Ariosto and the 'cantimpanca'

Luca Degl'Innocenti, one of the project's postdoctoral research fellows, gave a paper on 'Ariosto and the cantimpanca' on 30 November 2016 at UCL Italian. Read on for an outline of Luca's talk.

'First published in 1516, Ariosto's Orlando furioso soon became immensely popular, both in print and in oral recitations. For 500 years, it has not only been reprinted countless times, but also read aloud, recited from memory, and most importantly sung. Throughout the 16th century, in particular, its stanzas were sung everywhere, by everyone and for the most various reasons; but above all it was sung by the itinerant performers known as cantimpanca, whose narrative cantari were among Ariosto's main models, and whose repertoires of street performances and catalogues of chapbooks abounded in excerpts and imitations of the Furioso immediately after its publication.

'This paper reassesses some already known facts and examines new evidence, focusing in particular on the role of Niccolò Zoppino, a charlatan publisher who was among the first to reprint the Orlando furioso, the first to illustrate it, and most likely also among the first to sing it publicly – possibly even in the presence of Ariosto. A little bibliographical finding, finally, will urge us to reappraise what we believe we know about the boundaries that separated elite poets and street performers in Renaissance Italy and warns us that their worlds interacted more directly than we are used to thinking.'