Giovanni Pellegrino and Salomone: A Fifteenth-Century Tenzone between a Christian Writer and a Jewish Poet

Abstract

Giovanni Pellegrino and Salomone:A Fifteenth-Century Tenzone between a Christian Writer and a Jewish Poet Fabian Alfie The fifteenth-century codex Udine 10 presents a wealth of information for those interested in the literature of the Tre- and Quattrocento in northern and central Italy. Compiled sometime between 1460 and 1470 by Lunardo da Brissa,1 the manuscript contains writings by such renowned authors as Dante (f. 127v), Petrarca (f. 129r), Cecco Angiolieri (f. 148v; f. 209r), Georgius Sumaripa of Verona (ff. 51r-87r; ff. 98v-107v; ff. 120r-124v; and ff. 229r-246v), and Domenico di Giovanni, nicknamed "Il Burchiello" (f. 150r; f. 190r; ff. 199r-207r; f. 249r).2 It also contains numerous anonymous and minor poetic works (e.g., ff. 21r-23v; ff. 39v-40v; ff. 43r-44v; ff. 47v-51r; ff. 64v-68v; ff. 83v-85r; f. 107v). Among the latter, the manuscript presents two sonnets that form a tenzone, a poetic correspondence. The exchange takes place between the Ferrarese poet Giovanni Pellegrino and an unknown Jewish writer named Salomone. According to Marco Santagata's Incipitario unificato della poesia italiana (IUPI), a research tool that lists the incipit verses of Italian poems, the tenzone only appears in the Udine 10 manuscript.3 Aside from its poetic merits, it is of interest because it constitutes communication across the invisible border separating those of different faiths in Italian society of the Renaissance. It provides a unique glimpse into the cultural, literary, and interpersonal relationships that may have existed between the Christians and Jews of Ferrara—or at the very least, between those two particular individuals—sometime during the first half of the fifteenth century. In his published description of the Udine 10 manuscript, Giovanni Fabris includes an appendix that presented some of the then-unedited works of the codex. The tenzone figures among the lyrics transcribed therein, appearing without commentary or notes of any kind.4 Although not unpublished,5 there is only scant [End Page 94] criticism of the literary exchange.6 Little has been written about Salomone, and all of it relates to the tenzone under consideration. The scholar Paolo Norsa examines the two poems insofar as they relate to the history of the Norsa banking family. He deduces that one participant in the tenzone, identified in the manuscript only as "Salomonem hebreum" (Solomon the Jew), might have been Salomone Norsa (b. ca. 1385-d. ca. 1462). The historian's rationale for arriving at this conclusion is due to the fact that the sonnets mirror Salomone Norsa's name, correspond to the dates that he resided in Ferrara, and demonstrate his high degree of learning.7 If Paolo Norsa's conclusion is true, then he provides valuable information about the life of the poet: born in Rimini, he became fattore (steward) of a bank in Padua in 1432, was named socio (partner) of the Banca de la Ripa of Ferrara in 1434, and is mentioned by the ruler of Ferrara, Lionello d'Este, in a document dated 1449.8 About the tenzone itself, Paolo Norsa has very little to say. He describes it as the documentation of the environment that existed between Ferrarese Christians and Jews and asserts that it demonstrates Salomone's knowledge of the classics and of the church fathers.9 The historian of Italian Jewry, Cecil Roth, also mentions the tenzone but seems to base his findings upon the work of Paolo Norsa and Giovanni Fabris. He writes: [T]here was living in Ferrara in the fifteenth century a Jewish poet named Solomon (Salamone [sic]), whose love-lyrics were highly esteemed and whom Giovanni Peregrini (secretary to Lionello d'Este 1441-1450: this helps to fix the date) compared in an enthusiastic sonnet to the gifted poets of the dolce stil nuovo. Salamone's reply, also in sonnet form, is preserved. He boasts his knowledge of the writings of Sallust, Livy, Valerius Maximus (the moralist) and even of the Church Fathers Augustine, Ambrose and Firmianus. But this vaunted erudition does not conceal the fact that he shows extraordinarily small poetical genius.10 Fabris, Roth, and Norsa represent the extent of the scholarship about Salomone and about his tenzone with Giovanni Pellegrino.11 [End...