Department of Italian

Paper It 8

Italian Literature, Thought and Culture, 1500-1650

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This paper examines a period of radical political, religious, and cultural change in Italy. It offers the opportunity to trace the development of Italian history and culture, from the serene Classicism of the early decades of the century (the so-called 'High Renaissance') to the less harmonious and more self-consciously 'artful' productions of the age of the Counter Reformation. As well as detailed analysis of some of the most fascinating works of the period, students can explore broader questions, such as the impact of the massive expansion of the printing industry on literary culture, or the true nature of the cultural impact of the Counter Reformation. There are no set texts for this paper, but students may choose from a number of topics covering the most crucial and exciting developments of the period, as well as some of the major works. A range of literary genres can be explored (chivalric poetry, lyric poetry, political theory, pastoral drama, comedy), as well as other topics in the visual arts and historical areas. Recommended reading for each topic is suggested as a guideline and starting point.

You are responsible, in consultation with your supervisor, for deciding the texts and topics that you wish to explore. You will be expected, during the course of the year, to cover four of the topics listed for that year in supervision. Topics to be taught may vary from year to year. The choice of topics given below is valid for the academic year 2013-14, but please note that not all topics will necessarily be covered in lectures:

Topics

1. The Questione della lingua: debates on the literary language
2. Chivalric Poetry
3. Comedy
4. The Worlds of Leonardo da Vinci: Vision and Creation [This is an It. 9 topic, available for It. 8 students who are not also taking It. 9.]
5. The Counter Reformation and its cultural effects
6. Michelangelo, Vittoria Colonna and the private gift [This is an It. 9 topic, available for It. 8 students who are not also taking It. 9.]
7. Court culture
8. Florentine political theory

Examination

In the examination there will be a choice of essay questions relating to each topic in that year's list. You will be required to answer three questions. There will be no sections on the paper, and no obligation to answer any particular combination of questions, as long as the same material is not used in more than one question.

The examination can be substituted by an optional dissertation on any topic in the period 1500-1650.

Teaching

The paper will be taught through a combination of lectures, supervisions, and seminars. Not all topics will be covered in lectures, although students are strongly encouraged to attend all lectures in order to gain a broad insight into the period. Supervisions and/or seminars will be used to follow more closely the particular paths that individual students have chosen. In order to organise supervision, students will be asked to identify their four chosen topics at the start of the academic year, although there will be scope for changing these later on.

Preparatory Reading

For those coming to the study of Renaissance culture for the first time, Peter Burke's The Italian Renaissance (Cambridge, 1986) is a good introduction. For reference, the Thames and Hudson Concise Encyclopedia of the Italian Renaissance, ed. J. R. Hale, is useful.

If you are interested in studying Ariosto's Orlando furioso, you are advised to tackle it in advance, given its length. Calvino's brilliant Mondadori anthology/retelling (L'Orlando furioso raccontato da Italo Calvino) offers a good first approach to the poem. Other key texts from the period that you may consider reading in advance are Castiglione's Cortegiano and Machiavelli's Discorsi.

If you are spending your Year Abroad in Italy and you are interested in the visual arts topics, it would be worth making a trip to the Uffizi galleries and the Accademia in Florence, the Villa Doria Pamphili (off the Via del Corso) in Rome (with a fine collection of later-sixteenth-century painting and sculpture, useful for the Counter Reformation topic), and the Villa Farnesina in Rome (Via della Lungara) with frescoes by Raphael and his pupils. You could also take time to view the works by Michelangelo and Raphael in the Vatican Museums. For the court culture option, try to see the Palazzo Vecchio, the Pitti and the Uffizi in Florence, as well as visiting Mantua (the Ducal palace and the Palazzo Te), Urbino and Ferrara (although less of note remains on site here).

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1. The Questione della lingua: debates on the literary language

This topic examines the debates on the nature, definition and role of the literary vernacular in 16th-century Italy, in relation to the historical, cultural and social context. It discusses the relationship between Latin and the vernacular, the codification of Italian as a prestigious literary language, as well as the first vernacular grammatical production. It also investigates the access to the literary language by the less learned.

Suggested texts:

As a first approach to 'Questione della Lingua' texts, see Pozzi, Mario, ed., 1978. Trattatisti del Cinquecento, Milano: Ricciardi and Id. 1988. Discussioni linguistiche del Cinquecento. Torino: Unione Tipografico-Editrice Torinese. See also:

• Achillini, Giovanni Filoteo, Annotationi della volgar lingua (1536), modern edition by C. Giovanardi and C. De Felice, Pescara: Libreria dell'Università, 2005
• Bembo, Pietro, Prose della volgar lingua (1525); modern editions by C. Dionisotti (various editions, e.g. 1960, 1966, 1989); also editions by C. Vela, 2001, Bologna, CLUEB; M. Marti, Padova, 1955)
• Castiglione, Baldassar, 'Dedicatoria' and Book 1 in Il libro del Cortegiano (1528) [various modern editions].
• Fortunio, Giovanni Francesco, Regole grammaticali della volgar lingua (1516), modern edition by B. Richardson, 2001, Padova, Antenore; or C. Marazzini and S. Fornara, Pordenone, Accademia San Marco, 1999.
• Speroni, Sperone, Dialogo delle lingue (1542), modern edition by A. Sorella, Pescara: Libreria dell'Università, 1999
• Trissino, Giovan Giorgio, Il Castellano (1529), for a modern edition see Trissino, Scritti linguistici, edited by A. Castelvecchi, Roma: Salerno, 1986, 17-82.
• Varchi, Benedetto, L'Hercolano (1570), modern edition by A. Sorella, Pescara: Libreria dell'Università Editrice, 1999, 2 vols.

Other reading:

• Maiden, Martin, 1995. A Linguistic History of Italian. London: Longman, 1-11.
• Marazzini Claudio, 1993. Il secondo Cinquecento e il Seicento, Bologna: Il Mulino.
• Marazzini, Claudio, 1993. 'Le teorie', in Serianni e Trifone 1993-4 (a cura di), vol. 1, 'Il letterato e le istituzioni', 231-329.
• Marazzini, Claudio, 1994. La lingua italiana: profilo storico. Bologna: il Mulino.
• Migliorini, Bruno, 1960. Storia della lingua italiana. Firenze: Sansoni (several other editions and, in English, Migliorini B. and Griffith T.G., The Italian Language, London: Faber. 1966).
• Richardson, Brian, 2001. 'Questions of language', in The Cambridge Companion in Modern Italian Culture, eds Z. Baranski and R. West, Cambridge University Press, 63-79.
• Richardson, Brian, 1999. Printing, Writers and Readers in Renaissance Italy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
• Tavoni Mirko, 1992. Il Quattrocento. Bologna: Il Mulino.
• Tesi, Riccardo 2007. Storia dell'italiano: la formazione della lingua comune dalle origini al Rinascimento. Bologna: Zanichelli.
• Trovato Paolo, 1994. Il primo Cinquecento. Bologna: Il Mulino.

A full reading list will be provided at the start of the academic year.

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2. Chivalric Poetry

At the core of this topic is Ariosto's Orlando Furioso, one of the masterpieces of Renaissance Italy and of the entire history of the Italian literature.

Suggested texts:

• Ludovico Ariosto, Orlando furioso. A good paperback edition is that by C. Segre for Mondadori. For reference, consult the edition by L. Caretti (Ricciardi).
• Ludovico Ariosto, Satire. A good paperback edition is that by A. D'Orto for Fondazione Pietro Bembo-U. Guanda (2002).

Other reading:

• Brand C. P., 1974. Ludovico Ariosto Edinburgh: Edinburgh Univerity Press
• Caretti, Lanfranco, 1961. Ariosto e Tasso. Torino: Piccola Biblioteca Einaudi (various other editions).
• Casadei, A., 1988. La strategia delle varianti. Le correzioni storiche del terzo Furioso. Lucca: M. Pacini Fazzi.
• Cuccaro, V., 1981. The Humanism of Ludovico Ariosto: from the Satire to the Furioso. Ravenna: Longo.
• Dionisotti, C., 2003. Boiardo e altri studi cavallereschiM, edited by G. Anceschi and A. Tissoni Benvenuti. Novara: Interlinea.
• Ferroni, Giulio, 2008. Ariosto. Roma: Salerno.
• Griffin Robert, 1974. Ludovico Ariosto. New York: Twayne Publishers.
• Javitch, Daniel, 1991. Proclaiming a Classic: the Canonization of Orlando Furioso. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press.
• Jossa, S., 1996. La fantasia e la memoria: intertestualità ariostesche. Napoli: Liguori.
• Piromalli, Antonio, [1975]. La cultura a Ferrara al tempo di Ludovico Ariosto. Roma: Bulzoni.
• Praloran, M., 2003. Il poema in ottava: storia linguistica italiana, Roma: Carocci.
• Segre, Cesare, [1966]. Esperienze ariostesche. [Pisa]: Nistri-Lischi.
• Zatti, S., 1990. Il furioso fra epos e romanzo. Lucca, Pacini Fazzi.

A full reading list will be provided at the start of the academic year.

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3. Comedy

Studying theatre is one of the best ways to explore the early modern mindset; this topic will focus on Italian comedy, from 'regular' comedies to the commedia dell'arte . This category of staged entertainment took in everything from horse ballets to philosophical debate.

Suggested texts:

[There are modern editions of all of the following, and all are available in the UL or MML library.]

• Pietro Aretino, La Cortigiana
• Ludovico Ariosto, La Lena
• Niccolo Machiavelli, La Mandragola
• Anon., La Veniexiana (written in Venetian)

Other reading:

• Richard Andrews, Scripts and Scenarios: The Performance of Comedy in Renaissance Italy, (1993)
• Kenneth and Laura Richards, The Commedia dell'Arte: A Documentary History, (1990)
• Anne MacNeil, Music and Women of the Commedia dell'Arte in the Late Sixteenth Century, (2003)
• Marvin T. Herrick, Italian Comedy in the Renaissance, (1960)

See also the relevant sections in A History of Italian Theatre, ed. by Joseph Farrell and Paolo Puppa, (2006), and the books by Strong, Fenlon and Buratelli (topic 5 reading list).

A full reading list will be provided at the start of the academic year.

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4. The Worlds of Leonardo Da Vinci: Vision and Creation

This topic will examine the multi-dimensional worlds created by the words and images of Leonardo da Vinci. Through study of the interplay between text and image in Leonardo's notebooks, students will be encouraged to think through the value that Leonardo ascribes to the visual and his modes of analysing the visual both textually and through the manipulation of images. Special attention will be paid to (1) Leonardo's anatomies, dissection work, and depictions of the body (2) his treatise on painting and notions of the artist and artistic creation (3) the principle of animation and his studies of motion and (4) definitions and configurations of gender in Leonardo's work.

Suggested reading

Primary texts:

• L'uomo e la natura (Universale economica. I classici) di Leonardo da Vinci e M. De Micheli (Brossura, 2008)
• Scritti artistici e tecnici (Classici) di Leonardo da Vinci e B. Agosti (Brossura, 2002)
• Trattato della pittura, Leonardo da Vinci (Giunti Demetra)
• Scritti letterari, Leonardo da Vinci, ed. A. Marinoni (BUR Biblioteca Universale, Rizzoli, 2002)

You may also want to look at the Oxford edition of Leonardo's Notebooks to help orient yourselves.

Secondary texts:

• Rolando F. Del Maestro 'Leonardo da Vinci: the search for the soul' J Neurosurg 89:874-887, 1998
• Karl Jaspers, Leonardo filosofo (Abscondita, 2001)
• Martin Kemp, "Il concetto dell anima in Leonardo's Early Skull Studies," Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 34 (1971): 115-134
• Martin Kemp, "Dissection and Divinity in Leonardo's Late Anatomies," Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 35 (1972): 200-225
• Stephen Jay Gould, "The Upwardly Mobile Fossils of Leonardo's Living Earth," in his Leonardo's Mountain of Clams and the Diet of Worms (New York: Harmony Books, 1998), pp. 17-44
• Mary Garrard, "Leonardo da Vinci: Female Portraits, Female Nature," in The Expanding Discourse: Feminism and Art History, ed. Norma Bronde and Mary Garrard (New York: Icon Editions, 1992), pp. 59-79
• Paolo Galluzzi, "The Career of a Technologist," in Leonardo da Vinci: Engineer and Architect (Montreal: Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, 1987), pp. 41-109
• Mark Rosheim, Leonardo's Lost Robots (Springer, 2006)
• Giorgio Vasari, Le vite (Einaudi, 1996)
• Michael Baxandall, Painting and Experience in Fifteenth-Century Italy (Oxford, 1988)
• Martin Kemp, Leonardo da Vinci: The Marvellous Works of Nature and Man (Princeton, 2006)
• Giuseppe Fornari, La bellezza e il nulla: L'antropologia cristiana di Leonardo da Vinci (2005)

A full reading list will be provided at the start of the academic year.

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5. The Counter Reformation and its cultural effects

This topic considers the historical period post 1550 and the beginning of the so-called Counter Reformation. It examines the religious upheavals that took place, and considers their implications for cultural production in the period. The effects of the Counter Reformation are assessed through historical analysis, analysis of the visual arts, literary production, censorship practices and Indexes of Prohibited Books, etc.

Suggested reading:

[Suitable primary works of literature and art for study will be introduced at the beginning of the year in lectures and supervisions]

• Black, Christopher F., The Italian Inquisition (Yale University Press, 2009)
• N. S. Davidson, The Counter Reformation (Oxford: Blackwell, 1987)
• G. R. Elton, Reformation Europe 1517-1559, 2nd edn (Blackwell, 1999) - for background and pre-history, and see in particular chapter 7, 'The Revival of Rome'
• Gigliola Fragnito, ed., Church, Censorship and Culture in Early Modern Italy (Cambridge, 2001) - especially the article by Ugo Rozzi on 'Italian Literature on the Index', pp.194-222
• S. J. Freedberg, Circa 1600: A Revolution of Style in Italian Painting (Harvard University Press, 1983)
• Grendler, Paul F., The Roman Inquisition and the Venetian Press, 1540-1605 (Princeton, 1977)
• Hall, Marcia B., The Sacred Image in the Age of Art (Yale University Press, 2011)
• J. M. Headley and J. B. Tomaro, eds., San Carlo Borromeo: Catholic Reform and Ecclesiastical Politics in the Second Half of the Sixteenth Century (1988)

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6. Michelangelo, Vittoria Colonna and the private gift

Michelangelo Buonarroti and Vittoria Colonna developed a close friendship, centred in their shared interest in matters of religious reform, that found expression through the exchange of gifts, of both manuscript poetry and works of art. This topic considers the function of these works as spiritual gifts, within the context of reformed practises of the time, and probes the status of the poems, drawings and paintings as manifestations of particular religious and cultural attitudes.

Primary texts:

• Vittoria Colonna, Sonnets for Michelangelo, ed. by Abigail Brundin (Chicago, 2005)
• Michelangelo Buonarroti, Rime, (any modern Italian edition, or parallel text translation)
• Various presentation drawings by Michelangelo, as well as a number of painted works on panel attributed to his workshop

Secondary texts:

• Abigail Brundin, 'Vittoria Colonna and the Poetry of Reform', Italian Studies, 57 (2002): pp. 61-74
• Emidio Campi, Michelangelo e Vittoria Colonna. Un dialogo artistico-teologico ispirato da Bernardino Ochino, e altri saggi di storia della Riforma (Turin: Claudiniana, 1994)
• Robert J. Clements, ed. and trans., Michelangelo. A Self-Portrait. Texts and Sources (New York: New York University Press, 1968)
• Una Roman D'Elia, 'Drawing Christ's Blood: Michelangelo, Vittoria Colonna, and the Aesthetics of Reform', Renaissance Quarterly, 59 (2006): pp. 90-125
• Roberto Fedi, '"L'immagine vera": Vittoria Colonna, Michelangelo, e un'idea di canzoniere', Modern Language Notes, 107 (1992): pp. 46-73
• Silvia Ferino-Pagden, ed., Vittoria Colonna: Dichterin und Muse Michelangelos. Catalogue to the exhibition at the Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna, 25 Feb. - 25 May 1997 (Vienna: Skira, 1997)
• Alexander Nagel, 'Gifts for Michelangelo and Vittoria Colonna', Art Bulletin, 79 (1997): pp. 647-68.

A full reading list will be provided at the start of the academic year.

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7. Court culture

This topic examines the evolution of courtly culture over the period, from a variety of angles. Students might like to consider the cultural production of a particular court; the 'politics' of art in the courtly environment; the development of specific genres (portraiture, drama); the use of spectacle. The key text linking all these themes is Castiglione's handbook of courtly etiquette, Il libro del cortegiano.

Suggested texts:

• Baldassare Castiglione, Il libro del cortegiano (any modern edition)
• Torquato Tasso, Aminta (see Topic 8)
• Ludovico Ariosto, Satire (see Topic 2: there is also an English translation by Peter DeSa Wiggins, 1976)
• Painted works by Titian, Raphael, Bronzino (look especially at portraiture)
• Poets who appear under the topic of 'Lyric Poetry' can also be considered for this topic

Other reading:

• Roy Strong, Art and Power: Renaissance Festivals 1450-1650, (1984)
• Claudia Buratelli, Spettacoli a corte a Mantova tra Cinque e Seicento, (1999)
• Iain Fenlon, Music and Patronage in Sixteenth Century Mantua, (1980)
• Sidney Anglo, 'The Courtier: The Renaissance and Changing Ideals', in The Courts of Europe: Politics, Patronage and Royalty, 1400-1800, ed. A. G. Dickens (London, 1977)
• Jodi Cranston, The Poetics of Portraiture in the Italian Renaissance (Cambridge University Press, 2000)
• Thomas Greene, 'The Flexibility of the Self in Renaissance Literature,' in The Disciplines of Criticism: Essays in Literary Theory, Interpretation, and History, ed. Peter Demetz et al (Yale University Press, 1968), pp.241-64
• M. Hollingsworth, Patronage in Sixteenth-Century Italy (London, 1996) (on the distinctive culture of different Italian courts)
• John Martin, 'Inventing Sincerity, Refashioning Prudence: The Discovery of the Individual in Renaissance Europe,' American Historical Review 102 (1997), 1309-42
• Lauro Martines, Power and Imagination: City-States in Renaissance Italy (London, 1979) , ch. 12
• Wayne Rebhorn, Courtly Performances: Masking and Festivity in Castiglione's "Book of the Courtier" (Detroit, 1978)
• Mary Rogers, ed., Fashioning Identities in Renaissance Art (Ashgate, 2000)
• Rosand and Hanning, eds., Castiglione, the Ideal and the Real in Renaissance Culture (Yale, 1983)

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8. Florentine political theory

This topic examines the political writings produced in the Florentine context by Niccolò Machiavelli and Francesco Guicciardini, two innovative and unconventional political theorists who were also friends and mutual admirers.

Suggested texts:

• Francesco Guicciardini, Ricordi, ed. S. Marconi (Feltrinelli paperback); or any other edition including the two earlier redactions, A and B, as well as C.
• The sweetness of power : Machiavelli's Discourses & Guicciardini's Considerations, trans. by James V. Atkinson and David Sices (Northern Illinois University Press, 2002)
• Niccolò Machiavelli, Discorsi. Any recent paperback edition. For reference, consult the well-annotated edition by C. Vivanti (Turin: Einaudi, 1983).
• Machiavelli, Il principe (any modern edition)

Other reading:

• F. Gilbert, Machiavelli and Guicciardini (Princeton, 1965)
• Francesco Guicciardini,. Dialogues on the Government of Florence, ed. by Alison Brown (Cambridge, 1994), look at the 'Introduction'
• James Hankins, 'Humanism and the origins of modern political thought', in The Cambridge Companion to Renaissance Humanism, ed. Kraye (Cambridge, 1996), pp.118-41
• Quentin Skinner, The Foundations of Modern Political Thought (Cambridge, 1978), Vol. I
• Quentin Skinner, Machiavelli (2nd edn, Oxford, 1985)

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Further information

In MichaelmasTerm 2013 the course co-ordinator is Dr Francesco Lucioli: (fl319@cam.ac.uk).

In Lent and Easter Terms 2014 the course co-ordinator is Dr Abigail Brundin: (asb17@cam.ac.uk).