Poetry and Identity in Quattrocento Naples by Matteo Soranzo (review)

Frequently neglected in studies of fifteenth- and sixteenth-century Italian poetry, the social and political status and associations of writers, and the material diffusion of their works, provide the context from which Matteo Soranzo investigates poetry in Aragonese Naples. Through the analysis of five case studies, Soranzo interprets the poetic production in Quattrocento Naples as a series of acts of cultural identity: an act of identity is ‘a statement about its author’s position within the society and culture of a given period’ (p. 4). Through the very act of choosing a specific language or genre from a diverse variety of options, writers declare cultural and political affiliation, and define their role within the society in which they live and operate. This was a process that was particularly necessary in fifteenth-century Naples, a ‘world city’ characterised by an imported and multicultural society.

Traditionally interpreted as a consequence of Humanism, the use of Latin and the reuse of ancient models in Giovanni Pontano’s literary debut, Parthenopeus, are here reanalysed in terms of their specific social and political meaning, and are thereby read as part of a broader act of cultural identity. By this act, Pontano showed his membership of the intellectual circle promoted by Alfonso of Aragon and declared his loyalty to the king (Chapter 1). The following editions of Pontano’s poetic debut were also part of another identity-building process, this time directed towards his assimilation into the Neapolitan society: Pontano’s Umbrian origins had now to be left aside, as shown by the evolution of his signature (Chapter 2).

Identity is a work continually in progress that has to be renegotiated and adjusted to new social and political circumstances. After Alfonso’s death, King Ferrante tried to assimilate the Neapolitan aristocracy into the Aragonese court. Emblematic of this political action was the marriage of Pontano to the noble Adriana Sassone; Pontano’s De amore coniugali was a response to Ferrante’s project (Chapter 3).

In Chapter 4, Jacopo Sannazaro’s Arcadia is read as a declaration of affiliation to Pontano’s cultural circle, while Chapter 5 examines Pontano’s image re-building after the downfall of the Aragonese dynasty. With Urania, the ‘symbol of a legacy that Pontano envisioned as written in the stars’ (p. 90), the author secured his authority in the domain of astrology, philosophy, and poetry. The last chapter explores Sannazaro’s masterpiece, De partu Virginis, observing how its author rethought his identity strategy as a spiritual itinerary, and thus abandoned Pontano’s legacy and moved from classical scholarship to theology.