The Petrarchan sources of «La Celestina»
A. D. Deyermond
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This book (published in Oxford Modern Languages and Literature Monographs) went to press in 1959. Since then, there has been a vast expansion of Celestina scholarship (Adrienne Mandel, 32, devotes 104 pages to pre-1959 research and 112 to later work),1 and much work has been done on Petrarch (4, 12, 14, 20, 23, 33-6, 50, 52, 67). This reprint corrects a few printing errors. I refer below to recent scholarship and take account of all reviews of the first edition (listed at the end of the Supplementary Bibliography), and I say where my views have changed.
INTRODUCTION. 1505 as the date of the first Italian Celestina (p. l) is an error for 1506. More information on English Celestina versions (pp. 1-2) is available, and a MS. draft by Mabbe has been discovered: 8, 41. The chronology and relationship of early Spanish editions (p. 2) have been clarified: 44 Appx B, 53, 66. This means that Trotter's text is no longer reliable (p. 4); the only critical edition based on the new information is 53. A sixteenth-century MS. commentary makes some of the discoveries about Rojas' use of Petrarch for which Castro Guisasola (reprinted 1973) has been given credit (p. 3); it also notes Petrarchan analogues for some passages in Act I (cf. pp. 90-1): 60, and cf. 58.
CHAPTER I. Gilman's review challenges the statement (p. 8) that medieval readers felt more at home with De Remediis than with other works, but students of Petrarch continue to take the same view: De Remediis was read as a medieval work (14 pp. 26-30, 34 p. 59, 35 p. 224, 36 p. 24), and was valued as a source of sententiae (36 p. 22). Humanism in fifteenth-century Spain (p. 11) has been reassessed (55, 57, 59), and some of my assumptions are now unsafe (59). McPheeters' review suggests possible direct contacts between Petrarch and Spain. My description of Juan Fernández de Heredia as an outstanding early humanist is mistaken, despite his importance as a patron: 30. Riquer's review suggests a stylistic influence of Petrarchan Latin in Aragonese chancery documents from c. 1380, and perhaps in the Castilian chancery some decades later. Aragonese chancery officials included Metge (pp. 12-14) and Pere de Pont, who praised Petrarch and referred to De Vita solitaria and Epistolae Rerum senilium in a Latin letter of March 1386 (42). For the public career of the Prince of Viana (p. 15), see 22. Cardinal Joan Margarit, bishop of Gerona, owned De Remediis —VI→ and De Viris illustribus (31 pp. 492-3), and he draws on De Viris, (38 pp. 98-9, 63 pp. 138 and 178-80). For the royal library at Naples (pp. 16-17), add 39. Flors de Petrarcha (p. 18) has been set in its European context: 35 pp. 218-9. My conclusion that Santillana's poetry shows no clear debt to the Latin works (pp. 22-3) is challenged, though without new evidence: 21 p. 176n. Lida de Malkiel's review stresses that Mena (p. 24) was influenced by the vernacular poems; this falls outside the scope of my chapter, but Riquer's review hints at a stylistic influence of the Latin works. There is one piece of negative evidence: Mena's revival of the claim that Aristotle was Spanish (51) includes no mention of Petrarch's denial. A Petrarchan analogue has been noted for a passage of Jorge Manrique's Coplas (17 pp. 181-2), and an attractive case made out for a far-reaching debt of the Coplas to De Remediis: 65. For works on Fortune in fifteenth-century Spain (pp. 25-6), see 13, Introduction. Martín de Córdoba's Compendio (p. 26), though it refers to Petrarch in a chapter-heading, bases the chapter wholly on Boccaccio: 13 p. 109. A similar work, the Tratado de caso e fortuna of Lope de Barrientos (5), also makes no use of Petrarch. On the other hand, Fernán Pérez de Guzmán, in Mar de historias (49 pp. 168 and 203-4), draws on Lombardo della Seta's addition to De Viris illustribus, and on De Rebus memorandis. Rodrigo Sánchez de Arévalo quotes from Petrarch (61 p. 234), and owned a MS. containing the letter to Acciaiuoli (cf. p. 18): 48 pp. 518-20. The count of Haro's library included a Flores e sentencias (47 p. 277), very similar to no. 27 of my Appendix I, and perhaps identical with it.
At the end of the century, Luis de Acuña owned a Retórica Pertrache, otherwise unidentified: 29 p. 93. However, the library list of Gonzalo García de Santa María (pp. 26-7) includes no Petrarchan items (19), and the Discurso attributed to him (18) is probably a translation from Lucius Marineus Siculus. The prologue to Hernando de Talavera's translation of Contra Medicum (p. 27) has been edited (15); it refers to a projected translation of De Remediis. This is noted by Gilman (21 p. 175n); of the four other cases of interest in Petrarch which in the same note I am said to have overlooked, the first (Juan de Padilla, Retablo de la vida de Cristo) is probably post-Celestina and thus outside the scope of my chapter, and the remainder are already dealt with (p. 24; Appx I nos. 25 and 16; p. 21 and Appx I no. 17). The debt of Boosco deleitoso to Petrarch (p. 30) has been further studied (54), and Maler's edition of Orto do Esposo (pp. 30-1) is now complete (46). The dominance of De Remediis in the fifteenth century, and respect among French readers for Petrarch as a medieval auctor rather than a humanist (pp. 345), have been confirmed: 35 p. 217, 33.
CHAPTER II. Rojas' library (p. 36) is interestingly discussed by Gilman: 21 pp. 430-56. On the exemplum of Anacharsis (p. 40), see 60 n. 20.
CHAPTER III. The pessimism of De Remediis (pp. 50-2) is confirmed —VII→ by one scholar (14 p. 22), though another disagrees: 20 pp. 148-55. The work's ambiguity is also discussed: 14 p. 21, 33 p. 15, 35 p. 218, and cf. 21 p. 189. My conclusion that Book I is more powerful and effective than Book II (pp. 50-2) has been challenged (14 p. 21) and confirmed (36 pp. 9-10). Rojas' use of the Preface to Book II in his Prólogo (pp. 52-7) is again examined: 21 pp. 58 and 181. A Petrarchan origin for '¿Para quién edifiqué torres?...' (p. 60) is regarded as probable by Casa: 10 p. 23. On pp. 63-6 I disagreed with Gilman's claim for a Petrarchan borrowing in Act I. Fucilla's review supported me, but other scholars have supported Gilman, and I think they are probably right. Herriott pointed out flaws in my arguments with courteous but inexorable logic (24 pp. 154-7), and Lida de Malkiel provided near-conclusive evidence (27 p. 340n); see also 1 p. 85. I remain convinced that the Act I passage is a topos, but I accept that it is partly composed of Petrarchan material. It is unnecessary to conclude, as Herriott does (24 pp. 157-9, 25), that this strengthens the case for Rojas' authorship of Act I: as Gilman says in his review, the Petrarchan material is used differently in the rest of the work.
CHAPTER IV. Two scholars have queried my conclusion that Petrarch's Italian poetry had no effect on La Celestina (pp. 80-1): Casa (10 p. 27) suggests -unconvincingly, since the concept is so widely diffused- that Love as an external dominating force may come directly from the Trionfo d'amore; Olson argues -tenably though not conclusively- that an Ovidian commonplace shows signs of transmission via the Canzoniere (45). Gilman (21 pp. 431-2) rejects the possibility that Rojas drew some of his material from Albrecht von Eyb's compendium, Margarita poetica. My own check of Petrarchan material in von Eyb, made in 1960, supports Gilman; see also 35 p. 222.
CHAPTER VI. Herriott defends (24 p. 154) one of Rojas' translations that I regard as clumsy (p. 93n). Rojas' skill in adapting most of his borrowings to a new environment (pp. 98-9) is noted in 27 pp. 435n, 473-5 and 525, and in 1. Humanistic comedy and its relation to La Celestina (p. 103n) are now covered in detail by Lida de Malkiel (27-8).
CHAPTER VII. The belief that Petrarch's fundamental innovation is an emphasis on the dangers of good fortune (p. 110) is confirmed: 36 p. 10. My statement that only some of the Petrarchan sententiae and exempla in La Celestina have an ironic function (p. 111n) has not been well received. In his review, Bataillon observes, quite reasonably, that only part of his case for ironic function had appeared when I wrote, and that his full case (6) is stronger. Lida de Malkiel (27 p. 253n) supports Gilman's view. My own demonstration of the ironical use of sententiae and exempla is, I now think, too restricted, but it still seems dangerous to look for irony in every Petrarchan borrowing, since some are so carefully blended into the characters' speech that they are not —VIII→ obvious as borrowings or even as traditional moral philosophy. My disagreement with Gilman's view of La Celestina's theme (pp. 113-5) has brought rejoinders (review and 21); Fucilla's review concludes that each of us is right in part. Fortune as causality rather than chance (p. 114) has been emphasized by Berndt and Maravall (7 Chap. III. 3, 37 Chap. VII), and is now accepted by Gilman (21 p. 337), though Berndt stresses the moral, and Maravall and Gilman the mechanical, aspect of causality. Petrarch's attitude to such problems has been examined: 23, 36 pp. 8-12. It is now accepted by most scholars that Rojas takes over and deepens Petrarch's pessimism, and that Pleberio's rejection of Petrarchan consolation expresses Rojas' own views (pp. 115-9): e. g. 1, 10 pp. 22-6; cf. 21 p. 189. Gilman argues that Pleberio's lament has a Petrarchan origin, rather than deriving from the medieval planctus (21 p. 369), but these are not necessarily alternatives. The most influential. denial of Rojas' pessimism and of Pleberio as a spokes man for him is still that of Bataillon: review and 6; cf. my review of 6, Symposium, xvi (1962), 233-6. Much more information is now available about conversos (pp. 119-20): 3, 9, 16, 40, 43, 62, 64; but sharp disagreement remains as to their numbers and beliefs. The relevance of this information to La Celestina (on a deeper level than Garrido Pallardo's theory) has been discussed: 11, 21, 25 pp. 300-3. Gilman argues that Petrarch's view of the world made a special appeal to conversos: 21 pp. 175-85.
APPENDICES. An excellent survey by Mann adds to the list of Petrarchan MSS that circulated in Spain: 34 nos. 94 and 184; no. 215 locates a MS. to which I refer, p. 18 n.6. Italia Medioevale e Umanistica has since 1961 been publishing a general census of Petrarchan MSS. For Prouerbios de Seneca (p. 144), see 56.
To conserve space, I reluctantly omit the original Preface, which recorded my gratitude to those who had helped me, though I am no less conscious of my debts, especially to Professor P. E. Russell, who supervised my thesis and has ever since given most generous assistance. Professor R. B. Tate has allowed me to use information from his files for additions to Chapter I. Discussions with colleagues and students in England and America have enriched my understanding of La Celestina over the years. Dr Dorothy Severin read this Preface in draft. Finally, Mrs Isobel M. Findlay of the Clarendon Press, and Mr R. F. Cutler and Miss Janet Stephenson of Grant and Cutler Ltd, resolved the technical problems of incorporating the new material.
A. D. D.
Westfield College, London
October 1973
It is a great pleasure to be able to thank those who have helped me in my work. My greatest debt is to Professor P. E. Russell, who suggested this subject for research, gave encouragement and advice when it was most needed, answered countless questions, and finally read and criticized the manuscript of this book. Professor A. A. Parker was of great assistance in the later stages of the work. Dr. J. E. Varey, Reader in Spanish at Westfield, has both smoothed the path of my research and given up some of his own time to checking references for me in Madrid. The Editor of the Bulletin of Hispanic Studies, Professor A. E. Sloman, has very kindly allowed me to include a revised version of an article contributed to that journal. Miss C. L. Penney treated my inquiries and my disagreement with patience and courtesy. Among others who have helped me are Professor C. Grayson, Mr. F. W. Hodcroft, Mr. R. D. F. Pring-Mill, Mr. R. Shackleton, and Mr. D. M. Sutherland of the University of Oxford; Professor I. González-Llubera of Queen's University, Belfast; Mrs. P. J. Waley of Westfield College, and Mr. A. M. Salazar of King's College, University of London; D. Xavier de Salas of the Instituto de España; and Dr. A. Tobias of Carmel College. Of those who helped me in Spain and Portugal, I should like to mention especially D. José López de Toro, Sub-Director of the Biblioteca Nacional, Madrid, who gave most generously of his time and knowledge. I am also very grateful to D. Julián Paz of the Biblioteca Nacional; D. Antonio Rodríguez-Moñino; the Padre Bibliotecario of the Escorial; the Marqués de Lozoya; Da. Esmeralda Gijón of the Biblioteca del Palacio; D. Francisco García Craviotto of the University of Salamanca; D. Abelardo Palanca y Pons of the University of Valencia, who among other kindnesses allowed me to consult a thesis submitted in the University; D. Elías Olmos, Canónigo Archivero of Valencia Cathedral; and the authorities of the manuscript section of the Biblioteca Nacional, Lisbon.
In the early stages of my research, I was privileged to be elected to a Senior Scholarship at Pembroke College, Oxford, and the College later made me a grant towards the expenses of study in Spain. The Public Instruction Committee of the States of Jersey —IX→ made me a grant for two years. I received help from the Central Research Fund of the University of London towards the research whose results are incorporated in Appendix I. The officials of the Clarendon Press have helped greatly in the later stages of the preparation of this book, which is published under the auspices of the Board of the Faculty of Medieval and Modern Languages in Oxford. For all this assistance, my most grateful thanks.
A. D. D.
Westfield College, London
April 1959
| BAE | Biblioteca de Autores Españoles |
| BHS | Bulletin of Hispanic Studies |
| EUC | Estudis Universitaris Catalans |
| GSLI | Giornale Storico della Letteratura Italiana |
| HR | Hispanic Review |
| NBAE | Nueva Biblioteca de Autores Españoles |
| NRFH | Nueva Revista de Filología Hispánica |
| RFE | Revista de Filología Española |
| RHi | Revue Hispanique |
| TLS | Times Literary Supplement |
Two page references are given for each quotation from La Celestina: the first is to the edition of J. Cejador y Frauca (Madrid, Clásicos Castellanos, 2 vols., 1913) and the second to that of M. Criado de Val and G. D. Trotter (Madrid, Clásicos Hispánicos, 1958).
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La Celestina has been recognized in Spain, from the time of its first publication, as one of that country's greatest works of imaginative literature, though its reputation lessened there in the later seventeenth and in the eighteenth centuries. For 150 years it was a European best-seller. Although it is a novel in dialogue, never intended for stage presentation, it has been acted in numerous adaptations during the past sixty years: in 1958 alone, a Spanish version was staged in Paris, and translations in London and Brussels.
The first known edition, entitled Comedia de Calisto y Melibea, appeared in or soon after 1499, and was swiftly followed by others. In 1502 the Tragicomedia de Calisto y Melibea (an enlarged version) was published, and by 1640 not fewer than eighty editions in Spanish had been produced. Long before this the impression made on readers by the old bawd Celestina had caused her to displace the lovers Calisto and Melibea on the title-page of many editions, and it is she by whose name the book is known today.
This popularity among readers was accompanied by a marked influence on the novelists and dramatists of the Spanish Golden Age, not confined to the numerous direct imitations, but extending also to less obviously derivative works. At the same time, the book's fame spread outside Spain: an Italian translation appeared in 1505 and ran into several editions. This was followed by translations into French (three different versions), German (two versions), Flemish, Hebrew, and Latin. La Celestina had some influence on drama and more on prose fiction in Tudor and Stuart England. John Rastell translated the early part of the work into English verse, equipped it with a happy ending, and published it, c. 1530, as A new cõmodye in englysh in maner of an enterlude, better known from its modern editions as An Interlude of Calisto and Melibea. There may have been a full translation in the sixteenth century: there seems to have been a stage production in the 1570's, possibly of The most famous History of ij Spanesshe lovers which was licensed in 1569-70. A Spanish edition was licensed in 1591, and a printing of The tragicke comedye of Celestina in 1598, though we do not —2→ know whether anything came of them. In 1631 James Mabbe's prose translation, The Spanish Bawd, was published in London, and it still finds readers, and theatre and radio audiences, today. After this, apart from an adaptation in 1707, the activity died down, but our own time has seen a revival as intense as anything in the sixteenth century: in the last four years two translations have appeared in the United States and one in Great Britain.
The wide popularity and literary stature of La Celestina have combined with the circumstances of its first publication to present its students with a large number of bibliographical and allied problems, whose discussion has sharply increased in recent years; the extent and variety of modern books and articles on the subject may be judged from D. W. McPheeters's 'The Present Status of Celestina Studies', Symposium, xii (1958), 196-205. The first version of Calisto y Melibea appeared anonymously, but the edition of 1500 contains acrostic verses giving the author's name as Fernando de Rojas, and a letter by Rojas attributing to an anonymous predecessor the first of the sixteen 'acts' into which the work is divided. In 1502 other editions added five new 'acts', interpolations in the original ones, and a Prologue which quotes Petrarch extensively. Rojas's very existence has been disputed, as has his responsibility for the original Acts II-XVI, but both of these points have by now been settled with reasonable certainty. Fernando de Rojas was born at Puebla de Montalbán, near Toledo, his family being conversos, or Jews converted to Christianity. After study at the University of Salamanca he became a lawyer, and during part of his career had to face difficulties arising from his racial origin, though the extent of these remains unknown. Later, however, he was a prominent and respected member of society, holding the position of alcalde mayor of Talavera, where he died in April 1541. We have no record of any other work by Rojas, and it seems likely that, after producing a revised version of La Celestina, he abandoned literature while still a young man.
Still in dispute are the authorship of Act I and of the 1502 additions to the text, and a number of bibliographical points: the possibility of an edition before the first extant one, the priority and dating of early sixteen-act editions, and the possibility that a twenty-one-act version appeared before 1502. The problem of the work's sources has also -to put it mildly- aroused some discussion. —3→ The most fruitful causes of this have perhaps been the belief that a similarity between two passages necessarily means that one is borrowed from the other; and the tendency of some Spanish critics, for reasons of national pride, to wish to exaggerate the classical and humanistic reading of their fifteenth-century authors. The number of Greek, Latin, and humanistic Italian works which a Spanish writer knew at first hand is utterly irrelevant to his quality as a writer and to the importance of late medieval Spanish literature, yet both Menéndez y Pelayo, author of what is still, at the time of writing, the best general work on La Celestina, and Castro Guisasola, author of the most exhaustive study yet published of the work's sources, go beyond what can be proved (and beyond what is likely) in their lists of Rojas's classical reading.
M. Menéndez y Pelayo's study is contained in his Orígenes de la novela, vol. iii (Madrid, 1910), i-clix. In it he lists a number of the more obvious Petrarchan borrowings, concluding that they merely reveal pedantry in Rojas, and that they have a bad effect on him. This is not a conclusion which can be sustained in the light of a full examination of Petrarch's influence. F. Castro Guisasola's Observaciones sobre las fuentes literarias de La Celestina (Madrid, RFE, Anejo v, 1924) has its chief strength in the author's flair for the detection of literary resemblances; its chief weaknesses are in analysis and organization: he is too easily satisfied with the establishment of a resemblance, without seeking what is likely to be the real source; he exaggerates the number of Rojas's borrowings (but underestimates the importance of medieval compendia), and when dealing with Petrarch he does not establish criteria for deciding from which part of Petrarch's works Rojas borrowed. Yet when all these criticisms have been made, his contribution to Celestina studies remains a real and valuable one. Three other scholars have dealt with the question of Petrarchan sources. The earliest is Arturo Farinelli, 'Note sulla fortuna del Petrarca in Ispagna nel Quattrocento', GSLI, xliv (1904), 297-350 (a revised version appears in Italia e Spagna, vol. i, Torino, 1929). Farinelli's study is both brief and vague, and its main characteristic is the belief that when the word fortuna appears in La Celestina, this is because Petrarch wrote a book called De Remediis utriusque Fortunae. J. Cejador y Frauca edited La Celestina in 1913 (Madrid, Clásicos Castellanos, 2 vols). with a long introduction and copious notes. Cejador convinced himself that the additions made to the text in 1502 —4→ were the work of an incompetent corrector, whom he identified as Alonso de Proaza (Proaza did in fact see some editions through the press); he then proceeded to make the evidence fit his theory. He seems unable either to weigh evidence or to distinguish between a borrowing and a remote resemblance, and his text is not always sound. The critical edition by M. Criado de Val and G. D. Trotter (Madrid, 1958) is much better than Cejador's. I have, however, used Cejador as the basic text for this study, partly because my work was already far advanced when the new edition appeared, and partly because Cejador has some advantages to set against his notorious shortcomings. The chief of these advantages is that he bases his edition on the text of 1499? (using that of Valencia 1514 for material added in the Tragicomedia), while Criado de Val and Trotter prefer throughout a text of 1502, and consequently and very properly include in the text of the original sixteen acts changes made later. Since in this book I am often concerned with documenting separately the borrowings made from Petrarch in the Comedia and the Tragicomedia, it is helpful to refer to a modern edition which (accentuation, punctuation, and errors excepted) reproduces the text of the Comedia. I have corrected any substantial slips of Cejador, and have removed the accents on single-letter conjunctions and prepositions, which Cejador sometimes prints and sometimes omits. I have given references to Cejador by volume and page, but these are followed by references to Criado de Val and Trotter (by page only), so that readers who distrust this sort of compromise may discover the variants without difficulty.
Stephen Gilman devotes a chapter to Petrarchan influence in his The Art of La Celestina (Madison, Wisconsin, 1956). Unfortunately, the book as a whole is weakened by impatience with questions of authorship: Gilman assumes, without discussing the evidence, that Rojas wrote all but Act I, yet several times analyses passages from this act as if they were by Rojas. He is also inclined to be too easily convinced of the existence of a borrowing, and to interpret both Petrarch and La Celestina in terms of modern philosophical trends.
The study of a book's sources is regarded today with some suspicion, and source-studies have in fact got out of hand in recent years. The pursuit of fresh knowledge about any work of art is good, and is indeed desirable for the help it will give to future —5→ students of the work. At the same time, this kind of literary detection is such a fascinating pastime that those who pursue it are always tempted to consider it an end in itself. Worse, they may come to think that a book is 'explained' when its sources are known, whereas in reality such knowledge can only be a starting-point for literary criticism. Nor is it always appreciated that sources vary in importance: encouraged by the success of John Livingston Lowes's brilliant investigation of Coleridge's reading, The Road to Xanadu, some scholars have set out along muddier roads for less rewarding destinations; they have tended to equate a chance reminiscence with a fundamental influence, to feel that one card in a researcher's card-index is as good as another. A vigorous opposition to this attitude, combined with a constructive and scholarly use of source investigation, will be found in Mario Praz's The Flaming Heart (New York, 1958). Any attempt to study a work's sources can, it seems to me, be of value only if the literary relationship can be conclusively proved, if the length of the investigation is commensurate with the importance of the source, and if the results are regarded as contributory evidence, not as a full and final explanation of the work. I believe that the first two conditions are met in the case of Rojas's use of Petrarch, and I hope that the third is met in the concluding chapters of this study.
When we know, as we do in this case, that an author drew extensively on one source, and that he used one identifiable edition, it is possible to trace his borrowings with some precision. It would be absurd to claim that no borrowing has escaped me, but I hope that in the second, third, and fourth chapters of this book, and in the second appendix, the vast majority of Rojas's Petrarchan borrowings are presented in a form which makes possible some conclusions about La Celestina. The detailed presentation of parallel passages and the assembling of statistical evidence is not likely to make for easy reading, but it seems important in this kind of study to present the evidence in a form which can be checked, to establish absolutely clear criteria for the recognition of borrowings and their exact source, and to admit too few rather than too many borrowings. This is not, therefore, a work of literary criticism, nor does its form allow me to indulge in large metaphysical generalizations about La Celestina -but such a restriction is perhaps not too much of a disadvantage. The purpose which can, I think, be served by examination of Rojas's Petrarchan sources is twofold: in the first —6→ place, it throws light on the authorship and bibliographical problems (this is attempted in Chapter V); and in the second place, a realization of how far Rojas modifies his Petrarchan original and how far he adheres to it can tell us something about his stylistic creation (Chapter VI) and more about his moral and emotional world (Chapter VII).
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A century and a quarter elapsed between the death of Petrarch and the publication of La Celestina. During this period a wide range of Petrarch's works became available in manuscript in Spain, and a number of Spanish authors drew on them or referred to them. Some understanding of their diffusion and influence at that time is necessary if we are to appreciate the use made of them by Rojas, though it will for practical purposes be better to confine the discussion to the Latin works.
Petrarch acquired during his lifetime (1304-74) a reputation as the greatest Italian poet and scholar of his day, and that reputation has persisted, though with changes of emphasis, up to the present. His fame was not confined to his own country, and the very form of his name is a measure of his status in England: like the greatest of the Latin classical writers, and like very few others, he was so well known that his name was anglicized. He rapidly became an auctor, being accepted into that canon of authoritative writers who formed the basis of grammatical instruction throughout the Middle Ages, and who were in addition regarded as reliable store-houses of universal wisdom and moral philosophy; it was above all as a moral philosopher that Petrarch was valued by late medieval Europe.2 It is, of course, his Italian poetry -or, more precisely, the Canzoniere, the lyrics inspired by Laura- which has had the most lasting influence on both readers and other writers, and which, for the majority of modern readers, probably constitutes the whole of his literary achievement; but this modern judgement was shared neither by Petrarch nor by his early readers.
Besides the Canzoniere there is one other vernacular work of —8→ importance: the Trionfi, an allegorical poem in terza rima. Most of the Latin works are extant, though the loss of the humanistic comedy Philologia has been keenly regretted. In verse Petrarch wrote Africa, an epic on the Punic War; Bucolicum Carmen, a series of twelve allegorical, and often obscure, eclogues; and some Epistolae metricae which show the influence of Horace. With these may be grouped the seven Psalmi poenitentiales, which are in rhythmic prose. Among the prose works three are didactic treatises written round a central theme: De Remediis utriusque Fortunae, De Vita solitaria, and De Ocio religiosorum. De Rebus memorandis and De Viris illustribus consist chiefly of collections of historical anecdotes, though the pretext for the former work is a discussion of the virtue of Prudence. The Secretum is a record of Petrarch's spiritual crisis, taking the form of a dialogue between the author and St. Augustine. There are three controversial pamphlets, Invectiva contra Medicum, Invectiva contra Gallum, and De sui ipsius et multorum ignorantia. Fulfilling the same kind of purpose as these is one of the minor collections of letters, Epistolae sine Titulo. The other collections are De Rebus familiaribus (the chief both in size and quality), Epistolae Rerum senilium, and Epistolae variae. Of the minor works which remain, perhaps the most important is the Itinerarium, a travel-book.3
The extent and variety of Petrarch's works makes possible a rough classification. Any attempt to divide his personality into a medieval man and a man of the Renaissance, ascribing to each the authorship of a number of the works, would clearly be absurd, for any such rigid classification would be nullified by variations of tone and approach within a work, and by new use of old material. Nevertheless, the general impression left by a reading of De Remediis, De Rebus memorandis, or the Trionfi differs considerably from that left by a reading of the Secretum, De Rebus familiaribus, or the Canzoniere. Such an impression is subjective and perhaps unreliable, but it does seem that medieval readers would feel more at home with the first group (this is largely substantiated by the order in which the works reached their greatest —9→ popularity), and that modern readers are more in sympathy with the second.
During Petrarch's lifetime his letters and conversation exerted a strong influence, though the full force of this was restricted to a comparatively small number of humanists. On the whole, these were Italians, but some, like Pierre Bersuire, who met him at Avignon, were French, and Johann von Neumarkt, Bishop of Olmütz and one of the most important Bohemian humanists, visited Italy in 1354-5 and was a friend of Petrarch.4 After Petrarch's death the influence of his works was felt in three or four waves: first came the Latin works, with the prose having an earlier influence than the poetry in most cases; then the Trionfi; and finally the Canzoniere. The process was much the same in the rest of Europe as in Italy, though naturally beginning later.5 A similar development may be observed with Boccaccio: his Latin works predominated at first, later yielding their popularity to those written in Italian.6 It must, however, be remembered that not all of Petrarch's Latin works were widely read: those which could be interpreted and used in a thoroughly medieval way had the greatest influence.
The relative popularity of the different works in the last part of the fifteenth century may be gauged from the number of editions printed. Admittedly, this does not help us very much for the century after Petrarch's death, but it seems unlikely that a work which enjoyed substantial popularity during that period would not have found favour with at least one early printer. With the exception of a few Paris and Lyons editions, the Latin works were always printed in Italy or within the boundaries of the Holy Roman Empire; often, in the latter case, for distribution throughout Europe. Collections of the Latin works (not necessarily complete) were printed in 1496, 1501, and 1503.7
Of the individual works, —10→ De Remediis is represented by three incunabula, as is Bucolicum Carmen.8 Griseldis (a story from the Decameron translated into Latin by Petrarch) has four editions (one in French) and De Vita solitaria two, while the Secretum, less well adapted to a medieval outlook, has only one edition in the fifteenth century but many more later. There is one incunabulum of De Rebus familiaribus, and one of De Rebus memorandis (together with Epistola ad Posteros, a letter often found separately), while De Viris illustribus was printed once in Italian and part of it once in Latin. It is no accident that the four works represented by more than one edition could all be easily assimilated by the medieval reader.
While it is no part of my plan to define the medieval mind (such definitions have already filled many books), it is perhaps as well to note here some of the features which I regard, in this context, as typically medieval. These are: a heavy reliance on sententiae and exempla; concern with the content of an author to the virtual exclusion of his style; determination to draw a moral lesson even from works which do not seek to give one; the assimilation of classical authors to a contemporary atmosphere -in other words, lack of perspective; pleasure in the display of a list of names; and in general an authoritarian habit of mind, reflected partly in unquestioning acceptance of what an auctor says, and partly in the development of an argument by a string of sententiae rather than by a chain of logic. I recognize that I am here on dangerous ground, for thanks to Haskins we know that there were renaissances before the Renaissance, and thanks to Curtius we know that eighteenth-century writers were often medieval. But it is not necessary for the reader to agree that all the features mentioned are distinctively medieval, as long as he knows the meaning which I attach to the word hereafter.
The commercial interests of Catalonia had always been linked with the Mediterranean rather than with the interior of the Iberian —11→ Peninsula, and when the eastward emphasis of Aragonese foreign policy linked the kingdom so closely with southern Italy, the way was prepared for Catalonia to be the first part of Spain to receive the influence of Italian culture in general, and of Petrarch in particular. Catalonia, indeed, shows the effects of contact with Italian humanism in the fourteenth century, and there is considerable justice in the claim of a recent historian of Catalan literature that the province was half a century ahead of both Castile and France in this respect.9 Castile, it is true, had close contacts with France at this time, but the direct link with Italy was likely to bear fruit more quickly. The names of Italians who were in one way or another connected with the Aragonese kings is an indication of how close this contact could be: among the more prominent were Leonardo Bruni Aretino, Bartolomeo Fazio, Lorenzo Valla, and Antonio Beccadelli (il Panormita), who all spent some time at the Neapolitan court. Valla translated the Iliad into Latin at the command of Alfonso V, the Magnanimous; and Angelo Decembrio (brother of Pier Candido Decembrio) and Manuele Crisolora (regarded as the father of Greek studies in Italy) visited the Spanish territories of the King. Thus, although Spaniards resident in southern Italy did not seem to absorb innovations any more quickly than those who remained at home, and even in some cases did so more slowly, the Neapolitan court was able to act as a bridge between Italian humanism and the intellectual life of Catalonia.
In considering this influence, one difficulty confronts us at the outset: the term 'humanist' has often been loosely applied to any Spanish writer of the late Middle Ages who shows an interest in works of classical antiquity or of the Italian humanists. If this criterion is accepted, it is hard to find a literate Spaniard of the fifteenth century who is not a humanist, whereupon the term ceases to be useful; and a healthy tendency of recent criticism has been a more rigorous investigation of an author's right to this description.10 On the other hand, it is doubtful whether the term should be confined to those who wrote exclusively in Latin -distaste for the vernacular seems to be a characteristic of the post-Petrarchan —12→ generations of Italian humanists, not of humanism in general. Two essential features would seem to be concern with the values of classical antiquity, and an interest in classical manuscripts because of their literary and philological importance, not merely because they could be an ornamental part of a collection. If these conditions are met it seems safe to call a writer a humanist without worrying unduly about the language in which he expresses himself.
One of the outstanding early humanists in the Kingdom of Aragon was Juan Fernández de Heredia (1310?-96), who wrote two chronicles in Aragonese and was responsible for translations of Thucydides and Plutarch.11 He was an avid collector of manuscripts, and some of his library passed to that of the Marquis de Santillana.12 Although Fernández de Heredia was more concerned with classical than with humanistic works, two of the other chief literary figures of the Kingdom in the late fourteenth century, the Catalans Bernat Metge and Antoni Canals, were deeply interested in Petrarch. It is, of course, true that both of them, and especially Canals, were still strongly affected by medieval habits of thought, but this was no hindrance to a taste for Petrarch. In 1388 Metge (c. 1350 - c. 1413) wrote his Valter e Griselda -as the title indicates, a translation of Griseldis. This work has been regarded as marking the beginnings of Catalan humanism, but although that is probably an exaggeration, it is certainly the first translation of a Petrarchan work anywhere in the Peninsula. It is particularly noteworthy in coming only fifteen years after Petrarch first translated Boccaccio's story into Latin, and Metge's work acquired such prestige that when the Decameron was translated into Catalan in 1429 it was his version of the story that was used.13 It has been shown that Metge also borrowed from Petrarch's commentary on the story (included with it in Rerum senilium, xvii. 3) in the introductory and concluding letters which accompany Valter e Griselda.14 In 1395 —13→ Metge began a work entitled Apologia, but then dropped it in favour of his greatest work, Lo Somni. Borrowings from the beginning of the Secretum have been established,15 and Petrarch is also specifically referred to in the Apologia:
|
Petrarca en los Remeis de cascuna fortuna e en altres llocs. |
| (p. 140) | ||
Petrarchan influence is quite unmistakable in Lo Somni: a number of sources have been identified, including Cicero's Somnium Scipionis, Boccaccio's De Claris Mulieribus and Corbaccio, and, at least at the beginning of the work, the Secretum.16 There are two actual references to Petrarch:
| (p. 42) | ||
|
E no et recorda la qüestió que diu Petrarca, en los Remeis de cascuna fortuna, que fou antigament entre alguns insignes e savis hòmens, ço és a saber, qual manera de morir era millor... |
| (p. 65) | ||
There is also a reference to the translation of Griseldis, making great (and probably justified) claims for the story's popularity:
| La paciència, fortitud e amor conjugal de Griselda, la història de la qual fou per mi de llatí en nostre vulgar transportada, callaré, car tant és notòria, que ja la reciten per enganar les nits en les vetlles e com filen en hivern entorn del foc. |
| (p. 142) | ||
Further, it has been suggested17 that the praise of famous women in Lo Somni iv derives from De Rebus familiaribus, xxi. 8. It seems probable that Metge did in fact draw on this letter, though it cannot be the sole source of his exempla, and the previously accepted sources (Boccaccio's De Claris Mulieribus and Valerius Maximus's Factorum Dictorumque Memorabilium) also have to be taken into account. Metge was thus able to draw on a number of Petrarch's works, translating one, borrowing substantially from at least one other, and referring to the content (not merely to the titles) of a further two. This is a wider selection of Petrarch's —14→ works than that used by any of Metge's contemporaries; indeed, he seems familiar with a wider range than Rojas, if we consider only the works on whose text Rojas drew directly.
A contemporary of Metge, Antoni Canals (d. 1419), produced a Petrarch translation some time after Valter e Griselda, and probably later than Lo Somni. His Rahonament fet entre Scipió Affrica e Annibal is a fairly close prose translation of Africa, vii. 93-450 and 740-1135. Canals sometimes paraphrases and occasionally inserts fragments from other authors, but his translation is almost always accurate, and its stylistic excellence is generally recognized. In the prologue he draws on Valerius Maximus and St. Augustine as well as Petrarch, and in the epilogue, on Latin historians.18 Explaining the work's genesis, Canals says:
| (p. 31) | ||
It may be true that Livy played an important part in directing Canals to the subject, but only a very small part of the work draws on him, and its Petrarchan origin is indisputable.
Metge and Canals are the most distinguished Catalan Petrarchists, but they are not the only ones. There is always a danger of reading a knowledge of Petrarch into an author who never intended to claim it, and it is a danger to which Farinelli and, to a lesser extent, Nicolau y d'Olwer succumb.19 It is not, for example, clear that Andreu Febrer was referring to De Remediis when he wrote, as quoted by Nicolau y d'Olwer:
|
—15→
Yet even when such doubtful cases have been discounted, there remain a number of unmistakable references to Petrarch. Sententiae taken from him were used as convincing arguments, as by Alfons d'Eixea, Bishop of Elna, in a petition to King Martí at the Barcelona Corts of 1410:
|
E Sèneca (en la LXXX epístola) dix: 'A poques coses és nat qui solament cogita lo poble de la sua edat'. E per ço Francesc Patrarca, a demostrar quant és obligat lo rei al regiment de son poble, dix: 'Lo bon rei, servent del bé públic és';20 |
and by Marc de Villalba, Abbot of Montserrat, replying to María of Castile at the Tortosa Corts of 1421:
|
segons diu Petrarca De illustribus uiris: 'si Claudi Neró hagués tardat de combatre Asdrúbal abans que s'ajustàs ab son frare Haníbal, perdut era del tot l'emperi'.21 |
Carles, Prince of Viana (d. 1461), a bibliophile and himself an author, had humanist friends, and a letter of his to Angelo Decembrio is extant.22 An inventory of his books prepared between September 1461 and January 1462 shows that he owned a copy of the Secretum, and probably De Viris illustribus as well. Part of his library came into the possession of Dom Pedro, Constable of Portugal. The Majorcan student of Cicero, Ferrón Valentí (d. after 1474), refers in the prologue to his translation of Cicero's Paradoxa to a large number of writers, calling Petrarch 'lo gran poeta laureat', who wrote 'no pas en lengua latina, mas materna e vulgar'.23 Francesc Carroç Pardo de la Casta's Regoneixença e Moral consideració contra les persuasions, vicis e forces de l'amor has numerous citations of Petrarch.24 In the second half of the fifteenth century Francesc Alegre shows familiarity with Petrarch in a composition —16→ included in the manuscript anthology known as the 'Jardinet d'Orats':25
It is clear from this passage that he was acquainted with the reputation of De Remediis, though he may never have read it, but that his main concern was with the Trionfi, on which he partly modelled himself. Alegre thus provides no evidence of the influence of the Latin works, but valuable evidence of their diffusion, since the idea of remedies against good and bad fortune was closely linked in his mind with the name of Petrarch.
In addition to the Prince of Viana's manuscripts we have records of Petrarchan works being copied, bought, and owned. A Majorcan, Miquel Abeyar, owned the Secretum26 -one more indication of the spread of Petrarchan influence to all parts of the Kingdom. As early as the end of the fourteenth century Guillem Coll de Canes, Prior of Panissars, copied De Vita solitaria. Joan Ginebret owned De Remediis in 1469, and in 1493, at Barcelona, a Liber rerum familiarum was bought by Francesc Franc a Serena, widow of Pere Falcó; a manuscript of De Viris illustribus is known to have been in Barcelona in the same year. Between 1435 and 1438 a copy of De Remediis entered the capitular library at Vich.27
The most imposing collection of manuscripts, however, was that assembled in the library of the Aragonese kings at Naples.28 It was founded by Alfonso V, the Magnanimous, and the work —17→ which he began was continued over half a century and then, more rapidly, dispersed, by the removal of a large number of volumes to France by Charles VIII, the sale of many more to Louis XII of France, and the transfer of many of the remainder to Valencia by D. Fernando, Duque de Calabria. A further process of dispersal and loss has gone on during the intervening period: even in the nineteenth century, when some of D. Fernando's books, preserved for nearly 300 years in the Valencian monastery of S. Miguel de los Reyes, were transferred to Valencia University, others were sold, and no record kept of the buyer or even the price, because they were only hand-written, and in a foreign language anyway.29 Fortunately, one of the Petrarchan manuscripts from Naples, a Latin text of De Viris illustribus, survived these hazards, and is now in the library of Valencia University, though another copy of this work, which was also at S. Miguel, has disappeared.30 Yet another, this time of the Italian translation by Donato degli Albanzani da Pratovecchio, was copied for the Naples library in 1467 by Joan Marco Cinico, found its way to Spain, and was bought there in 1706 and presented to the Royal Library, Stockholm, where it now is.31 One of the Naples copies of De Viris illustribus (it is impossible to identify it) was bought for the library for five ducats in 1469, the seller being Antonio di Simone.32
Of the Naples manuscripts of De Remediis the only two of which there is any record went to France: one was sold to Cardinal Georges d'Amboise for Louis XII, and an apparently different copy was seen in the library at Blois in October 1517 by Antonio de Beatis, secretary to Cardinal Luigi d'Aragona.33 We know that the Naples library possessed De ignorantia in 1481.34 An inventory prepared —18→ between 1508 and 1513 lists Africa and the Itinerarium.35 None of these manuscripts, unfortunately, can now be traced, but two others can. The first is a fourteenth-century copy of the Psalmi poenitentiales (together with works of Cicero and Seneca), now in the Bibliothéque Nationale, Paris.36 The second is a fifteenth century volume in the Vatican Library, one of whose components is Petrarch's letter to Niccolò Acciaiuoli, which was translated into Catalan and thence into Castilian.37 In addition to these works -De Remediis, De Viris illustribus, Africa, De ignorantia, Psalmi poenitentiales, and the Itinerarium- the library contained numerous manuscripts of Petrarcha's Italian poems, and also some described simply as de Petrarca, which may have been copies of the Latin works.38
Mention has been made of the letter to Acciaiuoli. This was anonymously translated into Catalan in the fifteenth century as Letra de reyals custums.39 More important is the Catalan florilegium compiled from De Remediis in the fifteenth century, Flors de Petrarcha de Remeys de Cascuna Fortuna.40 This consists of 165 sententiae taken from both books of De Remediis, and very roughly following the correct order of the chapters. As the only copy known of this work is a private commonplace book, which also contains a number of miscellaneous jottings, it may be that the owner of the book, one Bernat de Billoch, was himself the translator, but we do not in any case know whether the Flors had any influence on Catalan literature. Both Farinelli and Nicolau y d'Olwer believe that there was in addition a full translation of De Remediis, but there is no evidence for this.
—19→The general pattern which emerges in the eastern Kingdom is, then, one of little concern with Petrarch in Aragon, and a strong and early concern in Catalonia. Though the province cannot match the rich collection of Petrarchan manuscripts assembled in Naples, the number to which reference is made shows clearly that Petrarch's works were widely diffused during the relevant period. The effect of this on Catalan literature is striking: the early date of Metge's Valter e Griselda, the same writer's wide knowledge of other Petrarchan works, the early use of Petrarchan sententiae in the Corts, and the existence of three other translations besides that of Metge; in short, a strong Petrarchan strain in Catalan culture in the late fourteenth and early fifteenth centuries. Two points should, however, be noted: first, this is almost entirely a concern with the medieval aspect of Petrarch. Second, although the diffusion of manuscripts continues throughout this period, the Petrarchan influence on literature is much stronger in the early than in the later part of it; in the second quarter of the fifteenth century the centre of interest moves from Catalonia to Castile.
Though some manuscripts of Petrarcha's works seem to have been available in fourteenth-century Castile, no substantial effect on Castilian writers is noticeable until the second quarter of the following century. The most important early figures to reveal knowledge or the Latin works are Enrique de Villena (1384-1434) Íñigo López de Mendoza, Marqués de Santillana (1398-1458), and the converso Alonso de Cartagena (1385-1456), Bishop of Burgos. It is perhaps significant that the first two of these had early connexions with Catalonia. Villena refers to Petrarch on a number of occasions, most often in his Tratado de la consolaçion, a work in which he makes great and deliberate use of sententiae.41 He quotes from De Vita solitaria:
dos):
'.| (p. 114) | ||
includes Petrarch in a list of auctores (p. 116); paraphrases part of Africa:
| (p. 133) | ||
quotes from Bucolicum Carmen:
| (p. 160) | ||
cites Africa again:
|
Segunt Petrarcha rrecita en la Africa mençionada, pequeño es el coraçon que non sabe sofrir amaritudines...; |
| (p. 162) | ||
and quotes De Vita solitaria a second time
| (p. 172) | ||
Two other works of Villena's include Petrarchan borrowings: the Tratado del aojamiento quotes the opening words of De Vita solitaria:
| (p. 182) | ||
and De Rebus memorandis is cited to support an argument in Los doze trabajos de Hércules:
|
Non han catado lo que dize francisco petrarca en el libro que fizo de las recordables cosas onde en loor del rey ruberto de napol asaz çercano —21→ que fue a este nuestro tienpo, dize que por enxenplo suyo veyendolo tanto inclinado al saber se dio a la poesia.42 |
None of this establishes Villena as a humanist, but the date of his references to Petrarch (the Trabajos was probably composed before 1417, the bulk of Aojamiento in 1422, and Consolaçion in 1423) is noteworthy, as is the number of Petrarchan works which he knew.43
The 'vos' addressed by Villena in the Tratado del aojamiento is Santillana, whose library has been studied in detail by Mario Schiff.44 Santillana undoubtedly possessed De Remediis and De Viris illustribus in Italian translations and probably De Vita solitaria in a Spanish translation, as well as the Canzoniere in Italian.45 These were not the only works by Italian humanists which he owned: there were also nine manuscripts of Boccaccio, and works of Armannino Giudice, Cecco d'Ascoli, Matteo Palmieri, Leonardo Bruni, and Gianozzo Manetti. He was helped in the acquisition of his books by Spaniards in Italy, the one to whom he owed most being Nuño de Guzmán,46 and by his own contacts with Italian humanists: among those who wrote verses on the occasion of his death was Pier Candido Decembrio.47 In view of all this, it is not surprising to find that Santillana refers to Petrarch in the Proemio which he sent in 1449 to the Constable Dom Pedro of Portugal.48 In sections VII and VIII of this work, which is at once a statement of critical principles and a history of poetry, Santillana deals with the Italian poets, referring to Petrarch's coronation and to three of his works:
| (p. 73) | ||
—22→
The impact of the Italian sonnet-writers, and especially of Petrarch's Canzoniere, on Santillana's work is well known; the influence of the Trionfi on his allegorical poems is a matter of dispute, not directly relevant to this study; but the influence of Petrarch's Latin works on the Marquis's poetry, if there was any influence, is a question which has never been properly investigated. It is clear from the Proemio and from the manuscripts possessed by Santillana that he was fully aware of Petrarch's reputation as a Latin writer, though the failure to mention De Remediis, De Viris illustribus, and De Vita solitaria may mean that these works were incorporated in the library some time after 1449, which would greatly narrow the range of poems they might have influenced. There is a further piece of evidence, considerably earlier than the Proemio: in his poem on the death of Villena, Santillana makes the Muses lament that they have been robbed of their last champion:
|
Santillana must have had in mind the extent to which Villena had acted as his literary guide, introducing him to both classical and Italian writers.50 Yet despite this awareness of Petrarch's Latin works, only one of Santillana's poems has been said to draw on them. This is Bias contra Fortuna, whose fuller title, as given in the prose introduction, is said by Farinelli to be a reference to De Remediis:
|
pense investigar alguna nueva manera, asy como remedios, o meditaçion contra Fortuna...51 |
His view, though supported with considerably more detail by Lapesa, seems to me a mistaken one. It is important to remember the vogue of works on Fortune at this time;52 one of these, Machaut's —23→ Remède de la Fortune, has some interesting resemblances to Bias. The particular Petrarchan source put forward by Lapesa is De Remediis, ii. 55, but the resemblance is far from close, and the Petrarchan passage does not involve Bias in any meeting with a personified Fortune, while such a meeting is essential to the structure of Santillana's poem. There are some passages in Bias which distantly recall Petrarch, but no part of the poem can safely be said to derive from De Remediis. Thus, although Boccaccio's Latin works affect the content of Santillana's poetry,53 Petiarch's do not, and we are reminded once more that diffusion is not the same thing as influence.
Just as Santillana mourned Villena in verse, so Diego de Burgos mourned Santillana (whose secretary he was) in the Triunfo del Marqués.54 This poem includes a reference to Petrarch, spoken by Dante
|
| (p. 546) | ||
This is perhaps the most engagingly circumspect reference to Petrarch in all Spanish literature, and Diego de Burgos does not, when he makes Petrarch himself speak in praise of Santillana, reveal any closer acquaintance with the works of the man whose prestige he invokes. This has, however, taken us too far chronologically: some time before Santillana's death Alfonso de Cartagena had established contact with Italian humanists. He put Leonardo Bruni in touch with King Juan II, and induced Pier Candido Decembrio to dedicate his Latin translation of the Iliad to the King.55 He translated one work of Boccaccio (Caída de Príncipes, 1422), and several works of Seneca; it is in the latter that he refers to De Vita solitaria.56 This Petrarchan work was, together with De Remediis, —24→ in the library of Álfonso's uncle, Álvar García de Santa María (1380?-1460), when he made his will in 1457.57
Santillana's enemy Álvaro de Luna (1388-1453) refers to Petrarch in the Proemio to his Libro de las virtuosas e claras mugeres:
|
non poco marauillándonos de tantos prudentes, é santos Autores, que de los fechos, é virtudes de los claros Varones hayan fecho extendida, é cumplida mención; entre los quales fueron el bienaventurado Jerónimo, é los dos Isidoros, é Gennadio Obispo de Constantinopla, é Braulio, é el sagrado Álifonso Arzobispo de la Toledana Silla, é Francisco Petrarcha, del qual más es de marauillar, porque vido el olvido de los otros é fué más cercano á los nuestros tiempos; por qual razón la memoria de las virtuosas Mujeres, é sus claros fechos hayan assí callando, traspasado aquestos en los sus libros, é tratados; salvo Joan Boccacio, que de aquéllas cosas trata...58 |
Luna was obviously aware of Petrarch's reputation as the author of De Viris illustribus, but whether his comment implies any further knowledge can only be a matter of conjecture, while his debt to Boccaccio's De Claris Mulieribus is evident. Luna's supporter Juan de Mena (1411-56) seems, rather surprisingly for so erudite a man, unaffected by Petrarch.
Juan Rodríguez del Padrón (c. 1405-after 1440) refers twice to Petrarch in his Cadira del honor,59 once to De Remediis:
| (pp. 136-7) | ||
and once to the poet's coronation:
| (p. 138) | ||
The second reference implies no special knowledge of Petrarch's works: knowledge of his coronation was widespread, and was perpetuated in the phrase 'famoso orador e poeta laureado' which, with its variants, is so often applied to him in manuscripts and early editions. The first reference is a different matter: although Rodríguez del Padrón does not give such a precise allusion to Petrarch as to the other authors, he is dealing with a subject (the 'opinion' is that of Boethius, that true nobility can come only from virtue) which figures prominently in two dialogues of De Remediis. It thus seems that María Rosa Lida de Malkiel is overstating the case when she says that Rodríguez del Padrón knew only Boccaccio, and not Dante or Petrarch, directly.60 She is, on the other hand, right when she dismisses Farinelli's claim that the Siervo libre de amor contains echoes of De Remediis. Rodríguez del Padrón's knowledge of Petrarch's work is thus limited to the one allusion to De Remediis in the Cadira del honor; if he knew more, it leaves no trace in his writing.
Alfonso de Madrigal, known as el Tostado (d. 1455?), makes similar use of Petrarch in his Tratado cómo al ome es nescesario amar.61 He is concerned at the end of his work with remedies for love, and after citing Solomon, Ovid, and Seneca goes on:
| (p. 241) | ||
He makes no reference to De Remediis, but does mention 'Séneca en el libro de Remedios contra fortuna' (p. 243) (i. e. the pseudo Senecan De Remediis fortuitorum). This should serve as yet another reminder of how careful we must be in interpreting references to Fortune (or even to books called Remedios contra Fortuna) as references to Petrarch: had Seneca's name been omitted, the proximity of this passage to the mention of De Vita solitaria would have made it natural to suppose that another reference to Petrarch was intended. With some writers of this period, however, there is —26→ no danger of misunderstanding: Martín de Córdoba dedicated to Álvaro de Luna a still unpublished work on Fortune of which one chapter is 'Fortuna e... pobreza, segund Francisco Petrarca e Juan Bocatio'.62 Similarly, Alfonso Martínez de Toledo (1398? - 1470?), Archpriest of Talavera, twice refers to Petrarch by name in the Corbacho:63
| (pp. 146-7) | ||
|
Lee Francisco Petrarca, De rremedio de virtusque fortune, en el ijº libro, De dolore, do dize: 'Sy Elena non fuera tan fermosa el alcaçar de Troya Ylion fasta oy durara'. Etcª... |
| (pp. 171-2) | ||
In each case the Archpriest uses the familiar medieval technique of quoting a sententia from a recognized auctor in support of his argument.
Juan de Flores, writing not long before Rojas, employs sententiae freely in some of the discussions which occur in his sentimental romance Grimalte y Gradissa.64 One of these sententiae is almost certainly Petrarchan: 'que las aduersidades son prueua de flaquos y fuertes corazones' (p. 391), and it occurs also in La Celestina.65 This adaptation of Petrarchan material for an artistic purpose is much less common in the fifteenth century than is direct reference, but it is the line which Rojas is to follow. We have, however, no evidence that Rojas knew Grimalte y Gradissa, though he may well have done so.
Farinelli cites some other cases of interest in Petrarch: he says that Rodrigo de Zamora uses De Rebus memorandis in his Speculum Vitae; that Gonzalo García de Santa María praises De Remediis in —27→ his Discurso en favor de las Estorias; and that Hernando de Talavera translated Contra Medicum as Reprehensiones e denuestos contra un médico rudo e parlero.66 De Vita solitaria was anonymously translated, and manuscripts seem to have been fairly plentiful.67 This is, despite its title, so typical of late medieval compilations, of Flores e sentencias de la Vida de soledumbre, a full translation and not, as Farinelli asserts, an abbreviated translation of an Italian version. Petrarch's letter to Niccolò Acciaiuoli was anonymously translated from its Catalan version into Castilian as Letra de reales costumbres.68 The Psalmi poenitentiales were not translated until considerably later.69 De Remediis was translated by Francisco de Madrid at the end of the fifteenth, or beginning of the sixteenth, century under the title of Delos remedios contra prospera y aduersa fortuna. The translation, prefaced by a dedicatory letter addressed to D. Gonzalo Fernández de Córdoba and by a Life of Petrarch, was first printed at Valladolid in 1510 by Diego de Gumiel, and was reprinted six times.70 The popularity of De Remediis makes it surprising that no earlier translation should have been produced, and Farinelli has asserted that one circulated in manuscript half a century before Francisco de Madrid's version, being probably based on the Italian translation of which Santillana owned a copy.71 Yet there is no evidence for this: Amador de los Ríos mentions only one translation by name, and though he implies that it was made 'no declinado aun el siglo XV', this date and the title could —28→ be reconciled with Francisco de Madrid's work.72 The lateness of the translation of De Remediis is not the only strange feature: no work of Petrarch's was printed in fifteenth-century Spain or Portugal, and the work of Italian humanists is represented among peninsular incunabula by four volumes of Boccaccio and one each of Alberti, Bruni, and Aeneas Sylvius.73
As we move westwards across the Peninsula, a general interest in Petrarch becomes later and less intense. Castile lags behind Catalonia, and Portugal lags behind Castile. Perhaps the earliest Portuguese mention of a Petrarchan work is by the chronicler Fernão Lopes (c. 1380 - c. 1460), in the Crónica de D. João I, when dealing with obedient and rebellious sons:
|
caa peroo Estevam
de Culuna, gramde capitaom nas ostes de Roma, ouvese filhos asaaz
de bõos, seguumdo reza Francisco Petrarca, em h |
a epistolla que lhe
emviava, hThree points are worth noting in connexion with this passage: the use of one of the letters (they were seldom quoted or translated in the fifteenth century, except in the special cases of Griseldis and the letter to Niccolò Acciaiuoli); the use of Petrarch to provide a historical example; and the absence of any epithet (famoso poeta, orador, &c.) for Petrarch.
The Constable of Portugal, Dom Pedro (1429-66), wrote his —29→ works in Castilian, and was for a short time at the end of his life King of Aragon. Thus any knowledge of Petrarch on his part is not necessarily significant for Portuguese literature. As the recipient of Santillana's Proemio, Pedro was certain to be familiar with at least the name of Petrarch; and he did in fact own at least one Petrarchan manuscript, though we do not know its title, and Farinelli believes that he owned another three, but the evidence does not support this.75 Farinelli also says that two of Pedro's works, Sátira de la felice e infelice vida and De contempto del mundo, are influenced by De Remediis and the Secretum, and implies in addition that De contempto del mundo is influenced by De Vita solitaria.76 His evidence is slight and unconvincing, but it is nevertheless true that De contempto shows Petrarchan influence (the Sátira does not). There is no sign that Pedro has been influenced by the Secretum, but there is a fairly clear allusion to De Vita solitaria:
|
It seems, too, that the organization of the poem is affected by a knowledge of De Remediis. The similarity of thought at some points may be only the product of chance; the occurrence in De Remediis i of well over half the exempla found in De contempto may be simply the reflection of a common tradition; but the first half of the poem describes the deceitful gifts of good fortune, and —30→ there is a very close correspondence between the categories of good fortune set forth here and those in De Remediis i.78 The second half of the poem describes the virtues which will defend man against these deceits; they are introduced, perhaps significantly, by the phrase E sean remedios (p. 248). De contempto del mundo, then, shows probable familiarity with De Vita solitaria, and possibly with De Ocio Religiosorum, and its structure is profoundly affected by De Remediis. Pedro's third work, Tragedia de la insigne Reina Doña Isabel, may also be affected by De Remediis, though the influence is by no means as clear as in the De contempto. The fourth prosa of the Tragedia coincides at two points with the second section of De Remediis, ii. 51 (a dialogue concerned with the death of a brother; Pedro's work is inspired by his sister's death). Both authors stress that birth implies death, and that the virtues of the dead are like sons who live after them. But the most important Petrarchan influence on Dom Pedro is obviously to be found in De contempto.
An even stronger influence is exerted by De Vita solitaria on the anonymous Boosco deleitoso.79 Almost half of this work is Petrarchan, varying from simple translation to paraphrase, and conveying most of the substance of De Vita solitaria. One of the characters of the Portuguese work is Dom Francisco (i. e. Petrarch), and a good deal of the Petrarchan material is put into his mouth. Another anonymous work, possibly by the same author as the Boosco deleitoso, also draws on De Vita solitaria, though in a much more restricted way: this is the Horto do Esposo:
|
E Celestino foy levado a Roma e fecto papa, mais depois diz Francisco Patriarcha renunciou o papado... E diz mais Francisco hermitam e grande poeta: Quanto foy triste e contra sua vontade deste Celestino sobre a alteza da dignida de do papado. E quanto foy ledo e da sua —31→ vontade o deseendimento della. Ca eu ouvy contar aaquelles que o virom, que elle fugio da dignidade con tanto prazer...80 |
By no means all of the late medieval Hispanic writers who have been said to show the influence of Petrarch's Latin works prove, on closer examination, to do so, but influence can be established in sufficient cases to show that a habit of referring to, and of using, Petrarch had grown up in the Peninsula. He was used on the whole in a strongly medieval way, but he was used; the precedent was there. This went hand in hand with a wide diffusion of Petrarchan manuscripts. Those to which an individual fifteenth century ownership can be ascribed are mentioned above; unfortunately, most of them can no longer be traced, but a number are extant whose early history is obscure, and some of these are described in Appendix I. Several Petrarchan manuscripts were lost in the fire which damaged the Escorial library in 1671, but the survival of an Indice general, compiled at the end of the sixteenth century, enables us to know which they were: De Remediis, De Viris illustribus (two copies, one with some letters), De Ocio Religiosorum, and a Life of Petrarch with a summary of Africa.81 A more recent and, it is to be hoped, only temporary loss is that of a volume in the Archives of Valencia Cathedral, which includes Griseldis and some of Petrarch's letters.82 Then there are the manuscripts seen —32→ in the last century by Isidoro Carini, who found a fourteenth-century Liber Vitae solitariae in the Barcelona Archives, a fifteenth-century manuscript in the Capitular Library of Toledo, entitled Francisci Petrarchae De Philosophia Libri II, and a miscellany including part of Africa and some of the Psalmi poenitentiales in the Escorial.83 Pamplona Cathedral possesses a Griseldis.84 Rudolf Beer reported a fifteenth-century volume whose contents included Canals's translation from Africa and an unidentified Historia de las bellas virtuts per Francesco Petrarca, in Barcelona University Library.85 Finally, two manuscripts of Africa: one is in the library of the Real Seminario Sacerdotal de San Carlos de Zaragoza, and the other was among Gayangos's manuscripts.86 Though some of these manuscripts are still extant, I have not, for various reasons, examined them personally.
If these are taken in conjunction with the manuscripts described in Appendix I, it will be seen that a wide range of Petrarch's works circulated in Spain before the composition of La Celestina, though the circulation of some was clearly restricted. Such manuscripts began to be copied in the fourteenth century, but the vast majority date from the fifteenth; this is, of course, consistent with the literary influence which the works had. There is one apparent inconsistency: the scarcity of manuscripts in Catalan libraries when contrasted with the strong and early Petrarchan influence on Catalan literature. Apart from the margin of error which is inevitable with this type of material, one possible explanation presents itself: —33→ the removal of manuscripts from Catalonia to Castile. This certainly happened with the Escorial's extant manuscript of De Viris illustribus,87 and one may suspect that it happened on other occasions. The paucity of manuscripts in Portugal is not so surprising, though here as everywhere else it must be remembered that many libraries, especially small ones, have no printed catalogues, that some catalogues are incomplete, and that permission to work in some libraries is difficult or impossible to obtain. It would thus be extremely rash to base any far-reaching conclusions on the precise numbers of manuscripts in particular areas, or on those of particular works. Nevertheless, a comparison of numbers may be enlightening. If the manuscripts of Petrarch's Latin works known to have been in the library of the Aragonese kings at Naples are included, and if no account is taken of possible overlapping in one or two cases, 74 manuscripts are referred to above or described in Appendix I; or, more strictly, there are 74 Petrarchan or pseudo-Petrarchan works, since occasionally one manuscript contains more than one work. Of this number, De Remediis accounts for 17, and De Vita solitaria and De Viris illustribus for 12 each. Africa has 7, Psalmi poenitentiales 4, the Secretum, Griseldis, and De Institutione Regia (the Acciaiuoli letter) 3 each. There are 2 unidentified collections of letters, 2 manuscripts of Rerum senilium, and I each of De Rebus familiaribus, Bucolicum Carmen, De Rebus memorandis, De Ignorantia, De Ocio Religiosorum, Contra Medicum, the Itinerarium, Augustalis, and the Oratio ad Christum. Some of these figures call for comment. Africa is often only a fragment in a miscellany, and outside Catalonia its diffusion is restricted and its literary influence small. De Rebus memorandis and Bucolicum Carmen, on the other hand, are represented by only one manuscript each, though their popularity and influence are rather greater than this figure would suggest. But the most striking fact is the predominance of the essentially medieval works: De Remediis, De Vita solitaria (whose praise of solitude is that of the medieval ascetic and hermit, as the author of the Boosco deleitoso recognized), and De Viris illustribus (typical of the potted history combined with moral exempla which was so popular in the later Middle Ages). The first two of these works are by far the most frequently referred to and drawn on by Hispanic writers of this period, and they are the two which -another example of the survival of medieval tastes into the —34→ Spanish Golden Age- were printed in Spanish translations in the sixteenth century.
The position in Spain does not differ radically from that in England or France.88 The only Petrarchan work to be fully translated into French before 1500 is De Remediis (Griseldis, printed in French c. 1484, is an excerpt from Rerum senilium): this version was made about 1378 by Jean Daudin, and circulated in manuscript until it was printed in 1523 (there had been another, anonymous, translation in 1503, but this was not printed). By the beginning of the sixteenth century French libraries seem to have had far more manuscripts of De Remediis than of any other Petrarchan work, with De Viris illustribus as the next most popular. Other works, however, circulated from an early date: Daudin cites Bucolicum Carmen in the prologue to his translation, and Pierre Bersuire (d. 1362) draws on Africa in his Metamorphosis ovidiana moraliter. By the end of the fifteenth century most of Petrarch's works were known in France, so that Jean Trithème, writing in 1494, mentions no fewer than six in a list of books with which he is acquainted. It is not, however, until the following century that Petrarch is often interpreted in a humanistic way.
In England, too, manuscripts of De Remediis predominate, one being copied in this country towards the end of the fourteenth century. De Vita solitaria, the Secretum, and the letters seem to have been more popular than in France, and De Viris illustribus less so. The most notable early Petrarchan collection was in the library of Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester (d. 1447); Humphrey certainly owned seven, and probably ten, manuscripts of Petrarch, as well as six of Boccaccio. But here, as in Spain and France, it is Petrarch the medieval auctor, not Petrarch the humanist, who is read and respected. Thomas Bekynton (1390?-1465) provides a typical instance when he quotes Bucolicum Carmen as an authority in his De Jure Regum Anglorum ad Regnum Franciae, and only in the sixteenth century do we find signs of a changed attitude to Petrarch.
Although there are considerable divergences of detail (some of them perhaps due to the different methods followed by investigators of Petrarch's influence in France and in England) the general pattern which emerges in these two countries corresponds fairly closely to that found in Spain. In each case the medieval aspect of —35→ Petrarch was the first to be appreciated and used, and the way in which he was used was fundamentally medieval: sententiae were abstracted from his works and used independently, and attention was concentrated on the content of his sententiae, not on his style. And in each case De Remediis, presenting Petrarch as a moral philosopher, is the dominant work. Both of these main features will be found to apply also to La Celestina.
A good recent study of Petrarchan influence in France is Franco Simone's 'Note sulla Fortuna del Petrarca in Francia nella prima metà del Cinquecento', GSLI, cxxvii (1950), 1-59. Most of my information is taken from this, but the following works also contribute details: Willard Fiske, op. cit.; Léopold Delisle, 'Anciennes traductions françaises du traité de Pétrarque sur les remèdes de l'une et l'autre fortune', Notices et extraits des Manuscrits de la Bibliothèque Nationale et autres Bibliothèques, xxxiv (Ire partie, 1891), 273-304; Léontine Zanta, La Renaissance du Stoïcisme au XVIme siècle (Paris, 1914); the Cornell Catalogue; and Jean Seznec, La Survivance des Dieux antiques (London, 1940-Studies of the Warburg Institute XI).
There is no work on English Petrarchism equivalent to Simone's, but a great deal of information is to be found in Roberto Weiss, Humanism in England during the Fifteenth Century (2nd ed., Oxford, 1957). See also Cambridge History of English Literature, i. 216, ii. 366-7, iii. 68; Paget Toynbee, TLS, 22 April 1920, 256; H. S. Bennett, Chaucer and the Fifteenth Century (Oxford, 1947 - Oxford History of English Literature, II. i); H. S. Bennett, English Books and Readers, 1475-1557 (Cambridge, 1952); R. Weiss, 'Codici umanistici in Inghilterra', GSLI, cxxvi (1954), 386-95; B. L. Ullman, Studies in the Italian Renaissance (Roma, 1955) H. G. Wright, op. cit.; M. Praz, The Flaming Heart (New York, 1958).
—36→
Fernando de Rojas is linked in two ways with the Spanish writers discussed in Chapter I: the name of Petrarch is almost the first thing to catch the eye when one opens La Celestina, and it recurs in the inventory of books attached to Rojas's will.89 This inventory, which was begun in April 1541, divides the library into Libros de romance, which were left to Rojas's widow, and Libros de leyes, which were left to his son Francisco. This second group includes, besides forty-three legal works, five non-legal ones in Latin, so that Libros de leyes was clearly, in this case, a general term for books which would not, because of either their language or their subject, interest the widow. Among the vernacular works are several translations of Greek and classical Latin authors, and a number of humanist works, also in translation: Boccaccio's Cayda de príncipes and Las ylustres mugeres; Aeneas Sylvius's Tratado de miseria de cortesanos (together with Erasmus's Tratado de como se quexa la Paz); a later work, Castiglione's El cortesano; and Los Triunfos de Petrarca. Among the Latin books is Petrarca en Latín, and since the inventory normally gives a work's title even when the author's name is not mentioned, it seems reasonably certain that a collected edition of Petrarch's Latin works is meant. (It may be noted in passing that few, if any, of Rojas's books were manuscripts). Three collected editions had appeared before the inventory was made: Basel 1496, Venice 1501, and Venice 1503; and since (to anticipate the remainder of this chapter) Rojas used the Basel 1496 Opera, this edition seems the most likely to have been in his library.
It contains a large number of the Latin works, and ends with an index to the sententiae and exempla contained in the volume.90 There was no other similar edition of Petrarch before the first publication of La Celestina. Castro Guisasola91 drew attention to —37→ the use in La Celestina of groups of entries from this index, which is, as I hope to demonstrate, quantitatively the most important Petrarchan source.
The inclusion of such an index in the first edition of the Opera was natural, in view of the prestige which Petrarch had acquired as an auctor of moral philosophy, and in view of the medieval tendency to collect sententiae, to arrange them in alphabetical order, and even to play a kind of parlour game with them.92 Although it is necessary, for the sake of brevity, to refer to the 'index', a more accurate description is that given in the work itself: Principalium sententiarum ex libris Francisci Petrarchae colleetarum summaria Annotatio. It is mainly a list of sententiae, each one followed by a reference to the text, but it also serves as an index to the exempla contained in the works, though these usually appear in a much abbreviated form. Some chapter headings are also included; here, as with the exempla, the Principalium sententiarum Annotatio begins to resemble a modern index, but it does not seem that it was meant to serve primarily as a guide to the text, especially as such a guide was provided by the lists of contents prefixed to most of the works in the volume. It could, from all appearances, be used independently of the text, and most medieval readers would have seen nothing remarkable in such a use.
Since the art of indexing was at that time in a rudimentary state, mistakes and inconsistencies are fairly frequent: the order is not strictly alphabetical (for example, entries on liberalitas are inserted among those on libertas), wrong references to the text are sometimes given, the use of 'ibid.' is inconsistent, and an entry is occasionally repeated. Not all the works were suitable for representation here and Bucolicum Carmen and Septem Psalmi poenitentiales have no entries at all. The three works which bulk most largely in the text (De Remediis utriusque Fortunae, De Rebus memorandis, and De Rebus familiaribus) occupy an even greater proportion of the index: over three-quarters of the entries refer to these three works. Apart from these, De Vita solitaria, Contra Medicum, and perhaps Epistolae sine Titulo are quite well represented, though they are more narrowly specialized works than the preceding three, and thus less likely to be consulted for sententiae of general interest.
It is now necessary to consider two questions, the first of which has already received Castro Guisasola's attention. Can the author —38→ or authors of La Celestina be shown to have borrowed from the index at all? If it was used, was it used independently or in conjunction with the text? Because of the textual history of the work and the controversies about its authorship, these questions must be answered separately for Act I, for Acts II-XVI of the original version, and for the new material first interpolated in the 1502 editions.93
In Act I there are three possible borrowings; in two of them the verbal resemblance between Petrarch and La Celestina is much too slight to stand as convincing proof, and in the third case Petrarch and the author of Act I have a common source in Seneca.94 The eighty-one pages (in Cejador's edition) of Act I contain not a single verifiable borrowing, and it is clear that their author did not use the index.
In striking contrast to this, Acts II-XVI of the original version contain fifty-three definite borrowings from this source, besides others which can be dismissed as too doubtful. This in itself would be only flimsy evidence of borrowing from the index rather than from the text, since all but one of the entries concerned also occur, naturally enough, in the text. Proof is, however, supplied by the nine occasions on which Rojas borrows a group of sententiae or exempla which are consecutive in the index but not in the text of Petrarch's works.95 The best example is the group of five sententiae —39→ on love; though they all come from De Rebus familiaribus, no two are in the same Epistola.96 Comparison with La Celestina (ii. 37-38; 171) shows direct borrowing:
| Amoris mira et magna potentia. Quod par imperium habet in omne hominum genus. Amor omnes difficultates frangit. Volucer est amor: non terras: sed coelum transit et maria. Amor anxia res est: credula: timida: sollicita: omnia circumspiciens:et vana etiam ac secura formidans. | Mucha fuerça tiene el amor: no sólo la tierra, mas avn las mares traspassa, según su poder. Ygual mando tiene en todo género de hombres. Todas las dificultades quiebra. Ansiosa cosa es, temerosa e solícita. Todas las cosas mira en derredor. |
Similar, though less spectacular, cases of the same type are:
| Adversa aequo animo sunt toleranda. In adversis animus probatur.97 | las aduersidades con ygual ánimo se han de sofrir e en ellas se prueua el coraçon rezio o flaco. (ii: 112; 233) |
| Si vis amari ama. Sunt qui non amant et amari putant: quo nihil est stultius.98 | E pues sabe que es menester que ames, si quieres ser amado... simpleza es no querer amar e esperar de ser amado. (i. 233-4; 131-2) |
| Amici veri maxime in adversis haerent: et illas domos avidius frequentant quas fortuna deservit. Amico nihil charius: nihil rarius.99 | El cierto amigo... en las aduersidades se prueua. Entonces se allega e con mas desseo visita la casa, que la fortuna próspera de samparó... No ay cosa más amada ni más rara.100 (i. 234-5; 132) |
In the remaining cases, although the borrowings are not found together in La Celestina, it is still clear that the index, and not widely separated parts of the Petrarch text, is the source:
| Adelecta ex nobili tuscorum sanguine foemina:
tam astrorum studio quam magicis artibus venturi praescia: tam viro
quam natis diem mortis tribus versiculis praenunciavit. Admiratio in animum descendit per oculos. Admirationis mater est raritas. Adolescentia non nisi quae sub oculis sunt metitur101 |
¿Qué mas hazía aquella
Tusca Adeleta, cuya fama, siendo tú viua,
—40→ se perdiera? La qual tres días
ante de su fin prenunció la muerte de su viejo marido e de
dos fijos que tenía. (i. 214-15; 119) La raleza de las cosas es madre de la admiración; la admiración concebida en los ojos, deciende al ánimo por ellos. (i. 195; 105) Porque la mocedad en solo lo presente se impide e ocupa a mirar... (i. 232; 130) |
| Adrianus Imperator tam vehe menter musis
intendebat: ut ne vicina morte lentesceret: versiculos de animae
discessu aedidit. Adversitas simulatorem abigit: faex potorem.102 |
las [canciones] que compuso aquel Emperador e
gran músico Adriano, de la partida del ánima, por
sofrir sin desmayo la ya vezina muerte. (i. 187; 98) Sabe que, como la hez de la tauerna despide a los borrachos, así la aduersidad o necessidad al fingido amigo. (ii. 12-13; 155) |
|
Amphion arbores et
saxa cantu movisse perhibetur. |
aquel antico, de quien se dize que
mouía los árboles e piedras con su canto. (i. 187;
98) No seas la telaraña, que no muestra su fuerça sino contra los flacos animales. (i. 183; 95) aquel Anaxagoras e yo, que seamos yguales en sentir e que responda yo, muerta mi amada hija, lo que el su vnico hijo, que dijo: como yo fuesse mortal, sabía que hauía de morir el que yo engendraua. (ii. 207; 298) |
| Nullum tam mite animal quod non amor sobolis ac metus exasperet. | No ay tan manso animal que con amor o temor de sus hijos no asperece. (ii. 92; 217) —41→ |
| Animalia venenosa tutius est vitare quam capere.104 | Mas seguro me fuera huyr desta venenosa bíuora, que tomalla. (i. 198; 107) |
| Appetere vehementer stultum est quod potest
pessimo fine concludi. Apes in inventionibus sunt imitandae. Apibus nulla esset gloria nisi in aliud et in melius inventa converterent.105 |
Que no es de discretos desear con grande
eficacia lo que se puede tristemente acabar. (ii. 20; 160) La mayor gloria, que al secreto oficio de la abeja se da, a la qual los discretos deuen imitar, es que todas las cosas por ella tocadas conuierte en mejor de lo que son. (i. 207; 114) |
In some of these cases the borrowed entries are near each other in La Celestina without being consecutive; in other cases, two in a group of three are consecutive.
From these nine groups of borrowings it is clear that Rojas used the index, and this conclusion is supported by twenty-eight other individual borrowings.106 This being established, we are able to discover to what extent Rojas used it independently, and to what extent in conjunction with the text; that is, how often he looked up references in the text and extracted additional material from it. Among the definite borrowings, six, or perhaps seven, are supplemented from the text and there are three cases in which entries not consecutive in the index but consecutive in the Petrarch text are used by Rojas.
To the entry on adolescentia given above, the text adds
| aetas maturior multa circumspicit. | mas la madura edad no dexa presente ni passado ni porvenir. (i. 232; 130-1) |
The consecutive entries on Amphion, Anacharsis, and Anaxagoras all seem to have been used as starting-points from which Rojas went on to borrow from the text, though this is not certain in the second case:
| nec fabulam Orphei vel Amphionis interseram: quorum ille baeluas immanes: hic arbores ac saxa cantu movisse: et quocunque vellet duxisse... | Pues, si acaso canta, de mejor gana se paran las aues a le oyr, —42→ que no aquel antico, de quien se dize que mouía los árboles e piedras con su canto. Siendo este nascido no alabaran a Orfeo. (i. 187; 98) |
| Anacharsis philosophus proprie admodum ac prudenter: urbium leges aranearum telis simillimas dicebat. Sicut enim ille imbecilla animantia involvunt: franguntur a fortibus: sic hae pauperum delicta puniunt: a potentibus contemnuntur. | No seas la telaraña, que no muestra su fuerça sino contra los flacos animales. (i. 183; 95) |
| Anaxagoras mortem filii nuncianti: Nihil inquit novum aut inexpecta tum audio: ego enim cum sim mortalis sciebam ex me genitum esse mortalem. | Anaxágoras... que dijo: como yo fuesse mortal, sabía que hauía de morir el que yo engendraua. (ii. 207; 298) |
In these three cases dependence on the index as primary source is rather more doubtful than in the others, but the use of consecutive entries furnishes fairly strong, evidence, despite the large additions from the text. The entry Pauli Aemilii constantia is also suplemented from the text:
| Aemilius Paulus vir amplissimus et suae aetatis ac patriae summum decus: ex quattuor filiis praeclarissimae indolis: duos extra familiam in adoptionem aliis dando ipse sibi abstulit: duos reliquos intra septem dierum spacium mors rapuit: Ipse tamen orbitatem suam tam excelso animo pertulit ut prodiret in publicum: Ubi audiente populo Romano casum suum: tam magnifice consolatus est... | Que si aquella seueridad e paciencia de Paulo Emilio me viniere a consolar con pérdida de dos hijos muertos en siete días, diziendo que su animosidad obró que consolase él al pueblo romano e no el pueblo a él, no me satisfaze, que otros dos le quedauan dados en adobción. (ii. 206; 297) |
The problem of whether index or text takes priority as a source assumes at this point an almost impenetrable complexity, since the exemplum of Aemilius Paulus occurs in De Rebus familiaribus, Epistola I2, the letter which also contains the exempla of Pericles, Xenophon, and Anaxagoras, and which might well in consequence —43→ be regarded as an autonomous source, not dependent in any way upon the index. However, the entry on Anaxagoras is consecutive with two others which are borrowed (see above). Further, La Celestina and the index agree on the order Paulus Aemilius, while the Petrarch text has the correct order Aemilius Paulus. This indicates that the first impression was made by the index, and that consultation of the text came later, when the other two exempla would be added, the Anaxagoras entry leading to that of Xenophon, and Aemilius Paulus to Pericles (these form pairs of consecutive sections in the text).107
A less extensive addition, and one without such perplexing implications, is made to the entry Nemo tam senex qui non possit annum vivere:
| Nemo tam iuvenis qui non possit hodie mori. (De Remediis, i. 110 A) | Ninguno es tan viejo, que no pueda viuir vn año, ni tan moço, que oy no pudiesse morir. (i. 170; 88) |
The other case in which an addition appears to have been made is in the exemplum of Adelecta: La Celestina says dos fijos, though the number is mentioned only in the Petrarch text, and not in the index. Nothing else is added from the text, however, and it is possible that Rojas already knew the story, was merely reminded of the outlines by the index entry, and was able to supply the number from memory.108 Finally, there are the three occasions on which index entries are consecutive in the text of Petrarch, so that it is reasonable to suppose that one entry led Rojas to look up the text and there find the other: besides the Anaxagoras-Xenophon and Aemilius Paulus-Pericles pairs, the exempla of Alcibiades and Socrates are joined in this way.109
At the most, there are eight cases of Rojas's having used the index as a guide to the text when writing the sixteen-act version of La Celestina, while there are forty-five cases in which he uses it in isolation. Thus it was, on the whole, used independently, in the customary medieval way, as an autonomous list of sententiae. Further, most references to the text were made for exempla, which, because of their length, could not be given fully in the index; —44→ actual sententiae induced Rojas to consult the text on only three occasions. He has not in this instance developed an attitude to Petrarch which would distinguish him from those writers whose use of Petrarch is discussed in Chapter I. The index is as much a source in its own right as are any of Petrarch's Latin works.
The enlarged 1502 version of La Celestina adds material equal to roughly a quarter of the original length. In it there are seventeen definite borrowings from the index, and the evidence is of the same nature as before. The interpolations are, of course, more fragmentary than the original text, and this makes the use of consecutive groups of entries perhaps rather less likely. Only one such group is, in fact, to be found:
| Pastoris boni est tondere pecus non
deglutire. Nulla passionum humanarum est perpetua. Rara patientia est quam non penetret acutum convitium.110 |
Cata que del buen pastor es propio tresquilar
sus ouejas e ganado; pero no destruyrlo y
estragarlo... (ii. 117; 238) Cata que es muy rara la paciencia que agudo baldón no penetre e traspasse... pues dizen que ninguna humana prisión es perpetua ni durable. (ii. 11; 155)111 |
In addition, there are fourteen other definite individual borrowings.112 There is only one example of the use of the index in conjunction with the text: the exemplum of Ulysses in the index reads
|
Ulyxes ut militiam subterfugeret et regnaret amentiam simulavit. |
The text has
|
Ulyxes vero ut militiam subterfugeret et regnaret: atque Itachae viveret ociose cum parentibus cum uxore cum filio simulavit amentiam (De Rebus memorandis, 111. i. 22), |
which seems closer to La Celestina's
|
o me fingiré loco, por mejor gozar deste sabroso deleyte de mis amores, —45→ como hizo aquel gran capitán Ulixes por euitar la batalla troyana e holgar con Penélope su muger. (ii. 113; 233) |
Here again, independent use predominates, to an even more marked extent than in the original edition.
It is now possible to consider in what way, if at all, the borrowings are selective: whether Rojas shows any preference among Petrarch's works, among sections of the index, or among themes dealt with there.
The predominance of De Remediis, De Rebus memorandis, and De Rebus familiaribus both in the text of the 1496 Opera and in the index makes it natural for them to provide the bulk of the borrowings. In the original Acts II-XVI they provide 19, 13, and 19 borrowings respectively; the only other works represented are De Vita solitaria and Epistolae sine Titulo, with I each. In the 1502 additions the three largest works have 5, 4, and 6 borrowings respectively (almost the same proportion as before), while Contra Medicum and the Secretum have I each.113 These three works thus occupy proportionately even more space in the borrowings than they do in the index.
Of the fifty-three definite borrowings made in the sixteen-act version, no fewer than thirty-four come from the 'A' section of the index -a section which occupies less than 12 per cent. of the whole. Some explanation is provided by the themes dealt with under 'A': adversitas, amor, and amicitia would attract Rojas. Yet these themes account for only sixteen of the borrowings, the remainder being distributed among fourteen other themes. The most probable solution to the problem is that Rojas was familiar with the index for some time before he began to write La Celestina, and that he was specially interested by what Petrarch had to say on adversity, love, and friendship. (If we narrow adversity down to its extreme form, death, we have three of the chief themes of La Celestina). This would lead him to consult the 'A' section more frequently, and would thus make him familiar with the sight of the other 'A' entries.114 There is some unevenness in the borrowing from other sections, but to nothing like the same extent. Of the —46→ seventeen definite borrowings added in 1502, however, only two come from the 'A' section; there is no really satisfactory explanation for this discrepancy.
The question of which themes are most used by Rojas is linked to the preceding one, since the attention paid to adversitas, amor, and amicitia has already been considered. Thirty-six themes have ten or more entries each, but seven of these are proper names. Of the remaining twenty-nine, twenty are neglected in the borrowings, although several of them, notably avaricia, are favourite themes in La Celestina.115 Apart from amor and amicitia, none of the index's major themes provides more than one borrowing in the original version, and none except amor adds more than one in 1502.116 It seems safe to say, therefore, that with the exceptions already discussed, the index did not attract Rojas by its treatment of particular themes. It was to him simply a convenient, and largely autonomous, summary. It was a literary work like any other, and therefore just as worthy of credence and of the tribute of direct borrowing.
- Librorum Francisci Petrarchae Basileae
- Impressorum Annotatio.
- Bucolicum Carmen per duodecim Aeglogas distinctum.
- De Vita solitaria: Libri .II.
- De Remediis utriusque Fortunae: Libri . II.
- Libri quem Secretum: siue de Conflictu curarum suorum inscripsit: Colloquium trium dierum.
- De Vera sapientia: Dialogi. II.
- De Rebus memorandis: Libri .III.
- Contra medicum obiurgantem: Inuectiuarum libri. III.
- Epistolarum de Rebus familiaribus: Libri. VIII.
- Epistolarum sine Titulo: Liber. I.
- —47→
- Ad Charolum quartum Romanorum Regem: Epistola. I.
- De Studiorum suorum successibus ad Posteritatem: Epistola .I.
- Septem Psalmi poenitentiales.
- Epitoma Illustrium uirorum ad Franciscum de Carrharia.
- Eiusdem Epitomatis: post obitum Francisci Petrarchae: Lorbardi de Siricho supplementum.
- Beneuenuti de Rombaldis Libellus qui Augustalis dicitur.
Explicit Liber Augustalis: Beneuenuti de Rambaldis cum pluribus aliis opusculis / Francisci Petrarchae: Impressis Basileae per Magistrum Ioannem de Amerbach: Anno / salutiferi virginalis partus: Nonagesimo-sexto supra millesimum quaterque centesimum.
This colophon is followed by the Principalium sententiarum Annotatio, at the end of which there is no further colophon. Small folio. Most of the works are separately signed: A8, B6, C8, A8, B-D6, E8, a8, b6, c8, d6, e8, f6, g10, h8, i-16, m8, n-p6, q8, a8, b-c6, F4, a10, b6, C8, d-e6, f-g8, aa8, bb10, A8, B6, C8, D6, E8, F6, G8, H6, I8, K6, L8, M10 a6, b10, A8, B6, C7.
Another edition with an index was printed before the 1502 Celestina appeared: the two-volume Opera, Venice, 1501.
| Librorum Francisci Petrarche | |
| Impressorum Annotatio. | |
| De ignorantia suiipsius et multorum. | Liber. I. |
| De ocio religiosorum. | Liber .I. |
| Itinerarium. | |
| Propositum factum coram rege vngarie. | |
| De vita solitaria. | Libri .II. |
| De Remediis utriusque fortune. | Libri .II. |
| Libri quem secretum siue de conflictu curarum suarum inscripsit: Colloquium trium dierum. | |
| De uera sapientia. | Dialogi .II. |
| De rebus memorandis. | Libri .IIII. |
| Contra medicum obiurgantem: Inuectiuarum. | Libri .IIII. |
| Epistolarum de rebus familiaribus. | Libri .VIII. |
| Ad quosdam ex illustribus antiquis quasi sui contemporanei forent. | Epistole .V. |
| Epistolarum sine titulo. | Liber .I. |
| Ad Karolum quartum Romanorum regem. | Epistola .I. |
| Septem psalmi penitentiales. | |
| Inuectiua contra Gallum. | |
| Epitoma Illustrium virorum ad Franciscum de Carrharia. | |
| Eiusdem Epitomatis: post obitum Francisci Petrarche: Lorbardi de siricho Supplementum. | |
| Beneuenuti de Rombaldis Libellus qui Augustalis dicitur. |
—48→
Explicit Liber
Augustalis: Beneuenuti / de Rambaldis cum pluribus aliis /
opusculis Francisci Petrarche / Impressis Venetiis
(impen-/sis domini Andree Torre / sani de Asula)
per Simonem de Luere: / Anno Incarnationis Christi .M.ccccci. / die
.xxvii. Marcii. / Feliciter.
This colophon is followed by the Principalium sententiarum Annotatio, at the end of which there is no further colophon. Folio. Signed: a10, b-e8, f10, ff8, g-o8, p-r10, s-y8, ç8, A-F8; G-J6. K10, L-M6, N-O8.
- Annotatio nonnullorum librorum seu epistolarum Francisci Petrarche.
- Vita Petrarche edita per Hieronymum squarzaficum Alexandrinum.
- Epistole rerum senilium .C.xxviii. diuise in libris xviii.
- Item epistole .lvii. eiusdem poete: et aliorum.
- Africa libri viii.
- Buccolicum carmen in duodecim eglogas distinctum.
- Epistole metrice ad barbatum .lxiiii. et libri tres.
- Testamentum suum.
- Priuilegium laureationis sue.
Impressum Venetiis per Simonem / de Luere: impensa domini / Andree Torresani de / Asula .17. Junii. 1501.
Folio. Signed:
4,
1-78,
8-116,
12-138,
14-1510,
16-176,
16-186,
19-238,
246.
There is no index to this volume. The index in volume I is a somewhat inferior reprint of the index to the Basel 1496 Opera, ignoring the works incorporated for the first time in the Venice 1501 Opera, omitting five entries,
- Consuetudo proximam vim habet naturae.
- Aedidit librum Heroico carmine de Scipione Africano.
- Francisci Petrarchae vita sub compendio narratur.
- De laurea sua: sunt eius carmina et epistolae soluta oratione.
- Ventosa gloria est de solo verborum splendore famam quaerere.
and reversing the sense of a sixth by printing tolerabile where the 1496 index has the correct intolerabile.
The basic copy of the 1496 Opera used for this study was Bodleian Library Toynbee 312; of the 1501 Opera, Bodleian Vet. F 1 c. 30. These were later supplemented by reference to British Museum I. B. 37389 (1496 Opera) and 11421. k. 11 (1501 Opera).
Op. cit. 138-42. A tentative re-examination of the problem was published by me in BHS, xxxi (1954), 141-9, and I am grateful to the Editor, Professor A. E. Sloman, for permission to include parts of it here. Further investigation has led me to change some details, and I would no longer wish to maintain some of the subsidiary conclusions: the passage —49→ from Act XII of La Celestina cited (p. 146) as a group of borrowings from the index comes instead from the text of Petrarch; there is no decline of interest in entries drawn from De Rebus memorandis when Rojas comes to write his 1502 interpolations (p. 147); and entries coming ultimately from the Secretum and Epistolae sine Titulo are borrowed, in addition to those mentioned in the article. But the main lines of argument developed there -the index's importance as a source, its normal use by Rojas as an autonomous work, and its value as evidence for Rojas's authorship of the 1502 additions- remain unaffected. It would be as well to explain here the criteria which I have adopted in deciding whether a borrowing comes from the index or from the text of Petrarch. If an index entry appears in La Celestina unaccompanied by a portion of the adjacent Petrarchan text, it will almost certainly be true, considering the extent to which Rojas used the index, that this particular borrowing comes from the index and not from the text. When, however, part of a borrowing occurs in the index and part does not, the situation becomes more difficult. If the text concerned is one from which no definite direct borrowings can otherwise be established, it remains highly probable that the index entry was the primary source, and was merely amplified afterwards from the text. But if direct borrowings have already be en made from that text, then the balance of probability tilts towards the text as direct source in this case too. Three considerations may, however, override this. First, if that part of the borrowing which occurs in the index is consecutive there with other entries which are borrowed, the index is clearly the primary source. Secondly, the first part of the 'A' section of the index is so much used in the original version of La Celestina that any part of a borrowing which occurs there is likely to have been taken from there by Rojas. Thirdly, there may be exceptional features, as in the case of the Aemilius Paulus exemplum discussed below. I need scarcely add that this paragraph is intended to be read only in conjunction with the following chapters.
This concentration of medieval readers on sententiae is discussed by Curtius, op. cit., chs. 3 and 14; and by E. P. Goldschmidt, Medieval Texts and their First Appearance in Print (London-Oxford, 1943), ch. 3. MS. collections of sententiae circulated in Spain: the Escorial Library possesses a MS. collection of sententiae extracted from thirty-three authors, and other similar compilations. One fifteenth-century MS. of De Remediis, now in the Biblioteca Nacional, Madrid, includes a collection of flores from the work (see Appendix I, no. 15), and a similar compilation in Catalan has already been mentioned. It was only natural that such a strongly marked taste should continue after the introduction of printing, and its continuation is shown by the popularity of such works as Poly-anthea (a combined dictionary and collection of sententiae), whose first edition (Saonae 1503) was compiled by Dominicus Nanus Mirabellius, and which ran into numerous eds. well into the seventeenth century, with fresh sections being frequently added.