Abstract
The conceit of the beloved’s hair ensnaring and binding the poet’s heart and soul is common in Renaissance poetry and particularly widespread in the tradition of Petrarchan love lyric. The topos can be traced back to Petrarch’s canzoniere, or Rerum vulgarium fragmenta, in which Laura’s golden hair is often described in terms of knots and laces tying both the poet’s heart and soul. No classical antecedent has previously been identified for the image. In this study, I propose a possible classical source for the characteristic Petrarchan motif of Laura’s binding hair knot: Apuleius’s Metamorphoses, a manuscript of which the poet owned and which he read and annotated several times. In particular, I show how passages such as Lucius’s celebration of the beauty of women’s hair (Metamorphoses, II.8–9), and especially his declaration of love to Photis, an oath he takes on ʻthat sweet knot of your hair with which you have bound my spiritʼ (ibid., III.23), can be convincingly regarded as a source for Petrarch’s conceit. In addition to the value inherent in the detection of a new source for an influential Petrarchan topos, the present study may have some further implications. It could offer novel arguments for the dating of a series of Petrarchan poems, and it could foster a potentially fruitful reappraisal of the influence of Apuleius’s work on Petrarch’s vernacular poetry.
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The topos of the beloved’s hair ensnaring and binding the poet’s heart and soul is common in Renaissance poetry. Both a way to celebrate the beauty of a woman’s comely locks and to signify the invincible power of love, the conceit is particularly widespread in the tradition of Petrarchan love lyric, appearing in the works of innumerable authors, from Pietro BemboFootnote 1 to Torquato Tasso,Footnote 2 from Pierre de RonsardFootnote 3 to Philippe Desportes,Footnote 4 from Philip SidneyFootnote 5 to Edmund SpenserFootnote 6 and William Shakespeare.Footnote 7 Indeed, the topos was a constituent feature of the codified language of Petrarchan poetry. But what was its origin? Like most topoi in this poetic tradition, it can be traced back to Petrarch (Francesco Petrarca), whose canzoniere, or Rerum vulgarium fragmenta, was the indisputable model for Renaissance love lyric. In several poems, Petrarch describes Laura’s golden hair, one of the chief elements in the celebrative portrayal of the beloved, in terms of knots and laces tying both the poet’s heart and his soul: ʻtorsele [le chiome] il tempo poi in più saldi nodi, / et strinse ’l cor d’un laccio sì possente, / che Morte sola fia ch’indi lo snodiʼ (ʻThen in still tighter knots time wound her hair / and bound my heart with cord that is so strong / that only Death can free it from such tiesʼ); ʻné posso dal bel nodo omai dar crollo, / là ’ve il sol perde, non pur l’ambra o l’auro: / dico le chiome bionde, e ’1 crespo laccio, / che sì soavemente lega et stringe / l’almaʼ (ʻnor can I now break loose the lovely knot / which gold and amber and the sun surpasses: / I mean her golden hair, the curly snare / that with such softness binds and tightens round / my soulʼ); ʻlà da’ belli occhi, et de le chiome stesse / lega ’l cor lasso … folgorare i nodi ond’io son presoʼ (ʻthere with her lovely eyes and hair she binds / my weary heart … those knots which have bound me, shimmeringʼ); ʻO chiome bionde di che ’l cor m’annoda / Amor, et così preso il mena a morteʼ (ʻO locks of gold with which Love tangles tight / my heart, and caught this way leads it to death!ʼ); ʻspargi co le tue man’ le chiome al vento, / ivi mi lega, et puo′ mi far contento. / Dal laccio d’òr non sia mai chi me sciogliaʼ (ʻwith your hands spread her locks upon the wind / and bind me there, and you will make me happy. / No one shall free me from that golden snareʼ); ʻ“Son questi i capei biondi, et l’aureo nodo / – dich’io – ch’ancor mi stringe”ʼ (ʻ“Is this the blond hair and the golden knot,” I say, “that still bind me”ʼ).Footnote 8 Constantly expressed through the images of the ʻlaccioʼ (lace) and the ʻnodoʼ (knot) – two terms endowed with both a visual and a deep symbolic value – the conceit is frequent enough to be regarded as a characteristic feature of Petrarch’s poetry and, as such, an easy object of imitation.
While the Renaissance use of the topos clearly originates from the Rerum vulgarium fragmenta, we may wonder whether Petrarch himself was indebted to some other source for the conceit of Laura’s entangling hair. In his study of the classical origins of poetic topoi, Marbury B. Ogle claims that this specific motif has no such antecedent and must therefore be the fruit of Petrarch’s invention:
This conceit does not appear, as far as I have discovered, in exactly this form in ancient literature, but the idea is evidently due to it. Both Greek and Latin poets often write of Love (Aphrodite, Venus, Eros, Amor, Cupido) as a hunter who ensnares lovers in a net, and Greek poets sometimes describe the eyes of their beloved, not the hair, as the net in which their gaze or their heart is held captive. … Who was responsible for this shift from eyes to hair it is impossible to say. Petrarch seems to have been the first to make the change, inspired, perhaps, by some such passage as Chrétien, Cligés 194 sq. where Fenice’s hair is woven into the web garment and is indistinguishable from the gold thread.Footnote 9
In response to Ogle, Ted-Larry Pebworth claimed in 1971 to have found the source for Petrarch’s conceit, not in classical literature, but in the Bible. In particular, he referred to the Song of Songs 7:5, where the male lover states that a king (presumably himself) is held captive in the woman’s waving locks – a passage that Pebworth quotes in Hugh J. Schonfield’s translation: ʻThe head of you is like Carmel, / And your tresses like purple threads. / A king could be caught by their coils.’Footnote 10 The idea is fascinating, especially since the Song of Songs was a significant source for Petrarch’s poetry. There is, however, a major problem with this hypothesis. While the Hebrew text presents the motif of the woman’s hair imprisoning the lover,Footnote 11 in accordance with imagery typical of Eastern love lyric,Footnote 12 the Latin Vulgate Bible, which was the main biblical version circulating in the Middle Ages and the one almost certainly used by Petrarch, reads ʻcomae capitis tui sicut purpura regis vincta canalibusʼ (ʻthe hairs of thy head as the purple of the king bound in the channels’). Evidently, this version does not immediately invite a reading which sees the male lover imprisoned by the beloved’s hair, and medieval exegetes – at least Western ones, basing their interpretations on the Vulgate – do not seem to favour this reading.Footnote 13
Ogle’s claim about the absence of a classical source for Petrarch’s conceit appears confirmed by the most recent and authoritative critical editions of the Rerum vulgarium fragmenta, including those by Marco Santagata and Rosanna Bettarini, as well as the editions of Ugo Dotti, Paola Vecchi Galli and Sabrina Stroppa, which do not refer to any classical antecedent in relation to the relevant Petrarchan passages.Footnote 14 Indeed, these editors do not give any source for the Petrarchan topos, with the exception of Bettarini’s mention, in her discussion of sonnet CXCVI, of Cino da Pistoia as the inventor of the conceit of love’s knot, to which the poet is tied by his beloved’s tresses: ʻOmè! ch’io sono all’amoroso nodo / legato con due belle trecce biondeʼ (ʻAlas! I am tied to the amorous knot / with two beautiful blonde tressesʼ).Footnote 15 There is doubtless an affinity between Cino’s image and Petrarch’s. Yet Bettarini does not seem to establish a necessarily direct relationship between the two poems; moreover, Cino’s conceit is somewhat different from Petrarch’s, above all because his knot appears to be primarily a symbolic one, rather than an actual knot of hair.
Without necessarily dismissing Cino’s poem, I would like to propose a new potential source for Petrarch’s conceit: a classical antecedent of which the poet was surely aware. It is a passage in Apuleius’s Metamorphoses, a work which Petrarch knew well, since he owned and annotated a manuscript containing the text. Possibly compiled as a gift to Petrarch, perhaps under his direction,Footnote 16 the codex, Vatican City, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, MS 2193, brought together Apuleius’s major works and his philosophical writings in one corpus, and was read with care by the poet.Footnote 17 This is shown by the number of his glosses, the long timespan over which they were madeFootnote 18 – revealing that the text accompanied Petrarch throughout his mature years and old age – and by the substantial traces that this attentive reading left in his glosses to other manuscripts, most notably his copy of Virgil (Milan, Biblioteca Ambrosiana, MS A 79 inf.), in which he entered a remarkable number of glosses referring to Apuleius.Footnote 19
Further proof of Petrarch’s careful and fruitful reading of Apuleius is found in his own writings. Many studies have underscored the significant influence of Apuleius’s works on Petrarch, even though he claimed, in a famous letter to Boccaccio on the norms of imitation, that he had read Apuleius ʻOnly onceʼ and ʻhastily and quicklyʼ, and that, of the several things he had seen in his work, he had culled only a few and retained even fewer, ʻand these I laid aside as common property in an open place, in the very atrium, so to speak, of my memory. Consequently, whenever I happen either to hear or use them, I quickly recognize that they are not mine, and recall whose they are; these really belong to others, and I have them in my possession with the awareness that they are not my ownʼ.Footnote 20 This influence, Petrarch continues, is very different from that exerted by authors such as Virgil, Horace, Boethius and Cicero, whose works he had read ʻnot once but countless timesʼ, not hastily but very attentively, so that their writings ʻhave so become one with my mind that were I never to read them for the remainder of my life, they would cling to me, having taken root in the innermost recesses of my mind. But sometimes … I may adopt them and for some time regard them as my own … I may forget whose they are and whether they are mine or othersʼ.Footnote 21
Without entering the complex discussion of Petrarch’s (un)reliability – though there are several examples of his conscious ʻreshapingʼ of the truth, with his well-known treatment of Dante emblematic in this sense – his claim to have read Apuleius only once and hurriedly is contradicted by the evidence of his own annotated manuscript. Furthermore, the idea that he had retained only a very few things from this reading is equally challenged by both his glosses to other manuscripts and the several references to Apuleius in his writings, such as those found by Giuseppe Billanovich in the Rerum memorandarum libri,Footnote 22 or others highlighted in the Familiarum rerum libri by various scholars, including Caterina Tristano, who also noted that some Apuleian passages were useful to Petrarch when writing the Africa,Footnote 23 and Robert H. F. Carver, who has identified references to Apuleius also in Petrarch’s Invective contra medicum.Footnote 24 Among the works of the Apuleian corpus, the Metamorphoses – a text to which Petrarch had repeated exposureFootnote 25 – appears to have been especially influential. In the Familiarum rerum libri, for instance, there are many references to Apuleius’s novel;Footnote 26 and, in at least one case, the work had a specifically stylistic influence. As Silvia Rizzo has shown, Petrarch’s description of his first visit to Paris, ʻPariseorum civitatem … introii non aliter animo affectus quam olim Thesalie civitatem Ypatham dum lustrat, ApuleiusʼFootnote 27 (ʻI entered Paris ... with the same kind of attitude shown by Apuleius while visiting Ipatea, a city of Thessalyʼ), is indebted to Metamorphoses II.1–2, not only for the general situation, but also for some specific lexical choices.Footnote 28 Even more significantly, Ezio Raimondi has underlined the influence of the Metamorphoses on Petrarch’s satirical novella about an old, lascivious cardinal in Epistle XVIII of the Liber sine nomine. The stylistic impact here goes far beyond Petrarch’s explicit and intentionally parodic reference to Apuleius’s narrative of Cupid and Psyche – a narrative which, Igor Candido argues, Petrarch recognized as the source of Boccaccio’s tale of Griselda and which influenced his own Latin translation of Boccaccio’s text.Footnote 29 Not only does Petrarch describe the miserable young woman yielding to the ancient prelate as entering the bed-chamber ʻvelut Psyche illa Lucii Apulei felicibus nuptiis honestandaʼ (ʻjust like the famous Psyche of Lucius Apuleius, destined to be honoured with a happy marriageʼ);Footnote 30 but, as Raimondi writes, the ʻridiculosa historiaʼ of the libidinous prelate was a skilful adaptation of Apuleius’s narrative, revealing substantial traces of Petrarch’s reading of the Metamorphoses on many levels, from the construction of the scene to its dramatic syntax and lexical texture.Footnote 31 As these examples indicate, Apuleius’s impact on Petrarch was not limited to mentioning his name and taking brief quotations from his works. While Petrarch’s claim that he possessed and used Apuleius’s words ʻwith the awareness that they are not my ownʼ may find some confirmation in the fact that most of his references to the Metamorphoses are not assimilated into his discourse but instead explicitly attributed to Apuleius,Footnote 32 the Latin novel also inspired Petrarch’s writing in a deeper manner, orienting his style and vocabulary.
Scholarly attention, as we have seen, has primarily been devoted to Apuleius’s influence on Petrarch’s Latin prose writings, and not on his vernacular poetry – no doubt because the Metamorphoses is itself a Latin prose work. In their editions of the Rerum vulgarium fragmenta, Santagata and Bettarini between them refer to Apuleius only four times in total: once in relation to De mundo and three times to the Metamorphoses, only one of which is clearly a source reference: ʻVien poi l’aurora, et l’aura fosca inalbaʼ (ʻDawn comes and brightens the dark airʼ, CCXXIII, l. 12), connected by both editors to Metamorphoses, X.20: ʻAt intus cerei praeclara micantes luce nocturnas nobis tenebras inalbabantʼFootnote 33 (‘Inside wax candles sparkled with brilliant light and whitened the night’s darkness for usʼ).Footnote 34 There are, however, other passages in the Metamorphoses which merit consideration.
Lucius, the protagonist of the novel, is a great admirer of female beauty and appears to have a particular weakness for women’s hair. He commences the portrayal of his lover Photis by stating that a woman’s chief beauty is her hair and continues with a long demonstration of this claim, which includes a laudatory description of different types of hair and hairstyles, culminating with Photis’s (Metamorphoses, II.9):Footnote 35
Quid cum capillis color gratus et nitor splendidus inlucet, et contra solis aciem vegetus fulgurat vel placidus renitet, aut in contrariam gratiam variat aspectum et nunc aurum coruscans in lenem mellis deprimitur umbram, nunc corvina nigredine caerulus columbarum colli flosculos aemulatur, vel cum guttis Arabicis obunctus et pectinis arguti dente tenui discriminatus et pone versum coactus amatoris oculis occurrens ad instar speculi reddit imaginem gratiorem? Quid cum frequenti subole spissus cumulat verticem, vel prolixa serie porrectus dorsa permanat? Tanta denique est capillamenti dignitas ut quamvis auro veste gemmis omnique cetero mundo exornata mulier incedat, tamen, nisi capillum distinxerit, ornata non possit videri.
Sed in mea Photide non operosus sed inordinatus ornatus addebat gratiam. Uberes enim crines leniter remissos et cervice dependulos ac dein per colla dispositos sensimque sinuato patagio residentes paulisper ad finem conglobatos in summum verticem nodus adstrinxerat.Footnote 36
[But think what it is like when hair shines with its own lovely colour and brilliant light, and when it flashes lively against the sunbeams or gently reflects them; or when it shifts its appearance to produce opposite charms, now glistening gold compressed into the smooth shadows of honey, now with raven-blackness imitating the dark blue flowerets on pigeons’ necks; or when it is anointed with Arabian oils and parted with a sharp comb’s fine tooth and gathered at the back so as to meet the lover’s eyes and, like a mirror, reflect an image more pleasing than reality; or when, compact with all its tresses, it crowns the top of her head or, let out in a long train, it flows down over her back. In short, the significance of a woman’s coiffure is so great that, no matter how finely attired she may be when she steps out in her gold, robes, jewels, and all her other finery, unless she has embellished her hair she cannot be called well-dressed. In my Photis’s case, her coiffure was not elaborate, but its casualness gave her added charm. Her luxuriant tresses were softly loosened to hang down over her neck, then they spread over her shoulders and momentarily rested upon the slightly curved border of her tunic; they were then gathered in a mass at the end and fastened in a knot to the crown of her head.]
Apuleius’s detailed praise of the beauty of women’s hair was unlikely to go unnoticed by an author aiming to celebrate female loveliness. It clearly captured the attention of Boccaccio, an enthusiastic reader of Apuleius,Footnote 37 who, in his Comedia delle ninfe fiorentine (Ameto), draws extensively from Lucius’s account of his lover’s hair for the portrayal of a lady encountered by Ameto:
Egli rimira la prima, la quale, e non immerito, pensava Diana nel suo avvento; e di quella i biondi capelli, a qualunque chiarezza degni d’assomigliare, senza niuno maesterio, lunghissimi, parte ravvolti alla testa nella sommità di quella, con nodo piacevole d’essi stessi, vede raccolti; e altri più corti, o in quello non compresi, fra le verdi frondi della laurea ghirlanda più belli sparti vede e raggirati; e altri dati all’aure, ventilati da quelle, quali sopra le candide tempie e quali sopra il dilicato collo ricadendo, più la fanno cianciosa. A quelli con intero animo Ameto pensando, conosce i lunghi, biondi e copiosi capelli essere della donna speziale bellezza ... . Adunque tanta estima la degnità de’ capelli alle femine quanta, se, qualunque si sia, di preziose veste, di ricche pietre, di rilucenti gemme e di caro oro circundata proceda, sanza quelli in dovuto ordine posti, non possa ornate parere; ma in costei essi, disordinati, più graziosa la rendono negli occhi d’Ameto.Footnote 38
[He admired the first maiden, who he thought was Diana at her arrival – and not undeservedly. He observed her very long blond hair, worthy of comparison to any splendour, which was gathered in part on top of her head without any artifice, and bound with a lovely knot of her same hair; and other locks, either shorter or not bound in the knot, were still more beautifully dispersed and twisted in a laurel wreath, while still others were blown by the wind around her temples and around her delicate neck, making her even more delightful. Completely absorbed in her, Ameto recognized that the long abundant blond hair was the special beauty of this maiden ... . Therefore he deems the beauty of her hair so important for a woman that anyone, whoever she may be, though she go covered in precious garments, in rich stones, in glimmering gems and bright gold, without her hair tressed in due order, she cannot seem properly adorned; yet in this maiden the disorder thereof renders her still more charming to Ameto’s eyes.]Footnote 39
Through passages such as this, Carver writes, ʻApuleius’ Photis helps to define Renaissance ideals of feminine pulchritude: the hair as the chief glory of women’s beauty; the tresses gathered up “without any artifice” (sanza niuno maesterio); the seeming paradox of graceful disorderʼ – an inordinatus ornatus which would be easily absorbed, in the 16th century, ʻinto the notion of sprezzatura (“artful artlessness”, or “studied nonchalance”), that Castiglione establishes as one of the chief marks of the successful courtierʼ.Footnote 40
Boccaccio’s reference to Apuleius is unmistakable; however, he might not have been the only one of the ‘tre corone’ (the so-called ‘three crowns’ of Italian literature: Dante, Petrarch and Boccaccio) to be inspired by the passage. Petrarch, for whom Laura’s hair was one of her chief ornaments and a constant source of fascination, might also have been receptive to Lucius’s rapturous description of women’s hair, particularly Photis’s. The impression of golden hair shining brighter than the sun, flowing down onto feminine shoulders or gathered up in tresses, was evoked by Petrarch in relation to Laura’s hair on many occasions. No less attentive than Lucius to his beloved’s hairstyle, Petrarch could have taken from Apuleius the idea of Photis’s artfully neglected hairdo – a style dear to classical lyric poets – and especially her knot of hair, the beautiful ʻnodusʼ, an image which Petrarch also used several times when describing Laura’s hair.Footnote 41
This image acquires far greater significance in a passage a little further on in Metamorphoses which is highly relevant for our purposes, and which appears on a page in Petrarch’s Apuleius manuscript that the poet read carefully, as it features at least one of his glosses, as well as some marks made by him.Footnote 42 In the third book, Lucius promises Photis that he could never prefer another woman to her, and he does so through an image which is very close to Petrarch’s conceit: ʻAdiuro per dulcem istum capilli tui nodulum, quo meum vinxisti spiritum, me nullam aliam meae Photidi malleʼFootnote 43 (ʻI swear by that sweet knot of your hair with which you have bound my spirit that there is no other woman I prefer to my Photisʼ, Metamorphoses, III.23). The reference to the sweet knot of the beloved’s hair binding the lover’s spirit (and we should recall that Petrarch identified Lucius with Apuleius himself)Footnote 44 is reminiscent of the knot of Laura’s hair binding the poet’s heart and soul. In Petrarch, the Latin ʻspiritusʼ turns into the Italian ʻcorʼ (heart) and the more Christian ʻalmaʼ (soul); but this is a small and predictable change. The similarity between the two images, on the other hand, is remarkable: both Apuleius’s and Petrarch’s knots are real hair knots, which acquire a metaphorical value in the lovers’ refined language and, in this way, become the centre of a striking conceit signifying the power of the beloved women over the narrative/lyrical ʻIʼ. The image of the knot appears in virtually all the Petrarchan occurrences of the motif of binding hair, as sonnet CCLXX, the only exception,Footnote 45 did in fact feature the ‘nodo’ in its first version, preserved in the so-called ʻcodice degli abbozziʼ, Vatican City, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, MS 3196:Footnote 46 ʻSpargi co le tue manj le chiome al uento, / Stringimj al nodo usato, e son contentoʼ (ʻwith your hands spread the locks upon the wind / Bind me to the same old knot, and I am happyʼ).Footnote 47 All these indicate the importance of the knot for Petrarch’s conceptualization of the topos, strengthening the hypothesis that Apuleius was his source.
Some Petrarchan images and specific terminological choices further reinforce the connection between Apuleius and Petrarch. In sonnet CXCVIII, for instance, Petrarch uses the verb folgorare to express the shining of Laura’s binding golden knots: ʻvedendo ardere i lumi ond’io m’accendo, / et folgorare i nodi ond’io son presoʼ (‘to see those lights that burn and make me burn / and those knots which have bound me, shimmeringʼ, ll. 9–10). This verb, usually applied by Petrarch to Laura’s eyes and not to her hair, may appear here, as Bettarini remarks, because the hair is close to the eyes, sharing their intense luminosity.Footnote 48 Yet, it is worth recalling that Apuleius uses the Latin equivalent of this verb (fulgurare) in the passage quoted above celebrating women’s hair, where the splendour of luminous locks ʻcontra solis aciem vegetus fulguratʼ (‘flashes lively against the sunbeams’, Metamorphoses, II.9). He also employs it in the famous episode of Cupid and Psyche, which is surely behind Petrarch’s reference in the Liber sine nomine, in which Cupid’s golden locks, arranged in ringlets and falling down on his milk-white neck (images reminiscent of so many Petrarchan sonnets), have a flashing splendour: ʻquorum splendore nimio fulgurante iam et ipsum lumen lucernae vacillabatʼ (ʻthe lightning of their great brilliance made even the lamp’s light flickerʼ, Metamorphoses, V.22). Furthermore, in sonnet CCLXX, the golden lace/hair tying the poet – which, as we have seen, was a knot (ʻnodoʼ) in the poem’s first version – is described as ʻnegletto ad arte, e ’nnanellato et hirtoʼ (l. 62), that is, ʻartfully neglected’ and ‘curled’ or ‘thick with ringlets’ and ‘high on her headʼ. Not only does Laura’s hairstyle bring to mind the passage of Apuleius (Metamorphoses, II.9), but its specific features recall Photis’s hair, which was gathered in a knot high on her head (ʻin summum verticem nodus adstrinxeratʼ) and distinguished by an artful artlessness (ʻinordinatus ornatusʼ).Footnote 49 The hair of Photis and of Laura is so beautiful that both Lucius and Petrarch ask for it be loosened and to flow freely: ʻspargi co le tue man’ le chiome al vento, / ivi mi lega, et puo′ mi far contentoʼ (‘with your hands spread her locks upon the wind / and bind me there, and you will make me happyʼ, CCLXX, ll. 59–60),Footnote 50 ʻSed ut mihi morem plenius gesseris, in effusum laxa crinem et capillo fluenter undante redde complexus amabilesʼ (‘But humour me even more: unloose your tresses and let them flow, and embrace me lovingly with your hair rippling like wavesʼ, Metamorphoses, II.16). Finally, and most significantly, Apuleius’s adjective ʻdulcisʼ in the passage most relevant to our discussion – ʻAdiuro per dulcem istum capilli tui nodulum, quo meum vinxisti spiritumʼ (ʻI swear by that sweet knot of your hair with which you have bound my spirit’, Metamorphoses, III.23) – appears to have left traces in Petrarch’s version of the conceit. Not only is the binding knot of hair presented, in sonnet CXCVII, as the equivalent of the ʻdolce giogoʼ (ʻsweet yokeʼ, l. 3), but the knots of Laura’s hair, this time in the plural form, are described in sonnect XC as ʻdolci nodiʼ (l. 2), just like Photis’s ʻdulcem nodulumʼ.Footnote 51
Since several indications suggest that the passage in Metamorphoses could be the source for Petrarch’s conceit of the binding hair knot, it will be helpful to consider the dating of the poems in question in relation to his reading of Apuleius’s text. Before doing so, however, it is important to stress that while the strong literary connections between the texts of Apuleius and Petrarch are the basis of my hypothesis, the chronological considerations are highly conjectural, given the great uncertainty among scholars surrounding the date of composition of these poems. Nevertheless, it is still possible to make some potentially interesting observations.
The first thing to note is that, while it is not easy to establish the exact date of the conceit’s first appearance in the Rerum vulgarium fragmenta (for reasons I shall explain), all the poems featuring it were most likely written after Petrarch’s first reading of Apuleius’s Metamorphoses, which is certainly not later than the first layer of his glosses in MS Vat. lat. 2193, dating back to 1340–1343.Footnote 52 We might go as far as to claim that the characteristically Petrarchan image of the ʻnodoʼ of Laura’s hair makes its first appearance only after these years, and perhaps precisely at this time. Indeed, sonnet XC, possibly the first poem to feature the image in both textual and chronological terms, which presents a version of the motif particularly close to Apuleius’s, with Laura’s ʻdolci nodiʼ recalling Photis’s ʻdulcem nodulumʼ, is tentatively dated by several scholars to the early 1340s, when Petrarch was probably reading and annotating Apuleius’s text for the first time.Footnote 53 Although there were other sources from which he could have drawn the image, the dating and specific wording of the Petrarchan passage suggest that Apuleius’s Metamorphoses may well have been his source.Footnote 54
Dating the earliest appearance of the conceit of the binding hair knot, as I have already indicated, is far from easy. The difficulty is mainly due to the complex compositional history of the so-called ʻciclo dell’auraʼ, in which the image first enters the Rerum vulgarium fragmenta.Footnote 55 In this group of four sonnets (CXCIV, CXCVI, CXCVII, CXCVIII), which all open with the motif of ʻl’auraʼ – the breeze, but also a pun on Laura’s name – three feature the motif: ʻtorsele [le chiome] il tempo poi in più saldi nodi, / et strinse ’l cor d’un laccio sì possente, / che Morte sola fia ch’indi lo snodiʼ (ʻThen in still tighter knots time wound her hair / and bound my heart with cord that is so strong / that only Death can free it from such tiesʼ, CXCVI, ll. 12–14); ʻné posso dal bel nodo omai dar crollo, / là ’ve il sol perde, non pur l’ambra o l’auro: / dico le chiome bionde, e ’1 crespo laccio, / che sì soavemente lega et stringe / l’almaʼ (ʻnor can I now break loose the lovely knot / which gold and amber and the sun surpasses: / I mean her golden hair, the curly snare / that with such softness binds and tightens round / my soulʼ, CXCVII, ll. 7–11) ʻlà da’ belli occhi, et de le chiome stesse / lega ’l cor lasso ... i nodi ond’io son presoʼ (ʻthere with her lovely eyes and hair she binds / my weary heart … those knots which have bound meʼ, CXCVIII, ll. 3–10). According to Giovanni Ponte, this group of sonnets was first composed in 1342.Footnote 56 It is tempting to accept his dating, since it reinforces my hypothesis; however, it is not supported by any strong evidence and has been contradicted by several scholars, many of whom suggest a later date of composition for sonnets CXCIV, CXCVII and possibly CXCVIII (though Wilkins assigns it to 1342).Footnote 57 Although several hypotheses have been formulated regarding the compositional history of the ʻciclo dell’auraʼ, for which the ʻcodice degli abbozziʼ is a witness,Footnote 58 there is no consensus as to their chronology.
Many critics, however, agree that sonnet CXCVI is probably the first of the group written by Petrarch,Footnote 59 and, I would add, most likely the antecedent, in terms of date of composition, of all the other poems featuring the conceit in question (CXCVII, CXCVIII, CCLIII, CCLXX, CCCLIX). Some critics even maintain that CXCVI may be much older than the other sonnets of the ʻciclo dell’auraʼ,Footnote 60 attributing its first composition, following Wilkins, to 1342–1343.Footnote 61 In this dating, the sonnet would seem to be contemporary, like sonnet XC, with Petrarch’s first reading and glossing of Apuleius’s Metamorphoses, further strengthening the hypothesis that Photis’s sweet knot of hair was the source of Laura’s binding hair knots.Footnote 62
Conclusion
The characteristic Petrarchan motif of Laura’s knot of hair binding the poet’s heart and soul, which is prominent in the Rerum vulgarium fragmenta, has a classical antecedent, and one that can be plausibly regarded as a source for Petrarch. It is found in Apuleius’s Metamorphoses, a manuscript of which Petrarch owned and which he read and annotated several times. Such passages as Lucius’s celebration of the beauty of women’s hair (Metamorphoses, II.8–9), and especially his declaration of love to Photis, an oath he takes on ʻthat sweet knot of your hair with which you have bound my spiritʼ (Metamorphoses, III.23), could well have captured the attention of Petrarch, who was acutely sensitive himself to the charms of feminine hair and was disposed to appreciate a conceit like the binding hair knot. Perfectly combining an exquisite naturalistic detail with a wide symbolic potential, this conceit was especially suited to Petrarch’s praise of Laura’s comely locks, while also expressing the indissoluble nature of his love for her through a term, ʻnodoʼ, endowed with profound symbolic significance both in the Italian poetic tradition and in Petrarch’s specific vocabulary. The abstract image of the amorous knot, recurrent in Petrarch’s vernacular poetry,Footnote 63 thus acquired a powerful plastic physicality, which materialized into a knot of golden hair.
In addition to the value inherent in the detection of a new source for an influential Petrarchan conceit, the present study may have some further implications. On the one hand, it could offer novel elements for the dating of a series of Petrarchan poems, especially sonnet XC and the sonnets of the ʻciclo dell’auraʼ (CXCIV, CXCVI, CXCVII, CXCVIII). Even more significantly, it could foster a potentially fruitful reappraisal of the influence of Apuleius’s work on Petrarch’s vernacular poetry. This study has shown that Apuleius’s influence was not limited to Petrarch’s Latin prose works and extended to his vernacular poetry. It has also suggested that this influence might have been deeper than is traditionally acknowledged – surely deeper than was acknowledged by Petrarch himself in his letter to Boccaccio. Apuleius’s words, rather than hurriedly read and possessed ʻwith the awareness that they are not my ownʼ, appear instead to ʻhave so become one with [the poet’s] mindʼ that they shaped the expression of one of his most recurrent and significant conceits. Whether or not Petrarch forgot ʻwhose they are and whether they are mine or othersʼ, Photis’s beautiful, binding hair knot entered the Rerum vulgarium fragmenta and, consequently, became a widespread topos in Renaissance poetry, destined to influence love lyric for many centuries.
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Notes
Pietro Bembo, Rime, in id., Prose della volgar lingua, Gli Asolani, Rime, ed. C. Dionisotti, Turin, 1966, IX, ll. 10–14: ʻraccogliendo le treccie al collo sparse, / strinservi dentro lui, che v’era involto. ... intanto il cor mi fu legato e tolto’.
Torquato Tasso, Le rime, ed. B. Basile, Rome, 1994, 221, ll. 1–2: ʻDegni lacci d’Amor, crespi aurei crini / ove quest’alma ognor s’intrica e perdeʼ; 395, ll. 3–4: ʻAmore ... tese le reti di due trecce biondeʼ; 8, ll. 5–6: ‘e da le bionde chiome / legato sonoʼ. See also 5, ll. 5–6; 108, l. 2; and 69, l. 5.
Pierre de Ronsard, Les Amours, in id., Oeuvres complètes, IV, ed. P. Laumonier, rev. I. Silver and R. Lebègue, 4th edn, Paris, 1992, XCVIII, ll. 2–4: ʻDans ses cheveux une beaulté cruëlle … Lia mon coeurʼ.
Philippe Desportes, Les Amours de Diane, ed. V. E. Graham, II, Geneva and Paris, 1959, XLI, ll. 1–2: ʻCheveux ... Mon Coeur, plus que mon bras, est par vous enchaisnéʼ; id., Les Amours d’Hippolyte, ed. V. E. Graham, Geneva and Paris, 1960, XIX, ll. 7–8: ʻSes rets sont vos cheveux où tout ame il attire: / Ravie en si beau noeuds, si blonds et si plaisansʼ.
Philip Sidney, ʻTo the Tune of a Neapolitan Villanelleʼ (l. 1), in Certain Sonnets, in id., The Major Works, ed. K. Duncan-Jones, Oxford, 2008: ʻThy fair hair my heart enchainedʼ. See also id., Astrophil and Stella, sonnet 12, l. 2; song 1, l. 25; sonnet 103, ll. 6–8.
Edmund Spenser, Amoretti and Epithalamion, ed. K. J. Larsen, Tempe AZ, 1997, XXXVIII, ll. 1–6: ʻthose her golden tresses … . She may entangle in that golden snareʼ; LXXIII, ll. 2–3: ʻMy heart, whome none with servile bands can tye, / but the fayre tresses of your golden hayre.’
Shakespeare uses the conceit not in his sonnets but in one of his plays, The Merchant of Venice, in William Shakespeare, The Oxford Shakespeare. The Complete Works, ed. S. Wells et al., Oxford, 2005, III.ii.120–2: ʻher hair … A golden mesh t’entrap the hearts of menʼ.
Petrarch, Canzoniere, ed. M. Santagata, Milan, 2006, CXCVI, ll. 12–14; CXCVII, ll. 7–11; CXCVIII, ll. 3–10; CCLIII, ll. 3–4; CCLXX, ll. 59–61; CCCLIX, ll. 56–7 All references to the Rerum vulgarium fragmenta are to this edition. All translations of Petrarch’s Rerum vulgarium fragmenta are from Petrarch, The Canzoniere or Rerum vulgarium fragmenta, transl. M. Musa, Bloomington and Indianapolis, 1996, with some modifications. For a variation of the conceit, see also LIX, ll. 4–5 and CCLXX, ll. 56–7, where Love hides (LIX) and is asked to hide once again (CCLXX) the laces in Laura’s golden hair.
M. B. Ogle ʻThe Classical Origin and Tradition of Literary Conceitsʼ, The American Journal of Philology, 34, 1913, pp. 125–52 (129–30).
T.-L. Pebworth, ʻThe Net for the Soul: A Renaissance Conceit and the Song of Songsʼ, Romance Notes, 13, 1971, pp. 159–64.
Among modern versions, see, e.g. Song of Songs, transl. T. Longman, Grand Rapids and Cambridge, 2001: ʻYour head (on you) is like Carmel and the hair of your head like purple. The king is ensnared by your tresses.’ For a discussion of the complex meaning and translation of the passage, see Il Cantico dei cantici. Commento e attualizzazione, ed. and transl. G. Ravasi, Bologna, 1992, pp. 561–6.
The conceit of a woman’s hair imprisoning her lover is found in other Eastern poetic traditions, including the Palestinian – ʻOh, your black drooping hair: / seven tresses take us prisonersʼ – and in the Egyptian love lyric tradition, as in these two poems from the Chester Beatty and the Harris 50 papyruses: ʻWith her hair she threw the rope at me / with her eyes she caught meʼ; ʻmy hands are caught in her hair, / a bait under a trap ready to catchʼ; see Cantico dei cantici, ed. and transl. G. Barbiero, Milan, 2004, pp. 181 and 322–3. My translations, based on Barbiero’s Italian version. Unless otherwise indicated, all translations are mine.
The Venerable Bede, who dwells on this passage in his commentary, In Cantica canticorum, does not consider the image of the ensnared king, nor does the The ʻGlossa Ordinariaʼ on the Song of Songs, transl. M. Dove, Kalamazoo, 2004, p. 147 (which reads ʻiunta canalibusʼ instead of ʻvincta canalibusʼ): ʻthe channels which receive the king’s purple are the hearts of the faithfulʼ.
Petrarch, Canzoniere, ed. Santagata (n. 8 above); id., Canzoniere: Rerum vulgarium fragmenta, ed. R. Bettarini, Turin, 2005; id., Canzoniere, ed. U. Dotti, Rome, 2004; id., Canzoniere, ed. S. Stroppa, Turin, 2011; id., Canzoniere, ed. P. Vecchi Galli, Milan, 2012.
Cino da Pistoia, ʻOmè! ch’io sono all’amoroso nodoʼ, in Poeti del Dolce stil nuovo, ed. M. Marti, Florence, 1969, ll. 1–2. See Petrarch, Canzoniere, ed. Bettarini (n. 14 above), p. 908.
According to G. Billanovich, ʻQuattro libri del Petrarca e la biblioteca della cattedrale di Veronaʼ, Studi Petrarcheschi, n. s., 7, 1990, pp. 233–62, MS Vat. lat. 2193 is of Veronese origin, together with three other books belonging to Petrarch’s library – MSS Par. lat. 5054, Par. lat. 8500 and Troyes, Médiathèque du Grand Troyes, Fonds ancien 552 – which the poet obtained but did not commission. On this group of manuscripts, see also L. Refe, Le postille del Petrarca a Giuseppe Flavio (codice parigino lat. 5054), Florence, 2004, pp. 28–39. S. Rizzo, ʻUn codice veronese del Petrarcaʼ, L’Ellisse, 1, 2006, pp. 37–44, has more recently confirmed the Veronese origin of MS Vat. lat. 2193; on the basis of her discovery of the emblem of the Della Scala family in the code, she suggests that the manuscript was commissioned by a member of the family, possibly as a gift for Petrarch. The hypothesis that the manuscript was compiled under Petrarch’s direction was first suggested in P. de Nolhac, ʻManuscrits à miniatures de la biliothèque de Pétrarqueʼ, Gazette archéologique, 14, 1889, pp. 25–32. According to C. Tristano, ʻLe postille del Petrarca nel ms. Vat. lat. 2193 (Apuleio, Frontino, Vegezio, Palladio)ʼ, Italia medioevale e umanistica, 17, 1974, pp. 365-468 (367), this hypothesis is strengthened by an analysis of the guide letters for the miniatures, which all seem to have been written in the same period and in Petrarch’s hand.
The manuscript contains, in this order, Apuleius (and Pseudo-Apuleius), De deo Socratis, Asclepius, De Platone et eius dogmate, De mundo, Florida, Apologia, Metamorphoses; Cicero, Pro Marcello; Frontinus, Stratagemata; Vegetius, Epitoma rei militari; Palladius, Opus agriculturae; Cicero, Pro Ligario; Petrarch, Observationes quaedam super agricultura.
According to A. Petrucci, La scrittura di Francesco Petrarca, Vatican City, 1967, pp. 42–3 and 117–18, the first layer of Petrarchan glosses dates to 1340–1343, and the second to 1347–1350. On Petrarch’s glosses, see Tristano, ʻLe postille del Petrarcaʼ (n. 16 above).
See Le postille del Virgilio Ambrosiano, ed. M. Baglio et al., 2 vols, Rome and Padua, 2006, pp. 31, 34, 45, 49, 52–3, 55, 58, 60, 70, 84–6, 127, 191, 209, 217–18, 228, 248, 265–6, 280, 283, 297, 317, 322, 333, 335, 344, 347–8, 354, 394, 478, 601–3, 652, 742, 786, 811, 921–2, 924. References to Apuleius also appear in Petrarch’s glosses to other manuscripts, including his Suetonius (Oxford, Exeter College, MS 186) and the Troyes Cicero (Troyes, Médiathèque du Grand Troyes, MS 552); see Tristano, ʻLe postille del Petrarca’ (n. 16 above), p. 369; G. Billanovich, ʻNella biblioteca del Petrarca, II: Un altro Svetonio del Petrarcaʼ, Italia medioevale e umanistica, 3, 1960, pp. 28–58; M. Bertè, Petrarca lettore di Svetonio, Messina, 2011, pp. 50–51; P. de Nolhac, Pétrarque et l’humanisme, new ed., 2 vols, Paris, 1965, I, p. 243. For an overview of Petrarch’s library, see, e.g. M. Feo, ʻLa bibliotecaʼ, in Petrarca nel tempo: tradizione, lettori e immagini delle opere, ed. M. Feo, Pontedera, 2003, pp. 457–516.
Petrarch, Le familiari, text by V. Rossi and U. Bosco, (Ital.) transl. U. Dotti, 5 vols, Turin, 2004–2009, Ep. XXII.2.11: ʻLegi semel apud Ennium, apud Plautum, apud Felicem Capellam, apud Apuleium, et legi raptim, propere, nullam nisi ut alienis in finibus moram trahens. Sic pretereunti, multa contigit ut viderem, pauca decerperem, pauciora reponerem, eaque ut comunia in aperto et in ipso, ut ita dixerim, memorie vestibulo; ita ut quotiens vel audire illa vel proferre contigerit, non mea esse confestim sciam, nec me fallat cuius sint; que ab alio scilicet, et quod vere sunt, ut aliena possideo.’ All translations of Petrarch’s Familiarum rerum libri are from Petrarch, Letters on Familiar Matters, transl. A. S. Bernardo, 3 vols, New York and Baltimore, 1975–1985.
Ibid., 12–13: ʻLegi apud Virgilium apud Flaccum apud Severinum apud Tullium; nec semel legi sed milies, nec cucurri sed incubui ... . Hec se michi tam familiariter ingessere et non modo memorie sed medullis affixa sunt unumque cum ingenio facta sunt meo, ut etsi per omnem vitam amplius non legantur, ipsa quidem hereant, actis in intima animi parte radicibus, sed interdum obliviscar auctorem, quippe qui longo usu et possessione continua quasi illa prescripserim diuque pro meis habuerim, et turba talium obsessus, nec cuius sint certe nec aliena meminerim’. On Petrarch’s theoretical view and practical application of imitatio, see G. Martellotti, ʻ“Similitudo non identitas”. Alcune varianti petrarchescheʼ, in id., Scritti petrarcheschi, ed. M. Feo and S. Rizzo, Padua, 1983, pp. 501–16 (previously published in Rivista di cultura classica e medioevale, 19, 1977, pp. 491–503), and V. Fera, La revisione petrarchesca dell’Africa, Messina, 1984, pp. 28–32.
Petrarch, Rerum memorandarum libri, ed. G. Billanovich, Florence, 1943, pp. 29, 309–310.
Tristano, ʻLe postille del Petrarcaʼ (n. 16 above).
R. H. F. Carver, The Protean Ass: The Metamorphoses of Apuleius from Antiquity to the Renaissance, Oxford, 2007, pp. 124–7.
Ibid., p. 124.
Petrarch, Le familiari (n. 20 above), Epp. I.1.12; I.2.22; I.4.4–5; I.10.1, 3; IX.10.4; IX.13.24–5, 27; XV.4.5; XX.1.21.
Ibid., ep. I.4.4.
S. Rizzo, ʻNote alle Familiari del Petrarcaʼ, in Vestigia. Studi in onore di Giuseppe Billanovich, ed. R. Avesani et al., II, Rome, 1984, pp. 607–11.
I. Candido, ʻPsyche’s Textual Journey from Apuleius to Boccaccio and Petrarchʼ, in The Afterlife of Apuleius, ed. F. Bistagne et al., London, 2021, pp. 65–78.
Petrarch, Liber sine nomine, ed. G. Cascio, Florence, 2015, XVIII.53.
E. Raimondi, ʻUn esercizio satirico del Petrarcaʼ, in id., Metafora e storia. Studi su Dante e Petrarca, Turin, 1970, pp. 189–98.
In addition to the two references to Apuleius, cited above, in Familiarum rerum libri, I.4.4–5, and Liber sine nomine, XVIII.53, several other references to Apuleius in the Familiarum rerum libri are also of this nature: ʻNon audeo illud Apuleii Madaurensis in comune iactare: “Lector, intende: letaberis”ʼ (Ep. I.1.12), cf. Metamorphoses, I.1; ʻHospitem Apuleii Milonem prodigalitatis arguet quisquis hunc viderit vel semel audieritque disciplinam rei familiaris yconomicis nulli unquam philosopho cognitis regulis coarctantemʼ (Ep. I.10.3), cf. Metamorphoses, I.21; ʻEvasi in cubiculum non quidem solis fabulis, ut apud Milonem Ypathe olim Apuleius, sed lautissimis cenatus cibisʼ (Ep. IX.10.4), cf. Metamorphoses, I.21 and ss; ʻverissimumque est quod apud Apuleium legisti: ʻnon immerito” enim, inquit, “prisce poetice divinus auctor apud Graios, summe prudentie virum monstrare cupiens multarum civitatum obitu et variorum populorum cognitu summas adeptum virtutes cecinit”ʼ(Ep. IX.13.27), cf. Metamorphoses, IX.13; ʻQuod ipsum in libris Metamorphoseos ponit Apuleius: “Certus” inquit, “fragilitatis humane fidei et quod pecunie cunte sint difficultates pervie auroque soleant adamantine etiam perfringi foresʼ (Ep. XX.1.21), cf. Metamorphoses, IX.18.
Apuleius, Metamorphoseon libri XI, ed. M. Zimmerman, Oxford Classical Texts, Oxford, 2012. All references to the Metamorphoses are to this edition. Both editions of the Rerum vulgarium fragmenta refer to Apuleius in connection with XXXIV, l. 11 (though the reference is more to Petrarch’s gloss on Apuleius’s De mundo rather than to Apuleius’s text itself). The other Apuleian references are to CCLXXIII, l. 13 in Petrarch, Canzoniere, ed. Santagata (n. 8 above) and to CCCLX, l. 9 in id., Canzoniere, ed. Bettarini (n. 14 above).
Apuleius, Metamorphoses, transl. J. A. Hanson, Loeb Classical Library, 2 vols, Cambridge MA, 1989. All translations of the Metamorphoses are from this edition, with slight modifications.
On this passage, see D. van Mal-Maeder, Apuleius Madaurensis Metamorphoses. Livre II. Texte, Introduction et Commentaire, Groningen, 2001, pp. 171–82. At p. 171, van Mal-Maeder notes that Apuleius’s praise of women’s hair appears to be modelled on Ovid ʻfuneraryʼ praise of Corinna’s hair in Amores I.14.
In MS Vat. lat. 2193, fol. 46v, the passage bears some marks, which are probably not Petrarch’s. There are also two glosses which are definitely not by Petrarch: ʻQuod capillus pre ceteris sit ornamentoʼ and ʻQuot modis colligantur capilli’.
Among the many studies on Boccaccio’s reading and use of Apuleius, see, e.g. Candido, ʻPsyche’s Textual Journeyʼ (n. 29 above); id., Boccaccio umanista. Studi su Boccaccio e Apuleio, Ravenna, 2014; J. Haig Gaisser, The Fortunes of Apuleius & the Golden Ass, Princeton and Oxford, 2008, pp. 93–121; Carver, The Protean Ass (n. 24 above), pp. 127–41; G. F. Gianotti, ʻDa Montecassino a Firenze: la riscoperta di Apuleioʼ, in Il Decameron nella letteratura Italiana, ed. C. Allasia, Rome, 2006, pp. 9–47; M. Fiorilla, ʻLa lettura apuleiana del Boccaccio e le note ai manoscritti laurenziani 29, 2 e 54, 32ʼ, Aevum, 73, 1999, pp. 635–68; G. Vio, ʻChiose e riscritture apuleiane di Giovanni Boccaccioʼ, Studi sul Boccaccio, 20, 1991–1992, pp. 139–65; L. Sanguineti White, Boccaccio e Apuleio: caratteri differenziali nella struttura narrative del Decameron, Bologna, 1977.
Giovanni Boccaccio, Comedia delle ninfe fiorentine (Ameto), ed. A. E. Quaglio, Florence, 1963, p. 41 (XII.7–9).
Giovanni Boccaccio, L’Ameto, transl. J. Serafini-Sauli, New York, 1985, pp. 27–8, with minor changes.
Carver, The Protean Ass (n. 24 above), p. 130.
On the specific features of Photis’s hairstyle, particularly the hair knot, and on the preference of classical poets for this kind of artfully neglected style, see van Mal-Maeder, Apuleius (n. 35 above), pp. 179–82.
MS Vat. lat. 2193, fol. 51ʳ. Among several marks, many of which are undoubtedly Petrarch’s, there is one next to the passage in question that has the same unusual appearance (two vertical dots separated by a horizontal line) as the marks next to the passage celebrating women’s hair (see n. 36 above). These marks, however, were probably not made by Petrarch.
In MS Vat. lat. 2193, fol. 51ʳ, the ‘l’ in ʻdulcemʼ is missing.
See Rizzo, ʻNote alle Familiariʼ (n. 28 above), p. 608. It is worth noting that in MS Vat. lat. 2193 the author of the Metamorphoses is given the name ‘Lucius’.
CCLXX, ll. 59–61: ʻspargi co le tue man’ le chiome al vento, / ivi mi lega, et puo′ mi far contento. / Dal laccio d’òr non sia mai chi me sciogliaʼ (ʻwith your hands spread her locks upon the wind / and bind me there, and you will make me happy. / No one shall free me from that golden snareʼ).
MS Vat. lat. 3196 is an autograph manuscript composed of 20 sheets, bound together long after Petrarch’s death, which features several Petrarchan texts, including 54 poems later included in the Rerum vulgarium fragmenta. These texts are in various redactional states, ranging from first drafts to texts ready to be transcribed in fair copy. For a study and edition of MS Vat. lat. 3196, see L. Paolino, Il codice degli abbozzi. Edizione e storia del manoscritto Vaticano latino 3196, Milan and Naples, 2000. For a contribution on the glosses to the manuscript, see for instance V. Fera, ʻProblemi ecdotici ed esegetici delle postille nel “codice degli abbozzi”’, in Francesco Petrarca e la sua ricezione europea, ed. G. Cascio and B. Huss, Messina, 2020 pp. 115–38.
Paolino, Il codice degli abbozzi (n. 46 above), p. 247, 59 [270], ll. 44–47 [59–62]. The numbers outside brackets refer to the poem and lines numbers in MS Vat. lat. 3196, while the numbers in square brackets refer to the corresponding poem and lines numbers in the final version of the Rerum vulgarium fragmenta.
Petrarch, Canzoniere, ed. Bettarini (n. 14 above), p. 919.
Another possible source for Petrarch’s ʻnegletto ad arteʼ, underscored by several critics, is Ovid’s Ars amatoria III.153–5: ʻEt neglecta decet multas coma; saepe iacere / Hesternam credas; illa repexa modo est. / Ars casu similisʼ (ʻEven neglected hair is becoming to many; often you would think it lay loose from yesterday; this very moment it has been combed afresh. Art counterfeits chance’); all Latin text and English translations are from Ovid, The Art of Love, and Other Poems, transl. J. H. Mozley, The Loeb Classical Library, Cambridge MA, 1957. These lines belong to a passage similar to Apuleius, Metamorphoses, II.9, in which Ovid describes several feminine hairstyles.
Petrarch is here addressing Love.
The term ʻdolce nodoʼ reappears in Triumphus Mortis II (ll. 128–9), supposedly composed after sonnet XC, to express the amorous knot tying Laura’s heart. In this case, however, there is no reference to hair (since it is Laura’s heart which is tied, the conceit would not make much sense). Petrarch, Triumphi, ed. V. Pacca, Milan, 1996. For the dating of Triumphus Mortis II, see Pacca’s introduction, pp. 303–8.
See Petrucci, La scrittura (n. 18 above), pp. 42–3 and 117–18. The only occurrence of a conceit similar to that of Laura’s ensnaring hair which might be antecedent to Petrarch’s annotation of Apuleius’s text is in LIX, which some scholars attribute to a period prior to the early 1340s – e.g. Petrarch, Il Canzoniere ... , ed. L. Mascetta, Lanciano, 1895; E. H. Wilkins, The Making of the ʻCanzoniereʼ and Other Petrarchan Studies, Rome, 1951, p. 350. This dating, however, is purely tentative, as is pointed out in Petrarch, Canzoniere, ed. Santagata (n. 8 above), p. 307; and A. Foresti, ʻStudi sul Petrarca. Dalle prime alle “seconde lagrime”. Un capitolo della storia d’amore di Francesco Petrarcaʼ, Convivium, 12, 1940, pp. 8–35, seems to suggest that it might be datable to the years 1339–1340. Moreover, Petrarch might have corrected the poem in a later period. Even more relevantly, in this case Laura’s hair is not the knot which ties the poet, but instead the place in which Love hides the lace, ll. 4–5: ʻTra le chiome de l’òr nascose il laccio, / al qual mi strinse, Amoreʼ (ʻWithin the locks of gold was hid the noose / with which Love bound me tightʼ). The knot is not necessarily an actual knot of hair.
Petrarch, Canzoniere, ed. Santagata (n. 8 above), p. 443, suggests a date after 1341; Foresti, ʻStudi sul Petrarcaʼ (n. 52 above) proposes 1339–1340; R. Amaturo, ʻPetrarcaʼ, in La letteratura italiana. Storia e testi, II.1: Il Trecento, Bari, 1971, pp. 73–405 (281), dates the poem 1341; E. Taddeo, ʻFrancesco Petrarca: “Erano i capei d’oro a l’aura sparsi”ʼ, in Dai ʻFiori di parlareʼ al ʻGiardino incantatoʼ. Proposte per un uso didattico del testo letterario, ed. G. Pirodda, Padua, 1981, pp. 31–48 (34), deems 1342 a plausible date for the sonnet. Wilkins, The Making (n. 52 above), p. 365, though without assigning a certain date to the poem, suggests that it may belong either to the period 1342–1343 or 1345–1347.
The reference to the knot of a woman’s hair is found, e.g. in the passage quoted above from the Ars amatoria III.139–40, in which Ovid, when describing several feminine hairstyles, states that a round face requires a woman’s hair to be gathered high in a knot – ʻExiguum summa nodum sibi fronte relinqui, / Ut pateant aures, ora rotunda voluntʼ (ʻRound faces would fain have a small knot left on top of the head, so that the ears showʼ). For other classical examples, including Ovid’s Metamorphoses VIII.391 and Horace’s Carmina II.1, 23, see van Mal-Maeder, Apuleius (n. 35 above), p. 182. The reference to the knot is found also in Matthieu de Vendôme’s Ars versificatoria, ed. F. Munari, Rome, 1988, I.55, 8-9, a text that might have influenced Petrarch’s feminine portraits, in which Helen’s hair is described as: ʻAuro respondet coma: non replicata magistro / Nodo, descensu liberiore iacetʼ (ʻLike gold is her hair: not folded in a master’s / Knot, rather loosely falls down’). In this case, however, what Matthieu says is that Helen’s hair is not tied in a knot. One might think of a possible conflation of various sources (Apuleius, Ovid, Matthieu de Vendôme and others) in sonnet XC, yet the conceit of the knot of hair tying the poet’s spirit appears only in Apuleius. For a study of the possible influence of Matthieu de Vendôme’s Ars versificatoria on Petrarch’s work, particularly his feminine portraits, see E. Raimondi, ʻRitrattistica petrarchescaʼ, in id., Metafora e storia (n. 31 above), pp. 163–87; and V. Fera, La revisione petrarchesca (n. 21 above), p. 155.
As already explained (n. 52 above), in LIX the knot is not necessarily an actual knot of hair.
Petrarch, Rime sparse, ed. G. Ponte, Milan, 1979.
Wilkins, The Making (n. 52 above), p. 352. For a concise discussion of the various hypotheses regarding the date of composition of this group of sonnets, see Petrarch, Canzoniere, ed. Santagata (n. 8 above), pp. 845–6. Most scholars now tend to believe that sonnets CXCIV and CXCVII were first written in MS Vat. lat. 3196, fol. 2ʳ, probably around 1368 (two Petrarchan glosses indicate that fols 1 and 2 of this manuscript were used by Petrarch between 5 December 1366 and 13 October 1368, the latter date found in a gloss to song CCCXXIII, on fol. 2v). As for CXCVIII, which is not present in MS Vat. lat. 3196, while Wilkins assigns it to 1342, in Petrarch, Canzoniere, ed. Santagata (n. 8 above), p. 846, the date of composition is said to be more likely 1368, while in id., Canzoniere, ed. Bettarini (n. 14 above), p. 898, the idea that all the poems of the ʻciclo dell’auraʼ were composed in the same (late) years is favoured.
At MS Vat. lat. 3196, fol. 2ʳ, there are versions of sonnets CXCVI, CXCIV, CXCVII (CXCVIII is not present in this manuscript, but only in MS Vat. lat. 3195) which have several corrections, a sign of Petrarch’s work of revision, and which display various differences from the final form of the poems. For a study of the variants in the ʻciclo dell’auraʼ, see C. Segre, ʻI sonetti dell’auraʼ, in id., Notizie della crisi, Turin, 1993, pp. 43–65 (previously published in Lectura Petrarce III, 1983, pp. 57–78).
The idea is based on the fact that in MS Vat. lat. 3196 sonnet CXCVI is the first of the group, which appears in this order: CXCVI, CXCIV, CXCVII.
See Petrarch, Canzoniere, ed. Santagata (n. 8 above), p. 846; Paolino, Il codice degli abbozzi (n. 46 above), p. 133.
Wilkins, The Making (n. 52 above), p. 352.
This hypothesis remains valid if we consider sonnet CXCVI as it appears in MS Vat. lat. 3196: though extensively revised and quite different from its final version, the sonnet presents the motif of Laura’s ʻnodiʼ already in its first attested form. In MS Vat. lat. 3196 version, the motif appears in the sestet; see Paolino, Il codice degli abbozzi (n. 46 above), p. 185, 11 [196], ll. 7–11: ʻLe chiome, oggi raccolte in perle e ’n gemme, / Allor disciolte, et soura òr terso bionde, / Le quali ella spargeua, et spirti tali / Vidi et [ta’ no]di ch’io ritorno all’ésca, / Et, s’io u’aggiungo, fiamj il fuggir tardoʼ (ʻThe hair, gathered now in pearls and gems, / Flowing then, and more blonde than furbished gold, / Which she used to loosen, and such spirits / I saw and such knots that I return to the bait, / And, if I bide, my fleeing is slowʼ). In the passage from MS Vat. lat. 3196 to MS Vat. lat. 3195, the sestet of CXCVI was transferred, with significant revisions, to CXCIV; yet the motif of the hair knots remained and was rearticulated in CXCVI. Several elements suggest a possible connection between CXCVI and XC: the two sonnets revolve around Petrarch recollecting a past vision of Laura and comparing it with the current state of things; and in both texts the image of Laura’s hair, and of her hair knots, is an essential element in this recollection and comparison.
The image is pervasive in the Rerum vulgarium fragmenta but also appears in Petrarch’s vernacular Triumphi (n. 51 above), esp. Triumphus Cupidinis I (ll. 67–72); Triumphus Cupidinis II (ll. 23–4 and 45); Triumphus Cupidinis III (l. 64); Triumphus Mortis II (ll. 128–9).
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Caporicci, C. A Classical Source for Petrarch’s Conceit of the Binding Knot of Hair: Apuleius’s Metamorphoses. Int class trad 29, 243–259 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12138-021-00603-5
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12138-021-00603-5