In vetulam: two anonymous sonnets from ms. Chigiano L.VIII.305

Abstract

This paper proposes a new annotated edition of two anonymous sonnets contained in the Chigiano Manuscript L.VIII.305, both ascribed to the vituperium in vetulam genre, of which numerous distinctive elements and features can be detected. In fact, the figure of the old woman is presented, both in the proposal and in the answer, as a sort of ‘monster’, a despicable character with superhuman and almost sorcerous abilities; she represents a threat to the poet, as well as an obstacle to his ‘romantic’ aspiration, and for this reason he wishes her the most atrocious sufferings, according to the genre tradition. However, the brief tenso that is examined here represents a particularly interesting case, not only from the thematic point of view but also, and above all, from the metrical and linguistic one: it presents numerous examples of what could be defined as the specific lexicon of the vituperatio vetulae from which also some recurrent rhyme series, that are present even after centuries, originate, so that it seems legitimate to wonder if that constituted a ‘canonized’ model related to the genre or if this lexicon was simply reproduced in a polygenetic way in correspondence with expressly insulting and degrading descriptions of the character of the old woman.