Aldo s bernardo petrarch, laura, and the triumphs 1974

Petrarch, Laura, and theTriumphs Aldo S Bernardo State University of New York Press Albany 1974 title: author: publisher: isbn10 | asin: print isbn13: ebook isbn13: language: subject publication date: lcc: ddc: subject: Petrarch, Laura, and the Triumphs Bernardo, Aldo S State University of New York Press 0873952898 9780873952897 9780585087047 English Petrarca, Francesco, 1304-1374 Relations with women, Noves, Laura de, 1308-1348, Petrarca, Francesco, 1304-1374. Trionfi 1974 PQ4511.B47 1974eb 851/.1 Petrarca, Francesco, 1304-1374 Relations with women, Noves, Laura de, 1308-1348, Petrarca, Francesco, 1304-1374. Trionfi Page iv Published with assistance from the University Awards Committee of State University of New York Petrarch, Laura, and the Triumphs First Edition Published by State University of New York Press 99 Washington Avenue, Albany, New York 12210 © 1974 State University of New York All rights reserved Printed in the United States of America Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Bernardo, Aldo S Petrarch, Laura, and the Triumphs Bibliography: p Includes index Petrarca, Francesco, 1304-1374with womenLaura de Noves Relationship Noves, Laura de, 1308-1348 Petrarca, Francesco, 1304-1374 Trionfi I Title PQ4511.B47 851'.I 74-22084 ISBN 0-87395-289-8 ISBN 0-87395-290-I microfiche Page v To My Beloved Mother who instilled in me the love of learning Page vii Contents Preface Introductory Notes Laura and the Critics ix xiii i De Sanctis ii Croce iii Calcaterra iv Contini 14 v Bosco 14 vi Noferi 18 vii Ramat 21 Laura and the Rime 26 i The First Form of the Collection 26 ii The Second Form of the Collection 28 iii The Third Form of the Collection 29 iv The Fourth Form of the Collection 32 v The Fifth Form of the Collection 35 vi The Sixth Form: First period 39 vii The Sixth Form: Second period 41 viii The Sixth Form: Third period 43 ix The Sixth Form: Fourth period 47 x The Seventh or Main Malatesta Form 51 xi The Eighth or Quiriniano Form 56 xii The Malatesta Supplements 56 xiii The Ninth and Final Form 58 xiv The Reordering of the Last Thirty Poems 60 Page viii Laura in Petrarch's Latin Works 64 i The Prose Letters 64 ii Letters in Verse 68 iii The Coronation Oration 75 iv The Secretum 77 v The Bucolicum Carmen 81 Petrarch's Triumphs and the Critics 88 i Calcaterra 88 ii Goffis 91 Triumphus Cupidinis 102 i Triumphus cupidinis I 102 ii Triumphus cupidinis 11 104 iii Triumphus cupidinis III 107 iv Triumphus cupidinis IV 108 From the Triumphus Pudicitiae to the Triumphus Famae 115 i Triumphus pudicitiae 115 ii Triumphus mortis I 119 iii Triumphus mortis II 123 The Triumphus Famae and the Triumphus Temporis 128 i Triumphus famae I 128 ii Triumphus famae II 134 iii Triumphus famae III 136 iv Triumphus temporis 137 Triumphus Aeternitatis 141 Laura as Nova Figura 163 10 Conclusion 193 Notes 203 Bibliography Index 219 223 Page ix Preface Only in Petrarch's coronation oration is it possible to gain real insight into his quasimystical attitude toward poetry In it one senses the poet's thorough dedication to the art not only as an activity reserved for the chosen few, but one on a par with the loftiest human activity of all, maintaining, protecting, and defending one's homeland Poets, like Caesars, are deeply involved in assuring a better and happier future for mankind Both must possess a spark of divinity, for mere labor and dedication not assure either Caesars or poets This is why the ultimate reward for both is symbolized in the laurel crown whose leaves partake of qualities assuring an eternity of fame Through his song the poet must instill in his reader or listener a desire for virtue, in the sense of ben far, just as in his battle and struggles a ruler seeks to accomplish a stable future for his subjects In my book on the Africa2 I try to show the manner in which Scipio Africanus provided Petrarch with a nearly ideal subject for his kind of poetry A central point of the study is that in the Africa, "Scipio summarizes in Latin a humanistic ideal whose counterpart Petrarch had tried all his life to define in Italian through the image of Laura: a concept of virtue that complements a concept of glory in a way that makes both acquire nearChristian hues."3 In the very first chapter of that book I also try to establish that in Petrarch's aesthetic and moral philosophy there is the central conviction that ultimate truth lies in the perfect fusion of the values inherent in poetry, history, and philosophythat is to say, in beauty, glory and virtue Just as in Scipio Petrarch thought he saw the ultimate answer to the obvious clash between classical and Christian values, so in Laura he sought a resolution to the conflict between spirit and flesh Given Petrarch's lofty concept of poetry as defined in the corona- Page x tion oration and as applied in the Africa, it is odd to speak of his love poetry as mere outcries of the heart over an unrequited love simply because it is written in the vernacular The fact that so much of Petrarch's vernacular poetry was written during his sojourns in Provence when the great bulk of his writing was in Latin, plus the fact that he continued revising his lyrics down to the very last years of his life would seem to support the contention that he deemed his subject matter rather than the language used of truly central importance From the moment he decided to give a definitive form to his collection of lyrics he indicated his intention to endow the resulting body of poetry with dimensions of meaning reflecting the high seriousness of learned Latin poetry Exactly what Petrarch sang when he celebrated Laura is a question that was asked by the earliest commentators, but has been forgotten since the Romantics The very fact that Petrarch, as Dante before him, turns to a special form and metre in his attempt to sing more appropriately of his beloved reveals a highly serious desire to endow Laura with a dimension that goes beyond her image in the Canzoniere It is indeed the Triumphs that provide the catalyst sought by Petrarch to achieve the desired fusion of poetry, history and philosophy This consisted of a female figure that was considerably different from the beloved of the Rime Her role encompassed far more than one time, one place and one man, while her greatest moments were her victories over cupidity and over time She was indeed a prefiguration of what the Romantics were later to call "the eternal feminine," and yet she was much more, for she was the outgrowth of what has been called "The Chartrian ideal of a 'cohaerentia artium,' a perfect marriage of Philology and Mercury." The purpose of this study is to analyze the poetic image of Laura from as many perspectives as possible The book is really a companion volume to my Petrarch, Scipio and the 'Africa' (Johns Hopkins, 1962) since it attempts to examine Laura's image as exhaustively as the previous study did the image of Scipio Starting with the views of the most important critics, it turns to the gradual evolution of the image in the Canzoniere as the collection progressed through its many forms over most of the poet's lifetime It then examines the relatively rare occurrences of the image in Petrarch's Latin works before turning to a detailed analysis of the Triumphs Finally it undertakes a consideration of Laura's image in terms of a new figura rather firmly anchored in a timehonored female figure representative of the consolidation of wisdom and eloquence The Page xi Laura of the Triumphs thus seemingly emerges as a figure showing the way to man's moral, cultural and aesthetic fulfillment As with Scipio in the Africa, however, she too suffers considerably from the ambiguities resulting from the unfinished state of the Triumphs She nevertheless spawned a number of subsequent female figures that became an integral part of the imaginative literature of Humanism, as the Conclusion will show I am primarily indebted to the Guggenheim Foundation for a grant that allowed me to spend a semester in the libraries of Florence in 196465 when a close reading of the early commentators convinced me of the viability of my thesis I am also grateful to the Research Foundation of State University of New York for a summer grant in 1970, and to the administration of SUNYBinghamton for a semester sabbatical in 1971 Finally, I wish to express my deepest gratitude to my wife, Claudia, for her many sacrifices of time and pleasure, and to Reta Mohney for her patient typing of the manuscript Unless otherwise stated, all translations into English are mine Page 229 Moderation, 125 Moderns, 135 Monastery of Santo Spirito, 169 Monologue, 125 Montalcino, Pietro da, 144 Montanari, 53 Mont Ventoux, 168 Mood, penitential, 160 Moral and natural philosophy, 114 Morality, 144 Moral poetry, 19 Morir secondo, 190 Motif, Apollo-Daphne, 138, 193 Moto vitale, 22 Mount Parnassus, 76 Mourning, 158 Multitude, 140, 150 Muse, 179 Muses, 38, 69, 84, 85, 151, 173, 177, 179, 181, 182, 191 Myth of Apollo and Daphne, 98, 173 Mythology, 31, 36, 59, 75, 104, 107 N Naples, 117 Narcissus, 26, 107 Nature, 24, 46 Neighbour, 169 Nel dolce tempo della prima etade, Nella selva del Petrarca, Nelli, Francesco, 171 Nero, 104 New Testament, 55 Night, 145 Nightingale, 50, 55, 56, 73, 194 Ninfale, 187 Niobe, 87 Noah, 135 Nobility, 120 Noferi, Adelia, 18, 25, 28 Non-Romans, 134 Nova figura, 170, 92 Numerology, 12 Nymph-bird, 73 O Oak, 144 Oblivion, 138 Oblivion, blind, 139 Olympus, 177, 178, 182 Onestate, 117, 20 Onorato fin, 191 Onorato gente, 132 Oprato virtute, Oration, 145, 193 Oration, coronation, 139 Orators, 136 Orient, 131 Oriental, 131 Orpheus, 37, 80, 83, 108, 110, 146, 176 Ovid, 184, 199 Ovidian, 162 P Pagans, 169 Pallas, 175, 180 Palm, 98, 160, 161, 195, 196 Panofsky, 100 Paolo and Francesca, 104, 105, 107 Paradise, 101, 147, 151, 164 Paradiso, 54, 158 Paralysis, moral, 155 Paris, 45 Parnasia, Laurus, 8, 12, 13, 27, 30, 37, 53, 74, 75 Parnassus, 36, 81, 120, 175, 177, 178, 99 Passion, 140, 161, 185, 187, 193, 194 Passion, Christ's, 44, 133 Past, 142, Path, straight, 185 Page 230 Pathos, 154 Patricians, 118, 136 Patroness of learning, 178 Peace, 162, 164, 196 Peace, spiritual, 155 Pelligrine, 144 Perfection, 149 Perfection, Adam's, 160 Perspective, divine, 191 Perversion, 154 Phelps, Ruth, 61 Philologia, 170, 171, 172, 173, 175, 176, 177, 178, 179, 180, 181, 183, 184 Philologia, Capella's, 189, 192 Philologia filostrati, 172 Philology, 2, 174, 177 Philosophers, 136, 178 Philosophia, 113, 114, 179 Philosophy, 115, 163, 168, 173, 181, 190 Phoebus, 176 Phoenix, 14, 42, 44, 331 Phronesis, 176, 179 Pilgrimage, 26 Pillar of purity, 119 Pius love, 116 Plagiarism, 173 Plato, 3, 18, 20, 22, 27, 56, 136, 176 Platonic love, 94 Platonism, 22, 165 Plautus, 174 Pleasure, 136, 164 Pluto, 104 Poca polve, 190 Poems, Italian, 170 Poetic image, 67 Poetic imagination, Poetry, 1, 139, 201 Poets, 136, 139, 178, 186, 190 Poets, Greek, 173 Poets, Italic, 173 Polarities, 201 Political arena, 133 Polyphemus, 43 Pope Benedict XII, 68 Porphyry, 136 Posterity, 167 Potential, 199 Power, 119, 143, 164 Prefiguration, 163 Present, 142, 192 Present, eternal, 192 Pride, 169 Principle, neo-Platonic, 177 Prisoners, 115 Privet, 139 Procession, 166 Progress, 167 Prophesy, 165 Prosperpine, 104 Prototype, 165 Provenỗal, 22 Provence, 40, 70, 120, 148 Prowess, military, 136 Prudence, 176 Prudentia, 179 Prudentius, 174 Psalmi penitentiales, 29, 90 Psyche, 176 Pudicitia, 186 Purity, 197 Pythagoras, 136 Q Quadrivium, 174 Quintilian, 163 R Rabble, 164 Race, new, 150, 151 Rachel, 41 Ramat, 21, 24, 25 Page 231 Ravages of time, 190 Realism, 123 Reality, 165 Reason, 57, 125, 152, 153, 154, 183, 188, 95 Recantations, 140 Recommencements, 19, 145 Redemption, 8, 148, 183, 192, 193 Religious thought, 13 Renaissance, 24, 91, 133 Reordering, 196 Repentance, 55, 158, 159, 194 Republic, 120 Rerum memorandarum libri, 29 Resurrection, 188 Rewards, 145 Rhetoric, 174 Ricci, 67 Righi, Gaetano, 181 Rime, 9, 28, 154 Rime disperse XVII, XVIII: 75 Rime sparse, 97 River of life, 142 Robert, King, 150 Roman culture, 21 Roman emperors, 133 Roman heroes, 134 Romans, 92, 105, 132, 134 Romans de la rose, 90, 92 Roman triumphs, 90 Rome, 66, 76, 92, 118, 132, 133, 147, 184, 187, 189 Romulus, 86 Roots, 187 Rossetti, 85 S Saladin, 135 Salvation, 125, 156, 159, 167, 183, 186, 192, 193, 195, 200 Samnites, 132 Sapientia, 181 Sasso, 148, 149 Scaeva, Cassius, 132 Scève, Maurice, 201 Scheme, Christian, 143, 148, 151 Science, 136, 174 Science, Averroistic, 168 Scipio, 1, 14, 37, 66, 82, 98, 99, 100, 105, 111, 115, 117, 118, 133, 134, 143, 147, 149, 151, 188, 199 Scylla and Charybdis, 116 Seasons, 143 Second tears, 72 Secretum, 7, 8, 9, 10, 118, 122, 129, 139, 140, 143, 153, 154, 156, 162, 184, 186, 201 Seleucus, 109 Self-flagellation, 168 Self-gain, 145 Self-justification, 143 Selflessness, 133 Senecan, 167 Seniles, 67, 174 Sensuality, 48 Sepulchre, Christ's, 135 Sequence, 128 Sergius, Marcus, 132 Serra, 197 Seven deadly sins, 78, 79 Seznec, 175 Shield of Perseus, 117 Sifax, 173 Sign, 164, 165 Sin, 155 Sin, original, 183 Sixteen Divisions of Heaven, 175 Sleep, Lethean, 150, 151 Snow, 140 Socrates, 85, 86, 114, 136 Sofonisba, 90 , 105, 109 Solere, 33 Solicitude, 133 Page 232 Sommo coro, 142 Son of Theseus, 188 Sophia, 179 Sorgue, 123 Souls, shipwrecked, 157 Sources, 173 Spell, 154 Spencer's Faery Queen, 201 Spirit, 154 Spirit, revolutionary, 168 Spirits, noble, 150 Spiritualism, allegorical, 164 Spirituality, 165 Splendid abyss, 98 Stahl, W H., 174, 176 Stake, 144 Stars, 126 Stilnovistic, 22, 184 Stratonica, 106, 109 Strength, 175 Studia humanitatis, 167 Studies, 167 Study, 168 Stupeus, 82, 83, 84 Stupor, 154 Sublimation, 183 Suetonius, 16 Summum bonum, 113, 142 Sun, 131, 138, 139, 140, 147, 159, 190 Sun-figure, 129 Superstitions, 169 Sylvanus, 85 Sylvius, 87 T Tableau, 132 Tarquinius, Lucius, 133 Taylor, H O., 174 Tears, 158, 192 Temperance, 176 Temple of Patrician Chastity, 134, 184, 187 Temple of Plebeian Chastity, 187 Temple of Sulpicia, 118, 187 Temple of Venus Verticordia, 187 Temple of Virtue, 29 Temptation, 183, 195 Terence, 171 Tertullian, 163 Terzina, 101 Testament, Old, 164 Thales, 176 Thalia, 180 Theologia platonica, 101 Third Age, 169 Time, 18, 19, 74, 89, 129, 139, 141, 144, 145, 147, 148, 154, 162, 164, 166, 167, 184, 190, 191, 192 Timelessness, 142 Tiphys, 45 Titon, 32 Toil, 168 Tomb, 166 Topaz, 117 Tradition, courtly, 154 Tradition, Hebraic-Christian, 148 Tranquillinus, 171, 172 Transcendence, 165 Transumanar, 100 Travel, 70, 72, 75 Tree, laurel, 145 Triumph, 88, 89, 91, 92, 93, 95, 137, 187, 190, 194 "Triumph of Chastity," 9, 119, 133, 135, 137, 147, 184, 187, 189 "Triumph of Death," 119, 120, 126, 129, 130, 137, 148, 156, 160, 184, 188, 189, 195 "Triumph of Death, I," 130 "Triumph of Death, II," 95, 129, 136, 140, 156 Page 233 "Triumph of Eternity," 63, 150, 152, 156, 160, 162, 164, 184, 191, 196 "Triumph of Fame," 91, 128, 130, 133, 134, 137, 88, 189 "Triumph of Glory," 188 "Triumph of Love," 14, 76, 115, 116, 132, 184 "Triumph of Time," 129, 137, 140, 147, 161, 184, 188, 189 Triumphs, 132, 149, 153, 170, 183, 184, 85 Triumphs of Chastity and Death, 156 Triumphs, Roman, 139, 150 Triumph, ultimate, 149 "Triumphus aeternitatis," 141 "Triumphus pudicitiae," 116 "Triumphus temporis," 137 Trivium, 174, 181 Truancy, 140 Truth, 143, 161, 192 Truths, 190 Tuscany, 126 U Ugliness, 165 Uguiccione, 77 Ulysses, 36, 37, 111 Umani ligustri, 191 Underworld, 177 Urania, 181 V Valor, 132, 149 Valore, 132 Values, earthly, 190, 192 Vaneggiar, 143 Vanity, 139 Varro, 136 Vaucluse, 31, 37, 64, 69, 71, 72, 73, 75, 85, 92, 102 Venus, 104, 110, 131, 184, 187, 188, 189 Vergine bella, 156, 158, 159, 160, 162, 194 Vertute, 186 Vices, 167 Victim of Cupid, 144 Victory, allegorical, 189 Victory, Laura's, 120 View, Ciceronian, 167 Virgil, 1, 37, 76, 79, 82, 99, 102, 108, 111, 136, 150, 161, 174, 176, 193 Virgin, 4, 5, 17, 48, 62, 153, 157, 186, 195 Virginity, 115 Virgin Mary, 25 Virgo, 177 Virtue, 81, 119, 132, 133, 135, 136, 149, 150, 160, 162, 164, 167, 182, 183, 187, 188, 189, 191, 195 Virtues, 191, 192 Visage, human, 148 Vision, 129, 142, 148, 165, 166, 191 Vision, Beatific, 154 Viso, 129 Viso-volto, 129 Vita nuova, 16 Voice, mysterious, 139, 140 Volto, 162, 189 Volumnius, Lucius, 132 W Warfare, 134 Warriors, 145 Wealth, 164 Weiss, Roberto, 172 Welfare, social, 168 Wilkins, Ernest H., 26, 27, 29, 30, 31, 32, 35, 39, 48, 52, 56, 60, 61, 75, 78, 71, 184 Will, 125 ... gradual steps and insights, he felt most strongly the huge distances between the search and the goal, as well as the contrast between the rational on the one hand and the restlessness and irrationality... briefly the views of those major critics who seemed to have the most to say on the subject i De Sanctis In his Saggio critico sul Petrarca4 De Sanctis distinguishes between the accomplishments of... Easter Sunday of 1341, the substance of the oration with its source in a verse of the Aeneid, its stress on the magical qualities of poetry, and its extensive classical borrowings, the depositing