Poesie di un cavag[liere] romano (13 erotic tales in verse of a libertine chaplain). Manuscript on paper in Italian. Italy, end of the 18th-beginning of the 19th century

UNPUBLISHED AND PARTLY UNKNOWN EROTIC AND HOMOSEXUAL TALES

4to (188x141 mm). Overall [378] pp. The novellas, which open with a short title within a frame and are separated from each other by one or two blank leaves, are numbered consecutively from I to XIV (one novella is divided in two parts). The pagination starts over for each novella. The handwriting is clear and uniform. Bound in contemporary quarter calf gilt, lettering piece on spine, red silk bookmark (slightly rubbed and worn). On the front flyleaf is the note “Non fu mai stampato” (‘It has never been published'). Very well preserved.

The titles of the novellas are: La bella Valeria e Battocchio, Fabrizio-geloso e la bella-Rosetta, Pasqua contadina e Maso da Ferrara, Agneluccio Gheri di Roma, Il Villano e due frati, Il Vecchio e l'asino, La Sodomia giustificata al tribunale di Venere e Amore (parte prima e seconda), Il caccatojo e sue lodi, L'alleanza della gatta col sorcio paragonata l'imperatice delle Russie e l'imperatore d'occidente, Il belletto delle donne, Il cuore di una donna galante, Amore e vanità, and La moda e la bellezza. The novellas 6 and 11-14 are by Lorenzo Pignotti (1739-1812), a Tuscan poet known mainly for his work as a fairytales writer. They are respectively tales 3, 1, 2, 8, and 31 of Pignotti's Favole e novelle, which was published in Bassano in 1789. All the other libertine and erotic tales are by Giambattista Casti (1724-1803) and are apparently unpublished. Furthermore, two of them, the most “audacious”, La sodomia (‘Sodomy') and Il caccatojo (‘The Latrine'), are also presumably completely unknown, as they do not appear in the Correr manuscript with which the present one has been compared.

The novellas are written in octaves and each has a variable number of stanzas. The text sometimes shows Venetian dialectal tones. Generally, at the beginning of the poem, the author addresses the Women, introducing the subject matter of the verses, which typically focuses on playful and burlesque topics, filled with popular and grotesque characters and with Boccaccio-esque plots of betrayal, deception, and various jokes; the mocking and light-hearted tone often and openly slips into more vulgar and lascivious topics of an erotic and even homosexual nature (“Canto, ò Donne in questa breve istoria/la vita di Agneluccio disgraziato:/uom voto di senno e pien di boria/ch'ebbe per genitore un'Impiccato/La sua Madre cavava la cicoria/e suo Nono per Ladro fu frustato/fece la Strega sua sorella, e il Boia/Il suo Fratello un di fece in Pistoia”).

The novella La Sodomia giustificata al Tribunale di Venere e amore (‘Sodomy Justified in the Court of Venus and Love') is very long and divided into two parts. It recounts episodes of homosexual love in a libertine and burlesque tone: “L'incesto el stupro l'adulterio e molti/soggetti senza nome al mondo ignoti/se vede in sto loghetto, e fra quei folti/recinti far ognun lascivi moti./Dalla plebe minuta in stima accolti/questi riceve adorazioni e voti/e dretta più de tutti e impetromia/scode applauso comun la Sodomia […] I Sciti, i Persi, i Turchi ha seguità/l'uso dei so vetusti fondatori/i Spartani per leze hà decretà/Incolpabili i gusti posteriori/a Roma d'ogni sesso, d'ogni età/el cul xe sta boccon da senatori/e tuttavia el continua con gran brio/de Porpore eminenti andar vestio […] Pubblicò la fatal Terminazion/e intonar per so bocca s'ha sentuo/la sentenza de Chiozza. Chi hà buo hà buo”.

Also, when reading Il caccatojo e le sue lodi (‘The Latrine and its Eulogy'), one understands why its verses were never published: “A voi culi, che al cesso v'affacciate/caldi tributi in atto umil pagando/a voi merde, che dentro sempre state/queste fatiche e picciol dono io mando/e se vi è grato il don, meco lasciate/ch'ognuno a suo piacer usi caccando/e queste carte e questo sparso inchiostro/perché già tutto, oh Merde oh Culi è vostro”.

“For Casti, the liberation of pleasure is always linked to social freedom. His criticism of a counter-reformist sexual morality, based on negative concepts such as abstinence and chastity, is also carried out in the name of a more joyful religiosity.” (S. Nigro, Casti, Giambattista, in: “Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani”, vol. 22, Rome, 1979, s.v.).

Giambattista Casti, a libertine canon, satirical poet and comedian with republican ideas, led an adventurous life, travelling among the most important European courts of the time, driven by both diplomatic assignments and his own literary ambition. He lived in Vienna for many years on several occasions, taking the place of Metastasio as imperial poet and Da Ponte as comic librettist. He lived in St. Petersburg for six years, where he wrote the ‘Tartar Poem' set at the court of Catherine II. He openly declared himself anti-Napoleonic in Paris, and also visited Constantinople. Among his vast body of work, which includes including the Novelle galanti (Rome, 1790) and the poem Gli Animali Parlanti (Paris, 1802), his opera libretti stand out. He was acquainted with Casanova, Goethe and Parini (cf. M.I. Palazzolo, Le vicissitudini di un libertino. Fortuna editoriale e sfortuna critica delle opere di Giambattista Casti, in: “Nuova rivista di letteratura italiana”, 2, 2001, pp. 383-413.

Sabrina Salis of Museo Correr compared the present manuscript with Correr ms. 116/1-39, an early 19^th-century composite manuscript, presumably copied in Venice, containing compositions by Giambattista Casti, Lorenzo Pignotti, and other anonymous author:

1) La bella Valeria e Batocchio, cf. ms. Correr 116/30, pp. 1-29, anonymous and presumably unpublished;

2) Fabrizio-geloso e la bella-Rosetta, cf. ms. Correr 116/26, pp. 1-19, anonymous and presumably unpublished;

3) Pasqua contadina e Maso da Ferrara, cf. ms. Correr 116/38, pp. 1-17, anonymous and presumably unpublished;

4) Agneluccio Gheri di Roma, cf. ms. Correr 116/27, pp. 1-18, anonymous and presumably unpublished;

5) Il Villano e due frati, cf. ms. Correr 116/35, pp. 1-19, anonymous and presumably unpublished;

6) Il Vecchio e l'asino, cf. ms. Correr 116/36, pp. 1-21, by Lorenzo Pignotti, Novella III, ed. in Favole e novelle del dottore Lorenzo Pignotti, Bassano, 1789, pp. 171-178;

7-8) La Sodomia giustificata al tribunale di Venere e Amore parte-prima [seconda], text not present in the Correr manuscript;

9) Il caccatojo e sue lodi, text not present in the Correr manuscript;

10) L'alleanza della gatta col sorcio paragonata l'imperatice delle Russie e l'imperatore d'occidente, cf. ms. Correr 116/32, pp. 1-22, anonymous and presumably unpublished;

11) Il belletto delle donne, cf. ms. Correr 116/29, pp. 1-24, by Lorenzo Pignotti, Il belletto, Novella I, ed. Bassano, 1789, pp. 155-165;

12) Il cuore d'una donna galante, cf. ms. Correr 116/28, pp. 1-16, by Lorenzo Pignotti, Descrizione anatomica del cuore d'una donna galante, Novella II, ed. Bassano, 1789, pp. 165-170;

13) Amore e vanità, cf. ms. Correr 116/25, pp. 1-20, by Lorenzo Pignotti, Favola VIII, ed. Bassano, 1789, pp. 28-38;

14) La moda e la bellezza, cf. ms. Correr 116/31, pp. 1-18, by Lorenzo Pignotti, Favola XXXI, ed. Bassano, 1789, pp.108-113.

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