In the early Cinquecento, vernacular poetry and typography joined forces in a powerful way with Aldo Manuzio's 1501 publication of Le cose volgari di Messer Francesco Petrarcha, edited by Pietro Bembo. This tidy octavo cleared away the margins of Quattrocento exegesis to better center the poet laureate's lyrics by way of an orderly path of italics. Bembo also divided the volume into two parts, the first written during Laura's life (“in vita di Madonna Laura”) and the second written after her death (“in morte di Madonna Laura”). In doing so, the editor framed the work as an autobiographical narrative with a spiritual journey from earthly to divine love. With impeccable editorial acumen and a clear linguistic agenda, Manuzio and Bembo's collaboration on this “petrarchino” would reverberate in verses and volumes across the Italian Peninsula.
Yet Petrarch was only one note in the chords of Petrarchism that echoed in cities such as Venice, Brescia, or Florence. In Naples, that note joined an already vibrant courtly chorus intoned by the poets of the Aragonese court. This model of writing, which assembled sonnets, canzoni, ballads, madrigals, sestinas, and more into a comprehensive whole where intertextual threads provided both texture and pattern at the micro and macro levels, could take a number of internal and external forms, from canzones to sonnets to sestinas, and from the prosimetrum of Sanazzaro's Arcadia to variations on a canzoniere drawing from vernacular performance traditions.
It is within this context that the early lyrics of Girolamo Britonio resound. Presented with commentary by Mikaël Romanato, and published by Droz as part of the series Textes et travaux de la Fondation Barbier-Mueller pour l’étude de la poésie italienne de la Renaissance, this critical edition of Gelosia del Sole imparts further nuances to the commonplace narrative that views Bembo's Rime and its theoretical counterpart, Prose della volgar lingua, as the terminus post quem for Petrarchism on the Italian Peninsula. Romanato introduces Britonio and his many associations in and around Naples—with the Pontanian Academy, Roberto II Sanseverino, and Eleonor Piccolomini Todeschi of Aragon—and Ischia, with Costanza d'Avalos, Duchess of Francavilla, and Vittoria Colonna. As Romanato points out, Britonio's early lyric production offers a view of both the literary culture of the Academy and of the court at Ischia. Colonna's presence, both as inspiration for the volume and appearing within the lyrics themselves as a composer of “such sweet rhymes,” will be of great interest for Colonna scholars. Also of interest is the place of this work in the emergence of Florentine in lyric production outside of Florence, with Britonio's work acting as a bridge between the Aragonese court poetry of Sanazzaro and the Petrarchan models, by way of Bembo, later adopted by poets such as Luigi Tansillo and Ludovico Paterno.
Romanato's work is based on the 1519 edition printed by Sigismond Mayr's widow, Caterina De Silvestro. While the colophon bears Sigismond's name, Britonio's verses were most likely one of the earliest editions printed by Caterina in the printshop in vico de' Sanguini. The edition boasts a serviceable critical apparatus and includes a census of existing copies, partial witnesses, and manuscript transmission, as well as several indexes. A minor omission in the 1519 census is the copy held at Houghton Library at Harvard.
Scholars will find the index of names cited within the lyrics particularly useful. The edition includes Britonio's dedicatory letter to Colonna, 345 sonnets, 43 canzoni, 37 madrigals, 20 sestinas, 7 ballads, and a handful of compositions in terzarima, each accompanied by a succinct and functional commentary from Romanato. Readers less familiar with Naples's literary culture will find these references terse, but they stand as synoptic reminders of the elaborate system of poetic and political dynamics witnessed by the young Britonio in a time when the kingdom was violently contested between France and Spain.
Returning to poetry and typography, while Britonio's point of reference was decidedly Petrarchan, and his publisher Mayr's was certainly Aldine, this volume's design includes inexplicable historiated initials for the poems. Inexplicable because the 1519 edition is remarkable for its ornamental restraint, thanks to the influence of its Aldine model. While neither Droz nor Romanato make any claims to provide a visually authentic replication of the original, the inclusion of these initials is, at best, misleading. It's an unfortunate design choice that mars an otherwise commendable critical edition of this early Cinquecento lyricist.
