Читать книгу Gian Vittorio Rossi's Eudemiae libri decem - Группа авторов - Страница 20

Many of the themes found in Eudemia are standard fare for early modern satire. As FlemingFleming, David A says of BarclayBarclay, John’s Euphormionis lusinini satyricon, commonplaces in humanistic satire include “comments on education, decline of learning, medicine, nobility, Puritans, and friars.”1 RossiRossi, Gian Vittorio, too, aims at well-worn targets, including the nobility, quack doctors, priests, moneylenders, religious orders (especially Jesuits), charlatans, and tedious philosophers. His sharpest criticisms are reserved for inept and powerless magistrates; social climbers who advance by bribes, relationships, and favors (as opposed to by skill and competence); arrogant and incompetent poets; and promoters of the supernatural, including astrology, pseudoapparitions, pseudopossessions, and exorcisms.2

Prostitutes, noblewomen, and lower-class women also populate RossiRossi, Gian Vittorio’s satire, prompting Virginia Cox to include Eudemia in what she calls the “seventeenth-century misogynistic canon.”3 His portrayal of women as promiscuous and/or deceitful is conventional to both ancient and early modern literature, and a few of the female characters, such as PasicompsaPasicompsa and MilphidippaMilphidippa, are simply stock characters whose names even derive from PlautusPlautus, Titus Maccius’s plays. In fact, Rossi insists that the inspiration for the character Pasicompsa is drawn directly from CiceroCicero, Marcus Tullius’s Pro Caelio:

Then there’s the fact that those stories which are wanton and disgraceful are not all taken from our current customs, but some are also taken from the lives of disgraceful people in antiquity, like the one about PasicompsaPasicompsa and Cleobulus, in which I expose, with some fabrications sprinkled here and there, the anger and enmity that rose between the wealthy noblewoman ClodiaClodia and the tall, handsome, and fair Marcus CaeliusCaelius, Marcus. That passage was taken entirely, almost word for word, from CiceroCicero, Marcus Tullius’s oration in defense of Marcus Caelius.4

On the other hand, some of the female characters are among the most developed and interesting in the entire novel (while their male counterparts are often greedy and dim-witted). The most resourceful and clever characters in the narrative are NannaNanna (Book One), OlindaOlinda (Book Four), and TensaTensa (Book Six). Nanna is the only one of the three women whom the Romans themselves meet within the main narrative (Tensa’s and Olinda’s stories are narrated to them by others). She is described as a cunning whore who devises an ingenious ruse to trick a merchant out of his money. Tensa is a carpenter’s daughter who convinces her parents that her lover is a ghost haunting their house, so she can rendezvous with him without arousing suspicion. Olinda, unlike the other women, is tragic and sympathetic as opposed to tricky and deceitful, and her insert tale reads like a romance, with separated lovers and an obstacle-filled journey toward a hoped-for reunification that is never realized. The plot twist that makes this tale particularly interesting is that, while she is searching for her lover, PhilotasPhilotas, Olinda dresses in men’s clothing, thus attracting the amorous attention of a young maiden. When Olinda reveals her true identity, the maiden is not put off, but instead follows Olinda in search of Philotas. Olinda is so distraught by the circumstances in which they find him that she falls ill and dies, causing the lovesick maiden to fall ill and die as well. Olinda’s journey ends with the two women being buried together in the Temple of CupidCupid:

and the bodies of both women were carried to the Temple of CupidCupid on the same day, in the same funeral procession, in the same coffin; and one and the same burial was conducted so that the same tomb would hold the bodies of those women whose souls love had joined together in life, and which death could not put asunder.5

Other topics are unique to RossiRossi, Gian Vittorio’s circumstance and allow the reader to ascribe a certain level of autobiography to Eudemia. These include the many individuals from Rossi’s own circle who populate his narrative, whose true identities are clearly discernible behind their pseudonyms. A few examples are the two characters named OffuscatusOffuscatus (Antonio Bosio), one standing in for the epigrapher Giovanni Zaratino CastelliniCastellini, Giovanni Zaratino (Book Three), and the other standing in for the archaeologist Antonio BosioBosio, Antonio (Book Seven); ThaumantiusThaumantinus, referring to the bookseller Giovanni Battista TamantiniTamantini, Giovanni Battista (Book Seven); the noble TyrrhenusTyrrhenus (Fabio Chigi), the pseudonym for Fabio Chigisee Alexander VII, Pope (Book Three); and Dynast PlusiusPlusius (Alessandro Damasceni Peretti di Montalto), who conceals the identity of Cardinal Alessandro Damasceni Peretti di MontaltoPeretti di Montalto, Alessandro Damasceni, Rossi’s erstwhile and allegedly unappreciative employer (introduced in Book One and appearing throughout). Rossi also includes venues and locations that would have been familiar to his readers, such as the meeting place of a literary academy in Book Three, instantly recognizable as the Accademia degli Umoristi; a reference to the Ospedale Santo Spirito in Rome’s Borgo neighborhood (Book Three); the Muro Torto and the Campidoglio (Book Five); and the many fountains adorning the city, for which inhabitants of Rossi’s Rome had Gian Lorenzo BerniniBernini, Gian Lorenzo to thank.

A recurring target of RossiRossi, Gian Vittorio’s satire is the literary and intellectual scene of his day. Two memorable instances occur in Book Four when the two Romans encounter an arrogant poet who thinks VirgilVirgil is overrated, and a tedious philosopher who has developed an efficient way to quickly and easily memorize the rules of rhetoric. The most pointed and withering criticism of an individual occurs in Book Seven, when Rossi takes aim at a certain unnamed author

who they were saying had recently published some book about famous writers of his age. He said to the man, “Were you not ashamed to add the name of IanusIanus “the mattress maker” the mattress maker to that company of illustrious men? Did you have no compunction when you placed the common ditties of some idiot … alongside so many outstanding works of excellent men? Perhaps he seemed worthy of being included in the ranks of learned men because he made you a free mattress.”6

With this critical anecdote RossiRossi, Gian Vittorio was taking aim at Leone AllacciAllacci, Leone, a theologian and scholar of Greek origin and fellow Academy member.7 The work alluded to in this passage was Allacci’s book titled Apes urbanae, sive, De viris illustribus qui ab anno 1630 per totum 1632 Romae adfuerunt ac typis aliquid evulgarunt (Romae: Ludovicus GrignanusGrignani, Lodovico, 1633). In this book Allacci made the grave error, in Rossi’s opinion, of including an author and artist named Giovanni BricciBricci, Giovanni,8 son of a mattress maker and scrap dealer, in his list of “illustrious men.”9 In criticizing Allacci for his all-too-generous assessment of who merits recognition as a worthy artist or writer in Rome, Rossi was also expressing a broader critique of the diminishing literary and artistic standards of his contemporaries. It is this critique that leads GiachinoGiachino, Luisella to conclude that one of the inspirations for Eudemia was Rossi’s sense of indignation at the failure of the promised moral and cultural renovatio of the Barberini papacy that began so auspiciously under that “CiceroCicero, Marcus Tullius pontifex maximus.”10

As Laura AlemannoAlemanno, Laura explains, after initially being directly involved in Rome’s thriving cultural institutions such as the Accademia degli Umoristi and the Accademia dei Lincei—both in terms of patronage and their own literary activity and interest—Urban VIIIUrban VIII, Pope and his powerful family began to distance themselves from the academies and their members.11 This turning away from cultural matters was prompted by the Thirty Years War, which forced the papacy, in Alemanno’s words, to “reconsider its intention to remain independent [of the politics in Europe], and it contributed to a weakening of Rome as a political and cultural reference point.”12 Concrete expressions of this rift between the Barberini and the academies were, for example, the placement of Giambattista MarinoMarino, Giambattista’s Adone on the Index of Prohibited Books in 1627 and the trial of Galileo GalileiGalilei, Galileo in 1633.

The negative reaction of Rome’s intellectuals to their city’s declining importance on the global stage was reflected in their artistic output. A direct response to the treatment of MarinoMarino, Giambattista and GalileiGalilei, Galileo was the vocal support the two men received from their colleagues, the independent-minded members of the Umoristi and the Lincei, in spite of the Church’s condemnation of these two high-profile intellectuals.13 On a more general level, AlemannoAlemanno, Laura notes that, beginning in the 1630s, the papal court began to be characterized in literature not as a locus for serene, cordial relationships, but as a place replete with jealousy, duplicity, and hatred; in addition, the decade between 1630 and 1640 saw a higher tolerance for satirical works that reflected poorly on Urban VIIIUrban VIII, Pope and his court.14 RossiRossi, Gian Vittorio’s satire was clearly a product of this sentiment.

As stated at the outset, it was GerboniGerboni, Luigi’s assessment that the principal driving force behind the composition of Eudemia was RossiRossi, Gian Vittorio’s resentment of the nepotism that colored the papacies not just of Urban VIIIUrban VIII, Pope but of Paul VPaul V, Pope and Gregory XVGregory XV, Pope before him, under whose rule Rossi lived the entirety of his adult life, and caused him to experience nothing but frustration in his attempts to gain a permanent position within the papal court.15 Because of this, he was forced to accept what was, in his view, the thankless position as private secretary to Cardinal Alessandro Damasceni Peretti di MontaltoPeretti di Montalto, Alessandro Damasceni.

RossiRossi, Gian Vittorio’s resentment for having to accept this position—and his general rancor and disillusionment toward his society—is best summed up in what is perhaps the most personal episode in this already highly personal work: a story in Book Five about Dynast PlusiusPlusius (Alessandro Damasceni Peretti di Montalto) (pseudonym for Cardinal Peretti), who employs a private secretary named Nicius RufusNicius Rufus (Gian Vittorio Rossi), described as “honesto loco natus ac litteris deditus” (“born to a reputable social rank and devoted to letters”). This is the woeful tale of an unappreciative, brutish, and suspicious employer who demeans his private secretary by forcing him to live in conditions of great discomfort and inconvenience, even after Nicius Rufus has spent almost fifteen years in the nobleman’s service. The proximity of the pseudonym Nicius Rufus to his own name, Vittorio Rossi, cannot but invite this association and lead the reader to see Rufus-Rossi as the victim of a society in which status is granted through favors and friendships rather than talent and hard work, and to see the island of Eudemia—and by association Urban VIIIUrban VIII, Pope’s Rome—as that society writ large.