Ex marmore: Pasquini, pasquinisti, pasquinate nell'Europa moderna (review)

The proceedings of the 2005 international conference on the phenomenon of Pasquino and related forms of cultural satire and criticism might seem at first glance to appeal to a rather specialized audience. The book is thick with detail and the subject has not been a central concern historically to literary scholars. However, Ex marmore draws together a surprisingly varied range of fields. The mutilated statue of Pasquino in Rome, to which anyone might affix criticism of official policy or particular personalities, became a symbol and channel for the expression of dissent in much wider venues. As the latest volume in the Cinquecento series listed on the end flap — from the Università della Tuscia, Dipartimento di Storia e Culture del testo e del documento — Ex marmore shows what thoughtful and far-reaching results can be achieved by scholars working together over time.

The volume includes all the presentations from the conference and several related essays arising from it. The articles are divided into three sections: "Il verbo pasquiniano: Occasioni, interpreti, destini," which contains twelve articles; "Pasquino in effigie e pasquino connaisseur d'arte," with five articles; and "Pasquino esule religionis causa," containing six articles. Three of the twenty-three articles are in English, the rest are in Italian. Many of the articles have illustrations, for a total of sixty-two, providing a useful visual dimension to the proceedings. After the articles, the editors have included a transcription of the debate that followed the conference presentations. A voluminous bibliography adds an extremely valuable component to this rich contribution of scholarship in the field. The conference's multidisciplinary approach makes the proceedings of interest to scholars in literature, art, religion, history, and studies of the book and press. The contributors represent fields as diverse as Renaissance literature, Reformation studies, art history (of sculpture, prints, and paintings), architecture, and urban design.

Ex marmore's editors note that recent scholarly work on the verbal and figurative corpora of Pasquino has brought to light new examples of this phenomenon, especially since the pivotal collection, Pasquinate romane del Cinquecento (1983). The volume includes material about the sixteenth-century Roman core of pasquinisti, largely satiric critics of the papacy and curia, Aretino and others, but moves beyond a narrow focus on religious matters to include pasquinesque criticism of art, politics, and literature in places such as France, Holland, England, and Germany, as well as in Italy. Articles also treat manifestations of the Pasquino theme beyond the sixteenth century; the last entry in the collection discusses Pasquino's appearance in Dutch pamphlets into the Settecento.

The articles in Ex marmore reveal on occasion an unexpected blend of official cultural modes with countercultural elements, as in the polemic between Castelvetro and Caro, in the classicizing critique of Curione, or in the conundrum of Della Casa, author of obscene verse and promoter of Venice's early Index of Prohibited Books (1549). The studies delineate Pasquino's function in varied contexts as a link among issues of European import. Topics touched on in the conference proceedings include Protestant theological polemics with the papacy, relations among reformers of different nations, early sixteenth-century tolerance and later repression, censorship and the freedom of news to circulate, prophesies of moral condemnation, the development of public opinion, and the Inquisition. Ex marmore will appeal to early modern scholars of many fields for the detail it gives in the very specific contexts of individual articles and for the way that specificity finds connection among the articles.

Ex marmore examines an early modern phenomenon of outspoken, if largely anonymous, criticism in the context of international religious wars. It thus invites reflection on contemporary dissatisfaction over the conduct of global political policy amid rival religious factions — and religions. Perhaps there is still a role for Pasquino to play: certainly the need to speak...