"The New Rich-Text Edition of the Rerum vulgarium fragmenta"
sers will be able to consult the Fragmenta for free as it slowly
comes online, first in subsets of textual microgroupings of the
Petrarch's Fragmenta that represent the basic properties of his
poetics and philological concerns, and then in larger sets of entire
gatherings (quaternions and binions). The charta is Petrarch's
essential poetic canvas of 31 transcriptional lines designed
essentially to hold a) four sonnets, b) a sonnet and a sestina; c)
combinations of highly formatted canzoni, ballate, and/or madrigals.
The digital format allows us not only to present units of sonnets and
contrasting textual structures that depend on the materiality of the
charta but also to expand the spatial relationships present in
Petrarch's poetics to the conjunct leaf of the bifolium, especially
internal bifolia, and the context of the gathering by which the
building of the Fragmenta progressed.
[...]
Our methodological point of departure is that Vat Lat 3195, whose
preparation was – we know – guided by Petrarch himself, represents
in its intricate constructions the most authentic container of the Rvf.
Thus space is instructive, as we are about to see, in the larger
codicological sphere of Petrarch's manuscript that has itself become
strictly linked to the notion of an – if not the – Original. We would
insist that its "Originality" is not always in its readings but in its
physical and material structures. We recall, for example, the
function of "space" in two extant MSS, Beinecke M 706 and Vatican
Reginense Latino 1110, possibly to identify an antegraph but more
likely to authenticate the text as that of the poet's own hand: Ita
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enim proprio codice domini Francisci annotatum est, et carte
quatuor pretermisse vacue". In addition to its codicological and
textual purposes, potentially of the unruled c. 52v to separate a
Part 1 from a Part 2, the space of "quatuor carte" comes to function
historically as an attribute that identifies some copies of the Rvf
with Petrarch's own hand.
[...]
In the case of Rvf 356, Quel' antiquo mio dolce empio signore
(experimentally revised as Rvf 360), in two bifolia (now cc. 67–70)
that Petrarch will insert into the final fascicle of his work, he has
been forced by the limited space materially available in the insert
to transcribe the lengthy canzone of 157vv. in the
uncharacteristically short space of one side of a charta (31
transcriptional lines) and 22 transcriptional lines of the next (cc.
69v–70r), packing three verses per line on all but the final line of c.
70r (52 x 3 + 1). But when we find the canzone Quel' antiquo mio
dolce empio signore in early manuscripts that follow Petrarch's
intricate poetic layouts for each of the five genres of the Fragmenta
(such as Segniano 1, Laurenziano 41.10, and Morgan M502), the
canzone always follows the mise en page of its prosodic sister, Rvf
119, Una donna più bella assai che 'l sole (in Vat. Lat. 3195, cc.
24v–25v). Given the precision of Petrarch's distinctive layouts even
for different kinds of canzoni, it is clear that the more articulately
formatted transcriptions are made from a sanctioned copy of the
Rvf and not from Petrarch's experimental copy Vat Lat 3195. So
which form of Quel' antiquo mio dolce empio signore represents the
"authorial Original"? The unformatted copy in Petrarch's own hand in
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his service copy, Vat Lat 3195, into which he will subsequently
insert revisions? or the sanctioned fair copy in the hand of a copyist,
even a seemingly distant one in the early fifteenth century after
Petrarch's death (such as Laurenziano 41.10 or Segniano 1)? Indeed
to stay true to the fundamental material dimensions Petrarch's
visual poetics it is impossible to edit this canzone without the
trajectory of its early manuscript tradition. For while there is little
doubt that Vat. Lat. 3195 originally represented in the copyist
Malpaghini's hand the presentational layout probably of one of the
few fair copies so closely followed and sanctioned by the poet, its
status as the ultimate public form of the work was superseded by
Petrarch's decision to abandon it as a fair copy and to use it as a
material and conceptual experimental site for the work.
The one dimension that perhaps distinguishes the "rich text"
edition is our attention to the use of space in establishing the texts
that constitute the Fragmenta. Space is, of course, punctuation writ
large. But it is also an essential organizing tool for Petrarch, from
his standardized transcriptional formats that are integral to his
poetics to his use of added space to expand certain sections of the
Rvf and his use of marginal numbers to experiment with different
spatial relationships among poems. And while we think of space in
medieval manuscripts as affecting an openendedness in texts, it can
also define closure in the macrotext in some times unexpected ways.
The repeated spatial characteristics of the first five chartae, which
includes the ballata Lassare il velo (Rvf 11), establish the basis of
the contrasting poetics of the sonnet Mille fiate (Rvf 21) and the
first sestina A qualunque animale (Rvf 22) on c. 3v, a pattern
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altered slightly by the use of five blank lines at the bottom of c. 7r
to reiterate the sonnet–sestina relationship, now reversed, on c. 7v:
Giovene donna sotto un verde lauro (Rvf 30) ==> Questa anima
gentile che si diparte (Rvf 31). The very same construction of c. 14v
equally closes off the compositional strategy of Rvf 62–65, Padre del
ciel to Lasso che mal accorto fui on the preceding charta especially
in the selection of Volgendo gli occhi al mio novo colore (Rvf 63), a
monostrophic ballata grande that requires only 7 lines of space for
14 verses in opposition to the 10 lines required for 17 verses of the
ballata media Perché quel che mi trasse (Rvf 59). [...]
Petrarch also uses space as a placeholder for postponed decisions,
such as the blank space left by Malpaghini on c. 37r2 and later used
by Petrarch himself to insert Geri quando talor meco s'adira (Rvf
179). Not dependent on erasure, the placeholder allows for a
certain openendedness in the macrotext during its development,
but it also establishes limits the eventual genre of the insertion to
one of three forms: a monostrophic ballata, a madrigal, or a sonnet.
What we call a stop space defines closure within the macrotext:
<space unit="page" extent="1" ana="#space-stop"/>. The unruled charta
52v, which carries an erased catchword for Rvf 264, I' vo pensando,
has the same function as the blank charta used in fourteenthcentury copies of the Commedia to separate the Inferno from the
Purgatorio. A similar divisional stop space is used by Malpaghini
between c. 22r and 22v to mark macrotextual pause between the
sonnet Rvf 104, L'aspectata vertù and canzone Rvf 105 Mai non vo'
più cantar com'io soleva, expressed as: <space unit="lines" extent="7"
ana="#space-stop"/>. The blank space of eight transcriptional lines at
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the bottom of c. 22r could easily have held the first 12 verses of
the Rvf 105's first 15-verse strophe, just as c. 24v's final eight lines
convey the first 12 verses of the first 15-verse strophe of the
canzone Una donna più bella assai che 'l sole (Rvf 119). But the
blank 8 lines of c. 22r thwart the anticipation of the reader and the
trajectory of the macrotext, and announce a full stop before the
proclamation, if not a manifesto, of a fundamental change: "Mai
non vo' più cantar com'io soleva".
More problematic is the interpretation of the ruled but unused
space of cc. 49v–52r. Those of you who know the steps of preparing
parchment for use by medieval copyists will understand the
implications of the distinction between the six sides of ruled writing
support and the unruled stop space of c. 52v, especially when we
consider the uselessness of the completely blank internal bifolium =
cc. 50–51. How to define space that is prepared to receive text but
is blank? The categories of 'potential intention' and 'inutility' haunt
these chartae. A late fifteenth-century Humanist hand had equal
difficulty with the space and inserted an explicit on c. 49v for the
conclusion of the poems of Part I of the Fragmenta in an attempt to
close materially the section on the verso of the last poems on c. 49
(Rvf 260–263): Explicit: Francisci petrarce expliciunt soneta de Vita
amaxie sue. Amen et Deo gratias. Un bel morir tuta la vita honora".
The explicit was subsequently erased, as was the recently
discovered catchword on c. 52v. I would propose that we define this
use as potential space.
We consider Petrarch's use of reclaimed space a separate
category altogether with four separate subdivisions: a) complete
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erasure and recycling; b) partial erasure and recycling; c)
erasure and elimination; d) elimination. The first category,
erasure and recycling (a), is most easily identified with the sonnet
Laura et l'odore e 'l refrigerio et l'ombra (Rvf 327) on c. 64v
transcribed by Petrarch on seven lines that have been completely
erased {certainly the case as well with the sonnet Laura che 'l verde
lauro et l'aureo crine (Rvf 246) on c. 47r}. The second category
covers much of Petrarch's erasures and revisions within poems, such
as the preceding sonnet Due rose fresche et colte in paradiso (Rvf
245) on the same charta, where we not only trace at least two
levels of intervention in the partial erasure and recycling of the
space of the second transcriptional line but Petrarch's own
attentiveness to the cancelation of unused space with three dashes
between "Tra" and "duo minori" at the beginning of v. 4. It is,
however, the pragmatic intersection of categories c and d ("erasure
and elimination"; and "elimination" that our efforts at coding have
been especially challenged. The most obvious locus of this
confluence of categories c, d, and – for that matter – b is Petrarch's
decision to erase all of the ballata Donna mi vene spesso ne la
mente except the body of the already rubricated gothic majuscule
D on c. 26r, and replace it with the madrigal Or vedi Amor che
giovenetta donna (Rvf 121). While the body of the D is recycled to
make an O, the elimination of the ballata Donna is only partial in
the early tradition that circulated, sometimes remaining in position
121, sometimes oscillating in reliable manuscripts between position
122 and 129. The ideal textual truth of the uncirculated partial
holograph is firmly contradicted by the earliest tradition of
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Boccaccio's transcription of the Fragmentorum liber in Chigiano L v
176 and MSS such as Morgan M.502 and Laurenziano 41.17. Users of
the PetrArchive will be able to see and follow the palimpsest of
Donna in position 121 and its effect in the early tradition as well.
But the addition of the madrigal Or vedi Amor also triggers a virtual
elimination of textual space and a reconfiguration of the spatial
relationships of a part that we cannot see in Vat Lat 3195, the
transfer of the madrigal from its place between Rvf 242 and 243,
Mira quel colle and Fresco ombroso fiorito et verde colle, now on c.
46v in Petrarch's own hand. In the evolution of the Fragmenta, c
46v demonstrates at least four moments in which Petrarch
intervenes as a copyist and an editor: 1. the transcription of I'ò
pregato Amor (Rvf 240); 2. the transcription of L'altro signor
dinançi (Rvf 241) in a slightly larger script; 3. the erasures and
revisions in both sonnets in a more slender script; and 4. the
transcription without erasure of both sonnets Mira quel colle and
Fresco ombroso in the same ink and ductus and with the same pen.
We can imagine that Petrarch has not hesitated here; the transfer
and elimination are definitive, the space no longer exists; however,
the new position of Or vedi Amor at 121 is challenged by the
palimpsest of Donna mi vene spesso ne la mente.
On cc. 3v, 7v, 14v, 19r, 41v, 45v, 46r we find the author's
regular use of space to distinguish between the reading strategies of
the sonnet and the sestina that as a rule inhabit the same charta. In
each instance, the 5–7 blank lines in the right column visually
distinguish – literally at a glance – between the sonnet's horizontal
hemistiches and the sestina's vertical transcriptional formula of
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unequal columns of 22+17 or 23+16 verses. {27} On c. 32r–v,
Malpaghini attempts to rectify the anomalous layout of vv. 1–30 of A
la dolce ombra de le belle frondi (Rvf 142), divided equally on c.
32r in two columns of 15 vv. each, by imitating a similar, staggered
effect on c. 32v, leaving three blank lines in the right column. The
constant of this sestina-specific space suggests few alternatives
(descriptive sestina space).
[...]
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