Giovambattista Giraldi Cinzio. Discorso dei romanzi.

Giovambattista Giraldi Cinzio. Discorso dei romanzi. Ed. Laura Benedetti, Giuseppe Monorchio, and Enrico Musacchio. Bologna: Millennium, 1999.

This is a much needed and superbly executed edition of the Discorso intorno al comporte dei romanzi, first printed in Venice in 1554. As the editors explain, the Biblioteca Ariostea of Ferrara has a copy of the 1554 edition with Giraldi Cinzio's hand-written notes in the margin, perhaps in anticipation of a second edition (25). When a subsequent edition was printed (which was not, however, until 1864), it incorporated these marginal comments into the original text, resulting in some illegible passages due to lacunas in the notes. The third edition of the Discorso (printed in 1973) included some comments in the body of the text, and others in the footnotes, thus creating a hybrid text (26). Prior to this present edition, the most accurate and academically useful version of Giraldi's Discorso was in English: Henry L. Snuggs's English translation and notes (U of Kentuncky P, 1968).

This new edition follows the 1554 edition as it was printed, with only Giraldi's "Errata corrige." The introduction outlines the political, financial, religious, social, and cultural context of the Ferrarese court of Dnke Ercole II, and situates Giovambattista Giraldi Cinzio and Ginvambattista Pigna within both the court and the university where they taught under Estense patronage. The appendices contain two previously unedited letters as well as an opuscolo in which Giraldi defends his intellectual ownership of the ideas expressed in his Discorso. The extensive bibliography of primary and secondary sources lists both modern editions as well as the editions that were available to Giraldi.

In their reexamination of the controversy in which Pigna accused his former teacher Giraldi Cinzio of having plagiarized his ideas, the editors find that the available documentation, along with a comparison of Giraldi's Discorso and opuscolo with Pigna's I romanzi, demonstrates the priority of Giraldi's two works. Although Giraldi was innocent of the accusations set forth by Pigna, this controversy nevertheless marked a taming point in his career. He subsequently lost his prominent position and reputation at the Ferrarese court: his university salary was frozen between the 1553-54 academic year and 1561, when he was also deprived of his position as ducal secretary.

The editors go beyond the personal clash of two individuals, however, to interrogate the broader social and intellectual context. At stake for literary history is the fact that "si tratta dei primi scritti in difesa di un genere letterario (ed in particolare dei suoi due massimi autori [i.e., Boiardo & Ariosto]) che aveva cominciato a subire gli attacchi di quei cultori della letteratura che, sulla base della riscoperta Poetica aristotelica, mettevano in forse la sua canonicita" (12). The editors note, moreover, that since the romance epic was the only authentically Ferrarese genre, its defense was not simply a matter of literary taste, but of patriotic pride and courtly encomium.

In trying to understand the underlying causes of the controversy, the editors raise the question of whether the dispute might be indicative of an ideological rift between the open cultural climate that characterized the early 1500s and the Counter-Reformation thinking that will soon dominate the university (19). By uncovering suggestive links among various phenomena of the period (the arrival of the Jesuits to the university, a decrease in religious tolerance, the trial of Ercole's wife Renee de France, the reform of the university), the editors invite further investigation of the interplay of forces at this historical moment.

The 417 footnotes are a remarkable feat of scholarship, not only providing a wealth of information about Giraldi's references and sources, but delving into his motivations, strategies, and objectives. For example, when Giraldi refers obliquely to a text with which he presumes his audience to be familiar, the editors not only seek to identify the reference, but also go on to explain its context and significance for Giraldi. Horace, Aristotle, Cicero, and Quintilian figure prominently, but the editors elucidate as well Giraidi's dialogue with other ancient as well as contemporary writers. The editors are sensitive to the passages in which Giraldi's theoretical statements anticipate or support his own romance epic, Ercole, and they likewise note links to other passages in the treatise or to his larger opus. They often draw the reader's attention to aspects of the treatise that are peculiar or unexpected, noting, for instance, that despite the all-encompassing impression of the title, the only authors of romance that find a place in Giraldi's treatise are Boiardo, Ariosto, and Trissino, while "tutti gli altri romanzi sono lasciati nell'ombra dell'anonimato" (77n90).

The first appendix contains Giraldi's dedicatory letter to Duke Ercole II as well as a letter to Bonifaccio Ruggieri, one of the Duke's advisors to whom Giraldi gave a copy of his work. Appendix II contains an opuscolo related to the controversy with Pigna that followed the publication of the Discorso. The opuscolo, edited by Giraldi and currently housed in the Biblioteca Ariostea of Ferrara, is comprised of: 1) Giraldi's letter to Pigna expressing his dismay that the latter had claimed ownership of the ideas expressed in the treatise, 2) an earlier letter in which Pigna had asked Giraldi to write a defense of Ariosto as a shield against his Tuscan calumniators, and 3) Giraldi's initial response to Pigna's request in the form of a letter praising Ariosto.

Beyond the importance of this new edition with its rich critical apparatus, this new edition renders historical justice to one of the most important intellectual figures of sixteenth-century Italy. The volume enacts a sort of "poetic justice" as well. Whereas Giraldi and Pigna (formerly teacher and pupil, subsequently colleagues at the university of Ferrara) engage in a bitter battle over the ownership of ideas, the editors of this volume, Laura Benedetti, Giuseppe Monorchio, and Enrico Musacchio (three generations of teachers and pupils, and currently colleagues at different universities in North America), have combined their talents and energies in an impressive multi-year collaborative effort. The result is not only a valuable edition of an important literary treatise, but a window into the cultural and political context in which it was written.

JO ANN CAVALLO

Columbia University