Lionardo Salviati and the collection of Proverbi toscani : Philological issues with Codex Cl. I 394

Abstract

This article offers an overview of my research conducted on Proverbi toscani, a collection of proverbs kept at the Biblioteca Ariostea in Ferrara and generally attributed to Lionardo Salviati. I attribute and date the five unidentified writers who transcribe proverbs in the codex, focusing on the question of authorship, and I aim to elucidate the different phases in which additions were made from the late 16th century to the second decade of the 17th century. First, by way of analyzing the different handwritings in the document and their characteristics, I demonstrate how the codex cannot be considered solely Lionardo Salviati’s manuscript, but rather the product of an entourage of copyists. Next, I resolve the still unclear issue of Salviati’s own handwriting, which, starting from Peter Brown’s study (1962), I intend to identify with strong evidence. As a result, I attribute only a small section of the collection to Lionardo Salviati himself. Finally, I argue against the attribution of a group of proverbs to Gianfilippo Magnanini, identifying them instead as the work of his son Ottavio Magnanini. I also compare Codex Cl. I 394 with Codex Cl. II 25, which I identify for the first time as a copy of the collection of Proverbi toscani.