H. P. GRICE E J. L. SPERANZA: LA CONVERSAZIONE -- I VERBALI: PETRARCA

G.: So Petrarch did not call the thing Il Canzoniere after all.  S.: Not authorially, no. The better title is Rerum vulgarium fragmenta. G.: Which already sounds more intelligent. S.: And more fastidious. G.: Exactly. A songbook is a social convenience; fragments are a metaphysical embarrassment. S.: Then the meta-point migrates. G.: Entirely. If Canzoniere is the later umbrella-title, the really Petrarchan self-description lies in fragmenta, not canzoni. S.: Which suits both you and Speranza much better. G.: And perhaps Malpaghini too, though he had the misfortune to write the rubric. S.: Before Malpaghini, let us fix the title question. Is Rerum vulgarium fragmenta truly Petrarch’s own title. G.: As nearly as makes no difference. The rubric in Vat. lat. 3195 gives Francisci Petrarche laureati poete Rerum vulgarium fragmenta, and modern scholarship treats the book as authorially supervised even though the rubric itself is in Malpaghini’s hand. [digi.vatlib.it], [core.ac.uk] S.: So the title is authorial in force, even if not in every ink-stroke. G.: Precisely. Petrarch’s title, Malpaghini’s script, and the scholar’s opportunity for pedantry. S.: Then if one opens the thing, does it begin with some Latin prefatory address to the reader. “This, dearest reader, which thou art about to peruse…” G.: No such White Knight preliminaries at the front of the lyric text proper. One opens the lyric book and the first fragment is the sonnet. S.: Which is. G.: Voi ch’ascoltate in rime sparse il suono. That is the incipit of poem 1, the first fragment of the Rerum vulgarium fragmenta. [en.wikisource.org], [core.ac.uk] S.: So the first fragmentum of a res vulgare is a sonnet. G.: Exactly. Not a Latin preface explaining the title, but the lyric object itself beginning in vernacular self-address. S.: Which is very Petrarchan. G.: Yes. He lets the reader discover the generic plurality by entering the sequence, not by reading a modern table of contents. S.: Then Canzoniere, as later cliché, smooths over a sharper authorial self-understanding. G.: Quite. Fragmenta is morally and formally richer than Canzoniere. It suggests scatteredness, incompletion, gathered remains, deliberate ordering of broken pieces. S.: Whereas Canzoniere says only, roughly, “book of songs.” G.: Which is socially useful and critically lazy. S.: Then one may still ask, under the later cliché, what is the first canzone proper. G.: Yes, and there the answer is not poem 1 but poem 23. S.: Incipit. G.: Nel dolce tempo de la prima etade. And a couple of lines, if you insist: Nel dolce tempo de la prima etade, che nascer vide et anchor quasi in herba la fera voglia che per mio mal crebbe. [it.wikisource.org], [jstor.org] S.: So if the vulgar title is Canzoniere, the first canzone proper enters only at 23. G.: Precisely. Which is why the later title is useful but not exacting enough for Speranza. S.: Now Malpaghini. G.: Ah yes. The amanuensis whom philosophers are likely to prefer to the poet, because scribes keep titles tidy. S.: You are being unfair to poets. G.: Only prophylactically. S.: What do we know of the surname. G.: Not as much as one would like. The man is Giovanni Malpaghini, from Ravenna, later called Giovanni da Ravenna, Petrarch’s copyist and helper in ordering letters and part of the lyric book. [en.wikipedia.org], [treccani.it] S.: And the etymology. G.: Cautiously, one may suspect a pejorative compound of the sort that medieval Italian surnames love: mal plus a base now opaque or altered in transmission. But I have no secure scholarly etymology from the evidence in hand, and I should not invent one merely because the name invites insult. S.: Speranza had wondered if it meant badly paid. G.: No sign of that. Nor simply from “a bad place.” The family name is established as Malpaghini or Malpaghini, but the exact derivation is not confirmed in the material I found. [en.wikipedia.org], [treccani.it] S.: So the honest answer is that the etymology remains uncertain. G.: Yes. One may hear mal and be tempted, but temptation is not philology. S.: Still, the mere sound pleases a common room. G.: Immensely. A copyist called Malpaghini is already half a footnote by providence. S.: Yet he matters. G.: Very much. He copied part of Vat. lat. 3195, and the rubric with the title is in his hand. That is no trivial labour. [treccani.it], [core.ac.uk] S.: Hence philosophers prefer the amanuensis. G.: Because he gives them titles, order, rubrication, manuscript evidence, and no sonneteer’s flutter. S.: Whereas poets give them Laura. G.: Which is less manageable bibliographically. S.: Then the Lewis Carroll point. You thought one might open the book and find Petrarch saying, in Latin, “The title of this song is called…” G.: Thankfully no. Petrarch is fastidious, but not White-Knightishly self-announcing at the front of the lyric sequence. S.: So there is no prefatory Latin “hoc quod legis…” G.: Not as the threshold to the lyric corpus proper. The authorial title stands at the head in the manuscript as rubric; the poetic body begins with the vernacular sonnet. S.: Which means the title and the first lyric are already in a productive tension. G.: Exactly. Rerum vulgarium fragmenta in Latin as paratext; Voi ch’ascoltate in rime sparse il suono in Italian as first fragment. S.: Fragmenta above, sparse below. G.: Excellent. Very Petrarchan indeed. The title calls them fragments; the first line calls them scattered rhymes. S.: So the meta-point survives and becomes better. G.: Much better. The later Canzoniere cliché makes us ask the wrong generic question; the authorial fragmenta brings us straight to form, incompletion, recollection, ordering, and self-conscious textuality. S.: And rime sparse is almost a vernacular gloss on fragmenta. G.: Very nearly. Not identical, but cognate in spirit. S.: Then let us arrange the order of things as a fastidious reader would. G.: Good. First, the manuscript rubric naming the whole as Rerum vulgarium fragmenta. Second, the opening sonnet Voi ch’ascoltate in rime sparse il suono. Third, later in the sequence, the first canzone proper, no. 23, Nel dolce tempo de la prima etade. [core.ac.uk], [en.wikisource.org], [it.wikisource.org] S.: So the title does not mean that the first item must be a canzone in the strict metrical sense. G.: Precisely. Because the title was not Canzoniere to begin with. S.: And Petrarch himself does not stop to label each poem “sonnetto,” “canzone,” and the rest in some cosy pedagogical way. G.: No. The forms are there in the sequence and are later classified by editors, but the authorial force lies in the architectonic ordering of varied lyric fragments, not in chapter-headings by genre. S.: Which makes the thing look more modern. G.: Or more difficult. Modernity is often only difficulty with better lighting. S.: Then Petrarch, Malpaghini, Speranza, and Grice all converge in one place: they prefer the better title. G.: Yes. Canzoniere is useful for the bookseller. Rerum vulgarium fragmenta is for readers who deserve a little trouble. S.: And “vulgarium.” G.: Another good point. Not “of songs” but “of vernacular things,” or “of common-language matters.” The title itself is oddly broad and oddly modest at once. S.: So not merely lyric as genre, but vernacular as medium. G.: Exactly. The book is defined by language and condition as much as by form. S.: Which makes the first line even more apt: Voi ch’ascoltate… G.: Yes, because he begins not by naming the genre but by addressing the hearers of scattered rhymes. S.: As if the reader is already implicated in the fragmentation. G.: Admirably put. S.: Thank you. G.: Keep it and attribute the better half to Petrarch. S.: Then if philosophers prefer Malpaghini, it is because he gives them the rubric, the codex, the order, the title, the hand, and the dates. G.: Precisely. The poet gives them metaphysical ache; the amanuensis gives them evidence. S.: Evidence is more comfortable. G.: Not always, but usually drier. S.: Let us ask the vulgar question anyway. If Canzoniere became the cliché, why. G.: Because readers like a simpler title, one that names the book by its broad lyric function rather than by its authorial irony. S.: Songbook is easier than fragments of vernacular matters. G.: Very much easier. It allows the whole to become a cultural object instead of a textual problem. S.: And Speranza, being fastidious, regrets that. G.: Naturally. Fastidious readers prefer the title that leaves the most work to intelligence. S.: Then the White Knight again. You thought perhaps Petrarch might say, “The title of the book is called Fragments, but the title of the first piece is…” G.: Mercifully he does no such thing. The manuscript paratext performs the titling; the poem begins without pedagogic throat-clearing. S.: Which means the irritation is later, not Petrarch’s own. G.: Yes. Modern readers and modern editions generate much of the generic comfort. Petrarch’s own book is stricter and stranger. S.: So the first thing, if one asks historically, is not “Il Canzoniere” but the authorially supervised RVF. G.: Correct. S.: And the first thing in that is the sonnet. G.: Correct again. S.: And the first canzone proper is 23. G.: Correct once more. S.: We are becoming scholastic. G.: Only in the useful sense. S.: Then perhaps one final cruelty. Malpaghini copied part of the Rerum vulgarium fragmenta; therefore he handled the fragments without having to write them. G.: Which is why philosophers prefer him. One may admire textual order without being forced into lyric complicity. S.: The amanuensis is safer than Laura. G.: Much safer. Laura leads to ontology; Malpaghini leads to codicology. S.: And codicology pays better in conversation. G.: Among philosophers, certainly. S.: Then the final summary. G.: Very well. Petrarch’s own title is Rerum vulgarium fragmenta, authorial in the strong manuscript sense though rubricated by Malpaghini’s hand. The first fragment is the sonnet Voi ch’ascoltate in rime sparse il suono. The later title Canzoniere is traditional, not authorial; and if one insists on the first canzone proper under that later lens, it is no. 23, Nel dolce tempo de la prima etade. Malpaghini’s surname remains etymologically uncertain from the evidence in hand, though common-room temptation remains high. [core.ac.uk], [en.wikisource.org], [it.wikisource.org], [en.wikipedia.org], [treccani.it] S.: Dry enough. G.: Sufficiently Petrarchan, with one eye on the rubric and the other on the first scattered rhyme.