Lettera di donna con 'canzuna' tra le carte del notaio de Marchisio (1526)

Abstract

During a reorganization of the Notai Defunti fund at the State Archives of Palermo, it was found – inside a file containing the draft (dated 13 October 1526) of a deed drawn up at the desk of the notary Giovanni de Marchisio (ca. 1488-1564) – a short anonymous love letter, probably dictated by a woman, and accompanied by a Sicilian canzuna (eight-verse strophe). The document is presented and edited here for the first time, accompanied by a linguistic commentary and a philological discussion on the poetic text, transmitted with conflicting attributions and variant readings in at least five seventeenth-century collections, surveyed and catalogued by Gaetana Maria Rinaldi. The edition is preceded by a paragraph that traces the professional history of de Marchisio, to whom the sender of the letter could be linked.