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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 December 2020
That Masuccio's tale of the adventures of Giannozza and Mariotto was the principal source for Luigi da Porto's Giulietta e Romeo, a novella which agrees rather closely in plot with Shakespeare's tragedy, is generally acknowledged. The purpose of this paper is to show that many of da Porto's deviations from Masuccio are due to neglected literary influences rather than, as has commonly been supposed, to da Porto's originality.
1 Il Novellino di Masuccio Salernitano, ed. Luigi Settembrini (Naples, 1876), pp. 358–368. Cf. Luigi da Porto's Giulietta e Romeo, first edition, 1530, entitled: Istoria novellamente ritrovata di due nobili amanti, con la lor pietosa morte, intervenuta già nella città di Verona nel tempo del Signor Bartolommeo della Scala; second edition, 1535; reprinted by Cino Chiarini in his Romeo e Giulietta, la storia degli amanti veronesi nelle novelle italiane e nella tragedia di Shakespeare (Florence, 1906), pp. 1–40.
2 See John Colin Dunlop, History of Prose Fiction, revised by Henry Wilson (London, 1911), ii, 178. Cf. Giuseppe Todeschini, letter “al Nobile Jacopo Milan,” in Lettere storiche di Luigi da Porto dall'anno 1509 al 1528, ed. Bartolommeo Bressan (Florence, 1857), p. 388. Todeschini attributed the discovery of this literary parallel to the Marchese Giovan Jacopo Trivulzio.
3 H. Hauvette writes: “Incontestablement Luigi da Porto a lu la nouvelle de Masuccio; il a reconnu, en véritable artiste, le grand parti qu'il était possible d'en tirer; il en a vu les défauts; il en a fait la critique, et s'est efforcé de combler certaines lacunes, de réparer certaines maladresses; mais surtout il s'est appliqué à donner l'illusion de la vérité . . .; et il s'est. . . parfaitement acquitté de sa tâche . . .”—La “Morte Vivante” (Paris, 1933), pp. 138–139.
4 See for instance Vittorio Rossi, who says: “. . . ecco le avventure di Mariotto Mignanelli e di Giannozza, simili, salvo nella fine, a quelle di Romeo e Giulietta (xxxiii) . . .”—Il Quattrocento (Milan, 1933), p. 203.
5 “Il ne manque certes pas d'aventures célèbres, depuis Héro et Léandre ou Pyrame et Thisbé, où l'on voit des amoureux incapables de se survivre l'un à l'autre; mais Luigi da Porto a imaginé une complication qui crée une situation nouvelle.”—H. Hauvette, op. cit., p. 158.
6 “ . . . Roméo, lui, arriverait à temps pour assister au réveil de Juliette, s'il n'avait eu la fâcheuse idée de commencer par avaler son poison; or celui-ci n'agit pas si vite que Juliette ne se réveille sous ses yeux, et alors il y a un court moment où les deux amants se retrouvent vivants, juste assez de temps pour comprendre qu'ils sont irrémédiablement perdus l'un pour l'autre.”—Ibid., p. 159.
7 Hauvette writes: “Parmi les moyens ingénieux auxquels les romanciers ont eu recours pour tordre les nerfs de leurs héros—et par contrecoup ceux de leurs lecteurs et lectrices—celui-ci est assurément un des plus remarquables.”—Ibid.
8 Ovid, Metamorphoses, iv, 142–144.
9 Giulietta e Romeo cit., p. 35.
10 Ovid, op. cit., iv, 145–146.
11 Giulietta e Romeo, loc. cit.
12 Ibid., p. 36.
13 Ovid, op. cit., iv, 155–157.
14 Giulietta e Romeo, loc. cit.
15 Ovid, op. cit., 152–153.
16 Romeo, la donna viva sentendo, forte si maravigliò, e forse di Pigmalion ricordandosi disse: . . . Giulietta e Romeo, p. 32.
17 Giulietta, awakening, cries: “Oimè, ove son io? chi mi stringe? misera me, chi mi bacia?” . . . Ibid.
Cf. Ovid, op. cit., x, 280–281:
For Ovid's account of Pygmalion's amazement, see line 287: Dum stupet, etc.
Cf. the story of Alcyone who, while she was being transformed into a kingfisher, kissed with her newly grown beak the senseless body of her shipwrecked husband Ceyx, and restored him to life. Husband and wife, although transformed into birds, continued their conjugal relations.
Ut vero tetigit mutum et sine sanguine corpus,
dilectos artus amplexa recentibus alis,
frigida nequiquam duro dedit oscula rostro.
Senserit hoc Ceyx, an vultum motibus undae
tollere sit visus, populus dubitabat; at ille
senserat, et tandem, superis miserantibus, ambo
alite mutantur. Fatis obnoxius isdem
tunc quoque mansit amor, nec coniugale solutum
foedus in alitibus; coeunt, fiuntque parentes,. . .
—Ovid, Metamorphoses, xi, 736–744.
18 Giulietta e Romeo, pp. 32–33.
19 According to the well-known version of Ovid, Pyramus and Thisbe are neighbors (Metamorphoses, iv, 57), who are smitten with mutual love, in spite of parental opposition (ibid., iv, 61). As H. Hauvette notes, Paolo and Daria, the hero and heroine of the poem Di Paolo e Daria amanti (1495) are separated by reasons of family. Daria is descended from a legitimate branch of the Visconti family, while Paolo, who is also a Visconti, but with the baton of illegitimacy, is of course no proper suitor for her—(Hauvette, op. cit., p. 57.) The poem has many points of resemblance to the chante-fable of Aucassin et Nicolette, the rôles of the lovers being to some extent reversed.
20 Giulietta e Romeo, p. 36. Cf. Ovid, op. cit., iv, 162–163.
21 Masuccio, op. cit., p. 367.
22 . . . sopra il suo corpo per dolore se more . . .—Ibid., p. 358.
23 . . . “quodque rogis superest, una requiescit in urna.”—Ovid, op. cit., iv, 166.
24 Ed ordinato un bel monimento, sopra il quale la cagione della loro morte scolpita fosse, i due amanti con pompa grandissima e solenne, dal signore, da' lor parenti e da tutta la città pianti ed accompagnati, seppelliti furono . . .—Giulietta e Romeo, p. 40.
25 These elements are of course found also in the myth of Hero and Leander. In fact, Hero's tower seems closer to Giulietta's balcony than the hole-in-the-wall where Pyramus and Thisbe communicated secretly. Furthermore, Leander first met Hero at a fête. Parental opposition appears both in the stories of Pyramus and Thisbe and of Hero and Leander.
26 C. Foligno, “Appunti su Luigi da Porto e la sua Novella,” Nuovo Archivio Veneto, Nuova Serie, xii (1912), 430. Cf. Gioachino Brognoligo, Studi di storia letteraria (Rome and Milan, 1904), p. 74.
27 Giulietta e Romeo, p. 4. H. Hauvette (op. cit., p. 139) says that this recital supposedly took place on the ride from Gradisca, on the Isonzo, to Udine. This trip probably took place in 1511. Luigi da Porto decided to write out the story and dedicate it to a cousin of his, Madonna Lucina Savorgnana.
28 L. da Porto, Lettere storiche cit., pp. 276–286.
29 Giulietta e Romeo, p. 5.
In connection with da Porto's consultation of chronicles the following detail might be noted: The traditional date for the story of Giulietta e Romeo, as recorded by the none too reliable Girolamo dalla Corte, is 1301. It is barely possible that da Porto had in mind the year 1300, when, according to at least one chronicler, the snowfall seems to have been phenomenal:
“Anno MCCC. fuerunt nives maximae, ita quòd oportebat continuò eas ex domibus projicere, et nixit tota hyeme usque ad mensem Aprilis.”—Annales Veteres Mulitensium, in L. A. Muratori, Rerum Italicarum Scriptores (Milan, 1727), xi, col. 75. Cf. Giulietta e Romeo, p. 11:. . . una sera che molta neve cadeva. . . .
30 See my article on The Origins of the Legend of Romeo and Juliet in Italy, in Speculum, v (1930), 277, note 1.
31 Giulietta e Romeo, pp. 37–39.
32 . . . raccolto a sè il fiato e per buon spazio tenutolo, e poscia con un gran grido mandandolo, sopra il morto corpo morta ricadde.—Ibid., p. 36. Cf. H. Hauvette, op. cit., p. 156.
33 . . . deliberò di più non vivere; e ristretti in sè gli spiriti, senza alcun motto fare, chiuse le pugna, allato a lei si morì. . . —Il Decamerone di Messer Giovanni Boccaccio, edited by Pietro Fanfani (Florence, 1904), iv, 8 (i, 365).
34 Istorietta Amorosa fra Leonora de' Bardi e Ippolito Buondelmonte, published by A. Bonucci in his edition of the Opere Minori de Leon Battista Alberti (Florence, 1845), iii, 275–294.
35 Letterio di Francia, Alla scoperta del vero Bandello, in GSLI, lxxxi (1923), 4–5, and note 1.
36 Partito da molti giorni Romeo, e la giovane sempre lagrimando mostrandosi (il che la sua gran bellezza faceva mancare), fu più fiate dalla madre . . . con lusinghevoli parole addimandata . . .—Giulietta e Romeo, p. 16. Cf. Ippolito e Leonora, pp. 278–279.
37 See especially pp. 139–140.
38 She says to Fra Lorenzo: “. . . datemi tanto veleno che in un punto possa me da tal doglia e Romeo da tanta vergogna liberare; se no, con maggior mio incarico e suo dolore, un coltello in me stesso insanguinerò . . .”—Giulietta e Romeo, p. 22.
39 Romeo . . . pallido e come morto divenuto, tirata fuori la spada si volle ferire per uccidersi; pure da Pietro ritenuto . . .—Ibid., p. 29.