Renato Ricco (independent researcher)
Still to be almost totally investigated today is Evangelista Maddaleni Capodiferro’s poetic output: he was the greatest cantor of Julius II, from whom he received lavish rewards. Among the various preserved compositions, I want to focus here on the eclogues – still unpublished today – intended for public representation, such as Hercules (Vat. Lat. 3351, ff. 5v-8v) and the two, of which only the first bearing the title (Umber), in honor of the aforementioned pontiff (Vat. Lat. 3351, ff. 24r-24v e 29r-29v). The first, composed in honor of the marriage between Lucrezia Borgia and Alfonso d’Este in June 1502, includes a dialogue among the hero and the «Fortuna pronuba», with the conclusion entrusted to two choirs of «Salii», while for the others we have an autograph indication of two performances, respectively in the palace of Cardinal Colonna, on the occasion of banquet in honor of Guidobaldo, Duke of Urbino, and for a banquet offered by the cardinal to the pope himself. So, following to what has been done on Capodiferro’s elegy Elisa Fausti ad Baldass. Castilionem Camillum Patritium Manuanum (with Baldassarre Castiglione’s De Elisabella Gonzaga canente in appendix of my critical edition of Francesco Maria Molza’s Dido moritura), my goal is now to add new useful textual elements for the knowledge of this Roman humanist poet. From the analysis of these texts, I will try to reconstruct what the basic elements are of this particular genre of encomiastic poetry. On this author the available studies are very few.