Angelo Poliziano

Nella letteratura italiana dal XIV al XVIII secolo ha discreta fortuna e circolazione il tema della sconfitta del dio dell’amore, umiliato e privato delle proprie armi soprattutto dalle donne. A partire dalle fonti classiche dell’episodio, rintracciabili nell’epigrammatica alessandrina e nel "Cupido cruciatus" di Decimo Magno Ausonio, si ricostruiscono il significato e le molteplici declinazioni del soggetto nella produzione letteraria italiana, dal "Triumphus Pudicitie" di Francesco Petrarca alla poesia in ottava rima di Luigi Pulci e Angelo Poliziano, dalle raccolte di emblemi ed imprese ai poemetti encomiastici cinquecenteschi in lode di donne, dalle opere di Moderata Fonte e Lucrezia Marinelli alla letteratura morale settecentesca (con particolare attenzione per l’"Amore disarmato" attribuito a Jacopo Durandi). Ripercorrere le tappe della ricezione, tra riscrittura e risemantizzazione, del topos di Cupido punito e disarmato significa andare oltre un’indagine puramente tematica, per ricostruire la fortuna, letteraria ma anche iconografica, di un motivo di lunga durata.
Questo libro ha vinto il Premio Tesi di Dottorato istituito dalla Sapienza Università di Roma, nell’edizione 2013."

Il Coniurationis commentarium, l’unica opera storica composta da Angelo Poliziano, è la prima e la più importante fonte sulla Congiura dei Pazzi, il sanguinoso colpo di stato perpetrato contro i Medici a Firenze il 26 aprile 1478, che causò la morte del giovane Giuliano e il ferimento di Lorenzo il Magnifico. Poliziano, già intellettuale di primo piano della Firenze medicea e presente al tragico attentato in Santa Maria del Fiore, compose il suo racconto nel burrascoso scenario politico scaturito dal fallimento della cospirazione: una testimonianza storica autoptica, concepita come rapida e necessaria risposta sull’onda del clamore suscitato dal crimine e realizzata con le armi della più raffinata cultura umanistica, un ritratto intenso e coinvolgente degli eventi, che si distingue per la brevitas sallustiana e per la limpida potenza delle sue immagini. Da subito fatta circolare grazie ai nuovissimi mezzi della stampa, l’opera divenne uno dei pilastri più robusti su cui si edificò l’articolata propaganda medicea all’indomani della congiura.
Questa nuova edizione del Coniurationis commentarium, dopo l’edizione critica pionieristica curata da Alessandro Perosa nel 1958, si propone di offrire uno strumento di lettura più completo e aggiornato dell’opera, grazie a nuove indagini condotte in ambito filologico, storico e critico. Nuove acquisizioni sul Commentarium presentate in questo volume riguardano inoltre i modelli classici ai quali Poliziano si ispirò e le implicazioni e le prospettive storico-politiche dell’opera nel contesto della congiura. Il testo latino dell’edizione Perosa, riproposto qui con alcuni emendamenti scaturiti da un vaglio più completo della tradizione, è corredato di una nuova traduzione italiana e di puntuali note di commento, aggiornato ai più recenti studi e finalizzato all’illustrazione di personaggi ed eventi storici menzionati e della fitta trama di fonti classiche che sottendono l’opera.

Blake Wilson
Paper delivered at conference: “Henricus Isaac (ca. 1450/55–1517): Composition – Reception – Interpretation,” University of Vienna, July 1-3, 2017.

Published in: Henricus Isaac (ca. 1450–1517): Composition – Reception – Interpretation WIENER FORUM FÜR ÄLTERE MUSIKGESCHICHTE, eds. S. Gasch, M. Grassl, B. Lodes and A. V. Rabe (Vienna: Hollitzer Wissenschaftsverlag, 2019), 153-176.

Remembering Isaac Remembering Lorenzo: The Musical Legacy of Quis dabit

In a lively series of articles and communications during the 1970s, Allan Atlas, Martin Staehelin, and Richard Taruskin focused our attention on Isaac's Lorenzo lament, Quis dabit capiti meo aquam, especially its relationship to his Missa salva nos. This paper seeks a fresh view of the motivic structure of Quis dabit, in particular its almost obsessive deployment of a figure drawn from the mass that is re-contextualized in the motet, and subsequently widely adopted as an expressive figura. This will then provide the basis for a close look at the legacy of this iconic work in the decades after the death of Lorenzo (1492), when early madrigal composers again took up a Poliziano text dealing with the subject of mourning, this time from his Fabula d’Orfeo. Also at issue here is the extent to which the citation of musical and textual material linked to Quis dabit (esp. in the madrigal by Francesco Layolle, whose direct allusion to Isaac’s music is the particular focus of this paper) invoked Florentine cultural practice of the Laurentian era at a time (the 1520s) when its composer had been dead but a few years, and when Florentine cultural & political identity hung in the balance. Or to put the question a different way: what meanings did the music of one of Isaac's most obviously Laurentian works hold shortly after the composer's death, when the city's political and cultural life was in flux?

Η "Κριτική Κειμένου" είναι ο κλάδος της φιλολογικής επιστήμης που μελετά τα κείμενα της αρχαιοελληνικής και λατινικής γραμματείας υπό ένα συγκεκριμένο πρίσμα και με έναν σαφώς προσδιορισμένο στόχο: την αναγωγή των κειμένων αυτών στην αρχική μορφή τους (ή όσο πιο κοντά γίνεται σε αυτήν). Η διαδικασία αυτή της ανασυγκρότησης του κάθε κειμένου συνίσταται σε μια σειρά κριτικές ενέργειες· μελέτη των χειρογράφων, εξέταση της γνησιότητας του κειμένου, διόρθωση σφαλμάτων, εντοπισμός νόθων παρεισφρήσεων.
Το παρόν εγχειρίδιο καλειδοσκοπικά εστιάζει σε συγκεκριμένες πτυχές τεχνικής και λειτουργικής φύσεως της Κριτικής Κειμένου· αφενός παρέχει έναν συγκεντρωτικό κατάλογο, όπου αναγράφονται και ερμηνεύονται οι βασικές συντομογραφίες, οι τεχνικοί όροι και τα λοιπά κριτικά σύμβολα της Κριτικής επιστήμης, και αφετέρου παρουσιάζει δειγματικές αναγνώσεις (με συνοδευτικά επεξηγηματικά σχόλια) για τα τρία είδη υπομνημάτων που παρατίθενται σε κριτικές εκδόσεις κειμένων, δηλ. Υπόμνημα Πηγών, Κριτικό Υπόμνημα και Υπόμνημα Παραλλήλων Χωρίων. Ωσαύτως, στο εγχειρίδιο παρατίθεται μια σύντομη ιστορική ανασκόπηση της Κριτικής Κειμένου (με αναφορές στη στεμματική θεωρία και το στέμμα κωδίκων), καθώς και ενδεικτική περαιτέρω βιβλιογραφία.
Συναφώς, στόχος του εγχειριδίου αυτού είναι να προσφέρει ένα συμπαγές υπόβαθρο από τεχνικές γνώσεις, οι οποίες συνιστούν απαραίτητη προϋπόθεση τόσο για την κατανόηση της διαδικασίας της παράδοσης των κειμένων και του συνακόλουθου πλέγματος διεργασιών της Κριτικής επιστήμης, όσο και για τη σφαιρική προσέγγιση του αρχαίου ελληνικού και λατινικού γραπτού λόγου.
Εν κατακλείδι, το εγχειρίδιο αυτό φιλοδοξεί να καλύψει το έως τώρα βιβλιογραφικό κενό και να καταστεί ένα χρήσιμο εργαλείο έρευνας για φιλολόγους, φοιτητές φιλολογίας αλλά και κάθε είδους μελετητές των αρχαίων κειμένων.

Si tratta di dodici studi che vertono sull’Umanesimo fiorentino latino e volgare di tardo ’400 e primo ’500, lungo un percorso che muove da Bartolomeo Fonzio e Angelo Poliziano (e dalla letteratura legata alla scuola e all’università: esercizi, prolusioni, commenti ai classici) per poi ampliare il raggio della ricerca in altre direzioni (il volgare, la poesia, l’umanesimo dei filosofi, Niccolò Machiavelli), diverse ma sempre inscritte nel medesimo campo di studi.

The myth of Orpheus, the ancient hero who could enchant nature with his music and tried to  bring back his beloved Eurydice from Hades, consists of many different elements. There is no single original Orpheus myth, but the story gradually developed in Antiquity, over time absorbing new elements and new turns. These elements often occur separately in texts and the visual arts, but are sometimes combined in a story as well. Thus Orpheus has
become a complex figure with many aspects. This versatility is an important feature of his character, that causes his reception not to be uniform, but to take many different forms. Orpheus appears in many different types of texts, but also in the visual arts, and especially in plays and operas.
Writers, visual artists and musicians often have views on the figure of Orpheus that differ strongly and often conflict with one another. These different and conflicting views are inherent to the diversity of the figure of Orpheus. People who use Orpheus in their works, often choose between the many stories about him.
On the one hand this choice is often determined by the knowledge available: many a time a stereotipical view is copied
from predecessors in the same genre. On the other hand, some artists are familiar with more aspects of Orpheus, but appear to deliberately select only those aspects that are appropriate  for  their  argumentation.  Orpheus  is  often  seen  and  presented  either  as  a positive character or as a negative character. Amongst his positive aspects are mainly reckoned his musical and poetical qualities and his ability to tame the beasts (i.e. to civilize
human kind) with his song (eloquence). Besides, his participation in the voyage of the Argonauts and his status as a poet-theologian or philosopher are judged in a positive
manner. Amongst his negative aspects are reckoned his love of wordly goods (Eurydice) and his looking back at these things, his homosexuality and his horrible death. The attempt to unite these conflicting images of Orpheus runs through his reception in Italy between 1300 and 1600 like a continuous thread. For example,
authors tend to ignore his negative aspects  or  express  their  astonishment  about  the  irreconcilability  of  the  different
characterizations of Orpheus; in some extreme cases they adjust the outcome of the myth.
Except for the change of outcome, there are no major adjustments to the myth, like a complete change of characters, of the action or of the setting of the story in time and
space. Most changes to the image of Orpheus stem from the
possibilities which the myth as a whole offers. Many representations of Orpheus are inherent to the character itself. An author or an artist chooses from the existing possibilities and thus manipulates his own version of the myth.

L’articolo offre un confronto tra gli usi linguistici delle "Lettere volgari" di Angelo Poliziano (gli unici scritti volgari dell’umanista giuntici in forma autografa) e quelli documentati nelle Stanze per la Giostra, nelle Rime e nei Latini. L’importanza delle lettere come elemento di riscontro è data sia dalla loro autorevolezza di autografi sia dall’arco cronologico piuttosto esteso che coprono. Nell’articolo si analizza inizialmente la presenza dei tratti fono-morfologici del fiorentino quattrocentesco; seguono alcune note relative a fenomeni linguistici più generali che per varie ragioni sono fortemente limitati o persino esclusi; infine si evidenziano alcune caratteristiche linguistiche riscontrabili esclusivamente in certe missive. Particolare attenzione è prestata sia alla distribuzione cronologicamente marcata di alcuni fenomeni linguistici sia alla differenza interna tra le varie lettere volgari.

Scholars of Botticelli's Munich Pietà, which is known to have come from the Florentine church of San Paolino, often noted the lack of information concerning the fabric of the church prior to its destruction in the second half of the seventeenth century. In light of Poliziano's and Lorenzo de' Medici's active involvement, this lacuna has been particularly regrettable. Based on newly discovered archival documents, this paper will reconstruct this important Florentine priory. Investigating the architecture, interior decoration and patronage networks, it will reinstate San Paolino within its urban context and shed new light on the setting of the high altarpiece.

Cynthia M. Pyle,  “Politian’s Orfeo and Other Favole Mitologiche in the Context of Late Quattrocento Northern Italy,” Ph.D. Dissertation, Columbia University, New York, 1976.
Six favole mitologiche (or favole pastorali) are considered: Angelo Poliziano's Orfeo (Mantua, 1480), the anonymous and undated Orphei tragoedia; La favola di Orfeo e Aristeo; Niccolò da Correggio’s Cefalo (Ferrara, 1487); Baldassare Taccone's Danae (Milan, 1496), and Gaspare Visconti’s Pasithea (Milan, here dated circa 1493-1497). 
These plays contain certain common elements: mythological themes, pastoral scenes, elements from classical comedy, presence of music; but the proportions of these components vary considerably among the plays.  The plays are situated in their historical and cultural context. Critical biographies of the four known authors are presented, that of Taccone being the first biography of this poet available, and that of Visconti achieving to a large extent the separation of the poet from his eleven contemporary or near-contemporary namesakes.  Visconti's Pasithea, unpublished to date [1976], appears in a diplomatic transcription as Appendix I to the thesis.  A critical bibliography of the life and works of Correggio in manuscript and printed sources forms Appendix II.  A third Appendix lists the manuscripts containing the plays considered here.
The dating of the Orfeo at Carnival, 1480, on the basis of previous historical work is discussed, and the carnival occasion, if not the year, is seen to be lent support by internal textual evidence.  The Orpheus theme in Italian literature from Dante to Politian is presented, and the theme is examined in detail in Politian's works, especially two of the SyIvae, Manto and Nutriciа.  Politian's knowledge of music thaory and especially of theater history is discussed, with special reference to Politian's Preface to the Andria of Terence, which is the first known modern treatise on comedy, and the first modern work to make use of Aristotle's Poetics.
In Chapters 3, 4, and 5, the content, form, and staging of the plays are analyzed, and the role of music is stressed.  Politian's major sources for the Orfeo are presented, and the form is found to be a composite of dramatic eclogue, sacra rappresentazione, a suggestion of Latin comedy, а Latin ode to the patron, Cardinal Francesco Gonzaga, and а dithyramb.
A recent hypothesis proposing M. M. Boiardo as author of the Orphei tragoedia is discussed. Six principal divergences from the Orfeo, on which this play is modeled, are considered (notably the division into five acts, found in the next four plays studied). The Favola di Orfeo e Aristeo, of which acts II and III are a reworking of the Orfeo, and which incorporates Vergil's tale of Aristaeus, is found to be of a more popularesque character than the other plays considered.
The Cefalo, the theme of which was also used in а rappresentazione in Bologna in 1475, the Danae, known for Leonardo da Vinci's staging, and the Pasithea, here found to contain abundant elements of classical comedy, are analyzed in relation to the Orfeo and to each other.
The works here considered are seen to have been court entertainments, exhibiting nonetheless effects of the humanistic studies of the fifteenth Century. The development of the role of music, and of the staging of the plays is discussed, as is an evident bifurcation of genre, toward commedia erudita on the one hand, and toward opera and the grandi spettacoli on the other. The thematic relationship between the "favole mitologiche" and the first operas one hundred years later is brought into relief, and decisive textual links between them established.

TABLE OF CONTENTS
CHAPTER I  HISTORICAL [AND BIOGRAPHICAL]
                                                  INTRODUCTION 1

CHAPTER II    THE ORPHEUS THEME 47
Illustration  The Orpheus Myth According to Vergil and
                                Ovid                                         90

CHAPTER III    POLITIAN'S ORFEO 94

CHAPTER IV  THE ORPHEI TRAGOEDIA AND THE FAVOLA DI ORFEO E ARISTEO 133

CHAPTER V  THE CEFALO, THE DANAE, AND THE
                        PASITHEA                                 160

CHAPTER VI CONCLUSION 198

APPENDIX I  THE PASITHEA OF GASPARE VISCONTI 207


APPENDIX II  A CRITICAL BIBLIOGRAPHY' OF THE
                              WORKS OF N. da CORREGGIO 262

Part I: Printed Editions of Correggio's Works 262

Part II: Collation of Manuscripts Listed by Tissoni
                Benvenuti and Kristeller                                    275

Part III: Manuscript Catalogues Consulted 303

BIBLIOGRAPHY TO APPENDIX II: WORKS OTHER THAN CATALOGUES                                                          329

APPENDIX III: MANUSCRIPTS CONTAINING THE PLAYS
                          CONSIDERED                                       332

BIBLIOGRAPHY OF THE WORKS CITED IN THE TEXT
                          OF THE THESIS                                 334

Starting with the world famous Ambassadors by Hans Holbein, where a lute with a broken string features mysteriously and prominently, this article aims to explore the origins of the symbolism of the lute with a broken string from the Ancient World to the Renaissance, and to highlight how a symbol can be progressively constructed along its transitions through various cultures. In doing so, philosophical, literary and iconographic sources have been taken into account in order to unveil the hidden but solid connection that links the enigmatic musical instrument staged in Holbein’s masterpiece with its most distant ‘sources’ - rooted in Greek and Roman classical antiquity  -  and with those chronologically closer to it. Special attention is placed on the re-elaboration and re-interpretation of those same sources in Fifteenth-century Italian Culture and, in particular, on the Florentine Humanists’ political use and re-shaping of a classical metaphor: that of a composite harmony (or of the lack of it) associated with the idea of good (or bad) government.

This article deals with Angelo Poliziano’s studies on the so-called scholia vetera to Apollonius of Rhodes. Poliziano read the scholia in the Laur. Plut. 32, 9, and copied some of them in Par. Gr. 3029, ff. 224r-239v. The author examines the presence of the scholia in Poliziano’s poems and commentaries and in the Miscellanea. Then, he focuses on the Par. gr. 3069; this analysis is especially devoted to the relationship between the scholia Poliziano transcribed in this manuscript, the marginal notes, and his other works, such as the translation of Plutarch’s Amatoriae narrationes, the commentary to Vergil’s Georgics and Misc. I 2. The author suggests that, while writing Misc. I 2, Poliziano also consulted the manuscript Laur. Plut. 55, 21, containing Xenophon’s Anabasis. This essay also contains the edition of Poliziano’s translation of the Vitae of Apollonius of Rhodes.

Starting with the world famous Ambassadors by Hans Holbein, where a lute with a broken string features mysteriously and prominently, this article aims to explore the origins of the symbolism of the lute with a broken string from the Ancient World to the Renaissance, and to highlight how a symbol can be progressively constructed along its transitions through various cultures. In doing so, philosophical, literary and iconographic sources have been taken into account in order to unveil the hidden but solid connection that links the enigmatic musical instrument staged in Holbein’s masterpiece with its most distant ‘sources’ - rooted in Greek and Roman classical antiquity  -  and with those chronologically closer to it. Special attention is placed on the re-elaboration and re-interpretation of those same sources in Fifteenth-century Italian Culture and, in particular, on the Florentine Humanists’ political use and re-shaping of a classical metaphor: that of a composite harmony (or of the lack of it) associated with the idea of good (or bad) government.

The article studies some of Catullus’ textual and paratextual innovations generally attributed to early printed editions (Avanzi, Palladio and Guarini), in comparison with other earlier manuscript sources (Francesco Buzzacarini and Angelo Poliziano’s marginalia and three manuscripts belonging to Mynor’s θ group), in order to suggest mutual relationships and a possible common ground.

This essay provides the first critical edition of Angelo Poliziano’s commentary to Mart. De spect. 1, which is preserved in ms. Mon. Clm. 754, ff. 284r-284v. First, I focus my attention on the dating of the commentary and on the text of Martial Poliziano actually read; I also analyse the references to a work written by Poliziano but not preserved, the so-called Observationes. The next section concerns the ancient sources Poliziano used in his commentary (Seneca, Pliny the Elder, Diodorus Siculus, Solinus, Pomponius Mela). In the last part of the article, Poliziano’s commentary is compared with Domizio Calderini’s commentary to Martial and Niccolò Perotti’s Cornucopiae. This paper also contains a chapter on Apollonius Rhodius’ manuscripts which at that time were available to Poliziano.

Versione dattilografata del manoscritto custodito nella Biblioteca Antica del Liceo Classico G. B. Vico di Chieti * NB: Più che di una "Tesi di Laurea" nel senso comunemente usato per i laureandi, questa è una vera e propria "dissertazione" in quanto è una scrittura ragionata intorno a un argomento culturale per sviluppare una tesi ed esporre i risultati della ricerca.

Nel presente volume sono raccolti tredici studi sulla letteratura italiana del Novecento suddivisi in cinque sezioni. Nella prima sezione figurano interventi relativi alla ricezione critica del Porto sepolto di Giuseppe Ungaretti, alla collaborazione di Luigi Pirandello alla «Rivista d’Italia» di Milano e a due lettere inedite inviate da Eugenio Montale a Michele Saponaro. Nella seconda sezione sono compresi tre saggi dedicati a Girolamo Comi e Vittorio Bodini, due poeti d’indubbio rilievo nel panorama letterario novecentesco che meriterebbero maggiore attenzione da parte della critica. La terza sezione comprende due studi relativi alla “fortuna”, tra i moderni, di figure che appartengono alla tradizione classica italiana: Poliziano e Leonardo da Vinci. Nella quarta sezione, oltre a un intervento sulla posizione degli scrittori italiani nei confronti della grande guerra, figura un saggio sulla linea meridionale della poesia italiana del Novecento. Completano il volume tre contributi su alcuni aspetti del futurismo indagato tra centro e periferia.

The article discusses the relationship between language and truth in Giovanni Pico’s works. This problem is thematized by Pico from the epi- stle De genere dicendi philosophorum, where he develops an analysis about the limits of language that is strictly related to his conception of philosophy. Showing how Pico deepens his investigations, this essay try to show how the criticism of the language has an important role both in the refutation of astrology that Pico offer in the Disputationes adversus astrologiam divinatricem, and in the project of a philosophy of concordia that Pico develops in the De ente et uno.

The praelectio bears witness to opposition to Poliziano’s teaching of Aristotle at the Studio, as well as to his new research method applied to philosophical inquiries. The polemic’s contents can be inferred by Poliziano’s confutation of his opponents’ arguments within his apologue of the lamias. After this pars destruens, there follows the pars construens: a treatise on the nature of philosophy and the role of the philosopher in Greek tradition from its origins up to Aristotle. I focus, in this paper, on the subtle rhetorical and dialectical strategies that frame these two intertwined parts. I also propose a reading of Poliziano’s account of the ways rhetoric and dialectic must serve philosophy: the Lamia can be seen as Poliziano’s own response to the famous and still unsettled Pico-Barbaro epistolary controversy concerning language and philosophy, a question Poliziano probably touched upon in his course on Cicero’s Tusculan Disputations of the same year and discussed overtly in the important epistle sent to Bernardo Ricci in 1494. This analysis will allow me finally to suggest that, in addressing the pars construens of the Lamia, Poliziano foreshadowed his own intervention on a topic discussed from classical antiquity to Middle Ages: the order of disciplines. In so doing, he demonstrated his insightful understanding of the Pico-Barbaro debate as an argument less about the order and ranking of disciplines as such, and more about the manner in which philosophers should conduct their inquiries.

The aim of the program is to take stock of Hungarian documents of
studia humanitatis with 1526 as a milestone. The census intends to register predominantly the use of (school)books in Hungary in teaching grammar, rhetoric, poetry, history, and moral philosophy.

The present article aims to investigate how the passionate study of Homer affected the vernacular production of Angelo Poliziano, doubtlessly the most important humanist poet of his age. Some di-rect quotations are pointed out, but the analysis focuses mainly on the complex relationship between Homer and his Latin imitators, from Vergil to Statius, often taking advantage of the comparison with Poliziano’s translation of the Iliad in Latin hexameters. This last resource helps to a large extent in picturing the high degree of awareness shown by Poliziano towards Homer’s formulaic style, of-ten misinterpreted by his contemporaries. Through an accurate study of some passages of the Stanze it is shown that, even though some phrases do not perfectly match the Homeric diction, they serve the same narrative function as some common formulas. Allusions of this kind are somehow different from simple erudite quotations, and refer to a deeper level of intertextuality, aimed at characterising the text in a peculiarly aulic way, percieved as truly epic especially by learned poets and scholars of the time. Finally, such a study may shed some light on the first steps of the gradual reception of Greek poetry into Italian literature starting from the 15th century.