THE OXFORD TEXT OF THE NOIE OF ANTONIO PUCCI KENNETH MCKENZIE Investigators of Florentine literature, history, and life of the fourteenth century would find their work immensely facilitated by a scholarly edition of the complete writings of Antonio Pucci, the town crier, bell-ringer, and popular poet; by a thorough study of his life and works; or by an exhaustive bibliography of manuscripts and publications. At present no one of these three much-needed works is available; and the texts of Pucci's poems, and studies of various matters connected with him, are scattered through an infinite number of books, periodicals, and pamphlets. After a few of his poems had been printed separately, the first collective edition appeared at Florence in 1772-1775;1 it contains the lengthy Centiloquio, followed in the fourth volume by a number of shorter compositions, including the Noie. No subsequent editor has had the courage to reprint the Centiloquio. In 1909 Ferruccio Ferri, in a book with the inappropriate title La Poesia Popolare in Antonio Pucci,2 republished most of the shorter poems which had already appeared, and for the first time made accessible a large number of others. For this service he deserves gratitude, but his book proved most disappointing; the biographical portion contains nothing new, the bibliography, while impressively long, is inaccurate and incomplete, and the texts, as we shall see presently, have been edited in a distressingly unscholarly fashion. There is ground for expecting that within a reasonable time a satisfactory work on Pucci will be brought out by a competent Italian scholar. In the meantime, we have to be content with incomplete studies and uncritical texts; the material is abundant, and minor contributions will have their importance. The present writer has recently published in the volume Studii dedicati a Francesco Torraca (Napoli, Perrella, 1912, pp. 179–190) the text of the Voie as it is found in the so-called Kirkup manuscript, recently in the Plimpton Collection at Wellesley College, but now in Florence. The object of this paper is to present the text of the same poem as preserved in modified form in a manuscript of the Bodleian Library at Oxford. 1 Delle Poesie di Antonio Pucci . . . pubblicate da Fr. Ildefonso di San Luigi, 4 volumes,being Vols. III-VI of the series Delizie degli Eruditi Toscani. 2 Bologna, Libreria Beltrami. See the review by Ghino Lazzeri in Rassegna Bibliografica della Letteratura Italiana, XVII, 81-106, and cf. D'Ancona e Bacci, Manuale della Letteratura Italiana, VI, 481. The poem entitled Le Noie, consisting of over three hundred verses in terza rima, enumerates things which annoy. This type of composition was recognized as a regular form in the Middle Ages, and in Provençal was called enueg. The two essential features are the enumeration in epigrammatic style of a series of vexatious things, and the repetition at frequent intervals of a phrase to indicate their annoying character. In Pucci's poem the annoyances are arranged in groups: lack of reverence at church, offenses against ordinary politeness, violations of table manners, want of consideration for one's companions, etc.; the human element and the humor of these verses make them most entertaining, and many of the poet's satiric thrusts have as much force to-day as they had in the fourteenth century. That the poem enjoyed considerable vogue is shown by the fact that it now exists in at least fifteen manuscripts, some of which, including the one here published, contain dialect forms from beyond the borders of Tuscany. The text was first printed from a Riccardian manuscript in 1775 (edition cited, Vol. IV, pp. 275-285); while the printed text follows the manuscript in general, the editor has standardized the orthography and modified certain expressions which shocked his sense of propriety, disregarding the warning given in the closing verses: A noia m'è chi queste cose muta, Ovver le cresce sanza Antonio Pucci : This text has 101 terzine, or 304 verses. The Kirkup text, except for verbal differences and the insertion of four additional tersine, corresponds line for line with the printed text; it has also a final couplet, — 318 verses in all. The Oxford text corresponds line for line with the other two, but breaks off after 177 verses. Other manuscripts have the terzine arranged in different order, the rhyme-scheme, however, being kept intact; and this fact indicates that in some instances the transmission was oral. The best single text is probably that of the Kirkup MS., but a critical text based on a comparison of all the manuscripts would doubtless differ from it widely. The first editor, 1 For a general treatment of the subject, with bibliography, see R. T. Hill, "The Enueg,” in Publications of the Modern Language Association of America, XXVII (1912), 265–296; Pucci is discussed on pp. 287 ff. 2 Ferri, Poes. Pop., p. 242, names fourteen, not including the Kirkup MS. (see below). All of these were already enumerated in Propugnatore, N. S., V, ii, 287. 3 This is the case with the text in cod. Univ. Bologna 147, of 81 terzine, with dialect forms similar to those of the Oxford text. The heading: "Quive si chomença le noglie del patechia," is interesting as showing how the name of Girardo Patecchio or Pateg, a thirteenth-century writer of noie, had become associated with the genre; see F. Pellegrini, "Di due poesie del secolo xiv," in Giornale Storico della Letteratura Italiana, XVI, 341–352; F. Zambrini, “ Descrizione di codici," in Propugnatore, I, 507-509; E. Monaci, Crestomazia italiana dei primi secoli, p. 529; Hill, "The Enueg," p. 277. The variations of text in the Florentine manuscripts were mentioned in the preface to the 1775 edition, p. ix. 4 See Margaret H. Jackson, "Antonio Pucci's Poems in the Codice Kirkupiano of Wellesley College," in Romania, XXXIX, 315–323; S. Morpurgo et J. Luchaire, La Grande Inondation while he naturally had little conception of modern scholarly methods in editing, did at least indicate where he had tampered with the text; but the two reprints of his edition reproduce his text without the notes: in the Raccolta di Rime antiche toscane (Palermo, 1817; III, 311-320) the only material change is in restoring one word for which the first editor had substituted a less offensive one; while in 1909 Ferri, apparently ignoring the 1817 edition, uses his opportunity to consult the manuscripts of the Noie only so far as to supply from some source, which he does not name, a single line which was lacking in the manuscript used in the 1775 edition. Pending the publication of a definitive text, the readings of the several manuscripts, if accurately reproduced, are valuable. The Oxford manuscript (O) is not derived either from the Kirkup (K) or from that used by Ildefonso di San Luigi (R), for it agrees now with one, now with the other; it is of comparatively slight importance for establishing the original readings, although even in this respect it cannot be neglected; but it is of considerable interest on account of its dialect forms, and also because everything which can throw light on Antonio Pucci is worthy of attention. What I have called "the Oxford manuscript" is cod. Canon. 263 in the Bodleian Library. It belongs to the fifteenth century, and contains miscellaneous Italian compositions in prose and verse;1 the Noie begins without title or heading of any kind on f. 131', and ends with the word "Finis" at the bottom of f. 133"; the name of the author is not mentioned. Apparently the copyist grew tired of his work, for there is no reason for stopping where he did, and the last part of the text gives evidence of absent-mindedness. The poem is preceded by a sirventese and followed (f. 133") by a prose Lapidario. The other texts in the manuscript, so far as I have examined them, show dialect forms similar to those in the Noie, which are enumerated at the end of this paper. In printing the text I have followed the manuscript scrupulously, merely solving abbreviations, separating words, and punctuating. A few obvious blunders, chiefly in the rhyme-words, have been corrected, with the manuscript reading in the footnotes. Variants which involve the sense are given from K and from the published text (R); also from the fragment published by D. M. Manni.2 In this form, and with this much apparatus, the text is offered as a contribution toward the definitive edition of Pucci. de l'Arno en MCCCXXXIII, anciens poèmes populaires italiens, Paris-Florence, 1911, p. 65; [S. Morpurgo], "L'Apografo delle rime di Antonio Pucci donato dal Collegio di Wellesley alla Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale di Firenze," in Bollettino delle Pubblicazioni Italiane, Firenze, presso la Biblioteca Naz. Cent., no. 133, gennaio, 1912; and several publications of A. D'Ancona cited in these works. 1 For contents see A. Mortara, Catalogo dei manoscritti italiani Canoniciani, Oxford, 1864. The date of the MS. is fixed by a list of the Doges of Venice to the year 1478 (f. 201). 2 Manni in Poesie di Antonio Pucci, I, p. xvii; also in Manni's Veglie piacevoli, Firenze, 1815, Vol. V, p. 131 (and in other editions). I have also quoted two MSS. of the University Library at Bologna, cod. 158 as described by F. Zambrini, Il Libro della Cucina, Bologna, 1863, p. xx; cod. 147 as described in Propugnatore, I, 507–509. 2 O, K, R superna alteza, Manni eterna altezza, cod. Bol. 147 eternal lume e certa sapienza. 5 Manni assai 3 Cod. Bol. 147 e perfecta bontate. 4 K, R, Manni, cod. Bol. 158 ignorante. del suo santo lume. 6 Manni che faccia, K, R che fa. 9 K che fiano. 11 K, R, Manni a ciò che ... ognun che. muoia; Manni questo vizio. 12 K, R seguitarla sono sciochi. 13 Manni io prego 17 MS. umilitade. 18 K, R, Manni al prete si rapresa. 19 si lieva (so MS. R, but s'alza in all editions); K, Manni chi vegiendo. 20 K, R, Manni non si tra 'l. 21 nostro lacking in K, R, Manni. 22 K, R m'è tanto ch'i. 23 K, R chi sta con donna in chiesa a mercatare, Manni con donne in santo. 24 K, R di bucio in bucio, Manni a buccio a buccio. 25 R chi in chiesa, K qualunque, Manni chi in santo. K fratte, MS. R frate (but printed prete in all editions), Manni prete. 84 K quandalttre in. 38 Cod. Bol. 158 limosina per dio a piu persone. 36 mi: K li; intenzione: K, R op(p)enione. 39 R dal più ricco scacciato, O, K, Bol. piu pover. 30 R, Manni che in ogni luogo. 31 frate: 61 è piu che quel chotale invelupato. 67 A nogia m'è ziaschaduna persona che inver l'amicho per pichola ofexa 73 79 A nogia m'è chi è tanto mato che per esser tenuto piu gagiardo 45 chontra el signor sparla ad ogni trato. 49 MS. a 43 R sopr'ogni. senpre lacking in K, R. 46-51 Manni (lines 34-39 of the fragment) has these two terzine in modified form, with different rhymes. 47 K, R ghignando. torti. 50 zercha: K becha, R becca, Manni piglia. 53 artixan o lacking in K, R. 64 Rognun, K ciaschuno. 56 vestito: R addobbato; K a mercienaio che sia ben adobatto. 57 R che peggio elle mi paion che perdute. 59 MS. chelelui. 61-62 K quand' un noveli alchun per dare, R quand' un novelli Per voler dare. 63 K, R ch'altri. 77 MS. quel che ad unnaltro. 79 K chiunque e ttanto; MS. R = O, but all editions have chi è tanto folle o matto. 81 K inchonttro a dio sparla tratto tratto, R Incontro a Dio. |