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The Identity of Francesco Cieco da Ferrara

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 December 2020

Reginald Foster French
Reginald Foster French*
Affiliation:
Amherst College
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Extract

Francesco Cieco da Ferrara, author of the Mambriano, has been an enigmatic figure in Italian literature. It is strange that so little is known of this important intermediary between Boiardo and Ariosto. Long after his death, it is true, some definite but extravagant things were written about him by literary men who probably felt the need of dressing up the poor poet: he was an eminent jurist, a theologian and philosopher. But we know only Cieco the minstrel, and common sense would question the truth of these assertions. Again, almost a hundred years after his death, the family name of Bello was bestowed upon Cieco by Francesco Buonamici, a philosopher and astronomer whose information about Italian literary matters was scant and inaccurate. Although scholars like Rua have followed the Bello clue without success, this cognomen has come down into our library catalogues and even into Rua's own edition of the Mambriano, Would it not be good sense to dismiss the Bello christening as the tardy and offhand mistake of an astrologer?

Type
Research Article
Information
PMLA , Volume 52 , Issue 4 , December 1937 , pp. 992 - 1004
Copyright
Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1937

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References

1 F. A. Superbi, Apparato degli uomini illustri di Ferrara (Ferrara, 1620), ii, 101.

2 F. B. Borsetti, Historia Ferr. gymnasii (Ferrara, 1735), ii, 341.

3 Discorsi poetici in difesa d'Aristotile (Firenze, 1597), p. 29.

4 See what he says of the Spagna in the same passage.

5 Rua ran down a Ferrarese Bello only to find that he was a bravo. See his Novelle del Mambriano (Torino, 1888), pp. 24, 25.

6 “Il Cieco da Ferrara e altri improvvisatori alia corte di Ferrara,” Giornale storico, xciv (1929), 271–278.

7 Part of these documents are new, part have been printed before by A. Venturi, “L'arte ferrarese nel periodo di Ercole d'Este,” Atti e memorie della deputazione di storia per le provincie di Romagna, iii, iv (1887–88), 91 ff.; G. Rua, “Postille su tre poeti ciechi,” Giornale storico, xi (1888), 294 ff.; G. Bertoni, Il Cieco da Ferrara cit. As these are often incomplete and sometimes inaccurate, I have reprinted them from their sources.

8 We shall call Francesco Cieco da Ferrara, Cieco I; Francesco Cieco da Fiorenza, Cieco II.

9 Quoted entire by Rua in his Novelle, p. 26.

10 Introductory letter to Mambriano (Ferrara, 1509): “… molte cose ge haverebbe acconcie …, se l'importuna morte non l'havesse cosi presto da mezo tolto …”

11 Poscia che sotto il bel castalio manto/Il debil mio intelletto alberga e vive, (xlv, 1)

12 E satisfar in parte al suo disire,/Narrando gli altrui fatti con parole;

13 Rua, Novelle cit., pp. 9–13.

14 Francesco d'Antonio da Fiorenza, Cieco, Doctoral Dissertation (Harvard University, 1935), pp. 40–55.

15 Ibid., p. 47.

16 i, 5; xviii, 2–3; xxi, 1; xxix, 1–2; xxxi, 3; xxxiv, 2.

17 Poem of Ioannesmaria Tricaelius appended to first edition of the Mambriano (Ferrara, 1509).

18 Line 18 of a work without title by Lelio Manfredi, quoted by F. Flamini, “Viaggi fantastici e ‘Trionfi’ di Poeti” in Nozze Cian = Sappa-Flandinet (Bergamo, 1894), p. 293.

19 Morte del Danese (Milano, 1522), ii, iv, 140.

20 Mambriano, vi, 3.

21 P. Rajna, Fonti dell'Orlando Furioso (Firenze, 1900), p. 32.

22 He speaks often of his blindness. Once he says he “lost” his sight (xxvii, 46) perhaps from a fall into a ditch as we may infer from xviii, 92–93; xxv, 3; i, 6.

23 i, 7.

24 Rajna (Fonti cit., p. 68n.) though this was Lodovico Gonzaga, but this prelate was absent from the city during Cieco's stay. Gardner, Dukes and Poets in Ferrara (New York, 1904), p. 486n., guessed the Cardinal Sigismundo Gonzaga, but Sigismondo was not Cardinal until 1505.

25 Archivio Estense, Guardaroba I pp. I, Reg. 1492–96, fol. 143.

26 Archivio storico Gonzaga, Carteggio inviati e diversi (Busta, 1800), sub die.

27 Ibid., sub die.

28 Ibid., sub die.

29 Facetia is a common translation for the Italian novella. Sabbadino degli Arienti calls his collection of short and piquant stories Facetiarum Poretanarum opus. See “Lettera dedicatoria” to Le Porretane, ed. Gambarin (Bari, 1914), p. 1.

30 Archivio Estense, Mandati, 1489, f°. 109.

31 Idem, Conto generale, 1489, N. N. N., f°. 67; Mandati, 1489, f°. 1196; Zornalle de ussita, 1489, N. N. N., f°. 4.

32 Idem, Mandati, 1481, f°. 104.

33 Idem, Spese, 1481, f°. 33. The accountant has carelessly interchanged the s. and d. which should read: s.17 d.4.

34 “Antonius” in Opera (Venezia, 1501), f°. 24v.

35 Archivio Estense, Spese, 1481, f°. 28. If Francesco had two men with him, this bill is calculated for 16 or 17 days. In his September stay L.6, S.17 = S.137; 2 men for 14 days is about S.5 a day per man. This time 17 days for 3 men should be 17 × S.15 = S.255 or L.12, S.15. Perhaps we should say 16 days and leave the balance to the mule!

36 Idem, Libro della Spenderia, 1480, f°. 21.

37 Idem, Registro: Spesa de lo offitio del sp. Marco de Galaoto, 1479, p. p. f°. 56. The entry is not dated.

38 Instralatata fu la bella storia Nel mile quatrocento ottantatrene (vii, 80).—The first edition was Venezia, ca. 1483, not Firenze, 1493 as we are told in the article cited from the Enciclopedia italiana. To my knowledge there is no edition of Firenze, 1493.

39 This was evidently a usual process. In the Reali di Francia (Firenze, 1515),: “in S. Martino di Fiorenza all'improvviso dall'Altissimo … copiato dalla viva voce da varie persone mentre cantava.”

40 Histoire littéraire d'Italie (Paris, 1824), iv, 546–547.

41 Febo con so chiome era intrato E molta gente getta gran sudore.

In Lion quando mostra gran calore Marte ancora li stava di lato

El qual riscalda ogni pian herbato Quando comenzai questo mio tenore (iii, 2)

42 Archivio Estense, Mandati, 1479, f°. 19.

43 Idem, Registro: Intra. et Spexa, 1479, C. C. C., f°. 68.

44 Idem, Ricordi della Salvaroba di Castello, 1478–83, f°. 4.

45 Silva Cronicarum Bernardini Zambotti, Biblioteca comunale di Ferrara, MS. Cl. I, n°. 470, c. 38r.

46 Archivio Estense, Debitori e creditori, 1475, f°. 104.

47 Idem, Intrata e Spexe, 1471, f°. 25.

48 For list of MSS see Bertoni in Giornale storico xciv, 273–274 and xcvii, 378–379 to which should be added Biblioteca Estense, Modena, MS. est. lat. 225.

49 Edited by Antonio Zambiagi (Parma, 1888) with the title, Torneo fatto in Bologna il IV ottobre MCCCCLXX.

50 Biblioteca universitaria, Bologna, MS. 604 (876). A printed edition, Descrizione della giostra fatta in Bologna l'Anno 1470 is possibly the first book published in the city.—See A. Sorbelli, Su la vita e su le edizioni di Baldassare Azzoguidi (Bologna, 1904), pp. 38–43.—Of the other works ascribed to Francesco Cieco none is really his. Bertoni (Cieco da Ferrara cit., p. 275) and Natali (“Cieco, Francesco” in the Enciclopedia italiana) both speak of his Laude di Venezia. This were better called the Capitolo in Comendazione di Venezia and is by Niccolò Cieco d'Arezzo to whom the manuscripts ascribe it. The Contrasto di Tonin e Bighignol (Giornale storico, xxxv, 281 ff.) is attributed to Francesco by one MS (Estense, Modena, MS. X, 34, f°. 80 ff.) but to Francesco Nursio by most of the others. The sonnet published by Crescimbeni in his Commentarj (Venezia, 1710), iii, 204 is really one by a certain Iacomo Cieco Ferrarese printed in the first edition of Molza's Ninfa Tiberina (s. n. t.), p. 21.

51 Mambriano, x, 4; xvi, 75.

52 … ora riposo …

A Cento socto la gran signoria

De' Bolognesi…. (Giostra, 411).

53 He has mentioned the work frequently, lifted entire some nonelle and carried on the meteorological canto-introduction.

54 Orlandino, i, 18–19; Maccheronica, xxv.

55 Selva seconda, in edition of Renda, Le opere italiane (Bari, 1911), i, 268.

56 Le opere maccheroniche (Mantova, 1882–89), i, 208. The first edition (Venezia, 1521) reads “Alovisus tuscus, Franciscus et orbus” but its punctuation is hit and miss. Luzio, in his edition (Bari, 1911), follows the princeps.

57 I am giving only some characteristic examples. When there is a rime word of standard Tuscan, it is given in parenthesis, (M. is Mambriano, P. is Persiano, G. is Giostra): capil, P. i, 272; spiero (imperiero), P. i, 513; aldire, P. ii, 366; galder, P. i, 165; agionte (fonte), M. xxxi, 1; battaia, taia (gaia), P. iii,. 252; fio, M. vii, 98; maravia (compagnia), P. i, 231; amigo (Mocenigo), P. vii, 80; zente, P. i, 106, 107; zergo, M. vii, 61; zorno, P. iv, 12, 13; fresi d'oro, G. 68; anzolo, P. iii, 590; Vanzelo, M. xx, 70; baso for bacio (caso), M xxxiv, 15; Parisi (pendisi, nimici), G. 236; malvase (rimase), P. iii, 313; felice (disse), P. iii, 132; mostazzo (pazzo), M. xviii, 22; guanze (danze), M. xxxvi, 98; lanze (possanze), P. i, 196; onza (sconza), G. 376; giaccio for ghiaccio, M. xxxiv, 2; giesia, P. ii, 366; iii, 540.