On the 'alla Burchia' sonnet and the frottola poetic styles

Nonsense and Other Senses

Nonsense and Other Senses: Regulated Absurdity in Literature

Edited by

Elisabetta Tarantino with Carlo Caruso

Nonsense and Other Senses: Regulated Absurdity in Literature, Edited by Elisabetta Tarantino with Carlo Caruso

This book first published 2009

Cambridge Scholars Publishing

12 Back Chapman Street, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE6 2XX, UK

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

Copyright © 2009 by Elisabetta Tarantino with Carlo Caruso and contributors

All rights for this book reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or

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ISBN (10): 1-4438-1006-1, ISBN (13): 978-1-4438-1006-7

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Preface ........................................................................................................ ix Acknowledgements .................................................................................. xix Introduction ................................................................................................ 1 The Nose of Nonsense Giuseppe Antonelli SECTION I: NONSENSE VERSUS GODLINESS Chapter One............................................................................................... 25 “Pape Satàn, pape Satàn aleppe!” (Inferno 7:1) in Dante’s Commentators, 1322–1570 Simon Gilson Chapter Two .............................................................................................. 55 “Between Peterborough and Pentecost”: Nonsense and Sin in William Wager’s Morality Plays Elisabetta Tarantino SECTION II: "THERE, TAKE MY COXCOMB": LANGUAGE GAMES AND SUBVERSION IN EARLY MODERN LITERATURE Chapter Three ............................................................................................ 89 Off the Paths of Common Sense: From the Frottola to the per motti and alla burchia Poetic Styles Michelangelo Zaccarello

Chapter Four............................................................................................ 117 François’s Fractured French: The Language of Nonsense in Rabelais Barbara C. Bowen Chapter Five ............................................................................................ 127 Performing Nonsense in Early Seventeenth-Century France: Bruscambille’s Galimatias Hugh Roberts

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Chapter Six .............................................................................................. 147 Nonsense and Liberty: The Language Games of the Fool in Shakespeare’s King Lear Hilary Gatti SECTION III: THE MEANING(LESSNESS) OF MEANING(LESSNESS): MODERNIST NONSENSE Chapter Seven.......................................................................................... 163 Nonsense and Logic in Franz Kafka Neil Allan Chapter Eight........................................................................................... 181 Apollinaire and the Whatnots Willard Bohn Chapter Nine............................................................................................ 191 “Neither parallel nor slippers”: Dada, War, and the Meaning(lessness) of Meaning(lessness) Stephen Forcer Chapter Ten ............................................................................................. 207 The “Wippchen” to Mysticism: Nonsense and Children’s Language in Fritz Mauthner and German Nonsense Poetry Magnus Klaue Chapter Eleven ........................................................................................ 227 Nonsense, Ban, and Banality in Schwitters’s Merz Julia Genz Chapter Twelve ....................................................................................... 237 Buildings and Urine: Japanese Modernist Nansensu Literature and the Absurdity of 1920s and 1930s Tokyo Life Alisa Freedman SECTION IV: TAKE CARE OF THE SOUNDS: REAL NONSENSE Chapter Thirteen...................................................................................... 259 Nonsense and Other Senses Marijke Boucherie

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Chapter Fourteen ..................................................................................... 275 From Limerick to “Rimelick”: The Finnish Nonsense Limerick and Its Transformations Sakari Katajamäki Chapter Fifteen ........................................................................................ 295 Meaning less: Giorgio Manganelli’s Poetics of Nonsense Florian Mussgnug

Chapter Sixteen ....................................................................................... 313 Intercultural Nonsense? The Humour of Fosco Maraini Loredana Polezzi Chapter Seventeen ................................................................................... 335 Fantastica as a Place of Games: Nonsense in the Works of Michael Ende Rebekka Putzke SECTION V: NONSENSE, POLITICS, AND SOCIETY Chapter Eighteen ..................................................................................... 357 Nonsense and Politics Jean-Jacques Lecercle Chapter Nineteen ..................................................................................... 381 Sergio Tofano’s Vispa Teresa between Parody and Nonsense Federico Appel

Chapter Twenty ....................................................................................... 399 Nonsense as a Political Weapon in Václav Havel’s “Vanek Plays” Jane Duarte Contributors............................................................................................. 415 Index........................................................................................................ 421

SECTION II

“THERE, TAKE MY COXCOMB”: LANGUAGE GAMES AND SUBVERSION

IN EARLY MODERN LITERATURE

CHAPTER THREE

OFF THE PATHS OF COMMON SENSE: FROM THE FROTTOLA TO THE PER MOTTI

AND ALLA BURCHIA POETIC STYLES

MICHELANGELO ZACCARELLO

Introduction

In his investigation of several different forms of enigmatic literature in medieval France, Paul Zumthor usefully and convincingly summed up the distinctive traits of these genres:

In various proportions, the common element of such [literary] procedures is the embroidering of the fabric of discourse with non-discursive elements. These elements generate discontinuities of variable length in the meaning of the text, i.e. sudden accelerations that emphasize the morpho-semantic framework, causing gaps in the text progression that may feel like sudden falls, creating an effect of instability that may last for several strophes. Such discontinuities of meaning may often result in establishing a different kind of meaning, and instantly reclaiming the apparent textual void . . . However, this process takes place only in a sporadic and almost accidental fashion. It leads, if not to the demolition of a literary code, at least to the introduction of an element of game within the functional dynamics of the textual elements.1

1 Zumthor 1975, 73: “Le trait commun (dans une mesure inégale) de ces procédés est de broder sur la trame du discours des éléments non discursifs, engendrant des coupures de sens plus ou moins prolongées: accélérations soudaines, faisant éclater la texture morphosémantique, y pratiquant des temps ‘morts’ mais rapides, ou l’on tombe en chute livre, dans une instabilité qui dure parfois plusieurs strophes. Coupures de sens: ou instauration d’un sens autre, récupération instantanée de ce vide apparent . . . Le phénomène pourtant ne se produit que de façon sporadique et comme accidentelle. Il tend, sinon à détruire un code, du moins à introduire un ‘jeu’ dans le fonctionnement de ses éléments.”

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Zumthor’s intriguing quote may equally and aptly describe the articulation of the Italian frottola, an extravagant poetic genre that seems to position itself outside the literary canon in many different ways.2 While providing a satisfying definition of the frottola in terms of language and content remains a difficult task, it can nevertheless be said that most frottole incline toward discourse fragmentation and the use of non-semantic elements (or elements whose function is that of formal rather than semantic interference). This explains how an author like Franco Sacchetti could use the frottola for purposes of verbal accumulation (to the point of becoming verse lexicography in the famous Lingua nova) and linguistic pastiche.3 It also explains how other authors could, by means of analogous devices, obtain expressionistic effects that might involve Latin or dialect(s), as in the two following examples respectively:

il corpo se deslingua come plumbo a l’urente fornace, videndome non trovar pace cotanta peroptata. O verba Dei seminata E per la Scriptura Sancta manifestata. (Sachella 1990, 59)

[the body, like a tongue, stretches out like lead in the burning furnace, watching me still hanker after that peace that I so wish for. Oh verba Dei seminata, made manifest through the Scriptura Sancta.]

Se l’è so patto,─siali mantegnudo, altramente vezzudo e cognossudo─sia, perché, se guadagnasse ’n Lombardia,

2 I have discussed some general aspects of the frottola in a recent ADI (= Associazione degli Italianisti) conference paper (cf. Zaccarello 2006), whose conclusions are briefly summarized here. 3 See Sacchetti 1990, CLIX. Sacchetti’s Rime—edited from the autograph, Florence, Biblioteca Laurenziana, MS Ashburnham 574—can now be read in the critical edition provided by Davide Puccini in Sacchetti 2007; however, the Puccini edition was not available at the time of writing this essay, and quotes are therefore taken from Franca Ageno’s edition (Sacchetti 1990).

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sette dinari de lissìa non pagaraveno d’avanzo. (Beccari 1972, LXX.61-67)4

[If such a deal was made─let it be kept or otherwise seen and known─let it stand, because if in Lombardy he earned two penny worth of cleaning soap they would not pay a farthing more.]

More generally, it may be noted that the frottola often includes non-discourse and even non-semantic elements, thus bordering on another typical medieval genre, the caccia.5 There are several elements in common between these two poetic styles:

a) Frequent use of onomatopoeic words and effects. Cf. Segugi a corsa e can per la foresta, ll. 2-3: “in su, in giù, in qua, in là abbaiando | bauf auf babauf” (Corsi 1970, 359); such artifice is employed systematically by Immanuel Romano in his intriguing poem Bisbidis: “Li falconi cui cui | li bracchetti gu gu | li levrieri guuu uu | per volersi sfugare” (Immanuel Romano 1898, 31); however, Bisbidis may not be so easily defined metrically as a frottola as the anonymous Un pensier mi dice “dì” (C. Giunta 2004, 53): “dirò del lupo e del bebè, della cicala e del cucù, e della serpe e de’ bubù, e dirò del tetè”.

b) Frequent repetition of words and/or sound patterns, often affecting rhythm. Cf., again, Segugi a corsa, ll. 19-20: “—Deh sì, deh sì, deh sì!—Deh no; deh no, perché non voglio”, and F. Sacchetti, Pelegrin sono (CLXXV), ll. 1-6: “Pelegrin sono che vegno da terra, | e passo su per terra, | e vo a terra | a terra | a terra | a terra” (Sacchetti 1990, 244).

c) A tendency toward broken dialogic structure. Cf. Or qua, compagni, ll. 26-28: “Va’ là, stu vòi.—Zà fala. |—I’ temo che non morda, perch’è fera. |—Non fa, no.” (Corsi 1970, 361); Francesco di Vannozzo, Se Die m’aide, ll. 26-35: “—Disé mo pur plan, | per Sen Casian, | driedo ancuo’ vien doman: | lassé pur andar. | Mo diseme,

4 The editor Laura Bellucci points out how the strong dialect colouring which characterized these three frottole (LXVIII-LXIX-LXX) marks a discontinuity from the rest of Antonio’s poetry (Beccari 1972, 278-79). Lexical dialectalisms in Beccari’s frottole also include proa “prova” (LXVIII.36); sarzo “sartia” (LXVIII.60); lovini “lupini” (LXIX.14); nuse “noci” (LXIX.19); de rapiatto “di nascosto” (LXX.35); surisi “topi” (LXX.39). 5 The relationship and, sometimes, the confusion between these two forms have already been highlighted in Orvieto 1978, 213 and n. 31.

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compar, | ch’ende può li far? |—I ’nde può rubar. |—Mo a che partido? | No seremo nu a Lido? | No xè infortido el porto?” (Corsi 1969, 483).6

Related aspects may be a tendency toward etymological (or pseudo-etymological) derivation, generating such rhymed series as: “Chi ha cotto | non paga scotto, | ché ’l biscotto | si porta in galea.” (Sacchetti 1990, LXIV.74-77). Occasionally this may result in “etymological drift”; and this same effect is sought in the repetition of words formed with the same suffix, -azza, -acca and -arda, in Sacchetti’s Lingua nova:

Corre la Bertazza, la Ciutazza, e la Fiorina pazza, la Filacca e la Zambracca e la Mingarda e la Sogliarda e la Codarda. (Sacchetti 1990, CLIX.328-35)

The above passage may also account for another typical stylistic feature of frottole: the accumulation of onomastic elements. This is found in earlier examples such as Francesco di Vannozzo’s Se Die m’aide, 141-43, where suffixed names also offer a large supply of obvious rhymes: “e ieranghe Benvegnuda | e sor Floretta, | madonna Benedetta | e Madaluzza, | Fantina, Cataruzza | e Flordelise” (Corsi 1969, 488). Pseudo-etymological derivation may often take the form of bisticcio, a juxtaposition of words that feature closely similar sound patterns yet are etymologically unrelated, as in Un pensier mi dice “dì”: “Non si vuol esser orbo né arbo, ma umile alla mola, e ccol mèle medicar lo male” (C. Giunta 2004, 53).7

As in the French examples offered by Zumthor, the passages quoted above show how nonsense is often perceived as an interruption of the 6 Owing to the influence exercised by the southern Italian fifteenth-century gliòmmero, certain formal artifices typical of the frottola developed into actual dramatic genres, mainly aiming at the production of an animated dialogic structure. The most striking example are the farse cavaiole, which inherited the frottole’s peculiar rhyme concatenation: “E ’assamo stare ca no’ restao ad alloggiare, | come già lo deppe fare pe dovere, | pe na vota isso sapere ca nui simo | e quanto potimo e bolimo, ora be’. | Ma non parlao a me, né a te, né a chilo, | né agrande, né a piccirillo, e gìo a staffetta.” (Mango 1973, 1:112) 7 Needless to say, artifices such as the repetition of suffixes and the bisticcio are far from being a unique characteristic of the frottola, as they had been widely practiced in Italian poetry from the Duecento, especially in the sonnet. What is particularly relevant in this case is the adoption of such formal artifices with a view to interfering with a logical reading of the text.


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discourse flow produced by the insertion of non-discourse elements. Thus the text progresses through strategies of verbal association, such as wordplay, and the interconnecting elements seem to be predominantly formal and non-semantic (mainly of a rhythmic and phonic kind); moreover, such texts often escape the logical concatenation that characterizes poetry with traditional content, which may occasionally become a target for more specific parody. In other words, we normally expect to be led through a text via a logical and/or temporal progression, and via connections that may rely on ordinary temporal and causal patterns (before > after; cause > effect; action > goal etc.). A “non-sense effect” may thus be generated by a deliberate breach of such connections, that is to say, by formal and structural manipulation based on certain linguistic issues. In other words, the paramount ingredient appears to be poetical and rhetorical technique, rather than the selection of absurd content.

A good case in point may be provided by the medieval French genre called fatrasie, in which a very rigid and repetitive metrical structure (11 lines, i.e. 6 pentasyllabes followed by 5 heptasyllabes, all using just two rhymes AB) is employed in striking contrast with contradictory and/or absurd content (e.g. un muet me dit, “a dumb man told me”; la maison s’approcha, “the house came nearer”).8 I am inclined to believe that in a fatrasie a medieval reader would perceive formal violations and a deliberately distorted use of rhetorical techniques as a far more distinctive mark than its odd imagery. Most fatrasie material belongs to the category of oxymoron, or—more broadly speaking—to the creation of iuncturae between opposite, incompatible and/or contrasting elements. The most frequent instances of such incompatibilities are:

a) Between a noun and its specification(s): “Vache de pourcel | aingnel de veël | brebis de malart” (Arras 1993, XXXIII.1-3; “cow [issued] of a pig, lamb of a calf, sheep of a duck”); “et kailleus de grain | et pierre de fain | et Escot français” (Arras 1993, XIV.4-6 ; “a rock [made] of grain, a stone of hay and a French Scot”).

b) Between a subject and its verb, or between two actions performed by the same subject: “Uns muiaus dit qu’il ont tort” (Arras 1993, V.7 ; “a dumb man says they are wrong”); “je versefie en dormant” (Arras 1993, LIV.11; “I write verse while sleeping”); “m’escriai sin e dis mot” (Arras 1993, XXIV.9; “I shouted without saying a word”).

c) Between an action and its object or recipient: “J’ai repost un mui d’avaine | dans le cul d’un fremi” (Arras 1993, II.10-11; “I placed a heap of oats in an ant’s arse”); “s’engenra un voust de cire” (Arras 1993, XXI.11; “[he] generated a wax idol”). 8 For a full account of fatrasies and fatras, see Porter 1960.

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A similar exploitation of syntagmatic and/or semantic incompatibility is also found in the Italian jongleur Niccolò Povero. In his two paneruzzole (“small baskets”), a form of parody that targets courtly poems by describing rich dishes or baskets of fruit, Niccolò adopts the most puzzling combinations of elements—not only animals, vegetables, and tools of everyday life, but also characters drawn from ancient mythology, the Bible, chivalric poems and contemporary chronicles: “Molto mi giova de-r-re d’Ungheria | ch’egli ha imparato a far aspi e panieri; | ma ben mi par che faccia villania | perch’egli ha tolto l’arte ai paltonieri” (“I take pleasure in the King of Hungary, who learned to make spindles and baskets: but he seems insulting to me, because he deprived tramps of their occupation”).9

The importance of parody for this literary form can be proven by the acknowledged relationship between fatrasies and goliardic Latin texts, where similar techniques are employed to achieve effects of hilarious absurdity. Obvious examples of this are the Latin recipes listing odd, inconsistent and/or self-contradictory ingredients, recently studied in Bisanti 2000 mainly with reference to Enea Silvio Piccolomini’s Carmina (Van Heck 1994). The parodic purpose and the link with the academic world are even more evident in the genre of fatras, where the inclusion of distychs taken from non-comical (usually love-) poems produces a verbally acrobatic two-line digression, thereby suggesting an explicit parody of scholarly glossae. In other words, when the traditional criteria for assembling a text are deliberately replaced by uncommon and inconsequential procedures, the reader inevitably feels affected by a sense of displacement. With this kind of emphasis placed on rhetorical structures, it is hardly surprising that the syntax and the metrical structure of these poems are rather rigid and predictable: only two rhymes, A and B; six pentasyllabes and five heptasyllabes for eleven lines overall. Against this background, the violations and contrasts are then meant to appear more strikingly and hilariously prominent.

9 Niccolò Povero, I’ ò una paneruzzola bella e nuova, ll. 37-40. The poem can be found in Crimi 2005, 129-33. The importance of Niccolò for the codification of so-called nonsense literature in the Italian Middle Ages was pointed out in Levi 1908 and, more analytically and with specific reference to the codification of Burchiello’s poetry, in Crimi 2005, 129-63. I shall not investigate these issues further as they are dealt with in Zaccarello 2007, 128-30.


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Italian Frottole: Nonsense or Deconstruction of Sense?

If we take the view that a paramount aspect of fatrasies is the parody of established formal patterns, with particular emphasis on oxymoron-related figures, then the concept of controsenso, introduced by Russell 1982 in relation to Italian frottole, may describe the textual crafting of fatrasies more aptly than the category of nonsense traditionally evoked and used, even in recent times, for these poems (cf. Uhl 1992). It is my contention that the notion of parody, when taken in its etymological sense of counter-performance based on the reversal of established figures and criteria in poetic writing, may become even more relevant when we consider Italian examples of frottole—even though these appear to be a far less homogeneous genre than fatrasies, in the sense that they deploy a far greater variety of rhetorical strategies. The earliest examples of frottole seem to feature a revealing opposition between an almost complete disarticulation of contents (or at least the juxtaposition of a large number of minimal sense units apparently unrelated to one another) and a unifying external factor, usually a formal or technical pattern such as rhymes, or linguistic artifices. A good case in point is Fazio degli Uberti’s O tu che leggi, which is entirely based—as recently argued by Marco Berisso—on broken and/or equivocal rhymes (e.g. grosso “large” / grosso “coin”):

E già gittata l’esca nel tuo più cupo lago, ed ha già punto l’ago, fra le tue sette, a più di sette de’ tuoi pesci più grossi. Non ci aver per sì grossi, che tutti i grossi non son da ventiquattro. Combattere un con quattro· Nonn-è senno; se ’l ver dico o se·nno tu ’l sai. (Berisso 1993, 73, ll. 12-24)

[Bait is already thrown in the deepest of lakes and needle stings, amongst your sects, for more than seven of your biggest fish. Do not think we’re fools, as not all coins weigh twenty-four. To fight one against four is not so wise; if my words are true or not you know.]

An artificial criterion for assembling the text may also be provided by the establishment of semantic oppositions between the two elements of a correlation. This can be seen to occur with both nouns and proper names:

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e ’l marchese de’ Valloni e ’l cont’Ugo de la Valle . . . ècci il sir di Castelletto e quel di Rocca-afforzata e ’l marchese del Boschetto e ’ conti di Piazza-erbata. (Sacchetti 1990, CIX.17-18 and 21-24)

[The marquis of the Glens and Earl Hugh of the Valley: there is the Lord of the Fortress and that of Stronghold, the Marquis of Littlebush and the Earls of Lawn Square.]

Franco Sacchetti has been credited with a key role in the codification of nonsense literature in medieval Italy. His Libro delle Rime contains texts that are constructed in a fashion that anticipates Burchiello’s style, especially through the combination of apparently contrasting words mainly assembled through wordplay. Such a technique is described by the author himself in the autograph MS Laur. Ashburnham 574 as “per motti”. Sacchetti’s definition is not easy to translate as it entails both the idea of wordplay and that of joke, as in Old Italian motteggiare, “to joke”.10 Sacchetti’s use of motto marks another interesting connection with the tradition of the frottola, which is described by an early theoretician, Gidino da Sommacampagna, as motto confetto, in the sense that words are “confezionate” or packaged in embellished sentences.11 Gidino’s words reveal that formal and technical skill was seen as inseparable from elegance of content, which in turn was a quality attributed almost exclusively to morally sound didactic poetry. The theoretical background emphasizes the originality and innovation of per motti sonnets, insofar as they include various forms of verbal combinations in order to create mere surface effects. Far from aiming at moral utility, the purpose of such

10 As Crimi convincingly puts it: “non è la parafrasi, infatti, che rende giustizia a testi di questo genere, ma è la scoperta della logica che si cela nei versi. I termini sono legati tra loro prevalentemente da associazioni: nella rubrica inserita, l’autore stesso specifica come il sonetto sia stato ‘costruito’ per motti, cioè montato in modo che prevalga il gusto per le parole, per le locuzioni e per le espressioni singolari” (Crimi 2005, 171-72: “Such texts are to be enjoyed through a discovery of their hidden strategies, not through a mere paraphrase. Words are connected predominantly through linguistic associations. In his autograph rubric, the author himself points out that the sonnet is constructed through wordplays, i.e. assembled in a form that emphasizes eccentric words, sayings and expressions”). Similar remarks were made in my “Introduzione” to Burchiello 2004, xv-xviii. 11 “Nota che questa forma de rhytimi fue appellada motto confetto, imperciò che le parole sono confette con sentencie notabele, e belle” (Sommacampagna 1870, 161; quoted in Orvieto 1978, 215 n. 33).


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poems appears to have been the entertainment of an intellectually and linguistically aware, sympathetic audience.

A similar deconstruction of the customary rules of textual construction was attempted a few decades later in the sonetto alla burchia, the invention of which can be plausibly dated to the last quarter of the fourteenth century and is disputed between Franco Sacchetti and Mariotto di Nardo di Cione Orcagna (d. 1424). Further insight into this particular kind of nonsense poetry may be gained through an analytical approach, and a typological distinction that considers not only the semantic implications, but also the grammar and syntax functions that seem to be responsible for the achievement of the nonsense effect; thus, our examples will be drawn from the Sonetti del Burchiello, a large corpus (223 sonnets) which features an accomplished technique and an intriguingly diverse range of poetic artifices.

Forms of sense deconstruction may be pinpointed in the following cases:

a) A correlation is established between terms which are either incompatible and/or feature intrinsically contrasting data. Cf. VI.3: “ier mattina presso a sera” (“yesterday morning, towards evening”); XCIX.1: “A meza notte quasi in su la nona” (“at midnight, almost at the ninth hour”, i.e. 3 p.m.). This type may also include those correlations established between terms that belong to different semantic areas, such as time and space (XIII.4: “fra Mugnone e settembre”, “between the Mugnone river and September”),12 as well as another group of figures typical of the Sonetti, i.e. those that feature synaesthetic correlations (VII.1: “Suon di campane in gelatina arrosto”, “bell chimes in roasted jelly”; VIII.1-2: “El marrobbio … e le mugghia del mar”, that combines a herb used in medicine with “roar of the sea”; XIX.10: “l’olor degli agli cotti e ’ petronciani”, i.e. “the smell of cooked garlic and the aubergines”).

b) An ordinary syntagm or correlation may give the impression of nonsense because an inversion of its terms has occurred. VI.1: “Cacio stillato et olio pagonazzo” (“distilled cheese and purple—i.e. smoked—oil”) seems covertly and amusingly to refer to a more obvious “distilled oil and purple, or smoked, cheese”. A similar case has recently been cited by

12 Burchiello’s phrase may be compared to the passage from William Wager that gave our conference its original title (“Between Peterborough and Pentecost”), where we may indeed observe the same mixture of trivial objects, Biblical references, and allusions to ancient mythology that also operated in fatrasies (see above, chapter 2, p. 71). However, a likely source may be identified in another fatrasie: “se ne fust le ris d’un coc | qu’entre Pentecouste et Braine” (Arras 1993, XXXI.7-8).

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Giuseppe Crimi: “sul pian di Terza che Mugnon sonava” (CXXXV.2), which may be explained as referring to Pian di Mugnon, between Fiesole and Florence, and to the ora terza (c. 9 a.m.).13 A particular variety of the latter type occurs in the presence of a zeugma, whereby the two terms are placed in closer relationship by a word whose ambiguity keeps the passage open to different possibile interpretations. Cf. XXXVIII.1: “Tre fette di popone e due di seta”, where fette stands for “slices” (of “melon”) as well as “units used to measure fabrics”.

c) The two terms may also be placed in a correlation that looks immediately comprehensible and even obvious in terms of its formal aspect, but is in fact nonsensical from a semantic point of view. This is the case with terms linked by exterior similarities (e.g. etymological or phonic derivation), as in XLIX.7: “un’arista misalta, una mi balla”.14 The whole of sonnet CXLVII is constructed through such “polar oppositions”, which are extended not just to nouns and adjectives but also to verbs—e.g. l. 10: “asciolvon menta e giudican prezemoli”, where asciolvere holds both the meaning of “to have breakfast” (from the Latin phrase ABSOLVERE IEIUNIA) and that of “to acquit”, linked to the following giudicare, “to judge”.15 This type of correlation may be frequently introduced through semantic ambiguity, namely by attaching an unexpected meaning to a semantically ambiguous and/or allusive word: XLVI.16, “che testamento fece Lippo Topo”, is linked to Aesop’s fables since the proverbial character Lippo’s second name means “mouse”. In another cauda16

13 Crimi 2002, 115. Crimi’s interpretation is adopted in Burchiello 2000, 190. 14 As the phrase progresses, its meaning shifts from “a chine of pork preserved in salt” (misalta meaning “preserved under/by means of salt”, from a Gothic stem missa + saltan; DEI 1968, sub voce) to two pieces of meat respectively jumping and dancing in front of the speaker (mi salta = jumps for me, in front of me). 15 A century later, this technique is exploited in a lengthy poem by Francesco Berni, L’entrata dell’imperadore in Bologna. Nomi e cognomi di parte de’ gentiluomini e cittadini bolognesi i quali andorono a incontrare la cesarea maiestà quando entrò in Bologna a pigliar la corona. Berni lists the various dignitaries who went to greet the emperor upon his arrival in Bologna, pairing them up according to the semantic field to which their figurative names (nomi parlanti) belong: “Giovan Francesco de’ Barbieri, | Petronio de’ Rasoi. [Barbers and Razors] | Giovan Francesco delle Volpi, | Giovanni Gallina. [Foxes and Hens] | Pieranton dall’Olio, | Francesco dell’Aceto. [Oil and Vinegar] | Alessandro di San Piero, | Bartolomeo di San Paolo. [St. Peter and St. Paul]| Astorre del Bono. | Tomaso del Migliore. [Good and Better]” (Berni 1985, 41, ll. 52-61). 16 The cauda (“tail”), usually a tercet (or a series of tercets) added at the end of sonnets, is the favourite place for the implementation of the textual strategies and


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(XXXVIII.15-17) the poet asks whether the Galli defeated by Furio Camillo were cooked “lessi o arrosto” (boiled or roasted), where the Italian word for “Gauls” clearly accommodates a reference to “roosters” (= “galli” in Italian).

d) In a manner even closer to that of the fatrasie, the sequence of cause and effect may be reversed, possibly with additional emphasis given by prolepsis. Cf. XXV.9-14: “e però i becchetti de’ cappucci | portono un nodo, per avere a mente | che le granate stanno pe’ cantucci” (“the hood tapes bear a knot because they must remember that brooms are found in corners”); CI.12-14: “E però sono e gru cotanto cari, | pel corso della patta e le sciagure | che ha ’vuto il Giubileo tra gli alari” (“cranes are so expensive because of the astrological conjunction and the disasters that the Jubilee had between its firedogs”).17

e) Similarly, a trivial sequence such as before/after may be turned around by a simple temporal inversion, as in XLII.15-16: “per questa cagion sola | fu agiunto il battesimo alla cresima” (“for this reason alone was Christening added to Confirmation”), or in more complex forms, as in CLIII.3-4: “da’ nugoli fa piover calde vampe | per pagar la difalta di Giunone”. In the latter example the “necessary” consequence of punishing the difalta (a “tremendous misdeed”, as in Pataffio I.4) probably alludes to Juno’s revenge against Thebes: the goddess is thus described as cause (or even victim) of the vampe (“flashes of lightning”), instead of producing them as in the myth.18

f) A peculiar case of the “e” type is represented by paradoxical aetiology derived from the natural (especially animal) world: cf. XXII.14: “i topi che mettevon l’ale”, i.e. “bats”; XXVI.15-17: “E perché Salomone | si lasciò cavalcar già dalla moglie | e funghi nascon tutti sanza foglie” linguistic artifices highlighted here, whereby the author seeks to provoke the reader’s surprise and amusement. 17 In other cases, a paradoxical effect is obtained through the inversion of the subject-object axis. Cf. XXX.10: “una pulce morsa da un cane” (“a flea bitten by a dog”), or the ovannotti that carry le barile to Rome rather than vice versa (small fish were actually stocked in barrels for transport and sale; it is not necessary to suggest, as does Crimi 2005, 199, that barrels were used to collect anonymous reports). 18 This interpretation can be supported by a passage in Burchiello featuring a more explicit reference not just to the myth, but to its formulation as given by Dante in Inferno XXX.1-2: “Nel tempo che Iunone era crucciata | per Semelè contra ’l sangue tebano”, which is clearly alluded to in Sonetti del Burchiello, CXXX.9: “Che pazia è crucciarsi per se’ mele | come fece Giunon contra ’ Thebani”, with the addition of the wordplay between the goddess’s name and the “six apples”. The Pataffio is now available in a modern critical edition: cf. Pataffio 2005.

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(“and because Solomon let his wife ride him, all mushrooms are leafless”); XXVIII.7-8: “il gridar d’un grue | perch’un frate l’avea posto a piuolo” (“the cry of a crane which had been stood up by a friar”), with a play on the typical posture of cranes on which Chichibio’s novella is based (Decameron, VI.4). This often involves episodes and characters from the Bible and ancient mythology, as in XLII.3-4: “coniando Giuda le scaglie d’un muggine | per volerle poi spender per moneta” (“Judas coined fish scales as he wanted to spend them as money”).

In short, it is worth pointing out that, whilst linguistic strategies deployed in the frottola and the sonetto alla burchia may look similar, the textual outcome is substantially different. For example, the typical “frottola discourse” is accomplished by means of short, broken or at least concise syntax, which alternates sense and punctuation pauses. As pointed out in Orvieto 1978 and Berisso 1993, contrasting elements are assembled within the same phrase, whilst the new sentence is linked through semantic or verbal association; in other words, semantic discontinuity is highlighted by syntactical continuity, and vice versa (cf. Orvieto 1978, 208; Berisso 1993, 61; Zaccarello 2006, 86-87). However, such a technique is not exclusive to comical or satirical frottole: it is often used to convey invective and/or moral indignation and it does not necessarily result in a nonsense effect. The sonetto alla burchia is constructed upon a more elaborate syntax, deliberately deployed to produce an effect of surprise and/or nonsense. Although using a well established (and genre-neutral) metrical format, the linguistic and stylistic features deployed in these sonnets are quite peculiar and seem to remain virtually unchanged amongst the several authors that adopt this puzzling style.

One of the most prominent and recognizable features of the alla burchia poetic style is the use of a complex yet modular and repetitive syntax. Individual clauses are easily disengaged from a semantically shifting context and may be interchanged by means of the repetitiveness of both their structure and the conjunctions used to link them. Accumulations of names, use of numerals, recurring patterns, contrasting elements, all within the framework of largely predictable syntax, are the ingredients that make the meaning of this poetry difficult to grasp (at least within reasonable expectations of “linear” sense), yet easy to deconstruct and (re)produce. In this respect a significant example is provided by Alessandro Braccesi’s early sixteenth-century collection of sonnets in Ms. Riccardiano 2725, a genuine patchwork of Burchiellian quotes (Zaccarello 2005).19 19 Further and more analytical examples can be found, for instance, in Zaccarello 2002 and Crimi 2005.


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Even more significantly, parody may target not just the traditional criteria of phrase construction, but also the actual cognitive process of thought and the elaboration of academic discourse. Among Burchiello’s sonnets one could easily find texts that attempt to deconstruct the syllogistic succession of clauses through oxymoron, parody and paradox. Typical examples would be some long hypothetical phrases, such as XXIV.9-11: “ma s’egli è ver che Dante andassi in cielo | che gracchia il testo della prima Deca | a dir che non si rada contra pelo?” (“if Dante truly ascended to Heaven, why does Livy in his first ten books blather on about not shaving against the grain?”), or CL.9-11: “Ma se ’l pan fresco col caldo si cuoce | perché hanno le cicogne e piè sì lunghi | e triema a meza state lor la voce?” (“But if fresh bread is cooked in a hot oven, why do storks have such long feet and why are their voices feeble in midsummer?”) Burchiello, in other words, adopts the same caricature of abstract logic that inspires works such as the Novella del Grasso Legnaiuolo and the Geta e Birria, the latter a cantare drawing on Vitale of Blois’ Latin comedy Geta: the protagonists of these stories are victims of their own logical thinking, which makes them harbour doubts about their identity and even their own existence. Indeed, Burchiello’s sonnets bring into the very structures of language the skepticism common people feel towards philosophical speculation: in narrative texts, the deceptive results of void syllogisms appear to be unmasked by common sense with hilarious consequences for the learned; in alla burchia sonnets, they are shown as inconsistent by creating funny, paradoxical argumentation and a difficult reading process.20

The identification of nonsense, whether apparent or real, is thus closely linked to the well-established literary tradition exposing academic institutions and traditional philosophy to parody and satire. This is aimed at restricted elites as well as at the wider context of school and divulgation. One of the most prominent examples of such targets is the philosophical debate on pseudo-Aristotle’s Physica problemata and its commentaries by Plutarch and by Alexander of Aphrodisias, whose relevance in late medieval Italy had been greatly increased by Theodore of Gaza’s translation (1456). Several aspects of this complex tradition have been investigated by Cherchi 2001 and Zaccarello 2007.21

20 On the “berta della loica” as a satire of logical philosophy, Lanza 1989 (first published in 1971) is still a major point of reference. The same critic also published a more specific essay on the issue of identity duplication or loss (Lanza 1990). 21 Some sixteenth-century editions offer the two translations together, as well as the works of followers such as Alexander of Aphrodisias: see e.g. Problemata

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Later Developments of the Frottola: From (Apparent) Nonsense to Prophecy

Many critics have pointed out that one of the paramount features of the frottola is its tendency toward loquacity and verbal disorder: “the pertinent trait linking together into a single image the corpus of the poems we have been examining is their loquacity” (Pancheri 1991, 331, reviewing Verhulst 1990). This aspect seems to arise from a passionate and emotional approach to language that produces “a long and emotional verbal outburst” (Verhulst 1990, 25). Thus the frottola may be linked to the performing practice of jongleurs and the tradition of the cantari, as indeed proven by the frequent references to a physically present audience (Berisso 1999, 224).

Whilst Guittone d’Arezzo has been quoted as the genre’s main antecedent (Verhulst 1990), I am under the impression that further insights may be gained through a systematic comparison between the frottola’s communication strategies and the style of contemporary preachers. Contemporary homilies often featured rhetorical artifices such as interrogations and appeals to an audience which was expected to be emotionally involved. Their most frequent topics seem very similar to those employed in the frottola and may provide a historically more appropriate antecedent, especially when we consider passages such as the following:

Ma el no m’è viso lo paradiso—è tutto arso. Se son scarso, neanco tu spendi. Mò, perché contendi?—Per odire? Or s’abbiam mantegnire la roda ferma, chi se ascherma—da lei? (Beccari 1972, LXX.71-79)

[But it didn’t look like paradise to me: it was all burnt! If I am stingy, you don’t spend either. And now, why do you struggle? To hear me? If we now have to keep the wheel from spinning, who will be safe from it?]

Aristotelis (cum) duplici translati(on)e antiqua. v. (et) noua, s(cilicet) Theodori gaze: c(um) exp(ositio)ne Petri Aponi. Tabula secund(um) magist(rum) Petrum de tuffignano per alphabetum. Problemata Alex(an)dri Aphrodisei. Problemata Plutarchi . . ., Venice: Boneto Locatelli, 1501.


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According to manuscript evidence, religious and/or moralistic frottole were not only circulating widely in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, but were often explicitly defined as “sacred”. This seems to be the case in the “frottola spirituale” Poi che fortuna vuole, which is found in the Ms. Florence, Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale, II II 29 (olim Magl. VII 21), f. 200r and features passages such as the following:

M[a] al giusto non increbbe Levarci dal martire: p(er) noi volle morire i(n) sulla croce.

[But the righteous (= Christ) did not hesitate to deliver us from suffering: for us he chose to die upon the cross.]

Indeed, indignation, invective, moral allegations and prophecies are aspects that frequently appear in both preaching and spiritual verse; moreover, they seem to fit the peculiar linguistic status of the frottola, which is an exceptionally permissive genre, far more flexible than others in terms of length, language, choice of topics and content. From this viewpoint, a key figure who may well represent a link between such apparently disparate traditions is the Florentine preacher Girolamo Benivieni (1453-1542), whose poetic production is primarily known for the vulgarisation and abridgement of important topics and issues found in the works of Marsilio Ficino.22 I should like to focus particularly on the octavo edition of the Opere di Girolamo Beniuieni Fiorentino, as it features an entire section of frottole relevant to our argument.23 In this section (ff. 171r-200v) we find the most typical features of this genre: the use of short lines (or rather, more appropriately, of metrical cola of uneven syllabic length), the peculiar concatenation of rhymes, the wide employment of gnomic and/or moralistic topoi often found in preachers,

22 On the prominent figure of Girolamo Benivieni, whose works remain largely unpublished, see Re 1906, Vasoli 1966, Pugliese 1970. Benivieni’s role in the development of the frottola is underlined in Orvieto 1978, 210 (and n. 22) and 214. 23 Opere di Girolamo Beniuieni Fiorentino. Nouissimamente riuedute et da molti errori espurgate con vna canzona dello amor celeste & diuino, col commento dello ill. conte Giouanni Pico Girandolano distinto in libbri 3. Et altre frottole de diuersi autori, Venice: Nicolò Zoppino e Vincentio Compagno, 12 April 1522; the edition is reprinted, with the same sequence of texts (but different numbering of leaves) by Gregorio de’ Gregori: Venice, 28 April 1524. The small corpus of eight frottole by “diuersi autori” (including Benivieni) does not appear in the earlier editions.

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such as the damnation of the mondo fallace (c. BB1r), and the unreliability of fortuna.24 In Benivieni’s text one may also find an exceptionally concise and accurate definition of the frottola itself, presented as the result of a moral urge for communication and writing, prompted by a sense of responsibility and guilt for the community’s misconduct. In this specific case, the poem itself is described as spontaneously born out of the author’s indignation (a topos which dates back to Juvenal’s Satyrae I.79):

Et subito mi ficco nello scrittoio, ch’el ventre del cor mi dolea,—mentre che partorir volea un non so che, ch’havea in sé concetto in rima (ff. Z4v-E1r; my italics)

[And I immediately sit down at my writing desk, since my heart’s womb was aching,—as it wanted to give birth to something which had a concept expressed in rhyme.]

The italicized passage aptly describes the genre’s elusive identity, as well as the rhyme’s paramount function in ensuring the concatenation of diverse topics and apparently unrelated sentences. As pointed out by Berisso, “the rhyme is the real driving mechanism of this genre” (Berisso 1993, 62; see also Verhulst 1990, 44).

Benivieni’s small corpus of frottole presents several other aspects that deserve closer examination:

a) Some texts are exceptionally long: the frottola prima consists of 443 lines; the third, addressed “a Philippo Benivieni suo nipote (et) agli altri di chasa: esshortali al be(n) vivere” has 424 lines.

b) Although the tone is constantly moralistic, some texts may be more appropriately described as laude given their extensive use of vision and narration, as well as the adoption of metaphors common within that genre, such as the recurring image of Jesus as “helmsman” (padrone) of the ship of human life tossed by winds and tempests.25 24 The second frottola, written “per la vanità delle cose humane”, opens with a rather conventional reference to the instability of luck and of human affairs (“Così volge Fortuna | le nostre cose humane | cieche, stolte, impie (et) vane, | vane senz’alcun frutto”, c. Z3v). 25 The image appears in the fourth frottola, which is not attributed to Benivieni but to “M. del N. alla Nannina sua donna” instead. The centrality of the figure of Christ in this lengthy metaphor is noteworthy: “Iesù crucifisso | che da l’eccelsa prora | riguarda in mar qual hora | vede ’l legno in periglio: | con un voltar di ciglio | volge e nemici in rotta | in fin che sia condotta | salva la nave in porto” (c. AA1r).


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c) Human features and feelings are sometimes attributed to objects, a rhetorical artifice often used in early laude and primarily by Jacopone da Todi. Within the small corpus in question, the frottola prima already provides relevant examples, such as the following: “Se pur dal ciel per sorte | è che chi nasce muoia, | non ti fia, carta, a noia | perir sotto ’l mio inchiostro | ch’in questo secol nostro, | carta infelice, invano | un altro Mantovano | per onorarti aspetti” (f. Y4r-v; “If our destiny is to be born and die, do not be afraid—thou paper—to perish under my ink, as in our times you would wait in vain for another Virgil to honour thee”). Particularly interesting is the seventh frottola, where the apples of a fruit basket presented to some “pious nuns” (devote suore) are fictitiously made to speak in the first person: “Colui che notte e giorno | invano piange (et) sospira | onde talhor s’adira | col suo infelice core | in compagnia d’Amore | a voi ci manda” (“We are sent to you, in the company of/together with Love, by a man who sighs and cries in vain all night and day, so that sometimes he gets angry with his unhappy heart”).26

d) Allegorical language and rhetorical fiction are adopted where characters are mainly animals, as frequently observed in prose and verse prophecies of the 14th and 15th centuries.27 This is especially evident in the Frottola pro papa Leone in renovatione Ecclesie (cc. BB5v-BB7v). Yet, whilst prophecies inherited such artifices from the widespread and complex tradition of Aesop’s fables, it is far more likely that Benivieni’s frottole may have referred primarily to the prophetic tradition.28

However, Christ features prominently in Benivieni’s texts; cf., for instance, “Signor che ti guida | sta lassù in croce, grida | amore, dolcezza (et) pace” (c. AA7v). According to common practice in contemporary editions, vowels that do not count towards the correct scanning of verse appear underlined. 26 This elaborate, almost manieristic, artifice is underlined by the text’s rubric, that reads as follows: “Ad alcune devote suore, parlano certe mele mandate loro dalo Autore” (c. BB4r; “to some pious nuns speak some apples, sent by the Author”). 27 Few prophetic texts can be read in modern editions: amongst those few, see Tommasuccio da Foligno 1887. See also the fifteenth-century prophecies in the MS B.60 of the Pierpont Morgan Library in New York, mentioned below. 28 The frottola addressed to Pope Leo features prophetic visions of Aesopian origin, such as: “ha del tribù di Giuda | suscitato un Leone | per le molte oratione | d’alcun suo servo giusto, | tanto forte (et) robusto | che sol col suo rugito | qualunche più ardito | lupo sia in fuga vòlto; | questo non dopo molto | tempo sotto e suo velli | le pecore (et) gli agnelli, | e pastori (et) gli armenti, | securi, lieti (et) contenti | de redur tutti in pace” (f. BB6r; “through the prayers of some righteous men, a Lion rose from Judas’ tribe, so strong and just that he chased away all daring wolves with its roar. Shortly after all lambs and sheep are safe under its protection, happy that everyone may live peacefully”).

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A clue to the deliberate contamination of the genres is contained in the rubric profezia frottolata preceding the poem Vuol pur la mia fantasia by the monk Stoppa de’ Bostichi in the well-known Codice Scarlatti (Laur. Acquisti e Doni 759), ff. 363v-366r. The text was published under the name, found in a minority of manuscripts, of Tommasuccio da Foligno (see Pasquini 1964, 561-62), and must have been composed before 1370, as line 4 suggests. From the very beginning it features the most typical rhetorical aspects of the frottola and a revealing rhyme fantasia : diceria.

Incomincia la p(r)ofezia frottolata di frate Stoppa

Vuol pur la mia fantasia ch’io vi faccia diceria che nel mondo si canta: vegho che nel Settanta ogni scrittura si vanta che lla terra tutta quanta—arà gran peste. Vedrai cholor che veste quella ch’à sette teste: averà gran tempeste—e gram paura. Vedrai dentro alle mura rinchiuder con gran cura la lor buona armadura—fianchi e sproni. Vedrai adunagioni e delle quatro ragioni leopardi chom biscioni—a un drappello. Vedrai un Mongibello p(er) ville e p(er) castello e l’un l’altro fratello—mettere a morte. (ll. 1-18)

[My fantasy asks me to make you a speech that may be sung worldwide: I see that the Bible boasts that in 1370 all the Earth will have a great epidemic. You will see those who are dressed by the Devil [who had seven heads in John’s Book of Revelations], there will be great storms and great fear. You will see that people will guard their spurs and armours inside the city walls. You will see people gather and all kinds of leopards and snakes in one crowd. You will see a catastrophe [Mongibello is the ancient name of the Sicilian volcano Etna] in castles and the countryside, and brothers killing one another.]

And so on, obsessively insisting on the anaphora “vedrai” for a further 120 lines grouped in tercets in the manuscript (as well as in our specimen), but in fact responding to the customary quatrain pattern of a well-known type of moral poem, the serventese caudato (a3 + x, b3 + x, c3 + x etc.). This metrical pattern is fairly common for this kind of poem. One is


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reminded, for instance, of the prophecy “del vecchio romito fatta nel mille quatrocientovinticinque” in the MS B.60 of the Pierpont Morgan Library, New York, f. 85v. Suffice it to quote here the first two quatrains:

Fiera possança raco(n)ta el mio chanto, no(n) sie nissuno che dorma, acciò che pigli forma <d>el mio parlare.

Ragua(r)di i cieli e ogni regolare e ’ chorsi delli pianeti: troverra’li disscreti choll’altre stelle. (ll. 1-8)29

[My song relates fierce power, may nobody sleep and all understand my speech. Observe the skies and the planets’ regular paths: you will find they are distinct from other stars.]

This passage, in which the poem is described as chanto and introduced by an appeal intended to make the audience more alert, significantly pinpoints the relevance of the jongleuristic background to the frottola tradition. Frate Stoppa’s text in particular may be taken as a paradigm of the genre’s inclination toward enumeratio and similar paratactic structures, resulting in long series of cognate elements often underlined by the use of anaphora. This kind of device appears to be employed even in far more sophisticated frottole, such as Leon Battista Alberti’s Venite in danza, o gente amorosa:

Visi di bui, capi bitorzuti, con vostri imbiuti, con vostre trampe e streghioni, con insaccar lomboni, col ceffin composto, collo andar iscosto, dite: chi ne vuole? e date altrui cazzuole coll’occhietto.30

29 The original layout of the manuscript is reproduced here, with the indented line marking the beginning of each quatrain; at l. 4, del appears to be a mistake for el, unless one postulates chanto (l. 1) as the subject of pigli. 30 Alberti, Rime, XVII.174-83; cf. Alberti 1975, 84. Gorni aptly illustrates the misogynistic context of the passage; the latter, however, remains problematic in terms of literal interpretation.

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[Bovine faces, lumpy heads, with your funnels, sticks (?) and grooms, squeezing your loins in corsets, with your made-up face and swaying walk you tease men and fool them with fake promises.]

To sum up, all the passages cited show indisputable correlations between the world of preachers and that of authors of frottole, possibly through the mediation of the genre of laude and other devotional verse. As we have seen, the most prominent analogies involve metrical and linguistic features, but in several examples we have observed similarities in content and style as well, presumably derived from laudari and less canonical forms of verse such as collections of prophecies. The relationship between frottole and prophecies must however be considered separately, since, owing to the “communicative urge” described above, prophecies often take on a tone of political invective while claiming divine inspiration—in accordance with a paradigm established by Dante’s Comedy—thus maintaining a privilege reserved for morally sound (and linguistically apt) means of communication. On these premises, verbal excess, ordinarily treated as an outright sin in medieval ethics (cf. Casagrande and Vecchio 1987), may be tolerated and even encouraged as part of a communicative strategy aimed at achieving a deeper effect on a wider audience.

Just like the equally ambiguous definition serventese, the word frottola seems to imply a choice of language and topics rather than a metrical technique, or at least “a compound of metrical and thematic concerns” (Orvieto 1978, 203). It may thus happen that even poems that feature a clear internal division (into strophes or other units) are described as frottole. The most striking example is the poem A me me convien dire by Francesco da Bologna, in which each unit contains a prophecy specifically addressed to a single city (Florence, Biblioteca Riccardiana, 1154, ff. 169v-172r; the text is incomplete):

FROTTOLA FRATRIS FRANCISCI DE BONONIA

A me me convien dire quel che Dio m’à [a]parechiato, sempre ri[n]gratïato da mi a tutte hore. Vederai con gran dolore per l’universo mondo e multi nel fundo per li loro peccati.


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[I must say what God prepared for me, may I thank Him everyday! You will see [many] throughout the world, and many in Hell because of their sins.]

DE PERUSIA

O cità indegna, o populo superbo, o quanto haverai male per le tue falsitade! Merçè non troverai da Dio omnipotente e poi parturirai uno maladecto figliolo: v’arrecharà gran duolo . . .

[O unworthy city, o arrogant people, how disgraced you will be because of your lies. You will find no Mercy from God Almighty, from you a cursed son will be born and will cause you bitter pain . . .]

And so on for Assisi, Foligno, Spoleto, Urbino, Rimini, Bologna, Pesaro, Ravenna, Imola, Faenza, Ferrara, Mantua, the “duca del Bissone” (i.e. of Milan), Venice, the Papacy, and the Emperor.

As far as the relationship between content and metre is concerned, the text is organized in a concatenation very similar to that observed in the frottole, yet it features two elements that would be unimaginable in a frottola: the stark segmentation of the text (emphasized by rubrics) and the high frequency of unrhymed single lines. However, rather than insisting that this frottola should have been more precisely described as a serventese, it is perhaps worth considering what might have influenced the scribe’s decision to label this text a frottola. Several factors could in fact intervene in the scribe’s assessment of genres. In evaluating the evidence provided by fourteenth- and fifteenth-century manuscripts, one cannot fail to observe that rubrics tend to focus mainly on content, especially when poems deal with topics that were relevant to contemporary events and features. In our case, the association between the frottola and prophecy must have played a decisive role. However peculiar the metre and style used in the poem, the presence of compelling moral invective and political prophecy must have been, in the scribe’s perception, a far more prominent and recognizable aspect.

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Appendix. On the Etymology and Meaning of the Term Frottola

No major dictionary seems to question either the etymology of frottola or its semantic interpretation. The word is usually given as deriving from the French flotte (by ways of Old Italian frotta)31 and originally meaning a “poem consisting of a disorderly sequence of sentences, often including proverbs and wordplay” (GDLI, sub voce), this meaning being subsequently replaced by the broader one of “joke, witticism”. Recent critics have generally accepted this view (cf. Pancheri 1993, 23-57); however, a re-assessment of the question must begin from a closer analysis of the earliest occurrences of the word. I shall restrict my survey to fourteenth-century occurrences reflecting either meaning.32

a. Matteo Correggiaio, Rime, IX.65 (Florence, first half of the fourteenth century): “E’ non fu mai fanciul vago di lucciola, | o di pigliar farfalle e girar trottola, | o farsi lieto d’una bella frottola.”

b. Cola di messer Alessandro (Perugia, first half of the fourteenth century), Rime, I.13: “Però, amico vero, io te richèggio | che tu ce mandi alcuna frottoletta, | che noi non perïam sì de nighetta.” (Marti 1956, 770)

c. Francesco di Vannozzo (Venice, second half of the fourteenth century), Rime, XX.7-8: “dicendo ch’io con frottole assentiva | Venesia trista”.

d. Francesco di Vannozzo, Rime, CII.520-23: “Però frottola mia | per tutta Lombardia | per Franza e per Soria | fa’ che la compagnia—te riconosca.”

e. [Francesco Petrarca?], Di ridere ho gran voglia, 88-89: “Troppo forse s’allunga | frottola col suon chioccio”.

31 Orvieto 1978, 203. In this specific context of use, flotte or frotta would metaphorically indicate a disorderly accumulation of elements that is not just typical of the frottola, yet it appears to be the most recognizable feature of this extravagant kind of poem. 32 The fourteenth-century origin of the word has been convincingly argued in Pancheri 1993, 29 and n. 23. The instances transcribed here, shown in their most likely chronological order, have been selected by cross-checking the GDLI and the TLIO (Tesoro della Lingua Italiana delle Origini) database, and checked against the relevant primary sources. The TLIO has been created by the Opera del Vocabolario italiano at the Accademia della Crusca and is available on-line at www.vocabolario.org.


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f. Piero da Siena (1331-post 1404), La bella Camilla, III.42: “niente pareva questa cosa frottola” [= “cosa da niente” (GDLI)].

g. Franco Sacchetti, Rime, XCIX.1-4: “Egli è sì pieno il mondo già di frottole | per molti, in cui le leggi più s’aprendono, | che que’ che han ragion, e non ispendono, | sonci per men che a gran porta nottole.”

h. Franco Sacchetti, Rime, CLIX.251-52: “Questa è una frasca | ed una frottola.”

i. Franco Sacchetti, Rime, CCCVIII.221: “Frottola mia, io veggio l’universo.”

j. Franco Sacchetti, Trecentonovelle, CLX: “Mandate il cavaliero a vedere il danno nostro, ch’è vero, e non v’andiamo con frottole.”

k. [Sacchetti?], Pataffio, III: “Non frottolar, che tu gli hai trabaldati.”

l. [Sacchetti?], Pataffio, IV: “E con cilema sempre frottolando” [= “celiando”, i.e. “fooling around”].

m. Francesco Landini, Rime, V.1-3: “Musica son che mi dolgo, piangendo, | veder gli effetti mie dolci e perfetti | lasciar per frottole i vaghi intelletti.”33

n. Antonio da Ferrara, Rime, LXX.156-57: “Frottola mia matta | va’ ratta—e di’ a zascun” (Beccari 1972, 307).

o. Bruscaccio da Rovezzano, Rime, XII.129-31: “Qui ti lascia Giovanni | nuova mia frottoletta, ché salvatica | so che parrai a chi ben non ti pratica” (Medin 1895).34

A prima facie evaluation of these instances suggests that the broad meaning “joke” occurs seven times, while six passages show the meaning more specifically related to verse. Passages b and f remain uncertain, or rather seem to remain deliberately ambiguous between the two meanings. In Francesco di Vannozzo’s text d, the meaning of the word appears to be general, but since the poem may have been written after 1379 there might be a reference to the poem mentioned in c. In Sacchetti (h) frottola is used as a synonym of the preceding frasca (i.e. “trifle”), but its conjunction with questa suggests that it is used specifically to indicate the poem La

33 Since the technical meaning common in musical texts first appears in the sixteenth century, in this passage the meaning must be that of “bazzecole” (“foolish, unimportant things”). 34 In listing passages, I do not consider the several instances of the term occurring in Antonio da Tempo’s Latin Summa Artis Rithimici Vulgaris Dictaminis (Antonio da Tempo 1977) and in its volgarizzamenti.

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lingua nova itself. However, further examples from the same author (j, k, l) feature a meaning closer to the contemporary one of “triviality” or even “lie”.

A chronological assessment of these thirteen occurrences of frottola, plus two of the derived verb frottolar(e), reveals that the earliest instance of our word (a) has the broader meaning of “tale, anecdote”, primarily associated with children’s stories. Matteo Correggiaio wrote in Padua, in the first quarter of the Trecento. The only extant frottole from this time were inspired by political matters and written using a broad range of sophisticated technical patterns, just like the French and Provençal serventes. Indeed, the most remarkable frottole from that period are included in the tenzone between Fazio degli Uberti and Tommaso di Giunta, an exchange of allegations deeply rooted in contemporary events (i.e. Verona’s betrayal of the Florentines during the war for the conquest of Lucca) that can be convincingly dated to 1336 or 1337.35 In other words, since at that time such poems featured style and content that could hardly be used to entertain children, the use of frottola in Matteo’s passage will most probably bear no reference to the verse-related meaning of the word.

In conclusion, the semantic evolution of the word frottola would be more persuasively argued if its direction were reversed. The process may be aptly described as the progressive specialization of a generally employed term, evolving from an original meaning of “tale, anecdote” (later restricted to “joke, witticism”) to the more technical one given in GDLI (“poem consisting of a disorderly sequence of sentences, often including proverbs and wordplay”), and well represented in fourteenth- and fifteenth-century texts where such rhetorical strategies are deployed. At a later stage, this latter meaning would be used to describe an even more specific poetic form, i.e. the musical frottola, that bears no connection to the literary one in terms of versification, style and content.

The greater probability and logical coherence of the hypothesis formulated here may be supported by a further observation. In order to be adopted as a colloquialism for “joke”, the term frottola should have enjoyed a long tradition of use in its supposedly original meaning. Indeed, to explain its semantic progression in the traditional way, it seems necessary to postulate an intermediate phase, in which the word is 35 Because of a specific reference to advanced negotiations between Verona and Florence for the acquisition of Lucca contained in the tenzone, this has been persuasively located in the short time span between winter 1336 and spring 1337: see T. di Giunta 2001, which provides a critical edition of the poems in question (116-40; esp. 114-15).


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supposed to have meant *“confused and/or mixed discourse, combination of a diverse range of topics”. Such an evolution might have been possible in Sacchetti’s times, when frottole were widely used and had become common practice for poets; but it appears problematic to suggest, as in the currently held opinion, that already decades before the time of Sacchetti those bizarre poems could be so common as to be adopted in popular phraseology as a proverbial equivalent of “joke”.

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On the 'alla Burchia' sonnet and the frottola poetic styles

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