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Towards a Reading of Bronzino's Burlesque Poetry*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 November 2018

Deborah Parker
Deborah Parker*
Affiliation:
University of Virginia
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Extract

In his “Capitolo in Lode Del Dappoco,” a facetious tribute to the worthless person, the painter Agnolo Bronzino (1503-72) muses to his cat Corimbo about how he likes to spend his evenings: “Tu sai Corimbo, che tal volta io leggo/ così nel letto, per adormentarmi,/ o quando, com'or teco al fuoco seggo;/ e hai veduto anche scombiccherarmi/ qualche foglio e compor qualche cosetta/ per passar tempo e ‘1 cervel ricriarmi (You know Corimbo that I read like this in bed in order to fall asleep, or when as now, I sit with you at the fire; and you have seen me scribbling on some papers and composing some little thing in order to pass the time and refresh my mind) (“Capitolo in lode del dappoco,” 3 7-42).

Type
Studies
Information
Renaissance Quarterly , Volume 50 , Issue 4 , Winter 1997 , pp. 1011 - 1044
Copyright
Copyright © Renaissance Society of America 1997

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Footnotes

*

Part of the research for this article was made possible by grants from the Harvard University Center for Italian Renaissance Studies, Villa I Tatti, Florence and the Gladys Krieble Delmas Foundation. I am grateful to the staffs of the Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale in Florence and the Biblioteca Marciana in Venice. I would like to thank Peter Armour for his kind assistance with the translations of Bronzino's poetry, and Paul Barolsky, Renzo Bragantini, Robert Rodini, as well as the two readers, Robert Gaston and William Kennedy, for their constructive comments on an earlier version of this essay. Unless otherwise indicated, all translations are mine.

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