Critica del testo. XVII / 1, 2014.

I Ma‛aśēy-’Estēr: un nuovo testo “giudeo-provenzale”
Erica Baricci

I Ma‛aśēy-’Estēr: un nuovo testo “giudeo-provenzale”
In this essay I present the edition of a new text, which I call Ma‛aśēy-’Estēr (The tales of Esther). This is a Provençal poem written in Hebrew characters about the Story of Esther. Probably, it was sung during the Feast of Pûrîm for the joy of a Jewish community who lived in Salon the Provence at about 1330. The Ma‛aśēy-’Estēr, attested in one extant manuscript (Rome, Biblioteca Casanatense 3140), were already known in bibliography, but they were expected to be one second text of the Roman d’Esther by Crescas de Caylar (Avignon, about 1340). After an introduction where I deal with the contents, the style and the metrical form of the Ma‛aśēy-’Estēr, I try to reconstruct the Judaeo-Provençal Tradition of texts for Pûrîm, comparing the Ma‛aśēy-’Estēr and the Roman d’Esther. I also propose to assign the Ma‛aśēy-’Estēr to Kalonimos ben Kalonimos: he was a Jewish savant living in Salon the Provence at about 1330.

La Bible d’Herman de Valenciennes et le problème du genre littéraire
Maria Teresa Rachetta

La Bible d’Herman de Valenciennes et le problème du genre littéraire
The so-called Bible of Herman of Valenciennes is the most ancient and widespread verse rewriting of the Bible in Old French. It has been described in some recent contribution as a product of a hybridization of literary genres: the exploitation on religious contents of the system of formal marks typical of the chanson de geste. Aim of this contribution is to discuss the historical plausibility of this reconstruction with regard to both its consistency with Herman’s text and its largest implications. The case of the Bible will show some of the limits of the idea of literary genre as heuristic tool in a field, the religious narrative, historically and typologically crucial.

Frammento di un testimone perduto della Conception Nostre Dame di Wace (con un’interpolazione sulla morte di Erode)
Stefano Resconi

Frammento di un testimone perduto della Conception Nostre Dame di Wace (con un’interpolazione sulla morte di Erode)
One of the literary parchment fragments of the Archivio Comunale of Sutri is a partial witness of Wace’s Conception Nostre Dame that has never been identified before. The paper presents the transcription of the fragment and a study of its material, textual and linguistic features: this kind of analysis makes it possible to recognize its place in the textual tradition, making also clear its relationships with some of the other Sutri fragments. The Sutri fragment also reports part of an interpolation about Herod’s death that can be found only in another manuscript of the Conception Nostre Dame: in the paper its literary sources are discovered, so that the task of this addition becomes clear also according to the Medieval use of Wace’s work.

«En autre penser». Il ms. Hamilton 49 nella tradizione del Lancelot in prosa
Elena Spadini

«En autre penser». Il ms. Hamilton 49 nella tradizione del Lancelot in prosa
The Hamilton 49 manuscript from the Berlin Staatsbibliothek conserves a portion of the prose Lancelot and belong to the already well-known group of manuscripts produced in Genoa at the end of the XIIIth century with a strong partecipation of prisoners from Pisa ensuing the Battle of Meloria. Once showed the main elements of a codicological, linguistic and iconographical analysis, we focus on the text, underlighting innovations and omissions; some of them are worth considering (most of all regarding the love and graal themes), but the text altogether seems often distorted due to simple carelessness of the scribe; this aspect well fits with the material features of the book, rather poor. Even if in the first part of the Lancelot there isn’t a real competition between different redactions, it is possible to distinguish two large groups of witnesses; main elements are provided for the collocation of Hamilton 49 in the manuscript tradition.

Il volgarizzamento toscano del Livre du gentil chevalier Philippe de Madien di Perrinet du Pin (ms. Marc. It. Z. 48 [4806])
Marco Bernardi

Il volgarizzamento toscano del Livre du gentil chevalier Philippe de Madien di Perrinet du Pin (ms. Marc. It. Z. 48 [4806])
The French Livre du gentil chevalier Philippe de Madien was written by the chronicler Perrinet du Pin, who worked at the Court of Savoy from 1447 to 1482: four manuscripts and two printed editions of it still remain. A translation in Tuscan ancient language by the Florentine tradesman Giovanni Cherichi (XVth cent.) is also preserved by the ms. Marc. It. Z. 48. The study of the relations between this ms. and the French texts still available reveals that Cherichi probably used, as a model-text, a more accurate French ms. than the ones known today. The watermarks of the ms. Marc. It. Z. 48 and the ones of the ms. Ricc. 1390 (which contains another translation by Cherichi) allow us to suppose that the tradesman could have come into contact with Perrinet’s work in Genève, where he was charged with financial and administrative tasks and came in touch with the Bishop Jean-Louis of Savoy.

Raimbaut d’Aurenga «poeta di testa»
Lorenzo Fabiani

Raimbaut d’Aurenga «poeta di testa»
The paper shows how Raimbaut d’Aurenga innovated the vocabulary of troubadour love poetry by using some key-words (all linked to the semantic field of human ‘head’ and ‘brain’) to make new metaphor to represent interiority. The study focuses on the connections between these words and the technical terminology of medicine, which could have influenced the poet. Studies on the fortune of Raimbaut’s images and metaphors in the works of later troubadours demonstrate the originality of his lexical choices.

Sulla seconda visione in sogno della Vita Nova
Letizia Leoncini

Sulla seconda visione in sogno della Vita Nova
The essay proposes and discusses the ipothesis of a passage from Boethius’ Philosophiae consolatio being the primary source standing behind a controversial point in Vita Nova, that is the words said by Amore to Dante in occasion of the second oneiric vision occurred in the text: «Ego tanquam centrum circuli, cui simili modo se habent circumferentie partes; tu autem non sic». In the first part the author explains the link between Dante’s words and the Boethian source relying both on the concept of Christian Providence emerging from the Vita Nova, and on various remarks made by Thomas Aquinas, probably a secondary source to Dante, about the passage from the Consolatio quoted by the poet. The second part is an interpretation of the possible meaning of Amore’s words in the general economy of the text and of Dante’s mystic conceptions about love.

Pasolini e l’Orestea: variazione su Pilade (ovvero la nuca di Pilade e di Guido)
Maria Grazia Bonanno

Pasolini e l’Orestea: variazione su Pilade (ovvero la nuca di Pilade e di Guido)
The article attemps a new reading of the tragedy, centering on the scene in which the author focuses on the gaze Orestes bestows upon Pilades about to go into exile. The nape of the exiting man recalls the poem A un ragazzo, published in 1958 as well as the memory of Pasolini’s brother, Guido.