Abstract
A fairly long congratulatory letter in Italian on Elizabeth I’s accession to the throne dated 3 February 1559 followed by two previously unknown sonnets in her praise, also in Italian, by Celio Magno (1536–1602), have survived in the State Papers (SP 70/2 f.94). The document deserves to be edited for several reasons. Firstly, the sonnets may be added to the Venitian poet’s canon. Secondly, Celio Magno was a high-ranking politician and diplomat and the manuscript offers fascinating information on the precise relationships between the Republic of Venice and the queen at the very beginning of her reign, a crucial and relatively under-researched period. Finally, the letter and sonnets contribute to a better understanding of the queen’s representation abroad and more specifically in Italy.
Carlo M. Bajetta has edited, translated, and annotated the texts (providing also the “Note on the texts and their translation ”), and written the introductory section, while Guillaume Coatalen has provided the commentary to the letter and poems (the section entitled “Magno’s Praise of Elizabeth”).
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Notes
- 1.
Throughout this article, the date presented in the original documents has been allowed to stand, thus following the style of the place, normally Old Style (Julian calendar) for letters written in England, and New Style (Gregorian calendar) for letters coming from the continent. The ‘double date’ system has generally been used for dates between January 1 and March 25 (e.g. January 14, 1556/7).
- 2.
On Magno’s reputation and the context of his poetry see Antonio Pilot, Del protestantesimo a Venezia e delle liriche di Celio Magno (Venice: Istituto Veneto di arti grafiche, 1909); Francesco Erspamer, “Lo scrittoio di Celio Magno ,” in Il libro di poesia dal copista al tipografo, ed. Marco Santagata and Amedeo Quondam (Modena: Edizioni Panini, 1989), 243–50; Giuseppina Stella Galbiati, “Epilogo sacro e libro: alcune considerazioni sulle Rime di Celio Magno ,” in Autorità, modelli e antimodelli nella cultura artistica e letteraria tra Riforma e Controriforma: Atti del Seminario internazionale di studi Urbino-Sassocorvaro, 9–11 novembre 2006, ed. Antonio Corsaro, Harald Hendrix, and Paolo Procaccioli (Manziana: Vecchiarelli, 2007), 369–85; Franco Tomasi, “Le ragioni del ‘moderno’ nella lirica del XVI secolo tra teoria e prassi,” in Moderno e modernità: la letteratura italiana: Atti del XII Congresso dell’Associazione degli Italianisti, Roma, 17–20 settembre 2008, ed. Clizia Gurreri, Angela Maria Jacopino, and Amedeo Quondam (Rome: Sapienza Università di Roma, 2009), online at http://www.italianisti.it/upload/userfiles/files/Tomasi%20Franco-8.pdf (last visited November 28, 2017).
- 3.
A sonnet of his had appeared in Del tempio alla divina signora Giovanna d’Aragona (Venice: P. Pietrasanta, 1555). On Magno see Daniele Ghirlanda, “Magno, Celio,” Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani, vol. 67 (2006), online via http://www.treccani.it.
- 4.
Cf. Monica Bianco, “La biografia a servizio dell’esegesi: i canzonieri postumi nella Venezia di pieno Cinquecento,” in Il Poeta e il suo pubblico. Lettura e commento dei testi lirici nel Cinquecento, Atti del convegno di Ginevra, 15–17 maggio 2008 (Genève: Droz, 2012) and Giuseppina Stella Galbiati, “Contributo per Celio Magno : una lettura della Canzone Deus, insieme ai suoi antichi commentatori,” in Studi di onomastica e letteratura offerti a Bruno Porcelli, ed. D. Camilli (Pisa-Roma: Gruppo Editoriale Internazionale, 2007), 129–44.
- 5.
CSPVen, VI.2, 1556–1557, 1043–1085, no. 884; Alessandra Petrina, “‘Perfit Readiness’: Elizabeth Learning and Using Italian,” in Elizabeth I ’s Foreign Correspondence. Letters, Rhetoric, and Politics, ed. Carlo M. Bajetta, Guillaume Coatalen, and Jonathan Gibson (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014), 93–6.
- 6.
On these letters, and some other epistolary exchanges between the Republic and England dating from the 1580s, see Elizabeth I ’s Italian Letters, ed. and trans. Carlo M. Bajetta (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2017), 92, 97, 101, 116.
- 7.
E. R. Curtius, European Literature and the Latin Middle Ages, trans. Willard R. Trask (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1953, 1990), 83–5.
- 8.
Interestingly, the central paradox developed in the letter, that of the queen’s distance and proximity to common men, is reminiscent of the idea of God’s transcendence and immanence. For a concise survey of this topic see Millard J. Erickson, Introducing Christian Doctrine, ed. L. Arnold Hustad (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2001), 87–9.
- 9.
Venezia, Biblioteca nazionale Marciana, MS 171 (2980).
- 10.
The text and translations are taken from Petrarch’s Lyric Poems: The “Rime sparse” and Other Lyrics, ed. and trans. Robert M. Durling (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1976).
- 11.
Copies of the Canzoniere circulated at Queen Katherine Parr’s court; see e.g., Elizabeth I ’s Italian Letters, ed. Bajetta, Introduction, par. 1 and Letter 1.
- 12.
An online edition is available via the webpage of the Rare Book and Special Collections Division of the Library of Congress: http://lcweb2.loc.gov/cgi-bin/ampage?collId=rbc3&fileName=rbc0001_2010rosen0807page.db (last accessed November 28, 2016).
- 13.
On this edition see Francesco Erspamer, “Per un’edizione delle rime di Celio Magno ,” Studi di filologia italiana XLI (1983): 45–73; 72.
- 14.
Archivio della tradizione lirica: da Petrarca a Marino, ed. Amedeo Quondam (the Celio Magno section, edited by Francesco Erspamer; Rome: Lexis Progetti Editoriali, 1997); online via Biblioteca Italiana, Roma: Biblioteca Italiana, 2004—http://ww2.bibliotecaitaliana.it. Nos. 264–266 are titled here “A Isabella reina d’Inghilterra nella sua coronazione”. See also Erspamer 1983. We reprint these texts below so as to allow an easier comparison (see also the collation of poem 1 below).
Verse
Verse no. 264: Scende in te pur dal ciel nova Minerva, Anglia felice, e ‘l tuo bel scettro adorna. Per lei l’età de l’oro in te ritorna, e stil cangia tua sorte empia e proterva. L’amata libertà, ch’afflitta e serva piangesti un tempo, al fin cinta ed adorna di sacra oliva in te lieta soggiorna, per lei, ch’ad alta speme ancor ti serva. Mira come nel seggio ov’ella splende da la fronte serena un raggio move, ch’a vera gloria ogni cor freddo accende. Mira com’apre a le sorelle nove suo real manto, e tal se stessa rende che ben figlia pò dirsi al sommo Giove.
Verse
Verse no. 265: Ecco bramato sol ch’in Occidente del brittannico mar sorge a noi fuore e comparte al suo ciel grazia e favore tal ch’invidia ne porge a l’Oriente. O ricco lido, o fortunata gente, soggetti a la virtù del suo splendore; quando v’addusse mai più felici ore altro sol più di lui chiaro e lucente? Ecco tessono a lui, sorti de l’onde, Arno, Tebro ed Ilisso ampia corona De’ più ben culti fior de le sue sponde. Ecco, mentre di voci alte e gioconde ogni monte, ogni valle, ogni antro suona — Isabella! —, — Isabella! — Eco risponde.
- 15.
giusticia… liberalità: These are the qualities that the Neapolitan humanist Giovanni Pontano mentioned in his De Principe (1493) as typical of a good prince. Interestingly, Baldassarre Castiglione, the author of The Courtier, would refer to these virtues explicitly in his letter to Henry VII of England written on the occasion of the death of Guidubaldo di Montefeltro (1508); see Cecil H. Clough, “Baldassare Castiglione’s Presentation Manuscript to King Henry VII,” Liverpool Classical Monthly 3 (1978): 269–72 and Michael Wyatt, The Italian Encounter with Tudor England (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005), 35–41.
- 16.
lands: “contrade” assumes here, quite clearly, a wider sense and not merely that of “quarter” or “county.” cf. Il Vocabolario della Lingua Italiana Treccani. Rome: Istituto dell’Enciclopedia Italiana, 2010-in progress. Online edn.: http://www.treccani.it/vocabolario. “Contrada,” 1–3.
- 17.
driven to do it: i.e., to express his “present joy” in “speech or writing” as mentioned in the preceding phrase.
- 18.
spoke up: “se l’facessero” in the original, clearly referring, again, to express their “present joy” in “speech or writing.”
- 19.
useful: this is the contemporary meaning of “espediente” in the original; cf. Vocabolario Treccani.
- 20.
if You… it: sixteenth-century Italian “schifare” is normally meant as “schivare”, “to avoid” (cf. Vocabolario Treccani, “schifare,” 1a). Incidentally, Elizabeth used this word in her 1566 letter to Maximilian II (Letter 4 in Elizabeth’s Italian Letters, ed. C. M. Bajetta).
- 21.
even … corporal beauty: Magno will, quite tactfully, make no mention of Elizabeth’s physical aspect.
- 22.
What sage … woman: the Italian construction, ending with “in Voi pur giouane, et donna” (“in you, so young, and a woman”) clearly emphasises gender as an additional element of surprise.
- 23.
divine and human letters: the studia humanitatis and studia divinitatis were seen by humanists such as Colluccio Salutati as profoundly interconnected; see Cesare Vasoli, Le filosofie del Rinascimento (Milan: Mondadori 2002), 54–5. Salutati defended, in particular, the value of studying pagan literature as a means to reach a better understanding of the Bible and the Church Fathers; see Rens Bod, A New History of the Humanities (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013), 145.
- 24.
bright example: cf. Vocabolario Treccani, “chiaro”, 2 (which derives from Latin “clarus”).
- 25.
qualities: cf. Vocabolario Treccani, “condizione,” 2c.
- 26.
time: the meaning of the Italian original is clearly “time”, “occasion”, Vocabolario Treccani, “luògo,” 4.
- 27.
this: i.e., that you renounce your modesty.
- 28.
the former: the “regno”, the fact of having become queen by descent.
- 29.
the latter: Elizabeth’s “merito”, which God himself has acknowledged.
- 30.
to … east: The course of the sun is altered, its rising now taking place in the west.
- 31.
Arno … Cephissus: the rivers of Florence, Rome and Athens, here a symbol of the best heritage of Western ancient and modern culture.
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Bajetta, C.M., Coatalen, G. (2018). A Critical Edition and Discussion of SP 70/2 f.94: A Letter and Two Sonnets by Celio Magno to Queen Elizabeth I. In: Montini, D., Plescia, I. (eds) Elizabeth I in Writing. Queenship and Power. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-71952-8_7
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