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An Addition to Annibal Caro's Lettere Familiari: Notes on a Letter to Benedetto Varchi*
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 20 November 2018
Extract
The private letters of Annibal Caro (1507-66) collectively offer numerous insights into the literary, scholarly, artistic, and political life of mid-sixteenth-century Italy. Even if it were not for the sheer bulk of Caro's correspondence, and its even distribution throughout the years of his maturity, it would constitute an important historical source simply because he had such a broad range of interests and such a wide circle of friends. As a personal secretary, first to Monsignor Giovanni Gaddi, then to Alessandro and Pier Luigi Farnese, and as a friend of both Marcello Cervini (Marcellus II) and Giovanni Antonio Fachinetti (Innocent IX), Caro had extensive inside knowledge of the political and ecclesiastical activities of the Roman curia at its highest levels.
- Type
- Studies
- Information
- Copyright
- Copyright © Renaissance Society of America 1974
Footnotes
*
Research for this article was made possible by a Fulbright grant for study in Italy. I am particularly grateful to the staff of the Commissione americana per gli scambi culturali con l’Italia.
References
1 The most complete introduction to Caro's life and work is Greco's, Aulo Annibale Caro: cultura e poesia (Rome, 1950)Google Scholar. Greco's ‘Annibal Caro (nel rv centenario della morte)’ in Studi romani, 14 (1966), 151-166, and Dionisotti's, Carlo ‘Annibal Caro e il Rinascimento’ in Cultura e scuola, 5 (1966), 26–35 Google Scholar, briefly discuss the wider significance of Caro's work and bring his bibliography nearly up to date.
2 Annibal Caro, Lettere familiari. Edizione critica con introduzione e note di Aulo Greco, 3 vols. (Florence, 1957-61). Cited hereinafter as LF.
3 Pirotti's, Umberto Benedetto Varchi e la cultura del suo tempo (Florence, 1971)Google Scholar, though it does not claim to be a complete biography, supplants Manacorda's, Guido Benedetto Varchi: Vuomo, ilpoeta, ilcritico (Pisa, 1903)Google Scholar. It incorporates, without substantial revision two earlier articles—'Benedetto Varchi e la questione della lingua,’ Convivium, 28 (i960), 524-552; and ‘Benedetto Varchi e l'aristotelismo del rinascimento,’ Convivium, 31 (1962), 280-311 (translated by Eric Cochrane in The Late Italian Renaissance [New York, 1970], pp. 168-211)—and includes additional chapters on Varchi's poetry and Storia fiorentina. Varchi's important role in the development of poetic theory is discussed by Weinberg, Bernard in A History of Literary Criticism in the Italian Renaissance (Chicago, 1961)Google Scholar. There are limited amounts of useful biographical material in the brief sketch written by G. B. Busini shortly after Varchi's death ('La vita di Benedetto Varchi scritta da Gio. Battista Busini,’ ed. Gaetano Milanesi, Il Borghini, 2 (1864), 347-361 and 414- 431); in the introduction written by Silvano Razzi some years later to the first edition of Varchi's collected lectures (Lezioni di Messer Benedetto Varchi [Florence, 1590]); and in Vittorio Fiorini's ‘Gli anni giovanili di Varchi’, Benedetto in Da Dante al Manzoni: studi critici (Pavia, 1923)Google Scholar.
4 ASF, Carte strozziane va serie 1208, #164.
5 LF, 1, 35.
6 Ibid., p. 75.
7 The verse is in ASF, Strozziane Ia serie 95, fols. 114-121.
8 Busini, p. 418.
9 From the end of April 1538 to the following August 12 (LP, 1,113), Caro was absent from Rome on a trip to Naples to conduct business for Giovanni Gaddi, and to visit with Giulia Gonzaga (see his letters to Varchi of May 10 [LF, 1, 92] and May 25 [ibid., p. 99]).
10 Caro had previously written Varchi on March 23 (LF, 1, 75-76).
11 Cardinal Niccolò Gaddi.
12 Bernardino Telesio (1509-88), according to Greco (LF, 1, 39, n. 1). But since the famous philosopher was almost certainly in retreat at the Benedictine monastery where he spent the years 1537-45, Caro must have been referring to Bernardino's brother, Paolo (see Bartelli, Francesco, Note biografiche: Bernardino Telesio—Galeazzo di Tarsia [Cosenza, 1906], pp. 22–25 Google Scholar).
13 Mattio Franzesi (dates of his birth and death are not recorded, but he was probably several years younger than Varchi). Franzesi was an annoying pest according to Benvenuto Cellini (Vita, I, lxxxiv), but ‘letterato e ingenioso … bello scrittore, bellissimo dettatore, e ne le composizioni a la bernesca … arguto e piacevole assai’ according to Caro (LF, 1, 61). Early in 1538 hejoined Varchi in Padua as co-tutor to the young Strozzi. The following summer he returned to Rome to become secretary to Niccolò Ardinghelli, papal vice-legate in the Marche. In 1555 Anton Francesco Grazzini published Mattio's 'Capitolo sopra le carote’ in his anthology of the verse of Berni, Francesco and his imitators (Secondo libro delle opere burlesche del Berni [Florence 1555])Google Scholar.
14 A reference to Varchi's dismissal from the service of the Strozzi. Rumors that the Strozzi youngsters were ignoring their studies reached their father even though he was imprisoned in Florence's Fortezza da basso. Strozzi agents in Padua likewise noted that the pupils were far from satisfied with their teachers (see, for example, Migliore Covoni's letter to Benvenuto Ulivieri of May 29, 1538, in ASF, Strozziane IIIa serie 95, fol. 269). Early in July another of Filippo's sons, Leone (a knight in the Order of Malta), arrived in Venice to assume direction of the household. One of his first measures was to dismiss Varchi. On July 27 Leone wrote Filippo that his brothers were no longer wasting their time (ASF, Strozziane va serie 1208, #157). That same day, a Strozzi servant remarked that the youngsters had learned more in a few days with Leone than they had in eight months with ‘Varchi and those seventy-nine pedants’ (ibid., #160)—a reference to men like Sperone Speroni, Allessandro Piccolomini, and Daniele Barbaro, with whom Varchi had been spending most of his time.
15 Piero Strozzi.
16 Carlo di Ruberto Strozzi (b. 1517). Only distantly related to Filippo Strozzi and his offspring, Carlo came from a branch of the family which had remained in Florence and easily adapted itself to the newly established Medici principate. Varchi began to serve as his academic advisor in the late 1520's. In 1540 Ruberto attended classes at the University of Padua. He also became a charter member of the Paduan Accademia degli infiammati. He subsequently studied law at Bologna and Ferrara. He returned to Florence in 1543 and joined the Florentine Academy ( Salvini, S., Fasti consolari dell'Accademia fiorentina [Florence, 1717], p. 24)Google Scholar. In the late 1540's he became secretary to Cardinal Niccol6 Ridolfi, and in 1561 he was named majordomo by Charles IX of France.
17 Ugolino Martelli (1519-92). The most precocious of Varchi's young friends. From 1533 to 1536 he studied in Florence under Piero Vettori and Francesco Verino the Elder. In 1537 he joined Varchi in Padua for further university study. Both he and Varchi joined the Accademia degli infiammati in 1540. He returned to Florence in 1542 and became a member of the Florentine Academy. He was named bishop of Glandéves in 1572. Apart from academic lectures and Latin and Tuscan verse, he was the author of a life of the Emperor Maximilian; Latin commentaries on Horace, Pindar, Demosthenes, and the Book of Psalms; and treatises on tides and calendar reform.
18 Alberto del Bene (d. 1554). A contemporary of Lenzi, Martelli, and Carlo Strozzi, and a student at the University of Padua from 1537. He was also a close friend of Benvenuto Cellini (Vita, 1, lxxii). Like his associates, he became a member of the Accademia degli infiammati. But he never returned to Florence. During the Sienese war he joined the forces commanded by Piero Strozzi. He was killed during the assault of Marciano ( Adriani, G., Istoria de’ suoi tempi [Prato, 1823], IV Google Scholar, 202).