Sur le traitement de quelques noms propres dans la Storia di Merlino de Paulino Pieri

Giulia Murgia

2021-01-01

---

Abstract

The “Storia di Merlino”, transmitted by a single manuscript (Florence, Biblioteca Laurenziana, Pl. LXXXIX, inf. 65) and dating back to the first half of the 14th century, constitutes the oldest translation of Merlin into the Tuscan vernacular. In this contribution we will study the naming strategies and the treatment to which some proper names that appear in the first part of the “Storia di Merlino”, are subjected. This is a portion of the section of the Tuscan novel indebted to "Merlin en prose" (chapters I-XV of the “Storia di Merlino”,, relating to Merlin's conception, his birth and childhood up to the trial and acquittal of his mother). After a quick summary of the most significant critical acquisitions on the function exercised by the onomastic system in "Merlin en prose", the treatment of the episode, central in the biographical parable of the prophet, of Merlin's baptism in the “Storia di Merlino” will be analysed. We will conclude with the analysis of the names of three female characters who, torn in the Italian text from the rhetoric of anonymity typical of the French model, seem to represent cases of marked intertextuality, perhaps designed to put the text in resonance with the literary and biblical tradition. More generally, the study of Merlinian onomastics in the face of the needs that come from a translation such as the “Storia di Merlino” constitutes an excellent point of view from which to observe some methods of reception and re-elaboration of Arthurian material in medieval Italy.