Reception of an Early Commedia in Sicily

Identifier:  imarina:9499451

Handle: https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11797/imarina9499451

Authors:  Farre, Marina Navas

Abstract:
This article examines an early manuscript of the Commedia, belonging to the group known as the Danti del Cento (1325-1350). Insofar as possible, I seek to trace the manuscript's history from Florence to the Biblioteca Nacional de Espana (BNE), where it is currently preserved under the shelf-mark Vitr. 23.3. Produced in Florence by the principal scribe responsible for the Cento group, the codex was completed in Sicily, where its illumination was executed in the mid-fourteenth century. In the fifteenth century, a hand imitating the Florentine script transcribed a Sicilian poem by the Messina notary, Andria di Anfusu, concerning the eruption of Mount Etna in 1408. The poem, composed in terza rima in imitation of Dante, is dedicated to Queen Blanca of Sicily. The codex was transferred to the library of the Viceroyal Palace in 1679, together with other materials confiscated following the uprising in the city of Messina. Although it has long been assumed that the manuscript came from the holdings of the Cathedral of Messina, a note of ownership suggests the alternative possibility that it may have belonged to Carlo Ventimiglia. The Viceroy of Sicily and bibliophile Juan Francisco Pacheco Tellez Giron, 4th Duke of Uceda, took hold of this collection and moved it with him to Madrid in 1696 upon his return. There, it was again confiscated -this time by King Philip V of Spain- and subsequently incorporated into the Royal Library.