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A Sonnet Ascribed to Chiaro Davanzati and its Place in Fable Literature

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 December 2020

Kenneth McKenzie
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Extract

Of the poems ascribed to Chiaro Davanzati, a Florentine of the thirteenth century, one of the most interesting is the following sonnet:

Di penne di paone e d' altre assai

Vestita la corniglia a corte andau;

Ma già no lasciava per ciò lo crai

E a riguardo sempre cornigliau.

5 Gli augelli, che la sguardar, molto splai

Dele lor penne ch' essa li furau;

Lo furto le ritorna scheme e guai,

Che ciascun di sua penna la spogliau.

9 Per te lo dico, novo canzonero,

Che t' avesti le penne del Notaro

E vai furando lo detto stranero;

12 Si co' gli augei la corniglia spogliaro,

Spoglieriati per falso menzonero

Se fosse vivo Jacopo Notaro.

Type
Research Article
Information
PMLA , Volume 13 , Issue 2 , 1898 , pp. 205 - 220
Copyright
Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1898

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References

Note 1 in page 205 MS. readings: 2. vistita cornilglia andari. 4. corinigliau, 5. auscielli. 6. loro. 8. ciaschuno pena spoglau. 12. colgli ausgielli la cornilglia spolgliaro. 13. spolglieriati. 14. notaio.

Note 2 in page 205 According to Manzoni, l. c., “ la lezione del nostro codice è scorrettissima.” The variants in the text as published by Pelaez, which differs slightly from that given by Manzoni, are as follows: 2. vestiti andava. 3. ma non lasciava gia pero lo trai. 4. e cornigliai. 5. l augelli ke la riguardaro. 6. k esa gli furai. 7. li torno ghuai. 8. spogliai. 9. non vo. 10. ketti vesti. 11. va. 12. siccome gli uccell la nigla. 13. spogliereti. 14. iacomin.

Note 1 in page 206 A 246, in Vol. iii of the edition cited. Chiaro compares himself to a cornilglia, and Guittone d'Arezzo to an ausingnuolo.

Note 2 in page 206 Mussafia, Una canzone tratta del Cod. Barberino XLV-47, in Rivista di Filologia Romanza, ii (1875), 65-70; republished by Monaci, Crestomazia Italiana, 494, “ Canzone di Auliver.” The line: Ne i val agur de corf ne de cornigla evidently refers to the use of ravens and crows in sooth-saying; cf. Phaedrus, iii, 18, line 12: Augurium corvo, lœva cornici omina. Mussafia gives cornacchia as the equivalent of cornigla. On the Barberini ms., cf. Monaci, Da Bologna a Palermo, in Morandi, Antologia della Critica Letterana, 9a ediz., 1894, p. 228 ff.

Note 3 in page 206 See Körting, Lateinisch-romanisches Wörterbuch, s. v. cornicula.

Note 4 in page 206 Exemplo de la cornada com' ela se visti, a version of the same fable that we have in the sonnet. Published by Ulrich, first in Romania, xiii, 47, and then in Trattati Religiosi e Libro de li Exempli, Bologna, 1891, second part, No. 36. On this collection of “ examples,” see Giornale Storico, iii, 320-2, and xv, 257-72.

Note 1 in page 207 See Caix, Studj di Etimologia italiana e romanza, Firenze, 1878, No. 127; Gröber in Wölfflin's Archiv für Lateinische Lexicographie, i, 552; Körting, Wörterbuch, s. v. ovicula. An explanation for cornacchia has been sought in Umbrian curnaco (see Romania, iv, 509), “doch ohne hinlänglichen Grund” (Meyer-Lübke, Italienische Grammatik, Leipzig, 1890, p. 8).

Note 2 in page 207 In regard to such influence in general, cf. Meyer-Lübke, Ital. Gram., pp. 273, 289.

Note 3 in page 207 Op. cit., Archiv, i, 552. In classic Latin, cornīcula is the diminutive of comix, cornículum of cornu; see Georges, Lat.-Deutsches Wörterbuch.

Note 4 in page 207 The Ital. coniglio, Old Fr. connil, Prov. conilh, point to -ī-, but Span. conejo, Port. coelho, to -í-; see Gröber, op. cit., Archiv, vi, 384.

Note 5 in page 207 See Körting, s. v., and Gröber, Archiv, i, 243; on the similar word vermiglio, Prov. vermelh, from verm$inculus, see Gröber, Archiv, vi, 140. Chiaro uses artilglio in A 637. In Gröber's Grundriss der rom. Phil., i, 503, D'Ovidio gives the rule that Lat. $in remains “ wenn iotaciertes l folgt,” and mentions as instances origlia (from *aur$inculat) and ventriglio. An exception to this rule is to be found in oreglia from aur$incula (cf. Gröber, Archiv, i, 246); this may be due to the analogy of orecchia, which is regular (cf. D'Ovidio, p. 502); but of the instances of a similar analogy which D'Ovidio mentions (p. 506), cavicchia and lenticchia lose their significance when we find that the parallel words in Prov., Fr., etc., point to cacula and lentīcula, which would give -i- in Italian (see Körting, s. v., and Gröber, Archiv, i, 543, iii, 511); and ventricchio instead of ventrecchio from ventr$inculus (by analogy of the regular ventriglio) is perhaps semi-learned, cf. ventriculo, Fr. ventricule.

Note 1 in page 208 See notes of Mussafia, l. c.

Note 2 in page 208 Cf. Meyer-Lübke, Ital. Gram., pp. 116, 312; Mastrofini, Teoria e Prospetlo de' Verbi, Milano, 1830, pp. 712-14.

Note 3 in page 208 Gartner, Rätoromanische Grammatik, § 154.

Note 4 in page 208 Cf. fai, Meyer-Lübke in Gröber's Grundriss, i, 538; and piaito beside the more usual piato from placitum, see Gröber, in Archiv, iv, 439; Thomsen, in Romania, iv, 262: Meyer-Lübke, Ital. Gram., 59; Körting, Wörterbuch, s. v. placitum.

Note 5 in page 208 Crescini, Manualelto Provenzale, Padova, 1894, pp. xxxix, cxxxi, and glossary s. v. plazer; Suchier in Gröber's Grundriss, i, 610. Desplai occurs, e. g., in a poem by Calvo, the Genoese Troubadour, Crescini, op. cit., p. 145; Bartsch, Chrestomathie Provençale, 5e ed., Berlin, 1892, col. 276, cf. 444.

Note 1 in page 209 See Caix, Origini della Lingua Poetica Italiana, Firenze, 1880, pp. 98-9, 228; Meyer-Lübke, Ital. Gram., p. 227. Chiaro Davanzati uses -ao (inamorao, A 560, Monaci, Crest., 251), and so do Guittone (Caix, l. c.) and Guinizelli (Casini, Rime di Poeti Bol., p. 34). In Brunette Latini -ao was changed to -oe or -ò by Tuscan copyists (see Wiese, in Zeitschr. f. Rom. Phil., vii, 286).

Note 2 in page 209 Morfologia del Sonetto, p. 148.

Note 3 in page 209 The voice of the crow and other birds of the kind is often mentioned in mediaeval literature; e. g., Rustico Filippi (A 856, Monaci, Crest., 250): Risembra corbo nel cantare. There is a proverb which says: Di crai in crai si pasce la cornacchia (see Petrocchi, Dizionario, s. v. era and crai). In Latin the usual word for “ caw ” is cras; cf. Vincent of Beauvais, Speculum, Naturale [Strassburg, 1473], xvii, cap. lxi: Corvus avis clamosa nichil aliud sonare novit quam cras cras. Etienne de Bourbon's Anecdotes Historiques [in Latin], ed. Lecoy de la Marche, Paris, 1877, p. 19.

Note 4 in page 209 This Francesco is hardly likely to be the same as Francesco Smera di Becchennugi di Firenze, B 180 (called Francesco Ismera in the Cod. Chigiano L. viii. 305, No. 58: Propugnatore, x, 1, p. 312).

Note 1 in page 210 Zeitschr.f. Rom. Phil., x, 590.

Note 2 in page 210 This was pointed out by Gaspary, Scuola Poetica Siciliana, trad. Friedmann, Livorno, 1882, pp. 39-43. Cf. C. de Lollis, Vita e Poesie di Sordello di Goito (Romanisehe Bib., xi), Halle, 1896, No. 32, and notes on p. 289 f. Since Chiaro was certainly familiar with this poem by Sordello, it is perhaps significant to find in it the form plai, which I have indicated as the source of the word splai. The first line reads: Bel cavaler me plai, qe per amor. De Lollis emends: Bels cavalers; but if we accept another emendation which has been suggested (ibid.), namely: Del cavaler, we get exactly the same construction as in our sonnet: Gli augelli .... splai Delle lor penne. In A 250 Chiaro shows that he is capable of using “ a crude Provençalism ” (cf. Gaspary, l. c).

Note 1 in page 211 Casini in Rivista, Critica d. Lett. Ital., i (1884), 71, but cf. Gröber's Grundriss, Bd. ii, Abt. 3 (1896), p. 18; D'Ancona e Bacci, Manuale d. Lett. Ital., I, 42; Torraca (see quotation below). In mentioning the sonnet, the following express no opinion as to its authorship: Gaspary, op. cit., 173; Biadene, l. c.; Monaci, in his article Da Bologna a Palermo (Morandi's Antologia, 233).

Note 2 in page 211 Purg., xxiv, 55-60 (Moore's text, Oxford, 1894). Perhaps Dante introduced the colloquial word issa to indicate that Bonagiunta did not use the volgare illustre; cf. Vulg. Eloq., i, 13.

Note 3 in page 211 Cf. the anonymous poems A 783 (Monaci, Crest., 308) and 781.

Note 4 in page 211 See the sonnet O caro padre mio di vostra laude, Casini, Rime dei Poeti Bolognesi, Bologna, 1881, p. 39.

Note 5 in page 211 These two sonnets, A 785 and 786, have often been printed, e. g., by Monaci, Crest., 303 (with variants of several mss.).

Note 1 in page 212 By F. Torraca, La Scuola Poetica Siciliana, in Nuova Antologia, 3 za ser., vol. 54 (1894), p. 471: “Non è una sanguinosa quantunque ben dissimulata allusione all' accusa di Chiaro Davanzati, che il lucchese fosse una comiglia, rivestita delle penne del Notaro? ”

Note 2 in page 212 When he says (in the canzone beginning Talento agio di dire, A 235, Monaci, Crest., 254):

Audit' agio nomare

Che 'n gentil core amore

Fa suo porto, etc.,

he is evidently referring to Guinizelli's famous poem, Al cor gentil ripara sempre amore (A 106). Compare also A 243, 259, 749, and especially 253.

Note 1 in page 213 See Novati in Giornale Storico, v. 404.

Note 2 in page 213 A 285 and 769 are also in the Cod. Laur. Red. 9 (Nos. 85 and 354), and were printed by Valeriani, Poeti del Primo secolo, Firenze, 1816, ii, 44; No. 85 also by Casini, Testi inediti, Bologna, 1883. Nannucci, Manuale, reprints six sonnets from Massi, Saggio di Rime, Roma, 1840. A few other poems were published by Trucchi, Poesie, Prato, 1840; D'Ancona in Propugnatore, vi, 350 ff; Zabban, Chiaro Davanzati, VI sonetti inediti, Pisa, 1872. Since the publication of A, a number of the poems have been reprinted by D'Ancona e Bacci, Manuale, i, 73; by Monaci, Crest., fasc. 2, and by others. Bertacchi, Le Rime di Dante da Maiano. Bergamo, 1896, p. 74, publishes from two other mss. two previously unpublished sonnets attributed to Chiaro in correspondence with “Dante.” To the reasons which Bertacchi gives, p. 73, for believing that the Dante in question is he of Maiano, may be added the further reason that, as Chiaro died not later than 1280, there could not well have been any correspondence between him and Dante Alighieri. The first lines of these sonnets were given in Propugnatore, xxiii, 2, p. 396.

Note 3 in page 213 See Casini in Rivista Critica, i, 69-78, and in Gröber's Grundriss, ii, 3, p. 22; Gaspary, Scuola Siciliana, and in Zeitschr. f. R. P., ix, 571; Witte in Böhmer's Romanische Studien, i, 114; D'Ancona e Bacci, l. c.; Goldschmidt, Doktrin der Liebe, Breslau, 1889; Bertacchi, op. cit., p. liv.

Note 1 in page 214 Unless the poem, Quando il consiglio degli augei si tenne, mentioned below, belong to this period.

Note 2 in page 214 Inf., xxiii, 4; Conv., iv, 30. The not too intelligent comments on these passages in Moore, Studies in Dante, Oxford, 1896, pp. 16, 294, show how little the fable literature of the Middle Ages is understood.

Note 3 in page 214 Stimming's second edition, Halle, 1892 (Romanische Bib., viii), No. 2, lines 50-3. Edition of Thomas, Toulouse, 1888, p. 8.

Note 1 in page 215 Mahn, Werke der Troubadours, Berlin, 1846, i, 197.

Note 2 in page 215 F. Redi, Bacco in Toscana, con le annotazioni, Firenze, 1685. The ditirambo itself occupies pp. 1-46, followed by the notes, which are paged separately; pp. 99-123 contain a note on sonetti, with the poem in question on p. 104. For other editions, see Imbert, Il Bacco in Toscana di F. Redi, Città di Castello, 1890, p. 75.

Note 3 in page 215 Kannegiesser und Witte, Dante Alighieri's lyrische Gedichte, 2te Aufl., Leipzig, 1842, ii, pp. xiii, lxxvii; Fraticelli, Canzoniere di Dante (Opere Minori, i), Firenze, 1873, pp. 274-6.

Note 4 in page 215 See Biadene, op. cit., pp. 44 (note), 55; cf. Carte di Bilancioni, in Propugnatore, xxii, 1, p. 39.

Note 5 in page 215 Studi Letterari, 2a ed., Livorno, 1880, p. 156 f.

Note 6 in page 215 E. g., Prose e Rime Liriche di Dante, Venezia, 1758, iv, 335 (Ballata vii); Opera di D., Venezia, 1772, ii, 249; Opera poetiche di D., ed. Buttura, Parigi, 1823, i, 200; Canzoniere of Dante translated by C. Lyell, London, 1835, pp. 266-7 (and in later editions); Raccolta di Favoleggiatori Italiani, Firenze, 1833, p. 405.

Note 1 in page 216 On this form see Biadene, op. cit., 44-61; Casini, Forme Metriche Ital., 2a ed., Firenze, 1890, pp. 41-3; also the older writers, A. da Tempo, Delle Rime Volgari, ed. Grion, Bologna, 1869, p. 83 ff.; Gidino da Sommacampagna, Ritmi Volgari, ed. Giuliari, Bologna, 1870, p. 17 ff.; F. Redi, l. c. According to Biadene, l. c., the mss do not bear out the distinction between sonetti doppi and rinterzati made, e. g., in the notes to D'Ancona's edition of Dante's Vita Nuova, Pisa, 1872, and in Ercole, G. Cavalcanti e le sue rime, Livorno, 1885, p. 337. The second and fourth sonnets of the Vita Nuova are rinterzati with twenty lines each. Quando il consiglio has twenty-four lines thrown by the sense into four equal groups; this grouping, which Biadene classes as degenerate, is of course irregular for any kind of sonnet.

Note 2 in page 216 See Biadene, op. cit., 55. On Pucci, a semi-popular poet of the fourteenth century, 6ee D'Ancona e Bacci, Manuale, i, 530.

Note 3 in page 216 See Hervieux, Les Fabulistes Latins, tomes I, II [Phèdre et ses imitateurs), 2e éd., Paris, 1893-4; Robert, Fables Inédites, Paris, 1825; Oesterley, Romulus, Berlin, 1870; Jacobs, Fables of Æsop, London, 1889; Sudre, Les Sources du Roman de Renart, Paris, 1892, pp. 52 ff.; and other works on the history of fables. Fuchs, op. cit., gives an account of this particular fable, but omits to mention some important versions,—those by Stainhöwel and Uno da Siena, to speak of only two; what he says, pp. 20—1, on the relation of the version of Phaedrus (i, 3) to the Greek versions is especially worth noticing.

Note 1 in page 217 Romania, iii, 291-4.

Note 2 in page 217 Epist., i, iii, 18-20:

Ne, si forte repetitum venerit olim

Grex avium plumas, moveat Cornicula risum

Furtivis nudata coloribus.

Note 1 in page 218 To Odo or Eudes of Cheriton and his imitators, Hervieux devotes the entire fourth volume of his Fabulistes Latins, Paris, 1896; he previously included them in Vols. I and II of his first edition, 1883-4; cf. P. Meyer in Romania, xiv, 381-97. On the fourth volume of Hervieux, and for information on Odo, see especially Hauréau in Journal des Savants, Fév., 1896, p. 111 ff.

Note 2 in page 218 Fables inéditas, i, 248 ff.; P. Meyer, Recueil d'anciens textes, Paris, 1877, p. 355, also gives the anonymous poem which Robert attributes without reason to Marie de France.

Note 3 in page 218 Edited by T. F. Crane, London, 1890; No. 249, p. 105.

Note 4 in page 218 Œuvres de Froissart, pub. par K. de Lettenhove, Bruxelles, xi, 254.

Note 5 in page 218 —Dodona's Grove, or, the Vocall Forrest. By I. H. Esqr. By T. B. for H. Mosley at the Princes Armes in St Paules Church-yard, 1640. The fable is on pp. 73-4. Howell's name appears on p. 219. Cf. Dict. of Nat. Biog., xxviii, 109 ff.

Note 6 in page 218 See Jacobs, Fables of Æsop, i, 168-78. I know two editions of Berachyah; one in Hebrew and Latin: Parabolae Vulpium Rabbi Barachiae Nikdani translatae. ... M. Hanel, Pragae, 1661; the other, incomplete, in Hebrew alone (but with title-page also in Russian), Warsaw, 1874. Robert, op. cit., mentions another edition, Mantua, 1557. Our fable, Parabola Corvi & aliarum Avium, is the twenty-ninth in Hanel's edition, pp. 116-9; in the Warsaw edition it is No. 27.

Note 1 in page 219 See Fuchs, op. cit., 32; Jacobs, op. cit., I, 165, 169. Marie's bird also is the raven, which, ashamed of its ugliness, puts off its own feathers; but it puts on only peacock feathers, and goes among the peacocks. This is fable 58 in the edition of Roquefort, Paris, 1820; No. 67 in the edition of Warnke, Halle, 1898. Evidently this fable offers no support to Warnke's theory (p. lxxi ff.) that Berachyah copied from Marie.

Note 1 in page 220 See Reissenberger, Reinhart Fuchs, Halle, 1886, pp. 1-14; Sudre, Les Sources du Roman de Renart, pp. 1-19, 39-61. Our fable occurs, as mentioned above, in Renart le Contrefait; cf. Fuchs, p. 16.

Note 2 in page 220 The fable of the Lion's Share offers interesting points of similarity; it also occurs in two versions, both going back to the Greek, but one through Phaedrus and the other not; see Górski, Die Fabel vom Löwenantheil, Berlin, 1888, pp. 5-11, 52 ff. In regard to the Fox and the Raven, a somewhat different conclusion is reached by Ewert,—“Die Fabeln des Phaedrus kamen auf doppeltem Wege zur Kenntniss des Mittelalters, durch schriftliche Aufzeichnungen und durch mündliche Tradition ” (Die Fabel der Rabe und der Fuchs, Berlin, 1892, p. 19). Fuchs, op. cit., draws from his material only the most obvious conclusions. The existence of two separate types of the fable of borrowed feathers had already been pointed out, e. g., in Romania, iii, 292-4.