Fondulo, Lucia, comoedia, Cremona, 1 October 1564, manuscript on paper, brown morocco gougework pictorial binding

FONDULO, GIROLAMO. Lucia, comoedia. Manuscript, Cremona, 1 October 1564

AN EXTREMELY RARE MANUSCRIPT COPY OF THE HUMANIST VERSE DRAMA LUCIA.

The authorship of this text is actively debated. Traditionally, the "Hieronymus Fundulus" named in the headlines and dedications was taken to be the Cremonese humanist Girolamo Fondulo (d. Paris 1540), an attribution which was followed when this item was last sold by Sotheby's in 1990 as part of the John M. Schiff sale. However, more recent scholarship has opened up the intriguing possibility that the play was in fact the work of his namesake and nephew. This notion was first proposed by S. Berti (1988) and has since been elaborated upon in a 2023 essay by Cristina Cocco, which also suggests that the play was written with a specific performance context in mind. Ascribing authorship to the nephew—who is known to have been admitted to the college of Doctors on 8 December 1571—is supported by the author's reference to himself in the text as an "adolescens tantillus" (a mere youth).

Only one institutional sixteenth-century manuscript copy of this work is known, held at the Biblioteca Nazionale Marciana in Venice (MS. Lat. XII. 143 (4511)). A much later copy, dating from the eighteenth century, is held at the Biblioteka Uniwersytecka in Breslau (MS. R. 3012). A number of highly suggestive similarities exist between the Marciana MS and the Brooker MS. Firstly, both contain verse dedications to patrons who were contemporaries of each other: the Brooker MS, dated October 1564, is dedicated to Federico Cornaro as Bishop of Bergamo (appointed 15 January 1561), whilst the Marciana MS is dedicated to Sigismondo Picenardi, who is addressed as "senatore" (appointed 31 December 1563). Secondly, both manuscripts are written in very similar, and plausibly identical, hands, albeit accompanied by different ornamentation. The texts of the Brooker/Marciana copies differ subtly, with 12 lines present at the end of Act IV scene 6 in the Brooker MS which are not present in the Marciana MS.

The dating of the attractive binding on the present volume is uncertain: Mirjam Foot believes that it is from the eighteenth or nineteenth century. However, the styles of the bindings found on the Marciana MS and the Brooker MS are very similar. Not only are the covers of each decorated in freehand gougework, accompanied by an impresa and banderol, but also the covers of both volumes appear to be lettered in the same font. Moreover, each binding features comparable acorn tools. (The Schiff sale catalogue also related the acorn tool on the Brooker MS to a Breviarum Romanum (Venice, 1558), illustrated in De Marinis, Die Italienischen Renaissance-Einbände der Bibliothek Fürstenberg, pp. 166-167). The Marciana MS is described as being bound in a "Legatura coeva—probabilmente lombarda" (Marino Zorzi, Biblioteca Marciana [Grandi biblioteche d'Italia] (Florence, 1988, p. 274), so it is certainly tempting to theorise on the basis of the similar gold tooling alone that both the Brooker and Marciana manuscripts might have been bound in the same workshop for presentation to Cornaro and Picenardi, respectively.

The comedy recounts the tale of Candido and his beautiful daughter Lucia, who grows up shielded and protected by her father who jealously guards her virtue. Lucia is in love with Lucius but is desired by two other, older men, Ulisses and Demenzio, the latter the father of Lucius. While Lucia is left alone in the house in the care of the servant Sinone the two men attempt to gain access to Lucia, relying on servants for their plot to unfold. Rather than helping the two inappropriate suitors, the servants subject them to mockery. Lucia meanwhile pretends to be ill in order to drive away the undesirable suitors and to welcome Lucius after ridding herself of Sinone. The sudden and unexpected return of her father, however, puts an end to all intrigue and schemes and the two young lovers are discovered. To avoid the impending scandal, Lucia's father finally agrees to the marriage between Lucia and Lucius, uniting the two lovers.

Sotheby's is grateful to Professor Mirjam M. Foot for her assistance in researching this binding.