Re-Writing Trent, or What Happened to Italian Literature in the Wake ...

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appeared on the Parma Index as well as on other Indexes over the course of the later sixteenth century. The Parma Index, for example, as mentioned previously specifies the prohibition of the citing of biblical texts in verse in Latin or the vernacular. 34 This general prohibition is included as part of the list of banned works and authors, and is easy to miss as one leafs through, thus underplaying its potentially enormous ramifications for poetic genres that used New Testament language and images as a fundamental poetic tool. Other blanket prohibitions included lascivious or „dishonest‟ canzoni, comedies, and madrigals as well as lettere amorose. 35 Clearly the vigour with which such vast and vague pronouncements were enacted would depend on the zeal and efficiency of local inquisitors. The largest number of banned works on the Indexes generally were published in the period 1541-50 (1405 works) and 1551- 60 (1143 works), suggesting that after 1560 fewer problematic texts were printed as authors responded to new prohibitions. 36 However the majority of these works were theological, and large numbers were written by foreign authors. Thus the pattern of censorship tallies with Grendler‟s hypothesis that the Inquisition and Index were at their most potent in defending against the immediate threat of Protestantism, rather than policing other kinds of texts. 37 The paucity of literary titles on successive sixteenth-century Indexes suggest that in practice, despite blanket bans that implicated huge numbers of works already in circulation, individual works were rarely prosecuted on these grounds, including works from the earlier century that now fell foul of new censorship rules. Compelling examples in support of this argument are the cases of Vittoria Colonna and, later, Laura Battiferra degli Ammanati (1523-89). When readers in the late century read the spiritualised Petrarchism of these two authors with an eye on the Index, they clearly uncovered much that was deemed suspect. Thus Colonna‟s verses were impounded in Ancona in 1599, Battiferra‟s in Rome, Foligno, 34 Thesaurus de la littérature interdite, p.86. See also Ossola, ‘Il “queto travaglio” di Gabriele Fiamma’, p.246. 35 Rozzo, ‘Italian Literature on the Index’, p.205. 36 See Thesaurus de la littérature interdite, p.41. 37 Grendler, The Roman Inquisition, p.293. 12
Perugia and Spoleto in the early seventeenth century. 38 Neither author was ever included on an Index, however, nor were they seemingly ever expurgated. Yet the work of both clearly flouted the prohibitions on vernacular paraphrasing of biblical texts, as well as betraying an engagement with heretical doctrines. 39 Their examples suggest a situation in the late century in which confusion reigned about what was permitted, and much that might be deemed suspect continued to circulate freely. Harder to gauge is how far writers may have responded pro-actively to the blanket prohibitions introduced by various Indexes, by censoring their own works during the act of composition. There has been a tendency to assume that such authorial self-censorship must have been rife: Grendler‟s statement in the opening section of this paper is emblematic. Collecting evidence to substantiate such a claim is almost impossible, however. It seems relevant to ask ourselves how far the wider public was well informed about the contents of the Indexes, thus how far such proactive self-censorship was even possible. The evidence from Parma and the other sixteenth-century Indexes creates a picture of partial and random censure at best, of only a tiny proportion of the available poetic texts from the period. More insidious, and far harder to track, is the practice of expurgating literary works both pre- and post-publication. Of the poetic works featured on sixteenth-century Indexes, only Bembo, Luigi Alamanni (1495-1556), Marco Pagani (1526-89) and Luigi Tansillo (1510-68) are singled out for future expurgation. Numerous other works, however, had expurgations imposed by keen local censors, and it is difficult to account for the machinations of this process. Careful sifting of the available evidence by scholars has suggested that anyone could take it upon themselves to become an expurgator of texts; that the same text might be expurgated by different individuals in different locations, producing 38 Fragnito, La Bibbia al rogo, p.305. See also Laura Battiferra and her Literary Circle, ed. and trans. Victoria Kirkham (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 2006). 39 On both poet’s engagement with reformed doctrine, see Brundin, Vittoria Colonna. On Battiferra see also Laura Battiferri degli Ammannati, Il primo libro delle opere toscane, ed. Enrico Maria Guidi (Urbino: Accademia Raffaello, 2000), Introduction. 13
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Re-Writing Trent, or What Happened to Italian Literature in the Wake ...

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