Studi per le «Sorti»
Gioco, immagini, poesia oracolare a Venezia nel Cinquecento
edited by Paolo Procaccioli
cover prize 40 euros
Fondazione Benetton Studi Ricerche-Viella
Treviso-Rome 2007
268 pages
13 illustrations in colour and 58 black and white
ISBN 978-88-8334-276-9
(Ludica, 8)
Francesco Marcolini, who published Pietro Aretino and Sebastiano Serlio, was famously interested in mechanics and engineering and was universally known in early 16th century Venice as l’ingegnoso. In 1540 he also tried his hand at writing and published Le sorti intitolate giardino d’i pensieri under his own name.
While at first sight the work seemed to reflect a still current popular tradition, in actual fact it offered the reader a sort of literary game that had little to do with astrological anxieties and probing individual destinies and much with a figurative and combinatory passion. Various artists collaborated in the work, all of whom remain anonymous except for the designer of the title page, Giuseppe Porta, and a poet, Ludovico Dolce, and even his name appears in code.
The outstanding quality of the work, attested by universally esteemed readers such as Vasari and Doni, was in itself enough to ensure its publishing success (starting with the reprint of 1550), but the injunctions of the Index soon repressed any spirit of enquiry into fate, even when not ludic. Nevertheless, the visual images of the book enjoyed enormous popularity that continued well into the 17th century.
The essays collected here – which accompany the anastatic reprint and the new edition of the terzine – explore the figure of the author, illustrate the technical features of the venture from a typographical point of view and how these affected the publication process, and investigate the work’s relationship to the philosophical-astrological tradition, the fortunes of the genre, the iconographic apparatus, the society it relected and contemporary rules concerning games and astrology.
Contents
Premise, VII
L'autore
Paolo Procaccioli, Marcolini autore «ingegnoso», 3
L’opera
Serena Berrettini, Le «Sorti» come macchina ludica: regole e procedure, 21
La stampa e la sua tradizione
Maria Cristina Misiti, La «diligenza» e i fogli «gentili». Per una lettura bibliologica delle edizioni cinquecentesche delle «Sorti», 41
Maria Goldoni, Il giardino d’i pensieri, o l’Accademia delle Scienze, 65
Lucia Nadin, Il giardino rivisitato. Marcolini a palazzo Savorgnan, 75
La tradizione del genere
Marie-Cecile van Hasselt, Être/paraître, de fausses perceptions sous l’enseigne de la vérité, 85
Christian Rivoletti, L’uno e il molteplice: il sistema dei destini incrociati tra Ariosto, Marcolini e Calvino, 99
L’apparato iconografico
Enrico Parlato, Le allegorie nel giardino delle «Sorti», 113
Giorgio Masi, Le magnifiche sorti delle immagini, 139
Angelo Papi, Le perigliose sorti del duca Ercole. Considerazioni a margine di una dedica, 157
Le carte
Manfred Zollinger, Giocare il libro. I libri delle «Sorti» nell’editoria dei secoli XV-XVIII, 175
La società e le sue regole
Tiziana Tibo, Il gioco nelle parole dei predicatori, dei maestri, dei legislatori italiani del Quattro e Cinquecento, 191
Bibliography, 207
List of illustrations, 255
Index of names, 257
