READING THE DECAMERON FROM BOCCACCIO TO SALVIATI A Dissertation Presented to the ...

239 Pages·2010·0.71 MB·English

READING THE DECAMERON FROM BOCCACCIO TO SALVIATI

A Dissertation
Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School
of Cornell University
In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of
Doctor of Philosophy

by
Daniel Thomas Tonozzi
February 2010
© 2010 Daniel Thomas Tonozzi
READING THE DECAMERON FROM BOCCACCIO TO SALVIATI
Daniel Thomas Tonozzi, Ph.D.
Cornell University 2010

My dissertation analyzes the assumptions and anxieties the
Decameron, in complete and expurgated forms, reveals about the
practice of reading, the category of reader, and the materiality of the
text. I also consider stories from the Decameron as a dialogue among
the narrators who discuss the responsibilities of readers and writers.
My introduction sets up how I engage existing concepts of
hermeneutics, reader-response theory, and imitation.
In Chapter 1, I discuss the practice of reading in terms of
humanist imitation. I privilege an appreciation and examination of
method, highlighting two responsibilities that weigh on the
Decameron’s readers: to recognize useful textual models and to execute
those models in a way that balances their replication with innovation.
In Chapter 2, I consider the Decameron’s assumptions about
how readers judge useful models and discern opportunities for
pleasure. I propose a reader who simultaneously acts as an individual
agent and a member of a larger community. I identify two divergent
models for communal participation that are marked by gender.
In Chapter 3, I analyze the interventions of expurgators
Vincenzo Borghini and Lionardo Salviati, illustrating how their
editions manipulate the tensions inherent in any censored book
between its status as literature and its mandate to represent and
support a specific ideology. Salviati’s successful expurgation owes
itself both to the way he justifies textual extractions in the terms of
humanist discourse and to the way his edited pages serve as visual
reminders of Church authority. Salviati’s edition highlights the central
role the materiality of the text plays in its interpretation and
circulation.
In Chapter 4, I trace how certain narrators use their stories to
create a dialogue about effective strategies for communication and
interpretation. Their dialogue emphasizes the reader’s responsibility
to recognize the abundance of meaning available in a text and the
writer’s capacity to manage that abundance. This method teases out a
tension in the Decameron between preservation and innovation in
regards to hermeneutic ideals, a tension central to understanding the
Decameron’s enigmatic final tale and the brigata’s return to Florence.
My conclusion sets up further discussions prompted by my
work.
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH

Daniel Tonozzi began his scholarly career in the second-floor
classrooms of his mother and of Mrs. Kathy Martin at St. Bede
Academy in Peru, Illinois. He moved on to study history, Italian
literature, and music at the University of Notre Dame, where he also
worked with Christian Dupont in the Department of Rare Books and
Special Collections of Hesburgh Library. Eager to explore the
connections between his various interests and studies, Tonozzi came
to Cornell University immediately following the completion of his
undergraduate degree.
iii
To my family:
My parents, my sisters, and my brother
iv
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I would, first of all, like to thank the members of my Special
Committee: Marilyn Migiel, William J. Kennedy, Timothy Campbell,
and Suzanne Stewart-Steinberg. Marilyn Migiel and William J.
Kennedy are responsible for having identified the numerous instances
where changes needed to be made in my writing. Gratitude also goes
to Tim Campbell and Suzanne Stewart-Steinberg for participating in
my dissertation’s defense even through abroad in Italy at the time.
Beyond the assistance of my Special Committee, I greatly
benefited from the attention and assistance of the entire faculty of the
Department of Romance Studies during my years at Cornell. Special
mention goes to Richard Klein, Maria-Antonia Garcès, and Kathleen
Perry Long for reading and offering specific comments on individual
chapters. Zygmunt Baranski, my supervisor while I was an exchange
student at Wolfson College at the University of Cambridge, guided the
research and early writing that led to my chapter on the sixteenth-
century censored editions. My thanks as well goes to the Cornell
University Graduate School for providing a travel grant for additional
research for that chapter and to the staff of the British Library for their
assistance in doing that research.
The Italian Language Lecturers – Michela Baraldi, Flaminia
Cervesi, Kora Bättig von Wittelsbach, and Ti Alkire – and my teaching
colleagues – Peggy Renwick and Elisabeth Fay – helped me to develop
language skills and pedagogical techniques that not only influenced
the work included here but will continue to serve me for years to come.
v
Distinct gratitude goes to my mentor and friend Pina Swenson.
Pina’s unwavering support and encouragement – not to mention her
critical eye on these pages – played no small role in the completion of
this project.
I was fortunate enough to enjoy many strong and beneficial
friendships while working at Cornell University. The exceptional
dedication of Cory Browning and Henry Berlin, who read and revised
my work with me, here merits special attention. I am also thankful to
Kathleen Martin for helping me format my pages for submission.
Finally, I would like to acknowledge the influence and assistance
of my family: my parents, Thomas A. and Mary Jane Tonozzi, and my
siblings Maria, Caroline, Angela, and Nicholas. They have inspired
and shaped my work and my words as no one else has, and I am so
grateful.
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
Biographical Sketch………………………………………………………………iii
Dedication…………………………………………………………………………..iv
Acknowledgments……………………………………………………………….…v
Introduction…………………………………………………………………………1
I: Anything the Decameron Can Do…………………………………………..14
II: I, We, and the Decameron Makes Three…….……………………….….69
III: Editors and Expurgators: Preserving and Destroying the Decameron
after the Council of Trent….…………………………………………………115
IV: Reading, Writing, and Responsibility………………………………….167
Conclusion……………………………………………………………………….206
Bibliography……………………………………………………………………..214
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INTRODUCTION
While an undergraduate at the University of Notre Dame, I
worked with Dr. Christian Dupont in the Hesburgh Library
Department of Rare Books and Manuscripts. The thrill I found
working with incunabula editions of Dante’s Divina commedia and
rummaging through collections of sixteenth-century papal
correspondence prompted me to pursue graduate studies in Italian
Literature. It comes as no surprise, then, that once at Cornell
University, my dissertation project began with a visit to the Division of
Rare and Manuscript Collections of Kroch Library.
As part of a Decameron seminar, the class viewed antique and
illustrated editions of Boccaccio’s stories at the Kroch Library. One of
the volumes on display was a 1582 expurgated version of the
Decameron in which the censor, Lionardo Salviati, rendered the story
of Alibech and Rustico (Decameron 3.10) utterly incomprehensible.
Hardly more than two words succeeded each other before little
asterisks interrupted them. Salviati’s remarkable treatment of the
Decameron prompted a seminar paper that also introduced me to the
1582 edition’s Florentine predecessor, an expurgated Decameron
completed in 1573 by a group of scholars known as I Deputati. Both
Salviati and the Deputati replace the priests, monks, and nuns that
misbehave in the original Decameron – breaking their vows of poverty,
chastity, and obedience – with teachers, notaries, and widows.
Making such changes, together with others, saved the Decameron from
complete prohibition in era of the Index of Prohibited Books. An
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