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Imitation and Style in Angelo Poliziano's Iliad Translation

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 November 2018

Alice Levine Rubinstein
Alice Levine Rubinstein*
Affiliation:
Oberlin College
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Extract

In 1470 the fifteen year old Angelo Poliziano published his first major work, a Latin hexameter translation of Iliad 2 dedicated to Lorenzo de Medici. Poliziano was motivated to write this translation not only by a sincere and enduring interest in Homeric poetry, but also by a desire to display his extraordinary poetic and linguistic talent and thereby to win the attention and perhaps the patronage of Lorenzo de Medici. The translation of Iliad 2 was received with lavish praise, and Poliziano was soon invited into the Medici household where, under Lorenzo's official patronage, he continued to work on the translation. In 1472, he completed Iliad 3; in 1474, Iliad 4; and in 1475, at age 20, Iliad 5, the last book he was to do. What is most interesting is that the style of books 2 and 3 differs substantially from the style of books 4 and 5.

Type
Research Article
Information
Renaissance Quarterly , Volume 36 , Issue 1 , Spring 1983 , pp. 48 - 70
Copyright
Copyright © Renaissance Society of America 1983

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References

1 For a complete study of Poliziano's Iliad translation, see my 1979 Princeton University dissertation, Angelo Poliziano's Latin Verse Translation of Iliad II-V (D. A. 40/03, pp. 1448 A-B). Other studies of Poliziano's Iliad include Ida Ma'ier, “Ange Politien: La formation d'un poete humaniste (1469-1480),” Travaux d'humanisme et renaissance, 81 (Geneva, 1966), 83-98; Orlando, Saverio, “Ars vertendi: la giovanile versione dell’ IIiade di Angelo Poliziano,” Giornale storico della letteratura italiana, 143 (1966), 1–24 Google Scholar; Hynd, J., “Politian: Homericus Adolescens” in “Homer Returned,” Arion, 6 (1967), 328-35Google Scholar; Cerri, Angelo, “La traduzione iliadica di Angelo Poliziano,” Acme, 30 (1977), 143-77Google Scholar; and Toppani, Innocente, “Poliziano e Omero,” Studi triestini di antichità in onore di Lutgia Achillea Stella (Trieste, 1975), pp. 471-80Google Scholar.

2 The texts praising Poliziano's translation have been assembled by Lungo, Isidoro Del, Florentia (Florence, 1897), pp. 120-22Google Scholar.

3 The chronology I have used is from Maier, , Ange Politien, pp. 86–88 Google Scholar.

4 A thorough history of Renaissance Latin translations of Homer will be published by Professor G. N. Knauer in the Catalogus Translationum series. At present the most accurate chronology of these translations has been published by Agostino Pertusi in the first appendix to his book Leonzio Pilato fra Petrarca e Boccaccio (Venice, 1964, rpt. 1979). PP- 521-29. See also Finsler, Georg, Homer in der Neuzeit (Leipzig, 1912)Google Scholar.

5 Dante, Inferno 4.88 and 96. The text quoted is that printed in John Sinclair's translation and commentary, Dante's Inferno (New York, 1939).

6 A thorough study of Pilato's translation is Pertusi, Leonzio Pilato fra Petrarca e Boccaccio. Pertusi has also identified the autographs of Pilato's translations.

7 The belief that all of the rules of oratory were exemplified in Homeric poetry was common in the rhetorical tradition. See, for instance, Cicero, Brutus 10.40; Quintilian, Inst. 2.17.7-9.

8 The preface to the translation is published in Leonardo Bruni Aretino, Humanistischphilosophische Schrijien, ed. Baron, Hans (Leipzig, 1928), pp. 132-34Google Scholar.

9 Quintilian, in Institutiones 8.6.40., distinguishes between poetic and rhetorical epithets.

10 Epistolario di Guarino Veronese, ed. and annotated by Remigio Sabbadini, 3 vols., Miscellanea di storia veneta, Ser. Ill, 8, n , 14, vol. 1 (Venice, 1915), 582.

11 Traversari's advice to Marsuppini is found in a letter written to the humanist Niccolo Niccoli, printed in “Zwolf Briefe des Ambrogio Traversari,” ed. Bertalot, Ludwig, Romische Quartalschrifi, 29 (1915), 99 Google Scholar.

12 Basinio's refusal, in verse form, is quoted in volume 3 of Sabbadini's edition of Guarino's Epistolario, p. 218.

13 Marsuppini had also published earlier a Latin version of the Batrachomyomachia that proved to be very popular. See Voigt, G., Il Risorgimento dell’ Antichita dassica ovvero il primo secolo dell'Umanismo Google Scholar, Italian translation with preface and notes by Valbusa, D., 2 vols. (Florence, 1890), II, 187-88Google Scholar. Voigt also refers to a translation, by Marsuppini, of the speeches in Iliad 9.

14 The edition of the Iliad translation that will be cited throughout this paper is that of Lungo, Isidoro Del, Prose volgari inedite e Poesie latine e greche edite e inedite (Florence, 1867), pp. 431–523 Google Scholar. Del Lungo reprints the text published by Cardinal Angelo Mai, who first discovered the manuscripts (see Spicilegium Romanum 2 [Rome: 1839]: 1- 100). When referring to the translation in the body of the text, I will, for convenience, use the initial P plus the relevant book and line numbers. Any references to Poliziano's scholia are from my own transcription of these scholia, found in Poliziano's manuscripts Vaticanus Lat. 3298 and 3617. The scholia will be published in full in a forthcoming article.

15 The Greek text of Homer and the accompanying translation used throughout are from the Loeb Classical Library, tr. A. T. Murray (Cambridge, 1924). When discussing an individual Greek verse in the body of the paper, however, I often use my own translation. For convenience, the Greek text is identified by the initial H plus the relevant book and line numbers.

16 These verses have been discussed also by Saverio Orlando, “Ars Vertendi.” Orlando points out, in a very general way, Poliziano's imitation of Vergil and Horace.

17 The statistics on word usage in individual classical authors are based upon information found in the concordances to these authors. These include Warwick, Henrietta Holm, A Vergil Concordance (Minneapolis, 1975)Google Scholar; Deferrari, and Eagan, , A Concordance of Statius (Washington, 1943)Google Scholar; and Barry, Deferrari, and McGuire, , A Concordance of Ovid (Washington, 1939)Google Scholar.

18 Many writers have discussed this characteristic of Poliziano's language, in reference both to his Iliad translation and to his other poetic works. Two articles dealing with Poliziano's use of fiery, vivid diction specifically in the Iliad translation are Angelo Cerri, “La traduzione iliadica di Angelo Poliziano,” and J. Hynd, “Homericus Adolescens.“

19 For Veneris gaudia see Metamorphoses 12. 198; Amores 2.8.2. For oculi modesti see Amores 3.6.67.

20 There is a similar use of the Ilias Latina at P2.275, where Ulysses strikes Thersites with an ivory scepter—sceptro assurgens percussit eburno. In the Homeric text, the material out of which the chapter was carved is left unspecified—Homer says simply (H2.265-66). Poliziano seems to have taken the adjective ebumus from the paraphrase of the Homeric verse found in the Ilias Latina, Correptum dictis sceptro percussit eburno (IL 140). The edition of the Ilias Latina used is that of Baehrens in Poetae Latini Minores, 5 vols. (Leipzig, 1881), 3:1-59.

21 Argonautica 1.87.

22 For a full discussion of Poliziano's translation of noun-epithet formulae, see Levine, Angelo Poliziano's Latin Verse Translation …, pp. 123-151; and Cerri, “La traduzione iliadica di Angelo Poliziano.“

23 The five occurrences in Iliad 2 and 3, with the corresponding Latin verses, are: H2.98, P2.106; H2.196, P2.203; H2.445, P2.448; H2.660, P2.672; H2.847, P2.867. In books 4 and 5: H4.280, P4.328; H4.338, P4.393-94; H5.463, P5532; H5.464, P5.533.

24 Catullus 64.50-51.

25 Quintilian, Inst. 8.3.51, condemns repetition in any but the greatest authors.

26 For some general assessments of Poliziano's scholarship, see Reynolds, and Wilson, , Scribes and Scholars, 2nd ed., rev. and enl. (Oxford, 1974), pp. 125-37Google Scholar; Garin, Eugenio, “Filologia e poesia in Angelo Poliziano,” La rassegna delta letteratura italiana, 58 (1954), 349-66Google Scholar; and Grafton, Anthony, “On the Scholarship of Politian and its Context, Journal ofthe Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, 40(1977), 150-88CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

27 See Sabbadini, Remigio, Storia del ciceronianismo (Turin, 1885)Google Scholar. See also Dionisotti, Carlo, “Calderini, Poliziano e altri,” Italia medioevale e umanistica, 11 (1968), 151-85Google Scholar.

28 The correspondence with Paolo Cortese is printed in Prosatori latini del Quattrocento, ed. Garin, La letteratura italiana, storia e testi, vol. 13 (Milan, 1952), pp. 902-11.

29 The doctrine of docta varietas is set forth in Poliziano's Prolusion to the course on Statius and Quintilian and in the preface to his great scholarly work the Miscellanea. The Prolusion is printed in Garin, Prosatori latini del Quattrocento, pp. 870-85.

30 Vertimus igitur pene ad verbum . . non sensu modo sed numeris etiam, quod est difficilimum, coloribus servatis.” Poliziano, Angelo, Opera Omnia (Basel, 1553), p. 289 Google Scholar.

31 “si non eleganter . . ex fide tamen, servato etiam, quantum liceat, incomptae illius, sed venerandae vetustatis colore nonnullo, aut squalore potius.” Ibid, p. 276.

32 See my forthcoming article in Italia medioevale e umanistica, “The Notes to Poliziano's Iliad translation.” The note has also been published by Ida Mai'er, “Une page inedite de Politien: la note du Vaticanus Lat. 3617 sur Demetrius Triclinius, commentateur d'Homere,” Bibliotheque d'humanisme et renaissance, 16 (1954), 6-17.

33 Discussions of the neo-Platonic interpretation of myth in the Renaissance include Seznec, Survival of the Pagan Gods, tr. Barbara Sessions (New York, 1961. The original French edition was published in 1940); Wind, Edgar, Pagan Mysteries in the Renaissance (New York, 1968)Google Scholar; Trinkaus, Charles, In Our Image and Likeness, 2 vols. (Chicago, 1970), 2, 683-721Google Scholar; and Garin, Eugenio, “Le favole antiche,” in Medioevo e Rinascimento; studi e ricerche (Bari, 1954), pp. 66–89 Google Scholar.

34 Epistle 1.4. Poliziano, Opera Omnia, p. 4.

35 “Etenim ego tenera adhuc aetate … dabam quidem philosophiae utrique operam; sed non admodum assiduam: videlicet ad Homeri blandimenta natura et aetate proclivior; quern turn latine, quoque, miro, ut adolescens, ardore, miro studio, versibusinterpretabar.” Poliziano, Opera Omnia, p. 310.

36 “Nam et ego is sum qui ab ineunte adolescentia, ita huius eminentissimi poetae studio flagraverim, ut non modo eum toto legendo olfecerim peneque contriverim, sed iuvenili quodam ac prope temerario ausu vertere etiam in latinum tentaverim.” Ibid., P.477.