ITER Immagini e testi per l’Europa del Rinascimento | 2024 | N. 1

Some Renaissance Italian printed books are linked explicitly to the oral transmission of the texts that they contain. Editions can draw attention to previous performances of works such as speeches, sermons, lectures, poems or plays. Performed texts could be altered before printing, in their language or their substance, and the paratexts of their editions can give information about the process of translation or revision. Some performers were surprisingly young. A few editions look in the other direction, from print towards orality, by specifying that texts are suitable to be spoken or sung. These cases show how print served both to memorialize and to foster oral culture, sustaining its social importance.

This paper studies the layout of poems, in particular of sonnets, considering the transition from manuscript to print. We focus on the case of Aldo Manuzio’s prints, because the publisher, thanks to Pietro Bembo’s partnership, reserved attention to many levels of the text, from spelling to punctuation, and even to mise en page. The case of Le cose volgari di messer Francesco Petrarcha, printed in 1501 on the basis of the manuscript Vaticano latino 3197 prepared by Bembo, is meaningful. Despite having access to very old manuscripts including the original, Bembo chooses a modern layout for the text, which does not collimate with the important Valdezocco printing (1472), where the stanzas were emphasized in different ways. By analyzing a series of Petrarchan manuscripts prepared before the printing of the Aldina, we show forms and functions of text layout from Petrarch to Manuzio.

The essay examines the print publications of Torquato Tasso’s works in the early 1580s, when the poet, due to his reclusion at Sant’Anna, has no way to control the diffusion of his works. For this reason, different editions proliferated, fundamentally without the poet’s authorization, destined to substantially mark the texts’ recognition. In the second part of the essay a reflection is proposed on the relationship that Torquato Tass.o builds with literary writing and its tangible medium, be it manuscript or print

The essay aims to present Giovanni Della Casa’s De officiis, a Latin treatise written around 1540, and conceived as a discussion of the relationship between stronger and weaker friends within the courts of early Renaissance Rome. After offering some new information on the manuscripts of De officiis, the essay discusses the structure of the work and its relationship with classical authors (Cicero and Aristotle among others) and with contemporary society. The author thus underlines Della Casa’s intention to propose a model for managing relations in the hierarchical world of the Italian courts, as an alternative to the proposals offered a few years earlier by Castiglione in Il libro del cortegiano.

This essay examines Giovanni Andrea dell’Anguillara’s translation of Ovid’s Metamorphoses (1561) through three interpretative keys, which can be briefly indicated as biography, typography, and philology. Thus, it retraces the intellectual biography of Anguillara, highlighting the precarious condition that marked the existence of the writer, which acts as a dynamic element in the composition of his major work. It then sheds light on aspects and moments of the text’s editorial history, showing the role of the printing industry in the process of its shaping and canonization. Finally, it delves into the actual text, focusing on the formal micro- and macrostructures: the ottava rima and the text as a narrative unit, examined in light of the critical debate that surrounded them.

Examining the case of the comedy Il Moro (1607) by Giambattista della Porta, the contribution proposes to analyze the dialogue between the stage and the audience in Renaissance theater. The essay reconstructs a case of musical allusion, showing how cultural assumptions organize theatrical meaning and culturally motivate the narrative development of the comedic action. The construction of the plot is thus justified by the system of references and foresights which are typical of an era where the comedy was composed and staged.