L'arte poetica del Sig. Antonio Minturno, nella quale si contengono i precetti heroici, tragici, comici, satyrici, e d'ogni altra poesia: con la dottrina de' sonetti, canzoni, & ogni sorte di rime thoscane, [...] Con le postille del dottor Valvassori, non meno chiare, che brievi [...]

Autore: SEBASTIANI MINTURNO, Antonio (ca. 1497-1574)

Tipografo: Giovanni Andrea Valvassori

Dati tipografici: Venezia, 1563


4to (202x153 mm). [60], 453, [3] pp. Collation: α-η4 θ2 A-LLL4. Printer's device on the title page and on l. LLL4r. Colophon and register at l. LLL4r. Leaf LLL4v is a blank. Roman and italic type. Woodcut historiated initials. Contemporary flexible vellum with inked title along the spine (lacking a large portion at the bottom of the spine, panels' edges rubbed and frayed). Manuscript purchasing note on the title page: “Comprato a Roma a commissione del […] Francescant.o Cammarota dallo spedizioniere […] D. Alessandro Meucci in Luglio 1862”. Outer upper corner of about 10 leaves repaired at the beginning of the volume not affecting the text, some occasional browning and staining, a good, genuine copy.

First edition, first issue (the second issue is dated 1564 both on title page and on the colophon), dedicated to the Accademia Laria in Como (from Trent, 21 September 1563). The work was reprinted in Naples in 1725, in Munich in 1971, and in Madrid in 2009.

“Four years after the appearance of the De poeta Minturno published a second treatise on the poetic art, the Arte poetica, to which Minturno himself referred, within the work, as the Arte poetica thoscana (1563). This treatise, in Italian, applies to literature in the vernacular the principles earlier enunciated with respect to writings in Latin. Hence, it is in one sense less complete, in another sense more extensive than the first work: less complete insofar as much of the fundamental theoretical material is omitted, more extensive since a greater number of types and genres, recognized in Italian but not in Latin literature, are included. The Arte poetica is divided into four books. Book I presents, in very brief compass, generalizations on the nature, objects, manners, and means of poetry and then, in greater detail, a discussion of the epic. Book II treats dramatic poetry, both tragic and comic, and Book III the lyric. Book IV is devoted to diction. These divisions correspond roughly to Books II, III-IV, V, and VI of the De poeta, respectively […] The

new work presents, therefore, not only a condensation and an adaptation but in many cases a rearrangement of the materials of the old […] Finally, it must not be forgotten that this is an Arte poetica thoscana and that hence there will be differences springing from the special conditions of Italian literature. Obviously, the examples will now be Italian rather than Latin-Dante, Petrarch, Boccaccio, Minturno himself-and some Italian sources (notably the De vulgari eloquentia and Tolomei's Versi e regole della nuova poesia toscana) will be called upon. Furthermore, the number of genres will be increased to include such forms as the sonetto, canzone, ballata, madrigale, and others in the lyric group, and the romanzo among epic types. Other additions occasioned by the adaptation to Italian literature are the discussion of Italian verse forms and the controversy over the use of prose. Minturno's two treatises on the poetic art thus present an essentially uniform approach to the problems of poetry, with only such differences as are occasioned by the division of materials and the nature of the literatures involved. Both attempt an amalgamation of divers theories and succeed only moderately in that attempt. Insofar as they do effect an organization of ideas, the ideas are subordinated to rhetorical rather than to poetic principles, and to rhetorical principles of a Ciceronian character. Much of the material contained in both is never brought into systematic arrangement and therefore remains essentially authoritarian and conventional” (B. Weinberg, A History of Literary Criticism in the Italian Renaissance, Chicago-Toronto, 1961, pp. 755-759).

Antonio Sebastiani was born in Minturno, near Latina, around 1497. In 1511 he moved to Sessa Aurunca to study with Agostino Nifo, whom he then followed to Padua and Pisa, where, by the end of 1520, he became a lecturer in poetics and oratory. At the end of 1521 he moved on to Rome as a lecturer in theology and philosophy. In Rome, thanks perhaps to the intercession of another student of Nifo, Galeazzo Florimonte, he came into contact with Ludovico Beccadelli, Girolamo Seripando, Gasparo Contarini and Filippo Gheri, later secretary to Cardinal Giovanni Morone. In 1524 he took up service as tutor to the Colonna family in Genazzano, and it was around this time that he entered the Order of the Theatines. The following year he returned to Naples to resume his studies; there he used to hang out with Girolamo Carbone, Pomponio Gaurico, Pietro Summonte, Pietro Gravina, and noblewomen such as Maria di Cardona, Giulia Gonzaga and Beatrice d'Appiano d'Aragona. It is very likely that in this period he adopted the name Minturno (from Minturnae, the Latin name of his hometown), which conferred a humanistic gravitas to his person. From October 1527 he was tutor first in the household of Camillo Pignatelli, count of Borrello, and later of Girolamo and Fabrizio Pignatelli, sons of Ettore, viceroy of Sicily. Most of Sebastiani Minturno's literary production is concentrated in the period 1526-1542. The proximity to Francesco Maria Molza, Claudio Tolomei, Luigi Tansillo and to Spanish literary circles enabled him to develop already at the beginning of his literary activity aesthetic-critical notions and theories about his production, which were later poured into the final drafts of De poeta and Arte poetica. In 1542, after fifteen years of service with the Pignatelli family, gratified by an annual pension of two hundred ducats, he returned to Minturno. Already the following year, however, he went to Naples to teach theology but, because of the problems that arose in the attempt to impose the Inquisition in the city, he was forced to move to Sicily, where he remained at least until 1548; on this occasion his entire library was looted and dismembered, to be recovered only later thanks to the collaboration of Andrea Cossa. To this period dates the composition of the Rime and the Amore innamorato, works both conceived within the literary circle orbiting around Maria di Cardona. From 1548 to 1551 he returned to Naples, and from 1554 to 1558 he lived in Calabria. In 1556 he tried to have De poeta printed in Venice (but the edition would actually not be prepared until 1559), and in 1558 he was appointed bishop of Ugento. Through the intercession of Girolamo Seripando he was summoned to the Council of Trent. The composition of the Diocles, Poemata, Orationes, a lost Moseida, and other works and writings testifies to the author's true interests in Latin production and highlights his interest in transferring the codes and models of ancient Greek poetry to the biblical theme. In 1565 he was appointed bishop of Crotone. Between 1564 and 1565 he began the compilation of the Synopsis historiae patriae de episcopis Minturnensibus et Traictensibus later published by De Gennaro in 1570. Minturno's most important works are undoubtedly De poeta, the four parts of the Arte poetica, the Amore innamorato, and the Canzoni sopra i salmi. He died in Crotone in January 1574, while still intent on writing and conceiving new literary works (cf. G. Tallini, Sebastiani Minturno, Antonio, in: “Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani”, vol. 91, Rome, 2018, s.v.).

Edit 16, CNCE59706; Weinberg, op. cit., II, pp. 1136-1137.


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