Abstract
This essay examines the editorial principles and activity of the Venetian editor Anton Federigo Seghezzi (1706–1743) and investigates especially the construction of his monumental expansion of one of Italy’s earliest and most important anthologies of early lyric poetry, the 1527 Giuntina, in his 1731 and 1740 editions of the Rime di diversi antichi autori toscani in dodici libri raccolti.
Highlights
During the 1730s and early 1740s, a boom period for the printing industry in Italy, literary publishing was dominated by reprints, and buyers sought expanded editions of literary classics
Seghezzi intended to expand editions’ apparatuses by writing prefaces and annotations and by providing indices and additional materials, at times even writing biographies of authors. Much of his editorial activity was driven by Seghezzi’s interest in reinforcing the canon and at times in the promotion of lesser-known authors to the canon. His interests were generally in line with those of the Arcadian movement, which favored a return to classic Italian literary models and avoidance of the excesses of the Baroque
To better understand Seghezzi’s agenda of reinforcement and promotion of the canon, this paper contextualizes his editorial career within the ongoing Orsi–Bouhours debate on Italian literature, offering a detailed analysis of one of his boldest projects: the expansion of the 1527 Giuntina anthology, Sonetti e canzoni di diversi antichi autori toscani, in 1731.3 A chief aim of this study is to identify the editorial principles of his Giuntina project with a close investigation of the additions he makes to the anthology, how he orders them, annotates them, how he modernizes the poems’ language, and how he follows and diverts from several paratextual features of the Giuntina
Summary
This cursory view of Seghezzi’s editorial agenda to promote Italy’s classic writers and provide researchers with helpful glosses, additional material and indices, helps us to understand why Seghezzi would have wanted to expand the Giuntina. Seghezzi’s decision to draw poems exclusively from print sources makes his operation mainly one of canon reinforcement, but it is possible to view it as a form of canon promotion, considering that he elevates the role of certain poets within a reputable anthology In his preface, Seghezzi praises the value of all the poems, but champions three poets in particular: “sì sono eglino al tutto di leggiadri pensieri fecondi, e principalmente Dante Alaghieri, Cino da Pistoia e Guido Cavalcanti, i cui versi ripieni sono senza fallo alcuno di vaghissimi detti, e di una maravigliosa dolcezza” (1740, 4r). The major goal of Bernardo Giunta’s preface was his call for contemporaries to recognize the beauty in the poetry that came before Petrarch, but in truth, the original Giuntina had reserved little space for the Sicilians and other early poets such as Guinizzelli, Bonagiunta and Fazio In this light, Seghezzi’s decision to elevate their presence in the anthology makes it possible to consider his work canon promotion, and not reinforcement. Book XII “Canzoni antiche di autori incerti, e sonetti di diversi mandate l’uno all’altro” (46 total)
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