Pietro Bembo on Etna : The Ascent of a Venetian Humanist

This book is centered on the Venetian humanist Pietro Bembo (1470-1547), on his two-year stay in Sicily in 1492-4 to study the ancient Greek language under one of its most distinguished contemporary teachers, the Byzantine émigré Constantine Lascaris, and above all on his ascent of Mount Etna in 1493. The more particular focus of this study is on the imaginative capacities that crucially shape Bembo's elegantly crafted account, in Latin, of his Etna adventure in his so-called De Aetna , published at the Aldine press in Venice in 1496. This work is cast in the form of a dialogue that takes place between the young Bembo and his father Bernardo (himself a prominent Venetian statesman with strong humanist involvements) after Pietro's return to Venice from Sicily in 1494. But De Aetna offers much more than a one-dimensional account of the facts, sights and findings of Pietro's climb. Far more important in the present study is his eye for creative elaboration, or for transforming his literal experience on the mountain into a meditation on his coming-of-age at a remove from the conventional career-path expected of one of his station within the Venetian patriciate. Three mutually informing features that are critical to the artistic originality of De Aetna receive detailed treatment in this study: (i) the stimulus that Pietro drew from the complex history of Mount Etna as treated in the Greco-Roman literary tradition from Pindar onwards; (ii) the striking novelty of De Aetna 's status as the first Latin text produced at the nascent Aldine press in the prototype of what modern typography knows as Bembo typeface; and (iii) Pietro's ingenious deployment of Etna as a powerful, multivalent symbol that simultaneously reflects the diverse characterizations of, and the generational differences between, father and son in the course of their dialogical exchanges within De Aetna . Cover 1 Pietro Bembo on Etna 4 Copyright 5 Dedication 6 Contents 8 List of Illustrations 12 Preface 14 Abbreviations 16 Plates 18 Introduction 34 1. The Etna Idea 56 1.1 Pindar, Pythian 1 59 1.2 Virgil and Lucretius 66 (i) Virgil 66 (ii) Lucretius 71 1.3 Seneca, Ovid, and the Aetna Poet 78 (i) Seneca 78 (ii) Ovid 82 (iii) The Aetna Poem 92 1.4 The Open-​Ended Etna Idea 102 2. From Memory to Modernity 106 2.1 Mnemonic Topography 107 2.2 Antiquarian Travel before Bembo 112 2.3 Urbano Bolzanio 118 2.4 Etna as an Island, Noniano as a Memory Place 123 2.5 Petrarch on Mont Ventoux 128 2.6 De Aetna and the History of Mountaineering 134 2.7 Banishing Hellish Myth and Legend 143 3. From Venice to Sicily: Bembo’s Greek Education, His Teachers, His Inspirers 146 3.1 Poliziano, the Bembine Terence, and Bembo’s Sogno 147 3.2 Bembo’s Greek Studies in Messina 154 (i) Bembo’s Letter to Demetrius Moschus 156 (ii) Bembo’s Gorgias 158 (iii) Bembo as Advocate for Greek Letters 160 (iv) Claudian’s Greek Gigantomachia 162 (v) Lascaris’ Greek Grammar 163 3.3 Absent Presences: Giorgio Valla and Ermolao Barbaro 167 3.4 The Half-​Story So Far 178 4. De Aetna in the Context of Quattrocento Venetian Humanism 180 4.1 Ermolao Barbaro, Born for Letters, Bred for State Service 180 4.2 The Evolution of Quattrocento Venetian Humanism 188 4.3 Pietro’s Peers, Gli Asolani, and the Leggi della Compagnia degli Amici 194 (i) Angelo Gabriele 194 (ii) Gli Asolani, and Pietro’s Correspondence with Trifone Gabriele 202 (iii) Vincenzo Quirini and Tommaso Giustiniani 210 5. Physical Form and Textual Meaning in the Aldine Book: The Symbolic Significance of Typeface 216 5.1 Venice, the Rise of Printing, and the Aldine Press 217 5.2 The Aldine Octavo Handbook 227 5.3 The Interrelationship of Physical Form and Textual Meaning 232 5.4 Bernardo Bembo, Petrarch’s Laura, and Leonardo da Vinci’s Ginevra de’ Benci 238 5.5 Endpoint, Start Point 253 6. Activations of Landscape in De Aetna 254 6.1 Venice, the Veneto, and Villa Culture 257 6.2 Father and Son in Pietro’s Early Verses 270 6.3 The Recalibration of Perspective through Contrasts of Landscape 277 6.4 Shaping Etna’s Landscape through Poetic Inscription 285 7. The Bembo Collection, and Evocations of Noniano 302 7.1 Pietro Bembo the Collector 303 7.2 Coins, Medals, and Valerio Belli’s Bembo 312 7.3 Titian, Bembo, and Evocation of Sweet Noniano 319 7.4 De Aetna and Naturalist Collecting 324 7.5 Bembo and Giovanni Bellini 331 Text and Translation 340 Bibliography 388 Index of Passages 428 General Index 436 Index of Latin Words 450 Index of Greek words 452 About the Types 454 This book is centered on the Venetian humanist Pietro Bembo (1470-1547), on his two-year stay in Sicily in 1492-4 to study the ancient Greek language under one of its most distinguished contemporary teachers, the Byzantine emigre Constantine Lascaris, and above all on his ascent of Mount Etna in 1493. The more particular focus of this study is on the imaginative capacities that crucially shape Bembo's elegantly crafted account, in Latin, of his Etna adventure in his so-called De Aetna , published at the Aldine press in Venice in 1496. This work is cast in the form of a dialogue that takes place between the young Bembo and his father Bernardo (himself a prominent Venetian statesman with strong humanist involvements) after Pietro's return to Venice from Sicily in 1494. But De Aetna offers much more than a one-dimensional account of the facts, sights and findings of Pietro's climb. Far more important in the present study is his eye for creative elaboration, or for transforming his literal experience on the mountain into a meditation on his coming-of-age at a remove from the conventional career-path expected of one of his station within the Venetian patriciate. Three mutually informing features that are critical to the artistic originality of De Aetna receive detailed treatment in this study: (i) the stimulus that Pietro drew from the complex history of Mount Etna as treated in the Greco-Roman literary tradition from Pindar onwards; (ii) the striking novelty of De Aetna 's status as the first Latin text produced at the nascent Aldine press in the prototype of what modern typography knows as Bembo typeface; and (iii) Pietro's ingenious deployment of Etna as a powerful, multivalent symbol that simultaneously reflects the diverse characterizations of, and the generational differences between, father and son in the course of their dialogical exchanges within De Aetna . This book is centered on the Venetian humanist Pietro Bembo (1470–1547), on his stay in Sicily in 1492–4 to study the ancient Greek language under the Byzantine émigré Constantine Lascaris, and above all on his ascent of Mount Etna in 1493. The more particular focus of this study is on the imaginative capacities that crucially shape Bembo’s elegantly crafted account, in Latin, of his Etna adventure in his so-called __De Aetna__, published at the Aldine Press in Venice in 1496. This work is cast in the form of a dialogue that takes place between the young Bembo and his father, Bernardo (himself a prominent Venetian statesman with strong humanist involvements), after Pietro’s return to Venice from Sicily in 1494. But __De Aetna__ offers much more than a one-dimensional account of the facts, sights, and findings of Pietro’s climb. Three mutually informing features that are critical to the artistic originality of __De Aetna__ receive detailed treatment in this study: (i) the stimulus that Pietro drew from the complex history of Mount Etna as treated in the Greco-Roman literary tradition from Pindar onward; (ii) the striking novelty of __De Aetna__’s status as the first Latin text produced at the nascent Aldine Press in the prototype of what modern typography knows as Bembo typeface; and (iii) Pietro’s ingenious deployment of Etna as a powerful, multivalent symbol that simultaneously reflects the diverse characterizations of, and the generational differences between, father and son in the course of their dialogical exchanges within __De Aetna__. This book is centered on the Venetian humanist Pietro Bembo (1470-1547), on his ascent of Mount Etna in 1493, and above all on the striking artistic originality of the elegant Latin work that he wrote about his climb after his return to Venice in 1494: his De Aetna, published at the Aldine press in Venice in 1496. Gareth D. Williams. Includes Bibliographical References (pages 355-393) And Indexes.