De varietate fortunae.

Poggio Bracciolini's De varietate fortunae (DVF) has long stood as the most conspicuous example of a "livre mal compose" in all of Quattrocento humanism. Conceived in two books as early as 1424 (as we know from Poggio's letter to Antonio Loschi), a version of the work was completed two decades later in four books (as we learn from a letter of 14 September 1443 to Pietro del Monte). But as with many of Poggio's works, the DVF underwent several recensions. Composed first were Books II and III on the vicissitudes of the papacy and Italian politics generally in the first half of the Quattrocento, which gave vent to Poggio's hatred and biting criticism of his betes noires, Baldassare Cossa (later Pope John XXIII), Eugenius IV, and most of all, the brutal soldier-cleric, Cardinal Giovanni Vitelleschi. To these sections were added, in the early 1440s, as Book I, Poggio's famous description of the topography of ancient Rome, product of his renewed study of archaeology, and as Book IV his account of the marvels of Asia, retelling Niccolo dei Conti's recent voyage to India. By the late fifteenth century, the accounts of Rome's ancient ruins and the wonders of India and the Middle East began to be copied separately, detached from Poggio's more problematic criticism of the contemporary papacy. Indeed, the first integral edition of the DVF was published only in 1723 at Paris, edited by Domenicus Georgius from a single MS: Vat. Ottob. lat. 2134. After years of study in Rome and Florence, Outi Merisalo, a pupil of the great Finnish philologist, Iiro Kajanto, has provided the first critical edition of the DVF, based on the collation of fifty-five surviving manuscripts.

Merisalo has selected as her base manuscript, Florence, Ricc. 871, which was copied in Rome in 1448-49, and later corrected by Poggio in his own hand. She has carefully reproduced that text, showing Poggio's own corrections in italics, preserving the orthography, word division, capitalization, and punctuation of the original. As she states in a brief section of editorial principles (83), "to preserve the original character of humanistic Latin, we have regularized nothing." This conservative editorial practice has led, however, to some problems in the presentation of the text. A comparison of Merisalo's edition of Book III (cited by line number) with the 1723 Paris edition shows some puzzling discrepancies. Where Merisalo reads (lines 39-40) "dira et turbulenta tempora" (with no variant in the apparatus), the Paris edition reads "dura et turbulenta tempora" (perhaps a banalization). But where Merisalo reads "basilican, icumenicum, Ponti fex, Enetorum" (lines 175, 270, 287, 298), Paris reads correctly: "basilicam, oecumenicum, Pontifex, Venetorum." The second and third words may be simply an accurate reporting of Ricc. 871, but the first and fourth seem to be misprints. But since no variants are given in these cases, how can we know for certain? Perhaps inevitably both the accuracy of the text and the fullness of the apparatus criticus fall a little short of "perfection."

Merisalo's very full commentary (179-248), written like the introduction and description of manuscripts in clear, elegant Italian, aims at identifying the numerous persons, places and events mentioned in Poggio's text. An analysis of the subject-matter of the bibliography of over 300 items shows how wide and varied has been Merisalo's reading for this commentary. About one sixth of the works treat ancient Rome and classical history, one sixth manuscript studies and catalogues, one sixth Italian humanism, including studies on Poggio himself, one sixth early Renaissance Italy, especially the papacy, with the remaining third studies of the flora, fauna and customs of Africa, the Middle East and Asia. Here too there are minor lapses. Petrarch's letters to Francesco da Carrara are given as Seniles 17 (recte 14), 1-2, while the condottiere Facino Cane is made a member of the Della Scala family (207, 220). Use of this edition is enhanced by indices of persons and things (cited in the introduction and comment), of other authors and works found in the manuscripts containing the DVF, of loci cited in Poggio's text, and of owners, copyists and illuminators listed in the catalogue of manuscripts. In sum, we are much in Outi Merisalo's debt for an accurate and well-annotated edition of one of the most engaging (and difficult) works of early Italian humanism.

Benjamin G. Kohl VASSAR COLLEGE