WILSON - Apollo Volgare. Serafino Aquilano and the Performance of Vernacular Poetry in Renaissance Italy

BLAKE WILSON - Apollo Volgare. Serafino Aquilano and the Performance  of Vernacular Poetry in Renaissance Italy

Serafino Aquilano (Serafino de’ Ciminelli dall’Aquila) was the most celebrated singer-poet of his time, and his short life (1466-1500) and meteoric career are unusually well documented in contemporary sources. In life his artistry was sought in the leading Italian courts and academies of the time, and in death he was celebrated by leading humanist scholars and poets with multiple editions of his poetry, an immense memorial collection of poems, and tributes that were unprecedented for a vernacular poet from three leading humanists who were his chief apologists: a biography by Vincenzo Calmeta, a defense of his poetry by Angelo Colocci, and Paolo Cortesi’s De cardinalatu in which Serafino is declared the “originator of the renewal of vernacular song” in their age.  This study is the first to embrace the strongly oral aspect of his art, and to give equal emphasis to the multi-dimensional and inseparable components of his practice as a poet, composer, singer, and lutenist. The first part provides a revised and corrected chronology of his restless life among the courts and academies of Renaissance Italy, while the second part consists of five short essays that explain Serafino’s success in terms of his unique alignment with humanist cultural and intellectual priorities of his time, including the prestige of ancient singer-poets, the primacy of the performative art of oratory, and emerging ideals of how spoken vernacular should be constituted. Included in an appendix are editions and the first complete English translations of Calmeta’s Vita, and Colocci’s Apologia in defense of Serafino’s art.