BMCR 2009.07.55: Hutton on Castner, Biondo Flavio's Italia Illustrata: Text, Translation, and Commentary. Volume I: Northern Italy

Catherine J. Castner (ed.), Biondo Flavio's Italia Illustrata: Text,
Translation, and Commentary. Volume I: Northern Italy.  Binghamton, NY:
Global Academic Publishing, 2005.  Pp. xxxvi, 385.  ISBN
9781586842550.  $36.00 (pb).

Reviewed by William Hutton, College of William & Mary ([email protected])
Word count:  2101 words
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In the year that Constantinople fell to the Ottomans, Biondo Flavio,
humanist and historian from Forli/, published his Italia Illustrata, a
systematic topography of the Italian peninsula, in Latin, combining
observations on history and contemporary affairs and exhibiting a
strong antiquarian interest in the origins and early history of Italian
localities.  Until 2005 no substantial portion of this unique work had
been translated into English, but that year saw the publication of the
initial volumes of two independent efforts toward complete annotated
translations with Latin and English on facing pages: Jeffrey White's
treatment of Books I-IV in the I Tatti Renaissance Library series,[[1]]
and the volume currently under review, Catherine Castner's translation
and commentary of Biondo's accounts of Northern Italy.   While White is
tackling Biondo's volumes in the order in which he published them
(which describes a rather tailbiting and backtracking progress through
the peninsula), Castner dismembers the text to deal with a contiguous
chunk of northern Italy, with the more southerly books to come in a
projected second volume.   While one might argue with Castner's choice
in this respect, one happy effect that it produces is that we currently
have access to more of the work in English translation than we would
have if the two authors had followed the same method:  White gives us
Books I to IV, while Castner, in addition to Book I, deals with Books
VI-XI.

According to Castner, Biondo was "a key founder, if not indeed the
father of modern historiography and archaeology," and "a pioneer in
scientific method and critical judgment" (xiii).  While not everyone
would speak of Biondo's status so forcefully, he is a genuinely
interesting figure worthy of greater renown than he currently
possesses.  Standing at a crucial period in renaissance scholarship,
just at the point when a large number of original Greek texts were
starting to enter the scholarly mainstream in Italy, Biondo provides a
unique snapshot of the relationship between educated Italians and the
classical past and an important testament to the reification of an
"Italy", centuries in advance of political unification, with boundaries
broadly similar to that of the modern nation-state. Italia Illustrata
is an important source not only for Italian geography and political
history but also for the intellectual history of the fifteenth century
and for the reception of classical antiquity in the Renaissance.
Since the bulk of BMCR's readership can be counted on to have some
interest in the last of these topics, it is perhaps worthwhile to dwell
a bit more on this aspect of Biondi's text in the current review.

As Castner describes the genesis of Italia Illustrata (xxi-xxiii),
Biondo already possessed some repute as a historian when Alphonso of
Aragon, King of Naples, commissioned from him a geographically arranged
catalogue of contemporary leaders in the various regions of Italy.   It
was apparently Biondo's own initiative and predilection that led him to
expand his purview back to ancient times, to follow classical
precedents in the division and arrangement of Italy's geography
(preface, 294E-295C), and to cast his efforts in the tradition of
Fabius Pictor, Cornelius Nepos, Julius Caesar and others (293A).
Biondo cites and quotes, often apparently from memory (with attendant
imprecisions), a number of classical authors, including Pliny, Livy,
Vergil, Florus, Pomponius Mela, Hyginus and Pompeius Trogus (via
Justin's epitome).  Though he possessed little Greek, Biondo did know,
and cite, Ptolemy through Latin translations available at the time.  He
also was aware of Strabo (whom he calls "Strabo of Crete"), although no
known translation of the complete work is known to have existed before
Biondo's death.  The availability of partial translations may explain
why Biondo's references to Strabo cluster almost exclusively around the
territory of Latium (not covered in Castner's volume).  Biondo's
relationship to Strabo is interesting because there is a certain
congruity in the writing careers of the two men and in their
conceptions of the relationship between geography and history: Strabo's
massive Geography was written as a companion-piece to his even more
massive Histories, whereas Italia Illustrata developed as a complement
to Biondo's major historical work, the Decades.  Another interesting
intertext comes with Pausanias, an author mentioned neither by Biondo
nor by Castner:  at least one manuscript of Pausanias (apparently the
ancestor of all surviving manuscripts) was known to scholars in
northern Italy in Biondo's day, and there are striking similarities in
the ways that the two authors combine topography and history in
covering discrete parts of the oikoumene.  In particular, Biondo's use
of the rivers of Italy to provide an organizatory thread in his
progress from place to place recalls Pausanias' organization of his
descriptions of Greek sites along well-ordered land-routes.  Any actual
awareness of Pausanias' text by Biondo must remain a matter of
speculation, but classical scholars who draw conclusions about the
nature of Pausanias' work from its form and structure would do well to
compare the similarly structured work of Biondo, who is much more
upfront than Pausanias about what he is trying to accomplish.   This is
only one of many insights that classicists can gain by consulting
Biondo's renaissance text.

To judge Castner's contribution to making this fascinating author
better known to the English-speaking world, it is useful to compare her
work with that of White, her closest competitor.  Castner's
introduction is somewhat longer and meatier, and gives more of a sense
of the scholarly give-and-take on the issues it discusses; whereas
White's introduction, though impeccably erudite, seems more designed to
communicate the basic facts of Biondo's career and milieux in a
readable fashion (this impression is increased by Castner's use of
rich, discursive footnotes vs. White's more laconic endnotes).
Similarly, Castner's running commentary on the text tends be more
content-rich.  For instance, when Biondo tells us that the territory of
Genoa possessed few notable intellectuals (292G), Castner points out
that this was not a unanimous opinion in Biondi's day, and summarizes a
work of modern scholarship on the point.  White is silent on the topic.
When Biondo quotes the Historia Augusta in relation to a site he
believes is the birthplace of Pertinax , White gives the citation for
the HA, while Castner quotes several sentences of context and adds that
Cassius Dio gives information at odds with Biondo's interpretation
(240-241). In addition Castner provides an extensive bibliography,
whereas White's is sound but quite selective.  Castner also offers a
separate index for place names, which is quite useful to have in a work
of this sort, and a number of interesting illustrations, such as a
color plate of a fifteenth-century map of Ravenna (271) and a
photograph of a book-keeping record found in the state archive at
Modena  recording Biondo's sale of building materials for the
construction of a fortress.  The masters of this fortress, Niccolo\
d'Este and his son, are praised highly by Biondo in his text without
reference to his relationship with them (351A).   This is the sort of
enlivening material that one will not find as often in White, who
offers no illustrations and -- a singular omission in a work of this
sort -- no maps (Castner provides some maps, though it is to be hoped
that they will be more legible and detailed in her next volume).   This
is not, of course, to say that what White does provide is not very
good, and he frequently manages to impart information that Castner
omits.  For instance, many readers will probably be puzzled by Biondo's
cryptic statement that some ancient authorities derive the name of
Italy from the many cattle it produced (nonnullos a bobus quos gigneret
multos 294E).  Castner's notes do not explain this remark, but White's
do ((V)italia < vitellus).

Moreover, White is clearly more informative on textual matters.
Despite the fraught and complicated condition of the manuscripts
(Biondo kept working on Italia Illustrata, and publishing revisions, up
until his final years) Castner is largely content to follow the Froben
edition of 1559.   White (who has published elsewhere on the textual
tradition) follows basically the editio princeps published by Biondo's
son Gaspar in 1474, but checks it against five manuscripts and reports
variations not in a running apparatus but in a separate series of
endnotes.  In the part of the text covered by both of the authors in
these initial volumes, however, this leads to few significant
differences.  The chief variance is that White includes some
substantial chunks which are not in the editio princeps, distinguished
by italics in his text and translation.   Indicative of the varying
approach of the two authors is that while White follows the editio
princeps and Castner doesn't, it is from Castner that we learn that
Gaspar's edition "was one of the very earliest books printed at Rome,
issuing only nine years after what is considered to be the first
printed book in Italy" (xxxiv).

When it comes to the translation, a comparison of the parts translated
by both (the preface and Book I: Liguria) shows that Castner tends to
hew more closely to the Latin where White, while remaining faithful to
the sense of what Biondo's wrote, strives for more fluid English prose.
This means that Castner imparts more of a sense of Biondo's
frequently quirky efforts at classicizing diction, a fact that to my
mind makes Castner's translation a more interesting read, although that
is surely a subjective matter, and casual readers may find White's
translation more amenable.   For example Biondo's clunky phrase a
maioribus traditum viderimus (295D) is rendered into clunky English by
Castner  ("I have seen it handed down by our ancestors..."), whereas
White smooths out the rough edges ("We have it as a matter of
tradition...").  At the same time, where Biondo succeeds in turning a
well-hewn phrase, Castner is capable of following suit; for instance
Biondo's succinct  Liguria autem Plinium secuti duximus inchoandum
(295C), is captured succinctly by Castner: "I thought that I should
begin as Pliny does, with Liguria," while White is distinctly more
flaccid: "I have determined that I ought to begin my survey with
Liguria, following Pliny."

I detected few outright errors in either translation, but where they
did occur they were more frequent on Castner's part.   For instance,
Biondo's description of Jordanes of Constantinople, qui Iustiniani
imperatoris temporibus rerum a populo Romano gestarum epitoma confecit
(295D)  does not mean "who wrote an epitome of the emperor Justinian's
account of the deeds transacted by the Roman people" but (as White puts
it) "who compiled a digest of the achievements of the Roman people in
the times of the emperor Justinian."    In the passage cited above, the
sequel of  "I have seen it handed down by our ancestors..." is not
handled well by Castner:  "...as established fact that the Apuani were
Ligurians from the territory of Pisa."  Better is (again, as per White)
"...that the Apuani are Ligurians -- the Apuani being a people of the
Pisan territory, as is well known" (Biondo: Apuanos Ligures, quos agri
Pisani populos esse constat, a maioribus traditum viderimus).   White's
choice of tenses in the following: "Genoa has enjoyed her greatest
expansion, in fact, over the last four hundred years, and ... she has
eclipsed the fame of Liguria (whose mistress she has become)" more
accurately transmits the sense that Biondo is talking about a condition
that still prevails in his time (298F: a quadringentis vero annis
maximum Genua habuit incrementum quae ... Liguriae cui imperat nomen
obscuravit). Castner's translation obscures that sense:  "Four hundred
years ago Genoa had its greatest period of growth ... and it ruled
Liguria and eclipsed its name."  On the other hand, there are also
times where Castner's translation is to be preferred.  For instance,
when Biondo writes plerique Lucam Liguriae ultimam posuere (295D) White
overinterprets in his translation: "most authorities made Lucca the
southernmost city of Liguria."  Preferable is Castner's: "Most people
identify Lucca as the last city in Liguria."  By sticking more closely
to the Latin, Castner allows the text to reflect an important point:
that Biondo, like other early geographers, conceived of Italy as
running more west-east than north-south.

In sum, Castner has provided a very useful aid to the study of an
underappreciated renaissance author.  Her volume offers readers the
Latin text, a readable translation, impressively wide-ranging and
thoroughly researched comments and a number of helpful ancillary aids
to the study of Biondo and his world. Researchers and aficionados of
the many subjects that Biondo's text touches upon have an embarrassment
of riches in the nearly simultaneous appearance of Castner's effort and
that of White.   The casual reader will be well served by either
volume; the more serious researcher will do well to consult both for
the different strengths that each possesses.


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Notes:


1.   Biondo Flavio, Italy Illuminated. Volume 1: Books I - IV. J. A.
White, ed., trans. The I Tatti Renaissance Library no. 20.  Cambridge,
MA: Harvard University Press.  2005.