Series | Studi e ricerche
Edited book | «L’umanesimo della parola»
Chapter | Le ottave ‘esotiche’ del Ciriffo Calvaneo

Le ottave ‘esotiche’ del Ciriffo Calvaneo

Un «viaggio ai confini ultimi della lingua»

Abstract

In the fourth part of the Ciriffo calvaneo, a chivalric poem composed by the Pulci brothers in the 1470s, two octaves are written in ‘Oriental’ languages, in order to reproduce the conversation between Aleandrina, princess of Troy, and Tibaldo, king of the Moors. As already shown by Cardona, Aleandrina’s speech is in Turkish and represents one of the earliest records of this language in Western literature. On the contrary, Tibaldo’s reply is not in Arabic, as claimed by the author (probably Luigi Pulci), and is instead a very well-conceived parody of Semitic, mixing real Arabic words with Arabic-shaped nonsense sequences, Hebrew, Greek and even Italian terms.


Open access

Submitted: Sept. 7, 2022 | Published May 2, 2023 | Language: it

Keywords Italian literature of the 15th centuryLuigi PulciEarly literary reproductions/parodies of Turkish a


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