Medievalisms In Latin Love Poetry Of The Early Italian Quattrocento

Abstract

The following reflections on three authors, Giovanni Marrasio, Cristoforo Landino and Tito Vespasiano Strozzi, are examples illustrating a tradizione negata . This chapter suggests that medieval tradition played a certain role at least in some of the early collections of the Quattrocento-if not throughout the century. It shows that nearly every medievalism is filtered through the two main discourses which form the framework of humanistic love-poetry: the Roman elegists and Petrarch's Canzoniere . Medieval poetics are dependent on ancient auctoritates and especially the commentary tradition of late antiquity from which they extract general rules for describing and prescribing. The chapter summarizes the main development of the literary concept of love as it was developed in the Middle Ages and in Petrarch's Canzoniere , before turning to the poetry of the Quattrocento itself. Petrarch considered that the revival of classical literature and art the basis of any cultural and political progress in Italy. Keywords: Cristoforo Landino; Giovanni Marrasio; Italian Quattrocento; Latin love poetry; medievalism; Petrarch's Canzoniere ; Tito Vespasiano Strozzi