Raffaele Zovenzoni: Istrias (Book Sent to Trent)

This book of the Istrias by Raffaele Zovenzoni (1434–c. 1485) begins by sending the Muse to Trent, to the bishop Johannes Hinderbach, who sits on his ivory throne; she is to kiss his hands and offer the poet’s gift. The second poem plays on Hinderbach’s name, as if derived from Bacchus returning from the conquered Indians, and praises him as born in Vienna yet a benefactor of Latin letters, under whom Trent enjoys a golden age. Later pieces include greetings to the pupils of Guarino, in which the poet jokes about his own wild youth, and an epigram on a beautiful married woman beaten by her jealous husband.

The book shows the mixture of formal panegyric and personal wit typical of Zovenzoni, and it documents his ties both to Hinderbach’s court and to the school of Guarino of Verona at Ferrara, where he had studied. The poems give a lively picture of the social world of a fifteenth-century humanist poet moving between patrons, former classmates and the scandals of daily life. It also shows the playful etymologies of humanist praise.