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Luigi Pulci and Late Fifteenth-Century Humanism in Florence

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 November 2018

Edoardo A. Lebano
Edoardo A. Lebano*
Affiliation:
Indiana University
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Extract

It is a commonly expressed belief that all thinkers, writers, and poets of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries must be regarded as humanists. Such notable scholars as Walser, Pastor, and Anichini have lent considerable support to this opinion; in an effort to disprove the thesis (which has been dominant since the beginning of the century) that humanism is predominantly irreligious and individualistic, they have managed to distinguish between a Christian humanism and a pagan humanism.

On the basis of such a distinction, we should consider even Luigi Pulci and Lorenzo the Magnificent (and why not Machiavelli and Leonardo?) to be humanists of the same calibre as Ficino, Poliziano, Pico, and Erasmus, even though their humanism was more apparent than real.

Type
Studies
Information
Renaissance Quarterly , Volume 27 , Issue 4 , Winter 1974 , pp. 489 - 498
Copyright
Copyright © Renaissance Society of America 1974

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References

1 Anichini, G. considers two kinds of humanism: a moderate and Christian humanism as opposed to an excessive and pagan humanism. See L'umanesimo e ilproblema delta salvezza in Marsilio Ficino (Firenze, 1937), p. 8 Google Scholar.

2 Storia dell'Umanesimo, 4 vols., Bologna, 1964.

3 Estetica del Rinascimento e del Barocco (Napoli, 1962), p. 75.

4 See Pellegrini, Carlo, Luigi Pulci: L'uomo e l’artista (Pisa, 1912), pp. 19–21 Google Scholar.

5 Le rime di Bernardo Bellincioni, redatte e annotate da Pietro Fanfani (Bologna, 1876), pp. 203-204.

6 Marcel, Raymond states that the Pulci-Franco dispute lasted ‘au moins trois ans': Marsile Ficin (Paris, 1958), p. 424 Google Scholar.

7 See Sonetti di Matteo Franco e di Luigi Pulci, insieme con la Confessione. Stanze in lode della Beca ed altre Rime del medesimo Pulci (Lucca, 1759).

8 Invernizzi, Giosia, Il Risorgimento, III (Milano, 1878)Google Scholar, and Villari, Pasquale, Niccolò Machiavelli e i suoi tempi, I (Milano, 1895)Google Scholar.

9 See letter 36 in Morgante e Lettere, a cura di Domenico De Robertis (Firenze, 1962). This letter is also reprinted by Kristeller, Paul Oscar in his Supplementum Ficinianum, n (Firenze, 1937)Google Scholar, pp. 285-286.

10 Storiadell'Accademia Platonicadi Firenze (Firenze, 1902), p. 821.

11 See Volpi's, Guglielmo important articles entitled ‘Luigi Pulci, Studio biografico,' published in Giomale Storico della Letteratura Italiana, 22 (1893), 1–64 Google Scholar, and ‘Un cortegiano di Lorenzo de’ Medici (Franco, Matteo) ed alcune sue lettere,’ in Giomale Storico della Letteratura Italiana, 18 (1891), 229–247 Google Scholar. See also L'indole e il riso di Luigi Pulci (Rocca S. Casciano, 1907) by Attilio Momigliano.

12 Marcel, p. 427.

13 Sonnet CXLIV is addressed to Benedetto Dei. In another sonnet, cvi, Pulci defines a pilgrimage as ‘an exchange of lice.'

14 Sonnet cxiv, addressed to Pandolfo Rucellai.

15 These five sonnets against Pulci can be found published together only in the already mentioned Supplementum Ficinianum (II, 287-289). While four of these five sonnets had previously been published by Volpi and Pellegrini (three by Volpi and three by Pellegrini, of which, however, only one had not been printed by Volpi), the fifth sonnet, which begins with the verse ‘Parlando della cosa a te invisibile,’ was published for the first time by Kristeller from a manuscript (cod. 119, fol. 3) in the Florentine Archives.

16 Agreeing with Volpi (p. 48), I believe also that sonnet xcvm was directed against Marsilio Ficino. Other scholars maintain instead that only sonnets xcvi and xcvn are clearly addressed to the head of the Platonic Academy. Among these are Carlo Pellegrini (p. 37), Arnaldo Delia Torre (pp. 821-823) and Paul Oscar Kristeller (pp. 283-285). To prove that a fourth sonnet, the xcix, was also written against Ficino is a much more difficult task because of its almost indecipherable meaning.

It should be noted—as Volpi, Pelligrini, Delia Torre, and Kristeller have done in their already mentioned works—that the name of Ficino was omitted in the first and later printings of the Sonetti (as in the 1759 Lucca edition of this work). In these editions sonnets xcvi, xcvn, and XCVIII appear to be directed to a ‘geometra’ while the word ‘filosofia' becomes ‘geometria.’ The opening verse of sonnet xcvi, ‘Se Dio ti guardi, Marsilio Ficino’ (codex Trivulziano 965, fol. 15) is replaced, in the printed edition, by the verse ‘Se Dio ti guardi, brutto ceffolino.’ The same occurs for the first line of sonnet xcvn, ‘Marsilio questa tua filosofia’ (codex Trivulziano 965, fol. 16) which becomes ‘Viso d'allocco, la tua geometria.’ It is generally believed that these changes were made at the suggestion, or perhaps at the request, of Lorenzo de’ Medici in order to protect Marsilio (and indirectly Luigi as well) by making it difficult to understand against whom the sonnets had been originally written.

17 Pulci often refers to the neo-Platonic philosophers as ‘cicale.’ See Morgante, cantare XXXVII (stanza 41) and sonnets XXIII (which begins with the line ‘I’ ho tanto grattato le cicale’) and CVI.

18 See Marsilio Ficino, Opera omnia, 1, 2, Riproduzione in fototipia dell'edizione di Basilea del 1576 a cura di M. Sancipriano, con presentazione di Paul O. Kristeller (Torino, 1959), PP- 661 and 725. It must be noted that in the printed version of Ficino's letters against Pulci the poet's name does not appear. In Vol. 1 (p. 28) of his Supplementum Ficinianum, Kristeller reports that in some MSS letter 2 on page 661 contains the Latin name of Pulci as ‘Loisius Pulcius’ or ‘Giges Pulcius.’ Kristeller, among several other scholars, tends to believe that the poet's name was deleted (as in the case of Pulci's sonnets against Ficino) at the request of Lorenzo de’ Medici. This would certainly prove that the Magnifico acted as arbitrator between the two rivals. It is difficult to prove whether or not Lorenzo's intervention and, later, the Medici brothers’ ‘invectiva’ against Luigi, did ‘de facto’ put an end to the war between the poet and the philosopher. We know—as also alluded to by Pulci himself in cantare xxv of the Morgante (stanzas 116-117)—that the first printing of the poem, in only twenty-three cantari, was received with very sharp criticism on the part of several ‘letterati,’ some of whom—we can safely assume—were friends and followers of Ficino. Arnaldo Delia Torre (p. 289), basing his argument on the less aggressive tone of the last five cantari of the Morgante, appears inclined to believe in the cessation of the hostilities between Luigi and Marsilio. I tend, instead, to agree with Raymond Marcel (pp. 432-433) who holds that if ‘la lutte’ between Pulci and Ficino possibly became ‘plus sorde et plus impersonnelle,’ after the Medicis’ reprimand to Luigi, the struggle did continue yet not ‘moins sévère.'

19 Ficino, opera omnia, p. 737.

20 Volpi, pp. 27-28.

21 See the following works not previously mentioned: Carducci, G., Opere, Edizione Nazionale, vn (Bologna, 1945)Google Scholar; Curto, C., Pulci (Torino, 1932)Google Scholar; Ernst Walser, Lebensund Glaubensprobkme aus dem Zeitalter der Renaissance: Die Religion des Luigi Pulci, ihre Quellen und ihre Bedeutung (Marburg, 1926 [Walser's essay, the most important study ever made on the culture and religious beliefs of Luigi Pulci, is also to be found in his collected studies: Gesammelte Studien zur Geistesgeschichte der Renaissance, Basel, 1932]); Getto, G., Studio sul Morgante (Milano, 1944)Google Scholar; and Ruggieri, R., L'umanesimo cavalleresco Italiano—da Dante al Pulci (Roma, 1962)Google Scholar.

22 I attempted such an analysis in my article ‘Note sulla religiosita di Luigi Pulci,’ in Forum Italicum, 4 (December 1970), 517-532.