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IX.—Doni and the Jacobeans

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 December 2020

John M. Berdan
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Extract

To the average reader, even in Italy, the name Anton-francesco Doni suggests nothing. There is no collected edition of his works, nor, aside from the 1863 edition of the Marmi and the sporadic and limited publication of occasional pieces, are there even reprints of single works. To the average student he is but one of many writers of novelle that, altho by comparison with some of the others are only mildly filthy, are not distinguished by either sweetness or light. Of his other works, the Libreria is the earliest Italian bibliographical work; the Marmi, a series of conversations between Cinquecento Florentines sitting on the steps of the Duomo, is photographic in its realism; the Mondi, a socialistic fantasy, shows the influence of More's Utopia; the Zucca is a collection of proverbs, etc., yet nothing very significant. Nor are the facts of his life (1513–1569) more interesting. Altho associated somewhat mysteriously with the Accademia Ortolana of Piacenza and with the still more mysterious I Pelegrini at Venice, his roving life is tarred with the same brush as that of the “infame” Aretino. And to the English reader his direct claim is even more slender, as it consists only of a translation, made by Sir Thomas North in 1570, of his translation of the fables of Bidpai. In life he was of “vivissimo ingegno;” to-day the “ghiribizzoso” Doni is remembered as an erotic author.

Type
Research Article
Information
PMLA , Volume 22 , Issue 2 , 1907 , pp. 291 - 297
Copyright
Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1907

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References

page 291 note 1 Reprinted with an introduction by Joseph Jacobs, London, David Nutt. Mr. Jacobs relegates Doni to a short footnote, p. liii.

page 291 note 2 Pref. 2, Libreria. In Vinegia, Presso Altobella Salicato, mdlxxx.

page 291 note 3 Scelta di Curiosità Letterarie, Dispensa viii, Avvertenza.

page 291 note 1 Storia Letteraria d'Italia, Scritta da una Società di Professori; Il Cinquecento, Francesco Flamini, p. 293.

page 291 note 1 Attraverso il Cinquecento, by Arturo Graf, Torino, 1888, p. 45.

page 291 note 2 Aretino's Lettere, 1609, vol. i, p. 248.

page 291 note 3 Aretino's Lettere, 1609, vol. ii, p. 181.

page 291 note 4 Aretino's Lettere, 1609, vol. v, p. 319.

page 291 note 1 La Libreria del Doni Florentino; nella quale sono scritti tutti gli Autori volgari, con cento discorsi sopra quelli. … In Vinegia, presso Altobello Salicato, mdlxxx, Boccaccio. May I here acknowledge the courtesy of the Harvard Librarians in giving me access to this book?

page 291 note 2 De la Speranza d'Amore.

page 291 note 1 Mondi Celesti, Terrestri, & Infernali. In Vicenza, 1597, p. 44.

page 291 note 2 The Purple Island or the Isle of Man, by P. F., Cambridge, 1633, Cant. 3.

page 291 note 3 The Purple Island, Cant. 2.

page 291 note 1 Part of this translation is taken from J. A. Symonds, Renaissance in Italy, New York, 1900, vol. v, p. 81.

page 291 note 2 I Marmi del Doni. In Vinegia, mdlii, p. 26.