Il Guerrin Meschino
Encyclopedia
Il Guerrin Meschino is an Italian prose chivalric romance
with some elements of verisimilitude
, written by the Tuscan
trovatore and systematizer and translator from French, Andrea da Barberino
, who completed it about 1410.
The text in eight chapter-length books circulated widely in manuscript before its first printing, in Padua, 1473. It was a late contribution to the "Matter of France
" that appealed to aristocratic audiences and their emulators among the upper bourgeoisie. In a departure from Andrea's other known romances, there are no discernible French or Franco-Venetian sources for this narrative, which unfolds instead in the manner of a travel account
. It draws for its details on a variety of predecessors, such as, for the oracular Tree of the Sun and the Moon, the Alexander romances, and— outside the romance tradition— on Dante
's Divine Comedy, on the "natural history
" found in medieval bestiaries
, and on the legend of the Purgatory of St. Patrick
and the cosmology of Ptolemy
. The quest
involved is the rootless Guerrino's search for his lost parents. There is an undercutting element of deconstruction of chivalrous ideals
apparent from the very title: Guerrino derives from guerra "war", but meschino means, "shabby, paltry, ignoble"; the hero, cast away as a babe sold by pirates and rebaptized by his foster father Meschino, the "unlucky", rises through his heroic efforts to his proper status as Guerr[i]ero, "warrior". At the end of his adventures Guerrino discovers that he is the son of Milone, Duke of Durazzo, who was himself the son of a Duke of Burgundy
, so that Guerrino is of royal blood.
Guerrino is the sole protagonist
; other characters exist only insofar as they encounter him.
The far-ranging episodes create a fictional geography as seen from the Mediterranean world. Guerrin's enchanted sojourn in the cave of the Sibyl bears parallels with the Germanic traditions of Tannhäuser
. Prester John
plays a role, offering Guerrin the signoria over half of all India
, following a battle. Most of the challenges Guerrin faces, however, are moral rather than military, even where the supernatural character of the site is explicitly non-Christian, such as the sanctuary of the Trees of the Sun and Moon. Like Dante
, he was granted a view of Purgatory
, the Purgatorio di San Patrizio.
The work has had a checkered career under the scrutiny of the Church. Many modern editions reprint the bowdlerized Venetian edition of 1785, pubblicata con licenza dei superiori, which suppressed all mention of the Sibilla Apenninica
sited in a grotto
on Monte Sibilla
in the Apennines, substituting various Italian circumlocutions: Fata, Fatalcina, Ammaliatrice, Incantatrice, etc.. A complete chapter, Book V, in which the Apennine Sibyl describes the other classical Sibyls
was completely suppressed. Astronomical references were also deleted by the censor. A critical text, based on Florentine Quattrocento
manuscripts, was edited by Paola Moreno, and published in 2005
The work was so popular that it was translated for a Spanish audience by Alonso Hernández Alemán, as Guarino Mezquino; by the time it was printed in Castilian
in 1512 it had received 21 printings in Italian. It had staying power, too: the literary Venetian courtesan Tullia d'Aragona
rendered it in epic verse, now "most chaste, all pure, all Christian," as Il Meschino, altramente detto il Guerrino (Venice 1560, 2nd ed. 1594), though the source she acknowledged to the reader was the perhaps more respectable Amadis de Gaula
. Mozart's librettist Lorenzo da Ponte
was inspired by Il Guerrin Meschino as an adolescent. In the 19th and 20th centuries, episodes from Il Guerrin Meschino have been adapted for the Italian stage, and even for children.
Le Meravigliose avventure di Guerrin Meschino
is a 1951 Italian film that takes its general tenor from the romance. Guerrin was adapted twice for the Italian comic book
s called fumetti, once in 1959 in 17 installments under the title Guerino detto il Meschino and again running in the Corriere dei Piccoli. Guerin Sportivo
, an Italian sport and satirical weekly magazine founded in 1912 in Turin, takes its title from the protagonist.
Romance (genre)
As a literary genre of high culture, romance or chivalric romance is a style of heroic prose and verse narrative that was popular in the aristocratic circles of High Medieval and Early Modern Europe. They were fantastic stories about marvel-filled adventures, often of a knight errant portrayed as...
with some elements of verisimilitude
Verisimilitude (literature)
Verisimilitude, with the meaning "of being true or real" is a likeness or resemblance of the truth, reality or a fact's probability. It comes from Latin verum meaning truth and similis meaning similar.-Original roots:...
, written by the Tuscan
Tuscan
-Linguistic phenomena:* Tuscan dialect, the ancestor of the modern Italian language* Tuscan gorgia, a sound-Creative works:* Under the Tuscan Sun * Under the Tuscan Sun -Sports cars:...
trovatore and systematizer and translator from French, Andrea da Barberino
Andrea da Barberino
Andrea Mangiabotti, called Andrea da Barberino was an Italian writer and cantastorie of the Quattrocento Renaissance. He was born in Barberino di Val d'Elsa and lived in Florence...
, who completed it about 1410.
The text in eight chapter-length books circulated widely in manuscript before its first printing, in Padua, 1473. It was a late contribution to the "Matter of France
Matter of France
The Matter of France, also known as the Carolingian cycle, is a body of literature and legendary material associated with the history of France, in particular involving Charlemagne and his associates. The cycle springs from the Old French chansons de geste, and was later adapted into a variety of...
" that appealed to aristocratic audiences and their emulators among the upper bourgeoisie. In a departure from Andrea's other known romances, there are no discernible French or Franco-Venetian sources for this narrative, which unfolds instead in the manner of a travel account
Travel literature
Travel literature is travel writing of literary value. Travel literature typically records the experiences of an author touring a place for the pleasure of travel. An individual work is sometimes called a travelogue or itinerary. Travel literature may be cross-cultural or transnational in focus, or...
. It draws for its details on a variety of predecessors, such as, for the oracular Tree of the Sun and the Moon, the Alexander romances, and— outside the romance tradition— on Dante
DANTE
Delivery of Advanced Network Technology to Europe is a not-for-profit organisation that plans, builds and operates the international networks that interconnect the various national research and education networks in Europe and surrounding regions...
's Divine Comedy, on the "natural history
Natural history
Natural history is the scientific research of plants or animals, leaning more towards observational rather than experimental methods of study, and encompasses more research published in magazines than in academic journals. Grouped among the natural sciences, natural history is the systematic study...
" found in medieval bestiaries
Bestiary
A bestiary, or Bestiarum vocabulum is a compendium of beasts. Bestiaries were made popular in the Middle Ages in illustrated volumes that described various animals, birds and even rocks. The natural history and illustration of each beast was usually accompanied by a moral lesson...
, and on the legend of the Purgatory of St. Patrick
Legend of the Purgatory of St. Patrick
L'Espurgatoire Seint Patriz or The Legend of the Purgatory of Saint Patrick is a 12th century poem by Marie de France. It is an Old French translation of a Latin text Tractatus de Purgatorio Sancti Patricii by the monk Henry of Saltrey. However, Marie's version is amplified from the original...
and the cosmology of Ptolemy
Ptolemy
Claudius Ptolemy , was a Roman citizen of Egypt who wrote in Greek. He was a mathematician, astronomer, geographer, astrologer, and poet of a single epigram in the Greek Anthology. He lived in Egypt under Roman rule, and is believed to have been born in the town of Ptolemais Hermiou in the...
. The quest
Quest
In mythology and literature, a quest, a journey towards a goal, serves as a plot device and as a symbol. Quests appear in the folklore of every nation and also figure prominently in non-national cultures. In literature, the objects of quests require great exertion on the part of the hero, and...
involved is the rootless Guerrino's search for his lost parents. There is an undercutting element of deconstruction of chivalrous ideals
Chivalry
Chivalry is a term related to the medieval institution of knighthood which has an aristocratic military origin of individual training and service to others. Chivalry was also the term used to refer to a group of mounted men-at-arms as well as to martial valour...
apparent from the very title: Guerrino derives from guerra "war", but meschino means, "shabby, paltry, ignoble"; the hero, cast away as a babe sold by pirates and rebaptized by his foster father Meschino, the "unlucky", rises through his heroic efforts to his proper status as Guerr[i]ero, "warrior". At the end of his adventures Guerrino discovers that he is the son of Milone, Duke of Durazzo, who was himself the son of a Duke of Burgundy
Duke of Burgundy
Duke of Burgundy was a title borne by the rulers of the Duchy of Burgundy, a small portion of traditional lands of Burgundians west of river Saône which in 843 was allotted to Charles the Bald's kingdom of West Franks...
, so that Guerrino is of royal blood.
Guerrino is the sole protagonist
Protagonist
A protagonist is the main character of a literary, theatrical, cinematic, or musical narrative, around whom the events of the narrative's plot revolve and with whom the audience is intended to most identify...
; other characters exist only insofar as they encounter him.
The far-ranging episodes create a fictional geography as seen from the Mediterranean world. Guerrin's enchanted sojourn in the cave of the Sibyl bears parallels with the Germanic traditions of Tannhäuser
Tannhäuser
Tannhäuser was a German Minnesänger and poet. Historically, his biography is obscure beyond the poetry, which dates between 1245 and 1265...
. Prester John
Prester John
The legends of Prester John were popular in Europe from the 12th through the 17th centuries, and told of a Christian patriarch and king said to rule over a Christian nation lost amidst the Muslims and pagans in the Orient. Written accounts of this kingdom are variegated collections of medieval...
plays a role, offering Guerrin the signoria over half of all India
India
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
, following a battle. Most of the challenges Guerrin faces, however, are moral rather than military, even where the supernatural character of the site is explicitly non-Christian, such as the sanctuary of the Trees of the Sun and Moon. Like Dante
DANTE
Delivery of Advanced Network Technology to Europe is a not-for-profit organisation that plans, builds and operates the international networks that interconnect the various national research and education networks in Europe and surrounding regions...
, he was granted a view of Purgatory
Purgatory
Purgatory is the condition or process of purification or temporary punishment in which, it is believed, the souls of those who die in a state of grace are made ready for Heaven...
, the Purgatorio di San Patrizio.
The work has had a checkered career under the scrutiny of the Church. Many modern editions reprint the bowdlerized Venetian edition of 1785, pubblicata con licenza dei superiori, which suppressed all mention of the Sibilla Apenninica
Monte Vettore
Monte Vettore is a mountain on the border between Umbria and the Marche, in central Italy. It is part of the Sibillini mountains range and lies in the Parco Nazionale dei Monti Sibillini. Today climbers reach it from the Umbrian side from Norcia, or, on the Marche side, from Ascoli Piceno...
sited in a grotto
Grotto
A grotto is any type of natural or artificial cave that is associated with modern, historic or prehistoric use by humans. When it is not an artificial garden feature, a grotto is often a small cave near water and often flooded or liable to flood at high tide...
on Monte Sibilla
Monte Sibilla
Monte Sibilla is a mountain of Marche, Italy....
in the Apennines, substituting various Italian circumlocutions: Fata, Fatalcina, Ammaliatrice, Incantatrice, etc.. A complete chapter, Book V, in which the Apennine Sibyl describes the other classical Sibyls
Sibyl
The word Sibyl comes from the Greek word σίβυλλα sibylla, meaning prophetess. The earliest oracular seeresses known as the sibyls of antiquity, "who admittedly are known only through legend" prophesied at certain holy sites, under the divine influence of a deity, originally— at Delphi and...
was completely suppressed. Astronomical references were also deleted by the censor. A critical text, based on Florentine Quattrocento
Quattrocento
The cultural and artistic events of 15th century Italy are collectively referred to as the Quattrocento...
manuscripts, was edited by Paola Moreno, and published in 2005
The work was so popular that it was translated for a Spanish audience by Alonso Hernández Alemán, as Guarino Mezquino; by the time it was printed in Castilian
Castilian
Castilian may refer to:* Alternative name for the Spanish language .* Something related to the Crown of Castile, a former state in present-day Spain...
in 1512 it had received 21 printings in Italian. It had staying power, too: the literary Venetian courtesan Tullia d'Aragona
Tullia d'Aragona
Tullia d'Aragona was a 16th century Italian courtesan, author and philosopher in Venice. She had one daughter, Penelope d'Aragona, born in 1535, and a son, Celio, by Silvestro Guiccardi....
rendered it in epic verse, now "most chaste, all pure, all Christian," as Il Meschino, altramente detto il Guerrino (Venice 1560, 2nd ed. 1594), though the source she acknowledged to the reader was the perhaps more respectable Amadis de Gaula
Amadis de Gaula
Amadis de Gaula is a landmark work among the knight-errantry tales which were in vogue in 16th century Iberian Peninsula, and formed the earliest reading of many Renaissance and Baroque writers, although it was written at the onset of the 14th century.The first known printed edition was published...
. Mozart's librettist Lorenzo da Ponte
Lorenzo Da Ponte
Lorenzo Da Ponte was a Venetian opera librettist and poet. He wrote the librettos for 28 operas by 11 composers, including three of Mozart's greatest operas, Don Giovanni, The Marriage of Figaro and Così fan tutte....
was inspired by Il Guerrin Meschino as an adolescent. In the 19th and 20th centuries, episodes from Il Guerrin Meschino have been adapted for the Italian stage, and even for children.
Le Meravigliose avventure di Guerrin Meschino
Le Meravigliose avventure di Guerrin Meschino
Le Meravigliose avventure di Guerrin Meschino is a 1951 Italian film. It is based in part on the 1410 chivalric romance Il Guerrin Meschino....
is a 1951 Italian film that takes its general tenor from the romance. Guerrin was adapted twice for the Italian comic book
Comic book
A comic book or comicbook is a magazine made up of comics, narrative artwork in the form of separate panels that represent individual scenes, often accompanied by dialog as well as including...
s called fumetti, once in 1959 in 17 installments under the title Guerino detto il Meschino and again running in the Corriere dei Piccoli. Guerin Sportivo
Guerin Sportivo
The Guerin Sportivo is an Italian sport magazine. Founded in 1912 in Turin, it is published every month and is the oldest sport magazine in the world....
, an Italian sport and satirical weekly magazine founded in 1912 in Turin, takes its title from the protagonist.
Editions
- Il Guerrin meschino (Padua: Bartholomeo de Valdezoccho & Martin de Septem Arboribus, 1473)
- Guerino il Meschino (Bologna: Baldassarre Azzoguidi, 1475)
- Guerino il Meschino (Venice: Gerardo de Lisa, 1477)
- Guerrino detto Meschino (Venice: Alexandro de Bindoni, 1512)
- Guerrino detto il Meschino (Venice: 1567)
- Guerino detto il Meschino (Venice: Tipografia Molinari, 1826)
- Guerrino detto il Meschino (Naples: Ferdinando Bideri, 1893)
- Guerrino detto il Meschino (Rome: Nuove edizioni romane, 1993)
- Il Guerrin Meschino (Rome & Padua: critical edition, Antenore, 2005)