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Giovan Battista Casti, "Il poema tartaro". Edizione critica e commento.
Full text linkMy thesis is a critical edition of the Poema tartaro by the libertine abbot Giovan Battista Casti (1724-1803). This work is a long octave poem, which satirizes, in accordance with the rules of the mock-heroic genre, Catherine II’s Russian court, where the author lived for years (1776-1779) as a member of the Hapsburg diplomacy. Although Casti was the Austrian court’s official poet, his work never received the authorization to be printed: the emperor Joseph II, after his 1781 alliance with Russia, forbade in fact the publication of a poem whose theme was explicitly against his new ally. Still, Casti’s text circulated widely in form of both manuscript copies and unauthorised (as well as defective) printed ones. A thorough analysis of these materials led to main findings: the version of the poem that Casti realized for the emperor in 1786, including 84 new stanzas, missing in the nineteenth-century pirate printed editions of the poem.
Along with the critical edition of the text, my thesis provides a broad commentary on the poem. The commentary is essential in order to illustrate the different perspectives from which the text can be approached. Sure enough, one of the components peculiar to the Poema Tartaro is the continuous overlap of elements that draw on different historical moments: even if the main scenery of the plot is the thirteenth-century Mongolian Empire, ruled by Genghis Khan, there are in fact several references to the nineteenth-century Russia of Catherine II. This strategy aims to present Russia allegorically as a country of perennial savagery. Depicting Petersburg as if it were the lost city of Karakorum and the czarina Catherine as a despotic and “oriental” sovereign, Casti contrasts the French Illuminists’ vision (in particular Voltaire’s) of nineteenth-century Russia as a model for the European Enlightenment. The thesis is completed by an index of the different historical transvestisms used by Casti to assign to every character in Catherine’s court a counterpart in the Mongolian scenery. Furthermore, the index is conceived as a tool to analyse the correlated controversies that inform the whole poem
Edward Muir, Guerre culturali. Libertinismo e religione alla fine del Rinascimento, Bari, Laterza, 2008
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Ferrante Pallavicino, Romanzi e parodie, a cura di Anna-Maria Pedullà, Classici italiani UTET, Torino, 2009
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La macchina mitologica della venezianità. Retorica barocca e imperialismo fascista
Full text linkThis paper connects two critical paradigms: the model of the mythological machine developed by Furio Jesi and the ideology of the venezianità that has been investigated, with respect to the Fascist period, by Mario Isnenghi. In the early 20th century, the myth of the Serenissima plays a key role both in the works of Gabriele D’Annunzio and in the movies inspired by them. This paper focuses on a relevant example taken from such cinematography (La nave, 1921), but it also extends the analysis to other sources, like the glossy magazines and the historical studies printed in Venice during the Ventennio. By projecting the Venetian past onto the Fascist present, these publications offer a rhetorical cloak to disguise the financial and military ambitions of the rising Venetian bourgeoisie. This paper makes use of the conceptual tools elaborated by Jesi in order to dissect this mythology. The goal is to outline a specific variant of the myth of Venice, whose sources do not belong to the 16th-century vulgate, that is the most famous version of the myth. Such sources date back to the second half of the 17th century instead, when the wars against the Turks nurtured a warlike and individualistic rhetoric, both in public celebrations and in typography. The ideas and the narrative that germinated in the Baroque era, as well as the names of the doges and the captains from that time, can be found both in the works of Gino Damerini, a central figure in Venetian cultural life during the Ventennio, and in the verses written by D’Annunzio to celebrate the Italian war in Libya (Merope, 1912).L’articolo mette in comunicazione due paradigmi critici, l’uno teorico e l’altro storiografico: da una parte il modello della macchina mitologica elaborato da Furio Jesi, dall’altra l’ideologia della venezianità studiata, in relazione al Ventennio fascista, da Mario Isnenghi. Le proiezioni mitologiche della Serenissima vengono alimentate, nel primo Novecento, dalle opere di Gabriele D’Annunzio e, più in generale, dal dannunzianesimo cinematografico, di cui si indaga qui un caso specifico (La nave, 1921); ma la ripresa, a fini propagandistici, del mito di Venezia è un fenomeno trasversale, che interessa tanto le riviste patinate quanto gli studi storici, garantendo un paludamento retorico agli interessi, finanziari e militaristi, della nuova borghesia in ascesa. Adoperando gli strumenti concettuali approntati da Jesi, l’articolo si impegna a sciogliere questa mitologia in senso diacronico. Si delinea così una variante specifica del mito di Venezia, le cui fonti non appartengono alla più celebre vulgata cinquecentesca, ma risalgono invece alla seconda metà del Seicento, quando le guerre contro i Turchi favoriscono, tanto nelle celebrazioni pubbliche quanto in tipografia, l’emergere di una retorica bellicosa e individualista. Le idee e le narrazioni germinate in epoca barocca, come pure i nomi dei dogi e dei capitani che di quella stagione furono i maggiori interpreti, si ritrovano puntualmente sia nell’intensa attività pubblicistica di Gino Damerini, uno dei più importanti intellettuali della Venezia fascista, sia nei versi con cui D’Annunzio celebra la guerra di Libia (Merope, 1912)
Per un lessico della propaganda barocca: il Kitsch
Full text linkThis paper focuses on baroque propaganda, and it justifies the anachronism of such category by bringing its heuristic potential to light. Through the analysis of some well-known models (Michel Foucault’s raison d’état, Pierre Bourdieu’s symbolic capital, Jürgen Habermas’s open sphere), the paper points out the main features of consensus building in 17th-century Europe: intermediality, productivity, asystematicity. Aiming at compiling a lexicon of baroque propaganda, the paper also focuses on the concept of Kitsch. The inquiry primarily concerns the painted cycle of Peter Paul Rubens at the Luxembourg palace and the poem Adone by Giovan Battista Marino. The goal is to define the role played by ancient mythology in the representation of Ancien Régime political power.Il saggio discute la categoria di propaganda barocca, motivandone l’anacronismo e mettendone in luce il potenziale euristico. Attraverso l’esame di alcuni celebri paradigmi critici (la ragion di Stato di Michel Foucault, il capitale simbolico di Pierre Bourdieu, la sfera pubblica di Jürgen Habermas), si individuano i caratteri peculiari della costruzione del consenso nell’Europa del XVII secolo: l’intermedialità, la produttività, l’asistematicità. Con lo scopo di allestire un lessico critico che inquadri il fenomeno, l’articolo discute inoltre il concetto di Kitsch. L’analisi, che si concentra sul ciclo pittorico di Peter Paul Rubens al Luxembourg e sull’Adone di Giovan Battista Marino, mira a definire il ruolo che la mitologia pagana assume nella rappresentazione del potere di Antico regime
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