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450 “Italian Bookshelf.” Annali d’italianistica 25 (2007) what will surely be a useful addition to any Boccaccio scholar’s library and an exceptionally helpful text for students as well. Michael Papio, University of Massachusetts, Amherst Fabio Cossutta, ed. Ruolo e mito del Petrarca nelle lettere italiane. Lanciano: Rocco Carabba, 2006. Pp. 271. The essays published in this volume are the fruits of an intellectual seminar on the works of Petrarch and was organized in celebration of the poet’s birth. The seminar was hosted by various university departments of Italian literature in the city of Trieste in conjunction with a group of Hungarian Italianists from the city of Pécs. The collection of essays is divided into two parts: the first concerns the present (what Petrarch signifies for our times) and the second deals with the past (what Petrarch meant for writers from the sixteenth to the twentieth centuries). Since each contribution offers an independent perspective, the following is a synthetic summary of the essays in the order they appear in the volume. In the first essay, “La poesia del Petrarca: dalle ombre alla luce,” Giorgio Barberi Squarotti focuses on the emblem of the Sun in the “Triumphus temporis” and, more specifically, the Sun’s oration at the beginning of this chapter in Petrarch’s poem in which the sun is interpreted as the emblem of Time. The themes of time, eternity, fame and worldly actions are considered in the context of Petrarch’s “Triumphus temporis” and they are later compared to Dante’s similar yet clearly different use of the Sun in Paradiso. Here the comparison seems less intentional on Petrarch’s part to use Dante as a model, but it is functional for the critic to highlight certain aspects of the poet’s representation of the sun. Lastly, the various depictions of the Sun are analyzed in the context of the Canzoniere, where the emblem of the Sun has the more absolute signification of Laura and God. Ugo Dotti in his brief, poignant contribution entitled “Il mondo moderno e Petrarca” confronts the assertion that Petrarch was detached from reality as a result of his complete immersion in ancient Roman culture. Using the conclusive part of the second letter of the third book of the Seniles, Dotti demonstrates how Petrarch provided graphic descriptions of Venice, that illustrates the very modern notion of progress which the marine city had achieved over the ancients. In Pietro Gibellini’s short, detailed reading of the first sonnet of the Canzoniere, entitled “Dal sonetto proemiale a seguire. Linee di intervento e tappe significative,” the scholar provides a commentary which rests on the premise that the first poem should be read as a sort of programmatic manifesto where the poet lays out both the substantial and formal elements of his entire collection. Marzio Porro takes a look at sonnet 34 through the recently renewed trust in the hypothesis that this composition can be read as an erstwhile beginning of Petrarch’s collection of poems. The first part of the volume of critical essays closes with “Scritture di scritture” by Luigi Tassoni, whose piece focuses on the recently republished text from 1970 by Adelia Noferi entitled Le poetiche critiche novecentesche, which includes chapters dedicated to some of the most important exponents of twentieth-century Italian literary criticism. The very notion of the emblematic function of language is confronted in this context with the intention of better understanding which interpretation of Petrarch actually resulted from their critical contributions and from the Italian poetic experience of the twentieth century.
Annali d’italianistica 25 (2007). “Italian Bookshelf” 451 In the first essay of the second part of the volume, Fabio Cossutta reconsiders and questions the primacy of Petrarch and the consequential exclusion of Dante during the sixteenth century by deconstructing the idea that these two trends necessarily resulted from Bembo’s predilection for Petrarch and from his aversion to Dante. Tiziana Piras, in her essay entitled “Petrarca nello Zibaldone di Leopardi,” illustrates the fundamental change in Leopardi’s appreciation for Petrarch’s poetry, which moves from his judgment of Petrarch as an esteemed poetic authority to a poet of undeserved fame. The change occurs during Leopardi’s intense preparation for his commented edition of Petrarch’s poetry. The author concludes that although Leopardi continued to appreciate Petrarch’s contribution to Italian language and literature, Leopardi surprisingly came to share Lord Chesterfield’s severe opinion that Petrarch deserved his “Laura” better than his “lauro.” Elvio Guagnini, in his essay “Sul Petrarca di De Sanctis,” analyzes De Sanctis’s treatment of Petrarch in his history of Italian literature and in his monograph on the poet (the only monograph he dedicated to a single author). Although De Sanctis’s treatment of Petrarch generally seems less engrossing than his esteem for Dante, Guagnini reveals the breadth of the critic’s studies on Petrarch and his reflections on the poet. In “Petrarca, icona polemica del Saba ‘civile’” by Fulvio Senardi, the focus is on Saba’s use of Petrarch as an anti-model in his conception of his own poetry, which is demonstrated through passages taken from Saba’s auto-exegetic moments when he often likens himself closer to Dante (the “sun”) than to Petrarch (the “candle”). Eszter Rónaky presents Ungaretti as a scholar of Petrarch identifying Ungaretti’s stay in Brazil as the watershed moment when he first approached Petrarch’s poetry from a critical perspective. It is through Ungaretti’s lessons in Brazil (collected in the Mondadori Meridiani edition) where the poet seems to truly appreciate the modernity of Petrarch’s thought and poetry. Beáta Tombi concentrates on the reception of Petrarch in Hungary, which goes from a fairly limited reception to a very corrupted one, culminating in the sentimental tradition of bad taste of the nineteenth century. The first significant change is directly linked to the modern poet Endre Ady, one of Hungary’s finest, who gives a positive reading, albeit individual and personal, of Petrarch’s poetry. Overall, the volume provides an insightful array of perspectives on the meaning, myth, and role of Petrarch for our times. While the first two essays by Giorgio Barberi Squarotti and Ugo Dotti are the most original, engaging, and balanced contributions, many other essays will interest scholars, from those who study the reception and presence of Petrarchan language and poetics to those who contrast that line to Dante, whose presence is noted intermittently throughout this collection. James F. McMenamin, Harvard University Petrarch’s Itinerarium: A Proposed Route for a Pilgrimage from Genoa to the Holy Land. Ed. and trans. H. James Shey. Binghamton: Global Academic Publishing, 2004. Pp. 446. Francis Petrarch’s Itinerarium syriacum is generally counted among the author’s lesser works, in part perhaps because he claims to have composed it in three days and never made the journey himself, in part because of its nominally utilitarian purpose. H. James Shey refocuses our attention and reveals a substantial work, rich in detail in several important dimensions.
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