the shape of beauty from my arms”, vv. 6–7; ivi, 374), or Isabella’s loss of Beauty in the Boccaccian Isabella; or, The Pot of Basilic. 34  Shelley’s intellectual Beauty refers to Plato’s ideal Beauty.

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found in both these conceptions: in particular, the idea that Beauty has abandoned men, and that it should be restored and brought back by the poet through his chant and his quest; and the concept of the knowledge – the “possession”, to put it in D’Annunzio’s own terms – of Beauty divinising the individual man, shortening the distance between man and god. At the same time, nonetheless, D’Annunzio is also the author of number of committed texts, whence we can subsume a more useful aesthetical theory based on pragmatism. 2.3 The Pragmatics of Beauty Several of D’Annunzio’s writings – from the preface to the first issue of the Convito (January 1895), to his electoral speech,35 or also Le vergini delle rocce, whose hero, Claudio Cantelmo, sacralises political and social interventionism on an aesthetic ground, in order to restore Beauty in a barbarised Europe – convey the idea that Beauty plays a role in society. In general we can observe, from the way in which uselessness and usefulness of Beauty are treated by D’Annunzio, that the artist conceive them not as two opposed poetical nor aesthetical ideas, but instead as complementary concepts. This pragmatic aestheticism is not an element limited to the writer’s works, and we may fathom it is typical of the epoch: “The awareness of the practical value of beauty, or […] of the meaning which a struggle for the revaluation of aesthetical ideals could assume in the broader domain of the morality, of the traditions and of the politics of the time was a common issue for intellectual groups of nationalists.”36 35  And the nickname which was given him by Melchior de Vogüé during his term as a deputy was “the deputy of beauty” [“il deputato della bellezza”] (cf. D’Annunzio 2005, 3217). 36  Salinari 1962, 64–5: “[…] la consapevolezza del valore pratico della bellezza o […] del significato che una lotta per la rivalutazione di ideali estetici veniva ad assumere nel dominio più vasto della morale, del costume e della politica dell’epoca, era un patrimonio comune dei gruppi intellettuali di orientamento nazionalistico […].” (Original emphasis). And soon afterwards Salinari quotes some recollections of a young man of the time from the book of Pier Ludovico Occhini, Enrico Corradini, scrittore e nazionalista, Roma: Provenzani, 1914, 34–5: “This lack of an idealistic faith in the nation, and all the sadness and misery of our country humiliated especially young people. Our only love was then beauty, which we considered as a source of joy and at the same time of oblivion, as a source which was able to quench our thirst and to soothe all the passions of our cognitive and active life, as a Venus who opens her arms when one invokes her enthusiastically, allowing men to forget the doubts and the pain of life.” (“Quest’assenza di fede idealistica nella nazione, e tutta la tristezza e la miseria della nostra patria mortificavano soprattutto i giovani. Unico nostro amore era allora la bellezza, considerata da noi come una sorgente di gioia e nello stesso tempo di oblio, come una sorgente capace di dissetare e di calmare tutti gli ardori della nostra vita cogitativa ed attiva, come una Venere che apre le braccia,

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Beauty may even result from a tension between a collective issue and an individual one. On an individual dimension, Beauty may provide man with ethical codes, even in a Weltanschauung according to which the artist is not constrained by the same moral boundaries as the rest of humankind. Thus Sperelli: “Men of intellect, educated in the cult of the beautiful, preserve a certain sense of order even in their worst depravities. The conception of the beautiful is, so to speak, the axis of their being, round which all their passions revolve.” (D’Annunzio 1898, 27)37 However, the collective and political dimensions are probably dominant in D’Annunzio’s conceptualisation of a pragmatism of Beauty. Even when he is prone to aestheticism – as we can see in his articles from 1895–1896 – the writer never neglects a sort of impegno38 in his crusade for Beauty. In the Proemio of the Convito (D’Annunzio 2003, 283–6), thus, talking about himself and his fellow-artists, D’Annunzio affirms: “[…] they do not want to be taken for solitary ascetics building an altar on their own to the eternal Beauty. Their ambition is much more virile.”39 Soon afterwards in the same text he shifts to the first person, quite abruptly: “[…] we hope that our Convito will gather a lively flock of militant energies which would be capable of saving something beautiful and ideal from the cloudy wave of vulgarity which nowadays covers entirely the blessed land where Leonardo created his imperious women and Michelangelo his invincible heroes.”40 And he deplores the decadence of Italian art and literature, “nowadays barbarity” (“la presente barbarie”, ivi, 284), which, as did the ancient barbarians, “in their calamitous rush tore down all simulacra of Beauty and erased all remaining products of human thought”,41 is destroying both Beauty and Thought. Those who still believe in the “indestructible power of Beauty” (“potere indistruttibile della Bellezza”, quando s’invochi con entusiasmo, facendo dimenticare agli uomini i dubbi e i dolori dell’esistenza.” Salinari 1962, 65). 37  D’Annunzio 1988, 39: “Gli uomini d’intelletto, educati al culto della Bellezza, conservano sempre, anche nelle peggiori depravazioni, una specie di ordine. La concezione della Bellezza è, dirò così, l’asse del loro essere interiore, intorno al quale tutte le loro passioni gravitano.” (Original emphasis). 38  Which Walter Binni (1975) rather defines as utilitarianism. 39  D’Annunzio 2003, 283: “[…] essi non vogliono apparire asceti solitarii che inalzino un loro altare alla Bellezza eterna […]. La loro ambizione è assai più virile.” 40  Ibid.: “[…] noi vogliamo sperare che questo nostro CONVITO possa raccogliere un vivo fascio di energie militanti le quali valgano a salvare qualche cosa bella e ideale dalla torbida onda di volgarità che ricopre omai tutta la terra privilegiata dove Leonardo creò le sue donne imperiose e Michelangelo i suoi eroi indomabili.” 41  Ivi, 284: “nella corsa ruinosa abbatterono tutti i simulacri della Bellezza e cancellarono tutti i vestigi del Pensiero”.

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ivi, 285) should gather to carry shoulder-high “an image of Beauty so imposing that the supreme strength of its form […] would subjugate the vilified spirits.”42 Intellectuals have to “support in a military way the cause of Intelligence against the Barbarians.”43 And he closes his plead on the same patriotic note: “So be our Beauty at the same time the one Venus who was worshipped by Plato and the one whose name Caesar gave as a watchword to his soldiers on the field of Pharsalus: – VENUS VICTRIX.”44 The first issue of the Convito contains also D’Annunzio’s review to Conti’s Giorgione (D’Annunzio 2003, 287–311). The Note su Giorgione e la critica flog Italian art criticism, which is, according to D’Annunzio, bereft “of any feeling of Beauty and also of any ability to compose sentences with the simplest word order according to grammar.”45 In his conception of art criticism, every artwork is in fact an answer to the “anxious and untiring human cry” (“ansioso e instancabile grido umano”, ivi, 288). The artist produces images of truth and Beauty and offers them to mankind. Beauty is the truest and the purest manifestation of life (ivi, 293). So, nature tends ontologically to Beauty, but in vain, the activity of the artist is necessary in order to continue, to ameliorate nature in the direction of Beauty (ivi, 295) through style. The creators of Beauty are the tamers of nature (ivi, 296). Conti’s book is, according to D’Annunzio, courageous enough to try to oppose to the “vile herd” (“gregge vile”, ivi, 297) which treads on culture and Beauty. In the second part of his review, D’Annunzio defines art criticism even further, and in particular the mission of the art critic towards society: “which could ever be the task of the critic, if not that of understanding and of feeling intensively at the sight of the beautiful work, and then of reconstructing his apprehension by means of the tools of the written word?”46 As art ameliorates nature, the critic refines art through his writings. This text is imbued with Platonism and Pre-Raphaelite mysticism, and from this point of view Conti is also celebrated as he is humble enough 42  Ivi, 286: “un simulacro di Bellezza così grande che la forza superba della forma […] soggiog[hi] gli animi abbrutiti.” 43  Ivi, 285: “sostenere militarmente la causa dell’Intelligenza contro i Barbari […].” 44  Ibid.: “La nostra Bellezza sia dunque nel tempo medesimo la Venere adorata da Platone e quella di cui Cesare diede il nome per parola d’ordine ai suoi soldati sul campo di Farsaglia: – VENUS VICTRIX.” This short text is developed under the title La parola di Farsaglia and published in the 1926 collection Il libro ascetico della giovane Italia (D’Annunzio 2005, 419–22). 45  D’Annunzio 2003, 287: “d’ogni sentimento della Bellezza e pur d’ogni capacità a comporre secondo grammatica il più semplice ordine di parole.” 46  Ivi, 301: “[…] qual mai può essere l’officio del critico se non quello di comprendere e di sentire intensamente al conspetto dell’opera bella per riconstituire poi la sua comprensione con tutti i mezzi della parola scritta?”

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to kneel “with grace in front of Beauty” (“con grazia davanti alla Bellezza”, ivi, 305).47 These same characteristics of Beauty are declined in an even more directly patriotic aim in D’Annunzio’s fiction. Thus in the sacralisation of the cult of Beauty in an anti-barbaric perspective which Claudio Cantelmo pursues, or in Stelio Èffrena’s public speeches and aesthetic thoughts in Il fuoco. Reasoning with Daniele Glauro alias Angelo Conti, for instance, Èffrena says: […] the fortunes of Italy are inseparable from the fate of Beauty, of whom she is the mother. […] Italy! Italy! The name that has intoxicated the world sounded over his soul like a rallying cry. Should not a new art, robust in both roots and branches, rise from ruins steeped in so much heroic blood, and should not this art sum up within itself all the forces latent in the hereditary substance of the nation? Should it not become a constructive and determining power in the third Rome […]?48 47  D’Annunzio’s review to Giorgione, which was also republished as Dell’arte di Giorgio Barbarelli in the collection L’allegoria dell’Autunno (D’Annunzio 2005, 2224–49), is in fact a longer version of the Ragionamento, that is D’Annunzio’s preface to Conti’s Beata riva: “[…] the indefinable diversity of human visages, […] the sudden appearances of beauty, independent from any law of heritage or of culture, […] the living imitations which Nature sometimes produces of the types immortalised by Art, […] the simulacra of Apollo, of Hermes or of Pallas rising in flesh from the depth of barbarity, […] the superior flower of a stock born on the branch of another stock of strangers and enemies, […] all these labours and divine plays of the ephemeral species are embodied through a mystery which is more astonishing than the one which rules out the grouping of nebulae.” (“[…] l’indeterminabile diversità del volto umano, […] le imprevedute apparizioni della bellezza fuor d’ogni legge di retaggio e di cultura, […] le viventi imitazioni che talvolta la Natura fa dei tipi eternati dall’Arte, […] le recenti mistioni di sangue colate in un’impronta antica, […] i simulacra di Apollo, di Erme o di Pallade risorgenti in carne dalla profondità della barbarie, […] il supremo fiore d’una stirpe dischiuso sul ramo d’una stirpe estranea ed avversa, […] tutti questi travagli e giuochi divini della specie effimera si compiono in un mistero più stupendo di quello che aggruppa le nebulose.” D’Annunzio 1970, 36). The art critic and friend Angelo Conti is a master and a mentor for D’Annunzio at the time. He also appears in the novel Il fuoco (1900) under the pseudonym Daniele Glauro. 48  D’Annunzio 1909, 126: “La fortuna dell’Italia è inseparabile dalle sorti della Bellezza, cui ella è madre. […] Italia! Italia! Come un grido di riscossa gli risonava ne l’anima quel nome che inebria la terra. Dai ruderi inondati di tanto sangue eroico non doveva levarsi robusta di radici e di rami l’arte nuova? Non doveva essa riassumere in sé tutte le forze latenti nella sostanza ereditaria della nazione, divenire una potenza determinante e costruttiva della terza Roma […]? (D’Annunzio 1989, 299). Cf. also: “The fortune of Italy is inseparable from the fate of Beauty, of whom she is the mother – forever breeding.” (“La fortuna d’Italia è inseparabile dalle sorti della Bellezza, cui ella è madre nei secoli dei secoli plasticatrice.” D’Annunzio 2005, 437).

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In the novel, Stelio is able to produce “[the powers of] combustion [through which] he drew the beautiful images into which he was wont to convert the substance of his inner life.” (D’Annunzio 1909, 13).49 His aim is “magnifying his own dream of beauty or of power” (ivi, 40).50 However, D’Annunzio’s most striking text on the pragmatism of Beauty is the political speech known as the Discorso della siepe, written in 1897,51 a speech in view of an election – a successful one – D’Annunzio performed in the Abruzzi. The Discorso della siepe is constantly in balance between the local and, as we would say today, the global dimension of the value of human activity. The ideal portrait D’Annunzio draws of himself is that of a son of the land of the Abruzzi countryside, gone abroad – in the big and frenzy working cities – in order to get experienced, without betraying his origins nor his land. And his coming back to “innocence” with the strength of his “experience” should benefit to his fellowcountrymen. His books are thus compared to the Holy Bible the shepherd of the Abruzzi uses to read under a tree during the Sunday rest – sic – but are more useful to him than the Bible itself because they speak of their land and not of faraway territories: “And if I then entered his house, he would rise with deference not as if he was in front of his master, but as if in front of the one who sprang through his touch the ancient virtue of things familiar, and made them religious again, and made them indescribably beautiful again.”52 The kind of Beauty D’Annunzio is talking about here – a Beauty which is also an appeal to the mass – is quite an uncommon one for him in 1897, because this idea seems to anticipate his seduction for mass persuasion and his crowded speeches of the wartime years: There is a hidden beauty in the multitude, whence only the poet and the hero can arise flares. When such beauty reveals itself in the sudden clamour which bursts in the amphitheatre or on the public square or in 49  D’Annunzio 1989, 206: “per combustione”, “le imagini belle in cui egli soleva convertire la sostanza della sua vita interiore.” 50  Ivi, 229: “magnificare il suo proprio sogno di bellezza o di dominazione.” 51  Which was published in the Tribuna of August 23 1897 (D’Annunzio 2003, 266–80), then as Laude dell’illaudato in Il libro ascetico della giovane Italia (D’Annunzio 2005, 429–40). The version for the Tribuna was longer than the one included in the Libro ascetico della giovane Italia. In particular we can find in the longer version the same passages on the barbaric invasions and the dangers Beauty is in which have been quoted here, and the long tirade on Rome as the “center of paralysis”, which is already present in the Proemio to the Convito. 52  D’Annunzio 2005, 431: “E se io allora entrassi nella sua casa, egli si leverebbe con reverenza non come dinanzi al suo padrone, ma come dinanzi a colui che sprigionò col suo tocco l’antica virtù dalle cose familiari e le rifece religiose e le rifece indicibilmente belle.”

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the trenches, then a stream of joy inflates the heart of the one who was able to arise it through his verses, through his speech, through the sign of the sword. The word of the poet communicating with the crowd is an act, as well as the feat of the hero. It is an act which creates a sudden beauty from the obscurity of the soul.53 The core of this speech, which was much admired by Marinetti, among others – who went expressly to Pescara in order to hear it –, but also by Pascoli and by Hofmannsthal, resides in the power of salvation Beauty possesses, if it is used properly: “There is no deliverance and there is no beauty apart from those of the man who struggles in absolute freedom liberating from his essence all the energies and conveying them in the directions toward which the infallible genius of the stock points.”54 3 Conclusion The second and third categories which have been introduced in order to formalise D’Annunzio’s theory of Beauty are rather permeable, and this results in a sort of unresolved tension between uselessness and usefulness of Beauty. This is particularly flagrant when we consider D’Annunzio’s Medievalism, an aspect I am moving to as a conclusion. Medievalism is a key category introduced in the study of nineteenth-century culture from the point of view of an epochal fascination for the Middle Ages and for Medieval revivals (cf. in particular Di Carpegna Falconieri 2015 and, specifically on D’Annunzio, Cardini 1995–1996). European Medievalism spans from architecture – Viollet-le-Duc, for instance – to art – the pre-Raphaelite painting – to literature – the historical novels or dramas set in the Middle Ages. D’Annunzio was well acquainted with this nostalgic revival of the Middle Ages and he consecrated, throughout his writing career, a constant attention to the Medieval epoch, both in prose and poetry – Le Dit du sourd et muet (1936), as 53  D’Annunzio 2005, 432: “V’è nella moltitudine una bellezza riposta, donde il poeta e l’eroe soltanto possono trarre baleni. Quando quella bellezza si rivela per l’improvviso clamore che scoppia nell’anfiteatro o sulla piazza pubblica o nella trincea, allora un torrente di gioia gonfia il cuore di colui che seppe suscitarla col verso, con l’arringa, col segno della spada. Un atto è la parola del poeta comunicata alla folla, un atto come il gesto dell’eroe. È un atto che crea dall’oscurità dell’anima innumerevole un’istantanea bellezza.” 54  Ivi, 437: “Non v’è salute e non v’è bellezza fuor dello sforzo che l’uomo compie in sua piena libertà sprigionando dalla sua sostanza tutte le energie e volgendole nelle direzioni che gli indica il genio della stirpe, infallibile.”

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well as in his everlasting passion for Franciscan themes and motives – and in plays – Francesca da Rimini (1902), Le Martyre de saint Sébastien, La Pisanelle (1913). Apart from his interest for Medieval languages – Old Italian and Old French, Medieval Latin – one of D’Annunzio’s main points of fascination is Medieval Beauty – again, not only the dream of the return of Medieval Beauties (those of Agnolo Firenzuola he celebrates already in Il piacere), but also, in particular, the study of Medieval theories of Beauty and the attempt of adapting them to Decadent aesthetics (in a similar way as Huysmans’ Des Esseintes does). This frequent reshaping and reusing of Medieval theories of Beauty results in a kind of pan-aestheticism. The most probing example of this tendency of D’Annunzio is probably Le Martyre de saint Sébastien, a play which is set in the late Roman empire but which is Medieval in its structure, in its sources and in the ethical issues the play conveys. Here, D’Annunzio posits Beauty at the core of the conflict – a religious conflict, in this particular case, which is the main dramatic knot of the play. The dawn of Christianity and the fall of the ancient gods, the sacred history told in the Gospels, the Classical myths of Adonis and the story of Antinous, the mass conversions of the pagans and the martyrdom of Sebastian… are some of the main conflictual elements which constitute the plot of the play. Each and every one of these conflicts is presented, and solved in one way or another, through a struggle between different notions of Beauty, between what is beautiful and what is not, through the clash between different theories and paradigms of Beauty. Thus, the Beauty of the archer Sebastian persuades masses of heathens to convert to the Christian religion, on the basis of a rather peculiar reasoning: as Sebastian is more beautiful than Adonis and Apollo, which are two of the principal gods they worship, he must be a demi-god, and the emissary of a more beautiful God than the pagan ones. Jesus Christ is then more beautiful than the ancient gods, therefore more powerful, and thus it is more convenient for the heathen mass to step to his side. In the same way, the unnamed Roman emperor, after the failure of his attempts of seduction of Sebastian, decides to immolate the archer, because so beautiful a victim is a present which is much praised by the gods. Finally, Sebastian is killed by his own troop of archers, following in this his own desire for immolation and martyrdom. Both for the archers and for Sebastian, in fact, death is useful in order to free his Beauty from the burden of the body, and the curtain falls on the apotheosis of Sebastian’s Beauty celebrated in the Heavens. The play is at the same time a celebration of absolute Beauty – Beauty is given once and forever, it is eternal and unattainable, death could not destroy it. Even, death intensifies and consecrates beauty. But at the same time, Beauty is necessary

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here in order to attain a pragmatic aim, it performs a role and has a concrete value, it solves the tragic conflict, provokes conversions, is the cause of madness and death. Moreover, Le Martyre de saint Sébastien is probably the most accomplished work in which D’Annunzio gives birth to his principle of the coincidence between internal and external Beauty. According to this idea: “There is no internal beauty and no external beauty; there is no spiritual beauty and there is no bodily one. […] For me there is only one beauty; and there is only one way to create it, as I continually create it upon myself, beyond myself, through life, breath, struggle, consummation. I will consume myself, I will die in this will to create it beyond life and beyond death, against profanation, against worship.”55 References Baudelaire, Charles. 1909. The Flowers of Evil. Translated into English by Cyril Scott. London: Elkin Mathews. Baudelaire, Charles. 1968. L’Art Romantique. Édition établie par Lloyd James Austin. Paris: Garnier-Flammarion. Baudelaire, Charles. 1976. Œuvres complètes II. Edited by Claude Pichois. Paris: Gallimard (“Bibliothèque de La Pléiade”). Binni, Walter. 1975. La poetica del decadentismo. Firenze: Sansoni. [I ed. 1936]. Cardini, Franco. 1995–1996. “Il Medioevo in Gabriele D’Annunzio.” Bollettino dell’Istituto Storico Italiano per il Medioevo 100: 151–66. Curreri, Luciano. 2001. La femme, le corps malade, la statue. Esthétisation culturelle du pathologique et transition romanesque dans l’œuvre narrative de Gabriele D’Annunzio (1894–1900). Villeneuve d’Ascq: Presses Universitaires du Septentrion.

55  D’Annunzio 2005, 1135: “Non v’è una bellezza interiore, e una bellezza esteriore; non v’è una bellezza spirituale e una corporea. […] Per me v’è una bellezza sola; e v’è un solo modo di crearla, così come io di continuo la creo di sopra a me medesimo, di là da me medesimo, vivendo, respirando, ansando, consumandomi. Mi consumerò, perirò, in questa volontà di crearla oltre la vita, oltre la morte, contro la profanazione, contro l’adorazione.” This last quote comes from Il Vangelo secondo l’Avversario, a text dated 1897 but probably written much later, and which is the first one of the Tre parabole del bellissimo nemico (D’Annunzio 2005, 1125–57). This superposition between “internal” and “external Beauty” seems somehow an evolution of the concepts contained in an article published on the Tribuna in 1887, at the beginning of which D’Annunzio clearly distinguishes between the “donna spirituale” and the “donna materiale” (D’Annunzio 1996, 939). We can argue whether internal Beauty should be considered as the attribute of the “spiritual woman”, and external Beauty that of the “material woman”, or not.

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Curreri, Luciano. 2008. Metamorfosi della seduzione. La donna, il corpo malato, la statua in D’Annunzio e dintorni. Pisa: ETS. D’Annunzio, Gabriele. 1897. The Triumph of Death [Il trionfo della morte]. Translated into English by Arthur Hornblow. New York: George H. Richmond & Son. D’Annunzio, Gabriele. 1898. The Child of Pleasure [Il piacere]. Translated into English by Georgina Harding and Arthur Symons. New York: George H. Richmond & Son. D’Annunzio, Gabriele. 1909. The Flame of Life [Il fuoco]. Translated into English by Kassandra Vivaria. Boston: L.C. Page & Company. D’Annunzio, Gabriele. 1970. La Violante dalla bella voce. A cura di Eurialo De Michelis. Milano: Mondadori. D’Annunzio, Gabriele. 1982. Versi d’amore e di gloria I. A cura di Annamaria Andreoli e Niva Lorenzini, diretto da Luciano Anceschi. Milano: Mondadori (“I Meridiani”). D’Annunzio, Gabriele. 1988. Prose di romanzi I. A cura di Annamaria Andreoli, diretto da Ezio Raimondi. Milano: Mondadori (“I Meridiani”). D’Annunzio, Gabriele. 1989. Prose di romanzi II. A cura di Annamaria Andreoli, diretto da Ezio Raimondi. Milano: Mondadori (“I Meridiani”). D’Annunzio, Gabriele. 1996. Scritti giornalistici I. A cura di Annamaria Andreoli e Federico Roncoroni. Milano: Mondadori (“I Meridiani”). D’Annunzio, Gabriele. 2003. Scritti giornalistici II. A cura di Annamaria Andreoli e Giorgio Zanetti. Milano: Mondadori (“I Meridiani”). D’Annunzio, Gabriele. 2005. Prose di ricerca. A cura di Annamaria Andreoli e Giorgio Zanetti. Milano: Mondadori (“I Meridiani”). Di Carpegna Falconieri, Tommaso. 2015. Médiéval et militant [2011]. Translated into French by Michèle Grévin. Paris: Publications de la Sorbonne. Gautier, Théophile. 1905. Mademoiselle de Maupin. Translated into English. Paris, London, New York: Société des Beaux-Arts. Gautier, Théophile. 2002. Mademoiselle de Maupin [1835]. In: Romans, contes et nouvelles I, edition etablie sous la direction de Pierre Laubriet, avec, pour ce volume, la collaboration de Jean-Claude Brunon, Jean-Claude Fizaine, Claudine LacosteVeysseyre, Peter Whyte. Paris: Gallimard (“Bibliothèque de la Pléiade”). Hugo, Victor. 1986. Toute la lyre. In: Œuvres complètes. Poésie IV, présentation de Bernard Leuilliot. Paris: Robert Laffont. [I ed. 1888]. Keats, John. 1982. Complete Poems. Edited by Jack Stillinger. Cambridge (Massachusetts), London: Harvard University Press. Mariano, Emilio. 1966. “Le opere non compiute di Gabriele D’Annunzio negli archivi del Vittoriale.” Nuova Antologia, 1984, aprile 1966: 439–56. Pieri, Giuliana. 2007. The influence of Pre-Raphaelitism on Fin de siècle Italy: Art, Beauty, and Culture. London: Maney Publishing, Modern Humanities Research Association. Poe, Edgar Allan. 1984. Poetry and Tales. New York: The Library of America.

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Poe, Edgar Allan. 2002. The Complete Works of Edgar Allan Poe, vol. I. Edited by Charles F. Richardson. New York: Cosimo. [I ed. 1902]. Praz, Mario. 1970. The Romantic Agony. Translated into English by Angus Davidson. London, New York: Oxford University Press (first English edition 1933; second edition 1951). Praz, Mario. 1972. Il patto col serpente. Milano: Mondadori. Praz, Mario. 1999. La carne, la morte e il diavolo nella letteratura romantica. A cura di Paola Colaiacomo e Francesco Orlando. Firenze: Sansoni. [I ed. 1930]. Praz, Mario. 2002. Bellezza e bizzarria. Saggi scelti. A cura di Andrea Cane e Giorgio Ficara. Milano: Mondadori (“I Meridiani”). Prettejohn, Elizabeth. 2005. Beauty and Art (1750–2000). Oxford: University Press. Salinari, Carlo. 1962. Miti e coscienza del decadentismo italiano (D’Annunzio, Pascoli, Fogazzaro e Pirandello). Milano: Feltrinelli. [I ed. 1960]. Shelley, Percy Bysshe. 1975. The Complete Poetical Works II. 1814–1817. Edited by Neville Rogers. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Sighele, Scipio. 1911. “I tipi femminili nell’opera di Gabriele D’Annunzio.” Nuova Antologia 940 (febbraio 1911): 609–29. Tosi, Guy. 2013. D’Annunzio e la cultura francese. A cura di Maddalena Rasera. Lanciano: Carabba.

chapter 17

Paradise Saved and Lost of Fin de Siècle Aesthetics: Matelda and Mariana in the Works of Giovanni Pascoli Francesca Irene Sensini et tornerian con la prima beltade gli anni de l’oro et la felice etade. Pietro Bembo, Gli Asolani 1.III

⸪ 1

Pascoli’s Idea of Beauty: The Pre-Rational or Prenoetic

In his notes entitled Elementi di letteratura, Pascoli gives us the answer to the ultimate question in aesthetics: “What is beauty after all? It is the harmony of an expression with the primitive, primal and naive depth of our psyche. It is the prerational”.1 Pascoli’s definition of beauty stems then from the correspondence between the subject and his innate and innocent self, and lies at a pre-rational stage of human development. This stage is embodied by the Eternal Child, the so

1  “Il bello che cosa è dunque? […] è l’accordo d’una espressione col fondo primitivo e ingenito e ingenuo della nostra psiche. È il prerazionale …” (Pascoli’s italics. My transl. unless otherwise specified). After Benedetto Croce’s harsh criticism in the review “La Critica” (20th January and 20 March 1907), Pascoli aimed at achieving the Elementi di letteratura as completion of Il Fanciullino and response to the Estetica. Unfortunately this essay was never published during his lifetime. The drafts were found in Pascoli’s archive at Castelvecchio by Maurizio Perugi and published in 1991 (Perugi 1991, 415). The word “prerational” and its synonim “prenoetic” are hapax in the works of the author. Although the source of this expression in Pascoli remains still uncertain, we can suppose it derivates its particular meaning from Plotinus’s writings. Cf. in particular Bussanic 1988, 172–200. We intend to investigate further into this subject in a future paper devoted to Pascoli. With regard to the leading relevance of Giovanni Pascoli in the Italian literature, we refer to the miscellaneous volume Pascoli e la cultura del Novecento (2007).

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2019 | doi:10.1163/9789004388956_019

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called “Fanciullino”, which is not only a prominent aesthetic concept, but also a multifaceted character within the author’s symbolic system.2 Since it refers both to primitive man and the child, that of the Eternal Child is both a historical and psychological concept. Pascoli’s Fanciullino neither lacks reason nor is he beyond it; rather, he is prior to reason. Fully aware of the progress made in the scientific field at his time, Pascoli finds in modern biology – namely in the concepts of ontogeny and philogeny developed by Ernst Haeckel (1834–1919) – a confirmation of his own theory: “Because of a law that Haeckel found out and demonstrated, the childhood of all mankind survives in us. Every one replicates, in the short development of his own life, the long natural and moral history of humankind”.3 At this stage of human evolution, the individual gets to know the world through the senses. It is his awe of things that gives rise to the intuition of their deep meaning, which is hidden behind empirical data. Thus, the subject and the world are in perfect harmony: “Everyone takes possession of the world thanks to a merely sensory experience that we call intuition; and we associate it with an inexhaustible awe”.4 At this stage, language and poetry merge quite naturally: “For the early poets, the givers of names, poetry was necessity. Their language was naturally poetic”.5 As the human being continues to evolve, this paradise-like wholeness reveals to be a fixed-term condition, whose loss is caused by the encounter with both civilization and adulthood. From that moment on, the individual will only be able to experience the world through dichotomies or dualities. The prerational experience beauty is lost. As a first consequence, the subject will form two codes to express reality: “Two kinds of expression: one neutral or, as we shall call it, necessary, common, usual, conventional; the other one, aesthetic”.6 Thus, in order to experience the primitive/childlike Edenic condition anew, and retrieve the words to express pristine beauty, the modern poet must cope with the problem of restoring such lost pristine harmony. As Pascoli points out 2  To examine in depth the subject we suggest the recent detailed study by Bani and Gouchan (2015). 3  Perugi 1991, 407: “Per una legge riconosciuta e dimostrata dal Haeckel, sopravvive in noi la fanciullezza del genere umano. In noi, in ognun di noi, si ripete, nel breve corso della nostra vita, la lunga storia naturale e morale dell’umanità”. 4  Ibid.: “Ognun di noi prende possesso del mondo con una conoscenza meramente sensibile che si chiama intuizione, accompagnandola con una meraviglia inesauribile.” 5  Ivi, 411: “Nei primi poetanti, nei nomenclatori, poesia era necessità. La loro parola era naturalmente poetica”. 6  Ivi, 407: “uno neutro, e come lo chiameremo, necessario, comune abituale, convenzionale, l’altro estetico. Soltanto nel primordio umano – storico e individuale – questi due modi si fondono in uno”.

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in the Elementi di letteratura, the difficulties of this challenge are the modern poet’s true “tormento”, “agony”: What does the modern poet do? […] It is an epiphany (scil. Beauty). When he tries to express it, he cannot find the right words … He creates words as best as he can. He does what the child and the savage do – Why? Because the inner and outer world appear to him at that moment as they appear to the child and the savage. Intuitive knowledge.7 Hence the correspondence between poetry and the awakening of the subject’s sleeping primitive/child. Rousing this faculty is neither easy nor straightforward: since the subject is not a primitive being/child any longer, he can only reach his goal by a roundabout route, “altro viaggio”, “another road” (Dante, Inferno I, v. 91).8 This process, as defined in the Fanciullino, includes both an active and rational process, through the study of the past and the practice of memory, and a passive and emotional process, through the experience of amazement, which brings about the spark of intuition.9

7  Ivi, 408: “Come fa il poeta recente? È un’apparizione (scil. la bellezza). Quando si prova a renderla non trova le parole adatte … Crea, come può, le parole. Fa quel che fa il fanciullo e il selvaggio – Perché? Perché il mondo interno ed esterno gli è apparso in quel momento nel modo che apparisce al bambino e al selvaggio. Conoscenza intuitiva”. 8  For the italian edition of Dante’s Comedy we refer to Sapegno 1985. Dante’s translations are due to an American poet Pascoli appreciated, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (Longfellow, 1886–1891). 9  According to Pascoli’s aesthetics, the perfect correspondence between words and things, between subject and reality is distinctive of the primal condition of life and impossible to recover. To return to primitiveness/childhood and to be able to express oneself poetically, one must accept the mediation of the code. No “straightforward pathway”, as Longfellow translates “via diritta”, is possible. The voyage back is the result of the action of both memory and intelligence and implies the creation of a rough and artificial model. This recovered childhood will show the traces the inappropriate filter was not able to erase completely. At the highest level of poetical expression these remains can give out the “meaning beyond”, the “soprasenso”. The destination won’t be the reality in itself – the true one – that the modern poet perceives always through opposites, but a tool to understand it, a model to read it beyond the surface of things. Poetical language is thus essentially a “dead language” since it is not customary and it is the opposite of conventional language. Its main feature is mystery. Thus the poetical act corresponds to a transcription of the mystery of things. That’s why poetry is symbolic: it is an effort to match the fragments of a lost whole. The symbol is a way to vivify the abstractions, to turn the logos into mythos. Cf. Perugi 1984.

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Voices from Paradise Saved: Matelda

In the XIII chapter of Il Fanciullino (1907), Pascoli explains the meaning of “studio” applied to the return to the childlike muse. He asserts that poetry cannot be created by taking inspiration from books or by imitating them, and adds that Italian authors “study far too much to be able to create poetry” and yet not enough “to achieve knowledge”. According to Pascoli, the effort made while studying turns out to be misleading: “We study too much to make poetry; and it is redundant to add that we don’t study enough to know. We turn to study for things it has nothing to do with.”10 Learning must be properly focused lest it ends up to be not only useless, but also harmful as it may even turn the poet into a “rhetorician”. According to Pascoli, the proper aim of studying is outlined in a myth – “so right and beautiful” – he had found in Dante’s Commedia. As we will explain farther, Pascoli’s reading of Dante, especially his interpretation of the “childlike soul”, offers us the key to enter his own aesthetics. Usually disregarded as marginal or too tangled, Pascoli’s lectura Dantis is instead crucial to pierce the symbolic system of the author. In this paper we aim at focusing strictly on this standpoint to demonstrate the relevance of this approach still too much neglected in the studies devoted to Pascoli. The myth is about the arrival of Dante in the Earthly Paradise, the threshold to Heaven, where the pilgrim can eventually see Beatrice in God’s glory. Pascoli specifies he does not want to focus on the moral meaning of the passage, but rather on its aesthetical significance.11 On this enchanted ground Dante, 10  “Noi studiamo troppo, per poetare; ed è superfluo aggiungere che, per sapere, studiamo troppo poco. Mettiamo lo studio ove non c’entra.” (Pascoli. 1971. Il Fanciullino, in Id., Prose, vol. I, 40). 11  At the same time as the reading of James Sully’s Studies of Childhood, first published in England in 1895 (Pascoli read the French version released in Paris in 1898), the study of Dante helps the poet to fix other important categories of his poetics: “l’oratoria ingenua” and the “l’etopea dell’astratto” as relevant features of the language of amazement; the upward gradation between metaphor, allegory (as continuous metaphor transferred on the plan of metonymy) and the multiple meaning or “polisenso” corresponding to the highest approximation between the literary meaning and the meaning beyond the words, the “sovrasenso”, which is the peak of poetry. It results from the collision between philosophical and emotional language and produces the oxymoron. The oxymoron reconciles all the paradoxes operating in true modern poetry: the tension between prose and poetry, artifice and naivety, study and love. Dante’s Commedia thus becomes the example of the harmony between pure poetry and applied poetry: the use of personification, essence of the Stil novo and the highest level of “vivification”, “vivificazione”, of abstract thought (Perugi 1982). The structure of the Commedia is based on this proceed consisting in unsoldering the accident from its substance, the attribute from the subject, which means personifying a “passion”, a “psychic event” and create a

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Sir John William Waterhouse, study for Dante and Matilda (formerly called Dante and Beatrice), about 1914/1917

the viator, encounters a mysterious woman named Matelda. She lives in the locus amoenus of innocence, where mankind lived before the fall. She is the vivid image of joy and grace. She sings and dances while picking up the most beautiful flowers laying before her, and looks as blissful as a woman in love. The role of this bright-eyed lady is prominent in the Earthly Paradise: she purifies the souls from the burden of sin by immersing them in the rivers of Oblivion and Good Will. Dante undergoes this ritual as well, thus regaining his strong and free will and becoming ready for the ultimate vision that awaits him in Heaven. According to Pascoli’s reading of Dante, Matelda is the personification of art in general and poetry in particular, whereas Virgil, Dante’s guide through Hell symbol to be understood as polysemic and boundless. The Commedia is the model of a polysemic poetical word, of the symbolic nature of absolute poetry. Pascoli’s major works focusing on Dante are Minerva oscura. Prolegomeni: la costruzione morale del poema di Dante (1898); Sotto il velame. Saggio di un’interpretazione generale del poema sacro (1900); La mirabile visione. Abbozzo di una storia della Divina Commedia (1902); and the posthumous Conferenze e studi danteschi (1921).

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figure 17.2

Gustave Doré, illustration for Dante’s Purgatorio XXXI, 101–2

and Purgatory, is the personification of learning. Hence, it is learning that leads the poet to his own art, Poetry: Has studying anything to do with poetry? Indeed it has, but it must be aimed at what Dante showed us. It is Virgil, who personifies studying, that leads him to Matelda, who embodies art both in general and in particular, and Dante’s art is specifically poetry. Therefore it was studying

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to lead Dante to poetry. Well, Matelda, or poetry, is in the garden of innocence, she picks up flowers while singing, has bright eyes, and she purifies the souls in the rivers of Oblivion and Good Will. All considered, we may say that through his studies, the poet eventually succeeded in getting his childhood back, and, as pure as he is now, he can clearly see and effortlessly choose: indeed, he can now freely choose which flowers to pick up as they seem to appear at his feet.12 In the notes to the Elementi di letteratura, Matelda is mentioned again as an inspiring Muse from the outside, a distant memory of a Paradise lost. In other words, in Pascoli’s visionary atheism, Matelda is the memory of poetry as a metahistorical and psychological condition of empowerment and bliss: The Muse. She’s like an alien, coming from outside, while we are unconscious. Is it a memory? […] Matelda is the Muse or the Musaeus or poet’s own science or Dante’s own art. She dwells in a state of pristine innocence. She belongs in the primitive golden age of human race, she belongs to mankind’s childhood. The deus, the theà, she is our childhood, our pure intuition, where concepts cannot be mixed up.13 Hence Matelda is a mirror image of pre-rational beauty and of poetry as the best expression of beauty itself. All the features of the Eternal Child thus converge in Matelda’s myth, they are innocence, primitiveness and, last but not least, morality, as mirrored in Matelda/Poetry’s prior-to-sin condition. According to Pascoli’s interpretation of Matelda’s myth, Dante’s aim was to point out the redeeming role of poetry in human history; the same role Pascoli assigns to truly modern poetry on the threshold of “the new era”.14 Seen as 12  “Non c’entra nel poetare lo studio? Sì, ma diretto al fine, che Dante mostrò. Virgilio, che è lo studio, conduce Dante a Matelda che è l’arte; l’arte in genere e in ispecie. L’arte di Dante è appunto la poesia. Dunque lo studio condusse Dante alla poesia. Ebbene, Matelda, o la poesia, è nel giardino dell’innocenza, sceglie cantando fior da fiore, ha gli occhi luminosi, purifica nei fiumi dell’oblio e della buona volontà. Ossia, il poeta, mercé lo studio, è riuscito a ritrovare la sua fanciullezza, e puro come è, vede bene e sceglie senza alcuna fatica, sceglie cantando, i fiori che pare spuntino avanti i suoi piedi.” (Pascoli. 1971. Il Fanciullino, in Id., Prose, vol. I, 40). 13  La Musa. Estranea pare, venuta di fuori, con nostra incoscienza. Un ricordarsi? […] Matelda è la Musa o il Musaeus o la scienza propria del poeta o l’arte di Dante stesso. È nell’innocenza originale. È nel tempo primitivo aureo dell’umanità, è nella nostra fanciullezza. Il deus, la theà, è la nostra fanciullezza, la nostra intuizione pura, senza mescolanza di concetti (Perugi 1991, 411, 415). 14  “The new era”, “L’èra nuova”, is the title of a speech held by Pascoli in Messina in 1899. On this occasion proclaimed his faith in a palingenetic process to be accomplished in the

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the embodiment of the metahistorical artist in search of his lost childhood – i.e. the power to express himself – Dante becomes Pascoli’s guide to set up a new moral code intended to direct the poet’s action.15 Since the very essence of beauty is good,16 such an action will not be limited to aesthetics but will involve philosophy and ethics as well. Thus Matelda will eventually become not only the embodiment of Beauty/Poetry, but also of perfect happiness in active life.17 In Pascoli’s view, Dante’s journey back to innocence conceals a meta-literary tale where Hell and Purgatory represent the Tradition the modern poet must recall in order to gain access to a secret and yet universal message: both a new voice of his own and the old voice of mankind. Unlike Dante, the modern poet cannot be purged in the river Oblivion. He can only see his reflection in its waters. Instead of becoming innocent again he sees himself reflected in the original innocence and recognizes himself. Unlike Dante, the “reflected poet”18 does not continue his journey to Heaven and Beatrice – where in the bliss of contemplation language would be replaced by silence. He remains in Eden with Matelda to achieve his destiny. 3

Echoes from Paradise Lost: “La Servetta di Monte”

If on one hand Matelda embodies the ideal fulfillment of Beauty and Poetry, there are other similar characters that reveal the difficulties of the journey back to her. The servant girl in the poem La Servetta di Monte is one of those. Published in the first edition of I Canti di Castelvecchio,19 in 1903, La Servetta di Monte is a poem composed of forty-two novenari, divided into seven six-line following century thanks to the progress of science and to the consciousness of death as ultimate meaning of human destiny (Pascoli, 1971. L’èra nuova, in Id., Prose, vol. I, 107–23). 15  As a scholar of Dante, Pascoli basically acts as a theorist of aesthetics. His essays on the subject must be read not only as a series of guidelines to text interpretation, but also as a covert handbook of aesthetics. He actually builds most of his own poetical system upon the structure of Dante’s “allegorical drama”, as he defined it. 16  Pascoli states it clearly it the notes of the Elementi di letteratura: “To me poetry equals morality. That which is beautiful is also good. Or, I’d rather say that beauty does not exist; good does” (“Per me la poesia è moralità. Quel che è bello è anche buono. O a dir meglio, non esiste il bello – esiste il buono”). Perugi 1991, 407. 17  She is the figural achievement of the biblical Lia, the personification of active life, whilst her sister, Rachel, personifies contemplative life (Pascoli. 1971. Sotto il velame, in Id., Prose, vol. II: 717–24; Conferenze e studi danteschi. Matelda, 1514–24). 18  Regarding the notion of “reflected poet”, “poeta riflesso”, in Pascoli we are referring to Perugi 1988. 19  Pascoli. 1982. Canti di Castelvecchio. A cura di Maurizio Perugi. Milano: Il Saggiatore.

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stanzas of six verses each. The main character is a young maid in a country house. Everyone else has left and she is in the kitchen, “alone and wild”: “la serva / è in cucina, sola e selvaggia” (vv. 1–2). She is not working, she is still and her actions can be summed up as observing (first stanza) and hearing (second stanza): “osserva” (v. 3), “fa un giro con gli occhi” (v. 5), “ritorna a guardarsi” (v. 6); “non ode che” (v. 9), “non ode che” (v. 11).20 She looks around and stares at humble, trivial things: the cooking utensils hanging from the row, her own apron; in the quietness of the empty house, she can hear the slightest sound: a fly against a window pane, a bubbling pot on the stove. In the third stanza the servant girl is not the subject of these actions anymore but rather the silent audience of minimal visions and sounds animating the house: stillness invites mice to peer out from their den as boiling water keeps bubbling. The last two lines of the stanza eventually introduce another sound: this time coming from outside and far away: “un campano”, “a bell” (v. 18). The walls of the solitary house are thus virtually broken and the last four stanzas describe the events taking place in the countryside: the clanging bell belongs to a donkey climbing up a trail in the distance. Even though the sight of the animal is discontinuous as it climbs up the steep path among the trees – “si vede e non si vede più” (v. 22) –, the sound of its bell is not only clear but steady: “si sente / sonare continuamente” (v. 23–24).21 The fifth stanza gives us some hints about the hour of the day and the season: though the day is declining and a “fiocco di luna”, “moonflake”, (v. 26) is to be seen in the sky, the night has not fallen yet because it is summer. These phenomena lead the lyrical subject to express his purest joy through three exclamatory sentences in a row: “come è dolce questo ritorno / nella sera che non imbruna! / per una di questa serate! / Tra tanto odorino d’estate!” (vv. 27–30).22 The climbing of the donkey up the hill implies that the animal is on its way back “home”, to the stable to rest for the night and can be compared to the young the maid’s own eagerness to return home, to her native village in the mountains. The experience whether real or mental of coming back is nonetheless “sweet” because the evening is clear and full of summer scents. In the sixth stanza the servant girl is once more clearly mentioned as the subject of vision and hearing. Now, she can only partially hear the sound of the bell: “la ragazza guarda, e non sente / più il campano che a quando a quando”

20  A detailed analysis of the character’s action in the poem can be found in Curi 2005. 21  “The second you see it, it is already out of your sight”; “you can hear it sounding constantly”. 22  “How sweet it is, this going back / while the sky has not yet grown dark / in one of these nights full of summer scents”.

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(vv. 31–2).23 Other sounds are now louder in the background: the river roars, the wind blows through the branches, as the nightingale starts singing and the owl hoots in the night. These songs will end at dawn, when the meadow-lark will start to sing along with the Angelus bell, summoning all the faithful to their morning devotions. 4

Beyond the Literary Meaning

This canto deals with the myth of the “child soul”, where Dante’s concept of the “anima semplicetta”, “the simple soul”, interwines with the theory of the “Eternal Child”. As always in Pascoli, there are words and topics that are used as markers and lead the reader beyond the literal meaning, towards a symbolic one. The choice of a servant girl and her own intrinsic features – lonesomeness, wildness and ignorance – immediately put the reader on the right trail, following the code of the author. From an aesthetic standpoint, servitude characterizes the subject who has lost the voice of his childhood and struggles to free himself from “the thick layer of rust that time has set down on our soul” in order to return to the pristine experience of Beauty, i.e. Matelda – or Poetry. From the moral standpoint, Dante viator is not free either, but equally enslaved, “servo”, in the “forest dark” which is, in Pascoli’s vision, the potential sin Adam’s offspring is subject to. This is the reason why Dante had gotten lost in the forest. He was lost because, due to the weakness of his will, he was unable to distinguish between the true and the false good.24 The lonesome wildness of the character hints to her primitive nature, her tie to the origins of humanity, and, at the same time, her lack of experience: “non c’è nulla ch’essa conosca”, “there is nothing that she knows” (v. 7) echoes Purg. XVI, 88, “l’anima semplicetta che sa nulla”, “the simple soul, that nothing knows”, described to Dante viator by Marco Lombardo. The visions and the sounds of stanzas 2–4 are an image of the process through which the simple soul becomes aware of reality and tries to understand it. These perceptions are apparently too minimal and irrelevant to unveil a 23  “The girl is staring around and only now and then can she hear the bell”. 24  “Il peregrino era infatti servo e cieco […]. Egli è l’anima umana, la quale si trova sempre ripetere quel primo fallo; poiché ella è, in ogni uomo che viene al mondo, così fanciulla e parvola come quando la prima volta uscì di mano a Dio” (“The pilgrim was actually enslaved and blind […]. He is the human soul that keeps committing the same sin; he is within every human born into this world, as young and childish as he was when God’s hand created him for the first time”). Pascoli. 1903. In Or San Michele. Prolusione al Paradiso, 10. Messina: Vincenzo Muglia.

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significant message to the subject. In reality, he cannot fully experience a voice or vision: he can only get elusive hints and inarticulate sounds from reality. Nevertheless, at the end of the poem Pascoli seems to suggest that the subject can find a way to complete his experience and understand its hidden message. 5

The Two Marianas

Aesthetically speaking, the visions and sounds described in these verses correspond to the precept of the “minor images” that can enhance the perception of reality in its complexity and distinctiveness. Pascoli found this principle expressed in Spencer’s Philosophy of Style.25 In the third chapter, Spencer mentions a passage from the poem Mariana by Tennyson as a model of “arrangement of minor images in building up a thought”. He points out that “each of the facts mentioned presupposes numerous others, calls up these with more or less distinctness; and revives the feeling of dull solitude with which they are connected in our experience”: “All day within the dreamy house, / The door upon the hinges creaked, / The blue fly sung i’ the pane; the mouse / Behind the mouldering wainscot shrieked, / Or from the crevice peered about” (vv. 61–5). This passage of Mariana is evidently a perfect match to vv. 9–15 of La Servetta di monte: “E non ode che qualche mosca / che d’un tratto ronza ad un vetro; / non ode che il croccolio roco / che rende la pentola al fuoco. // Il musino aguzzo del topo / è apparito ad uno spiraglio / è sparito, per venir dopo”.26 The two poems share more than these formal parallels. Tennyson chose the quotation Mariana in the Moated Grange, from Shakespeare’s Measure for Measure, as the epitaph for his poem, first published in 1830. Just like Shakespeare’s protagonist, Mariana, the servant-girl is alone in a farm and she is abandoned by her lover, Angelo, after her dowry is lost in a shipwreck, hence, 25  From 1896 on Pascoli builds his own linguistic theory upon the works of Max Müller and Herbert Spencer: respectively Letture sopra la scienza del linguaggio, as translated by Gherardo Nerucci in 1864 and The Philosophy of Style, released for the first time in 1852 (it is not known whether Pascoli read the English or the French version of The Philosophy of Style, under the title of Essais de morale, de science et d’esthétique, published in Paris in 1871). The philologist and orientalist provided the theory of linguistic roots, apparent in the so called turanian languages. The anthropologist and sociologist provided the concept of “early association” connected to “the principle of the least effort”, very much appreciated by Pascoli, who considered that the Italian literary code needed to “smarten up” (for further reading, cf. Perugi 1988). 26  “She can only hear some flies / suddenly humming on a window pane; / she can only hear the hoarse bubbling / of the pot on the flame. // The sharp face of the mouse / showed up from a crack / and disappeared, to show up again afterwards”.

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Photo by Julia Margaret Cameron, Mariana in the Moated Grange, 1875

in a “moated grange” she waits for him to come back: “there, at the moated / grange, resides this dejected Mariana”.27 Thus, in Mariana, Pascoli could find not only the practical application of a major guideline in his own poetics, but also the ideal narrative situation to convey the yearning of the soul for true love, i.e. the true good, that is to say, Dante’s God and/or Pascoli’s Beauty.28 As a matter of fact, in Pascoli’s poetical system, the esthetical and moral drama of the soul trying to get back to child27  Shakespeare, William. Measure for Measure III i 212ff. 28  Pascoli was influenced by Tennyson and translated his Ulysses (1842) in the anthology of literature for schools Sul limitare (1900). As declared in the preface to I Poemi conviviali

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hood is often represented in the form of a love drama where the lover and the beloved are but two faces of the same individual who is striving to reach a state of wholeness. According to Pascoli’s interpretation, Dante viator and the couple Virgil/Beatrice are but two functions within the same soul. Thus, Dante is the hoping soul who has lost his way to love and Virgil and Beatrice represent love, respectively in active and in contemplative life.29 As a consequence, we may say that on one hand, the servant girl represents the happy lover who can finally reach her beloved – the Earthly Paradise of Beauty expressed through Poetry – whilst her English double is the miserable, deserted lover, doomed to isolation and folly. Mariana is then the perfect representation of the soul caught in the cage of her deceitful desire – which is rather like an obsession for a man unworthy of her devotion, “a false image of good”. She keeps waiting in tears to no avail, as “he cometh not”, he will not come. She cannot “look on the sweet heaven / Either at morn or eventide” (vv. 15–6) and she is scared of the voices and sounds of nature and all incidents that may turn into ghostly delusions: “old faces glimmer’d through the doors / Old footsteps trop the upper floors, / Old voices called her from without” (vv. 66–72). Since she has mistaken her passion for true good and could not see her mistake, she is doomed to be buried alive in the grange, as if she were already dead and as she wishes she could be. Unlike Tennyson’s and Shakespeare’s, Pascoli’s Mariana, if we may call the “servetta” so, is neither deluded nor is she doomed to despair and living death. Although she knows nothing and her experience of reality is apparently meaningless, still she has the strength to look beyond the grange, up to the sky and is not afraid of being alone. She can still find her “sweet way back”. Just like Dante’s divine grace was symbolized by both the sun and moon (Inf. I 41–2), here, the light in the sky and the presence of the moon suggest that the girl is not in despair.30 Last but not least, in the last stanza, also the nightingale’s awakening (1904), he took inspiration from this poem for his Ultimo viaggio. Philip Horne gets into more details on this matter (Horne 1985). 29  “L’anima che si era data altrui, che aveva perduto, o meglio smarrito, l’amore del vero bene, si trova con quella che vive senza speme. L’una si integra con l’altra. L’una è quella che spera e l’altra è il suo amore.” (“The soul that devoted itself to a false good, that lost, or better strayed from, the love of true good, finds itself with the hopeless soul. One fits in the other. One soul hopes as the other loves). Pascoli.1971. Conferenze e studi danteschi. In, Id., Prose, vol. II, 1596). 30  Pascoli rephrases Dante’s passage as follows – focusing in particular on the sin of sloth: “tristi non dovevano essere nell’aer dolce e nel sole; questo e quello dovevano essere farmaco alla loro tristizia” (“they must not have been desperate in that delicious season under the sun; the season and the sun had they to heal their despair”). Pascoli. 1971. Sotto il velame, in Id. Prose, vol. II, 406.

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John Everett Millais, Mariana, 1851

may be connected to the survival of hope despite the lack of certitudes, allegorized by the darkness of the night. That hope will eventually be fulfilled at sunrise when the countryside will be filled with the sounds of meadow larks and the church bells. Thus, the full sound of music in full daylight – “il cielo della tottavilla” – will ultimately confirm that the way back home has been found at last: that’s the way to true good and true love, in other words, the way to Beauty and Poetry.

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6 Conclusion Matelda embodies both Beauty as “a pre-rational instance” and Poetry as the possibility for mankind to express their pre-rational experience. On the one hand, Beatrice represents the perfection of contemplative life, and on the other – if we consider both the moral and philosophical components of aesthetic experience – Matelda stands for the perfection of active life. Through the servant girl and the English model behind her, Mariana, Pascoli stages the struggle of the child soul against its own weakness in the process of understanding the nature of reality and good/love, that is to say Beauty in Pascoli’s system. Thus, if the servant is the soul of the poet who comes back to Beauty and can see himself reflected in pristine innocence, Mariana is the lover deluded by erotic experience, seen as the most dangerous of all the false images of good. She is the child soul left unable to blossom and to ripen. Forever stuck in a dark forest, Mariana is the desperate prisoner of her own innermost obsessions. Yet, both characters personify the poet’s quest for Beauty as absolute good/ love and its ambiguity: on one side, the servant is a “fulfilled figure” of Matelda: as she is the love of the poet (his love of Beauty and Poetry expressing it) that has finally become effortless and in full harmony with reality. On the other, her secret paradigm, Mariana, is a warning against the dangers the “pargoletta” may run into: an active and passive image of the deceptive nature of human desire. References Acone, Giuseppe. 2012. Il fanciullino di legno: immagini letterarie dell’infanzia tra Collodi a Pascoli. San Cesario di Lecce: Pensa. Aymone, Renato (a cura di). 2013. Giovanni Pascoli a un secolo dalla sua scomparsa. Avellino: Sinestesie. Audeth, Nina, Havely, Nicholas. 2012. Dante in the long Nineteenth Century: Nationality, Identity, and Appropriation. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Bani, Luca, Gouchan, Yannick. 2015. La figura del fanciullo nell’opera di D’Annunzio, di Pascoli e dei Crepuscolari. Milano: Cisalpino. Boldt-Irons, Leslie, Federici, Corrado, Virgulti, Ernesto (eds.). 2007. Beauty and the Abject. New York, Bern, Berlin, Bruxelles, Frankfurt am Main, Oxford, Wien: Peter Lang. Bussanic, John. 1988. The One ant its Relation to Intellect in Plotinus. Leiden: E.J. Brill. Capecchi, Giovanni. 1997. Gli scritti danteschi di Giovanni Pascoli, con appendice di inediti. Ravenna: Longo.

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Curi, Fausto. 2005. “Gli stati d’animo del corpo.” Studi sulla letteratura italiana dell’Otto e del Novecento 61–2. Bologna: Pendragon. Datta, Venita. 2011. Heroes and Legends of Fin-de-siècle France. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Dehrmann, Mark-Georg, Nebrig, Alexander (hrsg.). 2010. Poeta philologus. Eine Schwellenfigur im 19 Jahrhundert. Bern, Berlin, Bruxelles, Frankfurt am Main, New York, Oxford, Wien: Peter Lang. Goldhill, Simon. 2011. Victorian Culture and Classical Antiquity. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Havely, Nicholas (ed.). 2011. Dante in the Nineteenth Century: Reception, Canonicity, Popularization. Oxford, Bern, Berlin, Bruxelles, Frankfurt am Main, New York, Wien: Peter Lang. Horne, Philip. 1985. “Pascoli, Tennyson, and Gabriele Briganti.” The Modern Language Review 80: 833–44. D. Larson, Sharon. 2005. ‘Femme de siècle’: Malevolent Female Sexuality, Masculinity and Linguistic Authority in the Decadent Novel. Providence: Brown University. Laurent, Béatrice (ed.). 2015. Sleeping Beauties in Victorian Britain. Oxford, Bern, Berlin, Bruxelles, Frankfurt am Main, New York, Wien: Peter Lang. Lavalva, Rosamaria. 1999. The Eternal Child: The Poetry and Poetics of Giovanni Pascoli. Chapel Hill: Annali d’Italianistica. Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth (trans.). 1886–1891. Dante Alighieri, Divine Comedy. Boston and New York, Houghton, Mifflin and company, Cambridge: The Riverside Press. Montandon, Alain (éd.). 2001. Mythes de la décadence. Clermont-Ferrand: Presses Universitaire Blaise Pascal. Pacchioni-Becker, Paola. 2004. Matelda e il Paradiso terrestre nella Commedia di Dante Alighieri: Intertestualità e tipologia. Frankfurt am Main, Berlin, Bern, Bruxelles, New York, Oxford, Wien: Peter Lang. Pascoli, Giovanni. Prose. 1971. A cura di Augusto Vicinelli. Milano: Mondadori. Pascoli, Giovanni. 1980–1981. Opere. A cura di Maurizio Perugi. Milano-Napoli: Ricciardi. Pascoli, Giovanni. 2007. Due scritti inediti di esegesi dantesca. A cura di Massimo Seriacopi. Firenze: Le Càriti. Perugi, Maruzio. 1982. “La ‘vivificazione’ nell’estetica pascoliana.” L’altro versante 2: 42–8. Perugi, Maurizio. 1984. “Fra Dante e Sully: elementi di estetica pascoliana.” In Giovanni Pascoli: Poesia e Poetica. Atti del convegno di Studi Pascoliani (San Mauro, 1-2-3 aprile 1982), a cura di Edoardo Sanguineti et al., 225–309. Rimini: Maggioli. Perugi, Maurizio. 1988. “Morfologia di una lingua morta (i fondamenti linguistici dell’estetica pascoliana).” In Atti del Convegno internazionale di studi pascoliani, 171–233. Barga: Tip. Gasperetti.

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Perugi, Maurizio. 1989. “Pascoli, Shelley, and Isabella Anderton, ‘gentle Rotskettow’.” Modern Language Review 84: 51–65. Perugi, Maurizio. 1989. “Pascoli dall’Inghilterra.” Filologia e Critica 14: 268–75. Perugi, Maurizio. 1990. “The Pascoli-Anderton Correspondence.” Modern Language Review 85: 595–608. Perugi, Maurizio. 1991. “Elementi di letteratura di Giovanni Pascoli.” Filologia e Critica XVI (3): 401–18. Perugi, Maurizio. 2007. “Elena e il suo doppio (Per un Pascoli europeo).” In Atti del Convegno internazionale su Pascoli e la Cultura del Novecento, a cura di Andrea Battistini, Gianfranco M. Gori, Clemente Mazzotta, 285–332. Venezia: Marsilio. Sapegno, Natalino (a cura di). 1985. Dante, Divina Commedia. Firenze: La Nuova Italia; Sensini, Francesca Irene. 2010. Dall’Antichità classica alla poesia simbolista: Ricerche sui Poemi conviviali. Bologna: Pàtron. Seriacopi, Massimo. 2009. Pascoli esegeta di Dante. Firenze: Le Càriti. Tropea, Mario. 2012. Giovanni Pascoli: tra simbolismo e problemi dell’Italia post-unitaria. Acireale: Bonanno. Valerio, Sebastiano. 2015. Letteratura, scienza e scuola nell’Italia post-unitaria: Pascoli, Graf, Trezza. Firenze: Cesati.

chapter 18

Eugenio Montale: For the “Incredible, Wonderful Face” of Clizia, between Photographs, Letters, the Palio and Other Verses Epifanio Ajello In memory of Pérette-Cecile Buffaria Je suis un poète qui a écrit une autobiographie poétique

Eugenio Montale, “Gazette de Lausanne”, 1965

⸪ It becomes difficult for a photograph to establish the notion of beauty or, in the words of Benedetto Croce, “accomplished expression”. To be part of the category of the judgments on “beauty”, it does not necessarily need to have the requirements of the so called artistic photographs. Nor to belong to aesthetic theories or philosophical reflections if, obviously, we abstain from investigating the effects of this medium on the concept of visual or from considering it as one of the privileged perspectives employed to understand modernity in its own complexity (Flusser 1987). Certainly, providing a definition of what the photographic beauty defines and whether it depends upon the technique or not as well as what it represents is not an easy task. We can accept the assumption that a snapshot can be defined as “beautiful” for what it communicates, in terms of its aesthetics (also following the author’s intentions), under a certain viewpoint, for a choice of perspective and light, for what we add and subtract to it or, finally, for the care we preserve it, being very dear to us. Thus, the beauty of a photographic image, beyond the style enclosing the figure, always deals with an occasion (probably intimate), with a possible, implicit, narrative development, for its own propensity to belong to something rather than to the banality of evidence. The photograph does not exist as a tool in itself but it conveys what it represents: ”Quoi qu’elle donne à

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2019 | doi:10.1163/9789004388956_020

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voir et quelle que soit sa manière, une photo est toujours invisible: ce n’est pas elle qu’on voit” (Barthes 1980, 18). Photographs belong, more or less, to two main classes: multiple and singular. The former are the ones that we usually browse and throw away; sometimes they are just scraps of reality; they depict but they are rarely able to convey emotions. They are pictures that inform and testify; they have a denotative aspect or a deictic function, for they give witness by means of themselves: here, this, there, today, yesterday. On the other hand, the singular photographs are the ones that you contemplate silently (usually on your own) and that sometimes make you sigh. Roland Barthes defines them as “surérogatoire, qui tenait plus que ce que l’être technique de la photographie peut raisonnablement promettre” (ibid., 110). They do not follow any criterion and they are not classifiable; the sense is enclosed in what they privately manage to tell (even to those who are not part of the image). The latter are the less analogic ones since they are able to project space and time forwards becoming, therefore, prophetic. Indeed, according to Juri Lotman – “the time of a [photographic] portrait is dynamic, its present is always full of memory from the past and premonitions for the future” (Lotman 1998, 67). Sometimes, you find them isolated in your hands as it happens with dreams, which do not observe any precedence or “subsequence” (I pressapapiers, Quaderno di quattro anni) and make you eager to participate, to get in what you see as if they were well-functioning revolving doors through which existences freely crowd together in exit and entrance, between personal destinies and photographic images. To explain it using Montale’s lines of Interno/Esterno, which are very applicable to photographs, they are “a piece of eternity / wandering on its own / maybe waiting for a reintegration in ourselves”. They are the portrait-photographs, the ones that retain a sense of mourning, of something that no more exists, but they are also the ones that – as Barthes notices – depict a love relationship with somebody and that are deprived of their original power when there is not a love relationship, even only virtual, with the portrayed person (Barthes 1979). To this latter class belongs, in fact, the black and white photograph portraying the American woman Irma Brandeis, alias “Clizia”, protagonist of several poems by Eugenio Montale. It is around this “incredible and wonderful face” that we attempt to do a physiognomic analysis, noticing how certain photograms may represent, for Montale, “illustrated objective correlatives” in this case visible and identifiable. However, this does not mean that some black and white items are questioning the Hermeticism testified by a personal pronoun, by a “you” or that they reveal its secrets. Indeed, as Giacomo Debenedetti already

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figure 18.1 Irma Brandeis (Contorbia 1996, 153)

inferred in his “Quaderni inediti”, before the identity of Irma Brandeis was acknowledged: “Here, the Hermeticism of the interlocutor is determined by real but unrecognisable notations, kept in aspects that do not usually mark a portrait of a woman, since they belong to her intimacy and categorically characterise her identity but are not recognisable if you are not aware of her personal story” (Debenedetti 1974, 45). In the first 158 letters (plus one)1 that Montale sent, from 31st July 1933 to 11th December 1939, to Brandeis, far away in America, the poet always insists on her sending to him “snapshots” in order to recognise her exactly as she is, so that not to “make a cruel war against memory.” The quotation is taken from one of the letters dated 3rd October 1933:

1  Montale’s letters were donated by Irma Brandeis, on the 12th October 1983, to Alessandro Bonsanti at the Vieusseux Cabinet allowing him to publish the letters only twenty years after the delivery. Together with the letters, Brandeis also gave him some copies of her photographs.

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Snaps snaps snaps! I need one of your negatives where you recapture Irma as she is. I will arrange for them to be enlarged. Send me a lot, ask you friends photographers. For a type like you, a skilful photographer is not needed; many instant pictures made without thinking about it and without any pretentions is what I need. Also, try a half-length photo with the blue cloche and those lovely earrings of last night; and also a lot without the hat. The important is that I recognise you as you are and that I don’t have to make a cruel war against memory (3rd October 1933).2 And again, anxious, on 31st October of the same year, he insists on receiving good quality photographs (i.e. the outfits, the poses etc.): Of all the photographs, only one seems to be suitable; in one of them, I can’t recognise you. Anyway, there is a progress but send me many others and, if there is a good one, send me the negative. Don’t take all the pictures in profile. I would like one with the cloche of the last time and the earrings.3 He does not want any “suggestive photographs”, but “a speaking and alive head”, and this is what he writes on 25th, September 1933: Photographs, evocative … but … but Irma is another thing. I don’t want anything aesthetical, anything of fortune; I would like a simple head, speaking and alive, that I can enlarge as much as possible, with the wellclear recognisable, light blue, Austrian eyes.4 On 19th, February 1934: My dear caterpillar, send me about forty snapshots, because I have the impression that tonight you are the rabbit hole girl and that the mail will not bring me any news. Thus, as the papers testify, Montale will have at his disposal, privately, a considerable amount of photographic material (partially lost) possessing not only practical memorial tools but also precious “occasions” to properly use or possibly translate into verses. More precisely, this particular “productive” 2  Montale 2006, 17. 3  Ibid., 27. 4  Ibid., 15.

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figure 18.2 Esterina Rossi (Contorbia 1996, 80)

relationship between photographic portrait and poetry, not free from a certain “metaphysical anxiety,”5 to quote Contini, gradually abolishes any irreducibility among genres which can be observed (and listed) for other women of Montale, also simply leafing through the pages of the precious photo-biographical book Immagini di una vita, edited by Franco Contorbia (1996). Here, there are some of the poet’s muses collected and laid out in black and white. For example, Esterina Rossi from the poem Falsetto (1924), caught in the instant of the dive into the Cinque Terre sea, the exact one where: “you hesitate on the top of the trembling board, / then you laugh, and as incited by the wind / you fall into the arms / of your divine friend that grabs you […]”, without considering the frequent and invisible characters of Ossi di Seppia: Paola Nicoli (Contorbia 2006) and Bianca Fochessati Messina (Montale 1995); or Anna degli Uberti, that is Arletta Annetta, protagonist of Casa dei Doganieri, of Vecchi Versi, of Eastbourne; and also the very ephemeral love for the “young Peruvian panther”, i.e. Maria Rosaria Solari,6 protagonist of the first three Mottetti of Occasioni 5  Ibid., 6. 6  Ibid., 116, 122.

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figure 18.3 Anna degli Uberti (ArlettaAnnetta), 1920 (Contorbia 1996, 66)

figure 18.4 Maria Rosa Solari (Contorbia 2006, foto 19, no page number)

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figure 18.5 Dora Markus’s legs (Contorbia 1996, 122)

figure 18.6 Gerti Tolazzi, 1932 (Contorbia 1996, 115)

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figure 18.7 Maria Luisa Spaziani (Volpe), photo by Eugenio Montale (Contorbia 1996, 218)

figure 18.8 Drusilla Tanzi Marangoni (Mosca), 1927 (Contorbia 1996, 109)

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as well as of the poems Punta del Mesco and Sotto la Pioggia (Greco 1980, 87). However, above all, there is the snapshot of Dora Markus’ legs, philologically exemplary poetic source that, prompted by Roberto Bazlen, who sent the picture to Montale by mail, gives birth, by fortune and as required, to the first part of the homonymous poem (ibid., 78): “Gerti and Carlo: Good. In Trieste, their host, a friend of Gerti, with amazing legs. Make her a poem. She is called Dora Markus” (Bazlen 1984, 381). We will also have an accurate snapshot of Gerti, Gerti Frank Tolazzi, muse of the second part of the poem Dora Markus.7 Also, there will be the “Fox” (i.e. Maria Luisa Spaziani) of Madrigali Privati (in La Bufera e l’Altro), and, finally, always present in Montale’s life, “la Mosca”, that is to say Drusilla Tanzi Marangoni of La ballata scritta in una clinica (La Bufera e l’Altro) and of Xenia (i.e. Satura) that the poet will marry in 1962, a year before his death. Nonetheless, the princeps woman who imposes herself, enchants, in this real “polypier d’images” (Contini 1996, VI) has been the American woman, Irma Brandeis, the protagonist of a troubled relationship, which has lasted several years (Cambon 1984, 345)8 kept secret by the author.9 The woman accompanied his poems with a constant presence, either implicit or explicit, with the pseudonyms Clizia, Iride or Iris, blended in rhymes with other women whose real transfiguration incidence in poetry will always remain uncertain, i.e. Lucia Rodocanachi (Contorbia 2006). The portrayed “severe face in its sweetness” of a distant Irma will be, “only begetter”, the hidden actress of a long romance included in the Mottetti (excluded the first three) of Occasioni, a collection entirely dedicated to her for the initials (I.B.), since the Mondadori edition of 1949 and that will be the addressee (the “you”) of poems like Elegia di Pico Farnese, Nuove Stanze, Palio, Costa San Giorgio, Notizie dall’Amiata and many others, passing through all 7  Il viaggio di Gerti. Gerti Frank Tolazzi (1902–1989). Mostra documentaria. Trieste, 14 dicembre 2005–12 gennaio 2006. [catalogo a cura di] Waltraud Fischer. Trieste: Archivio e centro documentazione della cultura regionale, 2005. 8  “Without being asked, Eusebio passes from the poetic to the biographic level to precise me that ‘Clizia was in Italy from 1933 to 1938 and that she left for her country, the United States, and we did not meet anymore’”. Indeed, Montale did not meet Irma Brandeis during his trip to New York, in 1950, even if in the two articles written on that occasion, it is still possible to see some references (wittingly hidden by the author): “twenty years ago, I would consider as express travellers those friends who came and go from Genova to New York in a dozen of days” and again: “I’m not saying that American women are all the same; the ones I met in Italy were not alike”. Cf. Montale 1969, 117, 125. 9  The name of Irma Brandeis has always been kept secret by Montale (in poetry as well as in his real life) until it was widely revealed, after the poet’s death, in public interventions by Gianfranco Contini and Luciano Rebay. Cf. Forti 1985, 93.

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the verses of Finisterre (excluded the poem A mia madre), and crowding the successive collection Bufera e altro (1956). Since this latter, it will be part of the whole section Silvae up to the “provisory conclusions” of Piccolo testamento.10 She will appear, sung and remembered, together with other “you”, in different parts of Satura (1971) as well as in Botta e risposta I, Ex voto, Senza salvacondotto, and Due prose veneziane. In Diario del 71’ e 72’ (1973) she will be present with the initials (A.C.); in Quaderno di Quattro anni (1977) her image crowds again the poems Ex voto, Due destini, Morgana and, above all, I ripostigli. Montale, finally, will clearly remember her, nearly fifty years later, in the twelve poems11 which constitute a uniform block, an almost new compact Mottetti (post-dated) written from 1976 to 1980 that will be part of the collection Altri versi, from Il mio cronometro svizzero aveva il vizio up to Credo (Montale 1980). Thus, it can be defined as a long “solemn (and desperate) love poem”, as Montale describes it, when he writes to Contini on 11th December 1935,12 composed on a summer day (possibly on 15th July) in 1933, when Irma Brandeis, a Dante scholar, was in Florence and knocked on the door of the Viesseux literary cabinet, located on the basement of the Palace of Guelphan side, then directed by Eugenio Montale (De Caro 1996, 181).13 She wanted to meet the author of Ossi di seppia, since she had read his poems and a brief literary profile published on the bulletin of the Italian House of Columbia University (Marcenaro, 1999: 87). It will be a “fabulous encounter”, soon turned into a declared “veneration” (i.e. the poem Clizia nel ‘34) that, between absences and disappointments, will continue until 1939, all documented by the missives sent by the poet to Brandeis (all the ones sent by the woman have been lost with 10  Greco [1980], 33; Forti 1985, 57–8. 11  “According to a preliminary calculation, at least a dozen of the last literary works seem to belong to the Clizian cycle, included ‘Clizia nel ‘34’ and ‘Perché la vita fugge’, with which we are, respectively, on 5th and 20th January 1980, that is nearly fifty years later the beginning of the cycle.” Cf. Rebay, Luciano. 1982. “Montale, Clizia e l’America.” Forum Italicum 16 (3): 171–202: 180. 12  “Read this canto of mine; here it has left everybody impassive. To me, it doesn’t seem to be unworthy. Judge it and absolve (or condemn) me. But think about all the sincere background. Do you know the legend referred to? It is the most antique (personal) form of that hallucination: here doubled with other meanings. Maybe too many. In any case, it is a (desperate) love poem.” Cf. Isella 1997, 27. Here Montale is referring to Brandeis and to the poem Costa San Giorgio published on “Caratteri” in 1935. 13  However, as Luciano Rebay testifies, Montale confided “to have met Brandeis in a small hotel by the Arno, where she stayed, and to have been enchanted by her beauty”. Cf. Rebay 1996, 275–6. To resolve the issue here is the passage taken from Montale’s letter to Brandeis: “I hope you won’t be fed up with the man you met one day at the Vieusseux Cabinet that you maybe delayed to look for”. Cf. Montale 2006, 234.

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the exception of one).14 However, the affectionate relationship will last beyond the brief Florentine season, if we consider the last note that Montale sent to her, after several years of silence. It was handwritten, with a trembling, nearly illegible writing, on 15th June 198115 (Montale dies 12th September of the same year): “Irma, you are my Goddes, / my divinity. I prie for you, / for me. Forgive my prose. / when and how are we going to meet?/ your Montale hugs you.”16 It is now time to show all this through concrete examples. I will try to merge, with the right proportions, blending the times, only three poems with two photographs.17 Two poems, taken from the senile collection Altri versi, are 14   Ibid., 131. 15  The date is written by Irma Brandeis at the bottom of the note. The text is reproduced in facsimile in Rebay 1998, 667–75. 16  “It was the last time I went to visit him, on 25th June 1981, that is two months and a half before his death that he suddenly started to talk about Irma Brandeis as a person in flesh and not just as a poetic projection linked to real experiences […]. He asked me whether I had any recent news about I.B.; I answered that I had sent her the translation of Dopopalio and that she sent me a thank you note. He then said: ‘If you’ll have the occasion, please tell her that I still remember her with great affection. Tell her that I’d like to have a photograph of her. The one that I mention in Dopopalio is almost faded’”. Cf. De Caro 1996; Rebay 1996, 275–6. 17  A further annotation: the photograph-object of Montalian use, neither is to be collocated in the crepuscular canon, nor is to be confused with the use of art objects of Guido Gozzano, who skilfully handles the daguerreotype giving birth to what happens in Casa Speranza’s saloons, that is to say films and appearances all theatrically imagined and sprinkled with ironical-nostalgic dust. In Gozzano’s opinion, objects are ruins “from the past” to be dated and piled up (and to be picked up when necessary) in the exemplary attic-dictionary of Signorina Felicita for nostalgic exercises wisely made ironic by the author. In Montale, on the other hand, the objects’ geography is much more complex and characterised by two main aspects: firstly, objects are neither adorned nor precious but they are usually poor; secondly, they are never imaged but, instead, they are concrete, tangible and can be found into an absolutely voluntary memory as private experience such as the Mediterranean objects of Ossi di Seppia, where “lanterns and boats” appear; the “playing cards”, the “journals” of Vecchi Versi, the “megaphones” and “trucks” of Buffalo […] and the technological and daily items of Via Bigli of the last period. Cf. Blasucci 1998, 667–76. Nonetheless, next to these objects of use provided with “occasions” of experienced memories, there are many others which are able to convey magical virtues, that can be associated with the definition of amulets, that is to say those objects that, willing or not, assume an epiphanic function, capable (if rubbed) of making miracles and verses ready to “betray their last secret” equipped with salvific and epistemological functions too. Sometimes, they are personal items placed with other objects of daily use that do not possess any miracle qualities: “you have put on your night table / the wooden bulldog, the alarm clock / with the phosphorescent hands / that releases a soft brilliance on your half-sleep […]” (Ballata scritta in una clinica, La bufera e l’altro); “maybe / you will be saved by an amulet that you keep / next to the lip-liner, / the powder puff, the nail file: a white ivory / mouse; that is how you exist.” (Dora Markus, Le Occasioni). However,

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Nel ’38 and Quartetto, written in 1978 and 1979 respectively, whereas the third one, Palio, belongs to Occasioni and was composed in 1939. The photographs concern the two trips together in Siena to see the Palio and were taken (we do not know from who), respectively in 1934 and 1938, during a brief return of the American woman to Florence during the second half of July in 1938.18 With Altri versi we are on the last frontier of Montale’s poetry, the one characterised by verbs conjugated in the past tense, by vestiges of images, reconstructions of lands, faces, “carabattole” (i.e. bits and pieces), where the parody and selfirony that reached the acme with Satura becomes quite, leaving out, in this way, “an empirical, naked and chronicle redundancy” conferring “an epiphanic and symbolic value” upon the memory (Luperini 1986, 238). However, all that also conveys a different characterization of Clizia, who appears deprived of her redeeming role as well as of her hallucinatory function performed in La bufera, privately asleep (in Botta e risposta II, Satura) and pregnant with carnal features of the beloved woman who, when mentioned, reappears and disappears scattered everywhere as she is in the reconstructed memory, helped by what the little paper still retains in image, i.e. the so-called portable “screen of images”. Let us start with the first instant photograph, the one of the after palio of 1938 that will give voice, in a perfect diptych, to the senile poems of Altri versi: Quartetto (initially entitled Dopopalio) and Nel ‘38. This is the photograph defined as “yellowish/ nearly shattered” portraying, drowned in a multitude of posing faces, the “incredible and wonderful” face of Irma Brandeis, among a series of heads looking down (maybe in a self-photograph). Beyond Montale, recognisable as the last person at the bottom, it is possible to notice, sat in line, a group of friends coming from the ‘Dopopalio’ in 193819 (they were all hosted at Vivante’s villa, in Solaia), they are: Paolo Vivante, Elena De Bosis Vivante, Irma often, the same useful objects belonging to the certitudes, to the “big din of the street”, can be carpeted with “revelations” with the photograph being one of them; it is practical and magical at the same time, it oscillates between the physical and metaphysical in a constant overturning of the sides and their final breaking. Irma Brandeis’ snapshot, in Montale’s hands, reconstructs scenes, retrieves voices and allows to enter into another time, that is lost and, therefore, very precious, close and able to open spaces to new signifiers. 18  There is also an additional photograph taken in 1938 as indicated by the author, referred to a trip of Brandeis with Montale to the ruins of the ancient Portus Lunae, where Crizia does not physically appear but it is still possible to perceive her presence, remembered in the poem Luni e l’altro (Altri versi). Cf. Morando, Simona (a cura di). 1996. La casa sul Magra e altri paesaggi montaliani. Bocca di Magra: Edizioni Capannina, 44–6. 19  During the summer of 1933 Brandeis took a trip to attend the bullfight of the Palio not accompanied by Montale, who expresses his bitterness in a letter of 19th September

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From left side Paolo Vivante, Elena De Bosis, Irma Brandeis, Leone Vivante, Camillo Sbarbaro, Eugenio Montale. Villa Solaia, Siena 1938 (Contorbia 1996, 177)

Brandeis, Leone Vivante and Camillo Sbarbaro.20 These are the “photographs of use” that, together with others, results of snapshots or self-shots by Irma herself, will be requested and sent by Montale to the Vivantes, in Solaia, and to Brandeis. These copies have been preserved by her, as Montale’s letter of 16th September 1938 testifies: “here are the photographs. I sent a copy to the Vivantes”.21 So, both photographs, Nel ’38 and Quartetto, were born – I am using an approximate term – from the connotation with the photographic image and both may stand under them as captions. Nel ’38 recites: “We were with a few friends / in the Dopopalio / and we stopped to take / photographs of use. / I still have got 1933: “If only you knew how much I feel Siena belonging to you! I would breath you in its streets”. Finally, they will attend the Palio together in 1934 and 1938. Cf. Montale 2006, 13. 20  The photographs are now collected (in part) in the photographic album of Irma Brandeis, donated to the Vieusseux Cabinet. Montale explicitly refers to these snapshots when he writes to Brandeis “I will delay a bit in collecting and sending the photos to you” (30th August 1938). Cf. Montale 2006, 236. 21   Ibid., 240. Cf. also n. 7.

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one, yellowish / nearly shattered, / but there is your incredible face, / wonderful. / We were in ’38. /” (Altri versi). The poem Quartetto is almost a repêchage of the image itself: “in a yellowed snapshot / of forty years ago / found in the bottom of a drawer / your face severe in its sweetness / and your servant next to you; and behind Sbarbaro / bryologist and poet – and Elena Vivante / madam of all of us: and here us ready to see / four nags whipped till blood / in piazza conchiglia / in front of an enraged crowd” (Altri versi). Montale, somehow, makes permeable, crosses to what Calvino has defined as “the immeasurable gap between linguistic expression and visible experience” (Calvino 1988, 76). The pose is, in a sense, reorganised in a different perceptive itinerary. It becomes writing that is not a simple ekphrasis of the figure. The picture becomes a “thing” (to include among the typical montalian memorabilia), useful to place the image of the woman in a time that is paradoxically simultaneous summarised by the poet in an aphorism: “I have said forty years and maybe zero” (Quartetto) (Bonfiglioli 1958, Blasucci 2002). The duration, indelible place of every photogram, becomes indistinguishable between a “before and after”, and where, crowded, “all the sprains (shots) are contemporary” (In un giardino italiano, Diario del ’72). Only under these conditions may the miracle of an illusory return happen (like in Nuove Stanze) and it flawlessly happens in writing: “on that day, it was you” (Nel ’38); and the poet can be, again, in front of [your] intact “severe face in its sweetness / […] but how long? But how? And here recurs the execrable notion of time” (Quartetto). In this way, it seems to him to sit again at the borders of the plank, to pose, next to his Clizia, with friends, in the “dopopalio”, or at least to have the illusion to be able to do all that in an instant.22 Another horse-racing in Piazza del Campo was the occasion for a first trip to Siena, with Irma, in 1934, where there is a unique photograph testifying Montale and Brandeis sitting on the stage where, as Bettarini comments, “Irma and Arsenio are portrayed close together in the crowd in Piazza del Campo; him with a sullen face but dressed up like a dandy and her, very blurred, with 22  The same simultaneity in different times, as if placed on the same surface up to blend together in “one millionth of an instant”, can be found well defined in A Pio Rajna (Quaderno di Quattro anni) where “who digs into the past can understand that past and future are barely distant of a millionth of instant between themselves. And this is what happens to the overall ‘inspecting’ of the gaze in the time spent between the ‘objects’ left at their places, a place so much studied, / to some stuffed birds, to some journal’s cut out, / to the three or four medals /of which I will be robbed and maybe also to the photographs of some muses of mine / who never knew about it” (Ivi, Ai tuoi piedi). To conclude, this simultaneity can be found in those lands where all the images a long time contemplated stand out such as in Càffaro (Altri versi), in ghosts taken from the poem Quel che resta (Quaderno di quattro anni) or lonely feminine appearances (ivi, Aspasia).

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figure 18.10 Eugenio Montale and Irma Brandeis at Palio di Siena, 1934 (Bettarini 2006, no page number)

a pretty summery clochette.”23 We are not certain whether the poem entitled with the name of the event, Palio, written by Montale in 1939,24 is related to the image or, in a certain way, it establishes a place of cross-references. In any case, image and text lead to read reciprocal affinities: “your escape hasn’t been lost / in a turn of toy top on the borders of the street: / the run that slows down / its spirals up to this point / in the purple red hole / where a tumult of souls greets / the road signs of Liocorno and Tartuga” (Palio, Le occasioni). They are dense lines that still remind, stubbing, of a love passion likely to be interrupted 23  Montale 2006, 31. 24  1939 is also the year characterised by several incertitudes of the poet, finally ended with his final decision of not moving to the United States (which he deeply promised and desired) since he was already involved in the long relationship with Drusilla Tanzi, the so-called “Mosca” of Xenia that he will marry in 1962. This particularly emerges from the thirty-one letters sent by Montale to his lover in 1939, a kind of little island in the wider “epistolary novel”, full of details, little anectodes, musical discussions, rumors, friends’ names, books, journals, which reconstruct not only a love atmosphere but also a political one (cf. the references to “the cardinal”, i.e. Mussolini), the anxiety linked to the military expedition to Ethiopia, the notice of the close second world war, the racial laws already effective (Irma Brandeis was Jewish).

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by a final separation, in “a chance / that escapes even the destiny” and, “so get up, / up to the moment when the toy top consumes its pivot / but the groove remains still visible. Then, nothing else. (Palio, Le occasioni). Regarding the poet’s condition and procedure, we are not distant from lines 28–34 of the poem Flussi (Ossi di Seppia) of 1924: “our life will bring us back to the past / far away, shattered and vivid, printed / steady curtains / by an unknown lantern”. These lines, have been admirably illustrated by D’Arco Silvio Avalle as follows: “In Montale everything, that is gestures, acts etc. ends up with assuming an excruciating iconographic consistency […] here [i.e. in Flussi], indeed, for the first time it is pointed out that the past is printed into the memory not unlikely from the fixed images projected onto a tarpaulin by a magic lantern. So, here is the past; between an image and another, stuck in their instantaneity, no more links but just shots, one image after another, and so on, endlessly” (Avalle 1977, 131–2). The journey may be considered concluded now that indications sources as well as the chronologies have been properly placed. We have summarily glanced through a pastiche of particular “little things”. In regards to the latter, we were interested neither in the erotic vocation implicit in the photograms, nor in the undoubted transfiguration of a courtly love character, expressed in lines in an almost new Beatrice, “according to models more explicitly prone to convey the angelic and luminous identity of the feminine figure” (Surdich 1998, 421). Our focus was on something else, instead, which is the role played by the concept of a photograph as a signifier of some of Montale’s poems, where the feminine figure, as already mentioned, has not assumed, under this point of view, divine attributes. Indeed, it was not elevated in Clizia, the visiting angel – “the material point” to be clear – the “iron eyed [woman]” (Nuove stanze, Le Occasioni) who had “the feathers lacerated / by the cyclones” (Ti libero la fronte dai ghiaccioli, Le Occasioni) who crossed the ocean with “the wings encrusted and worn out by the Antilibano bitter cold […]” (Sulla colonna più alta, La bufera e l’altro) and who was properly transfigured into symbol. On the other hand, here, with images, there is no symbolic transfiguration possible; it is just the woman [i.e. Irma Brandeis] who “did not manage to disincarnate” and is a Muse without any disguise, en pantoufles (i.e. as she is), without any sacralisations typical of stil novo poetry or senhal. The feminine figure, thus, to use Contini’s own words, is part of “those hard objects that you bump in the darkness.”25 She is just the so defined “my dear Irma”, “in the flesh” (Montale 1996), addressee of his letters, who finally left for New York and that Montale will never see again (Brandeis dies on 29th January 1990). 25  Isella 1997, 29.

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However, it is exactly in this close connection between the couplet “photograph/poetry”, under the conditions of the photographic concept explained above, that from the poem’s lines emerges, appearing and disappearing, a relationship between a physical eroticism on one hand (nearly tangible in the emptiness of the separation from the beloved) and an abstract and dramatic metaphysic of the negative (or of the miracle) lived and suffered en plain air. This relation, put in prose, readable and documented, in negative, in the diary of the Clizian letters as Luigi Surdich summarises: “Reality is inclined forward transcendence in the moment when the object, represented in its concreteness and immediacy is distanced to be placed on the horizon of transcendence as representative emblem of the power of absence” (Surdich 1998: 444). The photograph, under these circumstances, nearly turns into an object of veneration through which it is possible to see the inanimate person again, emotively speaking, together with all the other features: minimal features such as, listed as follows, the fringe, the earrings, the little hat, all “capable of transforming a purely material element into an unreal phenomenon” (Fusillo, 2011: 21). In this sense and, again, under the photographic circumstances, Irma Brandeis’ snapshot, ambiguous object, is turned by the poet into a perturbing element, blending into a cryptic aura, into a pertinacious and anguishing ambivalence between an absence and a presence in image. The photograph identifies with the temporal experience of the poet carrying with it all its emotive charge and its incessant ability to transmit sensations: “the fetish, indeed, is not an unrepeatable unicum but, on the contrary, it is something that can be endlessly replaced. Nonetheless, none of the photographs’ subsequent personifications will ever be able to completely fill the emptiness that it testifies […] celebrating, always and only, its own mystical phantasmagoria” (Agamben 1977, 42). This is what happens to Montale when he handles useful items (i.e. the snapshots) representing Irma in the flesh but in absentia, as if they were “occasions” so tangible and licit to sensually show them in official requests: I would be really happy to have a decent photo of you. Why don’t you want to please me sending me ten negatives of your snapshots? (in all manners: with and without the hat, with and without the earrings). You have a seaside one, don’t you? You told me about it once. How can I resist one year without seeing your arms and your knees ? Do you think I am a stylite steady on the top of a column? I am talking about negatives – I will enlarge them. Do me this favour, Irma, little Irma, naughty Irma; like Guido Cavalcanti “molto di ciò ten preco” (please, I beg you!)”26 26  Montale 2006, 38.

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And he continues: Make an effort, try to get back to work and please me with the negatives of several snapshots. It’s unacceptable that I don’t have here with me one of your speaking photographs and, you know, less photogenic people get miracles with the enlargement of the snapshots. After all, don’t think that I’ve forgotten your face; there are days (and unfortunately nights) when I even manage to have you back and feel a nearly material contact: but not always is it possible to get into a trance to do that!27 Never will we know how this ephemeral and creasable tool has been capable of collecting destinies, telling stories and discovering why it happened; however, what we are certain of is that, somewhere, this really happened and we now know, certainly, even when it happened. For example, again observing Brandeis’ snapshot, that is the “little photograph – as Montale writes – that I still keep in my wallet and that is a little ruined by rubbing against other notes and cards so much, which is the only one that really resembles you”28 (letter of 29th July 1935) and we place it next to the poem Ripostigli, written by Montale forty years after, precisely on 30th December 1976, we can argue that it was exactly then that the snapshot, and nothing else, lead the syntax of a splendid poem entirely written for a still present Irma: “I don’t know where I have hidden your photograph. / had it come out, it would have been a mess / […] the snapshot as not of good quality: / a close up face, tousled hair / and those innocent eyes containing everything / and even more, what we will never know / us, men provided with briquet, not with lights”. (I ripostigli, Quaderno di Quattro anni). To conclude, it can be added a brief paragraph about how Montale’s poetry performs a photographic function (or procedure) since it reconstructs, by means of phrases, a visuality settled next to figurate memory, and fixed in “an euphoria of striking mental photograms (Garboli 2005, 137). It works in this way: reconstructing a figuration to bring out, perfectly accomplished, from a sort of “photographic bath” to reproduce it back in a negative that will be dried by writing that is not a mere description but that recollects (or summarises) all the untold laying around each snapshot or a succession of diapositives. This is seen in the following lines: first of all, the ending stanza of Verso Capua: […] and you distant waving a scarf, the starry / flag! And the greedy river buried under the sand” (Le Occasioni). Secondly, from the poem Interno/esterno (Altri versi): “that is why I see you / turning towards the boat / of the transatlantic that brings you to the New England / or together in Annalena’s / veranda […]”. 27   Ibid., 31–2. 28   Ibid., 165.

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Thirdly, from Nuove stanze: “more than the last leaves of tobacco / blows out at your gesture in the crystal /ashtray, rising slowly to the ceiling / the smoke spiral”. And finally, taken from the ending of La Bufera: “Like when / you turned back and with the hand, the forehead cleared from the cloud of hair / you greeted me – to get into the darkness”. But the discourse would bring us far away. Acknowledgements I thank Francesca D’Angelo for her revision of the English language of this paper. All quotes from Italian texts are translated by her. References Agamben, Giorgio. 1977. Stanze. La parola e il fantasma nella cultura occidentale. Torino: Einaudi. Avalle, Silvio. 1977. Satura: “Il grillo di Strasburgo”. Dalla letteratura al mito. In Eugenio Montale. Profilo di un autore, a cura di Annalisa Cima e Cesare Segre. Milano: Rizzoli-Bur. Barthes, Roland. 1979. Le Photographe. Interview by Guy Manderry. December 1980. Bazlen, Roberto. 1984. Scritti. A cura di Roberto Calasso. Milano: Adelphi. Bettarini, Rosanna (a cura di). 2006. Eugenio Montale. Lettere a Clizia. Milano: Mondadori. Blasucci, Luigi. Montale e l’oggetto tecnologico. In Il secolo di Montale: Genova 1896–1996, a cura della Fondazione Mario Novaro. Bologna: Il Mulino, 1998. Bonfiglioli, Pietro. 1958. “Pascoli, Gozzano. Montale e la poesia dell’oggetto.” Il Verri 2(4): 34–54. Calvino, Italo. 1998. Visibilità, Lezioni americane. Sei proposte per il prossimo millennio, Milano: Garzanti. Cambon, Glauco. Montale sull’ultima spiaggia. Pagine di diario. In La poesia di Eugenio Montale. Atti del Convegno Internazionale. Genova, 25–28 novembre 1982, a cura di Sergio Campailla e Cesare Federico Goffis. Firenze: Le Monnier. Contini, Gianfranco. 1996. Introduzione. In Contorbia 1996. Contorbia, Franco (a cura di). 1996. Eugenio Montale. Immagini di una vita. Milano: Librex, Mondadori. Contorbia, Franco. 2006. Una donna velata tra Lucia ed Irma. In Id. (a cura di). Lucia Rodocanachi. Le carte, la vita. Firenze: Società Editrice Fiorentina. Debenedetti, Giacomo. 1974. Poesia italiana del Novecento. Milano: Garzanti.

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De Caro, Paolo. 1996. Journey to Irma. Una approssimazione all’ispiratrice americana di Eugenio Montale. vol. 1. Irma un « romanzo ». Foggia: Matteo De Meo Stampatore. Flusser, Vilém. 1987. Per una filosofia della fotografia. Milano: Bruno Mondadori. Forti, Marco. 1985. Il nome di Clizia. Eugenio Montale: vita, opere, ispiratrici. Milano: Vanni Scheiwiller. Fusillo, Massimo 2011. Feticci. Letteratura, cinema, arti visive. Bologna: Il Mulino. Garboli, Cesare. 2005. Storie di seduzione. Torino: Einaudi. Greco, Lorenzo. [1980]. Montale commenta Montale. Parma: Pratiche Editrice. Isella, Dante (a cura di). 1997. Eusebio e Trabucco. Carteggio di Eugenio Montale e Gianfranco Contini. Milano: Adelphi. Lotman, Jurij Mihajlovič. 1998. Il girotondo delle muse: saggi sulla semiotica delle arti e della rappresentazione. A cura di Silvia Burini. Bergamo: Moretti & Vitali. Luperini, Romano. 1986. Storia di Montale. Roma-Bari: Laterza. Marcenaro, Giuseppe. 1999. Eugenio Montale. Milano: Bruno Mondadori. Montale, Eugenio. 1980. L’opera in versi. A cura di Rosanna Bettarini e Gianfranco Contini. Torino: Einaudi. Montale, Eugenio. 1995. Lettere e poesie a Bianca e Francesco Messina 1923–1925. A cura di Laura Barile. Milano: Libri Scheiwiller. Montale, Eugenio. 1969. Fuori di Casa. Milano-Napoli: Riccardo Ricciardi. Montale, Eugenio. 2006. Lettere a Clizia. A cura di Rosanna Bettarini, Gloria Manghetti, Franco Zabagli. Con un saggio introduttivo di Rosanna Bettarini. Milano: Mondadori. Rebay, Luciano. Montale per amico. In La Liguria di Montale, a cura di Franco Contorbia e Luigi Surdich. Savona: Sabatelli, 1996. Rebay, Luciano. Ripensando Montale: del dire e del non dire. In Il secolo di Montale: Genova 1896–1996, a cura della Fondazione Mario Novaro. Bologna: Il Mulino, 1998. Surdich, Luigi. 1998. Clizia dal ’34 al ’40. In Il secolo di Montale: Genova 1896–1996, a cura della Fondazione Mario Novaro. Bologna: Il Mulino.

chapter 19

P.V. Tondelli and the Cannibals’ Generation in Search of the Lost Beauty Agata Pryciak* Entering into a substantive discussion of various phenomena, be they historical, sociological or literary, poses an essential problem for the researcher: a lack of hindsight inevitably impedes the positioning of such a literary current, tendency or historical event into the cause – effect scheme; it becomes difficult to establish predecessors and frequently impossible to anticipate successors. The researcher, no matter how accurate his predictions might be, is only able to watch carefully for the first, vague signs and presages and attempt to guess at its future interpretations. After all, any such process is essentially contingent on our, innately subjective, point of view – a visitor from the distant future, for instance, benefitting from a more detached perspective, may judge it prudent to disregard all the subdivisions of twentieth-century stylistics, and apply instead an overall label (Eco 2010, 428). The relativity of evaluation seems to be multiplied in the delicate case of the perception of Beauty, which is capable of transforming itself depending on who is watching and the viewer’s contingent positioning in space and time. It is a process that happens right before our eyes and we are only able to discern a part of it; thus, we must content ourselves with what we have. Such might be judged an appropriate metaphor for the fragmentation and partiality characteristic of so much later twentieth-century art and literature. The idea of the postmodern has been an essential feature of critical theory for more than three decades; it is a testament, therefore, to the enduring relevance and complexity of the concept that its meaning remains the subject of vigorous, interdisciplinary contestation. The debate considers different definitions, the majority of which tend to be imperceptible or even contradictory. The unravelling of postmodern mind, by Cristopher Nash; The unspeakable dialogue in the postmodern world by Stephen Tyler; Postmodern: report of the half knowledge, Postmodernity and ambivalence by Zygmunt Bauman – it is sufficient merely to survey such titles in order to understand that it is virtually impossible to find a simple answer. The new context draws * A special thanks to my editor, proofreader and my dear friend Sean Donnelly.

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2019 | doi:10.1163/9789004388956_021

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on the profound changes in global economics, politics, ideologies and general paradigmatic shifts that, progressively from the Sixties has been transforming the face of the Western World. Nevertheless, the split with the previous époque of modernity is not decisive or complete; indeed, Jameson speaks about the postmodern as a different way to perceive modernity (Jameson 1991, 30–1), what Bauman judged a more distrustful or skeptical way (Bauman 2006, 40–5). Among the general principles we shall underline some characteristics which might prove useful in the course of our investigations. Particular attention should be given to indefiniteness, ambiguity and fragmentation which precludes the existence of one truth or a monolithic theory; irony aiming to establish a relationship with the past, unclear boundaries of art, which does not recognize a neat division with the everyday life: while being bombed from each and every directions by art-ish images, the distinction between design, commercials and art grows increasingly fluid. Moreover, one can clearly observe a general tendency of transmutation of genres into parody, into burlesque. Different styles become fused and indistinguishable. Suddenly, we have at our disposal some brand new senses – our perception extends itself on media, on new technologies. We are able to see, feel, perceive more and more, but, on the other hand, such constant, pervasive exposure to visual stimuli dulls our reactions, rendering us increasingly indifferent, more susceptible to boredom. Is it the first time boredom and abundance, excess of stimulation become driving forces of creation? Apparently not, since there have been similar phenomena declared in relation to the cultural crisis of Romanticism. Utterly indifferent at bottom to all form, and fully only of an unquenchable thirst for content, the more refined public demands from artist only interesting individuality. As long as there is an effect, as long as the effect is new and strong, the public is as indifferent to the manner in which – as well as the content within which – it occurs as it is to the agreement of the individual effect to form a complete whole (Schlegel 2001: 20). [… The beauty] is to such an extent not a governing principle of the modern poetry, that many of its most splendid works are openly representations of the ugly (ivi, 21). Whilst the words above could easily describe the reality of the age of televisual communication, they belong to Friedrich Schlegel, whom at the end of eighteenth century outlines a sharp division between what he calls modern art and classical art; emphasizing the essence of ugliness emerging in those

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turbulent times. A hundred years later, Arthur Rimbaud offers an idea of his own poetry, which sounds even more postmodern and surprisingly contemporary: Now me. Story of one of my imbecilities. For a long time I’d boasted of knowing all possible landscapes insideout and liked to poke out fun at the celebrities of modern painting and poetry. I loved idiotic paintings, door panelings, stage sets, backdrops for acrobats, street signs, popular prints, old-fashioned literature, church Latin, erotic books with terrible Sperling, the novels of our grandmothers, fairy Tales, little childhood storybooks, old operas, nincompoop refrains, naive rhythms. Rimbaud 1991, 33

Here, the beauty and the ugly blends with the common, the vulgar, getting even closer to the surreal patterns of aesthetics so characteristic of the contemporary (Tondelli 2005, 317–20). There is a famous comparison by Remo Ceserani, which brings the postmodern down to a colorful restaurant where one can taste different national dishes, perhaps enhanced with a touch of nouvelle cuisine, and where each and every client has a possibility to combine the courses according to his fantasy (Ceserani 1994, 373–74). Along with the Rimbaud’s description, those two embrace the idea of democracy or, as a matter of fact, polycracy of the postmodern, visible in all its aspects. In the never-ending debate on beauty the momentous contradiction goes beyond the Kantian distinction between beautiful and sublime (Abaci 2008, 237–51), its main weight moves towards its magnitude, diversity and multidimensionality. Paradoxically, the emancipation of post-colonial beauty, along with disappearance of the distinction between artistic levels – high brow, medium brow and low brow – should result in the emergence of one aesthetic able to break free from the grip of the Western culture, an unprecedented global aesthetic. In fact, it is a sublime idea to establish a unique model of beauty appropriate for the whole of humankind, one deeply rooted in our pre-consciousness, which, in the opinion of this author, is a sad, harmful and utopian concept. But in light of the unprecedented cultural influence wielded by the forces of mass media and unrestrained globalization, contemporary socio-cultural conditioning seems to be perfect; the beauty, with its unseizable and capricious character, continues to defy established definition and assumes different forms. Ultimately, all such aesthetic dilemmas are rooted in a question of individual taste, clearly, entirely subjective, not necessarily attributable to any of the historically affirmed canons. A single, personalized beauty does not have to be the beauty of the

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others, but its fragmentation, sketchiness does not make it any less beautiful than any other beauty. Indeed, the postmodern per se openly seeks to distance itself from classical aesthetics, approaching such canonical art in a playful and not-innocent way (Eco 1986, 528). It increasingly seems that the beauty is having a love affair with the ugly – we can constantly hear it from many sides that the opposition ugly/ beautiful has no more an aesthetic value – the ugly and the beautiful would be two possible options to be lived in a neutral way. In a world soaked with beautiful images, the antique inclination of beautiful to be considered aristocratic, exclusive, reachable only for some finds it cue in the birth of the beauty of provocation, contrary to the consumerist ideal of beauty; it is rebellious, perverted, subversive, fleeting and demanding. Indeed, when a contemporary observer reflects on classical antiquity, the Renaissance, both halves of nineteenth century, it is quite possible to enlist some of the distinguishing characteristics, or, at best, one and the only one fundamental contradiction between the eras. When it comes to our times, this task is virtually impossible and we have to content ourselves with detecting some antinomies among the beauty tendencies in a limited period of time. In the very recent Italian literary past the Seventies are often labeled as a period of artistic stagnation. The reason for that lays in the supremacy of politics and social activism, marked by a variety of revolutionary movements, terrorist attacks and heated ideological debate. There were only few up-andcoming writers, but the literary debuts of Gianni Celati and Italo Calvino became fundamental for many of young writers of the Eighties. The switch in the following decade undoubtedly revealed its reactionary and revisionist character and reflected the social longing for change. The literary critic points out a generational breakthrough: an older tradition characterized by stale morality, unable to communicate with a younger audience, is replaced by the letteratura giovane, literature ‘under 30’: young authors uninterested in traditional themes of social dispute and nationalism, and increasingly preoccupied with avant-garde concepts of linguistic context and structural experimentation. They sought to create a literature for literature’s sake, an aesthetic discourse detached from, and insulated against, the vicissitudes of contemporary politics and mass consumer-culture (Carnero 2010, 8–9). Such an ambition might be judged to embody the postmodern: polymorphic, relative, discontinuous as it is, with its propensity to favor games, bricolage, fragments, minor narration, subaltern voices, and a plurality of stylistics. It is commonplace for scholars to link the birth of Italian postmodernism with the success of Umberto Eco’s novel – The name of the rose, 1980: in accordance with modern tendencies – recycling, blend of different genres, plurality of voices, the marriage of ‘low-brow’ and ‘high-brow’ elements, a media product, a literature event, il caso Eco ‘the Eco case’, an academic

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postmodern. However, it is also possible to identify a representative of the “direct postmodern” (Kornacka 2016: 51), firmly anchored in the everyday and social experience of one of Eco and Calvino’s lesser celebrated contemporaries, Pier Vittorio Tondelli. His debut novel, Altri Libertini, 1980 (‘Other libertines’), exhibits many distinctive postmodern characteristics: the poetic of the fragment, stylistic and linguistic collage, provincialism, the midcult as the greatest resource of inspiration, as well as the introduction of subjects typical of minor literature such as drug addicts, homosexuals, tramps and vagrants, young people in search of their own identity. It is Tondelli with his emotive style of writing, based on the oral and linguistically multiform sources, who gave birth to a new generation of authors not yet rooted in any canon: to the Cannibali, the “under thirty”, the writers of excess. There are a number of labels coined with the specific aim of capturing the chaotic literary scene of the 80’s and 90’s, but undoubtedly the new generation is marked by a common trait: it absorbs, or, shall we say, devours the aesthetic categories of midcult and masscult: the music, brands, places, television programs, media and new media. In order to explain their relation with beauty, it is necessary to refer to the undeniable “classic” of the period: by following the artistic paths of Tondelli it seems to be easier to understand the aesthetics of Niccolò Ammaniti in his most cannibalistic period – the collection of stories Fango (‘The sludge’), from 1996, to see some traces of cannibalism in a curious case of an excessive autobiographical novel by Antonio Centanin / Aldo Nove. Apparently, among the drug addicts from Post Ristoro in Reggio Emilia, and in the spectral nightclubs lost in the remote areas of the Po valley of Tondelli, in the gloomy blocks of flats in the roman outskirts of Ammaniti, and in Aldo Nove’s red light districts of Milan there is just space for violence, deviation and raw carnality, with roaring media reality functioning as a unique soundtrack. But under this deafening layer one can perceive an undercover longing for a melancholic, broken beauty, an aesthetic found in nostalgic gazes, love affairs and flirts, in bacchanal orgies and in the desperate search for emotions, for the truth, for identity. The scandal that arose regarding the publication of Altri Libertini by Tondelli, the maestro of the Cannibali generation, is captured in the words of the general prosecutor of Aquila, who condemned the book as ‘obscene’ and ‘profane’ and consequently issued a banning-order on the text (Aspesi 1980, 12). In fact, the Emilian writer, in a variety essays particularly aimed at young authors, underlines the specific way to approach his writing, emphasizing his interest in the aesthetics of waste (estetica degli scarti) – a linguistic recycling. Tondelli’s aim is to immortalize on the pages of his novel the sound of the

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époque, and he intends to achieve this effect not only by drawing heavily from oral sources, but also by ornamenting his text with authentic inserts such as song lines, comics’ speech bubble sounds, commercial slogans, etc. Tondelli’s predilection for the eccentric and ambiguous, for ‘camp aesthetics’, which will shortly after evolve in the course of his artistic maturation, is already visible in the ghastly characters of Postoristoro and Mimi e Istrioni. The old prostitutes, weathered by time and drugs, the transsexuals, a bunch of junkies yearning for the next bag, for the next hit: a gruesome tribe that strolls around on the stage – a platform of a railway station in a place forgotten by God – they all seem indispensable elements of an impressionist theater play in black, white and grey, where instead of the spotlights there are only headlights of trucks crossing the deserted town. The beauty is an old and dangerous remembrance that appears suddenly in the crooked mirror of trips or in scenes of extreme cruelty, such as a lyrically depicted gang rape. It is not a beauty that one could associate with the truth, it is a beauty of deceit, of vain hopes, untrustworthy and elusive. In Altri libertini, the story from which the novel derives its title, the camp beauty appears in the form of the character Andrea from Milan, the ‘Lombard beauty’ (“bel Lombardo”).1 Upon his arrival to the province of Emilia Romagna he immediately becomes an object for the lustful pursuits of both men and women.2 This is a tragicomic story of an intrusion of an extraneous element: an embodiment of the world outside the province of Reggio that tries to blow up the balance of the group of friends, obsessed with his foreign charm. Here, there is the beauty to lead to abandonment; once again, the focus is on the dangerous, unreliable and illusory dynamics of beauty. This tendency reaches its apogee in Tondelli’s novelistic peak in the mid 80’s. In Rimini, published in 1985 the author retrieves the aesthetics of deceitful midcult beauty, by placing its action in the kingdom of kitsch, of Italian shore: the Wonderland of Adriatic Sea, the ludic amusement park, a non-place of mass seduction. Among the lights of its luxury hotels, sleepwalking characters in search of love affairs, wildcat peddlers, merchants of dreams and rampant consumers out of their daily routine, there is an emerging monster – the city, a consumer society in miniature that thrives on illusions and desires.

1  All translations are mine, unless indicated otherwise. 2   He is described as ‘his Majesty from Lombardy, supervitamised’ (“gran lombardo supervitaminizzato”, Tondelli 2005, 107), or as a ‘Foxy boy, high and beautiful, blonde and blue all over and colorful, a son of pure breed of male conquerors’ (“gran figone, alto e bello, tuttobiondoazurro e colorato, figlio della buona razza dei maschi trionfatori”, ivi, 109).

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Behind the façade built on beautiful appearances, Rimini hides the disgusting truth. If only the thick layer of luxury make-up failed, nothing could ever cover the naturalistic images composed of: bellies, swollen and white and scars from hernias and appendices, mastectomies, ulcers, kidney stones, gallstones, bladder stones, floppy tits and fatty thighs, fat rolls, armpits soaked with sweat, golden false teeth, fake hands.3 But Rimini knows how to keep its secrets. These are the bodies to decide on superiority and inferiority relationships: the physical aspect can have such a profound impact on the reality and thus being beautiful might be a deciding factor in striving for success, achieving it, and consequently gaining power. The ugliness appears rarely and is a sign of failure. In fact, Marco Bauer, the protagonist of the novel, observes the lithe, athletic bodies of Susy and his female colleague’s friends with a mixture of envy and admiration. Through their physical aspects and clothing, Rimini’s characters show only what they want to show, careful to guard against the leakage of any interior features. You are what the others see, at least in Rimini, hence the beginning of the cult of the beauty and eternal youth. With the seduction identified as the first scope, reachable by way of beauty, it is crucial to delve deeper into the character of the protagonists: Marco and Susy. Marco Bauer, a journalist sent to Rimini to run a summer supplement of a Milanese magazine, is narcissistic, ambitious and self-confident: soon he will have to deal with Susy, a beautiful colleague from the local editorial department – an experienced seductress, playing a skillful game of allurement, in which her physical beauty is her biggest asset. Her charm is irresistible and soon Marco, without realizing it, allows himself be seduced and rendering him a mere puppet in the hands of a female. The parallel narration appears to be a counterexample of the dominant approach to beauty, which, this time, is something more than just a frightening instrument of deception – in case of the love story between Bruno May, a young writer in the middle of an artistic crisis, and Aelred, a painter from London. During their first meeting, both actors are struck by physical attraction. The beauty of Aelred and his “savage eyes” appear to be for Bruno May a promise of inspiration, a hope to exit the moment of creative impasse. However, the 3  Tondelli 2005, 605: “Pance gonfie e grasse e bianche e cicatrici di ernie e appendiciti, mastectomie, ulcere, calcoli renali, calcoli alla cistifellea, alla vescica, tette flosce e cosce adipose, rotoli di grasso, ascelle fradicie di sudore, dentiere d’oro, mani finte”.

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seduction evolves into a story of mutual abandonment and leads to a dramatic outcome and to the suicidal death of Bruno May. It is once again a glimpse of beauty unexpectedly giving rise to tragedy. The echo of the story of Bruno and Aelred is to be found in the ulterior Tondelli’s novel, the only one that has been translated into English so far: Camere Separate in 1989 (Separate Rooms, London: Masks, 1992), where Leo, a writer in his thirties mourns the death of his partner, Thomas. Separate Rooms is undoubtedly the most mature work in Tondelli’s corpus. The story of beauty finally goes beyond raw sexuality and returns to the lyricism of the relationship between two male protagonists. The beauty explodes with the beginning of their affair and with the plot evolving over time, it enters into different stages: the fragile beauty of the first fascination, the bold beauty of strong emotion, the pathetic beauty of suffering – the piercing beauty of mourn. Tondelli died shortly after the novel was published. A blend of the beautiful with the gruesome and macabre is distinctly visible in the first short story of the collection Fango by Ammaniti, published in 1996. L’ultimo capodanno dell’umanità (‘The last New Year’s Eve of the Mankind’) offers a gallery of characters deliberately charged with grotesque detail: it is clearly intended as a miniature portrait of contemporary society, full of flaws, depravity, bugs, fetishes, corruption and violence. The inhabitants of via Cassia 1043, packed together in a ghastly complex of buildings somewhere in the outskirts of Rome, prepare themselves to celebrate New Year’s, each in their own, individual way. They do not know that the countdown will bring a much greater surprise than anticipated. The narration is a relentless flicking through “channels”: an invisible remote control enables the spectator – the reader – to gain access to the diverse mosaic of protagonists. Among two lazy slackers looking desperately for some fun, an attorney obsessed by sado-masochistic fantasies (extremely busy with his underage dominatrix with her lash), the elderly Countess Sinibaldi with her Prada shoes, and a Filipina housemaid with twenty-five-year-old lover, the one and only beautiful character to be found is Giulia Giovannini: Slender (…) two gravity defying chunks of mammary glands, a pair of long thighs, a high and solid ass. She seemed a Playboy bunny.4 Our protagonist, who both physically and mentally differs little from a Barbie doll, accidentally discovers about a sexual relationship of her fiancé with 4  Ammaniti 1996, 19: “snella, […] due grosse ghiandole mammarie incuranti della gravità, due cosce lunghe, un culo alto e sodo. Sembrava una ragazza del mese di Playboy”.

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her best friend. Hit by a wave of an unexpected rage, Giulia starts to plan a bloody vengeance, one that seems to be inspired by Tarantino’s movies. Such violence is rendered all the more grotesque when juxtaposed with the external innocence of Giulia’s physical beauty. The building itself, constructed “on a human scale, for those who desire to live in an oasis of exclusive calm and serenity”5 gives an impression of artificiality straight from a commercial brochure. As midnight arrives and the Apocalypse dawns in accordance with the wish of one of the protagonists who hoped to “make a bang which will be remembered for years and years”,6 the reader is moved to reflect upon the sinister beauty discerned by David Foster Wallace in the 9/11 terror attacks on the World Trade Centre. The “blue and silver and black and spectacular orange of [the explosion of the second tower hurt my eyes]”, Wallace recalled. The building “was falling so perfectlyseeming down into itself – I remember thinking it was falling sort of the way an elegant lady” might fall if she fainted (Wallace 2001: 32). This hideous beauty is strikingly evocative of the image of the sublime described by Immanuel Kant, who saw in a spectacle beyond the limits of our perception a contemplation of something mighty and magnificent (Kant 2010, 77–9). If Aldo Nove had written his novel, La Vita Oscena (‘The obscene life’; first edition 2010), two decades earlier, the scandalous debut of Tondelli would have passed completely unnoticed. Although the passage of time is not so very long, it vividly illustrates how critical approaches have evolved over the past twenty years: here, a careless reader can distil Nove’s narration down to the simple story of a youngster with a drug and alcohol problem, who draws from his deceased parents’ social support provision to fund a lavish and depraved existence among the drug-dealers and prostitutes of Milan. The story was immediately proclaimed a novel of formation, a Bildungsroman of the times we live in, and Nove himself confided that the text does, indeed, contain elements of autobiography. Nevertheless, he declared that it is more about sincerity and precision than about the actual truth – in either way the truth seems to be an essential issue in the journey towards an abyss composed of excessive drug-use and intemperate sexual desire, from which the one and the only escape leads to freedom and resurrection. The beauty is desecrated, it is not dreadful anymore, it is not deceptive nor false, the drug bangs are beautiful, the prostitutes of Dante’s Beatrice’s face are beautiful (along with those who resemble an elderly aunt), the mistress are beautiful, the trips are beautiful, the trans are beautiful: 5  Ivi, 36: “a misura d’uomo che desideri a vivere in un’oasi di esclusiva calma e serenità”. 6  Ivi, 49: “fare un botto che si ricorderà per anni e anni”.

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The loving look is beautiful, the whisper, the attraction one proves when a bare hand touches other’s body’s skin, the kiss, the bite, the light that floods the room in the very moment of orgasm, the breath breaking apart, the joy of the event, its obscenity, its purity.7 “It is a very short novel, written by a real poet. Boom! – Somebody could say. But the fireworks are beautiful, as sure as shootin’!”.8 These are the words of Lorenzo Cherubini vel. Giovanotti, an admirer of Nove’s, which confirm that the beauty, just like the literature evolved to a new plane: an orgy of tolerance, of endless syncretism, of an absolute and unstoppable polytheism. In fact, asked about his relationship with beauty, Nove replied: “The beauty is the truth, and the truth is beauty.” – once said a great poet. What is true, is beautiful. Obviously it is all about understanding what you mean by beauty. Let’s say that in front of beauty we have no excuses. If we do not like it, it must be something wrong with us.9 The overview of the short, but prolific period of Italian prose covering the last few decades can be extended to some general tendencies in international literature. In light of the many varied and complex ways in which Tondelli’s writings mirror the work of authors such as Kerouac, B.E. Ellis and Fante (Tondelli 2010, 461–514), Italian Cannibali might be considered a peculiar, national response to global post-modern trends of pulp novels, very much alike, yet completely different; demonstrating how modern provincialism represents one of the most distinctive features of contemporary prose. Analogically, the variety of approaches towards the beauty not only excludes the possibility of narrowing down it’s standards but also denies its existence – in the times of abundance and liberty, beauty is a highly competitive (and very unstable) market, subject to the constantly shifting demands of society. The beauty canon has always been characterized by flux and evolution, but never before has it adapted at such pace, never before was this process so 7  Nove 2010, 135: “sono belli gli sguardi d’amore, i sussuri, l’attrazione che si prova quando una mano nuda tocca la pelle del corpo, il bacio, il morso, la luce che inonda la stanza nel momento dell’orgasmo, lo spezzarsi del respiro, la riuscita dell’evento, la sua oscenità, la sua purezza”. 8  Cherubini 2011: “È un romanzo molto breve, scritto da un poeta vero. Boom! dirà qualcuno. Ma i fuochi d’artificio sono belli, su questo non ci piove”. 9  Nove 2014: “Bellezza è verità, e verità è bellezza”, diceva un grande poeta. Ciò che è vero è bello. Certo tutto sta a capire cosa si intenda, per bellezza. Diciamo che di fronte alla bellezza non abbiamo scuse. Se non ci piace, abbiamo qualcosa che non va”.

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volatile, so unseizable. One second we catch its glimpse in a kitschy picture, the other it strikes us through the majesty of destruction, subsequently we see it dancing with the hideous. The polycracy of the approaches shifts the focus from the beauty’s features to its real nature: can beauty be trusted? Where can it be found? Does it really exist? Whereas its gleam appears to be so deceitful, sometimes its dolorous absence and the immense yearning for what we cannot have can be the best praise. References Abaci, Uygar. 2008. “Kant’s Justified Dismissal of Artistic Sublimity”. The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 66 (3): 237–51. Ammaniti, Niccolò. 1996. “Ultimo capodanno dell’umanità”. In Id., Fango. Milano: Piccola Biblioteca Mondadori. Aspesi, Natalia. 1980. “Processo per bestemmie e tanto rock’n’roll.” La Repubblica, 10 marzo. Bauman, Zygmunt. 2006. Liquid Fear. Cambridge: Polity Press. Carnero, Roberto. 2010. Under 40. I giovani nella nuova narrativa italiana. Milano: Bruno Mondadori. Ceserani, Remo. 1994. “Modernity and postmodernity. Cultural change seen from Italian perspective.” Italica 71 (3): 369–84. Cherubini, Lorenzo. 2011. “Il nuovo romanzo di Aldo Nove è bellissimo assai”. Accessed January 20, 2016. http://www.soleluna.com/node/1586. Eco, Umberto. 1986. “Postille.” In Id., Il nome della Rosa, 505–33. Milano: Bompiani, [I ed. 1983]. Eco, Umberto, Praglia, Cristina. 2010. Storia della bellezza. Milano: Bompiani. Eco, Umberto, Praglia, Cristina. 2010. Storia della bruttezza. Milano: Bompiani. Foster Wallace, David. 2001. “9/11, The view from the Midwest.” The Rolling Stone, October 25. Jameson, Fredrick. 1991. Postmodernism, or the cultural logic of the late capitalism. Durham: Duke University Press. Jansen, Monica. 2002. Il dibattito sul postmoderno in Italia. Firenze: Franco Cesati Editore. Kant, Immanuel. 2010. Critique of Judgement. Edited and translated by J.H. Bernard. New York: Cosimo, [I ed. 1970]. Kornacka, Barbara. 2016. Fenomen młodych pisarzy w literaturze włoskiej końca XX wieku. Poznań: Wydawnictwo Naukowe UAM. Marchini, Arfio. 2014. “Tutta la bellezza del mondo. Dialogo con Aldo Nove.” Panorama, 6 maggio.

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Mondello, Elisabetta. 2007. In principio fu Tondelli: letteratura, merci, televisione nella narrativa degli anni Novanta. Milano: Il Saggiatore. Nove, Aldo. 2010. La vita oscena. Torino: Einaudi. Rimbaud, Arthur. 1991. A season in hell. Translated by Bertrand Mathieu. Rochester, NY: Boa Editions, [I ed. 1873]. Schlegel, Friedrich. 2001. On the study of Greek poetry. Translated and edited by Stuart Barnett. New York: State University of New York Press, [I ed. 1795]. Tondelli, Pier Vittorio. 2005. Opere. Romanzi, teatro, racconti. A cura di Fulvio Panzeri. Milano: Bompiani. Tondelli, Pier Vittorio. 2005. “Altri Libertini” in Id., Altri Libertini. A cura di Fulvio Panzeri. Milano: Bompiani, [I ed. 1980]. Tondelli, Pier Vittorio. 2005. Camere separate. A cura di Fulvio Panzeri. Milano: Bompiani, [I ed. 1989]. Tondelli, Pier Vittorio. 2005. Rimini. A cura di Fulvio Panzeri. Milano: Bompiani, [I ed. 1985]. Tondelli, Pier Vittorio. 2010. Un weekend postmoderno. Cronache degli anni Ottanta. Milano: Bompiani, [I ed. 1990].

Index of Concepts Note: The concept of “beauty” has been excluded from the index, as have been all concepts presented in footnotes. Aesthetic, aesthetical 51, 54, 55, 56, 57, 60, 63, 64, 230 Aestheticism 297, 306, 309, 310, 312, 315 Anima pargoletta/ semplicetta (Child soul) 328, 333 Antiquity 135 Arcadia 171 Aristotelian philosophy 145, 147–148 Art for art’s sake 299, 300, 304, 306, 307 Avant-garde 219 Baggiana 251 Barocchetto 169, 172 Baroque 10, 152, 154 Bel Paese 1, 2 Buon gusto 181, 182, 182n Buono cf. Good Cannibali 6, 12, 363–366 Caricature 5 Christian God/ancient gods 307, 309, 315 Christianism 315 Civilization 257, 258, 259, 268 Consensus 1, 2, 3 Contemplation 183, 184, 200 Cortesia 257, 261, 264, 264n, 271 Counter-Reformation 166 Courtly love 31, 36, 45 Creation 51, 54, 55, 57, 59, 60, 61, 63, 64 Decadentism, Decadent 5, 12, 275, 276, 285, 297–299, 307n, 315 Delicacy 147, 148 Discipline 258, 270 Dolce Stil Novo 159 Eclecticism 6, 7, 8, 136 Educazione 253, 269 Elegance 256, 263, 273 Ethics, ethical 51, 52, 63

Etiquette 253, 264 Evolution 133 Faith 206–7 Fanciullino (Eternal Child) 320, 321, 322, 325, 328 Femme fatale 12 Fin de siècle 297, 298, 299 Fin’amor 31, 32 Fragment 11, 218 Franciscanism 9, 50, 51, 56, 58, 63, 315 Futurism 5, 217, 219, 220, 269 Galateo,-i 253–273 Galeria 154, 165n Genre 11, 12 Giovani scrittori 359 Globalisation 358 God’s Grace 75 Good 3, 4, 45, 161, 200, 229, 250, 251, 306, 326, 326n, 332, 333 Gospel model 164 Grace 4, 239–240, 254–256, 259, 263–265, 268–270, 273 Grazia cf. Grace Gusto 181, 182 “Habituation” (assuefazione) 241 Harmony 8, 11, 147 Humility 55, 58, 59, 62 Hygiene 268, 273 Icon 94–95, 107–108 Identity 1, 2, 133 Image 182, 183, 189, 195, 201, 336 Imagination 180, 181–184, 189, 192, 195, 198 Imitation 6, 7, 10, 181, 183 Intellect 181, 183, 184, 200 Istruzione 269

370 Jesuits 154 Kalokagathìa 45 La belle dame sans merci 298 Language Querelle 6, 8, 140 Lexicography/lexicology 9, 17, 18n, 31 Liberty 140 Literary Criticism 10, 132–151 Loanwords 134 Loggia di Psyche 122n Logos 164n Love 180, 183, 184, 190–198 and n Mal du siècle 298 Marinism 298 Medieval theories of beauty 315 Medievalism 297, 314 Melancholy 301, 303 Metaphor 154 Middle Ages, medieval 50, 52, 53, 54, 55, 59, 63, 64, 314 Mimesis 153, 226–227 Minors 51, 54, 57 Mise-en-abîme 158 Modesty/modest 243, 244 Monolingualism (monolinguismo) 26 Monsters 152, 155, 160 Multilingualism (plurilinguismo) 25 Nationalism 309, 311, 312 Nature 53, 57, 62, 64, 181–185, 188n, 189, 192n, 197–98 Neoclassicism 11, 229, 301 (Neo)Petrarchism 10, 26–27, 98–106 (Neo)Platonism 4, 6, 68–70, 106–110, 152, 159, 161, 308, 311 New Science 154 Non-beautiful cf. Ugliness “Not-I” 301 Novel 11, 214, 276, 277, 314, 361 Oxymoron 45, 161, 332n Parnassian 214, 290, 294, 307n Parody 12, 251, 347, 357 Peasant 244

Index of concepts Perception 180–185, 194 Petrarchism cf. (Neo)Petrarchism Poetry and photography cf. Photography Physical love 70–72 Planctus Mariae 165 Platonism cf. (Neo)Platonism Photography 12, 337, 339, 340, 344, 347, 352 Politeness 253–264, 266, 270, 272–274 Post-colonialism 358 Post-modernism 12, 356–357, 358, 359 Poverty, poor 50, 51, 52, 53, 54, 55, 56, 57, 60, 61, 64 Pre-Raphaelitism 301, 311, 314 Pre-rational (Prenoetico) 319, 319n, 325, 333 Propriety 230–232 and n, 236–238 and n, 241 Portraiture 93, 95 Pulitezza 253, 257–260, 264, 266 Pythagorean literature 128 Questione della lingua cf. Language Querelle Renaissance 10, 54, 55, 63, 132, 133, 135, 136, 138, 145, 147, 151, 305 Rhetoric, rhetorical 57, 58, 61, 63 Risorgimento 3, 12, 277 Rocaille 172 Romanticism 11, 298, 301, 304 Satire 5, 169, 170 Scapigliatura 5, 12, 276–77 Scuola siciliana 9, 31–45 and n Semantics 9, 13, 16, 18, 19, 21–23, 26n, 36n, 41, 42, 90, 163, 196, 244, 250, 251 Sense, sensible 180, 181, 183–185, 191–195, 197–198 and n, 201 Siculo-Tuscan poetry 31, 33n, 34–36, 39, 40, 45, 90 Signorilità 253, 271, 272 Spiritual love 305, 306 Spirituality, spiritual 51, 54, 55, 57, 59, 60, 63 Sprezzatura 239 Standardisation 10, 133 Stil Novo poetry 46, 73, 90, 159, 322n, 351 Sublime 5, 20n, 64, 192, 197, 231, 236, 236n, 275–76 and n, 279, 281n, 358, 364 Symbolism 297, 307n

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Index of concepts Taste 180–182, 184, 188, 191, 192n, 237–239 Topos 243, 245, 251 “Tuscanisation” 15

Vanity 84, 153 Variatio 159 Veronica 93

Ugliness, ugly 5, 52, 53, 55, 275–76, 280–81 Ut pictura poësis 11, 152, 175

Zeitgeist 152

Index of Names Abaci, Uygar 358, 366 Absalom 41 Acone, Giuseppe 333 Addington Symonds, John 130 Addison, Joseph 191, 191n, 192n, 195, 198, 201 Adonis 152, 154–166, 315 Aelred 362, 363 Afribo, Andrea 25, 29 Agamben, Giorgio 54, 54n, 65, 354 Agamben, Silvio 352 Aiazzi, Giuseppe 151 Aimeric de Belenoi 89n Aimeric de Peguilhan 33 Ajello, Epifanio 12 Alamanni, Ludovico 137n Albert the Great 32 Alberti, Leon Battista 6 Alcamo, Cielo d’ cf. Cielo d’Alcamo Alcamo, Cielo d’ cf. Cielo d’Alcamo Alciati, Andrea 173n Alexander the Great 125, 126, 175 Alexandre, Maxime 66 Alfonzetti, Giovanna 12, 28 Alighieri, Dante 2, 3 ,10, 14, 14n, 15, 20, 21, 22, 23n, 25, 26, 27, 46, 73, 94, 95, 108, 111, 135–137, 141, 143, 148, 171n, 262, 305, 320–326 and n, 328–331 and n Amendola, Giovanni 208 Amico di Dante 23n Ammaniti, Niccolò 360, 363, 366 Andreas Capellanus 32 Antinous 315 Antonelli, Giuseppe 30 Antonelli, Roberto 30, 33n, 35, 36, 43, 47, 90, 111 Apelles 7, 8n, 124, 125n, 126 Apollo 117, 157, 157n, 175, 312, 315 Apollonio, Carla 277n, 294 Appiani, Andrea 170, 171, 175, 176 Aquino, Iacopo d’ cf. Iacopo d’Aquino Aquino, Rinaldo d’ cf. Rinaldo d’Aquino Arbib, Lelio 151 Arcidiacono, Salvatore 18n Ardissino, Erminia 156n, 166, 167 Aretino, Pietro 120, 123n

Argan, Giulio Carlo 152n, 166 Ariosto, Ludovico 137, 149 Ariosto, Ludovico 137n Aristotle 152 Armenini, Giovanni Battista 116, 116n, 129 Arnaut Daniel 89 Arnaut de Mareuil 89 Arrighi, Cletto (Righetti, Carlo) 276n, 277 Arrigo Baldonasco 23, 23n, 24, 24n Artusi, Pellegrino 15 Aspesi, Natalia 366 Asselineau, Charles 303 Audeth, Nina 333 Augustine of Hippo 32n, 69n, 81n, 87n Aurispa, Giorgio 301 Avalle, D’Arco Silvio 42n, 47, 351, 354 Avalos, Ferrante d’ 103 Aymone, Renato 333 Bacchelli, Franco 69 Bacon, Francis 302 Badoer, Francesco 202 Bajamonti, Giulio 11, 180, 184, 187, 188–194 and n, 196–201 and n Baldonasco, Arrigo cf. Arrigo Baldonasco Balducci, Ernesto 65 Balić, Nižić 201 Balzac, Honoré de 276n Banfi, Antonio 205 Bani, Luca 320n, 333 Banville, Théodore de 303 Barbarisi, Gennaro 173n, 175, 176n, 178, 179 Barberino, Francesco da cf. Francesco da Barberino Barberino, Francesco da cf. Francesco da Barberino Barbi, Michele 46n, 47 Barbieri, Edoardo 167 Baretti, Giuseppe 191n Barile, Giovanni 122n Barile, Laura 355 Barnett, Stuart 367 Barocchi, Paola 120n, 122n, 124n, 129, 130 Barsella, Susanna 109, 110, 111 Barthes, Roland 337, 354

Index of names Bartoli, Cosimo 149 Battaglia, Salvatore 93, 111 Batteux, Charles 181, 201, 227, 229, 232, 241 Battistini, Andrea 152, 152n, 166, 201, 335 Baudelaire, Charles 276–78, 294, 301, 302, 303, 304, 316 Baudrillard, Jean 162, 162n, 166 Bauman, Zygmunt 356, 357, 366 Baumgarten, Alexander Gottlieb 181 Bausi, Francesco 82 Bazlen, Roberto 344, 354 Beatrice 322, 323, 326, 331, 333 Beccaria, Cesare 191n Bellina, Anna L. 201 Bellini, Giovanni 99 Bellonci, Maria 113 Bellori, Giovanni Pietro 5n Bellosi, Luciano 131 Bembo, Bernardo 138 Bembo, Pietro 5–8 and n, 10, 99 and n, 100, 127, 128, 129, 133, 137–147 and n, 149–151, 186n, 255, 319 Bembo, Vincenzo 189n Beniscelli, Alberto 201 Benivieni, Girolamo 9, 67–86 Bennett, Laura 89 Benvenuti, Giuliana 223 Berisso, Marco 90, 111 Bernard, John H. 366 Bernart de Ventadorn 89n Berni, Francesco 5 Beroardi cf. Guglielmo Beroardi Berruto, Gaetano 30 Bertin, Mario 65 Bertolani, Maria Cecilia 93, 97, 111 Bertolio, Johnny 239 Bertone, Giorgio 93, 95, 98, 110, 111–113 Bettarini, Rosanna 349, 350, 354, 355 Bettella, Patrizia 277n, 294 Bettinelli, Tommaso 191n Betto Mettefuoco 37n Bezić, Maja 189, 201 Biffi, Marco 29 Billiani, Francesca 277n, 290n, 294 Binni, Walter 186, 189, 285, 294, 299, 310, 316 Bishop, Russell 180 Blasucci, Luigi 225, 241, 346, 346n, 349, 354 Bo, Carlo 295

373 Boccaccio, Giovanni 7, 14, 141, 150 Boezio, Severino 263 Boillet, Danielle 166, 166n, 167 Boine, Giovanni 11, 204–224 Boito, Arrigo 277–79 Boito, Camillo 277, 279, 283–85 Boldt-Irons, Leslie 333 Bolognese, Franco 112 Bolzoni, Lina 112 Bonaventura da Bagnoregio 64, 85 Bondie Dietaiuti 37n Bonelli, Francesco 11 Bonfiglioli, Pietro 349, 354 Bonomi, Ilaria 28n, 29 Bonsanti, Alessandro 338, 338n Borges, Jorge Luis 155, 156n Borghini, Raffaello 116, 116n, 130 Borromeo, Carlo 112 Borsieri, Pietro 231 Borzoni, Sandro 223 Bosco, Umberto 93, 112 Botteri, Inge 259, 273 Bouer, Marco 362 Bouhours, Dolminique 150 Božić-Bužančić, Danica 188, 201 Bozzola, Sergio 26, 29 Bragato, Stefano 11 Bragnis, Francesca Maria 187 Bramante (Donato di Angelo di Pascuccio) 122 Bramieri, Luigi 169, 169n, 178 Branca, Vittore 66, 112 Brandeis, Irma 337, 338, 338n, 344–351 and n Brelih dall’Asta, Mario 272, 273 Breschi, Giancarlo 18n, 29 Brown, Penelope 260, 273 Brugnolo, Furio 22n, 29, 47, 48 Brunelleschi, Filippo 149 Bruni, Francesco 21, 29, 48, 151 Buccellati, Graziella 178, 179 Bucchi, Gabriele 202 Budé, Guillaume 146, 146n Buffaria, Pérette-Cecile 336 Buffon, Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de  163 Bullock, Alan 112 Buonarroti, Michelangelo 4, 4n, 106, 107, 108, 109, 110, 111–113, 114n, 310

374 Burini, Silvia 355 Burke, Edmund 275n, 279n, 281n, 294 Bussanic, John 319n, 333 Byron, George Gordon 240, 293n Cacciapuoti, Fabiana 229, 230n Caesar, Gaius Julius 311 Calasso, Roberto 354 Calcaterra, Carlo 95, 112 Calì, Maria 120n, 130 Calmeta, Vincenzo 136 Calvino, Italo 279, 294, 349, 354, 358 Calvo, Fabio 123, 123n, 130 Cambiaso, Luca 165n Cambon, Glauco 344, 354 Camerana, Giovanni 277–78 Cameron, Julia Margaret 330 Camesasca, Ettore 130, 131 Camiciottoli, Alessandro 227, 229, 231, 236n, 237 Camilletti, Fabio 228 Campailla, Sergio 354 Campana, Dino 217 Campaspe 124, 125, 125n, 126 Campeggi, Ridolfo 165 Campeggiani, Ida 109, 112 Cantelmo, Claudio 309, 312 Capecchi, Giovanni 333 Capellanus, Andreas cf. Andreas Cappellanus Caracciolo, Antonio 189, 189n Cardini, Franco 314, 316 Carducci, Giosuè 112, 171 Carnero, Roberto 278, 294, 358, 366 Caro, Annibal 149 Carollo, Sabrina 273 Carpi, Umberto 219n, 223 Carrai, Stefano 102, 112, 130 Cartari, Vincenzo 117n, 130 Caruso, Carlo 201 Casati, Alessandro 205, 212–3 Casolini, Fausta 64 Cassab, Michelle 180 Castellino, Francesca 264, 264n, 265, 266, 267n, 268, 270n, 274 Castiglione, Baldassarre 3, 10, 114, 114n, 115, 121, 123–129 and n, 130, 138, 239, 255 Catenazzi, Flavio 32n, 47, 89, 90, 112 Cauvin, Jean 205

Index of names Cavalcanti, Guido 46, 46n, 352 Cavalluzzi, Raffaele 203 Cazalis, Henri 290 Cecchi, Emilio 201, 202, 215–7 Celati, Gianni 358 Cella, Roberta 16n, 22, 23, 29, 42n, 43n, 44n, 47 Cellini, Benvenuto 130 Centanin, Antonio 360 Ceriello, Rodolfo 113 Cerruti, Marco 257n, 274 Ceruti, Giacomo 171 Cervinus, Aelius Lampridius 185 Cesarotti, Melchiorre 184, 187, 188, 188n, 191n, 198, 201 Ceserani, Remo 358, 366 Chambers, Frank M. 33n, 48 Chastel, André 114n, 121n, 122n, 123n, 130 Chavin de Malan, François Émile 61n, 66 Cheney, Ednah 110, 112 Cherubini, Lorenzo 365, 364n, 366 Chiancone, Claudio 187, 202 Chiari, Alberto 46n, 47 Chiavacci, Anna Maria 111 Chigi, Agostino 114, 114n, 116, 120, 121n, 122n Chomsky, Noam 132 Christ 40, 51, 54, 56, 59, 70, 75, 79, 81, 81n, 82, 84, 84n, 87, 93, 93n, 94, 95, 95n, 98, 153, 162, 164, 164n, 165, 315 Cialdini, Francesca 29 Cian, Vittorio 3n Ciccuto, Marcello 11, 93, 97, 112, 181n Cicero, Marcus Tullius 7, 125, 142n, 143, 145, 147 Cicognara, Leopoldo 231 Cielo d’Alcamo 31n, 37n Cima, Annalisa 354 Cimabue (Cenni di Pepo) 114n, 131 Cino da Pistoia 90 Claudel, Paul 209 Coletti, Vittorio 21n, 28n, 29 Collaltino di Collalto 102 Colle, Enrico 172n, 178 Collenuccio, Pandolfo 67 Collodi, Carlo 2, 15 Colonna, Vittoria 4, 99, 103, 104, 112 Colonne, Guido delle cf. Guido delle Colonne Colonne, Odo delle cf. Odo delle Colonne

Index of names Coluccia Chiara 26n, 29 Coluccia, Rosario 9, 18, 18n, 19n, 26n, 33n, 35, 36, 43, 45n, 47, 194n Colussi, Davide 25, 29 Comes, Annalisa 19n Compagnetto da Prato 23, 24n, 37n Conti, Angelo 303, 311, 312 Conti, Antonio 183 Contini, Gianfranco 13, 14, 25, 26, 29, 46n, 47, 66, 340, 344, 345, 354, 355 Contorbia, Franco 223, 224, 340, 344, 354, 355 Conway Bondanella, Julia 112 Corradini, Enrico 309 Corso, Antonio 130 Cottegnies, Line 152n, 162n, 166, 167 Covino, Sandra 28n, 29 Crescimbeni, Giovanni Mario 183, 184, 192, 197, 202 Crijević, Ilija 203 Croce, Benedetto 11, 132, 153, 189n, 202, 212–3, 213n, 223, 276, 294, 297, 319n, 336 Croci, Giovanni 296 Cropp, Glynnis 38n, 47 Crotti, Ilaria 277n, 279n, 294 Cupid 121, 160 Curi, Fausto 223, 327n, 334 Curreri, Luciano 297, 316 Cusani, Beatrice 175 Cyclops 117, 118, 121 D’Achille, Paolo 30 D’Albert 307n D’Alembert, Jean-Baptiste Le Ronde 227, 231, 237 D’Angelo, Francesca 354 D’Angelo, Paolo 240 D’Annunzio, Gabriele 5, 12, 278n, 279, 297–317 D’Arcangelo, Lucio 132 D’Este cf. Este Da Vinci, Leonardo 7, 8n Dalarun, Jacques 58, 64, 65 Daniel, Arnaut cf. Arnaut Daniel Dante cf. Alighieri, Dante Datta, Venita 334 Davidson, Angus 295 De Amicis, Edmondo 15

375 De Angelis, Enrico 245, 252 De Benedetto, Sergio 9 De Blasi, Francesca 9, 18, 18n, 19, 43n, 47, 194n De Bosis Vivante, Elena 347, 348, 349 De Bosis, Adolfo 216 De Caro, Paolo 345, 346, 346n, 354 De Fusco, Renato 114n, 130 De Holanda, Francisco 4 De Laude, Silvia 65 De Lorris, Guillaume cf. Guillaume De Lorris De Martino, Domenico 28n, 30 De Mauro, Tullio 15, 28n, 29, 132, 134, 136 de Meung, Jean cf. Jean de Meung De Riquer, Martín 33n, 47 De Robertis, Domenico 47 De Rosa, Monica 11 De Silva, Michel 129n De Sisto, Mirella 114n, 152n De Vere, Gaston du C. 130 De Vogüé, Melchior 309 De’ Medici cf. Medici Debenedetti, Giacomo 337, 338, 354 Debussy, Claude 305 degli Uberti, Anna 340, 341 Dehrmann, Mark-Georg 334 del Piombo, Sebastiano 115, 115n, 120, 121, 122n Del Principe, David 277n, 281n, 294–295 Della Casa, Giovanni 10, 12, 99, 100, 102, 112, 137, 253, 253n, 254, 254n, 255, 256, 256n, 257, 257n, 258, 259, 262, 264, 274 Des Esseintes, Jean 315 Desbonnets, Théophile 64 Di Benedetto, Sergio 9, 82, 85 Di Carpegna Falconieri, Tommaso 314, 317 Di Girolamo, Costanzo 30, 33n, 35, 36, 43, 47 Diaz, Furio 185, 202 Diderot, Denis 181, 227, 231, 237 Dietaiuti, Bondie cf. Bondie Dietaiuti Dillon Wanke, Matilde 212n, 223 Dolce, Ludovico 120, 123n Donado, Laura 202 Donnelly, Sean 356n Donnini, Andrea 111 Doré, Gustave 324 Doria cf. Percivalle Doria

376 Držić, Marin 185 Dubos, Jean-Baptiste 231 Duchacek, Otto 36n, 47 Dumas, Alexandre 276n Đurđević, Ignjat 185 Durling, M. Robert 91, 93, 96, 97, 112 Eckstein Opdycke, Leonard 124n, 125n, 126n, 128n, 129n, 130 Eco, Umberto 27, 29, 45n, 47, 66, 273, 274, 356, 359, 366 Èffrena, Stelio 312, 313 Egidi, Francesco 112 Ehlich, Konrad 257, 274 Ellis, Bret Easton 365 Elwert, Theodor 22, 29 Epicurus 80 Este, Isabella d’ 7 Este, Maria Beatrice d’ 175 Euphranor 7, 8n Fabrizio Costa, Silvia 10, 166 Faldella, Giovanni 20 Falsirena 160 Fanelli, Stella 112 Fanini, Barbara 18n Fante, John 365 Farina, Salvatore 279 Farinelli, Giuseppe 276n, 277n, 278, 283n, 295 Farnese, Alessandro 114 Fattorini, Teresa 21 Favaro, Maiko 112 Federici, Corrado 333 Fedi, Francesca 173n, 174, 174n, 175n, 178 Fedi, Roberto 106, 107, 112 Fellina, Simone 69, 82 Fenzi, Enrico 93, 112–113 Ferdinand, Archduke of Austria 175 Ficara, Giorgio 229 Fichte, Johann Gottlieb 301 Ficino, Marsilio 6, 67–70 Filauro 156 Finotti, Fabio 203 Fiorini, Roberto 153n, 166 Firenzuola, Agnolo 315 Flusser, Vilém 336, 355 Fo, Dario 52, 65

Index of names Fochessati Messina, Bianca 340 Fogazzaro, Antonio 205n Folco di Calavra 37n Folena, Gianfranco 28, 28n, 30 Folliero-Metz, Grazia Dolores 109, 112 Folquet de Marselha 89 Fonio, Filippo 12 Fontana, Vincenzo 123n, 130 Forlesi, Simone 191n, 202 Forti, Marco 344n, 345n, 355 Fortini, Arnaldo 66 Fortis, Alberto 187, 188, 197, 202, 203 Fosca 12, 279–283 and n, 285 Foscolo, Ugo 171, 171n, 178, 186n, 259 Foster Wallace, David 366 France, Peter 257, 274 Francesca da Rimini 315 Francesco cf. Maestro Francesco Francesco da Barberino 205n Francis of Assisi 9, 50–66 and n Frangi, Francesco 171n, 178 Frank Tolazzi, Gerti 344 Franzini, Elio 202 Frare, Pierantonio 154, 154n, 165n, 166 Frasponi, Cesare 191n Frassica, Piero 169n, 170n, 172n, 178 Fratta, Aniello 33n, 47 Frederick II 16, 37, 39, 40 Freppa, Giovanni 226 Freud, Sigmund 61n, 281 Frommel, Christoph L. 114n, 120n, 130, 131 Frosini, Giovanna 15, 18n, 30 Frugoni, Chiara 55n, 57, 64n, 65 Fumaroli, Marc 155, 155n, 156, 157, 167 Fusillo, Massimo 352, 355 Gaetano, Raffaele 236n Gagliardi, Isabella 84 Galassi, Jonathan 224 Galatea 115, 115n, 116, 118, 119, 120, 122n Galilei, Galileo 154, 178 Gallarati Scotti, Tommaso 205, 207–8 Galletto Pisano 16, 17, 24, 24n, 37n Galli de Paratesi, Nora 150, 151 Galliziani, Tiberto cf. Tiberto Galliziani Gallo, Egidio 116 Gambara, Veronica 105, 112 Garboli, Cesare 353, 355

Index of names Garin, Eugenio 69 Gasca Queirazza, Giuliano 113 Gasperini, Brunella 273, 274 Gatta, Matteo 263, 274 Gautier, Judith 304 Gautier, Théophile 276n, 277, 290, 293n, 299, 303, 304, 306, 307, 317 Gelli, Giovan Battista 98, 112, 149 Geoffroy, Marguerite 166 Gessi, Leone 245, 252 Getto, Giovanni 154, 155, 167 Gheeraert, Tony 152n, 153n, 162n, 166, 167 Ghiberti, Carnino 37n Ghidetti, Enrico 279n, 285, 288, 290, 295 Giacomino Pugliese 24, 24n, 37n Giacomo da Lentini 16, 22, 23, 24, 24n, 34n, 36n, 37n, 39n, 40, 40n, 43n, 44n, 45, 89, 111 Giambullari, Pier Francesco 149 Giammarco, Marilena 185, 187, 202 Giannuizzi, Francesco 186n Gioanola, Elio 279n, 295 Giocondo, Giovanni 122 Gioia, Melchiorre 253, 253n, 255, 256–258 and nn, 259, 260, 260n, 261, 262, 264–266, 269, 274 Giombi, Samuele 153n, 167 Giordani, Pietro 225, 226, 228 Giorgio 279–282 and n Giorgione (Giorgio Gasparini) 120n, 303, 311, 312 Giotto di Bondone 112 Giovanardi, Claudio 28n, 30, 139n, 151 Giovannini, Giulia 363, 364 Giraut de Salignac 33n Glauro, Daniele 312 Gluck, Mary 276n, 295 Gobetti, Piero 220 Godet, Jean-François 64 Goffis, Cesare Federico 354 Goldhill, Simon 334 Gondi, Bernardo 85 Gonin, Francesco 244 Gonzaga, Francesco 116 Gonzaga, Margherita 120 Gori, Gianfranco Miro 335 Gorreri, Marina 129 Gouchan, Yannick 320n, 333 Gozzano, Guido 215, 346n

377 Gozzi, Gasparo 187, 191n Gozzi, Giovambattista 202 Graf, Arturo 191n, 202 Gravina, Gian Vincenzo 182, 183, 202, 231 Greco, Lorenzo 345n, 355 Gregh, Fernand 299 Gregori, Elisa 29 Grillo, Angelo 165 Grimaldi, Emma 246, 252 Grisogono, Niccolò 186n Gualdo, Luigi 277, 279, 290–94, 295 Guardiani, Francesco 162, 163n, 164, 167 Guerzoni, Giuseppe 268n Guglielminetti, Marziano 112 Guglielmo Beroardi 23, 23n, 37, 40 Guido delle Colonne 16, 23, 23n, 35n, 36n, 37n, 40n Guillaume De Lorris 52n, 65 Guinevere 40 Guinizzelli, Guido 46 Guittone d’Arezzo 20, 41, 45, 90, 112 Gundulić, the Raguseio, Ivan 185 Haeckel, Ernst 320, 320n Havely, Nicholas 333, 334 Herder, Johann Gottfried 227 Hermaphrodite 308 Hermes 312 Hirdt, Willi 97, 112 Hoby, Thomas 3 Hoffmann, Ernst T. A. 277, 285 Hofmannsthal, Hugo von 314 Hogarth, William 170, 172, 197, 198, 202 Hollander, Jean 14n Hollander, Robert 14n Horace (Quintus Horatius Flaccus) 83, 227, 238, 240, 251, 293 Horne, Philip 331n, 334 Hugo, Victor 276, 293n, 295, 304, 317 Hume, Anna 130 Hume, David 181, 202, 229, 260, 261n, 274 Hummel, Johann Nepomuk 287, 288 Hutcheson, Francis 231 Huysmans, Joris Karl 315 Iacopo d’Aquino 37n Iacopo Mostacci 16, 24, 24n, 34, 36n, 37n, 38, 40n, 43n Inghilfredi 23, 23n, 37n

378 Ioli, Giovanna 179, 220, 220n, 222, 224 Isella, Dante 170, 170n, 179, 345n, 351n, 355 Iseult 39, 40 Ivellio, Giuseppe Vincenzo 188 Jahier, Piero 215 Jameson, Fredrick 357, 366 Jansen, Monica 366 Jean de Meung 52, 52n, 65 Jensen, Frede 34n, 36n, 38n, 42n, 44, 47 Johnston, Charles 99, 113 Jolanda (Maria Plattis Majocchi) 268, 268n, 269, 270, 274 Jones, Verina R. 246, 252 Jorgensen, Johannes 65 Juan de la Cruz 205–6 Judas 165 Juno 162 Jupiter 69, 117 Kajetan, Esser 64 Kant, Immanuel 181, 202, 227, 230n, 358, 364, 366 Keats, John 306, 307, 308, 317 Kerouac, Jack 365 Kline, Anthony S. 14n, 21n, 25n, 94, 112 Kornacka, Barbara 360, 366 Kristeller, Paul Oscar 68 Krull, Felix 27 La Bruyère, Jean 258, 274 Land, Norman 99, 113 Larson, Sharon D. 334 Latini, Brunetto 37, 315 Laurent, Béatrice 334 Lavalva, Rosamaria 334 Lazar, Moshé 32n, 48 Le Goff, Jacques 50, 53, 53n, 54, 57, 59, 60, 60n, 61n, 65, 66 Le Moyne (jesuit) 154 Lenzoni, Carlo 149 Leo X 122 Leonardi, Lino 18n, 46n, 48 Leonardo da Vinci 89, 177, 310 Leopardi, Giacomo 11, 21, 21n, 29, 172, 172n, 179, 255–242 and n Leporatti, Roberto 67, 70–75 Leto, Maria Rita 187, 202

Index of names Levinson, Stephen 260, 273 Liborio, Mariantonia 65 Librandi, Rita 46n, 48 Liebig, Justus von 268n Lisabetta da Messina 308n Lissoni, Antonio 171n Litta Modignani, Giovanni Battista 175 Locke, John 229 Lollo, Renata 290n, 295 Lombardo, Marco 328 Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth 334 Longhi, Pietro 169, 170 Lorenzi Biondi, Cristiano 18n Lotman, Jurij Mihajlovič 337, 355 Louis XIII 157 Louis XIV 158 Lubello, Sergio 17n, 30 Lucian of Samosata 7 Lucinferno 161 Ludovico da Canossa 124, 129 Lu’lu’a, Abdulwahid 89, 113 Lunardo del Guallacca 16, 17, 31n, 37n Luperini, Romano 347, 355 Machiavelli, Niccolò 10, 133–137, 144, 147, 149, 150–151, 177, 249 Macro, Vincenzo 7 Mademoiselle de Maupin (Théodore de Sérannes) 307 Maestro Francesco 37n Maestro Torrigiano 42n Maeterlinck, Maurice 305 Maffei, Clara 290 Magli, Patrizia 246, 252 Malagorre 156 Malato, Enrico 166, 201, 274, 295 Mancini, Franco 89, 113 Mancini, Mario 31n, 48 Manganelli, Giorgio 164 Manghetti, Gloria 355 Mann, Thomas 27, 28n, 30 Manni, Paola 18n Manselli, Raoul 65 Mantegna, Andrea 7, 8n Manzoni, Alessandro 11, 15, 226, 243, 277 Marangoni Tanzi, Drusilla 344, 350 Maraschio, Nicoletta 28n, 30, 148 Marcenaro, Giuseppe 345, 355

379

Index of names Marchi, Anna 178, 179 Marchini, Arfio 366 Marchione, Margherita 223 Marchionni, Paola 180 Marescotti, Giorgio 116 Mareuil, Arnaut de cf. Arnaut de Mareuil Mariani, Gaetano 295 Mariano, Emilio 306, 317 Marinetti, Filippo Tommaso 269, 314 Marino, Giovan Battista 10, 113, 154–168 and n Markus, Dora 342, 344, 346n Marradi, Giovanni 307 Marrani, Giuseppe 18n Mars 117 Martelli, Ludovico 136n Martignoni, Ignazio 231, 237 Martini, Simone 91, 97, 112 Marulić, Marko 185 Mary Magdalene 10, 165 Matelda 322–326 and n, 328, 333 Mathieu, Bertrand 367 Matura, Thaddée 64 Maupertuis, Pierre Louis Moreau de 164 May, Bruno 362, 363 Mazzeo di Ricco 16, 17, 22, 23, 33, 37n Mazzocca, Ferdinando 171n, 173n, 175n, 179 Mazzocut-Mis, Maddalena 202 Mazzoni, Guido 179 Mazzotta, Clemente 335 McKenzie, Kenneth 41n, 48 Medici, Caterina de’ 82 Medici, Cosimo de’ 145 Medici, Lorenzo de’ 67 Medici, Maria de’ 157, 160 Medusa (Gorgon) 115, 298, 299, 300, 302 Melloni, Giorgio 279n, 295 Melosi, Laura 179 Menčetić, Sisko 185 Mendelssohn, Felix 227 Mendès, Catulle 291, 304 Menichetti, Aldo 18n, 48 Messerschmidt, Franz-Xavier 170 Metastasio, Pietro 150, 184, 189, 194, 197, 201 Metcalf, Georg 28, 114n, 152n Mettefuoco cf. Betto Mettefuoco Meung cf. Jean de Meung Meurice, Paul 304

Miccoli, Giovanni 57, 65 Michelangelo cf. Buonarroti Michetti, Francesco Paolo 300 Micocci, Claudia 158, 158n, 167 Migliorini, Ermanno 201 Milelli, Davide 283n Mocati, Bartolomeo 37 Mollat, Michel 51, 53, 65 Moller, Giovanni 188 Momigliano, Attilio 171 Mondello, Elisabetta 367 Monserrati, Michele 226 Montadon, Alain 166 Montagnani, Cristina 112 Montale, Eugenio 12, 219–22, 219–222 and n, 224, 336–355 Montanari, Massimo 15, 30 Montandon, Alain 334 Montera, Pierre de 290, 290n, 295 Montesquieu, Charles Louis de Secondat, baron de La Brède et de 237 Morachiello, Paolo 123n, 130 Morando, Simona 347 Morello, Giovanni 113 Morgana 40 Morgana, Silvia 173n, 177n, 179 Morghen, Raffaello 55, 65 Morozzo della Rocca Muzzati, Elena 270, 274 Morpurgo Tagliabue, Guido 183, 192, 203 Mosena, Roberto 220n, 224 Mostacci cf. Iacopo Mostacci Mosti, Rossella 18n Motolese, Matteo 30 Motta, Uberto 239 Mugellesi, Rossana 130 Müller, Max 329n Muratori, Lodovico Antonio 150, 151, 182, 182n, 183, 189n, 203 Musso, Pierre 163n, 167 Mussolini, Benito 208n, 271 Muti, Elena 300, 302 Nardi, Bruno 46n, 48 Nash, Cristopher 356 Nebrig, Alexander 334 Negri, Renzo 277n, 295 Nencioni, Giovanni 17, 17n, 30, 243, 252

380 Nereids 117, 118, 121 Nicoli, Paola 340 Niedda, Daniele 191n, 203 Notaro cf. Giacomo da Lentini Novaro, Mario 215, 354, 356 Nove, Aldo 360, 364, 365, 365n, 367 Occhini, Pier Ludovico 309 Odo delle Colonne 37n Olbrechts-Tyteca, Lucie 167 Oldani, Alessandro 172n, 179 Orestano, Francesca 203 Orlando, Enrico Riccardo 11, 205n, 224 Ovid (Publius Ovidius Naso) 117, 118 Paccagnella, Ivano 29 Paccagnini, Ermanno 277n, 295 Pacchioni-Becker, Paola 334 Pagani, Walter 41n, 48 Pagano, Mario 19 Pagliara, Pier Nicola 130 Pallas Athena 162, 312 Palma the Elder 305 Pan 164n Pancaspe 126 Panella, Giuseppe 295 Panuccio del Bagno 90n Panvini, Bruno 42n, 48 Panzeri, Fulvio 367 Paolazzi, Carlo 64 Papi, Fiammetta 18n Papini, Giovanni 206, 215, 217 Parini, Giuseppe 11, 169, 170, 171–174 and n, 175, 176, 177, 177n, 178 Parry, John Jay 32n, 48 Pascazio, Patrizia 202 Pascoli, Giovanni 12, 314, 319–333 and n Pastore, Andrea 132–133 Paternoster, Annick 87 Patota, Giuseppe 20, 27, 28n, 30 Paul (apostle) 80, 84, 244 Peire Vidal 89 Peironet 33n Penman, Bruce 243, 252 Percivalle Doria 23, 24n, 37, 39, 43 Perelman, Chaïm 167 Pericle 175 Peron, Gianfelice 48

Index of names Perseus 302 Perugi, Maruzio 320n, 321n, 325n, 326n, 334, 335 Peruzzi, Baldassarre 114, 114n Pesce, Veronica 10, 223 Peter (apostle) 122, 122n, 244 Petrarch (Petrarca), Francesco 2, 3, 5, 7, 8, 10, 14, 20, 22, 23n, 25, 26, 27, 46, 71–75, 91, 93, 95, 96, 99, 111–113, 117, 141, 144, 148n, 185, 189, 232 Petri Morovelli 37n Petrocchi, Giorgio 46n, 48, 59, 63, 65 Pfister, Max 30, 41n, 48 Pharsalus 311 Pheme 159 Phidias 293 Philostratus 117, 117n, 118 Piantoni, Luca 165n, 168 Piazza, Giovanni M. 131 Picchio Simonelli, Maria 35n, 48 Pich, Federica 89, 90, 97, 113 Pichois, Claude 294 Pico della Mirandola, Giovanni 6, 67–70, 82, 82n Picone, Michelangelo 34n, 48 Pieri, Giuliana 301, 317 Pieri, Marzio 155, 165n, 167 Piermarini, Giuseppe 172, 173 Piero della Vigna 23, 34, 35n, 37n, 41–42, 42n, 43n Piga, Gavino 11 Piombo cf. del Piombo, Sebastiano Pistoia, Cino da cf. Cino da Pistoia Pitagora 27 Pizzamiglio, Gilberto 202, 203 Pizzetti, Pompilio 169, 169n, 178 Plato 68, 231, 308, 311 Plattis Majocchi, Maria cf. Jolanda Pliny the Elder (Gaius Plinius Secundus)  125, 126n, 130 Plutarch 261 Podiani, Mario 20 Poe, Edgar Allan 277, 281, 295, 301, 302, 303, 317 Poitrenaud Lamesi, Brigitte 9 Polimeni, Giuseppe 15, 30 Poliziano, Angelo 67, 115n, 118, 119, 119n, 120, 121, 130

Index of names Polyphemus 115, 115n, 117, 118, 119, 120 Polyxena 40 Pommier, Édouard 92, 113 Portinari, Beatrice 20, 305, 364 Pozzi, Giovanni 97, 113, 151, 155, 156n, 158n, 159n, 162,162n, 163n, 164, 165, 165n, 166, 167, 245, 252 Praga, Emilio 277 Prandi, Stefano 253n, 255, 274 Praz, Mario 275, 278, 278n, 279, 281, 281n, 285, 296, 298, 299, 302, 303, 304, 305, 318 Prettejohn, Elizabeth 301, 318 Previtali, Giovanni 131 Prezzolini, Giuseppe 206 Priest, Harold Martin 156n, 157n, 158n, 160n, 161n, 162n, 168 Propertius 71 Pryciak, Agata 12 Pseudo-Longinus 275n Pucciandone Martelli 35, 37, 43, 90n Puccini, Davide 205n, 223 Pugliese cf. Giacomino Pugliese Pupino, Angelo 245, 252 Purnal, Roland 295 Querini, Angelo 188 Quint, David L. 130 Quintilian (Marcus Fabius Quintilianus)  143, 227, 240 Quirini, Elisabetta 102 Rackham, Harris 126n, 130 Radoš, Antonio 186n Raimondi, Ezio 153, 154n, 155n, 168 Raimondi, Francesco Paolo 155, 168 Rajna, Pio 349n Rame, Franca 65 Ranieri, Antonio 226 Raphael (Raffaello Sanzio) 10, 114, 114n, 115, 115n, 116, 120, 121, 122, 123, 124, 124n, 127, 130, 131, 165n, 293n Re Enzo 37n Re Giovanni 22, 37n Rebay, Luciano 344n, 345n, 346, 355 Rebora, Clemente 205, 217 Reina, Luigi 174 Renan, Ernesto 270

381 Reni, Guido 5 Renzi, Matteo 1 Ricco, Mazzeo di cf. Mazzeo di Ricco Ricorda, Ricciarda 277n, 279n, 294 Ricotta, Veronica 18n Ridolfi, Carlo 112 Rimbaud, Arthur 358, 367 Rinaldo d’Aquino 19n, 22, 37n, 40n Ripa, Cesare 173n Rodaspe 162 Rodella, Costantino 261, 262, 262n, 263, 264, 266, 267, 267n, 274 Rodocanachi, Lucia 354 Roggia, Enrico Carlo 202 Rolli, Paolo 184, 202 Romanò, Angelo 276n Romano, Giovan Cristoforo 124 Rosai, Ottone 217 Rosati, Gianpiero 130 Rosenkranz, Karl 275n Rossebastiano, Alda 93, 113 Rossetti, Dante Gabriel 281n Rossi, Aldo 131 Rossi, Carla 109, 113 Rossi, Esterina 340 Rossi, Fabio 26n Roubaud, Benjamin 276, 276n Rousseau, Jean Jacques 227 Roxana (princess of Bactria) 175n Rožman, Milo 203 Rubens, Pieter Paul 293n Rubinstein, Ida 306 Ruffini, Graziano 32n, 48 Ruffino, Giovanni 48 Ruggeri d’Amici 23, 24n, 37n Ruggerone da Palermo 37n, 41 Ruscelli, Girolamo 8, 9n Russo, Emilio 155, 156n, 162n, 166, 167, 168 Russo, Luigi 203 Saba, Umberto 215 Sabatier, Paul 65 Sabbatino, Pasquale 10, 114, 114n, 125n, 131 Sade, Donatien Alphonse François De 298 Salgari, Emilio 15 Salignac, Giraut de cf. Giraut de Salignac Salinari, Carlo 309, 310, 318 Salvatorelli, Luigi 65

382 Salviati, Lionardo 150 Sanguineti, Edoardo 334 Santagata, Marco 25, 30, 96, 113 Sanzio, Ippolita 300, 301, 302 Sapegno, Natalino 201, 202, 321n, 335 Sappho 234, 234n, 235, 236 Saslow, M. James 106, 113 Satan 298 Savarese, Gennaro 170n, 171n, 179 Savona, Eugenio 46n, 48, 90, 113 Savonarola, Girolamo 70, 75, 76, 86, 87 Savorgnan, Maria 99, 100 Sbarbaro, Camillo 217, 348, 349 Scalia, Salvatore Eugene 223 Scannabue, Aristarco cf. Baretti, Giuseppe Scelfo, Maria Luisa 277n, 296 Schiavone, Oscar 109, 113 Schlegel, Friedrich 357, 367 Schweickard, Wolfgang 30, 41n, 48 Scianatico, Giovanna 203 Scott, Walter 250 Sebastian, st. 315 Sebastiano Viniziano cf. del Piombo, Sebastiano Segre, Cesare 354 Semprebene da Bologna 23, 24n, 37n, 43n Seneca, Lucius Annaeus 227 Sensi, Claudio 154n Sensini, Francesca Irene 12, 335 Serao, Matilde 268n Seriacopi, Massimo 334, 335 Serianni, Luca 19n, 25, 30 Sertoli, Giuseppe 203 Servet, Miguel 205 Setti, Raffaella 29 Settis, Salvatore 130 Shaftesbury, Anthony Ashley-Cooper, 3rd Earl of 231 Shakespeare, William 268, 329, 330n, 331 Shelley, Percy Bysshe 275, 306, 307, 308, 318 Shepard, William P. 33n, 48 Sighele, Scipio 297, 318 Silvia cf. Fattorini, Teresa Simioni, Corrado 296 Simone, Raffaele 30 Šimunković, Ljerka 189, 203 Sinibaldi, Countess 363 Slawiski, Maurizio 167

Index of names Soffici, Ardengo 214–5, 217 Solari, Maria Rosaria 340, 341 Sordello da Goito 89 Sorella, Antonio 7n, 8n, 10, 137n, 140n, 145–146, 149n, 150, 151 Sorrentino, Paolo 132 Sorrentino, Pasquale 27 Spampinato Beretta, Margherita 33n, 48 Spaziani, Maria Luisa 343, 344 Spencer, Herbert 329, 329n Spera, Francesco 290, 296 Sperelli, Andrea 300, 308, 310 Spinelli, Mario 64 Stahl Garver, Milton 41n, 48 Stammerjohann, Harro 28n, 30 Stampa, Gaspara 99, 102, 103, 112–113 Stampa, Stefano 245 Stanchina, Giulia 28n, 30 Steele, Richard 191n Stefano Protonotaro 19, 35, 37n, 41n, 42 Stockbrugger, Philip 178 Stoppani, Antonio 2 Stoppelli, Pasquale 29 Stratico, Gian Domenico 186n Stürtzli, Isaak 27 Sue, Eugène 276n Sully, James 322n Surdich, Luigi 95, 95n, 113, 224, 351, 352, 355 Swinburne, Algernon Charles 299 Tansillo, Luigi 165 Tanzi Marangoni, Drusilla 343, 350n Tarantino, Quentin 364 Tarchetti, Iginio Ugo 12, 277, 279–296 and n Tasso, Torquato 165 Tavoni, Mirko 18n, 26n, 30 Telesilla 172n Tennyson, Alfred 329, 330n, 331 Teresa 283, 284, 284n, 285 Tesauro, Emanuele 154, 154n Thode, Henry 55, 65 Thoenes, Christof 114n, 115n, 116n, 123n, 131 Thomas Aquinas (Tommaso d’Aquino) 32n Tiberto Galliziani 16, 17, 37n Tiepolo, Giambattista 170 Titian (Tiziano Vecellio) 100, 102, 112, 115, 165n, 305 Toaldo, Giuseppe 187

383

Index of names Tokić, Canon Antonio 186n Tolazzi, Gerti 342, 344 Tolomei, Claudio 147n Tomasin, Lorenzo 30 Tommaseo, Niccolò 189, 201 Tommaso da Celano 64, 64n Tommaso di Sasso 24, 24n, 37n Tondelli, Pier Vittorio 12, 357–367 and n Torrigiano cf. Maestro Torrigiano Tosi, Guy 318 Treves, Emilio 283, 285, 290n Tricane 160 Trifone, Pietro 28n, 30 Trissino, Gian Giorgio 7, 136, 136n, 148–149, 151 Triton 121 Tropea, Mario 335 Trovato, Paolo 151 Trzeciak, Małgorzata Ewa 227, 230, 231, 236n, 237, 237n Tyler, Stephen 356 Tylus, Jane 102, 113 Uberti , Anna degli cf. degli Uberti, Anna Unamuno, Miguel de 205 Urbani, Leone 188 Valeriano, Pierio 139, 151 Valerio, Sebastiano 335 Valli, Donato 204, 206, 207n, 222n, 224 Vallisnieri, Antonio 187 Valvasone, Erasmo di 166 Varchi, Benedetto 7n, 8, 8n, 10, 145–151 Vasari, Giorgio 114, 114n, 115, 115n, 116, 116n, 130, 131, 177 Vasoli, Cesare 69, 82 Vauchez, André 54, 65 Venet, Gisèle 152n, 162n, 166 Venus (planet) 40; (goddess) 155, 156, 158, 309, 311 Venuti, Lawrence 296 Verga, Giovanni 279, 282, 285, 296 Verini, Ugolino 82 Verlato, Zeno 18n Verri, Alessandro 191n Verri, Pietro 191n

Vettori, Alessandro 95, 113 Vettori, Pier 140n, 146 Viani, Eva 202 Vicinelli, Augusto 50, 57, 58n, 65, 173n, 179, 334 Viesseux, Giovan Pietro 226 Vigny, Alfred de 276n Vigorelli, Giancarlo 223 Villa, Edoardo 296 Violante (Hermia Chancelor) 300, 302, 304, 305 Violante, Isabel 109, 113 Viollet-le-Duc, Eugène 314 Virgil (Publius Vergilius Maro) 7, 96, 238, 324, 331 Virgulti, Ernesto 333 Visconti, Ermes 245, 252 Vitale, Maurizio 26, 30, 49 Vitaletti, Guido 176 Vitruvius, Marcus Pollio 122, 123, 123n Vitturi, Michieli 186n Vivante, Leone 348 Vivante, Paolo 347, 348 Voje, Ignacij 185, 203 Von Görres, Johann Joseph 66 Vorreux, Damien 64 Wadsworth Longfellow, Henry 321n Wallace, David Foster 364 Waltraud, Fischer 344 Waterhouse, John William 323 Watts, Richard J. 257, 274 West, Simon 90, 113 Winckelmann, Johann Joachim 301 Winner, Matthias 130, 131 Wolf, Gerhard 95, 113 Wynne, Giustiniana 188, 188n, 203 Zabagli, Franco 355 Zampa, Giorgio 224 Zardin, Danilo 167 Zeno, Apostolo 201 Zephyr 117 Zeuxis 6, 8, 124, 125, 125n, 126, 127, 173 Zorzi Pugliese, Olga 85n