BOOK: Ugolino Verino, "Fiammetta. Paradise"

Ugolino Verino: Fiammetta. Paradise. Edited and translated by Allan M. Wilson. The I Tatti Renaissance Library, Vol. 69. Harvard University Press, 2016. 9780674088627. xxiv + 471 pp.

Ugolino Verino was a 15th-century poet from Florence. He seems to have been something of a disciple of Cristoforo Landino, a volume of whose poems we've seen in the I Tatti Renaissance Library some years ago (see my post from back then). The present volume contains Verino's Fiammetta, a collection of lyrical poems in two books, and Paradise, which is a longer narrative poem. The translator's introduction mentions that he also wrote numerous other works, including an epic poem, the Carliad, about Charlemagne and his “exploits [. . .] in Italy and the Holy Land” (p. xviii). You can't help admiring the poet's boldness; the usual medieval legends mostly don't have Charlemagne travelling around at all, he remains in the background and all the action is done by his paladins, and even these stay more or less entirely within the boundaries of France. What a fascinating premiss it is; at the time he lived, the Holy Land had been under Arab rule for less than two centuries — what a different timeline of history we might have had if Charlemagne had organised a crusade and liberated the Levant!

As often in the ITRL series, I was impressed by the thoroughness of the translator's notes at the end of the book. Like other neo-Latin poets, Verino often borrowed phrases and sometimes entire lines from ancient Roman poets, and occasionally from his older colleague Landino, all of which is pointed out in the notes. The translator often also remarks what case some word is in, or where a syllable is the wrong length, which caught my attention as we don't usually get much of that in the notes in the ITRL series (see note to ll. 89–90 on p. 331 for a fine example); but in any case, as I don't know any Latin these things weren't really of much use to me directly. I should also commend the translator for making his translation in verse and not in prose as is all too often the case in the ITRL series.

Fiammetta

As the title suggests, many of the poems in this collection chronicle the poet's relationship with a girl named Fiammetta. You get no points for guessing how it turned out — being unhappily in love is probably a common enough human experience anyway, but for poets of a certain type it seems to have been pretty much a requirement. I can imagine that you would get kicked out of the poets' guild for being *happily* in love, and that perhaps nowadays there could be a dating site for poets along the lines of ‘we guarantee you won't end up in a happy relationship, or your money back!’

Anyway, the story of Verino and Fiammetta doesn't start too inauspiciously; they are both young, of similar age and both single. They see each other, very chastely, for a while, and at one point she even promises him that she would be his; but it turns out that she wasn't really in a position to make such a promise, and her parents make her marry another man. Verino is perhaps a little more upset by this than he should be, in my opinion, and says some not very nice things about her (1.27, 1.30); surely he must have known that, as he hadn't made any arrangements with Fiammetta's father yet, he shouldn't have made any assumptions that she would actually be able to marry him. Her husband, Bruno, seems to have been a much older and very ugly man (and a “decrepit adulterer” :)), 1.28.3), but I guess we can expect that Verino's jealousy makes him a little older and uglier than he really was.

This unhappy change takes place towards the end of book 1; eventually he falls in love with another girl, but she dies young, of the plague it seems (2.50 and the note on p. 393). Thus book 2 consists largely of occasional poems about miscellaneous subjects, most of which didn't strike me as particularly memorable. It ends with a poetic address to Venus and Cupid, telling them that he's giving up on writing love-poetry (2.55).

He seems to have been a keen supporter of the Medici family, whose rule he believed had brought a golden age to Florence (2.45.109–19); we find dedications to Lorenzo (1.1, 2.1), an address to his father Piero (1.19), two poems in praise of the latter (1.20, 2.45), a poem to Lorenzo's mistress Lucrezia Donati (2.43), and several poems occasioned by the death of Cosimo (Piero's father; 2.51–4). Verino's loyalty to the Medici also features prominently in his Paradise, as we'll see below.

An interesting recurring subject is that of poetry; in particular, Verino is aware of his status as a minor poet and is content with it, avoiding grand epic themes and staying on the familiar ground of shorter, lighter love-poetry (1.2, 1.12, 1.15, 2.17, 2.24). He is in any case happy to be a poet (2.48) and is convinced that poetry can bring lasting memory and fame to those it sings about (2.45.9–60).

The name “Fiammetta” is related to fiamma = flame, leading him to occasionally refer to her as “Flame Maiden”, which sounds like a character from a high-fantasy story :)

There is a good deal of ranting against sodomites (2.10, 2.28.3–4, 2.32.7–9, 2.38), more than I remember seeing in other volumes of poetry in the ITRL series. It's probably a useful reminder that homosexuality wasn't quite as tolerated in Renaissance Florence as we might sometimes think.

I liked this epigram “Against the slanderer Filippo” (2.16): “Many a time you ask me, ‘What do you know?’ when trying to carp at me./ One thing I do know is that you, Filippo, know nothing.”

Another nice epigram: “ ‘It is no wonder,’ said the Cynic, ‘that gold is pale,/ for all have scheming designs to lay hands on it.’ ” (2.30)

There are a few short invectives, my favourite of which is one that pokes fun at the unfortunate Lurcus and his bad breath: “That breath of yours could not only lay humankind low/ but pollute the heavens too and kill birds./ I do not wonder that plague is now rampant in the city” etc. (2.39.5–7).

A nice pair of lines from his eulogy on the death of Cosimo: “Anyone can begin a war, but not everyone can put an end to one,/ not, that is, unless he emerges the victor.” (2.51.155–6) This is either very profound or completely trivial, I'm just not quite sure which :) (In any case he forgot that one could also end a war by surrendering to one's enemy. But perhaps in the chaos of Renaissance Italy this wouldn't guarantee an end to the war? :])

The translator's note on p. 333 tells us that “[s]nowballing could be flirtatious”. Honi soit qui mal y pense :)

I was surprised to read about the use of spelt in cosmetics: “Not white lead, not spelt, not all the juice there is in herbs,/ can cover up your sallow complexion, Galla” (1.17.11–12). The translator's note (p. 344) says it must refer to flour “presumably to make a binder, like pulped barley in a paste for the face”.

Paradise

This is a poem of about 1100 lines about Verino's visit to heaven in his dreams. One naturally wishes to compare it to Dante's visit in his Divine Comedy, but it's been so long since I read the latter that I'm not really in a good position to be making such a comparison. Obviously Dante's Paradise is much longer and he meets more people there, but as far as I remember it, a more important difference might be that Dante focuses more on the religious aspects of heaven and from reading his work you get a better idea of just how grand and sublime an experience such a visit would be. In Verino, this aspect comes across in a shallower way and he spends more time on less substantial matters.

For example, a recurring subject is the turbulent condition of Florence and indeed of Italy in general. The poet contemplates these things even before his visit (ll. 44–75), and once he enters the palace of heaven his guide is none other than the late ruler of Florence, Cosimo de' Medici (ll. 206–23), who makes a long speech prophecying a favourable future for Florence (ll. 225–76). Later Verino also meets Cosimo's son Giovanni and they have a conversation about Cosimo's grandsons, who are still alive (ll. 700–33). But I guess I shouldn't complain too much, as we get a lot of contemporary Italian politics in Dante as well.

As for heaven itself, we are treated to a longish description (ll. 89–114) of the splendid entrance to the “marvelous palace of the eternal King” (l. 94); choirs of angels (ll. 324–50, with the usual nine-level hierarchy); singing of hymns about various notable stories from christian mythology (ll. 380–498); there's the story of how god rescued the souls of certain virtuous people from Limbo (ll. 499–517, briefly also mentioned by Dante, I think); descriptions of what life is like in heaven (everyone is fit and healthy and looks about 30 years old; wears a white robe; they don't eat or drink; ll. 605–63). This is the sort of thing I meant when I said that Verino likes to focus on shallower things; this would do fine for a fairy-tale or a speculative fiction story, but it doesn't exactly convey a sense of sublimity that one might expect from a visit to heaven.

Most of the rest of Verino's visit is then spent in a pleasant woodland area that is reserved for virtuous people who were unaware of christianity and thus can't enter the main part of heaven (ll. 736–95). He encounters numerous ancient Greek and Roman statesmen, generals, orators, lawgivers, poets, playwrights, philosophers, etc. (ll. 796–1012), notably Plato himself, who recounts his studies since his death, says he is impressed with christianity and alludes to the recent revival of neo-Platonic studies in Florence (ll. 1013–71). After that Cosimo informs Verino that it's time to go and Verino promptly wakes up, which ends the poem. Thus the pagan figures, whom Dante briefly mentioned in perhaps one canto of his Inferno, here take up almost one-third of Verino's visit to heaven itself!

Something that slightly surprised me is how much pagan terminology he uses in this poem; he often refers to heaven as Olympus and to god as Jove or the Thunderer.

An interesting factoid from the translator's notes (p. 385): during the Peloponnesian War, “Athenian prisoners [on Sicily] who could recite passages of Euripides received better treatment, even release.” Wow! Nowadays it's almost hard to imagine that poetry could ever have had such power.

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Overall this was a pleasant if not terribly memorable book; I think my favourite part was the Paradise rather than the shorter poems in Fiammetta. I wish I could read his poem about Charlemagne as well, but I don't think it has been translated into English yet; who knows, perhaps we'll get it in the ITRL some day.