La Psiche di Hercole Udine con una breve allegoria del molto R.P.D. Angelo Grillo

CUPID AND PSYCHE AT PALAZZO TE IN MANTUA

8vo (148x99 mm). [8], 90 [i.e. 80] leaves. Collation: a⁸ A-K⁸. Errata at l. a7 (Errori scorsi nella stampa […]). Engraved title page, each of the eight cantos opens with a full-page engraved illustration, the first of which is signed by Giacomo Valegio. Roman and italic types. Woodcut decorative initials. Contemporary flexible vellum, inked title along the spine (lacking the endleaves, traces of ties). Tiny holes skillfully repaired on the title page not affecting the text, some light browning and marginal staining, small repairs to the outer and lower blank margin of the last two leaves, all in all a good, genuine copy.

First edition, dedicated to Eleonora, Duchess of Mantua, of this poem in octaves freely based on the tale of Cupid and Psyche.

Ercole Udine was in the service of Duke Vincenzo I of Mantua (1487-1612) and became his ambassador in Venice. In 1597 he published his translation of Virgil's Aeneid in Venice, the fourth book having been already printed in Mantua in 1587. Two years later, Udine published his Psiche, which he dedicated to the Duchess Eleonora de' Medici. To the Duke, Udine had dedicated a work about the past greatness of Rome, weapons and war, while to the Duchess he considered a work about beauty and love more appropriate. On the other hand, the fable of Cupid and Psyche, so popular throughout the Renaissance, had enjoyed particular success at the courts of Mantua and Ferrara. Udine therefore chose a subject that, like the works of Virgil, was considered a permanent part of Mantua's cultural heritage.

As can be seen from various lexical affinities, Udine drew inspiration for his poem both from M.M. Boiardo's translation of Apuleius' Golden Ass, from which the story of Cupid and Psyche is taken, and from Niccolò da Correggio's Fabula Psiches et Cupidinis. However, unlike his predecessors, Udine dared to give this subject the form of the heroic poem, which occupied the highest position in the hierarchy of genres especially after its revival by T. Tasso. Udine also wanted his poem to be accompanied by pictorial representations of the fable and explanations of its allegorical meaning: eight full-page engravings by Giovanni Giacomo Valegio, one for each of the eight cantos that make up the poem, illustrate his Psiche, and the dedicatory letter to the duchess is followed by an allegorical interpretation of the myth by Angelo Grillo, one of the most influential literary figures of his time, whose name, not by chance, already appears on the title page of the work.

Ercole Udine's Psiche had a considerable influence on G.B. Marino, who included the fable of Cupid and Psyche in his Adone (1623). It was the appearance of Marino's poem that probably led to the loss of interest in Udine's poem, which was reprinted four times in just over twenty years (1601, 1617, 1622 and 1626) before falling into total oblivion until the modern edition of 2004, which is based on the revised and corrected second edition of 1601.

The immediate source of the illustrations in the Udine's Psiche are the engravings by Léonard Gaultier in L'Amour de Cupido et de Psyché (1586), which belong to a French tradition that, via Jean Maugin's edition of 1546 and Bernard Palissy's stained-glass windows for the castle of Écouen, goes back to the engravings by Agostino Veneziano and the so-called Maestro del dado, published in Rome by Antonio Salamanca, and ultimately to Rafael. But there was certainly also an influence from the inconography of the Psyche room in Palazzo Te in Mantua.

In Apuleius' story, men flock to worship Psyche as the new Venus. Furious at her rival, the goddess calls her son Cupid, leads him to Psyche's hometown and entrusts him with the task of avenging the affront. At this point, Udine completely abandons Apuleius's narration: Venus does not call for Cupid, but sets out to find him and travels to Italy in her chariot drawn by pigeons. The journey, which gives Udine the opportunity to praise some of the most important Italian regions, takes the goddess from Naples to Rome, then to Tuscany, to the Metauro river, the Reno, the Po and finally to the Mincio river and the famous city on its banks, Mantua. Here the goddess asks nymphs and shepherds to help her find her son, promising a kiss to whoever finds him. Udine is far from Apuleius here, but the motif of Venus's search for Cupid is not original, being borrowed from the epilogue of Tasso's Aminta (1573). One of the nymphs respectfully gives Venus the requested information. Cupid is in a nearby palace, absorbed in the portrait of a beautiful woman. Venus enters the palace (identifiable with Palazzo Ducale in Mantua) and finds a whole gallery of portraits of beautiful women. These are the wives of the marquises and dukes of Mantua, celebrated in a long series that naturally ends with Eleonora de' Medici, whose celebration encompasses not an octave, as for the other women, but no less than five stanzas. The Medici and Gonzaga families are also celebrated with her and, of course, Duke Vincenzo. In front of Eleonora is Cupid, who, before succumbing to the beauty of Psyche, had already fallen victim to the beauty of the Duchess of Mantua, to whom the poem is dedicated.

“In realtà nel poema di Udine vi è qualcosa di molto più significativo e complesso: vi è rappresentato gran parte dell'immaginario entro cui si muoveva la cultura e la storia dei Gonzaga che Udine mirabilmente inserisce nel suo poema: un insieme di elementi, alcuni macroscopici, che tendono a fondere e confondere parte delle vicende di Amore e Psiche con quelle dei Gonzaga, con la sottile celebrazione-descrizione dei tre palazzi, Ducale, Te e la fortezza di San Giorgio, simboli del loro prestigio e potere” (S. Ussia, Introduzione, in: E. Udine, “La psiche”, Vercelli, 2004, p. 12).

Venus then announces her will to her son: as punishment for her presumption, Psyche will fall in love with the most miserable and vile man. Udine's narrative also differs from Apuleius' in the greater sensuality with which he presents the encounter between Psyche and Cupid. In the third canto, Udine describes the splendid park and palace in which Psyche finds herself, which is none other than Palazzo Te in Mantua, as can be deduced from the references to the room in which Psyche's fable is depicted and to the so-called Giants' room with frescoes by G. Romano.

At the uplifting end of the poem, Psyche is married to Cupid and welcomed by the gods. From their union, instead of ‘Voluptuousness' as in Apuleius, ‘Delight' is born, echoing Boiardo and Niccolò da Correggio. In Grillo's interpretation of the allegory, when the soul (Psyche) unites with pure love, with caritas (Cupid/Eros/Love), their union leads to heavenly joy: that is, the soul that has suffered on earth is rewarded with beatitude in heaven (cf. B. Guthmüller, Amore e Psiche a Mantova: sulla “Psiche” di Ercole Udine, in: “Rassegna europea di letteratura italiana”, 14, 2, 1999, pp. 25-40).

Edit 16, CNCE24252; T. de Marinis, Il Castello di Monselice, Verona, 1941, p. 117; D. Rhodes, Il catalogo del fondo librario antico della Fondazione Giorgio Cini, Florence, 2011, p. 256 no. U2; D. Rhodes, Giovanni Battista Ciotti (1562-1627?): publisher extraordinary at Venice, Venice, 2013, p. 156, no. 152.

[13827]