Tra polemica e risemantizzazione: la posizione di G. Bruno rispetto a Petrarca, petrarchisti, antipetrarchisti

Abstract

The gnoseological reflection of Giordano Bruno in De gli eroici furori (1585) is widely shaped by the use of expressive structures and images of the poetry which leads back to Petrarch and to the current referring to him. According to this hypothesis, the elements which explain this choice chiefly consist in structural analogies between the phenomenology of love as outlined in Petrarchan poetry and Bruno's conception of the relationship that connects a knowing subject and a known object (the infinite One). Even though Bruno in the end - against his intentions - highlighted exactly a certain philosophical value in Petrarch's lyrical poetry, he was not willing to recognize himself in any bond with that tradition. His radical rejection of Petrarch and those imitating and parodying him - on which prefatory pages are centered - particularly shows a necessity to differentiate between the actual object of inquiry and the most widespread profane lyrical poetry of his century (as well as the tout court lyrical poetry). Even leaving aside author's polemical position in order to rather comprehend what is evident from the text itself, the possibility to consider Bruno as much Petrarchist as Antipetrarchist nevertheless continues to elude. The reason for this is that adaptation and philosophical resemantization of that lyrical code are in Bruno's case set in a singular way compared to the then widespread relation between imitatio, inventio, emulatio; more generally, they are set outside of literary communication: that code primarily enters his work in cognitive function.