Martin Eisner (Ph.D., Columbia University, 2005) is Chair of Romance Studies and Professor of Italian at Duke University. He is the author of Dante’s New Life of the Book: A Philology of World Literature (Oxford University Press, 2021) and Boccaccio and the Invention of Italian Literature: Dante, Petrarch, Cavalcanti, and the Authority of the Vernacular (Cambridge University Press, 2013). He is currently writing a biography of Boccaccio for Reaktion Books. His research has been supported by the Fulbright Foundation, the American Philosophical Association, the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton, and the American Academy in Rome.
Giovanni Boccaccio played a pivotal role in the extraordinary emergence of the Italian literary t... more Giovanni Boccaccio played a pivotal role in the extraordinary emergence of the Italian literary tradition in the fourteenth century, not only as author of the Decameron, but also as scribe of Dante, Petrarch and Cavalcanti. Using a single codex written entirely in Boccaccio's hand, Martin Eisner brings together material philology and literary history to reveal the multiple ways Boccaccio authorizes this vernacular literary tradition. Each chapter offers a novel interpretation of Boccaccio as a biographer, storyteller, editor and scribe, who constructs arguments, composes narratives, compiles texts and manipulates material forms to legitimize and advance a vernacular literary canon. Situating these philological activities in the context of Boccaccio's broader reflections on poetry in the Decameron and the Genealogy of the Gentile Gods, the book produces a new portrait of Boccaccio that integrates his vernacular and Latin works, while also providing a new context for understanding his fictions.
This is an important and interesting book and will appeal widely. It will also invite (and stimul... more This is an important and interesting book and will appeal widely. It will also invite (and stimulate) further critical work on these texts in their manuscript contexts.
The Oxford Handbook of Dante, Edited by Manuele Gragnolati, Elena Lombardi, and Francesca Southerden, 2021
This article investigates the significance of the manuscripts of Virgil and other classical poets... more This article investigates the significance of the manuscripts of Virgil and other classical poets that Dante might have read. Calling attention to the presence of musical notation (neumes) in copies that share the particular Virgilian readings Dante quotes, this essay explores the resonance of one of those passages (Aeneas' dream of Hector) in Dante's po em. It shows how Dante uses this Virgilian episode to craft his encounter with Manfred where he considers the relationship of body and soul that constitutes one of the major dif ferences between classical and Christian thought, as Augustine frequently noted. Just as Christian anthropology maintains that the body constitutes an essential element of the human person, this essay argues that the materiality of the texts Dante read constitutes a crucial source for understanding how Dante interpreted these texts.
The Oxford Handbook of Chaucer, Edited by Suzanne Conklin Akbari and James Simpson, 2020
The chapter explores the relationship between Boccaccio's Decameron and the work that it evokes f... more The chapter explores the relationship between Boccaccio's Decameron and the work that it evokes from the first full statement of its title, Dante's Commedia. Critics have often noted how Boccaccio exploits Dante's work for individual characters and narrative mo ments, but less attention has been given to how Boccaccio uses Dante to structure his col lection. This chapter investigates how Boccaccio constructs the three authorial interven tions in the frame of the Decameron on Dantean materials. Investigating the Decameron's Proem, Introduction to the Fourth Day, and Author's Conclusion in light of Inferno 5, the Terrace of the Lustful in Purgatorio, and the Heaven of Venus, respectively, this chapter reveals how Boccaccio transforms Dante's own reflections on love, literature, and author ship to create his own very different authorial persona.
A Companion to World Literature. Edited by Ken Seigneurie, 2019
Dante knew perfectly well why poets started writing in the vernacular: to talk to ladies. The "fi... more Dante knew perfectly well why poets started writing in the vernacular: to talk to ladies. The "first vernacular poet," Dante writes in the Vita nuova (New Life), "began because he wanted to make his words understood to a lady, for whom it was challenging to understand Latin verses" (2012; my translation). Dante maintains this association of the vernacular and women throughout his works. When Giovanni del Virgilio criticizes Dante for having written the Commedia (see Dante's Divine Comedy and World Literature) in the vernacular, Dante characterizes del Virgilio's elitist but ungendered criticism in gendered terms: "He reproves my comic words because they sound worn out on women's lips [femineo … labello]" (Eclogue 2). While del Virgilio argues that a Latin poem would have given Dante not only a more learned audience, but also a vaster one ("If fame delights you, you will not be content to be confined in a small enclosure nor be exalted by popular judgment [vulgo iudice]"), Dante insists on the more inclusive and wider public that women represent. Given del Virgilio's quite realistic concerns, how can Dante imagine that his vernacular composition could become a work of what we would call world literature, that is, one of those "literary works that circulate beyond their culture of origin, either in translation or in their original language" (Damrosch 2003, 4)? Because Dante's works have had such a prominent place in discussions of vernacularization, whether in the context of single traditions (Breen 2010; Zhou 2011) or in comparisons among them (Pollock 2006; Beecroft 2015), this chapter uses Dante to reconsider the vast A Companion to World Literature. Edited by Ken Seigneurie.
This article argues that Machiavelli’s description of reading Dante and Ovid, in his letter to Fr... more This article argues that Machiavelli’s description of reading Dante and Ovid, in his letter to Francesco Vettori of 10 December 1513, illuminates some of the most surprising and scandalous sections of The Prince. Beginning with Machiavelli’s quotation of Paradiso 5 in the letter to Vettori, this study investigates how Machiavelli uses the literary works of Dante and Ovid to craft several of his most distinctive arguments on the problem of vows, value of violence, and legitimacy of deception. It argues that the reading of these literary works constitutes a crucial, but often overlooked, component of intellectual history.
This essay reconsiders the conventional division of Boccaccio’s career into two parts that is usu... more This essay reconsiders the conventional division of Boccaccio’s career into two parts that is usually associated with his first meeting with Petrarch. Beginning with two fourteenth-century portraits of Boccaccio, it challenges this traditional account by calling attention to the continuities between the defences of poetry in the Decameron and the Genealogie. It argues that the persistence of Boccaccio’s claims for the freedom and authority of literature constitutes a singular feature of Boccaccio’s thought that unites his works.
Eisner, Martin, “A Singular Boccaccio: Defending Poetry in the Decameron and the Genealogie,” Quaderni d’Italianistica, 38 (2017), 179–99
Eisner, Martin, “Dante’s Ballata: The Personification of Poetry and the Authority of the Vernacul... more Eisner, Martin, “Dante’s Ballata: The Personification of Poetry and the Authority of the Vernacular in the Vita Nuova,” Mediaevalia, 39 (2018), 299–318 <https://doi.org/10.1353/mdi.2018.0010>
Petrarch’s 1345 discovery of Cicero’s personal letters in Verona has long been regarded as a foun... more Petrarch’s 1345 discovery of Cicero’s personal letters in Verona has long been regarded as a foundational moment in the historiography of the Renaissance. In the traditional view, Petrarch’s discovery engenders a new historical self-consciousness that has frequently been described, since the middle of the twentieth century, in terms of a contrast between a medieval Dante and a Renaissance Petrarch. In keeping with recent work rethinking periodization, this essay revisits Petrarch’s letters on his discovery to reconsider the distance between Dante and Petrarch and to reveal how Petrarch constructs his new relationship with Cicero through Dante’s characterization of Virgil. While some critics have noted this Dantean presence, they have not examined its meaning. This study argues that Petrarch’s borrowing from Dante is significant because it shows how Dante’s complex relationship to the past embodied in the figure of Virgil shaped Petrarch’s construction of his Cicero and informed Renaissance ideas of history.
This essay argues for a new approach to literary criticism that uses the history of a work's tran... more This essay argues for a new approach to literary criticism that uses the history of a work's transmission in manuscripts, editions, translations, and adaptations to bring into focus key moments in the development of its form.
This essay reconsiders the relationship between Boccaccio’s tale of Pietro da Vinciolo and its Ap... more This essay reconsiders the relationship between Boccaccio’s tale of Pietro da Vinciolo and its Apuleian source by investigating Boccaccio’s transcription of Apuleius and his own revisions of the story in its two redactions. This study complicates the current interpretations of the story in the history of sexuality, which, like many historical uses of his stories, tend to neglect their literary dimension.
Giovanni Boccaccio played a pivotal role in the extraordinary emergence of the Italian literary t... more Giovanni Boccaccio played a pivotal role in the extraordinary emergence of the Italian literary tradition in the fourteenth century, not only as author of the Decameron, but also as scribe of Dante, Petrarch and Cavalcanti. Using a single codex written entirely in Boccaccio's hand, Martin Eisner brings together material philology and literary history to reveal the multiple ways Boccaccio authorizes this vernacular literary tradition. Each chapter offers a novel interpretation of Boccaccio as a biographer, storyteller, editor and scribe, who constructs arguments, composes narratives, compiles texts and manipulates material forms to legitimize and advance a vernacular literary canon. Situating these philological activities in the context of Boccaccio's broader reflections on poetry in the Decameron and the Genealogy of the Gentile Gods, the book produces a new portrait of Boccaccio that integrates his vernacular and Latin works, while also providing a new context for understanding his fictions.
This is an important and interesting book and will appeal widely. It will also invite (and stimul... more This is an important and interesting book and will appeal widely. It will also invite (and stimulate) further critical work on these texts in their manuscript contexts.
The Oxford Handbook of Dante, Edited by Manuele Gragnolati, Elena Lombardi, and Francesca Southerden, 2021
This article investigates the significance of the manuscripts of Virgil and other classical poets... more This article investigates the significance of the manuscripts of Virgil and other classical poets that Dante might have read. Calling attention to the presence of musical notation (neumes) in copies that share the particular Virgilian readings Dante quotes, this essay explores the resonance of one of those passages (Aeneas' dream of Hector) in Dante's po em. It shows how Dante uses this Virgilian episode to craft his encounter with Manfred where he considers the relationship of body and soul that constitutes one of the major dif ferences between classical and Christian thought, as Augustine frequently noted. Just as Christian anthropology maintains that the body constitutes an essential element of the human person, this essay argues that the materiality of the texts Dante read constitutes a crucial source for understanding how Dante interpreted these texts.
The Oxford Handbook of Chaucer, Edited by Suzanne Conklin Akbari and James Simpson, 2020
The chapter explores the relationship between Boccaccio's Decameron and the work that it evokes f... more The chapter explores the relationship between Boccaccio's Decameron and the work that it evokes from the first full statement of its title, Dante's Commedia. Critics have often noted how Boccaccio exploits Dante's work for individual characters and narrative mo ments, but less attention has been given to how Boccaccio uses Dante to structure his col lection. This chapter investigates how Boccaccio constructs the three authorial interven tions in the frame of the Decameron on Dantean materials. Investigating the Decameron's Proem, Introduction to the Fourth Day, and Author's Conclusion in light of Inferno 5, the Terrace of the Lustful in Purgatorio, and the Heaven of Venus, respectively, this chapter reveals how Boccaccio transforms Dante's own reflections on love, literature, and author ship to create his own very different authorial persona.
A Companion to World Literature. Edited by Ken Seigneurie, 2019
Dante knew perfectly well why poets started writing in the vernacular: to talk to ladies. The "fi... more Dante knew perfectly well why poets started writing in the vernacular: to talk to ladies. The "first vernacular poet," Dante writes in the Vita nuova (New Life), "began because he wanted to make his words understood to a lady, for whom it was challenging to understand Latin verses" (2012; my translation). Dante maintains this association of the vernacular and women throughout his works. When Giovanni del Virgilio criticizes Dante for having written the Commedia (see Dante's Divine Comedy and World Literature) in the vernacular, Dante characterizes del Virgilio's elitist but ungendered criticism in gendered terms: "He reproves my comic words because they sound worn out on women's lips [femineo … labello]" (Eclogue 2). While del Virgilio argues that a Latin poem would have given Dante not only a more learned audience, but also a vaster one ("If fame delights you, you will not be content to be confined in a small enclosure nor be exalted by popular judgment [vulgo iudice]"), Dante insists on the more inclusive and wider public that women represent. Given del Virgilio's quite realistic concerns, how can Dante imagine that his vernacular composition could become a work of what we would call world literature, that is, one of those "literary works that circulate beyond their culture of origin, either in translation or in their original language" (Damrosch 2003, 4)? Because Dante's works have had such a prominent place in discussions of vernacularization, whether in the context of single traditions (Breen 2010; Zhou 2011) or in comparisons among them (Pollock 2006; Beecroft 2015), this chapter uses Dante to reconsider the vast A Companion to World Literature. Edited by Ken Seigneurie.
This article argues that Machiavelli’s description of reading Dante and Ovid, in his letter to Fr... more This article argues that Machiavelli’s description of reading Dante and Ovid, in his letter to Francesco Vettori of 10 December 1513, illuminates some of the most surprising and scandalous sections of The Prince. Beginning with Machiavelli’s quotation of Paradiso 5 in the letter to Vettori, this study investigates how Machiavelli uses the literary works of Dante and Ovid to craft several of his most distinctive arguments on the problem of vows, value of violence, and legitimacy of deception. It argues that the reading of these literary works constitutes a crucial, but often overlooked, component of intellectual history.
This essay reconsiders the conventional division of Boccaccio’s career into two parts that is usu... more This essay reconsiders the conventional division of Boccaccio’s career into two parts that is usually associated with his first meeting with Petrarch. Beginning with two fourteenth-century portraits of Boccaccio, it challenges this traditional account by calling attention to the continuities between the defences of poetry in the Decameron and the Genealogie. It argues that the persistence of Boccaccio’s claims for the freedom and authority of literature constitutes a singular feature of Boccaccio’s thought that unites his works.
Eisner, Martin, “A Singular Boccaccio: Defending Poetry in the Decameron and the Genealogie,” Quaderni d’Italianistica, 38 (2017), 179–99
Eisner, Martin, “Dante’s Ballata: The Personification of Poetry and the Authority of the Vernacul... more Eisner, Martin, “Dante’s Ballata: The Personification of Poetry and the Authority of the Vernacular in the Vita Nuova,” Mediaevalia, 39 (2018), 299–318 <https://doi.org/10.1353/mdi.2018.0010>
Petrarch’s 1345 discovery of Cicero’s personal letters in Verona has long been regarded as a foun... more Petrarch’s 1345 discovery of Cicero’s personal letters in Verona has long been regarded as a foundational moment in the historiography of the Renaissance. In the traditional view, Petrarch’s discovery engenders a new historical self-consciousness that has frequently been described, since the middle of the twentieth century, in terms of a contrast between a medieval Dante and a Renaissance Petrarch. In keeping with recent work rethinking periodization, this essay revisits Petrarch’s letters on his discovery to reconsider the distance between Dante and Petrarch and to reveal how Petrarch constructs his new relationship with Cicero through Dante’s characterization of Virgil. While some critics have noted this Dantean presence, they have not examined its meaning. This study argues that Petrarch’s borrowing from Dante is significant because it shows how Dante’s complex relationship to the past embodied in the figure of Virgil shaped Petrarch’s construction of his Cicero and informed Renaissance ideas of history.
This essay argues for a new approach to literary criticism that uses the history of a work's tran... more This essay argues for a new approach to literary criticism that uses the history of a work's transmission in manuscripts, editions, translations, and adaptations to bring into focus key moments in the development of its form.
This essay reconsiders the relationship between Boccaccio’s tale of Pietro da Vinciolo and its Ap... more This essay reconsiders the relationship between Boccaccio’s tale of Pietro da Vinciolo and its Apuleian source by investigating Boccaccio’s transcription of Apuleius and his own revisions of the story in its two redactions. This study complicates the current interpretations of the story in the history of sexuality, which, like many historical uses of his stories, tend to neglect their literary dimension.
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Eisner, Martin, “A Singular Boccaccio: Defending Poetry in the Decameron and the Genealogie,” Quaderni d’Italianistica, 38 (2017), 179–99
Eisner, Martin, “A Singular Boccaccio: Defending Poetry in the Decameron and the Genealogie,” Quaderni d’Italianistica, 38 (2017), 179–99