Now I move on to consult the abovementioned miscellaneous volume Momenti e problemi di storia dell’estetica. When I find it, I notice that Marzorati is the publisher (Franco Croce told me only that it was published in Milan), so I supplement the index card. Here I find Franco Croce’s essay on the poetics of Italian baroque literature (“Le poetiche del Barocco in Italia”). It is similar to his “Critica e trattatistica del Barocco” that I have already seen, but it was written earlier, so the bibliography is more dated. Yet the approach is more theoretical, and I find the essay very useful. Additionally, the theme is not limited to the treatise writers, as in the previous essay, but deals with literary poetics in general. So, for example, “Le poetiche del Barocco in Italia” treats the Italian poet Gabriello Chiabrera at some length. And on the subject of Chiabrera, the name of literary critic Giovanni Getto (a name I have already noted) comes up again.
In the Marzorati volume, together with Franco Croce’s essay I find Anceschi’s essay “Le poetiche del barocco letterario in Europa” (The poetics of the literary baroque in Europe), an essay that is almost a book in itself. I realize it is quite an important study not only because it philosophically contextualizes the notion of the baroque and all of its meanings, but also because it explains the dimensions of the question in European culture, including Spain, England, France, and Germany. I again find names that were only mentioned in Mario Praz’s entry in the Enciclopedia Treccani. I also find other names, from Bacon to Lyly and Sidney, Gracián, Góngora, Opitz, the theories of wit, agudeza, and ingegno. My thesis may not deal directly with the European baroque, but these notions must serve as context. In any case, if my bibliography is to be complete, it should reflect the baroque as a whole.
Anceschi’s extensive essay provides references to approximately 250 titles. The bibliography at the end is divided into a concise section of general studies and a longer section of more specialized studies arranged by year from 1946 to 1958. The former section highlights the importance of the Getto and Helmut Hatzfeld studies, and of the volume Retorica e Barocco (Rhetoric and the baroque)—and here I learn that it is edited by Enrico Castelli—whereas Anceschi’s essay had already brought my attention to the critical works of Heinrich Wölfflin, Benedetto Croce, and Eugenio D’Ors. The latter section presents a flood of titles, only a few of which, I wish to make clear, I attempt to locate in the author catalog, because this would have required more time than my allotted limit of three afternoons. In any case, I learn of some foreign authors who treated the question from many points of view, and for whom I will nevertheless have to search: Ernst Robert Curtius, René Wellek, Arnold Hauser, and Victor Lucien Tapié. I also find references to the work of Gustav René Hocke, and to Eugenio Battisti’s Rinascimento e Barocco (The Renaissance and the baroque), a work that deals with the links between the literary metaphor and the poetics of art. I find more references to Morpurgo-Tagliabue that confirm his importance to my topic, and I realize that I should also see Galvano Della Volpe’s work on the Renaissance commentators on
Aristotelian poetics, Poetica del Cinquecento (Sixteenth-century poetics).
This realization also convinces me to look at Cesare Vasoli’s extensive essay (in the Marzorati volume that I am still holding) “L’estetica dell’Umanesimo e del Rinascimento” (The aesthetics of humanism and the Renaissance). I have already seen Vasoli’s name in Franco Croce’s bibliography. In the encyclopedia entries on metaphor that I have examined, I have already noticed (and noted on the appropriate index card) that the question of metaphor had already arisen in Aristotle’s Poetics and Rhetoric. Now I learn from Vasoli that during the sixteenth century there was an entire scene of commentators on Aristotle’s Poetics and Rhetoric. I also learn that between these commentators and the baroque treatise writers there are the theorists of Manierismo who discussed the question of ingenuity as it relates to the concept of metaphor. I also notice the recurrence of similar citations, and of names like Julius von Schlosser. And before leaving Anceschi, I decide to consult his other works on the topic. I record references to Da Bacone a Kant (From Bacon to Kant), L’idea del Barocco (The idea of baroque) and an article on “Gusto e genio nel Bartoli” (On style and genius in Bartoli). However, the Alessandria library only owns this last article and the book Da Bacone a Kant.
Is my thesis threatening to become too vast? No, I will simply have to narrow my focus and work on a single aspect of my topic, while still consulting many of these books for background information.
At this point I consult Rocco Montano’s study “L’estetica del Rinascimento e del Barocco” (Renaissance and baroque aesthetics) published in Pensiero della Rinascenza e della Riforma (Renaissance and Reformation thought), the eleventh volume of the Grande antologia filosofica Marzorati (Marzorati’s great anthology of philosophy). I immediately notice that it is not only a study but also an anthology of texts, many of which are very useful for my work. And I see once again the close relationships between Renaissance scholars of Aristotle’s Poetics, the mannerists, and the baroque treatise writers. I also find a reference to Trattatisti d’arte tra Manierismo e Controriforma (Art treatise writers between Manierismo and the Counter-Reformation), a two-volume anthology published by Laterza. As I page through the catalog to find this title, I discover that the Alessandria library owns another anthology published by Laterza, Trattati di poetica e retorica del Cinquecento (Sixteenth-century treatises on poetics and rhetoric). I am not sure if my topic will require firsthand sources, but I note the book just in case. Now I know where to find it.
I return to Montano and his bibliography, and here I must do some reconstructive work, because each chapter has its own bibliography. In any case, I recognize many familiar names and, as I read, it dawns on me that I should consult some classic histories of aesthetics, such as the aforementioned Bernard Bosanquet’s, George Saintsbury’s, Marcelino Menéndez y Pelayo’s, and Katherine Gilbert and Helmut Kuhn’s (1939). I also find the names of the sixteenth-century commentators of Aristotle’s Poetics that I’ve mentioned above (Robortello, Castelvetro, Scaligero, Segni, Cavalcanti, Maggi, Varchi, Vettori, Speroni, Minturno, Piccolomini, Giraldi Cinzio, etc.). I note these just in case, and I will later learn that Montano anthologized some of them, Della Volpe others, and the Laterza anthology others yet.
Montano’s bibliography refers me once again to Manierismo. Panofky’s Idea continues to reappear as a pressing critical reference, and so does Morpurgo-Tagliabue’s essay “Aristotelismo e Barocco.” I wonder if I should become more informed on mannerist treatise writers like Sebastiano Serlio, Lodovico Dolce, Federico Zuccari, Giovanni Paolo Lomazzo, and Giorgio Vasari; but this would lead me to the figurative arts and architecture. Perhaps some classic critical texts like Wölfflin’s, Panofsky’s, Schlosser’s, or Battisti’s more recent one would suffice. I must also note the importance of non-Italian authors like Sidney, Shakespeare, and Cervantes. Finally, I find in Montano’s bibliography familiar names cited as having authored fundamental critical studies: Curtius, Schlosser, and Hauser, as well as Italians like Calcaterra, Getto, Anceschi, Praz, Ulivi, Marzot, and Raimondi. The circle is tightening. Some names are cited everywhere.
To catch my breath, I return to the author catalog and begin to page through it. I find important books in German, most of which are also available in English translation: Panofsky’s Idea, Ernst Curtius’s famous European Literature and the Latin Middle Ages, Schlosser’s Die Kunstliteratur (Art literature), and, while I am looking for Hauser’s The Social History of Art, Hauser’s fundamental volume Mannerism: The Crisis of the Renaissance and the Origin of Modern Art.
Realizing that I must somehow read Aristotle’s Rhetoric and Poetics, I look for Aristotle in the author catalog. I am surprised to find 15 antiquarian editions of the Rhetoric published between 1515 and 1837: one with Ermolao Barbaro’s commentary; another, Bernardo Segni’s translation; another with Averroes and Alessandro Piccolomini’s paraphrases; and the Loeb English edition with the parallel Greek text. The Italian edition published by Laterza is absent. As far as the Poetics goes, there are also various editions, including one with Castelvetro’s and Robortello’s sixteenth-century commentaries, the Loeb edition with the parallel Greek text, and Augusto Rostagni’s and Manara Valgimigli’s two modern Italian translations. This is more than enough. In fact, it is enough for a thesis about Renaissance commentaries on the Poetics. But let us not digress.
From various hints in the texts I have consulted, I realize that some observations made by historians Francesco Milizia and Lodovico Antonio Muratori, and by the humanist Girolamo Fracastoro, are also relevant to my thesis. I search for their names in the author catalog, and I learn that the Alessandria library owns antiquarian editions of these authors. I then find Della Volpe’s Poetica del Cinquecento (Sixteenth-century poetics),
Santangelo’s Il secentismo nella critica (Criticism on secentismo), and Zonta’s article “Rinascimento, aristotelismo e barocco” (A note on the Renaissance, Aristotelianism, and the baroque). Through the name of Helmuth Hatzfeld, I find a multiauthor volume that is interesting in many other respects, La critica stilistica e il barocco letterario. Atti del
