Poetria nova pdf

As he says in his acces- lova, "rhetoric is the most noble queen of 14 itful letters for whoever is her disciple". Em- fter studying the Poetria nova at Leipzig. Using the Poetria nova to Teach Dictamen which contains contemporary as well as classical letters'5, or MS of the Osterreichische Nationalbibliothek in Vienna, which contains formularies concerning Austria, a variety of dictaminal texts, and the letters of Piero della Vigne.

In the later part of the fifteenth century, these university dictaminal collections sometimes contain letters of particular interest to humanists. Manuscript of the Biblioteca Jagiellonska in Krakow, for example, has the Poetria nova, letters of Cicero, Aeneas Sylvius Piccolomini, and Gas- parino Barzizza, as well as - among other items - excerpts from Lorenzo Valla's De libris elegantiarum.

The situation in Italy has parallels to that in Central Europe: there, too, the Poetria nova was taught at several levels and was also specifically applied to letter-writing. Equally striking, however, are the pedagogical dif- ferences implied by Italian copies of the text.

The Poetria nova seems to have been introduced into the curriculum in Italy at a slightly later date, per- haps along with the other transalpine influences outlined recently and differ- 18 ently by Ronald Witt and Robert Black.

While we do have some thir- teenth-century Italian manuscripts of the Poetria nova, they are fewer than in Central Europe and the glosses in most of these manuscripts were added later, in the fourteenth century. Also in the fourteenth century we begin to find copies of the Poetria nova owned and copied for - indeed, sometimes even copied by - students themselves. Student-owned copies of schoolbooks 19 are a known medieval Italian phenomenon, as Black points out.

Paul Gehl 15 On St. Emil Polak calls this ma- nuscript a "humanistic miscellany". Witt ; and chapters three and four, "The secondary grammar curriculum" and "Latin authors in medieval and Renaissance Italian Schools: the story of a canon," of Robert Black Black's very compre- hensive study provides a great deal of specific evidence of pedagogical approaches in Italian schools.

But he also notes similar versions of longer works like the Poetria nova that were made with larger margins to 20 allow additional comments to be added later in the student's career. Black in a recent book radically expands the scope of such studies, providing more 21 evidence of the importance of the Poetria nova as well as other schooltexts. While these two scholars have focussed on Tuscany, and Gehl even presents a specific political reason for such manuscripts to have arisen there - a rea- son that Black implicitly rejects - I have found this kind of manuscript of the Poetria nova elsewhere in northern Italy.

For example, the fourteenth- century manuscript MA 7 of the Biblioteca Civica Angelo Mai in Bergamo has crude wooden covers containing ownership notes of the kind Gehl dis- cusses though they probably date from the sixteenth century , and the only contents are the Poetria nova with interlinear glosses.

Fragments of similarly formatted school texts, including several of the Poetria nova, have survived in great number in the Archivio di Stato di Udine in Friuli; the strength of the parchment combined with the seeming insignificance of the contents led to their being cut up and used as covers for 22 bureaucratic documents.

We also find among the Italian fourteenth- and fifteenth-century copies of the Poetria nova a number with commentary that would seem to me to indi- cate study at an intermediate level. They contain interlinear glosses but also Paul F. Gehl first discussed this phenomenon in an article , which was then expanded later into a book-length study Gehl In the article, which is more useful for my purposes, he reproduces fol.

Black , also discusses this manuscript. Black ; there are numerous references to and quotations of primarily interlin- ear glosses from the Poetria nova. Fragment 68 of the Poetria nova is from Friuli and de- scribed on pp.

Two other frag- ments of the Poetria nova, and the latter from "Italia settentrionale" , are described on pp. Marjorie Curry Woods Using the Poetria nova to Teach Dictamen s as part of his work on school texts in 1 more basic school works, which were r two. But he also notes similar versions z that were made with larger margins to Black e scope of such studies, providing more etria nova as well as other schooltexts.

For example, the fourteenth- jlioteca Civica Angelo Mai in Bergamo I ownership notes of the kind Gehl dis- rom the sixteenth century , and the only iterlinear glosses. In the article, which is more fol. Two other frag- 22 the latter from "Italia settentrionale" , are ely. The glosses including two references to Pietro da Moglio in Genoa, Biblioteca Durazzo Giustiniani MS B II 1, are of this type, though the format indicates that the manuscript was probably originally intended for study at a more elementary 23 level.

The same kind of short Latin classics that are quoted in the marginal comments are often found copied in the Italian manuscripts of the Poetria nova, and this correspondence is not limited to classical poems. There are two copies of one important intermediate commentary on the Poetria nova in which there is a reference to Dante and his "Comedia" in the glosses on Geoffrey's mention of res comica at line In the earlier of the two cop- ies of this commentary, fourteenth-century MS C of the Archivo Capi- tolare del Duomo in Pistoia, seventeen cantos of Dante's Paradiso are copied as well.

By the late thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries, much more ad- vanced, lengthy, and detailed commentaries on the Poetria nova were being written in Italy; these sophisticated commentaries remained popular and were copied well into the fifteenth century. Some of these commentaries are so long that by themselves or with a copy of the Poetria nova they often com- prise the only work in a manuscript, but for a very different reason from that of the copies made for school children, which were kept short for portability and legibility.

These much more extensive commentaries are often simply too long to include other texts in the same manuscript. But when other works are added to these advanced commentaries, as, for example, in the manu- script of the commentary by Pace of Ferrara in British Library MS Add. The other manuscript of this commentary, MS Vat Reg. The Dante references are found on folio 47v of the Pistoia manuscript and 82v of the Vatican manuscript.

When the authors of these long and highly laudatory commentaries are 26 known, they often turn out to be early humanists. Other famous early humanists, such as Travesi's student Gasparino Barzizza, knew and referred to the text in their own teaching, as we shall see shortly. But if Paul Grendler is correct, the Poetria nova was never a university text in Italy.

The "Summa Gofredi" in the university regulations for 27 Padua stationers probably refers to the Summa de arte dictandi , not, as Gi- useppe Manacorda and R. Mercer have assumed, to the Poetria nova. Yet we do have the aforementioned lengthy, detailed, and sophisticated com- mentaries that were written by university professors or those teaching at uni- versity-level studia: Pace of Ferrara at Padua, Guizzardo of Bologna at Bolo- 29 gna and Padua, Giovanni Travesi at Pavia.

Grendler has suggested to me that such professors may have been teaching the Poetria nova in their private schools at the same time that they taught other texts at the universities. It seems more likely, however, that such commentaries were the product of unofficial lectures to university students. Pace of Ferrara's commentary, for example, is almost always copied as a text in itself without the text of the 25 List of Additions to the Manuscripts in the British Museum, , I am persuaded by Ronald Witt's discussion 18ff.

Mercer 93, n. Ward especially pp. Fourteenth-century teacn- ; of Ferrara, Guizzardo of Bologna, Bar- as Bartolomeo de Sancto Concordio , idi, and Giovanni Travesi all wrote com- Dther famous early humanists, such as za, knew and referred to the text in their y- the Poetria nova was never a university i" in the university regulations for 27 the Summa de arte dictandi , not, as Gi- 28 rcer have assumed, to the Poetria nova.

Grendler has suggested to me. It such commentaries were the product of 30 dents. Pace of Ferrara's commentary, for as a text in itself without the text of the in the British Museum, , Using the Poetria nova to Teach Dictamen Poetria nova, and it is divided into lectiones; and Giovanni Travesi, in his rather sophisticated commentary in which he notes that he lectures on the Poetria nova every year, addresses the parents of the students he teaches, a 31 sign, perhaps, of a more informal academic setting.

The Poetria nova is explicitly applied to letter writing in the Italian com- mentaries. For example, an anonymous, rather basic commentary surviving in fourteenth- and fifteenth-century copies one of which was made by a scribe noted for humanist connections describes Geoffrey's discussion of amplification as methods of amplifying letters.

Guizzardo of Bologna also assumes that the generic rhetorical discourse addressed in the classroom in which the Po- etria nova is being taught is the letter. In commenting on Geoffrey's state- ment that the words of a poem should be a handmaiden to the thoughts, Guizzardo says that "in a letter these parts have to be presented in beautiful words and with varied rhetorical flourishes" Such statements applying the Poetria nova to the composition of letters can help us to understand better a statement made by Gasparino Barzizza in his commentary on the Rhetorica ad Herennium: "Concerning the parts of a letter, it seems clear to many that [the sentential is very similar to the Intro- 31 " His commentary is copied in this manuscript with an accessus to Ovid's Heroides; see Charles B.

Faulhaber MS Vind. Chigi L. On Franciscellus, the scribe of the Naples manu- script of this commentary, see Jean D'Amato , especially p. When he quoted Barzizza's statement more than twenty years ago, G. Pigman understandably assumed that the reference was to another work thought to have been by Geoffrey, the Tria sunt, which does contain a short section on the composition of letters, while the Poetria nova does not.

But all of the manuscripts of the Tria sunt are English, and there are very few of them, in contrast to the Poetria nova, of which many Italian manuscripts 35 have survived. Barzizza encouraged his students to look at other commen- taries on the Ad Herennium, and those commentaries often used examples from the Poetria nova to illustrate the figures.

Yet even with all of these applications of the Poetria nova to letter- writing37, it with one exception is not copied with letter collections in Italy though it was owned by notaries. Moreover, in addition to applying its doctrine to the composition of prose letters, the Italian commentators always focus on the Poetria nova as an aesthetic construction in itself.

These com- mentators are, as I have written elsewhere, consistently appreciative of the 38 work and of Geoffrey as a writer. While the Poetria nova was obviously used, as Robert Black has argued, to teach students how to take ordinary "Circa partes epistolae certe nonnullis videtur haec exornatio maxime convenire exordio, quod etiam Gualfredus, natione anglicus, vir eruditissimus, testari videtur cum poetas instruens tractat de ordine artificiali".

Barzizza goes on to talk about Geoffrey's methods of beginning a work from the middle, from the end, and with a proverb in terms of composing a letter: "quern cum in octo species diviserit, tres ex Mis attribuit proverbio cum aliquam nobis assumpsimus aut fabulam aut historiam describendam vel initium sumendo a principio rei vel a medio vel a fine per prover- bium".

Pigman III n. See Martin Camargo forthcoming See also similar evidence in the fourteenth-century glosses on a thirteenth-century copy of the Poetria nova in the university library in Bologna quoted by Martin Camargo in "The Pedagogy of the Dictatores" in this volume. Woods , especially pp. But all it are English, and there are very few of lova, of which many Italian manuscripts ged his students to look at other commen- those commentaries often used examples the figures.

Moreover, in addition to applying its se letters, the Italian commentators always. These com- :Isewhere, consistently appreciative of the While the Poetria nova was obviously i, to teach students how to take ordinary ullis videtur haec exornatio maxime convenire ione anglicus, vir eruditissimus, testari videtur ine artificiali". When teaching composition in general in litilv, one obviously thought of letter writing; thus, the teaching in the Po- firiti nova was explained in terms of letters.

But with the Poetria nova we are tioi in the area of professional training, but rather that of pre-professional, fipnwal schooling, as Martin Camargo discusses elsewhere in this volume. But references to other prose genres lire much rarer than the epistolary references. In some Italian manuscripts we find the Poetria nova with early humanist works, such as Petrarch's Carmen Bucolicum in a fifteenth-century manu- script in Pistoia though this may have been because of a peculiar interpreta- tion of the Poetria nova, which is called Vita pastuarale edita a magistro 40 Gualfredi Anglico , or with a mutilated version of Boccaccio's De genea- 41 logia deorum in a fifteenth-century manuscript in Assisi ; and there is a 42 whole humanist collection in an extremely elegant manuscript in Ferrara.

But we do not find the Poetria nova in Italian manuscripts along with hu- manist letters, or at least not as pedagogical examples. In the commentary by Benedict of Aquileia, however, which was copied by his student Jacobus de Benencasa, Petrarch's letter urging Urban V to return to Rome has been in- Black For a description of the manuscript see Mazzatinti and Sorbelli 1.

Assisi, Biblioteca del Convento di S. Francesco MS The manuscript also con- tains several works by Horace, including the Odes; see Cesare Cenci 2.

The manuscript contains, among, other works, Plutgarch's De liberis educandis in Veronese's translation, Xenophon's Tyrannus in Leonardo Bruni's translation, and Coluccio Salutati's Trac- latus duplex quod medici eloquentie studeant et de verecundia an sit virtus aut vi- dian.

In Italy the Poetria nova remained an artistic construct, that is, a text con- sidered for its aesthetic principles and comparability with other Latin verse 44 school texts , though the most obvious application of the work to the stu- dents' own composition exercises would have been the writing of letters. To recapitulate, I would suggest that, in Italy, the letter was just the default com- positional arena.

Because the Poetria nova was the basic composition treatise par excellence, it was applied to letters as a matter of course, rather than with a definite generic focus. In Central Europe, however, what was valued in the commentaries on the Poetria nova was what it teaches about rhetoric, from an abstract, rather theoretical point of view, rather than what it does as a work in and of itself.

The importance of the Poetria nova in most Central European com- mentaries was not, therefore, what Geoffrey accomplished, but how one could use what he said, and not just incidentally, but specifically for the composition of letters.

As I have written elsewhere, the limitations of the Poetria nova as a dictaminal treatise and Geoffrey's lack of theoretical so- phistication - compared with, for example, Aristotle and Cicero - were sometimes pointed out in the university commentaries.

Let me bring up a possible objection. It can be argued that some Central European commentaries - notably both versions of the Early Commentary that I edited and the popular commentary by Dybinus of Prague - are very positive about the Poetria nova as a text and about the accomplishments of its author in writing such a work.

But it is significant, I think, that both these In this passage Geoffrey of Vinsauf uses all of the Figures of Thought in the order established by the Rhetorica ad Herennium.

Marjorie Curry Woods frey's long set piece on the responsibilities ined an artistic construct, that is, a text con- ; and comparability with other Latin verse ibvious application of the work to the stu- would have been the writing of letters. To in Italy, the letter was just the default com- ma nova was the basic composition treatise etters as a matter of course, rather than with ;ver, what was valued in the commentaries t teaches about rhetoric, from an abstract, ather than what it does as a work in and of etria nova in most Central European com- 'hat Geoffrey accomplished, but how one it just incidentally, but specifically for the 'e written elsewhere, the limitations of the arise and Geoffrey's lack of theoretical so- for example, Aristotle and Cicero - were.

It can be argued that some Central ly both versions of the Early Commentary mmentary by Dybinus of Prague - are very as a text and about the accomplishments of :. But it is significant, I think, that both these mf uses all of the Figures of Thought in the order rennium. Petrarch's letter in the copy of the Nazional MS V. They do not dwell on the text itself and on ieoffrey's accomplishments but rather use the work as a springboard to the more important business of analyzing rhetorical theory in the specific context of composing letters.

An ambivalent attitude to the Poetria nova - an appre- ciation of its usefulness as a general rhetorical treatise combined with an a sense of its limitations as a textbook of rhetorical theory or a dictaminal trea- tise - is suggested by the popularity of a work known as the Compendium Poetrie nove, by Otto of Luneburg.

The Compendium, which Martin Camar- go calls a versified ars dictaminis, is a compressed synopsis in mnemonic verses of the basic doctrine of the ars dictaminis. It is often copied with commentaries that create what amounts to a prose ars dictandi that accompa- nies the poem.

There is a reference to the Poetria nova at the end of Otto's text whence presumably its title that refers readers to that work for stylistic issues not covered in the Compendium - evidence suggesting that the author 46 envisaged teaching the Poetria nova and the Compendium in tandem.

In some manuscripts Otto's work was copied with the Poetria nova itself and in others with the same kinds of text with which the Poetria nova and com- mentaries on it were copied. The popularity of the Compendium can, of course, be interpreted in two different ways - it was popular because the Po- etria nova was popular, or it was popular because of limitations of the Po- etria nova - and more research is needed to resolve the issue.

The gradual disappearance of Geoffrey's work also reveals interest- ing differences between its use in the two regions. The Poetria nova contin- ued to be copied in Italy well into the second half of the fifteenth century, though most of the fifteenth-century manuscripts of the work are from the Camargo , especially pp.

See also his mention of this work in "The Pedagogy of the Dictatores" in this volume. I would suggest that what attracted the fourteenth- and earlier fif- teenth-century Italian teachers many of the earliest of whom were, as I men- tioned, associated with the early humanist movement , to Geoffrey - namely, his command of such a range of literary and rhetorical styles, particularly in his examples - is probably what led to his elimination from the curriculum at the end of the fifteenth century, when the use of classical examples exclu- sively became more and more important.

Recall that it was in Italy that Geoffrey of Vinsauf' s literary abilities were most explicitly and exhaustively analyzed in fourteenth-century com- mentaries such as that by Pace of Ferrara. But it may have been these very abilities that led to his becoming old-fashioned in Italy by the end of the fol- lowing century. I infer this conclusion from neglect, rather than from explicit criticism, for Geoffrey's work never received the vitriolic reactions from later humanists accorded to another medieval work, the Doctrinale of Alex- ander of Villa Dei.

It simply gradually disappeared. In Central Europe, however, where his literary abilities were often ig- nored and his lack of theorethical sophistication sometimes contrasted unfa- vorably with prose rhetoricians such as Cicero and Aristotle, Geoffrey's work remained a staple of the educational scene up until the very end of the fifteenth century. Thus, it is not surprising that the unsubstantiated report of an early printing of one excerpt from the work situated that printing in Vi- 48 enna.

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