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Domenico Bollani, a Distinguished Correspondent of Pietro Aretino—Some Identifications1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 November 2018

Christopher S. Cairns
Christopher S. Cairns*
Affiliation:
University of Toronto
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Extract

When Pictro Aretino moved into the Palazzo Bollani facing onto the Grand Canal, and within sight of the Rialto Bridge in 1529, he was sure he had found in Venice a haven from the political uncertainty of the rest of Italy, and in the house, a spiritual inspiration for his literary activities. His letter to his landlord, Domenico Bollani, of October 27, 1537, is an eloquent panegyric of the scenic beauties offered by the position of the house on that ‘più bella strada del mondo.’

Type
Research Article
Information
Renaissance News , Volume 19 , Issue 3 , Autumn 1966 , pp. 193 - 205
Copyright
Copyright © Renaissance Society of America 1966

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Footnotes

1

I am indebted to the Ford (Dagenham, England) Trust, whose generosity greatly facilitated my research in Venice and Brescia during the summer of 1964.

References

1 I am indebted to the Ford (Dagenham, England) Trust, whose generosity greatly facilitated my research in Venice and Brescia during the summer of 1964.

2 The house described and the views from its windows have become immortalized in Arctino's celebrated letter to Titian in which he describes for the artist the view from his balcony adopting a terminology redolent of the painting techniques of Titian himself (Pietro Aretino, Lettere, Paris, 1609,111, 54). On the question of Arctino's sensibility, see e.g., Fidcnzio Pertile, in Lcttere suit Arte di Pietro Aretino commentate da Fidenzio Pertile, a cura di Ettore Camesasca (Milan, 1957-60), in, Tome 1, 186-194, and Sergio Ortolani, ‘Le Origini della Critica d'Arte a Venczia,’ L'Arte, xxvi (1923), 1-17. Identification of the house was never a problem, as the views described in the 1537 letter (1, 212) have changed very little. See G. Tassini, ‘Delle Abitazioni in Venczia di Pietro Aretino,’ Archivio Veneto, xxxi (1886), 205-208. For more recent confirmation, see T. Caldccot Chubb, ‘La Casa dell'Aretino a Venezia,’ Gazzetta di Venczia, XIV (Dec. 7, 1935). Little remains today of the original house except the structure of the facade, of which the top story was added subsequently. The ‘scala bestiale’ mentioned in the letter of 1537 has disappeared, but the dark entrance is now known as the Sottoportcgo Dolfm.

3 M. Barbaro, Arhori dei Patriti Vencti, Archivio di Stato, Venice, Tome II, carta 31.

4 Secolo xvn (foreword), p. 5.

5 Brescia, Appresso Gio. Battista Borella, 1592.

6 Domenico Bollani, MS. Archivio di Stato, Venice, Sezione Notarile, atti C. Ziliol, busta 1257, n. 264.

7 Archivio di Stato, Venice, Segretario alle Voci, M.C.I, carta 8.

8 Pietro Aretino net suoi primi anni a Venezia e la Corte dei Gonzaga (Turin, 1888), pp. 41-44.

9 For example, see Chubb, T. Caldccot, Aretino, Scourge of Princes. (New York, 1940), pp. 176–179 Google Scholar, 429-431. (On p. 176, BoUani is styled ‘Bishop’ in 1537, which he did not become until three years after Aretino's death in 1556.) For more recent discussion, see Pertile, in, Tome 1, 155-156, 180.

10 The first book of the Lettere was first printed in 1537 and republished subsequently in 1542 by Marcolini. As Aretino altered material in this letter in the second edition, but not that which concerns Bollani, we may safely assume that good relations between the two men were intact up to 1542, for reasons of friendship or strategy. (See Pertile, 1, 72, n.)

11 Francesco Bollani is the only member of the family who is mentioned with certainty in the Diarii di Marino Sanuto (1496-1533), where his rank in 1531 (‘fu giudice del Procuratore dei XL al Criminale’) coincides with the dating and rank of Francesco Bollani, father of Domenico and Jacopo, described in Barbaro's Arbori dei Patriti Veneti. Sec I Diarii de Marino Sanuto (1496-1533), 58 vols. (Venice, 1879-1902), LV, 107, 666; LVI, 71. (I am grateful to Dott. Boschctto of the Archivio di Stato, Venice, and to Mr. J. M. Potter of London for information concerning this.)

12 See Innamorati, Giuliano, Tradizione e Invenzione in Pietro Aretino. (Messina/Florence, 1957), p. 224 Google Scholar and n. 5. (To date I have been unable to trace the location of this letter, undocumented in Professor Innamorati's book.)

13 Quoted by Innamorati, p. 224.

14 See Luigi Francesco Fè D'Ostiani, II Vescovo Domenico Bollani, Memorie Storiette della Diocesi di Brescia (Brescia, 1875), p. 4. The work contains a life of Bollani which only sparsely covers this early period.

15 Brown, Rawdon (ed.), Calendar of State Papers and manuscripts relating to English affairs existing in the archives and collections of Venice. (London, 1873)Google Scholar, v (1534-1554), 208, 213-

16 Ibid., pp. 232-233, 282.

17 The Palazzo now houses offices and a restaurant on the ground floor, and there is no way of telling in what part of the building Aretino found his ‘stanze signorilmentc commode,’ as it was partly destroyed by fire some eighty years ago. A section of the original medieval facade survives at No. 4168, but we cannot be sure that Aretino occupied this section as Fertile (in, Tome 1, 156) and Lorcnzetti (Venice and its Lagoon, tr. Guthrie, Venice, 1961, p. 466) have assumed.

18 What Aretino failed to mention in this letter is that this ‘doppia somma di fitto’ was to be paid by Cosimo dei Medici, and that the sum amounted to sixty scudi per year (Aretino, VI, 97, 104, 105). Thus, if Aretino is to be believed, he was paying Domcnico Bollani about thirty scudi per year. See Pertile, III, Tome I, 180.

19 Barbaro, carta 31.

20 Domenico, Antonio, and Vi[n]ccnzo, who all appear on the family tree (Fig. 2). They appear again in Domenico Bollani's will as his heirs, and the eldest, Domenico, became bishop on the isle of Crete (see n. 5).

21 Domenico Bollani, carta I. The house on the Grand Canal at the Rio di San Giovanni Grisostomo should not be confused with another house also known as the Palazzo Bollani in prcscnt-day Venice. This, according to Tassini, in his Curiosità Vcneziane ovvero Origini delle Denominazioni Stradali (Venice, 1882), was not built until 1709.

22 11, 385.

23 Fè D'Ostiani, pp. 4-5.

24 Domenico Bollani, carta 1. ‘Fatte per suo Testamento diversi ordinationi, rimaste in molta parte al solo mio arbitrio … .’ 25 Domenico Bollani, carta 3.

26 A full description of this period may be found in Fè D'Ostiani, pp. 5-16, briefly mentioned here, since it is after Aretino's death. For the hierarchy of positions in the Venetian government, see, for example, Horatio Brown, Studies in the History of Venice, 2 vols. (London, 1907), 1, 288-303.

27 Brescia (1915-40), ‘Prefazione,’ vii. Sec also the most recent publication on Bollani's pastoral work: Felice Murachclli, Il Vescovo Domenico Bollani: Profili Storici per il IV Centcnario della sua Elezione Episcopale (1559-1959), (Brescia, 1959) and bibliography.

28 ‘L'idea del trattato “dc la libertà c de la servitù” non cadde affatto dalla mcnte dell'Aretino. Già si potrebbe notare che le Lettere, specie ncl Primo Libro e nel Secondo, svolgono quel tema con tal abbondanza e coerenza di particolari che non sarebbc difficile condurre in tal senso una interessante lettura, ma poi è da ricordare che, fuori delle Lettere, quella idea partorì, a poca distanza, il Dialogo delle Corti, che è del 1538.’ (Imiamorati, pp. 224-225.)