1 - The People’s Petrarch: Early Modern Italian Readers and the Gender of Celebrity

Summary

Abstract

This chapter explores Petrarch's gendered portrayal in early modern printings of his lyric, with particular attention to Alessandro Vellutello's edition of 1525. Vellutello rejected Petrarch's own ordering, rearranging the poems into a linear, amorous plotline, and adding such paratexts as a “biography” of Laura and a map of the lovers’ environs. Often dismissed by sixteenth-century humanists and modern-day scholars alike, Vellutello's Petrarch was the most popular of the period, embraced by readers who were enamored of its hybridity between critical edition and fan fiction. Theorizing a gendered contrast between Petrarchan fame and celebrity, I explore the evolution of Petrarch in the early modern imagination, an investigation that underpins subsequent chapters’ examinations of how Petrarchan imitators used literature to remake gender.

Keywords: book history; incunabula; Pietro Bembo; fame; Giolito; Masculinity

The difficulty in writing about the great figures of the past is that in every age they have been reinterpreted to demonstrate the new relevance of their greatness.

‒ Leo Braudy

This is a book about Petrarch (1304–1374); but this chapter begins with the figure of Cesare Borgia (1475–1507). The favorite son of Pope Alexander VI— who was perhaps the most infamous bishop of Rome in the long history of that post—Borgia was one of Italy's most lethal military mercenaries, tasked with commanding the papal armies in a bloody campaign through Central Italy. He was idolized by Machiavelli, who hailed him in The Prince as the model of unmerciful rulership. And, in 1503, he was also the dedicatee of a particularly fine edition of Petrarch's love poetry.

This edition of Petrarch's lyric was printed by Girolamo Soncino (fl. 1488–1533) in Fano, a town east of Florence, along the Adriatic coast in the Marches. Petrarch had titled his collection Rerum vulgarium fragmenta (Fragments of vernacular things); this particular volume bore the name Opere volgari di Messer Francesco Petrarca (Vernacular Works of Sir Francesco Petrarch), combining the poet's lyric collection with the Trionfi (Triumphs), as was common in the period. The printing featured a splendid typeface, designed by Francesco Griffo, the same punchcutter who had invented the italic font for Aldus Manutius (c. 1450–151