364 Italian Bookshelf - Ibiblio

“Italian Bookshelf” Annali d’ italianistica 24 (2006) 381
Looney’s review of scholarship is complemented by the second essay, Ricardo
Bruscagli’s consideration of the dynamic tension between arts (“visionary and fantastic”
28) and ideologies in this Renaissance state. It sets the stage for the following
contributions. Ironically, some of the most revered Italian authors wrote within the matrix
of the understudied Este court. Several essays seek to resituate them in a more detailed
historical milieu and to elucidate the shifting objectives of patrons and writers, now in
tandem, now less so. Richard M. Tristano recalls our attention to Boiardo’s critically
undervalued Istoria imperiale, its internal debate over fact and fiction, and the potential
of such a work to be informed by contemporary dynastic and ideological concerns.
Similarly, Albert Russell Ascoli looks for gradations of historical relevance in Ariosto as
evidenced by the structure of Orlando furioso. Focusing on the figure of Leo X (“fier
pastor”) in successive editions of the poem (1516-1532), Ascoli offers detailed textual
evidence for Ariosto’s move from a direct reflection of tumultuous contemporary events
toward the incorporation of Este dynastic history into the poem’s chivalric fictions. He
concludes that “this turn to representation of history as narrative, which stabilizes the
relationship between past and present, fiction and history, is the antithesis of the
representation of history as crisis and in crisis” (223). Admitting a reviewer’s bias, I
found this the most rewarding essay in the collection.
Trevor Dean charts the rise in ideological awareness among chroniclers of the Este
state. Without overt ducal patronage but building on the city’s strong archival tradition,
they are critical of the economically driven breakdown in public order. The debate
between arms and letters, force and intelligence, in the Gerusalemme liberata and its
antecedents is central to the close reading behind David Quint’s essay. The debate is not a
literary conceit but reflects the tension between past dynastic accomplishments and future
objectives. Jane Bestor traces the evolution in the literary treatment of marriage and
succession, a delicate yet honor- and prestige-sensitive matter in the case of a ruling
family more prone to produce illegitimate than legitimate heirs, a matter of greater
political than moral concern to the popes.
Other artistic media were also exploited in the service of personal and dynastic selfrepresentation:
unconventionally in the theater (Louise George Clubb’s very revealing
and aptly titled “Staging Ferrara”), innovatively in the semi-personal letters, with their
gendered conventions and topics, of Isabella d’Este (Deanna Shemek). The career of the
well-born Olympia Morata, as studied by Janet Levarie Smarr, displays a different, and
differently personal, trajectory, as the author, educated in the rich humanist tradition of
the city and ducal library, forsakes study and literary imitation to assume, under
conditions of great tension and ultimately of exile, a defense of the Reformation.
On the tolerated margins of artistic and intellectual expression and of its host culture
were the Jews, alien in religious terms although not wholly so culturally (here studied by
Robert Bonfil), and the equally ambivalently situated prostitutes (discussed by Diana
Ghirardo). Both had important financial implications for the city state (access to loans,
licensing, and taxation of brothels). To accommodate prostitution, public space was
organized to enhance returns and check abuses, but no ghetto was established under
Estense rule. Anthony Colantuono disentangles the imagery of Titian’s “Andrians” and
shows the capital economic importance of the River Po to Ferrara. Lewis Lockwood
recalls that celebrated artists in other media were also patronized — and exploited — by
the Este dynasty, not least of whom Josquin de Prez (1502-1503).