AEVUM

This paper aims to introduce the three articles that follow and intends to present a general reflection on the descriptive categories of miscellaneous manuscript and zibaldone. With the support of previous  studies, it shows the main problems of classification, description and analysis of this particular type of manuscripts. Starting from the most known category of humanistic miscellany, it then focuses on  vernacular zibaldoni and on those miscellaneous manuscripts in which not only literary texts, but also technical and practical texts are copied.

The article focuses on knowledge transmission in Medieval Italy and analyzes in particular different miscellaneous manuscripts or “zibaldoni” in order to discover which texts were a common heritage in the vernacular and popular culture. In many codices what we can find are clusters of texts, that show us the typical education and interests of the middle social class. These manuscripts were most of the  times ‘works in progress’ and collected different texts, sometimes also using quires of rejected manuscripts, as Riccardiani 2729, 2734, 2735 demonstrate.

Through an analysis of the translation-notes of the Latin quotes in the speech by Filippo Magalotti to the king Ladislaus of Naples and the protestationes by Stefano Porcari, this essay points out the function carried out by the miscellanies of civic speeches and letters in the vernacular produced in Florence in XVth Century, which provided for a connection between so-called hight culture, in Latin, and the one in the vernacular.

The article focuses on ms. 138, Biblioteca Riccardiana, Florence, a ‘zibaldone’ belonged to the humanist Cristoforo Landino (1425-1498). Particular attention is drawn to the first codicological unit, written in Landino’s hand, containing a unique textual witness of an anonymous Latin translation of Diodorus Siculus’ Bibliotheca historica; the translation is peculiar because many words and numbers are left in Greek, and the text is full of corrections and cancellations. The paper shows the outcomes of a first textual analysis of the anonymous version and discusses Landino’s possible responsibility towards the text, considering that his knowledge of Greek has always been judged elementary by scholar

This article analyses the reuse of Ovid’s Metamorphoses in the Latin poetic florilegia of the first half of the 16th century to establish whether there is a break between the criteria of medieval and Renaissance selections; whether the Neoplatonic current of interpretation of classical texts has influenced the selection of extracts and, finally, whether the reuse of Ovidian gods and myths is evidence of some kind of social criticism.

The four centuries old library of the Liceo “Cesare Beccaria” (Milan), a formerly Barnabite school, owns an edition of Virgil, lavishly illustrated, printed in Venice 1543-1544 by the Giunta, one of the several Virgilian editions produced or sold by them between 1493 and 1552. It includes Virgil’s works followed by the opuscula (the spurious corpus vergilianum normally studied by 16th-century pupils); commentaries by ancient grammarians, Italian humanists and the bulky one by the Belgian Iodocus Badius Ascensius are printed along the text. A detailed description of the book contents is given and compared with the other Giuntine and with a select number of contemporary Venetian editions. The French and Italian sources of the Giuntine are investigated; their significance in the context of the early printed editions of the full corpus vergilianum is assessed as well as their part in the enormous success of Ascensius in Italy.

The paper aims to demonstrate that canon of Milan’s cathedral Ottaviano Abbiate de’ Forieri (1546-1615) should be considered as a close and important collaborator of Carlo Borromeo. To do so, this work focuses on Ottaviano’s family, academic education and pastoral activities during Borromeo’s episcopacy (1565-1584) investigating unpublished or little-known archival documents housed in Biblioteca Ambrosiana and Biblioteca Trivulziana. Additionally, this study stresses the relevance of Borromeo’s officiales as key-figures to understand ecclesiastical reforms in late 16th century Milan.

The essay studies the second edition of Giovan Mario Crescimbeni’s La bellezza della volgar poesia (1712), focusing on the new added ninth dialogue, which claimed the thematic variety of Arcadian poetry and scaled down the influence of the sixteenth-century Petrarchism upon it. These positions are related to the contemporary debate on the lyric poetry canon, shading new light on Crescimbeni’s reaction to the recent publications of Anton Maria Salvini, Lodovico Antonio Muratori and Pier Jacopo Martello.

In addition to being a prominent member of the cultural and literary context in Italy at the beginning of the first Napoleonic Campaign in the Peninsula (1796), Luigi Lamberti was also one of the most fervent promoters of the process of reform during the republican season in Rome (1798-1799) and, similarly, of the birth of Bonaparte’s myth in Milan during the political season of the Italian Republic (1802-1805). This work, based on the proper consultation of vast and previously unpublished documentation, aims to investigate the many proposals that the poet presented in the Roman context and to explore his significant role in the building of Napoleon’s image in Italy under the Consulate.

Giulio Salvadori and Tommaso Gallarati Scotti were among the most important figures of the so-called “rinnovamento cattolico” (Catholic renewal) in Italy between the 19th and 20th centuries. Although very different both in character and social status, they were united by the intense spiritual life, nourished in both by their studies on some of the most important authors of italian literature: among the medieval ones Jacopone da Todi, Francesco d’Assisi, Dante Alighieri, among the modern ones Alessandro Manzoni and Antonio Fogazzaro. In the first three decades of the century, they exchanged a close correspondence, in which they discussed some of the issues debated among the cultured and progressive Catholic elite of their time.

A possession note (1934) of Giuseppe Billanovich on a copy of Giovanni Papini, Pane e vino (1926) gives the cue for comments on young Billanovich’s education and knowledge and on his plans to publish texts during the last years of the Fascist government. His opposition and resistance to Fascism increased after he had to take part as a soldier in the ruinous and dramatic Russian campaign.

This paper is focused on Eraldo Bellini’s critical works and starts from the analysis of his last book (posthumous) Calvino e i classici italiani; these “classics” are Manzoni, Montale and Galileo, but Bellini also added Leopardi, as the reader can understand from the evidence of some unpublished files. As this work reveals, Bellini has always been interested in the intersection between literary and ethical aspects: he was able to understand the intertextual references hidden in the texts as well as to appreciate the moral dimension of each literary product.