Angus Wilson

Invasive Intertext: Classical Allusions as Mechanisms of Oppression in the Letters of Poliziano

Angus Wilson

The letters of Agnolo “Poliziano” Ambrogini are, in the epistolary tradition of 15th century Florence, extraordinarily wellinformed and laden with Classical allusions. According to theories of intertextuality in Latin literature, such allusions must be taken not as isolated instances of performative erudition, but as integrated and conscious implementations of a literary tradition by the author. With this in mind, through an intertextual reading of Poliziano’s letter to Cassandra Fedele, a contemporary Venetian learned woman, and his diffuse references to female figures of antiquity a consistency of attitude emerges that defines more clearly the mechanisms of disempowerment in which the masculine intelligentsia of the time engaged. It is important in a treatment of such a diffuse theme as Poliziano’s characterization of ancient women to carefully define the method of intertextuality which is employed. I shall consider this on the basis of Gian Biagio Conte’s theory, via Stephen Hinds:1 the author cites the original source, the modello codice, the ‘true’ source which is taken as representative of the wider work, and produces in their own work a unique use of the original text, the modello esemplare, the model which is constituted by the succession of imitations and allusions. Therefore, significant in each allusion is not only the content it references in the modello codice, but also the circumstances and context that establish the modello

60 Babel Volume XXI esemplare and constitute the author’s reading of the source text.2 It may be objected that such a reading of Poliziano’s texts is contrary to his intention as the author. However, reading for an unconscious allusion which enters the text by osmosis from the author’s character rather than direct intention (considered as the textual authority) possesses its own verity and validity distinct from conscious authorial intention. Thus, so far as theory is concerned, it may be concluded that throughout Poliziano’s letters, the references to antique women are a frequent modello codice, intentional or otherwise. Implicit in each of Poliziano’s allusions to this corpus are his own readings of those texts, and therefore

Poliziano’s modello esemplare can be analyzed as an accumulation of assertions about the modello codice, which is the source text.3 In this accretion of allusions, a trend emerges in Poliziano’s use of ancient feminine figures: his readings of the ancient text in gendered contexts frequently formulate their modello esemplare to reinforce established gendered mechanisms of oppression. This is testament not only to the contrivances of ill-treatment in which the intellectual culture of the period was implicated, but also to the moral weight and responsibility inherent in receiving and interpreting the ancient past. Furthermore, within the body of Poliziano’s epistolary works we are afforded a single correspondence to a contemporary woman: Cassandra Fedele. This singular occurrence is slightly bolstered by discrete references in other letters, but remains rather slim as a body of evidence. However, treated in conjunction with the aforementioned cases of Poliziano’s references to ancient women, we may understand the letter to Fedele as its own modello esemplare, the iterative result of the author’s thinking on women in antiquity in other works – that is, our modello codice. References to the women of antiquity in the letters have no distinction between the apparently historical and the pagan syncretized divinities. This seems to have been the early modern tradition of historicizing these figures dating back to Bocaccio.4 Re-

Babel Volume XXI 61 gardless of historicity, Poliziano’s most prominent references to ancient female figures in his letters are Venus and the Muses. Each of these reveal how the author tends to confront women in positions of authority textually: Poliziano all but excises any sexual and feminine elements generally thought to be inherent to Venus, and refers to her with respect to Platonic male friendship and the love of poetry. Take by way of example 4.7.5 to Antonio Pizzamano: Naturally, just as lovers [amatores]5 carefully preserve the presents each receives from his Venus (for instance, a ring, a chain, a handkerchief, even a violet, sometimes a rose, a floret) so do I not only keep, not at all indifferently, those letters of yours and, likewise, those of Grimani, most welcome pledges of true love [amoris veri]…6 And again, in 1.4.1 to Giovanni Pico della Mirandola, in response to Mirandola’s request that Poliziano read some of his love poetry:

They say that Love all by himself challenged Pan, a god, to the ring and threw him on his back. How do you suppose that I can wrestle with Venus’ whole team [toto Veneris grege]? Nevertheless, you – yes, you, Pico, who can be refused in nothing, no matter what it is, without gross sacrilege [nefas] – insist on this.7 When confronted with Venus as an active force, Poliziano either subjugates her primary nature to the ancient institution of male friendship or to the love of poetry.8 Neither of these sleights of hand actually permit the goddess her traditional power, rather serving to disempower her as an object of reference belonging to some position beyond, or other than, femininity. There is a certain mythologizing of the goddess (working according to her syncretized historicity) which serves to avoid confrontation of the femininity of her character.9 Rather than a goddess whose particular concern is feminine and amorous in antiquity, Venus herself becomes for Poliziano a “not-woman.”10

62 Babel Volume XXI The task of treating the Muses similarly to this disempowerment of Venus is perhaps even more straightforward, since the character of the Muses in literary tradition was already much less concrete and more conceptual when Poliziano inherited it from antiquity; they are already mythologized to a greater degree.

Nonetheless, they are specifically and determinedly feminine figures, and undergo a similar process in Poliziano’s writings. In lieu of mythologization, they are simply stripped of agency. They become rather faceless, defined not by their own activity in the sphere of poetry and artistic creation, but most defined by the relationship the male artist has to them. Take, for example, letter 1.11.1 to Ermolao Barbaro, in which Poliziano excuses his late reply:

What, therefore, could be more improper or inconsiderate [ineptius vel inhumanius] than to make noise and distract someone who is performing the sacred rites of the Muses [sacris Musarum], or to have the bad timing to throw baubles in the path of someone doing something serious [rem seriam]?11 Poliziano characterizes his reply to Barbaro as a distraction from his friend’s artistic endeavours. The Muses are defined by the relationship of Barbaro to them as characterized by Poliziano: figures demanding duty and attention, without which attention creative production does not occur, but who also, conversely, lack any apparent active role in the creative process. Barbaro will produce poetry by his attention to the Muses, not through their active inspiration of him. This is once again present in letter 4.7.6 to Antonio Pizzamano: For my part, I am delighted that Domenico Grimani is discharging the office of his embassy with the greatest distinction. Nevertheless, I hope that you welcome him back safe and sound as soon as possible, lest he vacation too long from the Muses [ne diutius a Musis ferietur], and so that you may congratulate him (not only in your own name, but also

Babel Volume XXI 63 in mine [sed meo quoque nomine]) upon his return…12 The wording here is not insignificant, and the translation perhaps understates the force of Poliziano’s comment. Ferietur in the passive with the ablative means something closer to “to cheat of something or trick” than “to vacation.”13 This yields something closer to “lest he skive off from the Muses too long.” There is again this notion of failing in the diligence due to the Muses, and that the attention which they ought to receive risks being shorted by some other distraction. But the issue remains the same as that elaborated above: the Muses are defined by their relationship to masculine agency rather than their own inborn capabilities. Having established something of the modello codice of Poliziano’s reception of ancient female figures, we can turn to the modello esemplare of the correspondence with Cassandra Fedele. Such learned women of the time were notionally conceived of by their male contemporaries as contiguous with their ancient forebears.14 This came with the same mechanisms of disempowerment and mythologization which they foisted upon those antique figures: “Only if her femaleness is mythologized into the acceptable form of muse or inspiring goddess, apparently, can the woman humanist be celebrated without causing the male humanist professional embarrassment.”15 Fedele, as will be demonstrated, underwent just such a disempowerment by contemporary male humanists by means of their reception of antiquity. We are presented with, following previous sparse pickings, what seems to be a bounty of textual evidence for Fedele’s relationship with Poliziano. None of Fedele’s own correspondence survives; but Poliziano’s reply to her, as well as a brief vernacular letter to Lorenzo de’ Medici about her, are extant.16 I shall treat the former first, it being the more extensive. Poliziano’s letter to Fedele begins strongly with a quotation from the Aeneid, adapting the appearance of the virago Camilla in book 11 to Fedele.17 An odd choice, it may seem, given the disjunction between Fedele’s scholarly bent and the extreme vio-

64 Babel Volume XXI lence for which Camilla is responsible in the Aeneid; but it is likely that the original context of the reference was of little concern to Poliziano. Rather, he seems invested in establishing the exceptionality of Fedele from the letter’s first lines: It staggers the mind that such a letter could have come from a woman. But why am I saying “woman”? A child, rather, and a maiden [virgine]. No longer, therefore, will the ages of antiquity taunt us with its Muses, or its Sibyls, or its Pythian priestesses, nor the Socratics with Diotima or Aspasia.18

As confirmation that antiquity is turned to the service of such disempowerment, Poliziano proceeds to place Fedele alongside numerous famous ancient women. Rather than a laudatory suggestion, Poliziano does to Fedele what he did to Venus and the

Muses: where in the latter cases he alienates the subjects from activity in their traditional purviews, in this one he alienates Fedele from her own time and place by pointing out that she is so exceptional that she can find no camaraderie other than with the dead.

Shared in all these cases is this fundamental move of alienation from other women as a group, whether by setting of the person beyond those facets of their character most related to their sex (with Venus and the Muses), or by setting the individual so far above the group that their nature can find no continuity (with Fedele).19 Such an attitude remains apparent in Poliziano’s vernacular correspondence concerning Fedele, to Lorenzo de’ Medici:

Yesterday evening I visited that learned Cassandra Fedele, and I greeted her, excellency, on your part. She is a miraculous phenomenon, Lorenzo, whether in the vernacular or in Latin; most modest, and to my eyes even beautiful. I departed stupefied.20 The literally objectifying language at play here is worthy of note; Poliziano writes: “E cosa, Lorenzo, mirabile” – literally, “what an

Babel Volume XXI 65 amazing thing, Lorenzo;” particularly significant given the emphasis upon physical beauty to which Poliziano refers regularly as well.21 There is some continuity between the mercenary use of the ancient female figures in fashions contrary to or exclusive of their nature and the language of objects and ornamentation applied to Fedele.22 In both cases the language is contingent not upon the nature of the subject but the nature of its perception by a (predominantly male) humanist audience.23 Literary analyses such as this one may often seem disconnected from concrete social realities of the time in question. But the literary treatment of the ancient women, our modello codice, directly corresponds to the material treatment of Cassandra Fedele, our modello esemplare. In fact, the literary disempowerment would have been the very first battleground for the establishment of such attitudes in a highly epistolary society. The reception of antiquity in Poliziano’s letters had very real stakes, and this is evident in the course of Fedele’s life. The sorts of pressure applied by Poliziano are intrinsically operational as social corrective: they suggest to the individual learned woman that she must accept either at best an isolated life of intellectual alienation, or the more standardly feminine social roles. Initially, and also following her success as a humanist, Fedele was in the latter position, choosing to marry a young doctor.24 However, her husband died early in their marriage, and Fedele also experienced that former and materially lacking lifestyle: although she actively published, she seems also to have been in “an anxious condition of poverty” for the remainder of her long life.25

The reception of antiquity, and what is arguably its weaponization, is inculpated in this by the oppressive nature of that reception. The moral responsibility extends beyond antiquity alone, and into its usage in the present. A love for antiquity, a genuine love which humanists like Poliziano held, has a great power when its position at the foundation (or at least chronologi-

66 Babel Volume XXI cal beginning) of history and culture is acknowledged. Care must be taken with such power. There is, it is now generally accepted, no wholly coherent way of answering the question “what was antiquity, really?” But between acceptance of the elusiveness of such a perfect model and an utterly mercenary weaponization of the past, there is a balance to be struck where the truth is admitted as necessarily only partial. The sort of reception which twists the truth of antiquity to the convenience of established systems falls rather significantly short. Humanists such as Poliziano were phenomenally well-read, and not performatively erudite; the teachings of antiquity were internalized and developed to a remarkable degree. And yet, where the social position of women comes in contact with antique erudition, the rigour otherwise present is set aside. The degree to which the adoption of ancient women as literary motifs informs and exemplifies the reflexive hostility which a learned woman provoked in the humanist institution is a striking reminder of the moral responsibility inherent to the analysis of history.

Notes 1 Stephen Hinds, Allusion and Intertext: Dynamics of Appropriation in Roman Poetry, (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1998), 41. Per Conte and Barchiesi, 1989. 2 Ibid. 3 Ibid., 42. 4 Aileen A. Feng, “In Laura’s Shadow: Gendered Dialogues and Humanist Petrarchism in the Fifteenth Century,” in Writing Beloveds (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2017), 93. 5 Latin is quoted with reference to Angelo Poliziano, Omnia Opera Angeli Politiani, ed. Alexander Sartius (Venice: Aldus Romanus, Roma, Bibliopola, 1498), libri epistularum I-XII. 6 Angelo Poliziano, Poliziano: Letters Volume I, trans. Shane Butler (Cambridge, MA: Cambridge University Press, 2006), 267. 7 Ibid., 19. 8 Craig A. Williams, Reading Roman Friendship, (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2012), 24. Williams writes: “Ideals of similarity and of friendship ‘between good men’ conspire to locate the idealized form of amicitia firmly amongst men of high social status.” 9 Lisa Jardine, “‘O Decus Italiae Virgo’, or The Myth of the Learned Lady in the Renaissance,” The Historical Journal v. 28 no. 4, (1985): 801.

10 Ibid., 804. 11 Poliziano, Letters, 35. 12 Ibid., 267-269. 13 Cf. OLD: ferio ~ ire, trans. […] 9. (of conditions, of events) To afflict, fall on; (w. abl.) to afflict (with). b. to trick, cheat. 14 Anthony Grafton and Lisa Jardine, From Humanism to the Humanities, (London: Duckworth, 1986), 36. 15 Jardine, 817. 16 Grafton and Jardine, 46. 17 Aeneid 11.508-509. 18 Poliziano, Letters, 189. 19 Feng, 92. 20 Qtd. in Grafton and Jardine, 47. 21 Feng, 95. 22 Margaret Leah King, “Thwarted Ambitions: Six Learned Women of the Italian Renaissance,” Soundings: An Interdisciplinary Journal v. 59 no. 3, (1976): 296. 23 Feng, 74. 24 King, 297. 25 Ibid., 298.

Bibliography Conte, G.B., and Barchiesi, A. “Imitazione e arte allusive. Modi e funzioni dell’ intertestualita.” Lo spazio letterario di Roma antica, v. 1, (1989): 81-114. Feng, Aileen A. “In Laura’s Shadow: Gendered Dialogues and Humanist Petrachism in the Fifteenth Century.” In Writing Beloveds, 68-105. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2017. Grafton, Anthony, and Jardine, Lisa. From Humanism to the Humanities. London: Duckworth, 1986. Hinds, Stephen. Allusion and Intertext: Dynamics of Appropriation in Roman Poetry. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1998. Jardine, Lisa. “‘O Decus Italiae Virgo’, or The Myth of the Learned Lady in the Renaissance.” The Historical Journal v. 28 no. 4, (1985): 799-819. King, Margaret Leah. “Thwarted Ambitions: Six Learned Women of the Italian Renaissance.” Soundings: An Interdisciplinary Journal v. 59 no. 3, (1976): 280-304. Poliziano, Angelo. Opera Omnia. Ed. Alexander Sartius. Venice: Aldus Romanus, Roma, Bibliopola, 1498 (reprinted 1968). –––––. Poliziano: Letters Volume I. Trans. Shane Butler. Cambridge, MA: Cambridge University Press, 2006. Williams, Craig A. Reading Roman Friendship. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2012.