ABSTRACTS

A. Bisanti:
Il viaggio di Lopichis (Paolo Diacono, hl iv 37): discesa agli inferi e ascesa alla salvezza. s. 1-27
This paper explores the tale – which is also a saga – of the escape of Lopichis, a Langobard, from the Avaro-Slavic captivity in the first half of the 7th century, described by Paul the Deacon in his Historia Langobardorum (book IV, chapter 37). Lopichis was the great-grandfather of Paul the Deacon. The analysis focuses on the episodes of the encounter with a wolf who tooks the leadership until Lopichis decided to shoot him with a bow; and the encounter with an old Slavic woman who saves the young man from the death. The tale written by Paul the Deacon is formed by two opposite sections: the first figures as a descensus ad inferos, the second as ascensio to the salvation.

S. Origone:
Itinerari sul mare verso Occidente: crociati, mercanti e pirati(secoli XII-XIII). s. 29-53
This paper, analyzing chronicles, mercantile acts, and treaties shows that during the XII century the sea between Provence and Algerian coasts was stirred by struggles, rivalry and piracy. Particularly traders and crusader interests were interplayed until the Genoese conquest of Ceuta marked the absolute supremacy of traders.

I. Malfatto:
Plus curiosus quam virtuosus: Giovanni De’ Marignolli e la sua missione in Asia (1338-1353). s. 56-81

In 1338 a Florentine Franciscan, Giovanni de’ Marignolli, was sent to Peking by the Pope. Once completed his embassy, he did not return from the same route; riots and rebellions in Mongolia forced him to travel longer. Instead of the central Asia way he passed through southern China, Southeast Asia, India and Palestine, coming back in Avignon after 15 years in 1353. During this journey he visited a lot of countries and cities and spent a lot of time with many people. In particular, his trip to Ceylon was extremely important to him because he firmly believed that the Indian island was located just close to the terrestrial Paradise described into Genesis. Some years after his return Marignolli reported his travel experiences in a book entitled Chronicon Bohemorum, a universal chronicle aimed to celebrate his patron, the king of Bohemia and emperor Charles IV. The book is full of digressions and details focused on Asia: an open-minded description of the oriental world, underpinned by a strong confidence in eyewitness attitude. The Florentine friar in fact relies more on his direct experience than on the typical medieval auctoritates up to the point of commenting some Biblical passages in a very untraditional way. Marignolli’s proto-experimental approach to world and nature makes him well advanced in the cultural background of his times.

P. Pontari:
Il ms. Vat. Ross. 704 e il Liber insularum archipelagi di Cristoforo Buondelmonti: interpolazioni di un anonimo volgarizzatore anconetano. s. 83-170

Cristoforo Buondelmonti’s Liber insularum Archipelagi had an immediate success during the 15th Century, because of its usefulness for the knowledge of the Ionian and Aegean nautical quadrant, as well as of the particular interest for the recovery of Greek antiquities. Still unpublished today are the old anonymous translations of the Liber insularum Archipelagi into Venetian and Marchigian vulgar: they are the irrefutable proof that Buondelmonti’s description had circulation in several different contexts. This work aims to offer a complete examination of the Marchigian translation, transmitted by ms. Vat. Ross. 704, in order to detect and study the textual extensive interpolations inserted by anonymous translator, most likely from Ancona, and dispel this way the hypothesis about a fourth redaction of Buondelmonti’s Liber insularum Archipelagi.

A. Grisafi:
Presenza e significati della città nelle commedie umanistiche. s. 173-195

This paper focuses on the analysis of the presence and the role of the town within the humanistic comedies written in the Fifteenth Century. Humanistic comedies often contain scenic references, whose function is to specify the coordinates of the comic action, mostly set in topical spaces, such as the interior of houses, the squares, the market and the connecting streets. Many of these plays were composed by university students of Bologna, Pavia and Padoa. In these cases, the town is the center where economic activities and the emerging middle class are growing at the same time. A different example is represented by the Venetian comedies, where there is no university setting and the relation with ancient models is much stronger. Among these plays, the comedies composed by Tito Livio Frulovisi are the most interesting, also in relation to the problem of their representation: the presence of the town in his works provides the starting point for theoretical reflections about the setting of the comic action and the development of dramatic techniques, as it is shown in the prologues of his comedies.