Literature and Identity in Italian Baroque Travel Writing 0754661946, 9780754661948

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LITERATURE AND IDENTITY IN ITALIAN BAROQUE TRAVEL WRITING

In memory of my grandparents, Andrée Lefèvre Chelet (1907–2007) and Raymond Chelet (1905–2001), teachers and travelers

Literature and Identity in Italian Baroque Travel Writing

NATHALIE HESTER University of Oregon, USA

First published 2008 by Ashgate Publishing Published 2016 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN

711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017, USA Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business Copyright © Nathalie Hester 2008

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. Nathalie Hester has asserted her moral right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the author of this work. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data Hester, Nathalie Literature and Identity in Italian Baroque Travel Writing 1. Italian prose literature – History and criticism 2. Italian literature – 17th century – History and criticism 3. Traveler’s writings, Italian – History and criticism I. Title 850.9’355 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Hester, Nathalie, 1970Literature and Identity in Italian Baroque Travel Writing / Nathalie Hester. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-0-7546-6194-8 (alk. paper) 1. Italian prose literature–History and criticism. 2. Italian literature–17th century–History and criticism. 3. Travelers’ writings, Italian–History and criticism. I. Title. PQ4163.H47 2007 850.9’355—dc22 2007037446 ISBN 9780754661948 (hbk)

Contents List of Figures Acknowledgements

vii ix

Introduction: Italy and Travel

3

1

What’s Italian about Italian Travel Writing?

9

2

Performing Baroque Travel: Pietro Della Valle’s Viaggi

51

3

Travel Writing and Travel as Writing in Francesco Belli’s Osservazioni nel viaggio

95

4

Out to the Center in Francesco Negri’s Viaggio settentrionale

127

5

Repossessing Travel Writing: The Circumnavigating Moderno

155

Conclusion: Petrarch, the Euro, and the Fate of Italian Travel Literature

197

Bibliography Index

205 221

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List of Figures 1.1

World Map. From Nicholas de Fer, L’Atlas curieux, 1705. By permission of the Huntington Library

18

1.2

Francesco Carletti’s Circumnavigation 1594–1606

36

2.1

Pietro Della Valle’s Itinerary 1614–26

54

2.2

Portrait of Pietro Della Valle. From Les fameux voyages de Pietro Della Valle. Paris: Gervais Clouzier, 1662–64. By permission of the Huntington Library

62

Portrait of Sitti Maani Gioerida. From Les fameux voyages de Pietro Della Valle. Paris: Gervais Clouzier, 1662–64. By permission of the Huntington Library

77

2.3

2.4

Giovanni Francesco Guercino (Barbieri). The Burial of Santa Petronilla. 1621–22. Oil on canvas, 720 × 423 cm. Pinacoteca Capitolina, Musei Capitolini, Rome, Italy. Photo credit: Erich Lessing/ Art Resource, NY 92

3.1

Francesco Belli’s Itinerary 1626–27

3.2

Map of the Palatinate. From Mercator, Atlas Minor, 1630. By permission of the Huntington Library

114

4.1

Francesco Negri’s Scandinavian Itinerary 1663–66

131

4.2

Frontispiece of Johannes Scheffer’s History of Lapland, 1657. By permission of the Huntington Library

139

Map of Lapland. From Johannes Scheffer, History of Lapland, 1657. By permission of the Huntington Library

142

5.1

Giovanni Francesco Gemelli Careri’s European Itinerary, 1686

159

5.2

Map of Europe. From Mercator, Atlas Minor, 1630. By permission of the Huntington Library

161

5.3

Giovanni Francesco’s Circumnavigation 1693–98

164

5.4

Map of America. From Mercator, Atlas Minor, 1630. By permission of the Huntington Library

168

4.3

97

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Acknowledgements This book emerges from a fifteen-year fascination with early modern travel writing. For inspiring me to study travel literature and for providing invaluable guidance, I am first and foremost grateful to Theodore Cachey. Luigi Monga, whose enthusiastic presence in the field of hodoeporics is dearly missed, was always available to share his expertise. Loredana Polezzi’s generosity and captivating work on modern Italian travel writing have been fundamental to this project. I also thank Graziella Parati, whose mentoring and friendship through the years deserve much more than a brief mention. The University of Oregon provided several grants that enabled me to complete this book. A timely research fellowship from the Oregon Humanities Center made possible the completion of my work, which has also benefited immensely from the regular meetings of the energetic and convivial Early Modern Reading Group (EMODs) at the University of Oregon. I am fortunate to have had such careful and incisive readers, and am indebted in particular to Leah Middlebrook, Fabienne Moore, Massimo Lollini, and David Castillo. Dan Rosenberg, Gina Psaki, Andrew Schulz, Amanda Powell, Dianne Dugaw, Elizabeth Bohls, Michael Stern, Marc Vanscheeuwijck, and Steven Shankman have been engaging interlocutors. Also in the Pacific Northwest, Louisa Mackenzie and Benjamin Schmidt at the University of Washington have provided excellent occasions for exchanges on the subject of travel writing. Farther south, at USC and the Huntington Library, Peter Mancall has created enticing venues for studying and discussing early modern travel culture. I am grateful for his support. My thinking about travel writing and early modern literature has been honed over the years by encounters and conversations, both lengthy and fleeting, with mentors, colleagues, and friends. Among the many to whom I owe thanks are Elissa Weaver, who directed my research at the University of Chicago, as well as Paolo Cherchi, Rebecca J. West, Sergio Zatti, Tom Conley, Ricardo Padrón, Roberto Dainotto, Tim Youngs, Betty Hagglund, Silvia Ross, Arielle Saiber, Maria Galli Stampino, Nina Cannizzaro, Sally Hill and Davide Papotti. I thank Erika Gaffney of Ashgate Publishing for her interest in my project, and Erik Strandhagen for producing such fine maps. Sarah Grew’s keen eye was essential to making the book jacket. Claudie and Ralph Hester, who passed on to me their love of literature and language, have provided unwavering support of my work at every stage. I am immensely grateful for their help, from morale-boosting to suggestions regarding textual analysis to last-minute editing. Annabelle Hester and Ken Crawford provided superlative hospitality, office space, bountiful photocopies, and gentle nudging during various book-related stays in Washington DC. I also thank my daughter, Corinne, whose imminent arrival was an extra incentive to get the final touches done. Finally, this book would not have been completed without the love and encouragement of Craig Weicker, who always reminds me to go one step at a time.

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Sections of Chapters 2 and 3 have appeared in the following publications: “Traveling Women, Women Warriors, and Female Bodies in Pietro Della Valle’s Viaggi,” Romance Languages Annual, 12 (2001): 174–80. “Travel Writing and Travel as Writing in Francesco Belli’s Osservazioni nel Viaggio,” in L’Italia nella lingua e nel pensiero, 2 vols (Rome: Istituto Poligrafico e Zecca dello Stato: 2002), vol. 1, pp. 155–62. By permission of Anthony Mollica. An earlier version of Chapter 4 was published as: “Unreasonable Travels? The Place of Europe in Francesco Negri’s Viaggio settentrionale,” in David R. Castillo and Massimo Lollini (eds), Reason and Its Others: Italy, Spain, and the New World (Nashville, TN: Vanderbilt University Press, 2006), pp. 101–22. All translations are mine, unless otherwise specified.

“Every voyage is the unfolding of a poetic. The departure, the cross-over, the wandering, the discovery, the return, the transformation.” Trinh T. Minh-ha (Travellers’ Tales, 21) “Tout voyage est une machine à produire du récit” [All travel is a vehicle for producing narrative]. Adrien Pasquali (“Récit de voyage,” 71) “Rompiamo il corso del viaggio, non col fermare la nave, che scorre, ma col differire la descrizione, che resta” [We will interrupt the course of the journey, not by stopping the boat, which goes on, but by deferring the description, which remains]. Francesco Belli (Osservazioni nel viaggio, 56–7)

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Introduction

Italy and Travel In a 1999 New Yorker cartoon by the artist Bruce Eric Kaplan, a king, frowning and irritated, snaps at a startled looking figure, presumably Columbus: “Just tell me about the new continent. I don’t give a damn what you’ve discovered about yourself.”1 King Ferdinand’s provocatively unhistorical and ironic request is—besides a jab at confessional trends in contemporary literature—actually an inadvertent commentary on developments in European travel narrative of the early modern period. When foreign lands were less or barely known, travel writing was esteemed above all as a container of invaluable and rare information, as Ferdinand implies. Later on, as more travelers roamed the globe and facts and data became increasingly accessible, travelers dedicated more of their exploratory energies to new ways of narrating their journeys. In the late sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, many, akin perhaps to the Columbus in the cartoon, began focusing more on their roles as narrators and protagonists and on developing their own poetics of travel writing. In short, a more personalized narrative of travel became as much a subject of investigation as the factual elements of the journey itself. BEK’s choice of a Columbus figure to unnerve his sponsor with an unexpected discourse of self-discovery, although anachronistic, comes as no surprise. The so-called literature of “discovery,” especially that of the Americas, has been and continues to be a central subject and a debated terrain of ideological, historical, and literary inquiries, such as in the work of Tvetan Todorov, Hayden White, and Stephen Greenblatt, among many others. However, if we think of this Columbus as an Italian, and not just as a European explorer, BEK’s cartoon brings to mind another question: what accounts are there by “Columbuses” who narrated the experience of travel in a more openly personal fashion and who wrote less for patrons, sponsors, or superiors? In other words, what became of Italian travel writing after the Age of Exploration? Of travel by Italians, the Columbus–Vespucci duo has received the lion’s share of critical attention, sometimes forming a larger group with John Cabot (Giovanni Caboto), Giovanni da Verazzano, or Antonio Pigafetta, who accompanied Magellan’s expedition, or else playing the early modern Italian cousins to the medieval Marco Polo. But Italian travel literature after about the mid-1500s remains conspicuously missing in most studies of early modern European travel. Indeed, these days, when travel literature has acquired its lettres de noblesse and finds its legitimacy on bookstore shelves as well as in the academic scholarship of various disciplines, the absence of studies of post-Renaissance Italian travel narrative is striking. In fact, the phrase “Italian travel writing” itself sometimes leads to interpretive ambiguities, not only because it is mostly invisible, as Loredana Polezzi 1

New Yorker, vol. LXXV, no. 31, Oct. 18 and 25, 1999, p. 92.

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Literature and Identity in Italian Baroque Travel Writing

qualifies it,2 but because for many centuries Italy has represented a destination, not a point of departure. “Italian travel writing” more often than not connotes travel to Italy, not journeys made and narrated by Italians. It is revealing that, already in Diderot’s Encyclopédie, the first example in the definition of voyage reads: “On fait le voyage d’Italie” [One makes the journey to Italy].3 By the 1750s, then, this form of travel was pervasive, and the association between travel and Italy a well-established, almost reflexive one. Furthermore, the impersonal but authoritative pronoun “on” in “On fait le voyage d’Italie” evokes a representative subject, presumably an upper-class European man, who engages in a typical cultural activity. This subject, however, can only be one who considers Italy a foreign country and who takes part in the ritual of the Grand Tour in which Italy is a site for discovery, a bridge to Antiquity, and a path to pleasurable exotic adventure. Italian perspectives are therefore incompatible with the concept of “le voyage d’Italie,” and necessarily excluded from a form of travel assumed to be broadly European. This Italian paradox with regard to post-Renaissance travel—the profound significance of Italian culture in a practice that seems to preclude Italian participation in that very practice—marks the principal setting-out point for this book. Its most basic goal is to move away from the beaten geographical tracks of travel to Italy, venture forth into relatively untouched territory, and undertake a different kind of course. It focuses on travel writing by Italians precisely at the time, during the seventeenth century, when the Italian perspective becomes less and less a part of what is conventionally, if inaccurately, presumed to be a set of travel practices conceived of as European. In looking at texts by several of the first Italians to write of travel abroad for personal motives, I consider these accounts in their specific Italian cultural, literary, and historical contexts, rescuing them from the broad strokes that subsume Italians into European patterns. The travel narratives examined in the following chapters are written by a new and emerging kind of traveler—one motivated principally by curiosity, who exercises significant discursive freedom in the recounting of a journey. In this sense the present study is an archeological one, bringing back to the surface texts that have been buried or only partially brought to light. It provides a more nuanced picture of early modern European travel by examining Italian travel narrative in light of two major developments of the time in travel culture: first, the rapid diversification of travel, with the accompanying variety of models (literary, historiographical, and scientific) for representing travel; second, Italy’s definitive slide from the center to the margins of a European culture during what William Bouwsma has termed “the waning of the Renaissance.”4 Close readings of several 2 Loredana Polezzi, Translating Travel: Contemporary Italian Travel Writing in English Translation (Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2001), p. 28. 3 At: http://artfl.uchicago.edu/cgi-bin/philologic31/getobject.pl?c.131:256:0.encyclopedie1207. See the entry “voyage,” 17:476. 4 See Introduction and first chapter of William J. Bouwsma, The Waning of the Renaissance, 1550–1640 (New Haven, CT and London: Yale University Press, 2000). He comments on the lack of historical studies of the era and its cultural repercussions: “it now

Italy and Travel

5

of the earliest accounts by self-funded Italian travelers—Francesco Carletti, Pietro Della Valle, Francesco Belli, Francesco Negri, and Giovanni Francesco Gemelli Careri—elucidate how Italy’s cosmopolitan literary–classical identity, however differently incorporated into the text, remains an essential backdrop for these Italian travelers who are keen to develop their own art of travel writing. As the following chapters will show, it is precisely when Italians perceive Italy’s loss of pre-eminence that their travel writing most tellingly addresses what is at the heart of the early modern and eventually modern Italian condition: the preoccupation with the place of Italian identity and the enduring prominence of literary culture. The travel accounts examined enjoyed a relatively wide circulation, and in some cases an international readership. The Viaggi [Travels] (1650–63) of Roman patrician Pietro Della Valle met with immediate success. His narrative of travels to the Middle East and India went through numerous editions and was translated into five European languages. Venetian Francesco Belli’s Osservazioni nel viaggio [Observations While Traveling] (1632), although successful mainly in Venetian and academic circles, was the work for which this prolific author was most praised.5 Francesco Negri, from Ravenna, published parts of his Viaggio settentrionale [Northern Travels] (1700), about a Scandinavian journey, in two anthologies before the definitive edition, one of two, came out. Neapolitan Giovanni Francesco Gemelli Careri’s Viaggi per Europa [Travels through Europe] (1693) had several editions, and his Giro del Mondo [Journey Around the World] (1699–1700) had multiple editions and translations in English, French, and German.6 Furthermore, these texts span the entire seventeenth century and therefore provide a perspective on changes in the relationship between Italian identity and Italian literary culture in travel writing. Earlier in the century, Italian literary culture was still a model in Europe. Widely read and emulated, Italian literature offered an internationally sanctioned cultural base from which one could explore the art

strikes me as remarkable that historians of early modern Europe have paid so little attention to the problem of the end of the Renaissance … wherever we locate the transition to the modern world, we are still inclined to assume it has its origins in the Renaissance … The closest we have come to revising our notions about such matters has been recently to relocate the beginnings of the modern world in the eighteenth century” (viii–ix). Whether a viable endeavor or not, the search for the origins of modernity has tended to skip the decades that Bouwsma examines, an expansive period for travel and travel writing. 5 Belli was born in Arzignano, near Vicenza. I use the adjective Venetian because he comes from a territory belonging to the Republic of Venice and because he identifies strongly with Venetian culture. In his eighteenth-century history of Italian literature, Girolamo Tiraboschi mentions Belli and the praise his travel account received: “Io veggo inoltre lodarsi come pregevoli assai le Osservazioni dei Viaggi di Olanda e di Francia di Francesco Belli” [I see that Francesco Belli’s Observations while Traveling in Holland and France are commended as very praiseworthy]. Girolamo Tiraboschi, Storia della letteratura italiana, 11 vols (Modena: Società tipografica, 1772–95), vol. 8, p. 73. 6 Gemelli Careri was born in Calabria, but lived most of his life in Naples; in his travel writing, he considers Naples his cultural and geographical home.

6

Literature and Identity in Italian Baroque Travel Writing

of travel narrative.7 After the success of Tasso and Marino’s epic poems, however, Italy’s literary acclaim abroad diminished during a period in which the peninsula experienced political and economic turmoil.8 For travel writers whose language of communication and identity was based almost exclusively in literary culture, Italian literature began to be an ever more problematic source of narrative authority. In the accounts of Belli and Della Valle, committed members of literary academies, literature provides key models for constructing novel accounts of movement across distances and establishing a coherent point of view from which authors can assert themselves as narrators and protagonists. In the second half of the century, Italian literature then no longer holds as much influence on a European scale, and Italian travel writers such as Negri and Gemelli Careri embrace new scientific and journalistic trends. They attest to a growing anxiety about Italy’s position in the world and an uneasiness with respect to a travel culture now dominated by Northern Europeans. If they share common undercurrents, these accounts also exemplify the inherent variety in travel narrative. This diversity reflects the different practical, extratextual contexts in which travelers move and write: their place of origin, interests, personality, reasons for traveling, reasons for writing, and the real or imagined reader or readers to and for whom they write. For instance, the travelers of the following chapters come from different native cities or patriae in northern, central, and southern Italy. Although they represent a new breed of independent traveler, their accounts reveal the heterogeneity of five authors with varied dispositions and cultural backgrounds. A monolithic theoretical approach, then, cannot adequately illuminate the polychromatic richness of these texts, because the variations on travel writing call for a variety of critical modalities. As Manfred Pfister reminds us, the “etymological link between theory and travel encourages us to consider traveling as a form of theory, a more or less systematic way of perceiving other countries.”9 Indeed, each of these travelers is a theorist of the discursive practice of travel writing. In Chapter 1, I consider the fortunes and misfortunes of Italian baroque travel writing and argue for the need to consider this corpus in its specific, Italian context. This part focuses first on the historical absence in literary criticism of an entire body of literary work, and explains the reasons for this dismissal. It also demonstrates, using the work of Theodore Cachey, Amedeo Quondam, and Sergio Zatti, how the exclusion of travel literature from the Italian literary canon and from literary scholarship is closely linked to the problem of Italian identity. Even though the seventeenth century represents a critical period in European travel culture and 7 “Italian literature becomes indisputably ‘major’ within a European context at roughly the same time that it is codified as a ‘national’ linguistic and literary practice (Bembo’s Le prose della vulgar lingua, 1525).” Theodore J. Cachey, Jr., “An Italian History of Travel,” Annali d’Italianistica, 14 (1996): 58. 8 According to Dionisotti, Italy’s literary renown reached its peak with Torquato Tasso towards the latter half of the sixteenth century. Carlo Dionisotti, “Regioni e letteratura,” in I documenti, vol. 5/ii of Romano Ruggiero and Corrado Vivanti (eds), Storia d’Italia, 6 vols in 10 (Turin: Einaudi, 1973), p. 1388. 9 Manfred Pfister, The Fatal Gift of Beauty: The Italies of British Travellers. An Annotated Anthology (Atlanta, GA: Rodopi, 1996), p. 3.

Italy and Travel

7

travel writing, Italians cannot participate in proto-national identity building that depends in part on international travel and expansion. I analyze Francesco Carletti’s Ragionamenti del mio viaggio intorno al mondo [Discourses on my Voyage Around the World] (1594–1606), the first account of an independent Italian trip around the world, as an inaugural text: it combines both an explicit and self-conscious use of Italian literary references and an awareness of the insider–outsider position of the Italian traveler on routes increasingly dominated by other European powers. Chapter 2, “Performing Baroque Travel: Pietro Della Valle’s Viaggi,” examines this Roman traveler’s extraordinary, four-volume epistolary account of a journey to the Middle East and India from 1614 to 1626. I argue that Della Valle’s principal narrative strategy is to construct himself as a literary adventurer enacting the theatrum mundi trope. Posing as both a Roman and a cosmopolitan courtly Italian humanist, Della Valle incorporates in his text literary elements of the epic, Petrarchan poetics, and baroque aesthetics, as well as references to the culture of theater and pageantry, to create a spectacular account and attain eternal fame as the hero of his narrative. His letters, which his correspondent had agreed to turn into a kind of prose epic, offer a plethora of enticing narrative elements for the projected but never undertaken epic rendition. Acutely aware of his role as hero or protagonist, Della Valle almost literalizes the notion of the world as stage, changing dress and hairstyle in different countries, learning new languages, and adopting local customs. Aside from narrating constant movement, change, and cultural adaptation, the text almost obsessively addresses death and the macabre, baroque themes par excellence, with particular attention paid to sepulchers, mummies, and even fetuses. These dramatic episodes make up the essential pieces of Della Valle’s spectacle and performance of travel. The chapter that follows, “Travel Writing and Travel as Writing in Francesco Belli’s Osservazioni nel viaggio,” focuses on the baroque-filtered discourses in this Venetian libertine’s trip from Venice to the Hague with a diplomatic envoy, and back to Italy through France. As the title of his account suggests, Belli takes on the role of observer rather than hero or protagonist, and instead asserts his subjectivity as a highly innovative mediator of information and producer of text. His narrative also functions as a tribute to Venice, especially its academic literary culture, and to Italy’s literary tradition in general. Mixing poetry and prose and using various linguistic registers, Belli creates an account that is more a theoretical discourse on the art of travel writing than a record of a trip undertaken. In fact, a large portion of the text is dedicated—with Petrarchan echoes—to narrating fanciful conversations while the Venetian group goes up the Rhine by boat. Giovanni Getto’s work on Italian baroque prose and Gérard Genette’s theory of narratology help elucidate Belli’s play with the metaphorical possibilities of representing movement through time and space, Italian style. Chapter 4, “Out to the Center in Francesco Negri’s Viaggio settentrionale,” looks at the encounter between literary and “new scientific” models for travel writing in the quirky narrative of a three-year expedition from 1663 to 1666 through Scandinavia written by a clergyman from Ravenna. This epistolary account presents an ideal case study for considering how multiple and sometimes contradictory discourses, old and new, mingle in a single text to serve a principal purpose: to justify Italian

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Literature and Identity in Italian Baroque Travel Writing

participation in travel culture and, more broadly, to prove that Italy lies at the geographical and therefore cultural center of Europe and the world. Negri, whose prose reflects lingering elements of baroque aesthetics, a deference to classical– humanist precedents, and also an interest in empirical investigation of Galilean influence, portrays Scandinavia as Europe’s internal Other, ostensibly to re-place Italy at the center of Europe. Focusing on what he considers the “extreme” qualities of Scandinavians in terms of character, customs, and physical traits, which he contrasts with the “extreme” opposite traits of Ethiopians, Negri establishes Italy as the ideal and superior country because it embodies a geographical and ethnographic middle ground. His textual strategies attest to Italians’ deepening anxieties about losing their prominence and their growing sense of exclusion from dominant Northern European travel patterns. The final chapter, “Repossessing Travel Writing: The Circumnavigating Moderno,” considers the evolution in the position of Giovanni Francesco Gemelli Careri as insider–outsider (European–Italian) in the two versions of his epistolary narrative of travels in Europe (Viaggi per Europa, 1693, 1701) and his account of travel around the globe (Giro del Mondo, 1699–1700). The Neapolitan lawyer, like Negri, struggles with his reception abroad as a member of a European minority no longer associated with international travel. The two versions of Gemelli Careri’s European travels offer compelling evidence of his changing methods of travel writing. In adding more letters from the Italian segment of his itinerary to the second edition, he reappropriates the Italy imagined and defined by Northern Europeans who participate in Grand Tour culture, offering his own, Italian, vision of travel through Italy. Then, as a world traveler, Gemelli Careri, in a manner reminiscent of Francesco Carletti, takes on the distanced, cosmopolitan, educated observer’s point of view. With no official role as missionary, diplomat, or entrepreneur, he remains a curious spectator and is viewed more often than not with skepticism and suspicion. Spanish colonizers in the Americas and missionaries in Asia sometimes assume that this rare independent Italian traveler is a spy. His account reveals a constant negotiation between—and tensions that are never resolved in—his role and identity as an Italian tourist and his more general position as a European journeying in colonial territories. To look closely at Italian travel literature of this time is to better grasp essential— often repressed, but persistent—questions related to the textual and literary foundations of Italian identity, and to emphasize non-expansionist variations of European travel. These travel texts, whether strategically deferring to Italy’s literary heritage or embracing the heterogeneity of Italian-ness, are best understood within the corpus of Italian literary production and can thus provide essential nuances for approaches to European travel writing. Whether moved towards discovery or selfdiscovery, Italians did go out of Italy, and their accounts offer rich testimonials of the gradual literary and cultural remapping of the early modern world.

Chapter 1

What’s Italian about Italian Travel Writing? The Misfortunes of Italian Baroque Travel Writing The lack of attention to Italian travel writing after the mid-1500s is striking given Italy’s contributions to European culture in general, and also the crucial role that travel and travel literature played in early modern culture. The later sixteenth and seventeenth centuries saw a dramatic increase in the publication of travel narratives throughout Europe, a sign not only of the success of the print industry, but of the popularity and interest this fast-evolving form of writing enjoyed.1 More significantly, travel narratives of this period were critical to molding and modifying discourses on difference. As Joan-Pau Rubiés notes: These [travel narratives] were important … not for their sheer quantity, but for the position which they occupied in a structure of discourse … Within the cosmographical genres of the Renaissance, none of them had implications as profound as the analysis of human diversity, and especially cultural and religious diversity. The fundamental breakthrough … was not simply to record, but also to interpret difference … The rationalist transformation of European culture during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries cannot be explained without the structuring agency of the discourses of travel literature, in all their moral and empirical diversity.2

Travel writing’s geographical and discursive reach makes it a key part of changing attitudes towards diversity in the world, from descriptive to more interpretive frameworks.3 1 Luigi Monga’s bibliography of texts on the method of travel, for instance, attests to a rapid rise in the publication of travel-related works between the 1500s and the 1600s. The bibliography includes twenty-nine European texts published in the 1500s and sixty-three in the 1600s. See Luigi Monga, “A Taxonomy of Renaissance Hodoeporics: A Bibliography of Theoretical Texts on Methodus Apodemica (1500–1700),” Annali d’Italianistica, 14 (1996): 645–62. Earlier bibliographies show similar trends, such as in Pietro Amat di San Filippo, Biografia dei viaggiatori italiani con la bibliografia delle relazioni di viaggio dai medesimi dettate (Rome: Tipografia romana, 1881), vol. 1 of Amat di San Filippo and Gustavo Uzielli (eds), Studi biografici e bibliografici sulla storia della geografia in Italia, 2 vols (Rome: Società Geografica Italiana, 1882–84). 2 Joan-Pau Rubiés, Travel and Ethnology in the Renaissance: South India through European Eyes 1250–1625 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), pp. 388, 398. 3 Rubiés continues: “One important feature of Renaissance travel literature was that it was a peripheral discourse within the European system of knowledge, justified by practical

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Literature and Identity in Italian Baroque Travel Writing

Travel has always been the site of investigation of Otherness, whether through distant journeying or the crossing of a more local border. In the very early stages of European nationhood, representations of different countries in travel writing contributed to the process of identity-building and self-definition: The need for cultural or national identity always expresses and realizes itself in ascriptions of difference and otherness to the neighboring cultures and nations. The rise of the modern European states in the Renaissance was, accordingly, accompanied on the one hand by a dramatically increased production of texts defining and emphasizing differences between the various national cultures … and, on the other, by strategies to play down differences within them.4

Travel accounts were essential components of the literature of identity, as one might term it, and Italians, like other Europeans, played a part in the phenomenon, writing of their travels abroad as ambassadors, merchants, missionaries, scholars, artists, and early tourists. In the seventeenth century, Venetian ambassadorial reports, the confidential accounts that diplomats had to provide, also circulated in closed circles, and ambassadors began dedicating more time to polishing the style of their reports.5 Court secretaries and papal nuncios wrote letters describing foreign countries, and their correspondents often copied and distributed these in manuscript form, while other accounts were published.6 The numerous letters of Lorenzo Magalotti, the grand duke of Tuscany’s secretary who traveled in Northern Europe, had readers and admirers, although his missives were not published before the eighteenth century.7 Giovanni Battista Pacichelli, an ambassador of Ranuccio II of Parma, published his epistolary Memorie de’ viaggi per l’Europa cristiana [Memoirs of travels through Christian Europe] in 1685. Merchants wrote of their international travel; for instance, the Florentine Filippo Sassetti. The writings of Italian missionaries in Asia, Africa, and the Americas, especially Jesuits, provided key information about distant lands to Italian readers and in translation throughout Europe. After the missionary efforts in China made most famous by polymath Matteo Ricci (1552–1610), who died in Peking, many Italian Jesuits followed suit. Milanese Cristoforo Borri’s Relatione della nuova missione delli PP. della compagnia di Giesù al Regno della Cocincina [Report of the new mission of the Jesuits in the kingdom of Cochin] came out in aims rather than theoretical concerns, but with an immense potential for suggesting new problems.” Ibid., p. 394. 4 Manfred Pfister, The Fatal Gift of Beauty, p. 4 5 See Chapter 3 on Francesco Belli. Venetian diplomat Michele Bianchi, for example, wrote relazioni on Poland and Muscovy that were published posthumously under the pseudonym Alberto Vimina. See Alberto Vimina, Historia delle guerre civili di Polonia: divisa in cinque libri; Progressi dell’armi moscovite contro polacchi; Relatione della Moscovia, e Svetia, e loro governi (Venice: Pinelli, 1671). 6 The manuscript European accounts of papal nuncio Giacomo Fantuzzi (1680s) and secretary Bernardo Bizoni (1606), who wrote of art patron Vincenzo Giustiniani’s travels, have modern editions, as does Sebastiano Locatelli’s sprightly account of a European trip during 1664–65. 7 See Enrico Falqui’s Introduction to Magalotti’s Saggi di naturali esperienze (Rome: Colombo, 1947).

What’s Italian about Italian Travel Writing?

11

1631, and later was translated into Flemish, French, English, and German.8 Giovanni Filippo De Marini’s account of the Far East and Japan, Delle Missioni de’ Padri della Compagnia di Giesu nella provincia del Giappone [On the Jesuit Missions in the Province of Japan], published in 1663, also had a French translation. Prospero Intorcetta published his Compendiosa narrazione dello stato della missione cinese [Concise account of the state of the Chinese mission] in 1672. Concerning the Americas, Francesco Giuseppe Bressani’s dramatic account of Jesuit missions in New France appeared in 1653.9 Missionaries of other denominations also wrote of the Far East, such as Teatin Arcangelo Lamberti, who published two works on Asia Minor in 1654 and 1657 respectively, and Carmelite Antonio Murchio, who wrote Viaggio all’Indie Orientali [Travels to the East Indies] (1672). On missions to the Congo, Minor Capuchin Giovanni Antonio Cavazzi contributed to an account published in 1687, Istorica descrizione de’ tre regni, Congo, Matamba, et Angola [Historical description of the three kingdoms of Congo, Matamba, and Angola], which also came out in French.10 Although this book focuses on the travel narratives of independent Italian travelers, who tend to be freer to experiment in their writing, it is clear that for them the reports of diplomats, merchants, and missionaries provide essential models for travel writing as well as vital sources of information. Italians, then, figured among those Europeans traveling through Europe and other continents who published travel narratives popular in their time, sometimes internationally. However, many of these Italian texts have since received relatively little attention inside or outside Italy, for a variety of complex, interconnected reasons. One has to do with travel writing’s tentative status as a genre.11 As Eric Leed writes regarding early modern travel writing, “it is print that made travel literature a popular literature, and which made it possible to integrate the observations of voyagers into a literature.”12 Leed’s comments ring true, as he refers to an emerging idea of travel writing as a form of literature. But travel as literature is problematic in the Italian context. One principal reason for the marginality of travel writing in Italy is that historically it has occupied non-literary categories. The practical and functional nature of travel writing has excluded it from the aesthetically oriented literary canon whose rigid definitions have continued to influence modern Italian literary culture and criticism. Only rather recently have scholars begun to explore 8 Borri was an acquaintance of Pietro Della Valle in Rome. See Chapter 2. 9 These texts were among the sources of the masterpiece of Italian baroque historical prose, the Istoria della Compagnia di Giesù (1653–73), by Daniello Bartoli, the official historiographer of the Jesuit order. 10 Excerpts of most of these examples of texts are anthologized in Marziano Guglielminetti’s Viaggiatori del Seicento (Turin: UTET, 1967). The most extensive biographies of Italian travelers include Pietro Amat di San Filippo, Biografia dei viaggiatori italiani (see note 1), and Gaetano Branca, Storia dei viaggiatori italiani (Rome: Paravia, 1873). 11 For a succinct overview of the inherent hybridity of travel writing, see Jan Borm’s chapter, “Defining Travel: On the Travel Book, Travel Writing and Terminology,” in Glenn Hooper and Tim Youngs (eds), Perspectives on Travel Writing (Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2004), pp. 13–26. 12 Eric J. Leed, The Mind of the Traveler: From Gilgamesh to Global Tourism (New York: Basic Books, 1991), p. 180.

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more thoroughly this particular Italian phenomenon. Giorgio Raimondo Cardona, for example, has called for the writing of the missing chapter on travel writing in Italian literary history.13 Sergio Zatti has focused on the centuries-old roots of Italian literary reluctance towards travel writing: … le ragioni di questa mancata ricezione [of travel literature] sono varie e complesse, ma attengono in sostanza alla diffidenza istintiva … rispetto a un’idea “disinteressata” di letteratura come quella che ispira la italiana, fondata da sempre su modelli sostanzialmente puristici e classicistici (ne sono l’esempio più calzante … le rigide restrizioni bembesche imposte agli inizi del secolo alla prassi linguistica e letteraria). [The reasons for the lack of inclusion of travel literature are multiple and complex, but they can be attributed for the most part to an instinctive diffidence with regard to a “disinterested” idea of literature that guides Italian literature, founded from the beginning on essentially purist and classical models (the most fitting example being the rigid Bembian restrictions that were imposed on literary and linguistic practices at the beginning of the sixteenth century)].14

The unfortunate lack of interest in Italian travel writing after the Age of Exploration has been compounded by the fact that baroque literature in general occupies a decidedly underprivileged position in modern Italian literary criticism. Benedetto Croce, one of the most influential twentieth-century scholars to evaluate Italian literary history, considered the quality of literary production of the seventeenth century inferior to that of other centuries. In his Storia dell’età barocca in Italia, he assesses the aesthetic shortcomings of Italian literary creation until 1670, when the neoclassical Arcadia academy was formed, and he issues this condemnation: “quel che è veramente arte non è mai barocco, e quel che è barocco non è arte” [that which is art is never baroque, and that which is baroque is not art].15 Such a statement, although certainly not the first of its kind, cast an unequivocally negative light on all literature associated with the baroque period,16 including seventeenth-century travel writing, which falls into the same arena of textual production. In the Storia dell’età barocca, Croce discusses historiographical texts, among which he includes the travel accounts of Pietro Della Valle and Giovanni Francesco Gemelli Careri. Croce characterizes seventeenth-century historiography as both anti-humanistic and anti-literary; and, echoing his more conservative early modern predecessors, follows the Aristotelian distinction between history as the subject of real events and poetry

13 See Giorgio Raimondo Cardona, “I viaggi e le scoperte,” in Alberto Asor Rosa (ed.), Letteratura italiana: le questioni (Turin: Einaudi, 1986), pp. 687–716. 14 Preface to Stefania Pineider, “In così immensa pellegrinatione”: la scrittura del viaggio nei Ragionamenti di Francesco Carletti (Rome: Vecchiarelli, 2004), p. 5. 15 Benedetto Croce, Storia dell’età barocca in Italia (Bari: Laterza, 1929), p. 39. 16 Giuseppe Baretti’s memorable diatribes against Italian baroque literature in A journey from London to Genoa: through England, Spain, and France (London: T. Davis, 1770) come to mind.

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as that of possible ones.17 In these cultural conditions, travel writing has generally occupied a historical or geographical rather than literary category.18 Two important collections of essays on Italian literary history that came out in the 1960s via the publishing houses Vallardi and Garzanti include the topic of travel writing in their volumes on the Seicento. This inaugurated a trend recognizing the literary qualities or at least the narrative importance of travel texts. The Vallardi volume discusses travel accounts in an article entitled “Scrittori di scienza e di viaggio” [science and travel writers].19 Enzo Raimondi’s article in the Garzanti volume also combines scientific and travel writing.20 Although travel accounts appear to deserve a place in literary history as an extremely popular form of writing, their multidisciplinary nature—part history, geography, politics, and ethnography—still sets them in a genre distinct from traditional literature. At the same time that travel literature was making its way into Seicento literary histories, Marziano Guglielminetti published the anthology Viaggiatori del Seicento (1967). Guglielminetti’s Introduction to the anthology remains one of the only indepth considerations of Italian travel narratives of the period and is a fundamental reference point in the field, although he does not adequately valorize the very innovation of his project.21 His Introduction, while clearly recognizing the literary value of travel writing, suffers from the inferiority complex of seventeenth-century Italian literary criticism vis-à-vis Spanish, French, and English literary production of the same period. Looking to find common elements in the twenty-four texts of his anthology, Guglielminetti speaks of general characteristics such as a desire to amaze or surprise (meravigliare) the reader—a buzzword in baroque poetics—, unease at perceiving cultures seemingly more sophisticated and functional than Italy’s, and the inability of Italians to incorporate cultural relativism into their perspective. He asserts that the dogmatic environment of the Counter-Reformation and absolutist Spanish domination impeded the development or at least the expression of a self-

17 Croce, p. 110. 18 See Loredana Polezzi, Translating Travel, for an overview of Croce’s aesthetics in relation to modern Italian criticism on travel writing, pp. 39–43. In her study of contemporary Italian literature in translation, Polezzi points out the contrasting popularity of travel literature in Northern European countries. 19 Carmine Jannaco, “Scrittori di scienza e di viaggio,” in Antonio Belloni (ed.), Il Seicento, vol. 7 of Storia letteraria d’Italia (Milan: Vallardi, 1966), pp. 539–81. 20 Enzo Raimondi, “Scienziati e viaggiatori barocchi,” in Emilio Cecchi and Natalino Sapegno (eds), Il Seicento, vol. 5 of Storia della letteratura italiana (Milan: Garzanti, 1967) pp. 225–318. 21 Daria Perocco’s Viaggiare e raccontare: narrazione di viaggio ed esperienze di racconto tra Cinque e Seicento (Alessandria: Edizioni dell’Orso, 1987), although not exclusive to seventeenth-century travel narrative, is one of very few recent works to consider more than one travel writer of the 1600s. She also has a book chapter, “Viaggiatori barocchi in America,” in Gino Benzoni (ed.), Le Americhe: storie di viaggiatori italiani (Milan: Electa, 1987), pp. 106–17. Guglielminetti has a section on travel writers in his volume on baroque literature in the UTET literary history, Storia della civiltà letteraria italiana. Manierismo e Barocco (Turin: UTET, 1990).

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critical attitude discernible in other European travel accounts.22 After deprecating the lack of a relativist point of view in Italian travel, Guglielminetti concludes his Introduction by stating that “ai viaggiatori del Seicento … non andranno i meriti degli scopritori rinascimentali (da Colombo a Vespucci), né i riconoscimenti degli intellettuali illuministi (dall’Algarotti al Baretti)” [seventeenth-century travelers cannot be accorded the merits either of Renaissance explorers, from Columbus to Vespucci, or the recognition of Enlightenment intellectuals, from Algarotti to Baretti].23 Guglielminetti, then, consents to leaving travel narratives of the period in relative critical obscurity, relegating the seventeenth century once again to a less pertinent period tucked in between the Age of Exploration, in which “discoveries” were funded essentially by the Spanish and Portuguese, and the Enlightenment, championed by the French. Instead of making a case for Italian exceptionality—its particular literary history and non-colonial early modern past—he underestimates Italian texts in comparison with other European models. This reluctance to embrace travel writing as part of the literary canon, along with the historical dismissal of the seventeenth century, cannot, however, be construed only as questions of aesthetics. Rather, the place of travel literature and the literary canon are inextricably linked to a general anxiety about Italian identity and its cultural role in early modern- and modern Europe. Italian unwillingness to revisit or rehabilitate travel literature stems from the association of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries with Italy’s irreversible decline when, as Zatti writes, “si consuma la traumatica perdita di centralità dell’Italia, mancata nazione al cospetto del consolidarsi delle altre identità nazionali europee (Spagna, Inghilterra, Francia, Portogallo) strette attorno alla centralità di monarchie a forte vocazione espansionistica” [Italians face the traumatic loss of Italy’s central position, a country that is a failed nation in view of the consolidation of other European national identities (Spain, England, France, Portugal) formed around the centrality of monarchies with a strong expansionist thrust].24 Zatti rightly identifies the reason for the lack of recognition of travel writing as the same one for which tales of Italian travel and discovery are never taken on or accepted in canonical epic literature, when he says, for example, that “Tasso promette un poema su Colombo che non scriverà mai proprio negli anni in cui Camoes esalta l’eroe del colonialismo portoghese, Vasco de Gama” [Tasso promises a poem on Columbus, which he never writes, precisely during the years in which Camoes pays homage to Vasco da Gama, the hero of Portuguese colonialism].25 For Zatti, the impossibility of a “Columbian” epic goes beyond questions and debates about literary genre. To portray the Genoese Columbus as an Italian hero would also have meant exalting the hired hand of a successful proto-national entity, Spain, and would

22 Guglielminetti, Viaggiatori, pp. 30, 47–54. He refers specifically to Paul Hazard’s concept of a European crise de conscience [crisis of conscience] and sees little Italian participation in that crisis. See Paul Hazard, La crise de la conscience européenne 1680–1715 (Paris: Boivin, 1935), pp. 15–36. 23 Guglielminetti, Viaggiatori, p. 57. 24 Pineider, p. 5. 25 Ibid.

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have called attention to Italy’s non-presence as a national power.26 Furthermore, by the seventeenth century Spain dominated a large portion of the Italian peninsula, another development of which, after the Treaty of Cateau-Cambrésis in 1559, a Columbus-hero would have served as a painful reminder. Tasso’s unwritten epic on Columbus can also be seen as recognition that the Genoese explorer could not stand as a universal heroic figure or a modern Ulysses at a time when the new heroes in travel culture were part of a mechanism to glorify individual nations. This period is also crucial to developments in travel culture because, just as Italy lost its envied position at the forefront of European culture, Italian urban centers became the favored destinations of rapidly spreading aristocratic tourism. Manfred Pfister goes so far as to characterize Italy as, in the eyes of many travelers, “a kind of inner-European Third World, when construed in the perspective of Northern European social, political and scientific modernisation.”27 Italians had to adapt both to the peninsula’s relegation to the geographical, political, and economic edges of the continent and to their new role in the European imaginary as the designated hosts to travelers from the north. Mary Louise Pratt’s comments on eighteenth-century travel writing are pertinent to the seventeenth-century as well as “a period in which Northern Europe asserted itself at the center of civilization, claiming the legacy of the Mediterranean as its own … It is not surprising, then, to find German or British accounts of Italy sounding like German or British accounts of Brazil.”28 Of course the history of early modern Italy is vastly different from that of Europe’s colonies overseas, but the similarities in discursive practices in travel writing suggests that, increasingly, non-Italians were defining Italy and that Italy came to signify an exotic playground for Northern Europeans. Those Italians who chose to leave the peninsula inevitably went countercurrent to southbound European aristocrats headed for the customary visits to Venice, Padua, Rome, Florence, and Naples. In more distant regions, Italians had to conform to the seafaring domination of Spain, Portugal, 26 As an example, Zatti cites Giangiorgio Trissino’s Italia liberata dai Goti [Italy Freed from the Goths] (1547–48), an epic poem which closely followed classical models and was meant to celebrate Italy’s independence as a political entity. It had far less success than the works of Tasso and Ariosto. According to Zatti, the work combined “ortodossia poetica e ortodossia politica” [poetic orthodoxy and political orthodoxy] and expressed the vision of Trissino, who was a staunch supporter of Charles V, of an Italy subordinate to imperial powers. See Sergio Zatti, L’ombra del Tasso: Epica e romanzo nel Cinquecento (Milan: Mondadori, 1996) p. 80. Interestingly, there were several Italian attempts to write Columbian epics in the early seventeenth century, but these remained either incomplete or had little editorial success; for example, Alessandro Tassoni’s Oceano (1617) and Tommaso Stigliani’s Mondo nuovo (1617, 1628). 27 Pfister, p. 5. “Italy … eventually came to occupy the position of a kind of European ‘internal other,’ for example, a destination for travelers and tourists on the Grand Tour during the eighteenth-century ‘Enlightenment’ period, who came to see the landscape and the ruins but certainly not the modern Italians or a modern Italian nation.” Theodore J. Cachey, Jr., “Italy and the Invention of America,” The New Centennial Review: Early Modernities, 2.1 (Spring 2002): 19. 28 Mary Louise Pratt, Imperial Eyes: Travel Writing and Transculturation (New York: Routledge, 1992), p. 10.

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England, and Holland. They found themselves in an ambiguous position: they were unquestionably European in their heritage, but, because there existed no cohesive form of travel out of Italy, excluded as a group from general European travel patterns. Italian Travel, Identity, and Place The lack of an Italian culture of travel equivalent to the Grand Tour through urban Italy or to economic and political expansionism also had substantial repercussions in this period because mobility had become a key element in burgeoning notions of national identity. Emerging models of cultural belonging and prominence now involved larger geo-political territories with one principal cultural center (London, Paris, Madrid) and were defined in part by the international reach of their political, economic, and religious institutions.29 The European nation-building usually associated with the nineteenth century had its roots in the early modern period and depended in part on the access to and control over foreign spaces. This process also entailed defining the place of the nation. Timothy Hampton writes of early conceptions of nationhood: If nationalism is produced out of the idea that individual identity is shaped and given purpose by a concept of community of which a common language is the medium, territory the seat, and shared character the stimulus, the history of nationhood, as a pre-history of nationalism, might be said to involve the struggle to determine language, space, and character, and to define their interaction.30

The struggle that Hampton defines evokes the crucial relationships between movement, place, and proto-national identity. The development of vernacular languages as “national” languages was part of an impetus to transcend geographical and therefore linguistic distance. National character was defined by a system of comparison and stereotyping, a recurring phenomenon in travel writing of the time. Nation as an area that can be traveled through and perceived as unified in some way, presented a troublesome obstacle in Italy, a territory with powerful city-states and no single center of power. Certainly a notion of Italy existed, but its concrete manifestation was essentially a geographical one: a peninsula with the natural borders of the Mediterranean Sea and the Alps. New notions of proto-nationhood, based on strengthening associations between cultural identity and internationally significant, relatively large and unified territories, had no conceptual equivalent in the Italian context. This lack of spatial, physically determined grounding was certainly problematic for the Italian traveler and travel writer. After all, as Georges Van Den Abbeele points out, a distinct notion of home is essential to the experience of travel: The economy of travel requires an oikos (the Greek for “home” from which is derived “economy”) in relation to which any wandering can be comprehended (enclosed as well 29 Gerard Delanty, Inventing Europe: Idea, Identity, Reality (London: Macmillan, 1995), pp. 44, 46. 30 Timothy Hampton, Literature and the Nation in the Sixteenth Century: Inventing Renaissance France (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2001), p. 9.

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as understood). In other words, a home(land) must be posited from which one leaves on the journey and to which one hopes to return.31

The oikos discussed by Van Den Abbeele is central not only as a geographical departure point, but also as the symbol of a perspective or system of beliefs that lends meaning and coherence to the journey and its representation. Italian travelers still identified with their patria, their city or region of origin, but new paradigms in European travel culture called for a vaster and more integrated homeland. As Theodore Cachey writes, “travel away from Italy points to the embarrassment of the fact that Italy … did not exist as a place to depart from and return to.”32 Indeed, the politically and linguistically fragmented Italian peninsula could not provide a concrete reference point for Italian travelers. In other words, in this new context the Italian traveler was already displaced before leaving, since Italy as a “place” did not exist. Italy in the 1600s had no physically or materially based manifestation that could be termed oikos, and this could only be too clear to Italians visiting France, Spain, the Netherlands, or England. Furthermore, a typical if not expected element of travel writing, however varied the forms of expression might be, involved making generalizations about different “national” groups in implied contrast to the narrator’s (superior) country of origin. Italian travel writers could not project a subject position comparable to those of Northern Europeans and turned to other strategies for establishing an authoritative “Italian” lens through which to represent textually other countries and their inhabitants.33 Italy’s identity fragmentation with regard to world travel can be seen, to cite one example, on a world map from Nicholas de Fer’s L’Atlas curieux, published in 1705 when De Fer was Louis XIV’s royal geographer (see Figure 1.1). The map, which depicts the two circles of the western and eastern hemispheres, also includes medallion portraits of European explorers and missionaries, all designated by place of origin. The French Jesuits Guy Tachard and René-Robert Cavelier de La Salle occupy prominent positions in the top corners and are identified as “François” [French]. The bottom corners of the map feature Dampierre (William Dampier) “Anglois” [English], Magellan “Portuguais” [Portuguese], and Willem Schouten “Hollandais” [Dutch]. Portraits of three Italians are grouped together in the bottom center, a position that suggests their importance to world travel: Christopher Columbus “Genois”, Amerigo Vespucci “Florentin”, and Marco Polo “Vénitien”. While all from the Italian peninsula, they are identified by their native city. Of course these designations correspond to a precise historical–cultural reality, since these travelers were traditionally associated with their patria. However, by the early eighteenth century, this also serves as a reminder of Italy’s continued political fragmentation and links Italians to an outdated, local model of identity. Marco Polo, Columbus, and Vespucci figure as initiators or originators of modern travel and exploration, but also, in the hierarchical representation of the map, can be read as relics of the past, able to represent individual achievement, but not the power of a nation. 31 Georges Van Den Abbeele, Travel as Metaphor: From Montaigne to Rousseau (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1992), p. xviii. 32 Theodore J. Cachey, Jr., “An Italian History of Travel,” 62. 33 See Nathalie Hester, “Geographies of Belonging: Italian Travel Writing and Italian Identity in the Age of Early European Tourism,” Annali d’Italianistica, 21 (2003): 287–300.

Figure 1.1

World Map. From Nicholas de Fer, L’Atlas curieux, 1705. By permission of the Huntington Library.

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The Italian oikos, then, had to come from elsewhere than proto-statehood. Carlo Dionisotti identifies the consolidation of a notion of Italy during the sixteenth century with the newly defined Italian literary canon, one that took its ideological and linguistic cues from Dante’s De vulgari eloquentia and the works of Petrarch. According to Dionisotti, the creation of the canon was an attempt to establish Italy culturally in a time of continuous foreign invasions. In this climate of need for harmony, Italy, a notion connoting linguistic and literary unity, had more value as a cultural reference point than one’s birthplace.34 Cachey characterizes the forging of Italy’s literary identity in the sixteenth century—ostensibly the only homogeneous expression of “Italian” culture—as a compensatory reaction to the peninsula’s geopolitical reality: The profound cultural and linguistic diversity that characterized the peninsula gave rise to a highly unified and refined, albeit narrowly conceived, Italian linguistic and literary cultural identity, devised to overcome not only the diversity from which it emerged and the violence of historical events, but also an original lack of geographical center, of territorial definition and integrity.35

Thus any consistent idea of Italian-ness had to somehow hover above the material manifestations of politically and culturally disjointed Italian spaces. The rigid Italian literary canon provided a perfect vehicle for conceiving and formulating a coherent and cohesive sense of “Italian” culture. In a related manner, Giuliano Bollati points out that the idea of Italian-ness as historically “ungrounded” stems from the enduring symbolic power of Italy’s classical heritage in the Italian imaginary. Claims to Italy’s boundary-less cultural relevance—as heir to and exporter of civilization—are persistent characteristics of pre-national and national concepts of Italian identity: Il primato della discendenza classica (inclusiva anche della romanità cristiana), il dono dell’appartenenza al nucleo centrale della “civiltà,” non solo non si è lasciato sopraffare dall’evidenza della decadenza, ma nella immensità della caduta ha visto confermata l’altezza, nella vastità del danno un segno di elezione e la legittimazione dell’orgoglio. Una forma di dissociazione … particolarmente acuta nel vortice delle più drammatiche crisi dell’identità: durante le invasioni, o quando avvenne nel Cinquecento la seconda caduta, quella della libertà italiana, ancora e sempre a opera dei “barbari.” Durano ancora oggi gli estremi effetti di questa forma patologica della coscienza italiana (il cui terreno di cultura fu costituito dagli intellettuali, addetti alla conservazione di quella universalità disancorata).

34 “Ancora contava naturalmente la patria … ma al di sopra contava l’Italia” [One’s homeland still mattered of course, but Italy mattered above all]. Carlo Dionisotti, “Regioni e letteratura,” in I documenti, vol. 5/ii of Storia d’Italia, p. 1388. 35 Cachey, “An Italian History of Travel,” 56. He uses the terminology of Deleuze and Guattari to speak of the creation of a “deterritorialized linguistic and literary statute for modern Italian literature” (p. 63). See Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari, Kafka: pour une littérature mineure (Paris: Éditions de Minuit, 1975).

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Literature and Identity in Italian Baroque Travel Writing [The primacy of [Italy’s] classical heritage, including that of Christian Rome, the gift of belonging to the central nucleus of “civilization,” was not only not overcome by evident decadence, but its status was actually confirmed in the drastic nature of its fall. The sign of election and the legitimacy of that pride were seen in the depth of decline. This form of dissociation has been particularly acute in the vortex of more dramatic identity crises: during the invasions, or the second decline in the sixteenth-century, or during the affront to Italian liberty, again and always at the hands of “barbarians.” The effects of this pathological form of Italian consciousness endure even today, a consciousness whose cultural terrain has been constituted by intellectuals adept at conserving that unanchored universalism.]36

Once Italy lost its eminent cultural position, the ultimate value accorded to “unanchored universalism” functioned as a defense mechanism against the prestige of more spatially anchored powers while making a strong case for Italy’s enduring legacy in Europe. In line with Benedict Anderson’s concepts of “imagined communities” and “nation-ness” that came into existence with the aid of print culture, the Italian literary canon represented Italian identity.37 Even after Italian literature lost its cultural primacy in Europe and “new” science began taking root in European systems of knowledge, as of the mid-seventeenth century, the cultural weight of Italian literary heritage and “unanchored universalism” continued to be prime elements of Italian travel narrative. In addressing the lack of a development of a modern Italian national identity, Antonio Gramsci focuses on the early modern period as a crucial time in which the uniquely cosmopolitan nature of Italian intellectuals becomes firmly engrained. He sees the Counter-Reformation Church as a major influence in furthering Italian cosmopolitanism: “La Chiesa avrebbe contribuito alla snazionalizzazione degli intellettuali italiani in due modi: positivamente, come organismo universale che preparava personale a tutto il mondo cattolico, e negativamente, costringendo ad emigrare quegli intellettuali che non volevano sottomettersi alla disciplina controriformistica” [The Church contributed to the de-nationalization of Italian intellectuals in two ways: one positive, as a universal organism preparing personnel for the whole Catholic world, and the other negative, forcing those intellectuals who refused to submit to Counter-Reformation discipline to emigrate].38 The GrecoLatin universalism to which Italians were considered heirs was accompanied by the universalizing program of the Church. 36 Giuliano Bollati, L’italiano: il carattere nazionale come storia e come invenzione (Turin: Einaudi, 1983), pp. 40–41. Bollati continues in his skeptical tone: “L’impietosa perseveranza degli stranieri nel considerare l’Italia essenzialmente un paese di rovine e di memorie, e le confutazioni incessanti in risposta, obbediscono, nella gara degli opposti etnocentrismi, a regole precise, stabilite assai presto nel tempo” [The pitiless perseverance of foreigners in thinking of Italy essentially as a country of ruins and memory, along with the incessant confutations in Italian replies, correspond to a rivalry between opposing ethnocentrisms and follow precise rules which were established quite early on]. Bollati, p. 40. 37 Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities, rev. edn (New York: Verso, 1999), Chapter 1. 38 Antonio Gramsci, Gli intellettuali (Turin: Einaudi, 1955), p. 38.

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Gramsci’s considerations of the specific history and evolution of Italian intellectuals provide an excellent vantage point for understanding the continuities, from the Renaissance to the present day, of the relationship between the role of Italian intellectuals and the construction of Italian identity. Gramsci considers navigators and explorers an important sub-group of intellectuals from the fifteenth to the seventeenth centuries, quintessentially cosmopolitan Italians who served imperial and colonial powers and were never part of a nationalizing process. Critical of attempts in Italy to praise Italian inventions and scientific discoveries as reflective of nation-building or as ideal elements in the expression of national pride, he writes: La quistione dovrebbe essere posta così: perché nessuno Stato italiano aiutò Cristoforo Colombo, o perché Colombo non si rivolse a nessuno Stato italiano? In che consiste dunque l’elemento “nazionale” della scoperta dell’America? … [E]gli non si sentiva legato a uno Stato italiano. La quistione, secondo me, dovrebbe essere definita storicamente fissando che l’Italia ebbe per molti secoli una funzione internazionale–europea. Gli intellettuali e gli specialisti italiani erano cosmopoliti e non italiani, non nazionali. Uomini di stato, capitani, ammiragli, scienziati, navigatori italiani non avevano un carattere nazionale ma cosmopolita. [The question should be posed thus: why didn’t any Italian state help Christopher Columbus, or why didn’t Columbus go to an Italian state? Of what can consist the “national” element of the discovery of America? He didn’t feel tied to an Italian state. The question, I think, should be defined historically, pointing to the fact that Italy, for many centuries, had an international–European function. Intellectuals and Italian specialists were cosmopolitan and not Italian, not nationalists. Italian representatives of states, captains, admirals, scientists, and navigators did not have a national spirit, but a cosmopolitan one. ]39

Gramsci’s perspective is heavily determined by questions of historical materialism and does not address the multitude of possible reasons behind Italy’s “brain drain” in the Age of Exploration, from personal ambition to the need for the most generous funding available. Still, he makes the crucial point that Italian navigators, among the groups of intellectuals he discusses and defines, acted in a way that was perfectly consistent with the social and cultural circumstances of the Italian peninsula. This cosmopolitan outlook also explains the literary or fictional manifestations in travel writing of the time. With Petrarch, Ariosto, Tasso, and Guarino as illustrious European literary models, Italian literature represented an ideal cosmopolitan element to incorporate in travel narrative. Gramsci thus underscores the specificity of the Italian context, the lack of a proto-nationalist agenda in the endeavors of Italian travelers, and the need to consider Italian perspectives and identities as outside the domain of early statehood. His characterization of early explorers is also applicable 39 Gramsci, pp. 57–8. He continues: “Non so perché questo debba diminuire la loro grandezza o menomare la storia italiana, che è stata quella che è stata, e non la fantasia dei poeti o la retorica dei declamatori; avere una funzione europea, ecco il carattere del ‘genio’ italiano dal ‘400 alla Rivoluzione francese” [I don’t know why this should diminish their greatness or lessen Italian history, which has been what it has been, and not the fantasy of poets or the rhetoric of propagandists; having a European function is the nature of the Italian ‘genius’ from the fifteenth century to the French revolution]. Gramsci, p. 58.

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to independent seventeenth-century travelers who, like the authors discussed in this book, while expressing pride in their patria, tend to construct and express a cosmopolitan outlook in their texts. The “universal” or cosmopolitan point of view on the part of Italian travelers, however, does not imply a seamless adoption of a European identity as a primary identity or as a substitute for a missing national identity. Indeed, the Italian relationship to a larger European identity since the early modern period has been ambiguous at best, primarily because the prevailing notions of Europe and European-ness were being constructed, as they continued to be in the modern period, by Northern European cultures. Roberto Dainotto, in his book, Europe (In Theory), examines how, in the eighteenth century, Europe became “a French theory of Europe, and one expanding from north to south—privileging the former and marginalizing the latter.”40 Indeed, this north–south axis mirrors the movement of Northern European travelers on their “voyage d’Italie,” a form of travel already in place in the seventeenth century. Dainotto’s study places the Italian “southern question” at the center of modern constructions of European identity, questioning Eurocentrism “not from the outside but from the marginal inside of Europe itself”41 and contesting the “homogenizing assumptions of the term [which], in fact, run the perpetual risk of obliterating the interior borders and fractures of European hegemony; they hide from view Europe’s own subaltern areas—the south—of knowledge production.”42 In discussing the “southern question” and, more specifically, the “Sicilian question,” Dainotto is able both to deconstruct assumptions about the nature of Eurocentrism and also add pertinent considerations to the discussion of postcolonial studies, which tend to reproduce the East–West dichotomy or presume Europe or the West to be a homogeneous concept. While noting the popularity of Edward Said’s Orientalism with Southern Europeanists, he also proposes adding the issue of southern-ness to Said’s work in order to better nuance the East–West divide as the primary marker of cultural difference and adversity: “What needs to be added … is that deviant elements of Western society are not only molded in the image of the Oriental but, also, geographically determined: the deviant, the internal Other of Europe, is a southerner.”43 Dainotto’s analysis is relevant to the study of baroque travel writing because the seventeenth century is roughly the time when Northern Europe began to represent European-ness. While Italians of that period had not yet been made to occupy the role of “deviant” in the invention of Europe, their travel writing offers 40 Roberto Dainotto, Europe (In Theory) (Raleigh: Duke University Press, 2007), p. 49. 41 Ibid., p. 4. 42 Ibid., p. 5. 43 Ibid., p. 54. Jane Schneider examines the various ways in which Orientalism applies to southern Italy in the modern period and to constructions of the south as backward and uncivilized, in contrast to the progressive and more advanced north. Her concern is what “might be called a neo-orientalist discourse within Italy itself,” but the pattern is analogous to constructions of European identity that privilege the north. Jane Schneider, “Introduction: Neoorientalism in Italy (1848–1995),” in eadem (ed.), Italy’s “Southern Question:” Orientalism in One Country (New York: Berg, 1998), p. 8.

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ample evidence of a growing sense of exclusion vis-à-vis European travel culture, especially in the latter half of the century. Furthermore, Dainotto’s framing of the “southern question” in relation to the idea of Europe helps explain the internalized Eurocentrism in Italian literary criticism that privileges north over south, and the literature of empire. Understanding such mechanisms of identity construction on a European and Italian level allows for a reconsideration of Italian travel literature on its own terms, not within European parameters created by colonial powers that in fact exclude Italians. As Theodore Cachey writes, “the attempt to categorize Italian baroque travel writing or to judge it according to the standard of hegemonic trends of European colonial writing is to miss the extent to which it historically emerged in counterpoint to these models of travel writing.”44 A Literary National Identity, Then and Now In addition to “standard” European colonial writing, the disputed legacy of Italian baroque literature and questions of Italian national identity have also played a part in determining literary-critical approaches to Italian travel narrative after the Age of Exploration. Amedeo Quondam places the origins of Italy’s problematic literary national identity in the seventeenth century, underscoring the continuities from early modern literary culture to modern and postmodern literary-critical practices and recognizing the impact of early modern European travel on the question of Italian identity in literary scholarship. In one of his essays, tellingly entitled “L’identità (rin)negata, l’identità vicaria. L’Italia e gli italiani nel paradigma culturale dell’età moderna” [A denied identity, a substitute identity. Italy and Italians in modern cultural paradigms], Quondam blames principally Francesco De Sanctis’s Storia della letteratura italiana (1870) for negating the literary nature of Italy’s “national” identity. In pointing out the dramatic cultural consequences of this textual manifestation of the nation-building Risorgimento, Quondam, much less appreciative of De Sanctis than is Gramsci, notes how De Sanctis, embracing the modern dichotomy between literature and science, essentially dismisses much of Italian literature for its privileging of aesthetic principles over utilitarian–positivist ones: “Il risultato è al tempo stesso paradossale e devastante: l’identità italiana attraverso la letteratura è, nel suo insieme, un’identità vergognosa e da cancellare (tranne qualche eccezione), comunque riscattabile e riscattata soltanto dall’identità vicaria prodotta dalla filosofia e dalla scienza” [The result is paradoxical and devastating at the same time: Italian identity as a literary identity is on the whole a shameful identity, one that is to be erased, aside from some exceptions, one that can really only be redeemed through a substitute identity provided by philosophy and science].45 This casting-aside of Italy’s linguistic–literary identity—essentially 44 Theodore J. Cachey, Jr., “A Note on Italian Baroque Travel,” in Laura Sanguineti White, Andrea Baldi, and Kristin Philipps (eds), Essays In Honor Of Marga Cottino-Jones (Fiesole: Edizioni Cadmo, 2003), p. 104. 45 Amedeo Quondam, “L’identità (rin)negata, l’identità vicaria. L’Italia e gli italiani nel paradigma culturale dell’età moderna,” in Gino Rizzo (ed.), L’identità nazionale nella cultura letteraria italiana, 2 vols (Lecce: Mario Congedo Editore, 2001), vol. 1, p. 128.

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the only one available or possible—has not boded well, according to Quondam, in literary scholarship of the early modern period: Solo noi letterati, anzi solo noi letterati italiani, insomma, siamo ancora persuasi, complessivamente, della marginalità e addirittura dell’inferiorità della nostra letteratura nel sistema di valori della nascita della modernità, fino al punto di vergognarci di quasi tutti i nostri scrittori dal Quattrocento al Settecento, impietosi inquisitori del loro vuoto formalismo, del tutto alieni da una qualche parvenza (o sussulto) d’orgoglio (e quindi di identificazione) nei confronti dei nostri testi dell’ âge classique, del siglo de oro. E infatti ci guardiamo bene dal leggerli e dal pubblicarli. [Only we literary scholars, in fact only we Italian literary scholars, are for the most part convinced of the marginality and even inferiority of our literature in the value system of the beginning of modernity. This to the point that we are ashamed of almost all of our writers from the fifteenth to the eighteenth centuries, and we are cruel inquisitors of their empty formalism, devoid of any expression of pride towards (and therefore of identification with) our texts from the âge classique or the siglo de oro. And in fact we are careful not to read them or publish them].46

Quondam’s remarks on the state of Italian literary criticism might seem too broadly negative and dramatic, but they elucidate the reasons behind the rejection on the part of modern scholars of Italy’s literary identity as an authoritative “national” identity. De Sanctis’s adoption of what Quondam sees as a false or substitute identity (science and philosophy), once again based on Northern European models, denies Italy’s literary identity. Without it, Italy remains without a workable model for a common identity and is left, in the case of the seventeenth century, in the position of the envious onlooker of the “great” same century in France and Spain. Again, the construction of identity, and the question of who the constructor is and for whom one constructs, is tied up with travel. In Italy, the question is left unresolved in a time when the “invasion” of Italy by Northern European travelers and intellectuals leads to the creation of other Italian identities (relics of the past, charming hosts) on the part of foreigners.47 Quondam, in a manner not entirely devoid of Crocean echoes, rightly pinpoints the origin of the “problem” of Italian identity 46 Ibid., vol. 1, p. 130. 47 Similarly to Polezzi’s discussion of modern Italian travel literature, Quondam notes that Italian identity and culture have been redefined by foreign scholars who engage in another kind of colonial appropriation of “foreign” material. The results of self-denial are the following: ma soprattutto ha portato a una conseguenza assolutamente straordinaria rispetto ai processi ordinari attraverso i quali una comunità elabora il proprio autoritratto: l’elaborazione di un’identità vicaria dell’Italia moderna da parte di stranieri … si è prodotta l’invenzione di un’altra identità vicaria, almeno per il nostro Rinascimento, per l’effetto combinato di due fattori: il diffuso radicamento della tradizione del Grand Tour, con la sua scelta di una patria elettiva in Toscana e a Firenze (da parte degli inglesi in particolare: le loro camere con vista); la ricerca delle remote radici del costituzionalismo repubblicano in tanti intellettuali degli Stati Uniti.

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and its relationship to literature in the seventeenth century, adding that “orfani di uno Stato e di una Riforma, siamo orfani anche di un’identità” [orphans of a State and of a Reformation, we are also orphans of an identity].48 Quondam’s antidote to this predicament is to reappropriate and redefine Italy’s cultural influences in pre-modern and modern Europe by providing a list of Italy’s contributions. Among them, recast in a positive light, is “la lingua volgare della comunicazione letteraria, come forma di una metaidentità nazionale” [The vernacular as the language of literary communication and as a form of national metaidentity].49 The impetus to forge a path out of Italy’s inferiority complex is part of recent efforts to broaden the horizon of Italian baroque textual production, a move that is grounded in the notion of Italy’s unique position outside of proto-nationalist and colonial currents of the seventeenth century. As these reconsiderations play out – however problematically, since they sometimes still aim at establishing parameters for national pride –, it remains clear that the question of Italian identity continues to revolve around the question of language because the Italian language is a literary language and, historically, Italian literature has become the substitute for the “place” of Italy. Thus early modern Italian identity is to be explored in literature, including travel literature. New Paradigms for Travel Writing after the Age of Exploration Quondam’s call for re-examining early modern Italian literary and cultural production has profound implications for seventeenth-century Italian travel narrative. In a climate of expanding travel networks, the panorama of travelers and those writing about their travels became even vaster and more complex than ever before.50 By the 1500s, curiositas—curiosity—had become an acceptable motive for travel, and more people traveled for personal fulfillment, no longer only for commercial, political, or religious reasons. Wealthy Europeans went abroad to visit private museums, collect [This has brought about above all an absolutely extraordinary consequence in terms of the ordinary processes through which a community makes its own self-portrait: the construction of a substitute identity for modern Italy on the part of foreigners. What has come about is the invention of another substitute identity, at least for our Renaissance, through the combined effect of two factors: the broad diffusion of the Grand Tour tradition, with its choice of a homeland in Tuscany and Florence (on the part of the English in particular: their rooms with a view); and the search for the ancient roots of republican constitutionalism on the part of US intellectuals.] Ibid., vol. 1, pp. 144–5. 48 Ibid., vol. 1, p. 146. 49 Ibid., vol. 1, p. 147. 50 For an overview of the practicalities of seventeenth-century travel, see Sebastiano Locatelli, Viaggio di Francia. Costumi e qualità di quei paesi (1664–1665), ed. Luigi Monga (Moncalieri: CIRVI, 1990), pp. 37–9; Chapters 1 to 3 of Antonio Maczak, Travel in Early Modern Europe, trans. Ursula Philipps (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1995); and Ernest Stuart Bates, Touring in 1600: A Study of the Development of Travel as a Means of Education (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1911), pp. 330–70.

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books and art, and see cityscapes and monuments.51 Others, adhering to the empirical precepts of the Galilean “new science,” roamed foreign territories to collect botanical, geological, and zoological data. These developments are part of what Luigi Monga refers to as “the birth of modern travel. An emerging, wealthy bourgeoisie, culturally well prepared, was ready to get out of its own insularity to search abroad for its collective roots.”52 As Daria Perocco writes about new attitudes in travel culture during the late 1500s and 1600s, “il viaggiatore del periodo successivo a quello delle grandi scoperte e viaggi di esplorazione prende sempre più coscienza di se stesso ed orgogliosamente si autoafferma: sempre più persona, e sempre meno commerciante o rappresentante per conto terzi” [the traveler of the period following that of the great discoveries and journeys of exploration is more and more conscious of himself and proudly affirms himself: (he is) increasingly an individual, and less a merchant or representative of third parties].53 Travelers who dictated their own itineraries and the nature of their investigation also enjoyed more creative liberty when they put pen to paper and related their travels. Such new trends in travel culture are at the heart of novelties in seventeenth-century European travel literature. In order to understand better how travel writing diversified and reflected new creative freedoms, however, it is essential to keep in mind the basic guidelines and models that governed what one was supposed to observe during travel and relate in subsequent writing. The fundamental premise of seventeenth-century travel writing was still the conveying of practical information and the transmitting of factual knowledge about foreign lands and peoples. Just as early modern travelers never left home without information pertinent to their journey, those who recounted their trips did so with precedents in mind. For Europeans, these included the navigatio genre born out of Medieval and Renaissance seafaring; the itinerario, which focused on the various stops and modes of transportation between departure point and destination; the descriptio, which paid particular attention to foreign topographies and customs; and, in Italian, the relazione, a more generic term that could include a variety of

51 “Change[s] in the intellectual climate prompted the humanists to value mobility over stability and to redefine pilgrimage as an educational journey.” Justin Stagl, A History of Curiosity: The Theory of Travel 1550–1800 (Chur, Switzerland: Harwood Academic Publishers, 1995), p. 49. 52 Luigi Monga, “Travel and Travel Writing,” Annali d’Italianista, 14 (1996): 39. 53 Perocco, Viaggiare, p. 20. Antonio Maczak makes similar comments on late sixteenthand seventeenth-century travel writing: “Il viaggio non solo induce alla riflessione, ma in un ambiente estraneo l’uomo osserva anche con più attenzione ed è più incline a trasferire sulla carta le proprie osservazioni; infatti molti autori del Cinque-Seicento cominciarono a scrivere soltanto sotto l’influsso delle proprie impressioni di viaggio, mentre prima non avevano mai pensato di redigere le memorie della loro vita quotidana” [Travel not only leads to reflection, but in an unfamiliar environment one observes much more attentively and is more likely to transfer onto paper his own observations; in fact many authors of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries began to write only of their own impressions of their journeys, while before they had never thought to write the memoirs of their daily lives]. Antonio Maczak, Viaggi e viaggiatori nell’Europa moderna (Bari: Laterza, 2000), pp. ix–x.

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elements.54 The account could be structured in a journal, epistolary, or essay form and the narrative told in the first person or the third person, since many travelers took with them secretaries who chronicled their journey.55 Travel writers of the 1600s were of course heirs to a Renaissance culture that categorized and codified many disciplines, including travel. “The journey,” writes Eric Leed, “from the Renaissance on, became a structured and highly elaborate method of appropriating the world as information.”56 Books on the art of travel, ars apodemica, which flourished in the 1500s, included practical, moral, and religious advice on travel, arguments for and against travel, instructions on how to use maps and itineraries, and, most importantly, how and what to observe in foreign countries. Written reports were to include loci communes such as historical, geographical, and ethnographic information, refer amply to authoritative classical texts (Pliny, Tacitus, or Strabo, for example), praise foreign cities and illustrious men, and mention noteworthy or curious facts (memorabilia, insignia, curiosa, visu ac scitu digna). Travelers were instructed to make observations regarding such categories as topography (rivers, oceans, mountains, and forests), monuments and buildings (sacred and profane, public and private), and government and social organization (religion, education, customs).57 Theorists of the methods of travel and published travel texts provided influential models for determining not only what to write, but also how to write. The objective relating of facts, a principal goal of the method of travel, was best achieved through a simple and plain style.58 In fact, a topos in prefaces to travel accounts was the claim of using a simple style to convey useful or practical details. Those, including 54 Other related models are cosmographies, such as Sebastian Münster’s Cosmographia (Basel: Petri, 1544), which systemically treat historical, geographical, and anthropological aspects of the known world, and treatises that describe the government and social organization in different parts of the world, such as Francesco Sansovino’s Del governo dei regni et delle republiche (Venice: F. Sansovino, 1561). 55 The first part of Montaigne’s Journal de voyage en Italie (1580–81), which Montaigne claims was written by his secretary, is perhaps the most famous example of third-person travel narration of the period. Travelers took with them on their trips maps, itineraries, histories, and travel health manuals, such as Guglielmo Grataroli’s De regimine iter agentium (Basel: Nicolaus Brylinger, 1561), and guidebooks such as Giuseppe Miselli’s Il burattino veridico o vero istruzzione generale per chi viaggia con la descrizzione dell’Europa (Bologna: Longhi, 1688). Pietro Della Valle, for instance, took Filippo Ferrari’s Epithome Geograficum (Pavia, 1605) on his travels through the Middle East, and Francesco Negri used Olaus Magnus’s Historia de gentibus septentrionalibus (Rome, 1555) as a resource. 56 Leed, p. 188. 57 Stagl, pp. 79–81. “Uno degli elementi caraterizzanti e praticamente fissi della relazione di viaggio dei secoli XV–XVII è costituito dalla presenza di continui paragoni tra ciò che si vede e quello che si è letto” [One of the characteristic and almost ubiquitous elements of travel writing from the fifteenth through the seventeenth centuries is comprised of continuous comparisons between what one sees and what one has read]. Perocco, Viaggiare, p. 57. 58 Stagl cites Theodor Zwinger’s Methodus apodemica (Basel: E. Episcopius, 1577) as the “accepted authority on the theory of travel until late into the seventeenth century.” Stagl, p. 58. According to Leed, this procedure of “describing a land and people, formulated in the methods of ‘rational travel’ of sixteenth-century humanists, was to have a long and

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several of the travel writers discussed here in the following chapters, who discarded the stylistic precepts of “methodized travel” generally explained and defended their choice in the beginning of their accounts and claimed to provide truthful and objective information nevertheless. The art of travel sought to prescribe an objective, descriptive form of writing to counteract its unavoidably subjective interpretation of reality. Hayden White’s foundational work on the subjective and fictional nature of historiography is particularly relevant to the discussion of travel narratives as literary representations, precisely because early modern travel accounts were presented as a kind of history and a recounting of true events. The telling of these events, as White notes, cannot be done without narrative, or literary, structures: [E]vents are made into a story by the suppression or subordination of certain of them and the highlighting of others … How a given historical situation is to be configured depends on the historian’s subtlety in matching up a specific plot structure with the set of historical events that he wishes to endow with a meaning of a particular kind. This is essentially a literary, that is to say fiction-making, operation. And to call it that in no way detracts from the status of historical narratives as providing a kind of knowledge … [I]n our account of the historical world we are dependent, in ways perhaps that we are not in the natural sciences, on the techniques of figurative language both for our characterization of the objects of our narrative representations and for the strategies by which to constitute narrative accounts of the transformations of those objects in time.59

Travel literature involves fiction-making because the author uses narrative strategies to represent the experience of movement across distances. The structure of travel lends itself to story and plot production as it is made up of a departure (beginning), passages (adventures and events), and a return (conclusion). As Luigi Monga writes, “fiction is rooted in hodoeporics [travel literature], for every travel writer, consciously or not, performs a mise en intrigue to underscore and reorganize elements that are not always essential to the factual journey.”60 Even the expected plain style is a narrative convention, the product of the author’s discursive intent and therefore “fictional,” according to White’s use of the term.61 And of course earlier travel accounts, significant life, founding the conventions of social scientific description, defining the contents of guidebooks, and decreeing the form of ethnographic reports.” Leed, p. 187. 59 Hayden White, Tropics of Discourse (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1978), pp. 84–5, 97–8. Seventeenth-century French writer Samuel Sorbière, although he does not directly invoke fiction, makes an analogous comment about historians’ subjectivity in his Relation d’un voyage en Angleterre [Report of a trip to England] (Cologne: Pierre Michel, 1666): “bien que celle-cy [History] ait plus de fondement en la vérité … neantmoins la disposition et les paroles sont l’ouvrage d’une seule personne, qui bien souvent aura donné plus d’ordre et de conduite aux événements, qu’il n’y en a eu dans les choses qu’il raconte” [although History is more grounded [than novels] in truth, nevertheless, the structure and the words are the work of a single person who very often has given more order and sequence to the events than there actually were in the things he recounts], p. 169. 60 Monga, “Travel and Travel Writing,” 54. 61 Adrien Pasquali defines a literary approach to travel narrative in part as a strategy to establish “le caractère reproductible des effets de simplicité, de familiarité, de naturel, et donc

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including Italians ones, implicitly evoke the literary or fictional characteristics of travel writing as incorporating both history and poetry. Marco Polo’s Milione, for instance, is replete with the hyperbole and fantasy of fables and of stories that recall medieval exampla.62 Columbus, who in a famous passage from his diary claims to have seen sirens, creates the myth of himself as a modern Ulysses, whose rhetoric of representing “new” lands and American indigenous peoples becomes a model for the literature of discovery.63 That said, the seventeenth century marks a pivotal moment in travel writing because, perhaps for the first time, travelers explicitly acknowledge in the text the fictional qualities of their narrative enterprise, allowing new spaces in their accounts to consider the art of travel writing itself. As Francesco Belli explains in the opening pages of his Osservazioni nel viaggio, after acknowledging the importance of factfocused travel writing: “Io non niego, però, che non sia lecito avantaggiare ed abbellire un tal poco le cose con qualche aiuto di concetti e dilicatezza di stile, non essendo cotali fregi più alla fine che gli ornamenti nelle donne, che non le rendono più belle in sostanza ma più aggradevoli in apparenza [I will not deny, however, that it is appropriate to make things more appealing and a little more beautiful with the help of conceits or a delicateness of style, since in the end these decorations are no more than women’s ornaments, which do not make them more beautiful in substance, but rather more attractive in appearance].64 Indeed, as the corpus of travel writing grows, along with the expectations of the reading public, and much of the circulating information becomes familiar, if not redundant, travel writers pay more attention to various ways of conveying the experience of travel, following the delectare as much as the prodesse of the Horatian axiom.65 The more discernible presence of a subjective narrative voice is one significant change in seventeenth-century travel writing. The theoretical considerations of Adrien Pasquali, who examines travel literature as comprising evolving “narrative modalities,” provide an effectual methodological guideline. He characterizes leur caractère factice, leurs possibles fonction et valeur de procédés” [the reproducible nature of the effects of simplicity, of familiarity, of the natural, and thus of their artificiality, or their possible functions and procedures]. Adrien Pasquali, Le tour des horizons (Paris: Klincksieck, 1994), p. 43. This is along the lines of what Roland Barthes defines as “l’effet de réel” in literature. See Roland Barthes, “L’effet de réel,” in Littérature et réalité (Paris: Seuil, 1982), p. 89. 62 See Leonardo Olschki, Storia letteraria delle scoperte geografiche: studi e ricerche (Florence: Olschki, 1937), for an analysis of the link between literature and geographical exploration. 63 See Columbus’s diary, January 9, 1493. Christopher Columbus, The Log of Christopher Columbus, trans. Robert H. Fuson (Camden, ME: International Marine Pub. Co., 1987). The first-person narration of travel often also includes autobiographical elements in the construction of self. See Adrien Pasquali “Récit de voyage et autobiographie,” 71–88. 64 Francesco Belli, Osservazioni nel viaggio, p. 2. See Chapter 3. 65 Renaissance methods of travel lose much of their relevance during the seventeenth century: “This mode of experiencing and describing the world reached its limits when all ‘noteworthy’ things were more or less known. Humanist travel ‘animi causa’ became superseded by the ‘grand tour’.” Stagl, p. 82.

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the early modern movement from a constructed objectivity to a self-conscious subjectivity as “une profonde transformation des modalités narratives du récit de voyage” [a profound transformation of narrative modalities in travel writing],66 one that resembles a more autobiographical form of writing: la “relation” pseudo-objective d’un narrateur–personnage–témoin perdrait progressivement de sa vigueur et de sa pertinence, pour faire place,–par le relais du journal de voyage et de la lettre de voyage–, au récit pseudo-subjectif d’un narrateur–personnage–acteur: son propos serait moins de présenter un univers plus ou moins neuf et inconnu, que de rendre compte des échos de cet univers dans l’individualité qui voyage et observe. [the pseudo-objective account of a narrator–character–witness would progressively lose its vigor and pertinence to make way for—by way of the travel diary or letter—the pseudosubjective account of a narrator–character–actor whose goal would not just be to present a mostly new and unknown universe but to register the echoes of this universe through the individuality of the person traveling and observing].67

Pasquali posits a gradual shift from the position of the narrator as witness of a journey to that of an acknowledged mediator of and participator in that journey. Travelers, in the textual representation of their experience, have a dual role as both narrators of the story and characters within that story. Seconding Pasquali’s characterizations, Claudia Micocci identifies the seventeenth century as one of significant transformation in travel writing: … nel Seicento la presenza dell’autore come centro organizzatore della narrazione è rafforzata e moltiplicata dallo spazio che ottiene la sua parola, non più soltanto attraverso le forme della descrizione … ma mediante l’ampliamento delle zone riservate alla digressione, alla discussione critica … alle meditazioni e ai commenti. [in the seventeenth century the presence of the writer as a central organizer of the narration is reinforced and multiplied in the space that his own words occupy, not only in the form of description, but through the broadening of the areas reserved for digressions, critical discussion, pondering, and comments].68

Micocci’s comments on Italian travel narrative echo the general European trend described by Pasquali. They also implicitly point to the irony that, because these critical changes occur precisely in a period deemed less compelling for Italian textual production, Italian travel writing receives less critical attention.

66 Pasquali, Le tour des horizons, p. 91. 67 Ibid. 68 Claudia Micocci, “I libri di viaggio e i ‘Viaggi’ di Pietro Della Valle,” Annali dell’Istituto di Filologia Moderna dell’Università di Roma, 2 (1981): 131.

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Italian Literary Culture and Travel Writing This “profound transformation of narrative modalities in travel writing”69 inevitably takes us back to key questions of seventeenth-century literature in Italy. As Italian travel writers began taking more subjective liberties in their writing, they more overtly inscribed their identities into the text. The expression of those identities happened in many ways through literary expression, or what I would call a literary reflex. When writing about their encounters with other cultures, they turned almost automatically to Italian language and literature in order to deploy a broader, authoritative identity. Furthermore, Italian textual production of the 1600s took place to a large extent under the auspices of the accademie, many of them literary. All of the travel writers discussed in the following chapters were either active members of academies or had close ties to academic circles. Most of them looked to academy members as principal readers and critics of their travel accounts. For many, these academies represented an intellectual home and were fundamental identity-markers and cultural expressions of a particular patria. In the seventeenth century, there were over 850 academies in Italy, some 570 of them literary academies.70 These societies, typically made up of an elite of welleducated men, reproduced a kind of courtly environment, meeting on a regular basis to take part in exchanges ranging from scholarly debates and erudite presentations to exchanges of metaphor-filled pleasantries and satirical discourses, especially during carnival time. Although some opened their doors to a restricted public audience, many academies limited access to members only. However, these were not isolated groups. Members, especially renowned writers and poets, often belonged to several academies. Whether based on rivalry or collaboration, relations between institutions were usually pursued and maintained, creating an energetic literary network along the Italian peninsula. Their diffusion was linked in part to the enduring powerful status of humanist and classical cultures, which accorded high value to erudite dialogue and conversation as scholarly activities. As Amedeo Quondam writes, “L’accademia rinvia al dominio (anche ideologico) di una cultura universale […]: luogo di ‘dialogo’ della parte ‘ragionevole’ dell’uomo, di commercio e ‘conversazione’ di valori positivi (in quanto eruditi e insieme ‘piacevoli’)” [The academy reflects the dominion, including an ideological one, of a universal culture. It is a place for dialogue on the part of rational man, of exchange, and of conversation that embodies positive values because it is erudite and also pleasing].71 The accademie were social institutions that provided a forum for literary exploration and sometimes protection for its members, who were encouraged if not expected to write and publish their work. Scientific and musical academies came out of a similar cultural mold as literary academies, and it was typical for upper-class men to be members of academies with different subjects of investigation. 69 Adrien Pasquali, Le tour des horizons, p. 91. 70 Amedeo Quondam, “L’accademia,” in Alberto Asor Rosa (ed.), Letteratura italiana, vol. 1: Il letterato e le istituzioni (Turin: Einaudi, 1982), pp. 872–3. 71 Ibid., p. 831.

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Given that their authors actively participated in the literary and cultural developments of their time, most of the travel accounts of this study exemplify the pervasiveness of baroque artistic aesthetics in seventeenth-century Italy. If many theorists of the baroque see movement, in all its connotations, as a central trope of this period, then travel writing, the textualization of movement through time and space, has obvious affinities to certain aspects of baroque cultural production. Annie Collognat-Barès explains, “L’artiste baroque (écrivain, sculpteur, architecte, musicien) célèbre un monde où ‘tout coule’ (l’eau, le temps, la vie, les sentiments), un univers fluide et mouvant en perpétuelle mutation” [The baroque artist (writer, sculptor, architect, musician) celebrates a world in which “everything flows” (water, time, life, emotions), a fluid and moving universe that is perpetually changing].72 These travelers occupy an ideal position for witnessing a changing world and, especially in their contact with different cultures, for comprehending the variety and therefore fluidity of customs, cultural perceptions, and identity construction. José Maravall, who defines the baroque as a historical–cultural category, writes that “an entire series of concepts playing a role in different aspects of baroque culture were linked to various kinds of movement as the fundamental principle of the world and human beings: the notions of change, modification, variety, decay, restoration, transformation, time, circumstance, and occasion were all derivations from it.”73 These travel writers implicitly or explicitly respond to movement, from its literal manifestations, such as navigation, to its complex ontological implications. Baroque travel writing presents a particularly compelling textual corpus because it ties nonfigural and mundane mobility to the more metaphysical, cultural malaise concerning the impermanence and malleability of human existence. These authors, writing or claiming to be writing while in transit, develop their own poetics of movement. In travel writing, the credible and appropriate rendering of a journey must on some level recognize flux as the cornerstone of human existence and must privilege movement over stasis in the quest to accurately represent the world. A recognizably baroque sensibility imbues the narratives in the following chapters, a sensibility that sometimes includes a fixation on death and the macabre and a predilection for investigating bizarre phenomena. Certainly, the baroque attention to amazing or surprising the reader mentioned earlier, from Torquato Tasso to Giambattista Marino, is manifest in travel narrative.74 If travel writers did not necessarily provoke wonder or amazement through multiple metaphors, conceits, and other rhetorical and stylistic devices associated with baroque poetry and prose, 72 Annie Collognat-Barès, Le baroque en France et en Europe (Paris: Univers Poche, 2003), p. 67. 73 José Maravall, Culture of the Baroque: Analysis of a Historical Structure, trans. Terry Cochran (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1986), p. 175. He continues, “One must certainly refer the idea of movement, which was recognized to function as a universal principle, the mover of whatever exists, to the crisis at the end of the sixteenth and the first half of the seventeenth century” (p. 175). 74 For a recent consideration of the concept of meraviglia in this context, see Paolo Cherchi, “Marino and the Meraviglia,” in Massimo Ciavolella and Patrick Coleman (eds), Culture and Authority in the Baroque. (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2005), pp. 63–72.

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their presentation of events and encounters as unusual and dramatic, sometimes in a hyperbolic fashion, reflects a similar narrative and poetic impulse, and, in broader terms, an anxiety about the reality of cultural diversity.75 As to the question of a proper language of expression, Italian travel writers had to contend with the linguistic prescriptions thoroughly and strictly codified by Pietro Bembo nearly a century earlier. His Prose della volgar lingua (1525) established Tuscan literature as the highest form of literary expression, with Petrarch as the model for poetry and Boccaccio the model for prose. Already one of the earliest compendia of European travel writing, Giovanni Battista Ramusio’s Navigationi et viaggi (1563–1606) translated or adapted the language of the included accounts to fit Pietro Bembo’s linguistic prescriptions. Pietro Della Valle makes a rhetorical apology for writing in his maternal romanesco, but for the most part his language is recognizably Tuscan. The Venetian Francesco Belli writes in deference to the Bembian model, if with a baroque bent, and the language of Francesco Negri and Giovanni Francesco Gemelli Careri is also based in literary Tuscan. Travel narrative may have remained officially outside the literary canon as a more historical form of writing, but these travelers could not textualize their travels for a contemporary and academic audience without deferring to the Italian linguistic–literary tradition, which determined or influenced how they narrated. The questione della lingua remains an essential backdrop of Italian travel writing and its relationship to shifts in identitybuilding during the early modern period. Furthermore, the principle models for narrating travel were already embedded in the Italian literary tradition. As Theodore Cachey contends—to return to his groundbreaking work on the relationship between travel literature and Italian literature—“the Italian literary canon has no special category for travel simply because the entire tradition comprises a literature of travel, and more precisely a literature of exile/pilgrimage, into which attachments of its authors to regional place have been sublimated.”76 Indeed, the foundational texts of Italian language and literature are rooted in tropes of travel and mobility, allegorical or not (The Divine Comedy, Decameron), and their authors are writers in exile (Dante, Petrarch) yearning to define and create Italia. Petrarchan currents inform all the travel accounts of this study, from the humanist–courtier poet model in more literary travel writers’ self-fashioning77 as characters and narrators, to the subtle, briefer, yet still meaningful allusions in the scientific or journalistic accounts of the late 1600s. Petrarch as peregrinus, as homo

75 Normand Doiron writes on seventeenth-century travelers: “De la théologie, le voyageur retiendra le rêve d’un monde universel … Pélerin dans un monde dorénavant privé de centre, le voyageur se lance à la poursuite de l’unité perdue” [From theology the traveler will retain the dream of a universal world. A pilgrim in a world now deprived of a center, the traveler goes out in search of lost unity]. Norman Doiron, “L’Art de voyager: pour une définition du récit de voyage à l’époque classique,” Poétique, 73 (1988): 89. 76 Cachey, “An Italian History of Travel,” p. 56. 77 I use Stephen Greenblatt’s term from his Renaissance Self-Fashioning: From More to Shakespeare (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1980).

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viator, the “irrequieto turista”,78 as Gianfranco Contini calls him, the scholar, the citizen of the world inscribing himself in text for posterity; the humanist who writes while navigating on the River Po, who despises sea travel, longs for otium, but continues to wander—all these facets of the Petrarchan oeuvre are at hand, directly or indirectly, unconsciously or not, as these travelers leave an Italia that exists only in the imagination. Again, Cachey’s characterization of Petrarchan poetics is relevant: “Writing and literature meanwhile came to represent characteristic Italian forms of resistance to the alienations of material space, and to the journey of temporality itself.”79 This power of writing, and the authority attributed to literature, with Italian as the new Latin and therefore universal and exportable, as well as the mechanism through which the text itself stands for place, for patria, and for identity, come to the fore in seventeenth-century travel accounts, even in those that do not quote or overtly refer to Italian literary works.80 Without tracing specific elements of intertextuality or quoting Petrarch’s works in seventeenth-century travel accounts, I want to make the point that there are Petrarchan vestiges or shadows even in the texts that are less explicitly concerned with literary models. The universalist, cosmopolitan Petrarch, poet and character, remains, even when only in fleeting glimpses, an inherent part of Italian perspectives and travel accounts. Especially in moments of difficulty and solitude, these writers inscribe themselves in the text as Petrarchan figures. Certainly Petrarch’s humanist legacy, which linked a sense of prideful Italian-ness to Rome’s classical authors,81 imbues these travel accounts, which privilege writing and discourse as a possible way out of or away from the problem of place and territorially based identity.

78 See Gianfranco Contini’s Introduction to his edition of the Canzoniere (Turin: Einaudi, 1964), xv. See also Alfonso Paolella, “Petrarca: peregrinus an viator?,” Annali d’Italianistica, 14 (1996): 152–76. 79 Francis Petrarch, Petrarch’s Guide to the Holy Land, ed. and trans. Theodore J. Cachey, Jr. (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 2002), p. 3. 80 See William Kennedy’s The Site of Petrarchism: Early Modern National Sentiment in Italy, France, and England (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2003) for an excellent overview of the relationship of Petrarchan poetics, and its various interpretations, to proto-national identity-building. Roland Greene’s contention that Petrarchan lyric is at the heart of imperial discourse does not really play out in texts by seventeenth-century Italians, especially those traveling for personal motives, because they do not participate as a proto-national group in expansionist endeavors. That Petrarch would have been one of many models for Columbus in his writing, however, is convincing. See Roland Greene, Unrequited Conquests: Love and Empire in the Colonial Americas (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1999). 81 For instance, in Familiares I, IV, Petrarch writes: “I believe that no one would deny that it is considerably more noble to be Italian than Greek.” Letters on Familiar Matters, trans. Aldo Bernardo (Buffalo: State University of New York Press, 1972), vol. 1, p. 25.

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“Noi, che non eramo né di questi né di quelli” [We, who were neither these nor those]: Francesco Carletti and “modern” Italian travel In this period associated with the “birth of modern travel”82 and therefore of modern travel literature—a period more conscious of the discursive powers of fiction in travel writing—Florentine merchant’s Francesco Carletti’s Ragionamenti del mio viaggio intorno al mondo [Discourses on My Journey around the World] serves as an ideal textual departure point, an inaugural narrative that aptly sets the stage for the travel narratives analyzed in the following chapters. This first account of a private Italian circumnavigation from 1594 to 1606, although not published until 1701, marks a critical moment in the advent of more autonomous and openly literary forms of narrating travel as well as the increasingly marginalized status of Italians abroad. Carletti’s story is in effect that of a failed merchant, a man who, writing of his journey after his return to Florence, succeeds more in the role of adventurer and chronicler than in that of a tradesman. Francesco Carletti, who had been sent to Seville by his merchant father to learn the trade, set out in early 1594 with his father, Antonio, from Sanlúcar de Barrameda on a Spanish ship headed towards the Americas. Because trade with non-Spaniards was prohibited along Atlantic and Pacific routes overseen by the Spanish crown, the Carletti team claimed to be employed by the Spanish wife of an Italian acquaintance. The ship first stopped in the Cape Verde islands, where the Carlettis participated in the slave trade, and then in Panama, where they continued west by land to Peru and Mexico. Following Spanish and Portuguese routes, they proceeded to the Philippines, Japan, and, having secretly boarded a Japanese ship to avoid Spanish authorities, to Macao, where Antonio Carletti died in 1598. After mourning his father and staying in Macao for a year, Francesco headed back west to Cochin (Kochi) to sell merchandise in 1600, then on to Goa. Having loaded new wares on a Portuguese ship, Carletti began his sea journey from Goa back to Europe. However, once the ship had circled the Cape of Good Hope, Dutch pirates attacked the vessel, seriously damaging it and then seizing its goods. Carletti, unwilling to part with his precious merchandise, managed to get himself taken on the Dutch ship, which landed in Zeeland in 1602. After a lengthy legal battle for the return of the stolen goods, during which he appealed to Grand Duke Ferdinand I of Tuscany and the Queen of France, Maria de’ Medici, for assistance, Carletti finally gave up. Following a stop at the court of Henry IV in Paris, he returned to Florence in 1606 and spent the remainder of his life at the service of the Medici court.

82 Luigi Monga, “Travel and Travel Writing,” p. 39.

Figure 1.2

Francesco Carletti’s Circumnavigation 1594–1606

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Although not intended for publication, the Ragionamenti, written at the request of Ferdinand I, probably circulated in limited circles.83 Lorenzo Magalotti, travel writer and member of the Florentine Accademia del Cimento, was charged with preparing the first edition of the account. Among other changes, the editors expunged the part of the text discussing the Carlettis’ participation in the slave trade.84 Subsequent editions did not come out until the nineteenth century.85 The Ragionamenti recounts in a vivid style and sometimes ironic mode the trials and tribulations of seafaring, anthropological and linguistic details of foreign countries, in particular China, and includes descriptions of exotic fauna and flora, and the intricacies of commerce, trade, prices, and procedures. The account comprises the captivating recollection of an outsider finding clever ways to circumvent the domination of seaways by other European powers. It includes very precise practical information as well as vibrantly rendered anecdotes, ranging from that of an overzealous missionary, who throws himself overboard to convert Philippine natives, to the pirate attack off the coast of Africa. The tone varies from light-hearted to serious and lamenting. Carletti responds to the factual imperative of travel writing, but leaves ample room for autobiographical elements that are becoming increasingly visible in travel writing of this period. These more personal moments usually center around his moving of goods across seas and to different ports, and his frustration with the commercial hegemony of Spain and Portugal, but they can also be recognized in Carletti’s more individual, aesthetic responses to landscapes and the natural world, for instance. He delves into the telling of the marvels of the Americas, like his predecessors, for example in describing the Peruvian agave fruit: “Pianta veramente degna d’essere commendata da altri, che da’ miei semplici ragionamenti, i quali non verrebbono mai a fine, se io avessi a raccontare a V.A.S. le diverse et innumerabili sorte de frutti e frutte maravigliosi, che si veggono in abbondanza per tutta questa gran provincia” [A plant which truly deserves to be commended above others, but my simple discourses would never come to an end if I had to tell Your Lordship of the diverse and innumerable types of marvelous fruits and fruit trees that one finds in abundance throughout this great province].86 Marziano Guglielminetti sees Carletti’s worldview as identifiably baroque, from his concern with uncovering the new and the unknown to, despite his admiration of natural wonders, a pessimistic view of the corruptibility of humankind and the 83 Francesco Redi mentions Carletti in the annotations to his Bacco in Toscana (Florence: Piero Matini, 1685) as one of the first Europeans to bring back information about chocolate from the Americas. See Pineider, pp. 24–5. 84 The work eventually came out as Ragionamenti di Francesco Carletti Fiorentino (Florence: Stamperia di Giuseppe Manni, 1701). In the text, Carletti, perhaps responding to ideological pressures, expresses regret at having participated in this commerce, which never brought him economic gain, and deplores its cruelty. 85 There are four extant manuscript versions of the text, although no autograph of the account survives. See Gemma Sgrilli, Francesco Carletti: Mercante e viaggiatore fiorentino (Rocca San Casciano: Cappelli, 1905) for an authoritative historical reconstruction of Carletti’s travels and a bibliography of manuscript copies and related materials. 86 Francesco Carletti, Ragionamenti del mio viaggio intorno al mondo, ed. Adele Dei (Milan: Mursia, 1987), p. 76. All quotes of Carletti’s text are from this edition.

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inevitability of change.87 For Daria Perocco, the baroque sensibility in the text comes from the considerations of both natural and man-made realms: “Il contrastorivolgimento tra artificio e natura svela l’essenza barocca del Carletti, teso ad osservare le produzioni più ipperrealistiche del mondo naturale, in competizione con le abilità nell’artificio che dovrebbero essere proprie dell’uomo” [The contrast between and changes in artifice and nature reveals the baroque essence of Carletti, intent on observing the most hyper-realist creations of the natural world, in competition with the talent for artifice that should be inherent to men].88 Indeed, Carletti’s attention to the marvels of the natural world could be said to be baroque in its going beyond admiring the bounty and abundance of flora and fauna that one might associate with a merchant’s perspective. For instance, his description of the port of Paita in Peru combines anthropological curiosity with awe-inspiring natural occurrences: [The port is] sotto una temperie del più purgato e più lucido e netto cielo che vedere e imaginare si possa, e d’aria tanto benigna, che gli abitatori non essendo necessitati da quella si contentano di stare sopra l’arena, nella quale ficcano delle canne legate insieme, al modo di graticci, e con esse fanno le parete e formano stanze alle loro povere case, che poi ricuoprono con stoie o altre foglie di alberi per diffendersi dal sole e dalla serenità dell’aria; nella quale per la sua nettezza risplende la luna molto più chiara e rende maggior lume quivi, che in qual si vogli altra parte del mondo che io abbia visto, in tanta maniera che per commun proverbio si dice in quello paese per volere affermare una cosa che non dà dubbio: “Ella è più chiara che la luna di Paita.” Per lo splendore e lucidezza sua si eguaglia al lume del sole, il che avviene anco per la reflessione di quelle campagne d’arena che quivi sono. [(The port is) in a climate where the sky is as pure, open and clear as one can see and imagine, and where the air is so mild that the inhabitants, not restricted by it, are happy to live on the sand, in which they plant canes tied together, like lattice, and with these they make the walls and rooms of their modest houses, which they then cover with mats or leaves from other trees to shelter themselves from the sun and from the clarity of the air, through which, because of its purity, the moon shines very clearly and gives more light there than in any other part of the world that I have seen, so that there is a common proverb that says, when one wants to affirm something that cannot be doubted: “That is clearer than the moon in Paita.” It is equal to the sun in splendor and brightness, which are also the result of the reflection in those fields of sand that one finds there.]89

The port village with a perfect climate evokes less an image of a locus amoenus than an otherworldly landscape in which the moon rivals the sun as a source of heat and light, and Carletti uses the authority of a local saying to confirm the uniqueness of the phenomenon. The passage reveals a sensibility to light and astrological effects in 87 “Conclude … scoprendo la legge inesorabile di ‘corruttibilità’ che condanna sempre uomini e cose ad una lenta ed incessante modificazione del loro stato e del loro essere” [He ends up discovering the inexorable law of corruptibility that condemns men and things to a slow and unstoppable modification of their state and of their being]. Guglielminetti, Viaggiatori, p. 20. 88 Perocco, Viaggiare, p. 26. 89 Carletti, Ragionamenti, p. 57.

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addition to a penchant for hyperbole suggestive of a new, perhaps baroque sense of how to characterize lesser-known lands. Carletti’s attention to style and narrative is not unlike that of some Florentine merchant travel accounts of the time.90 For instance, the merchant Filippo Sassetti (1540–89), an acquaintance of the Carletti family, lived in Goa for several years and his letters, first published in 1743, have earned him a place in anthologies of travel writing in part for their stylistic vividness.91 However, several intertwining elements make Carletti’s narrative unique as a hallmark of developing forms of Italian travel writing. For one, the text was written a posteriori, at the behest of the grand duke, and was therefore carefully planned and structured with a small courtly readership in mind. As Luigi Bianconi notes, the structure of the narrative is not that of most writing by merchants: “non e’ nato come un ‘diario di bordo’ o un ‘giornale di viaggio’, ma piuttosto come un’opera intimamente coerente, organica, unitaria” [it was not conceived as a logbook or travel journal, but rather as a work with an intimate coherence, organicity, and unity].92 The more leisurely circumstances in which the travel account was written enabled the representation of the journey as a completed narrative, not a work (and journey) in progress. Carletti had source books at hand while writing, principally Ramusio’s Navigationi e viaggi, from which he gleaned information. He makes references in his account to Marco Polo, Niccolò de’ Conti, Columbus, and Vespucci.93 Instead of following the typical structure of the navigatio, relazione, or letter, he chooses the title Ragionamenti, which evokes the 90 “Francesco Carletti è un fiorentino la cui scrittura ben si inscrive nella linea di quel filone letterario dei mercanti scrittori che caratterizza in modo specifico la civiltà letteraria fiorentina del Tre e Quattrocento” [Francesco Carletti is a Florentine whose writing inscribes itself easily in the literary line of merchant-writers that characterizes in a specific manner Florentine literary culture of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries]. Perocco, Viaggiare, p. 22. 91 See for example the Introduction to Sassetti in Ilaria Luzzana Caraci (ed.), Scopritori e viaggiatori del Cinquecento, 2 vols (Milan: Ricciardi, 1996), vol. 2, pp. 861–8. See Pineider, pp. 186–94 for a possible genealogy of merchant writing. Carletti himself befriended Orazio Neretti, a relative of Sassetti, during his stay in Macao. 92 Luigi Bianconi, Francesco Carletti. Aspetti letterari dei “Ragionamenti sopra le cose da lui vedute nei suoi viaggi” (Rome: Società tipografica Pio X, 1941), p. 52. Bianconi’s celebratory appraisal of Carletti, published in 1941, reflects the nationalist fervor of the period, and includes a racist–fascist lexicon: “Il suo buon senso e il suo equilibrio morale di italiano di razza gli fanno intuire che i conquistatori portoghesi nella loro insaziabile avidità e nella loro stupida ferocia non riusciranno a salvare a lungo l’integrità del loro vasto e ricco impero coloniale” [His common sense and his moral balance as a purebred Italian allow him to realize that the Portuguese conquerors, in their insatiable greed and stupid aggression, will not be able to maintain for long the integrity of their vast and rich colonial empire]. Bianconi, p. 51. The reference to innate Italian racial characteristics and an apparent partiality towards colonial expansion, even that of the Portuguese, are part of attempts in this period to make Italian travelers emblems of national identity. See Conclusion for more on the revival of Italian travel history during the fascist period. 93 Carletti lost his notebooks and other records during his trip, and he often refers to his uneven memory in recalling segments of his trip undertaken years before writing the Ragionamenti. See Pineider, p. 22.

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Renaissance conversational model of dialogue and discussion and provides a literary frame for the text. The work is divided into two discorsi, one on the West Indies, one on the East Indies, each composed of six ragionamenti, written in the first person and addressed to Grand Duke Ferdinand. The ragionamenti are presented rhetorically as beginning and ending in a single day, in a structure reminiscent of the ten days of the Decameron and of other collections of novelle. This temporal framing is also similar to that of epic poems, where the end of a canto can mark the end of a storytelling session. For example, in the opening of the fourth ragionamento on the West Indies, Carletti begins: “Se la memoria non m’inganna, nell’ultimo ragionamento ch’io feci a V.A.S. le promisi di raccontare la partenza nostra dalla città di Panama, e d’ogni seguito in quel viaggio e navicatione che facemmo per quel mare detto Pacifico” [If my memory does not fail me, in the last discourse that I made to Your Lordship, I promised to recount our departure from Panama City and all that followed during the voyage and our navigation on the Pacific Ocean, as it is called].94 The correspondence between the reaching of a destination and ending the discorsi, framed rhetorically within references to an uneven memory, is evidence of literary experimentation on the part of Carletti. Stefania Pineider has noted Carletti’s attention to clear storytelling in his depictions of various arrivals and departures, in explaining the various stages of his stays, and in avoiding lists and the non-narrative descriptions of some forms of travel writing: “Qui si gioca la abilità letteraria dello scrittore, e Carletti, molto meno sprovveduto di quanto non appaia, si sforza di costruire dei percorsi che facilitino ed invitino alla lettura” [At stake here are the literary skills of the writer, and Carletti, much less lacking of those than might seem, makes the effort to construct ways to facilitate and invite reading].95 She interprets the cogency of his explications, for instance regarding his trip from Manila to Nagasaki, as pedagogical and informative, but also as aimed to create enticing narrative. In another example of an overt use of literary constructs, Carletti includes direct and indirect discourse when recounting more dramatic episodes. When discussing his travels to Nagasaki, Carletti recalls the crucifixion in 1597 of twenty-six Catholic missionaries, an episode that he did not witness. He explains that Fransciscan missionaries had intervened on behalf of a Spanish vessel shipwrecked in Japan and whose goods the ruler of Japan, Hideyoshi (whom Carletti calls King Taico Sama), wanted to confiscate. Carletti provides the leader’s reasoning in the first person: Come dunque questi frati, che dicevano d’essere così poveri, ora dichino che questa robba della nave sia loro? Certamente io dico che devono essere persone di male affare, false e bugiarde. Inoltre, avend’io commandato e proibito quella loro impertinente religione, io so benissimo che non ostante questo l’hanno insegnata et predicata, e fatto de molti cristiani, e sono restati in questa Corte, e fatto tutto al contrario. Pertanto, avendo trasgredito alla mia volontà, voglio e commando che siano presi e crocifissi, insieme con tutti quelli che hanno preso la loro religione nella città di Nangasachi. [How is it then that these friars, who said they were poor, now say that this ship’s merchandise is theirs? I say, these must certainly be people of ill repute, traitors and liars. 94 Carletti, Ragionamenti, p. 55. 95 Pineider, p. 124.

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Furthermore, having commanded that their impertinent religion be prohibited, I know very well that despite this they have taught and preached it, and made Christians of many, and they have stayed at this court and have done everything to the contrary. Therefore, since they have transgressed against my will, I want and command that they be taken and crucified, along with all those who have adopted their religion in the city of Nagasaki]. 96

Strikingly, this passage gives a voice, and a coherent one at that, to a non-European Other facing the infiltration of Spanish and Portuguese religious and economic interests. Besides adding to the drama of the episode and exploring the motivation behind the Japanese ruler’s decision, the inclusion of Hideyoshi’s point of view gives some indirect indication of Carletti’s misgivings about expanding colonial powers and the exclusion of independent merchants from international trade. This willingness to accord textual space to Eastern criticism of the West is part of Carletti’s Italian point of view as a traveler whose alienation and frustration perhaps lead him to consider the Other’s perspective. Another recognizably Italian element of the account is the presence of references, even if brief, to Italian literary culture in the latter part of the Ragionamenti. For instance, in his retelling of the initial attack by Dutch pirates, an event that, unsurprisingly, terrified the whole crew, Carletti writes: “faceva rimbombo e fracasso nell’isola, che a descriverlo ci vorrebbe un spirito poetico come quello del signor Andrea Salvadori, e non il mio semplice ragionare” [(the artillery shells) made such a boom and blast on the island, that one would need the poetic spirit of Andrea Salvadori to describe it, not my simple style].97 In brief comments such as these, Carletti not only acknowledges the intensity of experience that is hard to represent, but hints at the reality of the incident being best served and represented by a more literary style, akin to that of the Florentine playwright he mentions.98 While Carletti’s comment is in part a rhetorical sign of modesty and an aptly placed reference to the Medici courtly life, it does point to the notion that travel writing might benefit more from a poetic rendering than a historical one. The traveler makes a similar gesture towards the literary when providing his understanding of the sexual mores in Goa: “Se io avessi a raccontare tutti gli accidenti et casi che, mentre stetti in Goa lo spatio di ventun mesi, accaddero in queste materie et l’ardire ch’esse donne hanno per metterli ad effetto, io non verrei mai a fine di questo ragionamento e farei torto alle novelle del Boccaccio” [If I had to tell of all the incidents and events that occurred related to this subject and the passion with which the women put these affairs into action during my twenty-one-month stay in Goa, I would never get to the end of this discourse and I would do wrong to Boccaccio’s short stories].99 The reference to literary prose once again emphasizes the blending of categories of poetry and history usually considered mutually exclusive. It also serves as a reminder or signal of Tuscan as a literary form of communication, and of the Decameron as the model

96 Carletti, Ragionamenti, p. 114. Carletti also uses dialogue in telling of the encounter with Dutch pirates and of his meeting with King Henry IV in Paris. 97 Ibid., p. 193. 98 See ibid. 99 Ibid., p. 182.

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of vernacular prose. A Tuscan merchant like Carletti is after all writing in Italy’s literary language and at the request of the grand duke of Tuscany.100 Carletti incorporates a Petrarchan lexicon when describing Japanese women who darken their teeth and hair: “Hanno li denti neri, fatti con arte con una vernice come inchiostro … Si tingono li capelli, pure di nero morato, che stimano più vaghi che se fossero biondi: tutto incontrario a noi, che vogliamo denti bianchi d’avorio e capelli d’oro, come cantano li poeti” [They have black teeth, which are skillfully colored with an ink-like varnish … They also dye their hair jet black, which they believe is more becoming than if they were blond: all is the opposite of us, who prefer teeth of ivory and hair of gold, as the poets sing].101 Carletti as courtier makes good use of the metaphors for feminine beauty and virtue in vernacular poetry most favored in the sixteenth century, using the typical metaphors, “bianchi d’avorio”, “capelli d’oro” from, to name just one example, one of Bembo’s most celebrated sonnets, “Crin d’oro crespo e d’ambra tersa e pura” [Curly hair of gold and of pure, bright amber]. This brief nod to Italy’s prized exportable cultural possession, its literary culture, in this case a lyrical model adopted throughout Europe, is significant as a reminder of Italy’s cultural authority. Carletti may have been at the mercy of the Spanish in the Philippines, but his lack of control over his mobility is mitigated in a text that bears the authoritative structure of Renaissance discourse as well as vernacular lyric. His course may have been thwarted and altered by Dutch pirates, but his discourse is linguistically and culturally linked to the most revered literary tradition of Europe. And what better way to express with dignity the sorrow and powerlessness of an Italian than to evoke the words of Dante’s Francesca, as Carletti, having lost his merchandise, writes after arriving in Zeeland: “Oh, quanto è vero che non ci è nel mondo alcuna altra maggior disgratia et dolore, che essere stato ricco et fortunato, et poi vedersi in estrema miseria condotto!” [Oh, how it is true that there is no greater misfortune and suffering in the world than that of having been rich and lucky, and then being led into misery!].102 This trader’s version of the doomed lover’s lament in Canto V of the Inferno (“Nessun maggior dolore, che ricordarsi del tempo felice nella miseria” [There is no greater suffering than, when in misery, remembering happy times]), would surely have pleased his readers.103 In the context of Carletti’s account, the reference recalls the historical Dante, lost in a power struggle away from home and deploring Italy’s lack of political unity and 100 Pineider sees literary dimensions in Carletti’s characterization of India as an earthly paradise: “L’India invece, è il paese di cuccagna, il Bengodi in cui le vigne si legano ancora con le salsicce” [India is instead the land of plenty, the Bengodi in which vines are still tied with sausages]. Pineider, p. 189. Her comparison is to Decameron, VIII.3, in which the tricksters Bruno and Buffalmacco, when drawing in their usual victim, Calandrino, tell him of a Basque town with abundant food and wine. 101 Carletti, Ragionamenti, p. 118. 102 Ibid., p. 211. 103 Verse 121. The closest source for Dante is Boethius’ De Consolatione Philosophiæ, Book II: “In omni adversitate fortunæ, infelicissimum genus est infortunii fuisse felicem” [In every adversity of fortune, to have been happy is the most unhappy kind of misfortune]. See Charles Singleton’s commentary of Dante Alighieri, Inferno, 2 vols (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1970), vol. 2, p. 93.

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power. The reference to the doomed lover adds poignancy as well as authority to Carletti’s mundane plight to regain his stolen goods. The Ragionamenti is emblematically “Italian” for its allusions to Italian literary tradition to lend authority to the account, and perhaps to counteract another phenomenon; namely, Italian exclusion from an emerging network of worldwide travel. Carletti’s progressive intolerance of Spanish, Portuguese, and Dutch authorities, while in part those of a thwarted entrepreneur, also reflect Italy’s lost economic and cultural status. Consistently emphasizing his struggles as a marginalized merchant, Carletti’s text prefigures the perspective of the Italian as insider–outsider that pervades later Italian travel accounts, especially after the mid-seventeenth century. At the beginning of the text, Carletti immediately explains the difficult circumstances of his and his father’s endeavor: “E perché questi viaggi e navicationi dell’Indie non possono farsi d’altri, che dalla propria Natione Spagnola, noi come Italiani e forastieri venivamo a cascare in pregiuditio di perdere tutto l’avere che avessimo messo in un tal negotio, se mai si fusse saputo essere nostro” [Because these journeys and navigations to the Indies cannot be completed except by those of the Spanish nation, we, as Italians and foreigners, risked losing all that we had invested in that deal if they found out it was ours].104 Carletti’s stylistic choice of using two identity markers (Carletti tends to use a rhetoric of two’s), “Italian” and “foreigners”—not simply foreign, but Italian and foreign—suggests that Italians face particular difficulties as European traders. As is typical, Carletti identifies himself by his patria when in the company of other Italians, but otherwise calls himself Italian. His complaints stem from a realization, on some level, that Florentines, as well as other Italians with well-established navigational and commercial traditions, have now passed to the wayside of international travel and trade. Using primarily deceit and surreptitious deal-making, Carletti, questioned by Spanish governing bodies everywhere he goes, gets jailed on several occasions, and usually makes inroads only when his letters of presentation are accepted by Spanish authorities or in the rare moments when, as he writes, “passavo … come Spagnolo” [I passed for a Spaniard].105 Carletti’s geographical and national marginality becomes the essence of this merchant’s struggle in a world of colonial expansion in which Italy does not and cannot take part. When Carletti writes of caps on currency allowed in the Philippines—caps that do not apply to those who are settled or are going to settle there—he remarks, “noi, che non eramo né di questi né di quelli, ci trovavamo in gran pericolo se volevamo trasportarvi il nostro avere” [we, who were neither these nor those, found ourselves in great danger if we wanted to transport our goods there].106 “Neither these nor those” serves as a pertinent metaphor for Carletti’s shifting position as a Florentine, Italian, and European whose point of view as a narrator oscillates between that of a participator and that of a spectator. Although Carletti certainly gripes at his outsider’s status, he also uses it to his advantage, representing himself as a disinterested and therefore reliable observer. When Carletti and his father, skirting Spanish restrictions and having secretly taken 104 Carletti, Ragionamenti, p. 32. 105 Ibid., p. 47. 106 Ibid., p. 79.

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a Japanese ship to Macao from Nagasaki, are asked to explain themselves to local authorities, he describes the scene with a certain pride in their unusual status: Appresso fummo esaminati, di dove venivamo, e quello pretendevamo fare in questo paese, e se sapevamo le pramatiche e proibitioni di Sua Maestà Cattolica. Noi rispondemmo esser venuti dall’isole Filippine a quelle del Giappone e poi in questa d’Amacao, di dove era nostro pensiero e desiderio passare all’India orientale, per nostro spasso e curiosità e non per altro interesse o altro che contrafacesse o preterisse alli ordini regi dell’una né dell’altra Corona; inoltre ch’eramo di natione Italiana e che venivamo d’un paese libero, come era il Giappone, non punto soggetto né all’una né all’altra natione Spagnola, e che l’andare per il mondo era cosa che si permetteva a tutte le nationi. [We were then interrogated regarding where we were coming from, and what our intentions were in this country, and if we were aware of the regulations and prohibitions of His Catholic Majesty. We responded that we were coming from the Philippine islands to Japan, and then on to Macao, from where it was our intention and desire to go to the East Indies for our own enjoyment and curiosity, and not for other motives or reasons that could contradict or transgress the royal orders of one or the other crown; moreover, (we told them) that we were from Italy, and that we came from a free country, like Japan, subject to neither of the two Crowns, and that going around the world was allowed to all nations].107

Among the Carlettis’ most blatant lies is the pretense of traveling as proto-tourists, “per nostro spasso e curiosità e non per altro interesse” [for our own enjoyment and curiosity]. This perhaps explains their having spent three days in prison, presumably after having exasperated authorities in Macao, but the outlandish and perhaps comical claim calls for further consideration. First, it suggests that the model for traveling to satisfy one’s curiosity had spread enough to become possibly applicable even to lengthy, riskier travel. Here, Carletti presages the trip around the world of Giovanni Francesco Gemelli Careri, almost one century later, for his own curiosity and interest (see Chapter 5). Furthermore, the Florentine’s explanation implies that Italians have a particular and privileged status that should provide them with immunity from maritime regulations. He depicts for the authorities a portrait of Italians as non-partisan and therefore unthreatening travelers, and he describes a culture of international travel in which Italians are not representative of European power. Carletti’s insistent self-distancing from the colonial enterprise has earned him the praise of some Italian scholars, who stress his objectivity: “[è] uno fra i primi a descrivere, con un’obiettività per il suo tempo assolutamente rara, la realtà delle nuove terre sotto la dominazione spagnola al tramonto del periodo delle grandi scoperte e delle violente usurpazioni” [he is one of the first to describe, with an objectivity that is absolutely rare for the time, the reality of the new lands under Spanish domination at the twilight of the period of great discoveries and violent usurpations].108 But this characterization of Carletti as “objective” detracts from the more salient point that he 107 Ibid., p. 130. Carletti’s use of the term “natione” (nazione) here corresponds to the general early modern usage designating people with a common heritage. 108 Perocco, Viaggiare, p. 102.

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has most likely chosen and constructed a particular perspective to mitigate his failure as a merchant and to assert his authority as an independent traveler and narrator. This so-called “rare objectivity” could be more accurately termed a strategic reaction to a sense of progressive exclusion in the face of colonial expansion. Sergio Zatti, perhaps more accurately, sees in Carletti’s text an Italian precursor of cosmopolitan world travel writing, akin to what Gramsci identifies in travelers as the continued cosmopolitan nature of Italian intellectuals: Carletti fa della debolezza storica italiana in precedenza deprecata in certo modo una forza, perché il suo è il punto di vista di uno spettatore del mondo non inquinato da prospettive nazionalistiche o coloniali: quest’uomo guarda al mondo nuovo con occhio disincantato, se non obiettivo, e lo fa nella stagione in cui le ragioni della supremazia nazionale e dell’imperialismo commerciale si stanno affermando in tutta la loro magnificenza e brutalità. [In a certain way Carletti turns the historical weakness of Italy, one usually deprecated, into a strength, because his point of view is that of a world spectator who is not contaminated by nationalistic or colonial perspectives: this man looks at the New World with a disenchanted, if not objective, gaze, and does so in a time when the reasons of national supremacy and commercial imperialism are affirming themselves in all their magnificence and brutality].109

The notion that Carletti would be free from “contamination” goes a bit too far, since Carletti is, after all, a slave trader whose attitude towards the natives of other continents is for the most part of a standard Eurocentric, Catholic bent. But Zatti makes the significant observation that Carletti’s position as an Italian—not generally as a European, and not only as a merchant—represents an exception and is crucial to understanding the text. This traveler engages in international trade, but he is to a large extent an observer of phenomena of which he does not consider himself a participant through a sense of common purpose and identity. And Carletti’s status as an outsider does put him in an ideal position to criticize the actions of the Spanish and Portuguese abroad, whether in a serious or more mocking tone.110 He contributes to the leyenda negra of Spanish mistreatment of indigenous populations, especially in the Americas. In Peru, he notes the suffering of the natives at the hands of the Spanish: “Il vivere vi è molto caro, spetialmente il pesce fresco, 109 Pineider, p. 6. 110 Claims that Carletti’s reaction is mainly that of an individual merchant fail to address the awareness of the Florentine traveler of broader mechanisms of exclusion: “L’insofferenza nei confronti dello strapotere spagnolo è nutrita alla base di ragioni personalissime, quelle che costringevano qualunque mercante di nazionalità non spagnola ad inventare strategemmi d’ogni genere pur di ritagliarsi uno spazio nelle strettoie del protezionismo coloniale” [His intolerance regarding the Spanish superpower is fed by very personal reasons, those that forced any merchant who was not of Spanish nationality to invent stratagems of all kinds in order to make himself space in the bottleneck of colonial protectionism]. Ibid., p. 70. Carletti speaks for himself, but, in addressing the grand duke of Tuscany, he also speaks of changing conditions for all Italian travelers who go to colonized areas, and his individual story is emblematic of broader developments in travel culture.

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per mancamento di chi vada a pescarlo, essendo che li Spagnoli terrebbono il fare questa cosa vilissima, e de’ naturali Indiani ve ne sono tanto pochi che non possono supplire, e di giorno in giorno vengono a meno per il mal trattamento ch’è fatto loro” [The cost of living is very high, especially fresh fish, due to the absence of people who go fishing, since the Spanish seem to think it a most vile thing to do. There are so few native Indians to fill in, and there are fewer of them every day, because of the bad treatment they receive].111 In contrast, he describes India as reassuringly free from the repression seen in the Americas; and, in the beginning of his discourse on the East Indies, remarks: Ora forse in questo secondo discorso, dove la memoria sarà più fresca, m’anderò meglio ricordando ti tutto quello feci, veddi, m’accadde e osservai nelli viaggi fatti per via dell’India orientale insino all’essere ritornato in Europa; delli quali e del paese ancora ci sarà molto più che dire, non c’essendo pervenuto il giogo delli Castigliani, mutatori, per non dire destruttori d’ogni cosa, e dove ancora per tutto i nativi del paese vivono e mantengono i loro antichi e poprii costumi, e la maggior parte li riti e ceremonie delle loro leggi umane e superstitioni. [Perhaps now in this second discourse, where my memory is fresher, it will be easier to recall all that I did, saw, experienced, and observed in my travels in East India and until my return to Europe. There will still be much to say about those countries not yet reached by the yoke of the Spanish, who are the changers if not the destroyers of all things, and where the natives of the country live according to and maintain their own, ancient customs and most of the rituals and ceremonies of their human laws and superstitions].112

Here, Carletti reveals satisfaction with encountering an area that has not been monopolized by Spain and Portugal. His rather positive characterization suggests that he identifies on some level with non-Western peoples struggling against expanding European powers. Furthermore, entering into relatively unspoiled areas allows Carletti to play the investigator and mediator of knowledge, the greater authority and gatherer of information. As another outsider, he is in the best position to describe these lands which are not yet overly affected by European political or religious aims. Carletti’s self-presentation as an impartial observer is also clear in one of the more vivid anecdotes he tells of a Spanish Discalced Capuchin missionary who jumps overboard from the Spanish ship on which he is sailing in an over-zealous and somewhat comical—surely Boccaccian echoes are not too far away—fervor to reach shore and convert indigenous Philippinos. The episode is an extraordinary testimony to mutual cultural incomprehension as the missionary, having managed to get into a native boat, holds out a crucifix for dismayed onlookers to kiss. Two other men who leave the Spanish ship to rescue the missionary get lost. Carletti expresses compassion for the misguided missionary and admiration for his willingness to become a martyr, but he views the entire scene with a disgruntled critical eye, relating it as a disaster caused by lack of knowledge and preparation, ignorance, and superstition on the part of the Spanish. A shipmate, astonished at the locals’ 111 Carletti, Ragionamenti, p. 59. 112 Ibid., p. 97.

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swimming ability and dexterity with their small boats, convinces the ship’s captain to leave the three lost men behind to avoid the natives’ black magic: “il piloto, la maggior parte de’ quali ordinariamente non sanno pur leggere, dette più che credito a colui forse di meno intelligentia di lui, e in un subito commandò che si muovesse il timone per indirizzare la nave” [the pilot—and most of them cannot even read—gave more credit to the man who was less intelligent than he and immediately ordered that the rudder be turned to re-direct the ship].113 Eventually the men are rescued, as well as the missionary, whose attempts at religious conversion have failed miserably: “il frate, che non sapeva parlare né intentendere quella loro lingua, non fece frutto alcuno conforme al suo desiderio” [the plans of the friar, who could neither speak nor understand their language, did not come to any fruition].114 Apparently this particular island has no gold or silver, and Carletti posits that its lack of resources means that the Spanish will not bother with further missionary work there: “che dove non sentono ricchezze non vi si accostano, le quali servono per allettare li soldati a far la strada con l’arme a’ relligiosi e a difenderli dalli barbari, come essi dicono” [because they do not go to where there is no evidence of riches, which serve to tempt soldiers to use arms to make way for missionaries and to defend them from the barbarians, as they say].115 His ironic “come essi dicono” [as they say] puts the Spanish in the place of barbarians and highlights their hypocrisy. Skeptical of missionary institutions and observing events as a passenger on the ship, Carletti becomes the chronicler of error and incompetence in two principal European international institutions, trade and religion. The lack of understanding and the naïveté of the representatives of Europe’s great powers are ridiculed and take on an almost grotesque form as the “meschinello del buon frate” [poor fool of a friar],116 too ignorant to carry out his mission, flails around with his religious objects, and the ship’s navigator, paralyzed by superstitious beliefs, is unable to take more productive action. In this, Carletti, through his self-representation as a practical-minded onlooker, stands out as the best-informed passenger and creates the most coherent, authoritative, and believable discourse. Through his account, he comes to embody the ideal “Italian” traveler: not implicated in the destructive proto-national rivalries being played out abroad, discerning and free from superstition and irrationality, and, above all, the producer of an accurate and pleasing narrative. This episode also provides a perfect example of why the Catholic missionary movement, while overseen from Rome, could not provide a substitute oikos or sense of Italian-ness with which Carletti or an independent seventeenth-century Italian traveler could identify. Especially along the itinerary followed by Carletti, the missions were undertaken by many non-Italians serving imperial interests. He sees nothing Italian about the missionary at whom he pokes fun. Carletti portrays himself as the resourceful lone player when the Portuguese vessel on which he is sailing back to Europe is assailed by Dutch ships, whose attack results in the death of the weapons expert on the Portuguese side, a man 113 Ibid., pp. 83–4. 114 Ibid., p. 84. 115 Ibid. 116 Ibid., p. 82.

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“di natione Italiana, da Genova” [who was of the Italian nation, from Genoa].117 Carletti, reading the situation in practical terms and eager to come out unscathed, makes friends with the Italian-speaking ship’s scribe, shows the Dutch how to cook seabirds after reaching the island of Ferdinando de Noronha, and prides himself with having been accorded a seat at the captain’s table for meals: … tutti [the Dutch] … mi facevano carezze, avendo io, quando ricercai loro di restare nella nave per con essa venirmene in Zelanda e di quivi in Italia, fortificato le mie ragioni, per indurli a farmi questo servitio e commodo, con il dire che si ricordassero de’ cortesi trattamenti et carezze che V.A.S. fa loro continuamente, quando vengono nel suo porto di Livorno. Della qual cosa molti ricordevoli, mi favorirno et accordorno di compiacermene. [all of them treated me well because, when I tried to remain on the ship to go with them to Zeeland and then to Italy, I had bolstered my reasoning and, to induce them to do this service and favor for me, I asked that they recall the courteous treatment and attention that Your Lordship always gives them when they come to your port of Livorno. This they remembered well, and favored me and accorded me my wishes].118

Unencumbered by national alliances, Carletti is quick to gain the favors of whichever group can help him retain his merchandise and arrive at his desired destination.119 This attitude marks a particular contrast with the Portuguese version of the episode, which figures in Bernardo Gomes de Brito’s compilation, História Trágico-Marítima [Tragic Stories of the Sea], published in Lisbon during 1735–36. In the Portuguese recounting, the fiasco is construed not as an individual incident, but as an assault on the authority and power of Portugal, an “affronto alla nazione portoghese, perpetrato nella circostanza, [e] un affronto a Dio che ad essa ha delegato, dalla battaglia di Campo di Ourique in poi, il compito di civilizzare e cristianizzare il mondo” [an affront to the Portuguese nation that, perpetrated under those circumstances, is an affront to God who, since the battle of Campo de Ourique, has delegated to Portugal the task of civilizing and Christianizing the world].120 From the Portuguese perspective, the episode becomes emblematic of an attack on God’s divine project for them to dominate the world, and clearly pays homage to colonial–expansionistic efforts and to Portugal’s proto-national pride and identity based in its navigational history. In this version, Carletti protests vehemently in his efforts to gain Dutch favors as a subject of the neutral, non-partisan grand duke: E um florentino chamado Francisco Carlete que tendo ido à India por via das Filipinas, vinha neste galeão com muita fazenda e encomendas de muito preço, que êle dizia serem 117 Ibid., p. 194. 118 Ibid., pp. 200–201. 119 When the captain of the ship expresses his reluctance to surrender to the Dutch without first fighting in the name of the Spanish crown, he is quickly over-ruled. Ibid., p. 195. 120 Silvano Peloso, “Le avventure tragico-marittime di un onesto negriero in giro per il mondo: i portoghesi nei ‘Ragionamenti’ di Francesco Carletti,” Quaderni portoghesi, 5 (1979): 71.

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do seu Gran-Duque, com cujas armas trazia muitas peças, alegava aos Holandeses que lhe não podiam tomar a dita fazenda, por ser vassalo do duque de Florença; altercadas as dúvidas se foi come êles a Holanda, confiado em que se lhe havia de tornar tôda sua fazenda e houve grandes dares e tomares se o levariam ou não. [And a Florentine by the name of Francesco Carletti, who had gone to the Indies via the Philippines, was traveling on this galleon with much merchandise and orders of great value, which he said belonged to his grand duke, in whose name he was transporting many goods, and he told the Dutch that they could not take from him the above-mentioned goods, since he was the vassal of the duke of Florence. After a lengthy debate, he left with them to Holland, certain that they would return to him all his merchandise, and there was a great back and forth to determine if they should take him with them or not.]121

While in Carletti’s text he takes pride in his diplomatic abilities and the cosmopolitan outlook that enables him to remain on the Dutch ship, in the Portuguese version he is more of a nuisance and of no particular significance to the Dutch. Carletti’s selfportrait as an international courtier with superior rhetorical abilities and reasoning is quite different from the nagging figure described in the Portuguese account, in which Carletti is excluded from discourses of rivalries between larger powers vying for global domination. These differences underscore Carletti’s self-fashioning in the Ragionamenti not always as a victim of greater powers, but as a traveler with particular advantages because he moves outside of imperial programs. So while the Portuguese remain stranded off the coast of Brazil, Carletti, in his rendering, thanks to his adaptability and powers of persuasion, is able to follow his merchandise back to Europe in hopes—soon dashed—of reacquiring it.122 As a prelude to seventeenth-century travel writing, Francesco Carletti’s account is a particularly illuminating representative text. A “tourist” despite his original intentions, the Florentine traveler creates a narrative that is identifiably Italian in its references to literary culture and in its construction of a point of view that is authoritative because it is removed from expansionist impulses. His account, just as those examined in the following chapters, also exemplifies “Italian” travel writing in the depiction of the narrator–traveler as a predominantly cosmopolitan figure

121 Ibid., p. 70. 122 His legal actions and appeals to Italian and French authorities come to naught, and he never regains his goods. Carletti’s sense of alienation is strongest when he is back in Europe and his position as an Italian and “vassallo di principe neutrale” [subject of a neutral prince] (Carletti, Ragionamenti, p. 205) is ineffectual, because he remains at the mercy of greater powers. His self-fashioning as a cosmopolitan figure falters as he recounts his difficulties: “Bisogna pure che ti si scoppi il cuore, et se la misericordia d’Iddio non ti aiutasse, si darebbe la volta al cervello, sì come mi fu per succedere, vedendomi in un punto privo di tanta robba et in un paese così strano che a pena trovai chi mi ricevesse in sua casa et chi m’intendesse parlare” [Your heart would burst with sadness, and if God’s pity did not help you, you would lose your sanity, as I almost did mine, seeing me deprived of so many goods and in a country so strange that I could barely find who would take me in and who could understand me]. Ibid., p. 211. The authority of his Italian identity as embodying a reliable and savvy critical distance no longer functions in the reality of legal wrangling abroad.

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whose worldview privileges the critical approach of a humanist heritage rather than discourses of domination or proto-national agendas. Travel writing is both the reflection of and the antidote to displacement and contact with the Other. The flow of the narrative, with its digressions and meanderings, mirrors metaphorically the movement through time and space. At the same time, the fixing of the experience of travel into text provides at least an illusion of control over or resistance to the destabilizing elements of the journey. For travelers such as Carletti, that textuality, for all of its practical and informational raison d’être, can only exist in relation to Italian literature and culture and its countless discursive possibilities.

Chapter 2

Performing Baroque Travel: Pietro Della Valle’s Viaggi In a letter from the fourth year of his twelve-year journey, the Roman traveler Pietro Della Valle, with histrionic élan, declares his narrative intentions to his correspondent: Per l’avvenire, nelle lettere, che fin ch’io viva, non cesserò mai di scriverle, non le darò più avvisi di semplici viaggi, o di ordinarie curiosità osservate ne i camini: ma piacendo a Dio, le ragguaglierò di ospitij e ricevimenti regij, di grandezze di corti, di negotij di principi, di guerre, di trasmigrationi di popoli, di fondationi di città, di ambascerie straniere, e di altri avvenimenti heroici e grandi, che io stesso con gli occhi proprij havrò veduto, e de’ quali, forse, con la gratia di Dio, sarò pars magna. [In the future, in my letters, and as long as I live, I will never stop writing you, and I will not give you just news of simple travels or ordinary curiosities observed on the road, but, if it pleases God, I will inform you of regal hospitality and receptions, of the greatness of courts, of the commerce of princes, of wars, of the migrations of peoples, of the founding of cities, of foreign embassies, and of other great and heroic events that I myself will have seen with my own eyes and of which perhaps, by the grace of God, I will be a large part.]1

The expectation of epic and even biblical-like adventures reveals the extent of Della Valle’s ambitions as traveler and travel writer. It also expresses a unique vision of the function of travel: to attain a heroic, if not mythical status, and to reach such a status through the telling of one’s journey. In Della Valle’s vision of travel writing, 1 II.105, Letter 3 from Isfahan, December 18, 1617. Quotes of the Viaggi are from the first edition (4 vols [Rome: Mascardi, 1650–63]). The Roman numerals indicate the volume number, and the Arabic numerals indicate the page number of that volume. In order to help the reader situate the quotes chronologically, I also specify the number, location, and date of the letter for each quote. I have modernized the punctuation and capitalization. The beginning of the title of the first volume reads: Viaggi di Pietro Della Valle il Pellegrino, con minuto ragguaglio di tutte le cose notabili osservate in essi, Descritti da lui medesimo in 54 lettere familiari, Da diversi luoghi della intrapresa peregrinatione [Travels of Pietro Della Valle, the Pilgrim, with a detailed account of all the notable things observed during those travels, described by the author himself in 54 familiar letters, from various places of the undertaken pilgrimage]. The first volume, entitled La Turchia, was published in 1650. The two volumes on Persia (Viaggi di Persia) were published posthumously by four of his sons in 1658, as was the last volume, L’India co’l ritorno alla patria [India, along with the return to his native city], published in 1663.

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events and experiences serve primarily as the connective threads of a dramatic, glory-bestowing narrative. Indeed, when Pietro Della Valle sailed from Venice by sea in 1614, he deliberately began paving a road to fame unequaled by any Italian traveler since the Age of Exploration. Adventurer, collector, poet, literary academician, musical composer, courtier, and master of self-fashioning, Della Valle journeyed through Turkey, the Middle East, and India for twelve years, following his own itinerary and using his own funds. Born in 1586, this respected member of both a prominent Roman family and of the most renowned Roman literary academies, the Accademia degli Umoristi [Academy of Great Wits], pursued a personal geographical, cultural, and literary agenda.2 His astonishingly rich four-volume epistolary Viaggi (1650–63) enjoyed a vast success, going through multiple editions and translations in the decades following its initial publication. The Viaggi offers a radically new, multifaceted paradigm for conceptualizing both the experience and the writing of travel in the context of seventeenth-century Italian textual production. This unique account is also distinctly Italian, because it consistently and emphatically incorporates elements of Italian literary texts and genres, most notably Petrarchan lyrical poetics, the epic (especially those of Ariosto and Tasso), and the pastoral. The account also breaks new ground in drawing heavily from baroque literature, emphasizing the marvelous and curious, and in particular death and the macabre. Furthermore, the integration of theatrical or dramatic discourses takes travel narrative into uncharted territory. The notion of travel as performance provides an apt starting point for exploring Della Valle’s acutely selfaware, self-consciously experimental narrative that explicitly aims to please his contemporary audience and that of generations to come. The Text of the Viaggi Pietro Della Valle’s Viaggi consists of fifty-four letters written to his friend, Neapolitan naturalist Mario Shipano.3 As Della Valle mentions in the letters, his missives were to serve as raw material for a more polished, literary rendition to be produced by Schipano. 2 The Academy, founded in 1603 by Paolo Mancini, was the dominant literary group in early seventeenth-century Rome, and boasted such members as Giambattista Marino, Alessandro Tassoni, Battista Guarini, and Gabriello Chiabrera. For more information on the Academy’s founding and activities, see Piera Russo, “L’Accademia degli Umoristi. Fondazione, strutture e leggi: il primo decennio di attività,” Esperienze Letterarie, 4 (1979): 47–61. Della Valle was also a member of the scientific Accademia dei Lincei, of which Galileo was a prominent member. Della Valle was a close friend of Caterina Boccalini, the daughter of Traiano Boccalini. 3 Della Valle became acquainted with Schipano while living in Naples from 1609 to 1614. Schipano was a doctor, scholar, and dilettante poet from Taverna, who had established himself in Naples. He read Greek and Arabic, and was known for his collection of Oriental texts. A member of several Neapolitan academies, Schipano was in contact with such figures as Tommaso Campanella and Giovanni Battista della Porta. See Rafaella Salvante, Il “Pellegrino” in Oriente. La Turchia di Pietro Della Valle (1614–1617) (Florence: Edizioni Polistampa, 1997), pp. 21–3. Her book remains one of the most extensive overviews of Della Valle and his work.

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The project never came to fruition, and the letters were published with relatively few modifications.4 Along his itinerary, he visits Constantinople, Egypt, and traditional Christian holy sites such as Jerusalem and Bethlehem. Among other activities in the area, he climbs Mount Sinai and a pyramid at Giza, on which he leaves his name engraved, and descends into ancient tombs to collect mummies.5 His adventurous spirit then spurs him on to Baghdad, where in 1616 he marries a Nestorian Christian woman, Sitti Maani Gioerida, and then to Persia and the court of Shah Abbas the Great in Isfahan, where he stays for five years.6 Along the way he meets with and befriends diplomats, missionaries, and merchants. He dabbles in Coptic, studies Turkish and Arabic, and becomes fluent and composes poetry in Persian. Some months after leaving Isfahan in 1621, Sitti Maani dies from complications of a miscarriage near Hormuz. Della Valle, after having recovered from a near fatal illness, moves on to the west coast of India, taking the embalmed body of his wife with him wherever he goes. He meets with various rulers in India, and in Ikkeri attempts to dissuade a widow from participating in the Hindu sati ritual. In March 1626 he finally returns to Rome, where, in June of the same year, he receives the visit of the Spanish transvestite warrior woman, Catalina de Erauso, and buries Sitti Maani in the family chapel in Santa Maria in Aracoeli. 4 Della Valle’s letters were censored (especially sections regarding religious subjects) and slightly modified before publication. He had a direct hand in adapting the first and perhaps second volume, but the extent to which he might have prepared the final volumes, published after his death, is hard to determine. For an overview of the revisions made before publication, see ibid., pp. 147–51. The censored sections of his letters from Persia are restored in Pietro Della Valle, I viaggi di Pietro della Valle, eds Franco Gaeta and Laurence Lockhart, 2 vols (Rome: Istituto Poligrafico dello Stato, 1972). 5 He also collects clothing, manuscripts, instruments, soil, and botanical samples. He was in contact with Athanasius Kircher, the Jesuit polymath and creator of the famous cabinet of curiosities of the Collegio Romano, who translated and published the Coptic grammar Della Valle brought back from his travels. He was pleased with the results: “Insieme co’l mio originale manuscritto antico, mi diede [Kircher] anco l’istesso libro con la versione latina da lui fatta, et altri discorsi eruditi aggiuntivi, tutti stampati in Roma in un bel volume, che io fra gli altri miei libri più cari conservo. Nel proemio del quale il Pre. Athanatio fa honorata mentione di me, dicendo come io haveva trovato in Egitto questo libro, e portatolo a Roma” [Kircher also gave me, together with my original ancient manuscript, the same book in Latin translation, which is his, and other added erudite discourses, all published in Rome in a handsome volume, which I keep among my most cherished books. In the preface Father Athanasius makes an honorable mention of me, saying how I found this book in Egypt and brought it back to Rome]. (Archivio Segreto Vaticano DV-DB186, 12 October 1643). See also Paula Findlen, “Un incontro con Kircher a Roma,” in Eugenio Lo Sardo (ed.), Athanasius Kircher. Il Museo del Mondo (Rome: Edizioni De Luca, 2001), p. 40. 6 Della Valle had hopes of convincing Shah Abbas to fight their common enemy, the Ottoman Turks. He also writes of founding a new Rome in the East: “Si pensasse … a fondare in queste parti una colonia cristiana e cattolica, di rito latino, benché di diverso linguaggio, con nome specioso di Nuova Roma; col Tempio di San Pietro, co’l Campidoglio, col Tebro, con la mia Valle, e con altre tali galanterie” [I was thinking of founding in this area a Christian, Catholic colony, of Latin rite, although with a different language, with the lovely name of New Rome, with the Temple of Saint Peter, the Capitoline, the Tiber, and my Valley, and other gallantries]. (II.479, Letter 5 from Isfahan, April/May, 1619).

Figure 2.1

Pietro Della Valle’s Itinerary 1614–26

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The Viaggi, later acclaimed by, among others, Goethe in his West-östlicher Divan, enjoyed notable success early on.7 By 1681, six editions had appeared, and the Viaggi had been translated into French, German, Dutch, and English. The account, of over one million words, offers a richly textured and complex representation of Della Valle’s journeys through different worlds.8 The narrative and descriptive elements range from traditional observations to self-mocking anecdotes, from detailed ambassadorial gossip to awe-inspired descriptions of foreign landscapes and illuminated cities; and, stylistically, from straightforward data lists to comical double entendres and literary musings.9 Della Valle’s intricate, polychromatic text, reflective of the traveler’s broad interests, has been the subject of studies in various disciplines, such as archeology, anthropology, history, art history, geography, musicology, and literature.10 Given the richness in detail and sheer length of Della Valle’s text, any approach to the Viaggi inevitably foregrounds some aspects at the expense of many other compelling ones. His insights, humor, and unyielding curiosity, as well as the limits and blind spots of the account, make it a captivating document of early modern culture. At the beginning of the seventeenth century, there existed no established tradition of pluri-continental journeying for the sake of satisfying one’s curiosity. In justifying his travels away from the caput mundi, Della Valle incorporates both the uncontestable authority of Catholic Rome and the Italian literary tradition. He 7 See Salvante, p. 1. 8 See Pietro Della Valle, The Pilgrim, ed. George Bull (London: Hutchinson, 1990), p. xvii. Della Valle had participated in a Spanish campaign against Mediterranean pirates in 1611 and seems to have had a penchant for battle and conflict. See ibid., pp. x–xi. Della Valle had close ties with Francesco Barberini, the papal nephew, and played a formal role at the papal court. He was involved in the selection of a new pope after the death of Urban VIII in 1644. 9 Della Valle is a keen observer who aims, like many of his predecessors, to correct inaccurate information about distant lands. A well-trained antiquarian, he regularly refers to classical historians such as Herodotus, Strabo, and Livy. Della Valle traveled with a French edition or Latin translation of Pierre Belon, Les observations de plusieurs singularitez et choses mémorables, trouvées en Grece, Asie, Judée, Egypte, Arabie, et autres pays estranges (Paris: Cavellat, 1553), and a geographical dictionary, Filippo Ferrari, Epitome geographicum in quattuor libros divisum (Pavia, 1605). His copy of this last text, with marginal notes, is held at the Biblioteca Estense in Modena. See Salvante, p. 290. 10 Recent studies include Joan-Pau Rubiés, Travel and Ethnology in the Renaissance, and Antonio Invernizzi, In viaggio per l’Oriente: le mummie, Babilonia, Persepoli / Pietro Della Valle (Alessandria: Edizioni dell’Orso, 2001). Della Valle is also known for his musical compositions and writing on contemporary, experimental music. He was a close friend of musician and music theorist Giambattista Doni. See Agostino Ziino, “Pietro Della Valle”, in Stanley Sadie (ed.), The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, 20 vols (London: Macmillan Press, 1980), vol. 5, p. 347. The Roman traveler was the first to bring examples of cuneiform writing to Europe. See Dale Brown (ed.), Sumer: Cities of Eden (Alexandria, VA: Time-Life Books, 1993), p. 13. He is also credited for bringing coffee and coffee-house culture to Italy. See for example, I.152–5, Letter 3 from Constantinople, February 7, 1615. The field is especially rich because of the extensive extant manuscript material related to Della Valle’s life and works.

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initially dons pilgrim’s garb, calls himself “il Pellegrino” [the pilgrim], as the title page of his work indicates, and declares the Holy Land his final destination. He also claims that the voyage is to serve as a respite from the tribulations of unrequited love. As Gian Pietro Bellori writes in his biography of Della Valle, “Ma quanto sono fallaci i desideri degli amanti! Con subito tramutamento cangiossi ogni suo bene e ogni sua gioia, in duolo e in pianto, perciocche la genitrice [of his beloved] destinolla ad altro amatore” [But how deceptive are the desires of lovers! With a sudden shift, all his wellbeing and happiness changed to suffering and tears, because the mother of his beloved gave her to another suitor].11 Like Petrarch or Sincero of Sannazaro’s Arcadia, Della Valle’s geographical movement was, ostensibly, a restless search for spiritual and intellectual comfort and consolation. Thus Della Valle right away strategically grounds his autoritas as an independent traveler in two powerful identity-markers: one local and Roman, the seat of the Catholic Church; and one more generally Italian, the literary tradition.12

11 Salvante, p. 20, n. 15. Bellori’s biography came out in the 1662 edition of the Viaggi (Rome: Deversin). Another biography, this time by Filippo Maria Bonini, was published in the 1667 edition of the travels (Venice: Baglioni). In some of Della Valle’s manuscript verse writings conserved at the Biblioteca Estense Universitaria in Modena, he blames his suffering—in language that recalls both Sannazaro and Petrarch—on his beloved, a woman named Beatrice Boraccio, not her mother: “Amai nel Latio con quel cor sincero / che me diè il cielo, et in mille e mille prove / sempre hebbi costantissimo il pensiero: / ma la donna infedele, a cui fer nuove / voglie forse cangiar l’antica cura, / e collocarla indegnamente altrove, / poco la fede mia, poco la dura / servitù di dieci anni al fin prestando, / ingrata altrui si dona, a me si fura. / Piangendo all’hor de la mia patria in bando / me ne andai disperato, e terre e mari / corsi non pochi, sempre sospirando” [In Latium I loved with the sincere heart that the heavens gave me, and I kept my thoughts constant through thousands and thousands of trials. But the unfaithful woman, whose new desires made her change her old cares and ungraciously place them elsewhere, paid little notice to my faithfulness and to the tenacious servitude I accorded her for ten years, and gave herself to another, and stole herself away from me. Weeping, then, I left my homeland, banished and desperate, and I traveled to not a few lands and seas, sighing always]. Raniero Speelman, “Uno sconosciuto ‘West-östlicher Divan’ di Pietro della Valle,” EJOS, 5/5 (2002): 10. The name of the woman conveniently evokes Dante’s beloved. Gaeta and Lockhart identify Della Valle’s beloved as Belisa or Beatrice D’Avalos. See I viaggi di Pietro della Valle, p. xxiii. 12 Della Valle prides himself with not having commercial or economic motivations for his travel. The opening canzone of the Viaggi, written by Mario Schipano to the Accademia degli Umoristi, attests to this: “Non di bass’alme a vil guadagno intese, / Ma ben grave d’Eroe” [He did not aspire to the base earnings of inferior minds, but to the solemn status of hero]. (See vol. 1, introductory pages). Della Valle becomes indignant when he is taken for a merchant. For example, when an Indian king expresses interest in buying a horse from Della Valle, he is offended: “Io stando nel mio punto della nobiltà italiana, che tali cose non permette, risposi al re che vender cavalli era officio di mercanti, non mia professione.” [Keeping to my point about Italian nobility, which does not allow such things, I answered the king that selling horses was the business of merchants, not of my profession]. (IV.249–50, Letter 6 from Mangalor, December 9, 1623).

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“The theater of the whole universe” If there is a broad coherence to Della Valle’s vast project, it is in his relentless aspiration to produce an account of widespread appeal. Like a Petrarchan humanist, he knows that posterity lies in the text. In order to accomplish his goal of making eternal his adventures, he must textualize them in a valid template for recounting his travels, one that does not yet exist. Thus his enterprise becomes above all a narrative one, and his concern for his travels as a literary artifact and as a genre is apparent throughout the fifty-four letters of his travels. That he also sees travel as linked to performance—in the sense that he can direct and represent his actions through discourse in order to produce a desired reaction from his audience—is clear in his preface to the reader: Hora che publico queste lettere non le publico a te solo, né in sol luogo, né solamente a gli huomini che hora vivono; ma a tutto ’l mondo insieme, e a tutti i secoli a venire … la mia intentione non è di dar gusto ad un solo o a pochi palati, ma a i più che io mai possa, di tutti gli huomini che sono, e che saranno. Come né anche in un piccolo angolo di Roma sola, o d’Italia, ma nel gran teatro di tutto l’universo, di cui, gran parte di esso resami con le mie fatiche familiare, mi professo cittadino. [Now that I am publishing these letters, I do not publish them only for you, nor for only one place, nor only for men who are now alive, but rather for the whole world together, and for all the centuries to come. My intention is not to delight only one or a few palates, but as many as I am able, of all the men who are, and who will be. Just as I profess myself a citizen not only of just a small corner of Rome, or Italy, but of the great theater of the whole universe, a great part of which, through my labors, has become familiar to me.] 13

13 The traveler expresses his desire for eternal fame, framing his role as a traveler as unique because he is neither an accomplished poet nor a head of state: Iddio non mi ha dato né regni per mezo de’ quali possa farmi sentir di lontano con lo strepito di mille e mille spade a me soggette; né la dolcezza del canto del nostro moderno Guarino, con la quale possa allettare le nationi straniere in guisa che si compiacciano di far risonare il mio nome, come hanno fatto del suo in tutti i loro barbari istrumenti. Et un huomo, che solo è conosciuto e amato nella sua patria da gl’amici, e parenti, che vale? e che gloria acquista una famiglia da quei soggetti, il nome de’ quali dentro alle mura della propria casa si rinchiude, e nella tombe insieme co’l cadavero, resta per sempre sepellito? [God did not give me a kingdom, with which I could make my name heard from afar with the clang of thousands and thousands of swords that obey me, nor did he give me the sweetness of song of our modern Guarino, with which to please all foreign countries so that they will make my name resound, as they did his, with their barbarian instruments. And what is a man worth if he is only known and loved in his home city by friends and relatives? And what glory does a family obtain from its members who remain forever buried, either within the walls of their own home or in their tombs as cadavers?] (I.175,176, Letter 7 from Constantinople, June 27, 1615).

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His attention to providing a pleasurable account for his readers tilts the travel account towards more entertaining, and less factual or informative, purposes. His characterization of his itinerary and the reach of his desired fame as the “great theater of the whole universe” provide a key frame for considering this new form of travel writing as performance and the Viaggi as baroque travel literature. Certainly the term “theater” was often evoked in reference to travel and geography, for example in the Theatrum orbis terrarum (1570) by Abraham Ortelius, who coined its usage for map collections. However, for a narrator with a clear penchant for the dramatic, both comic and tragic, and who has spent most of his time in Rome and Spanish Naples before embarking on his lengthy and adventure-filled journey, the appropriation of the baroque theatrum mundi trope is the fitting prologue to the spectacle Della Valle offers his audience and to the depiction of the experience of travel. The dramatic sensibility in the Viaggi has its roots in part in the Italian culture of spectacle, from the theater in Naples to the commedia dell’arte to the extravagant Catholic ceremonies, such as holiday processions and funerals, and the general pageantry that were the staple in Rome at the time. Certainly the visual arts, responding to Counter-Reformation prescriptions for art and architecture, emphasized drama and movement.14 Key episodes from literary epics were a favorite subject of paintings and theatrical productions.15 Della Valle spent several years in Naples before his travels and was familiar with theater culture there; he regularly put on musical events and plays during his lifetime.16 His account builds upon the affinities between a culture of spectacle and the performance of travel. As both a 14 See for example, Susan Scott Munshower and Barbara Wisch (eds), Art and Pageantry in the Renaissance and Baroque, 2 vols, especially vol. 2, Theatrical Spectacle and Spectacular Theater (University Park, PA: Department of Art History, Pennsylvania State University, 1990), and Marcello Fagiolo and Maria Luisa Madonna, Barocco romano e barocco italiano: il teatro, l’effimero, e l’allegoria (Rome: Gangemi, 1985). For a thorough investigation of Roman pageantry, see Marcello Fagiolo (ed.), La festa a Roma: dal Rinascimento al 1870, 2 vols (Rome: J. Sands, 1997). 15 For an overview of epic and Turkish themes in seventeenth-century Florentine spectacles, see Elena Fumagalli, Massimiliano Rossi, and Riccardo Spinelli (eds), L’arme e gli amori: La poesia di Ariosto, Tasso e Guarini nell’arte fiorentina del Seicento (Florence: Sillabe, 2001). 16 In 1627, one year after his return to Rome, he organized a lavish public funeral for his wife, Sitti Maani Gioerida. His first published work was a musical piece, Carro di fedeltà d’amore (Rome: Robletti, 1611). He composed and put on a musical play in honor of the birth of his first child in a second marriage, entitled “La valle rinverdita” [The valley made green again (a play on his last name)] (Venice: Pietro Maria Bertano, 1633). Della Valle’s second wife, Maria Tinatin, was a member of Sitti Maani’s entourage and accompanied them on their travels. In 1640, he composed the dialogue and music for a performance of the biblical story of Esther. He hosted plays in his home during carnival, for example in February 1644: “Nei giorni di questo carnevale si rappresentarono in casa mia due comedie, una in prosa parlando … L’altra in versi et in musica, che fu La Baccante, overo Il Trionfo dell’Autuno di Ottaviano Castelli, messa in musica da Angelo Cecchini … Le Comedie amendue riuscirono assai e piacquero a tutti estremamente” [During these days of carnival I had two comedies put on in my house: one spoken in prose. The other was in verse and set to music, the Bacchantes, or the Triumph of Autumn by Ottaviano Castelli, set to music by Angelo Cecchini. The comedies

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traveler and travel writer, Della Valle eagerly portrays himself playing on different “stages” of the world and actively participates in the journey as the protagonist of cultural discovery and exchange. William Egginton has argued that “theatricality”, a notion he develops in his work, provides the most accurate way to think about modern interiority and perspective.17 “Theatricality,” as he defines it, has historical roots in the development and widespread popularity of theater culture during the early modern period. The use of perspectival sets in sixteenth-century Italy set up a new relationship between spectators and actors, and between the space of the stage and the space of the audience. Theater is “that medium of interaction whose conventions structure and reveal to us our sense of space or spatiality.”18 Egginton’s formulation, which relies heavily on Heideggerian phenomenology and Lacanian psychoanalysis, is ultimately more concerned with exploring the origins of modernity. However, his highlighting the essential and profound contributions of early modern theater—for his purposes, Spanish Golden Age theater—beyond the arena of aesthetics and politics allows for considering the deeper implications of Della Valle’s performance vis-à-vis questions of identity and cultural relativity in travel literature. The performative (and theatrical) force of the Viaggi moves along several, interconnected lines.19 On one level, it propels Della Valle’s self-representation as protagonist–poet–director–choreographer. Responding to the baroque imperative to surprise the reader, he provides a spectacle or entertainment for his audience, and aims to capture his potential reader’s attention by recounting the amazing and marvelous events. In addition, he moves on different stages along both a horizontal and vertical axis: between east and west, and also in descending into tombs or climbing towers, mountains, and pyramids. Della Valle also performs his Italian identity, primarily a literary–aesthetic one, by modeling the events of his journey and his participation in them after canonical literary sequences, both Italian and classical. His self-fashioning as an Italian means above all taking on the role of a literary adventurer. In his messa in scena, or staging, he engages in the action, as the protagonist of the narrative, and also in its textual representation, as the poet–humanist travel writer. His overt references to fictional texts and to the world of theater draw attention to the very craft of representing travel and the process of travel writing as artistic creation. However, while the Viaggi itself was an editorial success that reached a relatively wide international audience, in the narrative, as we shall see below, Della Valle must concede that his cosmopolitan, Italian humanist cultural parameters are anything but universally exportable. were both quite successful, and were extremely well liked by all]. (Archivo Segreto Vaticano, DV-DB 186, April 2, 1940 and February 2, 1644). 17 William Egginton, How The World Became A Stage: Presence, Theatricality, and the Question of Modernity (Albany: State University of New York Press, 2003), Introduction. 18 Ibid., p. 3. 19 “Performativity” is a key concept in modern theories of identity, pscyhoanalysis, and subjectivity, for example in Judith Butler, Gender Troubles: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity (New York: Routledge, 1990), and in the field of performance studies, such as in Shannon Jackson, Professing Performance: Theatre in the Academy from Philology to Performativity (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004).

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Furthermore, in a manner akin to Egginton’s assertion that the culture of theater brought about a new sense of spatiality, and thus an awareness of the relationship between spectator and the stage, the Viaggi brings attention to the role of the reader in the reception of the work. In particular, the theatrical or performative aspects of the text set up a critical distance between the potential reader and the narrative of foreign travel. This distance allows for an unthreatening, often ironic view of Otherness, and the characterization of cultural encounters as play-acting creates a protective filter for engaging with difference. The lexicon of the dramatic arts, especially comedy, comes into play when Della Valle describes the people with whom he interacts, especially when he finds their behavior off-putting or unusual. In such situations he takes on a mocking tone and compares people to stock characters of the commedia dell’arte, establishing through irony a specifically Italian cultural perspective and providing comic relief from the anxiety of cultural displacement. On his way to Damascus, for example, he describes the gestures of salutations of a group of potentially dangerous Arabs: “se ne andarono, salutandoci con buone parole, come a punto faceva il Capitan Matamoros in comedia, quando le bravate non gli riuscivano” [they left, bidding goodbye with courteous words, exactly as Captain Matamoros did in the comedies, when his ploys were foiled].20 In Persia, he thus portrays the servants: “[Sono] vestiti tutti in habito di Mazanderàn; cioè calze tirate, e lunghe, come quelle del Pantalon delle comedie” [They are dressed in the way of Mazanderan, that is with long, pulled-up stockings, like those of Pantalone in the comedies].21 On several occasions, he mocks Shah Abbas’s gesturing with his sword during conversation: “Messa la man dritta sopra la spada, fece una bellisima smargiassata a foggia del Capitan Matamoros delle commedie” [Having put his right hand on his sword, he made a wonderful braggart’s gesture, in the manner of Captain Matamoros of the comedies].22 Later on, in India, he jokes that the participants of a religious festival “paion tanti diavoli, di quei che nelle commedie, e in altre nostre feste si rappresentano” [they seem like a bunch of devils, like those in comedies, or in other spectacles that we put on].23 In a conflict between Della Valle, an ambassador, and female dancers in Ikkeri, Della Valle views the altercation as a comedic scene: “Si partirono [the dancers] molto mal sodisfatte, gridando in collera, e ci fu assai che dire, e per me fu una nuova comedia” [The dancers left, very irritated, yelling in anger, and a lot was said, and it was for me a new comedy].24 These allusions are brief but, for a literary traveler roaming the theaters of the world, they offer an accurate way to depict scenes of the voyage and convey the amused reactions of an Italian traveler–narrator. The theatrical allusions serve a dual function: on the one hand, the use of similes and comparisons makes the unfamiliar easier to grasp and is a typical, even necessary strategy of travelers describing the new. On the other hand, the reference to theater sets 20 I.590–91, Letter 13 from Aleppo, June 15, 1616. Matamoros was the character of a braggart Spanish captain popular at the time in the commedia dell’arte. See Salvante, p. 233 n. 210. 21 II.236, Letter 4 from Isfahan, July 25, 1618. 22 II. 264, Letter 4 from Isfahan. He repeats the comment in a later letter in which Abbas engages in his “solite smargiassate di capitan di commedia” [the usual braggart’s gestures of the Captain in comedies]. (III.46, Letter 6 from Isfahan, August 24, 1617). 23 IV.76, Letter from Surat, March 22, 1623. 24 IV. 201, Letter 5 from Ikkeri, November 22, 1623.

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up a reassuring space between audience and stage (between reader and text), as well as a safe distance between Della Valle-narrator and his experience. After all, he travels through the territories of major non-Christian powers—from the Ottoman Empire to Persia to India—, many of them historical enemies and sources of deep anxiety for the West. While mitigating potentially deep-seated fears about the vulnerability of (Catholic) Europe, the poking fun at gestures, rituals, and dress renders the text more palatable. As the fictionalizing discourse of theater and performance familiarizes its audience with foreign travel, it also renders it entertaining. Della Valle as Actor During his lengthy travels and in his contacts with many different cultures, Della Valle almost literalizes the notion of the world as stage, changing dress and hairstyle in different countries, learning new languages, and adopting local customs. His selfrepresentation is most overtly performative in his willingness to “other-ize” himself, if only on the surface. On a basic level, Della Valle is an actor, regularly transforming his outward appearance so that he can become “believable” to onlookers in different public arenas. His disguises have a practical purpose in helping him explore or just get by in different cultural environments. Moreover, in the narrative he constructs, he is also dressing up for his readership in Europe; that is, he represents himself as a consummate role player. He delights in passing as native in other cultures and gives precise indications of each costume change, which he terms “travestimenti” [transvestments], “trasfigurazioni” [transfigurations], and “trasmutazioni” [transmutations]. These specified changes in dress serve as indicators in the text of his progression from one culture to the next, and the encounter with and access to the Other are usually preceded by this process of transformation. For instance, Della Valle, demonstrating his taste for baroque bizzarria, expresses the desire to put on Bedouin clothing precisely because it is unusual: “Mi venne voglia di vestirmi a quell’usanza: e tra gli altri abiti miei strani, tengo quello per uno de’ più cari e più belli” [The desire came to me to dress in that fashion. And I consider those clothes the most dear and beautiful of all my strange clothing].25 In Isfahan, he takes pride in passing as Persian: “Mi trasfigurai di tale sorte che, né chi mi ha veduto in Turchia, né vostra Signoria che mi ha veduto all’italiana, credo che potrebbe mai riconoscermi” [I transfigured myself in such a way that neither someone who has seen me in Turkey, nor Your Lordship, who has seen me in Italian dress would, I think, ever recognize me].26 In this triumph of both simulation and dissimulation, he is by his own reckoning unrecognizable to the European eye, and his identity cannot be authenticated as European. 25 I.679, Letter 17 from Baghdad, December 10 and 23, 1616. Sometimes, he “transfigures” himself for reasons of safety, as do other European travelers abroad, for example when he visits the home of the Venetian consul in Baghdad without wanting to be seen by local authorities: “Rasa la testa, messo il turbante, e travestitomi con tutti i miei alla siriana, per non essere conosciuto nella propria casa del signor veneto salij a cavallo” [Having shaved my head and put on a turban and dressed up in Syrian fashion, along with my servants, in order not to be noticed in the Venetian gentleman’s house, I got on my horse]. (I.654, Letter 17). 26 II.10, Letter 1 from Isfahan, March 17, 1617.

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Figure 2.2

Literature and Identity in Italian Baroque Travel Writing

Portrait of Pietro Della Valle. From Les fameux voyages de Pietro Della Valle. Paris: Gervais Clouzier, 1662–64. By permission of the Huntington Library

His adopting of different dress allows him to enact the role of the worldly citizen without compromising his European and Catholic point of view. He rarely depicts his “costume changes” as a solemn ritual and sometimes even gives them a humorous slant, as in the opening of a letter from Goa:

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Eccomi … dentro all’India, ma non indiano. Dall’habito siriano prima, e dopo da quello di Persia, sono tornato al nostro europeo. Vostra Signoria in Turchia e in Persia non mi avrebbe raffigurato: ben sì mi riconoscerebbe in India, dove ho quasi ripigliato la mia prima figura. Questa però è la terza mutazione della barba, avendo trovato qui un barbiere bizzarro, che mi ha bene alzato i mostacci alla portoghese, e in mezzo al mento raso persiano mi ha lasciato il fiocco europeo. Tanto basti della mia trasmutazione. [Here I am in India, but not Indian. From Syrian dress, and then to the Persian one, I’ve gone back to our European dress. Your Lordship would never have recognized me in Turkey or in Persia: you would recognize me in India, where I have almost gone back to my first appearance. This is, however, my third change of beard, since I have found an odd barber who has raised up my moustache in the Portuguese fashion, and in the middle of my Persian-shaved chin has left me the European bow. But that is enough about my transmutation.]27

The use of a comic register and a ludic portrayal of his multicultural facial hair keep the discourse of “transmutation” at the surface. By conveying his entry into other cultures as a carnivalesque costume change—in other words, by performing different characters—he maintains a safety zone between his identity and that of the cultures with which he comes into contact. In his textualized self-presentation, the innocuous inhabiting of other “characters,” ostensibly without compromising his Italian identity, also allows him to maintain an authoritative point of view. Della Valle may take on the role of an actor whose playing does not compromise the integrity of his selfhood, but some modifications in appearance are a potential source of anxiety. He recounts costume changes with such precision and with such regularity, that these surface alterations seem indicative of more profound transformations in Della Valle as the journey goes on. Towards the end of his voyage, at the court of the ruler of Ikkeri, he claims not to recognize himself: “Non mancava … di ragionare anco bene spesso il Re co’ suoi, e tutto era lodar me, e ’l mio discreto parlare, e sopra tutto la mia bianchezza: di che molto si maravigliano, ancorch’io in Italia non sia mai stato tenuto de i bianchi, e dopo tanti viaggi fatti, e tanti patimenti d’animo, e di corpo, si anco divenuto tale, che né pur per italiano più me stesso riconosco” [The king also spoke often with his subjects, and it was all to praise me, and my accurate speech, and above all my whiteness: at which many marvel, although I am hardly thought of as white in Italy. And after so many journeys made, and so much suffering of the body and soul, I have become such that I no longer recognize myself as Italian].28 Here he sets himself up as the object of marvel for the king and his court because of his light skin color (among his other praiseworthy attributes) and marvels at himself for what he views as a darkened, substantially altered exterior. The remark, an indirect commentary of the relativity of point of view, exposes the limits of his ability to simulate and dissimulate. His years 27 IV.97, Letter 2 from Goa, April 27, 1623. He reiterates further on in the letter: “Mi rimessi la prima volta in habito europeo, cioè in habito portoghese, come fra i più gravi in Goa si costuma, dopo molti anni che ero andato sempre in habiti stranieri” [For the first time I put back on European dress, that is to say Portuguese clothes, as the most respectful men in Goa do, after many years of always going about in foreign dress]. (IV.121–2, Letter 2). 28 IV.250, Letter 6 from Mangalor, December 9, 1623.

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abroad and the effects of a long journey have rendered him, at least on the surface, unrecognizable as an Italian, possibly even to Italians. A Planned Performance Another central element of Della Valle’s performance in the Viaggi is the role of traveling writer. The text is replete with considerations of how to narrate travel. The letters that make up the account reflect a fiction-making impulse—to return to Hayden White’s term29—not only to fictionalize the self, but to create an organic, narrative whole from a twelve-year journey. Georges Van Den Abbeele has argued that every tourist is a theorist, inasmuch as he or she strives to make sense of the journey while it is ongoing, conceptualizing it as a meaningful and containable set of events and experiences. If we can think of Della Valle as an early tourist, because he pursues his own agenda, Van Den Abbeele’s remarks are pertinent: “The tourist theorizes because he is already en route and caught up in a chaotic, fragmented universe that needs to be domesticated. The very concept of the ‘voyage’ is this domestication in that it demarcates one’s traveling like the Aristotelian plot into a beginning, a middle, and an end.”30 This notion, which posits conceiving of travel essentially as narrative, is especially relevant to the Viaggi because the account consists principally of letters sent in transit. In fact the text, however complex, easily lends itself to a recounting with a beginning, middle, and end. Della Valle’s epic distancing from the Venetian coast on board the Gran Delfino signals a clear departure from Italy; his marriage and the years spent at the court of Shah Abbas mark the middle of the narrative; and the proper Catholic burial of his wife in the family chapel in Rome, virtually the last episode in the account, represents the end of the journey in spatial and narrative terms. The rendering of travel into an “Italian” narrative that will reach posterity means, for Della Valle, highlighting the literary and linguistic dimensions of this textual project. He gives his motives for travel and makes the typical apology in epistolary collections and travel writing for possible stylistic and scholarly shortcomings, explaining that he did not originally intend to publish the letters, another common way of deflecting criticism: Se havrò accertato di darti gusto, ne rimarrò sopramodo sodisfatto … Non devo lasciar di dirti, che queste lettere, io non hebbi mai presuntione di scriverle in un linguaggio toscano puro, scelto, e elegante, che potesse servire altrui di esempio, e fare autorità nella lingua, di quella fatta che ad un oratore o a buoni historici senza dubbio sarebbe stato dicevole, ma che solo mi bastò di dettarle secondo ’l materno mio dialetto romano, senza errore: con parlar tuttavia ordinario e corrente, senza né anche affettatione alcuna d’isquisitezza, quale a punto in lettere familiari si suole usare, e si ricerca. Però, se a caso non ti aggradasse il mio stile, non la favella, e così ancora, se non trovassi nelle lettere tutta quell’eruditione che vorresti, ricordati, che per conditione, e per professione, io sono tale, che posso, e debbo essere atto, più tosto a far le cose, che a raccontarle in buona maniera. 29 See Chapter 1. 30 Georges Van Den Abbeele, “Sightseers: The Tourist as Theorist,” Diacritics, 10 (1980): 9.

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[If I will be certain to have given you pleasure, I will be extremely satisfied. I must not discard telling you that I never intended to write these letters in a pure, select, and elegant Tuscan that could serve as an example to others and could be a source of authority in that language that would undoubtedly have been proper of an orator or good historians. But it was enough for me to dictate [the letters] in my maternal Roman dialect, without errors, and with a speech that was nevertheless ordinary, fluent, without any sort of affectation or daintiness, precisely as is used and sought in familiar letters. However, should you not like my style or my speech, or if you did not find the erudition that you would like, remember that, by condition and profession, I must be able rather to do things than to be able to tell of them in a proper manner.]31

This clarification underscores the reading pleasure and aesthetic satisfaction he hopes to provide his readers, giving a much lesser consideration to the imparting of facts, the more expected focal point of travel writing. Although it may be true that Della Valle did not plan on publishing his letters, since originally Schipano was supposed to turn them into a third-person account of the travels, he presents his original letters as stylistically appropriate by linking them to authoritative rhetorical precedents. In this preface to the reader, Della Valle addresses two fundamental aspects of Italian travel writing: the question of language and the question of genre. His justification for using his “maternal Roman dialect” is his best defense against possible criticism for not adopting a more purely literary Tuscan language. However, despite claims to having used a more informal, local, and oral linguistic style, he writes for the most part in a Tuscan-based Italian. His lexicon includes some Roman and Neapolitan words, and he utilizes certain regional grammatical forms,32 but overall his language is a highly accessible, standardized one. As Rafaella Salvante points out, “nonostante la protesta di non voler scriver in un ‘linguaggio toscano puro, scelto ed elegante,’ è certo che della Valle di attiene ad un uso linguistico che si rifà alla norma toscana, alla quale anzi si avvicina ulteriormente in fase di revisione linguistica delle lettere” [despite his claim of not wanting to write in a “pure, select, and elegant Tuscan,” it is clear that Della Valle keeps to a linguistic usage based on the Tuscan norm, which he follows more closely in the linguistic revisions of the letters].33 His focus on validating his linguistic choices serves as a reminder of the absolute primacy of Tuscan—however closely adopted or not—in establishing discursive authority, and also further evidence of his literary ambitions. Furthermore, Della Valle makes the argument that using his maternal tongue produces the natural, spontaneous effect desired in the respected, well-established genre of familiar letters. He claims that using Roman dialect has rhetorical legitimacy in its emulation of the lettera familiare, a codified form of writing revived by Petrarch using Ciceronian Latin models.34 Since Della Valle’s account is made up principally of the epistles he sent to Mario Schipano, the familiar letter genre is an obvious 31 I.8, L’autore a chi legge [The author to the reader]. 32 See Severina Parodi, Cose e parole nei “Viaggi” di Pietro della Valle (Florence: Accademia della Crusca, 1987) for an extensive analysis of the language of the Viaggi. 33 Salvante, p. 224, n. 181. 34 See Salvante for a consideration of the lettera familiare genre, especially as related to Della Valle’s Viaggi: ibid., pp. 230–34.

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model to evoke. The explicit parallels that Della Valle makes between his account and letter-writing as a valid literary genre is emblematic of the growing popularity of epistolary travel writing, which has the advantage of being able to convey the experience of travel in progress. But more importantly for literary travel writers like Della Valle, the lettera familiare genre provides a suitable paradigm because of the variety it allows in tone, linguistic register, and topic. This variety means that all facets of his letters, from irreverent remarks to lowbrow comic episodes to sophisticated political, cultural, and literary commentary, was acceptable. The epistolary genre thus offers a catch-all classical and Petrarchan precedent to Della Valle’s highly innovative travel writing. In another strategy for deflecting potential criticism of his writing, Della Valle highlights his role as a man of action, not a writer, and once again places emphasis on himself as the protagonist of his adventures. In giving precedence to deeds and actions, not on his observations or chronicling of data, the preface points to the performative thrust of Della Valle’s conception of travel and travel writing. And yet, because his concern with the textual rendition of his travels is so acute, the semantic lines between doing things (“fare le cose”) and telling them (“raccontarle”) blur, and the dichotomy between the two performative acts—one as doing, the other as telling—does not hold up. A major element of the text is, after all, his act of narrating. Like Van Den Abbeele’s theorizing tourist, from the start of his travels Della Valle, in the text, anticipates the already-concluded, coherent narrative that will give meaning and logic to the journey. His letters include regular references to Mario Schipano’s planned rendition of the travels, to travel-related poetry and prose for academic audiences, and to images and illustrations to be included in the published text.35 In fact, in a letter from Isfahan in 1617, three years into his trip, he already includes a version of the discourse on his travels that he plans to present to the Accademia degli Umoristi. He explains to Schipano in the letter that it should serve as a cue for the epic version of his travels that Schipano is to compose: “Ho giudicato necessario, accioché Vostra Signoria possieda meglio la mia intentione, di mandarle … quelle parole che haveva pensato di recitare in accademia publica, presentando il libro” [I deemed it necessary, so that Your Lordship would better grasp my intentions, to send to you those words that I had planned to recite in the public academy while presenting the book].36 Della Valle’s insistence on guiding Schipano points to his desire to control and mold the literary project with his collaborator. What is most striking about this discorso, as it is included in the letters, is that Della Valle conceives of his journey as complete. In imagining his return, he offers an alreadyfinished account, the physical object of the book, prepared by Schipano, to a captive academic audience. He imagines how he will introduce the account and how he will 35 In III.232, for instance, Della Valle discusses the illustrations he plans to add to the account. 36 II.58, Letter 2 from Isfahan, March 19, 1617. The academy regularly held public sessions that guests (women included) could attend. See Francis Gravit, “The Accademia degli Umoristi and its French Relationships,” Papers of the Michigan Academy of Science, Arts, and Letters, 10 (1935): 508–9.

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represent the past: “Una tal relatione, fin dal principio, che io mi posi in camino, fu sempre l’intento mio di riportar, nel mio ritorno, in dono a questa nostra accademia” [It was always my intention, since I first embarked on my journey, to bring back such an account, upon my return, as a gift to our academy].37 In a staging of the degré zero of literature, or his ideal scenario, the end of his voyage corresponds almost exactly to the publication of the written account. As he requests of Schipano in his first letter from Isfahan in 1617: “Se il libro potesse essere in ordine in quel tempo del mio ingresso, vorrei presentarlo io stesso in nome di Vostra Signoria all’Accademia [degli Umoristi]” [If the book could be in order at the time of my entrance (into Rome), I would like to present it in your name to the Accademia degli Umoristi].38 Della Valle offers both a narrative choreography for his correspondent and a selfcommenting performance. To narrate a trip that has not yet taken place, as Della Valle does, is unique in travel writing of the time and reflects his project for shaping and controlling events through narrative to make the journey dramatic and compelling before even knowing its final outcome. Because the letters of the Viaggi are based closely on the actual letters sent, the effect of the published text is multilayered. On one level, the published account is the final product, the definitive document of Della Valle’s travels and his ambitions. On another level, it is the blueprint or rough sketch of another work imagined by Della Valle, that prose epic and “fictionalized” version that Schipano was to create from the letters. This hypothetical work, which would have inaugurated a new literary genre or at least a novel form of travel writing, is both the focus of Della Valle as letter-writer and a phantom text, an imagined account that exists alongside the published one. In this sense, the Viaggi is both the text as it was published and the text that never was. In the metadiscursive moments of the Viaggi, Della Valle considers the generic and poetic implications of his ambitions. When addressing potential problems of a travel account written in the third person (by Schipano), for example, he turns to the ultimate authority for epic, Homer: Una [difficoltà è] che non essendosi ella trovata presente al viaggio, non ha garbo che scriva di cose non vedute in materia che ricerca tanto l’operatione della vista. Rispondo … che Homero non si sdegnò di scrivere e di comporre sopra i viaggi di Ulisse, che le relationi de’ viaggi sono spetie d’historie per tali stimate, e come tali alla penna di qualsivoglia scrittor grave non sono materia indecente. [One difficulty is that, since you were not present during the trip, you might be unwilling to write of things that you have not seen on a topic that really requires visual appraisal. I will respond that Homer did not disdain writing and composing the travels of Ulysses, because

37 II.61, Letter 2, March 19, 1617. The section of the letter is entitled “Ragionamento che io penso far nell’accademia presentando il libro” [Discourse that I plan to give to the academy in presenting the book]. 38 II.54, Letter 1 from Isfahan, March 17, 1617.

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By using the example of a poetic text, the Odyssey, as a legitimate model for the narrative of his real life, he collapses historical and literary categories. He argues that travel accounts are a kind of history (“sono spetie d’historie”) and therefore a noble topic, and that travel has also been the subject of great poetry.40 In mentioning Homer, he suggests that travel accounts are appealing not simply as containers of factual information but also as great stories, and a Homeric-like narrative would not compromise but rather enhance the historical validity of the account. He thus makes the case that travel writing can be elevated to a literary, epic status, and thereby confer glory upon him as protagonist and allow him and his adventures to reach posterity. Travel Imitates Art The choice of an opening scene in the Viaggi, as it may indeed be appropriately called, gives clear evidence of Della Valle’s investment in the authority of epic models and his preference for literary precedents rather than more historically oriented travel writing paradigms. It also provides insights into his inscribing a specifically Italian (and Roman) identity into his text. The more typical travel narrative recounted a round trip, in chronological and geographical order. A ceremonial departure from 39 II.59–60, Letter 2 from Isfahan, March 19, 1617. Della Valle, as he writes Schipano, yearns for the title of hero: “Non istimo … molto quei titoli di marchese, di duca, o di principe, vassallo altrui, che in Napoli alcuni prezzan tanto, e che forse nella mia patria mi si potrebbero promettere: ambisco solo quello di heroe” [I do not hold in much esteem the titles of marquis, duke, prince, or vassal of someone else, that are held in such prestige in Naples, and that could be bestowed upon me in my native city: my only ambition is the title of hero]. (II.103). This follows a similar statement in an earlier letter: “Osserverò, noterò con diligenza, non perdonerò a fatica, metterò sotto sopra tutto l’Oriente, e farò, in fine quanto mai potrò, per dare a Vostra Signoria materia da adoperar la penna, e render me non indegno di un tanto Omero, già che i cieli me lo concedono: accioché non abbia, come il grande Alessandro, ad invidiarne Achille, e Ulisse: le orme del quale, in peregrinare e scorrere il mondo, benché in diverso modo, e con fine forse più alto, io vo seguendo” [I will diligently observe, I will not give in to fatigue, I will turn the Orient up and over and will do all that I can to give Your Lordship material about which to take up your pen and render me not unworthy of a king or of Homer, since the heavens concede it to me: so that I will not, as Alexander did, have to envy Achilles and Ulysses, whose steps, in wandering and roaming the earth, although in a different manner, and with perhaps a nobler aim, I go on following]. (I.647, Letter 16, September 21, 1616). This is another key example of Della Valle’s seeking to engage in activities that will lend themselves to a worthy narrative. The style here is hardly in the Roman dialect Della Valle claims to use, as the Petrarchan lexicon of movement (“peregrinare” [wander], “scorrere” [roam], “io vo seguendo” [I go on following]) indicates. 40 The phrasing recalls Aristotle’s Poetics IX: “For the distinction between the historian and the poet is not whether they give their accounts in verse or in prose (for [the work of Herodotus] would be no less a kind of history in verse than it is without verse).” Aristotle, Poetics, trans. George Whalley (Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 1997), p. 45.

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Rome undoubtedly would have allowed Della Valle to play up his Roman identity and emphasize Rome, the caput mundi, as the physical, material center from which Della Valle leaves and to which he returns. And for a man with a clear penchant for pomp and circumstance, a send-off by aristocrats and members of the papal court might have given the proper, authoritative incipit to his lengthy adventures.41 Instead, however, Della Valle, always eager to give epic cues to Schipano, chooses to begin the narrative in medias res with his departure from Venice, evoking the beginning of the Aeneid, with the Trojans following their destiny and tossing about in the Aegean.42 His departure is not as dramatic at that of Aeneas, but it sets up his adventures as initially a seafaring endeavor: “Sappia dunque (per lasciar da Napoli a Roma, e da Roma a Venezia, che ne è già informata, e non vi fu cosa degna di scriversi), che la domenica agli 8 di giugno del presente anno 1614 nello spuntar dell’aurora, partii dal porto di Malamocco” [Know then (leaving aside Naples–Rome, and Rome–Venice, which you already know about, and about which there was nothing worthwhile to write), that Sunday, the eighth of June of this year 1614, at the break of dawn, I left the port of Malamocco].43 While the allusion to Aeneas or Ulysses is hardly novel, it is crucial to understanding Della Valle’s Italian version of travel writing. By picking Venice as his departure point, he privileges a textual tradition over the physical place of Rome. In other words, the origin of his voyage—the element that usually defines belonging and perspective—lies more in the representation of the departure than in the historical fact of his physically leaving his native city. Thus the power of literary tradition, along with the mechanism through 41 Della Valle did in fact organize a departure ceremony in Naples, where he officially took on the title of “pilgrim.” He then went to Rome, where he stayed one month before heading to Venice. Gaeta and Lockhart define the Naples ceremony as “intima, ma non per questo men teatrale” [intimate, but no less theatrical]. Della Valle, I viaggi di Pietro Della Valle, xxiv. Della Valle wrote of the Naples–Venice trip, but never published his account. The text was first published in Ignazio Ciampi, Della vita e delle opere di Pietro della Valle il Pellegrino (Rome: Barbera, 1880), pp. 155–7. 42 The initial pages of the first letter include numerous quotes of the Aeneid as Della Valle sails through the same areas traveled by Aeneas. He inevitably describes storms at sea according to paradigms of the Aeneid and the Odyssey. When he leaves India and encounters rough waters, he compares the peril to those of the Aeneid: “se ’l nostro vascello fosse stato men saldo … facilmente si saria rivolto sossopra, e sommerso, come appunto la nave d’Oronte nel naufragio d’Enea, che Virgilio descrive per un simil caso essersi perduta” [if our ship had been less sturdy, it would have easily capsized and been submerged, just like Orontes’ vessel in Aeneas’ shipwreck, in which Virgil describes the loss in a similar situation]. (IV.347, Letter 9 from Mascat, January 19, 1625). The quote refers to the loss of seven Trojan ships, among them Orontes’, in a storm caused by Juno at the beginning of the Aeneid: “Before Aeneas’ eyes a massive breaker / smashes upon its stern the ship that carries / the Lycian crewmen led by true Orontes. / The helmsman is beaten down; he is whirled headlong. / Three times at the same spot the waters twist and wheel the ship around until a swift / whirpool has swallowed it beneath the swell.” (Book 1, vv. 113–17). Virgil, The Aeneid, trans. Allen Mandelbaum (New York: Bantam Books, 1985), p. 5. The shipwreck trope is central to Petrarch’s poetics. See for example, Theodore J. Cachey, Jr., “From Shipwreck to Port: Rvf 189 and the Making of the Canzoniere,” MLN, 120 (2005): 30–39. 43 I.19, Letter 1 from Constantinople, August 23, 1614.

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which the text itself is a substitute for place and for patria, come to the fore. In Della Valle’s poetics of travel writing, which must be universal enough to reach posterity, elements of the literary tradition better represent the place that an Italian traveler must leave, instead of his birthplace. And of course his choice of a Virgilian literary oikos nevertheless allows him to evoke indirectly his prestigious Roman origins. His foregrounding of literary elements serves several functions: to create an image of Della Valle as a well-informed and therefore reliable source; to exercise his own poetic inclinations and please his public; and to give Schipano an idea of the sort of erudite or literary touches he envisions in his desired book. They also represent a specifically Italian recasting of travel writing paradigms: Della Valle undoubtedly uses literary sources for their entertainment value, but also for their authority and international recognition. To refer to Ovid, Petrarch, Ariosto, Guarini, and Tasso is not only to allude to texts well known and read and appreciated throughout Europe, but to underline the strength of Italy’s culture in its literary and artistic fields, not in its military or colonial enterprises. In doing so, Della Valle is much in line, although in a more ambitious and pervasive manner, with Carletti’s literary references in writing for the Medici court. Given Della Valle’s aspirations to be immortalized in travel narrative, an account that reflects the Italian–classical literary pedigree has the best chance for exportability throughout the “theater of the whole universe,” pleasing many “palates” through space and time. On an initial level, literary references, usually brief allusions, help set the stage or recreate the scenes and landscapes through which he moves. Della Valle is an acute observer of his surroundings as aesthetic elements and as spaces for potential adventures as well as cultural encounters. For instance, in portraying Isfahan lit up by torches during the evening hours, he writes: Tutti questi lumi dallo specchio della peschiera venivano rappresentati doppi con che, e con molto splendor che rendevano, vedendosi per tutto molto bene, e con la luce che veniva ancor d’altro dal sereno del cielo, a vista di quel teatro, circondato e ombrato tutto dai grandi alberi, veniva a parere in vero molto vaga. [All these lights were represented [staged] as double in the mirror of the fish-pool and, because of the brilliance that they emitted, one could see everything very well. And with the light that still came from the clear sky, the view of that theater, all surrounded and shaded by tall trees, seemed really very beautiful.]44

The place of light and reflection (mirrors), the optical illusion that creates another impression of reality, the use of the verb “rappresentare” [to represent or stage], the word “teatro” [theater], and the depiction of the locus amoenus once again allude to artistic, literary, and performative realms. While epic models figure prominently in Della Valle’s enactment of a literary– heroic traveler, so do other literary genres such as poetry and pastoral. For instance, when describing Persian women, he writes: “non meno belle forse, né meno affabili e accorte nel parlare, mi fecero ricordar delle pastorelle e ninfe dell’Arcadia, famose fra i nostri poeti” [being no less beautiful nor elegant and quick in their speech, they 44 II.331, Letter 5 from Isfahan, April 22 and May, 1619.

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reminded me of the shepherdesses and nymphs of Arcadia that are famous among our poets].45 In India, Della Valle views the town of Ikkeri as if it were a scene in a pastoral play: “Fra li molti alberi e le canne indiane che fan muro alla città vi è una piazzetta assai pulita e ombrata attorno in soggia quasi di una scena pastorale, assai vaga” [Among the many trees and sugarcane there is a small square that is quite neat and shaded, almost like a pastoral scene, and rather beautiful].46 These descriptions familiarize the foreign settings and further Della Valle’s construction of self as a cultivated traveler with a poetic sensibility. In Constantinople, Della Valle marvels at the intricately decorated pavilions of the wealthy, and writes, turning to epic once again and using Tasso’s Gerusalemme conquistata [Jerusalem Conquered] as one source of cultural information: “[sono] assai più [grandi] di quello che pensava, anzi che quei padiglioni che descrivono favolosamente i nostri poeti, come il Tasso nella seconda Gierusalemme, e simili, mi riescono più tosto inferiori, che altro, a questi veri” [the pavilions are rather larger than I thought, not like those pavilions that our poets marvelously describe, like Tasso in the second Jerusalem, and others like him. They seem to me smaller than these real ones].47 Della Valle distinguishes between poetry and reality (“these real ones”), but freely concedes that it is Tasso’s epic that provides points of comparison, and suggests that his academic or “universal” readers may be basing their ideas of the East more on epic literature than travel accounts or histories. The very fact that he mentions Tasso in giving historical information is revealing of the author’s willingness to mix history and poetry, and also of his tendency to utilize poetic texts as pedagogical aids for his readers. As an Italian baroque traveler in the Middle East, he reflexively views it in Tassian terms. The Gerusalemme conquistata and especially the Gerusalemme liberata become the mediating text, the contemporary Italian poem through which Della Valle can represent his encounter with the unknown or the unanticipated. Cultural Encounters all’italiana Despite an initial claim to have concentrated on action and not discourse in his letters, Della Valle’s attention to poetics runs through the entire account. Especially in periods of relative otium, for example during his stay at the court of Shah Abbas in Persia, he represents his experience of time spent in foreign lands through poetic musings. He sometimes resorts to using his “gergo poetic” [poetic jargon], as he calls it, and refers to himself by his poetic name of Perinto (“il mio vero nome poetico” [my real poetic name], III.209). He provides desciptions of his work in progress, such as a set of thirty-six sonnets dedicated to his wife entitled “Corona Gioerida” [The Gioerida Crown] (III.208), and a prose allegory, the “Amori Pescatori” [Piscatorial Loves], modeled after Sannazaro and Petrarch.48 His sees his writing and engaging in his 45 II.290, Letter 4. 46 IV.198, Letter 5 from Ikkeri, November 22, 1623. 47 I.158, Letter 6 from Constantinople, June 13, 1615. 48 He describes them, evoking Sannazaro’s Latin Piscatorial Eclogues, as “lettere pescatorie amorose in prosa che son quasi tutte finite di schizzare e vanno più in esse descritti

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preferred creative rituals as an antidote to boredom, homesickness, and nostalgia for Italian literary academic activities: [T]anto è dolce lo sfogare scrivendo, quando non si può parlando; quanto è cosa amara, ohimé che io lo provo, non havere appresso, non dico un huomo dotto, di lettere sacre, e profane, da poter consultar ne’ dubbi che occorrono: non un erudito d’historie, di antichità, e di altri studij dilicati, con chi conferire, e dilettandosi insieme approfittarsi: ma, quel che è peggio, né pur un afflitto poeta, con chi, di quando in quando, per ricrearsi, poter susurrar quattro parole di gusto. [How sweet is it to vent by writing, when it cannot be done by speaking. How bitter, now that I feel it, is the absence not just of a scholar of sacred and profane letters with whom to consult about doubts that arise, and not just the absence of a man learned in history and antiquities and other refined studies with whom to learn and have an enjoyable exchange but, what’s worse, the absence even of a suffering poet with whom, in order to enjoy oneself on occasion, one can whisper a few pleasurable words.]49

These remarks also shed light on the cultural impasses that Della Valle’s Italian perspective cannot overcome. His account of failed poetic encounters expresses the impossibility of universal cultural belonging and the gap between the theory of cultural exchange—based on humanist–cosmopolitan notions mentioned in his preface—and its practice. Della Valle’s detailed fantasy of becoming a human chameleon, most likely a first in early modern European travel narrative, reflects a longing for universal cultural access (through travel, through study, through the acquisition of knowledge) and an anxiety about and eventual realization of its inapplicability. In an extraordinary allegory, he pays tribute to the goddess Aurora, who rewards him with a magic ring. Unlike Angelica’s ring in the Orlando furioso, which bestows the power to become invisible, this ring gives the power of instant assimilation and access to any group or culture of choice. After Perinto/Della Valle pays homage to Aurora, she responds: “Gradisco il tuo affetto: prendo a grado i passi sparsi, e i tuoi sudori: e, per quanto conviensi, non resterà tanto amor senza mercede; non sì generoso ardir defraudato della dovuta e meritata gloria” … Indi, porgendomi un anello dove era incastrata peregrina gemma, ch’ Elmon da gli orientali è chiamata, “Questo ancor prendi,” mi disse, “la cui pietra ha molte e gran virtudi: ma, tra le altre che, a qualunque hora ti toccherai con quella la lingua e la parte posteriore e più eccelsa del capo, potrai cambiarti a tua voglia in varie humane forme; e mutandosi in te, come e quando vorrai, l’aspetto, il portamento, e la favella, ne anderai qual’hor ti piaccia, sconosciuto, e sicuro tra ogni gente.” … Con poeticamente tutti i miei viaggi, per quanto spetta alle cose del mare, con menzione delle istorie e delle favole antiche, a proposito de’ luoghi da me veduti” [Piscatorial love letters, in prose, which I have almost finished sketching out. In them all my travels are poetically depicted, with attention to things of the sea and references to ancient stories and fables relating to the places seen by me]. (III.208, Letter 12 from Isfahan, February 23, 1621). A manuscript notebook of related verse and prose writings, in both Italian and Persian, is held at the Biblioteca Estense Universitaria in Modena, Fondo Campori 693, G.2.2. For a transcription of the notebook, see Speelman, pp. 3–37. 49 II.285, Letter 4 from Ferhabad, first days of May, 1618.

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queste parole, co’l ricco dono dell’anello, e con la ninfa, mi accomiatò la bella Aurora; e io, contento, uscito a pena dagli alberghi suoi, conobbi per prova il valore della mirabil pietra. Si cambia, o meraviglia! in me il volto, e insieme col volto si cambia, ogn’hor che mi piace, e nel modo ch’io voglio, la voce, e’l parlare: e talmente si cambia che scitha mi credono i scithi, arabo gli arabi, persia i persi, caldeo i caldei; e così qualunque altro, nell’effigie di cui mi piace trasformar la mia. [“I welcome your affection and am pleased with your widespread travels and your efforts. And, as is proper, your love will not remain without mercy, and your generous passion will not be deprived of the glory it warrants and deserves.” Then, presenting to me a ring in which was set a foreign stone called Knowledge by the Orientals, Aurora said to me: “Take this stone of many great virtues. And among these virtues is this one: if at any time you touch it to your tongue or to the back and most noble part of your head, you will be able to change into any human form. And, whenever you so desire, your appearance, your bearing, and your speech will change, and you will go wherever you wish, undetected and safe among all people.” With these words and with the rich gift of the ring, accompanied by the nymph, the beautiful Aurora bade goodbye. I, content, found out the value of the wonderful stone as soon as I left Aurora’s dwelling. O great marvel! At any time I like, and in the manner I wish, my face changes, and with it my voice and my speech. And it changes in such a way that Scythians think I am Scythian, Arabs think I am an Arab, Persians see me as Persian, Chaldeans as Chaldean. And thus I can change my semblance into any other I like.]50

In this allegory, Della Valle’s “passi sparsi” are the traveler’s version of Petrarch’s “rime sparse,” and the Oriental gem of knowledge, which is the result of study, allows full cultural access to the East. This passage reveals a desire to control his outwardly perceivable identity and cultural belonging, and also demonstrates Della Valle’s understanding that his passing as native requires the authentification by the Other; in essence, a swapping of roles and gazes. It is essentially through learning and openness towards other cultures that he will find himself able to engage in a meaningful dialogue. Della Valle’s vision of cross-cultural conversation, however, remains a figment of his poetic imagination. The wished-for encounter cannot provide a bridge of understanding when it comes to social and poetic conventions that he refuses to relinquish. His recounting the unsuccessful attempt to exchange poetic conceits with a noble Persian woman also underscores, in more anecdotal terms, that Italian academic–poetic culture is not intercontinentally exportable and cannot remove the gap between Self and Other. As he writes to Schipano, his attempt to engage in lighthearted lyrical dialogues of the sort he would have shared with the Academia degli Umoristi or other social circles comes to naught: I giorni passati, mandai io un epigramma che composi in persiano, scherzando sopra’l suo nome, ad una dama, molto amica nostra, che fa profession di bello spirito … Mandandole dunque i versi persiani, che credi di gratia V.S. che mi rispondesse? Mi mandò in risposta una lettera molto ben dettata e piena di versi amorosi, belli veramente, e cavati da diversi de’ loro migliori autori … [M]a era una lettera che scrisse già a lei medesima il suo marito quando era vivo, una volta che stava lontano: e in fatti, perché era lettera bella, 50 II.283–4, Letter 4 from Ferhabad, first days of May, 1618.

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This anecdote, albeit brief and self-mocking, could also be read as an allusion to the failure of poetics and Italian poetic culture—the central component of Della Valle’s own identity and sense of belonging—to facilitate cultural exchange on a level playing-field. His assumption that his Italian identity and culture—the principle, literary identity that he inscribes in the text—will allow for privileged conversation in the East, at least in courtly educated circles, leads him to disappointment. Della Valle may “act” Persian and even compose verse in Persian, but he expects an “Italian” response. Although he is able through study to adapt his appearance, bearing, speech, and voice (the gifts of the magic ring of knowledge), his contact with Persian culture does not make Italian culture translatable. Thus he must concede the absence of a global republic of letters and universal lyric aesthetics. If cultural exchange in the East has to happen through poetic exchange all’italiana, Della Valle remains without an Eastern counterpart with whom to share, as he puts it, “a few pleasurable words.” The Making of a Heroine If Della Valle is unable to encounter common ground for courtly, poetic exchange, he finds in his courtship of and marriage to Sitti Maani an ideal site for depicting cross-cultural harmony.52 Perhaps his most memorable “staging” and appropriation 51 III.212–13, Letter 12 from Isfahan, February 23, 1621. 52 “Encounters with women allowed della Valle to elaborate the powerful western idea of love, Platonic and chivalric, as basis for a trans-cultural synthesis. Marrying an oriental Christian opened the door to the project of a restored unity between East and West under Catholic patronage … This was a romantic as well as an aristocratic solution to the problem of cultural diversity, one inspired by Renaissance Platonism.” Rubiés, Travel and Ethnology in the Renaissance, p. 368. Sitti Maani Gioerida was the daughter of a Nestorian father and an

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of literary models are his renderings of his relationship to his wife, an eighteen-yearold Syrian Christian whom he marries in Baghdad in 1616. If he hoped to become famous through his amazing and unusual actions, his decision to wed an “exotic” woman brought him closer to his goal. Initially, when recounting his courtship of Maani and the time they spend together as newlyweds, Della Valle evokes the gallant behavior of knights and ladies, and pastoral scenes of nymphs and shepherds. Later on, in praising Maani’s adaptability to the rigors of travel, he constructs a heroic portrait of a Middle Eastern warrior woman. He models his adventures with her after the narrative sequences of Tasso’s Gerusalemme liberata, especially those concerning seventeenth-century Europe’s most famous warrior woman character, Clorinda. The portrayals of Sitti Maani are vivid expressions of Della Valle’s literary reflex and his desire to control and choreograph his travels as a grand spectacle. 53 In representing Maani as the ideal woman, both courtly and heroic, he becomes all the more laudable as her mate. Maani exemplifies, in Della Valle’s strategies for travel writing, the tension and oscillation between the familiar and the unexpected. She represents the foreign, Middle Eastern other, and yet, in his rendering, fits neatly into existing conventions of fictional Italian female roles. When he first mentions Maani, the Roman traveler conjures up paradigms of courtly love and claims to have fallen in love upon hearing of her charm and noble manner: “Un nuovo … che veniva meco in quel viaggio, a pena uscito d’Aleppo, quando per riposar dal camino passavamo le hore otiose, e più calde del giorno sotto al padiglione, per modo di trattenermi, con varj ragionamenti e con racontarmi diverse cose, mi cominciò a dar contezza di questa signora” [A new person who came to me on that trip [an excursion outside of Aleppo], when we would spend the hottest and laziest hours resting from the trip under the pavilion, with various considerations and by speaking of different things, began to tell me of this lady].54 In the beginning of the love story, she is an ideal “nobil dama” and the worthy object of an Italian aristocrat’s admiration.55 Maani is different enough to evoke wonder and curiosity, and yet, in Della Valle’s retelling, conveniently obeys European parameters of courtship and marriage.

Armenian mother. See J.D. Gurney, “Pietro della Valle: The Limits of Perception,” Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, 14.1 (1986): 106, 106 n. 20. 53 The strategy for immortalizing his love story worked: “In Italia e all’estero, la fama dei suoi ‘amori babilonici’ era andata alle stelle. Maani e il Della Valle erano diventati personaggi quasi leggendari” [In Italy and abroad, the fame of his “Babylonian loves” had risen to the stars. Maani and Della Valle had become almost legendary characters]. Emilio Cecchi, Qualche cosa (Florence: G.C. Sansoni, 1943), p. 42. 54 I.753, Letter 17 from Baghdad, December 10 and 23, 1616. He later describes Sitti Maani’s acceptance of his love in a lyrical tone: “[The lady] che già mi possedeva … mi favorì ella di sua mano d’un bel pomo cotogno che fu poi seme all’animo mio di frutti variamente amari e dolci” [The lady who already possessed my heart favored me by offering me from her hand a lovely quince, which then became in my soul the seed of fruit that was both bitter and sweet]. (I.755–6, Letter 17). 55 I.706, Letter 17.

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In recounting the early days of what he calls “gli amori miei babilonici” [my Babylonian loves],56 Della Valle creates the scene of a pastoral locus amoenus where lovers can ride, hunt, eat, and rest at their own leisure, again placing Maani within a familiar framework of literary love. In these outdoor spaces, however, Maani begins to emerge from her earlier representation as a court lady and to take on the role of an avid horseback rider and huntress. She is both a noblewoman and a Callisto, follower of Diana: Ogni giorno … noi due soli, con due servidori per servirci, dove ci trovavamo, in luogo ritirato o qualche bella fontana, o fiumicello, o ombra fresca, ci fermavamo a desinare di robba che portavamo con noi, messa in pronto dalla sera; e dopo haver desinato, o ci trattenevamo riposando, o rimontati a cavallo andavamo per quelle campagne fuor di strada, cacciando con l’archibugio se trovavamo caccia, o vedendo qualche curiosità, e in somma ogni dì non mancavano passatempi, da trattenerci e alleggerir la noia del camino. [Each day, the two of us alone, with two servants to serve us where we happened to be, would stop in an isolated spot, or near a lovely fountain, or small brook, or under fresh shade. And after having eaten, we would enjoy ourselves, resting or, having gotten back on our horses, we could go into the countryside, far from the roads, hunting with the harquebus if we found game, or looking at some curiosity. And, in short, each day there was no lack of pastimes for us to enjoy and to lighten the burden of travel.]57

The water source (“fontana”) [fountain], the dimunitive “fiumicello” [small brook], cool shade, and sweet conversation create an image of lovers in a pastoral landscape rather than in any realistic or specific Middle Eastern topography. Following this first depiction of Middle Eastern love, when the newlyweds are farther along in their travels, Della Valle prefers to represent his wife as a warrior woman, the perfect partner to an epic protagonist. An armed woman eager for battle, Maani recalls Bradamante of the Orlando furioso and above all Clorinda.58 56 I.742, Letter 17. 57 II.146–7, Letter 4 from Farabad and Qazvin, May and July 25, 1618. 58 Della Valle demonstrates his keen interest in warrior women when he recounts, at the very end of the Viaggi, the visit to his home in Rome of the Spanish “lieutenant nun” Catalina de Erauso. His is the only surviving description of her. Catalina de Erauso had escaped a convent in San Sebastián and, dressed as a man, fled to the New World, served as a soldier for the Spanish crown, and was awarded the title of lieutenant in the Spanish army. In her autobiography, the unnamed Roman nobleman whose home she visits could well be Della Valle. She mentions that the visit took place on a Friday, and so does Della Valle in his log book. See Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, Ottob. Lat. 3382, June 5, 1626, folio 258 verso. For an English translation of the autobiography, see Catalina de Erauso, Lieutenant Nun: Memoir of a Basque Transvestite in the New World, ed. Marjorie Garber, trans. Michele and Gabriel Stepto (Boston: Beacon, 1996). Regrettably, the translators seem to have transformed the Roman patrician into the Spanish nobleman “Pedro del Valle” (p. xxxiii). The editor of the Italian text (Storia di una monaca alfiere, ed. Jesús Munárriz) makes the same error: “Pedro del Valle, ‘il Pellegrino’ nel suo Viaggio, scritto in lingua italiana … ce la ritrae durante una riunione a Roma nel 1626” [Pedro del Valle, the “pilgrim,” in his Travels, written in Italian, describes her during a meeting in Rome in 1626]. Catalina de Erauso, Storia della monaca alfiere scritta da lei medesima, ed. Jesús Munárriz (Palermo: Sellerio, 1991), p. 121.

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Figure 2.3

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Portrait of Sitti Maani Gioerida. From Les fameux voyages de Pietro Della Valle. Paris: Gervais Clouzier, 1662–64. By permission of the Huntington Library

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In telling Schipano of the portrait of Maani he will send to Italy, he describes his wife as posing in traditional dress, which includes a dagger: “mia moglie … porta … il manico di oro del changiàr, o pugnale arabo alla cintura” [my wife carries the golden shaft of her khanjar, or Arabic dagger, on her belt] (see Figure 2.3).59 The weapon has a functional and not just decorative use, since Maani, according to Della Valle, is a talented potential soldier. When Shah Abbas is considering renewing conflict with the Turks, a project in which Della Valle is deeply invested, Maani is ready for war: “La mia Signora Maani, che, qual buona guerriera che è, non ha paura di veder sangue, né di sentire archibugiate, ha gusto ella ancora di questo, e desidera molto di trovarvisi” [My lady Maani, being the good warrior woman that she is, does not fear seeing blood, or hearing shots of the harquebus. In fact she still has a taste for it, and very much wants to be a part of it].60 Towards the end of their stay at the Persian court, Della Valle has high praise for his wife, whom he describes as exceptional not only in European terms, but also in those of her own culture. She is always prepared to live “vita faticosa, e più tosto militare, che donnesca” [a burdensome and military life, rather than a womanly one]:61 La Signora Maani tutti i cavalli ama assai, e ha gusto di farli spesso governare in sua presenza, come soldatessa che è, e per natura affettionata molto ad ogni sorte di animali … se havessi per moglie una dama melindrosa, come dicono gli spagnuoli, e inclinata a gli aghi, a i fusi, come quelle d’Europa, mi sarebbe di grandissimo fastidio e impaccio. Ella non me ne dà punto … è tale qual a punto conviene e per gli viaggi, e per la guerra. A cavallo, poi, marcia … con le gambe da huomo, che così si usa in Oriente; armata bene spesso, a guisa di Amazone, e corre, e galoppa, seguitandomi per monti e per valli; e dice che questa è la vera vita, e che star nelle città o serrata tra quattro mura come per lo più fanno in questi paesi, o come le ho detto io che si fa nelle parti nostre … è cosa infelice. [Lady Maani quite likes horses, and often has them trained in her presence, being the woman soldier that she is, and naturally very fond of any sort of animal. If I had a “fussy 59 III.70, Letter 7 from Isfahan, October 21, 1619. 60 He continues: “Non per odio che porti a i turchi … ma solo per una voglia generosa che ha d’intervenire a cose grandi, e forse anco per veder con gli occhi proprij qualche vendetta dei suoi nimici curdi confinanti all’Armenia” [Not out of hatred for the Turks, but only out of a generous desire to intervene in great things, and perhaps also to see with her own eyes some revenge on her Kurdish enemies from the Armenian border]. (II.99, Letter 3 from Isfahan, December 18, 1617). Della Valle’s language in describing Maani’s fearlessness of war and her leading a life more like a man’s recalls Tasso’s depiction of Erminia, the medicine woman who falls for Tancredi: “Né già d’andar fra la nemica gente / temenza avria, ché peregrina era ita, / e viste guerre e stragi avea sovente, / e scorsa dubbia e faticosa vita, / sì che per l’uso la feminea mente / sovra la sua natura è fatta ardita, / e di leggier non si conturba e pave / ad ogni imagin di terror men grave” [Nor feared she among the bands to stray / Of armed men, for often had she seen / The tragic end of many a bloody fray; / Her life had full of haps and hazards been, / This made her bold in every hard assay, / More than her feeble sex became, I ween; / She feared not the shake of every reed, / So cowards are courageous made through need]. (Canto VI, octave 69). Torquato Tasso, Gerusalemme liberata, ed. Marziano Guglielminetti, 2 vols (Milan: Garzanti, 1982), vol. 1, pp. 178–9. All English translations of the Gerusalemme liberata are by Edward Fairfax (1560–1635), http://omacl.org/Tasso/. 61 III.350, Letter 16 from the Gardens of Shiraz, July 27, 1622.

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lady”—as the Spanish say—for a wife, more inclined to sewing needles and spindles, this would be of great annoyance and hindrance. But she gives me none, and that is what is best for travels and for war. Also, when on horseback, she rides like a man, as is done in the Orient. She is often armed in the manner of an Amazon, and rides and gallops, following me up mountains and across valleys. And she says that this is the true life, and that being in cities or enclosed within four walls, as most women are in these areas, or as I have told her happens in our regions, is a most unfortunate thing.] 62

For a reader familiar with the perils, love stories, and battles of Tasso’s epics, Della Valle’s love for a non-Western warrior woman provides a spectacle at once recognizable and astounding. Maani the avid outdoorswoman is a mirror image of Clorinda: “Costei [Clorinda] gli’ingegni femminili e gli usi / tutti sprezzò sin da l’età più acerba: / a i lavori d’Aracne, a l’ago ai fusi / inchinar non degnò la man superba. / Fuggì gli abiti molli e i lochi chiusi” [She scorned the arts these silly women use, / Another thought her nobler humor fed, / Her lofty hand would of itself refuse / To touch the dainty needle or nice thread, / She hated chambers, closets, secret news].63 Here, Della Valle engages in what Jean-Frédéric Schaub terms “la découverte du déjà-vu” [the discovery of the already seen] in exotic travel writing.64 In making life imitate art, the Roman traveler renders the marvelous both titillating and recognizable. Della Valle even choreographs the death scene of his wife after that of Clorinda. He does not use the language or style of Tasso, but rather evokes the different dramatic moments and final gestures in one of the best-remembered episodes of sixteenthcentury epic. Maani, having fallen gravely ill after a miscarriage, finally expires, evoking God as Della Valle plays a distraught Tancredi to her resigned and accepting Clorinda. The two passages describing the precise moments of the warrior woman’s passing deserve a brief comparison, as specific elements of Tasso’s verses provide a clear reference point for the account. Clorinda, fatally wounded by Tancredi just as dawn is breaking, expires in his arms after she has converted to Christianity: Mentre egli il suon de’ sacri detti sciolse colei di gioia trasmutossi, e rise; e in atto di morir lieto e vivace, dir parea: … S’apre il cielo; io vado in pace … e la man nuda e fredda alzando verso il cavaliero, in vece di parole, gli dà segno di pace. In questa forma passa la bella donna, e par che dorma. [And while the sacred words the knight recites, The nymph to heaven with joy herself prepared; And as her life decays her joys increase, She smiled and said, “Farewell, I die in peace.” Her naked hand she gave the knight, in show

62 II.147–8, Letter 4 from Farabad, May–July, 1618. 63 Canto II, octave 39. Tasso, Gerusalemme liberata, vol. 1, p. 46. 64 Jean-Frédéric Schaub, La France Espagnole: Les racines hispaniques de l’absolutisme français (Paris: Seuil, 2003), p. 188.

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Literature and Identity in Italian Baroque Travel Writing Of love and peace, her speech, alas, was done, And thus the virgin fell on endless sleep.] 65

Clorinda’s smiling, tranquil, and silent dying with her hand raised has resonances in Della Valle’s rendition of his wife’s death. Sitti Maani dies a similarly proper death—at peace, free of sin, and embracing God: [e] io leggendo nell’ufficiuolo le orazioni a ciò più a proposito, il giovedì a trenta di decembre circa un’hora e meza o due innanzi giorno, finì la Signora Maani nel più fiore in età di ventitré anni la sua breve vita, e’l suo morir non fu altro che, senza alcuno affanno, senza alcuna sorte di turbamento, o di moto, che né pur desse segno di agonia, un breve e facilissimo sospiro; con che tenendo me per mano, e gli occhi a me rivolti, con faccia e bocca ridente, rese l’anima a Dio. [and while I was reading in the breviary the most appropriate prayers, on Thursday, December 30, about one-and-a-half hours before daybreak, Signora Maani’s life ended in the flower of her brief life, at age twenty-three, and her dying was none another than— without any suffering, with no kind of discomfort, or movement, and without any sign of agony—a most effortless sigh. Holding my hand, her eyes turned towards me, with a smiling mouth and face, she gave up her soul to God.] 66

Sitti Maani, like Clorinda, dies in Christian ritual, peacefully, silently, almost ecstatically, gesturing towards or holding the hand of the man who loves her and who prays at her side. Clorinda dies just after daybreak,67 and Maani just before. Della Valle appears to have borrowed from the blocking, to use a theatrical term, of Clorinda’s demise, as well as from her joyfully calm anticipation of Christian transcendence, in order to enhance the dignity and religious conformity of his wife’s death. In the recounting, both have performed beautifully—Maani her dying, and Della Valle the praying attentive lover. Once again, Sitti Maani evokes all the drama and exoticism of Tasso’s warrior woman while remaining reassuringly Catholic and subdued in her final moments. And in the same way that the Gerusalemme liberata continues after Clorinda dies in the twelfth of twenty cantos, the Viaggi perseveres for almost five years and hundreds of pages after the loss of its heroine. If anything, the death of Maani allows Della Valle to be the ultimate authority in representing her to his readers. The very fact of her death frees Della Valle from possible constraints in creating her character. The best evidence of Della Valle’s success in portraying his marriage as a Tassian epic is in the introduction to the first French translation of the work. It relates the Roman traveler’s life to Christian themes of the Gerusalemme liberata and underscores the domestication of Sitti Maani through marriage:

65 Canto XII, octaves 68–9. Tasso, Gerusalemme liberata, vol. 2, pp. 377–8. Clorinda’s death follows a similar sequence in the Gerusalemme conquistata, Canto XV, octaves 82–3. 66 III.419. Letter 16 from the Gardens of Shiraz, July 27, 1622. 67 “Già de l’ultima stella il raggio langue / al primo albor ch’è in oriente acceso” [When daybreak, rising from the eastern flood, / Put forth the thousand eyes of blindfold night]. (Canto XII, octave 58). Tasso, Gerusalemme liberata, vol. 2, p. 375.

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L’on pourroit en quelque sense le comparer à Tancrede, comme elle à Clorinde, dont le Tasse a tant chanté de merveilles dans ses beaux Vers, et dire que la mesme Providence qui amena, comme par la main, Tancrede en Palestine pour le salut de Clorinde, voulut produire le mesme effet pour rendre Maani parfaittement Chrestienne par le moyen de Pietro, luy ayant inspiré le desir de voir cette belle Estrangere, et de luy offrir son service dans la ville de Baghdad, sur les frontieres de la Perse. Ils ont esté tous deux plus heureux que ce fameux Guerrier, et que cette vaillante Amazone, ayant vêcu ensemble l’espace de quatre ans, sous l’agreable joug d’un Mariage aussi honorable que legitime. [We could in some sense compare him to Tancredi, just as we could compare her to Clorinda, of whom Tasso has sung such marvels in his beautiful verses. And we could say that the same Providence that brought—as if led by the hand—Tancredi to Palestine to save Clorinda’s soul, wanted to produce the same effect of making Maani perfectly Christian by the hand of Pietro, having inspired in him the desire to see this beautiful foreign lady and, in the city of Baghdad, on the Persian border, to offer to serve her. Both of them were happier than this famous warrior and this brave Amazon, having lived together for four years under the pleasant yolk of a marriage that was as honorable as it was legitimate.]68

In this comparison, life imitates art, and the relationship of Della Valle and Sitti Maani is elevated to a legendary, epic status. The “brave Amazon” and “beautiful foreign lady” Maani and “warrior” Della Valle even surpass their fictional counterparts because Maani gave up her independence and virginity to be the model companion for Della Valle, and they enjoyed several years of Christian marriage instead of engaging in a battle to the death. In the Viaggi, the various roles that Maani’s character plays—noblewoman, warrior woman, traveler, and faithful spouse—serve to make the narrative more compelling and, more importantly for Della Valle’s desire for everlasting fame, to construct a heroic image of the Roman traveler. Macabre Spectacles Sitti Maani’s passing is but one manifestation of the overwhelming presence of death that hovers throughout the account and provides, along with literary culture, continuity to the narrative of the voyage. Della Valle incorporates the quintessential baroque themes of death and the macabre, and draws upon the performative aspects of death in the baroque era, by constantly invoking corpses, burials, and tombs. The text is replete with references to dead bodies, comments on how criminals are put to death, how and where the deceased are buried, and all the rituals associated in some way with the end of human life. Many of the account’s most vivid episodes include minute descriptions of corpses and grotesque images of death. The Viaggi foregrounds the connections between travel, its representation, and the baroque notion of movement as a principal characteristic of human existence, 68 Pietro Della Valle, Les fameux voyages de Pietro Della Valle, 4 vols (Paris: Gervais Clouzier, 1663), vol. 2, aiij recto. I have adapted the punctuation. He had six male and eight female children by his second wife, Maria Tinatin. The births of each child are recorded in a private diary, Archivio Segreto Vaticano, DV-DB 186.

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a movement that ultimately leads to death, the end of life’s journey. The narrative recounts constant change and cultural adaptation, often tempering the joys of discovery and novelty with anxieties about the fragility and transitoriness of life. As José Maravall writes, a common notion of the period is that the “human being is in transit between the modes of the real.”69 To a certain extent, Della Valle’s account literalizes the metaphor of mobility, accentuating different “modes of the real” across continents and depicting life-threatening situations. In his earliest presentation of his travels as a whole, which he gave to the Accademia degli Umoristi upon his return, Della Valle incorporates the theme of vanitas vanitatum and the theatrum mundi trope. The conclusion of his presentation to the academy, which was his reference point for literary creation, provides telling insights into Della Valle’s baroque poetics of travel: Quanto l’universo in sé raccoglie non è altro che fumo, che vento, che ombra, che vanità; che, non solo gli huomini, ma muoiono come si vede le città, muoiono i regni; tutte le cose create hanno presto fine, et un sol momento di presente che durano (perché il passato che già fuggì, e ’l futuro che ancor non è giunto, non si possono per tempi di durata annoverare) senza alcuna stabilità, e fermezza, stanno sempre in continua mutatione … l’umana vita … non è altro che una breve rappresentatione, a chi di festevole comedia, a chi di tragedia infelice, ma a tutti egualmente larve, che ben presto don [devon] porsi; e finalmente che quanto piace al mondo, è un breve sogno. [That which the universe holds within it is no more than smoke, wind, shadow, and vanity. Because not only men die but, as can be seen, so do cities and kingdoms. All elements of creation soon find their end and, in the single present moment in which they last (because the past, which has already fled, and the future, which has not yet come about, cannot be counted as lasting moments), they do so without stability and resolution, and are always in continous mutation. Human life is none other than a brief performance, for some of a festive comedy, for others an unhappy tragedy, but for all alike it is a series of masks one must don early on. And finally, what is pleasing in the world is but a brief dream.]70

This rhetoric of the fragility and ultimate end of human life—unsurprising given Della Valle’s milieu and the homage he strategically pays to both baroque literary culture and the Catholic Reformation—has particular implications in the realm of travel writing. With these lines, whose metaphors are best remembered in Calderón de la Barca’s La vida es sueño (1635), Della Valle integrates baroque literary or poetic precepts into the representation of travel. The mention of the end of “cities and kingdoms”, in the context of the presentation, seems to indicate the continued threat of the Turkish empire and the loss of Christian unity, perhaps the greatest sources of cultural anxiety in baroque Italy, and realities that Della Valle directly confronts on his travels. His reference to theater addresses more than a baroque conception of the human condition; it also illustrates how he conceptualizes the telling of travel. His journey constitutes an ephemeral performance that can only be fixed and immortalized in a (literary) text. Like Petrarch’s writing to counteract

69 José Maravall, Culture of the Baroque, p. 178. 70 Invernizzi, p. 239.

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the destabilizing forces of wandering, exile, and ethical and poetic self-questioning, Della Valle controls his moving about in the text.71 On a practical level, as a seventeenth-century traveler with an ambitious itinerary, Della Valle faces a number of possible deadly perils during his voyage, from shipwreck to disease to war.72 He constantly confronts reminders of his own mortality and often expresses doubts that he will live to see Italy again. At times, he exhibits a particular fixation on death, for example when he writes with dark humor about a debilitating bout of fever: I pensieri eran tutti di morte di ciò che vedeva, pareva a me che la morte innanzi mi rappresentasse. Mi ricordo che una volta in tavola, guardando certi polli arrosti posti dentro un piatto sopra la mensa, dissi a mia moglie, “Guardate quei pollastri, come stan supini, con quelle gambe tese, che paion giusto tanti morti sopra ’l cataletto.” [My thoughts were all of death concerning all that I saw, and it seemed to me that death appeared before me. I remember once, during a meal, while looking at some roasted chickens placed on a dish on the table, I said to my wife, “Look at these chickens, and the way they lie, with their legs stretched out. They seem just like many dead bodies on a funeral bier.”] 73

Della Valle’s concern about his own mortality is but one facet of his fascination with death. By beginning his voyage as a pilgrim, as he often calls himself, he evokes a Christian voyage to sacred tombs and reliquaries. His interest in sepulchers goes well beyond the Holy Land, where he in fact stays a relatively short time, while his curiosity about tombs never wanes. In the East, Della Valle regularly makes visits to monuments and sepulchers of important Turkish, Arabic, Persian, and Indian figures, even when access is difficult or he is weak from illness.74 The visits sometimes reflect his literary interests, such as when he goes to the tomb of the Persian poet Hafiz: “Andai poco lontano dalla casa … a veder la sepoltura di Chogia Hafiz, poeta celebre persiano: il canzoniere del quale, che è tutto di poesie liriche, da potersi paragonare o a i sonetti toscani o a gli epigrammi de’ latini, si stima in Persia grandemente, e va per le mani, leggendosi da tutti, a guisa del nostro Petrarca, con gran fama dell’autore” [I went not far from the house to see the tomb of Hafiz, the famous 71 “The ‘irrequieto turista’ overcame the alienations of the journey of life, beginning with life’s very temporality, through writing it down.” Cachey, Jr., “From Shipwreck to Port,” p. 35. 72 Didier Souiller explains the attention to the spectacle of death at this time as a direct outcome of the violence of the Thirty Years’ War, the escalation of religious conflcts, and the spread of famine and disease during the period: “Si le spectacle de la mort, les méditations sur la précarité de la vie humaine hantent la littérature baroque, il ne faut y voir que le reflet de la réalité vécue” [If the spectacle of death, the meditations on the precariousness of human life haunt baroque literature, one should only see it as the reflection of experienced reality]. Didier Souiller, La littérature baroque en Europe (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1988), p. 25. 73 III.239, Letter 15 from Shiraz, October 21, 1621. 74 For example, even though he is ill, he goes out of his way to visit the tomb of a Muslim holy man. See IV.367, Letter 10 from Asora, May 10, 1625.

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Persian poet, whose canzoniere is made up of lyric poetry that can be compared to Tuscan sonnets or Latin epigrams, and is greatly esteemed in Persia, and circulates in the hands of all, just like our Petrarch, along with the great fame of the author].75 Della Valle’s homage ties in with his taste for reading and writing poetry, which he sometimes does in Persian and in the manner of Hafiz. The attention to fame acquired for lyrical talent indirectly refers to Della Valle’s own poetic ambitions, perhaps through the possibility of universal poetics, where every culture has its own Petrarch, a poet–wanderer. Della Valle’s visits to tombs are not always undertaken in order to pay tribute to the departed, as is evident in his excursion to acquire mummies in Egypt.76 To be sure, for a baroque-era traveler and antiquarian with a penchant for the macabre, Egyptian tombs offered the utmost in sepulchral spectacles. The mysteries surrounding ancient Egypt and the source of the Nile had for some time drawn the interest of Europeans, and Della Valle was no exception. In a passage from his January 1616 letter, he recounts his descent into a necropolis in Saqqara stacked with mummies, and his selection and purchase of three of them to take with him as souvenirs. His morbid attention to describing the cadavers reflects in part European interest in anatomical studies at the time.77 Nevertheless, his violent treatment of the bodies creates the disturbing effect perhaps better described as the “frisson du baroque” [the shiver of the baroque],78 to use Michel Vovelle’s expression in considering the role of death in 75 III.425, Letter 16 from the Gardens of Shiraz, July 27, 1622. The visit inspires Della Valle to compose poetry: “Io come affettionato ai poeti, su ’l sepolcro di Hafiz, dettai quattro versi in lingua nostra, a modo di epitaffio, alludendo a gli epigrammi di lui … Hafiz il gran poeta, in questa tomba / le ossa caduche: il nome, in mille carte, / da lui vergate con mirabil arte, / lasciò che ancor famoso a noi rimbomba” [Since I am fond of poets, when I was at the tomb of Hafiz, I composed verses in our language, as an epitaph, alluding to his own epigrams: Hafiz, the great poet left in this tomb his fleeting bones. He left his name, written on a thousand pages with extroardinary artistry, so that his fame still resounds]. (III.426, Letter 16). Hafiz, or Shams al-Din Muhammed (Shiraz, c.1318–c.1390) is known for his Divan, which was not published in translation in Europe until the eighteenth century. 76 “Precipua nota identificatrice, nella scrittura di Della Valle, è la presenza di un’ossessione ricorrente: l’idea incubo della decomposizione, dello sfacelo, della morte … il nostro guarda con terrore e fascino tutto barocco al proceder del disfacimento fisico ineluttabile” [A principle identifiable element in Della Valle’s writing is the presence of a recurring obsession: the nightmare of decomposition, rotting, and death. Our author watches with a baroque terror of and fascination with the inevitable process of physical undoing]. Daria Perocco, Viaggiare e raccontare, p. 30. 77 André Chastel, for example, sees links between baroque art and literature and advances in anatomical studies: “En littérature, l’obsession de la mort doit justement à la diffusion des estampes anatomiques” [In literature, the obsession with death owes much to the circulation of anatomical drawings]. André Chastel, “Le baroque et la mort,” in Enrico Castelli (ed.), Retorica e Barocco. Atti del III congresso internazionale di studi umanistici (Rome: Fratelli Broca, 1955), p. 33. Maravall makes related comments: “in the baroque epoch, when the skeleton was introduced as an iconographic resource … it addressed the still living public that contemplated the funeral monument.” Maravall, p. 165. 78 Michel Vovelle, La mort et l’occident de 1300 à nos jours (Paris: Gallimard, 1983), p. 239.

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seventeenth-century art. Della Valle not only avidly observes but also participates in the dismemberment of the corpses, referring to the purported medicinal qualities of mummies. His handling of a female mummy involves a physical effort and ferocity that is rare on Della Valle’s part and suggests that the recounting of the episode serves another purpose. If he never participates in expansionist endeavors and is ultimately more invested in acquiring knowledge than exporting his own culture, perhaps the handling of the mummy allows him to play several roles at once: the possessor–acquirer of other cultures, the naturalist–antiquarian, and the adventurer– discoverer:79 Ma lo [the maiden’s body] feci spezzare in mia presenza: prima per veder come stavano dentro le fasce e gli ossi co ’l bitume, poi per aver di quella materia che è medicinale e stimata, come Vostra Signoria sa (e qui dicono che quella delle donzelle e de’ corpi vergini è la migliore) … La spezzai dunque, ma dentro non vi trovai niente … Io, disfacendo il corpo della donzella, non trovai altro che grandissima quantità di fasce e di bitume … Una cosa non è da tacere: che era quella materia tanto dura che, volendo io romperla, bisognò darle con sassi e con ferri di buonissimi colpi, e con fatica la spezzai … Di questa mummia spezzata volsi per me la testa tutta intera. [I had the maiden’s body broken up in my presence, first to see if there were bandages and bones inside with bitumen, and also to have some of that matter that is thought to be medicinal, as Your Lordship knows (and here they say that that of girls and virgin bodies is the best). I broke it open, then, but I did not find anything inside. Undoing the body of the girl, I found nothing but a great quantity of bandages and bitumen. One thing that is not to be kept silent: that matter was so hard that, when I wanted to break it up, I had to pound it with stones and iron tools with very tough blows, and I broke it up with much difficulty. Of this broken mummy, I wanted the whole head for myself.] 80

The repetition of the verb “spezzare” [to break], along with “disfare” [to undo] and “rompere” [to break], reveals an aggressiveness on Della Valle’s part that has no equal in the Viaggi. The mutilation of a female mummy, presumed a virgin, has overtones of a necrophilic act, a “danse macabre” of antiquarian possession.81 In a later letter, he emphasizes his handling of the mummies himself: “La mummia … che l’ho trovata e cavata con le mie proprie mani, [è] della più fine e più antica che si trovi” [The mummy, which I found and dug up with my very own hands, is among 79 One could also interpret Della Valle’s collecting of several mummies as an early touristic gesture. These mummies are souvenirs to be brought back as authenticating symbols of his trip. He also hires a Flemish painter to paint landscapes of the areas he visits. 80 I.386–7, Letter 11 from Cairo, January 25, 1616. The passage is in complete contrast with Della Valle’s use of a humorous gastronomical simile when he first describes the stack of mummies: “I corpi stavano senza ordine, sotterrati … nella rena … e giacevano un sopra l’altro in quella involti, come a punto i maccheroni tra ’l formaggio” [The bodies were not arranged in any order, were buried in the sand, and they lay wrapped up one above the other, just like maccheroni in cheese]. (I.38–4, Letter 11). 81 The episode could also be read as a violent recasting of the link between eroticism and death in baroque culture. Philippe Ariès has noted “le rapprochement d’Eros et de Thanatos à l’âge baroque” [the nearing of eros and thanatos in the baroque era]. Philippe Ariès, L’homme devant la mort (Paris: Editions du Seuil, 1977), pp. 363–7.

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the finest and oldest that one can find].82 He stresses physical contact with the dead, and that he did not leave the task entirely to hired hands but instead directly exhumed the bodies himself. As Della Valle’s recounting makes clear, mummy-gathering represents a descent into the netherworld worthy of literary heroes and inspiration for laudatory poetry, not simply an antiquarian’s expedition: Potrò dire ancor io di aver passato la barca di Caronte, d’esser sceso a luoghi inferni, e di averne, come Vostra Signoria ha sentito, tratto fuori a dispetto di Plutone, e menato a riveder di nuovo la luce del mondo, due o tre persone segnalate, che a gli uomini dotti porteranno certissime novelle di mille curiosità, che appartengono alla verità delle istorie e alla cognizione de’ costumi più antichi dell’Egitto, e in questa guisa averò fatto più che non seppe fare né Enea, né Orfeo, né Teseo, e qui la musa potrebbe pigliar vento, e volerebbe forse tanto alto che manco ’l diavolo la potrebbe andar appresso. [I can say that I, too, have passed Charon’s boat, have descended into the underworld, as Your Lordship has heard, and have extracted from it (against Pluto’s will) and brought forth to the light the two or three people mentioned, from which learned men will draw sure news of a thousand curiosities, which belong to the truth of history and to the knowledge of the most ancient customs of Egypt. And in this way I will have done what neither Aeneas, nor Orpheus, nor Theseus could do. And here the muses could take off with inspiration, and could perhaps fly so high that even the devil could not follow them.] 83

In contrast to his considering the mummies as cadavers as he mutilates them, here Della Valle calls them “persons” that he has brought back to the earth’s surface in a kind of resurrectional act. He perceives his descent into the tomb or underworld to have been more worthy than those of his fictional predecessors—and, perhaps indirectly, Dante—because he is a humanist hero who primarily seeks knowledge.84 In the Viaggi, macabre spectacles are part of public, “professional” endeavors, and they also appear in the most personal and intimate events during the protagonist’s travels. In conformity to his taste for depicting dead bodies, Della Valle, when telling of his wife’s miscarriage in Minab after suffering from high fevers, succinctly describes the fetus presented to him by female servants. This episode, which seems on the surface an unexpected relating of a most private experience, is actually a manipulation of events on Della Valle’s part to construct the scene of a father grieving the loss of a son. He recounts that Maani “fece aborto, e quel che ci afflisse, di un figliuol maschio: assai picciolo, che non era lungo più di mezo palmo, ma benissimo formato in tutte le sue membra, per maggior felicità sua e di tutti noi prima morto che nato” [she miscarried, and it was a son, which is what most distressed us. He was quite small, and no longer than half a palm, but with perfectly formed members, and for his and our comfort, dead before birth].85 Della Valle later affectionately and 82 I.620, Letter 13 from Aleppo, June 15, 1616. 83 I.399–400, Letter 11. 84 His final comment after the end of his hyperbolic, self-congratulatory effusions demonstrates an ironic awareness of his exaggerated claims: “Ma lasciando le burle …” [But let’s quit our joking …]. I.400, Letter 11. 85 III.353, Letter 16.

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poignantly designates the fetus as “il picciolo corpicciuolo” [the tiny little body].86 He characterizes the miscarriage as particularly tragic because the long-awaited heir to his family name has been lost: “un figliuol maschio … voleva dire l’assicuramento della successione e l’unico sostegno della mia casa” [a male child meant assured succession and the only chance to maintain the family line].87 His despair hinges on the male gender of the “perfectly formed” fetus. However, in a deliberate omission of otherwise known facts and historical events witnessed by the traveler–observer, he erases from his account several details: Maani miscarried two fetuses, one male and one female, and at least one, if not both, may have had malformations. The entry in Della Valle’s logbook on the day of his wife’s death reveals glaring discrepancies between real events and the published text. The diary entry reads: La mia Sig.a Maani … la mattina sopra detta de 22 di dicembre, un’hora a mezza in circa innanzi giorno, mal partorì un figlio maschio, et indi a poco, cioe poco dopo levato il sole, un’altra femina, di modo che furono due gemelli ad un corpo. Quello che solo mi consolò in tanta digratia fu, che per non esser dette creature totalmente perfette, massime la seconda, ch’era piu imperfetta, benché più grande tempo per corso, che non havessero havuto ancora l’anima rationale, e che per consequenza le anime loro non si perdessero, benché nascesser morte, il che è manco male. [My lady Maani, the morning of the above-mentioned 22nd of December, one hour and a half before daybreak, miscarried a male child and, a bit later, that is a bit after sunrise, another, female child, so that they were twins born of one body. What consoled me in such misfortune was that, because the said babies were not completely developed, especially the second, which was less developed, although more time had gone by, they did not yet possess a rational soul, and thus their souls were not lost, even though they were born dead, and that is not so bad.] 88

The ink of the passage is of a grayish tone, and two phrases are underlined in brown ink. A note in the margin, also in brown ink, disclaims: “la prima era perfettamente formata, e si conosceva esser maschio. L’altra non fu creatura imperfetta come credetti da principio: ma fu la seconda delle creature” [the first was perfectly formed, and was recognizable as male. The other was not imperfect as I thought in the beginning, but it was the second of the babies].89 The underlined parts are precisely those that are omitted from the Viaggi. The two distinct ink colors suggest that the original entry and its modifications occurred at different times, and that Della Valle, a selfconscious writer even in a logbook, decided at a later time to edit his remarks.90 86 Ibid. 87 III.351, Letter 16. 88 Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, Codice Ottob. 3382, 1621, folio 160 verso, December 22, 1621. 89 Ibid. 90 This kind of self-consciousness is apparent even in the private journal he kept after returning to Italy. On the subject of Pope Urban VIII’s excommunication of the duke of Parma, for instance, he writes: “Le cause di queste … non le ho riferite in questo diario, perche come di cose troppo grandi, ne lascio il pensiero agli scrittori delle historie e basterà di havere io accennato questa dichiaratione della scomunica, che è una delle cose più notabili” [I have not

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The altering of events is crucial in understanding Della Valle’s vision of travel writing. This episode exemplifies in a dramatic manner the tensions at the center of the narrative: on the one hand, the narrator seems readily disposed to tell the most personal and autobiographical matters in his tale, especially those related to death, in accordance with his goal of creating a spectacle. On the other hand, when certain aspects of these intimate events are deemed inappropriate for the narrative— perhaps because they could damage his heroic image and that of his stalwart consort Maani—those events are manipulated in the text. The disappearance of the female fetus, more than any grandiose rendition of Della Valle’s adventures, highlights the subjective and, in effect, fictional qualities of Della Valle’s writing. In the textual reconstruction, the only fetus worthy of being textualized is a “perfectly formed” male one. He stresses in the published version the tragedy of his desired son’s not having been baptized: “Si sentì acerbamente sopra ogni altra cosa che non venisse in luce capace di battesimo” [What hurt us most bitterly and above all else was that he was not born able to be baptized].91 This directly contradicts the remarks from the diary, in which he claims as his only consolation the fetuses’ not having developed enough to become rational. In the end, what appears to be a frank anatomical account and emotional telling of a miscarriage is a fictional construct. The body of Sitti Maani, who dies eight days after her miscarriage, abruptly becomes a cadaver to be taken care of logistically. Della Valle immediately plans to have the body embalmed and brought safely away from the land of infidels to be buried in the family chapel in Rome. He thus begins to identify Maani’s corpse as an object which, like the mummies, is subject to appropriation, manipulation, and even mutilation. In the detailed account of the embalming, which is not devoid of expressions of deep sadness, Della Valle insists on keeping all the body parts, including organs, in accordance with Christian beliefs about the resurrection of the body: Ordinai precisamente che il cuore, fra le altre interiora, si condisse con esatta cura e si riponesse ben custodito al suo luogo, ché io volevo in ogni modo haverlo con me insieme con tutto ’l suo corpo … quelle buone donne mediche del paese, che condivano il corpo della signora Maani … condito che fu il cuore, me lo portarono innanzi accioché lo vedessi e mi assicurassi della loro diligenza. Consideri, Vostra Signoria, con che cuore io guardassi e mi vedessi presentar sopra una sottocoppa il cuore di colei che più di tutti gli altri nel mondo aveva amata! [I ordered specifically that the heart, among the other organs, be embalmed with precise care and be put back safely in its proper place, because I wanted to have it with me together with her whole body. Those good local medecine women who embalmed the body of Lady Maani, once the heart was embalmed, brought it before me so that I could see it and assure myself of their diligence. Consider, Your Lordship, with what heart I

discussed the causes of these events in this diary because, as with things that are too large in scope, I leave it to the care of writers of history, and it is enough that I have mentioned this declaration of excommunication, which is one of the most notable things]. (Arch Segr DVDB186, January 13, 1642). 91 III.343, Letter 16 from the Gardens of Shiraz, 1622.

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looked and saw presented to me, on a platter, the heart of she whom I had loved more than any other in the world!]]92

His simple play on the semantics of the word “cuore” [heart] seems an indicator of the true literary nature of his choice of details and events to relate, even those most personal and devastating. In fact, for Della Valle’s poetics, a tragic event does not suffer but is enhanced, and even better represented, through literary devices and illusions. His macabre focus on the disembodied symbol of love recalls in a general way Dante’s dream in the Vita nuova, or the unhappy ending of the first novella of the fourth day of the Decameron, when Ghismunda receives the heart of her lover in a golden cup.93 The presentation of Maani’s heart, however unusual in travel writing, has authoritative literary precedents. Although Maani dies following the miscarriage, she remains a constant presence throughout the rest of her husband’s travels. After the embalming, Della Valle repeatedly mentions his wife’s body, which he has hidden in a metal trunk for travel, as if she were still his traveling companion. Her corpse becomes a narrative marker of progress towards home, and Della Valle relates the status of the body in each important stage of his trip back to the Italian peninsula. On a practical level, he faced the difficulties of moving a corpse past various customs and sanitation agents, especially in Malta and Sicily. Still, the references to the cadaver are strikingly persistent, and the closer Della Valle gets to Rome, the more often he refers to “la cassa del corpo di Sitti Maani” [the trunk with the body of Sitti Maani]. The repetition increases towards the conclusion of the voyage, as if to signal Della Valle’s impatience or create suspense in view of the impending end of the voyage. If one looks for narrative coherence in such a long, arduous, and varied journey, as Van Den Abbeele’s tourist might do, then there must be an appropriate concluding event, one that gives closure and signals the end of the voyage and the end of the account; a final scene that wraps up all narrative threads and leaves no plot-lines hanging. Indeed, one of the last episodes of the Viaggi is the burial of Sitti Maani, whose interment in the family chapel, the proper symbol of Roman–Italian–Catholic belonging, signals Della Valle’s homecoming and the end of his wandering. Within the ritual that the traveler choreographs, Maani is both an exotic artifact and a dead family member to be buried, again evoking both the familiar and the unknown, both a souvenir and material manifestation of vanitas vanitatum. He opens the trunk with Sitti Maani’s desiccated remains in front of family members and servants, detailing the physical transformations of the dead body one last time: Trovai che la carne della testa, qual potei vedere per una rottura della sindone che la ricopriva, era tutta consumata, restando solo l’osso, di che non mi meravigliai, poiché non essendo da principio stata votata la testa dei cervelli, da questo era proceduto il consumarsi. Il resto della vita pareva più conservato, ma già che non si vedeva più il volto, non volli sdrucir la sindone, né muoverla più per veder il resto. 92 III.353, Letter 16. 93 The “cuore mangiato” [eaten heart] is a pervasive narrative and symbolic element, most famously in Dante’s sonnet “A ciascun’alma presa e gentil core” [To every captive soul and gentle heart] from the Vita nuova, in which Love feeds the poet’s heart to his beloved.

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Literature and Identity in Italian Baroque Travel Writing [I found that the flesh of the head, which I was able to see through a rip in the cloth that covered her, was all worn off, with only the bone remaining, which did not surprise me, since the head had not been emptied of the brains beforehand, so that decomposition had occurred. The rest of the body seemed better preserved, but since the face was no longer visible, I did not want to rip or move the cloth to see the rest.]94

Della Valle’s contemplation of the decomposed corpse of his wife presents a real-life re-enactment of the meeting of Eros and Thanatos in fellow academician Marino’s baroque poem, Adone. Although the scene has none of the necrophilia of the mummy-gathering episode, the vivid and detailed description of Sitti Maani’s body has a voyeuristic quality similar to the passage in Adone: Quel teschio scarno e nudo di capelli, quella rete di coste e di giunture, dele concave occhiaie i voti anelli, del naso monco le caverne oscure, dele fauci sdentate i duo rastrelli… Amor mirar non seppe a bocca chiusa. [That fleshless skull, bare of hair, That net of ribs and joints, The empty rings of concave sockets, The dark caves of the nose stump, The two prongs of the toothless jaws; Eros was unable to watch with a closed mouth.] 95

Death in the form of rotted flesh offers a fascinating and irresistible spectacle, and the vivid depiction of Sitti Maani and Thanatos creates what one could call an aesthetics of putrification. Della Valle places Maani’s coffin in the family chapel and briefly recounts the solemn and secret ceremony carried out among a few family members: “la seppelij nella sepoltura a mano destra dell’altare … dove sono mio padre, mia madre, e miei zii, e quasi tutti li miei. Scesi io stesso nella tomba, e … l’accomodai la dentro con le mie mani. Riserrata poi la sepoltura feci murare il coperchio, e mi licenziai dai frati” [I buried her in the tomb to the right of the altar, where lie my father, mother, my aunts and uncles, and almost all of my family. I myself descended into the tomb and placed her in there with my own hands. Once the tomb was closed, I had the

94 IV.505, Letter 18 from Rome, August 1, 1626. As André Chastel writes, “L’un des grands gestes de l’art baroque reste en somme le mouvement à la fois théâtral et menaçant qui consiste à l’ouvrir [the tomb] devant la cour” [One of the great gestures of baroque art remains the movement, both theatrical and menacing, that consists of opening the tomb before the court]. Chastel, p. 34. In this case, the spectacle is described for the “court” of Della Valle’s close friends and family, and his reading public. 95 Giambattista Marino, Adone, ed. Giovanni Pozzi, 2 vols (Milan: Adelphi, 1988), vol. 1, p. 355, Canto VI, octave 203. Stefania Buccini characterizes this passage as an example of the obsession and fascination with death in baroque literature. Stefania Buccini, Sentimento della morte dal Barocco al declino dei Lumi (Ravenna: Longo, 2000), p. 85.

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cover walled up, and I took leave of the friars].96 The mentioning of his descent into the tomb recalls his adventures in the Egyptian necropolis early in his travels. As if to evoke the first truly spectacular episode of his voyage, Della Valle repeats the same words he used in handling the mummy—“con le mie mani” [with my own hands]—in describing his last act as the main character of the Viaggi. And though Maani may have taken center stage as the corpse, her widower, by emphasizing his direct, “hands-on” role in the event, has taken over once again as director, supporting actor—literally supporting—, and narrator. The solemn ritual conjures up baroque religious painting, in particular Guercino’s Burial and Resurrection of Santa Petronilla, which Della Valle would have seen hanging in St Peter’s after his return from the East (see Figure 2.4).97 In the lower part of the painting, young people look on as two men lower the martyr into her grave, but they do not touch her, since they use straps of cloth to support her weight. At the very bottom of the painting, a pair of hands, presumably belonging to a third helper, props up her shoulders and guides the body down into the tomb. These anonymous hands are those of someone descended with her in the grave, and they touch her directly (“with my own hands”).98 Like the mysterious hands raised up at the bottom of Guercino’s dramatically staged depiction, Della Valle directs the action, easing the corpse into the tomb. Thus a supposedly intimate ceremony takes on grandiose proportions. In this final theatrical moment of the Viaggi, he showcases one last time his dramatic flare and sensibility to narrative, evoking the visual arts in his last performative gesture of the account. In the end, Della Valle never became the epic hero of the early modern Odyssey or Aeneid he initially envisioned. Nevertheless, as he most likely realized in publishing the first volumes of the Viaggi, his letters in their original form made up an extraordinary account. As he fashioned his own character and adventures through performative discourse, the missives of the Viaggi came to constitute a spectacular narrative. His account contains a new poetics of travel writing, one that draws attention to the constructedness of representation and the inherent “fiction” of recounting real experiences. As an Italian travel writer with explicit literary ambitions, Della Valle, however ordinary he claims his language to be, cannot separate the recounting 96 IV.506, Letter 18 from Rome, August 1, 1626. The ceremony was kept secret because an edict of Pius IV forbade underground burial in Rome. See Johanna Heideman, The Cinquecento Chapel Decorations in Santa Maria in Aracoeli in Rome (Amsterdam: Academische Pers, 1982), p. 86, n. 24. The account of Sitti Maani’s lavish public funeral in Rome, put on several months after she was secretly buried in the church of Aracoeli, was diligently planned by Della Valle and intricately described in a separate book, Girolamo Rocchi’s Funerale della Signora Maani Gioerida della Valle (Rome: Zanetti, 1627). Rocchi’s account is also included, in Italian, in the first volume of Melchisédec Thévenot’s Relations de divers voyages curieux, 2 vols (Paris: Jacques Langlois, 1663–72). The funeral included the customary parade of the catafalque, in this case with inscriptions in twelve different languages. For images of the catafalque, see Fagiolo, La festa a Roma, vol.1, pp. 268-9. 97 Some art historians claim the painting, completed in 1623, depicts the exhuming of the body of St Petronilla. See Sergio Guarino et al. (eds), Guercino e le collezioni capitoline (Rome: Edizioni Carte Segrete, 1991), pp. 18–26. 98 The repetition of “le mie mani” could also be an echo of “la mia Maani” [my Maani].

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Figure 2.4

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Giovanni Francesco Guercino (Barbieri). The Burial of Santa Petronilla. 1621–22. Oil on canvas, 720 × 423 cm. Pinacoteca Capitolina, Musei Capitolini, Rome, Italy. Photo credit: Erich Lessing/ Art Resource, NY

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of his voyage from literary tradition and fictional models. His every act appears to contribute to making his own life imitate art. It is his investment in a literary Italian identity and his consummate baroque taste for the marvelous, bizarre, and macabre that allow him to stage the tragedy and comedy of travel in a narrative and to become the protagonist he hoped would attain—and that indeed has, in the text of the Viaggi—gained posterity.

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Chapter 3

Travel Writing and Travel as Writing in Francesco Belli’s Osservazioni nel viaggio As Pietro Della Valle was reimmersing himself in Roman society after a twelve-year absence, another literary academician, Francesco Belli, was leaving the Venetian republic on a European tour. Belli (1577–1644), born in Arzignano in the province of Vicenza, accompanied Venetian ambassador Giorgio Zorzi’s delegation to the Netherlands and France before returning to Verona on his own in 1627. Five years later, in Venice in 1632, he published his Osservazioni nel viaggio. Belli, as did Della Valle, traveled to satisfy his own curiosity and was allowed to join the Venetian delegation without holding any official position.1 Unlike Della Valle, however, Belli traveled for a relatively short period of nine months along well-established European routes and almost exclusively in the company of other Venetians of a similar social class. Even when moving through war-torn lands, Belli appears confident under the umbrella of the Venetian group. Della Valle’s difficulties in travel, sense of isolation, tragedies in his personal life, and adaptations to a myriad of cultures have no equivalent in Belli’s account. These concrete differences, evident in the two texts in terms of length, content, and perspective, do not offset their powerful common thread: the dominating presence of Italian literary culture and baroque aesthetics in the representation of the journey, and the attention to the process and craft of writing travel. Given its title of “osservazioni,” the 190-page text has relatively few of the detailed observations of local custom, politics, history, and geography usually associated with travel accounts.2 The text recounts Belli’s trip from May 1626 to February 1627 from northern Italy through Switzerland, up the Rhine river to the United Provinces, 1 “Intanto avvenuto essendo, che il Cavalier Giorgio Zorzi si dovea trasferire, siccome Imbasciadore per la Serenissima Repubblica, e nell’Ollanda, e in Francia, Francesco a vieppiù sempre erudirsi, e sviluppare le idee, colse il bellissimo incontro di così lungo viaggio, e lo eseguì con profitto, descrivendolo poscia con precisione ed applauso” [In the meantime it happened that cavaliere Giorgio Zorzi, as ambassador for the Republic of Venice, had to leave for Holland and France, and Francesco, always seeking to educate himself and develop ideas, took the wonderful opportunity of such a long trip, and undertook it fruitfully, describing it later with precision and to the praise (of his readers)]. Padre Angiolgabriello Di Santa Maria, Biblioteca e storia di quei scrittori così della città come del territorio di Vicenza, 6 vols (Vicenza: Giovanni Battista Vendramini Mosca, 1772–82), vol. 6, p. xviii . 2 This perhaps explains Gian Luigi Beccaria’s negative characterization of the work as having “scarne impressioni” [bare impressions], an indication of how travel texts are still

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down to Paris, and back to Verona through Lyon and Savoy. The narrative, while following a generally chronological and spatial progression, alternates between different forms of prose and poetry. The prose is dense and replete with conceits, tropes, wordplays, and other rhetorical devices. The work includes twenty-seven of Belli’s own sonnets, ranging in topic from love to encomia of scholars, rather lengthy quotes of historical sources, and ten topics of debate proposed and discussed by the Venetian ambassadorial group. This traveler’s perspective remains essentially aesthetic, literary, and aristocratic: he describes cityscapes and countrysides, attractive women, fancy clothes, wine, official receptions, churches, museums, cabinets of curiosities, and scholarly encounters. On the whole, however, the narrator’s gaze remains as much focused inwards on his communications with his fellow travelers as outwards on foreign lands and their inhabitants. Belli’s choice of Osservazioni as a title marks his position in the text more as a discerning writer than as the protagonist of events and encounters. He affirms his subjectivity through his erudite commentary, poetic inspiration, and communications with other scholars, and is not concerned, unlike Della Valle, with presenting himself as a heroic or even personable main character. When Belli compliments himself, it is usually in recounting a witty argument or an appropriate literary reference on his part. If he does not engage in Della Valle’s self-representation as an eccentric and tireless adventurer, he draws on a sense of self-importance as a representative of the Republic of Venice abroad. Quite as Della Valle assumes moral, cultural, and political authority from his position as a Roman nobleman, so Belli presents himself as the privileged member of the most illustrious, industrious, and independent society in Europe, that of Venice. His unwavering focus on his homeland opens up the text to interpretation as a lengthy ode to the Serenissima. Or, because he privileges scholarly exchanges as pertinent elements of the account, the Osservazioni could also be seen as a mapping of European centers of erudition, or as a geographical exploration of European intellectual life. What becomes apparent in both texts is that Belli’s and Della Valle’s sense of cultural identity and belonging, so crucial in considering and commenting on foreign cultures, is inextricably linked to Italian literary culture. The Osservazioni, like the Viaggi, are emblematic of a new kind of travel writing that is or strives to be literary, because both authors draw authority from the international prestige of the Italian literary canon. Belli, like Della Valle, although more systematically, quotes Dante, Petrarch, Ariosto, Tasso, and Guarini, to name just a few. He reinforces the idea of a boundary-less, exportable Italian literary culture by paying particular attention in the text to foreign scholars who speak Italian, are well-acquainted with classical Latin and contemporary Italian literature, and greatly admire the production of Italian literary academies. But unlike in the Viaggi, in the Osservazioni Italian literary culture is a flawless vehicle for international exchange.

judged according to factual content. See Gian Luigi Beccaria, “Francesco Belli,” Dizionario biografico degli italiani, vol. 7 (Rome: Società Grafica Romana, 1990), pp. 652–4.

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Figure 3.1

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Francesco Belli’s Itinerary 1626–27

Like Pietro Della Valle, Belli, also a self-conscious travel writer, focuses on pleasing his readership and creating an entertaining text. Where Della Valle dramatizes his narrative by describing situations that might appeal to readers of baroque fiction, especially those involving death, the macabre, or the marvelous, Belli uses specific formal elements and stylistic devices characteristic of baroque writing to weave his tale. In recounting a smoother and shorter trip than Della Valle’s, he explores different genres and figurative language in order to create his poetics of travel narrative. His play with style provides a light, ludic bent to his account. For example, when commenting on a restaurant near Heidelberg, he uses the following metaphor: “L’Osteria della Rosa ci diede più spine che rose ne’ trattamenti” [The Rose Inn gave us more thorns than roses in its hospitality].3 In The Hague, he gently criticizes the burghers by using paradox: “Nella conversazione alle donne professano la modestia 3 Francesco Belli, Osservazioni nel viaggio, p. 56. I have modernized the punctuation and capitalization in the quotes from Belli’s text.

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nel toccarle, la semplicità ne’ baci, e l’onestà nelle lascivie” [In their conversations with women they profess modesty in touching them, simplicity in kissing them, and honesty in their lusting].4 In Amsterdam, he marvels at a painting by Rubens: “Vi sono pitture del Rubens predetto, e specialmente un’ Esther svenuta, che fa svenir chi la vede” [There are paintings by the above-mentioned Rubens, and especially one of Esther having fainted, which makes anyone who sees it faint].5 Also typical is his description of the wine he tastes in southern France: “Ci diede un chiarello dolce e piccante, che faceva lagrimar di dolcezza” [He gave us a white wine that was sweet and bitter, and whose sweetness made us shed tears].6 Figurative language is just one aspect of Belli’s art in writing a travel account. Belli also resorts to literary topoi as valid instruments to convey more accurately both landscapes and events, although in a less dramatic manner than the Roman traveler. Like Della Valle, he uses the theatrum mundi trope to set the scene or give his perspective of the countryside. While navigating on the Rhine, he introduces the notion of his ship as the theater floor, the area from which one admires the great stage of the world, in this case the banks of the river: “Partiti da Zuch poco innanzi ci venne rappresentata mutazione di scena nell’ampiezza del paese, nella dilicatezza de’ monti, e nella coltura di grani, e piante fruttifere” [Having left Zug a little earlier, a change of scenery took place before us in the ampleness of the countryside, the elegance of the mountains, and in the cultivation of grains and fruit trees].7 He makes a similar comment while describing a landscape near Paris: “Si vedono certi o castelli, o casali con intrecciamenti d’arbori, che somigliano scene boschereccie” [There are certain castles or rural homes with interwoven lines of trees that look like pastoral scenes].8 In The Hague, when asked to give condolences on the part of the Venetians for the death of the duke of Brunswick’s brother, he describes the visitation room: “Mi pareva di rappresentar una parte da ombra in scena lugubre; o pure di esser nell’antro della Sibilla” [I felt as if I were playing the part of a ghost in a lugubrious scene, or else as if I were in the cave of the Sybill].9 Later, after giving an example of the brother’s honorable knightly behavior, he adds, referring to the Gerusalemme liberata: “In sentimento poco diverso milantava Argante contra Tancredi per la morte di Clorinda” [Not so differently did Argante fight against Tancredi after Clorinda’s death].10

4 Ibid., p. 102. 5 Ibid., p. 124. 6 Ibid., p. 162. 7 Ibid., p. 26. 8 Ibid., p. 130. 9 Ibid., p. 108. 10 Ibid., p. 109. Argante makes a solemn knightly vow of revenge after Clorinda’s death: “odi ’l tu, Cielo; e se in ciò manco, / fulmina su’l mio capo; io la vendetta / giuro di far ne l’omicida franco, / che per la costei morte a me s’aspetta, né questa spada mai depor dal fianco / insin ch’ella a Tancredi il cor non passi / e ’l cadavero infame a i corvi lassi” [Hear Heaven, and if he break his oath and word, / Upon this head cast thunder in thy wrath: / I will destroy and kill that Christian lord / Who this fair dame by night thus murdered hath, / Nor from my side I will ungird this sword / Till Tancredi’s heart it cleave, and shed his blood, /

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These examples are but a few of Belli’s consistent use of literary elements in his travel account, which foregrounds the literary and the entertaining over the factual and informative. As we shall see below, in his representation of travel, Belli problematizes the illusion of objectivity in travel writing by drawing attention to its essential construct as narrative. His repeated commentary on his choices of style and content demonstrates the subjective nature of relaying real events and experiences to his readers. His textual play includes the shifting temporal and spatial position of Belli-narrator vis-à-vis the trip. Another key element is the mixing of prose and poetry in order to represent movement through space. He ultimately produces more of a commentary on artistic expression through travel and narrative construct in general than on observations of foreign cultures and topographies. Venetian Ambassadorial Culture In order to understand the innovative characteristics of the Osservazioni, Belli’s account should be considered at the privileged intersection of some of the most significant cultural currents of early modern Venice: its ambassadorial tradition, and the dominance of its literary academies and printing industry. Although he traveled during a period generally agreed upon as one on the brink of decline in the Venetian as well as the Italian context, the Venetian republic was still a leading merchant city whose artistic and intellectual environments remained relatively free of the repressive measures of the Papal States and imperial Spain.11 Venice’s trade links to the Mediterranean and the Middle and Far East had made it one of the most important European ports of departure for foreign travel by sea, and the Serenissima had for centuries been the home to travelers and travel writers. In Belli’s time, travel writers of the Venetian republic still occupied a prestigious position, one first held by Marco Polo at the end of the thirteenth century. The travel accounts of early modern merchants and navigators such as Alvise Da Mosto, or ambassadors such as Giosafat Barbaro and Ambrogio Contarini, eventually collected and published in Giovanni Battista Ramusio’s Navigazioni e viaggi, helped establish the reputation of Venetians as experienced voyagers and acute observers. In the specific case of diplomatic missions, ambassadors of the Venetian republic, according to a law passed in 1425, were required to provide a written report, or And leave his corpse to wolves and crows for food]. (Canto XII, octave 104). Torquato Tasso, Gerusalemme liberata, vol. 2, pp. 388–9, trans. Edward Fairfax. 11 “Il Seicento rappresenta nella complessa pagine della storia di Venezia l’estrema grande occasione di reagire, frattanto a livello artistico, all’ineluttabile destino che costringeva ormai la Repubblica ad un ruolo di crescente marginalità nelle vicende politiche europee” [The seventeenth century represents, in the complex pages of Venetian history, the last big opportunity to react, sometimes at the artistic level, to the inevitable destiny that was forcing the Republic into a role of increasing marginality in European political affairs]. Lionello Puppi and Ruggero Rugolo, “‘Un’ordinaria forma non alletta.’ Arte, riflessione sull’arte e società,” in Gino Benzoni and Gaetano Cozzi (eds), La Venezia Barocca, vol. 7 of Storia di Venezia dalle origini alla caduta della Serenissima (Rome: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana, 1997), p. 595.

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relazione, upon their return from other Italian cities or abroad.12 These accounts were to include an overall view of geographical, political, and cultural situations abroad, and to focus on diplomatic issues.13 Although these texts—again according to the laws of the Venetian republic—were considered state secrets, they were read in European circles in both manuscript and published form, thus becoming available as models for travel writing.14 Furthermore, as Belli was most likely aware, by the seventeenth century, the form and style of the relazione had become increasingly relevant, and it was no longer perceived simply as a container of facts. Instead, a well-written text, showing one’s mastery of style and powers of observation, could have a positive effect on one’s reputation and authority, and ambassadors often spent months polishing their travel prose.15 Belli never served as a diplomat and remained officially marginal to Zorzi’s missions in Holland and France, but he obviously moved in ambassadorial milieus in which the relazione was a fundamental model for travel writing. His awareness of the relazione paradigm is most evident in his constant apologies for what he perceives as the lack of quantity and quality of factual information in his text. The relatively new stylistic preoccupations of ambassadors in their writing might also have influenced Belli’s choice of leaving travel narrative open to literary exercise. The Accademie While the primary subject matter of the Osservazioni is directly linked to Belli’s contact with diplomatic circles, Belli’s approach to narrating travel owes more to seventeenth-century academic culture in the Republic of Venice. A patrician who had taken minor religious orders, he was part of the Accademia Olimpica of Vicenza, the Accademia Occulta of Brescia, and the Accademia degli Incogniti in Venice. The Accademia degli Incogniti, for which Belli served twice as secretary, was one of 12 The original legislation regarding oral accounts goes back to 1296. See Luigi Firpo, Inghilterra, vol. 1 of Relazioni di ambasciatori veneti al senato (Turin: Bottega d’Erasmo, 1965), p. v. 13 “Il contributo più consistente al quadro geopolitico di quelle nazioni è stato dato senz’altro dalle relazioni degli ambasciatori veneti, le più dettagliate e precise, frutto di una controllata tradizione politica” [The most consistent contribution to understanding the geo-political context of those countries (of Europe) has undoubtedly been the reports of the Venetian ambassadors, the most detailed and precise, and the product of a controlled political tradition]. Salvante, Il “Pellegrino” in Oriente, pp. 79–80. 14 Luigi Firpo comments that the relazioni were “avidamente ricercate, trascritte, divulgate in tutti gli ambienti colti d’Europa” [avidly searched out, transcribed, and circulated in all the cultivated environments of Europe]. Firpo, p. vi. 15 “[Q]uando gli ambasciadori … si dilungano concettosi, vien da dire che la relazione non si limita ad essere un rapporto al governo, una ‘notitia’ al senato; ma che tende, pure, all’esibizione—non sempre felice—e di pensosità e di valentia letteraria” [When ambassadors … linger in conceits, this means that the account is not limited to a report to the government or news for the Senate. Rather, it moves towards demonstrations—and not always successful ones—of concerns about literary prowess]. Gino Benzoni, “La vita intellettuale”, in Benzoni and Cozzi (eds), La Venezia Barocca, p. 817.

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the most influential literary academies of the time in Italy, known for its protection of anti-papal libertine thinkers, such as Ferrante Pallavicino, and for its extensive editorial activities.16 Founded by Venetian Giovanni Francesco Loredan before 1628, it boasted a heterogeneous group of members from both Italy and abroad, and enjoyed national and international recognition.17 The Incogniti took Giambattista Marino as its principal lyrical model and, as Albert Mancini notes, adhered to “una poetica fondata sulla ricerca della novità nella forma” [a poetics founded on the investigation of novelty of form].18 Indeed, this academy had a varied textual production: essays, discourses, historical writings, short prose fiction, poetry, letters, and novels.19 Although travel accounts were not part of the Incogniti’s repertoire, Belli benefited from the Incogniti as a stable point of reference and protection for exploring diverse literary forms, including travel writing. Except for two volumes of poetry, Rime (Vicenza: Amadio, 1613; Verona: Merlo, 1620) and a tragedy, Caterina d’Alessandria (first edition, Verona: B. Merlo, 1621), Belli published the majority of his works as a member of the Incogniti: a canzone entitled Nella rinovazione dell’Accademia degl’Incogniti (Venice: Sarzina, 1632), after the 1631 plague that ravaged Venice and other Italian towns; a religious play, Esequie del Redentore (Venice: M. Ginammi, 1633); 16 Mario Infelise writes: “L’académie des Incogniti, loin d’être une bande de personnages extravagants et isolés, semblait représenter l’idéologie majoritaire de la classe dirigeante vénitienne et la protection assurée à Pallavicino en était un signe éclatant. Il fallait sauver toute marge d’autonomie possible contre la curie romaine. C’était là le sens de la défense de la littérature libertine” [The academy of the Incogniti, far from being a group of extravagant and isolated characters, seemed to represent the majority opinion of the Venetian ruling class, and the protection assured Pallavicino was one of the most overt signs of this. It was imperative to save any margin of autonomy from the Church in Rome. The defense of libertine literature came out of that]. Mario Infelise, “La crise de la librairie vénitienne 1620–1650,” in Frédéric Barbier and Henri-Jean Martin (eds), Le livre et l’historien. Etudes offertes en l’honneur du Professeur Henri-Jean Martin (Geneva: Droz, 1997), p. 350. Incogniti member Ferrante Pallavicino was decapitated in France in 1644 for his anti-papal and anti-Barberini writings. 17 The precise date of the Accademia’s founding remains unclear. Nina Cannizzaro has provided significant evidence that the Incogniti began meeting earlier than the traditionally agreed-upon founding year of 1630. See Nina Cannizzaro, “Studies on Guido Casoni (1561–1642) and Venetian Academies” (Harvard University dissertation, 2001), particularly pp. 1, 16, 303–33, 341, and 357–67. In the Osservazioni, Belli refers to Loredan’s meetings without actually naming the Incogniti. About sixty academies flourished in Venice during the course of the seventeenth century. See Monica Miato, L’Accademia degli Incogniti di Giovan Francesco Loredan (Florence: Olschki, 1998), pp. 10, 237. “La varietà degli italiani è tanta da fare degli Incogniti la più variopinta accolita dell’Italia barocca” [The variety of Italians is enough to make the Incogniti the most diverse group of baroque Italy]. Benzoni, “La vita intellettuale,” p. 858. 18 Albert Mancini, Romanzi e romanzieri del Seicento (Naples: Società Editrice Napoletana, 1981), p. 40. 19 “L’accademia [of the Incogniti] è quella, nell’Italia del ’600, a più alto tasso di rappresentanza in fatto di comportamenti e di scelte espressive … In questo il marinismo si istituzionalizza” [The academy of the Incogniti is the one which, in seventeenth-century Italy, best represents the breadth of attitudes and choices of expression. Literary marinismo becomes institutionalized in this academy]. Benzoni, “La vita intellettuale,” pp. 870–71.

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a discourse entitled “L’amore della Patria,” in Discorsi accademici (Venice: Sarzina, 1635); and a novel, Gli accidenti di Cloramindo (Venice: Bertani, 1639). He also contributed two short stories to the Novelle amorose (Venice: Eredi del Sarzina, 1641–51), and three to the expanded Cento novelle amorose (Venice: Guerigli, 1651) by the members of the Incogniti. The Osservazioni (Venice: Pinelli, 1632), while it diverges from the textual production of the Accademia degli Incogniti, is his best-known publication.20 Print Culture As the number and variety of Belli’s texts suggest, academic circles, and in particular the Incogniti, offered an ideal environment for engaging in various forms of intellectual exercise and provided ample publishing opportunities.21 Venice was the publishing capital of Italy, and the Incogniti—primarily through Loredan—maintained a close connection with several important Venetian publishers, such as Giacomo Sarzina and Francesco Valvasense.22 According to one source, no fewer than 50 per cent of the texts approved for publication by religious authorities (not counting illegal or counterfeit editions) from 1632 to 1642 were related in some way to the literary and cultural activities of the Incogniti.23 With the academy functioning as an artistic and political protector, a member could presumably write and express himself with more liberty and with less attention to pre-existing norms or restrictions, be they political, religious, or artistic. 20 See Introduction, note 5. 21 “I letterati, filosofi, storici ed altro, laici od ecclesiastici per lo più in rotta con le loro autorità, che fecero parte degli Incogniti, poterono sperare di aver mezzi per la pubblicazione, mezzi in certi casi per la sopravvivenza, spazi e protezioni per lo sfogo eterodosso, per la circolazione—almeno clandestina—dei loro libri, spazi, senon di libertà, almeno di ‘sottrazione’ per taluni loro atteggiamento di vita” [The literati, philosophers, historians, both secular and non-secular, who were challenging their figures of authority and who were a part of the Incogniti, could hope to have the means to publish, and in certain cases the means to survive, and to have space and protection for heterodox expression and for the circulation—at least clandestine—of their books. These spaces, if not spaces for freedom, were at least spaces in which they could find respite from certain facets of their lifestyle]. Giovanni Scarabello, “Paure, superstizioni, infamie presso i governanti,” in Storia della cultura veneta. Il Seicento, 4/2 (Vicenza: Neri Pozza, 1984), p. 360. 22 According to some calculations, Venetian editions made up at least 26 per cent of Italian publications of the seventeenth century, and Venetian editors may have published as many as 19 thousand books during the course of the century. Marino Zorzi, “La produzione e la circolazione del libro,” in Benzoni and Cozzi (eds), La Venezia Barocca, p. 937. Infelise notes that intense competition among printers facilitated the publication of the Incogniti’s writings: “La production libertine de l’Académie des Incogniti trouva un accueil facile auprès des trop nombreuses presses sans commandes des petits et moyens typographes” [The libertine literary production of the Academy of the Incogniti found a willing reception from the overly numerous presses with no orders from small- and medium-sized typographers]. Infelise, p. 349. 23 Zorzi, p. 956.

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In this context, Francesco Belli found a supportive publishing network and audience for his Osservazioni. He could afford to play with narrative because experiments were perfectly acceptable, if not expected, within academic circles. His awareness of his own privileged position is evident when he writes, while recounting a discussion with fellow Venetians: “Si vede ogni dì nelle carte che molti virtuosi, come musici, pittori, e poeti, ed altri, non vogliono esercitare il talento a voglia de’ loro padroni; perché pare ad essi di sentire un non so che di violenza che non gli lascia operare liberamente” [One sees every day on paper that many virtuosos, such as musicians, painters, poets, and others no longer wish to exercise their talent according to the wishes of their patrons, because it seems to them that they suffer some kind of violence at the hands of those who do not allow them to work freely].24 Belli, who has no patron and is part of an academic community, can enjoy all the advantages of the liberty to “work freely.”25 His comment could also be referring to the particular position of travelers, the vast majority of whom, in Belli’s time, had to answer to a greater political, economic, or religious authority. Here, he asserts his own right to artistic autonomy in his travel writing. The Venetian Novel While travel writing intersects with a variety of literary and non-fictional genres of seventeenth-century literature, the developing Italian novel provides an especially important context for considering Belli’s account. The novel was one of the major expressions of literary innovation at the time, one nurtured especially by the Incogniti, including Belli, himself a novelist. Venetian novels, which became popular in the early seventeenth century, are made up principally of chivalric and sometimes picaresque-inspired narratives in which numerous protagonists face a multitude of obstacles in order to escape perils, find their legitimate spouse, and return to their kingdom. The texts, consisting of dense prose often laden with figurative language, lists, and details, although conveyed by an omniscient narrator, sometimes include first-person narration by several different characters in the form of direct discourse or letters.26 Loredan’s best-known novel, Dianea (1635), mixes love stories with political topics. Three of the most popular early Venetian novels, a trilogy (Eromena [1624], Donzella Desterrada [1627], and Coralbo [1632]) by Incogniti member Giovanni Francesco Biondi, receive ample praise in the Osservazioni:27

24 Belli, Osservazioni nel viaggio, p. 64. 25 Belli considered Loredan an artistic mentor and protector who encouraged his literary inspiration. In the preface (“Autore a chi legge”) to the Gli accidenti di Cloramindo, Belli states, in a typical rhetorical apology, that Loredan convinced him not to burn the manuscript of the novel, but to publish it. 26 Recent publications on the baroque Italian novel include Anna Maria Pedullà, Il romanzo barocco (Naples: Liguori, 2001). 27 Biondi was considered by Tommaso Stigliani to be the originator of “‘modo di prosa’ mariniano” [prose version of Marino’s style]. Guglielminetti, Manierismo e barocco, p. 451.

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Literature and Identity in Italian Baroque Travel Writing Tutte le nazioni vivono adoratrici delle pellegrine ed inarrivabili bellezze dell’Eromena. Tutte le provincie ammirano con venerazione i reconditi sentimenti della Donzella Desterrada. Tutti i regni attendono con disiderio sopremo i misteriosi e dilettosi avvenimenti del Coralbo. [All countries live in adoration of the wanderings and unreachable beauty of Eromena. All provinces admire and venerate the hidden emotions of the Donzella Desterrada. All kingdoms wait with utmost desire the mysterious and enjoyable adventures of Coralbo.]28

This hyperbolic language (“tutti,” “tutte”) also serves Belli’s goal of glorifying Venetian culture and the Incogniti. As Giovanni Getto points out, these and other Venetian novels of the time use travel as a narrative skeleton upon which to apply the meat of the adventures of numerous characters: “Il viaggio è piuttosto un pretesto, l’impalcatura e il sostegno propizio per il dipanarsi della vicenda o dell’intreccio delle vicende. Il movimento del racconto si sviluppa sul movimento del viaggio: mentre sulle pause di questo crescono le storie dei personaggi o le loro conversazioni” [The journey is more of a pretext, the scaffolding and the opportune support for the unfolding of the events or of the plot. The movement of the story develops along the movement of the journey, while the stories of the characters and their conversations come out in the pauses].29 Belli’s text does not have the multiple exiles, disguises, reunions, and other vicissitudes typical of these novels, but in general terms, travel is a pretext for narrative exploration. Albert Mancini, in his work on the baroque novel, identifies two characteristics that are relevant to Belli’s text. First, he notes the sheer variety that can be found in the genre: “Nel romanzo secentesco confluiscono materiali di ogni genere: brani saggistici e brani schiettamente narrativi, toni alti e toni bassi, parti nobilmente poetiche e parti grezzamente prosastiche” [Elements of all genres come together in seventeenth-century novels: essay-like and purely narrative passages, high and low registers, refined poetic parts and rough, prosaic parts].30 The elasticity of the novel has resonances in Belli’s inclusion of different elements in his travel narrative. Mancini also considers the self-conscious commentary in the prefaces of novels as emblematic of this kind of prose: Resta significativa … la circostanza che nelle prefazioni i narratori si scusino di continuo per le deficienze d’industria formale adducendo le attenuanti dell’inesperienza, della fretta nel comporre e di altre pressioni esterne. Simili ammissioni non restano uno stanco motivo retorico, ma sanno cogliere il senso più sintomatico della coscienza del rapporto stile-genere letterario. [It remains significant that, in their prefaces, narrators continuously apologize for the lack of formal work, claiming the impediments of inexperience, of the haste in writing, and 28 Belli, Osservazioni nel viaggio, p. 132. Coralbo was published the same year as the Osservazioni, and by the same publisher. 29 Giovanni Getto, Barocco in prosa e poesia (Milan: Rizzoli, 1969), pp. 323–4. 30 Mancini, Romanzi, p. 18.

Travel Writing and Travel as Writing in Francesco Belli’s Osservazioni nel viaggio 105 other external pressures. Similar admissions are not merely a tired rhetorical ploy, but effectively grasp the symptomatic self-consciousness regarding the relationship between style and literary genre.]31

This apologizing or explicating, which reveals an awareness of strict categories grouping genre and style, is precisely the type of commentary in which Belli engages, self-conscious himself of the innovative form of travel writing he is creating. Although there is no preface to the Osservazioni, Belli presents his ideas about style and genre in the opening pages. After explaining the circumstances of the trip and his decision to write about it, he makes the common pledge of travel writers to write only of real events and of situations that he has personally witnessed. Yet he casts aside the expected principles of unadorned style—unlike Della Valle, who claims to adhere to them—and asserts his right to do what he considers will enhance the account. The following statement functions as his artistic credo: La storia deve essere non quella che vuole, ma quella che è: perché l’essere ha relazione alla qualità delle cose seguite, e la volontà soggiace alla disposizione di alterarle. Io non niego, però, che non sia lecito avantaggiare ed abbellire un tal poco le cose con qualche aiuto di concetti e dilicatezza di stile, non essendo cotali fregi più alla fine che gli ornamenti nelle donne, che non le rendono più belle in sostanza ma più aggradevoli in apparenza. Per altro sendo stato il viaggio continovo o pochissime volte interrotto, non sarà meraviglia che io tocchi appena gli oggetti e accenni gli avvenimenti; e che in ciò io somigli a’ cani d’Egitto, che bevono l’acqua del Nilo, fuggendo; overo come il pittore, a cui non venendo permesso di ritrarre una dama, che furtivamente ne raccoglie il meglio che può, o dalla strettezza dell’occasioni o dalla penuria del tempo. Toccherò adunque le cose vedute e udite: e se talora introdurrò qualche cosa che paia diversa e lontana dalla materia, non sarà che per fecondar la sterilità della stessa o per motivo che me ne venga dalla medesima. [The story must be not what it wants to be, but what it is: because being is contingent upon the quality of things observed, and one’s will is subject to a disposition to alter them. I will not deny, however, that it is appropriate to make things more appealing and a little more beautiful with the help of conceits or a delicateness of style, since these decorations are no more than women’s ornaments, which do not make them more beautiful in substance, but rather more attractive in appearance. Also, since the journey was a continuous one, and rarely interrupted, it should not be a surprise if I barely touch upon the objects and allude to events. And in that I resemble the dogs of Egypt, who flee after drinking from the Nile; or I am like the painter who, prevented from making a portrait of a lady, furtively assembles what he can, either because he has such few occasions to do so, or for the lack of time. I will, then, touch upon things seen and heard: and if I sometimes introduce something that seems different or far from the subject, it is only to fertilize the sterility of it or because of what occurs to me (on such a subject).]32 31 Ibid., p. 58. 32 Belli, Osservazioni nel viaggio, p. 2. Belli, quite within the prevailing baroque mode, relates writing to painting on several occasions in the account. The reference to Egypt and the Nile (the decidedly feline environment in which the dogs of Belli’s simile are threatened) is not unusual for the time period. The Incogniti’s motto “Ex Ignoto Notus” [out of the unknown, the known] refers to the then-undiscovered sources of the Nile.

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The statement is more than an apology for having had little time to gather information, or a justification for the introduction of seemingly inappropriate elements. It represents a small revolution in travel writing. Using the swiftness of the trip as his principal excuse, bolstered by his preliminary declaration of the right to “embellish,” and employing a series of similes that are effective in his argumentation, he implicitly challenges the presumed division between the factual model for historical writing, on the one hand, and the figurative, literary model, on the other. Unsurprising are his academic notions about what exactly can “fertilize” the text: these include verse, quoting of canonical works, referring to contemporary writers and members of Italian academies of the Veneto region, and paying homage in effusively baroque style to Venice and to his adopted hometown of Verona. While apologetic in explaining his narrative and stylistic choices, he nevertheless proposes the objective circumstances of the trip as the vehicle for the exploration of the literary elements that are most appealing to his artistic sensibilities as an accademico and to his academic readers. The Self-conscious Travel Writer Belli’s self-consciousness with regard to style and questions of genre, echoed in the prefaces of many baroque novels, is not limited to the beginning of the text: it is an integral part of the account. In the continuous commentary on his textual choices, he uses two principal pretexts: the lack of time for careful observation, and the desire to avoid any redundancy that would presumably bore the educated reader and upperclass Venetians who know about the basic rituals of travel and the carrying out of official ceremonies and meetings. For example, when staying in Bergamo on his way to the Alps, he writes: “Io non discriverò i particolari dello incontro; atteso che se ne veggono ogni giorno, e nello Stato Veneto forse più che altrove” [I will not write of the details of the meeting, since one can see such things every day, and perhaps even more in the Venetian State than elsewhere].33 He acknowledges the repetition of facts when, for instance, he tells of his navigation on the Reuss river: “Io ridico cosa già detta, che in tutte le ville, terre, e città è abbondanza di fontane ornate di alcuna statova, e per ordinario di figure humane, vestite, e armate all’usanza loro” [I am re-stating something already said, that in all towns, lands, and cities there is an abundance of fountains decorated with statues usually representing a human figure, clothed and armed according to local custom].34 Often, Belli draws a parallel between the brevity in landscape description and the lack of actual time spent observing. While traveling by boat, he explains, “Io parlo di quello che si poteva scoprire dal letto del fiume in passando” [I speak of that which I could see in passing, from the river],35 and later, near Antwerp, “non ho toccato, e non toccarò che il poco veduto in passando” [I have not touched upon, and will not touch upon, the little I saw in passing].36 In other moments, he refers the reader to alternative sources. For example, in France, he defers to the words 33 34 35 36

Belli, Osservazioni nel viaggio, p. 8. Ibid., p. 28. Ibid., p. 43. Ibid., p. 123.

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of other writers, including Giambattista Marino’s epistles of travels to France: “Di Parigi, tralasciando di ricorrere a gli scrittori e di ritoccar le cose toccate dal Marini in quella sua gentilissima lettera, dirò poche cose, ma vere, non per relazione, ma di vista” [From Paris, avoiding references to the work of famous writers or touching upon those things touched upon by Marino in his most delightful letter, I will say few things, but true ones, not discerned in a report, but by sight].37 Another of Belli’s strategies for avoiding repetition or potentially “sterile” descriptions is to leave scenes to the reader’s imagination. While on the way to Seltz on the Rhine, more intent on recounting conversation than daily ritual, he explains: “Lasciando che altri supponga lo antecedente del pranzo e del solito riposo, passo alla quistione” [Leaving others to imagine the time before lunch and the usual rest time, I’ll move on to the debate].38 Later on, while waiting for an ambassadorial assembly near The Hague, he describes his meeting Venetian ambassador Luigi Contarini and an international crowd: “Lascio all’imaginazion di chi legge le accoglienza scambievoli e le dimostrazioni reciproche” [I’ll leave the mutual greetings and reciprocal pleasantries to the imagination of whomever is reading].39 Expressing disappointment after seeing the Louvre, he writes: “Sopra il Lovre non voglio far considerazioni minute, perché in Italia è cosa ben nota, e veduta poco manco, che da infiniti dirò solamente che l’oggetto non corrisponde alla fama” [I do not wish to give detailed considerations of the Louvre, because it is so well known in Italy, and has been no less seen, and of infinite remarks I will say only that the object does not match its reputation].40 Such commentary effectively rejects the minute and diaristic recounting constitutive of much travel writing, allowing questions of discourse to prevail. The Clock Tower at Strasbourg Belli’s attributing his choice of narrative elements to external factors, however, while indicative of concern for pleasing the reader, is ultimately a rhetorical device for claiming his right to “work freely” in his narrative. The description of Strasbourg Cathedral’s clock tower is part of an overtly subjective selection of elements to consider. When Belli mentions the city’s clock tower, he no longer blames time limitations for his lack of detail.41 Instead of commenting on the town and its urban features, Belli dedicates one page to describing the intricately fashioned clock and other clocks of equal repute. The traveler’s admiration inevitably echoes the baroque fascination, especially in poetry, with clocks, both as mechanical objects and, as

37 Ibid., p. 134. He refers to Marino’s letters on French customs, which were published during 1627–29. See Giambattista Marino, Lettere, ed. Marziano Guglielminetti (Turin: Einaudi, 1966). 38 Belli, Osservazioni nel viaggio, p. 47. 39 Ibid., p. 91. 40 Ibid., p. 137. 41 Belli calls Strasbourg “Argentina,” from the city’s Roman name of Argentorum.

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indicators of the passage of time, portentous reminders of humankind’s mortality.42 He uses hyperbolic language to depict the clock tower: “altissimo” [very tall], with “vaghezze mirabilissime” [most amazing decorations], and “una delle più belle fatture del mondo” [one of the most beautiful constructions in the world], conveying the awe-inspiring artistry and technological novelty of the object.43 Belli turns to Petrarchan poetics to convey his fixation on the clock tower and his difficulty in leaving both the object and his telling of it. Taking on the role of the poet–wanderer, he says finally: “Confesso col principe de’ toscani poeti, ‘Che io non sapea di tal vista levarmi.’ Il detto è il manco di quello che vi restarebbe da dire” [I confess with the prince of Tuscan poets, “That I did not know how to take my gaze from it.” The saying is the least of what could be said].44 The textual space accorded to the clock, although unusual, further underscores the centrality of time (or lack of it) in the text and in determining narrative and descriptive choices. The clock, often described in poetry as controlling time, here holds the traveler’s, the travel writer’s, and presumably the reader’s, attention.45 Time and Perspective The clock tower of Strasbourg seems to symbolize time as the abstract concept that most captivates Belli as traveler and as narrator. The originality of his text lies in his manipulations of two temporal aspects of travel writing: perspective and the representation of the passing of time. In the travel accounts available to Belli as models, the narrative, usually in the first person, incorporates a consistent temporal relationship between the traveler as narrator and the traveler as character. This relationship follows two possible patterns. In one pattern, usually associated with accounts in diary or epistolary form, the narrator appears to write on a regular basis at the end of a determined amount of time, travel, or series of events. In this case, the temporal perspective is consistently closer to the “real time” of events. According to the other pattern, typical of the relazione, the account is presented as an organic entity conveyed from the perspective of the 42 See the introduction to Vitaniello Bonito (ed.), Le parole e le ore. Gli orologi barocchi: antologia del Seicento (Palermo: Sellerio, 1996), and Maravall, pp. 383–4. See also Vitaniello Bonito, L’occhio del tempo. L’orologio barocco tra letteratura, scienza, ed emblematica (Bologna: Università di Bologna, 1995). 43 Belli, Osservazioni nel viaggio, p. 46. His highlighting of the clock tower reflects a desire to impress the reader and to demonstrate the “‘meraviglia’ tanto perseguita nel Seicento” [the marvelous that was so sought after in the seventeenth century]. Guglielminetti, Manierismo e barocco, p. 259. 44 Belli, Osservazioni nel viaggio, pp. 46–7. The line is from Petrarch’s Trionfo della fama, III, 1. Tasso uses the same verse in the Gerusalemme liberata, Canto VIII, octave 39. 45 Once Belli has finished highlighting the clock, however, he complains once again about the limited time he has to see and describe the rest of the city: “Lascio alla discrezione de’ galantuomini lo imaginar ciò che nello spazio d’un quarto d’ora si possa raccogliere e ricordare” [I’ll leave to the discretion of gentlemen to imagine what one can gather and remember in one-quarter hour’s time], p. 47. Such a specific increment of time, fifteen minutes, suggests that Belli also made practical use of the clock.

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narrator once the trip is over and can thus be viewed as a whole.46 The creation of a consistent temporal perspective remains, of course, a narrative device, and does not necessarily correspond to any real time or place of writing. Practically speaking, there was often a long temporal gap between the events of a trip and their being put into written form, and the sense of immediacy between the time of the event and its recounting was simply a temporal trompe-l’œil. Furthermore, most texts destined for publication, as well as many that were to be distributed, were subject to changes and additions. Belli mentions that he took notes, wrote in prose, and composed poetry during the trip, and that his account was not published until five years after his return to Italy. In his case, nonetheless, there is no attempt to create a standard point of view. He blurs temporal distinctions and disregards a temporally fixed point of view with regard to the real time of travel by blending the two modalities. In some moments, he recalls events as if they were still fresh in his mind and recounted at the end of the day. At other times, Belli, predominantly using the past tense, appears to describe actions from a post-trip perspective. The ambiguity highlights the travel narrative construct in its multilayered temporal aspects. Gérard Genette’s work in narratology provides appropriate terms for considering these temporal aspects in his distinction between histoire, récit, and narration, which he defines as follows: Histoire [est] le signifié ou contenu narratif, récit proprement dit le signifiant, énoncé, discours ou texte narratif lui-même, et narration l’acte narratif producteur et, par extension, l’ensemble de la situation réelle ou fictive dans laquelle il prend place. [Histoire is the signified or narrative content, récit the signifier, that which is enunciated, the discourse or narrative text itself, and narration the very act of narration and, by extension, the whole of the real or fictional situation in which it (the act of narration) takes place.]47

By placing himself as narrator in different temporal relationships to that which he narrates, Belli brings attention not only to his travels (histoire) and the travel text (récit), but also to the very act of writing (narration), complicating his role as narrator and character. Sometimes, the events are presented from the end of the day of travel or visits using verbs in the past tense. Recounting a macabre scene near Nogent in France, 46 Adrien Pasquali defines the two points of view as “modalities” (“modalités”): “a) le récit (presque) simultané, encore fortement redevable de la logique des ‘possibles narratifs,’ les virtualités de l’expérience étant (presque) immédiatement consignées par le récit; b) le récit ultérieur plus ou moins fortement déterminé, et par l’issue de l’expérience passée du voyage, et par le lieu d’énonciation du récit” [a) the almost simultaneous narration, still dependent upon the logic of “possible narratives”, the virtual elements of the experience being almost immediately established by the narration; b) the ulterior narration more or less strongly determined both by the outcome of the experience, now past, of the journey, and by the place of the enunciation of the narration]. Adrien Pasquali, Le tour des horizons, pp. 112–13. 47 Gérard Genette, Figures III (Paris: Seuil, 1972), p. 72. I use Genette’s term narration in italics to distinguish from my generic use of the word.

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for example, Belli recalls: “Oggi vedemmo una scena di molti appicati” [Today we saw a scene of many hanged men].48 Later, in reference to a day’s navigation on the Saône river, he writes: “La vista d’oggi, se il vento non ci havesse isturbati, haverebbe appagato mirabilmente lo sguardo con colli bellissimi, vicini alle rive, fertili di herbaggi, di grani, e di vini” [The view today, had the wind not hindered us, would have wonderfully satisfied our gaze with very beautiful hills, near the riverbanks, fertile with vegetables and grains and vineyards].49 In these cases, the temporal distance between histoire and the narration that produces the récit is slight. At other times, however, the distance is wholly ambiguous. When Belli uses the imperative mode in mentioning geographical placement or time of day, he complicates the narrative perspective. For example, after relating the gruesome legend of a tyrant of Bacharach, he goes on to explain a regional ritual of hospitality: “Poiché siamo per uscire del Palatinato facciamo succedere al tragico avvenimento predetto una usanza molto piacevole di quello stato” [Since we are about to leave the Palatinate, let’s have a very pleasant custom in that state follow the tragic event].50 Near The Hague, he explains: “Poiché siamo vicini al bosco; diciamone qualche cosa” [Since we are near the forest, let us say something about it].51 Or, while describing Paris: “Poiché è di notte, parliamo di lumi” [Since it is nighttime, let us speak of lights].52 All these metatextual or meta-travel comments have the same effect: they make it impossible to determine the position of the narrator vis-à-vis the narration and the histoire. Belli’s comments could be parenthetical additions made at the time and place of the narration, or else of the histoire. The effect is either to position the reader near the events (near Bacharach or in Paris), or close to the time of the narrator’s reconstruction of those events or situations.53 When narrating his departure from Turin, he writes: “lascio anch’io la città; e con buona ed horrevole compagnia di alcuni mercatanti di garbo comincio il viaggio” [I am also leaving the city, and I begin the journey in the good and honorable company of some gracious merchants].54 In this case, Belli refers specifically to movement in the present tense and, because movement virtually precludes simultaneous documentation (as film or photographs might be able to), the illusion of simultaneity is more problematic. Still, there are no precise indications of the circumstances of when or where the narration is taking place in relation to actual events. 48 Belli, Osservazioni nel viaggio, p. 152. 49 Ibid., p. 159. 50 Ibid., p. 71. 51 Ibid., p. 100 52 Ibid., p. 134. 53 Pietro Della Valle comments similarly, but much more rarely, and usually from the fixed point of view of a traveler writing on a regular basis from a specific place and on a specific date. For example, after recounting a murder committed by one of his servants, he writes: “Orsù, lasciamo i ragionamenti mesti e torniamo a’ viaggi, e usciamo un poco da Baghdad per le campagne intorno” [Come now, let us leave behind these sad considerations and return to the travels, and go out a bit from Baghdad to the surrounding countryside]. Pietro Della Valle, Viaggi, I.705. Letter 17 from Baghdad, December 10 and 23, 1616. 54 Belli, Osservazioni nel viaggio, p. 176.

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The narrator’s use of the future tense in explaining his récit creates similar ambiguities. For example, while describing The Hague, he explains: “Toccherò succintamente … e con sincerità di giudizio la qualità del paese … che mi paia degno di non esser tacciuto” [I will succinctly and with sincerity of judgment touch upon the qualities of the town that seem to me worth not keeping silent about].55 He makes a similar comment in Paris: “Se restarà qualcosa da toccar intorno Parigi, lo faremo alla conchiusione” [If there is anything else to say about Paris, we will do so at the end].56 Again, because the temporal context of the narration is unclear, the future in relation to that context is equally unclear, even if Belli is writing after having seen the various cities and can treat the topic organically. The same temporal uncertainty persists in similar contexts in which the narrator makes his metanarrative remarks in the present tense. Belli recounts his brief accompanying of Luigi Contarini, the Venetian ambassador, who is on his way to England: “Lo servimmo fino a Delf, città della quale io doveva toccar qualche cosa nel nostro arrivar in Aga: ma la notte mi tolse il vederla. Lo faccio adesso” [We served him until Delf, a city about which I was to write something before arriving in The Hague. But night-time prevented me from seeing it. So I do it now].57 The use of the preterit and the present suggests a significant change in time and perspective between the events and their recounting. However, the temporal indication of the adverb “adesso” remains unclear, because it could refer to the récit, in other words at this point in the text (and its story), or to the narration, at that particular point of the act of narrating. The mixing of different temporal perspectives creates a surprise effect and in some cases a paradoxical point of view, one that is both from the end of the day of travel and from another point further along. This unusual variation reflects an innovative desire in travel writing to explore and incorporate different narrative possibilities. Narrating Movement through Time and Space Another aspect related to time that Belli emphasizes is the representation of movement through space. In traditional forms of travel writing, the narrative follows the course of travel in a linear fashion from point A to point B. Arrival at destination (with the name of a town) or the end of the day (with the date) are typical ways of marking the passage of time. Belli gives the names of towns passed, provides specific dates, and also conveys the group’s progress between one point and the next. The narrative of the trip on the Rhine becomes what one could call a mimesis of travel, a discursive exploration into ways of suggesting the rhythm or movement of the boat along the flowing river.58 The notion of narrative, even the act of writing, mimicking motion through space has Petrarchan echoes, recalling Petrarch’s writing 55 Ibid., p. 96. 56 Ibid., p. 138. 57 Ibid., p. 93. 58 Genette calls running water “[l’]eau baroque de prédilection” [the favorite water of the baroque]. Gérard Genette, Figures (Paris: Seuil, 1966), p. 24.

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while navigating the Po in the Familiares or De sui ipsius et multorum ignorantia [On his own ignorance and that of others].59 Adrien Pasquali, in considering the speed of modern travel, makes a pertinent observation: Si la vitesse impose une vision brouillée et fragmentaire demandant à être complétée pour être nommée, le récit de cette vision passera fréquemment par le relais de la métaphore … la vitesse du déplacement n’est pas sans incidence sur la vitesse du récit, dans sa valeur mimétique. [If speed imposes a blurred and fragmentary image needing to be completed in order to be named, the narration of that image will often pass through the mediation of metaphor … the speed of movement is not without an effect on the speed of narration in its mimetic value.]60

Indeed, Belli’s solution is to evoke through metaphor the passage of time and movement along the Rhine. He recounts the debate of ten topics discussed by the delegation while navigating, topics he calls, once again with Petrarchan echoes, “pellegrine quistioni” [wandering debates].61 They have no connection to the travelers’ surroundings and are not chosen for their relationship to events of the trip. Rather, they are subjects considered light and amusing, usually of love and letters, that were often treated during academy meetings.62 Some of the topics include: “se nella donna si ami più la virtù, o la bellezza” [if one loves virtue or beauty more in a woman];63 “se la donna nello amante deggia amar più l’armi o le lettere” [if a woman should love arms or letters more in her lover];64 and “se il riso nasca da allegrezza o da meraviglia” [if laughter results from joy or surprise].65 Belli’s decision to recount intellectual debates is clearly also made to please a literate reader and to take advantage of yet another opportunity to praise academic culture (“Questo nobile, e fruttuoso instituto mostrò dal vivo, e dal vero il nativo, e lodevolissimo stile della 59 “River travel on the Po, evidently so tranquil as to allow Petrarch to hold pen in hand, was much more congenial to him than voyages on the high seas where shipwreck was a greater risk. Indeed, Petrarch composed not only poetry on the Po but even the stirring polemic against his youthful Aristotelian opponents On His Own Ignorance … ‘Know then that I am sitting in a small boat amid the whirling waves of the Po. Thus you shall not wonder when you find both the hand and the speech of the writer fluctuating.’” Theodore J. Cachey, Jr., “From Shipwreck to Port: Rvf 189 and the Making of the Canzoniere,” pp. 39–40 and p. 40, n. 26. See Petrarch, Della mia ignoranza e di quella di molti altri, ed. Enrico Fenzi (Milan: Mursia, 1999), p. 292. 60 Pasquali, Le tour des horizons, p. 26. 61 Belli, Osservazioni nel viaggio, p. 61. 62 “Le quistioni furono dolci e domestiche si per la materia, come per la maniera e schiettezza, colla quale vennero impugnate e difese” [The discussions were sweet and familiar both in matter and in manner, and in the sincerity with which they were taken up and defended]. Ibid., p. 37. 63 Ibid., p. 38. 64 Ibid., p. 47. 65 Ibid., p. 81.

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nobiltà venetiana” [This noble and fruitful institution spontaneously and truthfully demonstrated the native, most praiseworthy style of Venetian nobility]).66 The sheer amount of space that Belli dedicates to the discussions is indicative of a travel writing program that eschews the primacy of fact-telling. The discussions of the ten questions take place temporally between 26 May and 9 June and geographically between Basel and Nijmegan, and—along with the interspersed narration of other aspects of the journey—this section takes up almost sixty pages of the text. This means that the representation of fifteen days of travel (roughly five per cent of the trip’s length) occupies almost one third of the text. Belli uses the debates to represent his and the group’s movement along the river. The narration of the discussions, each up to several pages long, seems to suggest or stand for the constant movement upstream. In fact, Belli includes the discussions only in conjunction with river navigation, and his alternating references to navigation and discussions make this correspondence explicit. The end of the discussions often marks the arrival at the next destination point and the temporary pause in the group’s movement. As long as the discussion goes on, so does the navigation. By recounting an entire debate, its pros and cons, and its conclusion, Belli creates a sort of collection of stories and makes use of textual space in such a way that the reader, while taking the time to read the account, is given some notion of time passing as Belli and his group continue their journey. Belli focuses on conveying continually the delegation’s movement from town to town. This attention to movement is especially evident as the narrator juggles various textual elements, from landscape and cityscape descriptions to quotes of authoritative sources. In doing so, he once again draws attention to his particular narrative choice as one of many possibilities, implicitly upsetting the longstanding assumptions of travel narrative as more historical than poetic. For instance, he includes a brief description of the town of Mannheim once the group has arrived there, but he limits his commentary, giving precedence to the telling of the next “quistione”: “Per non rompere l’uso della quistione, rompiamo il corso del viaggio, non col fermare la nave, che scorre, ma col differire la discrizione, che resta” [In order not to interrupt the discussion of the question, we will interrupt the course of the journey, not by stopping the boat, which goes on, but by deferring the description, which remains].67 Of course, on a primary level, the remark does interrupt the narrative. The comment focuses on the flow of both the boat and the boat’s movement, as if a break in the narration might suspend the actual boat in time. The course of the trip and the flow of scholarly discussions can never or must never stop. In Belli’s textual construction, they are parallel and continuing movements. The narrator claims that his refusal to halt the narration of the debates is a direct consequence of the boat’s progress along the river. “La nave, che scorre” [the boat, which goes on] suggests that the boat, on the level of histoire, continues independently of the récit, and he can only attempt to represent its movement, in this case by continuing the narration of the discussion.

66 Ibid., p. 37. 67 Ibid., pp. 56–7.

Figure 3.2

Map of the Palatinate. From Mercator, Atlas Minor, 1630. By permission of the Huntington Library

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The narrator, in his explanatory statement, distinguishes between three different movements: that of the debates, that of the boat, and that of “the course of the journey,” the last being the only movement he chooses to interrupt. The association between stopping the course of travel and the deferral of the description is evocative of the traditional relazione, which provided regular geo-political descriptions of cities and regions. With the rapid succession of discussions and swift river navigation in the foreground, more stationary or descriptive comments of the “course of the journey” must be postponed until a more appropriate moment. This appropriate moment coincides with the conclusion of the discussion, the reaching of the next destination, and the pause in physical and mental movement. Attention to descriptive elements can finally occur in a moment of stasis. At times along the Rhine, Belli briefly returns to the description of landscape between the end of a discussion and the arrival at the following stop. After the conclusion of the fifth question and before the arrival in Mainz, Belli adds: “Il Reno nel corso lasciato di sopra e qui ripigliato forma due isolette erbose, e piene di arbori e d’ombre, e dopo un breve tratto di piano tornano a comparir le colline riguardevoli per le viti, e continuano a Magonza” [The Rhine, in its course left above and here taken up again, flows around two grass-covered little islands, full of trees and shade, and after a brief flat section appear again the charming hills which are lovely for their vines, and which continue through to Mainz].68 Again, in mentioning the Rhine, Belli never ceases to refer to movement. By using the words “nel corso” [in its course], he evokes the continuity of the river’s flow while the academic discussion has taken place. The adjective “lasciato” [left] connotes postponement of descriptive elements, not lack of progress along the river. This sentence repeats allusions to different narrative levels. The “qui” of “qui ripigliato” [here taken up again] is ambiguous, as it could refer to the here and now of the actual travel (a specific place, near Mainz, at a specific time) or of the actual writing of the narrative (narration). The concept of leaving and setting out on a river certainly is evidence of textual manipulations, since presumably Belli-traveler had a continuous view of the landscape during the discussions. Genette calls this transgression or movement from one narrative level to the next métalepse narrative [narrative metalepsis], according to which “Certaines [transgressions] jouent sur la double temporalité de l’histoire et de la narration … comme si la narration était contemporaine de l’histoire” [Certain transgressions play on the twofold temporality of the histoire and the narration … as if the narration were cotemporaneous with the histoire].69 Genette’s choice of verbs, “jouer” [to play], is particularly appropriate in 68 Ibid., p. 65. 69 Genette, Figures III, p. 244. He also writes, “Le repérage et la mesure de ces anachronies narratives … postulent implicitement l’existence d’une sorte de degré zéro qui serait un état de parfaite coincidence temporelle entre récit et histoire” [The discerning and the measuring of these narrative anachronisms implicitly hypothesize the existence of a kind of “zero degree” that would entail an exact temporal correspondence between récit and histoire]. Ibid., p. 79. Although this kind of narrative play is more common in the epic genre, especially Ariosto’s Orlando furioso, Incognito member Giovanni Francesco Biondi uses métalepse in the opening of the second book of his novel, Coralbo:

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that the narrator appears to be exploring playfully the relationship between the actual experience of travel and its recounting. Belli-narrator continues his play with different narrative levels while describing the journey along the Rhine. After discussing the history and culture of Mainz and before taking up the narration of the navigation again, for instance, he pauses to insert yet another parenthetical comment about the text. He evidently chooses to take advantage of the momentary standstill in Mainz to explain possible shortcomings of the account in more detail. He justifies the paucity of topographical and cultural information by blaming the overabundance of material: Qui prima ch’io mi avanzi alla narrazione, voglio avvertire una cosa, ed è che … può essere … che mi sieno fuggiti, o nomi, o terre, od altri particolari, e memorie … Se nella discrizione che adesso corre è difetto; non s’ascriva che alla materia soverchia. [Here, before I move ahead with the narration, I would like to point out one thing, and that is, that it is possible that the names of lands or other details and memories have escaped me. If there is a defect in the description that is now ongoing, it should only be attributed to the overabundance of material.]70

In this passage, Belli’s discourse appears to be written from the temporal and spatial perspective of the end of the trip. He implies that the factual aspects of the cities and landscapes through which the group passes are subordinate to keeping a specific narrative pace and formal coherence. In this case, “narrazione” refers to movement from place to place, not the general relating of events. The choice of wording, “[la] descrizione che adesso corre” [the description that is now ongoing], gives the impression that the narrator has temporarily extracted himself from the story while it is ongoing, as if moving independently of his direct intervention. Belli, by including commentary that seems to collapse actual and narrative time, once again draws attention to the text as separated by various degrees from the actual, historical experience of travel.

Languì in Ericusa lungamente Coralbo in gran dubbio della vita, ridotto al punto di perderla, senza la diligente cura della Duchessa Crisanta: le ferite se non mortali, pericolose in modo che ne fu più volte pianto per morto. Lasciamolo per pietà guarire. Schifiamo d’essergli crudeli. No’l mettiamo in azioni e viaggi prima che gli cicatrizino le piaghe. Parlaremo d’Almadero giunto in Lusitania con la seconda sua pretesa moglie. [Coralbo languished in Ericusa, fearing for his life, and reduced to the point of losing it, without the diligent care of the Duchess Crisanta. His wounds, although they were not fatal, were dangerous enough that he was mourned as dead. Let us have pity and allow him to get well. Let us avoid being cruel to him. Let us not set him in action and on journeys before his wounds have scarred. We will speak of Almadero, who has reached Lusitania with his second desired wife.] Giovanni Francesco Biondi, Coralbo (Venice: Pinelli, 1632), pp. 172–3. I have adapted the spelling and punctuation. 70 Belli, Osservazioni nel viaggio, p. 67. My emphasis.

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He also puts into play his own position as both narrator and character in the following passage regarding Protestants in Paris: Gli eretici non hanno chiesa aperta in Parigi, perché la pietà e religione di sua Maestà non lo vuole. L’hanno però in Sciarantone, terra luntana molto poco dalla città; da cui prima ch’io alluntani me stesso e la penna, voglio lasciarvi un sonetto partorito dall’ordinario mio stile sovra cosa non ordinaria. [The heretics do not have a public church in Paris, because the piety and religion of His Majesty will not allow it. They do have one, however, in Charenton, a land not very distant at all from the city. And about which, before I distance myself and my pen, I want to leave you a sonnet, born out of my ordinary style on something hardly ordinary.]71

Here, Belli creates a kaleidoscope of narrative levels. He constructs a métalepse while directly addressing the reader (“voglio lasciarvi”), placing himself both inside and outside the text. “Prima ch’io alluntani me stesso, e la penna” [Before I distance myself and my pen] allows for a variety of interpretations. “Io” could be Bellinarrator in relation to “me stesso” [myself], as the Belli-character who is about to leave Paris. The verb “allontanarsi” [to distance oneself] remains ambiguous in its denoting both the character leaving Paris and the narrator leaving his desk or study. The reference to the pen accentuates the allusion to factors outside of the histoire, so that the different possible connotations coexist logically in the same sentence. The two passages above include a lexicon related to movement in metatextual commentary: “correre” [to run, go], “scorrere” [to flow], “lasciare” [to leave], “continuazione” [continuation]. For the most part, these indicate forward movement in both travel and its narrative representation. When the text does not always follow a strictly linear path, Belli announces the deviation from chronological order. For example, when discussing time spent in The Hague, in order to insert a fact (Simone Contarini’s appointment as ambassador to the king of France) that occurred chronologically before certain events that he mentions, Belli writes: “Con un moto retrogrado mi rivolgo alla narrazione d’un particolare seguito prima ch’io vedessi le cose già dette” [With a backwards motion I return to the narration of an event that happened before I saw the things already mentioned].72 The term “moto retrogrado” [backwards motion] reinforces the association, and here the opposition, between narrative and the movement of navigating the Rhine. Belli’s depiction of narrative and movement as parallel processes makes his recourse to anachronism stand out. In a declaration that echoes the beginning defense of the use of literary tropes in travel narrative, he announces his use of an anachronism towards the end of his trip. Citing its use by eminent precursors such as Plato, Tasso, and a fellow member of the Incogniti, Giulio Strozzi, he employs it in placing a sonnet, apparently written several months before his arrival in Turin, in the passage recounting his stay in the Savoyard city. He explains as follows:

71 Ibid., p. 148–9. In this love sonnet, Belli includes a reference to an elephant, one of the animals he sees in the king’s menagerie. 72 Ibid., p. 106.

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Literature and Identity in Italian Baroque Travel Writing La pittura e la poesia ricevono grande aiuto ed ornamento dallo anacronismo, ch’è un unione di persone e di case disunite per diversità di tempo … Vengo all’applicazione dello anacronismo. Quando io passai per Torino, io andavo anco lavorando colla penna intorno la discrizione del mio viaggio, e se non esattamente, abbozzando almeno ciò che in istato di fermezza e di quiete io mi serbavo a delineare … Havendo portato l’occasione, che la Serenissima Infanta Maria di Savoia passi a Mantova, e conduca con essolei la [Signora Martha Valperga], ha portato puranco il caso che a contemplazione di gran cavaliere che la serve, io … habbia scritto [un sonetto] già pochi mesi, e mi risolva di aggiugnerlo alle memorie di Torino, sapendo che ’l lodare chi merita cade sempre a tempo. [Painting and poetry receive great help and ornament from the anachronism, which is the union of people and things disunited through difference and time … Let me come to the application of the anachronism. When I passed through Turin, I would also go about working with my pen on the description of my travels, and, if not (doing that) exactly, at least sketching out that which in a stationary and quiet state I was planning to write out … The occasion having arisen that the Most Serene Infanta Maria of Savoy passed through Mantua, accompanied by Lady Martha Valperga, and having also had occasion to contemplate the great cavaliere who serves her, I had already written a sonnet a few months earlier, and I resolved to add it to the memoirs of Turin, knowing that praising someone so deserving is always timely.]73

After having focused on literary elements throughout the narrative, the narrator now confidently declares the appropriateness of the anachronism trope, playfully characterizing its use as “always timely.” Whereas in the beginning of the Osservazioni, before affirming the pertinence of poetics, he professes his loyalty to Herodotean values of historiography, in this passage the narrator makes no reference to history or geography. Moreover, he unapologetically applies elements from painting and poetry to travel narrative, an act that is indeed exceptional in the genre. Both painting and poetry stand as legitimate models for conveying real events. The passage also creates a perfect mise-en-abyme: a writer writes about himself writing. Belli’s metatextual commentary continuously appears to collapse the time of the histoire and that of the narration. Furthermore, he explicitly treats the act of writing and moving as simultaneous activities in this passage. By its very nature, writing is usually a sedentary activity, one that requires a fixed physical position. However, his use of a progressive form, “andavo lavorando” [I would go about working], almost gives the impression that he is walking the city streets as he puts pen to paper, again in an indirect allusion to Petrarch. The relationship established between writing and motion evokes the movement of travel and the movement of narration as the fundamental and intertwining components of the account. The Sonnets As the inclusion of an anachronistic verse encomium of Maria of Savoy suggests, Belli places sonnets strategically in the text, where they provide not only single and unconnected moments of diversion and entertainment, but function also as 73 Ibid., pp. 173–4.

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punctuation marks in the course of the narration. They are poetic representations of specific events as well as tangents and digressions, and generally fall into two main categories: sonnets that are products of visual inspiration (a landscape, a city, even an elephant) or that praise a person of authority. Unlike the “quistioni,” which are used to link the course of the narrative and that of the Rhine river, the sonnets inserted into the narration do not represent the passage of time or movement through space. They serve as interpretative devices because they help to convey a more subjective description of and reaction to landscape and events. Belli makes his own sonnets an integral part of the representation of travel. It is likely that he used Dante’s Vita nuova and Sannazaro’s Arcadia as models, since the incorporation of verse in travel writing and geographical works was highly unusual at the time.74 Especially when Belli expresses longing for his beloved or describes foreign landscapes, the mix of poetry and prose, as in Dante’s and Sannazaro’s texts, forms an organic totality of discursive explorations. Well aware of the novelty of sonnets in travel accounts, Belli introduces them with explanations and justifications. The sonnets represent the artistic reaction of a literary traveler’s view of foreign landscapes and serve as markers of significant aesthetic moments. For example, Belli explains that the view of the Reuss river inspired the second sonnet that he includes: “Sovra le … rive per gli arbori folti e gentili il viaggiare ci fu di qualche alloggiamento e diletto. E forse quella poca ricreazione di vista e d’animo bastò a risvegliare il talento poetico, il quale … mi diede disposizione efficace per ’l seguente sonetto” [Upon the banks rendered lush and lovely by the trees, traveling provided us some haven and entertainment. And perhaps that brief recreation of sight and mind was enough to awaken my poetic talent, which provided me the proper disposition for writing the following sonnet].75 The sonnet that follows refers to Belli’s contemplation of the sky and of various constellations. Here, Belli’s sensitivity to the beauty of landscape seems to be a foreshadowing of later travel writing.76 Near The Hague, captivated by the sea, Belli includes another sonnet, which he introduces as the product of inspiration almost beyond his control: “E perché sovente trovammo il mare anzi placido, che tempestoso, mi concieda la benignità a chi legge ch’io ponga in questo luogo un sonetto prodotto dalla vista del mare istesso” [And because we often found the sea placid instead of stormy, I ask whomever is reading to concede his permission that I position in this place a sonnet produced by the viewing of the sea itself].77 The wording suggests that the ocean has created the sonnet in Belli’s mind, as if the traveler were simply a passive vessel connecting landscape to text. The sonnet is described as coming into existence almost independently of the 74 One rare example is the Isolario by Bartolomeo Zamberti “dalli Sonetti” (Venice: Guilelmus Anima Mia Tridinensis, 1485), in which sonnets serve as legends to maps of islands. There is no indication that Belli knew of this work. 75 Belli, Osservazioni nel viaggio, p. 19. 76 The attention to the picturesque, more common in eighteenth-century travel writing, is what Attilio Brilli calls an aesthetic–topographic sense (“senso estetico-topografico”). Attilio Brilli, Quando viaggiare era un’arte (Bologna: Il Mulino, 1995), p. 43. 77 Belli, Osservazioni nel viaggio, p. 105.

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writer’s will. Once again, he gives the impression of game-playing by defining a subjective interpretation of landscape, his sonnet, as a spontaneous and unmediated reaction: Non so, se dal volere, o da la sorte Portato un giorno a l’Oceam [sic] mi vidi, Dove soglion talhor flutti homicidi Mostrar la tomba, e minacciar la morte. Baciavan l’onde allhor placide, e corte Quasi per vezzo innamorate i lidi: E a le crude procelle, e a’ moti infidi Parean tronche le vie, chiuse le porte. Rivolta intanto il cor a Lidia, io dissi, Quando la vidi mai con tal sembiante? O mite, o lieta a le mie luci offrissi? O fosse hor qui; ch’a farsi molle innante Havria su questa spiaggia, e ’n questi abissi Maestro il mar, poiché non vuol l’amante. [I know not if by will or fate I saw myself led to the ocean one day, Where sometimes deadly fluxes Reveal tombs and threaten death. The waves, then placid and short, Whimsically kissed the shores, as if in love. And from cruel and insidious movements the paths seemed divided, and the doors closed. Turning my heart to Lidia, I said, When have I ever seen her with such a look, Quiet and happy, offered to my sight? If only she were here, for presenting herself subdued, She would have on this beach and in these abysses The sea as her master, since she refuses a lover.]78

With this sonnet, the depiction of foreign climates becomes a lyrical meditation, and Belli takes the role of witness–poet–chronicler and thwarted lover of Lidia. The baroque themes of death and the vanity of life also come to the fore in this rather dark and even bitter recasting of poetic reactions to unrequited love. In some cases, he uses the sonnets as an excuse for, as well as an indicator of, a digression. For example, when heading south from Paris, he uses the occasion of a detour to introduce a sonnet or departure from the principal narrative line: “per ischiffare un certo luogo infetto di peste, chiamato Pons, mutammo la linea del viaggio in obliquo … Chi non conciede la cortesia d’una brevissima digressione da questo luogo è … scortese” [In order to avoid a place called Pons, which was infected by the plague, we changed our line of travel to an oblique one. Who does not concede the courtesy of a very brief digression from this place is discourteous

78 Ibid., p. 105.

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indeed].79 Belli then introduces a sonnet in honor of Giovanni Francesco Biondi, suggesting that the diversion from the intended route is the perfect opportunity to “digress” with a sonnet that is not directly linked to events of the trip.80 He plays with the possible denotations of the term “luogo” [place]: in the temporary straying “from this place,” place is both the geographical position and locus in the text. Sometimes, a scholarly discussion becomes the pretext for including a sonnet in the account. Belli recalls that, having left Tournes and navigating on the Saône river, he and fellow travelers discuss the bizarre phenomenon (“considerazioni molto bizarre”)81 of statues that seem to bleed or sweat (“sudor sanguigno”),82 which he says some authorities have linked to the movement of the planets, and he includes a sonnet on the topic.83 In his introduction of the poem, he writes: “Tra l’altre cose toccate hoggi voglio accennarne una sola. Dirà alcuno per introdurvi un sonetto; così è, non lo niego … sopra questo sentimento è fondato il sonetto, che nel silenzio del giorno seguente andai così furtiva, e tacitamente intrecciando” [Of the other things touched upon today, I wish to allude to only one. One of you will say that this is in order to introduce a sonnet. And so it is; I will not deny it. On this idea (the possible 79 Ibid., pp. 130–31. 80 Belli never points out that this sonnet, which he admits to have written earlier in The Hague, creates an anachronism. 81 Ibid., p. 157. 82 Ibid. 83 In a manner reminiscent of the “pellegrine quistioni” [wandering debates] on the Rhine, literary conversation becomes a source of solace during a very uncomfortable trip on the Saône. Belli’s description gives the impression of a floating meeting of a literary academy: La dolce conversatione de’ sopramentovati signori sollevò in gran parte i patimenti del corpo. Si leggeva o si ragionava quasi di continovo. Per lo primo havevamo con essonoi l’Argeneide, che in brieve sta per uscire tradotta dalla industre ed infatigabile penna dell’Eccellentissimo Signor Francesco Pona; l’Euformione, le lettere di Monsù di Balzac, ed altri libri di valore e di nome. Nel secondo entravano discorsi di varie sorti non senza utile e dilettazione; considerazioni sopra l’Italia e la Francia colla memoria del paragone fatto tra quelle dal pellegrino e sovrahumano intelletto del Signor Torquato Tasso. [The sweet conversation of the above-mentioned gentlemen relieved in great part the body’s discomfort. We read and we conversed almost constantly. In the first place we had with us the Argenis, which is coming out shortly in translation by the industrious and tireless pen of the most excellent Lord Francesco Pona, the Euphormionis, the letters of Mr De Balzac, and other known and valued books. In the second place, we engaged in conversations of various kinds on Italy and France, keeping in mind the comparison made between these by the roving and superhuman intellect of Torquato Tasso. These considerations were devoid neither of value nor enjoyment.] Ibid., p. 156. Francesco Pona’s Italian translation of John Barclay’s Latin political novel Argenis (1621) was published in 1629. Barclay’s satire, Euphormionis Lusinini Satyricon, which includes prose and verse, was published during 1605–1607. Jean-Louis Guez de Balzac (1597–1654) published his first volume of letters in 1624.

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role of the planets in making statues bleed) is founded my sonnet, which I went furtively and silently weaving together the following day].84 The use of a progressive verb tense parallels the mise-en-abyme of the act of writing in the Turin sonnet and the act of writing as movement through space: “andai … intrecciando” [I went … weaving].85 The sonnet that follows uses the mixed metaphors of baroque bizzarria; Belli includes the reference to statues in a love poem to Lidia, the dedicatee of several of the sonnets in the account. He also incorporates the ideas of Pietro Pomponazzi, the Renaissance philosopher who wrote on astrology, marvelous phenomena, and magic:86 Bocca, che molto seppe, e molto disse, Empia però per cento falli, e cento, Lo strano, e horribilissimo portento, Che da statua di marmo il sangue uscisse: Per opra de le stelle erranti, o fisse, O de’ corpi lassù per movimento Con folle, e insopportabile ardimento A quell’eterne intelligenze ascrisse. Io, per te, Lidia, in statua homai cangiato, Ma che l’aspro dolor mai oblia, E da gli occhi, e dal sen sangue ha stillato. E se non che quella sentenza è ria, Direi; perché te ad osservar son nato Mio ciel, mia stella, e intelligenza mia. [Mouth, which knew so much, and said so many things, Impious, however, for one hundred errors, and one hundred, The strange, and most horrible portent, That from a statue of marble, blood flowed forth. Through the workings of the wandering or the fixed stars, Or of the bodies above, through their movement With mad and unbearable burning, This was attributed to the eternal Intelligences. I, for you, Lidia, am changed into a statue, But one that never forgets the bitter pain And has drawn blood from my eyes and my breast And I would say that the sentence is not cruel; Because I am born to observe you My heaven, my star and my intelligence.]87

84 Belli, Osservazioni nel viaggio, pp. 157–8. 85 Ibid., p. 158. 86 Belli mentions Pomponazzi (1462–1525) as his main source for the topic of bleeding statues. See Martin Pine, Pietro Pomponazzi, Radical Philosopher of the Renaissance (Padua: Antenore, 1986), and Andrew Halliday Douglas, The Philosophy and Psychology of Pietro Pomponazzi, eds Charles Douglas and R.P. Hardie (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1910). 87 Belli, Osservazioni nel viaggio, p. 158.

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In Belli’s recasting of the topics discussed with his travel companions, the poetic “I” becomes the statue fixed in watching his beloved, who affects him like the stars that apparently draw liquid from even the most solid matter. This awkward sonnet is a summary of a scholarly conversation and becomes another way to recall the passing of time in dialogue, travel, and poetic and esoteric philosophical meditations. In this last part of the trip and the text, the sonnets provide continuity by indicating the stops that he makes on his way back from France to Italy. Their regular appearance as he continues his homeward movement gives them status as markers along the way from foreign lands to his patria. The sonnets increase in frequency towards the end of the Osservazioni and almost exclusively serve to praise of Italian scholars, intellectuals, and aristocrats. During the return trip, he visits academic friends in various Italian cities, and his sonnets in honor of these friends also seem to reinforce his gradual reintegration into Italian (academic) society. The end of the text is weighted with sonnets: of twenty-seven total, ten are placed geographically between Savoy and Verona, temporally between early January and the beginning of February, and textually for thirty-one pages. In other words, Belli places over one-third of the sonnets in the last quarter of the narrative. The sonnets commend various Italian intellectuals and members of royalty, from Francesco Cerato of the Accademia Olimpica to Maria of Savoy. The sudden density of sonnets—whose quantity does not compensate for their quality—seems to indicate Belli’s eagerness to go back to his native intellectual environment. In fact, the narrative ends with a sonnet addressed to Belli’s friend, cavaliere Sagramosi of Verona, a fitting last pause in the narrative that signals the end of Belli’s journey and his arrival in his adopted hometown of Verona: Ho, Sagramoso, hor frettoloso, hor lento col Reno il Belga, e con la Schelda il Franco visto: e l’Alpi di lui visto ho puranco, ch’è lo scudo d’Italia, e l’ornamento. Hor sovra un colle, in cui temprato è ’l vento, fiorito il dorso, e verdeggiante il fianco, Di vegghiar no, ma di vagar già stando fo con la pena il mio penar contento. Un canoro augelletto, un rio corrente, un antro ombroso, una selvetta amena van per gli sensi a tranquillar la mente. Non dal volto, dal cor vien la serena pace: chi ride in volto e ha ’l cor piangente forma a tragico stil comica scena. [I have seen, Sagramoso, here swiftly, here slowly, Belgium with the Rhine, and France with the Escaut. And I have also seen the Alps, which are Italy’s shield and ornament. Sometimes at a hilltop, on which wind is tempered and whose slope is in bloom, and whose side is green, already tired not of seeing, but of wandering, I comfort my pain with my pen.

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A little bird, a rushing stream, a shaded grove, a delightful wood, go through the senses to calm the mind. Serene peace comes not from the face, but from the heart: who laughs with his face while his heart cries creates a comic scene in a tragic style.]88

This sonnet serves as a summary of his travels and maps out with words the topography of his itinerary on rivers, over mountains, and on top of rolling hills. Belli, engaging in cartographic sonneteering, once again draws a parallel between river travel and writing. He alludes to the various speeds of movement (“here swiftly, here slowly”) and therefore of narrative, and the varying rhythm and tone of the sonnet evoke the variety in the experience of travel and in its representation throughout the account. The first biography of Francesco Belli, published in the Glorie degl’Incogniti (1647), offers an appropriate summary of the author’s significance in the seventeenthcentury academic context. The anonymous author’s description of Belli’s life and writings reflects a value system in which stylistic virtuosity and literary knowledge come before observational accuracy: Quinci non contento Francesco del picciolo teatro della sua patria, passato in Francia e in Olanda hebbe occasione nel pubblicare al mondo le osservationi de’ suoi viaggi di far conoscere la bellezza del suo ingegno e la finezza della sua eruditione insieme con la sua sufficienza non meno negl’impegni letterati, che nelle materie politiche. [Then, because Francesco was not satisfied with the small theater of this homeland, having gone to France and Holland, he had the opportunity, in publishing the observations of his travels, to make known the beauty of his mind and the fineness of his erudition, along with his mastery no less in literary endeavors than in political matters.]89

This view of his work makes explicit a perception of travel and travel writing as a literary and intellectual exercise. Belli’s text, however ludic and light in tone, makes a profound statement in repeatedly calling into question the traditional rejection in historical texts of artifice and perspectives other than those claiming to be objective. In his complex weaving of narrative and developing a mimesis of travel, Belli, justifying his every original step, paves the way for poetic intervention in travel accounts by demonstrating that recounting true events is inherently subjective and open to infinite recasting, just like prose fiction. Furthermore, in his framing of the temporal relationships of traveling and writing, of Belli-narrator and Belli-traveler, and of narrative flow and movement by boat or on land, the author addresses some of the most compelling aspects of traveling and anticipates elements of later prose-writing as well as travel narrative. His literary exploration of travel writing reflects the influence of the Venetian literary circles of which he is an enthusiastic part, and his text is a tribute not only to Venice’s thriving culture, but also to the continuing pre-eminence of Italian literature. 88 Ibid., p. 189. 89 Accademia degli Incogniti, Le glorie degl’Incogniti (Venice: F. Valvasense, 1647), p. 146.

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In the final analysis, the Osservazioni nel viaggio emerges as an inwardly, textually focused—and not an outwardly—travel-focused narrative. To use Genette’s terms, the narrative is all about narration and récit, not histoire. Belli-character may not be the protagonist of the movement through space, but Belli-narrator-poet is undoubtedly the most powerful presence in the account. His narrative elaborates a unique poetics of Italian travel writing and remains a playful, complex exploration of the possibilities inherent in representing travel in narrative.

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Chapter 4

Out to the Center in Francesco Negri’s Viaggio settentrionale Re-mapping Italy When middle-aged priest Francesco Negri left his hometown of Ravenna in 1663 and undertook a three-year voyage in Scandinavia, he became the first continental European to make an extensive journey through these northern regions. A mostly self-funded and certainly self-styled scientist–investigator who dedicated most of his life to tending his parish, Negri eschewed the better-known itineraries of European and world travel for a less beaten path.1 Not only was his choice of destination unusual, but so too, as is evident in his Viaggio settentrionale [Northern Travels, 1700], was his presence abroad as an independent Italian traveler. Negri faced the growing reputation of Italians, especially after the mid-1600s, as less fervent adventurers. For example, at the court of King Frederick III in Copenhagen before returning home, he notes the monarch’s surprise at seeing an Italian in the far north: “soggiunse che la maggior curiosità … era che un italiano, nato in un clima de’ più dolci del mondo, avesse avuto tanto ardire e forza d’intraprendere e compire un viaggio de’ più aspri e pericolosi che siano, e in tale stagione” [The king added that the most curious thing was that an Italian, born in one of the mildest climates in the world, had had such desire and determination to undertake and complete a 1 Francesco Negri (1624–98) may have been to England and Poland on diplomatic church missions, but there are few documents attesting to other travels abroad besides those to Scandinavia. See, for example, Gregorio Caravita, Francesco Negri: il prete ravennate che ha scoperto gli sci (Ravenna: Tipolitografia Artestampa, 2004). Negri’s Italian precursors include Venetian merchant Pietro Quirino or Querini, who was shipwrecked on the islands of Lofoden off the Norwegian coast and whose account is part of Ramusio’s anthology, Navigationi e viaggi, 5 vols (Venice: Giunti, 1550–59). A manuscript by Giovanni Giustiniani entitled Viaggio in Isvezia and dated 1583 was probably not circulated in Negri’s time. See Francesco Negri, Viaggio settentrionale, ed. Enrico Falqui (Turin: Edizioni Alpes, 1929), pp. 9–12. All quotes of Negri’s text come from this edition. When Negri left for Scandinavia, the most authoritative source of information was Historia de gentibus septentrionalibus (1555), written by Swedish scholar Olaf Manson (1490–1557). See Virgilio Ricci, “Sci e alpinismo nel Seicento. Francesco Negri, l’ardito romagnolo che ubbidì al grande richiamo delle nevi scandinave,” Le Alpi, 61 (Jan.–Feb. 1924): 79–90. After Negri returned to Italy, Johannes Scheffer in 1673 published Lapponia, id est, regionis lapponum et gentis nova et verissima descriptio, from which Negri quotes. See also Carmine Chiodo, “Il Viaggio settentrionale di Francesco Negri,” Campi immaginabili, 7–8 (1993): 59–103.

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voyage of the harshest and most dangerous kind, and in such a season].2 Frederick III’s words conveniently underscore Negri’s tenacity as well as the originality of his endeavor. However, for the king, the most curious aspect—“curiosities” being a principal attraction of cross-cultural encounters of the time—is neither the difficulty of the journey nor Negri’s success at extreme travel, but rather that Negri is out of place. The king implies that it is unexpected, even if all the more heroic, for Italians to leave their temperate zones to seek out extreme conditions. Logic would dictate that climactically privileged Italians are better off at home. Frederick III’s surprise might also reflect the reality that, by the time Negri set off on his journey, Italy was in many ways the first early modern European “has been,” and Italians were considered lesser players within the broadening scope of European mobility.3 With much of Italy under Spanish domination and with Venetian and Genoese commercial shipping eclipsed by English, Dutch, Spanish, and Portuguese companies, Italians no longer figured as prominently as travelers in the European cultural imaginary.4 Although they continued to go abroad, primarily as missionaries, diplomats, and merchants, they did not and indeed could not participate in the now dominant European paradigm of proto-national expansionism. In fact, it was when they left a culturally and politically fragmented peninsula that Italians such as Negri, much more than his predecessors from earlier in the century, found the most direct indications that Italy now occupied the margins of contemporary culture. Early modern travel accounts, as they multiplied in numbers and in scope, also had a profound effect on approaches to knowledge by privileging experience—the direct observation of place—over classical authority. According to Normand Doiron, early modern travel accounts were at the source of a “veritable epistemological

2 Negri, Viaggio settentrionale, p. 379. I have adapted the capitalization and punctuation. A brief and rudimentary version entitled “Lapponia” appeared in the travel anthology, Valerio Zani (ed.), Il genio vagante. Biblioteca curiosa di cento e più relazioni di viaggi stranieri de’ nostri tempi, 4 vols (Parma: Giuseppe dall’Oglio e Giuseppe Rosati, 1691–93). A counterfeit of the first integral edition, published posthumously (Padua: Stamperia del Seminario, 1700), came out in 1701 (Forlì: G. Dandi). The first letter of the text was published as La Lapponia Descritta (Venice: Albrizzi, 1705). The Viaggio settentrionale has two modern editions. These are Bologna: Zanichelli, 1883, and Milan: Alpes, 1929. A facsimile of the 1700 edition was published by Leading Edizioni in Bergamo, 2000. 3 As Daria Perocco writes, “ci si rende conto della diminuzione dell’importanza strategica e politica del paese d’origine, del fatto che l’essere italiano non è più sufficiente carta di presentazione e di credito” [Italians become aware of the diminishing strategic and political importance of their own country and the fact that being Italian no longer suffices as a letter of presentation or credit]. Perocco, Viaggiare e raccontare, p. 20. 4 The Peace of Westphalia, which put an end to the Thirty Years’ War in 1648, played a significant role in cutting off Italy from its increasingly powerful northern neighbors. Pope Innocent X rejected the treaty, exacerbating Italy’s isolation from the rest of Europe. Furthermore, the geographical break between Atlantic and Mediterranean worlds entailed the redefinition of European centers and margins. The Italian peninsula, which had dominated Mediterranean sea travel and trade, was now on the outer edge of the new Atlantic-directed European map. See Adriano Prosperi and Paolo Viola, Dalla Rivoluzione inglese alla Rivoluzione francese, vol. 2 of Storia italiana (Turin: Einaudi, 1998), p. 94.

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revolution,”5 moving readers and thinkers from the autoritas of the book and humanistic culture towards the book of the world whose complexity perhaps could still be contained. For Doiron, Descartes’ Discours de la Méthode (1634), replete with metaphors of the journey, owes much to the approaches to scientia in the travel narratives and guides the philosopher read, and adapts the centrality of experience put forth by travelers to the domain of philosophy.6 Published in a time where there was no monolithic approach to ordering the explosion of data collection and dissemination, the Viaggio settentrionale, while heavily invested in the authority of direct experience, nevertheless represents a crossroads of sometimes competing methodologies for understanding the world. These methodologies circulated concurrently in the seventeenth century and coexisted without clear hierarchies establishing their authority and acceptability in relation to others. In the same way that certain phenomena were often explained through analogy and metaphor,7 the multitude of approaches to knowledge and information in the Viaggio settentrionale seems to reflect the corresponding complexity as well as the daunting breadth of natural phenomena and human diversity that had yet to be satisfactorily explained and understood. Reason—not in its Cartesian manifestation, but in the sense of justification or explication—could and indeed did include its own contradictions. In this sense, Negri’s account is a sign of its times, a period in which multiple, competing ways of categorizing knowledge could be present in a single work without compromising the validity or credibility of its representation of reality. The text is a transitional one, marking a point at which literature gives way to science as a source of textual authority. This science, however, often reflects an enduring taste for the marvelous and the bizarre characteristic of baroque literature. If a modern or postmodern reader is to find a convincing logic behind the Viaggio settentrionale, it is in the ends, not the means. This epistolary account presents an ideal case study for considering how multiple and sometimes contradictory discourses, old and new, mingle in a single text to serve a principal purpose: to justify Italian participation in travel culture and, more broadly, to prove that Italy lies at the geographical (and therefore cultural) center of Europe and the world. Certainly most travel narratives directly or indirectly presume the superiority of the traveler’s country and culture of origin. Nevertheless, Negri’s constructions of spatial and geographical relationships represent an identifiably “Italian” strategy. In conveying 5 Normand Doiron, “L’art de voyager,” p. 89. 6 Ibid., pp. 92–3. He calls travel a metaphysics in which the seventeenth-century traveler wants to encompass the whole world: “Le voyage étant une métaphysique, le voyageur veut englober (méta) dans la carte qu’il dessine, dans le récit qu’il compose, et tout le monde et tous les discours” [Travel being a metaphysics, the traveler wants to encircle (meta) all of the world and all discourse in the account that he composes and in the map that he draws]. Ibid., p. 91. Doiron focuses more on the impulse of seventeenth-century travelers to be comprehensive and encyclopedic in their methodology rather than necessarily “rational” or “scientific.” 7 For example, the movement and speed of sound was explained through the visual image of concentric circles of water moving out from the spot where a stone has been dropped in a pond. See Lorenzo Magalotti’s Saggi di naturali esperienze (1667), ed. Teresa Poggi Salvani (Milan: Longanesi, 1976), which will be discussed below, in which the experimenters of the Accademia del Cimento criticize inaccuracies in the analogy.

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the authoritative point of view of an Italian traveler and travel writer of 1660s Europe, the Viaggio settentrionale, as much as it relies on still widely accepted classically based notions of geography, anthropology, and natural science, also reflects an impetus to create novel or to recraft pre-existing discourses that can establish Italy, in relation to Scandinavia, as a geographically cardinal and spatially integrated place. Ricardo Padrón, in his work on cartographic literature, stresses the importance of examining “issues of how language figures geographies and of how its figures reflect, perpetuate, utilize, and sometimes even transform various notions of ‘space’ or of what it means to map.”8 Indeed, in a related manner, we can conceive of Negri’s rhetorical and pseudo-scientific strategies for “centralizing” Italy as cartographic, for they establish cultural differences and affinities between Italy and Scandinavia in spatial terms. He uses language and text to redraw the map of European influence in a way that “spatially” privileges Italy. Negri’s sometimes incongruous methodologies for observing and explicating foreign lands, whether based on classical history or Galilean science, are best understood as attempts to retrieve or carve out a cultural niche both for Italy and Italian travel. His quest to put Italy back on the European map of influence takes him on a variety of discursive paths: first, he recuperates the explorer–ethnographer model to characterize his journey as one through remote and unknown regions populated by “primitive” peoples, and uses contemporary publications on missions to Asia and Africa as sources. Then, in discussing militarily powerful Sweden, he abruptly switches logical gears and makes the unprecedented case that Swedes and Italians share essential characteristics because of their common Gothic origin. Finally, while he acknowledges the value of experimental science and stresses the importance of upto-date, direct investigation of natural phenomena, Negri ultimately favors modified classical paradigms of climate theory to position Italy in a globally advantaged place. The Viaggio settentrionale Negri’s account, a text that recounts travels through Scandinavia during 1663–66 and that was drawn up over the course of three decades, comprises eight letters and begins in medias res, when he has already reached Lapland. Following a lengthy itinerary whose final destination is the North Cape, he first travels up the east coast of Sweden to the northern tip of the Gulf of Bothnia, and investigates Lapp culture.9 When land travel becomes too difficult in the fall of 1663, he goes back down to Stockholm, where he stays for approximately one year, and then makes his way to the North Cape by Norway, stopping in Copenhagen on his way there and back. 8 Ricardo Padrón, The Spacious Word: Cartography, Literature, and Empire in Early Modern Spain (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2004), p. 238. The concept is akin to Tom Conley’s notion of “cartographic writing,” which relates visually discernible spatial discourses of maps and texts to the construction of the early modern self. See Tom Conley, The Self-Made Map: Cartographic Writing in Early Modern France (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1996). 9 The modern designation for the inhabitants of Lapland is the Sami people; however, for the purposes of this analysis, I translate Negri’s term “Lapponi” as “Lapps.”

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Figure 4.1

Francesco Negri’s Scandinavian Itinerary 1663–66

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The letters do not describe in detail Negri’s movement along his chosen itinerary, but rather focus on topographical, zoological, and ethnographic elements of the areas he visits, including information on local pastimes, language, and climate. Still, the narrative includes several amusing anecdotes from his travels, including what is probably the earliest account of a (failed) ski lesson. In the first letter, Negri recounts his trip from Stockholm to Tornio and Lake Inari, and dedicates most of the epistle to describing northern topography and Lapp character and lifestyle. The second letter explains Swedish social and political organization investigated by Negri during his stay in Stockholm. He discusses rural settlements on the southern coast of Sweden in the third letter, and the fourth through eighth letters give an account of human populations, and the fauna and flora observed along the coast from southern Norway to the North Cape. The seventh letter comprises a list of Norwegian natural wonders, and the last one pays particular attention to the details of whale-hunting in northern Norway.10 An independent traveler with ties to scientific rather than literary academies, Negri poses as an early empiricist seeking to add to the body of world knowledge. He quotes extensively from numerous classical sources and more contemporary authors such as John Barclay and Olaus Magnus. He expresses admiration for the moderate behavior and social organization in some of the areas he visits. Coming from an Italy devastated by plagues, famines, and over-taxation, he often makes positive remarks concerning the lack of disease, poverty, and hunger in Scandinavia. For instance, he commends Swedes who “amministrano con maggior facilità al mantenimento della vita umana che nelle più deliziose provincie del mondo, non trovandosi qui chi mendichi, come in quelle, né chi si muoia di fame in tempo di carestia, o tremi di freddo l’inverno” [They administer the preservation of human life better than in the most pleasant provinces of the world, and one cannot find here people who beg, as in those regions, or people dying of hunger during a famine, or trembling of cold during the winter].11 Furthermore, Negri is eager to demonstrate his openness to the scientific trends of his time and is keen to correct ancient authorities, as is typical of many early modern travelers, for example when he dismisses Aristotle in his erroneous descriptions of glacial zones.12 He also states the need for experimentation 10 Negri’s extant letters to Antonio Magliabechi, Grand Duke Cosimo III’s librarian, attest to the traveler’s concern with factual accuracy, documenting his plans to have illustrations prepared for the account as well as his efforts to find a publisher. Negri refers to Valerio Zani’s support for publication and that of Athanasius Kircher, with whom Pietro Della Valle was in contact in Rome, who proposes to send Negri’s work to a Dutch publisher. Negri also mentions geographers such as the Venetian Vincenzo Coronelli (1650–1718), founder of the Accademia Cosmografica degli Argonauti, who was to send him accounts of Scandinavia written by Venetian ambassadors. Negri hoped that Cosimo III might sponsor another factfinding journey north. See Cristina Wis Murena (ed.), “Le Lettere di Francesco Negri ad Antonio Magliabechi dal giugno 1678 al giugno 1696,” Atti dell’Accademia Pontaniana. Nuova Serie, 34 (Naples: Giannini, 1986). 11 Negri, Viaggio settentrionale, p. 150. 12 After explaining the Scandinavian treatment of victims of the extreme cold, Negri chides the Ancients for claiming the truth of phenomena not personally witnessed: “Tutta questa lezione io l’ho imparata da questi libri dell’esperienza che ho narrato, i quali non

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on the properties of ice and cold climates in general, and emphasizes the importance of direct observation, criticizing writing by geographers who do not personally verify information because “non volendo lasciare gli agi della patria scrivono ciò che non hanno già mai veduto né ben inteso da altri” [unwilling to leave the comforts of their homeland, they write of that which they have never seen nor well understood from others].13 While the Viaggio settentrionale goes in a markedly scientific direction compared to Pietro Della Valle and Francesco Belli’s accounts, the text retains significant literary watermarks and vestiges of baroque sensibilities.14 However, Negri’s desire for recognition as a participant in a European travel culture open to “new science” explains the relatively minor presence of literary qualities in the text. His emphasis on science also reflects the diminished recognition of Italian literature abroad.15 Still, although he privileges scientific or pseudo-scientific elements in his writing, he also includes references to Italian literary culture. The epistolary format allows Negri to adopt certain elements of the lettera familiare genre used by more overtly literary travel writers, such as Pietro Della Valle and Giovanni Francesco Gemelli Careri. Most of the missives’ openings and closings refer to a generic correspondent, “Vostra Signoria” or “Vostra Eccellenza,” and the regular quoting of classical and contemporary texts recalls the typical content of erudite epistles. The combination of personal and comic anecdotes with dry observations corresponds to the range of register and tone allowed in familiar letters. Although Negri does not use the letter format to systematically recount each step along his itinerary, at times he makes use of the epistolary model to create the impression that he writes as he travels. For instance, in the opening of the eighth and final letter: “Or eccomi giunto al Nord-cap” [Here I am now, having reached the North Cape].16 erano noti al tempo di Aristotile e di Galeno. Che se quei grandi uomini gli avessero letti, gli avrebbero intesi meglio la natura. Se camminassero sopra al mare agghiacciato, non lascierebbero scritto che il mare non può agghiacciarsi [I learned this entire lesson from the book of experience that I have narrated, books which were unknown at the time of Aristotle and Galen. For if these great men had read them, they would have better understood nature. If they had walked upon the frozen seas, they would not have written that the sea cannot freeze over]. Ibid., pp. 284–5. The metaphor of the “book of nature,” rendered famous in late Renaissance Italian culture by Tommaso Campanella (1568–1639) and Galileo, is a clear reference to new science. 13 Ibid., p. 347. 14 Negri was familiar with Della Valle’s account. In Letter 1, marginal notes refer to Della Valle’s Viaggi. See Negri, Viaggio settentrionale, p. 127, n. 82. An extant manuscript of one of Negri’s letters also has the name “Della Valle” in marginal notes. See Negri, Lettera quarta, Biblioteca Classense, Ravenna, Ms. Nob. 3.7.H , fol. 29. 15 Carlo Dionisotti writes: “Dopo il contrastato successo del Marino, che ancora era stato un successo italiano, da Torino a Napoli, e in parte europeo, nessun poeta era più riuscito a richiamare su di sé l’attenzione dell’Italia, nonché dell’Europa” [After the debated success of Marino, which was still an Italian success, from Turin to Naples, and also a European success, no [Italian] poet was able to garner the attention of Italy, or of Europe]. Dionisotti, “Regioni e letteratura,” p. 1391. 16 Negri, Viaggio settentrionale, p. 357. He does not always reproduce the temporal immediacy of travel letters in the account, which he reworked over a period of thirty years.

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The use of the present tense and the fiction of writing in situ convey more dramatically the reaching of his northernmost objective. Literary culture remains a key reference point in the moments when Negri as character comes to the fore, usually in the recounting of adventures and personal anecdotes. And in the moments of greatest difficulty, he evokes Petrarch, not Descartes or Galileo, in telling of his wanderings. At the end of Letter 6 from Norway, for example, Negri relates his tribulations using a belletristic timbre reminiscent of Della Valle’s style. As he faces exceedingly cold conditions and increasing isolation,17 Negri turns to the writings of the Italian literary and erudite tradition to express his emotional response. Traveling alone northward, Negri at one point loses a shoe in the deep snow and, when he finally retrieves it, is unable to put it back on because he no longer has feeling in his hands. He continues on nevertheless, carrying a shoe in one hand, and relates the event in Petrarchan tones: In tal modo viaggiando, e sapendo che non è per finir questo sì scabroso viaggio in pochi giorni, ma che vi si ricercano settimane e qualche mese, e che sempre devono crescere difficoltà, io vado meco stesso parlando o ruminando in questa forma. —Tu soffri molto, Francesco, non è vero? Ma dimmi, chi ti ha fatto venir in queste parti? Nessuno. Ci sei venuto spontaneamente per veder le curiosità. Di chi dunque puoi lamentarti? [Traveling in such a way, and knowing that this extremely rough journey will not end in just a few days, but instead will require weeks or even months, and that difficulties will always increase, I go on speaking and ruminating to myself in this way: You suffer greatly, Francesco, don’t you? But tell me; who made you come to these parts? No one. You came spontaneously to see curiosities. About whom, then, can you complain?]18

In addressing himself by his first name, Francesco, and emulating the Tuscan poet’s style (“io vado meco stesso parlando” [I go on speaking to myself]), Negri associates himself with the Italian poet–wanderer par excellence. In narrating moments of duress, he turns back to his Italian literary roots for discursive models and expresses a specifically Italian sensitivity. Moreover, as an echo of Petrarch’s literary dialogues with classical authors, Negri goes on to quote pertinent adages by Pliny, Horace, and Seneca in recounting his attempt to bolster his morale. In tribute to a more For example, in the fourth letter, he writes on the subject of a man who was revived after being found frozen: “è poco tempo che m’è stato narrato qui in Roma da un signore di gran merito che è stato testimonio al fatto … un caso simile a quello dell’agghiacciato in Norvegia” [a short while ago, a gentleman of great merit, who was a witness to the event, told me here in Rome of a case similar to the one of the frozen man in Norway]. Ibid., p. 286. Here, Negri is more invested in providing convincing evidence of marvelous events than creating the fiction of travel in progress. The narrator of the story says the event occurred in 1669, three years after Negri completed his journey to Scandinavia. 17 “Al presente provo questo gran freddo, posso dire con verità che il maggior patimento io abbia fatto in vita mia è il dolore che mi apporta il freddo, particolarmente ne’ piedi mezzi congelati” [At present I feel this great cold and can truly say that the worst suffering I have undergone in my life is the pain caused by the cold, especially in my half-frozen feet]. Ibid., p. 328. The episode is, exceptionally, recounted in the present tense for dramatic effect. 18 Ibid., p. 333.

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contemporary and baroque fictional work, Negri concludes the passage with a verse from Battista Guarini’s Pastor Fido (1590), the pastoral play that remained popular throughout the 1600s and that is mentioned by both Della Valle and Belli in their travel accounts: “Chi vuol goder degli agi, Soffra prima i disagi” [He that would land at Joy must wade through Woes].19 Negri, the parish priest with a scientific bent, finds solace in wise words from a baroque literary text. On a related note, some of the account’s detailed observations of flora and fauna, according to Marziano Guglielminetti, owe more to baroque literary aesthetics than to scientific rigor: “aclune [pagine] … rientrano ancora nei cataloghi di meraviglie naturali di cui si compiacque tanta letteratura del secolo, a partire delle enumerazioni vegetali ed animali che affollano certi canti dell’Adone [Some pages still resemble the catalogs of natural marvels in which so much literature of the century delighted, starting with the lists of plants and animals that fill up certain cantos of the Adone].20 Scientific observation and literature also mix when Negri discusses his methodology. For instance, in a way reminiscent of Della Valle, Negri quotes Ariosto’s Orlando Furioso. On the subject of the existence of a sea snake, he writes: “Però a me basta di narrare non portenti accaduti in aria e transitori, ma cose suppostemi da persone sensate, e da me credute sincere … Ma che? Deve verificarsi non solo questa, ma altre volte il detto del poeta, mentre parla di chi viaggia in provincie remote dalla sua patria, ‘il qual tal cosa vede, Che, narrandola poi, non se gli crede’” [To me it is enough to narrate not ephemeral and transitory events, but things told to me by sensible people whom I believed to be sincere. Hardly for others! What is bound to happen not only this time, but several times, is the proverb of the poet when he speaks of those who travel in areas distant from their hometown: “Such a thing he sees is that which, telling of it, no one believes”].21 19 Ibid., pp. 333–4. The quote is from Act 4, Scene VI, vs. 28–9. The scene includes a chorus of shepherds and huntsmen. The shepherds proclaim: “Chi vuol goder degli agi, / soffra prima i disagi: / né da riposo infruttuoso e vile, / che ’l faticar aborre, / ma da fatica, che virtù precorre, / nasce il vero riposo.” Battista Guarini, Opere, ed. Luigi Fasso (Turin: UTET, 1950), p. 292. [He that would land at Joy must wade through Woes: / Nor by unprofitable base Repose / Abhoring Labour, but from gallant Deeds, / and vertuous Labour true Repose proceeds]. The English translation is from The Faithful Shepherd. A Pastoral Tragic-comedy Written in Italian by the Celebrated Cavalier Guarini (London: Richard Montagu, 1735), p. 158. 20 Guglielminetti, Manierismo e barocco, p. 256. 21 Negri, Viaggio settentrionale, p. 304. The quote is from Canto VII, octave 1: “Chi va lontan da la sua patria, vede / cose, da quel che già credea, lontane; / che narrandole poi, non se gli crede, / e stimato bugiardo ne rimane: / che ’l sciocco vulgo non gli vuol dare fede, / se non le vede e tocca chiare e piane” [The traveller, he, whom sea or mountain sunder / From his own country, sees things strange and new; / That the misjudging vulgar, which lies under / The mist of ignorance, esteems untrue: / Rejecting whatsoever is a wonder, / Unless ’tis palpable and plain to view]. Ludovico Ariosto, Orlando furioso, ed. Marcello Turchi, 2 vols (Milan: Garzanti, 1982), vol. 1, p. 140. The English translation is by William Stewart Rose (1775–1843), published in London, 1910 at http://omacl.org/Orlando/7-8canto.html. Tasso, on the subject of epic poetry, recommends setting fictional events in faraway places such as Scandinavia in order to make a marvel-filled story more plausible, “perché fra popoli lontani e ne’ paesi incogniti possiamo finger molte cose di leggieri, senza toglier autorità a la favola.

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Certain comical moments in the account also recall the Italian literary tradition, for example when Negri tells an anecdote in which he shares a bed in an inn with a Scandinavian clergyman. The brief passage, which evokes the comic topos of less-thanluxurious inns and eccentric guests, is reminiscent of certain situations in Boccaccian novelle or Berni’s comic capitoli with their boisterous priests and crowded sleeping conditions.22 The priest offers a drink to Negri while he is in bed: “per darmi la buona notte [the priest] mi fece un brindisi così a letto, com’io stava, con una scodellina d’argento piena di acquavite” [to wish me good night, the priest made a toast to me in bed, where I was, with a small silver bowl full of aquavit].23 Continuing on a lighter tone, Negri narrates what he specifically designates as a story (“racconto”): Per finir questo racconto, la mattina seguente … venne a svegliarmi l’istesso reverendo, e così tra la veglia e il sonno udii le prime parole, che furono: Domine Itale, bibo tibi; onde mi convenne, aprendo la bocca non so se prima che gli occhi, bever l’acquavite così corcato. [To finish this tale, the following morning the same reverend came to wake me and thus, between sleep and wakefulness I heard the first words, which were: “My Italian lord, I drink to you”. After which, opening my mouth probably before I did my eyes, lying down, I had to drink the aquavit.]24

Here, Negri-character is no longer the tenacious explorer attempting to reach the next destination, but a sleepy traveler who good-naturedly indulges an insistent fellow guest. Negri-narrator well knows that the setting and the type of event will have familiar resonances for an Italian reader. The reference to Negri’s country of origin (“domine Itale”) also emphasizes his presence abroad as an Italian. Such uncommon autobiographical episodes reveal the persistent role of literary culture in conveying an “Italian” perspective in the Viaggio settentrionale, despite literature’s subordination to other discourses and cultural currents. Però di Gotia e di Norvegia e di Svevia e de l’Indie Orientali o di paesi di nuovo ritrovati nel vastissimo oceano oltre le Colonne d’Ercole, si dee prender la materia de’ sì fatti poemi” [because we can make up many pleasing things that take place among faraway peoples and in unknown lands without making the story less authoritative. So one can take the subjects of these poems from the lands of the Goths and Norway and Sweden and Iceland or the West Indies or newly discovered areas in the vast ocean beyond the pillars of Hercules]. Torquato Tasso, Prose, ed. Ettore Mazzali (Milan: Ricciardi, 1959), pp. 552–3. Tasso, like Negri, sees Scandinavia as equally exotic as the Americas. 22 Among the more famous works of comic travel literature are Francesco Berni’s verse Capitolo del prete da Povigliano (1532) and Capitolo a Messer Baccio Cavalcanti sopra la gita di Nizza (1533). The first Capitolo centers on a priest’s stay at an extremely filthy inn. See Francesco Berni, Poesie e prose, ed. Ezio Chiorboli (Florence: Olschki, 1934). Marino’s burlesque letter to Arrigo Falconio from Paris (1615) attests to the fame of Berni’s Capitoli: “Entrai [in town] e fui proveduto d’albergo simile a quello ch’ebbe il Bernia a casa di quel prete” [I arrived in town and was given lodging similar to that which Berni had at the home of that priest]. Giambattista Marino, Lettere, p. 548. 23 Negri, Viaggio settentrionale, p. 336. 24 Ibid., p. 336.

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Northern Space and Place While Scandinavia might at first glance seem an unusual or unexpected destination for Negri, as it did for Frederick III, in fact the itinerary is ideally suited for Negri’s purpose of reinscribing Italy as a significant European place and as a departure point for intrepid travelers. The choice of Scandinavia allows this traveler to engage in a crucial strategy of avoidance: he can claim status as an Italian making a bold journey, while at the same time downplaying any reminders of Italy’s changed role on the European stage. It is an area less well known to Southern Europe, and Negri’s movement in effect redirects European paradigms of traveling south (to Italy) or on an East–West axis (to Asia, to the Americas). It is also a safe option in that it includes territory for the most part neither disputed by continental European powers nor threatened by Eastern civilizations. In the textual representation of Scandinavia, the area is just spatially far enough to be characterized as exotic, but culturally near enough not to incite fear or anxiety. Negri’s text does not reproduce discourses of religious conversion or economic exploitation when representing “exotic” Scandinavia, in part because he travels through an area which, even if considered remote, is nevertheless still European and therefore does not lend itself as readily to discourses of appropriation. More significantly, his perspective reflects his unique position as an Italian traveling for personal reasons and not representing a political, economic, or religious institution. Negri is excluded from, and indeed cannot participate in, a colonial mentality or set of cultural practices. He never expresses a desire for possession or domination, but rather focuses on observation and explanation. Negri’s careful sidestepping of potentially controversial subjects, or subjects that might point to Italy’s decline, is most obvious in his discussions of religious rituals in Sweden, whose official religion was Lutheran. Through an ethnographic lens, he describes Swedish marriages and funerals in great detail, glossing over issues of religious doctrine. He finally concedes: “Non s’è detto ancora cos’alcuna della religione; onde brevemente dirò, che la sola luterana qui si professa […] Tra tanti popoli, che nel secolo passato si disunirono dalla nostra, anzi sua antica religione, i meno da essa remoti sono i Luterani” [I haven’t yet said anything about their religion; so I’ll say briefly that only Lutheranism is practiced. Of so many people who, in the last century, divorced themselves from our, or rather their, ancient religion, the least remote from the Church are the Lutherans].25 In line with his tendency to characterize similarity and difference in spatial terms, as will be discussed below, Negri qualifies Lutheranism as “least remote” from Catholicism, essentially refusing to address such explosive issues as the status of the Christian religion.26 Scandinavia, in the narrator’s portrayal, must remain ideologically unproblematic, even if it involves a form of denial, so that he can more freely explore discursive practices to bolster Italy’s status. One of these discursive practices is to demonstrate his authority as an Italian traveler by creating an image of Scandinavia as a mysterious terra incognita, a 25 Ibid., p. 191. 26 Negri receives help and hospitality from members of the Catholic Church in Scandinavia and, when in Stockholm, stays with the French almoner to Louis XIV.

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European Other. This allows him, especially when visiting the more isolated areas of Scandinavia, to take on the role of a courageous discoverer–chronicler of new lands, much like earlier explorers to different continents. For instance, using Pliny as an authority, he declares toward the end of his narrative, “E’ tanto differente dunque questo regno, o piuttosto questa Scandinavia, dall’altre parti d’Europa che pare che ad essa piuttosto sarebbe convenuto quel detto: Divisa ab orbe Scandinavia, che Britannia” [Scandinavia is so different from other parts of Europe that Pliny should have said that Scandinavia, instead of Britannia, is separate from the world].27 Using a lexicon stressing alterity (“so different”, “separate”), Negri reinforces an impression of Scandinavia as occupying another universe unto itself, allowing him to place himself within the “we” of a dominant European travel culture. Because Negri is most concerned about place, his narrative consists of an intricate combination of spatial discourses inasmuch as the text produces a variety of spatial relationships or explains cultural similarities and differences through spatial means. In characterizing Scandinavia, he recasts in a multitude of ways the distance or proximity between the European continent and its northernmost zone, between Italy and Scandinavia, and between Italy and the rest of continental Europe and even the world. For instance, he characterizes Scandinavia as a distant site of harmless exoticism and, recuperating elements of early European accounts of indigenous Americans, he sometimes associates Scandinavians with the mythical Golden Age or biblical times. Scandinavians are admirable for their excellent health and extraordinary longevity, characteristics often associated with the inhabitants of the Americas: “Superano ogni altra nazione d’Europa più meridionale in lunghezza di vita … Quasi in ogni parocchia, nelle parti norlandiche, si trova chi con prosperità passa cent’anni” [They surpass every other more Southern European country in length of life. In almost every parish of the northern areas, one finds someone who has leisurely passed one hundred years of age].28

27 Ibid., p. 238. The quotations do not correspond to the writings on Britain in Pliny’s Natural History, which say simply that Britain “is situated to the north-west, and, with a large tract of intervening sea, lies opposite to Germany, Gaul, and Spain, by far the greater part of Europe.” Pliny the Elder, Natural History, Book IV, trans. John Bostock and H.T. Riley (New York: George Bell and Sons, 1893), p. 350. Negri’s view of Scandinavia as a different world may refer to Pliny’s description of Scandinavia as an island: “the most famous among [the northern islands] is Scandinavia, of a magnitude not as yet ascertained: the only portion of it all known is inhabited by the nation of the Hilleviones, who dwell in 500 villages, and call it a second world.” Ibid., p. 343. 28 Negri, Viaggio settentrionale, p. 150–51. Hayden White observes in commentary by Europeans on indigenous Americans, “The natives apparently enjoy the attributes formerly believed to have been possessed only by the Patriarchs of the Old Testament: robust health and longevity of life.” White, Tropics of Discourse, p. 187.

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Figure 4.2

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Frontispiece of Johannes Scheffer’s History of Lapland, 1657. By permission of the Huntington Library

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“Discovering” Lapland In Lapland especially, Negri, again painting a picture of innocuous and unthreatening difference, characterizes the natives as “noble savages” whose simplicity offers an appealing alternative to the complexities of civilization.29 These very notions of barbarism and civilization are at the heart of his representation of the Lapps. Despite his criticism of some of their pagan superstitions, Negri likens the Lapps’ way of life to that of the Golden Age and waxes nostalgic for their uncomplicated existence, again referencing discourses from the Age of Exploration. In their frozen world, they are untouched by either excessive virtue or excessive vice and embody the aurea mediocritas ideal: Non sarebbe alieno dal vero chi dicesse, che le qualità dell’animo di questi abitatori corrispondono a quelle della loro terra, che non produce né frutti, né spine. Essi non hanno né virtù né vizii. Pare in un certo modo, che goda delle qualità del secolo d’oro questa nazione, che o poca o nulla ha notizia dell’oro. [It would not be far from the truth were someone to say that the qualities of spirit of these populations correspond to those of their land, which produces neither fruits nor thorns. These people have neither vice nor virtue. It seems that in a certain way the people of this country enjoy the qualities of the Golden Age, in that they have little or no knowledge of gold.]30

With a play on the word “oro” [gold], he defends the Lapps’ innocence and praises their adherence to natural law and the resulting wellbeing and social harmony. In terms of character, extreme location has produced a total—and for Negri’s purposes, safe—moderation in its inhabitants. The Lapps occupy a place outside of or removed from more mainstream paradigms of good and bad. Negri’s penchant for contradiction in his arguments comes out in his assessing the multifaceted “extremeness” of Lapps: Tutti questi contrapposti si verificano dei Lapponi: perché effettivamente non è nazione … più esposta ai patimenti, e che manco li senta … più barbara per l’ignoranza, e più gentile per la piacevolezza de’ costumi … più priva delle scienze e delle virtù, delle quali né meno sa il nome, e che più filosoficamente viva … Non è maraviglia se vada in tutto all’estremità quella nazione che dalla natura è stata collocata nell’estremità del mondo.

29 As Joan-Pau Rubiés notes, following the discovery of the “New World,” ethnographic writings attempt to categorize different peoples according to the sophistication of their culture and their perceived character and moral qualities: “Human nature and history were in fact newly defined on the basis of the description of diversity and change in travel literature and historiography … The comparison of different systems of behavior and beliefs ultimately led to a new hierarchical classification for peoples in terms of barbarism and civilization.” JoanPau Rubiés, “New Worlds and Renaissance Ethnology,” in Anthony Pagden (ed.), Facing Each Other: The World’s Perception of Europe and Europe’s Perception of the World, Part I (Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2000), pp. 85, 90. 30 Negri, Viaggio settentrionale, p. 127.

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[All these antitheses are true of the Lapps because, in fact, there is no group more exposed to suffering, and yet which does not even feel it; no group more barbaric for its ignorance yet more refined in the courteousness of its customs; more deprived of science and of the virtues whose names they do not know, yet living more philosophically. It is no wonder if these inhabitants go to extremes in all things, because they have been placed at the extremity of the earth by nature.]31

In this celebratory rhetoric of opposites, Lapp existence is grounded in a series of paradoxical cause–effect relationships. Lapps, unlike the indigenous Americans of some early ethnographic texts, live in opposition to, not in harmony with, their climate. For Negri, extreme conditions (in this case, the extreme cold) provoke not just extreme but contrary reactions. Combining hyperbolic characterizations of the Lapps (“more barbaric,” “more deprived of science and virtue”) with equally hyperbolic consequences (“more refined in the courteousness of [their] customs”, “living more philosophically”), Negri makes clear that it is his particular representation of the Lapps, which contains more baroque exaggeration than scientific elements, and not really the Lapps in and of themselves, that makes them so striking. On the subject of physical characteristics, Lapps are again anything but moderate. When describing their appearance, Negri does so by focusing on their radical alterity within a European framework and also likens them to populations of other continents. The Italian traveler’s logic of analogies between location and ethnic or cultural characteristics allows him both to “distance” Lapps and to “center” Italy. After discussing the Lapps’ hut-like living quarters, he comments on their physical size: I nostri Lapponi … sono di statura i più piccoli dell’Europa … e l’istesso è degli Sciti, o Tartari Asiatici … Costituiscono dunque i Lapponi due estremi insieme con gli Olandesi, che sono i più grandi e grossi in Europa, e massimamente le donne. [Our Lapps are the smallest of stature in Europe, and this also goes for the Scythians, or Asians Tartars. The Lapps and the Dutch are the two extremes of Europe in that the Dutch are the tallest and most solid Europeans, and they often surpass the norm in weight and size, and especially the Dutch women.]32

In his quirky anthropological map of the world, Negri acknowledges that Lapps are European (“the smallest of stature in Europe”) and opposes them to the larger-sized Dutch on a European scale. He equates Lapp physique, however, with that of nonEuropean populations such as Scythians and Tartars. The Lapps may be European geographically speaking, but their diminutive size places them under a rubric relative to Eastern peoples. Negri, it is true, uses a possessive (“our Lapps”) when characterizing Lapps, and thus places them in a European perspective, i.e. one of ours. Nevertheless, when commenting on Lapp skin color, he infers that he is part of an Italian group that defines the norm or average for human size and coloring:

31 Ibid., p. 132. 32 Ibid., p. 73.

Figure 4.3

Map of Lapland. From Johannes Scheffer, History of Lapland, 1657. By permission of the Huntington Library

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La piccolezza però de’ Lapponi non è tanta, come de’ Pigmei, che stimo favolosi, o de’ nani; ma i più grandi eguaglieranno appena un mediocre de’ nostri … essi sono i più bruni di tutti gli altri, che tramezzano tra noi e loro, perché sono intirizziti, o quasi abbruciati dal freddo della zona glaciale, siccome gli Etiopi sono i più negri di tutti gli altri, che tramezzano pure fra noi e loro, per esser adusti dal calore della zona torrida. [The smallness of the Lapps is not as great as that of Pygmies, which I believe to be fictitious, or of dwarfs, but the largest of them would barely equal in height an average one of ours. These people have a darker complexion than the people who live between their region and ours, due to their close proximity to the polar region. They are numbed and almost burned by the bitter cold, much like the Ethiopians (the darkest of all people between their region and ours) are burned by the heat of the torrid zone.]33

“I nostri” [ours] means Italians and not Europeans because Negri here excludes Lapps, whom he has just acknowledged as European, from the category of “ours.” He continues to play with the notion of Scandinavia as both inside and outside of Europe. In this passage, “an average one of ours,” an average Italian, is the measuring-stick with which to assess the height of the Lapps. Similarly, he explains that the extreme (“the darkest”) Lapp skin color results from a far northern location relative to an Italian middle ground, just as Ethiopian skin color results from an extreme southern location vis-à-vis the we. The degree of distance from the presumed Italian center determines the degree of darkness. Once again, Lapps occupy a realm of alterity that lies outside of any concept of European-ness and that renders them closer to the inhabitants of other continents. According to Negri’s argument, Lapps and Ethiopians can be grouped together precisely because they have a similar “extreme” skin color (Lapps brownish, Ethiopians black). By the same token, the small size of Pygmies and Lapps—not opposite, but identical characteristics—can also be explained by their inhabiting extreme, even if opposite, geographical areas. Opposite climates produce similar physiques. Negri’s tendency to interpret phenomena by relating seemingly contradictory components, while scientifically questionable, effectively highlights Italy’s presupposed central position. Even when Negri praises the simplicity of Lapp life and suggests that Lapps might find certain Italian customs ridiculous, he does so by using a binary opposition between Europeans and non-Europeans. For instance, after positing that Lapps would laugh at the use of the plural pronoun “voi” to address formally one person, he writes: “Simil occasione di risa reciprocamente verte tra molte nazioni: non minus illis Europoei, quam Europoeis illi ridiculi sunt; così scrive il P[adre] Maffei, mentre racconta molti costumi tra di loro contrari de’ Cinesi e degli Europei” [A similar occasion for laughter can be seen among many nations. They are no less ridiculous to the Europeans than the Europeans are to them. So writes Father Maffei when he tells of the many Chinese and European customs

33 Ibid., p. 75.

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that are opposite of each other].34 Drawing a parallel between European–Chinese reciprocal laughter and Italian–Lapp reciprocal laughter, Negri implies that the cultural and geographical distance between Italy and Lapland is comparable to the distance between Europe and China. Maffei’s writings about the East are an ideal source for Negri in representing Lapps as radical Others.35 Continuing to model his considerations after Maffei’s remarks on China, Negri comments that Lapps non sono tanto pazzi quanto gli Indiani, che offeriscono all’idolo pezzi della propria carne, tagliandosela da sé stessi dalle braccia e dal volto, ed in fine la propria vita, facendosi stritolare sotto le ruote de’ carri. Imitano più tosto i Cinesi, che offeriscono all’idolo le coste delle galline, le unghie degli animali domestici da cibarsi. [are not as crazy as the Indians, who offer pieces of their own flesh to idols, cutting it out from their own arms and faces, and in the end taking their own lives, having themselves crushed under the wheels of carts. Rather, they imitate the Chinese, who offer chicken ribs and pets’ nails to their idols as nourishment.]36

Again, in suggesting the similarities between Lapp and Chinese customs, Negri removes Scandinavia even farther from any kind of European reality. His choosing as a model a chronicler of the Far East, Maffei, helps him to create an image of Scandinavia that is as exotic and different as another continent might be for an “average” European. His spatial discourse equating Scandinavia with lands remote from Europe allows him and Italy to occupy implicitly an imposing position. Swedes and Italo-Goths Negri appears to reject the premises of his argument when, after initially describing Scandinavia as remote, he establishes later on an unexampled cultural connection between Italians and Swedes. This temporary nearing of Italy to Sweden—another kind of re-mapping—involves rather unusual historical interpretation, but it is in fact a parallel strategy or means to justify Italy’s importance. One again, a dubious premise perfectly serves Negri’s goal of placing Italy and Italians in a positive light by associating them with Sweden’s military strength and ability to resist invasion. Certainly, Sweden held a significant position on Europe’s political and cultural map, having fought successfully against the Holy Roman Emperor in Germany before the Peace of Prague in 1635.37 Furthermore, the cultural connection of Sweden to Italy in the seventeenth century was manifest, especially in the figure of Queen Christina of Sweden. An eminent humanist who gained international fame when she abdicated the throne in 1654, converted to Catholicism, and established herself 34 Ibid., p. 82. Giovanni Pietro Maffei is the author of Historiarum indicarum libri XVI (Florence: Filippo Giunti, 1588). 35 Negri refers in his account to writings by Catholic missionaries or historians, such as Daniello Bartoli, Alberto Vimina, and Vincenzo Maria Murchio, mentioned below. 36 Ibid., p. 131. 37 Prosperi and Viola, Storia italiana, vol. 2, pp. 424–5.

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at the papal court, she held famed literary meetings with a circle that would found the Arcadia literary academy later on in 1690. Negri himself had been witness to Christina’s official entry into Rome: “Ci andai [to Rome] non per veder Roma, ma il felice e fausto ingresso di sua Maestà, allora che vi fu accolta colla magnificenza a tutto il mondo nota dal Sommo Pontefice Alessandro VII” [I went not to see Rome, but for the joyful and festive entry of her Majesty, when she was welcomed with a magnificence known to all by the Great Pontiff Alexander VII].38 Bent on conveying positive common attributes in Swedes and Italians, Negri insists on their shared Gothic pedigree. For instance, at a dinner with Swedish clergymen, Negri proudly proclaims, as a native of Ravenna, his descendance from Gothic roots: “Ed essi pur godevano di interrogarmi dei nostri paesi, e mi facevano istanza particolarmente quando mi udivano dire che io sono Italo-goto, cioè la mia patria esser Ravenna, l’antica residenza già dei re Goti, le cui memorie e gli edificii de’ medesimi tuttavia l’illustrano [And they enjoyed questioning me about our cities, and their interest was particularly piqued when they heard me say that I’m an Italian-Goth, that is, that my hometown is Ravenna, the ancient residence of the Gothic kings, whose memory and whose buildings still bring her fame].39 Negri even likens Ravenna to Stockholm. He praises the Swedish city for having one of the best ports in Europe, and notes that the city is made up of various smaller cities and islands: “Parmi che possa meritamente esser denominata in plurale Stokholmiae, siccome l’altra Venetiae, e così pure alcune altre, tra le quali può mettersi Ravenna” [It seems to me that Stockholm can be designated in the plural, Stockholms, as the other Venice(s), and as can other cities, among them Ravenna].40 He defines Swedes as Goth-Swedes41 who owe their military might to Gothic ancestors best known for their conquests:42 ”Non fu mai soggiogato il paese da stranieri con aperta guerra, ma bensì i suoi popoli arrivarono già sotto il nome di Goti a dominare la dominazione del mondo, Roma” [This country was never conquered by foreigners in open war, and instead her people, under the name of Goths, were even able to dominate the world’s dominator, Rome].43 Implicit in Negri’s remarks is the 38 Negri, Viaggio settentrionale, p. 200. The Italian traveler also had an audience with Christina of Sweden and mentions that he spoke with her of his “patria Ravenna, residenza degli antichi re de’ Goti” [hometown Ravenna, residence of the ancient kings of the Goths]. Ibid., p. 201. 39 Ibid., p. 170. 40 Ibid., p. 197. 41 “Questo popolo Sveo-Goto” [this Swedish–Gothic people]. Ibid., p. 134. 42 Negri insists in the same vein: “Questa è una nazione delle più bellicose che veda il sole … E realmente può dirsi che la natura abbia fatto questi popoli per conquistare, il paese per non esser conquistato, comunicando a quelli un animo dotato di straordinario coraggio e robustezza di corpo” [This is one of the most bellicose nations under the sun. And one can truly say that nature has made these people for conquering, and their country for not being conquered, giving them a spirit of extraordinary courage and physical robustness]. Ibid., p. 134. 43 Ibid., p. 135. He uses “Goth” as a generic term for invaders from the north. The Ostrogoths, who occupied much of Italy during the medieval period and made Ravenna their principal Italian stronghold in the fifth and sixth centuries, actually originated from regions

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reference to Italy’s subjugation to Spain and the yearning for an Italy free of foreign domination. In his attempt to associate Italy with Sweden’s defensive capabilities, he focuses on cultural correspondences resulting from a common history and proximity, not on differences related to climactic and geographical variations. To bolster his argument, however, Negri not only unequivocally dismisses the traditional Italian early modern nostalgia for Rome’s far-reaching influence, but also overlooks the fact that the Goths were themselves invaders and contributed to the demise of the Roman Empire. In his interpretation, Goths become benevolent dictators: “se giammai godè l’Italia felice governo, ciò fu sotto il regno de’ Goti” [If Italy ever enjoyed a good government, it was under the reign of the Goths].44 In this unprecedented historical re-reading, Italy’s resilience and courage stem from its northern heritage, not from a triumphant and glorious Roman past. Negri goes as far as invoking Charles V’s respect for Gothic conquerors to support his claims of Italy’s heroic Gothic heritage: Non isdegnò quel grande eroe l’imperatore Carlo V di dichiararsi di discendere dalla prosapia degli antichi Goti … e così possono fondatamente dire gli abitatori di Ravenna, stata regia sede de’ re Goti; anzi l’Italia tutta se ne può pregiare, particolarmente in quelle parti che conservano i costumi degli antichi Goti. [That great hero, the Emperor Charles V, did not disdain declaring himself a descendant of the ancient Goths. And the citizens of Ravenna can say the same with good reason about the ancient seat of the Gothic kings. All of Italy can take pride in that, especially in those areas that have kept ancient Gothic customs.]45

That Negri is eager to create a powerful and dignified past, especially for himself, becomes clear in his recalling that the Goths who settled in Italy established the center of their reign in Ravenna.46 However far-fetched his argument may be, Negri does provide in his text a completely novel cultural and spatial nearing of Southern and Northern Europe. For a brief moment in the text, then, the Italian peninsula has shifted northward, and Italy’s newly defined Swedish heritage allows him to transfer to his homeland the worthy attributes of the country visited.

near the Black Sea. These were a separate group from the southern Scandinavian–German Goth tribes. See Werner Hilgemann and Herman Kinder, Atlante storico Garzanti (Milan: Garzanti, 1999), pp. 114–19. 44 Negri, Viaggio settentrionale, p. 136. 45 Ibid., p. 157. Negri even submits that the Goths were fair-minded invaders and not “barbarians” because they never purposely demolished Roman temples and buildings: “Parmi che sia che i veri guerrieri, come i Goti, cercano di batter generosamente chi li può battere, e non le statue e macchine insensate” [It seems to me that, like true warriors, the Goths seek to beat generously those who can beat them, and not statues and constructions in a senseless manner]. Ibid., pp. 138–9. 46 Negri abundantly quotes from and refers to the work of Cassiodorus, the sixth-century Latin Christian writer who lived under the reign of the Ostrogoths and wrote a history of the Goths.

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New and Old Science In a cultural climate in which natural philosophy is gaining recognition, Negri also incorporates references to “new” scientific methodologies, once again in the service of nearing Italian culture to Northern Europe. A correspondent of Lorenzo Magalotti, secretary of the Galileo-inspired scientific Accademia del Cimento, Negri is familiar with general concepts of the scientific culture and with the only publication of the Academy, the Saggi di naturali esperienze (1667) [Examples of Natural Experiments], which Magalotti spent years writing and revising for publication.47 Negri does not mention Galileo by name, but his knowledge of the use of inductive technique and his willingness to challenge traditional scientific doctrine are Galilean in flavor. He is familiar with general concepts of the scientific culture of his time, although he has none of the rigor of a trained scientist and neither makes complex calculations nor sets up experiments. Rather, it is his predilection for terms such as “esperienza” [experiment], along with his eagerness to explain and not just report different phenomena, that mark the presence of scientific culture in the account. For example, after positing that reindeer are the fastest animals in Europe, he concludes: “l’esperienza però ne darebbe la total certezza” [an experiment would provide complete certainty].48 Or, when confirming the existence of a symbiotic relationship between certain indigenous species of trees, he confesses: “non ho fatto l’esperienza, perché solamente dopo la mia partenza da Lapponia ho fatta questa riflessione” [I did not do the experiment, because it was only after my departure from Lapland that the notion came to me].49 Negri pays lip service to the importance of experimentation even when he is unable to engage in scientific analyses. He also reinforces the importance of direct experience throughout his journey by repeatedly referring to eyewitnesses (“testimonio oculare”). When affirming the existence of the giant sea snake, for instance, he writes: “Vostra Eccellenza … lo sa per certo, essendole patria la Norvegia, anzi sarà forse di tutto testimonio oculare” [Your Excellency knows this for sure, your homeland being Norway, and perhaps you

47 The academy, active from approximately 1657 to 1667, was founded by a student of Galileo, Vincenzo Viviani, and sponsored by Grand Duke Ferdinand II of Tuscany. While acknowledging its Galilean origins, the academy avoided experiments in astronomy, gravity, and tidal forces that might have been risky given the Church’s widespread control and censure of scientific investigations and publications. For an informative study of the Accademia del Cimento in English, see William Edgar Knowles Middleton, The Experimenters: A Study of the Accademia Del Cimento (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins Press, 1971). The book includes a translation, from which I draw, of the Saggi di naturali esperienze. For an analysis of the connections between Negri and Magalotti, see Giuseppe Olmi, “Sweden in the Travel Journals of Lorenzo Magalotti and Francesco Negri,” in Marco Bereta and Tore Frängsmyr (eds), Sidereus Nuncius & Stella Polaris. The Scientific Relations between Italy and Sweden in Early Modern History (Canton, MA: Science History Publications/USA, 1997), pp. 57–78. 48 Negri, Viaggio settentrionale, p. 94. 49 Ibid., p. 99. This is a clear indication that Negri wrote his account after his travels, and not, as the epistolary genre usually suggests, while on his journey.

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have actually been an eyewitness to it].50 Although he may not actually engage in empirical experimentation, Negri, by virtue of being in Scandinavia, at least claims the minimal scientific procedure of direct observation. However, to Negri, new science is both a methodological imperative and authoritative investigative practice, and a means to bring Italian culture closer to prominent Northern European scientific centers. As Marco Biagioli writes, “it is undeniable that, by 1680, the centers of European science were no longer Padua or Florence, but Paris and London.”51 The Saggi di naturali esperienze, which presumably would be Negri’s principal source for practicing experimental science, betrays an underlying anxiety about Italian contributions to science in its regular references to its investigations as part of a pan-European project.52 Magalotti’s comments on the importance of scientific investigation are typical: “per dare il suo pieno a così nobile e giovevole intraprendimento, niun’altra cosa ci vorrebbe, che una libera comunicazione di diverse adunanze sparse, come oggi sono, per le più illustre e più cospicue regioni d’Europa” [To give full scope to such a noble and useful enterprise we should wish for nothing else but a free communication from the various Societies, scattered as they are today through the most illustrious and notable region[s] of Europe].53 Or, on an experiment with quicksilver performed by an Italian scientist: “E’ nota oramai per ogni parte d’Europa quella famosa esperienza dell’argentovivo, che l’anno 1643 si parò davanti al grande intelletto del Torricelli” [That famous experiment with quicksilver that was presented in 1643 before the great intellect of Torricelli is now known in every part of Europe].54 This awareness of a European playing-field with which to contend is evident in Negri’s own explanation of his decision to travel in Scandinavia: [N]on può, per dire il vero, parere che strano, che noi Europei trascuriamo parti così curiose nella nostra Europa, intenti più tosto ad investigar con diligenti osservazioni i remoti paesi dell’Oriente e dell’Austro, e insin del Nuovo Mondo, al presente tanto noti e praticati; e ignoriamo poscia le stesse nostre regioni. [In truth, it can only seem strange that we Europeans ignore such intriguing parts of our own Europe, intent rather on investigating with diligent observations the remote countries

50 Ibid., p. 308. In this passage, he is probably addressing his Norwegian correspondent Jacob Rautenfels, although the eight letters of the text are not addressed to any specifically identified person. 51 Marco Biagioli, “Scientific Revolution, Social Bricolage, and Etiquette,” in Roy Porter and Mikulas Teich (eds), The Scientific Revolution in National Context (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992), p. 12. 52 Although the work was published after the end of Negri’s journey, Negri would have known about the Accademia del Cimento’s activities, and would have consulted the text in the following decades as he prepared his travel account for publication. 53 Magalotti, Saggi di naturali esperienze (1667), pp. 60–61; Knowles Middleton, p. 91. 54 Magalotti, Saggi di naturali esperienze (1667), p. 80; Knowles Middleton, p. 105. Evangelista Torricelli (1608–47), a physicist and mathematician, invented the barometer.

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of the East and the South and even the New World, all of which are by now so well-known and traveled; and we then ignore our own regions.]55

Conveniently casting sea and land travel to other continents as unimaginative and repetitive—in other words, the travel undertaken by the principal powers of Spain, England, France, and the Netherlands—Negri can make the case for the absolute necessity of his trip. His use of pronouns to include himself in European patterns of mobility (“we Europeans”) and the repeated possessives (“our own Europe”, “our own regions”) serve to place him within the dominant travel culture of continental Europe, since his statement necessarily excludes a possible Scandinavian point of view. He constructs a similar perspective when he mentions the lack of information on Scandinavia and “il non trovarsi, per quanto io sappia, alcun autore che abbia scritto della Scandinavia come testimonio oculare dopo di averla osservata tutta, e massimamente le sue parti boreali” [the fact that one cannot find, as far as I know, any author who has written about Scandinavia as an eyewitness after having observed all of it, especially its northernmost areas].56 Again, Scandinavians do not appear to fit in the category of European eyewitnesses, and Negri’s focus seems to rest on the authors and authorities of areas of cultural prominence in Northern European countries, such as the ones mentioned by Biagioli. Negri’s insistence on the importance of direct, experimental inquiry becomes less convincing as science when, perhaps responding to the references in many travel accounts to unusual and wondrous flora, fauna, and geological formations, he also confirms, through what he claims to be reputable sources, the existence of trolls, elves, and miraculous occurrences, such as the revival of men and animals after lengthy submersions in ice-covered waters. The pull of the marvelous, still requisite elements in tales of exotic travels and part of baroque tastes, excludes the possibility of following any one distinct methodology. However, this turning away from a consistent scientific approach in favor of more aesthetic considerations—including the attention to the curious and the bizarre—can also be seen in Magalotti’s scientific writing and in the activities of the Accademia del Cimento. When describing one of the Academy’s specially ordered coil-shaped thermometers, Magalotti admits: “[è] fatto questo strumento più tosto per una bizzarria e per curiosità di veder correre l’acqua le decine di gradi, mossa dal semplice appressamento dell’alito, che per dedurne giuste ed infallibili proporzioni del caldo e del freddo [This instrument is rather made for a whim, and through curiosity to see the liquid run through tens of degrees when it is simply breathed on, than for finding out with it the just and unfailing proportions of heat and cold].57 For Negri, as for the members of the Accademia del Cimento, the pleasure and marvel of science are never completely removed from the practice of it. In this particular manifestation of seventeenth-century natural philosophy, scientific

55 Negri, Viaggio settentrionale, p. 52. 56 Ibid. 57 Magalotti, Saggi di naturali esperienze (1667), p. 49; Knowles Middleton, p. 69. These thermometers are viewable at the Museo della Scienza in Florence, and color photographs of them are published in Paolo Galluzzi (ed.), Scienziati a corte: L’arte della sperimentazione nell’Accademia Galileiana del Cimento (1657–1667) (Florence: Sillabe, 2001).

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precision does not necessarily take precedence over or interfere with amusement, pleasure, or an impulsive, fanciful, baroque “bizzarria.” While new science lets Negri make the case for being an up-to-date traveler who participates in the latest modes of investigation, he turns back to classical notions of climate theory to prove that Italy is the world’s geographical point of reference. Principally, climate theory offers the perfect “scientific” method for Negri to consider Scandinavia and Italy within a global, and not just European, discourse. Again according to Normand Doiron, climate theory is fundamental to seventeenthcentury travelers’ search for a totalizing discourse (“discours totalisateur”) which can account for and categorize all variety and difference on earth.58 Negri seeks to define Scandinavia and Italy as part of a totalizing discourse in relation to the rest of the world. He uses this global perspective to explain the impact of the cold on humans and animals by contrasting the Scandinavian conditions to various torrid climates, such as those of India and China. His correlation of extremes reflects widespread notions of the consequences of living in cold or hot climates, according to which those living in cold areas are more vigorous, and those from warmer regions weaker.59 Negri also refers to the frigid–torrid parallel when discussing climate opposition because he uses the accounts of missionaries to the Far East as sources. For instance, in his anthropological commentary, Negri, much as he did with Maffei, emulates the writings of contemporary traveler Vincenzo Maria Murchio, a Carmelite missionary who traveled to Asia and published his Viaggio all’Indie Orientali [Journey to the East Indies] in 1672. Evoking Murchio’s criticism of the sensuality, gluttony, and drinking he claims to observe in tropical populations, Negri praises in a much lighter tone the plain lifestyle of Northerners and what he sees as freedom from carnal and gastronomic excesses. Scandinavians are moderate in their private and public behavior: “Il fomite poi della concupiscenza qui più che altro è represso, 58 Doiron’s comments on French travel narratives are applicable here: “le voyageur classique [of the 1600s] dresse des catalogues de raretés, et son récit est un recueil contenant, en abrégé, toute l’histoire du monde. La dispersion qui suivit la chute de Babel trouve sa plus profonde expression dans la théorie des climats … C’est donc la diversité des climats qui impose aux voyageurs la tâche de recueillir par leurs parcours les qualités éparses propres à chaque lieu” [The traveler of the 1600s makes catalogues of rarities, and his narrative is a collection, in abbreviated form, of the entire history of the world. The dispersion that followed the fall of Babel finds its deepest expression in climate theory. It is the diversity of climates that imposes upon the traveler the task of gathering, along his itinerary, the varied qualities particular to each place]. Doiron, “L’art de voyager,” p. 98. In using climate theory to argue for Italy’s still privileged position, Negri picks up on a key component of early modern anthropological thought and the “critical debate about relativity of customs and behavior.” Rubiés, “New Worlds and Renaissance Ethnology,” p. 95. 59 See Marian J. Tooley, “Bodin and the Mediaeval Theory of Climate,” Speculum, 28 (1953): 73. Vigor is linked to a healthy appetite, as Negri points out: “Insomma questi climi settentrionali portano seco la disposizione ad esser più abbondante nel mangiare e bere che in altri; e ciò lo provo in me stesso” [In short, these northern climates bring about a disposition to eat and drink more abundantly than in others; and this I have experienced myself]. Negri, Viaggio settentrionale, pp. 170.

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e per la freddezza dell’aria, e molto più per la privazione delle delizie: Cerere e Bacco qua non ponno giungere; Venere sì, ma con poco calore” [The instigation to lust is mostly repressed, because the air is cold, and even more so because of the deprivation of any delights. Ceres and Bacchus cannot reach here; Venus can, but with little heat].60 The intense cold produces the exact opposite reaction of intense heat. Once again, Scandinavia, although part of Europe, is more easily comparable to Asia in its excessive climactic conditions: Per lo contrario [of a cold climate] si vede in pratica che l’incontinenza è più in vigore nei popoli più meridionali, e più di tutti in quelli della zona torrida. Subito che si entra in India, è bene pensar che si entra dentro un paese la cui aria ha un maraviglioso potere per corrompere gli spiriti per mezzo del mal esempio. Così ha lasciato scritto monsignor di Berito nel suo viaggio della Cocincina. E il padre Vincenzo Maria Carmelitano Scalzo nel suo viaggio dell’ Indie dice: “in un clima tutto di fuoco cresce l’inclinazione a male.” [In the opposite of a cold climate, we can see in practice that incontinence is more the norm in the southernmost peoples, and above all in those of the torrid zone. As soon as one enters India, it is good to remember that one is entering a country whose air has the marvelous power to corrupt the spirit through bad examples. That is what Monsignor Berito has written in his travels to Cochin. And the Discalced Carmelite Vincenzo Maria, in his travels to India, says “the inclination towards evil grows in a climate that is all fire”.]61

For Negri, even Scandinavian fauna has a mellow temperament that marks a complete contrast with the creatures of torrid areas: io faccio riflessione sopra l’eccesso del calore della zona torrida, e l’eccesso del freddo della zona glaciale, e ritrovo che fanno anche contrari gli effetti negli animali. Produce quella le tigri, i leoni, le pantere ed altri animali feroci, draghi e serpenti velenosi, gli uomini similmente fieri e crudeli sino a mangiarsi gli uni gli altri. Produce questa gli animali piacevoli. Non ci sono i velenosi e gli uomini sono pacifici. [I reflect on the excess heat in the torrid zone and the excess cold in the glacial zone, and I find that they also produce contrary effects in animals. The former produces tigers, lions, panthers, and other fierce animals, dragons, poisonous snakes, and similarly beast-like and cruel men, who eat one another. The latter produces gentle animals. There are no poisonous ones, and the men are peaceful.]62

Once again, he highlights the tranquil Scandinavian way of life in which even wild animals present less of a danger than in hot, evil-inclined climates. 60 Ibid., p. 126. 61 Ibid., p. 152. Berito is Pierre Lambert de la Motte, bishop of Béryte (1624–79), whose travels, originally published in French, came out in Italian as Relatione delle missioni de’ vescovi vicarii apostolici mandati dalla Santa Sede Apostolica alli regni di Siam, Cocincina, Camboia, e Tunkino (Rome: Stamperia della Sacra Congregatione di Propaganda Fide, 1677). For a modern edition, see Jacques de Bourges, Relation du voyage de Mgr l’évêque de Béryte au royaume de la Cochinchine, ed. Jean-Pierre Duteil (Paris: Gérard Monfort, 2000). 62 Negri, Viaggio settentrionale, p. 127.

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When Negri, as he does with the Lapps, focuses on the extremes in terms of binary oppositions of frigid–torrid, calm–fierce, and corrupt–uncorrupt, implicit in this discourse is the Aristotelian notion that a temperate climate can provide ideally balanced conditions for human beings. Despite his laudatory commentary on Scandinavian vigor and restraint, the Italian traveler argues that Italy has the ideal climate, and in doing so diverges from the climactic and geographical preferences of his classical predecessors. Although basic tenets linking climate and human behavior were common to many classical and early modern texts, the specific location of the ideal climate remained in the eye of the beholder. Aristotle of course favored Greece, and Ptolemy those regions between 28 and 34 degrees north. As can be expected, Negri declares that the areas lying at the 45th parallel—Ravenna’s latitude being 44’25’’ north—have the most salutary climate. Such a place is most favorable for humankind’s potential to flourish: Ritrovo che quelle nazioni, che sono egualmente distanti dalla zona torrida e dalla glaciale, cioè circa al grado quarantesimo quinto, producono, se non unitamente nell’istesso soggetto, almeno disgiuntamente in varii, le persone più belle e gli ingegni più acuti, e per conseguenza più virtuosi o più viziosi, che l’altre provincie, che s’accostano all’estremità, nella quale si verifica regolarmente il detto del Filosofo: Homines regionum frigidarum plus habent virium, minus consilii; calidarum e contra. [I find that those countries equidistant from the torrid and frigid zones, that is at about forty-five degrees, produce, if not together in the same person, at least separately in various persons, the most beautiful people and the sharpest minds, and by consequence the most virtuous or the most full of vice, than the other areas close to the extremities, in which one can consistently validate the saying of the Philosopher: Men of the cold regions have spirit but lack intelligence; the opposite is true for those of the hot regions.]63

Just as he indicates when describing the Lapps, acute cold may prevent excess vice, but it also prevents excess virtue. Negri, in a manner reminiscent of his description of Lapps as “noble savages,” uses opposing hyperbolic characteristics—that is, the tendency towards extreme vice and extreme virtue—to characterize one people. Scandinavians are less subject to sin than Italians, but they are accordingly unable to

63 Ibid., p. 157. His quotation comes from Aristotle’s Politics, VII, 7 on climate and character: The nations in cold regions, particularly in Europe, are full of spirit but deficient in intelligence and skill; which is why they continue to be comparatively free but are apolitical and incapable of ruling their neighbors. By contrast, those in Asia have intelligent minds and are skilled in the crafts, but they lack spirit; which is why they continue to be ruled and enslaved. But as for the race of the Greeks, just as it occupies an intermediate region, so it shares in both conditions. For it is both spirited and intelligent; and this is why it continues to be free. Aristotle, Politics. Books VII and VIII, trans. R. Kraut (Oxford: Clarendon, 1997), p. 12.

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achieve either the greatness or even the physical beauty of those from Negri’s selfdefined ideal climate.64 The theory of extreme vice and virtue also provides a built-in explanation for Italian failures and successes, since these attributes are two sides of one latitudinal coin. Italy, because of its moderate climate, is a site for great potential, unlike in areas of intense heat or intense cold. This rather ingenuous line of logic does the service both of accounting for Italy’s decline in the seventeenth century and explaining Negri’s decision to take on a treacherous journey. His trip exemplifies the Italian possibility of achieving great virtue, in this case through audacious exploration and thorough investigation of lesser-known lands. Negri pays a more expected and traditional homage to Italy’s classical past when he praises Italy and Greece as homes to the finest minds: “L’esperienza ci dimostra, che i migliori ingegni del mondo sono provenuti dalla Grecia e dall’Italia, e dalle parti d’Europa a quelle corrispondenti ne’ climi, e particolarmente in quelle, nelle quali si producono buoni vini e acque sottili” [Experience shows us that the best minds in the world have come from Greece and Italy, and from those parts of Europe with a corresponding climate, and particularly those areas in which good wine and delicate waters are produced].65 By characterizing Italians as having the highest potential intelligence of any populations, he also implies that they have the capacity at least to match, if not to surpass other Europeans in their travels and explorations abroad. Given the premise of Italian superiority, it logically follows that Negri himself, as an Italian living in Ravenna, is particularly well-suited to undertake and write about such a challenging but warranted journey. Having firmly placed Italians at the center of civilization, he can confidently declare: “mi parebbe di non esser italiano, se non avessi avuta questa curiosità” [I would not feel Italian, if I had not had this curiosity].66 According to Negri’s logic, then, Frederick III’s surprise at seeing an Italian abroad is based on flawed assumptions about climate and character. For Negri, his travels are in fact within expected and comprehensible parameters of behavior, simply because he is Italian. The Viaggio settentrionale is in essence an attempt to construct a “totalizing discourse,” to return to Doiron’s term, through the representation of travel to a single region of Europe. In this, Negri’s ambitions and motives for travel are comprehensible, but his methodologies for representing them and Scandinavia are ultimately contradictory. The logical inconsistencies in the text reflect a tension between a pseudo-objective, new scientific and more universal perspective on the one hand, and, on the other, a desire to claim authority and recognition through 64 Negri also quotes from John Barclay’s Icon animorum (1614), a treatise on the character of people and nations, to support his argument: “Nihil autem tam arduum sedulitati humanae, ad quod Italici acuminis praestantia non tollatur. Ad extremum non alibi sanctiorum virtutum exempla, peiorumque facinorum, quam in Italicis animis cernas” [There is no challenge to human intelligence so great that the Italians’ superior acumen does not rise to the occasion. In the end, you will not find elsewhere examples of the most saintly virtues and the worst crimes, as in Italians]. Negri, Viaggio settentrionale, p. 158. See John Barclay, Icon animorum (London: John Billium, 1614), pp. 140, 143. 65 Negri, Viaggio settentrionale, p. 158. 66 Ibid., pp. 238–9.

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the narrator’s connection to a specifically defined area: the Italian peninsula, and Negri’s hometown, or patria, of Ravenna. Negri may pose as a natural scientist at the forefront of developing European currents of investigation, but new science does not provide him the means to his end, which is to explain cultural phenomena in a way that highlights Italian contributions to contemporary Europe. In the end, the distinction of the Viaggio settentrionale lies neither in the quantity nor in the accuracy of the factual information and argumentations, but in this Italian observer’s innovative combination of techniques of notation, categorization, and explanation of the far north. His travel account is in part the reflection of the variegated and ultimately incompatible forms—old and new—of ordering knowledge that are circulating in an increasingly international culture, and in part the product of a self-conscious traveler’s reaction to Italy’s progressive exclusion from a Europe growing more powerful precisely because of its international mobility. The text is a transitional or hybrid one because of its new scientific lexicon, its residual but nevertheless significant literary elements, and its baroque attention to the marvelous and the fantastic. The undercurrent of Negri’s imaginative but sometimes clashing discourses, however, is more than a battle between elements of new science and old science, or between science and literature: it is the need to convey his journey in such a manner as to re-situate Italy in a privileged position on a European scale. His primary strategy for doing so is by spatializing, or rhetorically rendering in terms of space, the social and historical differences between Italy and Scandinavia, between Europe and Asia, the Americas, and Africa. If Negri does not furnish a truly scientific or logically consistent inquiry with experimentation and calculation, he exercises his methodological freedom and surpasses empirical guidelines by letting permeate through them the real meaning of his undertaking—namely, to prove that Italy and especially Ravenna are at the true center of the world.

Chapter 5

Repossessing Travel Writing: The Circumnavigating Moderno In the preface to the French translation of his Giro del Mondo [Journey Around the World], Giovanni Francesco Gemelli Careri and his travel account receive ample, if not hyperbolic, commendation: Ce n’est pas seulement un ouvrage excellent, mais on peut assurer qu’il est unique dans son genre, et qu’il n’a encore rien paru jusqu’à present qui lui puisse être comparé, soit pour la fidélité de la narration, soit pour la beauté et la justesse des descriptions, soit pour l’abondance et la variété des matières, soit pour l’exactitude judicieuse avec laquelle il relève les fautes de ceux qui ont écrit avant lui, soit pour le mélange agréable de traits d’histoire, de morale, de politique et de critique … l’Auteur est un des plus honnêtes hommes de l’Europe, et généralement reconnu pour tel. [This is not only an excellent work, but we can also confirm that it is unique to the genre and that nothing else has yet been published to which it can be compared, be it for the faithfulness of the narration, the beauty and accuracy of the descriptions, the abundance and variety of subjects, the judicious exactness with which he reveals the errors of those who have written before him, the pleasant mixing of elements of history, morality, politics, and criticism. The author is one of the most respectable men in Europe and is generally recognized as such.]1

The appeal to French readers, partly to ensure editorial success, reflects the evolving criteria for judging travel writing. Gemelli Careri earns high marks especially for the pleasing variety of subjects he treats and for adeptly wearing the different hats of the historian, philosopher, and critic. He also benefits from his reputation for respectability (honnêteté), a trait that is both a cause and effect of his critical, discerning, and accurate eye. This respectability derives in part from his status as an independent, unprejudiced traveler. The editor later makes clear that Gemelli Careri’s impartiality has allowed him to correct the errors in earlier travel texts, especially the account of merchant Jean-Baptiste Tavernier (a successful, and therefore rival travel narrative), which has none of the “attention d’un homme de lettres qui, loin de tout motif d’interêt, n’a jamais eu d’autre pas en voyageant, que le désir d’apprendre et de comuniquer aux autres ce qu’il savait” [awareness of a man of letters, who, far from having any self-interested motive, never had any other intention in traveling

1 Giovanni Francesco Gemelli Careri, Voyage du tour du Monde, 6 vols (Paris: Etienne Ganeau, 1727), vol. 1, p. iv. The first edition of the French translation is from 1719 (Paris: Ganeau). I have adapted the punctuation and spelling in quotes from the French translation.

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besides the desire to learn and to communicate to others what he knew].2 Gemelli Careri is the ideal traveler and travel writer because he is educated and because he apparently has no stake in the bustling economic, political, and religious activities he encounters around the world. Indeed, the figure of the literary, detached globetrotter is new for both Italy and Europe, and considered especially praiseworthy. In defining Gemelli Careri as a reputable European and therefore a reliable source of information and evaluation (“critique”), the French editor never addresses Gemelli Careri’s Italian identity and the fact that he is the first Italian to travel around the world for personal edification. And yet it is precisely his position as an Italian that provides him the claimed critical distance and that makes his Giro del mondo “unique in its genre.” He is undoubtedly European, but, like Francesco Carletti nearly one century earlier, he is an outsider on the stage of world travel dominated by England, France, and Spain. This inbetween-ness—reminiscent of Francesco Carletti’s claim, “noi, che non eramo né di questi né di quelli” [we, who were neither these nor those]3—remains at the origin of Gemelli Careri’s self-fashioning. His accounts of travels through Europe and around the world are about both participating in European textual production and constructing an Italian approach to travel writing, one that foregrounds Italy’s cultural patrimony and its universal exportability. Like Negri’s travel account, Gemelli Careri’s narrative is a discursive endeavor to participate in European travel and travel writing while asserting the Italian contribution to travel culture. Gemelli Careri emphasizes the cultural preeminence of his adoptive hometown, Naples, because of its links to Northern European intellectual and scientific developments, while foregrounding the centrality of Italy to early modern European culture. Unlike Negri, however, who portrays himself essentially as natural philosopher and explorer uncovering the mysteries of lesser-known areas of Europe, Gemelli Careri takes up more beaten tracks, even those in Asia and the Americas. He assumes the narrative voice of a cultured, astute, often witty recorder of facts, and as more of an investigator than a discoverer. He focuses more openly on the art of travel writing, and if there is an underlying act of possession in his text, it is in the desire to reappropriate the discourse of travel narrative itself from the hegemony of early colonial powers. His narrative is part of a program to validate travel literature as a genre open to Italians and as a legitimate intellectual and literary undertaking, one that contributes to the European ideal of the res publica. Whether in the account of European or worldwide travels, the repossession of travel writing also serves to confer onto Gemelli Careri, as well as the Neapolitan culture from which he comes, the status of a Modern in the dispute between Ancients and Moderns. Being modern for him does not signify eschewing classical examples or ideals—for that would mean rejecting key sources of his authority as an Italian travel writer—, but rather in asserting that new circumstances require the modification of old paradigms and the adoption of new ones. 2 Gemelli Careri, Voyage, vol. 1, pp. ix–x. Jean-Baptiste Tavernier (1605–89) was a French merchant who made several trips to the East, including Persia and India. His published travel accounts include Les six voyages de Jean-Baptiste Tavernier (1676), and Recueil de plusieurs relations (1679). 3 Francesco Carletti, Ragionamenti, p. 79. See Chapter 1.

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In his admittedly rare role as an Italian tourist, Gemelli Careri creates a narrative which repossesses on various levels. In his account of European travels, he reappropriates the subject of Italy, offering his own, somewhat lengthy considerations of Italian cities, in particular Venice, and the subject of Italians, along with characterizations and stereotypes about them. He makes the claim for Italy’s enduring cultural contributions, and provides his own view of other national groups from an implied Italian point of view. On the stage of world travels, he constructs his authority through his critical distance—one that he enjoys by virtue of being Italian—vis-à-vis the regions he visits. However, as effectively as he may create the perspective of a disinterested European chronicler, his self-prescribed new role as an independent world traveler hardly meets with acceptance as he moves from place to place. What he does claim makes him a superior narrator, namely his independence, also makes him the continuous target of suspicion and misunderstandings during his journey. By the time of his death in 1724, Gemelli Careri had gained an international reputation for his travels. Born in Calabria in 1648 and trained as a lawyer, he held several government positions in the magistracy of the Kingdom of Naples.4 Prodded by political troubles whose nature remains unclear, he left Naples in 1686, traveled through northern Italy, Savoy, France, England, and the Netherlands, and, before returning to Naples in 1687, fought on the side of the Austrian Empire against the Ottoman Turks at Buda. In 1693, he published the epistolary account of his travels, Viaggi per Europa, which reappeared in 1701–1704 in an expanded and substantially altered edition.5 Among other changes, the new edition had a second book of letters, most of them ostensibly from the front in Buda. In 1687, he went back to Hungary in service of the prince of Lorena. After his return to Italy, he served as a provincial magistrate for the Kingdom of Naples and traveled to Spain on government business. Between the publication of the two editions of his European travels, Gemelli Careri completed a trip around the world, from 1693 to 1698, heading east on multiple sea and land routes through the Mediterranean, the Middle East, Persia, India, the Philippines, and New Spain before crossing the Atlantic back to Europe.5 The 4 He was born near Reggio Calabria, in Radicena, now Taurianova. See P. Doria, “Gemelli Careri,” Dizionario biografico degli italiani, vol. 53, pp. 42–5. In his accounts, he describes himself as Neapolitan or Italian, not as Calabrian. I therefore identify him as Neapolitan. 5 The second volume of the new edition, published in 1704, has the subtitle “Contenente insieme la relazione di due campagne, fatte dall’ autore in Ungheria, per mezzo di varie lettere a varie persone indirizzate” [Containing the account of two campaigns undertaken by the author in Hungary though various letters addressed to various people]. Subsequent editions of 1708, 1711, and 1722 are based on the 1701–1704 edition. Depending on the edition, the title appears as either Viaggi per Europa or Viaggi per l’Europa. An English translation of the second edition exists under the title Travels through Europe by Dr. John Gemelli Careri, in several letters to the counsellor Amato Danio, in A collection of voyages and travels, ed. Awnsham Churchill (London, 1732), vol. 6, pp. 41–142. Regarding the first edition of 1693, although each page of the one volume bears the heading “volume primo,” there is no indication of a second volume having been published until 1704. The single-volume first edition is consistent with Gemelli Careri’s comments in his Giro del mondo: “Non debbo

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account of those travels, Giro del mondo, was first published during 1699 to 1700 in six volumes, each on a different part of the world. The 1711 edition, from which subsequent editions and translations were drawn, includes advice for travelers.6 Travels through Europe, Travels Around the World Although his Giro del mondo has received more attention than his European journey, Gemelli Careri’s writing is best viewed as a whole, in which both travel narratives make up a succession of investigations into the art of travel literature. The significant changes between the first and second editions of his Viaggi, for instance, allow one to consider Italian travel writing as a work in progress at the turn of the seventeenth- to the eighteenth centuries. Indeed, Gemelli Careri’s oeuvre signals a shift away from baroque literature to a critical approach associated with the culture of the “Enlightenment”. Stefania Buccini sees his travel narrative as a “documento di un processo di transizione dalla Weltanschauung barocca a quella razionalistica ed erudita del primo Settecento” [a document of the process of transition from baroque Weltanschauung to the rationalist and erudite outlook of the early eighteenth century].7 The Viaggi per Europa is structured as a series of letters addressed to friend and fellow lawyer Amato Danio, from January through July 1686, while Gemelli Careri travels through major European urban centers such as Venice, Lyon, Paris, London, Amsterdam, and Cologne. The first edition, published in 1693, appeared in a single volume of twentytwo letters. The 1701 edition includes an expanded number of twenty-eight letters to Danio, as well as a second volume of letters to various correspondents written during Gemelli Careri’s participation in the campaign in Buda against the Ottoman Turks.

già negare che da natural vaghezza mosso di gir per lo mondo peregrinando (avvegnaché più volte frastornato) feci nel 1686 il viaggio d’Europa, di cui poscia diedi alle stampe il solo primo libro” [I cannot deny that, moved by natural inclination to go wandering about the world (although I was impeded on several occasions), in 1686 I completed the trip through Europe, of which I later published only the first volume]. Giro del mondo (1699–1700), vol. 1, p. 2. The 1711 edition of the Viaggi (Naples: Felice Mosca) also includes an account of Charles III’s 1707 trip from Vienna to Barcelona. He writes of his motives for travel: “egli si è anche verissimo, che quest’altro sì pericoloso e malagevole [viaggio] non altra cagione mi mosse ad intraprendere che le ingiuste persecuzioni e i non dovuti oltraggi che mi fu forza di sofferire” [It is most true that no other reason prompted me to take on another, so dangerous and punishing journey than the unjust persecutions and undeserved offenses that I was forced to endure]. Giovanni Francesco Gemelli Careri, Giro del mondo, 6 vols (Naples: Giuseppe Roselli, 1699–1700), vol. 1, pp. 2–3. I have modernized the punctuation and capitalization. 6 Editions of the Giro after the 1699–1700 Roselli edition include: Venice, 1700; Naples, 1708; Venice, 1719; Naples, 1721; and Venice, 1728. The earliest English translation was published in 1704, and a German translation came out in 1749. Controversy arose concerning the veracity of Gemelli Careri’s trip, primarily because his world travels were published so quickly after his return and because he draws heavily from missionary writings, but there is now general agreement that Gemelli Careri did indeed travel around the world. 7 Stefania Buccini, “Coerenza metodologica nel Giro del mondo di Giovanni Francesco Gemelli Careri,” Annali d’Italianistica, 14 (1996): 256.

Repossessing Travel Writing: The Circumnavigating Moderno

Figure 5.1

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Giovanni Francesco Gemelli Careri’s European Itinerary, 1686

The 1693 edition of the Viaggi has the spare immediacy of a travel journal. It follows a strictly chronological order, specifies distances traveled, meals taken, prices paid, and cities and villages observed. True to epistolary form, Gemelli Careri includes the typical platitudes of the beginnings and endings of letters, usually in the form of curt apologies for the rough style. In the second edition of the Viaggi, the beginnings and conclusions of letters are lengthier and use a more developed rhetoric. Indeed, the 1701 edition is more reminiscent of the lettera familiare genre, and shifts from a somewhat dry recounting of facts and events to a more polished prose and varied tone. Furthermore, additional space is accorded to abstract topics and comparisons of different cultures, and the author includes more quotes and references to classical and Italian scholarly and literary texts. These topics range over a wide spectrum of subjects, from a meditation on the nature of love and on the unexplained wonder of sea tides to an allegorical representation of bad weather and a lengthy condemnation of superficial knowledge and pedantry.

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Some descriptions of nature reflect the aesthetic sensibility to landscape that becomes more prominent in the eighteenth century.8 While in Windsor, for instance, Gemelli Careri pays homage to the English countryside: Giungemmo a Vindsor, situato parimente sopra un amenissimo colle; donde difficil cosa parmi a raccontare quante belle campagne si scorgano, ora in agiate vallicelle abbassantesi, da cristallini ruscelli, e dal Tamigi placidamente innaffiate; ora in agevoli e vistose colline innalzandosi, di verdeggianti boschetti d’ogni intorno adombrate. [We reached Windsor, also situated on a very beautiful hill. And it seems to me a difficult thing to tell of all the beautiful countryside that one sees, sometimes in lovely sloping little valleys serenely watered by crystal clear streams and the Thames, sometimes in delightful and pretty hills that rise up, shaded by lush little woods.]9

This panorama of verdant and fertile land, which Gemelli Careri, in a typical expression of reticenza, claims to have trouble rendering in his writing, reflects the growing attention to scenery and the picturesque in travel narrative. The account of the trip through Europe also reveals the tastes of a wealthy cosmopolitan traveler who visits famous private museums and libraries. In Milan, for instance, Gemelli Careri goes to the Biblioteca Ambrosiana and also sees a private museum, where he notes details such as petrified rock and the preserved bodies of infant Siamese twins.10 He reports details such as encounters with fellow travelers and inn guests, general impressions of the economy, politics, and social life of each area, and the physique and character of inhabitants of various cities and countries. He is also well connected enough to access the royal courts of France and England, and enthusiastically participates in the activities of upper-class Europeans, especially with regard to entertainment and socializing. His letters often read like the tales of a modern jetsetter leading an international life privy to the latest artistic gossip. He mentions, for example, upon his arrival in Venice: Appena acconce le mie valige nell’albergo, me n’andai nel Teatro di San Luca a udirvi rappresentare l’opera intitolata La Teodora Augusta … Si disse che il Cortona, celebre cantore, non comparirà in scena quest’anno per ischifar qualche dispiacere dall’ Elettor di Sassonia a’ servigi del quale ha egli ricusato d’andare. [As soon as I had set my suitcases in the inn, I went to the theater of San Luca to hear the opera entitled “La Teodora Augusta.” It was said that Cortona, the famous singer, would not appear on stage this year to avoid trouble with the Elector of Saxony, whose offer to serve him he declined.]11

8 Attilio Brilli associates this period with the development of an “aesthetic–topographic sense.” See Brilli, Quando viaggiare era un’arte, p. 43, and Chapter 3, n. 75. 9 Giovanni Francesco Gemelli Careri, Viaggi per Europa (1701–1704), pp. 383–4. 10 Ibid., p. 112. 11 Ibid., p. 3. The castrato Domenico Cecchi (d. 1717 or 1718), known as “il Cortona,” was one of the most popular singers of the time.

Figure 5.2

Map of Europe. From Mercator, Atlas Minor, 1630. By permission of the Huntington Library

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He also includes Homeric references when describing poor lodgings in a humorous tone: “Dopo 30 altre miglia pernottai con tale agio nell’osteria detta delle Bertole, quale io vorrei ch’avesse un mio capital nemico. O lo scelerato oste! O l’indegno albergo! E mi parve quella notte d’esser non già nelle mani di Circe, ma del Ciclopo, o di Scirone” [After 30 more miles I spent the night in the said Osteria delle Bertole, which offered the kind of comfort I wish upon my greatest enemy. O wicked host! O unworthy inn! And it seemed to me that night not to be in the hands of Circe, but of Cyclops, or Sciron].12 The Giro del Mondo reveals a similar cosmopolitan and often ironic point of view of the narrator–traveler, but the text differs from the Viaggi, as the scope of the pluricontinental itinerary calls for different travel writing parameters. On his tour through Europe, in areas already well known and documented, Gemelli Careri allows more textual space to anecdotes, national stereotyping, and poetic musings. Around the world and in areas less known to Europeans, Gemelli Careri foregrounds the didactic, informational aspects of travel writing. The text, made up of six sections entitled “Turkey,” “Persia,” “Indostan,” “China,” “The Philippines,” and “New Spain,” is sub-divided into books and chapters. They include detailed information on the government, religion, society, history, commerce, and flora and fauna of each area, and on these subjects Gemelli Careri often takes freely from other printed sources, which he often acknowledges. In this sense, the Giro is a kind of compilation or compendium of other texts. He uses, among others, Tavernier and Thévenot as sources for the Middle East; Giovanni Pietro Maffei, whom Francesco Negri also quotes, for India; Athanasius Kircher for China; and José de Acosta and Adrian Boot as sources for the volume on New Spain. Gemelli Careri relies heavily on writings by missionaries, some of which he claims to have obtained in manuscript form directly from missionaries encountered on his travels. For instance, while describing the island of Borneo, he writes: “non avrà a male il cortese leggitore, che io interrompa il ragionare del mio viaggio per fargli un brieve ristretto della relazione che ne fece al Serenissimo Re di Portogallo il P[adre] Don Antonio Ventimiglia Teatino, della città di Palermo; primo missionario, che avesse in sorte di penetrare nel cuore di sì grande isola” [May the courteous reader not take offense if I interrupt the telling of my journey to give a brief summary of the account given to the Most Serene King of Portugal by Father Antonio Ventimiglia, Theatin of Palermo, who was the first to penetrate the heart of such a big island].13 Here, Gemelli Careri is 12 Ibid., p. 103. Such a hyperbolic comparison is a typical accompaniment to the topos of the execrable inn in early modern travel literature. See Antonio Maczak, Travel in Early Modern Europe, pp. 30–71. 13 Gemelli Careri, Giro del mondo (1699–1700), vol. 3, p. 321. Ventimiglia (d. 1691) was part of a mission to the East Indies. See Pietro Amat di San Filippo, Biografia dei viaggiatori italiani, p. 460. Gemelli Careri also explains on the topic of Africa: “Essendo le notizie de’ regni e paesi d’Africa ben rare in Europa, ho stimato far cosa grata al lettore, dargliene alcune che non sono già mie, ma di Fra Giacomo Albani e Fra Giuseppe Maria di Gerusalemme, naturale di Palestina, ed allevato in Roma, missionari destinati dalla Missione del Cairo” [Since news of the kingdoms and countries of Africa is quite rare in Europe, I thought the reader would appreciate my providing information that is not mine but that of Friars Giacomo Albani and Giuseppe Maria of Jerusalem, native of Palestine and raised in

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not only drawing from published works, but also, in collecting and publishing the most recent material available directly from the source, acting like a precursor to the investigative journalist. Although he relies on the information gleaned from other texts, Gemelli Careri, as is typical in travel writing, corrects the errors in previous publications in order to assert his authority as a provider of truthful information. In the volume on China, he takes particular aim at Daniello Bartoli, the historian of the Jesuit missions, presumably because Bartoli never traveled to China himself and was not a direct witness to the events and rituals he describes. Gemelli Careri finds Bartoli’s population estimates and his descriptions of Chinese medicine laughably inaccurate. He thus comments on a Chinese remedy for illness, from Bartoli’s writings, that involves fasting and drinking only pear juice for up to twenty days: “Io credo, che se il padre Bartoli fusse soggiacciuto sei dì a tal sorte d’inedia, non avrebbe forse dato in luce tante virtuose fatiche” [I believe that, if Father Bartoli had subjected himself for six days to such a treatment, he might never have published such virtuous work].14 Gemelli Careri chides Pietro Della Valle for not having visited a temple on Salsette Island, apparently surprised at the Roman traveler’s having overlooked certain sites given that he, too, traveled out of curiositas. In a manner echoed by the French editor of the Giro, Gemelli Careri dismisses merchant Tavernier’s perspective as skewed by his economic priorities: Io confesso il vero, che quantunque pover’ uomo, non posi mente a spesa né a fatica, perché potessi veder tutto e parteciparne il pubblico. Quanto al Tavernier, non è gran fatto ch’ egli non abbia curato d’esserne spettatore; imperocché in fine il suo mestiere era di fare il gioielliere e mercante; e per conseguente andava solamente in que’ luoghi dove sperava dover trovare buon guadagno. [I confess the truth that, although a poor man, I paid no heed to expenditures or effort in order to see everything and share it with the public. As to Tavernier, it is no great news that he did not care to be a spectator, since in the end his trade was that of a jeweler and merchant, and thus he went only to those places where he hoped to obtain good earnings.]15

With these comments, Gemelli Careri distinguishes himself as an informed, inquisitive, new kind of global traveler who chooses to investigate only the most worthy of places in the service of gaining and sharing knowledge. He is reliable because of his proper, disinterested choices of areas and monuments to visit.

Rome, both missionaries assigned to the mission in Cairo]. Gemelli Careri, Giro del mondo (1699–1700), vol. 1, p. 72. According to Pietro Amat di San Filippo, Gemelli Careri obtained a manuscript copy of the two missionaries’ account of travels to the Middle East and was the first to publish them: Biografia dei viaggiatori italiani, p. 464. 14 Gemelli Careri, Giro del mondo (1699–1700), vol. 4, p. 286. Gemelli Careri’s criticism of Jesuit writing could also be the result of the unpopularity of Jesuits in some of the literary and academic circles to which he was connected. 15 Ibid., vol. 3, p. 36.

Figure 5.3

Giovanni Francesco’s Circumnavigation 1693–98

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In distant places, Gemelli Careri also conveys the aesthetic sense pervasive in eighteenth-century travel accounts, for instance when he describes the view of Constantinople from the sea: Rivolgendo poscia lo sguardo all’istessa Europa … bellissimo egli si è il veder molti e diversi ben’ abitati luoghi, situati così sopra colli, come nelle pianure e valli … Quindi, è che, venendo dal mare, l’occhio è quasi rapito in estasi da tante prospettive, né sa risolversi ove debba fermarsi; perché quanto più il legno su l’onde s’avanza, altrettanto si mutano le scene, e si veggono nuove apparenze. [Then, turning one’s gaze towards Europe, it is very beautiful to see the many, diverse, well-settled places, situated thus on hilltops and in plains and valleys. Coming from the sea, the eye is enraptured and almost taken to ecstasy from so many views, nor can it decide where to stop; because as the ship moves ahead in the waves, so the scenery changes, and new elements appear.]16

He makes similar comments while navigating in the vicinity of Canton, for example: “L’andare è delizioso, rimirandosi disteso in letto ambe le rive verdeggianti” [The going is delightful, looking at both green banks while reclining on a bed],17 and when viewing nearby mountains: “Eran quelli assai vaghi, e pieni di verzure, e di ruscelli [These were very attractive, and abounded in foliage and streams].18 As in his European travels, he recounts participating in some of his favorite activities, namely hunting and theater-going. Although unable to understand the language, he appreciates an opera in Macao in which the actors “rappresentavano con grazia, ed abilità. Era parte in istile recitativo, e parte cantata, accordando colla musica la varietà degli strumenti d’ottone, e di legno, secondo l’espressione del comediante. Eran tutti vestiti assai bene, e gli abiti erano ricchi d’oro, che mutavano ben spesso” [played gracefully and skillfully. It was partly in recitative, partly sung, and accompanied by music played on brass and wood instruments, depending on the actors’ expressions. They were all very well dressed, and their clothes were rich with gold, and they changed them often].19 Although the Giro does not have as much of the overt literariness and rhetorical play of the Viaggi’s missives, the beginning and end of the volumes usually include the rhetorical appeals to the reader found in lettere familiari and reminiscent of Carletti’s openings and closings in the Ragionamenti. For instance, Gemelli Careri writes at the end of the volume on China: “E qui non abbia a male il lettore che faccia alquanto di sosta nel racconto de’ miei viaggi; per ricominciare, a Dio piacendo, in brieve, il filo nel seguente volume” [And here may the reader not be offended if I pause in the telling of my travels, so that, if it pleases God, I may shortly begin the narration again in the next volume].20 Here, the text draws attention to the act of traveling, narrating, and reading as parallel activities. 16 17 18 19 20

Ibid., vol. 1, pp. 299–300. Ibid., vol. 4, p. 39. Ibid., vol. 4, p. 40. Ibid., vol. 5, p. 9. Ibid., vol. 5, p. 525.

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Many passages describe the hardships and risks of travel and conditions he never faced while traveling through Europe, including a brief time in jail and almost coming to arms with thieves in Turkey. Some of these difficulties he recounts on a light note, such as his encounter with mosquitoes in New Spain: “Tutta la notte mi succhiò quivi il sangue una legione di zanzare” [My blood was sucked all night by a legion of mosquitoes].21 Often the tone is more sober and dramatic, as in his passage from China to the Philippines: [A]vendo ormai, colla esperienza, apparato a soffrire i patimenti che ne’ lunghi viaggi s’incontrano, deliberai, senz’altro indugio interporre, passar da Macao all’isole Filippine sul petacchio spagnolo … per espormi quindi alla più pericolosa navigazione che immaginar mai si possa, e che per lo spazio de sette mesi, fecemi bersaglio di fiere e spaventevoli tempeste. [Having, through experience, prepared myself to endure the suffering that one encounters during long voyages, I planned, without delay, to go from Macao and the Philippines on the Spanish vessel, and to expose myself thus to the most dangerous navigation that one can imagine and that, for the duration of seven months, made me the target of fierce and terrifying storms.]22

In the Americas, his perspective on natives and other non-Europeans is ambiguous at best. As a lawyer in the Kingdom of Naples and therefore under Spanish rule, he makes no direct criticism of Spanish monarchic power and approves of Catholic missions abroad, all the while noting the grim living conditions of enslaved and oppressed populations. He points out the suffering of African slaves in the Americas: “E’ cresciuta in sì gran numero questa canaglia di neri, e color quebrado (come dicono gli spagnuoli) che si dubbita non un giorno abbiano a rivoltarsi e rendersi padroni del paese” [The number of wretched blacks and those of quebrado color, as the Spaniards say, has grown so much that one doubts if they will not some day revolt and become masters of the country].23 The title of the section on Havana reads, “Descrizione della Avana e miserie del paese” [Description of Havana and the miseries of that country],24 indicating the dire situation of the populace there. However, he blames local rulers, not the colonial or missionary programs, for these problems. When addressing the living conditions of indigenous workers, he writes: “sono i poveri indiani di assai peggior condizione che schiavi; poiché essi soli faticano nelle miniere; e quel ch’è peggio, quanto acquistano vien loro tolto da’ governadori ed altri uficiali, malgrado le rampogne che questi odono tutti dì dalla corte” [the poor Indians live in worse conditions than slaves, since they are the only ones to toil in the mines, and what is worse, whatever they make is taken away from them by the governors and other officials, despite the reprimands that they hear every day from the court].25 Gemelli Careri reproduces European claims about native indolence and continues to blame mismanagement for their suffering: 21 22 23 24 25

Ibid., vol. 6, p. 17. Ibid., vol. 5, pp. 1–2. Ibid., vol. 6, p. 81. Ibid., vol. 6, p. 296. Ibid., vol. 6, p. 83.

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[V]ivono questi meschini (come tutti gli altri della Nuova Spagna) più tosto da bruti, che da uomini, tra orride montagne. Alimentansi la maggior parte dell’anno d’erbe, perché non hanno maiz: difetto che nasce sì dal poco tereno che coltivano, come per essere inchinati all’ozio. Mi vennero le lagrime sugli occhi, vedendogli in tale miseria, che non aveano come coprire le parti vergognose, così maschi come femmine … Vedendo io un di loro raccor le bricciole di pane che mi cadevano, gli ne diedi alquanto … E’ causa, non ha dubbio, di tante miserie la loro poltroneria, ma molto più l’ingordigia di alcuni alcaldi, i quali tolgono loro quanto si han procacciato in tutto l’anno. [These poor wretches (like all the others in New Spain) live more like brutes than men, between very steep mountains. Most of the year they live off greens, because they have no corn, the lack of which comes from the little territory that they cultivate, because they are inclined towards laziness. Tears came to my eyes upon seeing such misery and that both men and women had nothing with which to cover their private parts. When I saw that they were gathering the breadcrumbs that I let fall, I gave them some bread. There is no doubt that the cause of this misery is their sloth, but the much greater cause is the greed of some mayors, who take from them the earnings they have eked out all year.]26

He expresses sorrow at the sight of human suffering and degradation, but does not call into question Spain’s domination. Although he critiques unjust governance at the local level, his commentary never translates into a defense or a call for the liberation of those exploited by colonialism. Unsurprisingly in a text by a self-fashioned Italian critic who divides the world into civilized and non-civilized groups, Chinese culture receives considerable praise in the Giro. Evoking certain laudatory writings about China, he asserts the superiority of Chinese ingenuity: “Sorgesi bene quanto i cinesi sono perspicaci e in valor d’ingegno superiori agli europei, dall’essere stati questi loro discepoli (come vogliono gravi autori) intorno la stampa, la carta, la bussola da navigare, l’artiglieria, e la polvere per adoperarla” [It is quite obvious that the Chinese are perspicacious and are superior in ingenuity to Europeans, who have been their disciples—as serious authors contend—regarding printing, paper, the compass, artillery, and gunpowder].27 He concedes that Europeans have much to learn from Chinese inventiveness.28

26 Ibid., vol. 6, pp. 193–4. 27 Ibid., vol. 4, p. 30. Despite his willingness to praise the Chinese, Gemelli Careri is nevertheless critical also of various aspects of Chinese culture. 28 Simonetta Ballo Alagna sees a tendency in early modern Italy to privilege China and the Far East over the Americas in travel writing and travel publications. See Simonetta Ballo Alagna, “Italiani intorno al mondo. Suggestioni, esperienze, immagini dai diari di viaggio di Antonio Pigafetta, Francesco Carletti, Gian Francesco Gemelli Careri.” AGEI- Geotema, 8 (1997): 117. The wealth of information coming from Italian Jesuits in the East may explain this trend, perhaps along with a desire to focus on territories uncolonized by European rivals.

Figure 5.4

Map of America. From Mercator, Atlas Minor, 1630. By permission of the Huntington Library

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Naples at the Turn of the Century Gemelli Careri’s admiration for the modernity of and technological advancements in Chinese culture comes from the various authorities to which he refers in his text, and also out of a growing fascination with Chinese culture in European scholarly circles.29 This relative cultural openness was one element of a period of cultural renewal in Naples at the end of the seventeenth- and beginning of the eighteenth centuries. Despite political, social, and economic turmoil, the Naples in which Gemelli Careri lived was home to active philosophical and scientific inquiries, carried out for the most part in academic contexts. Intellectuals living in Naples, such as Leonardo di Capua, Tommaso Cornelio, Lorenzo Valletta, and Lucantonio Porzio, strove to establish ties and networks with literary and philosophical groups in Northern Europe, especially France, Holland, and England.30 These men were among those responsible for introducing the works of Descartes, Gassendi, Bacon, and Hobbes to Naples.31 Among the most notable academies was the scientific Accademia degli Investiganti, which, despite formally dissolving in around 1670, continued to meet through the end of the century.32 Other Neapolitan academies, such as the Accademia Medinaceli, came out of this climate of cultural revitalization, as 29 “[N]egli ultimi decenni del Seicento l’Europa inizia a subire il fascino del Catai. Grazie alla diffusione di opere di carattere informativo come China monumentis illustrata (1667) di Athanasius Kircher e all’intensificarsi degli scambi commerciali, la cultura cinese desta l’ammirazione e la curiosità degli intellettuali” [In the final decades of the seventeenth century, Europe becomes fascinated by Cathay. Thanks to the distribution of works of a factual nature, like Athanasius Kircher’s China monumentis illustrata (1667) and increased commercial exchanges, Chinese culture evokes the admiration and the curiosity of intellectuals]. Stefania Buccini, “Coerenza metodologica,” p. 253. Liam Brockey attributes the growing interest of Europeans in China to the multitude of Jesuit writings and propaganda regarding their missions there: “A new surge of European interest in China started to develop in earnest in the 1680s … It was the Jesuits who had been stirring the waters with their triumphalist texts for decades in the hope of attracting the gaze of outsiders to their efforts and support for their enterprise. With so many splendid visions of Cathay spewing from European presses in the seventeenth century, the real marvel was that it took the Society’s rivals so long to start paying attention.” Liam Matthew Brockey, Journey to the East. The Jesuit Misison to China, 1579–1704 (Cambridge, MA: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2007), p. 152. 30 The growing popularity of journals and pamphlets is reflected in the travel writing of the time. The first Giornale de’ Letterati was published in Rome in 1668. See Dino Carpanetto and Giuseppe Ricuperati, Italy in the Age of Reason, 1685–1789, trans. Caroline Higgitt (New York: Longman, 1987), p. 78. For an overview of Neapolitan pamphlets and periodicals with which Gemelli Careri would have been familiar, see Angela Maccarrone Amuso, Gianfrancesco Gemelli-Careri. L’Ulisse del XVII secolo (Rome: Gangemi, 2000), pp. 56–9. 31 See ibid., p. 60. 32 See Max H. Fisch, “The Academy of the Investigators,” in Edgar Ashworth Underwood (ed.), Science, Medicine and History, 2 vols (London: Oxford University Press, 1953; repr. Arno Press, 1975), vol. 1, pp. 521–63, and Michele Maylender, Storia delle Accademie d’Italia, 5 vols (Bologna: L. Cappelli Editore, 1926–30), vol. 3, p. 367.

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did Neapolitan thinkers like Giambattista Vico. Antonio Magliabechi, Grand Duke Cosimo III’s librarian, who had counseled Francesco Negri in publishing his book and assured him of Athanasius Kircher’s support for a Dutch edition (see Chapter 4), corresponded regularly with Neapolitan book buyers and sellers, informing them of the latest publications.33 Extant letters between Magliabechi and Giacomo Raillard, the publisher of the first edition of the Viaggi per Europa, indicate a growing interest in books from Northern Europe. Pamphlets and periodicals were also part of a diversifying publishing industry, one which also involved anti-curial, “libertine” elements, some of these linked to academies.34 Gemelli Careri’s correspondent in his letters from Europe, lawyer Amato Danio, for instance, argued against church jurisdiction in the so-called “trial of the atheists” at the end of the 1680s, during which the Roman Curia sought to prosecute two men for writing against church doctrine.35 In this Neapolitan context, as elsewhere, even those with disparate views still participated in a modern conception of the world in the sense that it meant, as Marco Fumaroli writes in his essay on the European dispute between Ancients and Moderns, “[un] engagement passionné et critique dans sa propre époque” [an empassioned and critical commitment to one’s own era].36 However, as Fumaroli notes, the nature of the Italian dispute was different from the French one, which revolved around the absolute monarch: “Elle est le fait de lettrés qui se sentent plus enracinés dans la République des Lettres que dans aucun Etat contemporain. La comparaison entre Antiquité et Modernité est pour eux une condition de la liberté d’esprit” [It is the concern of men of letters who feel more rooted in the republic of letters than in any contemporary state. For Italians, the comparison between Antiquity and Modernity is a condition of freedom of thought].37 Despite a reliance on Northern European cultural models, the Italian (and Neapolitan) sense of being modern continued to embrace a cosmopolitan perspective that was free of the political pressures of protostatehood. Indeed, as Giuseppe Ricuperati points out, the Neapolitan cultural renewal of the late seventeenth century did not address proto-national concerns, but rather, as 33 See Maccarrone Amuso, pp. 54–6. Gemelli Careri’s comments indicate that books were not always easy to come by in Naples. In the Giro del Mondo, the author mentions the lack of material on Salsette Island: “Non so qual giudicio ne facciano gli autori portoghesi … per la scarsezza di tai libri qui in Napoli” [I don’t know what the Portuguese authors say about it, because of the scarcity of such books here in Naples]. Gemelli Careri, Giro del mondo (1699–1700), vol. 3, p. 48. 34 See Maccarrone Amuso, pp. 54–9. 35 Carpanetto and Ricuperati, p. 81. It is unclear if perhaps Gemelli Careri’s loyalty to Danio or an anti-curial cause might not have brought on the “unjust persecutions” that he claims prompted him to undertake his travels. On the subject of the trial, see also Jonathan Israel, Radical Enlightenment: Philosophy and the Making of Modernity 1650–1750 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001), p. 109. 36 Marc Fumaroli, “Les abeilles et les araignées,” in Anne-Marie Lecoq (ed.), La Querelle des Anciens et des Modernes (Paris: Gallimard, 2001), p. 35. In analyzing the Italian context, he uses Traiano Boccalini’s Ragguagli di Parnasso (1612–13), and Alessandro Tassoni’s La secchia rapita (1622) as case studies. 37 Fumaroli, p. 26.

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suggested by Fumaroli, entailed the active participation in the republic of letters and European intellectual circles: Between the end of the seventeenth and the early eighteenth century the [Italian] intellectuals did not insist on the need for national unification. Not only was it an unrealistic political aim, but there was an ever-clearer realisation of the loss of position and prestige of Italian culture compared with the rest of Europe … [W]hat emerged was a realisation of the inferiority of intellectual life, even starting from the view that modern culture was no more than a revival of ancient Italic wisdom. This was a myth fraught with problems, capable of developing retrogressively, causing thinkers to bury themselves in the past, seeking models for the modern age in the ancient world. But it had a positive function too, for it stimulated concrete proposals from the Italian intellectuals which might to some extent remedy the ills that were all too easy to see.38

The desire to promote Italian cultural re-emergence inevitably entailed using Italy’s classical past as a departure point for proposing modern solutions. As Ricuperati also rightly notes, the founding of the Arcadia in 1690 was a movement to remedy Italy’s loss of international prestige.39 The Arcadia was in large part a literary and linguistic movement, one that aimed to unite intellectuals in “colonies” spread throughout Italy and to reconquer Italy through intellectual programs. The academy rejected baroque aesthetics and took Dante, Petrarch, and Boccaccio, alongside Homer and Virgil, as models to follow. As Ricuperati suggests, the taking-up again of traditional models was nevertheless part of a modern stance in the Ancient–Modern dispute. Although problematic, as he concedes, in effect the Arcadia was following the same tradition of Petrarch and the Italian humanists; namely, to reclaim Italy’s prestige through its literary and classical heritage.40 Arcadia as a “solution” to Italy’s diminished status points to the fact that literary culture was the enduring identity-marker for Italians, one that was both more of the same and also the necessary step in cultural change. The Neapolitan intellectual and Arcadian imprint on Gemelli Careri’s travel accounts are clear in the preface to the second edition of the Viaggi per Europa. The preface was written by Gemelli Careri’s mentor, Neapolitan scholar Matteo Egizio, who was a member of, among others, the Accademia degli Uniti and the Arcadia. He frequented the circles of Giambattista Vico and Gianvincenzo Gravina and corresponded with scholars such as Lodovico Muratori and Apostolo Zeno.41 38 Carpanetto and Ricuperati, p. 83. 39 Ibid. 40 Antonio Franceschetti thus describes the combination of ancient and modern in the Arcadia’s aesthetic and poetic projects: “Il loro gusto, che all’insegna della ragionevolezza mirava a salvaguardare l’esperienza dei moderni nell’imitazione dei classici … si accontentava piuttosto del senso musicale, della chiarezza, della naturalezza” [Their taste, which in the name of reason aimed to preserve the experience of moderns in imitating the classics, was limited rather to a musical sensibility, to clarity, and natural-ness]. Antonio Franceschetti, “Rassegna di studi sull’Arcadia,” Lettere italiane, XIX/3 (1967): 375–6. He cautions against reading the Arcadia as a homogeneous movement, focusing instead on the variety of approaches to poetics and philosophy on the part of different members of the Arcadia. 41 Born in Naples, Egizio (1674–1745) received a degree in law, but was also well versed in philosophy, archeology, numismatics, and antiquarianism. He participated in the

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Egizio’s preface provides the determining discursive framework for the new Viaggi and, by extension, the Giro.42 It also treats travel literature as a genre and as a significant element of an Italian program of cultural renewal; and in this sense, it is a clear expression of a modern perspective. Setting up his defense against critics of the Viaggi’s “erudite digressions” in letter form and less polished style, Egizio writes: [D]ico che, prima d’ogni altro, ei [the critics] farebbe mestieri rimandare a scuola gli Scaligeri, il Vossio, il Salmasio, il Grozio, il Cartesio, il Gassendi, il Launoy, il Casaubono, il Reinesio, ed altri chiarissimi lumi del passato secolo, i quali de’ migliori lor pensamenti, così critici che filosofi, han fatto gli amici partecipi per via di lettere senza altro riguardo al mondo. [I say that, before doing anything else, critics should send back to school the Scaliger’s, Vossio, Claude Saumaise, Grotius, Descartes, Gassendi, Jean de Launoy, Casaubon, Reinesius, and others of the brightest lights of the past century, who shared with their friends their best thinking, both critical and philosophical, via letters, without any other concerns.]43

Here, Egizio gives the short list of thinkers most admired and followed in Neapolitan academic communities. The references give a clear indication of the existing cultural models of erudition in Naples, and also elevate Gemelli Careri’s text by linking it to distinguished examples. Egizio uses the key words “critics” and “philosophers,” the authoritative roles an intellectual could take on, and alludes to a modern Neapolitan culture fully invested in the republic of letters ideal, one that depends in many cases on exchanges through letter-writing. Egizio’s preface bestows a certain status to Gemelli Careri’s travels and travel narratives as contributions to elite culture. Italians and the Grand Tour The publication of Gemelli Careri’s travel accounts came about as the Neapolitan republic of letters strove to establish and maintain ties with the scientific and excavations at Herculaneum and, after the return of the Bourbons to Naples in 1734, became the director of the royal library. See M. Ceresa, “Matteo Egizio,” Dizionario biografico degli italiani (Rome: Società Grafica Romana, 1993), vol. 42, pp. 357–69. 42 The extent of Egizio’s contribution to the second edition of the Viaggi per Europa and to the Giro del mondo is debated by Gemelli Careri’s biographers. Augusto Zeri argues that Egizio’s collaboration was central to the new edition of the European travels. Augusto Zeri, “Il primo giro del mondo compiuto da un viaggiatore italiano: Gianfrancesco Gemelli Careri,” Rivista Marittima (1904): 253–79. See also Filippo Nunnari, Un viaggiatore calabrese della fine del secolo XVII (Messina: Tipografia Mazzini, 1901), p. 102, n. 1. The close, recognized relationship between Egizio and Gemelli Careri is clear in a letter from Apostolo Zeno to his brother Pier Caterino: “Ho inteso in Napoli sia morto il gran Viaggiatore Gemelli. Di là possono venirvi dall’Egizio le memorie della sua vita” [I heard that the great traveler Gemelli has died in Naples. Egizio may then write the memoirs of the traveler’s life]. Apostolo Zeno, letter from Vienna dated March 3, 1725, quoted in Salvatore Ussia, L’epistolario di Matteo Egizio e la cultura napoletana del primo Settecento (Naples: Liguori, 1977), p. 54, n. 4. 43 Gemelli Careri, Viaggi per Europa (1701–1704), Preface to the reader.

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philosophical groups of its northern neighbors, pursue a modern agenda of scientific investigation and critique, and set up a proper language of literary and erudite expression. At the same time, for Northern Europeans, Naples held particular interest as a main destination in the rapidly growing phenomenon of the Grand Tour. Indeed, along with ideas from the north came increasing numbers of early tourists, and Gemelli Careri’s travel accounts include forceful reactions to this new paradigm for going abroad, ones that expose his self-consciousness as an Italian traveler. The term “Grand Tour” was coined in Richard Lassels’ The Voyage of Italy (1670), and generally denotes a wealthy traveler’s movement through European spaces for education and personal fulfillment.44 Such travelers—almost exclusively men, and usually young—engage in activities such as evenings at the theater or opera, visits to historical monuments and private museums, the searching-out of picturesque landscapes and views, and the collecting of artwork, books, or mementos. They are also often supplied with letters of introduction that allow them entry into royal courts and social arenas of foreign nobility. Gemelli Careri acknowledges this educational form of touring on the part of Northern Europeans, expressing his disapproval of the Italian lack of participation in the custom: Quindi è, appo gli oltramontani, e specialmente gli alemani, il primogenito che dee essere successore di qualche signoria, procura principalmente far un viaggi per tutta Europa, a fine di acquistare isperienza delle cose del mondo e pulitezza di costumi. E oltracciò i padri sogliono, morendo, lasciare un legato a’ secondogeniti per fare lo stesso. Gli’italiani soli, par che non si curino molto di viaggiare; o perché lo si rendono essi medesimi difficile, colla pompa che affettano da per tutto; o perché credono, che tutta la pulitezza de’ costumi, e le cose maravigliose del mondo siano rinchiuse negli angusti termini d’Italia. [With Europeans from beyond the Alps, especially Germans, it is the first-born son who is to be the successor of some seigniory, who arranges for a trip through all of Europe, aiming to acquire experience in worldly things and refinement in his customs. And in addition to this, many fathers, when they die, leave a bequest for the second-born son to do the same. Only Italians do not seem to care much for traveling, because they make it difficult for themselves, with the pomp that they display everywhere, and because they think that all fine customs and the marvelous things of the world are bound within the narrow borders of Italy.]45

Gemelli Careri’s comment, besides critiquing an Italian unwillingness to view travel as an essential educational practice, reinforces the disjuncture, real or perceived, between Northern European customs and Italian movement abroad. Whether a primarily English phenomenon or one characteristic of Northern Europeans in general, the term Grand Tour is primarily associated with travel to Italy. Indeed, as the title of Lassel’s book suggests, Italy plays a dominant role, with 44 According to Bruce Redford, for example, the Grand Tour designates the two- to three-year journey undertaken by young patrician Englishmen, in the company of a tutor, to various urban centers of Europe in order to complete their education. Italy is a principal destination. Bruce Redford, Venice and the Grand Tour (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1996), p. 14. 45 Gemelli Careri, Giro del Mondo (1721), vol. 6, pp. 382–3.

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Venice, Florence, Rome, and Naples as essential destinations.46 As Bruce Redford notes, Italian museum-cities become the perceived harborers of essential knowledge and indispensable providers of cultural pedigree.47 Furthermore, in their role as hosts defined by Grand Tour culture, Italians function to stimulate cultural comparisons, and Italy serves metaphorically as a reflecting pool in which non-Italians can distinguish and understand in more concrete terms their own cultural identity. Within the English context, for instance, the tour is to “reinforce in the traveler a vital, specific, selfconfident vision of Englishness.”48 In contrast, for Italians travelers such as Gemelli Careri, there exists no Italian tourist culture or cohesive sense of peninsular identity that can be reinforced or challenged by going abroad. The question of autoritas, especially that linked to identity, is a particular problem for Italians such as Gemelli Careri, a native of Calabria whose cultural and political home is Naples, a Spanish colony ruled in absentia by Habsburg king Charles II. Gemelli Careri’s awareness of his uniqueness as an Italian traveler motivated by curiositas is discernible in the incipit of the first edition of his European travels: Particolar curiosità avendomi stimolato sin dalla fanciullezza di veder l’Europa, procurai in diversi luoghi e tempi ridurre amici a far tal viaggi; ma gl’ italiani da tal inclinazione svogliati e timidi nel slontanarsi da patrii lidi si scusarono, alcuni per l’occupatione, ad altri servì di pretesto la mancanza de’ mezzi. Risolsi io finalmente solo intraprendere ciò che non mi è riuscito dopo l’aspettativa di più anni farlo in compagnia. [Since a particular curiosity has spurred me since childhood to see Europe, I attempted in different places and at different times to convince friends to take such a trip; but Italians are unwilling to follow such inclinations and are shy about distancing themselves from their home shores. Some excused themselves for work, and for others lack of funds served as a pretext. After waiting several years, I finally resolved to undertake alone that which I had not been able to do in the company of friends.]49

Here, he criticizes fellow Italians who refuse to leave “home shores” and reinforces the notion—one that is growing in the latter half of the seventeenth century—that Italians are reluctant travelers. As in Negri’s Viaggio settentrionale, Gemelli Careri’s presence abroad as an independent Italian traveler provokes surprise. When he is at the royal court of London, for instance, even the Modenese ambassador to England 46 This travel pattern comes with a corresponding boom in travel publications: “Fra la fine del Cinquecento e l’Ottocento non c’è intellettuale europeo—specie anglossassone—che in modo o nell’altro non abbia compiuto il proprio pellegrinaggio nella penisola, tanto che … il viaggio attraverso i paesi europei e l’Italia diventa, con varianti minime, il titolo di un numero incredibilmente vasto di guide, vade mecum, diari, saggi, cronache, relazioni, epistolari veri o simulati [Between the sixteenth and nineteenth centuries, no European intellectual, especially English, had not in some form or another made his own pilgrimage to the Italian peninsula, so that the journey through European countries and Italy becomes, with minimal variations, the title of an incredibly vast number of guides, vade mecum, diaries, essays, chronicles, accounts, and real or feigned epistles]. Brilli, Quando viaggiare era un’arte, p. 15. 47 See Chapter 1. 48 Redford, p. 31. 49 Gemelli Careri, Viaggio per Europa (1693), p. 1.

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seeks to question a fellow Italian because he travels for personal fulfillment: “mi ricevè con molta cortesia, trattenendomi mezz’ora in quesiti della città di Napoli … ed a che fine mi sia ridotto a far sì lunga strada, contro il costume de gl’ italiani” [He received me with much courtesy and spent half an hour with me asking about the city of Naples and why I had embarked on such a lengthy path, against the customs of Italians].50 The implication of the ambassador is that Italians travel when they have to—in economic, religious, or diplomatic endeavors—, not because they want to. Of course, Gemelli Careri has much in common with the members of the upper classes of European nations, but, seemingly reacting to a climate of consolidating national and proto-national identities, he appears particularly vested in constructing and conveying the sense of an “Italian” perspective to contrast with or complement that of European neighbors. The Viaggi per Europa includes various considerations concerning of what Italian-ness might consist, most of them based in Italy’s literary and artistic heritage. In the Giro del mondo, removed from direct contact with European centers of power, Gemelli Careri’s self-fashioning differs. He focuses more on his status as an autonomous traveler out to witness cultural otherness on different continents, and attempts to construct a cosmopolitan identity that comes out of his being a self-sufficient Italian. However effective his perspective as a modern traveling the world may be for his travel writing, his unprecedented presence as reporter–circumnavigator leads him to many difficult situations. In a world that demands more and more a clear national alliance and identity, Gemelli Careri, instead of being lauded for his impartiality, is consistently taken for an impostor and a spy, mistaken for others, and made to justify his independent status to skeptical hosts and authorities. The gap between the authoritativeness of his narrative perspective as a man of letters and the wariness with which he is often received reflects the gap between the theory and practice of the globetrotting tourist and writer. Gemelli Careri’s self-presentation as a cosmopolitan observer, while a successful textual strategy, does not always meet with acceptance on the stage of the world. An Italian Voice of Protest While Gemelli Careri avoids direct references to Italian identity and characteristics in the Giro del mondo, in recounting his European travels, he accords more textual space to defining differences between Italian cultures and those of other European countries. This is due in part to his following trends in European travel writing, which usually addressed not only the customs of different countries, but also evaluations of national character. Especially in the second edition, he takes on a more pronounced role as an Italian cultural commentator and critic, and in the text there is a clear emphasis on demonstrating the positive qualities and attributes of Italians and, therefore, of himself. He criticizes tourist culture in Italy and challenges foreigners’ pre-conceived notions of Italians. He then links Italian identity to characteristics such as good taste and talent in the arts. Finally, he implicitly expresses an “Italian”

50 Ibid., p. 246.

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point of view by providing detailed evaluations of different national characters, especially the French and English. In the opening letter of his 1686 journey, Gemelli Careri conveys particular disdain for tourists flocking to Italy to see what he considers to be unworthy sites, for example ignoring archeological artifacts in ancient Capua to visit the Grotta del Cane [Dog’s Cave] in Pozzuoli: “A dirvi il vero, non posso se non maravigliarmi forte degli oltramontani, i quali trascurano di vedere quelle anticaglie quando, con tanta curiosità, vanno a Pozzuoli per cose forse di minor pregio: e pure molti di essi passano i monti a bello studio per contemplare di cotai seccaggini” [To tell the truth, I cannot but marvel strongly at those from beyond the Alps who neglect going to see antiquities when, full of curiosity, they go to Pozzuoli to see things that are less prestigious. And yet many of them cross the Alps in order to view such boring things].51 Gemelli Careri’s preference for the word “oltramontani” [from beyond the mountains] to indicate foreigners suggests that the Alps are not simply a topographical element, but a cultural barrier separating those with less and those with more refined habits, between those uncivilized and those closer to the heart of Roman civilization. With these initial comments, Gemelli Careri implies that his travels and his travel writing, unique by default since he is Italian, will be more sophisticated in focusing on worthier sites and areas of investigation. His text serves as a lesson or correction to the mores of foreigners who travel in and write about Italy. In this way, his text is an attempt to repossess European travel and travel writing that increasingly excludes an Italian perspective. One positive characteristic with which he associates Italians and that he uses both to differentiate Italians from other Europeans and to bolster his Italian perspective is that of having “buon gusto,” a much-debated European concept that was also a subject of discussion in the Neapolitan academies with which Gemelli Careri was in contact.52 Especially when discussing architecture or music, precisely those Italian arts that still enjoy international acclaim, Gemelli Careri uses his Italian background to make authoritative assessments about other countries. While in England, Gemelli Careri comments disapprovingly that Whitehall Castle has “un’architettura irregolare e troppo spiacente al buon gusto degl’ italiani” [an irregular architecture that is most displeasing to the good taste of Italians].53 He also demonstrates his pride in Italian music when condemning a music concert he attends in Paris: La composizione, non solo di differente gusto dall’italiana, ma con sì poco artificio disposta, e così scarsa d’invenzione e di quelle durezze e ligature richieste alle parole di

51 Gemelli Careri, Viaggi per Europa (1701–1704), pp. 4–5. The Grotta del Cane was Pozzuoli’s most popular tourist attraction, where travelers paid to see animals “miraculously” become inanimate and, if taken away, revive. The phenomenon results from currents of carbon dioxide that flow into the cave. The Accademia degli Investiganti conducted experiments at the sight. See Fisch, p. 528, n. 41. 52 Questions of taste were also part of the Arcadian project of intellectual renewal. Lodovico Antonio Muratori’s Riflessioni sopra il buon gusto intorno le scienze e le arti (Venice: Luigi Patavino, 1708) is among the more famous Italian texts of the time on questions of taste. 53 Gemelli Careri, Viaggi per Europa (1701–1704), p. 361.

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questi giorni, che il nostro giudicioso e dotto Tommaso Carapella avrebbe da che ridere per più di un giorno. [The composition, which is not only of a different taste from the Italian one, but is also developed with such little skill and so devoid of invention and of the emphases and connections required of lyrics today, that our judicious and erudite Tommaso Carapella would have had enough to laugh about for more than a day.]54

Here, Gemelli Careri is not a forgiving relativist who simply states that the music is a product of different cultural currents. Instead, presuming to have a superior Italian artistic and aesthetic acumen, he judges the music as banal and even laughable. In using the possessive “il nostro … Carapella,” Gemelli Careri projects pride in an Italian music culture that informs his perspective. Moreover, by mentioning Naples as center for reputable musical culture, he offers a subtle reminder that behind his Italian perspective, as in many Italians’ perspectives, however generally presented, lurks a patria. Gemelli Careri makes an analogous reference to Italian artistic tastes when discussing the popular Comédie Italienne in Paris. He quips: “I franzesi non intendono né ponno di aver piacere di quelle goffe parole della Pulcinella” [The French can neither understand nor enjoy those silly lines of Pulcinella],55 thus reprimanding the French for attending shows that they cannot grasp.56 In referring to the famous Neapolitan maschera of the commedia dell’arte, Pulcinella, however, he also deplores French incomprehension of cultural variations and subtleties within Italian comedy. Although he offers no explanation for his remark, Gemelli Careri appears to suggest that different national attitudes, in addition to basic linguistic barriers, make it impossible for the French to fully appreciate the rich Italian and also Neapolitan or regional qualities of this theatrical genre. The brief comment about Pulcinella, then, is part of a larger discourse about Italian culture being misunderstood by Northern Europeans. The Neapolitan traveler also expresses discontent at the assumptions made by “oltramontani” about Italians and their education. Near Nuremberg, he is irked by fellow travelers who, although not well versed in Latin themselves, expect Latin expertise in Italians and are surprised at Gemelli Careri’s awkward oral expression: [M]i rimasi co’ compagni a desinar nel villagio di Pospavv, dove, non senza grandissima noia, fummi d’uopo parlar latino, perocché non intendea le diverse favelle di alcun di loro. Si maravigliano gli oltramontani come noi non troppo speditamente usiam la lingua latina quando ne occorre di ciò fare in viaggi, come se veramente essi, o nello scrivere, o nel parlare ne fussero gran maestri, e non facessero otta [sic] per vicenda de’ più belli barbarismi del mondo: là dove noi, se per difetto di esercizio men velocemente adopriam la lingua, almeno sappiam colla penna formare un periodo giusta le regole de’ buoni maestri. 54 Ibid., pp. 250–51. A printed gloss in the margin of the text describes baroque musician Tommaso Carapella (1654–1736) as an “eccellente contrapuntista in Napoli” [an excellent contrappuntista in Naples] (p. 251). 55 Ibid., p. 304. 56 The comment is entirely new in the 1701 edition.

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Literature and Identity in Italian Baroque Travel Writing [I stayed to eat with my fellow travelers in the village of Pospav, where, not without great exasperation, we had to speak Latin, since I did not understand the various languages of some of them. Those beyond the Alps marvel at how we do not so easily use Latin when it is necessary during travels, as if they were great masters in writing and speaking it, and did not embarrass themselves by pronouncing the greatest barbarisms in the world. If we are less quick to speak the language, for lack of practice, at least we know how to use our pens to produce a correct sentence according to the rules of good teachers.]57

He quickly counters the criticism, defending Italians’ ability to write in Latin, a skill, in his opinion, apparently lost by the “oltramontani” who proffer “barbaric” linguistic utterances, and makes an unequivocal distinction between “we” (those educated in a solid humanist tradition) and “they” (all those of questionable formation coming from over the Alps). He is particularly intent on claiming that proficiency in Latin, the center of a humanist education, is still within the natural domain of Italians, and that the written word, not oral expression, is the true test of linguistic ability. In a related series of comments, ostensibly anecdotal yet ultimately revealing of more profound concerns about his Italian persona, Gemelli Careri complains about European underestimation of other Italian talents, from sporting to linguistic ones once again. He readily makes his own (positive) generalizations about his own countrymen, but contests assumptions and stereotypes foreigners perpetuate about them.58 For example, when telling of a hunt on the grounds of the Prince of Conti in Chantilly, Gemelli Careri recounts that “uno stuolo di colombi venne a passar tanto dappresso alla nostra carozza, che n’ebbi ucciso uno colla pistola; di che maravigliaronsi forte que’ gentiluomini franzesi, non sapendo ch’ anche gl’ italiani san colpir bene a volo” [a flight of pigeons passed near our carriage, and I shot one with my pistol; something at which those French gentlemen marveled greatly, not knowing that Italians shoot accurately at moving targets].59 Instead of referring to his own talent as an individual, here Gemelli Careri portrays himself as part of an Italian community of hunters with good aim. Another component that Gemelli Careri includes in the Viaggi as part of his strategy to assert an Italian perspective is to assess the character and behavior of foreign groups. Anticipating the description de moeurs—the relating of upper-class rituals and customs—common in eighteenth-century travel prose, the Neapolitan traveler depicts foreigners, especially aristocrats, at considerable length. For example, he both admires and admonishes French character and behavior: 57 Ibid., pp. 467–8. 58 Giulio Ferroni comments on the European italomania that engenders a myriad of commonplaces regarding Italy as “il paese solare e marino della musica e del melodramma, il regno delle rovine del passato classico; la decadenza della sua vita civile si riveste di un fascino quasi barbarico. Essa diventa così un luogo mitico, ben pochi riescono a guardarla come un paese che possa realmente contribuire allo sviluppo della moderna civiltà europea” [the sunny seaside country of music and melodrama, the kingdom of ruins and of the classical past. The decadence of its civic life evokes an almost barbaric fascination. Thus Italy becomes a mythical place that very few see as capable of contributing to the development of a modern European civilization]. Giulio Ferroni, Dal Cinquecento al Settecento, vol. 2 of Storia della letteratura italiana, 4 vols (Milan: Einaudi, 1991), p. 349. 59 Gemelli Careri, Viaggi per Europa (1701–1704), p. 306.

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Finirò questa lettera con darvi un saggio de’ costumi, che m’è paruto finora osservar ne’ franzesi. Sono eglino la più compiuta ed amorevole gente del mondo, e fra di loro, e co’ forestieri; liberali, e magnifici, ove ci va del loro onore … quanto alle scienze avrete meglio di me scorto nelle loro opere, quanto delicate e nette sien loro meditazioni, e quanto chiaro e diritto il metodo di porle in iscrittura … Queste virtudi nondimeno son contrappesate da alquanti vizj, come il godere fuor di modo nelle novità; l’esser più tosto temerarj, che arditi; e frettolosi più che non fora d’uopo in certe azioni indifferenti … amatori pur troppo del vino (parlo della plebe) e de’ piaceri donneschi; e quale che gli rende poco stimati da noi italiani, ridono istrabocchevolmente per ogni picciola occasione; stimandosi questa scempiezza fra di essi une gayeté d’esprit. [I will end this letter by giving you an essay on the customs that I believe I have observed in the French. They are the most polished and loving people in the world, among themselves and also towards foreigners: they are giving and generous. As to the sciences, you’ll have discerned better than I in their works how delicate and lucid are their meditations, and how clear and direct is their method for writing them. Nevertheless, these virtues are counterbalanced by some vices, such as the exaggerated delight in novelties, their being rather rash and daring, and more hurried than necessary in certain actions. They are overly fond of wine (especially the commoners) and of womanly pleasures. And, in what gives them little esteem in the eyes of us Italians, they laugh open-mouthed at every little opportunity, convinced that such foolishness reflects a joyful disposition.] 60

As part of his evaluating strategy or “essay on (national) customs,” Gemelli Careri does not refer to his own individual reaction, but rather to a collective group of “noi italiani” [we Italians] who find no charm in the exaggerated laughter of the French. He implies by contrast that Italians are perhaps more contained in their behavior and avoid any action that might be of poor taste, again positing Italians’ privileged access to “buon gusto.”61 60 Ibid., pp. 233–4. Gemelli Careri also weighs the good and bad qualities of the English, paying special attention to their hospitality, and comparing them with the stereotypical characteristics of other national groups: “I nobili son cortesi, e generosi con gli stranieri; e a dire il vero gareggiano in ciò co’ franzesi: ma non hanno già il cuore così franco, nè ’l sembiante così disposto all’affabilità ed amore inverso altrui, e sembrano orgogliosi, ed altieri … Mangiano più che all’italiana, beono alla tedesca, e fanno una vera vita da moscoviti” [The noblemen are courteous and generous with foreigners, and to tell the truth, on this they compete with the French. But they do not have as frank a heart, nor do they seem as disposed to kindness and love towards others. They appear proud and haughty. They eat more than Italians, drink like Germans, and live like Muscovites]. Ibid., pp. 326, 331. 61 In the second edition of the Viaggi, Gemelli Careri removes an anecdote in which he emulates French modes of behavior. When discussing with French acquaintances the subject of relations between the sexes in France, one Frenchman demonstrates the casualness of male–female interaction by kissing and fondling the chest of a woman in the group. Gemelli Careri, momentarily forgetting his Italian reserve, mimics the action: A’ 25 andai a divertirmi con Monsieur Tichen, e con Madmoisella Tichen, sua sorella … Mentre stavo con questa madama e suo fratello merendando, venne un francese lor’ amico che, per esser stato a Roma, parlav’ italiano, mi disse, toccando il petto e baciando la dama, “Questo non si può far in Italia, e pur qui è lecito. Vi piace questo costume?” “Sì che m’aggrade,” ripigliai io, pratticando l’istessa cortesia con la dama.

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One of the more telling examples of the complexities in conveying Italian-ness is Gemelli Careri’s definition of Italians in the first edition in the Viaggi per Europa, a passage that is not included in the second edition. The characterization is unique in Italian travel writing as a traveler’s attempt to characterize his own “imagined community”62 in terms equivalent to those he uses to describe the inhabitants of Europe’s proto-states: L’italiani sono di felice e fecondo ingegno, sagacissimi, pronti, e facili nell’apprendere le scienze ed arti, sitibondi d’onore e gloria, avidi di lode. Succhiano col latte l’inclinatione a darsi piacere e buon tempo; di naturale dissoluti e vendicativi. Sono di colore, e statura diversa, secondo la varietà de’ paesi medesimi d’Italia, sobrii nel vitto e nelle vesti, e queste in diverse mode, secondo la diversità mede[si]ma e genio de gli abitanti, che nel cibo anche ciascuno v’ha il suo gusto particolare. [Italians have a skillful and fertile wit, are very sharp, quick, and easily learn the sciences and the arts, are thirsty for honor and glory, and avid for praise. They suckle with their mother’s milk the inclination towards pleasure-seeking and good times, and they are naturally dissolute and vindictive. They are of a different coloring and stature according to the variety of different areas of Italy, are sober in their eating habits and dress, and all this in different ways according to the differences and tastes of the inhabitants, each of whom has his own taste in food.]63

In the beginning of the passage, Gemelli Careri describes Italians as generally inclined towards learning and recognition, and he enumerates the merits of Italian culture. However, he demonstrates that defining Italian-ness by listing personality traits, skin color, build, clothing, and gastronomical tastes is ultimately a futile exercise. He begins by portraying all Italians as a joyful and keen people, but refuses—as [On the 25th I went to entertain myself with Mister Tichen and Miss Tichen, his sister. While I was having something to eat with this lady and her brother, a French friend of theirs arrived who had been to Rome and spoke Italian. He told me, touching the Lady’s chest and kissing her, “This cannot be done in Italy, and yet it is allowed here. Do you like such a custom?” “Certainly it pleases me,” I retorted, engaging in the same courtesy towards the Lady.] Gemelli Careri, Viaggi per Europa (1693), p. 203. The protagonist’s behavior, perhaps re-evaluated with hindsight as decidedly un-Italian or even shocking to Italian readers, may have precipitated the anecdote’s removal from the second edition. Gemelli Careri also strategically rewrites some anecdotes and changes certain descriptions of royal family members. For example, he updates his initial portrayal of the son of Louis XIV [“Il Delfino devora come un lupo e beve da tedesco. Il più, mangia con le mani” [The Dauphin devours like a wolf and drinks like a German. What is more, he eats with his hands] (1693, p. 180) to produce a more flattering picture: “[Il Delfino] è piu che mezzanamente pieno di corpo, di carnagione bianca e ben colorita; d’occhi cilestri, di pelo biondo; allegro, cortese, e costumato, quale a giovine principe si conviene, ed inchinato soprammodo a caccia” [The Dauphin is above average in body size, and has a white, healthy coloring. He has blue eyes and blond hair. He is cheerful, courteous, and refined, as is proper of a young prince, and is fond above all else of hunting] (1701–1704, p. 241). 62 See Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities. 63 Gemelli Careri, Viaggi per Europa (1693), p. 94.

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he does willingly with the French—to give an idea of a uniform identity in terms of appearance, dress, and appetite, all typical qualities addressed by travelers in describing foreign cultures. Indeed, the repetition of words related to difference (“diversa,” “varietà,” “diverse,” “diversità”) serves only to confirm the reality of the heterogeneous nature of Italian identity. Instead of focusing on common traits, in the second part of the passage Gemelli Careri celebrates the variety of inhabitants of the Italian peninsula.64 The inclusion of this passage, as well as its removal, points to the complexity in defining or representing Italian identity. The description appears to serve to correct and protest against the stereotyping of Italians by non-Italians. However, the removal of the definition amounts to acknowledging the impossibility of providing a concrete meaning to the word “Italian” that is used so consistently. By excluding any clear definition of the term, Gemelli Careri also resists appropriating, characterizing, and therefore limiting Italian identity, as he believes the “oltramontani” do. Instead, he asserts his Italian perspective by leaving open the question of Italian-ness.65 Literature, Repossessing Venice, and Petrarch Gemelli Careri’s Italian take on travel narrative, like Della Valle’s and Belli’s, entails experimenting with the Italian language of textual communication, literary Tuscan. As mentioned above, Matteo Egizio, in the preface to the second edition of the Viaggi, defends travel writing as a legitimate example of the lettere familiari genre, a form of prose-writing used by such eminent contemporary thinkers as Descartes and Gassendi. Egizio also refers to the varying style in Cicero’s letters to justify the inclusion of different registers—from comic to serious—in travel epistles.66 He 64 Gemelli Careri’s admiration for Dutch industriousness, which he constrasts to Italian sluggishness, disappears in the second edition: “Sudano nelli studii per farsi strada alle cariche, peregrinando per imbibirsi di differenti lingue, costumi, e cognitioni di stranieri ingegni; nobile inclinatione, ch’aborriscono li nostri italiani, di modo che non sono oggi così barbari, come li notorno anticamente li scrittori romani.” [They sweat at their studies in order to make their way to an employment, traveling about in order to absorb different languages, customs, and knowledge of foreign talents. That is a noble inclination that our Italians abhor; so the Dutch are not as barbaric today as Roman writers noted in Antiquity]. (Ibid., p. 322). Also, Gemelli Careri’s opening remark criticizing his sedentary compatriots (“timidi nel slontanarsi da patrii lidi” [timid about leaving their home shores]) is not included in the second version. See note 49. These omissions suggest an editorial plan to remove overly negative assessments of Italians. 65 As discussed in Chapter 4, Francesco Negri gets around the problem of defining Italians through specific traits by focusing on their equal potential as inhabitants of an ideal climate. 66 Like his literary traveling predecessors, Gemelli Careri also refers to Boccaccio to enhance his commentary. After learning of English fishermen who slice their fish open to show their fatty innards without killing them, Gemelli Careri remains skeptical: “Non è questo un farfallone da non farlo bere neanche a Calandrino o a quel medico, che avea a giacer, per opera di Bruno e Buffalmacco, colla Contessa di Civillari?” [Isn’t that a fib that could not even be told to Calandrino or to that doctor who wanted to lie with the Countess of Civillari, with the

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addresses potential disapproval of the account’s rough style by reproving possible critics who might ignore the fact that the letters “si furon scritte quasi in sul ginocchio in paesi stranieri” [were written practically on his lap while in foreign countries],67 recalling the Petrarchan writing-in-transit model that Della Valle and Belli use. More importantly, Egizio continues to praise and defend the author for using an updated form of Tuscan—a “modern” move—, far from “alcune sforzate maniere del Trecento” [some overwrought styles of the fourteenth century],68 and poses the following rhetorical question: “Perché, di grazia, volere in una lettera gire accozzando di quelle [parole] che ’l nostro popolo … non intende, quando nello stesso tempo ei si può chiara e toscamente scrivere e, senza quei tanti obbliqui, leggiadramente ed ornatamente?” [Why, for mercy’s sake, should one want to go about assembling together those words that our people do not understand when it is possible at the same time to write not obliquely but in a clear, graceful, and polished Tuscan fashion?].69 For the Arcadian Egizio, the key is the readability and accessibility of a literary language that is at the same time refined and pleasurable. Egizio’s preface also reveals the enduring connection between the authority of the text and the use of the language of literary expression. As he frames the text, the quality of the Italian or Neapolitan narrative depends to a large extent on proper linguistic and stylistic usage and not as much, for instance, on the narrator’s powers of observation or ability to synthesize information, precisely those talents praised by the editor of the French Giro del mondo. Egizio explains the place of the account in relation to questions concerning se il parlar volgare s’avvia a dire italiano, o pur toscano, e se la toscana favella sia viva or morta: ben dico che il nostro autore ha seguitato la strada di mezzo, non iscrivendo cioè alla maniera della gente sciocca, né servendosi allo ’ncontro de’ tribeboli e parlari disusati, fuorché là dove il soggetto amava gli scherzi. [whether vernacular speech is to be termed Italian, or else Tuscan, and whether Tuscan speech is dead or alive, I say that our author has taken a middle road by not writing in the manner of ignorant people nor using on the other hand obscure or antiquated expressions, except when the subject matter lent itself to jesting.]70

help of Bruno and Buffalmaco?] (1701–1704, p. 323). The use of Italian literary references, while solidifying the chain of Italian elements in the narrative, fits in perfectly with Gemelli Careri’s role as a cultivated Italian commentator. The Bruno, Buffalmacco, and Calandrino episodes occur in novellas 3, 6, and 9 of the eighth day and 3 and 5 of the ninth day. In the specific episode to which Gemelli Careri refers (VIII.9), Bruno and Buffalmacco claim to plan an amorous encounter between the Countess of Civillari and their victim, Simone da Villa, who ends up at the bottom of a sewage pit. Elsewhere, Gemelli Careri includes a reference to Armida’s palace from the Gerusalemme liberata in his description of Versailles (1693, p. 165). 67 Gemelli Careri, Viaggi per Europa (1701–1704), Preface to the readers. 68 Ibid. 69 Ibid. 70 Ibid.

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His commentary perfectly illustrates the Arcadian tension between the recuperation and also the updating of earlier linguistic and literary paradigms. Petrarch and Boccaccio remain the models of choice, but the deliberate use of outdated terms and expressions is unacceptable. The concern with defining Gemelli Careri’s prose—either Italian or Tuscan—reveals a conviction about the literariness of travel narrative, in this case epistolary travel writing. For Egizio, Gemelli Careri has chosen a commendable middle ground. Egizio thus defines a form of travel writing all’italiana, one that reflects specifically Italian parameters and that can both incorporate a literary tradition and be modernized to fit the discourse at hand. The opening of the first letter of the 1693 edition of the Viaggi immediately foregrounds the Petrarchan model of the familiar letter: “Che a Vostra Signoria non sia … discaro leggere in queste mie lettere familiari le mal composte notitie de’ paesi che vado caminando” [May it not be displeasing to Your Lordship to read in these familiar letters of mine the poorly composed news of countries through which I go walking].71 In this typical apology, Gemelli Careri uses a Petrarchan-like utterance, “vado caminando,” alluding, as Della Valle, Belli, and Negri do, to the figure of the poet–wanderer. The letters of the Viaggi about Venice aptly demonstrate Gemelli Careri’s textual strategies to reappropriate Italy textually, especially when depicting those areas most visited (and defined for the rest of Europe) by foreigners. This process of repossession is discernible in the four letters from Venice that he adds in the second version of the Viaggi. In the first volume of the new edition, over one-third of the letters to Amato Danio (ten of a total of twenty-eight) concern Venice. Gemelli Careri’s attention to Venice can be seen as a way to “construct” the city in Italian terms—that is to say, by means of an Italian literary language—and recalls Petrarch’s cartographic strategies vis-à-vis Italy in his Itinerarium, as identified by Theodore Cachey: He [Petrarch] develops what amounts to the literary “invention” of Italy—a patria that superseded any regional and municipal Italian home. Petrarch’s fashioning of Italy corresponded to his need for an authorized home of a higher order at a time when Italy did not exist as a national political home but simply as a geographical abstraction … The Itinerarium is an important example of Petrarch’s authoring of Italy in the genre of cartographic writing.72

If Petrarch has “invented” Italy, Gemelli Careri wants to keep that literary invention within Italian culture, not outside of it. For him, Venice also serves as a poetic departure point in the art of travel writing. Like many visitors to Venice, he marvels at the great liberty he sees in Venetian culture: Vinegia è una città grande, magnifica, e copiosa; fondata per sicurezza, e dilettevole libertà d’ogni genere di persone, e governata secondo le regole d’un’ottima e per lunga sperienza approvata politica … Quanto alla dilettevole libertà, ella è tale che le più nobili e gentili nazioni d’Europa ne prendon piacere: e avvegna che costi loro molto danajo, non cessano però ogni anno in questi tempi e tedeschi, e polacchi, ed inglesi, e franzesi, di

71 Gemelli Careri, Viaggi per Europa (1693), p. 1. 72 Theodore Cachey, Jr., “Petrarch’s Guide to the Holy Land,” p. 29.

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Fascinated by Venice during carnival, he takes stylistic liberties in order to evoke the festivities allowed before Lent. One element of his discursive playfulness is to quote from Petrarch’s Canzoniere, so that the typical or expected rendition of reveling in Venice takes on a distinctly literary flavor, but with an irreverent, perhaps more modern, twist. When describing the effects of the celebratory climate on his writing skills, Gemelli Careri uses exaggerated and self-mocking tones to reflect the extravagant behavior of merrymakers, including himself: Di San Marco non occorre far parola questa volta, che troppo diverrei lungo e rincrescevole; riserbisi addunque alla settimana vegnente, tanto più, che dal vario stile, in cui piango, e ragiono in questa lettera, avrete voi per avventura compreso che la più parte del mio cervello s’è rimasta dietro la vanità del fugace secolo; e a volerlo porre sotto uno strettoio, non n’uscirebbe una gocciola di sugo, che valesse, Sì traviato è’l folle mio desio. [This is not the proper time to speak of San Marco, because I would become too prolix and bothersome. Let us save that then for next week, so that you’ll have understood, for the varied style in which I weep and speak, that most of my brain has followed the vanity of this fleeting life. And were my brain to be placed in a press, hardly one worthy drop of juice would be squeezed out. So far astray is my mad desire.]74

These references to Petrarch, however playful, still evoke the ultimate model of the literary expression. Later on, when moving from historical and political topics to personal anecdotes, Gemelli Careri makes an explicit reference to Petrarch’s wandering, ostensibly alluding to his own discursive and geographical wanderings:75 Addio Vinegia, mi dite: e che digression Pindarica si è stata cotesta? Così tosto s’uscì di mente S[an] Marco. Confesso il vero … io mi sono uno smemorato, e petrarchevolemente me ne sono ito Di pensier’ in pensier, di monte in monte. 73 Gemelli Careri, Viaggi per Europa (1711), vol.1, pp. 27–8. 74 Gemelli Careri, Viaggi per Europa (1701), p. 32. The translations into English of Petrarch’s verses, Canzoniere I, v.5, and VI, v.1, are from Petrarch’s Lyric Poems, ed. and trans. Robert M. Durling (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1976), pp. 36, 40. 75 In the account, he also quotes from Petrarch’s Familiares, Dante, and classical authors such as Tacitus, Martial, Juvenal, and Pindar.

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Farewell, Venice, you say. And what Pindaric digression has this been? I’ve forgotten San Marco so quickly. I shall confess the truth: I’m a forgetful one, and I have gone Petrarchlike from thought to thought, from mountain to mountain.76

The Italian perspective that Gemelli Careri constructs ultimately lies in the literary narration of the experience of travel, even before he arrives abroad. Venice during carnival provides the ideal pretext of discursive freedom for a literary Italian who is both traveling and travel writing—according to his newly coined adverb— “petrarchevolemente.” Gemelli Careri’s Petrarchan explorations into epistolary travel writing continue in the second volume of letters from his European travels that are part of the second edition of the Viaggi. The missives are marked as written from various cities on his way home from the siege of Buda, and later back to Northern Europe, and then Madrid and Venice on separate trips. Mixing the epic themes of love and war, this volume consists primarily of letters addressed to French women. They mix the expression of love and admiration of the lettres galantes popular in France at the time with details, some gruesome, of warfare. This new companion volume is more explicitly literary, and the letters contain musings on the expression of sentiment and the art of letter-writing. The volume begins with an ode praising Gemelli Careri for his world travels and placing him on a par with the protagonists of the Age of Exploration: Tutto vide, e descrisse in stil toscano. L’America, region vasta, ed immensa, Le sue reggie, i suoi regni; De’ popoli, de’ riti, e de’ costumi Scrisse in otto volumi: E quanto hanno osservato Il ligure Colombo, E l’etrusco Vespucci, E’l lusitano Gamma, Ramusio, Magagliano, e Marco Polo, Vide Gemelli solo. [He saw and described all in Tuscan style, in eight volumes; America, a vast, immense region, its royal palaces and kingdoms, its people, rites, and customs. And only Gemelli saw what the Ligurian Columbus, the Etruscan Vespucci, the Lusitanian Gama, Ramusio, Magellan and Marco Polo have described.]77

Even in an homage to Gemelli Careri for his intrepid journeying, the subject of travel narrative continues to be a central topic. It is not enough to praise Gemelli Careri for equaling or even surpassing Columbus, Vespucci, Marco Polo, and Da Gama in his itinerary; instead, equal tribute goes to the text itself, not just the voyage, and to the language of expression, “in stil toscano,” which is mentioned in the first verse. The list of names tellingly includes Ramusio, whose monumental 76 Gemelli Careri, Viaggi per l’Europa (1701–1704), p. 75. The verse is from Petrarch’s Canzoniere, CXXIX, v.1. 77 Gemelli Careri, Viaggi per Europa (1722), vol. 2, A4 verso.

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compilation Navigationi e viaggi (1550–59) involved the translation or adaptation of Italian and non-Italian travel accounts into literary Tuscan. Part of Gemelli Careri’s accomplishment is that he writes in a suitable literary language and, in doing so, elevates the status of travel writing as an authoritative textual creation. The letters of this second volume, especially those to his French female correspondents, become spaces for exploring various erudite discourses and also the nature of love. Gemelli Careri indulges in commonplace metaphors comparing the siege of the heart to the siege of war. He intertwines his meditations with vivid depictions of violence, and comments on the possible content and function of letters from the front. These epistles highlight once again the literary nature of his travel writing project, and they also reinforce Gemelli Careri’s self-positioning on the modern side of the Ancient–Modern dispute. In a letter to Madame Pimplea Colinatti, for example, he provides a brief defense of women reminiscent of writing by Bernard de Fontenelle, an avowed advocate of the moderns and of women’s participation in scientific investigation.78 Gemelli Careri writes: Basterebbe un de’ vostri periodi a smentire quanti furono al mondo così scellerati, che ardirono di affermare, e di porre in istampa: mulieres homines non esse: abbracciando in sì fatta guisa un sentimento assai peggiore di quello degli sciocchi e mentecatti maccomettani. Egli non sono da considerarsi ora come un miracolo di natura le donne illustri di M. Lodovico Dolce: poiché oltre all’esserne state, ei non è guardi [sic] di molte scienziate in Ollanda, e trovarsene di presente in Francia; vi siete pur voi, che, superando di gran lunga così l’une come l’altre; siete non ultimo pregio ed onore di coteste famose contrade. [Just one of your sentences would suffice to disprove what such wicked men have yearned to affirm and to publish, that women are not human beings, thus embracing a belief even worse than those of foolish, lunatic Muslims. Lodovico Dolce’s Illustrious women are not to be considered miracles of nature since, in addition to their having been not long ago many learned women in Holland and there being some in France today, you surpass by much length both of these groups. You are anything other than the last source of honor and prestige in these famous lands.]79

Here, along with a jab at presumed Muslim attitudes towards women, he both demonstrates his knowledge of Renaissance texts concerning the querelle des femmes and his being up-to-date on learned women (“scienziate”) in Northern Europe. The focus on erudition, intellectualism, and literature comes to the fore in Gemelli Careri’s letters to Camillotta Pepini, which make up the central piece of this second volume. It is significant that, in the fiction of epistolary writing, he composes the 78 See Bernard de Fontenelle, Entretiens sur la pluralité des mondes (Paris: C. Blageart, 1686). 79 Gemelli Careri, Viaggi per Europa (1722), vol. 2, p. 81. The author may have confused Lodovico Dolce, whose work on women, Dialogo della institutione delle donne [Dialog on the institution of women] (1545), is prescriptive and not laudatory, with Lodovico Domenichi, who published La nobiltà delle donne [The nobility of women] in 1549. For an overview of theories of women in the early modern period, see Ian Maclean, The Renaissance Notion of Woman (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983).

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letter after having returned to Naples and includes in it the only example of his own poetry in his travel writing: A voi, che, più d’ogni altra cosa del mondo, tenete occupata la mia immaginazione, conviene, Madama, se pure non voglio volontariamente morire, ch’io dirizzi, dopo l’arrivo in Napoli, i primi tratti della mia penna … e parmi che questa città non sia più quella medesima; e non mi truovo cosa che appagar possa il mio desio, e mi cruccio, e mi adiro, e mi confondo, e farnetico; perché troppo altamente sono in me impresse le accorte, oneste, care, e leggiadre vostre maniere, E ciò, che non è voi, Già, per lung’ uso, il core odia, e disprezza. Adesso sì, che parmi ver quell’amorosa metafisica del nostro Petrarca, la quale, come che non sia capita dall’ignorante volgo de’ poetastri moderni; massimamente a coloro è affatto oscura, e nescosa, che non sanno o pur non hanno l’animo adattato a ricevere le vere impressioni di amore … Ancor’io ho fatto un sonetto, che mai non si fu mio il mestiere di farne e benché sappia quanto voi siete valente nel poetare, anche nel nostro linguaggio, e che gite dietro la traccia degli ottimi scrittori, non mi ritengo perciò di mandarlovi: perocché non sarei veramente divenuto poeta, se non avessi una rabbia accanita di mandar fuori i miei parti (che un moderno direbbe aborti poetici) senza aver tanta flemma di bene educarli, e di ripulirli. A voi tocca il corteggerlo [sic]. Ite ardenti sospiri al dolce loco, Ove colei, che del mio mal non cura, Sen’sta sì fiera in vista, e sì secura Prendendo Amore, e sua possanza a gioco. E quivi, armati di saette, e foco, Stringete l’alma adamantine, e dura; Tal che si volga a più pietosa cura, E omai le incresca del mio pianger fioco. Voi le mie pene a lei narrate, e come Gridando vo, con affannata lena: Ahi, chi mi asconde il bel guardo soave? Poi ven’ tornate, con sue voglie dome, A far la vita mia lieta, e serena, Ch’or vile altrui, non ch’a me stesso è grave. [For you, Madam, who more than any other thing in the world capture my imagination, it is proper, lest I willingly wish to die, that I address to you the first strokes of my pen after arriving in Naples. And it seems to me that this city is no longer the same, and that I am unable to find that which can satisfy my desire, and I suffer, and become angry and confused, and I ramble; because your clever, honest, affectionate, and graceful ways are too deeply impressed in me. And whatever is not you, my heart, by ancient habit, hates and scorns. And now our Petrarch’s metaphysics of love does seem true to me, as much as it is misunderstood by those ignorant plebes that are bad modern poets, especially those to

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Literature and Identity in Italian Baroque Travel Writing whom it remains obscure and hidden, because they do not know how or do not have a soul able to receive the true impressions of love. And I have also composed a sonnet, which was never my profession to write, and despite knowing how talented you are in poetry, even in our language, and that you go about emulating great writers, I will not refrain from sending it to you; because I would not have truly become a poet if I had not had a furious desire to bring forth my creation (which a modern would call a poetic failure) without the calmness needed to refine and polish it. To you falls the task of correcting it.

Go forth, burning sighs, to that sweet place Where she, who does not heed my suffering Remains, so proud to see, and so secure, Taking Love and his power as but a game. And there, armed with arrows and fire, Besiege that hard and adamantine soul; So that it will turn to more merciful concerns, And so that she will take pity on my weakened laments. Go and tell her of my pain, and how I go crying, short of breath: Ah, who hides from me that beautiful, gentle gaze? And then return, with her will tamed, To make my life happy and serene, For now it is loathsome to others, and burdensome to me.] 80

Here, literary language is both discursive and meta-discursive, as Gemelli Careri comments on his writing and on poetic expression. The sonnet reflects Arcadian precepts for writing poetry: the language and imagery are Petrarchan, and devoid of baroque conceits. He assesses the poetry of his contemporaries, much of which he appears to dislike. Again, these remarks help represent Gemelli Careri as an Italian moderno; at once connected to Northern European culture through his letters to Frenchwomen, but promoting Petrarch as the ultimate model for contemporary poetic expression and a legitimate symbol of Italian cultural renewal. The Modern Globetrotter In the Giro del Mondo, Gemelli Careri also bases his authoritative persona in his being modern, but along quite different lines. Gone are most of the references to Neapolitan intellectual culture, to Petrarch and other Italian poets, and to rivalries with other European countries. In narrating a much broader and more complex journey and the encounters with the cultures of other continents, Gemelli Careri gives more textual space to facts and information about foreign lands and less to literary and cultural meditations. Nevertheless, as in the Viaggi, his siding with the 80 Gemelli Careri, Viaggi per Europa (1722), vol. 2, pp. 197–8. The quote comes from Petrarch’s Canzoniere, CXVI, vv.5–8: “et ho sì avezza / la mente a contemplar solo costei / ch’altro non vede, e ciò che non è lei / già per antica usanza odia e disprezza” [and I have so accustomed / my mind to contemplate her alone that it sees nothing else, and / whatever is not she, already by ancient habit it hates and scorns]. Petrarch’s Lyric Poems, ed. and trans. Robert Durling, p. 224.

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moderns comes out in his explicit concern for the art of travel writing. For instance, the beginning of the volume on the Americas can be seen as an ode to moderns and a credo of early modern travel culture, and deserves to be quoted at length: Io no posso se non biasimar sommamente color, i quali, soverchio invaghiti delle ragguardevoli imprese degli antichi, quelle con ogni studio, fino alle stelle, s’ingegnano d’innalzare, senza porre in considerazione che alcune assai più maravigliose e magnifiche ne’ secoli a noi più vicini, ne sono state recate a capo … I travagli di Enea, venendo dalla Grecia in Italia, che gran cosa potran sembrare oggidì a un, che mezzanamente sia andato ramingo? … [O]vunque rivolgo il pensiero, non veggo che una prodigiosa vanità de gli antichi, allor che scrivendo fan giudizio delle loro cose, e una straordinaria sciocchezza de’ moderni a volerne far tanto rumore … Io non voglio qui andar divisando tutte le macchine inventate a’ dì nostri, né le veramente maravigliose imprese a glorioso fine condotte; ma solo mi par che debba porsi in considerazione come sarebbono rimasi confusi que’ buoni poeti ed istorici antichi, se avesser voluto (nell’altro secolo passato risorgendo) colle dovute parole ragionare dello scoprimento d’America, e delle ricchezze quivi dalla natura allogate. L’esser celeste, divino, o le più alte parole che possano invenirsi, avendole essi già usate per azioni poco men che da nulla; non avriano potuto poscia loro parere sufficienti, a voler lodare il coraggio del Vespucci e a fare una qualche idea d’un paese, ove può dirsi che tutto ciò che si vede è prezioso, e quanto si calpesta è argento od oro. Adunque egli bisogna pur dire che il mondo già non è invecchiato, né che il valore sia spento e l’altre virtù fuggite dalla terra, ma che egli sia nella sua miglior giovinezza e che quelle che chiamiamo virtudi sono più tosto cresciute che mancate, perché ciascun giorno di nuove cose, l’uomo diviene consapevole, e sempremai sopra il suo essere maggiormente s’innalza. [I cannot but utterly blame those who, overly taken with the impressive endeavors of the Ancients, strive through study to raise them to the highest status, without considering that some, more marvelous and magnificent ones have been accomplished in the centuries closest to us. The toils of Aeneas, coming from Greece to Italy; how large a feat would that seem today to anyone who has wandered about a bit? Wherever I turn my thoughts, I see only the prodigious vanity of the Ancients when they write and assess their matters, and the extraordinary foolishness of the Moderns, who want to make so much of them. Here I do not want to go about describing all the inventions of our day or the truly marvelous ventures undertaken to a glorious end; but it seems to me that one must take into consideration how confused those good poets and ancient historians would have been, if they had wanted (if they had re-emerged in the past century), with the right words, to tell of the discovery of America and of the riches that nature holds there. Having already used the highest words that can be found—being heavenly or divine—to describe actions that were worth almost nothing, they could not have expressed their views sufficiently in wanting to praise the courage of Vespucci and to provide some idea of a country where, it can be said, everything that one sees is precious, and all that one treads on is silver and gold. Thus it must be said that the world has not already gotten old, nor has its prestige been extinguished or have its virtues fled from the earth; rather, it is in the best of its youth, and what we call virtues have grown rather than declined, because humankind becomes aware of new things every day, and continuously elevates itself.]81

81 Gemelli Careri, Giro del mondo (1721), vol. 6, pp. 1–4.

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Here, Gemelli Careri casts aside both Ancients and Moderns as equally concerned with classical culture, and instead allies himself with a concept of historical progress and optimism regarding contemporary life. His perspective is modern in its focus on the Age of Exploration and contemporary travel. Of modern travelers, only Vespucci is mentioned here, and Gemelli Careri singles out the Italian contribution to European voyages of “discovery” and perhaps, in mentioning the Florentine explorer and not, for instance, his Genoese counterpart, thus indirectly underscores the importance of Tuscan elements in world travel and travel writing. Significantly, Gemelli Careri emphasizes the question and the problem of discourse in conveying the complete newness for Europeans of the encounter with the Americas, which in this excerpt represents the land of abundance, not the reality of his experience there. The Ancients have exhausted the language of glorification in eulogizing undertakings that are no match to those of modern travelers, including those of Gemelli Careri himself. To speak and write of contemporary travel is to require a new form of writing and language to convey its extraordinary novelty. The new age of worldwide travel has created a need for innovative, updated forms of representation. Such modern forms of representation, as discussed in Chapter 1, include increased textual space dedicated to recounting anecdotes, more emphasis on the role of the traveler as character, and the construction of a more explicitly subjective point of view. In the Giro del mondo, Gemelli Careri relates many autobiographical episodes, describes his response to events and circumstances, and notes the varying reactions of others to his presence abroad. Although he does not directly quote literary texts in the Giro del mondo, as he does in the Viaggi, some of his more anecdotal passages recall episodes from Italian literature, suggesting that it is still an important backdrop to his travel writing about circumnavigation. For instance, the description of the dramatic end of his visit to the Pachuca silver mines in New Spain echoes Dante’s emergence from the inferno: Adunque dopo esservi stato circa due ore, ritornai su, con grandissimo timore, per l’infame cammino; e giunsi alla luce del giorno molto stracco. Parvemi in quel punto medesimo di rinascere al mondo; e in verità confesso, che giammai a’ miei dì non intrapresi azione più temeraria, per non dir pazza; né per cinque anni di viaggi fra barbare nazioni aver conosciuto simil timore. [After having been down there for about two hours, I came back up on the infamous path, with great fear, and, exhausted, I reached the light of day. It seemed to me that in that instance I was born again to the world. And I confess in truth that never in my days have I taken an action so frightening, not to say crazy, nor, in five years of travel through barbaric nations, have I known such dread.]82

Framing his remarks within the typical dichotomy between barbarism and civilization, he highlights the terror of the treacherous journey back up to the earth’s surface. Adventure and exploration have taken him not only across various continents, but down into the perilous earth as well. His may not be a spiritual journey, but, for the

82 Ibid., vol. 6, pp. 132–3.

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literary Italian traveler, the recounting of the dangers of underground exploration can only take on a Dantean flavor. When retelling moments of difficulty and conflict, Gemelli Careri makes his roles as protagonist and as narrator equally important. His point of view is the authoritative one of a worldly Italian seemingly unencumbered by political and national interests, but Gemelli Careri–character, the globetrotter who comes into contact with myriads of different cultures, regularly fails to garner respect. His textualized identity as an independent Italian traveler, instead of providing him a special status or even relative invisibility, makes him the target of suspicion and hatred. In some cases he claims to have been well received, for example by French diplomats in Constantinople, “i quali facevano a gara chi meglio potesse assistermi, dicendo, che per esser’io un forastiere, che per curiosità andava consumando il mio danajo, e notando ciò che vedea, per renderlo comune a’ curiosi; doveano essi ajutarmi come interessati, ed adoperarsi con loro forze per farmi osservare e scriver bene il tutto” [who competed with each other to see who could best assist me, saying that, because I was a foreigner spending my money for the sake of curiosity and noting what I saw in order to share it with the curious, they should help me, as an interested party, and make the effort to assist me in properly observing and writing it all].83 But such acceptance is rare. Sometimes Gemelli Careri runs into problems of mistaken identity, for instance on the island of Smirne, when an Italian businessman accuses him of being someone else:84 “Il lunedì primo di marzo mi trovai nel più strano imbarazzo che possa avvenire a viandante del mondo. Fui chiamato avanti il consolo di Francia da un tale Brancaleone Anconitano marito di una francese, il quale volea per forza che io no fussi me medesimo, ma Giovanni Massacueva di Messina” [On Monday, March first, I found myself in the oddest and most embarrassing situation that can befall a traveler in the world. I was called before the French Consul by a certain Brancaleone of Ancona, the husband of a Frenchwoman, because he insisted that I was not who I was, but rather Giovanni Massacueva of Messina].85 He is able to solve the misunderstandings only after considerable trouble. When back in Constantinople, he is arrested by a Turkish official as a spy after looking at the arsenal: “Sentendo che non era veneziano, ma che per mera curiosità era andato a vedere le galeotte e le carene delle galeazze, appresso a gran moltitudine di gente, non si soddisfece, ma si pose a vedere” [Hearing that I was not Venetian, but that I had gone out of mere curiosity to see the vessels and the ships hulls, along

83 Gemelli Careri, Giro del mondo (1699–1700), vol. 1, p. 37. 84 Like Della Valle, Gemelli Careri also disguises himself when traveling: “Ne paja strano, che io mi abbia fatto tal volta scudo della menzogna, perch’essendo in paese di barbari nemici del nome cristiano, e in tempo di guerra; era d’uopo fingere più personaggi, mentir l’abito, nazione, e negozio, per non perder la libertà, e la roba. I turchi sono sospettosissimi e facilmente calunniano un franco” [Nor should it seem strange that I have sometimes used lies as a shield, since I was in the countries of barbarians who were enemies of Christians, and during wartime. It was necessary to impersonate different characters, to lie with my clothing and about my nation and trade, in order not to lose my freedom or possessions. The Turks are very suspicious and quick to condemn a Frank]. Ibid., vol.1, p. 237. 85 Ibid., vol. 1, p. 345.

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with many people, he was not satisfied, and began to investigate].86 The Neapolitan traveler escapes a whipping and jail after the intervention of French diplomats. While still in Turkey, after he demonstrates his prowess and excellent aim as a hunter, a French missionary provides him with a new identity: “io ne uccisi molti [uccelli] a volo, così a terra come da cavallo; con grand’ammirazione de’ turchi, che non potevano colpirne pur uno; onde il P[adre] Villot prese occasione di pubblicare, che io era cacciatore del Re di Francia, mandato al Re di Persia per servirlo in tal mestiere” [I shot many birds in flight, from both the ground and horseback, to the great admiration of the Turks, who were unable to hit even one. So Father Villot took the opportunity to spread the word that I was the hunter of the king of France, sent to the king of Persia to serve him in that role].87 Although this new designation is meant as a compliment, it demonstrates how his status as an independent Italian traveler is problematic abroad, provoking in others the need to place him in recognizable categories, whether as a criminal or a respected subject of the king of France. Along his travels, he must continuously explain and justify himself as a “curious” traveler, as he clarifies to a local official in Erzerum who assumes he is a Jesuit because of his contacts with missionaries: “gli dissi che io non era altrimente religioso della Compagnia, ma un secolare, che viaggiava per curiosità” [I told him that I was not a member of the Company (of Jesus), but a secular man traveling for curiosity’s sake].88

86 Ibid., vol. 1, pp. 376–7. 87 Ibid., vol. 1, p. 421. 88 Ibid., vol. 1, p. 433. He defends and explains his status as an independent traveler at the end of vol. 2 of the Giro: Crederà il lettore che per sì lunghi servizzi, e terribile giro del mondo terminato con infinite fatiche (poiché dalla creazione di esso nessuno l’ha fatto, o almeno lasciato memoria con le stampe di averlo seguito) mi siano stati somministrati li mezzi necessarii per sì grandi e dispendiosi viaggi, soliti da sovrani darsi a vassalli per riportare buone notizie, e rendere esatte le carte geografiche, come si è pratticato d’altri; e particolarmente dal generoso Luigi decimo quarto Re di Francia, che diede anche grosse ricompense e pensioni a tali uomini; ma vive in errore, mentre tutto l’ho intrapreso e terminato a mie spese per quanto ha potuto somministrare il mio picciolo patrimonio. E dopo aver servito da dottore, soldato, e pellegrino, per far merito nessuna convenevole ricompensa ho avuto. Questa disgressione serva per disinganno di chi legge, e perché chi spera doppo lunghe fatiche riportarne frutto resta deluso. [The reader will think that because of my lengthy service, and the terrifying journey around the world completed after infinite toils (that from the world’s inception no one has done, or at least published an account of it), I was given the necessary means to take on such great and expensive travels; means that sovereigns usually give their subjects to bring back correct information, and make maps more accurate, as is done by others, and in particular by the generous Louis XIV, King of France, who gave large rewards and pensions to such men. But the reader is mistaken, for I took on and finished my travels at my own expense, by managing my few possessions. And after having served as doctor, soldier, and pilgrim, I received no adequate recompense for my merit. May this digression

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Traveling to China during a time of extreme tension among and within religious orders there, Gemelli Careri encounters missionaries doubtful of his purported independence and who express disapproval of his form of traveling. Indeed, he visits China when missions, especially Jesuit ones, are under intense scrutiny by the Catholic Church, particularly in the wake of the Chinese Rites controversy.89 Jesuits in China were clashing with Franciscans, Dominicans, Vicars Apostolic, the Congregation for the Propagation of the Faith, and, in 1687, with a newly arrived French Jesuit delegation loyal to the king of France.90 These divisions are intensified by political maneuvering on the part of different European states. Liam Brockey notes the appearance of fault lines according to nationality among the China missionaries in the mid-seventeenth century, as the devotional (and political) center of gravity in Catholic Europe shifted from Spain to France. Many of the French, Flemish, German, and Italian missionaries who arrived in China after 1650 brought with them different attitudes toward the combination of political sentiment and piety which had caused distress among their brethren who had traveled from Europe at the time of Habsburg ascendancy.91

In this context fraught with both national and religious tensions, the Neapolitan traveler, who relies on hospitality and information from a number of Catholic officials and religious orders, must constantly explain his motives for travel and deny that he is a papal spy. In Canton, he stays with Franciscans, who are persuaded that he is there to investigate the disputes between them and the Jesuits.92 Especially when Gemelli Careri requests assistance in traveling to Peking and the Chinese court, the local missionaries become further convinced that he is gathering “informazioni segrete dei disturbi della Cina” [secret information on the turmoil in China].93 When he arrives in Peking, he receives hospitality and aid from Jesuit Filippo Grimaldi, who is wary of the presence of non-Jesuit Europeans there: Non lasciarono poi d’ammirar, tanto il Padre Grimaldi, quanto tutti i Padri Portoghesi alla mia venuta alla Corte, dicendo che si maravigliavan di chi mi aveva consigliato a venire serve as an undeceiving to the reader, because whoever hopes to gain from lengthy labors will be disappointed.] Giro del mondo (1721), vol. 2, p. 492. 89 Gemelli Careri, Giro del mondo (1699–1700), vol. 4, pp. 113–14. For an overview of the controversy, see George Minamiki, SJ, The Chinese Rites Controversy from Its Beginning to Modern Times (Chicago: Loyola University Press, 1985). Liam Brockey writes that “the ferocity of this debate played an important role in galvanizing anti-Jesuit sentiment at the highest levels of the ecclesiastical hierarchy in the late seventeenth century … In the eyes of some of the other European missionaries who arrived in China in the 1630s, the Jesuits had expanded the limits of acceptable Catholic practice so far as to be abetting paganism among their flocks.” Brockey, p. 11. 90 Ibid., pp. 155–7. 91 Ibid., p. 10. 92 Maccarrone Amuso, p. 39. 93 Ibid.

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In describing the astonishment and marvel he provokes, Gemelli Careri is able to underscore his unique status as a new kind of traveler: the independent Italian tourist with access to the great courts of Asia. Still, he must face the fact that his presence is not entirely welcome. Especially after Father Grimaldi manages to have Gemelli Careri accompany him to an audience with the emperor, the Neapolitan traveler is the target of skepticism from all sides:95 Essendo io giunto in tempo di tali disturbi, fermamente si persuasero tutti, che io era inviato da S[ua] Santità per prender informazion segreta, chi facendomi frate Carmelita Scalzo, e chi prete; e quantunque io procurassi con narrar loro il vero per togliere da questi sospetti i padri Francescani, dicendo loro ch’io era napoletano che per sola mia curiosità viaggiava, e che Sua Santità non mi avea dato né pure un bajocco per far tal viaggi: e ch’ il meno che io voleva sapere era delle loro missioni; nondimeno ciò non gli ritrasse dalla forte impressione concepita, rispondendomi, che da che s’aperse il cammino della Cina, non mai s’era veduto italiano secolare, non che napoletano, colà capitare. [Because I arrived in Peking during these troubles, they became firmly convinced that I had been sent by His Holiness to obtain secret information. Some made me out to be a Discalced Carmelite, others a priest. And however much I attempted to dissuade the Franciscans from these suspicions, telling them that I was Neapolitan, and that I was traveling only for my own curiosity, and that His Holiness had not given me one coin to undertake such a journey, and that the last thing I wanted to know about was their missions, nonetheless this did not dissuade them from the strong opinion that they had formed. They responded to me that, since the road to China had been opened, they had never seen a secular Italian, not to mention a Neapolitan, come there.]96

Thus a secular Italian–Neapolitan can only bring about suspicion, not acceptance. By the time he arrives in Manila, rumors have already spread that he is reporting on Catholic missions, and he must once again convince local governors of his

94 Gemelli Careri, Giro del mondo (1699–1700), vol. 4, pp. 113–14. 95 Gemelli Careri specifies that Grimaldi is “Presidente di Matematica dell’Imperadore” [President of Mathematics of the Emperor]. Ibid., vol. 4, p. 113. Gemelli Careri accompanied Grimaldi to the court when Grimaldi was summoned to present the 1696 calendar, written in Chinese, to Emperor Kangxi. For bibliographical information on Grimaldi, see Theodore E. Treutlein, “Jesuit Missions in China during the Last Years of K’ang Hsi,” The Pacific Historical Review, 10/4 (Dec. 1941): 436, n. 6, and 445, n. 34. 96 Gemelli Careri, Giro del mondo (1699–1700), vol. 4, pp. 28–9.

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disinterested motives for travel.97 Gemelli Careri is never accorded by Europeans in Asia the special status that he claims for himself in his accounts. The figure of the unprejudiced, cosmopolitan intellectual abroad is too removed from existing categories of world travelers, especially during a time of political and doctrinal conflicts. He must constantly identify himself by his country and city of origin, and he is called upon to place himself within the expected types of European travelers— missionary, envoy, merchant, or spy. His attempt to embody an accepted “modern” literary and impartial persona in the arena of world travel, then, is unsuccessful, and he remains a controversial traveler. Although unable to stabilize or anchor in the text the identity of his character as an independent Italian (and Neapolitan) globetrotter, Gemelli Careri demonstrates his control over the discourse of travel writing throughout the account and, in a telling example, in the final pages recounting his return to Naples after a five-year absence. The last chapter of the Giro depicts his re-entry into Naples and his welcome by prestigious members of the Church and Neapolitan magistrates, including Amato Danio. Then follow several pages describing Naples and the praise the city has received from both Ancients and Moderns. The information regarding Naples has little pedagogical function for Italian readers and serves to mark the traveler’s return to a “civilized” world, to further emphasize the city’s cultural standing, and to demonstrate Gemelli Careri’s praiseworthiness by association. Unsurprisingly, Naples is most admirable for its elevated number of intellectuals: “non v’ha città d’Europa, in cui sia tanta nobiltà di spirito e di sangue; ed è difficile il comprendere se sia maggiore il numero de’ letterati o de’ signori” [There exists no city in Europe in which there is such nobility of spirit and blood; and it is difficult to determine whether there is a larger number of men of letters or of noblemen].98 And in keeping with his “modern” agenda, he gives as examples of seventeenth-century Neapolitan luminaries Tommaso Cornelio and Marco Aurelio Severino, anti-Aristotelian physicians. In the end, the Giro del Mondo, like the Viaggi per l’Europa, is an attempt to create and promote a “modern” discourse of travel, one that can accommodate both belief in historical progress and the continued acquisition of knowledge while advocating an Italian perspective still based in humanist culture. Posing as a lone, discriminating Italian traveler and cultural commentator, Gemelli Careri underscores the role Italians play in evolving forms of travel writing because of their privileged, insider–outsider status. And while his text serves to express the worthiness of his patria and is clearly informed by the Neapolitan culture to which he contributes, his authority continues to come primarily from his participation in a community of Italians whose sense of Italian-ness lies in a common classical and literary heritage. New experiences may call for new modes of representation, as he claims, but his international credibility as an Italian must still be grounded in Petarchan paradigms, at least in the epistolary Viaggi per Europa. On the stage of the world, Gemelli Careri’s cosmopolitan persona falters as he faces skepticism from other Italians and Europeans towards his claim of being a disinterested traveler. Whether accepted or 97 Macarrone Amuso, p. 131. 98 Gemelli Careri, Giro del mondo (1699–1700), vol. 4, p. 477.

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not in his self-presentation, the underlying presumption in the Giro del mondo is that, as a self-funded Italian traveler, he is in an advantaged position to be able to move across continents to record more accurately than other Europeans the customs of various peoples and describe the lands in which they live. When Gemelli Careri assumes a decisive position as the mediator of his travel experience, he seeks to elevate the status of travel writing as a literary genre— one that, in the beginning of the eighteenth century, can serve as a “new” return to canonical literary texts as models. He makes a final parallel between the act of traveling and that of narrating in the last chapter of the Giro del mondo, when he bids goodbye to the reader: “Fie bene adunque, che già compiuto, grazie al Signore, il giro del mondo, egli a migliori studi rivolga l’animo, ed io alla fatica dello scrivere, non minore certamente del viaggio stesso, dia compimento” [It is now appropriate that, with the trip around the world having been completed, thank the Lord, the reader turn his mind towards worthier studies, and that I conclude the toil of writing, which is undoubtedly no lesser an undertaking than that of the journey itself].99 The author has ultimately created texts that are an exploration of the inherently complex nature of travel narrative and that confirm the enduring centrality of textuality and literariness to the Italian oikos.100

99 Ibid., vol. 4, p. 479. 100 See Chapter 1.

Conclusion

Petrarch, the Euro, and the Fate of Italian Travel Literature In his book Petrarca, l’italiano dimenticato [Petrarch, The Forgotten Italian, 2004], published in the seven-hundredth anniversary of Petrarch’s birth, Amedeo Quondam begins with a consideration of the presence of Dante, and the absence of Petrarch, on the Italian euro coin.1 As he convincingly argues, the decision to put Dante’s portrait on the Italian 2-euro coin is yet another symptom of the fraught relationship between literary fathers and national identity in modern Italy. During the nineteenth century, Dante became the celebrated literary symbol of Italy’s origins, while the figure of Petrarch fell into disfavor as too pan-European and apolitical to represent Italianness. Indeed, as Carlo Dionisotti points out in his essay “Varia fortuna di Dante” [The Varied Fortune of Dante], in the perception of some proto-nationalists, “Solo una tradizione ricondotta alle sue origini nazionali e imperniata sulla struttura e sostanza storica, realistica, polemica e profetica del poema di Dante, poteva ancora servir di leva al risorgimento di quella umile e selvatica provincia dell’Europa che ormai era diventata l’Italia” [Only a tradition that could be traced back to its national origins and that hinged upon the historical, realistic, polemical, and prophetic structure and substance of Dante’s poem could serve as a base for the resurgence of the humble and untamed province of Europe that Italy had become].2 As Dionisotti also notes, the new cult of Dante in the nineteenth century was not just born from within, but also from without, namely along with a renewed interest in Dante in Europe. In the same vein, the choice of Dante over Petrarch for the 2-euro coin, indicative of a national mentality that arose during the Risorgimento, may have had as much to do with concerns about perceptions of Italian culture by non-Italian Europeans as by

1 Amedeo Quondam, Petrarca, l’italiano dimenticato (Milan: Rizzoli, 2004), pp. 19–33. 2 Carlo Dionisotti, Geografia e storia della letteratura italiana (Turin: Einaudi, 1967), p. 274. Dionisotti explains: “gli uomini politici esuli o intenti a quanto succedesse fuori d’Italia si fecero accorti della necessità insieme di riportare la questione del Risorgimento italiano nel quadro delle questioni europee e di riformare il culto nazionale di Dante nei termini propri del culto che gli veniva tributato in Europa” [The politicians who were exiled or concerned about what was happening outside of Italy became aware of the necessity both to bring the question of the Italian Risorgimento into European questions and to re-form the national cult of Dante precisely in terms of the cult he had in Europe]. Ibid., p. 287. He also enumerates the state-sponsored events, lectures, publications, and monuments that were part of anniversary celebrations, especially in 1865.

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Italians themselves.3 The absence of Petrarch on the euro coin provides an apt context for considering the fate of seventeenth-century travel writing in the nineteenth- and twentieth centuries, and it also brings up questions about the status of this corpus of texts in the third millennium. For Quondam, Petrarch’s inability to reach posterity on new currency stems from a perception of him as “non italiano” [non Italian],4 and from his creation of a “meta patria” [meta-homeland],5 the republic of letters. Quondam defines as unease the sentiment that Petrarch still evokes in contemporary Italian culture: Il nostro disagio [è] verso Petrarca … immagine simbolica del letterato alla conquista di una identità nuova e vera, e propria … immagine simbolica dell’intellettuale che si pone il problema del limite dei compromessi possibili e compatibili con il dominio dei potenti, senza duraturi legami e senza fisso domicilio, inquieto pellegrino del mondo. Il nostro disagio nel dover fare i conti con questo Petrarca che non ha più posto nel paradigma identititario nazionale … per interrogarsi sulle ragioni che lo hanno destituito dalla plurisecolare funzione di Padre, riconosciuto e assoluto, della nostra tradizione letteraria, emblema della sua modernità ed eccellenza europea, in quanto Padre della res publica litteraria. [Our unease vis-à-vis Petrarch is about the symbolic image of the man of letters seeking to acquire a new, real, and individual identity; the symbolic image of the intellectual who takes on the issue of the limits of possible and compatible compromises with the dominion of the powerful, who has no lasting ties or a set home and is a restless pilgrim in the world. Our unease stems from having to confront this Petrarch who no longer has a place in the paradigm for national identity and from having to ask why he has been deprived of his centuries-old function of Father, recognized and absolute, of our literary tradition, an emblem of his modernity and European excellence as Father of the res publica litteraria.]6

The incompatibility of Petrarch’s notions of belonging with a modern national identity grounded in control over and identification with place and territory has resulted in the casting aside of one of the most influential figures in early modern European history. Petrarch’s downfall at the hands of nation-building is part of the same modern cultural currents, including the production of literary histories, which have downplayed seventeenth-century textual production and travel writing. And, perhaps not coincidentally, it is precisely in seventeenth-century Italian travel writing that we see rapidly growing tensions between the res publica litteraria and proto-state models for identity. 3 “[L]e nostre otto monete ci dicono che gli italiani sono un popolo di artisti e di poeti, senza statisti e senza santi, senza eroi militari e senza scienziati” [Our eight coins tell us that Italians are a people made up of artists and poets, without statesmen or saints, without military heroes or scientists]. Quondam, Petrarca, p. 28. Again, this also speaks to perceptions of Italians by non-Italians as they have been constructed throughout the centuries. 4 Ibid., p. 11. 5 Ibid. 6 Ibid., pp. 48–9.

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As this study has shown, independent Italian travel writers of the seventeenth century were essentially Petrarchan, because they conceived of their travels as discourse that would fare well in the res publica litteraria, and because they had no direct stake in expansionist programs. Part of this had to do with seventeenth-century literary and academic culture, and the fact that Petrarch still represented the highest “modern” literary authority, not just for poetry but also for the lettera familiare, the preferred medium for travel writing. The authoritative written language of vernacular communication was literary Tuscan, and Italian travel writers, in order to establish the credibility of their narratives, had to engage with these models. Furthermore, travel writers found natural affinities with the wandering (geographically, intellectually, spiritually) and well-traveled figure of Petrarch, the poet who moves from place to place, inscribing himself and his experiences into text. Even Francesco Negri, discussed in Chapter 4, who does not have the overtly literary ambitions of Della Valle, Belli, or Gemelli Careri, turns reflexively to Petrarchan elements when recounting the material difficulties of his journey: “Io vado meco stesso parlando o rominando in questa forma: Tu soffri molto, Francesco, non è vero?” [I go on speaking and ruminating to myself in this way: You suffer greatly, Francesco, don’t you?].7 To sum up, the Petrarchan model of linguistic and cultural identity was the most logical, indeed the only expression of collective identity related to the Italian peninsula that an Italian traveler could inscribe in the text. Certainly regional identities play a key role, and praise for patria is explicit in these accounts. But in the Italian context, as becomes more obvious over the course of the seventeenth century, local geographies of belonging cannot provide a commanding identity-marker for the Italian writer of encounters with foreign cultures. The connections between Italian travel and Italian identity are abundantly clear in the fortune of seventeenth-century travel texts in the modern period. While travel writing after the Age of Exploration has not received its fair share of critical attention, some of these texts have had editions in key moments of Italian nationbuilding and colonial undertaking, namely after Italy’s unification and during the fascist period. At the same time as emigrants were heading to the Americas to escape poverty in Italy, Italian travelers and explorers were journeying to Africa, many as scouts for Italy’s budding colonial ambitions, and, in 1890, Eritrea was declared by Italy to be the new nation’s first colony.8 Domination and expansion became part of Italy’s agenda for nationhood, and Italian mobility, past and present, something to be emphasized and praised. Seventeenth-century travelers and their texts came back to light as part of an impetus to rediscover Italy’s history of travel. In 1881, Pietro di San Filippo, a member of the Società Geografica Italiana [the Italian Geographical Society, founded in 1867], published the Biografia dei viaggiatori italiani [Biography of Italian Travelers], which is still the most comprehensive list of early Italian travelers. Given the climate of the time, publications of travel writing implicitly set up these travelers as proof of Italy’s worldwide presence, and framed their writing as manifestations of an early Italian identity. This cultural operation 7 Francesco Negri, Viaggio settentrionale (1929), p. 333. 8 Andrea Del Boca, L’Africa nella coscienza degli italiani (Rome-Bari: Laterza, 1992), pp. 8–18.

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essentially entailed—to refer to Quondam’s reflection on rival fathers of nineteenthcentury Italy—turning “Petrarchs” into “Dantes.” An edition of Francesco Carletti’s Ragionamenti came out in 1878, and Francesco Negri’s Viaggio settentrionale was published in 1883, both in Bologna. Other editions of seventeenth-century texts included Alberto Vimina’s Relazione della Moscovia (Milan, 1861) and Relazione dell’origine e dei costumi dei Cosacchi (Reggio Emilia, 1890); Un’ambasciata. Diario dell’abate Giovanni Francesco Rucellai (Florence, 1884); and Tommaso Alberti’s Viaggio in Costantinopoli (Bologna, 1889). Research and editions of travel accounts, much of them done by historians and geographers associated with the Società Geografica Italiana, were part of an organized effort to document Italy’s (influential, national, scientific) mobile past.9 The similar revisiting of Italian travel, including that of the seventeenth century, occurred during the ventennio fascista, again presumably as part of a need to establish a patrimony of intrepid Italians who, as is implied in the narrative of nationhood, could provide continuity between early explorers, such as Vespucci and Columbus, and Italy’s colonial enterprises in Africa. In this period, journalists and intellectuals seemed to play a significant role in the publication of these editions. Several of Della Valle’s letters were published with the title Viaggio in Levante (ed. Luigi Bianconi; Florence: Sansoni, 1942). Luigi Barzini published Le più belle pagine di Francesco Carletti [The Most Beautiful Pages of Francesco Carletti] in 1926, and an edition of the text came out as Giro del mondo del buon negriero [Trip Around the World of the Good Slave Trader] (ed. Luigi Bianconi; Milan, Radius, 1941), a title that directly evoked Italy’s presence in Africa. The 1931 edition of missionary Giovanni Antonio Cavazzi’s Istorica descrizione de’ tre regni, Congo, Matamba, et Angola [Historical Description of the Three Kingdoms of Congo, Matamba, and Angola] (1687) also fitted in with the context of Italian colonialism. The literary critic Enrico Falqui directed a series on Italian travelers entitled Viaggi e scoperte di navigatori ed esploratori italiani [Travels and Discoveries of Italian Navigators and Explorers] for the Milan publishing house Alpes, for which he edited Francesco Negri’s travels (1929). He was also the editor of the Antologia della prosa scientifica italiana del Seicento [Anthology of Seventeenth-century Scientific Prose] (Rome, 1930 and Florence, 1943), the second edition of which included excerpts from Carletti, Della Valle, Francesco Negri, and Gemelli Careri, among other travelers. Falqui’s work reflects a desire to re-evaluate in Italian terms the participation of Italians in travel culture. His edition of Negri’s Viaggio settentrionale begins with three quotes from authors who bemoan Italy’s lack of national pride in its travelers. One quote from geographer Heinrich Berghaus (a tellingly German source) reads: Quando si consideri che la Spagna si giovò dell’opera di Colombo, l’Inghilterra di quella dei Caboto, la Francia di quella del Verrazzano, il Portogallo di quella del Ca’ da Mosto, bisogna ammettere che nelle cose marittime gli italiani superavano allora tutte le nazioni,

9 I am not attempting to identify or characterize any particular editor or scholar’s politics or conscious participation in constructing an Italian national identity. The point is rather that the increase in publications of travel writing corresponds chronologically to moments of nationalist fervor.

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sebbene i frutti dei loro viaggi servissero soltanto ad arricchire altrui, né restasse all’Italia un palmo solo dei tanti territori scoperti. [When one considers that Spain availed itself of the work of Columbus, England that of Cabot, France that of Verrazzano, and Portugal that of Ca’ da Mosto, one must admit that, in maritime affairs, Italians surpassed all other nations, even though the fruit of their travels served only to enrich others, and not even a foot of all the discovered territories was left to Italy.]10

The inclusion of this remark, a lament of Italy’s not having taken possession of “discovered” territories, goes along with an impetus to recast Italian travelers as examples of national glory, and an invitation for Italy to take its proper place as a European colonial power. However, Petrarchan facets do not completely disappear from modern considerations of seventeenth-century travel writers. In the introduction to his anthology of scientific writing, a category which includes travel writing, Enrico Falqui defends the prose of this century against some Crocean critiques, adding: “la prosa scientifica del nostro Seicento rappresenta, coi suoi alti campioni galileiani, anche un’autentica novità letteraria: sia per il rapporto stabilito tra scienza e letteratura … sia per l’attuata applicazione della ‘buona lingua italiana’” [The scientific prose of our seventeenth century also represents, with its high Galilean examples, an authentic literary novelty, whether for the relationship established between science and literature, or the application of a “proper Italian language”].11 Here, Falqui places this body of works into its cultural context, taking into account the centrality of Italian literary–linguistic models across all forms of vernacular prose in this period. Regardless of evolving notions of Italian identity, res publica “scientifica” and res publica litteraria are intertwined. At the turn of the new millennium, in a postmodern, postcolonial context, travel writing seems to occupy a privileged position in contemporary Italian publishing, as it does elsewhere in Europe and North America. Large bookstore chains, such as Feltrinelli and Mel bookstore, have a separate, specific section for travel narrative, most of it modern, and much of it in translation. Regarding seventeenth-century Italian travel texts, there seem to be three interrelated, emerging trends. One is the reprinting of the texts themselves, such as the facsimile edition of Francesco Negri’s Viaggio settentrionale (Leading, 2001). It is an affordable paperback volume, intended for a general audience and with no scholarly notes. An edition of Pietro Della Valle’s letters from Constantinople, also in paperback and of a portable size, came out the same year.12 Another significant phenomenon, of which this present 10 Negri, Viaggio settentrionale (1929), introductory page. 11 Enrico Falqui (ed.), Antologia della prosa scientifica italiana del Seicento, 2 vols (Florence: Vallecchi, 1943), vol. 1, p. xix. 12 La Porta d’Oriente. Lettere di Pietro Della Valle: Istanbul 1614, ed. Chiara Cardini (Rome: Città Nuova Editrice, 2001). In another example of renewed interest in early modern travel by Italians, in 2004 an edition of Della Valle’s Delle conditioni di Abbas Re di Persia (1628) came out in a small, paperback edition with minimal notes, with the title Abbas re di Persia. Un patrizio romano alla corte dello Scià nel primo ’600 [Abbas King of Persia. A

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study is a part, is a movement in Italian literary studies to expand the literary canon, provide a richer and more complete picture of seventeenth-century Italian textual production, and move away from aesthetic criticism of literature. Raffaella Salvante’s study of Pietro Della Valle, ‘Il Pellegrino’ in Oriente (Florence, 1997), and Stefania Pineider’s “In così immensa pellegrinatione”: la scrittura di viaggio nei Ragionamenti di Francesco Carletti (Rome, 2004) fit into this development.13 Finally, there seems to be a renewed regional interest in travelers of the past in the form of non-academic publications that are part history, part journalism, and part local color. These may offer the most intriguing insights into the place of seventeenth-century travel writing in contemporary Italy and its relationship to identity, be it regional, national, or European. Among these recent books are Angela Maccarrone Amuso’s Gianfrancesco Gemelli-Careri. L’Ulisse del XVII secolo [Gianfrancesco Gemelli-Careri. The Ulysses of the Seventeenth Century] (Rome, 2000), and Francesco Negri, il prete ravennate che ha scoperto gli sci [Francesco Negri, the Priest from Ravenna Who Discovered Skis], by Gregorio Caravita (Ravenna, 2004). Maccarrone Amuso’s book includes a preface by the mayor of Taurianova, Gemelli Careri’s hometown, who expresses his hopes that “quest’opera ridarà dignità culturale ad uno dei tanti figli di Taurianova, facilmente dimenticati” [this work will give back cultural dignity to one of the many sons of Taurianova who have been so readily forgotten].14 Maccarrone Amuso, who stresses this traveler’s Calabrian identity—something to which Gemelli Careri never alludes in his texts—, writes: “Siamo agli inizi del terzo millennio e i Taurianovesi, pieni di dignità e capaci di opporsi ai prepotenti, sono chiamati a recuperare i tesori scomparsi ed operare una svolta storica” [We are at the beginning of the third millennium, and the citizens of Taurianova, full of dignity and capable of challenging the arrogant, are called upon to recover lost treasures and set in motion a historical turning point].15 These comments reflect a politics of regional pride and of recuperating culture on a local level, not a national or European level. In fact, Maccarrone Amuso’s comments seem to imply that Calabrian “lost treasures” have been the sacrificial, colonized victims of foreign powers and of a nationalism that has historically marginalized southern Italy. However, the book’s very title, which equates Gemelli Careri with Ulysses, makes difficult, if not impossible, any consideration of a Calabrian version

Roman patrician at the Shah’s court in the early seventeenth century], ed. Antonio Invernizzi (Turin: Silvio Zamorani editore, 2004). 13 Chiara Cardini distinguishes her edition of Pietro Della Valle’s letters from the travel writing revival in academic environments: “Il presente studio non intende quindi sovrapporsi, ma semmai affiancare quelli di Severina Prodi e Raffaella Salvante, nonché le ricerche condotte dall’équipe di studiosi guidata da Riccardo Bruscagli, che sta procedendo a una definitiva messa a punto dell’opera dellavalliana ai livelli letterario, testuale, e filologico” [This present study is not intended to overlay, but rather to complement the work of Severina Prodi and Raffaella Salvante, as well as the research being done by the group of scholars led by Riccardo Bruscagli, which is undertaking a definitive literary, textual, and philological study of Della Valle’s account]. Della Valle, La Porta d’Oriente, p. 29. 14 Angela Maccarrone Amuso, Gianfrancesco Gemelli-Careri, p. 10. 15 Ibid., p. 14.

Petrarch, the Euro, and the Fate of Italian Travel Literature

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of sicilitudine or hybrid identity.16 Even if the book’s foreword refers to Ulysses as “anch’egli un po’ calabrese” [also a bit Calabrian himself],17 the figure of Ulysses is too universal, too much of a commonplace in referring to travel to be reappropriated and “localized” in order to represent regional identities. Gregorio Caravita’s book on Francesco Negri, published in Ravenna, does not focus as overtly on highlighting local contributions to travel culture, and the beginning of the preface places Italian travel in the broader context of the expanding European Union. After mentioning the addition in May 2004 of ten new countries to form a union of twenty-five nations, the author adds: “Ma in generale noi Italiani sappiamo ben poco, di gran parte di questa Europa, specie del Nord, dell’Est: storia, economia, cultura … Sembra l’altra faccia della luna. C’è stato un Italiano, proprio un Ravennate, che ha avuto questa curiosità, questo interesse” [But in general we Italians know very little about most of this Europe, especially the north and the east, and its history, economy and culture. It seems to us the other side of the moon. There has been one Italian, a citizen of Ravenna, who had this curiosity and this interest].18 Here Caravita, chiding Italian provincialism, paints a picture of Italy (not just Ravenna) as having little to do with Northern and Eastern Europe. According to him, what was unknown to Negri in the 1660s remains largely unknown, or at least deeply foreign, today. In wanting to establish the link between Italy then and Italy now, and in characterizing other edges of Europe as culturally distanced, Caravita places Italy in a Southern European, Mediterranean space, a territory whose inhabitants may not associate their sense of belonging with the European Union.19 Where does this leave seventeenth-century travel writing in relation to the multitude of possible contemporary Italian identities? Or, to return to Quondam’s remarks, what if Petrarch figured on the 2-euro coin, and not Dante?20 It might be tempting to view Petrarch as a symbol for recognizing and valorizing Italian 16 For a consideration of sicilitudine as cultural construct, see Roberto Dainotto, “The Importance of Being Sicilian: Italian Cultural Studies, Sicilitudine, and Je Ne Sais Quoi,” in Ben Lawton and Graziella Parati (eds), Italian Cultural Studies (Boca Raton, FL: Bordighera Press, 2001), pp. 201–19. 17 Maccarrone Amuso, p. 11. 18 Gregorio Caravita, Francesco Negri, p. 13. 19 These comments about Italy’s lack of attention to the rest of Europe on an everyday, anecdotal level clash with former Italian prime minister Romano Prodi’s vision for Italy’s foreign policy that he gave to foreign newspapers after his second election to the position: “The essential principal for foreign policy that I propose to Italians will be to establish a link between the process of political integration of Europe and the solid rapport of confidence that we hold with our American allies. As an important European power, the weight and role of Italy rests above all in its capacity to participate in the elaboration of European policies.” “L’Italie doit repartir de l’avant,” Le Monde, April 13, 2006 (my translation). 20 Interestingly, in 2006, the five-hundredth anniversary of Christopher Columbus’s death, the 2-euro commemorative coin of the Republic of San Marino featured a portrait of the explorer. In 2005, the San Marino coin featured Galileo; and in 2006, Garibaldi. The 2005, 2006, and 2007 Italian 2-euro commemorative coins honored, respectively, the first anniversary of the signing of the European Constitution, the Winter Olympics in Turin, and the fiftieth anniversary of the Treaty of Rome, which established the European Economic Community.

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identity as something other than the result of a nation-building program borrowed from European countries with vastly different social, artistic, political, and economic histories. Petrarch could stand for yet another enriching return to the past that would free Italy of its nineteenth-century and early twentieth-century baggage and encourage the consideration of Italian identities and textual production within their own cultural parameters, not those imposed by or adopted from other national contexts. However, this scenario also has its flaws. As scholars such as Roland Greene have shown, for instance, Petrarchan poetics of love and desire was integrated into discourses on early modern empire by colonial European powers.21 Petrarch served as the obvious, reflexive reference point for independent, literary Italian travel writers after the Age of Exploration as they sought to textualize their Italian-ness. However, when it comes to European and world stages, it is impossible to separate the legacy of Petrarch from early modern imperialism. That said, the “Petrarch issue,” as it develops and is appropriated and modified through the centuries, provides a continuum between tensions regarding language, literature, and identity that were growing during the seventeenth century, and tensions still very much in place today. To consider Italian baroque travel writing on its own Italian terms—aesthetic, literary, not proto-national—is illuminating and indeed essential to understanding the specificity of its discursive practices. The questions regarding literature and identity that come to the fore in this corpus remain fascinating and only partly answered, and they still imbue modern travel literature publications. It is the recognition of this continuity that one hopes will ensure enduring investigations of seventeenth-century Italian travel literature in the new millennium.

21 See Roland Greene, Unrequited Conquests.

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Pfister, Manfred, The Fatal Gift of Beauty: The Italies of British Travellers. An Annotated Anthology (Atlanta, GA: Rodopi, 1996). Pine, Martin, Pietro Pomponazzi, Radical Philosopher of the Renaissance (Padua: Antenore, 1986). Pineider, Stefania, “In cosi immensa pellegrinatione”: la scrittura del viaggio nei Ragionamenti di Francesco Carletti (Rome: Vecchiarelli, 2004). Polezzi, Loredana, Translating Travel: Contemporary Italian Travel Writing in English Translation (Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2001). Pratt, Mary Louise, Imperial Eyes: Travel Writing and Transculturation (New York: Routledge, 1992). Prodi, Romano, “L’Italie doit repartir de l’avant,” Le Monde, April 13, 2006. Prosperi, Adriano and Paolo Viola, Dalla rivoluzione inglese alla rivoluzione francese, vol. 2 of Storia italiana, 2 vols (Turin: Einaudi, 1998). Puppi, Lionello and Ruggero Rugolo, “‘Un’ordinaria forma non alletta.’ Arte, riflessione sull’arte e società,” in Gino Benzoni and Gaetano Cozzi (eds), La Venezia Barocca, vol. 7 of Storia di Venezia: dalle origini alla caduta della Serenissima, 9 vols (Rome: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana, 1997). Quondam, Amedeo, “L’accademia,” in Il letterato e le istituzioni, vol. 1 of Alberto Asor Rosa (ed.), Letteratura italiana, 8 vols (Turin: Einaudi, 1982), pp. 823–98. ——, “L’identità (rin)negata, l’identità vicaria. L’Italia e gli italiani nel paradigma culturale dell’età moderna,” vol. 1 of Gino Rizzo (ed.), L’identità nazionale nella cultura letteraria italiana, 2 vols (Lecce: Mario Congedo Editore, 2001). ——, Petrarca, l’italiano dimenticato (Milan: Rizzoli, 2004). Raimondi, Enzo, “Scienziati e viaggiatori barocchi,” in Emilio Cecchi and Natalino Sapegno (eds), Il Seicento, vol. 5 of Storia della letteratura italiana, 12 vols (Milan: Garzanti, 1967), pp. 225–318. Redford, Bruce, Venice and the Grand Tour (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1996). Ricci, Corrado, “Lo sci nei suoi precedenti storici e nel suo sviluppo in Italia,” Club Alpino Italiano (Feb. 1937): 58–62. Ricci, Virgilio, “Sci e alpinismo nel Seicento. Francesco Negri, l’ardito romagnolo che ubbidì al grande richiamo delle nevi scandinave,” Le Alpi, 61 (Jan.–Feb. 1924): 79–90. Rizzo, Gino (ed.), L’identità nazionale nella cultura letteraria italiana, 2 vols (Lecce: Mario Congedo Editore, 2001). Robertson, George, et al. (eds), Travellers’ Tales. Narratives of Home and Displacement (New York: Routledge, 1994). Rubiés, Joan-Pau, “New Worlds and Renaissance Ethnology,” in Anthony Pagden (ed.), Facing Each Other: The World’s Perception of Europe and Europe’s Perception of the World, Part I (Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2000), pp. 81–121. ——, Travel and Ethnology in the Renaissance: South India through European Eyes 1250–1625 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000). Russo, Piera, “L’Accademia degli Umoristi. Fondazione, strutture e leggi: il primo decennio di attività,” Esperienze Letterarie, 4 (1979): 47–61. Said, Edward, Orientalism: Western Conceptions of the Orient (London: Penguin, 1991).

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Index

Abbas the Great, Shah 53, 53n6, 60, 64, 78 academies 31, 100−101, 106 Accademia del Cimento 37, 129n7, 147, 147n47, 148n52, 149 Accademia dell’Arcadia 145, 171, 171n40, 176n52 Accademia degli Incogniti 100−103, 100n4, 101n16, 101n17, 101n19, 102n21, 102n22, 124n89, 136n21, 117 Accademia degli Investiganti 169, 176n51 Accademia Medinaceli 169, 221 Accademia degli Umoristi 52, 52n2, 56n12, 65−7, 66n36, 73, 82 Acosta, José de 162 agave fruit 37 Alberti, Tommaso 200 Alexander VII, Pope 145 ambassadorial culture 99−100 Ancient-Modern dispute 156, 170−71, 186, 189−90, 195 Anderson, Benedict 20 Arcadia movement 12, 171 Ariès, Philippe 85n81 Ariosto, Ludovico 21, 52, 70, 96, 135, 135n21 Aristotle and Aristotelianism 12−13, 64, 132, 152, 152n63 art of travel and travel writing 27−9, 156, 183, 188−9 Bacon, Francis 169 Ballo Alagna, Simonetta 167n28 Barbaro, Giosafat 99 Barclay, John 121, 132,153n64 Baretti, Giuseppe 12n16 baroque culture 32, 37−8, 52, 81−4, 91−3, 97, 106−8, 122, 129, 135, 154 Bartoli, Daniello 11n9, 144n35, 163 Barzini, Luigi 200 Belli, Francesco 1, 5−7, 29, 33, 95−125, 135, 181−3, 199, 103n25, 105n32, 108n43, 108n45, 121n83 itinerary of 97 Bellori, Gian Pietro 56

Bembo, Pietro 12, 33, 42 Berghaus, Heinrich 200−201 Berni, Francesco 136, 136n22 Béryte, bishop of (Pierre Lambert de la Motte) 151, 151n61 Biagioli, Marco 148−9 Bianchi, Michele 10n5 Bianconi, Luigi 39, 39n92, 200 Biondi, Giovanni Francesco 103, 103n27, 115n69, 121 Bizoni, Bernardo 10n6 Boccaccio, Giovanni 33, 41−2, 46, 136, 171, 181n66, 183 Boccalini, Traiano 52n2 Bollati, Giuliano 19, 20n36 Bonini, Filippo Maria 56n11 Boot, Adrian 162 Borm, Jan 11n11 Borri, Cristoforo 10−11, 11n8 Bouwsma, William 4 Branca, Gaetano 11n10 Bressani, Francesco Giuseppe 11 Brilli, Attilio 119n76 Brockey, Liam 169n29, 193, 193n89 Buccini, Stefania 90n95, 158, 158n7, 169n29 “buon gusto” concept 176, 179 Cabot, John 3 Cachey, Theodore 6, 17, 19, 23, 33−4, 33n76, 34n79, 69n42, 83n71, 112n58, 183, 183n72 Calderón de la Barca, Pedro 82 Camoes, Luis de 14 Carapella, Tommaso 177n54 Caravita, Gregorio 202−3 Cardona, Giorgio Raimondo 12 Carletti, Antonio 35, 43−4 Carletti, Francesco 5−8, 35−50, 37n83, 39n90, 39n92, 39n93, 41n96, 42n100, 44n107, 45n110, 49n122, 70, 156, 165, 200 circumnavigation of 35−6 Cassiodorus 146n46

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Catholic Church 47, 55−8, 80, 193 Cavazzi, Giovanni Antonio 11, 200 Cecchi, Domenico “il Cortona” 160, 160n11 Cerato, Francesco 123 Charenton 117 Charles II, King of Spain 174 Charles V, Emperor 146 Chastel, André 84n77, 90n94 Chiabrera, Gabriello 52n2 China 37, 143−4, 150, 162−3, 167, 169, 193 Christina, Queen of Sweden 144−5, 145n38 Cicero 65, 181 climate theory 150−53 clocks, fascination with 107−8 Collognat-Barès, Annie 32 colonialism 166−7, 199−201 Columbus, Christopher 3, 14−17, 20, 29, 39, 185, 200−1, 203n20 Comédie Italienne 177 Conley, Tom 130n8 Constantinople 71, 165, 191−2, 201 Contarini, Ambrogio 99 Contarini, Luigi 107, 111 Contarini, Simone 117 Conti, Niccolò de’ 39 Contini, Gianfranco 33−4 Cornelio, Tommaso 169, 195 Coronelli, Vincenzo 132n10 Cosimo III, Grand Duke of Tuscany, 132n10, 170 cosmopolitanism 21−2, 45, 49 Counter-Reformation 13−14, 20 Croce, Benedetto 12−13, 24, 201 Da Mosto, Alvise 99 Dainotto, Roberto 22−3 Dampier, William 17 Danio, Amato 158, 170, 183, 195 Dante Alighieri 19, 33, 42, 42n103, 56n11, 86, 89, 89n93, 96, 119, 171, 184n75, 190−91, 197, 197n2, 200, 203 De Fer, Nicholas 17−18 Deleuze, Gilles 19n35 Della Valle, Pietro 5−7, 12, 33, 51−93, 52n2, 52n3, 53n4, 53n5, 53n6, 55n8, 55n10, 56n11, 56n12, 58n16, 61n25, 63n27, 68n39, 69n41, 69n42, 74n52, 75n53, 76n58, 78n60, 84n75, 84n76, 85n79, 85n80, 95−7, 105, 110n53, 133n14, 191n84, 133−5, 163, 181−3, 199−202

as actor 61−4 itinerary of 54 portrait of 62 De Sanctis, Francesco 23−4 Descartes, René 129, 169, 172, 181 Diderot, Denis 4 Dionisotti, Carlo 6n8, 19, 19n34, 133n15, 197, 197n2 Doiron, Normand 33n75, 128−9, 129n5, 129n6, 150, 150n58, 153 Dolce, Lodovico 186, 186n79 Domenichi, Lodovico 186n79 Egginton, William 59−60 Egizio, Matteo 171−2, 171n41, 172n42, 181−3 English countryside 160 Enlightenment thought 14 Erauso, Catalina de 53, 76n58 Eritrea 199 Ethiopia 143 euro coinage 197−8, 203, 203n20 European identity and Eurocentrism 22−3 European Union 203 experimentation, scientific 147−9 Falqui, Enrico 200−201 Fantuzzi, Giacomo 10n6 Feltrinelli and Mel bookstore 201 Ferdinand of Aragon, King of Spain 3 Ferdinand I, Grand Duke of Tuscany 35, 39–40, 42, 45n110, 48, 49 Ferdinand II, Grand Duke of Tuscany 10, 147n47 Ferroni, Giulio 178n58 Firpo, Luigi 100n14 Florence 173−4 Fontenelle, Bernard de 186 Frederick III of Denmark 127−8, 137, 153 Fumaroli, Marco 170−71 Galileo 26, 147, 201 Gama, Vasco da 14, 185 Gassendi, Pierre 169, 172, 181 Gemelli Careri, Giovanni Francesco 5−8, 12, 33, 44, 133, 155−96, 158n6, 162n13, 163n14, 170n33, 170n35, 172n42, 179n60, 179n61, 181n64, 181n66, 199−202 itineraries of 159, 164 Genette, Gérard 7, 109, 115−16, 125

Index Gerusalemme liberata 71, 75, 78n60, 79–80, 80n65, 80n67, 98, 99n10, 108n44, 182n66 Getto, Giovanni 7, 104 Gioerida, Sitti Maani 53, 58n16, 74−81, 74n52, 75n54, 78n60, 86−91, 91n96 portrait of 77 Giustiniani, Vincenzo 10n6 Giza, pyramid of 53 Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von 55 Gomes de Brito, Bernardo 48 Gothic conquest and rule 145−6, 145n43, 146n45 Gramsci, Antonio 20−23, 21n39, 45 Grand Tour 4, 8, 16, 173−4, 173n44 Gravina, Gianvincenzo 171 Greenblatt, Stephen 3, 33n77 Greene, Roland 204 Grimaldi, Filippo 193−4, 194n95 Grotius, Hugo 172 Grotta del Cane 176, 176n51 Guarini, Battista 52n2, 70, 96, 135 Guattari, Félix 19n35 Guercino, Giovanni Francesco 91–2 Guglielminetti, Marziano 11n10, 13−14, 37−8, 135 Hafiz 83−4 The Hague 7, 97–8, 110, 111, 117, 121n80 Hampton, Timothy 16 Havana 166 Hazard, Paul 14n22 Heidegger, Martin 59 Henry IV, King of France 35, 41n96 Herodotean values 118 Hideyoshi, Toyotomi 40−41 histoire (Genette) 109−10, 113, 118, 125 Hobbes, Thomas 169 Homer 67−8, 162, 171 Horace 134 Ikkeri 71 “imagined communities” 20, 180 India 46, 53, 60, 71, 150−51, 162 Infelise, Mario 101n16 Innocent X, Pope 128n4 Intorcetta, Prospero 11 Isfahan 70 Italian identity 5−8, 17−25, 47, 63, 74, 175, 181, 197−9; see also Italian-ness Italian language 25, 34, 42, 181, 183

223

Italian literary culture 5−8, 11−14, 19−25, 31−4, 43, 50, 52, 55−6, 93, 95−6, 134, 136, 171, 175, 201−2 Italian-ness 175, 179−81, 204; see also Italian identity Jannaco, Carmine 13n19 Japan 40−42 Jesuits 10, 17, 163n14, 167n28, 169n29, 193, 193n89 Kaplan, Eric (BEK) 3 Kennedy, William 34n80 Kircher, Athanasius 53n5, 132n10, 162, 169n29, 170 Lacan, Jacques 59 Lamberti, Arcangelo 11 Lapland 140−44, 152 map of 142 La Salle, René-Robert Cavelier de 17 Lassels, Richard 173−4 Latin language 177−8 Launoy, Jean de 172 Leed, Eric 11, 27 Leonardo di Capua 169 letter-writing as a literary genre 65−6, 133–4, 165, 181–3, 199 Locatelli, Sebastiano 10n6 London 148 Loredan, Giovanni Francesco 101−3 Louis XIV 17, 137n26, 171, 172n42, 192n88 Louvre, the 107 Lutheranism 137 Macao 35, 44, 165 Maczak, Antonio 25n50, 162n12, 26n53 Maffei, Giovanni Pietro 143–4, 144n33, 150, 162 Magalotti, Lorenzo 10, 37, 129n7, 147−9 Magellan, Ferdinand 3, 17, 185 Magliabechi, Antonio 132n10, 170 Magnus, Olaus 27n55, 132 Mainz 115−16 Mancini, Albert 101, 104 Mancini, Paolo 52n2 Mannheim 113 Maravall, José 32, 82, 84n77, 108n42 Maria of Savoy 118, 123 Marini, Giovanni Filippo de 11

224

Literature and Identity in Italian Baroque Travel Writing

Marino, Giambattista 6, 32, 90, 101, 106−7, 107n37, 133n15, 136n22 Massacueva, Giovanni 191 Matamoros, Captain, character 60, 60n20 Medici, Maria de’ 35 Micocci, Claudia 30 Milan 160 Minh-ha, Trinh T. 1 miscarriage 86−8 missionary activity 10−11, 47, 193 Monga, Luigi 9n1, 26, 28 Montaigne, Michel de 27n55 movement through time and space, narration of 111−18 mummies 84−8, 91 Münster, Sebastian 27n54 Muratori, Ludovico Antonio 171, 176n52 Murchio, Antonio 11 Murchio, Vincenzo Maria 144n35, 150−51 music culture 176−7 Nagasaki 40−41 Naples, intellectual culture of 169−77, 195 narration (Genette) 109−11, 118, 125 national identity 14, 16, 175; see also Italian identity nationalism 16 navigators 21, 26, 32 Negri, Francesco 5−8, 33, 127−54, 127n1, 132n10, 132n12, 133n16, 137n26, 138n27, 145n38, 145n42, 156, 162, 174, 181n65, 183, 199−203 itinerary of 131 Norway 132 novels 103−6 objectivity in travel writing 99 oikos 47, 70; see also Italian identity Ortelius, Abraham 58 Otherness 10, 50, 60 Ovid 70 Pacichelli, Giovanni Battista 10 Padrón, Ricardo 130 Paita 38 Palatinate, the 110 map of 114 Pallavicino, Ferrante 101, 101n16 Paris 110, 117, 148 Pasquali, Adrien 1, 29−30, 28n61, 109n46, 112

Peking 10, 193−4 Pepini, Camillotta 186 Perocco, Daria 13n21, 26, 27n57, 38, 44, 128n3 Petrarch and Petrarchian poetics 7, 19, 21, 33−4, 34n79, 34n80, 34n81, 42, 52, 56−7, 56n11, 57, 65−6, 68n39, 69n42, 70−74, 82−4, 96, 108, 108n44, 111−12, 112n59, 118, 134, 171, 182−5, 183n72, 184n74, 184n75, 185, 185n76, 187−8, 188n80, 197−204 Pfister, Manfred 6, 10, 15 Pigafetta, Antonio 3 Plato 117, 134, 138 Pliny the Elder 138n27 Polezzi, Loredana 3−4, 13n18, 24n47 Polo, Marco 17, 29, 39, 99, 185 Pomponazzi, Pietro 122 Pona, Francesco 121n83 Portugal 48 Porzio, Lucantonio 169 Pozzuoli 176 Pratt, Mary Louise 15 print culture 102−3 Prodi, Romano 203n19 Ptolemy, Claudius 152 Pulcinella, character 177 Quondam, Amedeo 6, 23−5, 23n45, 24n47, 31, 31n70, 197−200, 197n1, 198n3, 203 Raillard, Giacomo 170 Raimondi, Enzo 13 Ramusio, Giovanni Battista 33, 39, 99, 127n1, 185−6 Ravenna 145−6, 152−4 récit (Genette) 109−13, 125 Redford, Bruce 173n44, 174 Redi, Francesco 37n83 Reformation, Catholic 82 Renaissance, the 9−10 Reuss, River 119 Rhine, River, navigation 111–12, 115–17, 121n83 Ricci, Matteo 10 Rome as a travel destination 173−4 Rubens, Peter Paul 98 Rubiés, Joan-Pau 9, 74n52, 140n29, 150n58

Index Sagramosi of Verona 123 Said, Edward 22 Salvante, Rafaella 52n3, 65, 65n34, 100n13, 202, 202n13 San Filippo, Pietro di 11n10, 199 Sannazaro, Jacopo 56, 71, 119 Santa Maria in Aracoeli, church 53, 91, 96 Sarzina, Giacomo 102 Sassetti, Filippo 10, 39 Saumaise, Claude 172 Schaub, Jean-Frédéric 79 Scheffer, Johannes 127n1, 139 Schipano, Mario 52, 52n3, 65−70, 78 Schouten, William 17 self-consciousness in travel-writing 106−7 Seneca 134 Severino, Marco Aurelio 195 slave trade 45 Smirne 191 Società Geografica Italiana 199−200 sonnets 118−25 Sorbière, Samuel 28n59 Spain 145−6, 201 Stigliani, Tommaso 15n26, 46, 103n27 Stockholm 145 Strasbourg Cathedral clock tower 107−8 Strozzi, Giulio 117 Sweden 130−31, 137, 144−6 Tachard, Guy 17 Tasso, Toquato 6, 14−15, 21, 32, 52, 70−1, 75, 79−81, 96, 117 Tassoni, Alessandro 15n26, 52n2 Taurianova 157n4, 202 Tavernier, Jean-Baptiste 155, 156n2, 162−3 theatricality 59 time, concept of 108 Tinatin, Maria 58n16, 81n68 Tiraboschi, Girolamo 5n5 Todorov, Tvetan 3

225

Torricelli, Evangelista 148, 148n54 travel writing as a genre 11−14, 172, 196 “Trial of the atheists” 170 Trissino, Giangiorgio 15n26 Tuscan language 33, 181−6, 199; see also Italian language Urban VIII, Pope 55n8, 87n90 Valletta, Lorenzo 169 Valperga, Martha 118 Valvasense, Francesco 102 Van Den Abbeele, Georges 16−17, 64, 66, 89 Venice 99−106, 124, 128, 157, 160, 173−4, 183−5 Ventimiglia, Antonio 162 Verazzano, Giovanni da 3, 201 Verona 106 Vespucci, Amerigo 3, 14, 17, 39, 185, 190, 200 Vico, Giambattista 170−1 Villot, Father 192 Vimina, Alberto 10, 10n5, 144n35, 200 Virgil 69n42, 171 Viviani, Vincenzo 147n47 Vovelle, Michel 84−5 Westphalia, Peace of (1648) 128n4 White, Hayden 3, 28, 28n59, 64, 138n28 Whitehall Castle 176 Windsor 160 Zamberti, Bartolomeo 119n73 Zani, Valerio 132n10 Zatti, Sergio 6, 11, 14, 15n26, 45 Zeno, Apostolo 171, 172n42 Zorzi, Giorgio 95, 95n1, 100 Zwinger, Theodor 27n58