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

More documents

Recommendations

Info

perfect style, the poet believes, will allow him adequately to allude to the mysteries of faith. This concern with poetic style is shared by Fiamma‟s contemporaries, who devoted much thought to the best style in which to write of matters of the spirit. Antonio Minturno (1500- 74), a bishop who attended the Council of Trent as well as a practicing poet and theorist, stated in his L’arte poetica that „poetry [...] is certainly God‟s own art form‟. 69 In his theoretical texts he too was deeply aware of the need in the wake of the Reformation to clarify vernacular poetic practice, in order to assure its doctrinal purity and moral integrity. 70 Fiamma‟s deep engagement with the work of Vittoria Colonna as a poetic model for his own Rime may have contributed to his inclusion on the Parma Index (although notably the earlier poet does not appear on the list). While he does not express the belief in sola fide that profoundly marked Colonna‟s work, the shared resonance is striking. Perhaps the only sign that some insecurity may have dogged Fiamma‟s evangelical poetic enterprise is the inclusion, in all published editions of the Rime spirituali, of an accompanying commentary by the author (although expressed in the third person), essentially shoring up and explaining the poetic texts. 71 It is almost as if, in a post-Tridentine context in which the clarity of the message is paramount, Fiamma cannot risk leaving too much to the reader‟s discretion. Nonetheless his work constitutes compelling evidence for the persistence of „reformed‟ Petrarchism into the late Cinquecento, understood as lyric poetry in the high courtly style deployed for evangelical ends, in a highly personalised, Christocentric frame. His inclusion on the Parma Index demonstrates an awareness on the part of readers that such an approach is 69 ‘La poesia, com’è cosa divina, così è certamente arte d’Iddio’: Antonio Minturno, L’arte poetica del Sig. Antonio Minturno... (Venice: Gio. Andrea Valuassori, 1564), dedicatory letter (unpaginated). 70 Other theorists of the period point similarly to Scripture as the ‘first poetry’: see Erminia Ardissino, ‘Poetiche sacre tra Cinquecento e Seicento’, in Poesia e retorica del sacro tra cinque e seicento, ed. Erminia Ardissino and Elisabetta Selmi (Alessandria: Edizioni dell’Orso, 2009), pp.367-81. 71 On the status of poetic ‘auto-commentaries’, relating to the work of Luca Contile, see Amedeo Quondam, ‘Le Rime cristiane di Luca Contile’, in Il naso di Laura: Lingua e poesia lirica nella tradizione del Classicismo (Ferrara: Panini, 1991), pp. 263–82. 22
problematic. But his exclusion from subsequent Indexes points to a spirit of tolerance that is also noteworthy. Some tentative conclusions A brief summary of my arguments will be useful before attempting some conclusions: 1) The inclusion of poetry on sixteenth-century Indexes was partial and tokenistic at best; there was no clear method to works selected; the centrally promulgated Roman Indexes were less concerned with literature than the local Parma Index, which seems to have been anomalous. 2) The long-term impact of expurgation and blanket prohibitions is harder to account for, however there is no hard evidence that blanket prohibitions were enacted with particular force, nor can we really know how far authors proactively self-censored their own works in response to them. 3) Scribal and oral cultures are important avenues for future research, in locating the vibrancy and energy of literary culture in the period, which effectively sidestepped any squeeze on the publishing industry. 4) The large number, range and experimental qualities of published works by women from the post-Tridentine period are also an indicator of the potential for literary vibrancy that does not tally with a picture of repression and a climate of fear. 5) Important works in the late century bear the clear traces of a „reformed‟ aesthetic that first flourished in the 1530s among groups interested in sola fide. All of these factors help to lead me towards the conclusion that the impact of Trent and the first Indexes in contributing to the repression of Italian literary culture has been generally overstated. Literary culture certainly changed in Italy from the mid-sixteenth into the 23
Page 1 and 2: Re-Writing Trent, or What Happened
Page 3 and 4: age, transforming past models to co
Page 5 and 6: condemnation, and to highlight the
Page 7 and 8: Indeed, it is very hard, surveying
Page 9 and 10: was perhaps not deemed a sensible l
Page 11 and 12: aware of the possibility of censure
Page 13 and 14: Perugia and Spoleto in the early se
Page 15 and 16: works without undue meddling by the
Page 17 and 18: Thus all three are condemned for re
Page 19 and 20: keeping of the abbess. 58 The preci
Page 21: The example of Gabriel Fiamma, cite

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

You also want an ePaper? Increase the reach of your titles

Delete template?

Save as template?