MCKENZIE, K. and VAN HORNE, J. "American Contributions to the Study of Leopardi," B.A.T.I., II, 66-68. (A bibliographical list which is to form part of the Leopardi bibliography now being prepared by the "Comitato Romano della R. Deputazione di Storia Patria per le Marche." The aid of readers of the Bulletin is requested to make the list complete.) Russo, J. L. "Some Deviations from Current Rules in Italian Grammar," B.A.T.I., II, 63-66. (Rules of grammar are frequently in conflict with the varied usage of authors of literature. Grammars should offer few and clear rules. The teacher should insist on conformity to such rules as are clearly derived from the best modern usage. The writer gives useful advice as to Elision, Contraction of preposition and article, Articles before names of persons, the Past Absolute and Present Perfect tenses, Object pronouns with the negative imperative.) WILLIAMS, S. T. "Landor's Criticism in Poetry," M. L. N., XL, 413-418. (On p. 414 are mentioned poems dealing with Dante, Petrarch, and Alfieri.) WILKINS, E. H. "Histories of Italian Literature," B. A. T. I., II, 61-63. (An account of the most valuable historical works on Italian literature, with special regard to their use by university students.) REVIEWS AND NOTICES AUSTIN, H. D. In B. A. T. I., II, 75-77. La Comedia di Dante Alighieri annotata nelle sue bellezze e compendiata nel racconto dell'intero poema da Guido Mazzoni, Firenze, Le Monnier, 1924. M., W. P. In M. L. N., XL, 446. Brief mention of the edition of Fracastoro's Naugerius, sive De Poetica with an English translation by Ruth Kelso and an introduction by Murray W. Bundy: University of Illinois Studies in Language and Litterature, Vol. IX, 1924. NORMAN, H. L. In B. A. T. I., II, 77-78. Vol. I, Milano, Vallardi, 1924. SMITH, S. A. In B. A. T. I., II, 72-75. Novellistica, L. Di Francia, Beginners' Italian Reader, by Lawrence A. Wilkins and Catherine R. Santelli, New York, D. C. Heath and Co., 1925. VITTORINI, D. In M. L. J., X, 120-121, Fucini, Novelle e Poesie, edited by Henry Furst, University of Chicago Press, 1924. Y., C. E. In P. Q., V, 95. Notice of Ruzzante, un dramaturge populaire de la Renaissance italienne, par Alfred Mortier, Vol. I, 270 pp., Paris, Peyronnet, 1925. ADDENDA MOORE, O. H. "Bertran de Born et le jeune Roi," Paris, Champion, 1925. Reprinted from Romania, Tome LI. (A thoroughly documented investigation of the sources of the legend about the relation of Bertran to the "young king." The stories in the Novellino and the Conti di antichi cavalieri, as well as Dante's representation of the Provençal poet, contain nothing about the latter which may not have been derived from the Provençal Razos and Vidas, and these Provençal accounts contain nothing that may not have been derived from the verses of Bertran himself. The troubadour's own account of himself and his character is exaggeratedly egotistical, and his statements have, besides, been misunderstood by the commentators.) WILLIAMS, R. C. "A Bibliographical Note on the Fourth Centenary of Ronsard," M. L. J., May, 1925, pp. 489-494. (Mention of G. Maugain: "Les prétendues relations du Tasse et de Ronsard," and of H. Hauvette: "Note sur Ronsard italianisant," both in Revue de littérature comparée, July-Sept. Also of C. Grillet: "Ronsard, à l'occasion de son IVe centenaire," in Le Correspondant, August 25, showing borrowing by Ronsard from Petrarch.) REVIEWS* The Earlier and Later Forms of Petrarch's Canzoniere. By Ruth Shepard Phelps. Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1925. Pp. 249. $3.00. It is well known that Petrarch, while sometimes professing to attach little importance to his Italian lyrics, nevertheless devoted infinite care to perfecting them, and during his last years prepared a definitive text of the poems, arranging them in an ordered collection, the famous manuscript Vat. Lat. 3195. Another manuscript, Vat. Lat. 3196, gives drafts of some of the poems, with notes as to when they were copied or revised. It is not so generally known that another fourteenth century manuscript (not autograph), Chigi L.V. 176, contains 215 of the 366 poems of Vat. Lat. 3195, arranged, so far as they go, in almost identical order; it is, then, not a haphazard collection, but represents the selection and arrangement desired by the poet about 1356-9. The principles on which 3195 is arranged have been studied by various Italian, French and German scholars; little attention has been paid, however, to Chigi as a preliminary stage of the final arrangement. This is the subject of Miss Phelps's investigation. The longest of the eight chapters, three-fifths of the whole book, is devoted to a discussion of when the individual poems of Chigi were composed. Here Miss Phelps adds little new material, for the most part merely stating the often divergent views of previous investigators, and determining which among the dates proposed are most probable. A summary of the evidence is in itself useful, but in some cases not all the available evidence has been used. Thus it does not seem that Miss Phelps or any other commentator has seen the significance of the mention of Bologna in the sonnet Il successor di Carlo, and she refers the line: Vedrà Bologna e poi la nobil Roma to the Crusade instead of to the Pope's project of returning to Rome. (An indication of how historical conditions may explain the line in question is found in the first volume of an important new work on Petrarch and his times by the Rev. E. H. R. Tatham, London, 1925, pp. 392-6). A recent important article by Zingarelli on the dates of Petrarch's "innamoramento" and Laura's death has not been utilized, nor have authorities more recent than Ciampi (1826) and Capponi (1874) in discussing the sonnet on the death of Cino da Pistoia, "Piangete donne." Miss Phelps refers to the famous monument in the cathedral of Pistoia as a "cenotaph": is there reason for thinking that Cino is not buried there? The important studies by Zaccagnini, Brugi and others should at least be mentioned. While many of the poems cannot be dated, there are sufficient dates for Miss Phelps's immediate purpose; and it is not likely that her general conclusions would be essentially modified if more dates were known. She shows that the self-dated poems observe rigidly the chronological order; and that the others, while frequently infringing it, show a decided tendency to observe it. There is no symmetrical pattern in the arrangement according to form, but the groups of sonnets are broken up by poems of other forms in such a way as to insure variety. In the arrangement according to subjectAuthors, Editors and Publishers, both in this country and in Italy, are urged to send books for review. matter, two principles are found-association, which creates little groups of poems on similar subjects, and variety, which avoids putting all those on a given topic into one group. Other scholars have come to similar conclusions as to the arrangement of 3195 so far as chronology and content are concerned, but without using form as a criterion. Miss Phelps applies the three-fold criterion to the poems of Chigi, and reaches the conclusion that deviations from the chronological order seem to be due to artistic considerations in regard to the form and content of individual poems; in other words, that "Petrarch was aware that these poems which infringe a general chronological order were special cases; that he had such a general order, and knew when he was violating it; and that he disposed such violations according to an artistic plan." These conclusions in regard to Chigi have now to be considered in regard to 3195. Both manuscripts are divided into two parts, the first poem in each of which begins with a large ornamented initial; the second part in each case begins with the canzone “I' vo pensando." This division offers in itself some difficult problems. What is clear, however, is that the model from which the scribe began to copy 3195 was a collection substantially identical with Chigi; the first part of the latter contains 174 of the first 189 poems of 3195, and the second part contains the first 41 poems of the second part of 3195, in the same order. Then, in smaller blocks, 89 poems were added to the first part, and 62 to the second, partly by the scribe and partly by the hand of Petrarch himself. Applying her three-fold principle of arrangement to these addenda, Miss Phelps finds that there is evidence that they were not based on an arrangement which took chronology, form or content into consideration to anything like the extent that the preceding poems did; although some attention was apparently paid to these principles of arrangement within the smaller blocks that make up the addenda as a whole. In other words, part I of 3195, that is to say of the Canzoniere in its final form, is no such organized and ordered whole as part I of the Chigi manuscript; for the effect of the addenda, when taken together with the original collection as contained in Chigi, is such as to cancel the effect of the principles of arrangement in the Canzoniere as a whole and in each of its two parts. Thus the assumption of certain previous critics that the whole Canzoniere was arranged on artistic principles consistently applied, would seem to be a fallacy, at least so far as the principles of chronology, form and content are concerned. As Miss Phelps puts it, Petrarch never combined or unified the addenda with the collection as he had carefully constituted it when the archetype of Chigi was composed: he merely annexed them. To have shown this is the outstanding contribution that she has made to the study of Petrarch. KENNETH MCKENZIE Princeton University Poeti lirici dei secoli XVIII e XIX. Edited by Giuseppe De Robertis, Firenze, Le Monnier, (1923). Pp. 240. Lire 10. This little anthology is not a textbook, nor is it the work of a trained scholar. Judging by the dedication and much thereafter, it was the loving task of a well-read if not highly gifted father solicitous for the improvement of his young sons. We must not be astonished, therefore, at the absence of a bibliography, nor complain that an introduction—a brief discussion of the Rinnovamento, if nothing more-should have commended itself to Mr. De Robertis as vindicating the unity of his book and supplying the needs of the student. Indeed, in examining this anthology we must often remember and refrain. We must remember and refrain as we glance down the index of authors and selections. Parini, Alfieri, Pindemonte, Monti, Foscolo, Berchet, Manzoni, Leopardi, Tomasèo, Giusti, Prati, Zanella, Carducci, Pascoli: assuredly, a noble company of mentors for those young sons; but how sorry we are not to have Varano as well as Monti, not to see the names of Enrico Panzacchi and Maria Bonacci-Brunamonti after that of Zanella; not to find a single example of Guerrini's realism, or of Ada Negri's passionate socialism, or of Graf's vivid, Germanic ruggedness! D'Annunzio is unrepresented at his own request. Patience must again be our medicine as we pass from the poets to the selections; for these also were chosen without regard to us. We could willingly do without L'Educazione might we instead hear the thin pipe of Ripano Eupilino swell into the organtones of Parini; and had La Risurrezione been omitted in favor of the Trionfo della libertà or of Urania, we should not cry sacrilege. We desire to know the Giusti of Stenterello and the Giusti of Fiducia in Dio in order to understand the Giusti of Il brindisi di Girella. Not being burdened with the ethical preoccupations of Mr. De Robertis, we do not like to see Carducci entirely shorn of his vituperative early verse, and we are frankly indignant at the omission of that masterpiece Alle fonti del Clitumno. Perhaps for the same reason, we note with some impatience the disproportion between the five poems allowed to Pascoli and the nine pages occupied by one of them,—the pious legend (it is not a lyric at all) of Paulo Uccello. It would require the fortitude and the Christian charity of an apostle to restrain all impatience at the notes. Copious, minute, painstaking, they would be of real value to the student were they not spoiled by a multitude of slight misapprehensions and small omissions. A few examples must suffice. In Parini's A la musa, il bello and il vero do not mean "i piaceri” and “vita semplice"; they are the Beautiful and the True of Lettura di versi or of the opening lecture on belles-lettres. The Chiabreresque "rapidesonanti" suggested for the second line of Alfieri's Sul nome suo is a metrical error, and turns the eagle into a buzzing fly. In Monti's Per un dipinto dell' Agricola, the perverse construction of si, in line seven, as independent of che mi dice, ignores the line above and the sonnet (Petrarch's, beginning: Tornami a mente) on which the poem was probably modeled. Blinded by such beams in his own eye, small wonder that our annotator imagines motes in Foscolo's! That great poet's description of Luigia Pallavicini dancing, far from being unskillful in its insipid sweetness, in its dallying with gentle detail, is a masterly portrayal of the pretty ineptitude that thought to master a fiery steed. "Che presiede marmoreo" (line 76 in All'amica risanata) is not an "inversione viziosa": it refers less to the marble bust than to the cold purity of the aesthetic mood which, as Manacorda so well shows, informs the whole poem. As for omissions, why not tell us that Leopardi's passero solitario, instead of being an impossibly solitary sparrow, was a blue thrush, the Petrocossyphus cianeus of naturalists? Why not explain the misnomer and add new meaning to the poem by referring us to Psalm 102? And Foscolo's upupa, so vividly ghoulish, did it not deserve a note? We must understand and visualize if we are to appreciate. Properly annotated, the opening lines of La caduta would gleam stormily to the student's inner eye, mingled with recollections of blustering autumn nights; and the allusion to honey in L'Educazione, of no particular aptness, if unexplained, would recall winter coughs and quaint, old-fashioned remedies. I might continue indefinitely; but already I have said enough to justify my obvious conclusion. The book should not be recommended to our classes. Goucher College CHARLES W. LEMMI NEWS NOTES* We are glad to report that Professor James Geddes, our President for 1925, has now recovered from his illness. Professor C. U. Clark, well-known lecturer and formerly in the Classical Department at Yale, has written An Italian Lesson Book, which is now being published by the World Book Company, and, we hope, will be out in the spring. By that time we also hope to welcome a new Italian Grammar by Professor J. L. Russo, of the University of Wisconsin. Professor T. Franklin Walsh, of the Commercial High School, Providence, Rhode Island, reports the following interesting figures: Elementary Italian, First Year, Term 1 Boys Girls Total Totals 56 106 162 He also reports a prosperous Circolo Petrarca. 52 * The Editors urge all members loyally to collaborate in making these News Notes of general interest by sending them promptly and abundantly all news about new appointments, promotions, fellowships, publications and other professional activities. Miss Josephine Indovina, a candidate for an A. M. at the University of Chicago, is at present instructor in Latin at the University of Nebraska. Mrs. Giannina Roosa, A. B. Syracuse University, 1917, recently achieved her A.M. at the University of Illinois. The subject of her dissertation was: Francesca da Rimini in French, English and Italian Drama. Professor W. L. Bullock, of Bryn Mawr, writes that in spite of a new requirement that every student take a reading examination in French and German in her Junior year, a requirement that tends to crowd Italian and Spanish to the wall,-Italian, especially in undergraduate courses, is doing extremely well. Professors J. D. M. Ford and G. B. Weston of the Romance Department, and E. K. Rand of the Classical Department, all of Harvard, were recently honored by the Italian government for their work in behalf of Italian and Italy, by the bestowal of the Croce di Cavaliere Ufficiale. Italian is being given this year, for the first time, at the University of Georgia. We gratefully acknowledge receipt of the Modern Language Bulletin, organ of the Modern Language Association of Southern California. The autumn number contains an interesting "book-letter" by Professor H. H. Vaughan, of the University of California. The recent establishment, at the University of Toronto, of an Italian-Spanish Club is doubtless due to the initiative of Professors M. A. Buchanan, J. E. Shaw, E. Goggio and J. Cano. Italian, which had heretofore only been taught in Extension at the University of Buffalo, is now one of the regular courses in the College of Arts and Sciences. The elementary course, which will soon be followed by intermediate and literary courses, is given by Professor John P. Rice. In 1925 two students achieved their A. M. at Columbia in Italian: Howard R. Marraro and Anna B. Pfeiffer. The subjects of their dissertations were, respectively: Contemporary Italian Educational Ideals and Madame de Staël and Italy. Professor John L. Gerig, Director of the Istituto di Coltura Italiana, reports that the much desired Casa Italiana at Columbia is now an accomplished fact, since the generous gifts of some Italian-American benefactors and of Columbia University. The house will soon be erected on a lot donated by Columbia, on Amsterdam Avenue. It seems that the American Dialect Society has entrusted its research in the study of the influence of Italian in certain American centers to Professor H. H.Vaughan, of the University of California. Special studies of dialects used in California are to be made by Mrs. M. T. Piccirillo and Miss Dora Garibaldi, of the Italian Department at Berkeley. We are happy to announce that at the recent annual meeting of the Modern Language Association, Professor T. A. Jenkins, of the University of Chicago, was elected president for 1926. An interesting note on foreign students who attended the University of Pavia in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries is contributed by Professor K. McKenzie, in a translation of a work by L. C. Bollea, in the November issue of Modern Philology. From New York University Professor O. A. Bontempo reports that, after a lapse of years, Italian has been reëstablished as a regular course, and that the Circolo has promoted a fund of $200 to provide Italian books for the Library. Geni Sadero, a talented singer and teacher of Italian diction, is touring this country. Her recent recital at Columbia was reported as very successful. Her address is 105 West 69th Street, New York. Professor Charles E. Young, of the University of Iowa, is preparing a volume in Professor Wilkins's University of Chicago Italian Series, to contain tales from the old novellieri. We are glad to hear that the Mélanges Antoine Thomas, soon to appear, will contain articles by six American Romance scholars: Professors, E. C. Armstrong of Princeton, D. S. Blondheim of Johns Hopkins, J. D. M. Ford and C. H. Grandgent of Harvard, T. A. Jenkins of Chicago and W. S. Shepard of Hamilton. The title of Professor Grandgent's contribution, the only one that directly concerns Italian, is: Unaccented final vowels in Italian. At the recent meeting of the Modern Language Association, held at the University of Chicago, the following papers, in addition to those read at the Italian Group Meeting, concerned Italian scholarship: "Studies in the Canzoniere of Petrarch," by Professor E. H. Wilkins, University of Chicago; "The Source of Giraldi Cinzio's Orbecca," by Professor A. H. Krappe, University of Minnesota; "An 'Italianisant' of |