Vicissitudes of a Dantean Collection: The 1527 ‘Giuntina delle rime’

Abstract

The essay shows how the most comprehensive sixteenth-century printed collection of pre-Petrarchan lyric poetry, printed by the Giunti press in Florence in 1527 and known as the ‘Giuntina delle rime’, was conceived as a Dantean collection. The article argues that the ‘Giuntina’ can be understood in relation to a Florentine context that reacted in opposition to Bembo’s codification, in his seminal dialogue Prose nelle quali si ragiona della volgar lingua (1525), of Petrarch and Boccaccio as supreme models for poetry and prose, and his devaluing Dante. This reaction led to the promotion of Dante’s lyric poetry through a collection printed by the leading Florentine publishing house. The essay presents new evidence to show that the original programme of revaluing Dante that lies behind the collection and its scope seem to have undergone a transformation, which obscured the force of that re-evaluation in the final print of the 1527 anthology.