The Italian Romance Epic in the Age of Humanism: The Matter of Italy and the World of Rome

Modern Language Review, The, July, 2003 by Dennis Looney

The Italian Romance Epic in the Age of Humanism: The Matter of Italy and the World of Rome. By JANE E. EVERSON. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 2001. xii 386 pp.; ill. 50 [pounds sterling]. ISBN 0-19-816015-1.

In this book Jane Everson examines the development of the genre of the chivalric or romance epic in Italy in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, which is more or less the same time as the movement of humanism began to emerge in various city-states in the north and central parts of the peninsula. Some of the same communities in which humanism quickly made a mark, e.g. Florence and Ferrara, were also important centres for the reception and cultivation of romance epic poetry. The author consequently focuses on the paradox of the simultaneous development of the medievalizing genre of chivalric epic and classically inspired humanistic culture with its different set of cultural references that look beyond the Middle Ages back to antiquity for inspiration. Her main focus is the period between the 1460s and 1533, when Ariosto dies, but her thesis on the continued development of the medieval genre of romance epic in the new humanistic setting requires her to examine the literary culture of the previous century that allows for the interaction of seemingly different kinds of literary products. The 'matter of Italy' in the book's subtitle refers to a home-grown blend of Carolingian and Arthurian materials, i.e. a fusion of the 'matter of France' and the 'matter of Britain', in an Italian context that never entirely forgets or disregards the legacy of the ancient Roman past, 'the world of Rome'.

Everson studies Boccaccio's Il Teseida, Luigi Pulci's Morgante, Boiardo's Orlando Innamorato, and Il Mambriano by Francesco Cieco da Ferrara, and the cultural contexts in which these works were produced, in order to understand the extraordinary success of Ariosto in the sixteenth century, who 'was in a position to achieve the fullest fusion of classical-humanist and romance elements in any poem of the genre and the Orlando Furioso thus to become the best-selling work of Italian literature' (p. 17). In the largest section of the book, 'New Perspectives, New Readings', she considers in successive chapters how the four poets treat: (1) the themes of love and war; (2) the figure of the hero; and (3) plot design, with reference to some of the later debates in the mid-sixteenth century. The last chapter considers the case of Ariosto in some detail, but the bulk of Everson's study deals with the various predecessors of the Ferrarese poet.

Before coming to her literary analysis, Everson discusses 'The Prehistory of the Romance Epic in Italy', weighing the reception and fortune of the Carolingian and Arthurian stories, and the material for stories based on Roman history and classical mythology. From here she moves to consider the impact of certain classical authors on the poets in her project in '(Re-)Reading the Classics'. She provides good, brisk discussions of how some of the epic poets of antiquity (Vergil, Statius, Lucan, Ovid) could serve as models for the writers of romance epic. These classical models were known in various degrees by authors in the medieval period, while others (Valerius Flaccus, Silius Italicus) were not rediscovered until later by humanists like Poggio Bracciolini and therefore could have an impact only on subsequent authors of romance epic. Ancient prose writers whose works provided alternative models for writers in the romance epic tradition include Livy, Sallust, Caesar, Suetonius, and Valerius Maximus.

Having established the elements of the literary culture that influenced later writers, Everson examines some of the experiments of the fourteenth century, namely Petrarch's Africa and the attempt to revive Vergilian epic and Boccaccio's Teseida, an Italian epic in octave stanzas 'which provided the turning point for the epic in Italy' (p. 107). I know of no consideration of Boiardo and Ariosto and romance epic in general that makes such a convincing case for Boccaccio's Teseida as a model for writers in the tradition. Moreover, Everson's discussion of the period between Boccaccio's work on the epic in the 1340s and the work of Pulci and Boiardo beginning in the 1460s is brimming with insights and pointers, e.g. her discussion of Antonio Pucci (1310-c. 1388), the Florentine cantastorie whose cantari, often novelle in verse, 'form an essential link in the development of the romance epic between Boccaccio and Pulci' (p. 121). This preliminary section of the study, 'Texts and Contexts', concludes with a helpful review of what we know about the material culture of readers reading romance epic, especially in Ferrara, Mantua, and Florence. Everson deals with questions such as: What books did readers have and in what form? Who were the scribes of hand-copied manuscripts? Who were the printers? What do inventories of princely libraries tell us about the habits of readers?

This is an excellent book that carefully recapitulates much earlier scholarship, while adding to it throughout. It makes a convincing case for Boccaccio's foundational position in the romance epic tradition and for the necessity of giving more emphasis to the period between Boccaccio and the generation of Pulci and Boiardo. Finally, it situates much of Everson's previous work on the Mambriano in a broader context that reminds us of the importance of understanding the production of a lesser author like Francesco Cieco da Ferrara in order to understand a writer like Ariosto.