Building the Canon through the Classics: Imitation and Variation in Renaissance Italy (1350-1580)

237 Pages·2019·2.692 MB·English

by  Eloisa Morra

Building the Canon through the Classics
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Metaforms
studies in the reception of
classical antiquity
Editors-in-Chief
Almut-Barbara Renger (Freie Universität Berlin)
Jon Solomon (University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign)
John T. Hamilton (Harvard University)
Editorial Board
Kyriakos Demetriou (University of Cyprus)
Constanze Güthenke (Oxford University)
Miriam Leonard (University College London)
Mira Seo (Yale-nus College)
volume 15
The titles published in this series are listed at brill.com/srca
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Building the Canon through
the Classics
Imitation and Variation in Renaissance
Italy (1350–1580)
Edited by
Eloisa Morra
leiden | boston
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Cover illustration: Giuseppe Maria Crespi, Due sportelli di libreria con scaffali di libri di musica (1720–1730),
“Museo internazionale e biblioteca della musica di Bologna”.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Morra, Eloisa, 1988- editor.
Title: Building the canon through the classics : imitation and variation in
Renaissance Italy (1350-1550) / edited by Eloisa Morra.
Description: Leiden ; Boston : Brill, [2019] | Series: Metaforms studies in
the reception of classical antiquity, ISSN 2212-9405 ; volume 15 |
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2019012579 (print) | LCCN 2019019094 (ebook) | ISBN
9789004398030 (ebook) | ISBN 9789004398023 (hardback :¬alk. paper)
Subjects: LCSH: Italian literature--History and criticism. | Italian
literature--Classical influences. | Canon (Literature) | Imitation in
literature.
Classification: LCC PQ4075 (ebook) | LCC PQ4075 .B85 2019 (print) | DDC
850.9--dc23
LC record available at http://lccn.loc.gov/2019012579
Typeface for the Latin, Greek, and Cyrillic scripts: “Brill”. See and download: brill.com/brill-typeface.
ISSN 2212-9405
ISBN 978-90-04-39802-3 (hardback)
ISBN 978-90-04-39803-0 (e-book)
Copyright 2019 by Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands.
Koninklijke Brill NV incorporates the imprints Brill, Brill Hes & De Graaf, Brill Nijhoff, Brill Rodopi,
Brill Sense, Hotei Publishing, mentis Verlag, Verlag Ferdinand Schöningh and Wilhelm Fink Verlag.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, translated, stored in a retrieval system,
or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise,
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that the appropriate fees are paid directly to The Copyright Clearance Center, 222 Rosewood Drive, Suite
910, Danvers, MA 01923, USA. Fees are subject to change.
This book is printed on acid-free paper and produced in a sustainable manner.
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Contents
Acknowledgements  vii
List of Illustrations  viii
Notes on the Editor  ix
Notes on Contributors  x
1 Introduction  1
Eloisa Morra
2 Boccaccio as Homer: A Recently Discovered Self-portrait
and the ‘modern’ Canon  13
Maddalena Signorini
3 In the Center of the Kaleidoscope: Ovidian Poetic Image
and Boccaccio’s Self-Representation in De Mulieribus Claris  27
Talita Janine Juliani
4 The Place of the Father: The Reception of Homer in the Renaissance
Canon  47
Valentina Prosperi
5 Politian: The Philologer as Artist  70
Jaspreet Boparai
6 Humanistic Biographies of Horace and His Inclusion in the
Fifteenth-century Literary Canon  96
Giacomo Comiati
7 Editing Vernacular Classics in the Early Sixteenth Century: Ancient
Models and Modern Solutions  126
Carlo Caruso
8 Building the Canon in 1530s Rome: Colocci’s epigrammatari
as a Test Case  146
Nadia Cannata
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vi Contents
9 The Literary Canon and the Visual Arts: From the Three Crowns
to Ariosto and Tasso  158
Federica Caneparo
10 ‘Re-figuring’ Lucian of Samosata: Authorship and Literary Canon
in Early Modern Italy  187
Irene Fantappiè
Index of Names  217
Index of Places  225
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Acknowledgements
This volume originates from a conference titled Building the Canon. Italian
Renaissance and the creation of a literary tradition, held at Harvard University
(usa) in December 2015 and co-organized by Marco Romani Mistretta and
myself. I am grateful to Marco for his invaluable help in organizing the event
and for our stimulating conversations involving the Italian Renaissance and
the classical tradition.
My deepest gratitude goes to the Departments of Classics and Romance
Languages and Literatures at Harvard, Villa i Tatti - The Harvard Centre for
Italian Renaissance Studies, and the General Consulate of Italy in Boston for
their support, and to the Department of Italian Studies at the University of
Toronto for the support received during the concluding stages of the publica-
tion process.
I am also grateful to Lina Bolzoni, Marcello Ciccuto, and James Hankins for
their generous guidance and encouragement. My deepest gratitude goes to Gi-
ulia Moriconi and Kim Fiona Plus for their advice and readiness to reply to edi-
torial questions. Special thanks should be extended to the anonymous readers
for their feedback, and to all the contributors for enthusiastically embracing
this project.
E.M.
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Illustrations
2.1 Toledo, Archivo y Biblioteca Capitulares, Zelada 104.6, c. 267v (from:
cursi, La scrittura e i libri, pl. ixa) Credits: Archivo y Biblioteca Capitu-
lares, Toledo.  25
2.2 Florence, Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana, plut. 34.49, c. ivv (from: Boc-
caccio autore e copista, pl. on p. 206) Credits: Biblioteca Medicea Lauren-
ziana, Florence.  26
2.3 Florence, Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale, ii.ii.38, c. 3v (from: Boccac-
cio autore e copista, pl. on p. 80) Credits: Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale,
Florence.  26
9.1 Pierino da Vinci, The Death of Count Ugolino and his Sons, 1548/49,
Liechtenstein, The Princely Collections. Credits: Liechtenstein, The
Princely Collections, Vaduz — Vienna/scala, Florence.  183
9.2 Luca Signorelli, Triumph of Chastity, about 1509, from the palace of Pan-
dolfo Petrucci in Siena, now in London, National Gallery. Credits: London,
The National Gallery, National Gallery Picture Library, London.  184
9.3 Nicolò dell’Abate, Story of Prasildo and Tisbina, 1540s, formerly in Scandi-
ano, Rocca dei Boiardo, now in Modena, deposits of the Galleria Estense.
Credits: Galleria Estense, Modena.  184
9.4 Girolamo Mirola, Ruggiero on Alcina’s Island, 1563 ca, Parma, Palazzo
Ducale (Palazzo del Giardino). Credits: Pinacoteca Stuard, Palazzo del
Giardino, Parma.  185
9.5 Girolamo Mirola, Erminia and the Shepherds, 1628, Parma, Palazzo Du-
cale (Palazzo del Giardino). Credits: Pinacoteca Stuard, Palazzo del
Giardino, Parma.  185
9.6 Francesco Torbido detto il Moro (attr.), The “lieta brigata,” post 1546,
Bagnolo di Lonigo (Vicenza), Villa Pisani Bonetti. Credits: Owners Villa
Pisani Bonetti.  186
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Notes on the Editor
Eloisa Morra
is Assistant Professor of Italian Studies at the University of Toronto. She earned
a Ph.D in Italian Studies from Harvard University in 2017, completed her B.A.
and M.A. at the Scuola Normale Superiore, and was a Visiting Scholar Re-
searcher at the École Normale Supérieure in Lyon. At Harvard she taught at
the Department of Romance Languages and Literatures, co-curated a research
exhibition at the Pusey Library and several projects at the Harvard Art Muse-
ums. Her published articles and essays explore interdisciplinary issues at the
crossroads of textual and visual studies, classicism and vanguardism, the Re-
naissance and Italy’s modernism. Her monograph “Un allegro fischiettare nelle
tenebre. Ritratto di Toti Scialoja” addresses this contemporary poet-painter’s
interart/intermedia practices by studying his archive and manuscripts; it was
published by Quodlibet Studio in 2014, and received a Special mention at the
Edinburgh Gadda Prize 2015. She is currently completing a book on Carlo
Emilio Gadda, arguably Italy’s greatest modernist writer.
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Notes on Contributors
Jaspreet Boparai
trained initially as a classicist, and was the final student of the late Professor
Philip Ford; his was the last-ever PhD awarded in the Department of neo-Latin
at Cambridge. He was educated at Corpus Christi College, Oxford; the Cour-
tauld Institute of Art; the Warburg Institute; the École Normale Supérieure in
Paris; and Clare College, Cambridge, where he completed a dissertation on the
history of classical scholarship. His research interests are divided between Lat-
in literature and the history of art, and focus on the classical tradition in Italy
and France between 1300 and 1700.
Federica Caneparo
is a Postdoctoral fellow in Italian Studies at the University of Chicago. She
earned her Ph.D. at the Scuola Normale Superiore of Pisa, Italy, where she
focused on Italian literature and Early Modern art history. She also received
a “diploma di specializzazione” (Italian post-graduate program) in Medieval
and Early Modern art history from the University of Pisa. Her monograph Di
molte figure adornato. L’Orlando furioso nei cicli pittorici tra Cinque e Seicento
(Officina Libraria, Milan 2015) investigates frescoes inspired to Ludovico Ari-
osto’s poem Orlando furioso by offering a close reading of every cycle, and
analyzing their role in the process of its canonization as a new classic. Fed-
erica’s research interests include the history of the book, the culture of Ital-
ian Renaissance, art and politics, and the relation between visual arts and
literature.
Nadia Cannata
is Associate Professor in History of the Italian language at the University of
Rome – La Sapienza. During the academic year 1997-1998 she was a Fellow at
the Harvard University Center for Italian Renaissance Studies at Villa I Tatti
in Florence and in 2001–2002 held a Leverhulme Trust Grant from the British
Academy. Her research interest span from the history of the printed book in
Italy during the early Renaissance and its bearing on the history of Italian liter-
ature and language in the same period, to matters regarding the critical edition
and textual analysis of vernacular and neo-latin poetry; textual bibliography;
the relationship between literature and fine arts during the early Renaissance;
linguistic treatises and the teoria cortigiana in the Cinquecento; public script
in late Antiquity and Early Modern Europe.
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