Erasmo di Valvasone. Angeleida.

Cervigni, Dino S.

Erasmo di Valvasone. Angeleida. A cura di Luciana Borsetto. Manierismo e Barocco, vol. 5: Collana diretta da Guido Baldassarri e Marziano Guglielminetti. Alessandra: Edizioni dell'Orso, 2005.

Only few Renaissance scholars have chanced to come across, in their readings, the name of Erasmo di Valvasone, and even fewer are those who have had the opportunity to read some of his works, including what most likely is his masterpiece: the religious epic poem entitled Angeleida. And yet, Milton read this work, which left some mark on his imagination, since many passages of his Paradise Lost reveal the great bard's indebtedness to Erasmo di Valvasone's Angeleida.

With this edition--the first in about one-hundred and sixty years, and the only one with an extensive introductory essay and rich commentary--Luciana Borsetto makes Erasmo di Valvasone's poem accessible to twenty-first-century readers, provides a scholarly introduction to the subject matter deployed in the poem, and, equally importantly, writes a very extensive commentary to the poem.

Born in Valvasone (Pordenone) in 1523, and almost always at the service of the Republic of Venice while in his native Friuli, Erasmo devoted his life to the study of letters and the practice of poetry, translating (Statius's Thebaid and Sophocles' Electra), writing a courtly poem (I primi quattro canti di Lancillotto, left incomplete), and a religious poem (Le lagrime di S. Maria Maddalena). He published Angeleida in 1590 (Somasco, Venice) and died shortly afterward, in 1593, in Mantua, where during the previous year he had joined the court of the Gonzagas.

The poem's subject matter--the primordial heavenly battle between the forces of good and evil--may at first appear far removed from our twenty-first-century concerns; and yet, what is hidden under the "velo della favola," as Erasmo writes in the poem's dedicatory letter (echoing countless other poets, including Dante), is frighteningly modern, lest we can totally isolate ourselves from our man-made contemporary horrors. What is in fact more contemporary than to view the world divided into two camps, fighting for supremacy, and viewing ideas, groups, and nations as forces of good and evil? Following pagan and classical mythology, as well as the Bible and Christian traditions, Erasmo di Valvasone embodies in his Angeleida all such poetic myths pertaining to that primordial battle, and makes this poetic world available to such a genius as Milton, while inviting all readers to reflect on the hardly inescapable reality of a conflict residing in the beginning of all individual and communal relationships.

Luciana Borsetto elucidates the origins of the victory of the Archangel Michael over Lucifer and his followers, which finds its mythical nucleus in the Bible (Isaiah 14.12; Daniel 10.13-21; 12.1; Peter 2.11; Jude 9; Apocalypse 12.7-10; 20.2; 20.10-15; etc.); further, she points out that, at the same time, the story's poetic rendering is also indebted to Greco-Roman mythology, e.g., the gigantomachy, related by many Greek and Roman poets. Building upon the Bible, but also on pagan mythology, ancient and medieval Christian writers further developed the nucleus of that primordial battle. Christian poets appropriated such a fertile theme, making Lucifer a central figure of their poems (Divine Comedy), or creating entire narratives centered upon that primordial battle. The fruit of much extensive archival research, Borsetto's analysis covers several such poems, which may be seen as precursors of Valvasone's Angeleida, whether or not he was acquainted with them: the Battaglia celeste by Antonino Alfano, in three books, published in Palermo in 1568; Il caso di Lucifero by Amico Agnifilo, printed in L'Aquila in 1582; and finally, after Valvasone's death, La caduta di Lucifero, also in three books, by Giovan Battista Composto da Pozzuoli, published in 1613.

Erasmo di Valvasone's Angeleida constitutes one of the many, certainly one of the most successful, poetic renderings of that primordial battle. Divided into three books, the first is devoted to the description of the celestial harmony, followed by the rebellion of Lucifer and the preparation of the battle between the forces of good and evil. The second book describes the heavenly battle and the defeat of Lucifer. The third book first presents the fall of Lucifer and his minions into hell, while the second half describes the glorious ascent of the victorious angels into the highest heaven and the glory of God. Obviously, such succinct synopsis does not render justice to Erasmo's poetic genius, for he engages in a constant dialogue not only with scriptural, classical, and patristic writers, but also with Dante, Sannazaro, Vida, Ariosto, and Tasso, to name just a few. Tasso, in fact--as Borsetto rightly points out--is fundamental for the poetic rendering of the forces of evil and good, primarily in Gerusalemme liberata 4 and 9, as well as for his elaboration of the epic poem, which subsumes the theoretical principles of earlier sacred poems, such as De partu Virginis by Iacopo Sannazaro (1455/56-1530) and Christias by Marco Girolamo Vida (1485-1566).

Luciana Borsetto's vast erudition and analytical acumen come through very clearly in the extensive introduction (1-62) and even more so in her commentary to each one of the 371 octaves of the poem, filling approximately the bottom half of the two-hundred pages of the volume that contain the edited text of the Angeleida (63-263). Two indices conclude the volume: the second lists the names of biblical, Christian, and classical figures (275-85); the first one identifies most of the references made in the commentary, which include not only the works of Erasmo di Valvasone, but also--to mention but a few--Homer, Cicero, Ovid, Virgil, Dante, Sannazaro, Vida,Tasso, and Milton.

In conclusion, Luciana Borsetto's edited text of the Angeleida, with introduction and commentary, will prove extremely useful to all scholars of the Renaissance, especially those interested in epic poems derived from biblical themes. One cannot but hope that Borsetto will further pursue her investigations into biblical and sacred poems, a worthwhile project--"La tradizione del poema epico-narrativo nel Seicento italiano"--coordinated by Guido Baldassarri of the University of Padua. To all these scholars we are much indebted.

Dino S. Cervigni, The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill