[In the following essay, Reynolds lays out the key theories of seventeenth-century literary critics while reflecting on Galileo Galilei's views on Orlando furioso.]

It is clear that in his literary criticism Galilei owes a profound debt to classical theoreticians, including Cicero, Horace, Quintilian, Demetrius Phalereus, Longinus, and Aristotle². Whether his knowledge of these authors was direct or one filtered via the commentaries and critical tracts which owed their inspiration to these authors remains to be established conclusively. What is clear, however, is that Galilei's critical interests mirror in many instances those of his contemporaries and, in more instances, the interests of sixteenth-century theoreticians in general. Galilei's focus on the “veste” and “corpo” of language, evident in the Capitolo and in the Tasso criticism, was common to many of the early sixteenth-century critical tracts³, and was certainly a feature of the tracts which issued out of the Ariosto/Tasso controversy⁴. Before proceeding to analyse the substance of Galilei's response to Orlando furioso, I feel that some perspective is required on the nature of the controversy which surrounded the two authors who came under Galilei's scrutiny⁵.

It is important to remember that the initial skirmish over Orlando furioso dates to 1549 when Simone Fornari sought to justify Ariosto by recourse to Aristotelian precepts. The “battle” proper began in 1554 in the exchange between G. B. Giraldi Cinthio and G. B. Pigna. Both authors highlight the elements of poetic composition. On the one hand Giraldi Cinthio claims: “Non dee adunque il compositore de' romanzi farsi servo delle rime, ne delle parole. Ma farsi … che le rime e le parole servano al concetto, non egli alle rime”⁶, while Pigna shifts the critical focus to “tutte le materie favolosamente da noi finte di qualche bel concetto vestite saranno, che di riguardo sia, & di sentenza non al primo conspetto conosciuta”⁷. According to Pigna, the “concetto” is a mediating and technical factor rather than a conceptual one, as is the case in Giraldi.

The appearance of Tasso's poem in 1581 inspired the second and principal battle over the “virtues” of Ariosto. The dialogue by Camillo Pellegrino, titled Il Carrafa, places into perspective the rationale for Ariosto's impeachment, or as Attendolo puts it: “Non si niega, che Lodovico Ariosto non sia stato huomo raro nel suo secolo, à cui donarono i cieli sì vivo spirto di poesia, che meritamente gli vien dato il nome di divino …”⁸. According to Attendolo, Ariosto may be foremost among writers of romance, but he slips from first place in his lack of observance of poetic laws⁹; moreover, on the grounds of “costume”, Tasso is superior to Ariosto. The following extract from the dialogue may be construed as a reply to the criticism levelled by Galilei against Gerusalemme liberata, VII, 8, IV, 39 and 43¹⁰:

Et in questa seconda parte del costume notano alcuni il Tasso che pone in bocca d'un pastore sentenze, non pur da huomo di città, ma da filosofo. Dicono ancora, che non convenga ad Armida, né à Tancredi innamorati dir ne' loro lamenti parole così colte, & artificiose …¹¹

Attendolo admits that in the clothing of his “sentenze” with “locutione” Tasso does become at times “duretto”, but he attributes this and other flaws to Tasso's “disgratia”¹². Carrafa replies that Ariosto's “concetti” are “facili, & vestiti per lo più di voci chiarissime, & dolci”¹³, while Attendolo claims that in the novelty of his “locutione” Tasso is the superior poet. Carrafa, like Galilei, counterclaims that “sentenza” and “locutione” cannot be so separated:

ATT.
… il diletto, che nasce dalla lettione de' versi dell'Ariosto, vien tutto dalla bontà della sentenza, & non dalla locutione.
CAR.
… Io non veggio come questo sia, che la sentenza possa esser buona, spiegata con non buona locutione(14).

Attendolo claims that Tasso is superior because his “favola “has “più perfettione”, his “costumi” are “migliori”, and he is “più efficace nella sentenza, & più chiaro & più florido nella locutione”¹⁵. These are points with which Galilei takes issue in his Considerazioni. Carrafa, however, underscores the clarity of Ariosto as opposed to the artifice of Tasso, another point of consonance with the Galilei criticism:

CAR.
… Mi ricordo di haver letto, che la bontà & virtù della locutione primieramente consiste in muover gli affetti, & in generar maraviglia, & diletto … anzi è più loda di un poeta, che fà nascer la maraviglia di locution chiara, & natìa, che da altra peregrina, & oscura …(16).

The charge of obscurity directed against Tasso recurs throughout the exchanges of the controversy. For example, Salviati, the Infarinato, remonstrates with Tasso in his reply to the Apologia: “Ma la durezza de' vostri versi è per tutto, e consiste non pur nel suono, ma nella difficultà della legatura, e nello sforzamento dell'artificiò”¹⁷.

An interesting feature of the early stages of the controversy are the many promises, particularly from Salviati, to publish an annotated version of Tasso's poem. In Salviati's reply to Tasso's Apologia this venture is foreshadowed on at least five occasions¹⁸; at one point he describes the venture as being sanctioned by the Crusca Academy: “INFA. … Intanto per ordine dell'Accademia si farà qui in Firenze stampar la Gerusalemme con annotazioni, ò postille …”¹⁹. That Galilei's own Considerazioni have many points of contact with the tracts of the controversy has already been pointed out²⁰; in fact, they may represent the type of “postille” borne in mind by the Cruscanti.

The fundamental point of divergence between the two opposing camps is the nature of the rules supposedly applicable to poetry. Pellegrino applies to Orlando furioso a modified version of Aristotelian theory and, naturally, finds the poet wanting. This approach rouses the intellectual ire of Salviati and his fellow academicians who embrace in their comprehension of language a greater diversity of usage (unlike their adversaries who call upon Della Casa to arbitrate) and who seek to apply their criticism according to the intemal logic of the matter before them:

RISP.
Le regole dell'arte sono verame(n)te nella poesia, come le massime nelle scienze; ma non perciò, che dice l'Atte(n)dolo, ciò è per l'avere avuti [Classical literature] più chiari scrittori, ma per l'essere fùndate su la ragione: senza la quale non basterebbe né l'esemplo di Omero, né l'autorità di Aristotile, il quale non ne lasciò ammaestramento nella poetica, che non fosse fondato su la detta ragione(21).

The intellectual significance of this exchange has been rightly underscored by Peter M. Brown in his monograph on Salviati²². However, when one considers the many points of contact between Salviati's tracts and Galilei's own Considerazioni, Salviati's “originality” is provided with a suggestive context.

The vituperative irony characteristic of Galilei's Considerazioni became an established feature of the controversy exchanges from the time of Fioretti's [Salviati's] Considerazioni … intorno a un discorso di M. Giulio Ottonelli²³, if not before. Brown incisively relates the tenor of the debate to the Florentine tradition emanating from Grazzini and the Accademia degli Umidi, and offers a perspective on the debate as a “battaglia di cortesia”²⁴. However, it is clear that from Ottonelli's point of view the level of courtesy is only relative: “Se volevano lodare, essaltare, e magnificare l'Ariosto … perché poi fuor de' termini dicevoli a gentilhuomini, & a litterati”²⁵. Levels of popular usage appear liberally throughout Fioretti's reply, while flippancy and blatant invective are rampant²⁶. The irony of Fioretti's parting shot is self-evident: “E viva l'Ariosto, e l'Alamanni, e ‘l Pulci, e ‘l Tasso, e tutti gli altri, i quali, ò giovano, ò hanno per fine il giovare altrui: e muoia invidia, e discortesia, con tutta la lor brigata”²⁷. Ottonelli's Discorso relies substantially on notions of poetic and linguistic regulation. His reponse to “low” usage is indicative of a general critical stance: “… come avvertiscono tutti coloro che sanno, le sue vili parole [i.e. of the “vulgo”], e maniere di dire si vogliono con ogni studio schifare in ragionamenti, & in iscritti gentili, e leggiadri”²⁸. Ottonelli is joined in his disparagement of the level of debate by Orazio Lombardelli:

Dico per tanto, che tutte l'opere di questo genere [Invettive, satire, annotazioni mordaci, etc.] … non hanno ordini certi, onde a' lettori poco utili … son per lo più di cattivo essempio, e per ultimo non sono immortali. A gli studiosi dunque una tal maniera di scritti non può esser né gioconda, né grata: … ogni cosa vi puzza d'immodestia, di mordacità, d'insolenza …²⁹.

The adversaries of the Crusca Academy initially based their claim for Tasso's superiority on the greater excellence of his “sentenza” and “locuzione”. In the early stages of the debate the Cruscanti were relatively content to demonstrate by actual reference to the text of Tasso's poem how these views, in their opinion, were not tenable. In so doing the Cruscanti were challenging directly those who sought to regulate poetry by the application of rules which the Cruscanti themselves believed to have no foundation in reason. As the level of invective increases, we find the Cruscanti claiming that Tasso's poetry is reminiscent of the Florentine rustic tradition. The linking of Tasso's poem, with its lofty epic pretensions, to a lowly sub-species which was not generally granted definition by sixteenth-century theorists³⁰ was surely designed to sting the Crusca's adversaries. In a parallel fashion, Galilei's own Considerazioni mention the peasant lovers Nencia and Beco; their earthiness serves him as a satiric yardstick in his ridicule of Tancredi's high-minded heroism³¹. Galilei's interest in the Beco/Nencia tradition is in all probability related to his experience of Ruzante and a natural extension of his manifest interest in dialect forms. Another tradition alluded to in the Considerazioni is that of commedia dell'Arte. Galilei's familiarity with the realistic figures of Piombino, messer Zanobio, the duchi da Potenza and Francatrippe is mirrored by Salviati's reference to Petrolino³². Further evidence of Galilei's knowledge of this comic tradition is provided by the Carteggio³³, and of course by his own two “abbozzi” of a commedia dell'Arte piece.

The commedia dell'Arte and rustic analogues serve as realistic underpinnings to Galilei's criticism of Tasso for his supposed lack of emotional realism. Clearly Galilei has no sympathy for the heroic ideals embodied by such characters as Tancredi. Although Tancredi may fulfill the requirements of “decoro” in its most narrowly denotative aspects, Galilei finds that such characterisations are the antithesis of the connotative “decoro” which he advocates. In attempting to elucidate this point, he consideres it necessary to draw to the reader's attention living and recognisable examples within the Florentine context. Thus Galilei is seen to be exploring the metaphorical range of “costume”, juxtaposing poetic “costume” with actual social “costume”. Galilei's references to “costume” are not limited: to creative, theatrical “costume” is added clothing “costume”³⁴, the “costume” of games³⁵, dancing³⁶, eating³⁷, cooking³⁸, copulating³⁹, loving⁴⁰ and marrying⁴¹. These references provide the Considerazioni with a cogently realistic framework, and point to manners, habits and customs in a manner reminiscent of the Bernesque tradition.

The greatest originality of Galilei's criticism of Tasso, when it is set in the context of the controversy tracts, lies in this framework. However, just as notable as this originality are his reliance on historical critical precedent (he evokes the classical critics probably as frequently as the controversy theoreticians) and the consistency of the tone of his criticism which borrows (or reflects) the attitudes of one camp in the battle. For the most part Galilei's criticism reflects the Crusca side of the debate. Galilei frequently projects an ironically superior Florentine persona, conveyed particularly in his choice of elements of popular Florentine usage⁴², and also in the ironic employment of the “voi” form of address⁴³. However, Galilei's ire, expressed so dramatically in his devastating irony, may in part be an expression of a reaction against the largely “unscientific” and illogical nature of the debate over Tasso and Ariosto. A majority of the tracts do indeed provide us with gems of how not to approach the literary text.

As Galilei sought to deduce truth from observable phenomena in the natural world, it is likely that he chose to reject in his literary endeavours the a priori notions which bedevilled intellectual inquiry in other realms. The a priori group is formed by the non-Cruscan group in the controversy (and sometimes by the Crusca group itself!). The non-Crusca combatants include, besides Tasso: Camillo Pellegrino, Orazio Lombardelli, Giulio Guastavini, Giulio Ottonelli and Niccolò degli Oddi. Their stance is characterised in the following extracts from their works:

1. Pellegrino
   • a) Io tengo, che Torquato Tasso nella Gierusalem liberata habbia meglio, che Lodovico Ariosto nell'Orla(n)do Furioso fatto non hà, osservate le leggi dovteu [sic] all'epica poesia, secondo Aristotile ne ha insegnato⁴⁴.
   • b) Ma il poema che piace solamente al volgo, ha per fine semplicemente il diletto⁴⁵.
   • c) Io seguì à dire del Tasso che le sue se(n)te(n)ze no(n) così spicca(n)o p(er) ragio(n) della locutio(ne) poetica ado(m)brata, et i(n) u(n) certo modo velata dalle metafore, le quali, qua(n)tu(n)que re(n)dano p(er)fetta la locutione, no(n) dime(n)o alle volte da(n)neggiano la sentenza⁴⁶.
   • d) [Ariosto] … non intese le regole della lingua⁴⁷.
   • e) Onde un Toscano poeta quantunque felice d'ingegno, & fornito d'arte per lo più converrà, che seguì l'orme segnate da ta' poeti [i.e. Homer, Virgil]⁴⁸.
2. Gustavini
   • a) Risp. … maggior lode merita chi con brevità, e con modo più difficile egualmente conseguisce alcuna cosa; … ma facendo il Tasso ciò con più brevità e modo più difficile; merita per questo lode maggiore⁴⁹.
   • b) Risp. … le regole delle favelle, le quali si fanno, e si raccolgono dall'uso, quando esse sono perfette, e nella maggior bellezza, e come nel suo mezodì, no(n) si mutano poi più: anzi chi viene dapoi, se alterate si veggono tali regole dalle bocche, che le parlano, cerca d'accostarsi à quelle regole più, che puote, per esser bello dicitore, o parlatore in questa parte⁵⁰.
   • c) Risp. … non del fine del parlare, ma della sua virtù si ragiona: la qual virtù non consiste nell'essere inteso, ma nell'essere inteso senza bassezza …⁵¹.
3. Ottonelli
   • a) … niuno scrittor moderno nel fatto della lingua è di tanta autorità, che più tosto non si debbano allegare gli antichi approvati già tanti, e tanti anni dal parere universale de' giudiciòsi: …⁵².
   • b) Perciò come che il popolo habbia autorità d'introdurre, come gli piace, hor queste, hor quelle parole, e forme di parlare; nonpertanto chi desidera di favellar bene, e di scrivere ornatamente, non dee allontanarsi dall'uso de' buoni scrittori⁵³.
4. Degli Oddi
   • a) … la strada dell'immortalarsi è stretta, e bisogna osservare le poetiche leggi, e non volere passeggiare alla larga⁵⁴.
   • b) Ma, che più? dell'utile, che habbiamo da' Poeti, testimonio ne sia Aristotele, il quale chiaramente afferma il Poeta dover rappresentare le persone, e le cose non quali sono state, ma quali esser doveano …⁵⁵.

While most of these views can at best be described as uncreatively critical, and at worst, untenable, they were widely held theoretical views in the sixteenth century, as Weinberg's corpus of treatises attests. Their “unscientific” nature is immediately obvious to the contemporary reader. However, one may infer from the controversy of which they form part that there was a significant body of opinion which held essentially opposing views. Omitting Galilei for the moment, one may include Lionardo Salviati, the Crusca academicians as a group, Orlando Pescetti and Giuseppe Malatesta. The following extracts present a brief summary of their basic critical standpoints:

1. Salviati
   • a) Risp. L'Ariosto è breve, e chiaro ad un'ora; ma quella del Tasso non brevità ma stitichezza o più tosto stroppiamento si può chiamare … La brevità vuole studio, ma non isforzo e perciò quell'huom dal bene [i.e. Horace] disse laboro⁵⁶.
   • b) Risp. … quella, che si sente nel leggere il Goffredo, non è fatica, ma continua noia, e martoro, avendosi sempre à combattere con gli stravaganti, e intempestivi ghiribizzi dell'autore⁵⁷.
   • c) INFA. Il pellegrino prende «l'arte» per «le regole di essa arte»⁵⁸.
   • d) INFA. … Ma non è fallo l'usare à suo luogo studiosamente le voci di brutto senso: ma fallo è il rappresentare brutture all'orecchie …⁵⁹.
   • e) Ma la durezza de' vostri versi è per tutto, e consiste non pur nel suono, ma nella difficultà della legatura, e nello sforzamento dell'artificio⁶⁰.
2. The Crusca Academy
   • a) Risp. Il concetto era bello, ma il Tasso nella scurezza l'ha affogato del modo del favellare⁶¹.
   • b) Risp. … ed il Tasso, per lo contrario, né compassione, né altro affetto, non ha mai forza di muover punto nell'ascoltante. … Sentasi un poco nel Furioso quel dolorosissimo, e miserabilissimo pianto d'Olimpia: quel d'Isabella sopra ‘l morto corpo del suo Zerbino, … leggasi nel Goffredo quello stiracchiato d'Armida, e quel di Tancredi … ne' primi udirem parlar daddovero parole svelte dall'intimo del cuore, ne' secondi recitar cosa, che si vorrebbe fingere, ma non può venir fatto … quelle dell'Ariosto paiono vere, e finte quelle del Tasso senza alcuna felicità⁶².
3. Fioretti [Salviati]
   • a) … Rinaldo eletto dal Tasso per lo sovrano campione della santa impresa di Gottifredi … vien comparato a uno stallone: che più vil ministerio, e più sozzo non può pensarsi … Da quel Poeta, che doveva nobilitarlo, aggrandirlo, magnificarlo; e se in alcuna cosa, in alcun fallo giovenile fosse sdrucciòlato, quando che fosse, ricoprirlo, scusarnelo, e farlo quasi sparire⁶³.
4. Malatesta
   • a) Hor no(n) è dubbio, che le parole … no(n) sono altro, che un vesti(m)ento de i co(n)cetti dell'animo nostro, & però, sì come i vestimenti, se non vogliono havere tutta la mala gratia del mondo, devono se(m)pre appropriarsi alla co(n)ditione di colui, che gli porta, così l'oratione, & le parole devono haver proportione, & corrispondenza co(n) le cose, che trattano⁶⁴.
   • b) Ricordatevi voi d'haver detto poco fa, che l'Arti sono eterne; & che però non dovea l'Ariosto mutarle dal sesto loro? … Io per mè non hò né intesa, né creduta mai cosa tanto contraria … & mi fareste credere d'essere in un'altro mondo, non in questo pieno di mutatione, & di varietà, dove sono; … io vedo chiaro, che questa perpetuità di stato è così nemica, & avversa, non pur delle Arti solamente, mà ancor di tutte le cose, ch'allogiano sotto à questo globo lunare …⁶⁵.

Certainly Galilei's criticism and its motivations accord with the second group of critics. There are in fact many direct correlations between Galilei's criticism and the tracts of these writers. What essentially binds them is a creative attitude to criticism, a willingness to respond to the demands of the text under review, a rejection of the application of a priori rules to the text, a demand on the text to involve and affect the reader in a direct way and, most basically, a demand of the writer that his creative premise is clear insofar as what he writes is communicated to the reader with immediacy and impact. On all these points Ariosto's poem can claim superiority, or so these critics and Galilei state.

A striking feature of the Ariosto/Tasso skirmish is the manner in which the Florentines identify themselves with the knights of old. The weapons may have changed, but the essential tactics remain the same. Brown's assessment of a “battaglia di cortesia” is corroborated by the following remark of Paolo Gualdo who, when announcing the forthcoming Anticrusca of Paolo Beni, writes thus to Galilei:

… e questa volta spera che non gioverà a voi altri signori haver gli Orlandi, che impugnino spade, lancie e brochieri per riparare i colpi della sua scutica e del magistral suo baculo⁶⁶.

In this context “gli Orlandi” refers to all those who participated in the early stages of the controversy on the side of the Crusca. A similar metaphor appears in Galilei's Corteggio when Bonaventura Cavalieri foreshadows the tactics of Scipione Chiaramonti:

Sì che ella vede che il Chiaramonti, doppo credere di havere abbatuti tutti gl'astronomi, non avanzandoli altri viene hora alle mani con i Peripatetici; onde aspetto che presto, non havendo con chi combattere venga, qual valoroso Ruzante, anco alle mani con sè stesso. Staremo a vedere o a sentire questi colpi da Paladini.⁶⁷

The assumption of the persona of the “cavaliere errante” was in all probability common to those engaged in polemical debate. “Lettere” and “armi” were, moreover, perceived of in close proximity as is evidenced by the theoretical tracts dedicated to their analysis. The knights of the chivalric tradition were, however, effectively limited by the demands and restrictions placed on them by “cortesia”. Galilei's Tasso criticism certainly oversteps the bounds prescribed by “cortesia”, so staunchly asserted by, among others, Giovanni Della Casa. Malediction was a fault to be avoided at all costs: “D'altrui ne delle altrui cose non si dee dir male”⁶⁸. Many critics have responded to Galilei's Tasso criticism as being beyond the bounds of decorum. He was in fact known for his passionate responses, as Piero Guicciardini demonstrated in 1616: “Ma egli [Galilei] s'infuoca nelle sue openioni, ci ha estrema passione dentro, et poca fortezza et prudenza a saperla vincere: tal che se li rende molto pericoloso questo cielo di Roma”⁶⁹. On one level it is probable that Galilei in the various intellectual combats of his career identified with the chivalrous heroes of Orlando furioso both in their bravery and in their frailty. On another level he was obviously attracted by the paradoxes of Ariosto's poem, by the way the poem deals with the contrariety of human existence, and by the exploratory and speculative nature of Ariosto's poetry⁷⁰. However, the most obvious statement of the attraction of Ariosto's poem lies in the minute linguistic analysis to which Galilei subjected the work.

Galilei's attraction to Orlando furioso was probably constant throughout his adult life. In his declining years his correspondence with Francesco Rinuccini attests a still lively interest⁷¹. The last letter of the exchange, dated 19 May 1640, particularises the episodes of the poem in which, according to Galilei, Ariosto has surpassed Tasso. An earlier letter sets out in a more schematic form the points of contrast chosen by Galilei⁷². The later letter provides a greater amount of detail, and highlights Ariosto's “[maravigliosa] osservazione … del costume”⁷³. Galilei's responses are styled by Rinuccini “belle animadversioni e sensate considerationi sopra tanti luoghi del Furioso”⁷⁴. Galilei's interest in Ariosto was certainly keen during his last years. Since it is also known that Galilei was approached early in the seventeenth century for his views on Tasso, it is probable that his interest in Orlando furioso can be dated to a much earlier period. The reasonably extensive “postille” now published as part of his socalled literary works reflect an overwhelming concern with modes of expression. A majority of Galilei's annotations focus on modifications in word order and, frequently, on emendations of single words (largely for the sake of greater clarity and immediacy of communication), in large part directed at polishing the text and removing elements of “scurezza” and “durezza”. Many of Galilei's annotations suggest corrections to imprecision of expression, ranging from his objection to “chiamare … il nome” in Canto X, 24, 7-8, to his query of Ariosto's shift from third to first person in Canto XXVII, 56. Galilei's method of annotation generally does not rely on written comment as does his Tasso criticism but on a range of signs, the purpose for many of which remains unclear. A plausible explanation of this annotated edition is that it served Galilei as a source book which he was able to consult when drawing (private or public) parallels between Ariosto and Tasso. Moreover, a large proportion of the “postille” deal not with Ariosto's “superior” creativity but with how his poetic communication could be bettered. In this aspect Galilei's interest is dual. On one hand he is establishing for himself an aesthetic model, and on the other he is using Orlando furioso as a tool for linguistic research and criticism. It is this latter purpose which appears to predominate. Occasionally the two intentions coincide, as in Canto VII, 66, 2: “Ragionando così la maga venne: sarà miglior verso; e la parola venne sarà posta tre volte, e sempre in diverso significato”⁷⁵. In this instance aesthetic demands require a linguistic change. In other cases these demands are totally met, as in Canto XI, 8, 5-7, where Galilei remarks “Oh divinissimo uomo!”⁷⁶. However, the majority of his annotations are accompanied by no comment. They remain, therefore, objective rather than subjective observations, either of printer's or poet's “error”. The relatively sparse written comments are highlighted by passages in which Ariosto is accused by Galilei of “durezza”, a lack of verisimilitude or a conceptual slip or, conversely, where Ariosto has met perfectly Galilei's requirements for social and psychological verisimilitude, which is characterised as “il costume mirabilmente osservato sempre in tutte le cose”⁷⁷.

It appears likely that Galilei was attracted by the recognisable “umanità” of Ariosto's characters. Ariosto's characters with their paradoxical and contradictory natures are recognisable men and women. They were certainly recognised as such by Galilei who compared them most favourably with Tasso's heroes and heroines and their artificial posturings. Tasso's world and the world of his characters were circumscribed by Christian demands in a manner irrelevant to the composition of Ariosto's poem⁷⁸. It certainly appears admissible that Galilei “attached much greater importance to character as representing the behaviour of real people than to character as a vehicle for moral precepts”⁷⁹. However, Galilei's concern for the minutiae of Ariosto's expression raises broader issues. Taken together, his readings of Tasso and Ariosto evidence a highly personal analysis of, on the one hand how not to express oneself, and on the other how to express oneself through the medium of poetry⁸⁰. Poetry is one code. The deciphering of codes was a fundamental element of Galilei's epistemology, as he himself intimates in the following extract:

… forse stima che la filosofia sia un libro e una fantasia di un uomo, come 1'Iliade e 1'Orlando Furioso, libri ne' quali la meno importante cosa è, che quello che vi è scritto sia vero. Sig. Sarsi, la cosa non istà così. La filosofia è scritta in questo grandissimo libro, che continuamente ci sta aperto innanzi agli occhi (io dico l'Universo), ma non si può intendere, se prima non s'impara a intendere la lingua, e conoscer i caratteri ne' quali è scritto⁸¹.

Galilei's preoccupations would today be characterised as semiotic. His own experience brought him into contact with many codes. Clearly Galilei perceived the separateness of these codes⁸². His awareness of the existence of a multiplicity of codes points to an implicit realisation of the intrinsic difficulties of communication and of comprehension, not for those who were conversant with a number of codes but for those whose knowledge of codes was limited. Galilei in his choice of Italian as the linguistic medium of the major scientific dialogues sought the widest contemporary audience. He desired to communicate intelligibly his ideas and discoveries:

[SAGR.]
La lettura de i poeti eccellenti di qual meraviglia riempie chi attentamente considera l'invenzion de' concetti e la spiegatura loro? Che diremo dell'architettura? che dell'arte navigatoria? Ma sopra tutte le invenzioni stupende, qual eminenza di mente fu quella di colui che s'immaginò di trovar modo di comunicare i suoi più reconditi pensieri a qualsivoglia altra persona, benchè distante per lunghissimo intervallo di luogo e di tempo? … Sia questo il sigillo di tutte le ammirande invenzioni umane, e la chiusa de' nostri ragionamenti di questo giorno …(83).

In the major dialogues and scientific tracts many of Galilei's techniques of expression, principally his use of metaphor and irony, are derived from what would today be recognised as “non-scientific” codes, from theatre, from philosophical discourse, from familiar discourse, and also from poetry. Galilei's technical and linguistic flexibility was no doubt partially in reaction to the debased form of logic practised by the Aristotelians of his time⁸⁴, but it was also attributable, by implication, to Galilei's own perception of the powers of language. Galilei's superior insight into language was one he shared with the poets, the artifices who work with language as their basic material. Patently his originality as a scientist would not be recognised had he been unable to communicate that originality to us. The “cose” come first but the “parole” must also follow since the “cose” must eventually be communicated⁸⁵. As Fulgenzio Micanzio writes to Galilei in January 1635: “Il filosofare ordinario de' nostri stimati non è sopra le cose, come V.S., ma sopra le parole”⁸⁶. As in science so in poetry the object of discourse is observable phenomena. In poetry what is also observable is the action of language. Ariosto's poem provided for Galilei a model on these several counts, and it was thus an obvious choice as an object of critical discourse. Stillman Drake clarifies this flexibility and its relationship to Galilei's reading of Ariosto in the following comments on the conceptual and linguistic variety of Dialogo sopra i due massimi sistemi del mondo:

His readers are … constantly reminded of familiar experiences and observations; of little puzzles that occur to everyone but are usually pushed aside … The way to put the sensible world on paper without thereby reducing it to a paper world was to keep the reader's mind on things of experience rather than on verbal technicalities. The poets are great masters of this art. They bring experience to life by a single word or a brief phrase, when the same experience would remain lifeless through a paragraph of objective description. Galileo borrowed their technique, and he ascribed his own clarity of style to his intimate familiarity with the poetry of Ariosto⁸⁷.

Galilei constantly maintained as a measure the sensible world, a yard-stick that has subsequently been ignored as the letterato of Galilei's time slowly metamorphosed into the scientist of our own age. In the late 1960s Italo Calvino expressed forebodings about scientific alienation and, as a writer, perceived the essence of Galilei's commitment to intellectual endeavour and its handmaiden, language:

… nella direzione in cui lavoro adesso, trovo maggior nutrimento in Galileo, come precisione di linguaggio, come immaginazione scientifico-poetica, come costruzione di congetture. Ma Galileo—dice Cassola—era scienziato, non scrittore. Questo argomento mi pare facilmente smontabile: allo stesso modo … anche Dante cercava attraverso la parola letteraria di costruire un'immagine dell'universo. Questa è una vocazione profonda della letteratura italiana che passa da Dante a Galileo: l'opera letteraria come mappa del mondo e dello scibile, lo scrivere mosso da una spinta conoscitiva …⁸⁸.

The speculative nature of Galilei's Dialogo is expressed by the interlocutors themselves. Sagredo describes the effect of the discourse as inspiring in him the wish “procedere per interrogazioni”⁸⁹. By that method he hopes to be able to place “costrutto” on the ideas being debated. Salviati, Galilei's mouthpiece, reinforces this notion of comprehension and interpretation, while stating implicitly that absolute value cannot be placed on any area of human experience, particularly not on language with its Protean qualities:

[SALV.]
… devo dire al Sig. Sagredo che in questi nostri discorsi fo da Copernichista, e lo imito quasi sua maschera; ma quello che internamente abbiano in me operato le ragioni che par ch'io produca in suo favore, non voglio che voi lo giudichiate dal mio parlare mentre siamo nel fervor della rappresentazione della favola, ma dopo che avrò deposto l'abito, che forse mi troverete diverso da quello che mi vedete in scena(90).

The followers of Aristotle are described in the Dialogo as those who have ignored the “sensate esperienze” proffered by nature in favour of what “discorso” has dictated to them. As Sagredo asserts, the process should in reality be reversed, since nature first made “le cose a suo modo” and only subsequently engendered “i discorsi umani” which were to investigate them⁹¹. And as Salviati points out subsequently in the same dialogue, the terms of human discourse are “non assoluti, ma relativi”⁹². Since humanity has the gift of the Logos all men are poets or makers of language but, as Salviati ironically asserts, there are two different types of “poets”: “È forza dire che gli ingegni poetici sieno di due spezie: alcuni, destri ed atti ad inventar le favole; ed altri, disposti ed accomodati a crederle”⁹³.

Those, however, who are actively involved in the use of their intelligence are bound to run risks since they are humanly fallible. It is Salviati who records the heroic, active, but fallible prototype of human behaviour in the terrestrial sphere, namely the “unhappy Orlando”:

[SALV.]
… e cessa la mia maraviglia nel rimembrarmi quant'ore, quanti giorni, e più quante notti, abbia io trapassate in questa specolazione, e quante volte, disperato di poterne venire a capo, abbia, per consolazion di me medesimo, fatto forza di persuadermi, a guisa dell'infelice Orlando, che potesse non esser vero quello che tuttavia la testimonianza di tanti uomini degni di fede mi rappresentava innanzi a gli occhi(94).

Ironically Galilei, through Salviati who represents his mouthpiece in the Dialogo, seeks to retain Orlando's combative qualities, while in no way seeking to identify with Orlando's loss of reason and ultimate madness. However, the reference to Orlando's “suffering” may provide an intimate personal glimpse into the effects of criticism and eventually repression on an original creative mind at work, a mind burning to communicate yet aware of the difficulties of such an enterprise. Galilei was as aware as any letterato of the relative ease of invention/discovery of ideas but of the disproportionate difficulties not only in their expression but in their communication, and finally (and this is the step over which the originator or author has no final control), their power to persuade and convince. Within the terms of the dialogue, Salviati's method has borne fruit with Sagredo:

[SAGR.]
… ma non dispero, col tornar da me stesso, in solitudine e silenzio, a ruminar quello che non ben digesto mi rimane nella fantasia, d'esser per farmene possessore(95).

What more could any author wish for? What Galilei sought to preclude, both in the Dialogo and in his literary criticism, is the literal interpretation which attributes to any type of human discourse a single or absolute meaning and denies the speculative potential, both of language and of the human mind. For Galilei Tasso's poem remained a “pittura confusionaria” and Ariosto's Orlando Furioso communicated with brilliant clarity. His own scientific writings were similarly influential on those to whom they were directed. What greater accolade could Bonaventura Cavalieri grant Galilei than the following:

… la sua dottrina, che merita d'esser anteposta a tutte l'altre, come che sii un naturalissimo ritratto della natura, dove le altre sono apunto come l'imagini che, riflesse nell'acqua molto agitata, apparendo in varie maniere et in diversi pezzi, a gl'occhi de' riguardanti riescono un confusissimo dissegno. E pure il secolo è tanto guasto, che, già dalla consuetudine di aprender in tal guis' ingannato, pur apresentatoli sì nobil tavola, o non cura di riguardarla, o, da maligno affetto sospinto, la riguarda solo per mascherarla co' suoi figmenti⁹⁶.

Cavalieri's metaphor is immediately reminiscent of the Considerazioni analogues. Cavalieri's words suggest an additional implication, namely an identification between Galilei and Ariosto and Galilei's discourse and Ariosto's discourse. Galilei's assumption of the persona of Orlando has already been indicated. While the “book” of nature contains the “cose” on which Galilei's discourse is based, it is clear that the “parole” in which they were expressed owe a large debt to the “books” of Orlando furioso and Gerusalemme liberata. While Galilei's literary criticism may reflect the late sixteenth-century trend noted by Weinberg towards “a broadening of the critical scope of inquiry, some loosening of tight, systematic distinctions, and occasional prying into the psychological and linguistic factors that underlie a theory of diction”⁹⁷, excursions into the so-called literary realm were clearly a part of Galilei's passionate desire to express himself and to communicate, a passion which drives all creative and original minds. He was a letterato in the truest sense of the word.

Notes

1. This essay is a sequel to “The ‘Considerazioni al Tasso’ of Galileo Galilei”, which appeared in Italian Quarterly, XXI, 80 (Spring 1980), 11-28.

2. For a detailed account of these sources, see Appendix.

3. Alessandro Lionardi, Dialogi … della inventione poetica (Venezia, 1554), pp. 14-15 & 64; Giovanni Andrea Gilio, Topica poetica (Venezia, 1580), p. 4v; Iason de Nores, Poetica (Padova, 1588), p. 137v; Gabriele Zinano, Il sogno (Reggio, 1590), p. 23; Pietro Capriano, Della vera poetica (Venezia, 1555), pp. A3v-A4; Francesco Panigarola, Il predicatore (Venezia, 1609), p. 45; Benedetto Varchi, L'Hercolano (Firenze, 1590), p. 122, and others.

4. Paolo Beni, Il Goffredo (Padova, 1616), p. 56, and Comparatione de Homero, Virgilio e Torquato Tasso (Padova, 1607), p. 157; Camillo Pellegrino, Replica 98, in Salviati, Lo ‘nfarinato secondo (Firenze, 1588), p. 227, and others.

5. Bernard Weinberg, A History of Literary Criticism in the Italian Renaissance (Chicago, 1961), vol. 2; Chapters XIX and XX deal with the controversy.

6. G. B. Giraldi Cinthio, Discorso intorno al comporre dei romanzi, ed. crit. by G. C. Crocetti (Milano, 1973), p. 102. Cfr. op.cit., p. 137: “la chiarezza, e la facilità, e la dirittura de' concetti sono lo splendore delle composizioni de' buoni poeti”.

7. G. B. Pigna, I romanzi (Venezia, 1554), p. 92.

8. Il Carrafa in Parte delle Rime di D. Benedetto dell'Uva, Giovanbatista Attendolo, et Camillo Pellegrino (Firenze, 1584), p. 139.

9. Op. cit., ibid.

10. Galilei, “Considerazioni al Tasso”, in Galilei, Scritti letterari, ed. A. Chiari (Firenze, 1970), pp. 589, 554.

11. Il Carrafa, p. 148.

12. Op.cit., p. l55.

13. Ibid., p. 158.

14. Ibid., p. 161. Cfr. Considerazioni, cit., pp. 513, 536.

15. Ibid., p. 166. Galilei's Considerazioni dispute every point.

16. Parte delle rime, cit., p. 160. Cfr. Camillo Pellegrino, Replica, cit., p. 223: “La bontà, e la virtù della locuzione consiste principalmente nella chiarezza, e nella brevità, e nell'efficacia. Il muover le passioni, e la maraviglia è impresa della sen(n)te(n)zia: Il diletto commune all'uno, e all'altro …”. Cfr. Considerazioni, pp. 534 (“la superflua lunghezza di questo poeta”); 614 (“in questo mettere innanzi a gli occhi che fa, ha dell'andare della divinità dell'Ariosto”); 634-35 (the final comparison between Ariosto and Tasso).

17. Salviati, Dello Infarinato … Risposta all'Apologia di Torquato Tasso (Firenze, 1585), p. 109.

18. Op. cit., pp. 112, 115, 135 and 142.

19. Ibid., p. 60.

20. Cfr. M.A. Reynolds, “The Considerazioni al Tasso of Galileo Galilei”, Italian Ouarterly, XXI, 80 (Spring 1980), 11-28, esp. 17, 24-25.

21. Dello Infarinato, cit., p. 110.

22. Lionardo Salviati: a Critical Biography (Oxford, 1974), pp. 215-16.

23. Fioretti [Lionardo Salviati], Considerazioni … intorno a un discorso di M. Giulio Ottonelli da Fano sopra ad alcune dispute dietro alla Gierusalèm di Torq. Tasso (Firenze, 1586).

24. Brown, op.cit., pp. 210, 226.

25. Fioretti, op. cit., p. 31.

26. Cfr. ibid., pp. 31, 122-23, 146, 156.

27. Ibid., p. 157.

28. Ottonelli, Discorso … Con le difese della Gierusalemme liberata … dall'oppositioni degli Accademici della Crusca (Ferrara, 1586).

29. Lombardelli, Intorno ai contrasti che si fanno sopra la Gerusalemme liberata di Torquato Tasso (Ferrara, 1586), p. 13 Cfr. op.cit., pp. 55, 115-16.

30. See Varchi, L'Hercolano, cit., p. 220, who relegates such poetry to the fifth “modo”.

31. Considerazioni, cit., p. 529.

32. Difesa dell'Orlando Furioso, cit., p. 28v.

33. Carteggio, Edizione Nazionale, cit., XII, p. 279; XVI, p. 199.

34. Considerazioni, cit., pp. 589, 600-01, 626.

35. Op.cit., pp. 510, 529, 555.

36. Ibid., p. 512.

37. Ibid., pp. 517, 572, 597, 598, 604, 605, 628.

38. Ibid., pp. 603, 612, 635.

39. Ibid., pp. 545, 548-49, 554, 554-55.

40. Ibid., pp. 529-36, 574, 587.

41. Ibid., pp. 499, 501. Cfr. also art. cit. (note 19), 15-17.

42. A striking feature of the Considerazioni is the plethora of suffix-added words, suffixes of both the “peggiorativo” and “vezzeggiativo” variety. Such an extensive usage of suffixes is commonly associated with the spoken rather than the written mode, and usually adds a note “di espressività diversa, di dimestichezza e di affetto”: cfr. T. Poggi Salani, Il lessico della “Tancia” di Michelangelo Buonarroti il Giovane (Firenze, 1969), p. 261. However, in this case the suffix-added words are more probably in ironic counter to the linguistic aggrandisement characteristic of Tasso's poem and could well seen as an implied rejection of the rules of the “decorous” applicable to literary criticism. Certainly “common” speech was widely frowned upon by a significant number of sixteenth-century theoreticians. The familiar tone of these suffix-added words, coupled with the irreverent level of much of the lexicon of the Considerazioni, certainly conveys irony, at times even derision.

43. Rohlfs' Grammatica storica della lingua italiana records the use of the “voi” form by Dante to address figures in the Comedia worthy of great respect, including Cavalcanti, Guinizelli and Farinata (op. cit. II, p. 184). Boccaccio's use of this form of address implies similar respect since it is used by inferiors to their masters. Given the familiarity of Galilei's tone throughout the Considerazioni it is not difficult to attribute to Galilei more than a little irony.

44. Pellegrino, Replica, cit., pp. 7-8.

45. Op. cit., p. 97.

46. Ibid., p. 190.

47. Ibid., p. 235.

48. Ibid., p. 290.

49. Guastavini, Risposta all'Infarinato Academico della Crusca, cit., p. 58v.

50. Op. cit., p. 29v.

51. Ibid., p. 60v.

52. Ottonelli, Discorso, cit., p. 13.

53. Op. cit., p. 33.

54. Degli Oddi, Dialogo, cit., p. 49.

55. Op. cit., p. 51.

56. Infarinato, Risposta in Pellegrino, Replica, cit., p. 194.

57. Op. cit., p. 256.

58. Infarinato, Risposta all'Apologia di Torquato Tasso, cit., p. 48.

59. Op. cit., p. 62.

60. Ibid., p. 109.

61. Difesa dell'Orlando Furioso, cit., p. 39r.

62. Op. cit., p. 42r.

63. Fioretti, Considerazioni, cit., p. 144.

64. Malatesta, Della nuova poesia, cit., p. 55.

65. Op. cit., pp. 82-83.

66. Galilei, Carteggio, XII, p. 81. Gualdo's letter is dated 5 July 1614.

67. Carteggio, XVII, p. 415. Cavalieri's letter is dated 28 December 1638.

68. Il Galateo (Milano, 1950), p. 48.

69. Carteggio, XII, p. 242.

70. A pertinent analogue is the reaction experienced by Pier Battista Borghi at his first reading of Galilei's Dialogo in 1635: “… et invero sento in me, in più volte ch'ho ripreso la lettura di quello, l'effetto che mi ricordo havere esperimentato nel leggere il Furioso, che dovunque io dia principio a leggere, non posso ritrovarne il fine: così appunto mi è accaduto ne' suoi Dialoghi”—Carteggio, XIV, pp. 336-37.

71. Cfr. Carteggio, XVII, pp. 242, 260-61; XVIII, pp. 116, 120-21, 192-93.

72. Cfr. Carteggio, XVIII, p. 121.

73. Op. cit., ibid., p. 193.

74. Ibid., p. 198.

75. Edizione Nazionale, IX, p. 157.

76. Op. cit., p. 160.

77. Ibid., p. 193.

78. In the Dialogo sopra i due massimi sistemi del mondo, Salviati refers to Tasso as “il Poeta sacro”: Edizione Nazionale, VII, p. 463.

79. Cfr. Peter De Sa Wiggins, “Galileo on Characterization in the Orlando Furioso”, Italica, 57, iv (Winter 1980), 262.

80. Or as Salviati puts it: “la poesia s'impara dalla continua lettura de' poeti”—Dialogo, ed. cit., p. 60.

81. Galilei, Il saggiatore, cit., p. 38.

82. See particularly the full text/context of the extract from the Dialog. beginning “la lettura de i poeti eccellenti …”, referred to in the text at note 82.

83. Dialogo, ed. cit., pp. 130-31. Cfr. Pellegrino, Replica, cit., p. 137: “I pensieri sono comuni à ciascuno, e il fatto sta nell'esprimergli felicemente: nella qual cosa veggasi un poco il maraviglioso ingegno dell'Ariosto …”.

84. Cfr. particularly the following extract from the Dialogo, cit., pp. 59-60.

85. Cfr. ibid., p. 218: “SALV. Ed io ancora mi accorgo che voi intendete la cosa, ma non avete i termini proprii da esprimerla: or questi ve gli posso ben insegnar io; insegnarvi, ciòè, delle parole, ma non delle verità, che sono cose”.

86. Carteggio, XVI, p. 199.

87. Stillman Drake, “Galileo's Language: Mathematics and Poetry in a New Science”, Yale French Studies, 49 (1977), 19.

88. Italo Calvino, “Due interviste su scienze e letteratura”, in Una pietra sopra. Discorsi di letteratura e società (Torino, 1980), p. 187.

89. Dialogo, ed. cit., p. 146.

90. Op. cit., p. 157-58.

91. Ibid., p. 289.

92. Ibid., p. 396.

93. Ibid., p. 446.

94. Ibid., p. 472.

95. Ibid., p. 487.

96. Opere, Edizione Nazionale, XIII, p. 71. Cfr. also Pier Battista Borghi's letter to Galilei of 9 February 1635: “Quelli che nello stile attico si diffondono, haveríano molto a caro, cred'io, di sparmiare il tempo e le parole, se col laconico sapessero sì bene esprimere i loro pensieri come fa V.S. molto Ill.re” (op. cit., XVI, p. 207).

97. Weinberg, op. cit., I, p. 249.

Appendix. Classical Sources for the “Considerazioni al Tasso”

The following references, derived from classical theoretical tracts, are paralleled directly or by implication in Galilei's Considerazioni al Tasso. Added in parentheses is a description of the point under discussion.

While it is quite probable that Galilei was acquainted with these authors whose texts provide suggestive parallels with the Considerazioni, the parallels are relatively limited in extent. If indeed Galilei were acquainted with these classical authors, it is clear that he chose to neglect many of the other precepts they expounded.