I look for the Grande dizionario enciclopedico UTET (UTET great encyclopedic dictionary) because I remember that it contains extensive and updated entries on “Poetics” and various other sources that I need, but apparently the library doesn’t own it. So I begin paging through the Enciclopedia filosofica (Encyclopedia of philosophy) published by Sansoni. I find two interesting entries: one for “Metaphor” and another for “Baroque.” The former does not provide any useful bibliographical direction, but it tells me that everything begins with Aristotle’s theory of the metaphor (and only later will I realize the importance of this information). The latter provides citations of nineteenth- and twentieth-century critics (B. Croce, L. Venturi, G. Getto, J. Rousset, L. Anceschi, E. Raimondi) that I prudently note, and that I will later reencounter in more specialized reference works; in fact I will later discover that this source cites a fairly important study by Italian literature scholar Rocco Montano that was absent from other sources, in most cases because these sources preceded it.
At this point, I think that it might be more productive to tackle a reference work that is both more specialized and more recent, so I look for the Storia della letteratura italiana (History of Italian literature), edited by the literary critics Emilio Cecchi and Natalino Sapegno and published by Garzanti. In addition to chapters by various authors on poetry, prose, theater, and travel writing, I find Franco Croce’s chapter “Critica e trattatistica del Barocco” (Baroque criticism and treatise writing), about 50 pages long. (Do not confuse this author with Benedetto Croce whom I have mentioned above.) I limit myself to reading this particular chapter, and in fact I only skim it. (Remember that I am not yet closely reading texts; I am only assembling a bibliography.) I learn that the seventeenth-century critical discussion on the baroque begins with Alessandro Tassoni (on Petrarch), continues with a series of authors (Tommaso Stigliani, Scipione Errico, Angelico Aprosio, Girolamo Aleandro, Nicola Villani, and others) who discuss Marino’s illustrious epic poem Adone (Adonis), and passes through the treatise writers that Franco Croce calls “moderate baroque” (Matteo Peregrini, Pietro Sforza Pallavicino) and through Tesauro’s canonical text Il cannocchiale aristotelico which is the foremost treatise in defense of baroque ingenuity and wit and, according to Franco Croce, “possibly the most exemplary of all baroque manuals in all of Europe.”5 Finally, the discussion finishes with the late seventeenth-century critics (Francesco
Fulvio Frugoni, Giacomo Lubrano, Marco Boschini, Carlo Cesare
Malvasia, Giovan Pietro Bellori, and others).
Here I realize that my interests must center on the treatise writers Sforza Pallavicino, Peregrini, and Tesauro, and I proceed to the chapter’s bibliography, which includes approximately one hundred titles. It is organized by subject, and it is not in alphabetical order. My system of index cards will prove effective in putting things in order. As I’ve noted, Franco Croce deals with various critics, from Tassoni to Frugoni, and in the end it would be advantageous to index all the references he mentions. For the central argument of my thesis, I may only need the works on the moderate critics and on Tesauro, but for the introduction or the notes it may be useful to refer to other discussions that took place during the same period. Ideally, once our hypothetical student has completed the initial bibliography, he will discuss it with his advisor at least once. The advisor should know the subject well, so he will be able to efficiently determine which sources the student should read and which others he should ignore. If the student keeps his index cards in order, he and his advisor should be able to go through them in about an hour. In any case, let us assume that this process has taken place for my experiment, and that I have decided to limit myself to the general works on the baroque and to the specific bibliography on the treatise writers.
We have already explained how to index books when a bibliographical source is missing information. On the index card for E. Raimondi reproduced below, I left space to write the author’s first name (Ernesto? Epaminonda? Evaristo? Elio?), as well as the publisher’s name (Sansoni? Nuova Italia? Nerbini?). After the date, I left additional space for other information. I obviously added the initialism “APL” that I created for Alessandria Public Library after I checked for the book in Alessandria’s author catalog, and I also found the call number of Ezio (!!) Raimondi’s book: “Co D 119.”
Table 3.3
EXAMPLE OF AN INCOMPLETE INDEX CARD FROM A DEFECTIVE BIBLIOGRAPHICAL SOURCE
If I were truly writing my thesis, I would proceed the same way for all the other books. But for the sake of this experiment, I will instead proceed more quickly in the following pages, citing only authors and titles without adding other information.
To summarize my work up to this point, I consulted Franco Croce’s essay and the entries in the Treccani and the Enciclopedia filosofica, and I decided to note only the works on Italian treatises. In tables 3.4 and 3.5 you will find the list of what I noted. Let me repeat that, while I made only succinct bibliographical entries for the purpose of this experiment, the student should ideally create an index card (complete with space allotted for missing information) that corresponds with each entry. Also, in each entry in tables 3.4 and 3.5, I have noted a “yes” before titles that exist in the author catalog of the Alessandria library. In fact, as I finished filing these first sources, I took a break and skimmed the library’s card catalog. I found many of the books in my bibliography, and I can consult them for the missing information on my index cards. As you will notice, I found 14 of the 38 works I cataloged, plus 11 additional works that I encountered by the authors I was researching.
Table 3.4
GENERAL WORKS ON THE ITALIAN BAROQUE FOUND IN THREE REFERENCE VOLUMES
(TRECCANI, ENCICLOPEDIA FILOSOFICA SANSONI-GALLARATE, STORIA DELLA LETTERATURA ITALIANA GARZANTI)
Found Works Searched for in the in the Author Catalog Library Other Works by the Same Author Found in the Author Catalog
yes yes
yes Flora, F. Storia della letteratura italiana (History of Italian literature)
Croce, F. “Le poetiche del Barocco in Italia”
(Baroque poetics in Italy)
Calcaterra, F. Il Parnaso in rivolta (The rebellion of Parnassus)
Marzot, G. L’ingegno e il genio del seicento
(Seventeenth-century wit and genius)
Morpurgo-Tagliabue, G. “Aristotelismo e Barocco” (Aristotelianism and the baroque)
Jannaco, C. Il seicento (The seventeenth century) “Il problema del barocco” (The question of the baroque)
Table 3.5
WORKS ON INDIVIDUAL ITALIAN SEVENTEENTH-CENTURY TREATISE WRITERS
FOUND IN THREE REFERENCE VOLUMES
(TRECCANI, ENCICLOPEDIA FILOSOFICA SANSONI-GALLARATE, STORIA DELLA LETTERATURA ITALIANA GARZANTI)
Because I am limiting myself to titles referring to Italian treatise writers, I neglect, for example, Panofsky’s Idea: A Concept in Art Theory, a text that, as I will discover later from other sources, is equally important for the theoretical problem in which I am interested. As we will see, when I consult Franco Croce’s essay “Le poetiche del Barocco in Italia” (Baroque poetics in Italy) in the miscellaneous volume Momenti e problemi di storia dell’estetica (Moments and issues in the history of aesthetics), I will discover in that same volume an essay by literary critic Luciano Anceschi on the poetics of the European baroque, one that is three times as long. Franco Croce did not cite this essay in his chapter on the baroque, because he was limiting his study to Italian literature. This is an example of how, by discovering a text through a citation, a student can then find other citations in that text, and so on, potentially infinitely. You see that, even starting from a good history of Italian literature, I am making significant progress.
I will now glance at the Storia della letteratura italiana (History of Italian literature) written by the good old Italian literary critic Francesco Flora. He is not an author who lingers on theoretical problems. Instead, he enjoys savoring the wittiness and originality of particular passages in the texts he analyzes. In fact his book contains a chapter full of amusing quotes from Tesauro, and many other well-chosen quotes on the metaphoric techniques of seventeenth-century authors. As for the bibliography, I am not expecting much from a general work that stops at 1940, but it does confirm
