Gian Vittorio Rossi's Eudemiae libri decem

Giachino 2002: 199: “la sinistra onnipresenza e onnipotenza del denaro.” All translations are mine unless otherwise indicated.

Gerboni 1899: 108: “sfogo di vecchi rancori.”

Morrish 2003: 238. While Eudemia is frequently classified under the broad category of novel (IJsewijn 1995: 91; IJsewijn and Sacré 1998: 255; Giachino 2002: 187; Riley 2015: 196; Marsh 2015: 404), it is also described using various generic subcategories: satirical novel (Tilg 2017: 332); roman à clef (Drujon 1966: 1052–7; Gryphius 1710: 491–6; Kytzler 1982: 204; De Smet 1996: 76–7; Hofman 1999: 11); Menippean satire (De Smet 1996: 76; ibid. 2015: 204; IJsewijn 1988: 237; ibid. 1995: 91); and utopia (Tilg 2017: 332; De Smet 1996: 76; Kytzler 1982: 204; Gott and Begley 1902: 361). The utopian genre merits further comment. Whereas Thomas More’s 1516 Utopia narrates a voyage to an ideal land, the voyage narrated in Eudemia is from a corrupt land to an even more corrupt land, which is why Kytzler (1982: 204) places the work on the periphery of the utopian genre. This nonutopian aspect of Eudemia has often been misunderstood. According to Gerboni (1899: 133–4), both Gabriel Naudé and Burkhard Struve considered Eudemia a utopian novel. In his Bibliotheca philosophica Struve includes Rossi in a list of authors who described ideal states (1728: 291–2), and Gerboni cites a letter from Naudé to Rossi (Epistolae 1667: 699), in which the French humanist makes a direct comparison between Eudemia and More’s Utopia: “tuo forsan vel Mori suo exemplo ductus Eudemiam aliquam Utopiamve fingere voluit.” He also cites a passage from Naudé’s Additions et Corrections au Naudaeana et Patiniana (1703: 147) in which Naudé describes Eudemia as a “république bien policée” (“a well-run state”). Additionally, in the bibliography following his translation of Samuel Gott’s Nova Solyma, Walter Begley (1902: 361) lists Eudemia under the category “Utopian Romance of an Ideal City or State.”

Barclay, Riley, and Huber 2004: 3. For an overview of ancient prose fiction see Hägg 1983 and Hofman 1999. For an overview of early modern prose fiction (both in general and as it relates to Rossi’s literary models) see Fleming 1973: xiv–xxvi; IJsewijn and Sacré 1998: 74, 255–6; Morrish 2003: 237–48; Porter 2014; De Smet 2015: 199–214; Riley 2015: 183–97; Glomski and Moreau 2016; Marsh 2017: 308–21; Relihan 2017: 340–57; Tilg 2017: 322–39.

Barclay, Riley, and Huber 2004: 3.

Giachino 2002: 199: “quello che oggi chiameremmo il ‘gossip,’ il martellante e vischioso pettegolezzo che anima e coinvolge tutti i personaggi.”

Gerboni 1899: 2.

Ibid.: 2: “la critica nostra l’ha dimenticata, o meglio non l’ha mai conosciuta.”

Croce and Fabrizi 2003: 136: “ora nessuno lo cerca.”

DBI Volume 88 (2017): www.treccani.it/enciclopedia/gian-vittorio-rossi

IJsewijn 1976: 43.

Morrish 2003: 237.

IJsewijn mentions Eudemia briefly in the chapter on long novels in his Companion to Neo-Latin Studies, and in his article titled “Latin Literature in 17th-century Rome,” he discusses the author and his work within the artistic and intellectual milieu of Rome under the Urban VIII Barberini. The Oxford Handbook of Neo-Latin mentions Rossi a few times: in the chapters “Fiction” (Riley 196), “Satire” (De Smet 206), and “Italy” (Marsh 404).

Croce and Fabrizi 2003: 143.

Griffin 1994: 122.

IJsewijn 1995: 78.

Dialog. sept. XIII (Prefatory letter addressed to Vaius Vaius): “[P]otes … breviter respondere me esse bono genere ortum, bonis prognatum, modicis facultatibus” (see also Gerboni 1899: 7–8). The most thorough source of information on Rossi’s life and works is Gerboni’s 1899 Un umanista nel secento, Giano Nicio Eritreo. Gerboni draws his information primarily from Rossi’s published letters (Epistolae ad diversos, vols. 1 & 2 and Epistolae ad Tyrrhenum, vols. 1 & 2) as well as his book of dialogues (Dialogi septendecim), in particular the thirteenth dialogue, in which Rossi gives a first-person account of his life. In addition, a few vignettes in Eudemia are thought to be inspired by events in Rossi’s own life. Another source is Johann Christian Fischer’s “Vita Ioannis Victorii Roscii vulgo Iani Nicii Erythraei,” which he includes in his 1749 edition of Epistolae ad Tyrrhenum et ad diversos.

Gerboni 1899: 8. A handwritten preface to Rossi’s letters to Fabio Chigi (BAV Chig. A.III.56: 474r) reads: “Hebbe una sorella maritata in Siena a Germanico Tolomei” (“He had a sister who was married in Siena to Germanico Tolomei”). I was unable to find any corroborating information about this.

The last trace we have of Andrea is in Palermo in 1603–4, where he was in the service of the Cardinal of Monreale in Sicily (Gerboni 1899: 12).

Ep. ad div. 1.IV.II: “longe doctissimus atque clarissimus insigni magistratu praeditus”; “propter honorem atque utilitatem.” Rossi never provides this individual’s name. This and the other details of his early career that follow are described in his 1632 letter to Guilelmus Moonsius.

Ep. ad div. 1.IV.II; see also Gerboni 1899: 14.

Employment under Domenico Pinelli and Ludovico de Torres the younger (Archbishop of Monreale in Palermo) were two possibilities that never came to fruition (Gerboni 1899: 17).

This refuge from the city center would become a recurring image in his works. For example, a poem appended to a 1643 letter to Fabio Chigi (Ep. ad Tyrr. 1.XLIII) includes these lines: “Est mihi Ianiculi domus alto in vertice collis / Quamvis parva, tamen qua non formosior ulla” (“I have a house at the top of Janiculum Hill that, though small, is more beautiful than any other”). It seems that he rented this house from Bishop Giulio Sansedoni (Ep. ad. Tyrr. 1.XLIX).

Dialog. sept. XIII: “multoque libentius Plautum, Terentium, Ciceronem, Caesarem sumebam in manus quam Accursium, Bartolum ceterosque auctores.”

The origin story of the Accademia degli Umoristi is told more or less consistently in both contemporary and modern sources: In 1600, during the period of Carnival, a group of literary-minded friends of the nobleman Paolo Mancini gathered at Palazzo Mancini, his home located in the Via del Corso in Rome, on the occasion of his wedding to Vittoria Capozzi. They entertained themselves by improvising and reciting comedies, sonnets, and speeches on various diverting topics. The group decided to keep meeting every eight days to continue this literary activity, and they came to be known as the Belli Humori. When the group formally incorporated in 1608, they adopted the name Accademia degli Umoristi (Maylender and Rava 1976, vol. 5: 370–4; Russo 1979: 47–61; Alemanno 1995: 97–9).

The Academy’s rules are published in an appendix to Russo 1979: 58–61. Signatories to the rules (including Rossi) are listed in Maylender and Rava 1976, vol. 5: 375–80.

Lucr. 637–8. See also Gerboni 1899: 16; Maylender and Rava 1976, vol. 5: 375–80.

The Accademia degli Umoristi, along with many of its members who also appear in Rossi’s Pinacotheca and under pseudonyms in his Eudemia, are mentioned in Tassoni’s mock-epic poem La secchia rapita (XV.41): Gaspare Salviani, Paolo Mancini, Virginio Cesarini, Arrigo Falconio, Carlo Mazzei (also known as Carlo a Sant’Antonio di Padova), and Pietro Sforza Pallavicino.

Alemanno 1995: 99: “ritenute degne per nobilità di sangue, per letteratura non mediocre, o per eccellenza di qualche artefitio spettabile.”

Fumaroli 1978: 797–835. The Academy itself continued until 1717, but its major cultural impact was felt during Urban VIII’s papacy (1623 to 1644), the period during which Rossi was an active member (Alemanno 1995: 99–100).

Ibid.: 99–100.

Gerboni 1899: 16: “il fior della cittadinanza.”

Ibid.: 19; see also Ep. ad div. 1.IV.II.

Ep. ad div. 1.IV.II: “quicquid paulo limatius elegantiusque ex Vestrii domo prodibat illud omnes meo praesertim ingenio industriaque perfectum elaboratumque existimabant esse.”

Ep. ad div. 1.II.IV.

Ibid.; see also Ep. ad div. 1.IV.II.

There is some question as to how long Rossi was in Peretti’s employ. According to Gerboni (1899: 25), Peretti died August 3, 1628, but his death date was in fact June 2, 1623 (DBI). Gerboni calculates that Rossi began working for the cardinal in 1610, disputing the 1608 date given by Jean Pierre Niceron (1736: 227–8). Gerboni bases his calculation on Rossi’s own statement regarding the length of time he worked for Peretti—which was either eighteen years (“illos duodeviginti annos … ei navaverim operam,” Dialog. sept. XIII) or twenty years (“viginti enim annis inanissimis officiis [aula] me implicitum occupatumque detinuit,” Ep. ad div. 2.VIII.VI)—and subtracting that from what he believed was Peretti’s death date of 1628. Since Peretti died in 1623, however, either Rossi began working for Peretti in 1603 or 1605, while he was still employed elsewhere, or his statement about working for eighteen or twenty years was rhetorical and simply meant “a long time.”

Ep. ad div. 2.II.V; see also Gerboni 1899: 26.

Rossi’s true feelings toward his noble employer are difficult to ascertain. On the one hand, he composed a laudatory poem (included in Ep. ad div. 1.IV.XXVI) titled “In obitum Alexandri Peretti Cardinalis Montalti” (“On the occasion of the death of Cardinal Alessandro Peretti di Montalto”), in which he refers to Peretti as “Ille insignis Alexander et inclutus / qua sol surgit et occidit” (“that remarkable and renowned Alexander on whom the sun rose and set”). On the other hand, Rossi repurposed this very same poem in Book Four of Eudemia, where it is recited at the funeral procession of a nobleman named Alexander, at the conclusion of which the narrator tempers his praise by commenting that the nobleman had actually won the love of the populace more thanks to his philanthropy than because he boasted any great learning or notable accomplishments.

Rossi made this move unwillingly, as he explains in Ep. ad. Tyrr. 1.XLIX: “ab illis [aedibus] exeundum est mihi; pellor enim ab homine potenti, vicino meo, qui ab invito eas domino coemit ut domui magnifici a se exaedificatae coniungat” (“I have to leave [this house]; I’m being forced out by a powerful man, my neighbor, who purchased it against the wishes of the owner because it abuts the magnificent house that he built”).

Gerboni 1899: 40–1.

Gerboni 1899: 41–2; De Gregori 1942: 268. The Aqua Marrana was a medieval aqueduct that brought water from the Alban Hills to the Lateran section of town. Regarding his title, which he calls a “nudus honor,” Rossi writes: “Ego autem ad meum officium quod attinet nunquam scivi quaenam esset haec aqua Marana, unde orietur, qua flueret, quid utilitatis ex ea Populus Romanus acciperet” (“Regarding my title, I have never known what the Aqua Marrana was, where it originated, where it flowed, and what use it was to the Roman people” Ep. ad Tyrr. 2.LXVII). Such purely honorary titles were a mechanism for raising money for the public coffers. Citizens could purchase fanciful titles like Commissario dell’Acqua Marrana, Guardiano della Meta Sudante, Revisore delle Mura della Città di Roma, Custode dei Trofei di Mario, and in return they would receive an annual payout much like a municipal bond coupon. This system continued until 1811, when it was abolished by imperial decree (De Gregori 1942: 268–9). Rossi stopped receiving payouts for his title around 1645, and in 1647 he protested by penning, in jest, an oration titled “Pro pecunia mea” addressed to the Senatus Populusque Romanus (S.P.Q.R.) and appealing to the Patres conscripti (senators), making the case that he deserved this income because of the honor his publications, with their elegant Latin, brought to the city (this oration, the twenty-second in his work Orationes viginti duae, is a clear reference to Cicero’s Pro domo sua). Rossi fought to have his stipend reinstated on other fronts as well, including complaining to Fabio Chigi in a number of letters (e.g., Ep. ad Tyrr. 2.LI and 2.LIII). Some combination of complaining and public pressure apparently succeeded, since he managed to obtain at least a partial reimbursement for the missed payments shortly before his death (Ep. ad Tyrr. 2.LXVII; Gerboni 1899: 42–4; De Gregori 1942: 272–3).

Gerboni 1899: 29 citing Dialog. sept. V

Ibid.: 29.

Ibid.: 30–1.

Mandosio 1682–92: 253–4; Gerboni 1899: 45; DBI.

Cherchi 1997: 301. Art historians generally define the period as spanning from the late sixteenth century (the end of Mannerism) to the late seventeenth century (the beginning of Rococo) (Battistini 2000: 14–5; Galluzzi 2005: 16). Historians of literature have traditionally set the parameters of the Baroque period as beginning with the death of the poet Torquato Tasso in 1595 and ending with the foundation of the Accademia dell’Arcadia in 1690 (Maravall 1986: 3–4; Cherchi 1997: 301).

Galluzzi 2005: 24.

Mirollo 1963: 166; Cherchi 1997: 304.

Battistini 2000: 12; Rietbergen 2006: 11.

Galluzzi 2005: 17.

Rietbergen 2006: 13. Battistini (2000: 22) describes the Baroque period in Italy as the manifestation of a profound anthropological crisis that produced upheavals and imbalances resulting in the progressive shift of the political center of gravity from Italy and the Mediterranean to northern Europe.

Rietbergen 2006: 11, 137.

Fumaroli 1978: 801, 803.

Rietbergen 2006: 11; Fumaroli 1978: 801.

Fumaroli 1978: 812–3.

Cherchi 1997: 301; Galluzzi 2005: 22, 25. The negative assessment of the Baroque period began with literary critics in the Arcadian period of the late seventeenth century, continued through the eighteenth century Romantics, and was supported by the influential critics Francesco De Sanctis in the nineteenth century and Benedetto Croce in the twentieth century (Asor Rosa 1974: 3; Fumaroli 1978: 802).

IJsewijn 1995: 82. IJsewijn’s assertion that the Baroque era embraces “bad taste and extravagance” is also incomplete and itself falls into the literary critical tradition that viewed vernacular Baroque literature in a negative light. Drawing a distinction between measured literature in Latin and extravagant literature in Italian risks doing a disservice to the complexity of both. A case in point is Giambattista Marino, who has been held up by literary critics as the epitome of the exaggerated Baroque style embodying “everything bad in the Baroque world” (Cherchi 1997: 301). Marino, however, actually shunned gratuitous virtuosity and advocated moderation, distinguishing in his 1614 Dicerie sacre between l’eccellente and il goffo (excellence and gaudiness) (Galluzzi 2005: 41). Moreover, Marino was a member of the Accademia degli Umoristi and was even elected its Principe in 1623.

Fumaroli 1978: 828–30.

Ep. ad div. 1.IV.13: “novum … atque sublime” (as quoted also in Gerboni 1899: 101–2). Among the other sources Gerboni cites where Rossi expresses his preference for ancient authors, especially Cicero, over what Gerboni (1899: 102, n. 1–2) calls the “nuova scuola,” are: Ep. ad div. 1.V.10, 1.VII.1, 1.VII.3; Ep. ad div. 2.IX.7, 2.IX.8.

Ep. ad div. 1.VII.1: “verba pura atque dilucida, sententias apertas”; “semper tumidi, semper inflati, alas pandunt, montium vertices appetunt, nubes et inania captunt” (the last phrase is from Hor. Ars. P. 230). This letter is addressed to Girolamo Aleandro the younger (see also Gerboni 1899: 102). Rossi repurposes this letter as his dedicatory letter to Girolamo Aleandro in Eudemia.

Cherchi 1997: 304.

Liber IV.3: “sane pudeat me Virgilianis similes versus efficere.”

Liber IX.2: “scriptores veteres … ad sui iudicium acuminis revocare ac de diuturna regni possessione … est conatus deicere.”

Rietbergen 2006: 11.

These orations would eventually be collected together, augmented by others, and published by Joan Blaeu in 1649 under the title Orationes viginti duae.

Gerboni 1899: 107–8; Giachino 2002: 187.

Ep. ad div. 1.VI.XXXVII: “omnes uno ore mihi fuere auctores ut typis mandarem” (“everyone unanimously prompted me to publish it”).

Ep. ad div. 1.III.XV: “[Satyram] ego possim epistola, quae tuas veras laudas contineat, eidem praefixa, tuo nomini inscriptam emittere, et quantum mihi ingenii vires ferunt, tibi decus, mihi ipsi laudem acquirere.”

Giovanni Battista Tamantini. The identity of Thaumantinus (alternative spellings Thaumantius and Thaumas), as well as of Hermannus—the other Rome-based bookseller frequently mentioned in Rossi’s works (e.g., Ep. ad div. 1.VII.XXVI and Ep. ad Tyrr. 1.XXIII)—has eluded Rossi scholars. Gerboni (1899: 108, n. 3; 130), for example, conflates the two, identifying Thaumantinus as a certain “Hermannus.” I have concluded that Thaumantinus is Tamantini (given the similarity of his real name to the pseudonym) and that Hermannus is the bookseller Hermann Scheus. Corroboration of these identifications is that Tamantini and Scheus were collaborators in real life. In 1624, the bookseller Andrea Brogiotti, who had his shop in Piazza di Pasquino at the sign of the Sun, entrusted the running of his bookshop to his nephew Giovanni Battista Tamantini and to Hermann Scheus (Franchi and Sartori 1994, vol. 1: 92–3, incl. 92, n. 7). In 1627 or 1628 Brogiotti sold his business to his nephew Tamantini and Scheus opened his own shop in Piazza di Pasquino at the sign of the Queen (Romani 1973: 78; Santoro et al. 2013: 193). Barthold Nihus’s mention of “Hermannus Scheus” in a letter to Rossi (BAV Chig. I.VII.244: fol. 255v–256r) is the only contemporary epistolary documentation I have found of his full name.

Ep. ad div. 1.IV.XVI: “Itaque bibliopolae illi in animo est Venetias imprimendam eam mittere” (“the bookseller has in mind to send it to Venice for printing”).

Most likely Hermann Scheus, whom Rossi describes in Ep. ad Tyrr. 1.XXIII as a “bibliopola Romae in primis nobilis, qui cum omnibus fere Europae impressoribus magnae pecuniae rationem habet” (“a particularly well-respected bookseller in Rome who does a lot of business with almost all of the printers in Europe”).

Ep. ad div. 2.VIII.VI: “Venit die quodam ad me bibliopola, amicus meus, cum Argedine Ioannis Barclaii, cuius ego libri inspiciendi eram oppidus. Ac ioci causa: ‘Habeo,’ inquam, ‘ego quoque librum … huic non longe dissimilem.’ Tum ille: ‘Ced[e] mihi eum,’ ait ‘ut legam.’ Confestim tradidi, eo animo ut numquam repeterem. At vix biennium intercesserat ab hoc sermone cum illo habito, cum mihi libenter quem in malam rem abisse credideram Lugduni Batavorum impressus ostenditur.” The title page of Eudemiae libri VIII indicates no publisher, but we know that Barclay’s Argenis was published in 1630 in Leiden by Abraham and Bonaventure Elzevier (it is listed, for example, in the four Elzevier bibliographies: Rahir 1896: 456; Berghman 1911: 1314; Copinger 1927: 1643; Willems 1974: 456).

Rossi’s justification for using a pseudonym was to avoid scorn in the face of a negative reaction to his satire: “ad vitandam invidiam alio [satyram] nomine inscripserim” (Ep. ad div. 1.III.XV). More than a decade later, after the publication of the 1645 edition, he told Kaspar Schoppe that he had wanted to conceal his identity because he was embarrassed by the book: “cuius libri cum postea puderet … in eo loco Io. Victorii Roscii Iani Nicii Erythraei nomen inscripsi” (Ep. ad div. 2.VIII.VI).

Pallavicino 1839: 49.

Chigi wrote in a 1642 letter to Nihus that Rossi had praised him, using the name Tyrrhenus, during an Academy meeting sixteen years earlier (BAV Chig. a.I.44: fol. 90v).

BAV Chig.I.VII.246: 12r–13r: “Venit ad manus meas nuper plures inter libros ex Hollandia advectos tua Eudemia.”

Iani Nicii Erythraei Dialogi (Paris: Jacques Villery, 1642). Complaints about this French edition are in, for example, Ep. ad Tyrr. 1.XXII and 1.XXXI. Naudé mentions Rossi’s being blacklisted in Rome in a 1641 letter to Jacques Dupuy written while he was searching for a publisher for the Dialogi: “Si Pélé n’a point d’autre raison pour imprimer les Dialogues de Nicius que de demander pourquoi on ne les imprime pas à Rome, vous lui pourrez dire, s’il vous plaît, que c’est à cause de l’Eudemia imprimée en Hollande, car la cour de Rome n’étant pas épargnée en icelle, le Maître du Sacré Palais ne veut pas que le nom de Janus Nicius paraisse sur des livres imprimés en cette ville. ” (“If [Guillaume] Pelé has no reason not to print the Dialogues of Nicius other than to inquire why they are not being printed in Rome, please tell him that it’s because of Eudemia, which was printed in Holland. Because he didn’t spare the Roman Curia in that work, the Master of the Sacred Palace didn’t want the name Ianus Nicius appearing on any works printed in that city” (Naudé and Wolfe 1982: 124).

Ep. ad Tyrr. 1.II: “Nam ab eo die [Naudaeus] magnam in spem venit posse contingere ut istic, ubi celebres officinas impressorias esse non ignorat, tua auctoritate et gratia imprimatur illud opus quod nuper de viris aliqua ingenii fama notis me vivo vita functis absolvi. Itaque quoties me videt (videt autem saepissime) rogat, instat, urget ut id a te beneficium quanta vi potest efflagitem” (“From that day Naudé held out great hope of it coming to pass that, on account of your influence and sway, the work I recently completed—about men who were famous because of their ingenuity and who passed away during my lifetime—could be published there in Cologne, where he knows there are famous publishing houses. Every time he sees me (which is quite often) he asks, insists, and urges me, with all the strength he can muster, to beseech this favor of you”).

Nihus wrote to Chigi in July of 1642 that he had spoken to both of these publishers about it: “De Pinacotheca egi cum duobus bibliopolis Blawio et Elzevirio” (BAV Chig. I.V.170: fol. 31r; also published in Hoogewerff 1917: 379).

“Et paratus tunc Elzevirius excudere quidem, sed non nisi mense abhinc septimo quod praela nunc aliis operibus occupata habeat. Eudemiae exemplaria divendita esse ait omnia; auctorem itaque sibi placere omnino et ab eodem ad se pervenisse Eudemiam auctiorem quam fuit ante” (“Elzevier is prepared to print it as well, but not for another seven months, because his presses are occupied with other projects. He says that all of the copies of Eudemia have sold out, which the author is very happy about, and he said that he has received from the author a version of Eudemia that is longer than the previous one” (BAV Chig. I.V.170: fol. 31r; also published in Hoogewerff 1917: 379).

Blaeu, who was based in the Calvinist city of Amsterdam, issued books on Catholic subjects or by Catholic authors with the imprint of the Cologne-based printers Cornelius ab Egmondt, Johann Kinckius, or Jost Kalckhoven. Dutch printers did this either to protect their Calvinist identity or, more likely, to avoid “needlessly disturbing relations with foreign rulers” (Frijhoff and Spies 2004: 266), thus protecting the market for Catholic books in the south (Clemens 1992: 90). What is more, the official Catholic censor in Amsterdam, Leonardus Marius, had the authority to approve books under the name of the Cologne-based Catholic censor Henricus Francken Sierstorpff, whose name appears in all of Rossi’s books printed by Blaeu, as Nihus explains to Chigi: “necessaria adprobatio censoris librorum D. Marius potestatem habet adponendi nomen D. Sierstorfii” (BAV Chig. I.V.170: fol. 33rv; also published in Hoogewerff 1917: 380).

In the chapter on Rossi’s Pinacotheca included in his survey of seventeenth-century Italian literature, Benedetto Croce (Croce and Fabrizi 2003: 136) describes the work as depicting characters who are “disordinati, squilibrati, pazzeschi” (“messy, unbalanced, and mad”) and in a manner that underscores their psychological quirkiness. As a matter of fact, the prospect of having his quirks immortalized in Pinacotheca so concerned the French scholar Jean-Jacques Bouchard that, as the first volume of Rossi’s collection of portraits was being prepared, he had Cassiano Dal Pozzo intervene on his behalf with Chigi to have his biography removed (Herklotz 2008).

As of this writing, I am collaborating with Luisella Giachino to translate the 1643 Pinacotheca. See Appendix B for a complete list of Rossi’s published works.

Nihus and Chigi exchanged letters to this effect in July 1643, with Nihus informing Chigi that: “exemplaria Pinacothecae intellego esse ferme divendita in Belgio, Polonia, Gallia et Italia” (“I understand that copies of Pinacotheca have almost sold out in the Low Countries, Poland, France, and Italy” [BAV Chig. I.V.170: fol. 61rv; also published in Hoogewerff 1917: 382]); and likewise Chigi confirming to Nihus that: “Pinacotheca triplo quam ab initio venditur. In Italia desunt iam exemplaria” (Pinacotheca is selling three times as fast as it did initially. It has already sold out in Italy” [BAV Chig. a.I.44: fol. 164rv]).

BAV Chig. I.V.170: fol. 122rv: “Blavius paratissimus est excudere niciana omnia.”

“Eudemia necdum coepta excudi … Itaque Ludovicus [Elzevier] Leydae praelo subiciendam Eudemiam dixit, ubi volumina alia necdum absoluta esse ait. Scribet tamen iam denuo istuc ad suum cognatum ut significat quando Eudemiae fieri possit initium. Ipsius typographia exigua Amstelodami non vacat” (“the printing of Eudemia has not yet begun … Lodowijk [Elzevier] said that Eudemia would be printed in Leiden, where he says there are other works that have yet to be completed. He will write yet again to his cousin [Abraham] in Leiden so he can let him know when he might get started on Eudemia. His [Lodowijk’s] own presses in Amsterdam are not available”).

The present edition retains the excised passages in square brackets. In BAV Chig. I.V.170: fol. 165r–166r Nihus writes: “Perendie dabit mihi impressos typographus octerniones Eudemiae duos primos … Ex Eudemia delevi aliqua … alias enim D. Marius non auderet approbare et quidem nomine Domini Sierstorfii (“The day after next the pressman will give me the first two gatherings of Eudemia … I have deleted a few things [from it] here and there … otherwise [the censor] Don [Leonardus] Marius would not dare approve it, even under the name of name of Don [Henricus Francken] Sierstorpff” [published in Hoogewerff 1917: 390; see also Herklotz 2017: 173]). It should be noted that, in a 1643 letter to Chigi, Rossi implies that the Elzeviers did print the second edition of his book and that a few copies had reached Italy: “Accepi a quodam qui se vidisse affirmat fuisse Romam missa tria Eudemiae exempla denuo cum auctario duorum librorum, qui desiderabantur, in Belgio impressae” (“I heard from someone, who confirmed he had seen it, that three copies of Eudemia had been printed in the Low Countries, which at last included the two additional missing books” (Ep. ad Tyrr. XXXIII; see also Gerboni [1899: 115], Incisa della Rocchetta [1949: 220], and Maragoni [2006: 152]). Gerboni, Incisa della Rocchetta, and Maragoni do not question the existence of a 1642 edition in ten books, but I am not convinced that any such edition exists because Nihus’s letters clearly indicate that the Elzeviers never got the book into production, and no edition besides the 1637 editio princeps is listed in the bibliographies of Elzevier imprints (Berghman; Copinger; Rahir; Willems).

Rossi died in 1647 but he had a hand in the preparation of the works that Blaeu published after his death. Any works published after 1649, beginning with the 1676 imprint of Exempla virtutum et vitiorum, were new editions prepared using the existing editions as the exemplar but without the involvement of the original collaborators (Barthold Nihus died in 1657 and Fabio Chigi was elevated to the papacy in 1655). The continued interest in Rossi by German scholars and publishers is evidenced by the almost exclusively German editions of his works, with the addition of many notes and prefatory materials, that continued to be prepared and published through the late 1740s. See Appendix B for a complete list of Rossi’s published works.

Eud. 1998: https://mcl.as.uky.edu/praefationem-composuit-terentius-tunberg

“Per l’edizione dell’Eudemia di Giano Nicio Eritreo. II. Eudemiae. Liber primus.” Aprosiana: rivista annuale di studi barocchi 14 (2006): 105–57.

Tobia is the only one of Rossi’s plays listed in Drammaturgia di Leone Allacci divisa in sette indici (Roma: Per il Mascardi, 1666). The entry reads, “Tobia, ridotto in atti recitabili da Gio: Vittorio de Rossi insieme con le rime sue spirituali, in Viterbo appresso Agostino Discepoli 1629 in 4.v.” (317–8). See also Gerboni 1899: 39; Giachino 2002: 186; Rossi’s entry in DBI. Both Gerboni and Giachino write that Tobia was published in 1623, which differs from the 1629 date provided by Allacci.

Ep. ad. div. 1.IV.XVI; Gerboni 1899: 39; DBI. The Polish ambassador (“legatus regis Poloniae”) was probably Jerzy Ossoliński.

Ep. ad div. 1.VI.XXXVII; Gerboni: 39–40; DBI.

For a list of lost works see Gerboni 1899: 74 and Giachino 2002: 186. These lost works are also listed under the entry for “Ioannes Victorius Roscius” in the second volume of Prospero Mandosio’s Bibliotheca romana (1682–92: 251–5). Mandosio was a member of the Accademia degli Umoristi.

These two published keys share the same incorrect spellings for the names Cumanus (instead of Humanus, the pseudonym for Pope Urban VIII) and Clusius (instead of Plusius, the pseudonym for Cardinal Peretti di Montalto), as well as sharing identifications that do not appear in any other keys: Pedro Manuel Girón de Velasco, the third Duke of Osuna, for an unnamed praetor in Book Nine, and the German astronomer Christoph Scheiner for a man in Book Ten who is lauded for his invention of a telescope (whereas every other source identifies that man as Galileo Galilei). It is reasonable to conclude, therefore, that the 1710 Gryphius key is the source for Drujon’s 1888 key.

Eud. 1998: https://mcl.as.uky.edu/liber-i

British Library, 12410.aa.16 (published in Caruso 2000: 462–2) and Houghton Library, Harvard University MS Lat 306.1. See Fig. 5 and Fig. 6 for an image of the first leaf of each of these manuscript keys. Although the British Library manuscript is sewn into a copy of the 1645 edition in ten books, the identifications only go through Book Eight. Additionally, the two manuscripts share identifications that do not appear in any of the other keys: the physician Pompeio Caimo for Aristarchus, the jurist Girolamo Rocca for Obtusus, a certain “Giovanni Battista de Asti con Monsignor Virile” for Asterius, and the lover of the Duchessa Sforza for Cleobulus. These similarities suggest the existence of an exemplar key to the 1637 edition that readers were copying from.

1875: 192: “n’haveva [il] sig. Jacopo Bouchard gentilhuomo francese penetrati molti di quei nomi, che credo resti la nota tra i suoi manoscritti” (“the French gentleman Jean-Jacques Bouchard got to the bottom of many of the names in it, and I believe these identifications are still among his papers”).

1677: 196 (as mentioned in Gryphius [1710: 491]): “Ma già che habbiamo fatto mentione dell’Eudemia, non sarebbe gran fatto che, prima di compiere questo libro, mi risolvessi di pubblicarne la chiave, che in parte dall’autore era stata communicata a Giovan Battista Tamantini che governava la libraria del Sole” (“As long as I have mentioned Eudemia, it would not be a great effort on my part, before finishing my book, to publish a key, which was partially communicated by the author to Giovanni Battista Tamantini, who ran the bookstore at the [sign of the] Sun”).

Ep. ad div. 2.IX.V: “Non dubito quin superioribus diebus nonnihil in mea Eudemia sis offensus quod in referendis nonnullorum vitiis non semel modestiae fines praeterierim. Sed fac tibi veniat in mentem Horatii, Iuvenalis aliorumque qui summa cum liberatate tum verborum tum sententiarum in hoc eodem argumenti genere sunt versati; ac praesertim tibi subice Petronium Arbitrum quem ego imitando sum conatus effingere. Hic enim, ut videre potuisti, multo, ut de Lucilio Horatius inquit, aceto et sale urbem perfricuit. Denique memineris satyram eam esse quam in tot corruptis ac perditis hominum moribus non scribere difficillimum puto.” The reference to Horace is from Sat. I.X.3–4.

Juv. 1.30.

The genre itself is named for Menippus of Garda, who was supposed to have invented the style for his serio-comic writings (Costa 2005: x). Menippus is less known by his own writings than as the character Menippus in the satires of Lucian of Samosata, whose comic dialogues and colloquial speech “supplied an important lacuna in classical literature by providing [early modern authors] a model of prose satire” (Marsh 1998: 10). Besides Lucian, Menippean satire was received into Neo-Latin literature principally via Varro, Seneca, Apuleius, and Petronius (Tilg 2017: 323, referencing De Smet 1996: 60–8). De Smet (1996: 70) offers a useful working definition of humanist Menippean satire: “fictional (mostly first-person) narratives in prose interspersed with verse (which can, but need not be original), aimed at mockery and ridicule and often moralizing.” Tilg (2017: 323) explains that early modern authors composed their satires along two strains of Menippean satire, “Varronian” and “Petronian,” the former being “static, non-narrative, and focused on a single event” like Seneca’s Apocolocyntosis and the latter being “dynamic, narrative, and episodic” in the style of Petronius Arbiter’s Satyricon.

Rudd 1982: 86.

Davie 2011: viii.

Rudd 1982: 88.

For modern scholars, the identification of the author of the Satyricon with Petronius, Nero’s “arbiter of elegance,” is not a completely settled matter (OCD), but early modern authors did make this association. The Satyricon became a model for early modern romans à clef because humanist authors believed that Petronius was ridiculing the “depravities of Nero’s court under fictional names” (De Smet 1996: 85; see also Grafton 1990: 242). In his 1694 edition of Satyricon, François Nodot published a key revealing the supposed identities of the various characters (Barclay and Fleming 1973: xxi; see also Grafton 1990: 245). Though the frequent banquets and the presence of charlatans in Eudemia are reminiscent of the Cena Trimalchionis (Trimalchio's Dinner), the most famous passage in Petronius’s novel, that portion of the Satyricon was not rediscovered until 1650 (and not published until 1664), so it would not have been a model for Rossi (De Smet 1996: 103–4).

Rossi’s contemporary Galileo Galilei, for example, frequented his same intellectual circles. Galileo appears as a character in Book Ten of Eudemia.

Weinbrot 2005: 17–8. This “harsh mode” is a product of what Weinbrot calls “Bion’s, Menippus’s, and Lucian’s Greek outrage” (23), a reference to the satirists Bion of Borysthenes, Menippus of Garda, and Lucian of Samosata.

Rudd 1982: 92.

Weinbrot 2005: 18, 24.

Ep. ad div. 1.III.XV: “Hac in satyra, seu si malis historia (ita ego eam appello).”

Ep. ad div. 1.IV.XVI: “satyram meam, vel historiam potius … nam quamvis quae in ea narrantur mendaciunculis asperserim vera sunt ac me vivo contigerunt.”

Griffin (1994: 124) is referring to the ancient “exemplary” theory of history, which the Renaissance inherited.

David Marsh (1998: 2–6) explains that Lucian was appreciated in the early modern period as a master of rhetoric, a moral philosopher, an iconoclast, and a “provocative satirist”: “One of Lucian’s most cherished literary ideals is that of parrhēsia, or outspokenness—a trait that links Lucian with two of the most outspoken humanists of the Renaissance, Lorenzo Valla and Desiderius Erasmus.”

Lucian and Harmon 1953: 253.

Ep. ad div. 1.IV.XVI: “Qui censores delectati dicuntur et argumento et stylo neque indignam eam iudicarunt, quae typis mandetur.”

To Barberini (Ep. ad div. 1.VI.III); to Merlino (Ep. ad div. 2.VI.V); see also Gerboni 111–3. IJsewijn (1999: 140) is of the opinion that, unlike John Barclay’s response to the reception of his Euphormionis lusinini satyricon, Rossi “never had to write an apology, as did Barclay. As far as we know, a few friendly letters cleared the air.” While it is true that Rossi never published a formal apologia, his letters to Barberini and Merlino, which argue thoroughly in his own defense, read as such. In fact, in an exchange of letters between Barthold Nihus and Fabio Chigi in August and September of 1644, the letter to Francesco Barberini is explicitly referred to as an “apologia pro Eudemia,” and there was some concern about printing the letter as written. In the same series of letters, Chigi gives Nihus permission to emend the letter (BAV Chig. I.V.170: fol. 150r–151r, 152rv, 153rv, 154r–155r; and BAV Chig. a.i.44: fol. 274rv, 276r). Francesco Barberini’s reaction to the letter may well have been influenced by the German humanist Lucas Holstenius’s negative view of it (Holstenius was a member of the Cardinal’s household in Rome). Rossi apparently expressed concern to Chigi about this opinion, which Chigi mentions in a 1643 letter to Rossi (BAV Chig. a.I.44: fol. 147rv): “Significasti mihi aliquando Holstenium contra Eudemiam movisse omnes lapides” (“You once told me that Holstenius had left no stone unturned in opposing Eudemia”). Moreover, Incisa della Rocchetta (1949: 218–9, n. 9) cites a 1642 letter from Rossi (BAV Chig. A.III.56: fol. 493r), in which he tells Chigi that Holstenius claimed the novel was “Calvini Institutionibus perniciosiorem” (“more pernicios than John Calvin’s Institutes) and that its author should receive the death penalty (“auctorem per summos cruciatus vita spoliandum”).

Ep. ad div. 1.VI.III: “Cepi dolorem quantum maximum animo capere possum cum est ad me perlatum esse aliquos qui tibi pro certo affirmare audeant meo ex ingenio librum illum prodiisse qui nunc recens emanavit in vulgus, cui titulus est Eudemia, neque alio argumento ducuntur nisi quod is Ianum Nicium Erythraeum esse auctorem venditet” (“I was pained as much as my soul could possibly bear when I received word that there were people who had the gall to tell you that I was the author of that recently published book titled Eudemia, and they provide no other proof than that the author is named Ianus Nicius Erythraeus”).

Ibid.: “perniciosum, corruptorem morum, famae aulicorum ac dignitatis eversorem.” It can be no coincidence that this language closely parallels the Venetian Council of Ten’s application of the rules imposed by the Index to the printing industry in Venice, that in any work “non s’attrovi cosa alcuna contro la Relgione, nè contra Principi, nè contra buoni costumi” (cited in Brown 1891: 214).

Ibid.: “non ad eum finem ut laudetur sed ut rideatur, vel potius, ut tanquam odio, vituperatione atque etiam supplicio dignum exsibiletur explodeturque.”

“Etenim ex decem libris quibus universum illud opus constabat octo tantum in vulgus emisit” (“Besides, of the ten books that made up the whole work, only eight were published”). I agree with Gerboni’s (1899: 115) assessment that it is unlikely there were two additional books accidentally left out of the 1637 printing, since many of the additions and corrections in the 1645 edition were precipitated by reader reactions to Eudemia. Interestingly, a bookseller named Thaumas, an interlocutor in the first of his Dialogi, informs a character named Erythraeus that his two lost books have been found and are going to be published: “libros illos duos ab impressore amissos esse inventos et propediem edendos” (“those two book have been found, which had been lost by the printer, and will be published soon”). The Dialogi was first published in 1642, which is during the time period when the Elzeviers were sitting on the second edition that included Rossi’s manuscripts for Books Nine and Ten.

“Quaenam autem aptior, quae utilior, quae suavior quaeque efficacius in animos hominum influat, reprehendendi ratio reperiri potest, quam quae suppressis nominibus mutatisque locis ac temporibus in fictis personis vitiosas animi affectiones, tanquam per ludum iocumque, coarguit? Id semper tum Graecorum tum Romanorum moribus licitum permissumque fuisse veterum monumenta testantur. Tum, ‘ridentes dicere verum, quis vetat?’ inquit Horatius. ‘At tu,’ iterum aiunt, ‘foedas privatorum quorundam libidines, turpes cogitatu, non solum memoratu oratione tua, tanquam penicillo expressas, ante oculos statuis atque proponis.’ At isti fortasse ex eorum numero erunt quos turpia isthaec flagitia sectari magis quam fugere facta delectet. Sint illa quidem (ut dicitis) impura exsecrabilia sint suppliciis omnibus digna; at quaedam in illis festivitas ines, quae ad excitandum utiliter risum et ad improborum insidias et machinationes detegendas eludendasque in primis valeant.”

“ridiculum acri / fortius et melius magnas plerumque secat res” (“great issues are usually resolved more forcefully and more effectively by wit than by castigation”). Translation from Rudd 1982: 93.

Before Barclay, humanist authors did not tend to imitate the Satyricon directly. There were various reasons for this, one of which is that it was available to them only in a very fragmentary form (De Smet 1996: 241), and another is because the erotic nature of the work made readers and would-be imitators cautious about declaring open adherence to Petronius (Barclay and Fleming 1973: xxiv).

De Smet 1996: 32–3. The first early modern Menippean satire was Justus Lipsius’s 1581 Satyra Menippaea somnium (ibid.: 33). For Barclay’s Euphormionis lusinini satyricon and Argenis as inspirations for Eudemia see also Giachino 2002: 190.

Barclay and Fleming 1973: xvii.

Ibid.: xviii.

Ibid.: xix–xx.

Ibid.: ix. For a list of editions of Euphormionis lusinini satyricon see ibid.: 355–7.

Ibid.: ix; Fleming 1967: 97–8.

Barclay and Fleming 1973: ix.

Griffin 1994: 120.

A facing page Latin-English edition is available: Barclay, Riley, and Huber, 2004.

For a summary of the plot see Barclay, Riley, and Huber 2004: 12–6. For more discussion of sources for Argenis that inform the plot see Glomski and Moreau 2016: 60–1.

Fleming 1967: 83.

Morrish 2003: 238; Barclay, Riley, and Huber 2004: 3. For a list of the editions and translations of Argenis see Barclay, Riley, and Huber 2004: 51–8. For a detailed look at the sources for Argenis see ibid.: 26–30.

Barclay, Riley, and Huber 2004: 11.

Ibid.: 24. Many of the supporting characters do represent real people, such as Ibburanes (Maffeo Barberini), Hieroleander (Girolamo Aleandro, the younger), and Nicopompus (John Barclay himself).

Pinacotheca tertia 1648: 74: “In iis [oratoribus] qui extra Urbem Romam atque adeo extra Italiam Latinis literis studium suum dederunt Joannes Barclaius numeratur, cuius ego legi Argedinem et partem etiam Euphormionis degustavi tum cum nondum lata lex erat ne bibliopolae cuipiam liceret eum vendere aut cuiquam domi habere ac legere.” It is likely that Rossi knew Barclay personally while Barclay was living in Rome from 1615 to 1623, under the patronage of Pope Paul V and moving in the same literary circles (Barclay and Fleming 1973: xiv).

A Papal Nuncio ordered all copies of the 1607 edition seized and destroyed, but another edition was published in 1609 (copying the 1607 edition) and circulated more widely despite its listing on the Index (Barclay and Fleming 1973: xiii–xiv, xxxv). In 1610 Barclay published a defense of his work titled Euphormionis satyrici apologia pro se (Parisiis: Apud Franciscum Huby, 1610; often published as the third part of the Euphormionis lusinini satyricon), in which he defends his work as an “innocentem ludum” (“innocent sport”) saying that his aim was to denounce many different shameful acts through a pleasing tale (“per suavitatem fabulae multa et disparia flagitia damnare”), and that he was impugning the whole world (“accusare totum orbem”) not any individual or group in particular (8–9). This tactic appears to have worked since, by 1615, Barclay had secured an invitation to Rome from Pope Paul V.

Barclay and Fleming 1973: xiii.

Barclay, Riley, and Huber 2004: 51–8.

Ep. ad div. 1.I.VII: “qui ad humanitatis (ut vocant) studia pertineant.”

For information on humanistic education in Italy, including the Jesuit curriculum, see Grendler 1991.

Gabrielis Naudaei … Epistolae (1667: 694–5): “quaecumque prosa aut versa oratione scribis, ita me capiunt et delectant omnia, ut prae te uno veteres meae deliciae, Bembi et Politiani, videantur mihi nunc illiberales esse et infaceti, nempe meum mel spirat quidquid loqueris et ipsa Pytho tuis in labiis sessitat, ut quemadmodum in omni alia virtute veteres aemularis, ita etiam dicendi scribendique facultate ipsorum nemini concedes.” See also Gerboni 1899: 35.

Coloniae Ubiorum [i.e., Amsterdam]: Apud Iodocum Kalcovium [i.e., Joan Blaeu], 1645.

In Venetia: Per Combi & La Noù, 1666: 389: “la purità della lingua Latina.”

Heineccius (1743: 195) states the following in a section on letter writing in his work Fundamenta stili cultioris