Susanna de Beer. The Poetics of Patronage: Poetry as Self-Advancement in Giannantonio Campano. Proteus: Studies in Early Modern Identity Formation 6. Turnhout: Brepols, 2013. xxxii + 432 pp. + 16 color pls. €120. ISBN: 978-2-503-54238-6.

Abstract

Susanna de Beer has brought to life the Latin poet and bishop Giovanni Antonio, or Giannantonio Campano (1429-77). In the Renaissance period, the poet's path was inextricably bound with his means of income, which more often than not was a curial post. De Beer has devoted a full-length study to Campano, the first since the publication of a 1969 biography. She has illumined a figure who has been too long in the shadows of more familiar humanists and curialists such as Bartolomeo Platina, Niccol o Perotti, and Paolo Cortesi. The book is a handsome volume, accompanied by forty-five illustrations and sixteen color plates. Readers will recognize paintings like Melozzo da Forl ı's elevation of Platina as papal librarian and Berruguete's portrait of Federico da Montefeltro with his young son Guidobaldo. The illustrations instantly orient us to Campano's milieu, and we realize that we are not dealing with a minor character. Not simply a study of Campano, this book has as its focus the Renaissance literary-patronage system. The literary angle has largely been ignored in favor of ''social and political networks or the visual arts'' (1). De Beer begins by characterizing patronage as congruent or incongruent relationships in which economic, cultural, and social capital are negotiated. Her chapters consist of five case studies that follow Campano's career in a chronological fashion, but that are organized around and take their argument from the relationships between Campano and his (would-be) patrons. De Beer concludes that ''the self-confident attitude. .. appears to be the humanists' most characteristic contribution to the system of literary patronage'' (285). In chapter 1, the author explores the asymmetrical relationship between Campano, then professor of eloquence in Perugia, and Enea Silvio Piccolomini, who at his papal accession brought with him a changing of the guard and presented Campano with the opportunity to enter curial circles. Campano's poem on Pius II as a new Aeneas and Rome as the home of the Muses appropriately opens the chapter, and indeed, introduces the book, as it suggests a future empire and the reason why Campano would want to transfer to Rome. Campano's versified ''gift'' would not have been misread by Pius, who constructed his autobiographical Commentarii with Julius Caesar in mind and chose Eneas Pius as his papal name. Campano wrote to Pius in the classical language of Horace, Ovid, Martial, and Statius, and he employed topoi from Latin love elegy, patronage poetry, and pastoral poetry. The amicitia between Campano and his friend and broker Giacomo degli Ammannati is discussed in chapter 2. Campano appropriated the paraklausithyron, or closed-door theme, from love elegy, and he exploited the witty epigrams of Martial, as these would be understood and appreciated-without fear of insultby the cardinal. Cardinal Ammannati gained Campano admittance to the papal court and acted as Campano's social patron and literary agent.