John Milton’s Roman Sojourns explores how the author of Paradise Lost was influenced by the culture of the city of Rome during his brief stay there in 1638 and 1639. Milton’s continental tour, which also involved visiting Paris, Florence, Naples, Venice, and Geneva, has been well-documented in recent and older scholarship,[1] and informed readers of Paradise Lost are often tempted to derive some of the epic’s allusions from the poet’s youthful experiences of the Italian land- and cityscapes. Haan, just as in her earlier work From Academia to Amicitia,[2] goes beyond such speculations to uncover as much as possible the cultural milieu of early seventeenth century ItaIy, but in this volume her focus is exclusively on Rome. As Haan points out, “Milton himself was forever motivated by a quasi-Petrarchan sense of discovering and rediscovering Rome” (11), and thus, his Roman-themed poetry dates well-before his actual visit to the city. Milton’s real encounter with Rome, however, seems to have altered his view, and Haan’s monograph provides a fresh view of the poet’s experiences through close readings of Milton’s Latin poems and letters written during his stay as well as a plethora of historic and archival material that makes up the context of these pieces.
Chapter 1 (“Milton, Giovanni Salzilli, and the Academies of Rome”) is a case in point. Milton’s poem “Ad Salsillum poetam Romanum aegrotantem” written during his stay in Rome seems, on the surface, a witty response to Giovanni Salzilli’s Latin complimentary verses that celebrate Milton’s linguistic and poetic talents in somewhat exaggerated terms, comparing the young Englishman to Homer, Vergil, and Tasso. Milton, in turn, writes a well-wishing poem in scazontes, i.e. limping meter, to the ailing Salzilli (his illness is unknown) with a “pinch of salt”, i.e. constantly punning on the poet’s name with the words sal and salus. As Haan demonstrates, however, Milton’s poem goes well beyond sophisticated banter. Uncovering hitherto unexplored archival material, she explores in detail Salzilli’s role in the academies of Rome (the Accademia degli Umoristi as well as the Accademia dei Fantastici), and presents a number of perspectives from which the Roman poet and his works might have appealed to the young Milton. Proceeding to the discussion of the text of “Ad Salsillum poetam”, Haan deploys all these findings to argue that the poem is “characterized by a skillfully attuned complexity” and is “intended to bring on board a readership (and an academic audience?) that extends beyond that of his immediate addressee” (54–55). Thanks to Haan’s careful reading of Milton’s poem, what seemed like a clever, yet highly local occasional piece, turns out to be a significant instance of self-presentation in which Milton engages with both Salzilli’s poetry and the classics to create a “subtle synthesis of the Horatian and the Italian” (69). Milton’s cultural intervention is not confined to learned allusions: the poem’s several references to the topography of Rome, and possibly to recent events (the flood of the Tiber in 1637) and their contemporary theatrical representation (Bernini’s L’Inondazione del Tevere, 1638) must have created the image of Milton as an “inner-circle outsider” to sufficiently “salted” contemporary readers.
Chapter 2 (“Milton’s Latin Epigrams to Leonora Baroni”) deals with Milton’s three short Latin epigrams to Leonora Baroni, a super-talented singer, instrumentalist, and writer. Women in the Baroni family (Leonora, her mother Adriana, and her sister Caterina) were the celebrities of Rome’s (and in general Italy’s) music scene in the 1630s, and Milton – whose father was an amateur musician and composer and who from early childhood was also actively interested in music – naturally reacted with great enthusiasm to the soprano’s outstanding performances. The poems are certainly interesting, since, in contrast to Milton’s more general reflections on music in his English poems (e.g. in “At a Solemn Musick” or “Il Penseroso”), they seem to record the poet’s reactions to a particular performance. Moreover, as Haan points out, “the emphasis is more on the effects of her music (and perhaps also her poetry?) upon the sensibilities of the listener, than on the quality of her voice per se” (112–3). These poems then seem to be the early predecessors of Keats’s sonnets on the experience of great works of art (e.g. “On first looking into Chapman’s Homer”, “On Seeing the Elgin Marbles”, “On sitting down to read King Lear once again”). Haan argues that Baroni “serves to engender a series of intellectual discourses shared among peers” (113), and, accordingly, she proceeds to demonstrate how the three short pieces engage with reflections on Hermeticism (“Ad Leonoram Romae canentem”), contemporary theories about music’s power on the human soul (“Ad aandem”), or the rivalry between Rome and Naples which Milton wittily describes in mythological terms (“Ad eandem” 2). In this chapter, too, Haan’s vast knowledge of the literary and cultural life of seventeenth-century Italy proves essential: demonstrating how the Baroni sisters participated in the activities of the Accademia degli Umoristi (where Salzilli was also a member), and drawing on the encomiastic poems of the 1639 volume Applausi poetici alle glorie della signora Leonora Baroni she provides the historical contexts necessary for the appreciation of the complexity of Milton’s pieces.
The subject of Chapter 3 (“Milton, Lucas Holstenius, and the Culture of Rome”) is Milton’s famous letter from Florence to Lucas Holstenius, the librarian of the Vatican Library. In this missive Milton mentions his visit to the Vatican (where he inspected Greek manuscripts), recalls a musical entertainment given by Cardinal Francesco Barberini, and, in response to Holstenius’s previous request, indicates that he was unfortunately not permitted to transcribe a “Medici codex” in Florence. This letter has been a treasure trove for Miltonists curious about the poet’s intellectual engagements during his Italian journey, and its new assessment by Haan, complete with the painstaking analysis of Milton’s possible sources and influences as well as the wider Roman cultural context, will only increase its interest. Thus, readers learn about how Milton’s formal tribute to Holstenius in the letter is informed by a deep knowledge of the librarian’s work and an engagement with his Pythagorean interests. Further, Haan elucidates Milton’s phrase magnificentia Romana in relation to the musical entertainment Chi soffre, speri (which Milton attended), and points out how the Roman emphasis on verisimilitude and musical experimentation might have influenced the “theatrical potential” (168) of the English poet’s later work. Finally, reflecting on Milton’s audience with Cardinal Barberini, and the poet’s appropriation of a Callimachean line (Hymn 6.58), Haan points out again Milton’s self-presentation in Catholic Roman circles as “one who is very much in tune with the comings and goings of those within spaces, both literal and literary, in which he has found a welcome and comfortable place” (173) while always retaining his integrity as a Protestant outsider.
The Appendices present Haan’s edition and translation of Milton’s writings discussed in the volume as well as Milton’s recollection of his Italian journey in Defensio Secunda. The translations are to be especially commended, as they provide accessible, clear and faithful versions of Milton’s Latin pieces in elegant modern English. The bibliography conveniently separates the critical reception from the primary sources and, within the latter category, distinguishes between works by Milton and other early modern authors. The volume is complemented by an Index Nominum et Locorum.
After From Academia to Amicitia and Haan’s recent edition of Milton’s familiar letters,[3] this short but highly instructive volume is another landmark in Haan’s interpretation of Milton’s Latin writings. It will prove useful not only to Miltonists dealing with the poet’s Italian tour, but to anyone who is interested in the particularities of the neo-Latin culture of 17th century Italy.
Notes
[1] See e.g. John Arthos, Milton and the Italian Cities. New York: Barnes and Noble, 1968; Mario A. Di Cesare, ed. Milton in Italy: Contexts Images Contradictions. Binghamton, NY: Medieval & Renaissance Texts & Studies, 1991; Catherine Gimelli Martin, Milton’s Italy: Anglo-Italian Literature, Travel, and Connections in Seventeenth-Century England. London: Routledge, 2016; John Rumrich, ‘John Milton’s Night at the Opera’ in Thomas Festa and David Ainsworth, eds., Locating Milton. Places and Perspectives. Clemson: Clemson University Press, 2021, 19–36.
[2] Estelle Haan, From Academia to Amicitia. Milton’s Latin Writings and the Italian Academies. Vol. 86. American Philosophical Society, 1998.
[3] Estelle Haan, ed. John Milton, Epistolarum Familiarium Liber Unus and Uncollected Letters. Edited with Introduction, Translation, and Commentary. Leuven: Leuven University Press, 2019.