Finotti Petrarch - Triumphi

PETRARCH ;\ :, ' A Critical GuUJe to the Complete WorkJ r AVCOS.HOM.tNtS NO Vl QVmvs OPVSCVLOl}!' MFOP..VM TANTA "f)tONA ｾｯ＠ ｴＭＮＺｮＡＧｔｦｾﾷｭｲ＼＠ r.b1 Ftdtr.!"'t1'1mt Yl<-cr. ·rdtt''' l!<;;;t ' ' J > ｲｩｽ［ｾｴｦＧＢｙＱｭ＠ ｾ＠ · ｴｾ＠ N.T?'I'H,t;t·u rrt'11 d cYYt. I'm lit' ｣Ｇｾｲｮ＼＠ tl1Vf1mi ＨＧｲｦＭｰｾ［＼＠ ｾＮ＠ ,.[, 'f Edited by · nr1 fi'111'0f>r'1 !!' Victoria Kirkham and Armando Maggi THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO PRESS Chicago and London r CONTENTS is professor of Romance languages and a member of the Graduate Group in Comparative Literature and the Center for Italian Studies at the University of Pennsylvania. ARMANDO MAGGI is professor of Romance languages and a member of the Committee on History of Culture at the University of Chicago. VI CT ORI A KIRKHAM Lilt ofIl.iu.JtrationJ IX Aclcnowlei)gmentJ xi Note on Bibliographical For/7lJ and AbbreviationJ xm Chronology of Petrarch's Life and Works The University of Chicago Press, Chicago 60637 The University of Chicago Press, Ltd., London Victoria Kirkham xv A Life's Work © 2009 by The University of Chicago All rights reserved. Published 2009 Printed in the United States of America Victoria Kirkham PART I 18 17 16 15 14 13 12 11 10 09 1 AN ENDURING VERNACULAR LEGACY 1 2 3 4 5 1 ISBN-13: 978-0-226-43741-5 (cloth) ISBN-10: 0-226-43741-8 (cloth) The Self in the Labyrinth of Time (Rerum vulgarium fragmenta) Teodolinda Barolini 2 Frontispiece: Francesco Petrarca, De vita ｴｾｯｬｩ｡ｲ＠ (detail from opening page). Courtesy The Newberry Library, Chicago (NL call no. Case Ms £95). 2008045155 @ The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of the American National Standard for Information Sciences-Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI Z39.48-1992. The Poem of Memory (Triumpht) Fabio Finotti 63 3 Petrarch's Damned Poetry and the Poetics of Exclusion (Rime i)i.JpertJe) Justin Steinberg 85 The University of Chicago Press gratefully acknowledges the generous support of the Henry Salvatori Fund at the University of Pennsylvania Center for Italian Studies, and the Division of the Humanities at the University of Chicago, toward the publication of this book. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Petrarch : a critical guide to the complete works I edited by Victoria Kirkham and Armando Maggi. p. em. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN-13: 978-0-226-43741-5 (cloth: alk. paper) ISBN-10: 0-226-43741-8 (cloth: alk. paper) 1. Petrarca, Francesco, 1304-1374-Criticism and interpretation. I. Kirkham, Victoria. II. Maggi, Armando. PQ4540.P48 2009 851'.1-dc22 33 PART II LITERARY DEBUT, LATIN HUMANISM, AND ORATIONS 4 The Rebirth of the Romans as Models of Character (De viril iLLUtJtribUtJ) Ronald G. Witt 5 Petrarch's Philological Epic (Africa) Simone Marchesi 6 113 The Beginnings of Humanistic Oratory: Petrarch's Coronation Oration (Collatio laureationil) Dennis Looney 7 103 131 Petrarch the Courtier: Five Public Speeches (Arenga facta Venecljj, Arringa facta Mei)iolani, Arenga facta in civitate Novarie, CoUatio brevi! coram lohanne Francorum rege, Orazione per La tJeconda am!JatJceria veneziana) Victoria Kirkham 141 8 The Unforgettable BoolcJ of ｔ｢ｩｮｧｴｾ＠ (Rerum memorarUJarum film) Paolo Cherchi 151 PART III 9 19 Tbe Boule without a Name: Petrarch's Open Secret Ｈｌｩｨ･ｲｴｾｮ＠ Ronald L. Martinez 291 to Be Remembered 20 The Uncollected Poet (Lettere ､ｵｰ･ｲｴｾＩ＠ Lynn Lara Westwater 301 CONTEMPLATIVE SERENITY 21 Pastoral as Personal Mythology in History (Bucolicum carmen) Stefano Carrai 165 10 "You Will Be My Solitude": Solitude as Prophecy (De vita ｴｾｯｬｩ｡ｲＩ＠ Armando Maggi 179 Petrarch's Epistolary Epic: LettertJ on Familiar MattertJ (Rerum familiarum film) Giuseppe F. Mazzotta 309 22 LettertJ of O[J Age: Love between Men, Griselda, and Farewell to Letters (Rerum ｴｾ･ｮｩｬｵｭ＠ film) David Wallace 321 11 A Humanistic Approach to Religious Solitude (De otio religiotlo) Susanna Barsella 197 PART VII PART IV JOURNEYS INTO THE SOUL PART V Notu 347 Bibliography 479 LiA of ContrihutortJ Index 527 penitentialu) 14 The Place of the Itinerarium (ltinerarium ad ｴｾ･ｰｵｬ｣｢ｲｭ＠ Ybuu Cbrutt) Theodore J. Cachey Jr. 229 domini notJtri LIFE'S TURBULENCE 15 On the Two Faces of Fortune (De remediM utriutlque fortune) Timothy Kircher 245 16 The Art of Invective (Invective contra medicum) Stefano Cracolici 255 17 The Economy of Invective and a Man in the Middle (De ｴｾｵｩ＠ multorum ignorantia) William J. Kennedy 263 PART VI PETRARCH THE EPISTLER 18 A Poetic Journal Ｈｅｰｹｴｾｯｬ･Ｉ＠ Giuseppe Velli 277 EPILOGUE 23 To Write As Another: Tbe Tutamentum (Tutamentum) Armando Maggi 333 12 The Burning Question: Crisis and Cosmology in the Secret (Secretum) David Marsh 211 13 Petrarch's Personal Psalms Ｈｐｴｾ｡ｬｭｩ＠ E. Ann Matter 219 nomine) ｩｰｴｾｵｬ＠ et 521 APPENDIX 2 (continued) CHAPTER TWO Part 2. Poems 264-366 Part 2 begins with canzone 264 and consists of 10;3 poems (264-366). • Tran.J-ire: How to change? The question of conversion posed thematically and formally. The beginning of part 2: 264-269. • Fantasy of canzone 126, where he imagined she took pity on him, now made "real": "calcando i fior' com'una donna viva I mostrando in vista che di me le 'ncresca" (treading the grass like a living woman, showing by her face that she is sorry for me [281.13-14]). • Less variety of content: no political poems. • Canzone 323 (canzone delle vuiont) offsets 2.3, is emblematic of part 2's acceptance of change, marks beginning of the end. • How to end? Petrarch's renumbering of 6.nal.31 poems. THE POEM OF MEMORY • Triumpbi Fabio Finotti "'{"I Jith his Triumphi Petrarch shifts from the lyrical Rerum vulgarium VV fragrnenta to an allegorical narrative genre, responding to the Divina comrnedia .;.s does his friend Boccaccio with the AmorOJa vuione. I This relation to the Dantean model explains both the choice of meter (terza rima) and the textual architecture, which is not fragmentary but characterized by a force of authorial will more powerful than in the Rime ｴｾｰ｡ｲ･Ｎ＠ Like the 2 Divina comrnedia, the Triumphi are a vision favored by sleep, and a guide accompanies the author-persona. Dantean in taste, too, are the astrological metaphors that set the season in spring and the classical image that places it at dawn, the hour of veracious visions. A vertical progression structures the "capitoli," or chapters, like a ladder that the poet-persona climbs, each rung representing a victory and a progression over the one preceding. From the TriumphUJ CupiJiniJ (TC; Triumph of Love) he turns to the TriumphUJ Pui)icitie (TP; Triumph of Chaotity), the TriumphUJ Mortu (TM,· Triumph of Death), the TriumphUJ Famae (TF; Triumph of Fame) and then the TriumphUJ Temporu (TT,· Triumph of Time), until he reaches the destination of his climb, the TriumphUJ Eternitatu (TE; Triumph of Eternity). 3 At the work's conclusion, the author himself states the title and the number of triumphs, as well as their course from earth to heaven (TE 121-2.3). In the Divina comrnedia canto articulation does not correspond strictly to the various groups of souls; thus Petrarch feels free to dedicate four full chapters to the TriumphUJ CupiJiniJ, three to the TriumphUJ Famae, and two to the TriumphUJ Mortu, whereas the other three are built as single chapters. Modern editorial tradition delivers the poem to us organized in six triumphs and twelve chapters, a sequence in which numerology might fasten on the fatal number 6, the date of Petrarch's enamorment and Laura's death. 4 Yet beginning with the initial verses, Petrarch establishes an essential difference between his poem and Dante's. The latter presents an itinerary 63 64 Fabio Finotti that reflects a collective experience, set in a dark forest "Nel mezzo del cammin di IZIMtra vita" (Midway in the joumey of our life). 5 The year is 1300, a symbolic number for all Christianity since it coincides with the first Jubilee. The day chosen for starting the voyage is Good Friday; the poet's itinerary through hell, purgatory, and paradise evokes a paradigm of death and resurrection of a Christological and universal character. 6 Petrarch, in contrast, seems determined to project the wholly subjective character of his poem. To Dante's universal and objective experience of "our life," he responds with the "tempo che rinovaimte' sospiri" (The season when my sighing is renewed) in the first verse of the Triumpbi. To Good Friday he brings a date of personal significance, the anniversary of his meeting Laura: "la dolce memoria di quel giomo I che fu principia a sllunghi martiri" (the memory of that day I Whereon my love and suffering began [TC 1.2-3]). In the Rerum vu/garium /ragmenta that date is identified with the date of the Passion of Christ (3) and April 6, 1327 (211), but in the beginning of the Triumpbi there is no superimposition of religious time over personal time. Petrarch's poem seems intent on underscoring the lyrical character of its own opening. Dante loses the "straight way" in an oblivious journey down the road of sin and error, whereas Petrarch consciously chooses to step off the main road and isolate himself in a "Vale Enclosed" (Valchiusa). Sleep is not the premise for, but a consequence of his solitude, and it does not bear the allegorical meaning of losing one's way, but the wholly lyrical significance of solace and intimate peace (TC 1.7-11). Petrarch's vision is not a product of a divine will as in Dante. From the eschatological horizon of the Divina commedia, the Triumpbi turns to a psychological horizon. This immersion in a visionary state that is subjective and psychological, rather than objective and metaphysical, is given an emblematic form in the protagonist of Petrarch's poem. Dante is a pilgrim heading toward his destination without turning back to his past, except to contemplate and almost measure the course he has covered. There is a fundamental similarity between the narrative and the existential journeys, between the progression of the story and the evolution of the persona-poet. In Petrarch, on the other hand, the first descent into memory, as suggested by the initial verses, is followed by another temporal retrogression that is even more remarkable. In dream, the one who moves is not the poet who has already been captivated by Laura in the TriumpbUJ Cupidinu 1.1-9, but the poet in his youth, in his "nova eta" (TC 1.64), just before his enamorment. The narrative progression coincides, then, not with an existential evolution, as in . Dante, but with memory's retrogression. What will happen in the Triumpbi The Poem of Memory 65 actually coincides with that which has already happened on earth, whereas in the Divina commedia time is mystical and prophetic. It is quite clear why in the Triumpbi there is little left of Dantean allegory. The herds of people Dante meets are bearers of historical experience destined to be interpreted with the allegory of the theologians. Within human truth, the Commedia seeks to indicate, there is always a superior divine truth. The herds Petrarch meets are, in contrast, representative of a truth that is and will remain human. They allow Petrarch to objectify his personal experience, to give it a more general sense, yet without transcending earthly limits. Further, the vision's source is not the mind of God, who seems to create, support, and guide Dante's journey/ but the all-human universe of books, libraries, images, and culture. From there comes the theme of the triumph, already developed in Africa 9, 8 and the unbreakable tie between leaming and poetry (TC 3.7-9). Contrast Dante's beings from the classical world with Petrarch's. In Dante they acquire their Christian truth and become "real" the moment the poet discems in them a meaning that is higher than their mythical-literary nature. Charon, Minos, and Medusa are not only forms of the ancient imagination but concrete entities, who act in the hereafter according to a divine order. Petrarch, however, removes the guarantee of supernal will from such mythical entities; they express not an absolute but an earthly order. The first mythological figure he meets is Love: quattro destrier, vie piu che neve bianchi, sovr'un carro di foco un garzon crude con area in man e con saette a fianchi. (TC 1.22-24) [Four steeds I saw, whiter than whitest snow, And on a fiery car a cruel youth With bow in hand and arrows at his side.] Love conducts the vision's first triumph. As the guide is quick to inform Petrarch, however, that god is an image with no substance, a form not of divine revelation but of wholly mundane frailty: Ei nacque d'otio e di lascivia humana, nudrito di penser dolci soavi. (TC 1.82-84) [Idleness gave him birth, and wantonness, And he was nursed by sweet and gentle thoughts.] 66 Fabio Finotti The Triumpbi do not play host to figures of a supernatural revelation but instead to emblems of natural experience. Petrarch, then, does not look for the greater theological meaning in each character but seeks the more memorable meaning. 9 In portraying Love, for example, Petrarch embraces an essential mise-en-scene of classicist iconology. In this complementary strengthening of personal memory and cultural memory, the Triumpbi finds a raison d 'etre, originality, and extraordinary fortune throughout the Renaissance. 10 Many passages from the Triumpbi are catalogs or repertoires that follow a fashion set in Boccaccio's Anwroda vi.!ione. Well into the seventeenth century, Italian men of letters and artists made use of these classicist inventories, expanding them as the rediscovery of antiquity offered new scholarly materials. In Petrarch's unified textual mosaic there is a new humanistic sense of an ancient culture recomposed as a whole, acquired as a compact and organic world, no longer fragmentary and incomplete. The Triumpbi are driven by the same ambition that inspired De viri.! ｩＡｬｵｴｾｲ｢ｷ＠ right from its proem, to collect "the lives of men so illustrious that the flourishing of their glory and their praises have been handed down in the writings of the most learned men."II Although they open a subjective horizon, we are bound to be disappointed if we look for deep psychological analysis in Petrarch's Triumpbi. His goal is the completeness of the processions, and characterization as succinct as possible, in situations, gestures, and behavior that can become emblematic of destiny. Thus in TC Theseus is represented between Ariadne and Phaedra, and the whole story is summed up in a single tercet (TC 1.121-23). The iron shackles forged by Vulcan are enough to evoke Mars's passion for Venus in just two verses (TC 1.151-52). Juno calls for no more than a single adjective: "Vedi lunon ｧ･Ａｯｴｾ｡Ｂ＠ (Behold the jealow Juno [TC 1.154]), to suggest both reproach, caused by Jupiter's betrayals (which actually head the procession), and persistent everlasting love for her husband. Petrarch launches an intertextual and intercultural game that involves the reader more actively than Dante had.I2 How many times does Dante interrupt Virgil, asking to hear more about the souls of the hereafter? How many times does he interrogate the spirits himself? The Triumpbi, by contrast, proceed without significant interruptions. Petrarch himself suggests how his work should be read, underlining the relation between the vision and the humanistic culture it evokes (TF 2.1-5). This explains the frequent use of circumlocutions in place of proper names, indicating the personae by means of cultural traits rather than by character or physiognomic features. The Poem of Memory 67 Precisely because it calls for interpretative cooperation founded on a rich reference library, the Triumpbi does not stop at stirring the public's memory but tends to select or exclude readers according to their culture, preferring noblemen of letters to noblemen by birth in a way that will inspire humanistic circles and had already animated a famous passage in Rerum memoranJarum Libri (1.37). There King Robert of Anjou asked Petrarch why he has never been to the court of the king of France, and the poet responded that he had little interest in talking to someone who would not understand him due to cultural deficiency. In TC 2, the dialogue with Massinissa opens with a clear example of this poetiCJ of identification. The poet stops Massinissa, who is walking hand in hand with Sophonisba, and right away condenses all essential elements of his story, prompting the sovereign's admiration. If Petrarch then queries Massinissa for information about his life, it will be for reasons other than those that drive the Dante persona to interrogate the souls he encounters. It will not be so much a means to expand his knowledge, but rather a wish to let it flow more voluminously in the poem, as Massinissa himself suggests in his reply (TC 2.28-30). Once again the event is not projected toward the future but revolves around what the poet already knows. In this case his persona is expanded into a stronger, moving evocation because cultural memory merges with autobiographical memory. Massinissa, Sophonisba, and Scipio belong to a literary, historical, and fictional group that repeatedly appears in other Petrarchan works, from Africa 5 to De viri.! iUwtribw 6 and 21, Familiared 9 and 18, and Senilu 13. 13 And memory, in turn, creates another memory, making neither a judgment nor moral analysis as it does in the Divina commeJia: Pien di pietate, e ｲｩｰ･ｮｴｾ｡ｊｯ＠ 'l breve spatia al gran foco di duo tali amanti, pareami al sol aver un cor di neve. (TC 2.73-75) [O'erwhelmed with pity, thinking of the brief Time granted to the love of such a pair, My heart was like to snow that melts i' the sun.] The next conversation too is of a literary and cultural nature, performing a function of rhetorical reinforcement and emotional intensification vis-a-vis Massinissa. While the latter is torn between love and friendship, Seleucus incarnates a conflict that is even more agonizing, one between paternal and marital love (TC 2.94-132). Massinissa had to renounce his 68 Fabio Finotti passion for Sophonisba, pressed by his friend Scipio's demands and by "raison d; etat," just as Seleucus had to renounce his wife Stratonice to save his son Antiochus, who otherwise would have died of his love for his stepmother. In this case as well, one notes the care with which Petrarch makes clear his familiarity with the story even before meeting its protagonist. It does not come as a surprise, therefore, that when the dialogue with Seleucus ends, Petrarch pauses in order to recall the words he has just heard, as he had done after meeting Massinissa. Once again the poet depicts himself in the act of creating a new memory out of the old. Beyond the facts taught us by the past, it is their memorial aura that captures Petrarch's imagination. One could say that in the Triumpbi Petrarch wishes to depict his own enchantment with certain known historical events precisely in order to call to mind that long and slow sedimentation of memory that makes human experience intriguing and gives it sense, beyond any possible imposed allegorical or symbolic sense. Petrarch's approach to memory is, as we see, a radical reversal of Dante's. In the Divina commedia memory is consecrated by revelation, which transcends it and selects and organizes its details. In the Triampbi, by contrast, memory itself consecrates content. Just as Laura lives in a dimension in which she can transform herself into a fantasy of memory, culture in its entirety acquires a universal meaning when it is not a form of divine truth but of human nostalgia. The theological perspective of Dante's poem is substituted in Petrarch's poem by a historical and anthropological perspective, which anticipates the Renaissance perspective explored in its highest form by Angelo Poliziano in the Siivae. The principle that guarantees the unity of the Triumpbi is now clear. The characters who appear in them-Laura, and no less Narcissus, Sophonisba, or Juno-are forms not of divine truth, nor simply of human history. Otherwise we would be hard-pressed to explain the mixing of persons who actually existed with mythological figures considered wholly fictional, like the Love god, like many "fabulosi e vani amori" (vain and fabled loves) of other gods (TC 2.169), and like the fictional characters in Breton romances: "quei che le carte empion di sogni: I Lancilotto, Tristano, e gli altri erranti, I ove conven che 'l vulgo errante agogni" (those who fill our books with dreams: I Lancelot, Tristram, and the other knights I Whose wand'rings lead the common folk astray [TC 3.79-81]). Nor could we explain the mixing of secular and guilty love with love that is not only virtuous but also sanctioned by biblical tradition, such as the love of Jacob for Rachel, Isaac for Rebecca, and Abraham for Sarah (TC 3.34-39). Those personae and love stories may coexist, however, because they share a common existential The Poem of Memory 69 characteristic. All are forms of human memory. Truly it is in memory that the Petrarch of the Triumpbi identifies the center of the new culture and discovers the unitary principle of his writing, divided only in appearance between a conversation with antiquity and a lyrical meditation on amorous themes. Fame and love, the two central themes that inspire the Triampbi, are actually two expressions of memory. Subjective love for a woman, long reflected upon in solitude, and the collective worship of the past stem from the same roots and share an identical capacity to transform time from an agent of destruction to a locus of condensation and radiation of vibrant, perennial images. In the Triumpbi Petrarch identifies with extreme lucidity the memorial nucleus of his whole source of inspiration, revealed both in the construction of the single chapters and in the complete architecture of the poem. Already in TriumpbUJ Cupidinu the central theme of love, long cultivated in "sweet memory" (TC 1.2), is interwoven with the themes of glory, of consecration of the past through the rite of triumph, the "joy" of more noble ages: Vidi un victorYoso e sommo duce, pur com'un di color che 'n Campidoglio triumphal carro a gran gloria conduce. (TC 1.13-15) [A leader, conquering and supreme, I saw, Such as triumphal chariots used to bear To glorious honor on the Capitol.] And in all the following encounters in that chapter the moral theme is often relegated to the background, behind the emotion stirred by celebrated individuals, whose fame may be emphasized by antonomasia (TC 1.121, 1.135); deictic reference (TC 1.124-125); or explicit declarations by the persona-poet (TC 2.22) or by his guide (TC 3.13-14). This celebratory register produces a paradoxical effect. On the one hand the losers in love experience triumph like a defeat that reverses their past glory, beginning with Caesar (TC 1.91-93). On the other hand, triumph is a ceremonial rite that seems to glorify the losers no less than the winners, the participants in the procession no less than its leader. Moral order yields to memorial order. Ulysses does not transcend earthly order, as in the Divina commedia, but his myth remains within the limits of classical memory, symbolically marking the limits of Petrarch's poem in the reuse of antiquity: "Quel si pensoso e Ulixe, affabile ombra, I che la 70 Fabio Finotti casta mogliera aspetta e prega, I ma Circe, amando, gliel ritene e 'ngombra" (Ulysses moves in thought, a kindly soul: I His faithful wife entreats him to return, I But ardent Circe will not let him go [TC 3.22-24]). When Ulysses reappears in Triu.mphUJ Famae 2.17-18, his restless curiosity seems to be always restrained within the boundaries of our "world" according to classical sources; he does not venture toward a "mondo sanza gente" (world without people) as in Inferno 26.117. In other parts of the poem Petrarch openly exhibits his passion for a faithful historical reconstruction, in opposition to traditional distortions. Just think of the figure of Dido, who the poet says died because of her love for her husband and not for Aeneas, challenging both Virgil and Dante. In his portrayal of the Phoenician queen Petrarch introduces an energetic call for truth and for a philological commitment, joining scholarship with poetry: e veggio ad un lacciuol Giunone e Dido, ch'amor pio del suo sposo a morte spinse, non quel d'Enea, com'e'l pulJlico grldo. (TP 10-12) [And if in a single snare Juno may fall, And Dido, she whom love for her own spouse (Not-as they say-for Aeneas) drove to her death.] The Poem of Memory self from a spectator to a protagonist of the triumph. Having introduced into the vision a younger alter ego, the poet may now describe not only the moment when he actually fell in love, but also being captured in the crowd of Love's losers, confirmed in the guide's words, "tutti siam macchiati d'una pece" (all of us are stained with the same pitch [TC 3.91-99]). Coming after a series of famous and memorable examples, his enamorment shines brightly in a glorious aura, ambiguously combined with a sentiment of moral contrition (TC 3.112-20). And the theme of fame is interlaced ever more tightly with that of love. Laura is not just a personal ghost. She is also a literary persona, as Petrarch is keen to point out both in the verses just cited ("cotante carte aspergo," the pages that I fill) and in the direct metapoetic references to his own effort to celebrate the lover's merits (TC 3.133-144). The wish to emphasize Laura's literary dimension yields the repeated intertextual recollections that link Rerum vulgariu.m /ragmenta to the Triu.mphUJ Cupwini.J. In his love for Laura Petrarch wishes to sublimate not only his private experience but the cultural process through which personal experience is transformed into collective memory. The poetic coronation of 1341 is nothing other than a symbol of this glorification of memory: ... colsi '1 glor'ioso ramo onde forse anzi tempo ornai le tempie in memoria di quella ch 'io tanto amo. (TC 4 .79-81) In the evocation of such personages vibrates that same cult of memory to which Petrarch entrusts his complete corpus. Recall his passionate declaration to the reader in concluding the proem of De viri.:J ｩｬｵｊｴｲｨｾＬｍＺ＠ If the labor of my studies has perhaps at least in part quenched the thirst of your expectations, then I ask from you no other kind of reward than that I be loved by you, even though I am unknown to you, even though I am shut up in my grave, even though I have turned into dust. In this same way, I have loved after a thousand years many who have helped me in my studies, who were not just dead but consumed after so much time. 14 Among the beloved classics recollected, Laura, a darling form of lyrical memory, fits in naturally and harmoniously. Laura is the one who is entrusted with the triumphs of Love and Fame, the final redemption of human time, the solid affirmation of memorial poetry both within the TriumphUJ Cupwini.J and the architecture of the whole poem. Within TriumphUJ Cupwini.J it is naturally thanks to Laura that Petrarch can transform him- 71 ｾ｡ｬｩｺｮｧ＠ [ ... I plucked the glorious laurel branch Wherewith-perhaps too soon- I decked my brow, Remembering her whom I so deeply love.] And so love for Laura opens the way to the last chapter of TriumphUJ Cu. · where Petrarch calls to his aid other love poets from the past in order define more clearly the new humanistic ideal of writing, which by immorearthly experience immortalizes itself. Those that Petrarch seeks not some unknown poets, but living examples full of passion and fame: ... io volgeva gli occhi in ogni parte s'i' ne vedesse alcun di chiara fama, o per antiche, o per moderne carte. (TC 4.10-12) [ ... I was looking here and there to see If any of them had risen to renown For pages they had writ, or old or new.] 72 The Poem of Memory Fabio Finotti Marching past are Orpheus, Alcaeus, Pindar, Anacreon, Virgil, Ovid, Catullus, and other lyrical poets, from antiquity to the Romance vernacular era in a catalogue where it is difficult to judge whose passion is greater, that of these poets for their beloved ladies or that of Petrarch for their beloved texts and for the works "di quei che volentier gia '1 mondo lesse" (companions whom the olden world I Had gladly read [TC 4.19-21]). Precisely because of this memorial dimension in which the poet lets himself be increasingly absorbed, life can be fully equated with writing and ripple in front of poet's eyes like a dream before vanishing: "Ben e '1 viver mortal, che si n'agrada, I sogno d'infermi, e fola di romanzi!" (This mortal life, that we do cherish so, I Is an ill dream, a tale of vain romance! [TC 4.65-66]). Throughout Triumphw CupiJiniJ the poetry of memory is true to itself. In the last chapter, Love takes his prisoners to Cyprus, home of Venus. This voyage offers the opportunity for a description that is wholly inspired by poetic remembrances, recovered and sung with an enthusiasm that goes beyond moral scruples. Only at the beginning, the representation of the island seems to reflect a world that has been devastated by passion and is morally depraved (TC 4.106-11). But the canto is then immediately caught up by memory of idyllic tradition, marrying ancient Arcadia to the locuJ amoenw of Romance tradition: E rimbombava tutta quella valle d 'acque e d 'augelli, ed eran le sue rive bianche, verdi, vermiglie, perse e gialle: rivi correnti di fontane vive al caldo tempo su per l'erba fresca, e l'ombra spessa, e l'aure dolci estive; poi, quand'e '1 verno e l'aer si rinfresca, tepidi soli, e giuochi, e cibi, ed otio lento, che i semplicetti cori invesca. (TC 4.121-29) [And the whole valley echoed with the songs Of waters and of birds, and all its swards Were white and green and red and yellow and perse. Streamlets that spring from living fountains run Through the fresh verdure in the summer heat When shade is deep and gentle is the breeze: And then, when winter comes and the air is cool, Warm sun, games, food, and torpid idleness That casts its evil spell on foolish hearts.] 73 The memory of poetry is no less strong than the memory of love in guiding a poetic voice that is so far from Dante's, to the verge of identifying as man's true transcendence. If we were to look for the last image of that the poet leaves us with in the conclusion of the first triumph, would not find him delivering his thoughts outside the dark cage in Love has locked him. Even in that "cosi tenebrosa e stretta gabbia" 4.157) Petrarch continues to transform life into a memorable painting. in that "career tetro," for him the progression of time is turned into retrogression of memory and the tireless transformation of experiencinto reminding: e 'ntanto, pur Jognando Libertate, l'alma, che '1 gran disio fea pronta e leve, co!ldolai coL veder Le cOJe andale. Rimirando er'io fatto al sol di neve tanti spirti e si chiari in career tetro, quMi Langa pictura in tempo breve, che 'L pie' va inanzi, e Locchio lorna a dietro. (TC 4 .160-66) [And all the while, dreaming of liberty, I fed my soul, impatient for escape, By thinking of the loves of olden times. Like snow that melts away in the sun was I, Gazing at the greats spirits here confinedLike one beholding lengthy painted scenes, Whose eyes look back, despite his hurried feet.] The entire structure of Petrarch's poem depends on that same poetry memory proposed by Triumphw CupiJiniJ. In its entirety, in fact, the · seems to be inspired by the dream of saving the two forms of and love-from the objections expressed extensively by Peto himself in the Secretum, selecting Augustine as a stand-in. Love glory are insubstantial forms, mistakes, confusions of the soul, says There is no other way to set yourself free from their bonds exactually freeing yourself of the slavery of memory. 15 superficial examination, the architecture of the Triumphi could apa magnificent staging of Augustine's teachings. The triumph of Love is by first the triumph of Chastity and then by that of Death. The trio£ Fame, in turn, seems to be canceled by the triumph of Time, which any human glory. Finally, in the poem's conclusion, the poet-traveler Fabio Finotti 74 seems to be severing all ties with the past, all connections to .memory, and is left with nothing but to project himself into eternity, to which the last triumph is dedicated and where nothing dies, nothing passes on, nothing is remembered, since here the absolute present of total truth is in force (Se- nilu 3.9.15).16 Quel che I'anima nostra preme e 'ngombra: 'dianzi,' 'adesso,' 'ier,' 'deman,' 'matino' e 'sera,' tutti in un punta passeran com'ombra. Non avra loco 'fu,' 'sara' ned 'era,' rna 'e' solo, 'in presente,' ed 'ora,' ed 'oggi,' e sola 'eternita' raccolta e 'ntera. (TE 64-69) [All that encumbers us and weighs us down, "Yesterday" and "tomorrow," "morn" and "eve," "Before" and "soon," will pass like fleeting shadows. "Has been," "shall be," and "was" exist no more, But "is" and "now," "the present" and "today," "Eternity" alone, one and complete.] In reality, Petrarch enacts a series of strategies that countermand the progressive character of the poem's structure. Regarding fame, in TriamphUJ Cupwinu an ambiguous choreography tends to transform losers into winners through processions crowded with examples from antiquity that stir the reader's cultural memory more than his moral judgment. The same procedure is applied in defense of fame on the level of the poem's overall structure. As in TriamphUJ Cupwinu, where Caesar's nobility, Aegeria's. song, and Atalanta's race grant myth an autonomous value beyond its spiritual significance, in TriamphLM Fame the mythic seems to have total autonomy from moral order. Nothing reminds us, reading the TriamphLM Fame, that its characters, illustrious in glory and celebrated with ceremonial eloquence, are destined to suffer defeat by the Triumph of Time, which can blow away fame and submit a man to a second death (TT 142-43). Instead, the cumulative effect of the examples focuses attention on glory restored and celebrated, fascinating from the initial verses (TF 1.16-35). Are they sinners? Are they defeated, these personae? Or are they not simply presented as sublime examples of human nobility who can beat death-celebrated in the preceding triumph? This celebratory aspect ofPetrarchan memory is underscored by the careful choice of examples. Among The Poem of Memory 75 the Gracchi only one is worthy of joining the procession (TF 1.112-14); as is only one of Emperor Vespasian's sons: "Poscia Vespasian col figlio vidi: iL buono e belLo, non gia il bello e rio." (TF 1.121-22) [And then I saw Vespasian and the son Who was fair and good (not the other, fair and vile).] In other cases, as with "the other Alexander," memory repairs injustice delivered by destiny, rescuing worthy men from oblivion or redeeming them from unjust judgments by their contemporaries (TF 2.13-15). The protagonists of TriumphUJ Fame appear to be like heroes in a memory that does not rerun the past indiscriminately, but selects from it and relives it, establishing and perpetuating the values of human civilization. The decision to present the triumph as a procession of ancient times, with a quasi-ceremonial solemnity, seems consciously to found that cult of history that will live on until the nineteenth century in Ugo Foscolo's Sepo!cri Ｈｓ･ｰｵｬ｣ｨｲＮｾＩ＠ and Giacomo Leopardi's Canti ＨｓｯｮｧｴｾＩＬ＠ and will make Petrarch not only the poet of his love for Laura, but a master, alongside Dante, of modern thought in Italy and the worldP For many centuries, in fact, history will be taught in Western culture according to the way Petrarch proposes in his Triumphi, or more specifically in TriumphUJ Fame, which should be considered the founding act of a memory religion, destined to be embraced and nurtured starting from within the fifteenth-century humanistic schools. For centuries after Petrarch, aside from figures of religious history who are mentioned only briefly (TF 2.52-84, 118-20); children will learn about Attilius Regulus, "ch'amo altrui piu che se stesso" (Regulus, who loved others more than self [TF 1.54]); will admire Torquatus "che'l figliuol percusse I e viver orbo per amor sofferse I della militia, perche orba non fusse" (he who smote his son, I Preferring to be reft of him than that I His troops be reft of spirit and of strength [TF 1.64-66]); will relive the heroism of Horatius Codes and of Gaius Mucius Scaevola (TF 1.80-84); will study in gymnasiums all the philosophers listed in the TriamphUJ Famae; and will read poets capable of consecrating the past following Homer's footsteps: "prima pintor de le memorie antiche" (first to paint men's ancient memories [TF 3.15]). The fame celebrated in Petrarch's triumph is one with a new kind of moral significance, laying the foundation for a pedagogy that will identify in history and in man-rather than in theology and in God-the necessary values for 76 Fabio Finotti building and maintaining modern civil society: altruism, heroism, generosity, unselfishness, magnanimity, and spiritual ennoblement through the cult of art and letters. The progressive character of the poem's overall structure is therefore marred by the fact that Triu.mphUtJ Fame tends to be presented as a complete whole by itself, connected not so much to the poem's general organism as to the overflowing network of sources from which it draws, with powerful evocation, its characters. The structure of the Divina commedia is centripetal: Dante gathers, combines, recreates the materials of his culture. The structure of the Triu.mphi, on the other hand, is centrifugal. Petrarch creates a map that is open to other texts, producing a sort of hypertext that calls for a vertical reading, without which the poem often would not be understood at all. Memory, then, does not only provide the central theme and problem of the work but also determines its form. In the second place, the poem's progressive character is weakened by its internal circularity. A few TriumphtM Cupidini.J personae return in TriumphtM Fame. Petrarch himself points this out (TF 1.20-21). Glory, defeated in TriumphtM Morti.J, is then resurrected in TriumphtM Fame. Time, which has been apparently removed from individual life, finds its redemption in a higher dimension, public and historical. What seemed cancelled returns. The mechanism of memory could not have been suggested more effectively on the overall structural level, with a strategy that finds its highest achievement in its treatment of love. In the third place, the heroes who embody fame are shown only in the act of triumphing, not of being defeated. Dante does not have any compassion for the defeated, whereas Petrarch, in the act of depicting the TriumphtM Tempori.J (Triumph of Time), which is supposed to break up the magnificent ranks of Fame, limits himself to a generic discussion of moral philosophy. There are none of the kind of grotesque deformation processes that Dante prescribes for those who embody human errors. The Sun accelerates its course. Time breaks up the ranks of memory, not coincidentally led by historians and poets (IT 90), but not one among these ranks is recognizable. Certainly the moralistic discourse on the vanity of glory and of fame, which takes up a large part of this chapter, is not enough to equal the .power of the preceding triumph. All these elements tend to lend the Triumphi a memorial and circular, rather than linear, structure. But the fact remains that Triu.mphUtJ Tempori.J represents a dramatic moment of crisis within the work. The absence of recognizable souls allows the poet-persona to talk to himself and to question explicitly the sense of his work. The point he has reached is the same The Poem of Memory 77 one where Rerum vufgarium fragmenta concluded, as demonstrated by his return to its first and recapitulative sonnet, quoted almost verbatim: 'Segui' gia le ｴｾｰ･ｲ｡ｮｺ＠ e 'L van Juio; I or o dinanzi agli occhi un chiaro specchio, I ov'io veggio me JteJJo e 'Lfallir mio" (I followed then my hopes and vain desires, 1But now with mine own eyes I see myself I As in a mirror, and my failings [TT 55-57]). The central problem of TriumphtM Tempori.J is Petrarch's consideration of the possible failure of his poetry and its inspiration, wholly memorial and human. If the Triumphi were interrupted at that point, it would not have indicated a solution that is different from the contrition of Rerum vufgarium fragmenta. But Triu.mphUtJ Eternitati.J (Triumph ofEternity) belongs to the last days of Petrarch's life; it is the triumph in which the circular and memorial structure of the poem is unexpectedly saved and the conclusion of Triu.mphUtJ Tempori.J is left behind. And since the heroine of this happy ending is Laura, we must move on from fame to another incarnation of memory: love. The love theme makes even clearer Petrarch's will to fit the Triu.mphi a circular structure of memory. In the first place, we saw how the [beginning of the poem matches not a progression but a retrogression of ｾ｣ｯｮｳｩｵ･Ｎ＠ During Triu.mphUtJ Cupidini.J the poet relives his enamorment the long imprisonment that tie him to Laura, tightly binding sentiment memory. Laura, meanwhile, through a thick network of intertextual ir..tP.rences, becomes an emblein. not only of Petrarch's passion but also of poem. The defense of love, more than what happens in the treatment of becomes one with the defense of poetry. In passing from the first to the second triumph, the progressive strucof the work should have led to a clear defeat of Love and therefore of a>assiOn for Laura which dominates the second part of Triu.mphUtJ Cupidini.J. however, is very careful to make a distinction between his beand the other amorous heroines. She imprisons the poet but keeps in triumph her separate place. An ally of Love when catching Petrarch, may at the same time be its adversary in protecting her own free(TC 3.130-132; 3.145-47). Thanks to this paradox the transition from first to the second triumph amounts not to a progression but to a return Laura, whose victory over love is revealed in advance in Triu.mphUtJ Cuin order to emphasize once more the structural circularity of the (TC 4.86-90). The Triu.mphUtJ PuJicitiae becomes thus the second triumph of Laura, continues to keep a tight grip on the center of Petrarch's heart and inspiration. Love, in fact, does not necessarily have to be nullified may be sublimated. This is suggested by the example of Dido, driven 78 Fabio Finotti to suicide not by "vano amor" (vain love) but by "amor pio" (pious love), which-guarantees the Phoenician queen a place in the procession of Chas. tity (TP 154-59), shortly after being depicted among the prisoners in Tri- umphUJ Cupi.Jinu (TP 1-12). Not by accident, in the course of TriumphUJ Pu.dicitiae, the poet is quite careful to emphasize the union between chastity and beauty: modesty seems truly to increase the appeal of a loved woman (TP 90, 174) and hence to increase love rather than turn it off. The last image of this triumph is also dominated by the beauty of Laura, more than ever a symbol of poetry as well, when she shows off her laurel wreath: Ivi spiego le glor'iose spoglie la bella vincitrice; ivi depose le sue victor'iose e sacre foglie. (TP 184-86) [There the fair victress spread her glorious spoils And there she left the crown that she had won, The sacred laurel crown of victory.] Laura's beauty continues as a theme of TriumphUJ Mortu, which should produce a definite forward movement in the poem's itinerary, freeing the poet from the tyranny of desire and memory. But the triumph is symptomatic of a retrogressive structure, from Laura's present dissolution to her past life (TM 1.1-3). In the rest of the triumph the two strategies employed in TriumphUJ Cupi.Jinu and TriumphUJ Temporu are applied in a radical manner, so as to dissolve from within any progression that might produce a clear rupture between past and present. First, as in TriumphUJ Cupi.Jinu, Laura occupies a place separate from other mortals. It is not death that triumphs over Laura, but once again Laura who triumphs over death, overcoming it and forcing it to admire her (TM 1.52-69). Second, medieval signs of human frailty and suffering are missing in Petrarch. The triumph of Death does not bring with it skeletons, symbols of decomposition, or slashed bodies like those that Dante comes across in the Inferno. The strategy is the same one that drives TriumphUJ Temporu: the poetry is general, moralistic, and it avoids anything concrete except a brief mention of the stripping of earthly honors and clothes (TM 1.79-84). Her flesh dissolves, but her memory remains intact. The behavior of Death toward Laura illustrates this strategy. From the beginning of the triumph, there is a continuous sue- · cession of references to the beauty of the beloved woman, surrounded and The Poem of Memory 79 by the beauty of her lady friends (TM 1.1, 1.8, 1.13-15, 1.25-26, ｌＮＧＩｾＭ ......... 1.62). Her passing does not disfigure Laura; rather it preserves her. That mourned and anxiously scrutinized by her friends (TM 1.145-46, is miraculously saved beyond life. It is not Laura who takes on the of death, but the reverse, and so in the moment of her passing the canto to the theme of beauty with a passionate, pounding insistence: Pallida no, rna piu che neve bianca, che senza venti in un bel colle fiocchi, parea posar come persona stanca. Quasi un dolce dormir ne' suo' belli occhi, sendo lo spirto gia da lei diviso, era quel che morir chiaman li sciocchi. Morte bella parea nel suo bel viso. (TM 1.166-72) [Not pale, but whiter than the whitest snow Quietly falling on a gentle hill, She seemed to be aweary and at rest. And that which is called "death" by foolish folk, Was a sweet sleep upon her lovely eyes, Now that her body held her soul no more; And even death seemed fair in her fair face.] Is it Petrarch the person or Petrarch the narrator who does the talkPetrarch the dumbfounded spectator of Death within the dream, or who recountd the dream and therefore has had the time to take the lesson? For a moment, in fact, the reader may wonder whether the occhi" (lovely eyes) in verse 169 are still those of the living Laura, recalled in extremis by Petrarch within the dream prior to internalizing the devastating victory of death. But it is soon clear that there is no lifferenC'e ｢･ｴｷｾｮ＠ memory and dream, since death does not dissolve the beauty but perpetuates it,_ in the perennial and marmoreal nobleof a classical sepulchral monument. Once again the poem's general etro,g-ressive structure is confirmed. Once again the vision does not go Petrarchan memory, but saves it. TriumpbUJ Mortu 2 has stirred up many inconclusive debates. Many see as an extraneous episode to the poem's overall structure. 18 Others argue · a fundamental juncture in the architecture of the Triumpbi. 19 There can 80 Fabio Finotti be no doubt that the episode narrated in this triumph makes up the generative core of the memorial poetry that is the inspiration for. Petrarch's whole vision. It is the night that follows Laura's death, "La notte che segui l'orribil caso" (The night that followed the dread stroke of fate [TM 2.1]). We are taken back, then, to that crucial moment of Petrarchan poetry when the course of time is reversed and the love for a woman of real, living experience is transformed to memory, subject to cyclic reprocessing in the consciOusness. Laura does return in a dream, A vision opens within the vision and Laura dou not return as Beatrice did to guide the poet in another world, to a point where he could go on without her "a terminar lo suo disiro" (Paraduo 31.65). In Triumphi it is Laura who is the ultimate object of Petrarch's desire. Nor are there other spirits who disrupt the dialogue between the two lovers, maintaining the tone of an intimate and private conversation. Laura, in fact, returns first and foremost for remembering. The entire course of Petrarch's love is once again relived and fueled by new flames. To his love, Laura finally joins hers, while insisting on its duration (TM 2.94, 2.100; 2.155), which extends the memory, breathing new air into it, expanding and enriching the past life instead of leaving it behind and letting it fade away. The present is not modeled on what one wishes to attain in the future, as in the Divina commedi.a, but on what one wishes to relive from the past. In Laura's words, what will be cannot be different from what was (TM 2.88-89, 2.139-41, 2.151-53). Time stops in this enchanted, transformed remembering (TM 2.176-77). And it is against time that Laura, in ｔｲｩｵｭｰｨＮｾ＠ EternitatiJ, will fight her last battle, saving both herself and Petrarch's poetry. An autograph note on ｔｲｩｵｭｰｨＮｾ＠ EternitatiJ (Vat. Lat. 3196) informs us of the date writing commenced: "1374, dominico ante cenam. 15 Januarii, ultimus cantus" [1374, Sunday before supper, 15 January, the last canto]. 20 With death just six months away, Petrarch set about writing the last chapter of the Triumphi. The Canzone aUa Vergine (Rerum vu/garium fragmenta 366) had already been written, and the palinodic structure of the collected lyrics had already been set. 21 The transition to the definitive redaction of Rerum vulgarium fragmenta follows the author's wish to render it clearer. 22 Yet the dedication with which Petrarch wrote the last triumph makes one suspect that with this "poem in terza rima'' he wanted to end a journey that is not less important than the one he had undertaken in Rerum vulgarium fragmenta. Before a month had passed, TriumphUJ EternitatiJ was finished, as we learn from an.other of Petrarch's inscriptions in the manuscript, fol- The Poem of Memory 81 lowing the last verse: "domenica carnis privii 12 februarii 1374, post cenam" [Sunday of Lent, 12 February 1374, after supper]. 23 In the beginning of the chapter:the awareness of time and its dissolutive power seems to triumph: "e veggio andar, anzi volare, il tempo" ([I] see Time marching, nay more, flying on; TE 8). There is no surprise in the direct reference to the feeling of regret that opened the Canzoniere: "Ma ben veggio che '1 mondo m'ha schernito" (Well do I see the mockery of the world; TE 6). However, the triumph of Eternity is in tum a victory over time, and instead of proposing a palinode, it affirms the poetry with the force of a passionate defense waged on the brink of death. We note immediately that in the Triumphi the encounter with eternity offers a last and radical departure from Dante's model. It is not the absolute that beckons the poet but the poet who lives within himJe/f the meeting with eternity. Petrarch, in fact, does not tell us about the encounter with God about a presentiment of that vision, which he would enjoy fully only affter death: "0 qual gratia mi fia, se mai l'impetro, I ch'i' veggia ivi presente il sommo bene" (What grace, if I am worthy, shall be mine, I If I may there ,.behold the Highest Good; TE 36-37). For this reason, the moment the poet . is set to go beyond human limits verbs change from the past (or present) tense to the future, a fully conscious choice as demonstrated by the stark contrast between the preceding triumphs (actually seen) and that of eternity (still to be seen): Questi triumphi, i cinque in terra giuso avem veduto, ed a la fine il sexto, Dio permettente, vederem lassuso. (TE 121-23) [Five of these triumphs on the earth below We have beheld, and at the end, the sixth, God willing, we shall see in heaven above.] Within this unprophetic, personal consciousness Laura rises once again. Eternity appears, according to Augustine's teachings, 24 as the present abThis present, however, is not radically different from human life. is, rather, life itself saved from Death and from Time: the countenances ｾｨｵｲｴ＠ by Death and Time "torneranno al suo piu fiorito stato" (will now ap• pear in perfect flowering [TE 92]). The true Petrarchan model of eternity is memory. Like memory, eterｾ＠ nity opposes "oblivion" (TE 130); it is a return, a rebirth of that which is 82 Fabio Finotti no more. Fame finds redemption by becoming eternal as do other forms of Petrarchan memory, thanks to the Christian dogma of resurrection of the flesh 25 which guarantees a full, complete reblossoming ｾｦ＠ worldly beauty. In eternity, indeed, the spirits will reunite with their bodies: Ne l'eta piu fiorita e verde avranno con immortal bellezza eterna /ama. (TE 133-34) [In the full flower of youth they shall possess Immortal beauty and eternal fame.] At the culmination of Triamphw EternitatiJ it is above all Laura who lives again, and not only in spirit but again wearing her "bel vela." Developing concepts already present in the Rerum vulgariamfragmenta ( 302.10-11), Petrarch dedicates the whole conclusion of the work to the triumph of the beloved's beauty, for the last time presented as a form of memory and of poetry: Ma innanzi a tutte ch'a rifarsi vanno e quella che piangendo il mondo chiama con La mia Lingua e con La Jtancha penna ma 'l ciel pur di vederla intera brama. Amor mi die' per lei sllunga guerra che La memoria anchora il cor accenna. Felice sasso che 'l bel vito serral Che, poi che avra ripreso il suo bel velo, se fu beato chi la vide in terra, or che fia dunque a riveoerla in cielo? (TE 135..:..145). [Before them all, who go to be made new, Is she for whom the world is weeping still, Calling her with my tongue and weary pen, But heaven too desires her, body and soul. Love gave to me for her a war so long My heart still bears the memory thereof. Happy the stone that covers her fair face l And now that she her beauty hath resumed, If he was blest who saw her here on earth, What then will it be to see her again in heaven!] The Poem of Memory 83 And that blaze of the body with which the Triamphi ends seems the emof humanism in full bloom that creates a new spirituality and a new The triumph of a dematerialized spirituality would have meant the of theological and mystical knowledge. But the complete recovof fame and beauty actually signify the ultimate redemption of history love, ofliterature and poetry, which become the finest forms ofknowland worship not only of man but also of eternity. The kind of memory on which the Triamphi as a whole is built is not a sentimental need, nor is it just a condition of regret and penance as the Rerum vu/gariam /ragmenta and De remeoiU utriadque fortune ("Such is condition of things human that the less one remembers, the less reason has to weep. Where there is no hope for improvement, no place for effecatonement-what else is there but soothing forgetfulness?"). 26 With the canto, the revolutive character of Petrarch's last poem finally acquires •ncrnitive as well as psychological and moral value. It is thanks to historical literary memory that man constructs his destiny on earth, his individand collective identity. It is through memory that man rescues from and death the values of his worldly experience. It is through memory man consecrates life and in it quests for signs of eternity. Notes to Pages 51-64 368 52. This quintessentially Petrarchan focus on (lack of) self and identity was painstakingly achieved through the lengthy process of revision of canzone 23. The earlier version of this verse is courtly and Dantean. "Pero con una carta et con enchiostro/Dissi: accorrete, donna, al fedel vostrol" fore with a paper and ink I said: run, lady, to your faithful servant!) became "ond'io gridai con carta et con incostro: Non son mio, no. S'io moro, il danno e vostro" (so I cried out with paper and ink: I am not my own, no; if I die the fault is yours). For the development of the canzone, see Dennis Dutschke, Francuco Petrarca: Canzone XXIII from ｆｩｲｴｾ＠ to Final VerJwn (Ravenna: Longo, 1977). 53. This is the limitation of the gender analysis in Nancy Vickers, "Diana Described: Scattered Woman and Scattered Rhyme," Critical IIU/uiry 8 (1981): 265-79; the analysis does not account for the fact that particularizing description and bodily fragmentation are applied to the male lover/poet as well as to Laura (for instance, in the many references to his hair). 54. This synthesis is from Barolini, "Making of a Lyric Sequence," 222. Chapter Two 1. 2. The text cited for Rerum vulgarit.unfragmenta is Petrarch, Canzoniere, ed. Santagata (Milan: Mondadori, 1996); and for Trit.unphi, Petrarch, Trwnfi, Rime utravaganti, Co'Jice 'Jegli ahbozzi, ed. Vinicio Pacca and Laura Paolino (Milan: Mondadori, 1996). Translations of the Triumphi are from The TriumpiM ofPetrarch, trans. Ernest Hatch Wilkins (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1962), occasionally modified to retain a more literal reading. All emphases in the quotes are added. Other translations, unless attributed, are my own. On Petrarch's debt to the Divina comme'Jia, see Claudio Giunta, "Memoria di Dante nei Trwnfi," Rivilta 'Ji Letteratura Italiana 11 (1993): 411-52. For the more complex triangular interaction among Petrarch, Dante, and Boccaccio, see Vittore Branca, "Intertestualita fra Petrarca e Boccaccio," Lectura Petrarce 14 (1994): 359-80; and Carlo Vecce, "La 'Lunga Pictura': Visione e rappresentazione nei Trwnfi," in I Trit.unphi 'Ji Francuco Petrarca (Gargnano 'del Gar'Ja, 1998), ed. Claudia Berra, 299-315 (Milan: Cisalpino, 1999). Marina Ricucci, "L'esordio dei Trit.unphi: TraEneide e Comme'Jia," Rivilta 'Ji Letteratura Italiana 12 (1994): 313-49. 3. · Although the text of the Triumphi is in Italian, its titles are in Latin. 4. Emilio Pasquini, "Il Testo: Fra l'autografo e i testimoni di collazione," in Berra, ed., I Triumphi 'Ji Francuco Petrarca, 11-37. 5. Dante Alighieri, La Comme'Jia Jecondo l'antica vulgata, ed. Giorgio Petrocchi (Turin: Einaudi, 1975), Inferno 1.1; The Divine Comedy, trans. by Charles S. Singleton, 6 vols. (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1970-75). Notes to Pages 64-79 369 Victoria Kirkham, "Dante's Polysynchrony: A Perfectly Timed Entry into Eden," Filologia e Critica 20 (1995): 329-52. Teodolinda Barolini, The Un'Jivine Comedy: Detheologizing Dante (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1992), 3-16. Guido Martellotti, "Il Triumphus Cupidinis in Ovidio e nel Petrarca," in Scrittipetrarchuchi (Padua: Antenore, 1983), 517-24. Giovanni Ponte, "La decimaEgloga e la composizione dei Trwnfi," in Stu'JiJul Rinadcimento: Petrarca, Leonar'Jo, Ariudto (Naples: Morano, 1994), 63-90; and Claudia Berra, "La varieta stilistica dei Trionfi," in Berra, ed., I Triumphi 'Ji Francuco Petrarca, 175-218. Paola Vecchi Galli, "I Triumphi: Aspetti della tradizione quattrocentesca," in Berra, ed., I Triumphi 'Ji Francuco Petrarca, 343-73; Tateo, "Sulla ricezione umanistica dei Trionfi," ibid., 375-401; Corsaro, "Fortuna e imitazione nel cinquecento," ibid., 429-85; and Konrad Eisenbichler and Amilcare Iannucci, eds., Petrarca'.! TriumpiM: Allegory and Spectacle (Toronto: Dovehouse, 1990). "Illustres itaque viros, quos excellenti quadam gloria floruisse doctissimorum hominum ingenia memorie tradiderunt, eorumque laudes." Petrarch, De viril illuJtrihUJ, ed. Guido Martellotti (Florence: Sansoni, 1964), prohemium. Wolfgang lser, The Act of Reading: A Theory ofAuthetic ReponJe (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1978); Susan Suleiman and Inge Crosman,. eds., The Reader in the Text: &ayJ onAu'Jience an'J Interpretatwn (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1980); Robert C. Holub, Receptwn Theory: A Critical Intro'Juctwn (London and New York: Routledge, 1984); and Elizabeth Freund, The Return of the Rea'Jer: Reader-ReponJe Criticilm (London and New York: Methuen, 1987). Johannes Bartuschat, "Sofonisba e Massinissa. Dalli.l.frica e dal De viril ai Trwnfi," in Petrarca e i Juoi lettori, ed. Vittorio Caratozzolo and Georges Giintert (Ravenna: Longo, 2000), 109-41. Petrarch, De viril i.ll.uJtrihUJ, prohemium: "Si vero forsan studii mei labor expectationis tue sitim ulla ex parte sedaverit, nullum a te aliud premii genus effl.agito, nisi ut diligar, licet incognitus, licet sepulcro conditus, licet versus in cineres, sicut ego multos, quorum me vigiliis adiutum senseram, non modo defunctos sed diu ante consumptos post annum millesimum dilexi." Petrarch, Secretum, ed. Enrico Carrara (Turin: Einaudi, 1977), 188. Petrarch SenileJ 3.9.15 in Lettru de Ia vielleJJe. Rerum Jenilium, ed. Elvira Nota (Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 2002). Francisco Rico, El Jueflo 'del humanumo: De Petrarca a EraJmo (Madrid: Alianza Editorial, 1993). See Petrarch, Die Triumphe, ed. Carl Appel (Halle an der Saale: Niemeyer, 370 Notes to Pages 79-86 1901); Il Canzoniere e i Trionfi- ed. Andrea Moschetti (Milan: Vallardi, Cclrlo Calcaterra, Nella Ｔ･ｬｲｾ｡＠ del Petrarca (Bologna: Cappelli, 1942). 19. See Petrarch, Triumphi, ed. Marco Ariani (Milan: Mursia, 1988); Emilio Pasquini, "11 testo: Fra l'autografo e i testimoni di collazione," in Berra, 1 Triumphi di Francuco Petrarca, 11-37. 20. Angelo Romano, Il codice degli ahhozzi (Vat. Lat. .J196) di Francuco Petrarca (Rome: Bardi, 1955), 282,284. 21. · Marco Santagata, I frammenti deU 'anima: Storia e racconto nel Canzoniere di Petrarca (Bologna: 11 Mulino, 1992), 290-91. 22. Santagata, I frammenti deU'anima, 295-545. 23. Romano, Il codice degli ahhozzi, 285. 24. Edoardo Taddeo, Petrarca e it tempo e altri Jtudi di letteratura italiana (Pisa: 2003). 25. Mario Petrini, La riJurrezione della carne: Stu()i Jul Canzoniere (Milan: Mursia, 1993); and Maria Cecilia Bertolani, Il corpo glorioJo: Stu()i Jui Trionfi de[ Petrarca (Rome: Carocci, 2001). 26. Ea est rerum conditio humanarum, ut qui pauciora meminerit, minor illi fletuum causa sit. Ubi nee emendatio, nee penitentia utilis locum habet, superest aliud quam oblivionis auxilium? De remediiJ utriu.Jquefortune bk. 2, chap. 101 (ed. Carraud, 1:988). Chapter Three 1. "Sunt apud me huius generis vulgarium adhuc multa, et vetustissimis cedulis, et sic senio exesis ut vix legi queant. E quibus, si quando unus aut alter dies otiosus affulserit, nunc unum nunc aliud elicere soleo pro quodam diverticula laborum, sed perraro; ideoque mandaveram quod utriusque partis in fine ｢ｾｮ｡＠ spatia linquerentur, ut, si quando tale aliquid accidisset, ibi locus horum capax." Latin text from the new version edited by Michele !?eo, '"In vetustissimis cedulis.' 11 testo del postscriptum della senile XIII 11 'Y e la 'forma Malatesta' dei Rerum ｲｾｵｬｧ｡ｩｭ＠ fragmenta," Quaderni ｐ･ｴｲ｡｣ｨｵｌｾ＠ 11 (2001): 148. 2. Poems from the Rerum ｲｾｵｬｧ｡ｩｭｦ･ｮｴ＠ are cited from Petrarch, Canzoniere, ed. Marco Santagata (Milan: Mondadori, 2004); English translations from idem, Petrarch d Lyric Poetry: The Rime JparJe and Other LyricJ, ed. and · trans. Robert M. Durling (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1976). The diJperJe are based on Petrarch, Trionji; Rime ｵｴｲ｡ｾｧｮｩＬ＠ Codice degli abbozzi, ed. Vinicio Pacca and Laura Paolino (Milan: Mondadori, 1996); English translations from idem, Rime diJperJe, ed. and trans. Joseph A. Barber (New York: Garland, 1991). Translations unless otherwise attributed are my own. Notes to Pages 86-88 371 "Mirum, hunc cancellatum et damnatum, post multos annos casu relegens absolvi et transcripsi in ordine statim, non obstante ... [oval symbol]. 1369 iunii 22, hora 23, veneris.'' Transcription from Vaticano Latino 3196 in Petrarch, Trionji, Rime ｵｴｲ｡ｾｧｮｩＬ＠ Codice degli ahhozzi., 809-10. Aldus Manutius, in his 1514 edition of the Canzoniere, already justifies the inclusion of a short appendix of diJperJe by pointing to what these poems might reveal about Petrarch's anthologizing strategies: "Se non in altro, in questo al meno vi seranno utili: che da qui potra ognuno conoscere a che regola drizzava il Petrarca le cose che per sue volea che si leggessero, e se drittamente di se medesimo giudicava'' [If nothing else these (poems) will at least be useful to you: that anyone will be able to know through them by what rule Petrarch corrected what he wanted to be read as his own, and whether he was a correct judge of himself]. Cited in Petrarch, Rime diJperJe di Francuco Petrarca o a lu.i attrihuite, ed. Angelo Solerti (1909; repr., Florence: Le Lettere, 1997), 38. Petrarch Senilu 13.11: "Invitus, fateor, hac et0;1.te Yll;lgari iuveniles ineptias cerno, quas omnibus-mihi quoque, si liceat-ignotas velim. Etsi enim stilo quolibet ingenium illius etatis emineat, ipsa tamen res senilem dedecet gravitatem. Sed quid possum? Omnia iam in vulgus effusa sunt legunturque libentius quam que serio, postmodum, validioribus annis scripsi. Quomodo igitur negarem tibi, sic de me merito tali viro tamque anxie flagitanti, que, me invito, vulgus habet etlacerat?" English translation based on Petrarch, LetterJ of Ofi) Agel Rerum Jenilium lihri, trans. Aldo S. Bernardo, Saul Levin, and Reta A. Bernardo (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1992), 2:500; Latin from Lihrorum FranciJci Petrarche annotatio impreJJorum (Venice, 1501), 2:177. Petrarch, Lefamiliari, ed. Vittorio Rossi and Umberto Bosco (Florence: G. C Sansoni, 1933-42), 4:141. "You say you have many of my letters. I should like you to have all of them, particularly in a corrected text, but it will never be up to. me, and I should like the same about other things too. Besides you hope you have collected all my vernacular writings and my poetry, but that is hard for me to believe. You realize, however, that they more than other writings require the most exact corrections, since I suppose you have begged them from various people who did not even understand them.'' Petrarch, LetterJ of Ofi) Age, 2:486. "Dicis te habere epystolas meas multas: velim omnes et maxime correctas habeas, neque unquam per me steterit idque ipsum et de aliis velim. Ad hec cunta nostra vulgaria et siquid est poeticum collegisse te speras, sed id michi difficile est creditu. Ceterum illis ante alia necessariam esse correctionem exactissimam sentis, que a diversis, ut auguror, iisque nee intelligentibus mendicasti.'' Senilu 2:151.